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I. Terminology and philosophy [German version] A. Modern concept The general modern meaning of the word 'tolerance' is the readiness of individuals, groups or states to permit the opinions, ways of life and philosophical and religious convictions of others to 'have validity' alongside their own. Today, the meaning of the word ranges from 'sufferance' (e.g. in the sense of constitutional law: the sufferance of immigrants, diverse confessions, religions) to the emphatic affirmation of the 'different' pheno…

I. History of the Concept and its Subsequent Influence [German version] A. Concept Human sacrifice (HS) is a form of killing considered lawful, similar to killing in pursuit of war, capital punishment, or a blood feud. It is, however, limited to the performance of offering rites that (a) are universally accepted in the respective religion and culture and (b) are conducted in a fashion similar to the sacrificial killing of other creatures. Killing in the context of other lawful rituals, such as the cult of the dead ( Gladiator) or the   devotio in battle, does …

[German version] (Lat. virgo Vestalis 'Vestal virgin'). Vesta's cult was taken care of by six virgines (or sacerdotes 'priestesses') Vestales, who lived in the atrium Vestae , near the aedes Vestae on the Forum Romanum (Rome III E, 2nd map, nr. 44). The group was headed by the virgo Vestalis maxima (honorary inscriptions esp. of the 3rd cent. AD with statues on the forum: CIL VI 32415 ff.; [2]) and stood under the jurisdiction of the pontifex maximus . The vestal was 'taken' ( capere) as a six- to ten-years-old child by the pontifex maximus. This act had civil-law consequences: (a) w…

[German version] 1. Definition of the term Analogous to allegory ( Allegory) as a ‘figurative’, metaphorical manner of speech, allegoresis may be defined as metaphorical exegesis. In both cases two different systems of symbols are connected to each other with the help of specific rules: (basic) text and reference text, or wording (literal sense) and ‘deeper’ (‘real’) meaning. Allegory is a technique used in producing texts, allegoresis (or allegorical exegesis) is a technique used in responding to texts; it plays an important role in the  exegesis of holy scripture. The definition …

I. Begriffs- und Wirkungsgeschichte [English version] A. Begriff Das M. ist eine nicht als rechtswidrig angesehene Tötung, vergleichbar dem Töten im Krieg, der Todesstrafe, der Blutrache; es steht jedoch im Rahmen von Darbringungs-Ritualen, die (a) in der jeweiligen Rel. und Kultur allgemein akzeptiert sind und (b) ähnlich für die Tötung anderer Lebewesen gebraucht werden. Kein M. ist die Tötung von Menschen in anderen als nicht rechtswidrig angesehenen Ritualen, etwa im Rahmen von Totenkult (Gladiator) oder devotio in der Schlacht. Einen in de…

I. Begriff und Philosophie A. Moderner Begriff B. Lateinisch tolerantia: Wort und Begriff C. Toleranz zwischen Staat und Religionsgemeinschaften Cancik-Lindemaier, Hildegard [English version] A. Moderner Begriff Das Wort T. bezeichnet in der Neuzeit allg. die Bereitschaft von Individuen, Gruppen oder Staaten, die Meinungen, Lebensformen, philos. und rel. Überzeugungen anderer neben den eigenen “gelten” zu lassen. Die Bed. des Wortes reicht h. von “Duldung” (z. B. im staatsrechtlichen Sinne: Duldung von Immigranten, ve…

[English version] 1. Begriffsbestimmung A. läßt sich, analog zu der Allegorie (Allegoria) als “uneigentlichem”, metaphorischem Sprechen, bestimmen als metaphorische Auslegung. In beiden Fällen werden zwei verschiedene Zeichensysteme mit Hilfe bestimmter Regeln aufeinander bezogen: (Grund-) Text und Referenztext, bzw. Wortlaut (Litteralsinn) und “tieferer” (“eigentlicher”) Sinn. Allegorie ist eine Technik der Produktion von Texten, A. (bzw. allegorische Auslegung) ist eine Technik der Rezeption; sie spielt eine wichtige Rolle bei der Exegese heiliger Schriften. Die…

[English version] ( virgo Vestalis). Der Kult der Vesta wurde von sechs virgines ( sacerdotes) Vestales besorgt, die im Atrium Vestae bei der aedes Vestae auf dem Forum Romanum lebten (Roma III. E., 2. Karte, Nr. 44). Die Gruppe wurde geleitet durch die virgo Vestalis maxima (Ehreninschr. v. a. des 3. Jh. n. Chr. mit Statuen auf dem Forum: CIL VI 32415 ff.; [2]) und stand unter der Jurisdiktion des pontifex maximus . Die V. wurde als Kind von sechs bis zehn Jahren durch den pontifex maximus “ergriffen” ( capere). Dieser Akt hatte zivilrechtliche Folgen: (a) Ausscheiden aus dem …

[German Version] 1 The Greek ritual of theoxenia (ϑεοξένια/ theoxénia; “hospitality to a deity”) was staged as a banquet: a table (τράπεζα/ trápeza; Lat. mensa) set with food was placed before representations of deities (statuettes, dolls, symbols); like guests at a banquet, these representations were crowned with wreathes and laid out on couches (κλίνη/ klínē; Lat. lectus, pulvinar) – hence the idiom “prepare a couch” (στρωμνὰς στρωννύναι/ strōmnás strōnnýnai; lat. lectum sternere, lectisternium). An inscription recording a cultic ordinance of the Anatolian city of…

