The Encyclopedia oif Christianity, Vol. 1-3; part IV, by Erzbischof Uwe AE. Rosenkranz

Freemasons → Masons
Freethinkers

1. Goals
2. History
3. Relations with the Churches
1. Goals

Freethinkers represent a cultural, political, and philosophical movement, atheistic in belief and made up of various groupings that seek to rid people of religious and scientific errors and prejudices. This movement rejects the teachings and ties of religious institutions.
The various groups stress the separation of → church and state, oppose the traditional influence of the Christian church on public life, advocate cremation instead of church burial (→ Funeral), oppose church-sanctioned → war, seek the legal recognition of their societies as corporations alongside the churches, and promote freethinking ceremonies as a replacement for the church ceremonies associated with birth, maturity, marriage, and death.
2. History

The freethinking movement arose out of the British and French → Enlightenment. The term “freethinker” was first used in 1697 by W. Molineux, who saw in J. Toland (1670–1722) a “candid freethinker.” It came into philosophy with A Discourse of Freethinking (1713), by A. Collins. The term first denoted those who subjected Christian faith to the judgment of → reason and who held the epistemological principle of noncontradiction. Then it came to be used for those who oriented thought solely to the evidence of the object, apart from all → authority. Later the term came to be erroneously equated with the English → deists, and in the 19th and 20th centuries it covered all atheistic thinkers.
The radical French rationalists D. Diderot (1713–84), C.-A. Helvétius (1715–71), and P.-H.-D. d’Holbach (1723–89) gave the term libres penseurs an atheistic and materialistic accent. In Germany freethinkers were first called Freigeister and, with few exceptions, were wrongly seen as religious sectarians. In the 19th century they influenced the liberal middle class in the form of a natural philosophy that was partly materialistic and partly antimaterialistic (→ Monism). The movement was strongly oriented to natural science (K. Vogt, L. Büchner, I. Moleschott, E. Haeckel) and to the criticism of religion by L. Feuerbach (1804–72) and D. F. Strauss (1808–74; → Religion, Criticism of). It began to influence the working class by way of the dialectical → materialism of K. → Marx (1818–83; → Marxism). In the middle of the 19th century, middle-class → atheism was replaced by a socialist atheism, which was a development of the philosophy and ideology of Marx and Engels (e.g., by A. Bebel, K. Kautsky, F. Mehring, and V. I. Lenin).
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, various federations were formed in several countries, reaching a peak between 1930 and 1940. The Fédération Internationale de la Libre Pensée was formed in 1880. In 1905 the Union of Freethinkers for Cremation was founded, and in 1908 the Central Union of German Proletariat Freethinkers, who published the paper Der Atheist. These groups merged in 1927, becoming the Union for Freethinking and Cremation (after 1930, the German Freethinking Association). Before the emergency decree of 1932 the proletarian Communist freethinking movement had its headquarters in Berlin. Communist members of the merged group withdrew to form the Union of Proletariat Freethinkers. After the Nazis banned the union, it was reconstituted in 1951. In 1958 it split into two unions, one in Dortmund and one in Berlin.
In Russia a union of atheists was founded in 1925, called the Union of Militant Atheists from 1929. It was dissolved in 1942. After World War II its tasks and functions were assumed by the United Society for the Propagation of Scientific Knowledge.
Freethinkers are sometimes confused with → Freemasons. This mistake overlooks the fact that Freemasonry demands of its members a recognition of “the supreme master builder of the universe.”
3. Relations with the Churches

Prominent for freethinkers in their battle with the churches is an overcoming of the ideology of obedience and of a sense of destiny. They oppose especially the glorifying of supposedly divinely appointed authorities. For their part, the churches challenge the Marxist criticism of religion and the scientific atheism that they find in freethinkers.

Bibliography: J. A. I. CHAMPION, The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken: The Church of England and Its Enemies, 1660–1730 (Cambridge, 1992) ∙ J. E. H. COURTNEY, Freethinkers of the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1967) ∙ A. L. GAYLOR, ed., Women without Superstition: “No Gods-No Masters.” The Collected Writings of Women Freethinkers of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Madison, Wis., 1997) ∙ O. P. LARSON, American Infidel: Robert G. Ingersoll (New York, 1962) ∙ J. MARSH, Word Crimes: Blasphemy, Culture, and Literature in Nineteenth-Century England (Chicago, 1998) ∙ M. PRIESTMAN, Romantic Atheism: Poetry and Freethought, 1780–1830 (New York, 1999) ∙ S. WARREN, American Freethought, 1860–1914 (New York, 1966).

HELMUT REINALTER
French Missions

A sense of responsibility for foreign mission developed in France after the great upheavals of the French → Revolution of 1789 (→ Mission 3). After many years of mistrust and indeed persecution, the → Lutheran and → Reformed churches now had a guaranteed right to existence. They used their new freedom of action to found the Société des Missions Évangéliques de Paris chez des Peuples Non-chrétiens (SMEP), which could take part in the missionary movement without official restriction. The birthday of this society was November 4, 1822, in Paris.
Originally the SMEP did not plan to send its own → missionaries abroad but to place missionaries at the disposal of other societies. Only in 1827 did it consider the possibility of supervising its own overseas work. Areas discussed were the Near East, Mauritius, Canada, Louisiana, and Guyana, all lands in which work could be done in French.
Finally in 1829, in conjunction with the London Missionary Society (→ British Missions), which was already at work in southern Africa, the SMEP sent missionaries to the Cape. Some of these established the first mission station in what is now Botswana, but they soon moved to the area of the present-day state of Lesotho and began a work that later gave rise to the Evangelical Church of Lesotho. Lesotho was also the starting point for François Coillard (1834–1904), who moved north and in 1887 founded the Evangelical Zambesi Mission in what is now Zambia.
At the end of the 19th century the SMEP opened up new fields, including Senegal (St. Louis and Dakar) and Tahiti. In 1890 it took over the work of an American Presbyterian missionary society in Gabon. As a result of French colonizing (→ Colonialism; Colonialism and Mission), English missionary societies at work in Madagascar invited the SMEP to help them in 1896. At the same time and for the same reason, French missionaries went to New Caledonia, especially to assist in educational work. After World War I political circumstances made work possible in Cameroon, where the Protestant church had lost its missionaries from the Basel Mission. A similar thing happened in Togo, which the Bremen Mission had to abandon. The first missionaries of SMEP arrived there in 1928.
From the outset the SMEP had Lutherans as members, and the work went ahead with no denominational preconditions. French Lutherans became increasingly interested also in Lutheran missionary societies (Scandinavian, American, and German), which were active in lands that had become francophone as a result of colonizing (e.g., Madagascar). After World War II there was also cooperation with the Norwegian and American Lutherans at work in northern Cameroon.
The end of missionary activity was in sight, however, in terms of the classic movement of evangelism from north to south. The SMEP recognized this change in the first years after World War II. It took the initiative to promote the founding of autonomous churches (→ Independent Churches; Third World 2): Cameroon in 1957, Madagascar in 1958, Togo in 1959, New Caledonia in 1960, Gabon and Tahiti in 1961, and finally Zambia and Lesotho in 1964. In concert with these churches and with the other Protestant churches of Europe that shared in its work, the SMEP sought a new form of cooperation that would transcend national, denominational, racial, and cultural boundaries. It found a solution in the creation of a federation of churches resolved to support one another and to work together in evangelization and the giving of Christian instruction to their people. Thus the Communauté Évangélique d’Action Apostolique (CEVAA) came into being in 1971, with member churches in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific, all pledged to give each other mutual help.
When the SMEP finally ended its work after 150 years of existence, the Lutheran and Reformed churches in France decided to integrate missionary work into their own organization, and for this purpose they formed the Département Évangélique Français d’Action Apostolique (DEFAP). In parallel with this move, the Lutheran churches formed their own commission for relating to churches of the Third World (the Commission Luthérienne des Relations avec les Églises d’Outremer), which is attached to the Alliance Nationale des Églises Luthériennes de France (ANELF).

Bibliography: R. BLANC, J. BLOCHER, and E. KRUGER, Histoire des Missions protestantes françaises (Flavion, 1970) ∙ J. M. MOHAPELOA, From Mission to Church: Fifty Years of the Work of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society and the Lesotho Evangelical Church, 1933–1983 (Morija, Lesotho, 1985) ∙ ParMiss, January 1965, containing R. Blanc, “L’ouvre missionnaire des Églises luthériennes,” and M.-A. Ledoux, “Les missions réformées” ∙ H. ROUX, Église et mission (Paris, 1956) ∙ SOCIÉTÉ DES MISSIONS ÉVANGÉLIQUES DE PARIS, Voie nouvelle (Paris, 1961) ∙ J.-F. ZORN, Le grand siècle d’une mission protestante. La Mission de Paris de 1822 à 1914 (Paris, 1993).

RENÉ BLANC
Friends, Society of

1. Definition
2. Origins
3. Early Theology
4. Polity
5. Three Hundred Years of Activity
1. Definition

The Society of Friends—whose members are popularly known as Quakers, a name now acknowledged proudly, although it was originally pejorative—originated in 17th-century England. In 1999 there were members in 43 countries, totaling approximately 280,000. The countries with the five largest memberships are Kenya (93,000), the United States (92,000), Bolivia (31,000), the United Kingdom (17,000), and Burundi (10,000).
Known particularly for their relief and diplomatic work during and after the two world wars, Quakers have been awarded three Nobel Peace Prizes: Emily Greene Balch (1867–1961) in 1946, the Friends Service Council in Britain (predecessor of Quaker Peace and Service) and the American Friends Service Committee jointly in 1947, and Philip J. Noel-Baker (1889–1982) in 1959.
2. Origins

Although Quakerism began in the period following the English civil wars (1642–51), it is debatable whether the movement should be seen as a manifestation of → Puritanism. Beginning under the guidance and inspiration of George Fox (1624–91), Quakerism contained some Puritan elements, but there were also mystical and → Anabaptist features. Quakerism most adequately views itself as a fresh flowering of the NT church, which the Friends believed to have been in apostasy since apostolic times (see 2 Tim. 3:1–5).
Fox was soon joined in itinerant preaching by those known as the Valiant Sixty, who spread out in pairs, like the 70 sent out in Luke 10. They proclaimed the day of the Lord and the spiritual return of Christ. In 1652, while preaching in northwestern England, Fox secured the protection of a local judge and his wife, Thomas and Margaret Fell. Their home, Swarthmore Hall, became an organizational center. Within six years the movement had spread as far as Rome and Constantinople, as well as the settlements in America and all parts of Great Britain. Margaret Fell became one of the leaders of the movement; in 1669, after a decade of widowhood, she married George Fox.
Under the Puritans 3,000 Friends were imprisoned one or more times, and when the monarchy was restored in 1660, another 4,000 were jailed at a single time. Between 300 and 500 died in prison, largely from unsanitary conditions. In addition to this suffering in England, four “Boston Martyrs”—one a woman—were hanged for daring to preach in the Congregationalist Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
3. Early Theology

While George Fox was the principal formulator of Friends doctrine, he was but one of six outstanding theologians within early Quakerism (and the only one who lacked higher education). Samuel Fisher (1605–65), holder of an Oxford M.A. and an Anglican priest before his → conversion (§2) to Quakerism, was one of the leading Scripture scholars of any denomination in 17th-century England. Isaac Penington (1616–79) studied at Catherine Hall, Cambridge. George Keith (ca. 1638–1716), who earned an M.A. from Marischal College, Aberdeen, was a Presbyterian minister before joining the Friends. William Penn (1644–1718), a follower of the Congregationalist John Owen at Cambridge, later studied at Saumur, a French Reformed institution. Robert Barclay (1648–90) was educated at the Roman Catholic Scots College in Paris under its rector, his uncle (also named Robert Barclay). Barclay’s Catechism and Confession of Faith (1673) and his Apology (Lat. 1676, Eng. 1678) have never been displaced as the principal systematic statements of Quaker beliefs.
Friends believed that through his inward Light, Christ not only leads Christians into → unity and continues to reveal truth (John 1:9–18; 16:13–14) but is savingly active even for non-Christians. Although the substance of the ecumenical creeds was accepted, the → creeds themselves were rejected as wrongly used to enforce doctrinal conformity. Both the creeds and Trinitarian doctrine were also rejected because they contained philosophical terminology and concepts not found in Scripture. Nonetheless, God’s tri-unity was accepted, and → Unitarianism was opposed. Interpreting the new covenant as being wholly inward (Jer. 31:31–34), the Friends rejected sacraments such as → baptism and the → Eucharist, refused to swear oaths or use honorific titles and forms of address, and practiced nonviolence (→ Peace Churches).
To understand how these beliefs fit together for Quakerism, one must begin with → Christology and be aware of the constant and indispensable dependence of both the individual and the group on Christ’s presence through the Spirit. This spiritual return of Christ represents a more adequate interpretation of the Gk. term → parousia, which, in broadest terms, means simply “presence” or “coming.” Fox saw this continuing of Christ’s “presence in the midst” of his followers (Matt. 18:20) as being in the succession of the numerous accounts of his apparitions to the disciples through the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, particularly in the Gospel of John (esp. 16:7, 12–15).
This fundamental Quaker doctrine “is the basis for the Quaker approach to voteless decision-making, and to worship, and has profound effects on many other aspects of their community life” (W. Roberts, 37). In Fox’s words, “Christ is come again to teach his people himself.” The salvific effect of personal and corporate attention to the Light of Christ and the guidance and direction he provides constitute a vast theology of grace in which the terms are often fluid and interchangeable but nevertheless create an indissoluble link between belief and practice.
Quaker worship, based on silent and expectant waiting, hinges on the belief that Christ will inspire anyone he chooses to speak and that he will provide the substance of the message. Although the majority of Friends now worship in a “programmed” way—with a standard Protestant-like sequence of call to worship, Scripture readings, hymns, and sermon—a period of silence after the sermon, in which anyone is free to speak as led, is still normally provided.
4. Polity

Quakerism at times appears to be a way of worship with a loose religious organization attached. Such characterization, however, is far from accurate. Both “programmed” and “unprogrammed” Friends have the same process for decision making, in which the church is seen to be “a gospel fellowship, a gospel order, a holy community.” Within it the indwelling Christ is heard and obeyed by individuals and as the head of the community. At the meeting for business (“for church affairs,” in British terminology) a clerk—not the pastor, if one exists—chairs the meeting. His or her function is to maintain an orderly agenda and to record “the sense of the meeting.” The latter is periodically read aloud and amended until everyone present is satisfied that the “sense” has been caught accurately. Neither clerk nor pastor enjoys privileged address; both must ask permission to express their views (J. Punshon 1987, 94, 96).
A willingness to be persuaded is essential for the proper functioning of this method of decision making, in which no votes are taken. Only then can it be discerned how faith can be applied to new circumstances and individual leadings tested against the common understanding of Scripture and collective experience. The discipline of silent waiting is essential for this process, which cannot be equated with consensus building or merely an exercise in pure democracy; such an interpretation “disregards these theological underpinnings” (ibid., 97).
This “gospel order” is replicated in geographically widening associations known as Monthly, Quarterly (in England, “General”), and Yearly Meetings. These are named for the frequency with which they meet to conduct business, not for the frequency of worship, which is weekly. Each of these associations has a committee structure designed to carry out the mandates of the plenary sessions. The authority is neither hierarchical nor congregational. Monthly Meetings alone decide who can become members, be married, or be buried under Friends care. Monthly Meetings are, in turn, expected to abide by the rules—originally described, undogmatically, as advices—set forth by their Yearly Meeting. In more recent times, Testimonies and a Discipline have been added; except in property matters, these terms are not legal requirements.
5. Three Hundred Years of Activity

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Friends turned inward. They expelled (“disowned”) those among them who brought discredit to the Society by bankruptcy, joining the militia, or marrying nonmembers. This era has been described as a time of → quietism, but the emphasis was still on “a clearly defined way of life with a spiritual basis” (H. H. Brinton 1952, 184).
A major concern, building on 17th-century precedents, continued to be the improvement of the social order. The equal treatment of all people, including native inhabitants, characteristic of Pennsylvania ever since its charter was granted in 1681, thus continued to be in the center of Quaker life. At Germantown in Pennsylvania (named for Palatinate settlers, who included Lutherans, Mennonites and Brethren) the Friends in 1688 issued the first declaration against → slavery. By 1776 Pennsylvania Quakers had freed all their own slaves under the leadership of John Woolman (1720–72), Anthony Benezet (1713–84), and others, all of whom were also active in the international antislavery movement.
In early 19th-century England Elizabeth Fry (1780–1845) began work for penal reform, concentrating especially on the betterment of women prisoners. Under William Tuke (1732–1822) the York Retreat in England in 1796 became the world’s first hospital for the treatment, and not merely the custody, of the mentally ill. In 1813 Friends Hospital in Philadelphia became the first hospital in the United States to abolish the chaining of patients.
From the beginning, women occupied a position of equal partnership in Quakerism. Women as well as men undertook individual journeys on behalf of the movement that often lasted for years, frequently crossing the Atlantic. For example, Martha Routh, an English schoolteacher in poor health, traveled 11,000 miles in America (1794–96), and Catherine Phillips traveled 8,750 miles on horseback (1753–56). Quaker women, particularly Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) and Lucretia Mott (1793–1880), were active in the women’s suffrage movement after the Seneca Falls Conference of 1848. More recently the Quaker Alice Paul (1885–1977) was a leader in the long but unsuccessful campaign for an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In addition to this concern for social improvement, Friends have been creatively active in → education, having established 82 schools in the United States, 2 of which have been in continuous operation since 1689. Only rarely has Quaker presence in a country not resulted in the establishment of schools, as illustrated by the more than 400 Quaker schools in Kenya. In the 19th century Friends began to establish colleges in the United States, where they now sponsor ten colleges, two universities, and seven seminary-level programs or institutions. Quakers now also have seminaries in Kenya and Guatemala and are involved, with evangelicals, in similar institutions in Taiwan, Bolivia, and India (in Yavatmal, Maharashtra).
Since World War I Friends have been internationally involved in → relief work. This activity has been accompanied by efforts to uncover and deal with the causes of → war (→ Peace Research). Together with several Roman Catholic and Jewish groups and agencies, Friends were the original group to be accredited by the → United Nations as nongovernmental organizations. The first standing national religious lobby to the U.S. government was the Friends Committee on National Legislation, established in 1943. As significant as these activities are, however, Friends do not see themselves primarily as a social or humanitarian agency but as a “compelling form of New Testament society” (Lon Fendall).
The 20th century has also seen the formation in the United States of overarching national bodies. Among such largely “unprogrammed” bodies are the Friends General Conference (FGC) and the Conservative Friends; “programmed” bodies include the Friends United Meeting (FUM) and Evangelical Friends International (EFI). Both the FUM and the EFI, headquartered in the United States, are international groups involved in extensive mission work. It is to be noted, however, that none of the bodies has authority to compel its Yearly Meetings in any matter; they merely advise, where appropriate, and engage in joint ventures. The Friends World Committee for Consultation is a → “Christian world communion,” in ecumenical terms, with its small staff located in London; it has regional sections in key parts of the world.
Publications by the Quakers are disproportionately many. There are three Quaker publishing houses and bookstores in the United States, and two of each in the United Kingdom. The 77 Quaker periodicals include historical and theological journals in the two countries.
Patterns of ecumenical involvement vary. Friends historically have had a certain impatience with much ecumenical work, since their life has always been marked by a rejection of both an ordained ministry and sacramental worship and, positively, by an emphasis on the equality of women. Nevertheless, the FGC, FUM, and the Canadian Yearly Meeting were founding members of the → World Council of Churches, and many Yearly Meetings belong to national Christian councils.
In spite of being numerically small, Quakers have taken their place within the world of theological scholarship, particularly in biblical studies. Henry Joel Cadbury, whose work centered largely on the study of Luke-Acts, in 1919 became the first non-Congregationalist professor at the Divinity School of Harvard University; he was also an important member of the team of scholars that produced the Revised Standard Version of the Bible in 1952. Other Friends who have made important contributions to biblical studies have included H. G. Wood, George Boobyer, and Paul Anderson.

Bibliography: M. P. ABBOTT, A Certain Kind of Perfection (Wallingford, Pa., 1997) ∙ H. S. BARBOUR and J. FROST, The Quakers (New York, 1994) ∙ H. H. BRINTON, Friends for Three Hundred Years (New York, 1952); idem, Quaker Journals (Philadelphia, 1972) ∙ E. P. BROWN and S. M. STUARD, eds., Witnesses for Change: Quaker Women over Three Centuries (New Brunswick, N.J., 1989) ∙ H. J. CADBURY, A Quaker Approach to the Bible (Guilford, N.C., 1953) ∙ W. A. COOPER, A Living Faith (Richmond, Ind., 1990) ∙ G. FOX, The Journal of George Fox (ed. J. L. Nickalls; London, 1975); idem, “The Power of the Lord Is over All”: The Pastoral Letters of George Fox (ed. T. Canby Jones; Richmond, Ind., 1989) ∙ D. FREIDAY, Speaking as a Friend (Newberg, Oreg., 1995); idem, ed., Barclay’s “Apology” in Modern English (Newberg, Oreg., 1967) ∙ O. GREENWOOD, Quaker Encounters (3 vols.; York, 1975–78) ∙ D. GWYN, Apocalypse of the Word (Richmond, Ind., 1986) ∙ D. NEWMAN, A Procession of Friends (New York, 1972) ∙ J. PUNSHON, Encounter with Silence (London, 1987); idem, Portrait in Grey: A Short History of the Quakers (London, 1984) ∙ A. O. ROBERTS, Through Flaming Sword: A Spiritual Biography of George Fox (Portland, Oreg., 1959) ∙ A. O. ROBERTS and H. BARBOUR, eds., Early Quaker Writings (Grand Rapids, 1973) ∙ W. P. ROBERTS, The Quakers as Type of the Spirit-Centered Community (Pittsburgh, 1972) ∙ M. J. SHEERAN, S.J., Beyond Majority Rule: Voteless Decisions in the Religious Society of Friends (Philadelphia, 1983) ∙ D. V. STEERE, Quaker Spirituality (New York, 1984) ∙ To Lima with Love: A Quaker Response to “Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry” (London, 1987) ∙ J. WILLCUTS, Why Friends Are Friends (Newberg, Oreg., 1984) ∙ W. R. WILLIAMS, The Rich Heritage of Quakerism (rev. ed.; Newberg, Oreg., 1987) ∙ L. L. WILSON, Quaker Vision of Gospel Order (Burnsville, N.C., 1993).

DEAN FREIDAY
Friendship

In wrestling with the concept of friendship, theology and the church must do some rethinking. They must begin at the point where, in the tension between isolation with limited contacts (→ Anonymity) and self-alienating life in the mass (→ Masses, The), the question arises afresh concerning what forms of relationship can both promote fellowship and establish identity. The paradigm of friendship can help us understand how the following relations condition each other and can become less moralistic: those between → love of God and the liking for others, between altruistic and egoistic strivings, and between acts of outreach and feelings of rivalry. In this sense the possibility or obligation of friendship is a task that demands attention not only in an educational setting but also in a pastoral context (→ Counseling; Pastoral Care).
If a problem arises for Christians in relation to the concept and experience of friendship, it is against the background of the conversation between theology and the humanities. It is no accident that from antiquity to the present, friendship has repeatedly been the object of philosophical reflection. Because different epochs ascribe different social value to friendship, it has similarly prompted both historical and sociological studies. Finally, given its function as an element affecting behavior within interpersonal relationships, it can be subjected in any given context also to psychological examination. A hermeneutical key might be provided by the question how the experience of friendship is developed and shaped in basic tension with the opposing experience of competition (which only in exaggerated form becomes enmity; → Enemy). To achieve a proper attitude in the social nexus, all of us must learn how to handle other people and things. In the process of learning, we unavoidably come into rivalry (with parents, siblings, and neighbors), which will also be the case in later spheres of development on various fronts. At the same time, the world around us, which shares our work and enforces roles, demands that we live and work together. Harmony and competition are natural antitheses, and it is a constant struggle to relate them.
At the various stages of life the resultant capacity for friendship functions to bring → emancipation and personal → identity. The friendship of children helps them in the necessary task of breaking free from parents and → family. Friendship among adults not only leads to marriage but also helps to differentiate loving relationships and avoid symbiotic relationships. Friendship in old age brings support when there is mourning for the loss of loved ones (→ Grief). These effects make it plain why the inability to make friends (by remaining stuck in one-sided competitiveness, being afraid of closeness to others, or an anxiety about tabooed homosexual tendencies) can express a fundamental feeling of incompetence and can even be a symptom of deeper problems.

Bibliography: K. ADOMEIT, Aristoteles über die Freundschaft (Heidelberg, 1992) ∙ N. K. BADHWAR, ed., Friendship: A Philosophical Reader (Ithaca, N.Y., 1993) ∙ J. F. FITZGERALD, ed., Greco-Roman Perspectives on Friendship (Atlanta, 1997) ∙ C. GREMMELS and W. HUBER, eds., Theologie und Freundschaft. Wechselwirkungen: Eberhard Bethge und Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Gütersloh, 1994) ∙ J. W. LYNES, Themes in the Current Reformation in Religious Thinking: The Covenantal Friendship of God (Lewiston, N.Y., 1997) ∙ A. C. MITCHELL, “Friendship,” MCE 330–34 ∙ A. NYGREN, Agape and Eros (Chicago, 1982; orig. pub., 1930) ∙ F. ORTEGA, Michel Foucault. Rekonstruktion der Freundschaft (Munich, 1997) ∙ H. H. SCHREY, “Freundschaft,” TRE 11.590–99 (bibliography) ∙ L. THOMAS, “Friendship,” EncAE 2.323–33 ∙ K. WINKLER, Emanzipation in der Familie (Munich, 1976).

KLAUS WINKLER†
Fulfillment → Promise and Fulfillment

Functionalism

1. Definition
2. Functionalism and Psychology
3. Functionalism and Sociology
1. Definition

In medieval usage “function” simply denoted the public tasks of individuals or institutions. Following C. Darwin, F. Galton, and H. Spencer, however, it assumed increasing importance for → psychology and sociology. What is generally understood by “function” now is the contribution that some element, event, or process makes to the maintaining of a given structure.
2. Functionalism and Psychology

In close relation to → pragmatism and behaviorism, and along the lines of Darwin and Spencer, functionalist psychology primarily inquires into the suitability of describing natural and social settings in terms of psychological processes. In this respect it differs from a structurally oriented psychology (cf. the experimental psychology of W. Wundt) that finds its task in expounding the ultimate elements in the consciousness and their relations to one another. The main proponents of a functionalist psychology include W. James, J. R. Angell, J. M. Baldwin, and S. T. Hall.
3. Functionalism and Sociology

The idea of function takes on basic sociological significance in the work of É. Durkheim (1858–1917) and in Anglo-Saxon cultural → anthropology. According to Durkheim, the function of an → institutions is the social value that it has objectively, that is, apart from the will of those active in it. As R. K. Merton showed in a criticism of the cultural anthropological functionalism of B. Malinowski and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, it cannot be deduced from this thesis that every institution must have a social function, that it should be functional for → society as a whole, or that because of its functional significance it might not be changed or replaced without harm.
Functional statements are valid only in relation to a specific structure or problem. Both factors in the relation may change. If there is a relational change, various functional or dysfunctional effects may follow for an element, event, or process. Thus far, no convincing methods have been found to achieve a functional balance in estimating such effects. If we consider different elements, events, and processes in the same context, comparison among them is possible. If they can achieve the same results, they are functionally equivalent. The contextual relativity of functional statements, however, opens up an unforeseeable field of possible assertions about functionalities, dysfunctionalities, and functional equivalences, whose theoretical integration causes problems.
A reaction to this situation is the structural-functional theory of T. Parsons, which relates the concept of function to the universal, analytically derived problems of action systems and thus provides a fixed theoretical framework for functional analyses. Most recently, neofunctionalism especially (Jeffrey Alexander, Richard Munch) has picked up on Parsons’s work.
In contrast to the Parsonian strand of functionalism, Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems tries to free the concept of function from its dependence on a presupposed structure by means of a radicalization of functional analysis. Luhmann inquires concerning the function of structures themselves and understands their function as the delimitation of an otherwise unlimited space of indefinite possibilities. This procedure thus introduces the reduction of complexity as the ultimate problem of functional analysis, one that replaces the universal problems of self-preservation of action systems or social systems in structural-functionalistic theory. Taking this ultimate problem as the point of departure, this approach is to develop a universal functionalistic theory in the form of a descending hierarchy of relational problems and related classes of equivalent solutions, thus combining the technique of functional analysis with the concept of the “autopoietic” (self-reproducing) system.

Bibliography: J. C. ALEXANDER, Neofunctionalism and After (Malden, Mass., 1998); idem, Twenty Lectures (New York, 1987) ∙ J. R. ANGELL, “The Promise of Functional Psychology,” PsRev 14 (1907) 61ff. ∙ A. J. BLASI, “Functionalism,” EncRS 193–97 ∙ P. COLOMY, Neofunctionalist Sociology (Brookfield, Vt., 1990); idem, ed., Functionalist Sociology (Brookfield, Vt., 1990) ∙ É. DURKHEIM, The Rules of Sociological Method (New York, 1982; orig. pub., 1895) ∙ W. JAMES, The Principles of Psychology (Cambridge, Mass., 1983; orig. pub., 1890) ∙ N. LUHMANN, “Funktion und Kausalität,” Soziologische Aufklärung (vol. 1; 5th ed.; Opladen, 1984) 9–30; idem, “Gesellschaft als soziales System,” Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt, 1997); idem, “System and Function,” Social Systems (Stanford, Calif., 1995) chap. 1 ∙ M. H. MARX and W. A. HILLIX, “Functionalism,” Systems and Theories in Psychology (3d ed.; New York, 1979) chap. 5 ∙ R. K. MERTON, “Manifest and Latent Functions,” Social Theory and Social Structure (8th ed.; Glencoe, Ill., 1963) 19–84 ∙ R. MUNCH, Theory of Action (London, 1987) ∙ T. PARSONS, The Social System (London, 1991; orig. pub., 1951).

BERNHARD GIESEN and WOLFGANG SCHNEIDER
Fundamental Theology

1. Concept
2. Development of the Discipline
3. In Roman Catholic Theology
4. In Protestant Theology
1. Concept

“Fundamental theology” is a comprehensive term used to describe reflection that is basic to → theology as a whole. The term has been used in a variety of ways, and the shape and scope of this theology often depend on the specific theological conception or issue under discussion at the time. Some theologians employ the term “foundational theology” and “philosophical theology” interchangeably with “fundamental theology,” while others make a distinction between these terms. Fundamental theology provides elements for the development of → systematic theology by expounding on the possibility and reality of revelation. As → apologetics, it provides a basis for faith’s claim to → truth. In the form of the German → encyclopedia, it deals with the unity and academic character of theology in all its branches.
2. Development of the Discipline

The first example of fundamental theology as a modern theological discipline may be found in J. F. Kleuker of Kiel, whose Grundriß einer Encyklopädie der Theologie appeared in 1800–1801. For Kleuker, the task of fundamental theology is prior to that of systematic, practical, and historical theology and, as such, is a critical, exegetical, and apologetic science, showing how the Bible can function as the foundational principle of all theology. A. F. L. Pelt, also of Kiel, adopted Kleuker’s term in his Theologische Encyklopädie of 1843, which itself was heavily influenced by F. D. E. → Schleiermacher’s Kurze Darstellung des theologischen Studiums (1810; 2d ed., 1830). Here fundamental theology is the first part of systematic theology, followed by substantive teachings on faith and morals.
J. S. Drey developed the field of apologetics into an independent field in his Apologetik (3 vols., 1843–47), in which he defended the concept of revelation in light of the challenges to it from → Enlightenment rationality. His methods continued the tripartite division within Roman Catholic fundamental theology that found their origins in the 17th-century works of H. Grotius and P. Charron and the 18th-century works of L.-J. Hooke and P. M. Gazzaniga, which focused on the activity of divine revelation. In this schema fundamental theology was divided into the defense of Christian revelation, revelation in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and Catholic revelation in the foundation of the church. This threefold division became the central feature of subsequent Roman Catholic handbooks of fundamental theology.
Although fundamental theology attracted increasing attention in Protestant theology around the middle of the 19th century, the concept increasingly found a home in Roman Catholic theology but tended to be forgotten in the Protestant sphere. The Roman Catholic theologian J. N. Ehrlich wrote the first monograph on fundamental theology as such (Prague, 1859–62), in which he tried to demonstrate the possibility, necessity, and historical reality of revelation.
3. In Roman Catholic Theology

In 1870 → Vatican I (sess. 3, chap. 4, DH 3019) recognized the term “fundamental theology” and gave the discipline a determinative Roman Catholic content. In its view → faith and → reason assist one another, as right reason demonstrates the truth of the foundations of faith (fidei fundamenta).
The successful execution of this task required an objective apologetics that tries to show the credibility of Christian teaching apart from the believing subject. Faith, it argued, is rational; Christian doctrine has a divine origin; the Catholic Church is the only true church (→ Church 3.2; Teaching Office); and as the one true church, it guards true doctrine (demonstratio religiosa, christiana, and catholica). Since the objectivity of this apologetic seemed to be open to historical criticism, and since faith was put on too much of an intellectual level, an “apologetic of immanence” also arose in France (under the stimulus of M. Blondel [1861–1949]) and in Germany. In his transcendental → anthropology K. → Rahner (1904–84) showed how human beings are open to revelation, thus finding a point of contact for faith (→ Immanence and Transcendence). The objective and immanent modes of proof could now be combined in an “integral apologetics” (A. Lang).
→ Vatican II strengthened these concerns, making possible a broad discussion with Protestant theology, and thus greatly widened the themes with which fundamental theology concerned itself. The ever-present danger was that fundamental theology might absorb the tasks of all other theological disciplines. The council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis humanae), together with hermeneutical and correlational promptings from Protestant theology, gave vitality to the demonstratio religiosa. The preconciliar demonstratio catholica, however, ran into difficulties because the new ecumenical openness permitted a use of the word → “church” in the plural. The historical thinking that had found a place in Roman Catholic biblical scholarship demanded a rethinking of the doctrine of revelation and of the nature of Christianity.
After Vatican II, Roman Catholic theologians began working out a new theological consensus that took into account newer methodological and anthropological approaches, employed relevant themes from the Bible and ecclesiastical tradition, and paid careful attention to the relation between the church and the world (see the overview by R. Latourelle and G. O’Collins). H. Stirnimann’s arrangement of fundamental theology under four central categories—dealing with the relation of faith to reason, understanding, practice, and experience—is an example of this emerging consensus.
According to one’s particular philosophical, theological, political, or ideological commitments or interests, a particular theological theme can become central to a theologian’s method. As the influence of existential philosophy and the “critical social theory” of the Frankfurt School (→ Critical Theory) began to wane, J. B. Metz formulated a practical fundamental theology based on the premise that all theological themes can be known and assessed only on the basis of “orthopraxy,” or “right practice” (→ Political Theology). In this view, fundamental theology offers a changed form of the demonstratio catholica: the church as the defender of doctrine is now replaced by the suffering → people of God, who are on their way to redemptive freedom.
Employing contemporary hermeneutical methods, F. S. Fiorenza returned to some of the classic themes in Roman Catholic fundamental theology. His “foundational theology” reexamined the traditional themes of the tripartite structure of Roman Catholic fundamental theology: the resurrection of Jesus, the foundation of the church, and the mission of the church. David Tracy, also employing hermeneutical methods, developed a theological anthropology that focused on transcendental reflection on human → experience.
4. In Protestant Theology

Toward the end of the 19th century, the influence of A. Ritschl (1822–89) weakened Protestant interest in fundamental theology. The rejection of metaphysics and natural theology, as well as the idea of a theology that in principle is based in the church, ruled out investigation of the transition from existence before faith to existence in faith. This basic → biblicism was strengthened after World War I in → dialectical theology. This approach confirmed the misunderstanding that fundamental theology, not merely in terminology but also in substance, was specifically a Roman Catholic discipline.
P. → Tillich (1886–1965) was one of the few Protestant theologians who refused to follow Ritschl in making theology solely a concern of the church. Using philosophy, he devoted himself to a renewal of apologetics by working out a “method of correlation.” When he was forced into exile from Germany in 1933, he developed his theological approach in the United States, where his influence has been the most extensive. In a further development of this method of correlation, G. D. Kaufman related Christian inner history (the Bible and church history) to the present-day experience of faith. E. Farley juxtaposed the phenomenologically described world of faith with the criteria of theological assessment.
Once the question in Germany—raised most acutely in the → church struggle of the Nazi era—of the relationship of fundamental theology to the church had eased, unsolved problems in fundamental theology reared their heads again. The question of revelation, which formerly had been dealt with doctrinally, now took the form of → hermeneutics, and in this form it raised issues that the fundamental theology of the 19th century had shelved.
Pursuing his hermeneutical inquiries, G. Ebeling sketched a Protestant fundamental theology, giving it the task of expounding the unity and truth of theology. He put fundamental theology at the end of the theological encyclopedia (outline of studies) and not at the beginning. For Ebeling, fundamental theology must first reflect on theology as a presentation of what is essentially Christian in the Bible and church history. It must also show the basic theological significance of the event behind the → tradition of the church and the Word of God (hermeneutics). Finally, it must investigate the truth of theology in three areas: the certainty of the experience of faith, the academic nature of theology, and the task of the theologian.
Ebeling’s view somewhat lessened the fear of the use of the term “fundamental theology” among Protestant theologians. W. Joest gave his handbook, which discusses revelation as a foundation of theology and theological methodology, the title Fundamentalheologie. (H. Beintker took a similar approach). E. Jüngel proposed a foundational theology situated in the “dispute between theism and atheism” and grounded in the “Crucified One.” More common in contemporary German theology is the treatment of the themes of fundamental theology in terms of the → philosophy of science or with the question of the integration of the humanities into theology.
→ Dogmatics; Epistemology

Bibliography: H. BEINTKER, “Verstehen und Glauben. Grundlinien einer evangelischen Fundamentaltheologie,” KuD 22 (1976) 22–40 ∙ G. EBELING, “Erwägungen zu einer evangelischen Fundamentaltheologie,” ZTK 67 (1970) 479–524; idem, The Study of Theology (London, 1979) ∙ E. FARLEY, Ecclesial Man (Philadelphia, 1975); idem, Ecclesial Reflection (Philadelphia, 1982) ∙ F. S. FIORENZA, Foundational Theology: Jesus and the Church (New York, 1984) ∙ W. JOEST, Fundamentaltheologie. Theologische Grundlagen- und Methodenprobleme (Stuttgart, 1988) ∙ E. JÜNGEL, God as the Mystery of the World (Grand Rapids, 1983) ∙ G. D. KAUFMAN, Systematic Theology (2d ed.; New York, 1978) ∙ W. KERN et al., eds., HFTh ∙ A. LANG, Fundamentaltheologie (4th ed.; 2 vols.; Munich, 1967) ∙ R. LATOURELLE and R. FISICHELLA, eds., Dictionary of Fundamental Theology (New York, 1994) ∙ R. LATOURELLE and G. O’COLLINS, Problems and Perspectives of Fundamental Theology (New York, 1982) ∙ J. B. METZ, Glaube in Geschichte und Gesellschaft (5th ed.; Mainz, 1992) ∙ H. PEUKERT, Science, Action, and Fundamental Theology (Cambridge, Mass., 1984) ∙ K. RAHNER, Hearer of the Word (New York, 1994; orig. pub., 1940) ∙ J. RATZINGER, Theologische Prinzipienlehre. Bausteine zur Fundamentaltheologie (Munich, 1982) ∙ J. SCHMITZ, “Die Fundamentaltheologie im 20. Jahrhundert,” Bilanz der Theologie im 20. Jahrhundert (ed. H. Vorgrimler; Freiburg, 1969–70) 2.197–245 ∙ H. STIRNIMANN, “Erwägungen zur Fundamentaltheologie,” FZPhTh 24 (1977) 291–365 ∙ J. E. THIEL, Nonfoundationalism (Minneapolis, 1994) ∙ P. TILLICH, Systematic Theology (vol. 1; Chicago, 1951) ∙ D. TRACY, The Analogical Imagination (New York, 1981); idem, Blessed Rage for Order (New York, 1975) ∙ H. WAGNER, Einführung in die Fundamentaltheologie (2d ed.; Darmstadt, 1996); idem, “Fundamentaltheologie,” TRE 11.738–52 (bibliography) ∙ H. WALDENFELS, Kontextuelle Fundamentaltheologie (2d ed.; Paderborn, 1988).

