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1. Definition und BedeutungDie B. (von mhdt. bigiht, zusammengezogen bīht[e]: Aussage, Bekenntnis; Übersetzung von lat. confessio) ist die vom frühen MA bis teilweise in die Gegenwart gebräuchlichste Form des kirchlichen Bußverfahrens. Der Streit um die Frage, ob der B. der Charakter eines Sakraments zuzuerkennen und wie ihre kirchenamtliche Regulierung und ihre Ausübung in der Religionspraxis zu gestalten sei, ist zu einem wesentlichen Differenzierungsfaktor zwischen den drei großen christl. Konfessionen gewo…

In Anknüpfung an Gedanken des Apostels Paulus hatte der Kirchenvater Augustinus um 400 seine Erwählungs- und Gnadenlehre ausgearbeitet: Gott qualifiziere die von ihm vor aller Zeit aus der verlorenen Sündenmenschheit Erwählten für das ewige Heil, indem er ihnen durch die kirchl. Lehre und die Sakramente seine Gnade mitteile. Dies befähige die Erwählten, sein Gesetz zu erfüllen, wozu ihr durch die Erbsünde gelähmter eigener Wille unfähig sei. Fraglich blieb dabei, wie sich in Gott die richterliche Gerechtigkeit und die schöpferische Gnade zueinander verhalte…

1. GrundlagenIm Zuge der Neuformierung des erkenntnistheoretischen Problembewusstseins in der Hochscholastik des 13. Jh.s (Thomas von Aquin, Johannes Duns Scotus) erhielt der O.-Begriff seine dauerhaften Konturen: O. (lat. revelatio) bezeichnet die Selbstkundgabe Gottes, die dem Menschen Gotteserkenntnis und Heilsteilhabe ermöglicht. O. ist demnach schon in der Schöpfung geschehen, doch wegen der Sünde vermag sie den Menschen nicht mehr hinreichend zu leiten, obwohl sich Gott jedem innerlich im Gewissen und äußerlich in den Schöp…

1. DefinitionM. bezeichnet den religiösen Glauben an die bzw. die metaphysische Überzeugung von der Einheit, Einzigartigkeit und Einzigkeit Gottes. Der Kunstbegriff wurde 1660 von dem anglikanischen Theologen Henry More, einem der Cambridge Platonists, geprägt. Sein Ursprungskontext war das seit der frühen Aufklärung aufkommende Bemühen um ein histor. Verständnis der Vielgestaltigkeit positiver Religion und die Einordnung des Christentums in die Religionsgeschichte.Als die histor. Kenntnisse präziser wurden, zeigte sich immer deutlicher, wie fließend di…

1. Definition and meaningConfession (from Latin  confessio) has been the most common form of the church’s penitential discipline from the early Middle Ages until (to some extent) the present. The German equivalent is  Beichte, from MHG  bigiht, contracted  bīht[e]: “declaration, avowal”. The debate over whether it should be recognized as a sacrament and how it should be formally regulated and practiced by the church became a major bone of contention among the three main Christian religious groups. These differences have had not only…

1. DefinitionMonotheism denotes the religious belief in or metaphysical conviction of the unity, uniqueness, and singularity of one god (Faith). The neologism was coined in 1660 by the Anglican theologian Henry More, one of the Cambridge Platonists. Its original context was the effort, underway from the early Enlightenment, to arrive at a historical understanding of the diversity of positive religion and to position Christianity in the history of religion.The more historical knowledge developed, the clearer it became that the boundaries between polytheism…

Building on the thought of the apostle Paul, c. 400 the church father Augustine developed his doctrine of election and grace: God qualifies those elected by him for eternal salvation before all time from the damned mass of sinful humanity by imparting his grace to them through the teaching of the church and the sacraments. This enables the elect to fulfill his law, something their own will, crippled by original sin, is incapable of. This left the question of how the justice of God as judge is re…

1. BasicsIn the course of the restructuring of the epistemological problem in the High Scholasticism of the 13th century (Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus), the concept of revelation was given its permanent shape. According to this view, revelation (Latin  revelatio) is God’s self-communication, which enables human beings to know God and share in salvation. It took place already in creation, but as a result of sin it lost its power to guide human beings adequately, although God bears witness to himself for everyone inwardly in consc…

[German Version] (Jan 10, 1610, Nancy – Aug 13, 1686, Paris). In 1626 Maimbourg entered the Societas Jesu (Jesuits) and worked as a preacher and teacher. After anti-Jansenist (C.O. Jansen, Jansenism) polemics, from 1673 he published historical writings which championed the authority of the Catholic Church and glorified Louis XIV. After works on Arianism (Arius), the iconoclastic controversy (Veneration of images: VI), the Crusades and the fall of the empire, in 1680 and 1682 he published general accounts of Lutheranism (answered by V.L. v. Seckendorf, Commentarius de Lutheranismo,…

