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[German Version] The notion of a new Jerusalem, an eschatological city of God on Mount Zion is already developed in the Old Testament (Zion Pss; Isa 28:16; 54:11f.; Ezek 40:2; 48:30–35; etc.); it was further nurtured by early Judaism (Qumran; 4 Ezra; etc.). The tendency to separate the heavenly Jerusalem from the earthly one, already apparent in the OT texts, became stronger, especially after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 ce. Thus 2 Bar. 4:2–6 states that the true Jerusalem intended by God is not the visible city; it is instead the preexistent Jerusalem, …

[German Version] (Jan 31, 1911, Avesnes, France – Oct 27, 1993, Clervaux, Luxembourg), a Benedictine monk, was one of the most prolific medievalists of the second half of the 20th century. Having studied in Rome and Paris, he also lectured in various places (esp. in Rome). In 1941, after conducting research on the Scholasticism of the 13th to 15th centuries, Leclercq turned to the partly still unpublished monastic literature of the Middle Ages, especially of the 11th and 12th centuries. His extens…

[German Version] (died Sep 10, 1279, Viterbo). The first reliable date from his life is his election as provincial master of the English Dominicans in September 1261. Working back, earlier dates may be deduced: studies at the Parisian faculty of arts in the 1230s, M.A. around 1237, lectureships in Paris until the mid-1240s, then return to England and entry into the Order of Preachers, theological studies in Oxford (c. 1252–1254 …

[German Version] I. Concept – II. Philosophy – III. Greco-Roman Antiquity – IV. Bible – V. Church History – VI. Ethics – VII. Practical Theology and Pedagogy – VIII. Judaism – IX. Islam I. Concept …

[German Version] I. Terminology and Assessment Ever since the emergence of medieval studies in the 19th century, the noun Scholasticism has been used as a collective term for a particular kind of scholarly method, especially in medieval philosophy (II) and theology. The adjective scholastic, on which it is based, has a history going back to Aristotle ( Politica, Ethica Nicomachea). The focus of Greek σχολαστικός and Latin scholasticus on the realm of academic instruction (“related to schools,” “educated,” etc.), central to the modern use of …

[German Version] Seat of a bishopric in the county of Kent, England. Situated at an important road junction during the Roman period, Canterbury became the main settlement of the Cantiani in the first century ce and shows evidence of Christianization from the beginning of the 4th century. The conquest of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons dealt a severe blow to the development of the city. King Ethelbert made it the capital of the kingdom of Kent, while the Roman monk Augustine of Canterbury, a missionary dispatched by Pope Gregory the Great, chose it as the seat of the first English bishopric. In 598, Augustine founded the monastery of St. Peter and Paul extra muros to the east of the city (commemoration feast since 613; later St. Augustine), which became the starting point for the spread of Benedictine monasticism in England; it was abolished in 1538 by King Henry VIII and subsequently largely destroyed. Bishop Theodore of Canterbury (Theodore of Tarsus, 668–690) transformed the cathedral attached to the Benedictine monastery into a center of scholarly work and established 14 dioceses under the jurisdiction of Can…

[German Version] I. Ancient Near East – II. Greece – III. Rome – IV. The Bible – V. Christianity – VI. Judaism I. Ancient Near East Historiography in the classic sense, with a reflective account of historical linkages, developed rudimentarily at best in the cuneiform cultures of the ancient Near East in Hittite and Neo-Assyrian annals and the introductions to treaties; even these documents wer…

[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Philosophy of Religion – III. Church History – IV. Fundamental Theology – V. Dogmatics – VI. Ethics – VII. Practical Theology I. Philosophy In a broad sense shaped by daily life in the world, “experience” has been understood since Aristotle ( Metaph. 980b28–982a3) as a kind of knowledge of reality that rests on practical contact and is related to paradigmatic individual cases (Gk …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies In comparative religious studies, veneration of saints generally refers to the posthumous cultic veneration of a holy person more or less identifiable as a historical individual; it is centered at the place that preserves the saint’s mortal remains, thought to have miraculous powers. Occasionally veneration of living individuals is subsumed under the same category, but this extension results in a dubious diminution of terminologic…

[German Version] (1168, Mantua? – 1249, Budriolo, Romagna). A layperson who led a life of penitence as a hermit beginning in 1209 in the small village of …

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[German Version] (Nov 26, 1221, Toledo – Apr 4, 1284, Seville), king of Castile and Leon from 1252 to 1284. As the grandson of Philip of Swabia, he claimed the Hohenstaufen throne and embarked on an imperialistic policy embracing the entire Mediterranean region. His political ambitions came to nothing; he was more important as a lawgiver who sought to create a uniform code of law for Castile, historian (he wrote or directed the writing of a history of Spain, …

[German Version] (c. 1300, northern Germany – Apr 10, 1378, Straßburg). Initially a Dominican, he was a Carthusian after c. 1340 (Straßburg, Coblenz [Prior], Mainz, Straßburg). His major work is the Vita Jesu Christi, a work based on the gosp…

[German Version] I. Terminology The term wealth belongs to the semantic field that includes kingdom, empire, violence, dominion, and glory. In that context it suggests first an abundance of earthly goods that brings power, then abundance or profusion of almost anything. A distinction must be made between an economic sense of wealth and a broader figurative sense. In its economic sense it means property, possessions, the sum of available goods and values (Value/Values) that substantially exceeds what is considered …

[German Version] (1248/1249, Foligno…

[German Version] (Petrus; Manducator; early 12th cent., Troyes – 1178/1179, Paris). After studies in Troyes (where he became …

[German Version] (1026, Bavaria – Jul 5, 1091, Hirsau), who was of noble birth, was entrusted by his parents as an oblate (I) to the Benedictine abbey of St. Emmeram in Regensburg, where he was taught by…

[German Version] is a branch of theology that judges differences between various Christian Churches from a polemical and argumentative point of view rather than analyzing them from a historically critical perspective. The “controversy” involved relates both to the object and the method of this discipline. Theological positions are discussed when they become significant in disturbing or dividing the church community, and not so much as contributions to an open scholarly debate. I. Although the term controversial theology did not become common until the 20th century, …

[German Version] (Petrus; first half of the 12th cent., Hosdenc, near Beauvais – 1197, Cistercian abbey of Longpont, near Soissons). Sometime before 1173, after studying at the cathedral schoo…

[German Version] were educational originally institutions for training clergy, administered by the episcopal curia. In the Early Church, learned bishops (preeminently Augustine) already gave instruction to their clergy. From the second Council of Toledo (527/531) onward, the Church repeatedly urged the establishment of episcopal schools; in 789, they were ¶ enjoined by Charlemagne, and in 1076 by Gregory VII. Nevertheless, down to the Reformation numerous councils deplored the educational l…