ROLF SCHÄFER and CRAIG A. PHILLIPS
Fundamentalism

The term “fundamentalism” is said to derive from a series of tracts, The Fundamentals (1910–15), though not everything in these writings was fully “fundamentalist.” As generally used, the term “fundamentalism” designates a form of conservative evangelical → Protestantism (→ Evangelical Movement) that, along with other traditional doctrines such as the → Trinity, → incarnation, deity of Christ (→ Christology), original → sin, human depravity, and justification by faith, lays an exceptional stress on the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible as the absolutely essential foundation and criterion of → truth. Along with this emphasis goes the stress on personal → faith, the sense of sin and need for salvation, and personal involvement and appropriation of the → grace of God. Though it affirms many older doctrines, the real spiritual affiliation of fundamentalism is less with the Reformation or the older church and more with the tradition of → Pietism and → revivalism.
According to fundamentalism, the basis of faith is something given. This given does not lie in the → church as → institutions, and in this respect fundamentalism is opposed to the → Roman Catholic conception. Equally is it opposed to “moderate” or “enlightened” conceptions: faith is not a matter of reasoned or dispassionate discussion, not something to be worked out or discovered, but is something already known and to be proclaimed without uncertainty. This given character of the basis of faith is most clearly exemplified in the Bible, which must be accepted without question or qualification. Like the character of faith itself, the nature of the Bible is not an open question. The radical opposition of fundamentalism to biblical criticism may be explained as objection to the latter’s implication that the nature and the meaning of the Bible become an open question.
The term “fundamentalism” is often felt as pejorative, and its adherents would commonly describe themselves rather as “evangelical” or “orthodox.” Fundamentalism is not one unitary viewpoint but has various strands within it. A central element is the doctrine of Scripture inherited from Protestant → orthodoxy but modified, notably through dilution of the dictation theory. In the 19th century this view was developed particularly by the Princeton theology, best exemplified by B. B. Warfield (1851–1921), with considerable finesse and logical acuity.
Much fundamentalism, however, is populist, ignorant, and hostile to intellectual theology. Many fundamentalist leaders have been popular preachers, ill educated in theology and ignorant of biblical studies, only loosely connected with institutional churches, and effectively working through individual organizations of their own. Modern technical developments (radio and television) made this kind of independent fundamentalism more influential, especially in the United States and through the worldwide influence of its culture. Another strand is the “prophetic” → millenarianism, disseminated particularly through the Scofield annotated edition of the English Bible; yet another is the “charismatic” emphasis on direct experience of God.
For much fundamentalism, the Bible acts as central symbol of a worldview. Thus the theory of → evolution is perceived as a challenge to the naive physical worldview believed to be founded on the Bible. This approach can develop toward → creationism. It was often thought that fundamentalism would disappear with the increasing influence of education and science; recent experience suggests that this is not so and that fundamentalism is well adapted to the modern world and well able to survive and increase within it.
The Christology of fundamentalism lays great stress on the deity of Christ, his → virgin birth, and the infallibility of his teachings. Atonement is by penal substitution: God’s own Son is made the substitute for guilty humanity. → Justification is closely linked with the → conversion (§1) experience, to which most fundamentalist praxis is directed.
Central to all fundamentalist doctrine is the infallibility of Scripture. Interpretation is literal, but only at those points where it is important to fundamentalist religion that it should be literal; where literal interpretation would be dangerous to fundamentalist religion (e.g., through questioning the unity or inerrancy of the Bible), literality is abandoned and nonliteral meanings are accepted. Although all Scripture is infallible and authoritative, fundamentalism actually works through the ordering and ranking of various strands within the Bible, the preference being dictated by the past history of the evangelical tradition and its present needs. Philosophically, fundamentalism goes back to a naive realism and a Weltbild of fixed character. Development within history has little significance: the world remains the same until God’s direct action brings about catastrophic change.
Fundamentalism is not institutionally identical with any particular → denomination. Though some confessional groups are basically fundamentalist in nature, fundamentalism commonly exists as a stratum within a wider confession (→ Confession of Faith). But it also has informal organizations of its own—including missionary societies, societies for work among students, and publishing houses—which are usually doctrinally strict and polemical against nonfundamentalist viewpoints. Some of the matters that divided the older confessions, such as questions of polity or sacraments, are often considered nonessential, and fundamentalism has a certain kind of interdenominationalism about it.
Toward other types of Christianity, however, and especially what is supposed to be “liberalism,” fundamentalism shows marked hostility. Toward the → ecumenical movement it is also rather negative, considering that questions of → unity between the churches are not very important unless priority is given to the issues as seen by fundamentalism itself and especially to its view of Scripture.
Fundamentalism is particularly strong and widespread in the English-speaking lands and in the Christianity of regions culturally affected by them. It is also often characteristic of Protestantism in lands that are dominantly Roman Catholic, the infallibility of the Bible contrasting with that of the church. It has much in common with traditions deriving from Protestant orthodoxy (e.g., Dutch → Calvinism as seen in South Africa, or → Lutheranism as seen in America). It has reflections in → Third World lands also but seldom assumes there the hard ideological form seen in the English-speaking world.
In politics and social matters, although fundamentalism is not entirely homogeneous and has at times included certain progressive aspects, the overwhelmingly dominant tendency is to favor the → conservative far right. Only the second coming of Christ will overcome the tensions of human existence; → socialism, reformism, and radicalism are revolts against the true purpose and plan of God. The 1970s and 1980s witnessed, especially in the United States, increasing attempts by fundamentalist groups to organize their political power and bend society as a whole toward the pattern favored by them.
The term “fundamentalism,” first used within Protestant Christianity, has been applied increasingly to phenomena found in other religions, notably → Islam, but also → Judaism, → Hinduism, and aspects of Roman Catholicism. The viability of this extension of meaning has still to be proved by scholarly analysis.
→ Biblicism

Bibliography: J. BARR, Escaping from Fundamentalism (London, 1984); idem, Fundamentalism (2d ed.; London, 1995) ∙ H. A. HARRIS, Fundamentalism and Evangelicals (Oxford, 1998) ∙ W. JOEST, “Fundamentalismus,” TRE 11.732–38 ∙ B. B. LAWRENCE, Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt against the Modern Age (Columbia, S.C., 1995) ∙ M. E. MARTY and R. S. APPLEBY, eds., The Fundamentalism Project (5 vols.; Chicago, 1991–95) ∙ B. B. WARFIELD, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (ed. C. van Til; Phillipsburg, N.J., 1948).

JAMES BARR
Funeral

1. General
2. Historical Development
2.1. Biblical
2.2. Early Church
2.3. Middle Ages
2.4. Reformation
2.5. Modern Times
3. Orthodox Church
4. Christian Africa
5. Contemporary Western Examples
5.1. Roman Catholic Church
5.2. Protestants in North America
5.2.1. Traditional Funeral Rites
5.2.2. American Funeral Practices
5.2.3. Reform and Revision
1. General

In human life the funeral is the ritual by which a → society, clan, or → family reconstitutes itself after the → death of a member. It is the → rite of passage in which a community marks and sometimes actually effects the transition both of a living person to the realm of the dead and of bereaved persons through mourning to reestablished life. The funeral accomplishes the reintegration of the affected group by dramatizing the positive and negative elements in death and in this specific dead person. Its ritual and symbolic forms give evidence of love and respect for the dead, of → anxiety in the face of death, and of defense against the spirits of the dead. Practices that destroy the corpse frequently go hand in hand with ritual actions that seek to preserve it. The appropriate place for the dead is sought. Psychologically, the funeral is to be regarded as an essential element in mourning. It definitively records the loss of a loved one. It also gives status to the mourners and puts them in fellowship with others with new bonds. It serves to recognize both the loss and the overcoming of the loss (→ Grief).

WOLFGANG STECK
2. Historical Development
2.1. Biblical

Along with mourning by the family or a special class of mourners (Jer. 9:17, 20; 2 Sam. 1:19–27), the OT mentions various customs at the observance of a person’s death: tearing clothes (Gen. 37:34; Josh. 7:6), wearing special clothing (2 Kgs. 6:30), covering the face (2 Sam. 19:4), scattering dust on the head (Josh. 7:6), and especially keeping various food rites, including a seven-day → fast (1 Sam. 31:13) and eating a funeral meal (Jer. 16:7; → Cultic Meal). There is a biblical concern for decent burial of both Israelites and non-Israelites (Josh. 8:29; 10:26). The deuterocanonical book Tobit tells a story about the extraordinary efforts taken by one devout Jew to bury the dead (Tob. 1:17–19; 2:4–8; 12:13). In the forefront of such funeral rites is defense against the threatening aspects of death: the spirits of the dead and the uncleanness of the corpse. Links with the non-Israelite cult of the dead and → ancestor veneration are clear. Positively, the grave is regarded as the locus of honor for, and remembrance of, the dead (Eccl. 12:5; Ps. 49:11).
NT accounts give evidence of both OT and nonbiblical forms of preparation and burial. The body of Dorcas is washed (Acts 9:37). The grave of → Jesus is a cave closed by a stone (Mark 15:46; see also John 11:38), where he is placed after being wrapped in a clean linen cloth (Matt. 27:59). Use of spices is mentioned (e.g., Mark 16:1). According to archaeological discoveries, long-term care for the place of burial and long-term honor for the dead frequently involved the later bundling of the bones of the dead and their preservation in ossuaries.
The NT attaches theological meaning to the tomb of Jesus. It is linked to the Easter tradition (Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1); the empty tomb points to the resurrection hope.

WOLFGANG STECK
2.2. Early Church

Although ritual care for the dead and optimistic interest in the next life were something that Christians shared with the world around them, early Christian → eschatology and funeral practices were distinctive. While, initially, Christians and pagans were buried side by side in public cemeteries, Christian graves were distinguished by decorations depicting Jesus as tending sheep or presiding over the heavenly banquet. Later, however, as the paschal nature of death was accentuated, depictions of Jesus’ miracles, such as the raising of Lazarus, came to dominate. All of these images suggest that the dead were no mere shades to be remembered with sadness and resignation. Rather, these images signified that the new life entered at → baptism and nourished through the → Eucharist is not affected by physical death but continues in the → paradise of the Good Shepherd, the place of refreshment, light, and peace. The epitome of participation in the paschal mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection was martyrdom, and thus the tombs of the → martyrs became places of vigil and devotion.
There are also records of funeral meals (refrigeria), which probably had their origin in the Roman belief that the dead needed nourishment. What we know of these feasts is derived from archaeological remains of dining rooms at Christian places of burial as well as from condemnations issued by various bishops who, concerned about unruly behavior and resulting scandal, encouraged prayer vigils, fasting, and gifts to the poor as more appropriate customs.
Another custom that drew the corrective influence of bishops involved communing the dead. It was the custom of the Romans to put a coin into the mouth of the deceased to pay Charon, the ferryman who was to carry the dead across the river Styx. The reception of the Eucharist for the dying person (food for the journey, or viaticum) was regarded as so crucial for the journey to the next life—Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 35–ca. 107) referred to the Eucharist as “the medicine of immortality and the antidote preventing death … leading to life in Jesus Christ forever” (Eph. 20:3)—that it was inevitable that some would abuse this practice by placing Communion in the mouth of the dead. The councils of Hippo (393), Carthage (397 and 525), Auxerre (578), and Trullo (692) condemned this practice, noting that the dead could neither take nor eat the Eucharist.
A final distinctive Christian practice was the transformation of the mourning ceremonies. In particular, Christians replaced lamentations and dirges sung in alternation with the antiphonal singing of the Psalms, underscoring their belief that the dead have not met with total death (→ Augustine, Conf. 9.12.29–31; Chrys. In Heb. hom. 4). In praying for the deceased and for the consolation of the bereaved, grief was acknowledged (Serapion, Sacra. 18), but it led not to despair but to hope for the rest, light, refreshment, and peace that the deceased would enjoy until the resurrection on the last day.
2.3. Middle Ages

The oldest Roman funeral rite is found in Ordo Romanus 49, a seventh-century order devoted to the preparation for death, waking, and burial of the body. This liturgical order was totally focused on the resurrection on the last day. Communion was to be given to the dying person as the defense and help against death, and for assurance of resurrection. The reading of the → passion of the Lord, which was to accompany the dying person to death, served to provide hope and confidence that, united with the Lord, the deceased would pass from this world to eternal life. The response at the moment of death, consistent with other elements that dealt with the preparation, waking, and burial of the body, requested welcome into paradise and rest in the bosom of Abraham, in anticipation of the resurrection on the last day, when the fullness of the person would be restored.
Gradually, however, a shift occurred in the expressed attitude of Christians, so that the liturgy of the dead became increasingly somber in tone. Concerns about the dangers of the lower world, the snares of punishment, and all the tribulations of death in the interim period of the afterlife began to dominate. In addition, the focus of entering peacefully into the joy of the Lord shifted to escaping the terrible and pitiless judgment that was embodied in the 13th-century funeral text Dies irae (Day of wrath), an imaginative and apocalyptic meditation on the last judgment as seen from an individual’s standpoint. The funeral liturgy in the 1614 Rituale Romanum, the normative liturgical sacramentary that sought to bring order to disparate monastic and diocesan rites that preceded it, and which was used in Latin-Rite Roman Catholic communities until the reforms of the Second → Vatican Council (1962–65), continued to emphasize God’s mercy in its funeral texts but also repeatedly begged God to spare the sinner from the pains of → hell.

JAMES DONOHUE, C.R.
2.4. Reformation

The → Reformation rejected the idea that the living can influence the destiny of the dead and discarded the late medieval Offices and Masses for the dead (→ Mass). Burial was viewed as a duty of love that the living owe the dead and that they discharge by giving them respectful burial. M. → Luther thus provided no order for burial, and early Protestant burials were frequently regarded as civil and familial affairs with little relationship to the church. Nonetheless, Luther did urge that → hymns of comfort, resurrection, and trust in → forgiveness should be sung in the funeral procession and at the burial. And Luther as well as other reformers argued that the funeral also offered a significant opportunity to proclaim the resurrection and to issue a reminder that death comes to all. The rituals that slowly began to develop in diverse Protestant churches thus were intended to serve the faith of the living rather than the salvation of the dead. The positive aspects of the observance of death thus came to the fore, sometimes to the neglect of the negative aspects.
2.5. Modern Times

Awareness of death in the modern Western world is ambivalent. On the one hand, the relation to it is more abstract. Only few die where they have lived, and only few experience the actual dying of loved ones. Death is less visible. It has been eliminated from the living world, and the experience of it has been repressed. On the other hand, in keeping with the cultural orientation of modern society, there are many symptoms of the repression of death. These become constitutive elements in the funeral ritual and are particularly noticeable in the United States. They go hand in hand with the commercializing of the funeral to meet the supposed needs of mourners. A funeral creates an illusion of death that is the counterpart of an illusory life. With the help of embalming and use of the dead person’s clothing, the corpse is made to seem asleep rather than dead. The funeral parlor becomes a “slumber room,” and the coffin a showcase. The stern sense of death of Puritan New England yields to an aesthetic denial of death dominated by → civil religion. At the same time, in what seems to be a → countercultural move, many of the Christian churches have been undertaking a modern revision of the liturgies celebrated at death with the goal of exhibiting both the reality of dying and the strength of a baptismal theology; that is, those who have been immersed into Christ are also raised with him to hope.

Bibliography: A. VAN GENNEP, The Rites of Passage (Chicago, 1961) ∙ F. S. PAXTON, Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990) ∙ G. ROWELL, The Liturgy of Christian Burial: An Introductory Survey of the Historical Development of Christian Burial Rites (London, 1977) ∙ A. C. RUSH, Death and Burial in Christian Antiquity (Washington, D.C., 1941) ∙ J. M. C. TOYNBEE, Death and Burial in the Roman World (Ithaca, N.Y., 1971) ∙ J. UPTON, “Christian Burial,” The New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship (ed. P. Fink; Collegeville, Minn., 1990).

WOLFGANG STECK
3. Orthodox Church

The Orthodox Church accompanies people at their death with many liturgical acts. Some of these are in preparation for a peaceful death, others are in remembrance of the dead and in intercession for them. There are five types of services: for adult laity, for children up to about seven years old, for married clergy, for monks and members of the hierarchy, and for those who die in the first week of Easter.
The dying are given the sacraments of → penance, Communion, and unction. For those who are incurably ill but cannot die, there is a liturgical act at the heart of which stands a prayer for death. The dead are washed (Acts 9:37)—the clergy simply anointed—then clad in new, clean clothes signifying the new and incorruptible state of the body after the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:42–44). Clergy are buried with appropriate robes and a copy of the Gospels on their breasts. As a sign that the dead are Christ’s and are entrusted to him in death, an → icon or a → cross is laid on their breast as a symbol of victory. By the open coffin in the house of the deceased occurs the ritual of pannychida (from Gk. pan nyx a̧dō, “sing all night”), a short form of the burial service that recalls the songs and prayers that were in earlier times sung and prayed all night at the coffin, especially in times of the → persecution of Christians when the dead were buried by night. The actual funeral service takes place in church. There the life in Christ begins with → baptism, and there its earthly end is celebrated.
Along with many readings from the OT and the NT, the Orthodox burial service consists of a great number of hymns, prayers, and odes. Holy Scripture is the source for these texts; they both reflect on the meaning of life in the face of the mystery of death and express fundamental doctrines as they point to human frailty, to infinite love and mercy, and also to the approaching divine judgment. The sustaining note is → faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The service as a whole can be viewed as an urgent request to God to forgive the sins of the deceased and to grant rest to the soul at the place of light and life. Belief in the immortality of the → soul is evident throughout the service. A final prayer and the singing of “Eternal Remembrance” take place at the grave, and the priest then sprinkles the corpse or coffin with oil and wine, saying, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Ps. 51:7). The priest then throws earth on the coffin and says, “The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it; the world, and those who live in it” (Ps. 24:1). Interment is the rule. The agape meal follows, recalling the funeral feasts (convivia funebralia) of Greek and Roman religions. Acts of charity are enjoined as a mark of remembrance for the deceased.
The care of the Orthodox Church for the dead reaches beyond the grave. It comes to expression in services of remembrance (parastasis) for those who sleep. These services are not to be seen in terms of the living making satisfaction on behalf of the dead. Rather, they are the church’s prayers that God will have mercy on the dead. They also express the fact that, in the Orthodox view, the living and the dead form one fellowship in the church.

Bibliography: I. F. HAPGOOD, Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church (New York, 1956) 360–453 ∙ M. O’CONNELL, trans., Temple of the Holy Spirit: Sickness and Death of the Christian in the Liturgy (New York, 1983) esp. articles by C. Andronikof, A. Kniazeff, P. Kovalevsky, E. Melia, A. Nelidow, and G. Wagner ∙ G. ROWELL, The Liturgy of Christian Burial (London, 1977) esp. 31–56 ∙ A. SCHMEMANN, For the Life of the World (Crestwood, N.Y., 1973) esp. 95–106 ∙ SIMEON OF THESSALONIKA, “De fine et exitu nostro e vita et de sacro ordine sepulturae,” PG 155.670–96.

VIOREL MEHEDINTU
4. Christian Africa

In traditional African religions the burial of adults is a lengthy affair. Naturally there are also places where burial is simple and short, as it is among nomadic herdsmen. African Christians combine various traditional rites with biblical ideas and Western customs.
Burial usually takes place in the grounds or village where the dead person lived. Those who die in → cities are brought back home to the country for burial by friends and relatives. Some are also buried in → cemeteries when it is impossible to “take them home.” Relatives, friends, neighbors, and the → congregation take part in the funeral. Mourners may number in the hundreds or even thousands.
Burial takes place on the day of death or one to two days later. In some places the body is placed in a funeral parlor so that relatives from a distance have enough time to come. Saturday and Sunday are the preferred days for burial, which often takes place after Sunday worship. Men dig the grave some distance from the house if the burial is not in the common churchyard or cemetery.
In many places the corpse is washed, anointed, or embalmed. A new robe, or the best robe, is then put on the corpse. Traditionally, it is wrapped in a mat or, in Uganda and elsewhere, a bark cloth. In other places (e.g., South Africa) it is wrapped in a white garment, white being the color of → death. Often the mourners view the corpse to say farewell. The corpse is then put in the grave either directly or in a coffin. In some places a wake takes place right up to the time of burial. During such a wake there are songs and prayers, and in some places candles are lit at the head and feet of the corpse. In South Africa the wake is viewed as a way of accompanying the dead.
The funeral service most usually takes place at the grave, although in some cases the service takes place in church with a short service at the grave. Songs and prayers are interspersed with biblical texts. Roman Catholic churches celebrate → Mass. A choir will often sing songs of mourning. “Fellowships of the dead” take part in these services in Ethiopia, and burial societies elsewhere. At the grave participants speak about the life of the deceased, what the departed one has meant and done. At the end they throw a handful of earth into the grave. Sermons, meditations, songs, and prayers stress the fact that the deceased still lives in → heaven with God, emphasizing the hope of → resurrection. These acts thus give comfort to those left behind, strengthening their faith that death is simply a door that leads to everlasting life with God through Jesus Christ. It is thus presupposed that the dead and those who are left will see one another again. Often the mourners will take a collection for the bereaved as a concrete sign of comfort and support. When the family is in special need, the congregation will try to give further help, especially in the Independent Churches.
After a period of time the family or congregation will set up a solid cover over the grave, put up a stone or statue or photograph of the deceased, or plant a tree on the grave. In many places another rite will follow some weeks or months later in remembrance of the dead. In various ways the family will keep the memory of the deceased alive—through descendants, deeds, prayers, care of the grave, honoring, dreams in which the deceased appear, observance of the day of death, and hope of the resurrection to eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Bibliography: H.-J. BEKKEN, Theologie und Heilung (Hermannsburg, 1972) ∙ M. D. BIYELA, “Funeral Rites in the South African Cultural Context,” Baptism, Rites of Passage, and Culture (ed. S. A. Stauffer; Geneva, 1998) 153–64 ∙ T. CHRISTENSEN, An African Tree of Life (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1990) ∙ J. S. MBITI, African Religions and Philosophy (London, 1989) ∙ H. SAWYERR, “Graveside Libations in and near Freetown,” Sierra Leone Bulletin of Religion 7 (1965) 48–55; idem, “More Graveside Libations in and near Freetown,” ibid. 8 (1966) 57–59; idem, “A Sunday Graveside Libation in Freetown after a Bereavement,” ibid. 9 (1967) 41–55.

JOHN MBITI
5. Contemporary Western Examples
5.1. Roman Catholic Church

The Second → Vatican Council (1962–65), in its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum concilium), called for the reform of all liturgical rites in the → Roman Catholic Church (→ Liturgical Books). Specifically, it directed that funeral rites be revised in such a way that they would “express more clearly the paschal character of Christian death” and would “correspond more closely to the circumstances and traditions found in various regions” (81). The reforms also called for the revision of the rite for the burial of infants and for the provision of a special Mass for this occasion (82). The initial reform of the funeral rites, Ordo exsequiarum, was authorized for use in 1969. The vernacular edition of the Ordo exsequiarum for the dioceses of the United States, entitled the Order of Christian Funerals (OCF), was approved by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in November 1985, was confirmed by the Apostolic See in April 1987, and was published for use in October 1989. The OCF contains a general introduction that expands on the Latin original, rearranges the rites in a way that will be of greater use to ministers in preaching and presiding, provides pastoral notes before each of the funeral rites, and includes newly composed prayers to provide for situations not addressed in the Latin original.
Although cremation was prohibited for Catholics for centuries because of the fact that belief in the → resurrection of the body could be denied by the choice, it is a practice now permitted in some circumstances. In its Reflections on the Body, Cremation, and Catholic Funeral Rites (1997), the Committee on the Liturgy of the National Conference of Catholics Bishops recognized that the disposition of the bodies of Roman Catholic Christians by means of cremation is a fairly recent development that, however, is becoming more widespread. The instruction Piam et constantem (May 1963), issued by the Vatican’s Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), made allowance for cremation. This concession is provided for in the Ordo exsequiarum and has been incorporated into the 1983 CIC 1176.
The OCF was prepared by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, a joint commission of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences, and was subsequently approved for use in the dioceses of the United States in 1989. When the rites of the OCF are fully celebrated, they ritualize the paschal exodus of one of the Lord’s disciples in his or her journey from life through death to fullness of life in God. The threefold intent of the Roman Catholic funeral liturgy is outlined in OCF 129, where it states: “At the funeral liturgy the community gathers with the family and friends of the deceased to give praise and thanks to God for Christ’s victory over → sin and → death, to commend the deceased to God’s tender mercy and compassion, and to seek strength in the proclamation of the paschal → mystery.” To this end, the OCF provides rites for adults, as well as adapted rites for children, which are divided into three groups of rites that correspond in general to the three principal ritual moments in Christian funerals: “Vigil and Related Rites and Prayers,” “Funeral Liturgy,” and “Rites of Committal.”
The first section includes rites that are celebrated between the time of death and the funeral liturgy. Through these rites the church accompanies and ministers to the mourners in their initial adjustment to the fact of death and to the bewilderment, shock, and grief this experience may entail. The second section, “Funeral Liturgy,” provides two forms of the central celebration of the Christian community for the deceased: the Funeral Mass and the Funeral Liturgy outside Mass. In this liturgy, the community is joined together by the → Holy Spirit as one body of Christ to reaffirm in → sign and → symbol, word and gesture, that each believer through → baptism shares in Christ’s death and resurrection and can look to the day when all the elect will be raised up and united in the kingdom of light and peace. The third section, “Rites of Committal,” includes two forms of the concluding rite of the funeral order. Through the committal of the body to its resting place, the community expresses the hope that, with all who have gone before marked with the sign of faith, the deceased awaits the glory of the resurrection.
An important liturgical element for each funeral rite is the reading of the → Word of God. These readings proclaim to the assembly the paschal mystery, teach remembrance of the dead, convey the hope of being gathered together in God’s kingdom, encourage the witness of Christian life, and, above all, tell of God’s designs for a world in which suffering and death will relinquish their hold on all whom God has called. Liturgical symbols, such as the Easter (or paschal) candle, holy → water, the pall, and the → cross, remind the faithful of Christ’s victory over sin and death and of their share in this victory by virtue of baptism. → Incense honors the body of the deceased, which through baptism has become the temple of the Holy Spirit.
While the → priest is expected to preside at the funeral rites, especially the mass, a → deacon or a layperson may lead the vigil and related rites or the rite of committal. That said, the OCF clearly states that the ministry of consolation rests with the whole believing community, with each Christian sharing in this ministry according to various gifts and offices in the church: pastoral care, acts of kindness, prayer, mutual comfort, as well as the various liturgical ministries.

JAMES DONOHUE, C.R.
5.2. Protestants in North America
5.2.1. Traditional Funeral Rites

Christians brought to North America funeral rites and customs they had known in Europe. Among Protestants this tradition included less attention to the body of the deceased and more attention to the comfort of the living.
Some orders for the burial of the dead developed on American soil. Preeminent among these was the order in the → Book of Common Prayer (BCP) adopted by the Episcopal Church in 1790. The Burial Office included the reading of Scripture sentences as the body was brought into the church building, a cento of Psalms 39 and 90, the reading of 1 Cor. 15:1–20, the optional use of a hymn or anthem and → Apostles’ Creed, and prayers. At the graveside there were Scripture sentences, the committal of the body, a reading of Rev. 14:13, the threefold Kyrie, the → Lord’s Prayer and collects, and a → benediction. This order was amended in 1892 by the addition of more optional psalms, readings, and prayers, so that the Burial Office took on the form of the daily Prayer Offices. In the 1928 BCP a statement that “this Office is appropriate to be used only for the faithful departed in Christ” was substituted for the older rubric “that the Office ensuing is not to be used for any unbaptized adults, any who die excommunicate, or who have laid violent hands upon themselves.” This change recognized religious pluralism in the United States and the need for pastoral discretion. Included among the prayers were specific petitions for the faithful departed, which had long been advocated by Anglo-Catholics. John → Wesley had kept the Burial Office of the 1662 BCP for the use of Methodists, though omitting Psalm 39 and the committal. Methodists added the singing of hymns of hope.
Funeral services were not always printed in the hymnals of American Lutherans but were in the Agendas used by pastors (→ Liturgical Books). This meant that pastoral discretion could dictate the content of the service. The Order for the Burial of the Dead was included in the Church Book of the General Council (1892 ed.), the Common Service Book (1917), the Service Book and Hymnal (1958), and the present Lutheran Book of Worship (1978). As this order evolved, it included the Kyrie, Psalms 130 and 90 and others with appropriate antiphons, lessons, a responsory or hymn, an address, a canticle with antiphon (Nunc Dimittis, Benedictus, Song of Hezekiah, or Beatitudes), the short litany, the Lord’s Prayer, and other prayers. All four books provide full musical settings, mostly → Anglican chant, that were not always, however, used in practice.
In the Reformed tradition, burial was conducted “without any ceremony” but was often followed in the church by a service of psalms, readings, sermon, and prayers. Even funeral sermons became controversial among → Puritans because they often degenerated into eulogies extolling the virtues of the deceased rather than proclamations of the → Word of God addressed to the congregation. Some in the Puritan and free-church tradition regarded burial as purely a secular matter and conducted no services. This practice undoubtedly contributed to the development of the institution of the funeral home.

5.2.2. American Funeral Practices

In the atmosphere of the American funeral home, the reality of death is typically denied, with assurance of → immortality substituted for the proclamation of the → resurrection of the dead. Corpses are turned into mannequins to make them look as lifelike as possible. Sentimental music, excessive flowers, exorbitant expenditures on coffins and vaults, and even delay of interment are commonplace. Often funeral services are held in the funeral home chapel, where minimal participation in the service by the mourners is expected. Exactly what the Puritans objected to has occurred: the dead are eulogized not only by officiating ministers but also by relatives and friends. In a countermove, clergy increasingly encourage families to have the body transported to the church for the funeral service in order that they might exercise more control over the content and style of the service.

5.2.3. Reform and Revision

The reform of the Roman Catholic Order of Christian Funerals (OCF) after the Second → Vatican Council emphasized the paschal character of Christian life and faith. This change also influenced the Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian orders, which consist of an opening sentence and entrance hymn, readings and homily, intercessory prayers, the optional celebration of the → Eucharist (for which proper prefaces and post-Communion prayers are provided), and an optional commendation of the deceased, followed by a rite of committal in the place of interment. In these revisions there is an effort to include a ministry to the departed as well as to the living in terms of the lighting of the paschal candle (recalling Easter and baptism, when the newly baptized receive the light of Christ), the commendation of the faithful departed to God, and the reverent disposal of the body through burial or cremation—all within the context of a caring and celebrating Christian community that lays hold of the promises of God.

Bibliography: Liturgical books: The Book of Common Prayer [Episcopal] (New York, 1977) 469–510 ∙ Book of Common Worship [Presbyterian] (Louisville, Ky., 1993) 905–47 ∙ Book of Worship: United Church of Christ (New York, 1986) 357–90 ∙ Lutheran Book of Worship [Evangelical Lutheran Church in America] (Minneapolis, 1978) 206–14 ∙ Lutheran Worship-Agenda [Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod] (St. Louis, 1982) 169–96 ∙ Order of Christian Funerals [Roman Catholic] (Collegeville, Minn., 1989) ∙ The Rites of the Catholic Church (vol. 1; New York, 1983) ∙ The United Methodist Book of Worship (Nashville, 1992) 139–72.
Other works: M. HATCHETT, Commentary on the American Prayer Book (New York, 1981) ∙ J. F. HENDERSON, ed., The Christian Funeral (= NBLi 119 [1989]) ∙ L. MITCHELL, Praying Shapes Believing (Minneapolis, 1985) ∙ J. MITFORD, The American Way of Death (New York, 1963) ∙ P. PFATTEICHER, Commentary on the Lutheran Book of Worship (Minneapolis, 1990) ∙ RefW 24 (June 1992) ∙ R. RUTHERFORD, The Order of Christian Funerals: An Invitation to Pastoral Care (Collegeville, Minn., 1990) ∙ R. RUTHERFORD, with T. BARR, The Death of a Christian: The Order of Christian Funerals (rev. ed.; New York, 1990) ∙ S. A. STAUFFER, ed., Baptism, Rites of Passage, and Culture (Geneva, 1999).

FRANK C. SENN
Future

1. The future is the → time that is not yet. Increasingly, however, it is viewed as a dimension of human beings and of the world. The Latin terms futurum and adventus express both the connection and the distinction. Scholars have come to speak of an → “ontology of not-yet-being” (E. Bloch), addressing both the identity and the distinctions attaching to the notions of “being and time” (M. Heidegger). Insight into “that which is” then leads less into a time of human beings and of the world that must be energetically produced than it does to the “advent of being” (Heidegger). The Christian tradition views the future as arrival (advent), as the return of Christ, which includes the → last judgment but leads on to the coming glory (Rom. 5:2; → Eschatology). This salvific experience shapes the disposition of believers.
The advent of being, of the sort that Heidegger (1889–1976; → Existential Philosophy) claimed could be experienced from within the philosophical dimension of thought and especially of the early Greek beginnings of philosophy itself (→ Greek Philosophy), was originally cast as history. Initially, the → myth reflects an understanding that one tries to transcend today. Whereas gods know the future, it is inaccessible to human beings. Even if the myth seeks to mediate between the two, → philosophy has revealed the boundaries articulated in what was said about the distinctions between being and nonbeing, between being and time, as well as about knowing and not knowing (esp. Plato; → Platonism).
The step beyond this philosophy begins when human beings themselves try to decide what is and what is not, what it means to know and not to know. Thus does modern philosophy begin, along with one of its principles: “Ubi ergo generatio nulla … ibi philosophia nulla intelligitur” (T. Hobbes); that is, human beings understand only that which they themselves make, a principle that ends with K. → Marx (1818–83; → Marxism), with whom one can say that human beings are only that which they manufacture and produce, a statement applicable to every cultural sphere. Within this “productive” mode of thought and life, the will determining all consideration of the future begins increasingly to dominate. The will has → power over time, and precisely therein do we see the “will to power” (F. → Nietzsche) and its “hatred” of “time and its ‘what was.’ ” This will overcomes all faith in some advent, the expectation of something ultimate (the eschaton), and any life and interpretation of time and history in an “eschatology”; thus it leads to a “recurrence of the same” (Nietzsche; → Nihilism).

2. According to Hobbes (1588–1679; → Philosophy of Nature 5), human beings are not only hungry, they also hunger for future hunger (fame futura famelicus). This comment, which is ultimately about desire in the larger sense, we find expanded in Heidegger’s principle that “the essence of Being there [Dasein] resides in its existence.” In both instances, human beings are related to the future, since existence for Heidegger (an understanding of existence that had been developing at least since F. Schelling [1775–1854; → Idealism 5]) means standing out (“existence”), possibility, and also “care, worry,” “draft, plan.”
Early modernity produced some extremely broad drafts of this sort, namely, in the concept of → utopia, which initially maps out a quite distant future, but then increasingly seeks its arrival here and now in the social utopias of the 18th and 19th centuries. Writers of the 20th century finally spoke about a “concrete utopia” (Bloch). The future is present—indeed, it resides in the past, which has left “traces,” on the basis of which we may hope (Bloch’s “principle of hope”) that some things, or even many if not all things, can be changed. We are human beings of the future, with the “future of the past” (Bloch).

3. Here future is viewed together with → freedom, and freedom understood more precisely as → autonomy, meaning that human beings are able to take control of their own destinies. Freedom in the sense of autonomy has become a popular theme in modernity. The assertion is that the themes of praxis (i.e., freedom), future, and → language are actually the three basic themes of philosophy.
The notion of future shapes the modern development of the → sciences, which with the natural sciences can become knowledge of laws and thus prognoses concerning the course of natural events, just as later both → sociology (A. Comte) and historical science (Marx) similarly tried to be sciences of laws capable of competing with the natural sciences. The → philosophy of history from G. B. Vico (1668–1744) to I. Kant (1724–1804), G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831), and Marx is essentially a philosophy that considers history within the entirety of time and thus draws the future itself into the present (of thought). Such thinking includes the modern idea of system (→ Social Systems); history (future) and system belong together.
The philosophy of history as a philosophy of the future is gradually developing into a science of the future (futurology), a process beginning already in the 19th century with the principle of Comte (1798–1857; → Positivism) voir pour prévoir (see in order to foresee). In the possibility of prediction resides positive knowledge, the positive spirit. Because the future has in the meantime increasingly become a matter of concern precisely because of scientific-technological developments, we see today the emergence of an ethics of the future, namely, the notion that we must act with responsibility for coming generations and for the future of the world itself.

4. Modern autonomy has led ultimately to contemporary → philosophy of science. Constructivism (→ Cognition 1) can be traced back directly to Hobbes’s principle, aiming at a future improvement of both knowledge and action by constructing an exact language (“ortholanguage”). Commensurate with critical → rationalism (§2), the future itself becomes the criterion of every theory, which, as a universal statement, will be “falsified” the moment a single individual case contradicts it (empirically). → Critical theory, especially in its final form as discourse theory, is wholly concerned with a better future. The evolutive movimento is reflected especially in system theory. This theory systematically addresses the basic question of the contemporary age, namely, “How will things go? What will happen?” Systems focus on the future.
→ Hope; Modernity; Postmodernism; Process Philosophy; Process Theology; Worldview

Bibliography: E. BLOCH, The Principle of Hope (3 vols.; Cambridge, Mass.; 1995; orig. pub., 1959) ∙ D. BÖHLER and R. NEUBERTH, eds., Herausforderung Zukunftserwartung (2d ed.; Münster, 1993) ∙ W. H. CAPPS, Time Invades the Cathedral: Tensions in the School of Hope (Philadelphia, 1972) ∙ E. CORNISH et al., The Study of the Future (Washington, D.C., 1977) ∙ O. K. FLECHTHEIM, Der Kampf um die Zukunft. Grundlagen der Futurologie (Bonn, 1980) ∙ M. HEIDEGGER, Being and Time (New York, 1962; orig. pub., 1927) ∙ G. T. KURIAN and G. T. T. MOLITOR, eds., Encyclopedia of the Future (2 vols.; New York, 1996) ∙ W. MITTELSTAEDT, Zukunftsgestaltung und Chaostheorie. Grundlagen einer neuen Zukunftsgestaltung unter Einbeziehung der Chaostheorie (Frankfurt, 1993) ∙ J. MOLTMANN, “The Future as a New Paradigm of Transcendence,” The Future of Creation (Philadelphia, 1979); idem, Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology (London, 1967) ∙ R. B. NORRIS, God, Marx, and the Future: Dialogue with Roger Garaudy (Philadelphia, 1974) ∙ K. RAHNER, “Marxist Utopia and the Christian Future of Man,” Theological Investigations (vol. 6; New York, 1982) 59–68 ∙ G. STENGER and M. RÖHRIG, eds., Philosophie der Struktur. Fahrzeug der Zukunft? (Freiburg, 1995) ∙ H. WISSMANN, ed., Zur Erschließung von Zukunft in den Religionen. Zukunftserwartung und Gegenwartsbewältigung in der Religionsgeschichte (Würzburg, 1991).

ARNO BARUZZI

G
Gabon

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
486
691
1,235
Annual growth rate (%):
0.36
2.98
2.45
Area: 267,667 sq. km. (103,347 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 5/sq. km. (12/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 3.50 / 1.28 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 4.99 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 77 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 57.5 years (m: 55.9, f: 59.2)
Religious affiliation (%): Christians 90.8 (Roman Catholics 70.0, Protestants 21.9, indigenous 17.0, unaffiliated 2.1, other Christians 0.7), Muslims 4.7, tribal religionists 3.0, other 1.5.

1. General Situation
2. Religious Situation
1. General Situation

Gabon straddles the equator on the west coast of central Africa. It is bounded on the north by Cameroon, on the east and south by Congo (Brazzaville), and on the north and west by Equatorial Guinea. Its population includes about 68 distinct ethnic groups, the largest being the Bantu family (esp. the Fang, Eshira, Bapounou, and Bateke peoples). French is the official language, with 40 other languages also spoken in the country. In 1995 the literacy rate of Gabon was 63 percent.
Gabon’s per capita income is four times that of most other nations in Africa. Extreme poverty has been reduced, but a wide disparity in incomes means that much of the population remains poor. Oil, which was discovered offshore in the early 1970s, accounts for 50 percent of the gross domestic product. Despite considerable natural wealth (esp. timber and minerals such as manganese and uranium), the → economy has been hobbled by fiscal mismanagement and by fluctuating oil prices.
Earliest encounters between Europe and what is now Gabon date back to the arrival of the Portuguese Duarte Lopez in 1497; in time the Portuguese initiated slave trade (→ Colonialism). In 1839 the French signed a treaty with King Denis of Gabon, and in 1850 it was established as a French colony. Between 1897 and 1910 it was part of the French Congo, and after 1910 it became French Equatorial Africa. Gabon became independent in August 1960. Léon Mba, who had been mayor of Libreville, was elected the nation’s first president in 1961. After a failed coup and Mba’s subsequent death in 1967, Albert-Bernard Bongo was elected president. In 1968 Bongo initiated a one-party system in Gabon, an expression of an authoritarian regime from which many are excluded. For clearly economic reasons that center on the petroleum industry, France has continued to support this authoritarian regime in spite of its breach of many human rights.
Out of political expediency, Bongo converted to → Islam, changing his first name to Omar in 1974. Although only a small minority of the population is Muslim, Omar led the country into the Islamic Conference in 1974. A new constitution was enacted in May 1991 that allowed for multiparty elections. Bongo, however, was reelected head of state in 1993 and 1998, both times amid a series of alleged election irregularities.
2. Religious Situation

The traditional religion of the Gabonese is practiced by many who otherwise consider themselves Christian. Since culture is the solvent of religion, the religion is manifest particularly at the cultural rites of passage, including birth, initiation, marriage, sickness, and death.
President Bongo’s conversion to Islam seems not to have led to significant gains for Islam. It has grown somewhat, though, through immigration of West African Muslims and an infusion of Middle Eastern oil money.
By far, the largest religion is Christianity. Roman Catholicism came with the Portuguese in the late 15th century. In the 17th century Italian Capuchins did considerable missionary work in Gabon, but the Portuguese expelled them in 1777. In their place came → missionaries of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart (1841) and Holy Ghost Mission (1848). In 1900 there were approximately 15,000 Roman Catholics. The hierarchy was established in 1955.
Protestant missions began in 1842, when the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission established a station at Barake. In 1870 the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. took over this work, and subsequently it was transferred in 1892 to the Paris Missionary Society, which established stations at Angouma, Lambaréné, and Telagouga (→ French Missions). Gabon’s most well-known missionary was Albert → Schweitzer (1875–1965), who worked at his hospital at Lambaréné until his death. The Paris Mission asked the Christian and Missionary Alliance in the Congo to undertake evangelistic work in southern Gabon in 1934.
Notably, indigenous Protestant churches grew out of the work of the Paris Mission. Personal issues rather than theological or ecclesiological considerations caused certain divisions within Protestantism. The Église Évangélique de Pentecôte was an outgrowth of the Paris Mission’s work in 1936, and the Église Évangélique du Sud Gabon was established in 1956, stemming from the work of the Paris Mission as carried on by the → Christian and Missionary Alliance (→ Evangelical Missions; Evangelical Movement). The Église Évangélique du Gabon, the largest Protestant church, grew out of the work of the same Paris Mission in 1961.
There are other independent religious movements in Gabon, such as the Église des Banzie (Church of the initiates), a syncretistic group that grew out of a Bwiti secret movement about 1890. Over time this group has become more specifically Christian and is increasingly active and aggressive, now having more than 20 churches in Libreville.