[German Version] Because Scotland maintained its allegiance to the Avignon pope Benedict XIII to the bitter end during the Great Western Schism, it was impossible for Scots to study on the continent. In 1410 the bishop of St. Andrews founded the oldest Scottish university (theology, canon law, the artes). Successor bishops added additional colleges. St. Leonard’s College was a gateway for Reformation theology in Scotland, but it was not until 1559 that leading representatives of the university gave university support to the Reformation. Their…

[German Version] (Jan 28, 1582, Pont à Mousson, Lorraine, where his father, a lawyer from Scotland, taught at the university – Aug 15, 1621, Rome) lived from 1606 until 1616 in London during the reign of James I. A roman à clef criticized celebrities of the time, but also the Puritans, the papacy, and the Jesuits ( Euphormio, 1605–1607, with indexes; Apologia, 1611). Icon Animorum (1614) reproduced national stereotypes. As a Catholic, Barclay was unable to obtain an influential position and went to Rome in 1617, where he established himself by a Paraenesis ad Sectarios (1617). In 1621, h…

[German Version] I. General – II. Church I. General Economic history, simply speaking, is concerned with how over the centuries people have earned their livelihood, have obtained for themselves food, clothing, and shelter, have communicated with each other sometimes across rivers, mountains, and oceans, have met, bartered (Exchange), traded (Trade), developed m…

[German Version] Scotland, the northern portion of the main island of Great Britain, together with the Hebrides, the Orkney Islands, and the Shetland Islands (78,764 km2), comprises the northern Highlands and the southern Lowlands. Only some 20% of its area is arable farmland. The name recalls the Celtic Scotti, who came from Ireland and formed tribal alliances with Picts, Britons (Britain), and Angles (see also Anglo-Saxons) as they expanded southwards. Scotland’s capital is Edinburgh. Since 1707 Scotland has been part…

[German Version] This polemical neologism means “fighter against (absolute) monarchy,” and was defined by William Barclay in his De regno et regali potestate (1600). The terrorism that reached its peak in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre raised among French Protestants (Huguenots) the question of the limits of the duty of obedience and the right of resistance (Resistance, Right of) in relation to tyrannical monarchs. François Hotman, T. Beza, L. Danaeu, and Stephanus Junius Brutus (probably a pseudonym for P. du Pl…

[German Version] The term ἐξομολογεῖσϑαι/ exhomologeísthai and its derivatives, adopted from the LXX and early Judaism, formed part of the earliest Christian vocabulary with the double meaning of a praising confession to God or Christ and a confession of sin (characteristic passages include Phil. 2:11 and Rom. 14:11, both of which draw from Isa. 45:23 LXX; cf. also 1 Clem. 51:3 with 52:1f. and Herm. Sim. IX, 23.4f.). The word field soon also began referring to a liturgically fixed confession of sin within the eucharistic worship service ( Did. 4.14; 14.1). In Tertullian ( De paenitentia, …

[German Version] (Chevalier Ramsay; 1686, Ayr, Scotland – May 6, 1743, St. Germain en Laye, near Paris), son of a baker, Ramsay was repelled while still a youth by the controversy between presbyterianism (Presbyterians) and Episcopalianism. As a student he tended towards Deism, but also formed links with mystical and spiritualist circles, which he intensified while a private tutor in London. He was on the continent from 1710, first with P. Poiret in Rijnsburg. Then he worked as secretary to F. Fén…

[German Version] The period between the Napoleonic Wars and World War I saw ongoing ¶ debate over the structure of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Those involved were primarily theologians and jurisprudents. – A group around F.D.E. Schleiermacher, combining collegialist ideas (Collegialism) with elements of the presbyterial and synodal structure (Presbyter/Presbytery) of the Reformed Church, put forward demands for a self-governing church organized on the basis of the local congregations. Vis-à-vis conceptions of the church and church polity based on mi…

[German Version] (in Welsh Cymru), a hilly peninsula jutting out into the Irish Sea (together with Anglesey 20,763 km 2), is bordered on the north by Liverpool Bay and on the south by the Bristol Channel. From 1536 it formed part of the kingdom of England, but since 1998 Wales has its own regional parliament (capital Cardiff). In 2001 it had about 2.93 million inhabitants, of whom about 575,000 speak Welsh (Cymraeg), a Celtic language. In 2001, 72% of the inhabitants described themselves as Christians, 22,000 as M…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies Examination of repentance from the perspective of religious studies must confront the problem that the term itself has no culturally neutral meaning. Many of the phenomena in other religions that Christians tend to call repentance appear in a different light when viewed in the context of different anthropological presuppositions, ¶ so that due weight must be given to the religious anthropology in question. Generally speaking, it is true to say that in almost all non-Christian religions the notion of repentance c…

[German Version] (1560, Rab, Dalmatia – Sep 9, 1624, Rome), initially a Jesuit; from 1597/1600, ¶ bishop of Senj; and in 1602, archbishop of Spalato. In conflicts between suffragists and the curia, Dominis proposed in his major work ( De Republica Ecclesiastica, 1617–1622) an episcopal ecclesiology that denied the clergy all worldly authority. In 1616, Dominis fled to England, where he worked for the reunificiation of the church and against the Roman See. In 1622, …