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[German Version] Dec 24, 1294 – Oct 11, 1303 (Benedetto Caetani, born. c. 1235 in Anagni). After studying law in Todi, Spoleto and Bologna, he became a canon in Anagni in 1260, then chaplain and notary of the legate Ottobono Fieschi (Hadrian IV) in France and Simon de Brion (Martin IV) in England; in 1281, he became cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere …

[German Version] In the 1790s tensions arose between whites and free blacks in the Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City. As a result, blacks founded a Zion Church and a denomination of black Methodists in 1820. James Varick became the first superintendent or bishop. Disagreements with the African Methodist Episcopal Church resulted in the addition of the word Zion. The congregations follow the rules of the Doctrines and Disciplines. A General Conference is the supreme lawmaking body and meets every four years. A Connectional …

[German Version] I. History of the Terms – II. Significance – III. Empirical Aspects – IV. Need for Conceptual Differentiation I. History of the Terms Toward the end of the 18th century, the term “churched” was coined in the face of the increasingly widespread ¶ phenomenon of the “unchurched,” i.e. of persons who were no longer willing to allow church doctrine to dictate their religious convictions, who only occasionally attended worship or communion, and who reduced their financial and public support of the socio-…

[German Version] (1383, Venice – Feb 23, 1447, Rome; pope from Mar 3, 1431, to his death), born Gabriele Condulmer. He was a member of the Augustinian order. He became bishop of Siena in 1407 and was made Cardinal in 1408. His papacy was dominated by the Council of Basel, entanglement in internal Italian politics (the pope and Curia spending most of 1434–1443 in Florence), and ec…

[German Version] (Feb 6, 1797, Blankenburg – Dec 25, 1853, Berlin), Prussian general, minister of state, and confidant of Frederick William IV. Radowitz, from the Hungarian Catholic nobility, entered Prussian service in 1823, where his military and diplomatic career advanced rapidly. Until they parted company he was a member of the Gerlach circle. In 1831 he was co-founder of the Berliner Politisches Wochenblatt, and from the 1830s he was the closest friend of Frederick William IV. As a reforming conservative, he supported the religious and social monarchy…

[German Version] (“God’s Work,” officially: Praelatura personalis Sanctae Crucis et Operis Dei), is one of the most influential and at the same time most controversial institutions within the Catholic Church. It was founded in 1928 in Madrid by the Spanish priest Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer (Saint, 1902–1975) as an association for laymen (in 1930 a strictly separate women’s branch was founded), for the sanctification of work and the Christianization of society; in 1941 it was approved as pia unio. In order to have their own clergy, the “Priestly Society of the Holy Cros…

[German Version] Ruth Rabbah, haggadic Midrash on the book of Ruth, also called Midrash Ruth, commenting on the text verse by verse, sometimes word by word. Originally it was divided into four parts, each introduced by a proem; these correspond to sections 1–3, 4–5, 5–7, and 8 in the printed edition. Ruth Rabbah has much textual material in common with the rabbinic compilations of the Palestinian tradition (esp. the Talmud Yerushalmi [Talmud: III]), but consistently draws on it to comment on Ruth. The midrash originated in Palestine in the 5th or 6th century. Hans-Jürgen Becker Bibliograp…

[German Version] I. History and Definition – II. Areas of Application – III. Religious and Moral Issues I. History and Definition In the mid-1900s, it was discovered that all life on earth shares a complex molecule by which the traits of one generation are passed to the next. This molecule, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is present in living cells in long strands that contain many subunits of information. The larger subunits, referred to as genes, carry the instructions that tell cells how to produce the proteins up…

[German Version] (Feb 2, 1561, Resen, Jutland – Sep 14, 1638, Copenhagen). After studies in Copenhagen (from 1581), Resen went to Rostock in 1584 and to Wittenberg in 1586 (M.A., 1588); this was followed by stays in Italy and Geneva. Appointed professor for dialectics in 1591 and of theology in 1597 in Copenhagen, he then became bishop in Zealand in 1615. Resen’s theology was on the one hand rooted in Philippist tradition, which was predominant in Denmark, while on the other hand he also displayed…

[German Version] "Barbelo" is the name or epithet of a female entity who appears in Gnostic texts as the first emanation of the (androgynous) supreme being and as the cause for the appearance of the pleroma (including the heavenly Christ). The meaning of the Semitic/Aramaic name is uncertain ("God is in the four," "daughter of the lord," "mighty through God"). Barbelo comes from a semi-Jewish wisdom tradition. Irenaeus calls one Gnostic group "Barbelo Gnostics" ( Haer. I, 29; possibly from a gloss); the same group appears again in Epiphanius…