Bibliography: M. AICARDI DE SAINT-PAUL, Gabon: The Development of a Nation (New York, 1989) ∙ J. F. BARNES, Gabon: Beyond the Colonial Legacy (Boulder, Colo., 1992) ∙ J. BENTLEY, Albert Schweitzer: The Enigma (New York, 1992) ∙ D. E. GARDINIER, Historical Dictionary of Gabon (2d ed.; Metuchen, N.J., 1994) ∙ P. STOECKLIN et al., L’Église Évangélique du Gabon, 1842–1961 (Alençon, 1962) ∙ D. A. YATES, The Rentier State in Africa: Oil Rent Dependency and Neocolonialism in the Republic of Gabon (Trenton, N.J., 1996).

JOHN MBITI
Galatians, Epistle to the

1. Contents
2. Problems
3. Theology
1. Contents

After an introduction (Gal. 1:1–5), Paul omits the usual thanksgiving and refers at once to the reason for writing, which is the appearance of those who preach “a different gospel” (vv. 6–10). He then develops the theme of the letter (1:11–5:12): the gospel—faith or the law? In accordance with the thesis of 1:11–12, he describes to his readers his own path from Damascus to Galatia as the path of the → gospel (1:13–2:21). He then presents the gospel in 3:1–5:12, especially in its relation to the → law. In 5:13–6:10 comes the → parenesis, in which he shows what it means ethically to achieve → freedom from the law in terms of → love and spirit. The letter ends with a postscript in his own hand (6:11–18), without the customary greetings.
2. Problems

Paul composed Galatians during the time of his missionary work around the Aegean (A.D. 50–56), before Romans but after 1 Corinthians, since in 1 Cor. 16:1 the Galatian churches were still taking part in the collection for Jerusalem, whereas they are no longer mentioned in 2 Corinthians 8–9 or Rom. 15:26. Perhaps the letter did not have the success that Paul hoped for, with contacts between the apostle and the Galatians being severed. The letter was probably written around 52 or 53 at Ephesus or at one of the cities to which Paul went from his main location at Ephesus.
Paul came to Galatia after leaving the congregation at Antioch. This schedule in 2:11–14 and 3:1 fits in with Acts 16:6 (though it rules out any actual mission) and 18:23 (which presupposes churches in Galatia). The reference is to a thinly populated area in the vicinity of modern Ankara. Celtic tribes had settled there in the second century B.C. Gal. 4:13–14 shows that sickness forced Paul to stop in Galatia for a time on his way west. The older thesis that the churches at issue are those in the south, mentioned in Acts 13–14, no longer commends itself. Some scholars question whether Paul visited Galatia a second time according to the report in Acts 18:23, since Paul never mentions this journey clearly in his letters, not even in 4:13–14.
Soon after Paul left, opponents found an entry into the Galatian churches. These were Christians, for they do not seem to have contested → baptism (3:27). What they required was the → circumcision of Gentile Christians (5:2–12; 6:12–13) and the observance of times set by the stars (4:10). Such practice raised for Paul the basic question of the significance of the law. Although one might call his opponents Judaizers, we learn from the counterthesis of W. Schmithals, who thinks that all Paul’s opponents were → Gnostics, that their teaching contained features that were inconsistent with a Pharisaic (→ Pharisees) understanding of the law. We should perhaps describe them as Jewish-Christian missionaries to the Gentiles (→ Jewish Christians) who were trying to combine circumcision and the law with → Christology.
3. Theology

Galatians is characterized by emphatic reflection on the relation between → faith and the law in the context of → justification. A special attempt is made to show that the law itself poses this alternative (4:21). The law is given for a set period (3:17, 23–25), and in contrast to faith, it cannot bring the promised → righteousness (3:21). Faith, Christologically defined, brings the age of law to an end, makes righteousness possible, and is marked by possession of the Spirit (3:2). With no reference to a particular situation, Paul later develops the same theme in Romans, including there the themes of → anthropology (Romans 5–8) and the relation to → Israel (chaps. 9–11), which he does not deal with in Galatians.

Bibliography: Commentaries: J. BECKER (NTD 8; 2d ed.; Göttingen, 1981) 1–85 ∙ H. D. BETZ (Philadelphia, 1979) ∙ U. BORSE (RNT 6; Regensburg, 1984) ∙ E. D. BURTON (ICC; New York, 1920) ∙ D. LÜHRMANN (ZBK; Zurich, 1978) ∙ J. L. MARTYN (AB; New York, 1997) ∙ F. MUSSNER (HTKNT 9; 4th ed.; Freiburg, 1981) ∙ H. SCHLIER (KEK 7; 4th ed.; Göttingen, 1971) ∙ P. N. TARAZI (Crestwood, N.Y., 1994).
Other works: D. BOYARIN, Galatians and Gender Trouble: Primal Androgyny and the First-Century Origins of a Feminist Dilemma (Berkeley, Calif., 1995) ∙ J. D. G. DUNN, The Theology of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians (Cambridge, 1993) ∙ J. ECKERT, Die urchristliche Verkündigung im Streit zwischen Paulus und seinen Gegnern nach dem Galaterbrief (Regensburg, 1971) ∙ K. A. MORLAND, The Rhetoric of Curse in Galatians: Paul Confronts Another Gospel (Atlanta, 1995) ∙ W. SCHMITHALS, “Judaisten in Galatien?” ZNW 74 (1983) 27–58; idem, “Paulus und die Gnostiker,” TF 35 (1965) 9–46 ∙ J. M. SCOTT, Paul and the Nations: The OT and Jewish Background of Paul’s Mission to the Nations, with Special Reference to the Destination of Galatians (Tübingen, 1995).

DIETER LÜHRMANN
Gallicanism

Since the debate about papal → infallibility in the 19th century, the term “Gallicanism” has been used for the theological doctrines and political practice of the state church in France (→ Church and State). In the late Middle Ages national and ecclesiastical interests (→ Conciliarism), joining forces in opposition to the universal claims of the papacy and curial centralism, had secured a wide measure of autonomy for the French church. Les libertés de l’Église gallicane (The freedoms of the Gallican church; 1594), compiled by P. Pithou, and the Preuves (Evidences; 1639) of P. Dupuy gained official status as a statement of the right the church had traditionally claimed. The University of Paris and the clergy became staunch supporters of Gallicanism.
Gallicanism reached its climax in the 17th century under the absolutism of Louis XIV (ruled 1643–1715). The conflict with Rome over the royal appointment of bishops led to the classic formulation of Gallicanism by J.-B. Bossuet (1627–1704) in his Four Gallican Articles (1682):

1. Kings and princes are not subject to ecclesiastical authority in temporal and civil matters.
2. Papal powers are limited by the decrees of the Council of Constance (1414–18; → Reform Councils), thus asserting the authority of general councils over the pope.
3. The use of papal apostolic power must be in accordance with the traditions of the French church.
4. Papal decisions in matters of faith need the consent of the whole church (i.e., meeting in general council).

Though the papacy condemned Gallicanism, it was defended in many theological and historical works and influenced other → national church movements (e.g., Febronianism, in 18th–cent. Germany; → Josephinism).
Napoléon (1804–15) abandoned Gallicanism in the Concordat of 1801 but not in his Organic Articles (1802), in which he enforced the articles of 1682.
→ Ultramontanism could not fully suppress Gallicanism. It finally played a part in French opposition before and also at → Vatican I, though the definition of universal primacy (which Gallicanism had prevented at → Trent) and also of intrinsic papal → infallibility (in opposition to the fourth article) rendered it dogmatically obsolete.

Bibliography: G. ADRIÁNYI, “Gallikanismus,” TRE 12.17–21 (bibliography) ∙ C. BERTHELOT DU CHESNAY, “Gallicanism,” NCE 6.262–67 ∙ DH 2281–85, 3059–75 ∙ A. GOUGH, Paris and Rome: The Gallican Church and the Ultramontane Campaign, 1848–1853 (Oxford, 1986) ∙ J. N. MOODY, “Gallicanism,” EncRel(E) 5.467–68 ∙ M. O’GARA, Triumph in Defeat: Infallibility, Vatican I, and the French Minority Bishops (Washington, D.C., 1988) ∙ QGPRK (5th ed.) 419, 445, 466–67 ∙ H. SCHNEIDER, Der Konziliarismus als Problem der neueren katholischen Theologie (Berlin, 1976) ∙ D. K. VAN KLEY, The Jansenists and the Expulsion of the Jesuits from France, 1757–1765 (New Haven, 1975).

HANS SCHNEIDER
Gambia

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
352
641
1,244
Annual growth rate (%):
2.72
3.01
2.07
Area: 10,689 sq. km. (4,127 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 116/sq. km. (301/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 3.65 / 1.58 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 4.81 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 112 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 49.0 years (m: 47.4, f: 50.7)
Religious affiliation (%): Muslims 87.0, tribal religionists 7.5, Christians 4.1 (Roman Catholics 2.6, other Christians 1.5), other 1.4.

The West African Republic of Gambia was a British colony until 1965, when it gained its independence (→ Colonialism). As a country, it is one of the smallest in population, one of the most artificial colonial creations, and among the least developed countries in Africa. It consists of a strip of land on both sides of the Gambia River, 320 km. (200 mi.) long but never more than 45 km. (30 mi.) wide.
As a political entity, Gambia has roots going back to the medieval empire of Mali, of which it formed the extreme western point. Records attesting to its history reach much further back, however, to 500 B.C., when Hanno the Carthaginian settled the west coast, leaving observations on the country and its culture. The French scholar Raymond Mauny, in his work Tableau géographique (1961), proposed a bold and novel hypothesis that sailors from the Senegambian/Mauritanian coast crossed the Atlantic centuries before Columbus. The Senegambian region is thus full of history preserved in documentary, archaeological, and oral forms. A good deal of that history is enacted in local musical traditions.
The Gambia River was the most navigable waterway in premodern West Africa. At the headwaters of the river are soils rich in gold, which made its way down the river to European trading ships. Coffee, ebony, hides, wax, ivory, and spices were also brought down the river, which thus became an essential artery of the regional economic trade. The major point from which trade might be controlled was Fort James, built on an island in an estuary, 20 miles from the sea. This fort, originally built by Baltic Germans, was acquired by the English in 1661 and then named after James II. After several changes in control it was accidentally blown up in 1725 and, after some restoration, was finally destroyed by the French in 1778.
With a population of just over a million and few natural resources, the country has been bypassed by modern communication routes. Historically, however, Gambia was at the crossroads of attempts to open up Africa, an indispensable coordinate in geographic knowledge and exploration of the continent. The river brought the traveler virtually to the doorstep of the great trans-Saharan routes that dissected and knitted the grain- and gold-producing regions of the area. Today, however, the country languishes in relative political obscurity (→ Development; Third World).
In July 1994 a group of junior army officers seized power in a bloodless coup d’état. President Dawda K. Jawara and his family fled to a visiting U.S. frigate berthed in the harbor, fleeing subsequently to Senegal and eventually, and permanently, to London. Jawara had ruled Gambia for over 30 uneventful years. Subsequent discussions have been held to return the country to democratic civilian rule, but they have not been productive, and all local political activity has remained suppressed.
In terms of culture, ethnic groupings (45 percent Mandingo), and above all in the character and religious intercommunication of the Muslim majority (over 85 percent of the population), Gambia can be distinguished only by its use of English from Senegal, the much larger francophone state that surrounds it on every side. Alex Haley, author of the renowned Roots (1976), believed that his ancestors were sold into slavery from this area and brought to America.
Gambia’s historical ties to Britain have been of importance in the history of its churches. The Anglicans and British Methodists began mission work in 1816 and 1821 respectively (→ British Missions). Christians, however, account for less than 5 percent of the total population, and most of them are from traditionally Christian Creole families, whose time of settlement dates from the early 19th century, when the British navy brought them to Gambia after freeing them from slave ships.
Although the churches are not inactive in providing social services and some newer Protestant mission work is carried out by radio, it is hard to see any strong signs of their expansion, either in numbers or in influence. The → Roman Catholic Church appointed a papal pro-nuncio to Gambia in 1978 and is represented in the Gambia Christian Council (1963; → National Christian Councils).
Gambia is home to more than 9,000 → Baha’is.
→ Islam is centuries old in Gambia. In the Marabout Wars of the 19th century, an Islamic puritan movement had lasting influence on popular belief and practice. All Gambian Muslims follow the Malikite school of law, and most of them are attached to the Kadiriya or Tijaniya orders of → Sufism. Muslims in Gambia follow the orders of the Prophet with mild disposition and gentle means, which fosters amicable relations with its pagan and minority Christian neighbors. Christians, in their turn, have settled into the easygoing ways of the larger population, offering education to Muslims without expecting or wanting converts among their pupils, as if instinctively surrendering a policy of active evangelism in return for the Muslim rejection of militant jihad. The two traditions of a pacifist Islam and an accommodating Christianity have created an ethos of religious and political moderation that has fitted in well with the country’s → pluralist makeup. Gambia is one of the few Muslim countries that observes as national holidays Christian feasts such as Good Friday and the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.

Bibliography: H. A. GAILEY, Historical Dictionary of the Gambia (Metuchen, N.J., 1987) ∙ M. HUDSON, Our Grandmother’s Drums (New York, 1991) ∙ M. F. MCPHERSON and S. C. RADELET, eds., Economic Recovery in the Gambia: Insights for Adjustment in Sub-Saharan Africa (Cambridge, Mass., 1995) ∙ D. E. MARANZ, Peace Is Everything: World View of Muslims in the Senegambia (Dallas, 1993) ∙ B. PRICKETT, Island Base: A History of the Methodist Church in the Gambia (Bo, Sierra Leone, 1969) ∙ L. SANNEH, Piety and Power: Muslims and Christians in West Africa (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1996) ∙ R. A. SCHROEDER, Shady Practices: Agroforestry and Gender Politics in the Gambia (Berkeley, Calif., 1999).

PAUL JENKINS and LAMIN SANNEH
Genesis, Book of

1. Name
2. Contents and Structure
3. Literary-Critical and Theological Problems
1. Name

In the Hebrew Bible the first book of the → Pentateuch is named for its first word: bĕrēʾšı̂t, “in the beginning.” “Genesis” is a Latinized form of Gk. genesis, “origin,” which is the title in the LXX. This word describes the contents, whereas “First Book of Moses” has reference to the early traditional author.
2. Contents and Structure

Genesis forms part of the longer Pentateuchal narrative, but it is also a relatively self-contained whole. It tells the story from the beginning of the world to the Egyptian sojourn of the sons of → Jacob, the ancestors of the 12 → tribes of Israel.
Genesis falls into three main parts: the → primeval history of chaps. 1–11, the patriarchal stories of 12–36 and 38, and the stories of Joseph in 37 and 39–50 (→ Patriarchal History). The first part is the story of the human race as a whole from the beginnings to the rise of the nations. A genealogy from → Noah to → Abraham connects this part with the history of the patriarchs. After the pervasive and worsening → sin that brings the flood on the whole race, God gives Abraham the promise of a new blessing, nation, and land. The traditions of Abraham that follow tell of the delay in the fulfillment of the promise, the birth of the promised son, and the difficult test of Abraham’s obedience when he is told to offer up this son. Except in chap. 24 (his marriage), the stories about → Isaac are short and run parallel to those of Abraham, especially in 26:7–11 and in 12:10–20 and chap. 20.
The Jacob traditions are more colorful. The events take place partly in Aram (Syria) and partly in Canaan. Jacob’s stealing the birthright (chap. 27) sets things in motion. For fear of Esau Jacob flees to Aram and marries Leah and Rachel. He has 11 sons and a daughter, and then a 12th son (Benjamin) after his return. The story of the ladder (28:10–22) and that of his night wrestling with a spirit (32:22–32) form the framework of the events in East Jordan.
The Joseph story is very different. It is a unified short story and represents a link between Genesis and Exodus. Sold into Egypt by his brothers, Joseph becomes the right-hand man of Pharaoh and makes it possible for Jacob’s family to settle in Egypt when they are threatened by famine.
3. Literary-Critical and Theological Problems

The main problems of this first book of the Hebrew canon and of the → Torah are the same as those of the Pentateuch as a whole. They concern the identification and dating of sources (documents) along with their origin and the peculiarities of the redacted material. A broad consensus acknowledges the presence of a basic Priestly writing, dating from the exile or the postexilic period (primarily 1:1–2:4a; parts of the flood narrative, esp. 9:1–17; 17:1–27; 23:1–20), into which materials from older sources (J and E; primal history and the main corpus of the patriarchal narratives) have been worked. The theological weight of Genesis is considerable, and its virtually inexhaustible motifs include → creation, the fall, → curse, the promise of blessing (→ Promise and Fulfillment), and divine guidance in faith.

Bibliography: Commentaries: W. BRUEGGEMANN (IBC; Atlanta, 1982) ∙ T. E. FRETHEIM (NIB; Nashville, 1994) ∙ G. VON RAD (OTL; rev. ed.; Philadelphia, 1973; orig. pub., 1953) ∙ N. M. SARNA (JPSV; Philadelphia, 1989) ∙ E. A. SPEISER (AB; Garden City, N.Y., 1964) ∙ C. WESTERMANN, Genesis (3 vols.; Minneapolis, 1984–86; orig. pub., 1974–82).
Other works: A. BRENNER, ed., A Feminist Companion to Genesis (Sheffield, 1993) ∙ J. S. KSELMAN, “The Book of Genesis: A Decade of Scholarly Research,” Int 45 (1991) 380–92. See also the bibliographies in “Patriarchal History,” “Pentateuch,” and “Primeval History (Genesis 1–11).”

ANTONIUS H. J. GUNNEWEG†
Genetic Counseling

Many thousands of hereditary human ailments and characteristics are now known to be due to changes in specific genes. Human genetics studies their causes and transmission. Prognosis is possible on the basis of diagnosis and family histories. Under certain conditions the probability of gene and chromosome distribution and thus of genetic sickness in the next generation may be calculated. During pregnancy prenatal diagnosis (e.g., by amniocentesis in the 16th to the 17th week, by analysis of the chorionic villi during the 8th to 11th weeks, or by other procedures such as ultrasound or fetoscopy) may determine whether the child has a specific illness. In the case of Down’s syndrome there is a superfluous chromosome 21, whereas in other cases there may be a gene defect. Genetic technology is constantly bringing to light other genetic abnormalities.
Genetic → counseling is usually offered in university clinics or institutes. It provides information about heightened risks (hereditary illnesses in the family, several miscarriages, age over 35, harmful influences during pregnancy, etc.). It thus helps people to make decisions about marriage and parenthood and offers support during pregnancy. If there are signs of serious sickness or anything less than perfection in the fetus, → abortion is legally permissible up to a certain point in many countries, though ethically controversial. In such cases counseling should simply communicate the results of prenatal diagnosis and not become merely a matter of → birth control. Throughout, a dedicated concern for those affected is urgently needed and ethically demanded.
Prenatal diagnosis may be misused for the selection of sex or the avoiding of minor ailments (metabolic diseases, harelip, hemophilia). Special ethical problems arise when diagnosis is only statistical, when the severity of an affliction cannot be measured (e.g., Down’s syndrome or Huntington’s chorea, which emerges only after the age of 40), or when the attempt must be made to consider how a family can cope with a problem. All social discrimination against the handicapped and their parents and doctors must be resolutely opposed, along with suits in the case of neglected abortions.
Specific problems are raised by genomic analysis and screening procedures to pinpoint dangers at the place of work or to eliminate defective genes (e.g., spina bifida). These have social value but may lead to discrimination or promote a kind of progressive → eugenics. Freedom of individual decision must be safeguarded and even the right not to know.
→ Medical Ethics

Bibliography: J. C. FLETCHER, ed., Ethics and Human Genetics: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (Heidelberg, 1987) ∙ W. FUHRMANN and F. VOGEL, Genetische Familienberatung (3d ed.; Berlin, 1982) ∙ J. HÜBNER, Die neue Verantwortung für das Leben (Munich, 1986) 27–40; idem, “Zur Ethik genetischer Beratung,” ZEE 25 (1981) 102–8 ∙ J. F. KILNER, R. D. PENTZ, and F. E. YOUNG, eds., Genetic Ethics: Do the Ends Justify the Genes? (Grand Rapids, 1997) ∙ C. LINK, “Die Herausforderung der Ethik durch die Humangenetik,” ZEE 25 (1981) 84–101 ∙ I.-H. PAWLOWITZKI, J. H. EDWARDS, and E. A. THOMPSON, Genetic Mapping of Disease Genes (San Diego, Calif., 1997) ∙ K. A. QUAID, D. H. SMITH, J. A. GRANBOIS, and G. P. GRAMELSPACHER, Early Warning: Cases and Ethical Guidance for Presymptomatic Testing in Genetic Diseases (Medical Ethics) (Bloomington, Ind., 1998) ∙ J. REITER and U. THEILE, eds., Genetik und Moral (Mainz, 1985) ∙ W. SCHLOOT, ed., Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Humangenetik (Frankfurt, 1984).

JÜRGEN HÜBNER
Genetic Engineering → Medical Ethics
Genizah

From the Heb. verb gnz, “keep, enclose,” the genizah is a side room in a → synagogue (usually a cellar or attic) in which to keep old, discarded, damaged, or in some way unserviceable MSS. Because these writings contain the name of God, they are not to be destroyed. Older → Judaism also placed heretical texts in the genizah. Most of the older synagogues had a genizah.
The most famous genizah was found in Old Cairo, on the second floor of the Ezra Synagogue, built in A.D. 882. Discovered as early as 1753 by Simon of Geldern, it was made famous by Solomon Schechter, who in May 1896 found there 140,000 biblical, liturgical, rabbinic, and exegetical fragments, among them (1) most of the Hebrew original of Sirach (→ Apocrypha), (2) extracts from Aquila’s Greek translation of the OT, (3) fragments of the Jerusalem and Palestinian → Talmud, (4) parts of the Damascus Document (→ Qumran), and (5) a Jewish life of Jesus. The oldest datable MS there is Zikron-Edut, from A.D. 750.
Among these discoveries the Hebrew Sirach was very important for biblical scholarship, since this book had previously been known only in its Greek version. Also important were materials illustrating the history of the Hebrew text of the Bible and translations, those relating to the history of the Jews in Egypt and Palestine between 640 and 1100, those relating to the Essene movement in Palestine, and those shedding light on traditions outside the mainstream of Judaism.

Bibliography: W. Z. FALK, “A New Fragment of the Jewish ‘Life of Jesus,’ Imm. 8 (1978) 72–79 ∙ N. GOLB, “Sixty Years of Genizah Research,” Jdm 6 (1957) 3–16 ∙ A. M. HABERMANN, “Genizah,” EncJud 7.404–7 ∙ P. E. KAHLE, The Cairo Genizah (2d ed.; Oxford, 1959) ∙ S. C. REIF, ed., Published Material from the Cambridge Genizah Collection: A Bibliography, 1896–1980 (Cambridge, 1988) ∙ S. SHAKED, A Tentative Bibliography of Genizah Documents (Paris, 1964). Cairo Genizah texts and research appear also in JAOS, JNES, JQR, and RevQ.

JAMES R. BUTTS
Genocide

1. Definition
2. Explanation
3. Prevention
1. Definition

During the Second World War, the eminent jurist Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide,” by which he meant “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.” By “destruction” he meant to include not only the biological aspects of a group’s existence but also its cultural and social institutions. In 1948, in the wake of the Nazi genocide, the → United Nations formulated its own definition, relying on Lemkin’s but also departing from it. According to the widely accepted U.N. formulation, genocide means actions “committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such.”
The U.N. definition has been criticized for being both too broad and too narrow. On the one hand, it is too broad in not discriminating sharply enough among a pogrom or massacre, a policy of mass murder whose aim is the repression of a group, and the extermination or total destruction of a collectivity. For example, the U.N. definition cannot discriminate between the massacre of some 10,000 Ibos in northern Nigeria in 1966 and the → Holocaust. In the former case the intent of the killers was to drive the Ibos out of northern Nigeria, not to exterminate them as a collectivity. In the latter instance, nearly six million people were murdered following the intent of the Nazis to exterminate the Jews.
On the other hand, Kuper has criticized the U.N. definition for being too narrow because, unlike the Lemkin definition, it does not include cultural and social aspects of group destruction, and because it excludes social classes and other collectivities that are not ethnic or communal groups. Thus without amendment the U.N. definition could not be applied to the destruction of the Kulaks during the collectivization period under Stalin, nor could it be extended to the destruction of the Cambodian upper and middle classes, who were for the most part ethnically identical to their Khmer Rouge killers.
For these reasons Melson has suggested that genocide be defined as a “public policy mainly carried out by the state whose intent is the destruction in whole or in part of a social collectivity or category, usually a communal group, a class, or a political faction.” He goes on to distinguish between “massacre,” “partial genocide,” “total genocide,” and “the Holocaust.” In this formulation, the Holocaust is seen as an extreme case of total genocide in which the Jewish people were to be exterminated not only in Germany but the world over and their cultural institutions and influence (their “spirit”) destroyed and banished.
It should be noted that the above definitions of genocide explicitly stress the intent and the policies of the → state. There are instances, however, of mass destruction and systematic mass murder where the intentions and policies of the state are not clearly involved. For example, it has been estimated that millions of native Americans (“Indians”) perished from disease following the arrival of Europeans to the New World. Similarly, settlers in Australia and New Zealand and those following on the heels of the industrialization of virgin forest areas in Brazil, Paraguay, and Venezuela have committed mass murder against native peoples. There is a debate in the literature, therefore, whether an explicit statement of intent, especially by the state, is a necessary condition for genocide, or whether a pattern of systematic mass murder implying intent suffices.
2. Explanation

A number of factors have been advanced to account for genocide, including the dehumanization of the victims, the → ideology of the perpetrators, the needs of the bureaucracies and agencies that are given the task to solve a human “problem,” the inner dynamics of totalitarian regimes, national crises, → revolutions, and → wars. It should be apparent that genocide is unlikely without the prior dehumanization of the victims, who are viewed as racially inferior (→ Racism) or as national or class enemies or as savages. Similarly, the perpetrators of genocide are usually motivated by an ideology that justifies their actions in terms of racial, national, or class conflict. Moreover, in the modern world → bureaucracies or other organized agencies are given the task of “solving” ethnic, racial, or class “problems.” Indeed, some writers have argued that genocide as a policy initiative is formulated at the lower levels of the regime and then is justified by the ideology of the national decision makers. A number of writers have also pointed out that genocide is most likely to take place under conditions of crisis for the state and stress for society. Revolutionary conditions and wars thus can become occasions for genocide.
An older view first posited by Hannah Arendt suggested that genocide is inherent in totalitarian regimes like the Nazi and the Soviet states. The internal dynamics of such states may indeed have driven them to genocide, but we cannot say that genocide is committed only by totalitarian states. For example, the genocide of the Armenians from 1915 to 1922 was committed by the Ottoman Empire, governed by the Young Turks, but that regime cannot easily be identified with → totalitarianism.
3. Prevention

Following the Second World War and the Nürnberg trials of the Nazi war criminals, it was hoped that the United Nations would become an institution that would protect the world from the scourge of genocide. To this point, however, the United Nations has not been able to play an active role in the prevention of genocide mainly because its members are sovereign states that in times of crisis are willing to use extreme means, including genocide, while the United Nations itself does not have the power to stop them.
In recent years the world community has been able to prevent genocide against the Kurds in Iraq following the Gulf War, but only because the international alliance against Iraq had the military power and the will to act in that crisis. By way of contrast, the United Nations was powerless in the Yugoslav civil war and in the Rwanda genocide of 1994. In former Yugoslavia the United Nations sent in observers and monitors, but they were explicitly told not to intervene in cases of massacre. Only NATO was able to act in Bosnia and Kosovo in 1999, albeit late in the day after thousands had been killed or expelled from their homes. In Rwanda, neither the United Nations nor any of its member states, including the United States, had the will to prevent or to stop genocide, despite ample knowledge and appeals for help.
A number of nongovernmental organizations such as Human Rights Watch, the International Federation of Human Rights, International Alert, and the International Commission of Jurists are trying to predict genocidal situations and to monitor acts of genocide. Without power, however, they can do little to prevent such destructions from occurring.

Bibliography: H. ARENDT, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, 1958) ∙ F. CHALK and K. JONASSOHN, The History and Sociology of Genocide (New Haven, 1990) ∙ I. CHARNY, Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review (2 vols.; New York, 1988–92) ∙ A. L. DES FORGES, “Leave None to Tell the Story”: Genocide in Rwanda (New York, 1999) ∙ H. FEIN, ed., Genocide: A Sociological Perspective(= CuSoc 38/1 [1990]) ∙ L. KUPER, Genocide: Its Political Uses in the Twentieth Century (New Haven, 1981); idem, The Prevention of Genocide (New Haven, 1985) ∙ R. LEMKIN, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (New York, 1973; orig. pub., 1944) ∙ R. MELSON, Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust (Chicago, 1992) ∙ D. RIEFF, Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West (New York, 1996) ∙ E. STAUB, The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence (New York, 1989).

ROBERT MELSON
Gentiles, Gentile Christianity

1. Usage
2. OT
3. NT
4. Modern Problems
1. Usage

Gentile Christianity takes on its meaning in antithesis to Jewish Christianity. The reference is to all non-Jewish Christians. Another term often used for non-Jews before Christian conversion is “heathen,” as in “missions to the heathen.” In the modern understanding of → mission, however, this terminology is usually regarded as either too militant or too patronizing, and it is thus thought better to speak of non-Christians and to describe heathen religions as non-Christian religions, though this is perhaps more in keeping with modern ideas than with the views of Scripture (see 2 and 3).
2. OT

Heb. goy means “people [as a national unit]” and can thus refer also to → Israel (§1); in the plural (goyim, “the nations; peoples”), however, it denotes non-Israelite peoples and, by extension, increasingly the adherents of non-Jewish religions. The usage is basically political, but because Israel as a people is identical with the worshipers of → Yahweh, other peoples can be called Gentiles. In Deuteronomy the basis of enmity toward other peoples is that God is displeased with their idolatry, which is a temptation to Israel. The singular goy for a Gentile does not occur in the OT but occurs first only in the → Talmud. In various prophets there are sayings about foreign peoples (Amos 1:3–2:3; Isaiah 13–23; Zeph. 2:4–15; Jeremiah 46–51; Ezekiel 25–32, 35; Joel 3; Obadiah; Nahum; Mic. 4:1–4), which are mostly pronouncements of judgment against these peoples (i.e., foreign nations) and imply a claim to the lordship of Yahweh. It is significant that in Isaiah 40–55 the expected new → salvation for Israel is so glorious that alien peoples will be attracted to it and will have a share in it. The non-Jewish king Cyrus can even be called messiah (Isa. 44:28–45:1).
3. NT

All the Gospels carefully avoid directly linking what is said about → Jesus to a Gentile mission or even to the church. This avoidance is historically apposite, but there is in it also the apologetic desire to present Jesus as Israel’s Messiah who has come for all Israel, including its sinners, and who cannot be accused of careless dealings with Gentiles or of a program of Gentile mission. We find various types of statements:

1. If Israel rejects Jesus’ message, there is a threat of turning to the other peoples and Israel’s loss of its uniqueness (Matt. 3:9 and par.; Luke 13:22–30; probably also Matt. 21:33–46 [esp. v. 43]).
2. In analogy to Isa. 49:12; 59:19, Jesus reckons on a future ingathering of other peoples (Matt. 8:11; see also John 10:16). The use of Deutero-Isaiah in the NT rests largely on the idea of an eschatological ingathering of the nations.
3. Jesus performs miracles for non-Jews by remote healing (Mark 7:24–30 and par.; Luke 7:1b–9 and par.; John 4:46b–53; cf. John 12:20–26).
4. Some signs are recorded precisely because they symbolize the removing of Gentile need and impurity (see Mark 5:1–20, with, according to v. 20, the ensuing proclamatory activity of the healed person in the Decapolis).
5. Only the risen Lord gives the commission for mission to all nations (Matt. 28:19, in contrast to 10:5b; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:47; John 20:21; Acts 1:8; Gal. 1:16).

Hellenists apparently led the way in mission to non-Jews without demanding circumcision (Acts 11:20), and → Paul took up the challenge, with Peter also playing a big part, according to Acts 10. It was the gift of the Spirit (→ Holy Spirit) that made this mission possible, according to Acts 10:44 and Paul. Only the Spirit of God, in whom the risen Lord is at work, can bring people to God and make them his children (Gal. 4:6–7), thus making circumcision unnecessary in the case of Gentile Christians.
But the Spirit is none other than the promise to Abraham (Gal. 3:8, 14), and thus Gentile Christians are conceivable only if they are taken up into Israel (see the olive tree illustration in Rom. 11:15–24). They are not second-class Christians, but they achieve their being in Christ, from Israel’s standpoint, only as Jesus sets them in God’s history with Israel. Non-Christian Jews are still God’s chosen people, though this fact does not guarantee the salvation of individuals.
In general we may say that the NT comes from missionary churches whose whole aim is to impart the joy of salvation to as many people as possible. Statements still occur, however, about the possible perdition of those who do not believe (John 3:18; Mark 16:16). These texts are not to be taken dogmatically or categorically. Form-critical considerations advise against making too much systematically of texts of appellation. No NT statements function as definitive statements about the salvation or perdition of non-Christians. The “if … then” relation functions (only) as an appeal.
4. Modern Problems

In contrast to NT authors, a crisis has now developed in circles that seek new models to explain both theoretically and practically the relation of Christianity to other religions (→ Theology of Religions). The older model of scattered germs of → truth in other religions has been replaced in part by the following approaches.
First, we find practical cooperation in humanitarian affairs and ongoing → dialogue about common features in the face of the threat of → materialism and the new paganism.
Then there is the model of anonymous Christians (K. Rahner), even as individuals who do not believe in Christ seek to be the best they can be according to the light they have and thus manifest something incarnational, being called Christian in this sense. A question here is whether we do justice to the way other religions view themselves. A further question is whether we do not at the same time sell Christianity itself short.
Another model is that of concentric circles. Some religions and worldviews, it is argued, are especially close (e.g., → Islam, → anthroposophy, or → Judaism, which is hardly separable from Christianity) and form an inner “ring” with many things in common. Other religions are a little more distant (→ Buddhism and those of the Far East), but mission can do little among them, and they agree in important matters (e.g., religious practice; → Buddhism and Christianity; Hinduism and Christianity). Finally, others are more remote and can gain most from Christianity’s innovative power. On this model mission should be directed only to those whom Christianity can help most, and Matt. 5:13–17 should be its basic principle.
Distinction between the new paganism among Christians, foreign religions, and the irreligious underlines the solidarity of religions but also the fact that the new pagans who are baptized and who belong to the church are different from adults who make no religious profession at all. New Christian paganism is a product of national churches.
All definitions of the relation to other religions should reflect the fact that the hands of Christians are tied to some extent by the fact that they have been incorporated into the history of the Jewish people of God. Hence they also must always take into account the relation of Israel to other religions.
Many Christians and Christian bodies, of course, still adhere more strictly to the biblical understanding and, although they may differ in detail, take seriously the truth of revelation and reconciliation in Christ alone and the implied task of Gentile mission, that is, the proclamation of the gospel to all nations (→ Evangelism).
→ Agnosticism; Apologetics; Atheism; Neo-Germanic Paganism

Bibliography: K. BERGER, “Almosen für Israel. Zum historischen Kontext der paulinischen Kollekte,” NTS 23 (1976/77) 180–204 ∙ W. S. CAMPBELL, Paul’s Gospel in an Intercultural Context: Jew and Gentile in the Letter to the Romans (Frankfurt, 1992) ∙ C. COLPE, Theologie, Ideologie, Religionswissenschaft (Munich, 1980) ∙ R. DABELSTEIN, Die Beurteilung der “Heiden” bei Paulus (Frankfurt, 1981) ∙ T. L. DONALDSON, Paul and the Gentiles: Remapping Paul’s Convictional World (Minneapolis, 1997) ∙ W. W. FIELDS, Sodom and Gomorrah: History and Motif in Biblical Narrative (Sheffield, 1997) ∙ H.-W. GENSICHEN, Glaube für die Welt. Theologische Aspekte der Mission (Gütersloh, 1971) ∙ H. KRAEMER, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World (Grand Rapids, 1961; orig. pub., 1938) ∙ M. PALDIEL, Sheltering the Jews: Stories of Holocaust Rescuers (Minneapolis, 1996) ∙ G. G. PORTON, The Stranger within Your Gates: Converts and Conversion in Rabbinic Literature (Chicago, 1994) ∙ C. W. STENSCHKE, Luke’s Portrait of the Gentiles prior to Their Coming to Faith (Tübingen, 1999) ∙ S. STERN, Jewish Identity in Early Rabbinic Writings (Leiden, 1994) ∙ W. A. VISSER’T HOOFT, “Evangelism among Europe,” IRM 264 (1977) 349–60; idem, “Gläubiges neues Heidentum,” LM 11/12 (1977) 634–37, 699–701 ∙ M. WEINFELD, The Promise of the Land: The Inheritance of the Land of Canaan by the Israelites (Berkeley, Calif., 1993) ∙ D. ZELLER, Juden und Heiden in der Mission des Paulus. Studien zur Römerbrief (2d ed.; Stuttgart, 1976).

KLAUS BERGER
Geography → History, Auxiliary Sciences to, 8
Geography of Religion

1. The geography of religion may be variously viewed as a department in → religious studies (G. Lanczkowski), a branch of cultural geography (H.-G. Zimpel; → Culture), or an interdisciplinary field involving geography and religious studies (M. Büttner). Most broadly, its concern is with the relations between → religions and space, or landscapes.

2. Up to the → Enlightenment, geography (like most other disciplines) was put in the service of → theology and had the task of giving academic support to God’s world sovereignty. Theologian B. Keckermann (1571–1609; → Orthodoxy 2.3) and philosopher I. Kant (1724–1804; → Kantianism) paved the way for the freeing of geography from theology. C. Ritter (1779–1859) and others helped to establish modern geography in the 19th century, though his teleological outlook (which included the view that the earth is our schoolhouse) recalled the early days of the discipline. Physical geography was dominant at first, stressing natural geofactors such as relief, soil, vegetation, and climate. Only as human or cultural geography became more prominent toward the end of the 19th century did religion come into view as something that is bound to places and influenced by them.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the modes of thought and explanation of environmental determinism were common in German human geography. Their impact on the understanding of religions is illustrated by the title “Islam, the Religion of the Desert,” in which W. Gebel argued that religions not only are predominantly influenced by their → environment but must be seen as dependent on it.
The ecology of religion (A. Hultkranz) may be regarded as a later, purified addition to this deterministic type of study. After the phase of environmental determinism, the landscape paradigm followed in the development of geography. The question here was how religion, or the chief religions in given areas, or even minority religions, affect the physical landscape. The focus was on physiognomy—that is, structures, → pilgrimage sites, and so forth. The attempt by P. Fickeler to find a theoretical place for the geography of religion as a department of geography was strongly influenced by this way of thinking, although here, and even more clearly so in the work of P. Deffontaines, we also find approaches to a functional view that has since shaped the whole discipline and produced social geography.

3. On the basis of the studies of the sociology of religion, especially by M. Weber (1864–1920), inquiries are made into the impact of religious communities as social groups on population, settlement, economics, and politics (note esp. the important contributions in a volume edited by M. Schwind; → Sociology of Religion). In this way, limitation of research to visible phenomena is overcome. Geography has become a spatial science, and this development has also influenced the geography of religion. Especially important has been the work of Büttner (e.g., in GRel) in seeing a “religious body” or group or communion as a mediating force between religion and the world around. Influenced by its environment, a religious body influences the world geographically in various ways. E. Isaac distinguished between the geography of religion and religious geography, by which he meant investigation of the earth, or of some part of it, and of the factors that influence it, from the standpoint of a specific religion.
Before the Enlightenment (see 2), geography might be called Christian geography on this view. D. Sopher set the geography of religion within the context of a general cultural geography that, on the one hand, inquires into the interaction between a culture and its area’s geography and, on the other, investigates the spatial interaction between different cultures. Later studies broadened the field and sought to develop a geography of ideologies that would also include the impact of different views and world pictures on spatial structures and processes, even though they might not be religious in the narrow sense. (Büttner 1976). Religious scholars (J.-F. Sprockhoff, K. Hoheisel) have produced few works on the relations between religion and space written from a religious standpoint, but there are many important contributions from the side of geography, whose common theme is the impact of the religions on places.
Another subject that has again attracted attention is the geographic distribution of the religions and its causes (J. D. Gay). These studies include the investigation of the mixing or segregation of religious groups and the related conflicts. The expansion of religions by → mission and its impact (R. Henkel), settlements on a religious basis (H. Schempp; → Perfectionists), and “religious tourism” (S. M. Bhardwaj and G. Rinschede) have also called for more intensive study. At the same time, although the relation between humans and their environment has always been a central subject in geography, geography has surprisingly taken part only marginally in the discussion of the complex of → environmental ethics and ecological theology (→ Ecology).

