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[German Version] I. New Testament – II. Church History – III. Dogmatics – IV. Liturgical History – V. Practical Theology – VI. Missiology I. New Testament 1. Background Sacred meals are common to all religions. Before examining them in the context of the NT, it is necessary first to inquire into their background in the OT and in Judaism, whereupon it becomes evident that sacrificial meals play no role in them. Only the dai…

[German Version] of Bēth Ukkāme (Paul the Black, Paulos Melanos; c. 500 Alexandria – 584 Constantinople). In 564 Jacob Baradaeus consecrated Archimandrite Paul, who had grown up in Alexandria, as the anti-Chalcedonian (Jacobite) patriarch of Antioch (Monophysites), a position he held until 577. His tenure was beset by serious church-political conflicts. A temporary flirtation of the patriarch with the creed of Chalcedon affirming the two natures of Christ (c. 571) was followed by an abrupt dissoci…

[German Version] I. Terminology Especially in ecumenical discussion (Ecumene), there is a widespread assumption that the expression apostolic succession denotes a primitive and clearly defined attribute of ecclesiastical office. However, the notion that the marks of the church (Notae ecclesiae) include an unbroken chain of office holders going back to the apostles and that each of these office holders was placed in office through the laying-on of hands of another legitimate office holder appeared on the scene rel…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Christianity – III. Philosophy – IV. Judaism – V. Islam I. Religious Studies Gnosis (Gk γνῶσις/ gnṓsis, “knowledge”) is a particular form of religious knowledge that brings salvation per se. It is not dependent on a particular object but has its value and its justification in itself. It is total knowledge, since it overcomes the dichotomy between subject and object – in fact every dichotomy –, because it is absolute knowledge of the absolute. From the point of view of the history o…

[German Version] I. Terminology Ecumenical discussion (Ecumenicalism), in particular, assumes that the term “apostolic succession” refers to an original and clearly defined characteristic of the church office. However, the notion that the notae ecclesiae indicate an unbroken chain, going back to the apostles, of officeholders who have each come into office through the laying-on of hands by another legitimate officeholder, appeared only relatively late and is not the original meaning of the underlying Greek and Latin semantic field. The Greek and Latin terms διαδοχή/ diadochḗ/…

[German Version] I. History of the Term The development and spread of the term will go hand in hand with the history of Christian theology. Classical Greek had no single, distinct term like will denoting an independent mental faculty. The voluntative dimension was contained in the terms used for rational deliberation, decision-making, willingness, and non-rational desire. For Aristotleβουλή/ boulḗ is conation (Striving) that ensues after deliberation and hence is guided by reason based on knowledge ( De anima III 10, 433a ¶ 20–23). In the Bible, especially in Paul, the phenom…

[German Version] (c. 1081, Argenteuil – 1151, St.-Denis), was born to a wealthy family; c. 1091 he became an oblate in the royal Frankish abbey of St.-Denis before the gates of Paris. In 1101 he took his solemn vows; in 1107 he defended the exempt status of the abbey before Pope Paschal II. After serving in various political and ecclesiastical offices, he was elected abbot in 1122. He reformed his own abbey and also served as regent of France from 1137 to 1140 and from 1147 to 1149. His partial reconstruction of the abbey church (1140–1144) is famous; he discussed it in his De consecratione and De o…

[German Version] (422–432). As the successor of Boniface I, Celestine attempted to consolidate the Roman primacy, but he encountered the resistance of the West African bishops. Moreover, he opposed Pelagianism (Pelagius) and from 430 Nestorius; the majority of his correspondence relates to this conflict. ¶ Eventually, he sent Germanus of Auxerre in 429 and “the Celtic bishop” Palladius in 431 to England and Ireland for the anti-Pelagian mission. Christoph Markschies Bibliography CPL 1650–1654 PL 50, 417–558 ACO I/1/7, 125–137; I/2/5, 5–101 On Celestine: E. Caspar, Geschichte des…

[German Version] I. The Term – II. Periods of the Early Church – III. The History of the Church and of Christianity in Antiquity – IV. Review I. The Term The term “early church” is one of the most common English expressions used to designate the church during the times of the emperors in Greco-Roman antiquity, i.e. the Christian church from its beginnings until the end of antiquity or Late Antiquity. The end of this …

[German Version] Traditional terminology in the history of dogma and theology distinguishes between “Dynamic” and a “Modalist” Monarchianism. It thereby subsumes under a common generic term (although see A. v. Harnack) the groups that energetically combatted the Logos theology (Logos) and the doctrine of a plurality of divine hypostases (Hypostasis; in e.g. …