[German Version] I. Geography – II. History – III. Society – IV. History of Religion I. Geography Iran has a total surface of 1,648,195 km2 and is about the size of the combined area of Germany, France, Great Britain and Spain. Roughly half the country is covered by mountains; the Demāvand, an old volcano in the Elburz mountain range to the north of the capital Tehran, is the country's highest elevation with an altitude of 5,670 m. Some 8% of Iran's total surface is covered with forest, 55% with open steppes, and 2…

[German Version] One of the so-called “extracanonical tracts” of the Talmud (Babylonian Talmud). It is not a “Gemara” (Talmud) to Avot , but rather a (purely haggadic [Haggadah]) commentary and expansion on it in the style of Midrash and sometimes of the Tosefta. The language is Hebrew, and the rabbis named mostly belonged to the Tannaitic period (Tannaim). It is unclear whether the title refers to the Tanna Rabbi Nathan of the same name and whether it is meant to indicate authorship. The Avot R. Nat. has been handed down in two very different versions (A …

[German Version] ( Jun 6, 1868, The Hague – Mar 5, 1932, Cologne), Dutch painter who studied in Munich and Cologne. Initially painting in the style of Naturalism (IV), he developed into an art nouveau painter and finally, under the influence of Henry van de ¶ Velde, an exponent of Freie Malerei (“free painting”). In 1898 he was appointed head of the Arts and Crafts academy in The Hague, but from 1904 on he lived in Germany and taught at various art schools in Krefeld, Hagen, Munich, Düsseldorf, and Cologne. He was also active in the German Werkbund. He developed an arabesque style with flow…

[German Version] The basic meaning of the Greek root μυ/ my is “to close”; the noun μύστης/ mýstēs, “initiate,” refers to the oath by which initiates swore not to give away the content of the rites. The basic form of the Greek mysteries is the cult of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis in Attica (from the 7th cent. bce). Its rites were directly imitated elsewhere in the Greek world, for example Pausanias II 14.1 (Keleiai); VIII 15.1–4 (Pheneus). However, the term “mysteries” itself is extremely imprecise in the classical period. It is best to speak not of “my…

[German Version] (Oct 1, 1770, Schalkhausen – May 14, 1840, Berlin) was from Frankish nobility. In 1782, he became page at the court of Margrave Alexander of Ansbach and studied law, natural sciences, mathematics, and philosophy; in 1793, he entered Prussian service as a law clerk in the military and district court in Ansbach. In 1800, he was the military coun…

[German Version] Moralist literature analyses mores (Lat. mores, Fr. mœurs) and human behavior, giving artistic form to observation of individuals, often in the form of essays or aphorisms. The writers known as “Moralists,” who in West European countries such as Spain, France, and Britain belong to the corpus of classical literature, are not moral preachers; they attempted to read human beings and the world, and on the basis of an illusion-free assessment of human possibilities to develop a technique for prudent social behavior and “rules for happiness” (Baltasar Gracián). The roots…

[German Version] (Jun 4, 1840, Calw – May 31, 1911, Stuttgart), churchman. In 1867 Weitbrecht was appointed pastor in Stuttgart, where he also taught at a Gymnasium. From 1897 to 1900 he served as general superintendent in Ulm. After 1910 he was attached to the collegiate church in Stuttgart. He filled many church leadership roles (consistory, Bible society, house of deaconesses, clergy conference, etc.). He also worked as an editor ( Jugendblätter, Christenbote) and author – a few monographs, but in particular many short works addressed to young people, often print…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Church History – V. Systematic Theology – VI. Law – VII. Judaism I. Religious Studies 1. The use of the term grace has been influenced strongly by the historically innovative Pauline conception. For Paul, grace is a gift, a unique fruit of God's salvific purpose and redemptive action. After the analogy of other redemptive religions, Paul employed this term to denote a fundamental aspect of the salvific action of the deity. In other religion…

[German Version] (Mar 5, 1820, Louisa County, VA – Jan 3, 1898, Victoria, TX), a premier 19th-century Presbyterian theologian in the USA. He was a pastor, and then taught church history and systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia (1853–1883). Dabney supported slavery before the Civil War and served as chaplain to “Stonewall” Jackson during the war. He became professor of philosophy at the University of Texas (1883–1893) and helped establish Austin Seminary (1894–1895). Dabney's Lectures in Systematic Theology (1871), while similar to the West…

[German Version] (Jul 23, 1891, Paimpol, Côtes-du-Nord, France – Feb 18, 1970, Paris), jurist, historian, and sociologist of religion. Le Bras studied jurisprudence and philosophy in Rennes from 1908 to 1911 as well as at the university and the École des Hautes Études in Paris from 1911 to 1914. He earned a doctorate in politics and business sciences in 1920, and in jurisprudence in 1922. He was professor of Roman law in Strasbourg from 1922 and in Paris from 1929, where he was awarded a professor…