Bibliography: S. M. BHARDWAJ and G. RINSCHEDE, eds., Pilgrimage in World Religions (Berlin, 1988) ∙ M. BÜTTNER, “Von der Religionsgeographie zur Geographie der Geisteshaltung?” Die Erde 107 (1976) 300–329; idem, “Zur Geschichte und Systematik der Religionsgeographie,” GRel 1.13–121 (bibliography) ∙ P. DEFFONTAINES, Géographie et Religions (Paris, 1948) ∙ P. FICKELER, “Fundamental Questions in the Geography of Religions,” Readings in Cultural Geography (ed. P. L. Wagner and M. W. Mikesell; Chicago, 1962) 94–117; idem, “Grundfragen der Religionsgeographie,” Erdkunde 1 (1947) 121–44 ∙ GRel ∙ J. D. GAY, The Geography of Religion in England (London, 1971) ∙ W. GEBEL, “Der Islam-die Religion der Wüste,” JSGVK, Beiheft, 1922, 104–33 ∙ R. HENKEL, Christian Missions in Africa (Berlin, 1989) ∙ K. HOHEISEL, “Geographische Umwelt und Religion in der Religionswissenschaft,” GRel 1.123–64 ∙ A. HULTKRANTZ, “An Ecological Approach to Religion,” Ethnos 31 (1966) 131–50 ∙ E. ISAAC, “Religious Geography and the Geography of Religion, Man, and the Earth,” University of Colorado Studies, Series in Earth Sciences 3 (1965) 1–13 ∙ G. LANCZKOWSKI, Einführung in die Religionswissenschaft (Darmstadt, 1980) ∙ C. C. PARK, Sacred Worlds: An Introduction to Geography and Religion (London, 1994) ∙ H. SCHEMPP, Gemeinschaftssiedlungen auf religiöser und weltanschaulicher Grundlage (Tübingen, 1969) ∙ M. SCHWIND, ed., Religionsgeographie (Darmstadt, 1975) ∙ D. SOPHER, Geography of Religions (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1967) ∙ J.-F. SPROCKHOFF, “Religiöse Lebensformen und Gestalt der Lebensräume,” Numen 11 (1964) 85–146 ∙ H.-G. ZIMPEL, “Religionsgeographie,” Westermann Lexikon der Geographie 3.1000–1002.

REINHARD HENKEL
Georgia

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
4,160
5,073
5,418
Annual growth rate (%):
1.47
0.83
0.02
Area: 69,700 sq. km. (26,900 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 78/sq. km. (201/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 1.38 / 0.99 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 1.90 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 21 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 73.6 years (m: 69.5, f: 77.6)
Religious affiliation (%): Christians 60.5 (Orthodox 56.9, unaffiliated 1.4, other Christians 2.1), Muslims 19.4, nonreligious 16.9, atheists 2.8, other 0.4.

1. Christian History
2. Present Situation
3. Ecumenical Tensions

Situated at the crossroads of empires on the plateau south of the Caucasian mountain range, eastern and western Georgia, as well as Armenia, has experienced a long and dramatic Christian history. Having managed to maintain, over against the Roman and Persian empires, a distinctive identity since the 5th century, Georgian culture after the 11th century was further shaped by the influence of → Byzantium and the Arab caliphates. Then, as the united Georgian kingdom at its apogee in the 12th and 13th centuries, it sustained a national-religious identity thereafter when surrounded by the Muslim world of the Ottoman Empire. Georgia was then incorporated into the expanding Russian Empire in 1801, the Georgian Orthodox Church also being absorbed (as an exarch with Russian leadership) into the Russian Orthodox Church in 1811. After 1917 the Georgian church regained its autocephaly. After 1921, however, when Georgia became a Soviet republic, the Stalinist purges—carried out by three Georgians: J. Stalin, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, and L. P. Beria—decimated the church far more than had been the case with the earlier Russian absorption. Since 1990 the new independent Georgian state has been described as controlled chaos, with church life recovering but having nowhere near as pervasive an influence as when Georgia first emerged as a nation.
1. Christian History

Christianity in Georgia began in 326 when Nino, a female prisoner of war, won over the Georgian king Mirian. Christian faith quickly took root, at first closely related to the Patriarchate of Antioch and its Greek → liturgy. In the sixth century a vernacular translation of Scripture and the liturgy accounted for the lasting cultural independence of Georgia. The → conversion (§1) was a conscious rejection of the Zoroastrianism of its Persian neighbors (→ Iranian Religions 7). Unlike neighboring Persian and Armenian Christians, however, the Georgian church (western Georgia) in the 600s recognized the Council of → Chalcedon (451) and sustained ties to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The Georgian church became → autocephalous in the eighth century. Between 1100 and 1300, when the Georgian kingdom reached its greatest expanse—particularly under David II (1089–1125) and Queen Tamara (1184–1213)—intermarriage with the Byzantine dynasties ensured friendly ties. Members of the Georgian aristocracy also held high office in the Byzantine administration.
→ Monasteries contributed to the growth of Christianity in Georgia at the beginning, Georgian monasteries being among the first to establish foundations in Jerusalem (5th cent.). The country’s literary flowering in the 11th and 12th centuries especially is inconceivable without monasticism. The monastery of Iveron (meaning “of the Iberians,” referring to the ancient region of Iberia, roughly coextensive with modern Georgia) is the third oldest monastery at Mount → Athos in Greece, where Georgian monks resided until the 1950s. Under David II there was a strong effort to send monastics to Mount Athos to translate ecclesiastical texts. It is also worthy of note that 85 Georgian MSS are preserved at Mount → Sinai.
In pursuing a vigorous campaign against abuses in church life, David II facilitated the deepening of monastic life and the translation of Greek texts into Georgian. The Synod of Ruisi-Urbnisi of 1103, over which the king presided, produced church legislation to eliminate numerous manifestations of simony and nepotism within the monastic and ecclesiastical administrations. The synod also regulated the religious life of the laity by specifying that girls in church marriages must be at least 12 years old and by forbidding → marriage with infidels or heretics.
At the time of the absorption of the Georgian Orthodox Church into the Russian church in 1811, Czar Alexander I at first relied on a Georgian, Metropolitan Varlam Eristavi, to serve as exarch of church. Six years later Metropolitan Feofilakt Rusanov, a Russian, was appointed exarch. Feofilakt belonged to the very small, educated elite on whom the czar had relied to design a major reform of the theological education system in Russia, and he was expected to extend that reform to Georgia. On the positive side, this move marked another systematic effort to deal with abuses inside the church, although it was done by means of Russification. By the end of the 19th century the secular streams of nationalism were making an impact on the Georgian church (→ Nation, Nationalism). With the collapse of the Russian Empire in early 1917, the Georgian Orthodox Church regained its autocephaly, and its head became the → patriarch of Georgia.
In 1917 there were nearly 2,500 → Orthodox churches in Georgia. After the Communist purges had ended, however, only 40 remained open. Proportionately more churches, by a factor of eight, were forcibly closed in Georgia than was true for Russian Orthodoxy. Only 5 percent of the Georgian intelligentsia survived the purges of the 1930s, and control over intellectuals was such that doctoral theses could be approved only upon prior approval of the Russian translation sent to Moscow. It was therefore most fitting that a Georgian film by Tengiz Abuladze, Pokoiane (Repentance), shown across the Soviet Union in 1987, became a turning point for perestroika, the moment when the Soviet Union began to recover history, speak publicly about atrocities, and acknowledge the reality of Soviet-Russian domination of Georgia.
2. Present Situation

The recent recovery of Georgian Orthodoxy involved another difficult period of exposing and eliminating abuses that extended deep into the church structure that had survived the Communist onslaught. Zviad Gamsakhurdia, son of the famous nationalist writer and poet Konstantin Gamsakhurdia, became well known for human → rights activism, including a series of samizdat documents published in the West in 1974 that exposed the corruption within the church hierarchy. These accusations included an expose of the homosexuality of some bishops and of the financial corruption for which Metropolitan Gaioz was imprisoned in 1979. Patriarch David V, who had succeeded Patriarch Efrem in 1972 (in place of Ilia, whom Efrem had named as his successor), had no theological qualifications for the position, and his short reign marked the height of corruption and of KGB involvement in the affairs of the Georgian church. In 1977 Ilia II was elected patriarch, and he began a course of reforms, following similar actions being undertaken within the Communist Party by Eduard Shevardnadze, then party secretary. In 1988 there were 180 priests, 40 monks, and 15 nuns for the faithful, who were variously estimated as being from one to five million. There were 200 churches, one seminary, three convents, and four monasteries.
A moment of high drama came in 1989 as the rival nationalist forces within Georgia reached a critical level, along with pervasive anti-Russian sentiments among the populace. Patriarch Ilia had issued an edict that anyone using armed force against compatriots would be → excommunicated. The moment of test came on April 9, when several hundred thousand demonstrators came to the capital, Tbilisi, in peaceful demonstration asking the Communist Soviet government to leave Georgia. The patriarch joined the people and urged them to withdraw to the church to avoid bloodshed. The nationalist political leaders failed to respect this call, and Soviet tanks using poison gas moved in, leaving behind 22 dead and hundreds injured. A television documentary showing the mass funeral was shown across the Soviet Union and further cast shame on the Communist Party of the USSR, which soon lost its power. Not long afterward Georgia became a sovereign state.
A further period of trouble ensued when in 1990 Zviad Gamsakhurdia became head of state, for he set out to institute a → theocratic program. Using a curious interpretation of John 11 in which Lazarus was seen as identical with John the Evangelist, “the beloved disciple,” Gamsakhurdia spoke of the Georgian language as the Lazarus among languages (i.e., primordial). The resurrected Georgia, like the resurrected Lazarus-John, was under the special protection of the Theotokos, since John had become the adopted son of Mary at the cross. The resulting political program was an attempt to marry church and state and to equate the nation with Orthodoxy.
By 1992 Gamsakhurdia had been driven from office, and Eduard Shevardnadze, who had contributed so much to Soviet perestroika as foreign minister, returned to Georgia and was elected its president. The political role of the church was weakened, even though Shevardnadze publicly converted to Christianity by → baptism (1992). After the death of Gamsakhurdia in January 1994, his supporters continued to foster a civil war by means of attempts on the life of the president, disruptions of Parliament, and other acts of civil disorder.
There had long been a Jewish community in Georgia that had amicable relations with the Christians, in large part because of the strong national tradition of pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Georgia had also served as a place of refuge for Russians fleeing the czar’s wrath. Russian evangelical Protestants regard the baptism of Nikita Vornonin near Tbilisi (Georgia) in 1867 as their official beginning. By 1917 there was a thriving → Baptist congregation in Tbilisi, and a separate Georgian-speaking congregation began to form.
Following the reopening of churches in the USSR after 1944, an ethnically mixed Evangelical Christian Baptist Union was led by Russians until 1973, when N. Z. Kvirikashvili became the senior presbyter, or bishop. The current president and bishop of the Baptist Union, V. S. Songulashvili, has the distinction of having completed a doctorate in Semitic languages under a professor of Jewish origins during the Soviet era. He subsequently played a very active role in the translation of the NT into modern Georgian (→ Bible Versions), a project that was completed in partnership with the United → Bible Societies, with Songulashvili working closely with a committee of Georgian Orthodox scholars.
3. Ecumenical Tensions

The impact of the monasteries, including especially the ties to the Mount Athos monastic foundation, led to an extremely precipitate action in May 1997. Following an emergency meeting of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Georgia on May 20, the church announced its withdrawal from the → World Council of Churches (WCC), an ecumenical organization it had joined together with other Soviet churches in 1962. The stated complaint against the WCC was that it is dominated by a Protestant ethos that fails to take Orthodox interests into account. Archimandrite Georgi, father superior of a leading monastery, had sent an open letter to Patriarch Ilia II announcing that the monastery was suspending communion with the patriarch because of his “ecumenical heresy.” Ilia II had been a WCC president from 1979 to 1983.
Behind this action lay the vigorous fundamentalistic reaction of the Mount Athos Federation of Monasteries against the decision of the Chalcedonian Orthodox and the → Monophysite Orthodox churches to withdraw the mutual anathemas of 451 and to give full recognition to each other, to be put into effect in September 1989. To the monks of Mount Athos this decision seemed to be calling into question the infallibility of Chalcedon, an ecumenical → council. Furthermore, this split between the Orthodox Church of Georgia and the → ecumenical movement as expressed in both the WCC and the → Conference of European Churches involved renewed isolation over against the Western churches also in reaction to perceived → proselytism of Orthodox Christians by Western “missionaries.”
Efforts to restrict the freedoms of non-Orthodox religious in Georgia have continued to increase. In early 2000 numerous Baptist congregations in Georgia experienced harassment in efforts to close their places of worship. Lengthy court appeals by the → Jehovah’s Witnesses, a sect that has been present in Georgia for several decades, ended in a denial of their right to function.

Bibliography: J. F. BADDELEY, The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus (Richmond, Eng., 1999) ∙ “Can Georgia Achieve National Reconciliation?” RFE/RL Caucusus Report, 3/29 (July 20, 2000) [www.rferl.org] ∙ F. CORLEY, “Georgian Police Break Up Evangelistic Meeting,” Keston News Service, June 12, 1999; idem, “Trial against the Jehovah’s Witnesses Begins in Georgia,” Keston News Service, June 16, 1999 ∙ P. CREGO, “Religion and Nationalism in Georgia,” REEu 14/3 (June 1994) 1–9 ∙ “Istoriia evangel’skikh khristian-baptistov v SSSR,” Vsesoiuznogo soveta EkhB (Moscow, 1989) 496–97 ∙ F. VON LILIENFELD, “Reflections on the Current State of the Georgian Church and Nation,” Seeking God: The Recovery of Religious Identity in Orthodox Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia (ed. S. K. Batalden; Dekalb, Ill., 1993) 220–31 ∙ “An Orthodox Church Leaves the WCC,” CCen, June 4/11, 1997, 554–55 ∙ A. PAPADAKIS, “The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy,” The Church in History (Crestwood, N.Y., 1994) 2.136–50 ∙ C. J. PETERS, “The Georgian Orthodox Church,” Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twentieth Century (ed. P. Ramet; Durham, N.C., 1988) 286–308 ∙ P. REDDAWAY, “The Georgian Orthodox Church: Corruption and Renewal,” RCL 3/4–5 (1975) 14–23 ∙ “Split Widens between Orthodox, WCC,” CCen, October 8, 1997, 868 ∙ R. G. SUNY, The Making of the Georgian Nation (Bloomington, Ind., 1988) ∙ P. WALTERS, ed., World Christianity: Eastern Europe (Monrovia, Calif., 1988) 49–52.

WALTER SAWATSKY
German Christians

1. Definition
2. Origins
3. Ascendancy in 1933
4. Later History
5. Theological Evaluation
1. Definition

The German Christians (GCs) were clergy and laypeople in the Protestant church of Nazi Germany who believed that the National Socialist revolution would restore the church to its rightful place at the heart of German culture and society. Distinguishing between the “invisible” and the “visible” church, they argued that the church on earth was based on divinely ordained distinctions of race and ethnicity (→ Racism). The GCs set out to build a heroic, manly, doctrinally free → “people’s church” (Volkskirche) composed solely of individuals of German “blood” and “race.” Excluded would be those regarded as impure (e.g., baptized Christians of Jewish ancestry). GCs numbered around 600,000 and occupied influential positions at every level within the Protestant church during the Third Reich. They were actually a complex grouping of people who ranged from enthusiastic Hitler nationalists who were willing to make compromises to align the church with the new order to extreme radicals who rejected the biblical and theological foundations of German Protestantism. Countering GC power was the primary focus of the → church struggle.
2. Origins

GC roots lay in Christian → anti-Semitism and in racialist (völkisch) → ideology, which were promoted by the German Church League (founded 1921), the Church Movement of German Christians (formed in the late 1920s by the Thuringian pastors Siegfried Leffler [1900–1983] and Julius Leutheuser [1900–1942]), the conservative nationalist Christian German Movement (founded 1930), and other small Protestant associations dedicated to renewing church life by emphasizing ethnicity. In the spring of 1932 Wilhelm Kube (1887–1943), a prominent Nazi politician who was active in church politics in Berlin, formed the Evangelical National Socialists to enlist Protestant support for the party. When Adolf Hitler vetoed use of “Evangelical,” Kube renamed it the Faith Movement of German Christians and placed activist pastor Joachim Hossenfelder (1899–1976) in charge.
Earlier Hossenfelder had prepared a list of guidelines for the fall church elections calling for the merger of the more than two dozen territorial churches into one national church (the Reichskirche), racial purity in the church, and the repudiation of internationalism. In September 1932 he created a national organization and in October began a newspaper, Evangelium im Dritten Reich (Gospel in the Third Reich). In November the GCs made a respectable showing in the Old Prussian Union Church elections.
3. Ascendancy in 1933

When Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933, Hossenfelder’s GCs had little influence in the church, but they eagerly sought Nazi party backing. At a national conference on April 3–4, they demanded a unified Protestant national church corresponding to the political mission of the new Germany, one that would merge all → confessions and effect the integration of → church and state. The church authorities protested against this agenda, but Hitler supported the move and on April 25 appointed the unknown military chaplain Ludwig Müller (1883–1945), a GC and devoted Nazi, as his representative for Protestant church affairs. Müller pushed ahead for church → union and made a bid to become bishop of this to-be-united church. A group known as the Young Reformers, led by Martin → Niemöller (1892–1984), opposed the GC efforts, especially their attempt to impose the civil service’s Aryan Paragraph on the church. This ruling would require the dismissal of all church staff of Jewish racial ancestry. The Young Reformers and other moderates encouraged Friedrich von Bodelschwingh (1877–1946) of the Bethel Institution in Westphalia to enter the race for Reichsbischof, and the majority of church leaders gave him their support at a meeting on May 27.
As this action was a setback to his program to coordinate all Germany’s institutions under Nazi rule, Hitler threw his weight behind Müller. The Prussian churches were placed under a state commissioner, while the Lutheran bishops wavered in their support of Bodelschwingh, who resigned on June 24. Turmoil now reigned in the church, but a constitution for a confessionally united and centralized German Evangelical Church was adopted on July 14 and elections set for July 23. The Young Reformers entered a list of candidates under the name “Gospel and Church,” but Hitler’s endorsement enabled the GC to win two-thirds of the synodic seats. On September 5–6 the Old Prussian Union Church general synod named Müller its bishop and enacted the Aryan Paragraph. This move so alarmed the Young Reformers that on September 21 they formed the Pastor’s Emergency League, whose members pledged to oppose the Aryan Paragraph and to support persecuted pastors. At the GC-controlled national synod in Wittenberg on September 27, the league protested in vain against these actions. Müller was appointed Reichsbischof, but implementation of the Aryan Paragraph was deferred because of embarrassing international criticism.
Müller tried to win Nazi party members back to the church, but Hitler made it clear that he had no interest in the internal life of the church, and party officials consistently avoided church functions. A lull in the conflict set in, but then at a GC rally in the Berlin Sportpalast on November 13, Reinhold Krause (1893–1980), a schoolteacher serving in the Berlin GC leadership, called for the dismissal of those pastors not behind the National Socialist revolution, immediate implementation of the Aryan Paragraph, and the liberation of the church from everything un-German, especially the Jewish OT and what he labeled the scapegoat mentality and inferiority complex of the rabbi Paul. The crowd of 20,000 then approved resolutions affirming Krause’s demands. The Sportpalast affair aroused such indignation that many churchmen cut their GC ties, the GC leaders began fighting among themselves (which led to the dismissal of both Krause and Hossenfelder), and Hitler withdrew any backing for the group. Even as GC influence seemed to wane, Müller imposed still more restrictions on the church, and the opposition rapidly coalesced into the → Confessing Church.
4. Later History

In December 1933 Christian Kinder (1897–1972) gained control of the main GC organization, but the movement disintegrated into a dozen or more splinter groups with constantly changing names. In its → Barmen Declaration (adopted unanimously on May 31, 1934), the Confessing Church took direct aim at the errors perpetrated by the GCs and Reichsbischof Müller regarding revelation, Scripture, the church, and confession, and it rejected the power politics of the GC.
After Hanns Kerrl (1887–1941) formed the Ministry for Church Affairs in July 1935, the GC regrouped, with the main elements being a radical Thuringian body led by Leffler and Leutheuser and the successor Reich organization under Werner Rehm (1900–1948) and Werner Petersmann (1901–88). Kerrl’s appointment of “church committees” to supervise church affairs and the call for new church elections in 1937 enhanced GC legitimacy. In their campaign to regain influence, the scattered GC groups rejected ecumenism and portrayed Christianity as the foe of → Judaism in their Godesberg Declaration of April 1939. The war brought fulfillment of some GC goals, including an aggressive Christianity uniting the people and exclusion of Jewish influence from the religious community, but the GCs and their publications were muzzled because of the Nazis’ open hostility toward Christianity. After the war most GCs were rehabilitated (denazified) or simply overlooked and were quietly received back into the church.
5. Theological Evaluation

As the foremost modern example of the compromised church, the GCs take on enormous significance. They longed to be a vital part of the new order and to provide the spiritual foundations for the National Socialist state. In so doing, they inculcated the idea of race and Volk in the church and its message, called for the de-Judaizing of Christianity, detached the theology of creation and salvation from → Christology, and exalted the political realm. By placing the German nation and people above the universal claims of the Christian faith, they deceived themselves into believing that their earthly rulers—whom they assumed to be ordained by God—deserved their unquestioned respect and obedience. By holding a weak view of Scripture, the GCs easily jettisoned the parts of the Bible that they took as Jewish or as containing teachings contrary to their ideology. Because they emphasized action instead of doctrinal beliefs, they accepted all too uncritically the Nazi views on manliness, struggle, and racial nationalism. The GCs demonstrate that compromising Christian beliefs with the totalitarian demands of the modern → state destroys the integrity and witness of the church.

Bibliography: H. BAIER, Die Deutschen Christen Bayerns im Rahmen des bayerischen Kirchenkampfes (Nürnberg, 1968) ∙ D. L. BERGEN, Twisted Cross: The German Christians in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1996) ∙ R. P. ERICKSEN and S. HESCHEL, Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust (Minneapolis, 1999) ∙ R. GUTTERIDGE, Open Thy Mouth for the Dumb! The German Evangelical Church and the Jews, 1879–1950 (Oxford, 1976) ∙ R. E. HEINONEN, Anpassung und Identität. Theologie und Kirchenpolitik der Bremer Deutschen Christen (Göttingen, 1978) ∙ E. C. HELMREICH, The German Churches under Hitler: Background, Struggle, and Epilogue (Detroit, 1979) ∙ K. MEIER, Die Deutschen Christen (3d ed.; Göttingen, 1967) ∙ T. M. SCHNEIDER, Reichsbischof Ludwig Müller. Eine Untersuchung zu Leben, Werk und Persönlichkeit (Göttingen, 1993) ∙ K. SCHOLDER, The Churches and the Third Reich (2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1987–88) ∙ H.-J. SONNE, Die politische Theologie der Deutschen Christen (Göttingen, 1982) ∙ C. WEILING, Die christlich-deutsche Bewegung (Göttingen, 1998) ∙ J. A. ZABEL, Nazism and the Pastors: A Study of the Ideas of Three Deutsche Christen Groups (Missoula, Mont., 1976).

RICHARD V. PIERARD
German Missions

1. Historical Development of German Protestant Missions
2. Present Situation and Future Prospects

Although spreading the → gospel message to all peoples has been a hallmark of the Christian faith from the very beginning, the identification of → missionary work with individuals from a specific nationality is a post-Reformation and primarily → Protestant phenomenon. Because the → Roman Catholic Church was an international body, individuals who served in religious or missionary → orders were theoretically part of the larger community, although many of these bodies actually had a national basis. Examples of distinguished German-born figures include the → Jesuit missionaries Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1592–1666) and Johannes B. Hoffmann (1857–1928), who worked in China and India respectively, the great historian of Catholic missions Heinrich Hahn (1800–1882), and Joseph Schmidlin (1876–1944), the father of Catholic → missiology. A noteworthy missionary order founded by a German was the Society of the Divine Word, formed in 1875 by Arnold Janssen (1837–1909) largely in response to the growing Protestant → mission effort, but its personnel and constituency are now quite international in character. Since → Vatican II individual dioceses have increasingly taken responsibility for mission work, especially in its diaconal forms (→ Catholic Missions; Relief and Development Organizations).
1. Historical Development of German Protestant Missions

Although Martin → Luther did not actively promote missions, the universality of the message was clearly evident in his preaching. In 1596 Philipp Nicolai (1556–1608) published The Reign of Christ, a theoretical work calling on the → Lutheran Church to be involved in missions because it had recovered the full gospel and made the divine → Word accessible to all. Nicolai’s advice, however, went unheeded. The philosopher Gottfried Leibnitz (1646–1716), who was impressed with the Dutch colonial mission and Jesuit achievements in China, wanted to see an interchange of scientific and cultural knowledge between East and West. He included in the purpose statement of the Prussian Academy of Sciences (1700) a provision calling for the spreading of the Christian faith among other peoples. The earliest German-born missionaries, however, were individuals, such as Peter Heyling (1607/8–ca. 1652), who served in Egypt and Ethiopia without institutional support and eventually died in Africa, and Justinian von Welz (1621–ca. 1668), who called for Protestants to engage in world mission, developed a scheme for a missionary society, and went on his own to Surinam in South America, where he died unnoticed.
→ Pietism was the major force in 18th-century missions, with Halle and Herrnhut as centers of the movement. August Hermann → Francke’s institution trained and sent missionaries, and in 1706 the first workers went to Tranquebar, South India, under the auspices of the Danish church mission. Ultimately over 50 men went to India from Halle, the most noteworthy being Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (1682–1719), J. P. Fabricius (1711–91), and C. F. Schwartz (1726–98). The missionary letters published in the Halle magazine and the extensive correspondence carried on by Francke and his successors did much to foster missionary interest throughout Protestant Europe.
The Moravian Brethren (Unitas Fratrum) church of Count N. L. von → Zinzendorf (1700–1760), whose center was at Herrnhut (Saxony) and had close ties with Halle, undertook the most extensive missionary operation in the century. In 1732 the first Moravians went to the Danish West Indies, and soon thereafter workers were dispatched to Estonia, West and South Africa, Greenland, Labrador, frontier North America, and Surinam. By 1782 the Moravians had 175 missionaries working in 27 places, supported by branches in the Netherlands, Denmark, England, and North America. Even today the extraordinary → Moravian community, with its international character and ecumenical vision, maintains mission enterprises in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
The evangelical awakening, or revival (Erweckung), provided a new impulse for Protestant missions. Johannes Jänicke (1748–1827), a key figure in the movement in Berlin, opened a missionary training school in his church, and British and kindred mission boards employed his graduates (→ British Missions). In 1815 a mission school and society was founded in Basel that drew support from neopietistic “awakened” circles in southwestern Germany. The graduates served under British boards and then in the mission’s own fields in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), Cameroon, India, China, and Borneo.
Other voluntary societies to foster missions quickly sprang up throughout Germany, above all the Berlin Mission (1824), Rhenish Mission (1828), Gossner Mission (1836), and North German Mission (1836). Regarding themselves as the free outgrowth of the spirit of missions in the church as a whole, they had no organic connection with the territorial churches and thus were not “program boards” as such. The churches allowed them to exist as legal entities, however, and to solicit support from the congregations. A local organization formed a society, sought donations, and eventually built a regional or national organization tied together through its publication. A society often took its name from the city where its seat was located. They cooperated together in conferences and finally in 1885 formed a Standing Committee (Ausschuß) of German Protestant Missions to coordinate their efforts, mediate differences among the societies, and interact with the government. They also created special mission seminaries to train workers, since their position was that anyone whom God had called should be sent out to the foreign field.
By the early 1930s over 35 societies were formed, falling roughly into three categories: ecumenical, Lutheran confessionalist, and faith missions. The ecumenical agencies tended to downplay differences and stressed the importance of cooperative efforts to spread the Word of God. This group included the Basel (to some extent, although, as a Swiss-based group, it saw building Christian communities as its primary task), Berlin, Rhenish (also known as Barmen), North German (later Bremen), and Gossner (later another Berlin) Missions, as well as two foundations created during the colonial era: the German East Asia Mission (1884) and the Bethel (1886) Mission. The Berlin Mission operated in South Africa, China, and Tanganyika, while the Rhenish Mission’s major fields were Southwest Africa (Namibia) and Sumatra; the North German Mission focused on Togo and Dahomey; and the Gossner Mission had a thriving work in North India. The German East Asia Mission (originally the General Protestant Mission Association) was the creation of liberal “Cultural Protestants,” who promoted education and the idea of a universal world civilization in their fields in China and Japan. The Bethel Mission, founded by colonial enthusiasts as the Protestant Missionary Society for German East Africa, at first went bankrupt because of mismanagement. Friedrich von Bodelschwingh (1831–1910) rescued it by moving the seat from Berlin to his Bethel institution at Bielefeld and refocusing its efforts on medical work.
The Lutheran confessionalists were uneasy about cooperating with Anglicans and Reformed. The most important of their societies was the Leipzig Mission (1836), which brought together Lutheran mission initiatives, carried on the legacy of the Danish-Halle Mission in India, and opened a fruitful field in East Africa. The Hermannburg Mission (1849) was the foundation of Ludwig Harms (1808–65), a strong-willed confessionalist from Hannover, and it promoted peasant settlement colonies in South Africa and a work in South India. The Neuendettelsau Mission of Wilhelm Löhe (1808–72) originally worked among Lutheran settlers in the United States, but in the 1880s it embarked on a major work in Papua New Guinea. The Schleswig-Holstein Evangelical Lutheran Mission at Breklum (1876) sent missionaries to China and South India, while the Bleckmar Mission (1892) in Hannover had a field in South Africa.
The most recent creations were the faith missions, modeled on the Bristol orphanages of George Mueller (1805–98) and the China Inland Mission (CIM) of J. Hudson Taylor (1832–1905). The Neukirchen Mission (1882) was the only Reformed society. Inspired by Mueller, it began with an orphanage and later added other works in Kenya and Java. The CIM was replicated in the Alliance Mission of Barmen (1889) and the Marburg Mission (1909), each of which sent workers to China, while its German branch, the Liebenzell Mission (1899), initiated a notable work in the Pacific islands that Germany acquired from Spain in 1899.
Some faith groups, many of which were charitable endeavors, focused on the Near East. Thanks to the influence of Samuel Gobat (1799–1879), a Basel-trained Lutheran who served in Ethiopia with the Church Missionary Society and was consecrated bishop of Jerusalem in 1846 under the joint British-Prussian missionary episcopacy, several groups could initiate works in the Holy Land, including the Kaiserwerth Deaconesses (1851), the Berlin Jerusalem Society (1852), the Syrian Orphanage in Jerusalem (1860), and the St. Chrischona Pilgrim Mission. The last mission was founded in 1840 by C. F. Spittler (1782–1867) and sent lay workers to the East. Its most memorable venture was an effort in the 1860s (ultimately unsuccessful) to establish a chain of mission stations from Jerusalem to Ethiopia. Other groups in the East included two relief bodies formed in 1896 that started out aiding Armenian refugees—the German Orient Mission, founded by Johannes Lepsius (1858–1926), and the German Christian Aid for the Orient, started by Ernst Lohmann (1860–1936)—and also the Sudan Pioneer Mission, later Protestant Mission in Upper Egypt (1900), which evangelized Muslims; the convalescent facility of the Protestant Carmel Mission (1904); and the Mission to the Blind of Ernst Christoffel (1876–1955), which began in Turkish Kurdistan and today has a worldwide ministry.
There were a variety of other enterprises. Along with the customary women’s auxiliaries that the regional societies sponsored were the Oriental Women’s Mission (1842), Hildesheim Mission to the Blind (1890), Malche Women’s Mission (1898), Women’s Missionary Prayer League (1900), and the Mission of the Women’s and Girls’ Bible Circles (1925). The German Institute for Medical Missions was founded in Tübingen in 1906, and after World War II the Educational Assistance for Young Christians in Asia and Africa (1960) and the Children’s Emergency Relief Agency (1961) were created. The German Baptists formed their own society in 1890 and sent missionaries to Cameroon, then a Germany colony, and today still an active Baptist field. The Seventh-day Adventists in 1930, the Methodists in 1930, and some smaller free churches also created mission agencies.
Worldwide, the Germans took the lead in developing the scientific study of missions (Missionswissenschaft), or what today is called missiology. The leading figures in this were Karl Graul (1814–64), a Leipzig Mission leader and scholar of Tamil; Carl Plath (1829–1901), director of the Gossner Mission and a visiting lecturer at Berlin University, who fought to have missions recognized as a discipline in the theological curriculum; Gustav Warneck (1834–1910), pastor and professor at Halle, author of important books in mission history and theory, and founding editor of the first scholarly journal devoted to missions, the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift; and Julius Richter (1862–1940), Warneck’s successor as editor of the AMZ, an author of 30 books, the first professor of missions at Berlin, and a leading ecumenist. Contemporary with them were several other missions scholars who distinguished themselves in such fields as linguistics, geography, ethnology, and anthropology. Among the 20th-century luminaries in German missiology were Martin Schlunk (1874–1958), Karl Hartenstein (1894–1952), Walter Freytag (1899–1959), Georg Vicedom (1903–74), and Hans-Werner Gensichen (1915–99). A large endowment for mission studies, the German Protestant Evangelical Missions Assistance Fund (Missionshilfe), was raised in 1913, and the German Society for Missiology, the first scholarly society devoted to the field of missions, was formed in 1918.
2. Present Situation and Future Prospects

World War I had a devastating impact on the German foreign mission enterprise, from which it has never fully recovered. The ecumenical relationships that had developed in the prewar years were shattered, the missionaries were cut off from funds, in areas under Allied control they were removed from their stations and interned or repatriated, and their properties were confiscated. Mission leaders in the Allied countries, however, managed to obtain a provision in the 1919 Paris peace treaty that permitted these properties to be held in trust by other missions. Although misunderstood at the time, this action saved the mission holdings, and over the next decade the Germans were allowed to return to their fields. At the same time, the ecumenical ties were gradually restored, and Germans took part in the various international missionary conclaves. The umbrella agency for the societies was renamed the German Protestant Missionary Conference (Missions-Tag), with the Missionary Council (Missionsrat) as its standing executive.
Although the missionaries failed to grasp the threat of National Socialism and made many grievous compromises with the Nazi order, the experience led to inner renewal. At a conference in Tübingen in October 1934, in what has been called the → Barmen of German missions, the missionaries overwhelmingly identified with the → Confessing Church. Since the Nazis had no use for missions, they cut off the flow of money to the fields, and the Second World War resulted in a complete disruption of overseas ties. The → International Missionary Council (IMC) mounted a massive campaign to save the German enterprises (the Orphaned Missions Program), and the Germans were able to enter into an ecumenical “partnership in obedience” (a slogan prominent at the 1947 IMC conference in Whitby, Canada) that would preserve the Christian witness in a changing world. Western missions were transformed into world missions, and the Germans embarked on a new relationship with the “mission churches,” where partnership replaced paternalism. Expatriate church personnel were now coworkers with indigenous leaders.
Just as significant was the internal change the new relationship between church and mission brought about. The unity of the missio Dei (or, as Freytag put it, “mission as God’s reality in this world”) called for the whole church to witness by word and deed in real brotherhood and sacrificial service. The desired integration did not come about, however, and the division of Germany merely exacerbated the tensions within the church. In the 1960s the mission agencies drew closer to the territorial churches, and the regional missions now came to be seen as appropriate organizations in which the church organs could participate. The Protestant Council for World Mission, formed in 1963, was the first organization that formally linked the churches and the societies. The creation of the Protestant Mission Work in 1975, an agency concerned with development, further strengthened ties between church and mission.
A parallel development occurred among the theological conservatives (the Evangelikale), who possessed a wide network of Bible schools, mission societies, and evangelistic organizations and who formed a separate Conference of Evangelical Missions (1969). The existence of the rival bodies indicates that the tensions between conciliar Protestants and → evangelicals existing on the global scene are present and even exacerbated at the local level. Moreover, mission boards of some American denominations have founded works in Germany, such as Baptist Mid-Missions (1950, of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches), the Southern Baptists (1961), and the Grace Brethren (1969). They share the view of the conservative evangelicals that today Germany itself is a mission field.

Bibliography: J. AAGAARD, Mission-Konfession-Kirche. Die Problematik ihrer Integration im 19. Jahrhundert in Deutschland (Lund, 1967) ∙ G. H. ANDERSON, ed., Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions (New York, 1998) ∙ K. J. BADE, ed., Imperialismus und Kolonialmission. Kaiserliches Deutschland und koloniales Imperium (Wiesbaden, 1982) ∙ H.-W. GENSICHEN, Missionsgeschichte der neueren Zeit (3d ed.; Göttingen, 1976) ∙ H. GRÜNDER, Christliche Mission und deutscher Imperialismus, 1884–1914 (Paderborn, 1982) ∙ J. A. B. JONGENEEL, Philosophy, Science, and Theology of Mission in the 19th and 20th Centuries (2 vols.; New York, 1995–97) ∙ H. KASDORF, Gustav Warnecks missiologisches Erbe (Giessen, 1990) ∙ N.-P. MORITZEN, “Aus deutscher Sicht,” Geschichte der christlichen Mission (ed. S. Neill; Erlangen, 1974) ∙ W. OEHLER, Geschichte der Deutschen Evangelischen Mission (2 vols.; Baden-Baden, 1949–51) ∙ R. V. PIERARD, “Shaking the Foundations: World War I, the Western Allies, and German Protestant Missions,” IBMR 22 (1998) 13–19 ∙ W. RAUPP, ed., Mission in Quellentexten. Geschichte der Deutschen Evangelischen Mission von der Reformation bis zur Weltmissionskonferenz Edinburgh 1910 (Bad Liebenzell, 1990) ∙ W. USTORF, “Anti-Americanism in German Missiology,” MisSt 6/1 (1989) 23–34.