[German Version] The group of six Vestal virgins was responsible for the cult of Vesta: they watched over the “eternal” fire in her sanctuary, the public hearth, in the Roman Forum (Cic. De legibus 2.8.20 and 2.12.29) and prepared the mola salsa, a salted flour mixture sprinkled on sacrificial victims. They were present at major ceremonies (as depicted, e.g., on the interior of ¶ the Ara Pacis Augustae) and led the private nocturnal cult of the Bona Dea (Cic. De haruspicum responso 37; Plut. Cicero 19.3; Plut. Caesar 9f.). The group was directly under the authority of the pontifex maximus, wh…

[German Version] (c. 4 bce, Córdoba – 65 ce, Rome), Roman philosopher, politician, and tragedian, the second of three sons of the rhetor L.A. Seneca the Elder, a member of the equestrian order in Hispania Baetica. His elder brother Novatus is better known under his adoptive name, J.A. Gallio; his younger brother Mela was the father of the epic poet Lucan; other members of the family were high provincial officials. Seneca grew up in Rome. Under the emperor Claudius, his political career was interrupted by banishment to Corsica in 41; Claudius’s second wife, the you…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies Use of the Greek word σύμβολον/ sýmbolon in a sense relevant to religious studies is attested quite early in the history of European religions; Dio of Prusa (1st/2nd cent. ce), for example, used it in his speech on Phidias’s statue of Zeus in Olympia ( Oratio 12.59). In this context, the Greek term reflects the problem posed by images of the gods: what is intrinsically inaccessible to human vision (Vision/Intuition) is somehow to be represented visually. In religious studies, especially in the phenomenology of religion, the concept of sy…

[German Version] is the theory that the gods are human beings deified on account of their merits. It remains unclear when and how the term originated. In myths – “When the gods were human beings…” (Old Babylonian Atrahasis Epic) – and as an exegetical schema (Greek Sophistic School), Euhemerism antedates the eponymous Euhemerus of Messene, an adviser to King Cassandrus of Macedonia from 311 to 298 bce. In his (lost) utopian novel ῾Ιερὰ ἀναγραφή/ Hierá anagraphḗ, the human genealogy of the gods and their cults is revealed as a “sacred inscription…

[German Version] (first half of the 1st cent. ce), Roman fabulist. Phaedrus was born in Macedonia (Book III, prologue), freed by Augustus, and persecuted by Sejanus. He made the fable (Gk λόγος/ lógos, μῦϑος/ mýthos, Lat. fabula, fabella) into an independent literary form. He wrote his (short) stories (not only about animals) in iambic trimeters, and collected them into five books, each with a prologue, and Books II-IV with an epilogue. Phaedrus’s fables (and the slightly later Gk fables of Babrios) are examples of popular wisdom l…

[German Version] 1. Latin interpretari means, similar to Gk ἑρμηνεύω/ hermeneúō, “to interpretet, to translate, to make understandable.” Interpres (translator, mediator, exegete) and interpretatio are technical terms of exegesis in jurisprudence, literature, and religion. Interpretatio Romana/Graeca are not used technically in classical antiquity; interpretatio Graeca is a modern expression coined in analogy to Tacitus's singular statement ( Germania 43) that two Germanic deities are to be identified with Castor and Pollux “according to Roman interpre…

[German Version] (Salustios). There is no direct evidence for either the identity or the dates of Sallustius. His work – ¶ given the title περὶ ϑεῶν καὶ κόσμου/ perí theṓn kaí kósmou (“About Gods and Cosmos”) in the 17th century – shows that he was Neoplatonist and a contemporary of the emperor Julian the Apostate (cf. Julian Oratio IV and VIII). Sallustius did not write for other philosophers (ch. 13): his purpose was a philosophical “general education.” Its simple principles – the gods are eternal, incorporeal, not spatially confined, and not separ…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies Certainty is a fundamental human need. The answers given by religions to unsettling experiences cover a broad cultural spectrum. The issue is (1) to foresee fate as much as possible, (2) to integrate it into a cosmology, and (3) thus to master it. In general terms, we can identify four ways of containing the unforeseeable. 1. Being at the mercy of natural events. When they are powerless, people feel at the mercy of a powerful, threatening fate. Archaic forms of religion and shamanistic experiences (Shamanism) document how t…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. Classical Antiquity I. Religious Studies Nearly all societies view death as a transition from one mode of existence to another. To enable the departed or his or her soul to complete this transformational process successfully, the survivors must perform certain rituals, referred to collectively as the cult of the …

[German Version] Vesta, Roman goddess. Her name was felt to be Greek, and her sphere – hearth and altars, protection of “the innermost things” – led her to be identified with the Greek goddess ῞Εστία/ Hestía (Cic. Nat. d. 2.67). The etymology of her name is still debated. Her sanctuary, aedes Vestae, a rotunda in the Roman Forum, was part of an ancient complex beside the via sacra, which included the house in which the Vestal virgins lived (Rome: II, 2.b). Although she was a virgin, she bore the honorific title Mater. Her cult was associated with the preservation of the Roman state. H…

[English Version] Phaedrus, röm. Fabeldichter der 1. Hälfte des 1.Jh. n.Chr., geb. in Makedonien (Buch 3, Prolog), Freigelassener des Augustus, von Sejan verfolgt. Ph. hat die Fabel (griech. λο´γος/lo´gos, μυ˜ϑος/my´thos, lat. fabula, fabella) als eigenständige Gattung geschaffen; er hat seine (Kurz-)Gesch. (nicht nur von Tieren) metrisch gefaßt (iambische Senare) und zu fünf Büchern mit Prolog und – in den Büchern 2–4 – Epilog zusammengestellt. Die Fabelbücher des Ph. – und die wenig späteren griech. des Babrios – sind e…