[German Version] Ptolemy worked in Rome as a freelance Christian teacher around the middle of the 2nd century; he was active in the “school” of the Roman teacher Valentinus (Iren. Haer. I prol. 2), possibly because he was a personal disciple of Valentinus. Only one text survives that can be ascribed to Ptolemy with assurance: an instructional epistle to the Roman matron Flora, preserved by Epiphanius of Salamis ( Haer. 33.3–7). The epistle deals with biblical interpretation, the Old Testament law, and the theory of principles. A brief discussion of Valentinian Gn…

[German Version] The use of water instead of wine in the Lord's Supper is attested esp. in the so-called NT Apocrypha ( Acts Pet. II 2; Acts Paul 7; Acts Thom. 120–21/152/158[?]), but it seems also to have been customary occasionally when wine was unavailable in the mainstream church ( Martyrdom of Pionius 3.1); Irenaeus ascribed a corresponding practice to Jewish Christians ( Haer. V 1.3); Clement of Alexandria to Encratites ( Paedagogus II 32.3–4; Stromata I 96.1); Epiphanius to Marcion ( Haer. 42.3.3); Theodoret to students of Tatian called ῾Υδροπαραστάται/ Hydroparastátai (Thdt. Hae…

[German Version] According to Eusebius ( Hist. eccl. IV 28, cf. also 21) Musanus wrote a lost, “very elegant” book against people who had gone over to the so-called Encratites. Both the author's date and his place remain unclear. Suggestions, among others, are (because of the statement of Eusebius) the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161–180), or on the basis of Eusebius, Chronicorum liber ad annum, 2220 the time of Septimius Severus (193–211), and the regions of Egypt or Asia Minor. Christoph Markschies Bibliography A. v. Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur bis E…

[German Version] The Early Church's heresiologies employ this term (derived from Gk ἐγκράτεια/ enkráteia, “self-control,” “abstinence”) to describe a group of ascestics (Asceticism) and date their origins to the 2nd century. Irenaeus traces them back to Saturninus of Antioch and Marcion ( Haer. I 28.1); he, like Eusebius of Caesarea, names as founder the Syrian Tatian (Eus. Hist. eccl. IV 29.6). Typical ascetic positions are attributed to them, for example the renunciation of marriage and the consumption of …

[German Version] was one of the three founders of a 2nd-century prophetic movement in Asia Minor (Maximilla, Priscilla and Quintilla), which since the 4th century has been called Montanism after him. As his Phrygian name indicates, he apparently came from Asia Minor. Later heresiology (Heresy: II, 2) in authors of the 4th century transmits further but probably unhistorical details of his life. Thus he is said to have been originally a priest of Apollo ( Disputatio [in Heine, 123]) or Cybele (Jer. Ep. 41,4), and to have hanged himself. Epiphanius of Salamis records four prophe…

[German Version] (Mar 3, 1875, Düsseldorf – Jun 25, 1942, Locarno). After passing his Abitur in Wittenberg, Lietzmann went to Jena in 1893 to study classical philology and theology, but it was his studies at Bonn from 1894 to 1898 that enduringly influenced him. There his real academic mentor was H. Usener, a renowned scholar in classical philology and religious studies, from whom he acquired a love of philological detail, a particular concern for large-scale religio-historical relationships, and a great inte…

[German Version] I. Church History Pelagius was an ascetic and theological writer from Britain. Before 410 he taught in Rome, and in 411/412, following the capture of Rome by the Goths, went to Palestine after a short stay in North Africa. His teaching, according to which the possibility of sinlessness was an essential part of human nature, provoked the criticism of Augustine and Jerome. This teaching had its setting in the pastoral care of members of the Roman elite. Pelagius stated that when one re…

[German Version] I. Terminology and Sources – II. History – III. Theology I. Terminology and Sources Since the late 4th century, the adherents of a prophetic movement in early Christianity dating from the 2nd century have been referred to polemically as “Montanists,” and the movement itself was called “Montanism” (e.g Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses XVI 8.6 or [Pseudo-?]Didymus, De trinitate III 18.23 and 41 [PG 39, 881 B, 924 C, also 984 B]). This terminology, which refers to a prophet Montanus, has been accepted by modern scholarship, although the m…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. Primitive Christianity – IV. Church History – V. Judaism – VI. Islam – VII. Asia, Africa, and Latin America – VIII. Social Sciences – IX. Psychology – X. Philosophy of Religion – XI. Practical Theology I. Religious Studies To date there have been hardly any works devoted to men from the perspective of religious studies. Given the androcentrism of traditional scholarship, the category of homo religiosus has usually yielded knowledge of the religious male, but this work must …

[German Version] (333/334, Trier – 397) was an important bishop and is regarded as one of the four teachers of the Western Church since the end of the 7th century. Ambrose was from a prominent family of Roman (city?) Christians; educated in Rome, he was the governor of Aemilia Liguria with a seat in Milan between 372 and 374. In 374, as the compromise candidat…