RICHARD V. PIERARD
Germanic Mission

1. Individual Witnesses in Southeastern Europe (3d–4th Centuries)
2. Homoean Mission (4th-6th Centuries)
3. Christianization of the Franks (5th–8th Centuries)
4. The Anglo-Saxons in Mission History (5th–8th Centuries)
5. Christianization of the Saxons (6th–10th Centuries)
6. Conclusion of the Germanic Mission in Scandinavia (8th–12th Centuries)

The Germanic Mission was a complex process extending over almost a millennium. In about 180 Irenaeus of Lyons mentions churches in Germania (Adv. haer. 1.10.2); in the 12th century, the Germanic mission ended in Sweden. Geographically, too, the overall process was extremely broad and encompassed quite varied phenomena.
1. Individual Witnesses in Southeastern Europe (3d–4th Centuries)

In the beginning of the great migration of peoples in Europe (the Völkerwanderung), Goths in about A.D. 264 carried off Christians from Asia Minor into slavery in Dacia, north of the Lower Danube (present-day Romania). These Christians held fast to their faith and eventually exerted influence on individual Goths. We know the most about Ulfilas (largely through church historian Philostorgius and Milanese bishop Auxentius), who grew up in the Christian tradition, though one of his parents was a Goth. Probably in 337 he was consecrated as bishop of Gothic Christians in Constantinople, perhaps as the direct successor of the Gothic bishop Theophilus, whose name occurs in the acts of the Council of → Nicaea (325). A → persecution of Christians forced Ulfilas and his circle to flee south (probably in 344) to the → Roman Empire. Their descendants are described around 560 as a peaceful people in the southern Balkans (Gothi minores, according to Gothic historian Jordanes). Ulfilas, who died in 383, translated parts of the Bible and liturgy into Gothic (→ Bible Versions 2.4), for which purpose he created a written Gothic language.
The → mission emanating from the circle around Ulfilas is clearly discernible because it was separated dogmatically from the Catholic Church of the Roman Empire. Contrary to the Council of Constantinople in 381, Ulfilas maintained the → confession of faith (→ Christology 2) that was valid in the mid-fourth century, according to which Christ is similar (homoios) to God the Father. According to Auxentius, shortly before his death Ulfilas identified himself as a “Homoean.” This Homoean theology became known historically as Germanic Arianism, to be distinguished from original → Arianism. Gothic → martyrs included Innas, Rhemas, and Pinnas, all of whose → relics were preserved by a Bishop Goddas. There are 22 names mentioned as victims of a church burning; the Gothic princess Gaatha tried to salvage the relics, and her companion was stoned. Martyrs also included the missionary Nicetas and the Goth Sabas because he took the side of the Christians. The nascent Germanic mission thus attests the confessional engagement of individual Christians who were also willing to suffer martyrdom.
2. Homoean Mission (4th–6th Centuries)

Because of pressure from the Huns, King Fritigern (ca. 370–83) of the Visigoths (i.e., the western Goths) tried around 370 to form an alliance with the Roman Empire, one that included Christian mission. Emperor Valens (364–78) thus sent Homoean missionaries who spoke Gothic, that is, adherents of Ulfilas. The majority of Visigoths were Christianized, which explains their sparing the churches in Rome when they conquered it in 410. Within the following decade they had found a new home in southern France and Spain.
Another Germanic people was the Vandals, who embraced Arian Christianity in the Balkans before 400. Also under pressure from the Huns, the Vandals migrated to Spain in 409 and then, in 429 under their king Gaiseric, left Spain for North Africa. There they promoted their Homoean confession, at times through military means. Shortly after 500, the Arian Vandal king Thrasamund debated with the Catholic bishop Fulgentius.
The Ostrogoths, or eastern Goths, also adopted Homoean Christianity in the Balkans before 400. Under Theodoric the Great (471–526) the Ostrogoths conquered Italy, beginning in 490. Theodoric had the Ulfilas Bible copied; parts of a splendid copy written in gold and silver letters are preserved in Uppsala (the Codex argenteus). Theodoric’s policies extended as far as Thuringia, where one of his nieces married the local king; a golden helmet of Ostrogothic origin found there carries Christian emblems.
Around 500, the Arian Germanic peoples around the western Mediterranean rim were united in an alliance that ended with the defeat of the Vandals and Ostrogoths by Byzantium in the sixth century, as reported by the Byzantine historian Procopius. The church of the Visigoths under King Recared (586–601) joined the Catholic Church in Spain in 589.
In the late fifth century, the Life of St. Severinus (the “Apostle of Austria”), by his companion Eugippius, mentions the Rugi and Sciri people as in part a Homoean tribe. In the Balkans, the mission of Ulfilas’s circle reached the Gepidae and perhaps also the Heruli. The Burgundians in the Rhein-Main region and the Suebi in Portugal were also influenced by Arian Christianity. Homoean missions to Bavaria, Saxony, or indeed England are less certain (see K. Schäferdiek, RAC 10.519–22).
The last Germanic tribe affected by this Arian mission was the Lombards, who from 568 continued the Ostrogoth tradition in Italy. After contact with Pope Gregory I (590–604), they joined the Catholic Church during the course of the seventh century. In 774 they were absorbed into the empire of Charlemagne.
3. Christianization of the Franks (5th–8th Centuries)

The Catholic Church in Gaul was severely affected by the great migrations. Salvian of Marseilles (ca. 400–ca. 480) presented the Germanic peoples as ethical models to the Christians, though he was also familiar with Christian Germanic peoples. He mentions only peripherally the most important tribe, the Franks, who conquered or settled Gaul from the northwest. Individual Franks then became Christians.
The decisive event was the baptism of King Clovis (ruled 481–511) around 500 by Bishop Remigius of Reims, sealing Clovis’s relationship with the Catholic Church, the most important organization in Gaul. His Catholic wife, Clothide, also influenced him. In his Historia Francorum (History of the Franks) 2.30–31, Gregory of Tours (538/39–94) also mentions a battle in which Clovis invoked and received Christ’s help. Writing around 590, Gregory was admittedly already presupposing the existence of a Frankish Catholic Church. Although Bishop Avitus of Vienne (ca. 490–518) immediately anticipated great things from Clovis’s baptism, the actual Christianization of the Franks proceeded only slowly.
In the mid-sixth century, Queen Radegunde, who had been captured in Thuringia and enslaved, destroyed a pagan shrine of the Franks (Venantius Fortunatus, Life of Radegunde 2.2). The expansion of the Franks to southern Gaul was aided by their alliance with the church, although Bishop Caesarius of Arles (ca. 470–542) remained somewhat reserved toward them.
The prologue to the Salic Law, an early version of which was drawn up during the reign of Clovis, claims Christ as the Frankish national God: “Long live Christ, who loves the Franks. May he keep their empire and fill their princes with the light of his grace. May he protect their army and defend their faith.”
The thwarting of the Muslims (→ Islam) in 732 by Charles Martel (ruled 717–41) and the crowning of Pepin III (741–68) as Frankish king—with anointing by Frankish bishops in 751, repeated in 754 by Pope Stephen II—provide a line from the Germanic mission to the empire of Charlemagne.
4. The Anglo-Saxons in Mission History (5th–8th Centuries)

The church in Britain underwent significant trauma in the fifth century, especially as a result of Anglo-Saxon conquests (according to Gildas, British monk and historian of the 5th cent.). Pope Gregory I sent monks to engage in missionary activity among them, which led in 597 to the baptism of Ethelbert, king of Kent. Gregory wanted to preserve pagan temples and turn them into churches, and he had plans for establishing bishoprics and archbishoprics. In his church history of the English people, the monk Bede (“The Venerable,” ca. 673–735) describes this process after 700. Over time, the mission suffered setbacks, and the attitudes of the various kings changed. The Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons ultimately influenced poetry.
Wilfrid (634–709), an English prelate, intensively advocated the Christian faith and sought contact with Peter’s successor in Rome. At the Synod of Whitby (664) he succeeded in asserting the Roman mission against Irish competition, adducing Peter’s role as the keeper of the gate, able to open or close heaven to the deceased. The influence of this devotion to Peter had a long history.
The English were soon engaging in missionary activities on the Continent as well. Bede mentions Egbert, Wigbert, and Willibrord (“Apostle of Frisia”), who previously had been in Irish monasteries, where the notion of discipleship of Christ actualized in foreign missions had already been fostered. Willibrord died in 739 as archbishop of Utrecht.
The most important figure for the Germanic mission, however, was Winfrid (“Apostle of Germany,” ca. 675–754), who in 719, during his first visit to Rome, received the name Boniface. He later was active in Hesse, Thuringia, Bavaria, and Frisia, where he was martyred in 754. He felt related by blood to the Saxons (Ep. 46). His correspondence describes the situation in German regions as well as his relationships with Rome and with his home church in England, especially its monasteries.
5. Christianization of the Saxons (6th–10th Centuries)

Anglo-Saxon Christians engaged in missionary activities among their tribal kin on the Continent. After Boniface, Lebuinus (d. 780) continued missionary work, often in the face of great danger (according to the anonymous Vita Lebuini). The Franks frequently waged war against the Saxons, and the religious question acquired increasing significance. In 777 the Saxon lands were divided into mission regions, and the Saxon nobility included a party friendly to the Christians. In 782 the mission was considered concluded. Although it was to be secured through law (in the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae), revolts still arose, first under Saxon duke Widukind, who in 785 submitted to Charlemagne and was baptized. His descendants later became German kings and emperors.
The Germanic mission continued, in spite of these wars between Franks and Saxons. The Anglo-Saxon Willehad (730–89) became bishop of Bremen in 787, the Frisian Liudger bishop of Münster in 805. The Anglo-Saxon Alcuin (ca. 732–804) congratulated Charlemagne (ruled 768–814) on his missionary successes while simultaneously criticizing his violent methods, asserting that faith must be accepted voluntarily.
The Old Saxon biblical poem → Heliand (Savior; 830s) presents Christ in a Saxon environment. Although a Germanization of Christianity did indeed come about, the severity of the → Sermon on the Mount was fully preserved.
The Saxon monk Gottschalk (ca. 804–ca. 869) propounded an extreme form of Augustine’s doctrine of predestination (→ Augustine’s Theology), which brought him into conflict with the archbishops of Mainz and Reims. Despite being beaten and imprisoned in a monastery, he held fast to his theology. Shortly after 900 the so-called Poeta Saxo viewed the Christianization of the Saxons as one of Charlemagne’s good works, for which one ought to be grateful. In about 970 the Saxon historian Widukind of Corvey understood himself as representing Christianity to the backward pagan Slavs east of the Elbe.
6. Conclusion of the Germanic Mission in Scandinavia (8th–12th Centuries)

The Germanic mission in Scandinavia began through contacts with merchants. Willibrord came to Denmark after 700, and Ebbo of Reims, appointed apostolic legate by Pope Paschal I, led a Frankish mission into Denmark in 822–23. A clearer picture emerges of Anskar (801–65), who came to Sweden first in 829, where he took Birka on Lake Mälaren as his base of operations. There a nobleman underwrote the construction of a church. Anskar became bishop of Hamburg in about 832, and after the destruction of the city in 845 was finally able to continue his work as archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen from about 848. He received a call from King Horik I in Denmark, where there were already Christians, and later again to Sweden. His successor, Rimbert (author of Life of Anskar), similarly spent time in the North.
A second line of influence came from England, which in the ninth century was partially conquered by Danish Vikings. The encounter of Danish King Sigifrid III (= Godefrid?) with the English church moved him to be baptized in 885.
Haakon I the Good (935–ca. 961), the first Christian king of Norway, was brought up at the court of the English king, and two of his successors—Harold II Gråfell (Gray Cloak) and Olaf I Tryggvason—became Christians in England while it was occupied by the Danes. The Christianization of Norway came to its conclusion under St. Olaf (= King Olaf II Haraldsson, d. 1030).
By the year 1000 Iceland had become Christian. Politically, Norway had attempted to control Iceland since the ninth century. A high point was Danish king Canute I the Great (d. 1035), who for a time united Denmark, England, and Norway.
Although English bishops were appointed for new bishoprics, the legal and ecclesiastical influence of Hamburg-Bremen predominated. In the 10th century it established the bishoprics of Schleswig, Ribe, and Århus.
Unwan, archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, ordained the first bishop in Sweden, Thurgot of Skara (ca. 1013/14). Adalbert of Bremen, a later archbishop, sought to establish himself as Patriarch of the North; Adam of Bremen recounted the events after the collapse of Adalbert’s archbishopric in 1066. The North became independent with the establishment of the archbishopric of Lund in 1104, from which additional archbishoprics then emerged: Trondheim (Nidaros) in 1153 for Norway, Uppsala in 1164 for Sweden. Nordic sources make clear the inner appropriation of Christianity.
Conclusions concerning the earlier religion of the Germanic peoples are a matter of debate, since the written sources are already colored by Christian influence. Generalizations regarding the Germanic missions are ill advised because the events were much too varied. Romantic notions about a particular “predisposition” of the Germanic peoples for Christianity are clearly obsolete, even though the Germanic mission itself was doubtless more than merely a socioeconomic process (→ Acculturation).
→ Middle Ages 2; Mission 3

Bibliography: Primary sources: M. ERBE, Quellen zur germanischen Bekehrungsgeschichte (Gütersloh, 1971) ∙ G. HAENDLER, Das Christentum und die Germanen (Berlin, 1961) ∙ W. LANGE, Texte zur germanischen Bekehrungsgeschichte (Tübingen, 1962).
Secondary works: A. ANGENENDT, Das Frühmittelalter. Die abendländische Christenheit von 400 bis 900 (2d ed.; Stuttgart, 1995) ∙ C. M. CUSAK, Conversion among the Germanic Peoples (London, 1998) ∙ G. HAENDLER, Die abendländische Kirche im Zeitalter der Völkerwanderung (Berlin, 1980); idem, Geschichte des Frühmittelalters und der Germanenmission (2d ed.; Göttingen, 1976) ∙ Y. HEN, Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul, A.D. 481–751 (Leiden, 1995) ∙ J. N. HILLGARTH, Christianity and Paganism, 350–750: The Conversion of Western Europe (London, 1986) ∙ H. JEDIN, ed., HKG(J), 2/1 and 2/2 ∙ L. MILIS, De Heidense Middeleuwen (Brussels, 1991) ∙ C. NOLTE, Conversio und Christianitas. Frauen in der Christianisierung vom 5. bis 8. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1995) ∙ T. NYBERG, Die Kirche in Skandinavien (Sigmaringen, 1986) ∙ L. E. VON PADBERG, Mission und Christianisierung. Formen und Folgen bei Angelsachsen und Franken im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1995) ∙ K. SCHÄFERDIEK, “Germanenmission,” RAC 10.492–548; idem, Die Kirche des frühen Mittelalters (Munich, 1978); idem, “Wulfila—vom Bischof in Gothien zum Gotenbischof,” ZKG 90 (1979) 107–46 ∙ S. SCHIPPERGES, Bonifatius ac socii eius. Eine sozialgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Mainz, 1996) ∙ F. STAAB, Zur Kontinuität zwischen Antike und Mittelalter am Oberrhein (Sigmaringen, 1994) ∙ R. E. SULLIVAN, Christian Missionary Activity in the Early Middle Ages (Aldershot, 1994) ∙ I. WOOD, The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450–751 (London, 1994).

GERT HAENDLER
Germany

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
72,673
78,304
82,688
Annual growth rate (%):
0.90
–0.16
0.02
Area: 356,974 sq. km. (137,828 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 232/sq. km. (600/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 0.84 / 1.11 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 1.30 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 5 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 77.5 years (m: 74.2, f: 80.7)
Religious affiliation (%): Christians 76.3 (Protestants 37.2, Roman Catholics 35.7, unaffiliated 4.7, other Christians 2.6), nonreligious 17.3, Muslims 3.8, atheists 2.1, other 0.5.

1. Political Background
2. The Churches
2.1. Political and Social Stance
2.2. Protestants
2.2.1. Evangelical Church (EKD)
2.2.2. In East Germany
2.2.3. The Postunification Period
2.3. Roman Catholic Church
2.4. Other Churches
3. Non-Christian Religions
1. Political Background

The political history of Germany in the 20th century has seen a series of revolutionary, traumatic changes that have profoundly affected the lives of its citizens and their social institutions. In 1918, on Germany’s defeat in the First World War, the Hohenzollern Empire was overthrown and a new parliamentary → democracy established, commonly called the Weimar Republic. Because of strong opposition from many leading circles in the nation, however, this unprecedented experiment with democratic ideas and institutions proved unstable. Further factors undermining the Weimar Republic were the almost universal refusal to accept the terms of the 1919 Versailles Treaty, the ambition to restore Germany’s international position, and the desire to return to the familiar pattern of authoritarian government. Such trends played into the hands of political extremists, especially those of the National Socialist Party, led by Adolf Hitler, which came to power on January 30, 1933.
Contrary to the illusions of those who welcomed Hitler as a conservative leader and a bulwark against the danger of Communist revolution, the Nazis soon embarked on a radical program of seizing control over all existing policies and institutions. All social groups that might prove resistant to Nazi ambitions were to be “coordinated” or suppressed. The response of the churches to this incipient threat was remarkably naive.
The majority of Protestants enthusiastically endorsed Hitler’s plans and wanted to align their churches closely to the state in a joint act of national renewal. A minority, later to be called the → Confessing Church, resisted any state interference in their affairs but otherwise supported the Nazis’ secular goals. The Roman Catholic leaders, similarly deluded, urged the Vatican to conclude a Reich Concordat with the new regime, which was signed during the summer of 1933. The illusion that this treaty would safeguard Catholic interests was only reluctantly abandoned. The Catholic → bishops never admitted their mistake. They were thus unable to mobilize their followers to resist the Nazi crimes and atrocities. The consequent → church struggle was therefore always an ambivalent affair as the churches sought to reconcile their nationalist and ecclesiastical loyalties, never daring to recognize that these loyalties were incompatible.
Far more ominous were the Nazis’ ever-escalating racial and expansionist goals (→ Racism). The → anti-Semitic campaign designed to purge Germany and, later, Europe of its entire Jewish population led by successive stages to the organization of mass-murder centers in concentration camps and to the killing of at least six million Jews. At the same time, Hitler’s provocative goal of nationalist and military expansion led to war in 1939. His defeat was achieved not by his opponents in Germany but solely by the massed military power of his foreign enemies.
The victory of the Allies in 1945 brought about the extinction of German sovereignty, the military occupation of the whole country, and the cession of territories to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union. Consequent disagreements between the Western allies and the Soviet Union resulted in the division of the country along the line of the so-called Iron Curtain. There followed the creation of mutually rival German governments, the Federal Republic (FRG) in the west, and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the east. Both claimed to be the true legislative authority for the whole country and drew support, both military and economic, from their respective partners.
In the 1950s, during the onset of the cold war, hopes faded for a compromise that would enable reunification on the basis of a neutralized and nonaligned Germany, as desired by some of the church groups. Instead, both German governments indulged in ideological attacks on the other. After the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the citizens of East Germany were physically prevented from Western contacts. During the 1960s and 1970s the division of the country came to be accepted as unavoidable, and the separate populations grew apart.
In the 1980s the contrast between the political and economic success of the Federal Republic and the lackluster performance of East Germany under the → totalitarian control of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) led to increasing dissatisfaction in the GDR. In 1989 this movement resulted in a sharp increase in protest rallies, often sponsored by churches, luckily nonviolent, and in the eventual capitulation of the SED authorities. The dismantling of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 symbolized the collapse of the Communist regime and prompted desires for reunification with the FRG.
The speedy demise of the entire GDR system followed. Thanks to West German chancellor Helmut Kohl and his leadership in negotiation with the former occupation powers, this goal was achieved in October 1990.
The subsequent years have been spent in trying to assimilate and mold together the two separate populations, a task that has proved to be much more demanding and expensive than was envisaged. The absence of any foreign intervention, as well as the relative success of the German economy, has allowed the attempt to succeed. Despite continuing disparities in income levels between west and east, the whole country now enjoys a stable democratic form of government, offering all social institutions, including the churches, the opportunity to forge their own destinies.
2. The Churches
2.1. Political and Social Stance

Over the past 100 years the German churches have shared a common experience of living through the above-described succession of political disasters and totalitarian rule. In no other country, except Russia, have the churches been forced to face such striking challenges from hostile governments. At the same time, they have been obliged to confront vital questions about their own self-understanding. A large part of the churches’ intellectual witness in recent decades has been preoccupied with the attempt to come to terms with their experiences under these antagonistic conditions. The resulting controversies, which range from defensive self-justification to lacerating self-criticism, have been a notable feature of church life.
Especially for the two major churches—the Roman Catholics and the German Evangelical Church (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, EKD)—the major concern over the past 80 years has been the relations between church, state, and society. Successive political regimes have enacted or imposed legislative ordinances, not necessarily for the churches’ benefit, but usually stemming from political expediency. The churches, in turn, have responded by seeking constitutional guarantees of their privileges, as in the terms of the 1919 Weimar constitution. This settlement was largely repeated in the West German constitution of 1949, which was extended to cover the whole country in 1990. The Catholics, for their part, sought the same security, through a series of provincial and national → concordats, in particular the 1933 Reich Concordat, an official treaty between the German state and the Vatican.
These constitutional safeguards, however, proved ineffective against the onslaughts of both the Nazi authorities in the 1930s and the Communists in East Germany in the 1950s. Many critics have asserted that the churches failed in their task to prevent or to mitigate the totalitarian criminality of these dictatorships. Others have pointed to the widespread readiness of church members to indulge in illusions about the political character of these regimes. For the Nazi period, such failings can be seen in the early acclaim given to Hitler in 1933, the enthusiastic support for his aggressive foreign policy, the applause for Germany’s military victories in 1940, and, most shamefully of all, the silence at the Nazis’ ruthless degradation and later annihilation of the Jewish people. For the period of Communist domination in the GDR, criticism has been expressed at the readiness of the church leaders, especially the Protestants, to seek a constructive relationship with this regime, despite its visible system of repression.
Defenders of the churches, in return, have argued that they were faced with unprecedented attacks by these totalitarian regimes, using the extraordinarily powerful force of propaganda and deliberately determined to overthrow the religious traditions of many centuries. Such confrontations were not initiated by the churches. They remained throughout on the defensive, seeking to protect their autonomy and the purity of their theologies, as well as to preserve the opportunities for pastoral care of their followers.
These as-yet-unresolved controversies have meant that debates about what role the churches should play in the official national or provincial legislatures, and the methods to ensure their continuing social significance, have been continuous and often heated. The 1919 constitution resulted in a practical, if peculiar, compromise. The two major churches were no longer to be part of the official state structures, as before 1918. They were free to govern themselves outside the tutelage of the civil service or political parties. They were accorded the status of corporations within the public law and hence were entitled to special financial privileges. After 1933 the Nazi authorities sought to reimpose the state’s domination, through a new Ministry for Church Affairs. In 1945 this body was abolished. Afterward, in the absence of any form of German self-government, the churches sought to take the lead in the re-Christianizing of the → nation. They believed they should be entrusted with a wide range of social activities in order to serve all classes and ages of people. In West Germany, such initiatives were welcomed after 1949 by the governments of the FRG, which were anxious to negate the Nazis’ centralist policies. As a result, large numbers of educational, medical, and social welfare institutions came to be established or reestablished under church auspices (→ Relief and Development Organizations).
By contrast, in the GDR the religious policies of its new rulers were deliberately designed to diminish the influence of the churches and of their social outreach. Only after 1970 did this government begin to recognize that such charitable works could be of assistance, especially in the field of mental health, care of derelicts or drug addicts, or old age and nursing homes. After reunification, the West German system of church-sponsored social welfare activities was extended to the whole country.
These activities are largely financed by the church tax. This money is collected from adherents of those churches considered as corporations under the public law, as a percentage (8–10 percent) of each individual’s income tax. Members of the various free churches are exempt; these churches depend wholly on voluntary contributions. Because of the economic successes of the (West) German society in the past 50 years, the churches’ resources have vastly expanded. Both major churches use such revenues to maintain their historic buildings, to cover the costs of their public activities, to pay the salaries of their clergy and lay professional staff, and even to organize programs of foreign aid (→ Church Finances).
Such practical achievements must be offset by the undoubted fact of the diminution of the churches’ influence in the general population. As in other western European countries, the spread of secular humanism has led to widespread abandonment of church attendance, especially in the cities, such as Berlin, where the percentage of the population attending church services was already notably low 100 years ago. Debate continues as to the extent to which this crisis of belief was caused by rejection of traditional Christian orthodox doctrines, or how far it was the result of external factors, such as the repressive actions of both the Nazi and Communist dictatorships. It is notable, however, that the overthrow of these repressive systems did not lead to a re-Christianization of German society, despite vigorous efforts by church authorities to achieve that end. A more durable explanation for the churches’ striking decline in prestige and credibility must be seen in the political behavior of the churches themselves, such as their overenthusiastic endorsement of extreme German nationalism and their misuse of theology to justify German war aims. So too the readiness of some church leaders to give approval to both the Nazi and Communist systems has induced a sense of disillusionment among a more skeptical population.
In this situation, the churches’ traditional claims to be the moral and spiritual guardians of the nation have been, and still are, challenged, especially in the areas of public policy. This legacy, however, drawn from the centuries when the churches enjoyed both power and prestige, cannot be lightly abandoned, all the more since the attempts by political ideologies to usurp this role have proved so disastrous. The dilemma for the churches is apparent: how to mobilize their followers to witness against dangerous concentrations of political power, against dehumanizing ideologies, or against the erosion of moral and religious values in contemporary society; but also how to avoid the kind of triumphalism and establishmentarianism of earlier years. Some radical Protestant theologians, following the teachings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, have argued in favor of a voluntary renunciation of the churches’ privileges and status. Others have called for a return to the more traditional pastoral witness and abstention from political engagement. All are agreed, however, that the churches should now support a pluralistic democracy that emphasizes the defense of individual worth and freedom as the best defense against any reversion to totalitarianism (→ Pluralism; Individualism).
After 1945 the readiness of Catholics and Protestants in West Germany to unite in forming a national political force, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), as a moderate conservative party, was, and has remained, a source of political stability and continuity. In contrast to the 1920s the CDU, which has held office during most of the period since 1949, has succeeded in maintaining the churches’ commitment to parliamentary democracy and private enterprise. The impressive economic results in West Germany and the resulting spread of wealth through enhanced systems of social welfare bore witness to the pressure exercised by churches for a fair and equitable distribution. By contrast, the failure of the GDR’s brand of Communism to produce similar results can be ascribed in part to the refusal of ideological support from the majority of the population, including church members.
In the post-1945 period the need to build barriers against any repetition of the Nazis’ extreme nationalism, and at the same time to create a bulwark against the threat of Soviet expansion, led many thoughtful Germans to advocate the unprecedented plan of a new federal Europe. Particularly to German Catholics, the idea was appealing of a federated western Europe with those countries—Italy, France, Belgium, and possibly Spain and Portugal—that shared a common Catholic culture and heritage. The first West German chancellor, the Catholic Konrad Adenauer, promoted this cause and drew support from other Catholic leaders abroad. A small minority of German Protestants, to be sure, opposed such a plan, on the grounds that it would preclude any possible reunification of the country, when Protestants would again become the largest denomination. The intransigence of the GDR, however, put an end to such hopes, at least temporarily.
By the 1960s most West German Protestants came to agree with German Catholics in accepting the value of such a gradualist approach to western European unity. The Vatican encouraged such developments for the sake of strengthening the international community. After the Second → Vatican Council, no one resented the pope’s sage advice. Neither nationalist Catholics nor militant Protestants objected. It was a significant step forward both politically and ecumenically. Nor was this policy altered with the 1990 reunification of the whole country. Church commentators have followed closely the debate as to how the rival pressures of national identity and regional integration can be reconciled.
2.2. Protestants

The present situation of the Protestants in Germany can be understood only in light of the 40 years of separation imposed by the political division of the country after 1945 and the postunification legacy in the most recent years.
In 1945 control of the German Evangelical Church was taken over by the surviving leaders of the anti-Nazi Confessing Church, leaders such as Theophil Wurm, bishop of Württemberg; Otto Dibelius, bishop of Berlin-Brandenburg; and Martin Niemöller, later church president of Hessen-Nassau. They saw their task as exercising pastoral responsibility for the whole country, especially vis-à-vis the military occupation forces. In October 1945 the new Executive Council of the church issued the famous Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt, admitting the church’s shortcomings in not having more vigorously opposed the Nazi regime. In order to seek maximum unity and support, however, no thorough purging of former Nazis in the church was carried out along such lines as followed by other institutions. So too no radical reforms of the church’s structures were undertaken. The central administration of each provincial church remained intact. Similarly, a convenient interpretation of the church’s experience during the Nazi years was propagated, stressing ecclesiastical and spiritual resistance to Nazi encroachments but keeping silent as to (1) the extent of the complicity and compromises with Nazi crimes of aggression and racial persecution and (2) the failure to speak out except when the church itself was under attack.
During the 1950s the EKD sought to act as a bridge for the then increasingly divided country. As inheritors of the → Reformation, they believed the church had a national mandate for all Germans. They therefore opposed both the clerical Catholicism of the west and the godless Communism of the east. The building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, however, made this strategy inoperative. As a result, the churches east and west were obliged to establish separate administrations, though professing to be still spiritually united. For nearly 30 years the exigencies of their very different settings led to divergent church policies, which were in turn backed by contrasting theologies (→ Church Government 5.1).

2.2.1. Evangelical Church (EKD)

In West Germany the 1949 constitution restored the provisions of the Weimar Republic, establishing the EKD as one of the corporations operating under public law, with attendant advantages. Freedom of expression was guaranteed. Each branch of the church was entitled to self-government without outside political interference. This restored continuity enabled the church to maintain Martin Luther’s heritage, while tacitly abandoning the predilection for authoritarianism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-Semitism. This strategy could be described as seeking the re-Christianization of Germany from the top downward. In the 1950s two significant developments helped this process: the establishment of evangelical academies in most of the provincial churches, with extensive programs for lay education, and the holding of biennial church rallies (Kirchentage) as large-scale efforts to draw together different sections of the church. The popularity and success of these institutions has continued.
In the late 1940s and 1950s the priority of the EKD’s efforts was given to the task of binding up the wounds of war, and especially of assimilating the several million Germans expelled from their homes in eastern Europe, most of whom were Protestants. Considerable assistance in these efforts was provided by the → Lutheran World Federation and by the → World Council of Churches’ Reconstruction Department. This project involved a very extensive building program. The establishment or extension of a large number of social institutions was called for. Schools, hospitals, old-age homes, and facilities catering to a wide range of needs were created, often in partnership with or under contract to government agencies. The major church agency for this task was the → Inner Mission, with many branches across the FRG, while a vigorous church foreign assistance program was organized by Bread for the World. So too the rebuilding of the theological faculties in the universities was part of a stabilizing and normalizing strategy (→ Theological Education). The resulting establishmentarianism was only heightened by the large-scale church bureaucracies created to implement these projects.
Criticism of this pastoral emphasis came from a small minority found particularly in the ranks of the Protestant university parishes (Studentengemeinde), who stressed the need for the church to take up a more prophetic role in society, deriving their inspiration from the Swiss theologian Karl Barth. Largely drawn from the more radical wing of the Confessing Church, and still led until the 1980s by its often controversial champion, Martin Niemöller, these theologians kept alive the hope that the lessons of the church struggle would be learned, and they acted as the conscience of the church. The church is now called, they affirmed, to embark on a more direct and prophetic condemnation of the misuse of state power. The church should make an explicit commitment to the victims of oppression and injustice. In political terms, this group launched protests against the West German alignment with NATO, against the remilitarization of the country, and against the stationing of nuclear weapons on German soil. They formed the core of a significant → peace movement and sought to build bridges to Germany’s former enemies. Their witness included (1) the → Darmstadt Declaration of 1947, which unequivocally condemned the desire for national aggrandizement, (2) the 1965 pronouncement on the need to recognize the permanency of Germany’s eastern borders, and (3) the 1980 Rhineland Synod’s statement affirming the place of Israel among the nations. One important initiative was the founding of the Aktion Sühnezeichen as an opportunity for young Germans to participate in reconstruction programs in eastern Europe and Israel. So too the strong and continuing support given by the EKD to the radical initiatives of the World Council of Churches can be seen as a fulfillment of the church’s prophetic role.
Particularly notable has been the EKD’s support for a new beginning in Christian-Jewish relations. It was principally sponsored by the generation of pastors and theologians who lived through the Nazi era, men and women who were acutely conscious of the church’s failure to seek to prevent or mitigate the persecution of the Jews. As a result, beginning in the 1960s, and parallel to similar efforts undertaken by the Vatican, the EKD has devoted considerable resources to this theme. First, the → prejudices and theological stereotypes of previous centuries—including those perpetrated by Luther—have been rejected and purged. Second, a new era of → partnership in theological discussion and discovery has been sought, often with positive results. The sin of anti-Semitism has been combated and condemned, especially the long-established teaching of contempt for the Jews as nourished by the church for centuries. At the same time, the Christian triumphalist and → dispensationalist stance toward Judaism has been discarded. The Rhineland Synod’s 1980 declaration calling for an end of mission to the Jews set a precedent for German and other churches to make similar professions of support. Difficulties, however, were experienced when theological justifications for Judaism seemed to give approval to the secular policies of the government of Israel. Over the last few decades, however, a totally new and much more vibrant chapter in Christian-Jewish relations has been ushered in.

2.2.2. In East Germany

The situation of the church in the German Democratic Republic during the 45 years of Communist domination constituted a striking contrast. After its establishment in 1949, the ruling Socialist Unity Party made no secret of its hostility to the churches. They were regarded as survivals of a presocialist culture, due to be replaced by the historically destined victory of → atheistic Communism. The subsequent strategy of propaganda and → persecution aimed to eliminate Christianity both institutionally and personally. The repressive measures taken against the churches in the 1950s were reminiscent of the actions suffered at the hands of the Nazis. In particular, the GDR regime sought to control all aspects of youth education and indoctrination. Its imposition of the Youth Dedication Ceremony, which became mandatory for all teenagers seeking advanced education, presented a strong challenge to the churches, which in effect they failed to meet. The churches adopted a defensive strategy designed to prevent encroachments while maintaining the hope that they would be rescued from their beleaguered situation by the West.
By the early 1960s this policy was seen to be unrealistic. Under incessant pressure from the GDR government, church leaders reluctantly relinquished many of their ties to the West German churches. In 1969 the Union of Evangelical Churches in the GDR was established as a separate administrative unit in order to refute the regime’s charge that the church was acting as an agent of Western interests.
In the subsequent two decades the East German Protestant church took a new path. For the first time in Lutheran history, it was obliged to wrestle with the unprecedented challenge of how to serve God in a Marxist land. It also had to reflect upon the loss of its long-held position as the upholder of the nation’s morality and identity. Younger church leaders, such as Albrecht Schönherr, who became bishop of Berlin-Brandenburg, sought a more positive response to the new situation, being much influenced by the ideas of Bonhoeffer. In particular, they were attracted by his call for the abandonment of traditional privileges, including the church’s former role as provider of theological justifications for militarism and nationalism. In its place, the church should now become the “church for others,” as a community of witness and service within the socialist society, not beside it, and not against it. The short slogan Kirche im Sozialismus became the benchmark of this movement as the basis upon which a more constructive relationship with the Communist state could be built.
These theologians and church leaders recognized that in a Marxist-dominated society—at least for the foreseeable future—their position would be marginal. They nevertheless refused to withdraw into a pietistic sect, concerned only with their own personal salvation. Instead, they affirmed that the church’s task in society was one of “critical solidarity.” Such ideas, however, met with suspicion from the ruling Communists and with skepticism from traditionalists in their own ranks. They were obliged to tread a thin dividing line between accommodation and opposition to the regime, seeking to steer a course that would offer them as much freedom as possible.
By the end of the 1970s this strategy seemed to be successful. The SED regime had abandoned its objective of rooting out all Christian influences from public life and instead acknowledged the contributions of church institutions to social welfare. The church was allowed relative freedom to control its own affairs, though still within revocable limits. For their part the church leaders were prepared to recognize the continuing existence of the GDR and its policies. Critics, however, accused the church authorities of giving the regime an undeserved approval and legitimacy. At the time no one knew the extent to which the church leadership was being infiltrated by the notorious secret police (Stasi). Suspicions were rife; proof was absent. Only in the aftermath did documentary evidence appear, though heavily slanted. In summary, church policies were only marginally affected by such seductions. Far more potent was the desire to pioneer a new role for the church, distinctive from both the past and the Western partners.
In the 1980s this impulse became evident at parish levels. New initiatives to boost the church’s freedom of action were begun. The peace movement, locally led and fueled by genuine fears, sought to mobilize the public against all destructive weapons on either side of the Iron Curtain. The response was gratifying and led to similar moves to protect the → environment and to advocate human → rights.
This network of activities helped to strengthen the church’s sense of autonomy and independence as a social force. The churches provided not only physical facilities but, more important, the organizational space for an increasing range of popular initiatives, particularly those that drew attention to the defects and oppressive character of the regime. In church halls and basements in Leipzig, Dresden, Magdeburg, and East Berlin, the churches put themselves in the forefront of popular pressures for reform.
The church leaders never promoted open resistance. They were at pains to refute any charges that they were agents of political subversion, working hand in glove with West Germans seeking the regime’s downfall. Resisting demands from more strident supporters for a sweeping and revolutionary overthrow, they instead demonstrated their determination to preach peace and → reconciliation. By the summer of 1989 weekly church-led peace prayer meetings attracted larger crowds than ever and spilled over into street demonstrations. It was largely due to the influence of the church authorities that violence was avoided.
The sudden collapse of the SED’s authority and the spectacular breaching of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, unleashed an enormous wave of public jubilation and relief. It also, however, revealed the ambivalences of the church’s position. It became clear that most of those who had participated in the church-based rallies and meetings had done so for opportunist reasons, because of the lack of legitimate alternatives. In the long run, the churches received no extra support. So too the church leaders’ hopes that the radical changes would open the way for a reformed → socialism based on a biblical vision of → righteousness and → peace were to be disappointed. Instead, the vast majority of the population voted for amalgamation with West Germany. By October 1990 this unification took place and was ratified in the following December elections. Within a few months, the separate East German Union of Evangelical Churches was dissolved, and the eight eastern provincial churches were reintegrated with their western counterparts.

2.2.3. The Postunification Period

As was the case with all social institutions, the reunification of the churches meant in fact the absorption of the east by the west, with its far greater resources of money and personnel. Disillusionment and disappointment were felt on both sides. The GDR church leaders found that their experiences were dismissed as deviant, their theology as misguided, and their witness as wrongheaded. The revelations of how far the Stasi had succeeded in gaining collaborators in the churches only increased the feelings of animosity. For their part, the West German church authorities were obliged to count the cost of having to subsidize their eastern partners in order to achieve a parity of status throughout the whole church. So too they were dismayed by the obvious unwillingness of their eastern colleagues to acknowledge any regret for their mistaken policies towards the dictatorship they had so readily served, let alone any willingness to make a gesture similar to the 1945 Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt. The GDR proponents of Kirche im Sozialismus were only with difficulty reconciled to having to live in the new state dominated by Western-style capitalism. From time to time, they issued prophetic protests but were ignored. The work of reconciliation between the two sides has been arduous and time consuming.
Among the issues that have proved problematic has been the churches’ role in the provision of → religious education in schools in the new eastern provinces, after decades of exclusion. So too the place of theological faculties in the universities, as well as the role of military chaplains, has required extensive discussions and the negotiation of new concordat-like agreements for both major churches. Such attempts to reinforce the churches’ position with legally binding regulations have not, however, been widely popular, and it is questionable whether this procedure has advanced the churches’ cause in the new provinces.
The basic administrative structure of the EKD is the provincial church, or Landeskirche. There are currently 24 of these provincial churches, most of whose boundaries coincide with those of secular jurisdictions, though some smaller enclaves survive for historical reasons. Each provincial church is administered by an Executive Council (Evangelisches Oberkirchenrat), one of whose clerical members is the elected bishop or church president. The legislative body is the Provincial Synod, consisting of both clergy and lay delegates, elected from each constituent parish. The day-to-day business is conducted by a mainly legally trained staff. Each provincial church enjoys complete doctrinal autonomy. All are linked in a federation, the EKD, which has its own council but no powers to control the local churches’ doctrinal or internal policies. The EKD is principally responsible for relations with other churches and with such bodies as the World Council of Churches. In fact, over the years, the EKD has come to be the principal financial support of the World Council of Churches, despite considerable differences in outlook and some major disagreements with WCC projects, such as the → Program to Combat Racism. Since Germany’s unification, this support has been notably decreased in order to provide more assistance to the churches in the so-called new provinces, formerly in East Germany.
Theologically these 24 provincial churches reflect the different emphases of the Reformation tradition, either → Lutheran, → Reformed (Calvinist), or → United. The last tradition is represented by the churches formerly in the kingdom of Prussia, whose monarch in 1817 ordered a compulsory amalgamation. Those churches following strictly the teachings of Martin Luther formed themselves, with the exception of Württemberg and Oldenburg, into the Union of Evangelical-Lutheran Churches in Germany (VELKD). All of these churches—those in the VELKD, Württemberg, and Oldenburg—are members of the Lutheran World Federation and assist in its programs. On the Reformed or Calvinist side, there exists a Reformed Union, which has similar world links abroad, most notably with the → World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
Thanks to recent ecumenical agreements, such as the 1973 → Leuenberg Agreement, there is now in effect a substantial measure of “full communion” between all of these churches. In addition, the impetus in favor of reconciliation between the churches can be seen in such agreements as the 1988 Meissen Agreement between the EKD and the Church of England, or the even more significant Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification between the Roman Catholics and Lutherans of October 1999. This latter document affirms that the condemnations regarding the doctrine of → justification issued in the 16th century should no longer be regarded as applicable or a cause of division between the churches. Thus it is a notable step forward, which may well help the integration of Catholics and Protestants in Germany after many centuries of hostility and antagonism.
A notable feature in recent years has been the increased interest in “spirituality.” However the term is defined, this development can be seen as one aspect of the privatization of religious sentiments, much induced by new technologies and by the influence of secular media. The churches face, not for the first time, a special dilemma. To insist on the rightness of traditional orthodoxy would open the way to charges of being behind the times, or even of obscurantism. If their followers were encouraged to conform to every whim of contemporary fashion, however, there would soon not be much of a church left—and all the more so when many such radical or tendentious ideas have been put forward primarily in order to shock and scandalize the faithful. Pastors and laity alike have thus come to suspect those theologians who, like Adolf Harnack a century ago, reduce the faith of their fathers to the kind of belief they assume modern persons will accept. To be sure, the EKD has no central controlling body to determine doctrinal truth, but this liberty can lead to incompatible positions being advanced without contradiction. Reformation theology surely emphasizes the need for redemption and → salvation for each individual, but this teaching does not mean that one can achieve this goal by one’s own efforts. The proliferation of unsubstantiated radical theories can confuse the faithful irrevocably. Bonhoeffer’s denunciation of “cheap grace” still needs to be heard.
2.3. Roman Catholic Church

After German unification in 1870, the → Roman Catholic Church was placed in a minority position and subject to continuous discrimination at the hands of the dominant Prussian Protestant majority. The subsequent → Kulturkampf led to a defensive mentality on the part of the Catholic leaders that was not overcome until after the Second World War. The 1919 Weimar Constitution removed almost all the earlier discriminatory legislation. Despite the signing of the Reich Concordat in July 1933, the Nazis undertook a systematic persecution of Catholic institutions and personnel. In these circumstances the Catholic hierarchy sought to prove its national loyalty by refraining from open conflict. There were only a few notable but limited exceptions, such as the bishop of Münster’s protest against → euthanasia. After the defeat of Nazism and the subsequent political division of the country, Catholics in West Germany gave strong support to the founding of the Federal Republic. Catholic laymen played a leading role in rebuilding the nation on Christian lines. In the Soviet zone of occupation, which in 1949 became the GDR, Catholics formed a small minority of less than 7 percent of the population, since the largest number of Catholics had formerly resided in those areas of Silesia that were ceded to Poland. Such populations may be presumed to have resettled in West Germany.
The traditional heartland of German Catholicism lay in Bavaria and along the river Rhine. Support from these areas was crucial in the establishment of the FRG in 1949. Having successfully weathered the storms of the Nazi years, the Catholic leaders adopted a pastoral and defensive strategy designed to preserve and protect their interests. Such a policy was reinforced by the fear of atheistic Communism and the knowledge of the repressive policies imposed on Catholics in the GDR. A large network of social institutions was reestablished to provide for the needs of the Catholic population. In the 1950s vigorous and successful efforts were made, despite a lengthy legal battle, to ensure that the provisions of the 1933 concordat were maintained in the FRG. This settlement restored substantial benefits, especially in the field of education. Until the end of the 1960s social and political → conservatism prevailed.
In the GDR, the Catholics were from the first suspected as being agents of the Vatican and its alleged Western capitalist backers. The parishes were soon brought, and remained, under surveillance from the secret police. Conscious of their being in such a minority position, the GDR Catholics adopted a very low profile, were entirely absorbed in their own pastoral concerns, and did not seek to play any public role. Of necessity, the bishops established their own conference in East Berlin. They thus avoided giving any open sign of support for the regime, and only in the last few years of the 1980s began to join with active Protestants in protest groups seeking a more open form of government. Following reunification in 1990, the bishops’ conferences in west and east were again joined, and now they meet annually as the Fulda Bishops’ Conference.
There are currently 27 Catholic dioceses, grouped in 7 archdioceses. Some of these are very ancient and small, and for historical reasons their boundaries do not coincide with those of present-day secular jurisdictions. There are somewhat under 30 million Catholics, served by 14,000 priests. The dioceses are linked to the Vatican through the papal → nuncio, resident in the nation’s capital, formerly Bonn, now Berlin. There is also a senior clergyman, usually a bishop, whose office deals with all branches of the government. The holders of the two largest → dioceses, Cologne and Munich-Freising, are frequently promoted to the rank of → cardinal.
In more recent decades, the former pattern of Catholic separate identity has been dissipated because of the → technological revolutions, the increase in mobility, the spread of secular ideas (→ Secularism), and the reality of religious and political pluralism. Fewer Catholics attend church, individualistic social behavior has challenged traditional morality, and a better educated population is less willing to accept clerical leadership as directors of their social and political lives. Politically, however, especially in such heartlands as rural Bavaria, Catholics form the anchor of the conservative Christian Democratic Union. They approved reunification as a victory over Communism. They support closer ties with western Europe because of the Catholic connection. They agree with Vatican positions on private and public morality.
In the wake of the reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council, German Catholics have now left behind the authoritarian and hierarchical patterns of the past and are prepared to enter into dialogue with the more pluralist and secular settings in which they live. So too German Catholicism has adopted a more ecumenical and open stance, leading, for instance, to a marked improvement in relations with both Protestants and Jews. Such developments, however, have led to increased tensions between the conservative and liberal wings of the church, as can be seen for example in the Vatican’s refusal to approve the Catholic bishops’ proposal to allow their adherents to take part in → abortion counseling, which is now required by law for all women seeking an abortion in Germany.
The postunification years have seen resolute steps taken to reintegrate the eastern provinces and to restore the level of church activities and institutions there. This task has been made all the more difficult by the highly secularized state of the former GDR and has been only accentuated by the already existing shortage of → priests throughout the whole country. Numerous priests from Poland, Latin America, and East Asia have been sent to Germany both for training and for active service in local parishes. A similar decline in numbers is to be seen in the religious → orders of monks and nuns. Nevertheless, these orders carry out their traditional roles and are assisted by new forms of spiritual renewal, such as the cursillo movement. The church continues to play a significant role in education, since religious instruction is mandatory under the constitution as a normal part of each school’s curriculum. Catholic theological faculties are established at 12 major universities, and over 30 subsidiary colleges exist for the training of religious education teachers and church social workers.
2.4. Other Churches

Religious freedom came to Germany in the wake of the Napoleonic invasion. Successive governments, however, as well as the two major established churches, discouraged the principle and impeded the practice. The continued presence of other churches was held to be a source of religious and political disunity. Both Nazis and Communists persecuted recalcitrant groups and sects suspected of national disloyalty.
Germany’s position in the heart of Europe, however, meant that adherents of other churches, both east and west, settled there and had to be allowed to worship in their own fashion. If they found converts, these too demanded the same freedom (→ Religious Liberty). The result has been the proliferation of small churches and sects, but few have become large enough to establish sizable national organizations. When persecuted by the state, almost all compromised—with the notable exception of the → Jehovah’s Witnesses. Even in more peaceful times, however, such groups are not encouraged. Although they should be in favor of religious pluralism, in fact the struggle to preserve their own identity is all-engrossing.
The → Orthodox Church is represented by emigrants or exiles from eastern Europe. All doctrinal authority and church policy is decided from their home constituencies in Russia, Serbia, Greece, Romania, or the Ukraine. Orthodox services are celebrated regularly in 282 centers, though some hold services only monthly. Approximately half share the buildings of other denominations. The strongest concentrations are in North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, and Munich. The congregants are largely so-called guest workers, especially from Greece. They are ministered to by 160 priests.
The Federation of Evangelical Free Church Parishes in Germany is a loose association linking a number of groups, of which the Baptist Church is the largest, having some 60,000 members. Arriving from England in 1834, the → Baptists take pride in their freedom from state control or state support. Other groups coming from England include the → Methodists, → (Plymouth) Brethren, → Salvation Army, and Quakers (→ Friends, Society of).
From the United States have come such energetically missionizing groups as Jehovah’s Witnesses, → Mormons, Seventh-day → Adventists, and, of a different character, → Christian Scientists and → Pentecostals. More recently the → Church of Scientology has received attention as the only group or cult accused by the FRG government of being a public danger, since it allegedly uses a religious disguise for financial manipulation of individuals.
The → Moravian Brethren, first established in southern Saxony at the end of the 17th century, have their headquarters in Herrnhut and are heirs to a remarkable worldwide missionary tradition. Originally German were the followers of Menno Simons, or → Mennonites. In the 16th century they were expelled as radical → anabaptists. Later they were invited to settle in imperial Russia, where they retained their language and liturgy. In more recent years they suffered under Communist rule and have now sought refuge in Germany, where several thousands are now settled. In addition there are several churches that broke off from major denominations, such as the → Old Catholic Church and the Free Lutheran Church. Numerous smaller sects exist only on the local level.
3. Non-Christian Religions

The Jewish communities in Germany currently number 73, and now include close to 100,000 members. Despite the appalling crimes of the Nazi Holocaust, some Jews survived in Germany after the Second World War and have since been joined by those who returned from exile or who have fled from continued oppression, especially from the former Soviet Union. All branches of Jewish observance are represented in Germany. The Central Council for Jews in Germany acts as a meeting ground for all Jews and is very active is guarding against any repetition of anti-Semitic outbursts, although recent activities by neo-Nazi “skinheads” give serious reason for apprehension.
In recent years approximately 2 million adherents of → Islam have come to Germany, mainly coming from Turkey as guest workers. Until 1998 governmental policy refused to consider these immigrants as eligible for citizenship. → Xenophobic attacks against them, however, have led to widespread support from church groups, prompting new efforts to try to assimilate these families in schools and social institutions. Numerous mosques have now been built, but the difficulties of religious dialogue are still paramount, principally because, as yet, neither governments nor the general public as a whole accept the idea of religious pluralism or integration as a desirable goal. Instead, the belief is still widely held that Germany is a Christian country, even if host to millions of non-Christians.
This situation, however, is likely to change under pressure from these minority groups in the direction of a more open society. In 1999, for example, a constitutional court ruled that crucifixes should no longer be hung in Catholic schools in Bavaria, for they were seen as discriminatory against the numerous non-Catholic children. Similarly, in the interests of pluralism, the court also sanctioned the provision of Islamic instruction within the state school system. In the short term, such developments will probably produce increased tension. In the long run, however, they may eventually lead to Germany’s following other democratic countries toward a more pluralistic society.

Bibliography: G. BAUM, The Church for Others: Protestant Theology in Communist East Germany (Grand Rapids, 1996) ∙ T. BEESON, Discretion and Valour: Religious Conditions in Russia and Eastern Europe (rev. ed.; Philadelphia, 1982) ∙ J. BENTLEY, Martin Niemöller (New York, 1984) ∙ G. BESIER, “Pfarrer, Christen und Katholiken,” Das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit der ehemaligen DDR und die Kirchen (Neukirchen, 1991); idem, Der SED-Staat und die Kirche (3 vols.; Munich, 1993–95) ∙ G. BESIER and G. SAUTER, Wie Christen ihre Schuld bekennen. Die Stuttgarter Erklärung 1945 (Göttingen, 1985) ∙ E. BETHGE, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography (London, 1970; orig. pub., 1967) ∙ J. BURGESS, The East German Church and the End of Communism (Oxford, 1997) ∙ K. CLEMENTS, Patriotism for Today: Dialogue with Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Bristol, 1984) ∙ J. S. CONWAY, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933–1945 (London 1968; repr., Vancouver, 1997) ∙ K. ENGELHART et al., eds., Fremde Heimat Kirche. Die dritte EKD-Erhebung über Kirchenmitgliedschaft (Gütersloh, 1997) ∙ J. FORSTMANN, Christian Faith in Dark Times: Theological Conflicts in the Shadow of Hitler (Lousiville, Ky., 1992) ∙ R. GOECKEL, The Lutheran Church and the East German State (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990) ∙ M. GRESCHAT, Protestanten in der Zeit. Kirche und Gesellschaft in Deutschland vom Kaiserreich bis zur Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 1994) ∙ J. HAMEL, Christenheit unter Marxistischer Herrschaft (Berlin, 1959) ∙ R. HENKYS, ed., Die evangelische Kirche in der DDR (Munich, 1982) ∙ S. HERMAN, The Rebirth of the German Churches (New York, 1948) ∙ F. LITTELL, The German Phoenix (New York, 1960) ∙ R. J. NEUHAUS, ed., Confession, Conflict, and Community (Grand Rapids, 1986) ∙ E. H. ROBERTSON, Christians against Hitler (London, 1967) ∙ J. H. SCHJØRRING, P. KUMARI, and N. A. HJELM, eds., From Federation to Communion: The History of the Lutheran World Federation (Minneapolis, 1997) ∙ K. SCHOLDER, The Churches and the Third Reich (2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1988; orig. pub., 1977) ∙ R. SOLBERG, God and Caesar in East Germany (New York, 1961) ∙ F. SPOTTS, The Churches and Politics in Germany (Middletown, Conn., 1974) ∙ J. SWOBODA, The Revolution of the Candles (Macon, Ga., 1996).

JOHN S. CONWAY
Gerontology → Old Age
Gestalt Psychology

The term “Gestalt psychology” denotes a movement in → psychology that began at the turn of the 20th century as the Berlin School. Christian von Ehrenfels, who in 1890 introduced the term “Gestalt” into psychology, was its founder; Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka were its chief representatives (all of whom emigrated after 1933). Wolfgang Metzger summarized its teachings in Germany.
Gestalt psychology arose in opposition to the mechanistic views of association psychology and psychophysics. Its main thesis was the old one that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, that the whole cannot be explained by the working of these parts, but only by its inner nature. Ehrenfels used the example of a melody that we can recognize in a different key. From this comparison he derived the principles of totality and transposability. Over 100 laws were worked out in some brilliant experimental research (e.g., on the seeing of movement and on optical illusions).
Theoretically, Gestalt psychology rests on → phenomenology, and in some cases (e.g., for Metzger) it is related to an → idealist position that finds no exact correspondence between the reality of physics and human feelings, the phenomena of personal experience being organized independently on the basis of innate (given) structural forms (the laws of Gestalt), though in specific analogy to physical relations in the structures of the brain (see Köhler’s principle of the functional, but not anatomical, isomorphy between psychological and neurophysiological phenomena). It is thus maintained that the laws of Gestalt apply not only in the sphere of perception but also in relation to the processes of learning, memory, thought, speech, and action. Koffka applied a similar approach to problems in the psychology of → development (§2), while Kurt Lewin extended it to → social psychology, and Fritz Perls was inspired thereby to formulate the principles of Gestalt therapy.
Ideas about the self-organization of matter (H. Haken and others) found rapid, intuitive correspondence in the thinking of Gestalt psychology about the dynamic self-affirmation of life. The theories of Gestalt psychology have all been refuted in detail, but by way of Karl Duncker their impulses have been followed up in cognitive psychology (→ Cognition), in which, divested of their idealistic components, they have undergone fruitful development.
In the intellectual heirs of Gestalt psychology we find two ancient and antithetical views of humanity. Within → humanistic psychology the stress is on the Gestalt laws of individual dynamic, especially “Become what you are,” while along the lines of cognitive psychology it falls on the demand “Let go; you are free for creative correspondence with the world.”

Bibliography: M. G. ASH, Gestalt Psychology in German Culture, 1890–1967: Holism and the Quest for Objectivity (New York, 1995) ∙ A. J. FRANKEL, Four Therapies Integrated: A Behavioral Analysis of Gestalt, T.A., and Ego Psychology (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1984) ∙ W. KÖHLER, The Task of Gestalt Psychology (Princeton, 1969) ∙ R. G. LEE and G. WHEELER, The Voice of Shame: Silence and Connection in Psychology (San Francisco, 1996) ∙ K. LEWIN, Resolving Social Conflicts and Field Theory in Social Science (Washington, D.C., 1997) ∙ W. METZGER, Gestalt-Psychologie. Ausgewählte Werke aus den Jahren 1950–1982 (ed. M. Stadler; Frankfurt, 1999) ∙ D. J. MURRAY, Gestalt Psychology and the Cognitive Revolution (New York, 1995) ∙ M. WERTHEIMER, Drei Abhandlungen zur Gestalttheorie (Darmstadt, 1967; orig. pub., 1925).

SUSANNE BOSSE
Ghana

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
6,775
10,808
19,928
Annual growth rate (%):
2.90
3.44
2.71
Area: 238,533 sq. km. (92,098 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 84/sq. km. (216/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 3.64 / 0.94 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 4.85 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 65 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 60.0 years (m: 58.2, f: 61.9)
Religious affiliation (%): Christians 57.7 (Protestants 20.3, indigenous 14.8, Roman Catholics 12.8, unaffiliated 7.1, marginal 1.6, Anglicans 1.1), tribal religionists 21.8, Muslims 20.1, other 0.4.

1. Political Situation
2. Church Situation
3. The State and the Churches
1. Political Situation

Ghana, known until 1957 as the Gold Coast, is a West African nation being welded out of congeries of loosely knit tribes. Ethnic pluralism and its encirclement by francophone Africa cause tensions for this former British colony, raising issues of national unity and security that have preoccupied successive governments. Its religions include African traditional religions (→ Guinea 2), Christianity, and → Islam (mostly the school of the Malikites and the Aḥmadı̄yah sect).
Since independence from British → colonial rule in 1957, Ghana has had five civilian administrations (1957–66, 1969–72, 1979–81, 1992–99) and three military administrations (1966–69 1972–79, 1981–92). At issue in this seeming political instability are matters of ideological orientation, worsening economic circumstances, corruption (esp. in political circles), and disappointing efforts to satisfy the heightened aspirations of the people regarding jobs, decent living standards, and security for the future.
2. Church Situation

Christianity came to Ghana in the era of Vasco da Gama (ca. 1460–1524). Its story was linked to the forts that guarded trading posts of the Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, and finally the British. In 1948, the beginning of the era of African nationalism, Christians represented 30 percent of the population, as compared with 66 percent belonging to traditional religions and 4 percent to Islam. Since that time, the percentage of Christians has approximately doubled, that of Islam quintupled, both at the expense of the traditional religions. These religions, however, do not exist as water-tight compartments but flow into each other.
Since the churches engage heavily in → education, → health care, and → linguistic research, their influence has spread to many fields other than their own. In the public arena they enjoy much goodwill, many politicians having been educated in church institutions. Through their teaching and social achievements they are a kind of guardian angel of African nationalism and thus highly influential in society.
At the same time, because of Christianity’s link with the European forts, → mission practices that assumed a tabula rasa view of the indigenous people, a certain paternalism, and a rather careless identification of → missionary with trader-colonialist, Christianity in Ghana has sometimes been seen as yet another aspect of the colonial invasion of Africa (→ Colonialism and Mission).
There are four streams of Christianity in Ghana: three “historical” and one “indigenous.” → Roman Catholicism was introduced in 1482 by way of the Portuguese fort Elmina. Its official organ is the Ghana Bishops’ Conference (GBC), the executive arm of which is the National Catholic Secretariat (NCS).
The Orthodox stream is present in small numbers in two traditions (→ Orthodox Church). The Greek Orthodox were often sojourners in Ghana from Greece and were in the first instance traders and industrialists. The other is the Alexandrian tradition, which is vigorously missionary and fast becoming indigenized in the Ghanaian context. It belongs to the Christian Council of Ghana (CCG).
Protestants are represented by the CCG, founded in 1929 and comprising the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1933; → Black Churches), African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (1896), the → Baptist churches (1946, 1962), Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (1950), Church of the Province of West Africa (→ Anglican, 1752), Evangelical → Lutheran Church (1950), Evangelical Presbyterian Church (1830, from the work of the Bremen Mission; → German Missions), the → Mennonite Church (1956), the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (1828, from the Basel Mission; → Reformed and Presbyterian Churches), the → Salvation Army (1922), the Society of → Friends (1927), the Wesleyan → Methodist Church (1835), and the → YMCA and YWCA.
The → Independent Churches take part in three groupings: (1) the Pentecostal Association of Ghana, including, for example, the Nigritian Episcopal Church and the Musama Disco Christo; (2) the Ghana Pentecostal Council (e.g., the Gold Coast Apostolic Church and the Christ Apostolic Church); and (3) the Association of Spiritual Churches (e.g., the F’Eden Church, or Eden Revival Church, which also belongs to the CCG). These groups and churches represent cultural revivalism, pragmatic religion, and a protest against the imported forms of Christianity to which the “historic” churches are beholden. The Independent Churches reflect the felt needs and values of Africans, claiming to solve people’s problems by the Spirit (→ Holy Spirit). Some of these churches are products of African nationalism.
3. The State and the Churches

The churches enjoy a considerable partnership, even if it is sometimes rocky, with the state, receiving government subventions for social services (→ Church and State). The churches have also become the conscience of society, challenging successive governments through sermons, quiet diplomacy, memoranda, and pastoral letters of the GBC, NCS, and CCG on issues of human → rights, in light of the fact that any government tends to become dictatorial and thus to neglect the well-being of the people. The response of the state to such intervention has been to accuse the churches of abandoning the pulpit for politics and to castigate them as imperialist lackeys. The real issues in such cases, however, have been those of power and jealousy, along with the question of whether the conscience of society resides in the church or in the party or the government itself. Intervention by the churches has been seen as an affront to the party in power. The very extensive influence of the church, even in the remotest areas of the country, has also aroused considerable jealousy on the part of politicians.
Another response by politicians has been to resort to “divide and conquer” tactics. Although President Kwame Nkrumah (1960–66), for example, complained that the divisions of the church exacerbated the difficulties of uniting the nation, politicians on occasion played off the African Independent Churches against the historic churches. Such tensions highlight the ecumenical imperative of the gospel.
The historic churches have not been blameless in these tensions. They have sometimes chosen to do battle for the wrong causes, as, for example, in opposing efforts of the state to take over the nation’s schools (1951) and in opposing plans to legalize polygamy (1960). They have also often displayed a pathological fear of → socialism and its ideology. In such cases, though, sound and critical theology has been at stake, requiring, among other things, a sensitivity to the fact that the state of Ghana is pluralist. The resultant clashes have sometimes been bitter, but bloodless.

Bibliography: E. O. ADDO, Kwame Nkrumah: A Case Study of Religion and Politics in Ghana (Lanham, Md., 1997) ∙ K. DONKOR, Structural Adjustment and Mass Poverty in Ghana (Brookfield, Vt., 1997) ∙ A. EPHIRIM-DONKOR, African Spirituality: On Becoming Ancestors (Trenton, N.J., 1997) ∙ S. E. GREENE, Gender, Ethnicity, and Social Change on the Upper Slave Coast: A History of the Anlo-Ewe (Portsmouth, N.H., 1996) ∙ J. P. OBENG, Asante Catholicism: Religious and Cultural Reproduction among the Akan of Ghana (Leiden, 1996) ∙ A. P. OSEI, Ghana: Recurrence and Change in a Post-independence African State (New York, 1998) ∙ J. S. POBEE, “Church and State in Ghana, 1949–60,” Religion in a Pluralistic Society (ed. J. S. Pobee; Leiden, 1976) 121–44; idem, “Church and State in the Gold Coast in the Vasco da Gama Era,” JChS 17 (1975) 217–37; idem, Kwame Nkrumah and the Church in Ghana, 1949–66 (Accra, 1987); idem, Politics and Religion in Ghana (Accra, 1991); idem, Toward an African Theology (Nashville, 1979); idem, West Africa: Christ Would Be an African Too (Geneva, 1996) ∙ J. S. POBEE and G. OSITELU II, African Initiatives in Christianity (Geneva, 1998).

JOHN S. POBEE
Ghetto

“Ghetto” was the name of a quarter of the city of Venice that in 1516 was set aside exclusively for Jews. It lay on the site of a former cannon foundry, from which it derived its name (It. getto means “throwing” or “casting [bronze or iron]”). The segregation was decreed out of a desire to avert the wrath of God, which seemed to hang over the city because of lack of success in the war against the League of Cambrai. The thinking was that God’s anger had been kindled because thus far, in defiance of canonical rulings, Jews had been allowed to mingle freely with Christians, even during Holy Week. Fully in the tradition of the 15th century, Franciscan preachers of repentance had stirred up this anxiety.
The name of this Venetian city ward became a general term, first for segregated Jewish areas, then for areas inhabited by other religious or ethnic → minorities. As a rule (the Venetian ghetto was an exception), these sections, apart from a small elite, were characterized by great poverty and misery and, as a result of overcrowding, dirt and lack of hygiene.
The idea of separate ethnic quarters in cities is actually very old. Thus in → Alexandria in the pre-Christian era there was a special Jewish quarter, into which all Jews were forced in A.D. 38, when crowded living conditions produced riots. For something similar in another culture, one might also mention the separate areas in Japanese cities set apart for the Etas (a social class whose name means “extremely defiled” or “untouchable”).
Such quarters were not always forced on their inhabitants by superior authority. For example, the Amsterdam Jewish quarter (until the German occupation in 1940 made it a ghetto in the narrower sense) and many ghettos for blacks and Chinatowns in the United States show that separate quarters have often developed for economic or religious reasons but then are often perpetuated through discrimination or social pressure. In some instances laws were then passed that made such Jewish streets or ethnic areas into true ghettos. The Frankfurt ghetto is a familiar example. From it came the Rothschilds, whose name comes from the red (rot) shield (schild) that used to mark the houses in the ghetto.
Various causes underlie the growth of noncompulsory Jewish ghettos. The ruling that orthodox Jews may go only a short distance on foot on the → Sabbath encouraged them to live as near as possible to a → synagogue. Jews were also restricted in the work they could do. Being excluded from certain → vocations, they were forced to specialize in lending and secondhand trading. In medieval cities there was often a physical concentration of trades in specific streets or districts (streets for smiths, for rope dealers, etc.). The Jewish quarter, then, contained the streets for moneylenders, pawnbrokers, and rag-and-bone merchants, plus those who catered particularly to the Jewish market, such as Torah scribes and kosher butchers and bakers.
The need for a certain secrecy, for mutual support and solidarity in a hostile world, also favored the tendency to live in a special district. The same is true regarding black ghettos, Chinatowns, and other ethnic areas (Greek, Italian, Polish, etc.) common in North American cities.
Because the church forbade → usury (though not interest), Jewish moneylending was hated and despised. Thus the → Franciscans, for example, tried to break the power of pawnbrokers by their own monti di pietà (pawnshops). The idea was spread abroad that ghetto work involved “pariah vocations,” or at any rate jobs of little social worth. The Chalcoprateia (later the Pera), the Jewish quarter in Constantinople (→ Byzantium), was also an area where many Jews did evil-smelling—and therefore despised—tanning and dyeing. In the ghetto in → Rome, established by the bull Cum nimis absurdum, issued by Paul IV in 1555, Jewish economic activity was restricted to the rag-and-bone trade and the making of mattresses, which was very unhealthy, causing diseases of the lungs. In Japan the Etas were engaged in garbage removal and in doing the necessary work on dead animals (butchering, tanning, shoemaking), which was forbidden for the Japanese and despised by them. After working on completing the American railroads, the Chinese were almost totally restricted to despised “women’s work”—cooking, laundry work, and domestic service. In the black ghettos of the United States most of the inhabitants are unskilled workers or unemployed, though this situation has not prevented independent cultural development (e.g., in New York’s Harlem district; note also the Yiddish theater in the poor Jewish quarter of the London East End). In South Africa, particularly under apartheid, black work was by definition unskilled and contemptible “kaffir work,” and therefore those who lived in the sections for blacks and colored had jobs with lesser prestige. Everywhere, there is a natural, direct connection between low prestige and → poverty.
A gruesome form of the ghetto was the National Socialist Jewish quarter, a hermetically sealed section of a city in which Jews were gathered and in which, if they were not deported to the gas chambers (→ Holocaust), they starved to death. The most infamous was the Warsaw ghetto, set up in 1939.
→ Anti-Semitism, Anti-Judaism; Judaism; Racism

Bibliography: D. CORCOS, “Jewish Quarter,” EncJud 10.81–88 ∙ R. P.-C. HSIA and H. LEHMANN, eds., In and out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany (Washington, D.C., 1995) ∙ J. MICHMAN, “Ghetto,” EncJud 7.543–46 ∙ C. G. ROLAND, Courage under Siege: Starvation, Disease, and Death in the Warsaw Ghetto (New York, 1992) ∙ C. J. VERGARA, The New American Ghetto (New Brunswick, N.J., 1995) ∙ D. WARD, Poverty, Ethnicity, and the American City, 1840–1925: Changing Conceptions of the Slum and the Ghetto (New York, 1989) ∙ L. WIRTH, The Ghetto (2d ed.; New Brunswick, N.J., 1998; orig. pub., 1928).

DIRKVAN ARKEL
Gloria in excelsis → Mass

Glory

1. The Hebrew term for “glory” (kābôd, also “weight”) has its basis in secular usage. Human glory consists of the “weight” carried in a community; that is, regard. → Yahweh’s glory expresses power, loftiness, and beauty. It accompanies his revelation (Exod. 24:16; Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 1), indicating both proximity and inaccessibility (→ God; Revelation). It seals the → faithfulness manifested in the → covenant between God and humankind. Thus the concluding of the covenant at → Sinai is crowned by the revelation of God’s glory (Exod. 24:15–17). Eschatologically this glory is manifested to all peoples and illumines the whole earth (Isa. 40:5; Ezek. 39:21).
The NT takes up the essential themes of the OT and applies them Christologically. The doxological statement about God—“Glory to God in the highest heaven” (Luke 2:14; also Luke 19:38; Rev. 4:9)—is referred to Christ as well (Heb. 13:21; 1 Pet. 4:11; Rev. 5:12–14). The NT can speak of “the God of glory” (Acts 7:2), but the heart of its message is the confession of “the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8; Jas. 2:1). The glory of God accompanies the whole person and history of → Jesus. Conversely, this person and history show forth God’s glory. Glory encircles the risen Lord (Rom. 6:4; 1 Pet. 1:21; 1 Tim. 3:16; Acts 7:55). Yet glory may be seen also in his earthly course, not merely in mysterious anticipations, as in the story of the transfiguration (Mark 9:2–10 and par.), but supremely in the NT climax of the passion story, in which the Crucified is “the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8), and his way of exaltation (as esp. in John) is the way of the cross. Glory in the NT is the glory of the cross.
In this sense glory is a mark of the Christian life, not as an expression of triumphalism (theologia gloriae), but as a liberating promise of God’s faithfulness precisely in situations of → suffering. The whole existence of Christians is set in the light of Christ’s glory (2 Cor. 3:18), especially when they are “afflicted … but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken” (2 Cor. 4:8–9).

2. Dogmatics has adopted some of the richness of the biblical concepts and developed it in different ways. Irenaeus (d. ca. 200) stated that “the glory of God is man.” A. Polanus (1561–1610) added that “the glory of man is God.” Both theses state the one → gospel, the message of the → incarnation and our divine destiny (→ Theosis). Doxological and ethical impulses have also been at work. In Reformation piety, glorifying God is the aim of life. Part of this response is → doxology as liturgical adoration. Part, too, is the political service of God, as “to God alone be the glory” serves a demythologizing function vis-à-vis earthly authorities. Part again is concern for → creation as “the theater of God’s glory” (J. Calvin).

3. The → aesthetic dimension of glory has claimed relatively less attention, though the motif of beauty is unmistakably present. According to the Bible, glory expresses God’s pleasure in human beings (Luke 2:14) and his kindness toward them (Titus 3:4). Thus the response of a faith that corresponds to God doxologically is hardly conceivable without the element of delight or even joy in beauty. Glorifying God and enjoying him—the ethical and aesthetic dimensions—belong together inseparably in the polyphony of life. There is good ecumenical reason for the program of working out Christian theology in the light of the third transcendental, of supplementing the vision of the true and the good by that of the beautiful (H. U. von Balthasar, vol. 1).

Bibliography: H. U. VON BALTHASAR, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics (7 vols.; San Francisco, 1982–91) ∙ K. BARTH, CD II/1 ∙ G. KITTEL, “Δοκέω κτλ.,” TDNT 2.242–55 ∙ A. LAURENTIN, Doxa (Paris, 1972) ∙ J. M. LOCHMAN, The Theology of Praise (Atlanta, 1982) ∙ J. MOLTMANN, The Church in the Power of the Spirit (New York, 1977); idem, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God (New York, 1985) ∙ A. M. RAMSEY, The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ (London, 1949) ∙ G. WAINWRIGHT, Doxology (London, 1980).

JAN MILIČ LOCHMAN
Glossolalia

1. Definition and Terminology
2. Glossolalia in the NT
3. Historical Overview
4. Twentieth-Century Explanations
5. Theological Reflections
1. Definition and Terminology

Glossolalia, or “speaking in tongues” (or simply “tongues”), refers to the religious phenomenon of persons speaking languages not known to them. The term “glossolalia” derives from glōssais lalō, a Greek phrase used in the NT meaning “speak in, with, or by tongues [i.e., other languages].” The related term “xenolalia” is used to describe glossolalia when the language being spoken is an identifiable language never learned by the speaker.
2. Glossolalia in the NT

Glossolalia in the NT, generally considered to be a language → miracle, played a unique role in the witness and → prayer life of first-century Christians. → Paul considered such inspired utterances to have been fairly common in the churches with which he was familiar (1 Cor. 11:5, 16), and Luke traces tongues to the earliest Jewish converts to Christianity (Acts 2:4–11). For Luke, the outpouring of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost was followed by miraculous tongues, which were understood by → diaspora Jews as the languages of their foreign homelands.
On one view, these tongues signaled the increasingly expansive work of the → Holy Spirit through the public witness of the church in crossing cultural and linguistic boundaries with the → gospel. At → Pentecost the God of the Hebrews was revealed through the outpouring of the Spirit as also being the God of the nations. The Spirit’s expanding witness to the gospel included men and women, rich and poor, young and old (Acts 2:17–21, quoting Joel 2:28–32). Barriers were broken down between the Jewish followers of Jesus and the Samaritans (Acts 8), the Gentiles (chap. 10), and the followers of → John the Baptist among Greek-speaking Jews (chap. 19). At decisive points during this ecumenical journey, tongues speaking occurred, which can be seen as a prophetic sign of this → reconciling work of the Spirit (Acts 2:4–13; 10:44–48; 19:6). One can contrast the tongues of Pentecost with the tower of Babel, which divided humans through language diversification (Gen. 11:1–9). One is also reminded of Philo’s reference to the voice of God manifested in a flame and understood near and abroad (Decal. 35, 46).
For Paul, tongues spoke “mysteries in the Spirit” that cannot be understood by anyone and are therefore primarily meant for the believers’ private prayers for self-edification (1 Cor. 14:2–4, 13–19). Consequently, Paul favored prophecy in the public meetings of the church. Tongues speaking as unintelligible speech was allowed to edify the entire congregation if followed by an inspired interpretation, the responsibility for which Paul lays primarily on the shoulders of the speaker, who was to pray for the interpretation of a tongue that he or she did not understand (1 Cor. 14:13–14). Tongues have thus been viewed as ecstatic utterances similar in nature to the unintelligible sacred languages of several ancient religions of Asia Minor.
Some have argued that Paul may have viewed tongues as the language of → angels (1 Cor. 13:1; cf. 2 Cor. 12:4), as in the first-century Jewish writing Testament of Job 48–50. A more probable connection is in Paul’s reference to “sighs too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26; cf. 1 Cor. 14:14), of finding strength in weakness, which implies a form of prayer beyond the boundary of human understanding. That Paul understood tongues speaking as xenolalia seems unlikely, since in 1 Corinthians 14 he nowhere assumes that a natural understanding of the gift is possible. It is crucial for Paul that tongues speaking, as with all inspired speech, serves to point to Christ’s lordship (1 Cor. 12:1–3), to build up the church in the love of God (chaps. 13–14), and to conform in its use to apostolic instruction and proper church order (14:27–38).
Much of the biblical research into glossolalia in the NT has focused on the apparent difficulty in reconciling Luke’s understanding of tongues as a public witness with Paul’s view of tongues as private prayer for self-edification. Even Paul’s enigmatic reference to the sign value of tongues among unbelievers (1 Cor. 14:21–25) points to a negative sign, since the implication is that unbelievers will have no more success at understanding such language than the Israelites had of understanding the strange tongues of their Assyrian captors (cf. Isa. 28:11–12). Why, then, does Luke make tongues understandable among the unbelievers at Pentecost? Certain source-critical studies of Acts 2 have speculated that Luke had transformed an earlier account of ecstatic and unintelligible tongues into an understandable language-event of prophetic significance in order to symbolize the future mission of the church to the → Gentiles. One is tempted, however, to view the tongues of Pentecost as unintelligible but as miraculously interpreted in the languages of the nations for the hearing of the audience, since each one present heard “them” (presumably the entire company of believers) speak in his or her own particular language (Acts 2:6). Thus the unutterable sighs for the new creation mentioned by Paul (Rom. 8:26) become symbolic for Luke of the power of the Spirit to reconcile divided communities and to bring the goodness of God to all nations.
3. Historical Overview

While glossolalia is identified closely with modern-day Pentecostalism (→ Pentecostal Churches), its practice has been a recurrent phenomena throughout history. It is most clearly associated with attempts to restore the dynamics of apostolic Christianity. Glossolalia was associated with the → Montanists, a second-century renewal movement. → Tertullian (d.ca. 225), himself a Montanist, wrote of the practice of tongues speaking as being common practice in their gatherings. The phenomenon, however, was already present in groups more closely associated with mainstream Christianity. → Irenaeus made references to prophetic gifts and persons who “through the Spirit speak all kinds of languages, and bring to light for the general benefit the hidden things of men, and declare the mysteries of God” (Adv. haer. 5.6.1). Furthermore, Irenaeus associated tongues with the “last days” prophecy of Joel 2:28–29.
References to glossolalia are found in the writings of Hilary of Poitiers (d.ca. 367) and of Ambrose of Milan (d. 397). → Chrysostom (d. 407) wrote of glossolalia occurring in earlier times at the → baptism of adult converts but warned that because tongues could be confused with the work of an evil spirit, they should be discouraged in the church. It was → Augustine of Hippo (d. 430) who gave to the church the view that tongues were given to the church to indicate the coming spread of the gospel over the whole earth. He thus saw the accounts in Acts as symbolic of the church, which would one day exist throughout the world. Glossolalia was for Augustine something that had vanished and would not return to the church. Pope → Leo I (d. 461) took up Augustine’s thought and in a Pentecost sermon wrote of “the Spirit of Truth” giving to the church the languages peculiar to each nation. The Augustinian explanation thus became accepted by the church and continues to be held by many Christians today.
Church history, however, includes scattered reports of glossolalia occurring in individuals (e.g., St. Vincent Ferrer [1350–1413]) and in movements (e.g., the → Huguenots and the → Jansenists [mid-17th cent.]). References are also made to the experience of tongues among the → Moravian Church (from 1722).
Although there is no indication that tongues speaking occurred among the early → Methodists, there were unusual manifestations of the Spirit that J. → Wesley felt necessary to defend. In so doing, he referred to the Montanists as “real scriptural Christians,” noting that the disappearance of the charismatic gifts from the church was due to “dry formal orthodox men,” who had begun to ridicule what they themselves did not possess (Journal, 3.496; Works, 6.556).
Tongues speaking was reported during the revivals of the Second Great Awakening both in the United States and in Europe. The most famous of these reports is found in the ministry of Edward Irving (1792–1834), a Scottish Presbyterian minister. Tongues and interpretations occurred at his prayer meetings in London, which became so controversial that Irving was investigated and expelled by his presbytery in Scotland. Writing in 1859, the American Horace Bushnell defended Irving’s ministry and experiences. He went on to defend the practice of tongues speaking and suggested in his book Nature and the Supernatural (1858) that glossolalia was found more among the lower classes because among them “the conventionalities and carnal judgements of the world have less power.”
The Wesleyan-Holiness revivals of the late 19th century were characterized by overt physical responses to the Spirit’s presence (→ Holiness Movement). The movement promoted → sanctification, a second crisis experience following an experiential → conversion (§1). Some within the movement came to associate this second experience with scriptural references to “the baptism with the Holy Spirit.” Thus the experience came to signify either a second blessing of sanctification or one of empowerment. Glossolalia was not associated with this experience, although it was a known occurrence among many scattered groups. For instance, the Welsh Revival (from 1904) was accompanied by many manifestations of the Spirit, including glossolalia.
Most Pentecostals understand glossolalia to be a gift of the Holy Spirit that serves as the initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This teaching may be traced to the ministry of Charles Fox Parham (1873–1929) and his Bible School in Topeka, Kansas. Parham had concluded that sanctification and baptism with the Holy Spirit were distinct experiences, the former addressing freedom from → sin, the latter, power for Christian service, especially world → evangelism. This understanding brought a new dimension to the Holiness teaching on the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Parham and his students searched the Bible for “indisputable proof” of this religious experience. They concluded that tongues were the evidence of the baptism with the Holy Spirit and began to seek such an → experience (§2). One after another of Parham’s students experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the accompanying sign of glossolalia. News of the events at the Topeka Bible School was quickly spread by Parham and his students, who became evangelists of the “full gospel.”
While in Houston, Texas, where he had moved his headquarters, Parham came into contact with William Seymour (1870–1922), an African-American Baptist-Holiness preacher. Seymour took from Parham the teaching that the baptism of the Holy Spirit was not the blessing of sanctification but rather a third work of grace that was accompanied by the experience of tongues. In 1906 Seymour traveled to Los Angeles to speak at a small mission church. Seymour’s message—that the tongues experience of the disciples in Acts 2 should happen today—was rejected by the mission. He was consequently invited to hold meetings in a home, where he and members of the home Bible study group experienced speaking in tongues. Soon the house was filled with people anxious to hear Seymour’s message, and crowds filled the residential avenue. The group moved to a livery stable on Azuza Street that had been converted to a church building. Reports of the frenzied meetings, which included the innovation of interracial worship, were published in major newspapers. The Azuza Street Revival drew people from all over the country and the world, many of whom took back to their homes and spread the message of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the experience of speaking in tongues. In many ways this revival signaled the birth of the modern Pentecostal movement.
In the century since the revival, Pentecostalism has grown rapidly, especially among the disenfranchised of the Two-Thirds World. For the most part, the traditional churches of the Protestant → Reformation rejected tongues speaking, seeing it as an excessive emotional experience associated with the religion of the disenfranchised. Holiness groups also typically denounced it as excessive. During the 1960s, however, with the advent of the → charismatic movement, glossolalia was experienced by many in mainline and Roman Catholic circles. Responses of these churches have ranged from overt hostility and rejection to attempts to incorporate glossolalia into full church life.
Persons who claim to have experienced glossolalia number well over 450 million. At the dawning of the 21st century, the phenomenon of tongues is found in every branch of Christianity. Some view it as a divisive practice, others as a unifying force.
4. Twentieth-Century Explanations

During most of the 20th century, research on glossolalia focused on the psychological and sociocultural dynamics of the phenomenon. For the most part, psychological descriptions of persons who speak in tongues have been uncomplimentary, coming from the assumption that tongues speaking represents aberrant behavior, a form of psychopathology. Before the mid-20th century, explanations were given that tongues were a form of hysteria and schizophrenia. Several studies in the 1960s focused on the unconscious needs of persons associated with glossolalia, explanations ranging from tongues as an escape from inner conflict to tongues arising from deep personality needs that in turn may have arisen from contemporary culture.
These sociocultural studies of glossolalia focused on the → marginal socioeconomic position of Pentecostals. As a result, glossolalia was understood as part of the “vision of the disinherited,” serving as an outlet for repressed conflicts and as a means of overcoming the lack of social power with spiritual power. With the advent of the charismatic movement, however, explanations shifted to include tongues as meeting the deep-felt needs of persons facing rapid social change.
As the Pentecostal-charismatic movement has grown in numbers, the focus on tongues speaking as aberrant behavior has all but disappeared. Instead, the emphasis has shifted to glossolalia as the normal behavior of some Christians. Today, tongues speaking is viewed by researchers on Pentecostalism as a liberating and revolutionary practice that dismantles the privileges of the educated and literate, allowing the poor and uneducated to have a voice (e.g., W. Hollenweger in The Pentecostals). In his work Fire from Heaven, Harvey Cox explains tongues as a form of “primal speech” that responds to the “ecstasy deficit” of contemporary society.
5. Theological Reflections

Until very recently theological reflection on the practice of glossolalia has been limited to its relationship to Spirit baptism. Most Pentecostals hold the assumption that tongues speaking is the necessary evidence of Spirit baptism. Many Pentecostals and Charismatics now, however, see tongues as a unique gift not immediately associated with the baptism of Holy Spirit.
Early Pentecostals viewed tongues as signs of the eschatological inbreaking of the → kingdom of God, signaling the imminent return of Christ. While this understanding is still present in the movement, newer theological reflections on glossolalia focus on developing a more fully elaborated theology of glossolalia. This work, still in its early development, is generating an increasing amount of publications and research.
Such reflection ranges from an understanding that tongues are part of the theophanic signs and wonders of divine self-disclosure (F. Macchia) to viewing glossolalia as the remaking of language as a sign that God is remaking history and transforming social relationships (M. Dempster). The sacramental dimensions of glossolalia are being explored, according to which tongues are seen to mediate a context for divine-human encounter (Macchia).
Additional studies on glossolalia focus on the ability of Pentecost to reverse the curse of Babel, providing a lowest common denominator between people that cuts through differences of class, gender, and race, themes also found in the writings of early Pentecostals.
Finally, tongues are being studied in relation to the → postmodern understanding of deconstruction. In this sense glossolalia serves as a dismantling of language as power (C. Johns).

Bibliography: J. BEHM, “Γλω̄σσα κτλ.,” TDNT 1.719–27 ∙ H. COX, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century (Reading, Mass., 1995) ∙ M. DEMPSTER, “The Church’s Moral Witness: A Study of Glossolalia in Luke’s Theology of Acts,” Paraclete 23/1 (1989) 1–7 ∙ R. A. HARRISVILLE, “Speaking in Tongues: A Lexicographical Study,” CBQ 38 (1976) 35–48 ∙ W. HOLLENWEGER, The Pentecostals (London, 1972) ∙ B. C. JOHANSON, “Tongues, a Sign for Unbelievers? A Structural and Exegetical Study of 1 Corinthians XIV.20–25,” NTS 25 (1979) 180–203 ∙ C. B. JOHNS, “Meeting God in the Margins: Ministry among Modernity’s Refugees,” The Papers of the Henry Luce III Fellows in Theology (vol. 3; ed. J. Strom; Atlanta, 1999) ∙ E. KÄSEMANN, “The Cry for Liberty in the Worship of the Church,” Perspectives on Paul (Philadelphia, 1971) 122–37 ∙ M. T. KELSEY, Tongue Speaking: An Experiment in Spiritual Experience (New York, 1964) ∙ F. MACCHIA, “Sighs Too Deep for Words,” JPentT 1 (1992) 47–73; idem, “Tongues as a Sign: Towards a Sacramental Understanding of Pentecostal Experience,” Pneuma 15/1 (1993) 61–76 ∙ W. MILLS, ed., Speaking in Tongues: A Guide to Research on Glossolalia (Grand Rapids, 1986) ∙ W. J. SAMARIN, Tongues of Men and Angels (New York, 1972) ∙ K. STENDAHL, “Glossolalia and the Charismatic Movement,” God’s Christ and His People (ed. J. Jervell and W. A. Meeks; Oslo, 1977) 122–31; idem, “The NT Evidence,” The Charismatic Movement (ed. M. P. Hamilton; Grand Rapids, 1975) ∙ C. G. WILLIAMS, Tongues of the Spirit: A Study of Pentecostal Glossolalia and Related Phenomena (Cardiff, 1981) ∙ G. H. WILLIAMS and E. WALDVOGEL, “A History of Speaking in Tongues and Related Gifts,” Hamilton, Charismatic Movement.

CHERYL BRIDGES JOHNS and FRANK MACCHIA
Gnesio-Lutherans

1. Term
2. Melanchthon’s Role
3. The Disputes
4. Significance
1. Term

In the history of dogma (→ Dogma, History of), “Gnesio-Lutherans” (or “authentic Lutherans”) refers to a group of theologians who, in the internal Protestant debates between the Augsburg Interim (1548) and the → Formula of Concord (1577; → Confessions and Creeds), argued against Philippism that they were the true guardians of the heritage of Martin → Luther (1483–1546; → Luther’s Theology) and who thus described themselves as (true) Lutherans. The center of this strongly Lutheran movement was first Magdeburg and then the University of Jena. One of its most important representatives, renowned for his academic achievements, was Matthias Flacius (1520–75)—the opponents of the Gnesio-Lutherans called them Flacians. Other leaders were Nikolaus von Amsdorf (1483–1565), Kaspar Aquila (1488–1560), Joachim Mörlin (1514–71), Nikolaus Gallus (1516–70), Johann Wigand (1523–87), Tilemann Heßhusen (1527–88), Matthäus Judex (1528–64), and Timotheus Kirchner (1533–87).
2. Melanchthon’s Role

Although the Gnesio-Lutherans sharply criticized their opponents for their attitude to → tradition and → humanism and firmly stressed the → authority of the biblical message, in their views of the → church and → theology they largely followed the same line as Philipp → Melanchthon (1497–1560; → Reformers). Thus in the debates about Philippism, which related primarily to questions of → salvation and its appropriation, there were many fronts, just as there were also considerable differences of opinion among the Gnesio-Lutherans.
3. The Disputes

The controversies arose against the background of the Augsburg Interim, the weak reaction of the Wittenbergers, especially Melanchthon, and the resultant crisis in early → Lutheranism. The Philippist concept of the function of the authorities immediately became a stone of offense for the Gnesio-Lutherans (→ Two Kingdoms Doctrine).

3.1. The battle about → adiaphora (i.e., things indifferent) has come to be known as the first adiaphora controversy. At issue was the reintroduction of Catholic rites. Amsdorf took the initiative against Melanchthon, and Flacius formulated the main thesis that in matters of confession and offense, there is no adiaphoron.
3.2. Georg Major (1502–74) started the Majoristic Controversy with his view that good works are necessary for salvation. The Gnesio-Lutherans saw here a denial of → justification by faith alone and attacked the view fiercely.
3.3. The antinomian controversy was closely related. It concerned the so-called third use of the → law (§3)—that is, the validity and significance of the law in the life of the regenerate (usus in renatis; → Regeneration). In this matter the Gnesio-Lutherans were divided. Flacius and Mörlin defended the third use, but Andreas Poach (1516–85), Anton Otho (1505–83), Michael Neander (1525–95), and Andreas Musculus (1514–81) rejected it. At a different level of the discussion, the whole Melanchthon school was suspected of antinomianism.
3.4. The synergistic controversy began with statements by Johannes Pfeffinger (1493–1573) that, in agreement with Melanchthon, taught the cooperation of the human will in → conversion. Amsdorf and Flacius opposed Pfeffinger and the “Synergists,” emphasizing in the Weimar Confutation (1559) that by nature we can do nothing to save ourselves. Viktorin Strigel (1524–69) then came into conflict with Flacius, and Flacius was driven to make his extreme statement that original sin is the substance of humanity (→ Anthropology 3).
3.5. The Osiandrian controversy touched on the very heart of Reformation theology. Andreas Osiander (1496/98–1552) rejected Melanchthon’s doctrine of justification and taught the essential → righteousness of the new self. The Philippists and Gnesio-Lutherans joined forces against this view and emphatically upheld an alien, imputed righteousness.
3.6. In the so-called second eucharistic controversy the Gnesio-Lutherans rejected what they regarded as crypto-Calvinistic Philippism and stood firm by the real presence of Christ’s body and blood in the → Eucharist (→ Crypto-Calvinism). In this connection questions of → Christology (e.g., the doctrine of ubiquity) also became a subject of debate.
4. Significance

By way of the “political crisis of Philippism” (B. Lohse), the eucharistic controversy made possible the unifying work of the Formula of Concord. This statement certainly rejected the extreme positions of the Gnesio-Lutherans, but in many details it vindicated their often fervently waged protest against Philippism.

Bibliography: H.-W. GENSICHEN, Damnamus (Berlin, 1955) ∙ R. KELLER, “Gnesiolutheraner,” TRE 13.512–19 (bibliography) ∙ R. KOLB, Nikolaus von Amsdorf (1483–1565): Popular Polemics in the Preservation of Luther’s Legacy (Nieuwkoop, 1978) ∙ B. LOHSE, “Dogma und Bekenntnis in der Reformation,” HDThG 2 (bibliography) 64–166 ∙ W. PREGER, Matthias Flacius Illyricus und seine Zeit (Hildesheim, 1964; orig. pub., 1859–61) ∙ H. E. WEBER, Reformation, Orthodoxie und Rationalismus (Darmstadt, 1966; orig. pub., 1937–51).

STEFFEN KJELDGAARD-PEDERSEN
Gnosis, Gnosticism

1. Term, History, and Definition
2. Phenomenology
2.1. Main External Features
2.2. Worldview, Myth, Redemption
2.3. Limits
3. Origins
4. Types and Trends
5. Sources
6. Ethics and Cult
7. Relation to NT and Christianity
7.1. NT
7.2. Early Church
1. Term, History, and Definition

The Gk. noun gnōsis originally meant knowledge of things and objects that the knower could apprehend by understanding (nous) and → reason (logos)—that is, rationally (→ Epistemology).
Along with the basic epistemological sense a qualitatively new meaning developed from the first century B.C. that separated the object and act of knowledge from rational → experience and transferred it to the religious level. “Gnosis” now came to mean knowledge of divine mysteries, this knowledge being reserved for a select circle and disclosed only to those who were identical with the object of imparted or revealed knowledge. Gnosis of this kind presupposes an original identity of being between God and human beings that has been disrupted but that can now be regained by Gnosis (i.e., by this redeeming knowledge). This fundamental idea is given expression in the Gnostic myths, systems, and individual teachings. These items explain our human origin and destiny, describe our life, and define its goal (see Clement of Alexandria Exc. Theod. 78.2). The Gnostic myths are thus etiologically and soteriologically motivated.
Their themes are cosmogony, anthropogenesis, → soteriology, and → eschatology. These four basic themes are only seldom present as a whole in a myth (e.g., Ap. John; Orig. World, NHC 2.5). Yet in various settings one may find partial Gnostic statements about God, humanity, the cosmos, or redemption.
2. Phenomenology
2.1. Main External Features

Gnosis arose in the Mediterranean world and the Near East at the same time as primitive Christianity but independently of it. Reaching its high point in the second and third centuries, it interacted in various ways with Christianity. In a broad sense it included the Hermetic books, Marcion (→ Marcionites), → Manichaeanism, and the religious fellowship of the → Mandaeans.
It is hard to classify Gnosis religiously. Apart from Manichaeanism, it was not an institutional religion, yet it did not develop anonymously. It was not a book religion, having no normative scripture, yet it had many religious writings. It was not a cult religion referring to an etiological cult legend or central cultic event, yet it had many cultic rites and practices (see 6). It was not a national religion, yet it was also not a universal religion, for it excluded from its message and from all possibility of redemption those whom it termed hylics (from Gk. hylē, “wood, matter”) or choics (Gk. choïkos, “of earth, of clay”).
Gnosis was an esoteric religion of redemption and revelation (→ Esotericism) whose members grouped themselves around particular teachers and gathered in conventicles. The distinction between “Gnosis” as redeeming wisdom and “Gnosticism” as a term for the systems developed in the second and third centuries has not gone uncontested and cannot be made in a wholly logical manner.
2.2. Worldview, Myth, Redemption

Gnosticism is characterized by a radical anticosmic → dualism that distinguishes between an infinitely lofty and transcendent world of light, remote from everything earthly, and this present material and evil world of darkness. Corresponding to the world of light is an acosmic, spiritual deity with its aeons and light essences, while an inferior creator of the world (the Demiurge, often equated with the creator God of the OT) and its helpers (the archons) correspond to the world of darkness. The latter constitute a rebellious and ungodly antiworld.
Human beings, by nature the imitation of a light essence, have been doubly entombed: in this material world, and in their bodily husk. → Myth describes how humankind, or rather the spark of light within (the pneuma, “spirit”), has come into this material husk and how it can be freed. Only the pneuma is by nature inclined to accept the divine message and therefore capable of redemption, whereas the hylic components of humankind are under condemnation. In tripartite → anthropological systems, which postulate psychē as well as pneuma and hylē (e.g., the Carpocratians and Valentinians), the psychē can also be redeemed if it opens itself up to the Gnostic message. This message is imparted by the Gnostic redeemer, who at root is merely a proclaimer. Christianized Gnosis transfers this function to Christ.
2.3. Limits

The anticosmic dualism, the radical separation in the view of God and humanity, and the call to redemption are basic features of Gnosis that condition one another and assume mythographic form. By these criteria Marcion (d. ca. 160) and early Jewish mystical esotericism are not part of Gnosis. However, structural elements of Gnosis (e.g., the flesh/spirit dualism and speculation about the primal man and Sophia) may be found both before and outside Gnosis. One must always ask how far such elements are constitutive of the total developed system or merely part of its presuppositions. One must also ask how we are to evaluate them (note the use of such vague terms as “pre-Gnostic,” “proto-Gnostic,” and “gnosticizing”).
3. Origins

In contrast to preceding and contemporary philosophical and religious movements, Gnosis was readily adapted to the systems contemporary with it. The diversity of such relations raises the question of its origins, to which different answers have been given. The only consensus is that no single origin can be shown, whether a degenerate form of → Greek philosophy, an acute Hellenizing of Christianity (A. Harnack), Babylonian astral mythology, reconstructed Iranian redemption mysteries, or heretical Hellenistic or dualistic → Judaism. We can say that the role of Jewish Hellenistic Wisdom traditions was important. Hans Jonas succeeded in breaking with the affiliation method and, by existential ontological interpretation of Gnostic myths, reached an understanding of the structure and nature of Gnosis. The problem of a true interpretation has been set in perspective with further research into the philosophical and religious antecedents of these myths, with the help of historical, sociological, and psychological questions and methods.
Gnosis in its various forms reflects the experience of a profound human crisis and is an attempt to overcome it. Viewing the Creator, the cosmic order, and both secular and religious institutions (the rabbinate and church → hierarchy) all as ungodly, Gnostics turn away from them with lofty contempt. Their own answer to the crisis is to project the crisis of humanity upon a crisis of deity. A divine disruption and apostasy explain earthly phenomena. Gnostics accept no guilt for their experience of weakness, homelessness, and alienation; rather, they are the victims of persecution by archons and ultimately of the primal fall, to which they and the world owe their origin.
4. Types and Trends

Contemporaries were already aware of the multiplicity of Gnostic teachings and systems. Irenaeus (Adv. haer. 1.30.15) compared them to the many-headed Hydra and traced them all back to Simon Magus of Samaria (1.23.2). The → church fathers listed Gnostic systems according to their leaders (Simon, Menander, Dositheus, Basilides, Valentinus, etc.), the figures in their myths (Seth, Cain, Barbelo, the Ophites and Naassenes), or their derivation (the Peratae).
Since H. Jonas, two basic types have been distinguished: the Syro-Egyptian and the Iranian. Systems of the former type (Gnosis in the strict sense) postulate the fall of a (usually female) deity from the world of light and the graded → emanation of aeons down to the earthly world. The Iranian type (Manichaeanism) postulates a primal dualism of light and darkness and their mingling by the voluntary descent of a light-deity. Genetically we can distinguish pagan Gnosis (the Hermetic books; NHC 7.5, 8.1, 9.2, 11.3–4; Simonian Gnosis), Christianized Gnosis (→ Nag Hammadi), and Christian Gnostic systems (beginning with Cerinthus and Carpocrates).
Basilides and even more so Valentinus (both fl. 2d cent.) were particularly successful in founding schools. Both engaged in extensive speculation about aeons, and Valentinus took a relatively mild view of the Demiurge and psychics, for whom he found a measure of → salvation (see Irenaeus Adv. haer. 1.5.1–6). From the Nag Hammadi texts we see that Sethian Gnosis, which displays a sharp → anti-Judaism, formed another important group (H.-M. Schenke).
5. Sources

Gnostic sources fall into two groups, secondary and primary. Secondary sources, the only ones available up to the 19th century, include the anti-Gnostic polemic writings of the Fathers from Irenaeus to Epiphanius and the criticisms of Neoplatonic philosophy (Plotinus Enn. 2.9 and, to a lesser extent, Porphyry Plot. 16; → Platonism).
Primary sources are the Hermetic books (treatises 1, 7, 13), Coptic Gnostic texts, Pistis Sophia, two books of Jeu, an anonymous work, the Berlin Codex 8502 (Gospel of Mary, Ap. John, Soph. Jes. Chr., and the non-Gnostic Acts of Peter), and, since their discovery in 1945, the Nag Hammadi texts, not all of which are Gnostic, but which opened a new chapter in Gnostic research. Note should also be taken of the Gnostic passages in the Acts of Thomas. There is as yet no literary history of Gnostic writings.
6. Ethics and Cult

In keeping with the Gnostic view of the world and humanity, Gnostic ethics is marked by hostility to the body and striving to escape from the world. In patristic attacks the Gnostics are constantly accused of → libertinism, and especially of sexual excess and dissipation. This criticism finds no support in the original texts, which point rather to a strongly → ascetic lifestyle and which contain sharp attacks on the legalistic morality of the Fathers.
Gnosis found a place for the following cultic acts: baptism, the Eucharist, anointing, extreme unction, spiritual marriage, the ritual kiss, dancing, and prayer. All these acts tend to reinterpret, reappraise, or replace the church’s → sacraments. Gnosis strongly condemned the variety of orgiastic cults (Epiphanius Pan. 25–26), as we see from Pistis Sophia 147. We find rich testimony to the sacraments of the Valentinians in Gos. Phil. These have a strong eschatological orientation as anticipation of reunion with the heavenly original (the Eucharist, marriage). The dead were furnished with water and oil to protect the pneuma from the attacks of archons. This motif recurs in burial prayers (Irenaeus Adv. haer. 1.21.5; Acts of Thomas 147; 2 Ap. Jas. 62–63; Pistis Sophia 35; Manichaean Psalter 49–113; and esp. the Mandaean rites).
7. Relation to NT and Christianity
7.1. NT

The problem of the relation between Gnosis and the NT is extremely complex, and various answers have been given. The Synoptics (apart perhaps from Matt. 11:27) and Acts show no trace of either relationship or polemic. The Pastorals reject Gnosis as false teaching (esp. 1 Timothy). The problem is more acute in the Pauline and Deutero-Pauline epistles and the Johannine writings (esp. John). Developed Gnostic systems can hardly be assumed in NT days, but Paul and John knew Gnostic concepts, structures of thought, and early literary units, and we thus find parallels in them—for example, the fall of → Adam and creation (Rom. 5:12–17; 8:19–22), the antitheses of light and darkness (Rom. 13:11–13; 1 Thess. 5:5–6, and commonly in John) and of psychics and pneumatics (1 Cor. 2:14–15), the demonic ruler of this aeon (1 Cor. 2:6–8; John 12:31), our enslavement to the powers of the cosmos (Eph. 1:21; Col. 1:16), the descent and ascension of the Redeemer (Phil. 2:6–11; Eph. 4:8–10), the body of Christ as cosmic body (Eph. 5:23), the Gnostic Sophia myth (John 1:1–18), and the Gnostic summons to awake (Eph. 5:14). No matter whether we explain these motifs genetically or in some other way, the question how they are interpreted in the NT always arises.
Standing apart from Gnosis are the biblical antithesis of → sin and → grace, God’s historical act of salvation through the crucifixion of Jesus, and creation’s longing for redemption (Rom. 8:19–22), none of which are compatible with Gnostic positions.
7.2. Early Church

The relation between Gnosis and the early church was consistently polemic on both sides. From the church’s standpoint Gnosis threatened to absorb the NT message and to dissolve it in speculation. From the Gnostic standpoint the church was subject to the ruler of the cosmos and took part in the persecution of pneumatics. The anti-Gnostic polemic of the church fathers did not succeed in quenching Gnosis. Only the development of the episcopal office (→ Bishop, Episcopate), the church’s confession (→ Confession of Faith), and the biblical → canon made it possible for the church to deal with Gnosis effectively, which finally in the Byzantine Empire came under the legislation passed against heresies.
→ Hellenism; Hellenistic-Roman Religion; Heresies and Schisms

Bibliography: Primary sources: B. P. COPENHAVER, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation (Cambridge, 1995) ∙ W. FÖRSTER, Die Gnosis (2 vols.; Zurich, 1969–71) ∙ R. HAARDT, Gnosis: Character and Testimony (Leiden, 1971) bibliography ∙ H.-J. KLIMKEIT, ed., Gnosis on the Silk Road: Gnostic Texts from Central Asia (San Francisco, 1993) ∙ J. M. ROBINSON, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English (3d ed.; Leiden, 1988) ∙ C. SCHMIDT, Koptisch-gnostische Schriften (vol. 1; 4th ed.; ed. V. H.-M. Schenke; Berlin, 1981) ∙ W. TILL, Die gnostischen Schriften des koptischen Papyrus Berolinensis 8502 (2d ed.; Berlin, 1972) ∙ W. VÖLKER, Quellen zur Geschichte der christlichen Gnosis (Tübingen, 1932). See also the bibliography in “Nag Hammadi.”
On 1–6: R. VAN DEN BROEK and W. J. HANEGRAAFF, Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times (Albany, N.Y., 1998) ∙ R. VAN DEN BROEK and M. J. VERMASEREN, eds., Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religion (Leiden, 1981) ∙ R. BULTMANN, “Γιυώσκω κτλ.,” TDNT 1.689–719 ∙ C. COLPE, “Gnosis II (Gnostizismus),” RAC 11.537–659 ∙ G. FILORAMO, A History of Gnosticism (Oxford, 1990) ∙ W. S. FLORY, The Gnostic Concept of Authority and the Nag Hammadi Documents (Lewiston, N.Y., 1995) ∙ H. JONAS, Gnosis und spätantiker Geist (vol. 1; 3d ed.; Göttingen, 1964; orig. pub., 1934) ∙ B. LAYTON, ed., The Rediscovery of Gnosticism (2 vols.; Leiden, 1980–81) ∙ D. MERKUR, Gnosis: An Esoteric Tradition of Mystical Visions and Unions (Albany, N.Y., 1993) ∙ P. NAGEL, ed., Studien zum Menschenbild in Gnostizismus und Manichäismus (Halle, 1979) ∙ B. PEARSON, Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity (Minneapolis, 1990) ∙ G. QUISPEL, Gnostic Studies (2 vols.; Leiden, 1974–75) ∙ K. RUDOLPH, Gnosis: The Nature and History of an Ancient Religion (Edinburgh, 1983) bibliography; idem, ed., Gnosis und Gnostizismus (Darmstadt, 1975) ∙ H.-M. SCHENKE, Der Gott “Mensch” in der Gnosis (Berlin, 1962) ∙ R. T. WALLIS, ed., Neoplatonism and Gnosticism (Albany, N.Y., 1992) ∙ W. WINK, Cracking the Gnostic Code (Atlanta, 1993).
On 7: J. P. COULIANO, The Tree of Gnosis: Mythology from Early Christianity to Modern Nihilism (San Francisco, 1992) ∙ K. KOSCHORKE, Die Polemik der Gnostiker gegen das kirchliche Christentum (Leiden, 1978) ∙ A. H. LOGAN and A. WEDDERBORN, eds., The NT and Gnosis (Edinburgh, 1983) ∙ J. MAGNE, From Christianity to Gnosis and from Gnosis to Christianity (Atlanta, 1993) ∙ M. MEYER, The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus (San Francisco, 1992) ∙ S. J. PATTERSON, The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus (Sonoma, Calif., 1993) ∙ P. PERKINS, Gnosticism and the NT (Minneapolis, 1993) ∙ D. M. SCHOLAR, ed., Gnosticism in the Early Church (New York, 1993) ∙ R. A. SEGAL, The Gnostic Jung (Princeton, 1992) ∙ A. WELBURN, Gnosis: The Mysteries and Christianity. An Anthology of Essene, Gnostic, and Christian Writings (Edinburgh, 1994) ∙ R. M. WILSON, Gnosis and the NT (Oxford, 1968).

PETER NAGEL
God

1. Ideas of God in the Religions
2. Concept of God and Social Development
3. Philosophy
3.1. Origins of the Western Philosophical Concept of God
3.2. Beginnings of a Philosophical Concept
3.3. Socrates
3.4. Plato and Aristotle
3.5. Philosophy and Theology
3.6. Modern Period
3.7. The Influence of Kant
3.8. Contemporary Views of God
4. OT
4.1. Development of OT Statements
4.2. Uniqueness of OT Statements
5. NT
5.1. General Characteristics
5.2. Jesus
5.3. New Post-Easter Accents
5.4. Paul
5.5. John
6. Orthodox Tradition
7. Historical Development and Modern Discussion
7.1. Themes and Tendencies
7.2. Problems and New Approaches
1. Ideas of God in the Religions

Ideas are phenomena. We may interpret them in broader social and intellectual contexts, but they also speak for themselves in images, words, names, and texts. Even when deity is their content, they can display only themselves, not show whether → revelation or merely human imagination underlies them, though this observation does not mean that we can rule out divine revelation.
To speak of an idea of God tacitly presupposes horizontal comparison between societies and cultures. We set different ideas of God on different levels, though not necessarily on an evolutionary ladder. Using terms taken from Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, we do so in a way that is to some degree Eurocentric. In reality we have no reason to use such terms indiscriminately for the beings worshiped in the ancient Germanic or → Egyptian religions, or among Hindus (→ Hinduism) or → Buddhists, or for personifications of natural forces or hypostatizations of ethical values. In more or less autonomous cultures we can discern only qualitative changes—for example, from thing to person, from attributes to total being, from hypostasis to name, from → experience to the other that may be addressed, contemplated, and worshiped. In interrelated cultures—even to the point of → syncretism—we can assess the results of earlier change and study the arrival of new change.
Our task is to relate qualitative change to the point when there is a leap to an idea of God or from one such idea to another. Since we cannot escape Eurocentric academic language, which overlaps popular language and has come into global use, we make a virtue of necessity and orient ourselves (nonjudgmentally) to the ideas of God in → Judaism, Christianity, and → Islam, along with those in pagan antiquity. In so doing, we find some broad features. Anything that corresponds in other religions may then count as an idea of God. Everything else must either be excluded and related to other concepts (e.g., fortune or → force), or it must be viewed as an idea of God only within its own system, and only to the degree that it is analogous to the Mediterranean systems.
2. Concept of God and Social Development

Pre-Christian and non-Christian religion, including that of pagan antiquity, did not express itself in a concept of God, though it did recognize God, and even did so conceptually. Christian → theology was the first to use classical → ontology to construct a concept of God—one still used by nontheological scholarship and the → science of religion. A concept of this kind must use statements about deities, relations to them, and beliefs in them that have no concept of their own if it is to be able to make comprehensive utterances about socially relevant ideas that are comparable to theorems about → society and → development.
The question how far social developments relate to specific concepts of God is both theoretical and sociological. It involves the difficult issue of reflecting and representing, which is the crucial point in dealings between → religion and society.
There is little of substance to say about the historical origins of religions with a concept of God. We can show when and where, but not under what conditions, higher beings assumed the quality of deity. We can show in what social units they were polytheistic or more monotheistic or henotheistic. It is hard to say, however, whether a specific deity stood for a specific social structure. Thus a great goddess (mother or huntress) might stand for a matriarchy, but it also might be an object of male worship in a patriarchy. There is no universal rule.
Once beyond prehistory, we find that concepts of God are in such harmony with social forms or partial forms that we can establish laws of development. Thus when a segmented society precedes one that is centralized, → polytheism precedes → henotheism. In a functionally ordered society (e.g., Indo-European societies), deities correspond to the functions (e.g., the Roman Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, or the Indo-Iranian Vayu, Indra, and the two Nāsatyas). The creative activity of the gods will also resemble earthly reproduction or the human making or ordering of things. Fertility gods and goddesses occur in archaic societies suffering hunger or fear. Gods of war go with destruction, and gods of wrath and grace with a developed sense of → sin. A static concept is found in a stable society; thus in late antiquity monotheism evolved into cosmic monarchy to validate political monarchy. The idea of a living, moving, and changing deity relates to movements of liberation and revolution (→ Theology of Revolution). Nevertheless, changes in the concept of God do not always accompany social changes. The concept of God is basically more tenacious than a social structure and is not simply shaped by it, as though it were merely an external symbol of the society. Furthermore, a concept of God represents individuals as well as collectives, such as outsiders in an archaic society, the → prophets, and those who engage in protest today.
For accurate information we may use the sociological method of scalogram analysis. Its aim is to clarify the attitudes of selected individuals or small groups (→ Congregation; Family) to deity (e.g., love, hate, fear, denial, obedience, sense of nearness or distance, ambivalent and multiple attitudes). It takes samples from different age-groups. When sorted, the cumulative findings tell us something (though not causally) about the relation between the form of society and the concept of God, allowing for differences in social class and age. The results show that we must view the concept of God as a factor in social development. With modern questionnaires the procedure is quite feasible, though always with a 10 percent margin of error. Applying the method to the history of religion is harder. In principle, scholarship can supply the data, with variations from culture to culture, but we always face the potential absence of rich materials through historical accident.
→ Everyday Life; Evolution; Immanence and Transcendence; Mother Goddesses; Progress

Bibliography: On 1: K. ARMSTRONG, A History of God: From Abraham to the Present. The 4,000-Year Quest for God (London, 1993) ∙ B. GLADIGOW, “Präsenz der Bilder-Präsenz der Götter,” VisRel 4 (1986) 114–33 ∙ W. K. C. GUTHRIE, The Greeks and Their Gods (Boston, 1950) ∙ H.-W. HAUSSIG, ed., WM ∙ E. A. JOHNSON, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York, 1992) ∙ E. RAE, Woman, the Earth, the Divine (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1994) ∙ N. SÖDERBLOM, The Living God: Basal Forms of Personal Religion (London, 1933); idem, Das Werden des Gottesglaubens (2d ed.; Hildesheim, 1979; orig. pub., 1916) ∙ A. J. WENSINCK, The Muslim Creed (2d ed.; Cambridge, 1965; orig. pub., 1932). See also the series IoR.
On 2: F. J. VAN BEECK, God Encountered: A Contemporary Catholic Systematic Theology (Collegeville, Minn., 1994) ∙ C. COLPE, “Muttergöttinnen und keltisch-germanische Matronen. Ein historisches-psychologisches Problem,” BoJ.B 44 (1987) 229–39 ∙ P. EICHER, ed., Gottesvorstellung und Gesellschaftsentwicklung (Munich, 1979) ∙ R. E. FRIEDMAN, The Disappearance of God: A Divine Mystery (Boston, 1995) ∙ H. GÖTTNER-ABENDROTH, “Matriarchale Spiritualität,” Sachkunde Religion (vol. 2; ed. J. Lott; Stuttgart, 1985) 231–43 ∙ L. GUTTMAN, “The Basis for Scalogram Analysis,” Measurement and Prediction (ed. S. Stouffer et al.; Princeton, 1950) 60–90 ∙ T. JACOBSEN, “Ancient Mesopotamian Religion: The Central Concerns,” PAPS 107 (1963) 473–84 ∙ P. RADIN, Primitive Man as Philosopher (New York, 1927) ∙ H. SCHULZ, “Religion in Stammesgesellschaften,” in Lott, Sachkunde Religion, 11–41 ∙ P. WINZELER, Widerstehende Theologie. Karl Barth, 1920–35 (Stuttgart, 1982).

CARSTEN COLPE
3. Philosophy
3.1. Origins of the Western Philosophical Concept of God

The movement toward a philosophical concept of God in the West began with the Greek philosophers, who gradually turned away from mythological ideas and stories about the gods gathered on Mount Olympus (→ Greek Philosophy; Greek Religion). On the one hand, reflection on the nature of the basic stuff and how it changes opened the way for more naturalistic and rationalist understandings of the cosmos and humans, which in some philosophers resulted in skepticism about God. Xenophanes (ca. 570–ca. 478), for example, rejected the popular explanation of natural events like the rainbow as caused by the gods and viewed the idea of the immorality of the gods as a scandal. Indeed, he said, by projecting human traits, humans create the gods (“Men suppose that gods are brought to birth, and have clothes and voice and shape like their own”). On the other hand, the movement away from myth led to sustained philosophical discourse about a more abstract notion of a supreme being in Plato (427–347 B.C.) and Aristotle (384–322).
The divorce of reason from myth was incomplete, however; myth lived on in the mystery cults (→ Mystery Religions), which in turn influenced Christian theology, especially in the → church fathers, and through them Christian esoterics (→ Esotericism) and the theology of → symbol. In philosophy (e.g., Plato) → myth served to express themes that were difficult to convey conceptually, requiring a degree of abstraction in thought and language not yet available. Greek poetry from Homer to the tragic dramatists was also important in philosophical development, having an impact on the formation of the concept of humanity (often in antithesis to the religions). The tragic motif of fate that even the gods cannot control led to the concept of providence in → Stoicism and its opposite in Epicurus (341–270 B.C.), who contested the influence of the gods on the human world, then to a similar idea in Christianity and → Islam.
3.2. Beginnings of a Philosophical Concept

The Logos concept of Heraclitus greatly influenced the Stoics and became theologically influential through the Johannine Prologue. Of greater significance was the thinking of the Eleatics, especially Parmenides (ca. 540-after 480 B.C.). Four themes would affect all future development: (1) the reference to the need in knowledge to transcend the sensory world (where sensory reality is considered the epitome of phenomena; → Epistemology); (2) the struggle for a concept of → unity in the relation of the one and the many; (3) the refusal to apply sensory predicates to the One and instead the characterization of it as unchanging, uncreated, eternal, and nonspatial, thus commencing a movement toward → negative theology and → mysticism (the fullest development of the philosophy and theology of the One coming in → Neoplatonism; see Plotinus Enn. 1.5–6; → Platonism); and (4) the relating of the One to thought, with the resultant defining of God in terms of the thinking of thought (noēsis noēseōs) in Aristotle and, finally, of Spirit in G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831; → Hegelianism).
3.3. Socrates

The distinctive uniting of enlightenment and religion found embodiment in Socrates (ca. 470–399 B.C.). Although Socrates set all that he did under a divine commission, the Athenians condemned him to drink poisonous hemlock on the ambiguous charge of introducing new gods of his own. It is possible that Socrates’ daimōn who provided individual guidance was a revolutionary concept in Greece. Plato in his Euthyphro (10A) had Socrates put the thorny question whether the gods turn to those who are devout or whether the turning of the gods to them makes them devout. The question of the meeting of God and humans in religion (or faith) is here formulated in a preliminary way. It occupied Plato when, as over against the thesis of Protagoras (ca. 483–ca. 410) that humans are the measure of all things, he set the thesis that God is the measure of all things (Leg. 716C).
3.4. Plato and Aristotle

The divine (spoken of in both singular and plural) is good, the source of all good things (Rep. 379B) and related to the form or idea of the → good that, giving existence and essence to the other forms, determines the meaning of true knowledge and the moral character of the individual and the → state. Eros (Phdr.) leads us to the good by way of the idea of the beautiful. Plato’s system, more than any, influenced subsequent philosophical thinking. In particular, his doctrine of the forms or ideas anticipated the medieval doctrine of → transcendentals in which the One, as the supreme ruler or being, is defined as represented by the true, the good, and the beautiful (→ Scholasticism). On it rested the medieval concept of order and of European → ontology in general (ens et unum et verum et bonum convertuntur, “being is interchangeable with one, true, and good”). Plato’s mythological god, the Demiurge (Ti. 28Aff.), shaped the cosmos from preexisting matter like a craftsman, with guidance from the realm of ideas, and hence is to be distinguished from the Christian Creator-God, who created out of nothing. Although here we see a difference between the Greek view of the cosmos and the Christian concept of the → creation, yet the idea as the formative ideal of creation in God, as thought in the mind of God or in the Logos, and finally the Christian Logos as the second person of the → Trinity had a normative influence on the age that followed.
Aristotle called the first philosophy theology (Metaph. 1026a13). He became a foremost influence in Europe through his special doctrine of God as the prime mover and noēsis noēseōs (1071bff.) and by his works on → metaphysics, → logic, the soul, → ethics, and statecraft (→ Aristotelianism). His metaphysics of act and potency and his formulation of the four causes influenced the construction of theistic arguments (→ God, Arguments for the Existence of) by both the Islamic philosophers and → Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–74).
3.5. Philosophy and Theology

The coming of monotheistic religions (→ Monotheism), especially Christianity, into world history brought a profound change in the conception of God, for philosophy and theology now found themselves in a relation of mutual referral that neither could escape (→ Philosophy and Theology). In working out its → confessions and → dogmatics, theology had to use philosophical terms, while philosophy could not overlook the fact that there were independent doctrines of God of religious derivation.
Between the poles of (1) a philosophical knowledge of God apart from any specific religion and (2) philosophy as the handmaid of theology, there were various ways of speaking about God. On the one hand some were critical of religion almost by necessity; on the other hand, some held religion aloof from philosophy and worldly wisdom in view of our inability to comprehend rationally God’s saving action. In this regard one might say that there were two distinct theologies. One referred in basic philosophical fashion to the → absolute, the other (e.g., that of → Judaism, Christianity, and → Islam) based itself on a historical faith that is presupposed positively. Mediating philosophy and theology were thinkers like Aquinas (→ Thomism), who, seeking a synthesis of → faith and → reason, put forth the doctrine of the twofold truth that held theology and philosophy together by emphasizing both their respective competency to know and their complementarity. Others, like Siger of Brabant (ca. 1240–ca. 1284), affirmed competency without requiring complementarity.
Already in the Middle Ages the difficulty and singularity of authoritative talk about God inevitably became apparent. The special nature of such talk found significant formulation at Lateran IV (1215), when the council stated that we cannot speak of likeness between Creator and creature without also speaking about their greater unlikeness. In spite of every distinction this thesis lies behind the analogy of being (analogia entis) of Thomas Aquinas and the later theories of the → analogy of faith (analogia fidei) and analogy of the Word (analogia Verbi).
3.6. Modern Period

With the beginning of the → modern period the relation between philosophy and theology underwent significant change. The theological → nominalism of the late Middle Ages shattered the medieval concepts of order and to a large extent became normative for the modern philosophical view of knowledge. The development of natural science, especially with Galileo’s (1564–1642) employment of the hypothetical deductive method, raised the question of the relation between God and the universe, religion and science. I. Newton (1642–1727), R. Boyle (1627–91), and others provided a theological rationale for their conception of a mechanical universe when they contended that since → chance inadequately explained the mechanism of the universe, the laws of → nature were of God’s making. Gradually, however, → empiricism and an emphasis on the investigative power of reason, combined with attacks on the church, led → Enlightenment theists to find a place for faith by separating it from philosophical and scientific → truth.
The modern period also reflects a radical shift in the role assigned to God. Whereas the medievals held that God was the highest good (summum bonum) at which humans aimed, R. Descartes (1596–1650), in treating God as the nondeceiving guarantor of our knowledge that extended substances existed, viewed God more as a means than an end (Meditations; → Cartesianism). Subsequent thinkers like N. Malebranche (1638–1715) with his occasionalism, B. Spinoza (1632–77) with his → pantheism (Ethics), and G. W. Leibniz (1646–1716) with his doctrine of preestablished harmony (Monadology) also tended to see God in a philosophical role mediating attributes, modes, or monads. Ultimately, rationalistic thought, which led to → skepticism about → revelation, → providence, and → miracles, reduced God’s interaction with the world to that of → creator (→ Deism). Despite the attempt of G. Berkeley (1685–1783) to make God essential to sustaining the world by insisting that we can be sure things exist apart from our perception of them only because they are perceived by God (Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous), the crushing blow came from D. Hume (1711–76), whose critique of traditional views of causation and analyses of belief and knowledge led him to conclude that we have no justification for rational theology and its claims about God’s existence and nature.
Leibniz and his school largely maintained the traditional doctrine of God, but development in Europe led to a theological Enlightenment that was close to that in England (→ Deism). In opposition to the → Enlightenment and to all philosophy, J. G. Hamann (1730–88) and F. H. Jacobi (1743–1819) stressed the particularity of faith. I. Kant (→ Kantianism), in his specific → philosophy of religion (Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone), belonged to the Enlightenment, for he interpreted the historical religion of revelation in essentially moral terms as a religion of reason, even though his doctrine of postulates included elements that opened up other possible ways of relating philosophy and theology. J. G. Fichte (1762–1814) at first followed Kant but then modified his position in essential ways as his thinking developed (→ Idealism), yet he always insisted that philosophy can achieve on its own a doctrine of God that is in material harmony with Christianity. He never fully grasped the importance of the problem posed by → positivism to the Christian faith.
Hegel, however, was quickly aware of the problem (Theologische Jugendschriften [ed. H. Nohl; 1907]; → Hegelianism). His later aim was to conceptualize Christianity. His final position (Philosophy of Religion) finds expression in the statement that in faith God is known only in conception, while in philosophy he is known in concept. One might take this distinction to mean that the former is the necessary mode of knowledge of faith (as F. D. E. → Schleiermacher did), or one might take it that the true claim of faith is fulfilled when Christianity arrives at concept, and that in this way the historical religion of revelation reaches its goal. The older F. W. J. von Schelling (1775–1854) brought to light some serious objections to this gnosis of Hegel (the putting of God in the coffin of → dialectic), but his own positive philosophy (Werke [ed. M. Schröter; 1926] vols. 5–6) did not resolve the tension between traditional philosophy and theology. Under totally different conditions M. Heidegger (1889–1976) took up similar themes. S. → Kierkegaard (1813–55) stressed against Hegel the paradoxical nature of faith (→ Existentialism). L. Feuerbach (1804–72) appealed to Hegel in an obviously untenable interpretation (letter to Hegel of November 22, 1828; Esence of Christianity [1841]). This approach laid the foundation of the ensuing criticism of religion in K. → Marx and → Marxism, F. → Nietzsche, S. Freud, and → analytic philosophy (→ Religion, Criticism of).
British and American idealists developed the notion of the absolute in important ways. F. H. Bradley (1846–1924, Appearance and Reality [1893]) held that since reality is fundamentally nonrelational, the absolute is not a plurality of individual realities but the unity of which everything else is an aspect. The absolute is suprarational and suprapersonal, of which the personal is only an appearance. In contrast, J. Royce (1855–1916, The World and the Individual [1900–1901]) held that the absolute was personal—an eternal, infinite consciousness. At the same time he rejected a → dualism that separates God from the world, struggling to hold together the one and the many.
3.7. The Influence of Kant

In the light of 19th-century development, some philosophers and theologians tend to take up and develop some insights from Kant. For Kant, God could neither be demonstrated empirically nor be proved logically. Yet Kant still saw some questions of supreme concern to humanity that philosophy could not neglect, since the answers that we give to them motivate human action. In general what is at issue is a ranking of goals, that is, of interests and claims over the whole range of human existence. On his own presuppositions the task for Kant could be achieved only by way of a well-founded insight into our ignorance (i.e., in the analogous speech of docta ignorantia, “instructed ignorance”). Some efforts in modern philosophy and theology are now being made along these lines. As regards their relationship, the result is that for all the importance of basic philosophical questions, it is best not to speak of God in connection with the absolute (whether we regard this concept as attainable or not). All the same, in the necessary rational appropriation of faith, a procedure is required in which theology not only is still referred to philosophy but can hardly be separated from it because of their common concern.
3.8. Contemporary Views of God

With the demise of positivism, the late 20th century saw a flowering of diverse concepts of God and renewed attention to → language about God. A rejuvenated but nonreductionist analytic tradition reconsidered the arguments for God’s existence, on the one hand applying the techniques of modern logic, including modal logic, to the traditional arguments, while on the other hand suggesting and developing stronger inductive formulations. Often in the context of → Anselm’s perfect-being theology, analytic philosophy also focused on discussing the meaning and coherence of God’s attributes and the logical problems they create, for example, problems having to do with understanding God and other minds, the paradox of omnipotence, divine goodness and the existence of evil, divine foreknowledge and human → freedom, and God’s action in the world (e.g., in atonement, miracles, and response to petitionary prayer). Theists in the analytic tradition often seem less concerned with establishing the truth of claims about God’s nature than exploring their intelligibility and compatibility.
Taking up the insights of A. N. Whitehead (1861–1947), → process theology developed a dipolar, panentheistic view of God who is in the world (God’s primordial nature) and in whom the world is (God’s consequent nature). The world is composed of energy events (actual occasions) that in each instant constitute themselves by combining the evaluation of their past with the best possibility that God provides to each event. God relates reciprocally to the world, changing as the world changes, while maintaining the relational processes. Rejecting the traditional understanding of creation, process theology sees God in his primordial nature persuasively rather than coercively creating the world; God is not before but with the world. In his consequent nature, God influences all actual occasions by luring them by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness to new possibilities of self-actualization, thereby saving all that can be saved insofar as God synthesizes actual occasions into the immediacy of God’s own life.
Mary Daly’s claim that “if God is male, then the male is God” (Beyond God the Father [1973] 19) has shaped much recent feminist reflection on the nature of God. Sallie McFague followed up on Daly’s point by evaluating the influence of traditional language about God as Father, King, and Lord and by proposing alternative models of God as Mother, Lover, and Friend. Feminists contend that the language we predicate of God shapes the way we conceive of God, ourselves, and indeed the whole world, and they consequently argue for a personal, relational understanding of God that recognizes women as well as men as created in God’s image (→ Feminism; Feminist Theology).
→ Postmodern philosophers see in the end of → metaphysics the end of God as being—as causa sui, the ground of being—and instead look to the God beyond being: “the God who reveals himself with nothing withheld has nothing in common (at least in principle, and provided that he not condescend to it) with the ‘God’ of the philosophers, of the learned, and eventually, of the poet” (Jean-Luc Marion, 52). To say that God is dead in a postmodern, Nietzschean perspective refers to the various “regional” understandings of “God,” each of which expresses a particular conceptual approach (e.g., Aquinas’s self-caused cause or Kant’s ground of the moral law) that limits God and thus makes the concept of God an idol. To think of God outside metaphysics/ontology is not a negative theology; it is to experience God as given phenomenologically under an → icon such as agape.
One can anticipate that the new century will see → Third World philosophers creating new conceptions of God from their perspectives in the same way as, for example, → liberation theologians have done with their emphasis on the God who is concerned for the poor and takes on human suffering. Philosophical ideas derived from other world religions, including nonmonotheistic religions, will also have a significant impact on future philosophical conceptions of God.
→ Atheism; Emanation; Immanence and Transcendence; Theism

Bibliography: J. B. COBB JR. and D. R. GRIFFIN, Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition (Philadelphia, 1976) ∙ C. HARTSHORNE, The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God (New Haven, 1948) ∙ E. HEINTEL, Grundriß der Dialektik (2 vols.; Darmstadt, 1984); idem, Mündiger Mensch und christlicher Glaube (Darmstadt, 1988) ∙ H. HOFMEISTER, Truth and Belief (Dordrecht, 1990) ∙ E. A. JOHNSON, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York, 1992) ∙ S. MCFAGUE, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia, 1987) ∙ J.-L. MARION, God without Being (Chicago, 1991) ∙ A. PLANTINGA, God and Other Minds (Ithaca, N.Y., 1967) ∙ K. RAHNER, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity (New York, 1978) ∙ W. RÖD, Der Gott der reinen Vernunft. Die Auseinandersetzungen um den ontologischen Gottesbeweis von Anselm bis Hegel (Munich, 1992) ∙ R. SWINBURNE, The Coherence of Theism (Oxford, 1977) ∙ G. WARD, ed., The Postmodern God (Oxford, 1997) ∙ W. WEISCHEDEL, Der Gott der Philosophen (3d ed.; Darmstadt, 1998) ∙ A. N. WHITEHEAD, Process and Reality (New York, 1929) ∙ E. R. WIERENGA, The Nature of God (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989).

ERICH HEINTEL and BRUCE R. REICHENBACH
4. OT

In theology and piety the special importance of the OT is that it speaks about God under the name of Yahweh (W. H. Schmidt). Because readers and listeners find the multilayered experiences of God in the OT relatively easily accessible, and also because essential parts of the OT testimony were adopted by the NT and the church, the OT made an imposing contribution to the Christian doctrine of God.
4.1. Development of OT Statements

4.1.1. The OT speaks about God in different ways (see merely Exod. 15:1–18) and uses various names and descriptions (→ Yahweh, Yahweh ṣĕbāʾôt [LORD of hosts], ʾēl, ʾĕlōhı̂m, ʾĕlôah, ʾēl šaddāy, ʾādôn/ʾădōnāy [Lord]), which is due to the differences and development of the OT belief in God. The OT is a collection of many different texts and works. Thus Amos and the Chronicler, for example, do not talk about God in exactly the same way.
4.1.2. Yahweh was probably not the God of (all) → Israel (§1) from the very outset (Josh. 24:2; the question in Exod. 3:13; Gen. 31:53–54). Yahweh had forerunners. The groups around the patriarchs (→ Patriarchal History) seemed to have known and worshiped other deities (Gen. 31:42, 53; 49:24; also 15:1?) or other versions of El (Gen. 16:13; 17:1; 21:14–34; 28:10–17; 35:7; 49:25; cf. 33:20; 46:3; Exod. 6:3; also Gen. 14:18–23; Num. 24:4, 16) as the “God of my/your/their father,” the “God of → Abraham, → Isaac, and → Jacob” (Gen. 26:24; 31:5, 42, 53, etc.) and therefore as the personal God who went with them (Gen. 26:24, 28; 28:20–21, etc.), the God of the clan. Each group probably worshiped only the one particular God, with whom it had its own personal encounter (Gen. 12:7; 13:14, etc.), while still recognizing the gods of other groups. The promise of the land, of guidance, and of posterity was constitutive, while at first priests, temple, and feasts played no part.
4.1.3. It is not by accident that both the Elohist and the Priestly writing introduce the name Yahweh only through and from the time of → Moses (Exod. 3:14; 6:2–3; → Pentateuch). If we would dispute the role of Moses (as the one who announced and interpreted the Red Sea deliverance?) in establishing the OT belief in God, then we must find someone else who performed an analogous function, for the word of interpretation and the personal element of individual belief are part of the development as well as the historical event.
Along with the accounts of deliverance by Yahweh (Exodus 13–14; 15:21), there is also that of his → theophany (chap. 19). The Savior God pledges his people to himself (chap. 20) and himself to this people (34:10). He also keeps faith with a grumbling people during the desert wanderings.
4.1.4. That Yahweh, the God of Israel (Judg. 5:3–5) as the Giver of the land (Joshua), was also the God of fertility became clear only with the further development of Israel’s religious history (Hosea), which was mostly polemical but which expanded faith in Yahweh. With the more nomadic groups (the patriarchs and the Moses groups), there now came to be associated more rural groups who had a different view of life (focusing on rain, → creation, monarchy, etc.). In the conflict with neighbors who threatened Israel’s settling of the land, the Yahweh who at the exodus had been known as a warlike liberator (Exod. 14:13–14; 15:3, 21) was experienced afresh as a “man of war” (Judges 4–5 etc.). He came from the South (Judg. 5:4–5; Deut. 33:2, etc. = Sinai? Seir? the land of the Midianites?) and displayed again his military power (see Num. 21:14; Psalm 68, etc.).
After the days of → David and → Solomon, a strongly personal popular piety developed (M. Rose) alongside the official state religion. We see this development from archaeological findings, the polemic of the → prophets, and the position of the Deuteronomic/Deuteronomistic school. Yet the influence of Yahweh was all-pervasive (see arts. by O. Keel, F. Stolz, and H.-P. Müller in the vol. ed. by O. Keel). To ignore Yahweh or to engage in subjective evaluations is to explain nothing. The Deuteronomic school with its “Yahweh is one” (Deut. 6:4) had and needed forerunners (→ Elijah and Hosea; see the vol. ed. by E. Haag).
4.1.5. With the adoption of the (Syrian-Canaanite) predicates of El, Yahweh came to be seen as the holy and most high God with his own court, the world ruler in glory (Isaiah 6; Psalms 96–99), the living God who never dies but is always mightily at work, the Creator. Conflict with surrounding beliefs that took the form of either rejection or critical adaptation (e.g., the creation story and the battle against chaos) broadened what was said about Yahweh.
4.1.6. The → prophets declared that the God who, from the days in Egypt (Hos. 12:10; 13:4; Amos 9:7), had been believed to be with Israel and in the midst of it (Amos 5:15; Mic. 3:11) would come again to his people, this time to punish them (Amos 4:12, etc.). Yahweh himself speaks in the prophetic word. His relationship with his people (seen in anthropomorphisms that refer to Yahweh’s repentance, hand, eye, etc.) now turns against the people, since they no longer do his will nor live as his people (Amos 3:2). His day, then, will be darkness and not light (Amos 5:18–20). Israel must recognize afresh that “I am Yahweh” (Ezek. 6:7–14, etc.), for he is not as people would wish him or think of him (Jer. 15:10–14; Job). He is not dependent on us (Psalm 50). He can reject as well as elect (→ Saul; Jer. 7:29; Lam. 5:22, etc.).
4.1.7. Precisely when the exile forced Israel to reflect on the power and impotence of its God as compared to other (victorious?) gods, Deutero-Isaiah dared to put on the lips of Yahweh the words “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no God” (Isa. 44:6) and in judgment scenes to discover with mockery not merely the impotence but the nonexistence of all other gods (40:25, 28; 43:11; 44:6–8, etc.; cf. Deut. 4:32–40). Here and in Deuteronomy and the Priestly writing, we have the most mature statements about God. Although earlier there had been no particular disputing of the existence of other gods (Judg. 11:24; 1 Sam. 26:18–19; 2 Kgs. 3:27; 5:17–18; Psalm 82; Ruth 1:15–16; Deut. 32:8–9, 43 text. em.), Yahweh nonetheless had been “a jealous God” (Exod. 20:5 and par.) who would not tolerate any other gods in and for Israel (Exod. 20:3 and par.; cf. Mic. 4:5). This idea was not just a later postulate (see the later texts Exod. 22:20; 34:14). The OT offers no unequivocal evidence in favor of a temporary → monolatry in times of crisis (A. van Selms; cf. B. Lang).
4.1.8. If older → Wisdom spoke of God as the founder and guarantor of the act-consequence nexus (Prov. 10:24; 11:18; see also Ps. 37:25 etc.), this theology, probably associated with particular classes, ran into a crisis that contested its ideology of a connection between God and world harmony (Ecclesiastes; Job). God speaks and wants trust. He is not destiny or a principle of cosmic interpretation. The critique probably also addresses some parts of Chronicles, which gives more precise indications of God’s individual retributive acts.
4.2. Uniqueness of OT Statements

4.2.1. Unlike the world around it the OT cannot speak of an origin of God (Ps. 90:2). Yahweh declares his name and may be invoked, but one must not misuse his name in → magic or necromancy (Exod. 20:7 and par.). The prohibition of images (Exod. 20:4–5 and par.; 20:22–23; 34:17) protects his freedom. He reveals himself but does not surrender himself. The prohibition of → images is closely tied to that of false gods, for images of Yahweh would be idols (Hos. 11:2; 13:2, etc.). The world is God’s creation but not a part of him. He keeps his distance from it, even though human beings are his image and partner (Gen. 1:27). Religious criticism of foreign gods and their idols is nourished by the assurance of his majesty.
4.2.2. Even as the God of Israel, Yahweh is transcendent (Jer. 23:23). He remains the Holy One, even as the Holy One of Israel. He fights for his people but also against them. He can be contemplated in the temple but not tied to it (Jeremiah 7). He is present for his people in freedom, and his reference is to the → future and → faith. He wants to be feared as well as loved. Toward his people and the world he acts in various ways (as Spirit, wisdom, → angel, → glory, word, countenance). Yet always he is also hidden (Ecclesiastes; Job; Jeremiah; Genesis 22). He is known mainly as he works in history, but he cannot be calculated on this basis. He grants his people a king, but the → monarchy is constantly an object of his critical speech and action.
To this tension the limited OT statements about his attributes bear testimony (Exod. 34:6–7; Ps. 103:8; 106:1; 116:5; 139; Job 7; cf. Psalm 8 etc.). His → righteousness is predominantly his saving act (Judg. 5:11; Isa. 41:2, etc.), but it may also be experienced as punishment (Ps. 7:9, 11). He is praised (Psalm 113), yet both people (Psalm 80) and individuals (Psalms 13; 22) complain to him, calling him “my God,” even though feeling forsaken by him (Ps. 22:1). The prophets proclaim his judgment, yet the question arises (and not just for present scholarship) whether this word means the end of his ways with his people. For Yahweh is a sympathetic God (Jeremiah) who struggles with himself (Hosea 11). Only his “I” (Isa. 54:7 etc.) can disclose a new future. The OT does not think in terms of immutability (see his repenting) but in terms of → faithfulness (Isa. 65:16; Ps. 143:1; Deut. 7:9).
4.2.3. The OT speaks of experiences of God on the part of individuals, then especially of groups, then through the cult (Psalms; → Prayer). These experiences focus on the necessary connection that the OT faith in God makes between history, the people of God, law, and ethos, as well as between election and commitment, fellowship and transcendence. They show that and how God was and is and will be present for his people, yet in such a way as to preserve his mystery and majesty. His word brought creation into being, shapes history, and saves and judges devout individuals who respond to him. What the OT has to say about God lies within the relation of a personal I-thou. To engage in discussions about God is not really to speak of him at all (Job 42:7).
According to the OT, it is only the fool who tries to live out a practical → atheism (Ps. 14:1; cf. Zeph. 1:12, etc.). A basic theoretical atheism was impossible in OT Israel.

Bibliography: E. BOSETTI, Yahweh, Shepherd of the People: Pastoral Symbolism in the OT (Slough, Berkshire, 1993) ∙ W. BRUEGGEMANN, OT Theology (Minneapolis, 1992) ∙ F. M. CROSS, “אֵל ʾēl,” TDOT 1.242–61 ∙ D. N. FREEDMAN, M. P. O’CONNOR, and H. RINGGREN, “יהוה YHWH,” TDOT 5.500–521 ∙ E. HAAG, ed., Gott, der einzige (Freiburg, 1985) ∙ O. KEEL, ed., Monotheismus im Alten Israel und seiner Umwelt (Fribourg, 1980) ∙ B. LANG, “Vor einer Wende im Verständnis des israelitischen Gottesglaubens?” Wie wird man Prophet in Israel? (Düsseldorf, 1980) 149–61; idem, ed., Der einzige Gott (Munich, 1981) ∙ N. LOHFINK et al., eds., “Ich will euer Gott werden.” Beispiele biblischen Redens von Gott (2d ed.; Stuttgart, 1982) ∙ J. MARBÖCK, “Anfänge der Rede von Gott,” Anfänge der Theologie (Graz, 1987) 1–24 ∙ R. MASON, OT Pictures of God (London, 1993) ∙ J. MILES, God: A Biography (New York, 1995) ∙ H. RINGGREN, “אֱלהִים ʾelōhı̂m,” TDOT 1.267–84 ∙ M. ROSE, Der Ausschließlichkeitsanspruch Jahwes (Stuttgart, 1975) ∙ W. H. SCHMIDT, “Gotteslehre II: Altes Testament,” TRE 13.608–26 (bibliography) ∙ C. SCHWÖLEL, God: Action and Revelation (Kampen, 1992) ∙ R. L. SMITH, OT Theology: Its History, Method, and Message (Nashville, 1991).

HORST DIETRICH PREUSS†
5. NT
5.1. General Characteristics

In general, one might say that the NT teaching about God is marked by the tension of two tendencies. On the one hand, it adopts and develops the OT view of God (see 4). It bears witness to the definitive → revelation of the one God, who has already declared himself to → Israel (§1). It thus stresses a strict → monotheism—the creative work of God (→ Creation), which sets him in sharp antithesis to everything created, and his control of history, which shows itself in his dealings with his people. On the other hand, it goes beyond the OT by linking what it says about God exclusively to statements about the message, destiny, and person of Jesus, thus making → Christology the key to its doctrine of God.
5.2. Jesus

Both strands are present already in the message and ministry of → Jesus. Jesus confirms expressly the central idea of the Jewish doctrine of God when, in answer to the question concerning the chief commandment, he names the basic confession of the one God (šĕmaʿ yiśrāʾēl, Deut. 6:4; Mark 12:28–34). He does not abolish the → law but radicalizes it by stressing the unconditional will of God the Creator that lies behind it (Mark 10:1–9), which distinguishes it from the human statutes and casuistic compromises of the Mosaic → Torah (Mark 10:4–5; Matt. 5:21–22). The framework for this teaching is Jesus’ message of the imminence of God’s kingdom (Mark 1:15; → Kingdom of God). God will visibly establish his saving lordship over his world and his people; Jesus, on his part, is thus aware that he has been sent for the eschatological gathering of Israel (Matt. 19:28)—not just the righteous, but specifically “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 10:6), which are far from God’s commandment.
The nearness of God and his rule is not to be understood merely in the chronological sense of a → future that is distinct from the present but in the sense of something that is directly at hand. Jesus demands that we count on the saving and judging nearness of God already in the present, that we count on acts of God that will change all relationships. The healings of Jesus are signs in which one may detect already the eschatological new creation that is expected (Matt. 12:28; Luke 11:20; → Healing). The bold anthropomorphic speech of his → parables shows that God is near, making the motives for this action clear to human understanding (Luke 15:1–10) and challenging the hearers to recognize how different this action is from all human expectations and calculations (e.g., Luke 15:11–32; Matt. 20:1–16). In particular, the prayers of Jesus (→ Prayer), for which he adopts the familiar abba of the child (Mark 14:36; see also Rom. 8:15) and which are characterized by an absolute certainty of being heard (Luke 11:9–13), express this closeness of God. In this light we can understand his demands that we should not be anxious but should have confidence in the goodness of the Creator (Matt. 6:25–34). We do not have here a naive creation faith that is blind to experience of its negative side. Instead, we have an assurance of the nearness of God and his eschatological creative work, in the light of which one may see in the old world that now is, in and under all its negative features, traces of the original good and perfect will of the Creator.
The decisive point, however, is that Jesus does not just talk about this nearness of God but powerfully represents and activates it in his message and works. In spite of the protests of Pharisaic scribes (→ Pharisees), he exemplifies God’s unconditional turning to those who are far from him by forgiving their → sin (Luke 7:48) and gathering them for table fellowship as a sign of God’s immanence (Mark 2:15–17). He promises salvation to those who justify God in his acts (Mark 5:34; Matt. 8:10–13). He claims that he declares the original will of the Creator, even when he seems to be in opposition to the sacred word of the Mosaic → Torah (Matt. 5:17–48), and that the divinely established meaning of the → Sabbath is actually fulfilled by his breaking it (Mark 3:4). This claim brought upon Jesus the charge of blasphemy and led to his violent death.
5.3. New Post-Easter Accents

For primitive Christianity the message of the → resurrection of Jesus was the crucial point in the doctrine of God. It meant that God expressly recognized the claim and ministry of Jesus and therefore that salvation and the knowledge of God for all people were linked to acceptance of the exposition of God by Jesus and God’s dealings with him (Acts 2:22–24; 4:10–12). The dealings of God with Jesus were the beginning of the eschatological raising of the dead and therefore a declaration of God’s plan for an eschatological new creation. It is God who gives life to the dead (Rom. 4:17; 2 Cor. 1:9). By exalting Jesus to his right hand and making him Lord (Ps. 110:1 = Acts 2:34–35 etc.)—that is, the one who finally executes his eschatological plan of salvation (Revelation 5; → Eschatology)—he definitively demonstrates his control of history.
Early liturgical formulas like 1 Cor. 8:6 and 1 Tim. 2:5–6, which set the one God alongside the one Lord, seek to relate God and Jesus personally and historically along these lines rather than to make them ontologically parallel. The proclamation of the Gentile mission contains a central motif of Jewish monotheism when it condemns the exchanging of Creator for creature as the basic sin of the Gentile world and demands a return to the one God, who confronts the creature at a distance that cannot be bridged (Acts 14:15–17; 17:23–31). This return, which is not possible merely by reverting to the natural knowledge of God that is accessible to all people, can happen only on the basis of God’s end-time acts in Jesus (1 Thess. 1:9–10). Here is God’s final word, a promise of forgiveness for past alienation from God (Rom. 3:25) but also a declaration of judgment on the unbelief that rejects the present offer of fellowship.
Along different lines, the statements of Hellenistic Christianity regarding preexistence also bring about a close bracketing of the doctrine of God and Christology (Phil. 2:6; Col. 1:15–20; John 1:1–18). Here creation and eschatological salvation are seen to be closely linked. Because the God who saves us in Jesus is none other than the Creator, the world is not far from God. It is not a sphere that lies under the control of → demons and the powers of fate. It is an expression of the saving and loving will of God that has come to fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
5.4. Paul

Characteristic of the doctrine of God in → Paul is the tension between God’s → wrath and his → love. All people, Gentiles and Jews alike, have rejected the Creator’s offer of fellowship with his creatures and have tried to live on their own and for themselves alone. Because this choice violates God’s honor, his wrath at them has been revealed (Rom. 1:18). God himself holds them in the sphere of perdition, to which they have consigned themselves. Hence they cannot escape from it by themselves (Rom. 1:24). In Jesus Christ, however, God has revealed his → righteousness, his faithfulness in fellowship. This characteristic is imparted as a gift, by → grace, to those who come to Christ in → faith, giving up their former attempt to live autonomously.
Paul thinks of the Christ-event strictly as an act of God. The cross is for him the decisive mode of God’s self-declaration. God reveals himself here in a way that is diametrically opposed to all human values or ideas of God—that is, in the deepest humiliation and shame, but also in a radical love for sinners that knows no bounds (1 Cor. 1:18–31).
In spite of the heavy stress on God’s justifying and reconciling of individuals, Paul never loses sight of the cosmic aspect of God’s action, nor does he fail to see it from the standpoint of → salvation history. God wills to reconcile the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19). He will show his covenant faithfulness to all Israel by opening to it the way of salvation (Rom. 11:28–32), and finally he will visibly overcome all opposing powers and forces, thus demonstrating his faithfulness to all creation (1 Cor. 15:28).
5.5. John

In the Johannine writings there is a narrowing down of the doctrine of God and Christology that has no parallel elsewhere in the NT. This feature is connected, on the one hand, with the view of Jesus as the Revealer (John 1:18) and, on the other, with the identification of the gift of salvation with the Giver. Jesus does not give specific gifts; he gives himself (John 6:26–35; 10:11; 15:5). Similarly, his revelation of God is not objective speech about God but a confrontation with God himself. Those who encounter Jesus have to do with the Giver of salvation and therefore with God himself. He is not just the way to salvation but is its goal and content, namely, truth and life (John 14:6). In this sense those who see him see the Father (John 14:9).
Furthermore, John explains the work of Jesus in terms of his essential fellowship with the Father (John 5:17–23), which is grounded in the mutual love of Father and Son (John 3:35; 5:20; 15:9). The Father’s sending of the Son discloses their oneness in the fellowship of love (John 10:30, 38). The statement “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16) is not, then, an abstract definition but a way of describing the mission of the Son, which originates in the love of God.

Bibliography: A. W. ARGYLE, God in the NT (London, 1965) ∙ R. E. BROWN, Studies in Early Christology (Edinburgh, 1994) ∙ B. J. COOKE, God’s Beloved: Jesus’ Experience of the Transcendent (Philadelphia, 1992) ∙ J. COPPENS, ed., La notion biblique de Dieu. Le Dieu de la Bible et le Dieu des philosophes (Gembloux, 1976) ∙ C. DEMKE, “Gott IV,” TRE 13.645–52 ∙ M. J. HARRIS, Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of theós in Reference to Jesus (Grand Rapids, 1992) ∙ M. HENGEL, Studies in Early Christology (Edinburgh, 1993) ∙ H. MERKLEIN and E. ZENGER, eds., “Ich will euer Gott werden.” Beispiele biblischen Redens von Gott (Stuttgart, 1981) 177–205 ∙ W. C. PLACHER, Narratives of a Vulnerable God: Christ, Theology, and Scripture (Louisville, Ky., 1994) ∙ G. RAMSHAW, God Beyond Gender: Feminist Christian God-Language (Minneapolis, 1995) ∙ W. SCHRAGE, “Theologie und Christologie bei Paulus und Jesus auf dem Hintergrund der modernen Gottesfrage,” EvT 36 (1976) 121–54 ∙ E. SCHWEIZER, Beiträge zur Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Zurich, 1970) 207–18 ∙ G. VERMES, The Religion of Jesus, the Jew (London, 1993) ∙ N. T. WRIGHT, The NT and the People of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis, 1992).

JÜRGEN ROLOFF
6. Orthodox Tradition

In the → Orthodox Church the doctrine of God as the basis of Christian faith has two inseparable and complementary aspects: the dogmatic teaching, and the experiencing of it in → liturgy and → mysticism. One could thus say that the whole of Orthodox theology is devoted to the doctrine of God and the relation of God to us and the world.
→ Dogma is what God reveals about himself. We know from the OT that God is being, the One, the eternal source of all existence as its Creator, and that he is holy and personal. We cannot conceive of him, yet he reveals himself, declaring himself in us in the imago Dei, which we bear from the beginning of his creation and which he must bring to full divine likeness. On the Orthodox view God reveals himself in all the cosmos by his providence, by his → grace and energies (→ Palamism), and also by his → angels. → Creation itself and created existence bear witness to the doctrine of God, as is indicated in Romans and Hebrews.
Furthermore, we learn from the NT that God is spirit, love, and light (John). It is also testified that as the One he is also three, making himself known as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19), the one name “God” in his three persons (→ Trinity). Finally—and this is basic to the doctrine of God—the second hypostasis of this Holy Trinity of the one God became man (→ Incarnation). He became the new → Adam. He became in history what he is in the eternity to which he returns in his → ascension (→ Christology 3). There thus follow the dogmas of → salvation by redemption, the → resurrection, the → last judgment, the → theōsis of humanity and the transfiguration of the cosmos, and eternal life from eternity to eternity. The whole → gospel is proclamation of the → kingdom of God, the New Jerusalem, in which Christ will recapitulate all people in his bride, the church (→ Church 3.1), and God will then be “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28; → Apocatastasis).
Because of God’s → love for his creatures, his profound mercy and grace, and his incarnation, fallen humans (→ Anthropology) can freely do God’s will and thus attain to a transfigured dignity, in accordance with God’s original plan, as the image receives the likeness of God that → sin had distorted. The whole relation between God and us derives from the revelation of his primal and most proper nature and is thus a development of the doctrine of God as this is applied.
Yet theology and the cult are oriented more strongly to the divine persons than to the divine nature. Theological access to the doctrine of God is based on the fact that the Son of God, conceived by the Father through the Holy Spirit, incarnate Word and Son of Man, defines himself as “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). The other Advocate, who will always be with us, the → Holy Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father and whom the Father sends in the name of Christ, makes it possible for the church to remember and to understand all the acts and words and instructions of Christ—that is, the real doctrine of God (John 14:16, 26; 15:26). The Spirit works this insight from creation as he is unceasingly poured out upon humanity and the world, and then by his → pentecost in history as the church seeks and secures his outpouring by unbroken → prayer and the → sacraments.
Ontologically and eschatologically, then, the church is rooted in the most proper nature of God as it describes this nature in its teaching. In heart and mind it relates itself to the three persons of the sacred Trinity in accordance with the will of the triune Creator that we should be united with him as his adopted children. → Paul sums up this point when he defines the church as the body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit, and individual members as children of God and joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:16–17; Eph. 1:11; Gal. 3:29; 4:7, etc.). The church’s liturgy, which sanctifies humanity and the world, is simply an expression and actualization of this teaching. The daily life of Christians in the world ought normally to correspond to it, for God shows his nature by ordering us to be holy as he is holy (Lev. 11:44; 1 Pet. 1:16).
In spite of all the mysteries that it contains, this doctrine of God has never been questioned in the Orthodox Church from the very beginnings of Christianity. Hence, with just one exception, it has not been the subject of special treatment. In his dogmatics Panagiotis N. Trempelas follows the example of Western authors by dealing with the doctrine of God separately. In contrast, Sergius Bulgakov, the most important Orthodox theologian of the 20th century, does not take this course in his dogmatic trilogy.
Theologically, the doctrine of God rests on the → Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, the ecumenical councils, and the Fathers (e.g., Gregory of Nazianzus Or. theol. 27–31 [PG 36], John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Incomprehensible Nature of God [PG 48]). The liturgy, which culminates in the → Eucharist (a representation of the chief principle of ecclesiology), may be regarded as a commentary on the doctrine of the Trinity, Christology, and pneumatology.
→ Apophatic Theology; Orthodoxy 3

Bibliography: S. BIGHAM, The Image of God the Father in Orthodox Theology and Iconography (Torrance, Calif., 1995) ∙ S. BULGAKOV, Die Braut des Lammes (Lausanne, 1984; orig. pub., 1945); idem, Das Lamm Gottes (Lausanne, 1982; orig. pub., 1933); idem, Le Paraclet (Paris, 1946; orig. pub., 1936) ∙ P. CREMER, Baptism and Change in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1993) ∙ L. D. DAVIS, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325–787): Their History and Theology (Wilmington, Del., 1987) ∙ P. EVDOKIMOV, Gotteserleben und Atheismus (Vienna, 1967) ∙ F. GAVIN, Some Aspects of Contemporary Greek Orthodox Thought (London, 1923) 57–144 ∙ J. N. D. KELLEY, Golden Mouth, the Story of John Chrysostom-Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (London, 1995) ∙ V. LOSSKY, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (2d ed.; Crestwood, N.Y., 1976) ∙ G. L. PRESTIGE, God in Patristic Thought (2d ed.; London, 1952) ∙ P. TREMPELAS, Dogmatique de l’Église orthodoxe catholique (vol. 1; Chevetogne, 1966) 168–361.

CONSTANTIN ANDRONIKOF†
7. Historical Development and Modern Discussion
7.1. Themes and Tendencies

In considering God, we must distinguish strictly theological doctrines of God and the → Trinity from the biblical witness, from early creeds (→ Confession of Faith), and from statements about God in liturgies and church art (→ Church Music; Iconography). Analytic, systematic reflection on belief in God, however, is naturally (e.g., in the → early church) very closely connected with → prayer (→ Doxology) and → liturgy. Doctrine is found in the → church (→ Theology) when existential and congregational confession of God and talk about him, including what is said to him in prayer, are subjected to linguistic analysis. Such study may be needed to achieve inner clarification, to resist inappropriate foreign influences (→ Apologetics), or to reformulate insights of faith in crisis situations.
Though we may applaud 19th-century Protestant theology (→ Liberal Theology) for its criticism of the early church for allowing the Christian message to be permeated by Greek philosophy in the interests of doctrinal construction, with hindsight we now understand the urgent need to test ideas and concepts of God with the means and methods of modern → philosophy and → epistemology. The question how far criticism of the philosophical forms of classical doctrines (including the Trinity and → Christology) is appropriate forms today an important element in ecumenical discussion with the → Roman Catholic Church and especially the → Orthodox Church. On the Protestant side a corresponding revision of evaluation of the medieval doctrines of God is also ecumenically necessary.

7.1.1. We may summarize the development of the idea of God from the early church to the → Reformation in terms of the following themes.

7.1.1.1. The unity of God had to be a subject of reflection in the early church because (1) the biblical witness stressed the centrality of God’s uniqueness; (2) → polytheistic ideas, though vague, exerted pressure on early Christians from the world around them; (3) → Platonism promoted this concept and found a corresponding unity and simplicity in the → soul; and (4) → Stoicism regarded the link between the one God and the one cosmos as of central importance. Whether “simplicity” required reduction to one basic idea of God, and how one might think of a multiplicity of thoughts in God, remained largely an open question, as did that of the origin of → evil and its compatibility with God’s omnipotence. The second-century → apologists—Justin Martyr (d. ca. 165); Irenaeus, active after 177; and Tertullian, active from 190 to 207—raised such reflection to a relatively high level. The true development of the concept of unity, though, came only after Origen (d. ca. 254) with → Alexandrian theology and the three great → Cappadocians: Basil (d. 379), his brother Gregory of Nyssa (d. ca. 395), and their friend Gregory of Nazianzus (d. 389/90). It did so in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity.
7.1.1.2. The issue of the identity of God with the God of the OT poses the question of God’s unity in historical terms and relates also to the problem of evil. Is the God who sends → Jesus the Savior identical with the Creator, the OT God? Marcion (→ Marcionites) of Asia Minor (excommunicated in 144) answered no. The fact that the church decided against him weakens the charge sometimes made that it greatly Hellenized the biblical message and its concept of God. The apologist Theophilus of Antioch and, after him, Irenaeus so clearly linked God to the history of → Israel (§1), the church, and the world that it became possible to develop the so-called economic doctrine of the Trinity (i.e., history structured in accordance with the “economy” of God).
7.1.1.3. According to its logical presupposition, the doctrine of the Trinity is the “economic” doctrine. Extremely helpful to believers, this teaching relates the God of Israel (the Creator and the electing God) to the God who sent Jesus, was present in him, and in him suffered with us, and then again to the God who in the Spirit is present in the churches. The true unity of God is the unity that is thus understood in Trinitarian terms and that is worshiped in the → doxology.
This is the doctrine of God that Athanasius (ca. 297–373) and the Cappadocian Fathers made it their theological lifework to formulate. The movement was from the three ways in which God manifests himself (the hypostases) to his unity. In his unity God is the source (pēgē), root (rhiza), and ground (aitia) of all being, → love, and → grace. Believers cannot penetrate to his true mystery, his essence (the ousia). They can experience his energies (energeiai), however, and “through the Son in the Spirit” they can learn to understand that the whole cosmos would collapse were it not sustained by these divine energies in grace. The doctrine of the “immanent” Trinity (i.e., how God is “in himself”) found expression in the creed in the language of prayer. There then developed negative theology (→ Apophatic Theology) and the mysticism of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite (ca. 500), which also influenced the West.
7.1.1.4. The development of the idea of God in the West took a different course. It hardly went through the preliminary stages of the doctrine of the Trinity but accepted the rulings of the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381; → Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed). The movement now was from the one God to the three persons.
Augustine (354–430; → Augustine’s Theology) had a high regard for many of the concerns of the apologists and the later Greek fathers (→ Church Fathers): God’s unity and uniqueness, his apathy (i.e., immunity from suffering and passion), his immutability, his mystery (though with a different epistemology from that of the Cappadocians), and the orthodox formulas of Trinitarian doctrine. Yet his concept of God was not the same, for Augustine linked God to historical movements. Thus the occasion of his City of God was the fall of Rome in 410. Augustine’s God, however, was timeless and therefore, in the last resort, alien to human history. → Dualistic concepts from his → Manichaean period also shaped his view of God, not just his idea of the two cities. His doctrine of the Trinity did not really have the function of deepening or constituting his knowledge of God. Along the lines of Plotinus (→ Platonism) he made it a doctrine of the relations between the Father (eternity), the Son (wisdom), and the Spirit (beatitude). These elements find reflection in the human soul (image of God) as the trinity of memory, rational knowledge, and will (or the lover, the beloved, and the power of loving). The decisive element in this “psychological” interpretation was not the explaining of God but our personal relation to him. For all the assurances that God is pure being, he was really seen as will. In Augustine’s understanding, with its emphasis on will, the energies of the Eastern teaching were replaced by → predestination. The door was thus opened for non-Trinitarian ideas, for questions as to the being and will of God in “himself.”
7.1.1.5. Whether we are to think of God as being or as will, and how he is to be known in his relation to the world, dominated the medieval doctrines of God. The decisions of the councils were recognized, but the Greek fathers were known only in a few texts or in collections. The influence of Augustine was powerful. In → piety and → liturgy the ascent of the soul to God was a constant goal. Erigena of Ireland (ca. 810–ca. 877), the translator of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, found a speculative basis and possibility for such an ascent in the → emanation (descent) from God of a mighty → revelation through and in all creation. The later theologians of → Scholasticism proceeded by rational analysis, but → mysticism remained alive and could also appeal to Augustine.
The central question was still that of God’s relation to the world and its order. Another issue, in the interests of the knowledge of God, was that of the mediation between revelation, → faith, and → tradition, on the one side, and, on the other, human → reason. Grace and → nature constituted the poles of mediation. In accordance with the approach adopted (Platonic or Aristotelian), God was either the starting point (→ Realism) or the end point (→ Nominalism) of theologicophilosophical deduction or conceptualizing construction. The path of knowledge itself, however, was circular. Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) made faith the presupposition of his proofs of God.
Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–74) certainly thought that natural reason can know God’s existence and unity, but only by revelation can one know the Trinity, the essence of God, the love of God, and God as personal. Revelation thus elucidates what is known by natural reason. (In his Summa contra Gentiles, written for missionaries to pagans, the presupposition of faith is clearer.) Everything, including the course of knowledge (→ Epistemology), is set in motion by God as first cause or prime mover (actus purus) in creation. For all the dissimilarity between God and the world, the world is still in → analogy to God and thus makes possible in principle an inferring of God from it (→ Thomism).
Some 500 years later there were strange parallels in Protestant Scholasticism (→ Orthodoxy 1–2) and in → physicotheology, the only difference being that in the Middle Ages the protest against such thinking took place within the Christian faith, whereas in the 18th and 19th centuries it resulted in → atheism.
In the Middle Ages the protest came from the Franciscan Duns Scotus (ca. 1265–1308) and his followers (→ Scotism). Along Augustinian lines Scotus viewed God directly as omnipotent and infinite will (potentia absoluta, “absolute power”). As such, God is hidden from us. He may be known only as he limits himself in the multiplicity of his possibilities and ties himself to his work of creating and ordering (potentia ordinata, “ordained power”). Epigrammatically, one might say that what God wills is good, not that God wills what is good. In William of Ockham (ca. 1285–1347) this approach finally led to a crass separation of reason and revelation, in the position that there can be no knowledge of God through reason. With the detaching of the doctrine of God from → Aristotelianism, human reason was conferred an → autonomy that foreshadowed the modern → renaissance individual.
At the same time, we must take medieval mysticism seriously as regards the doctrine of God. It too produced intellectual fruits that influenced contemporary and later teachings. In Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260–ca. 1328) and others we find a reversal of the notion that God is being. Being is God, but we cannot master him. He is pure, self-thinking thought. Such concepts are not unlike the doctrines of God in Zen Buddhism (→ Buddhism; Zen).

7.1.2. The doctrines of God from the Reformation to the → Enlightenment may be grouped as follows.

7.1.2.1. As in Christology, so in the doctrine of God, the Bohemian, German, and Swiss-French Reformations produced nothing new. This observation is interesting, for although the Reformation offered completely new teachings on grace, → justification, biblical understanding, the → sacraments, and the church’s teaching authority, it obviously did not necessitate a total revision of classical Christology and doctrines of God.
In the writings of Jan Hus (ca. 1372–1415) and the Four Articles of Prague (1420, on God’s Word, the sacraments, the church, and the Christian life), one finds nothing in the doctrine of God that goes beyond what we find in later Scholasticism (→ Hussites). The social impulses have their basis in an eschatological consciousness rather than in the doctrine of God. What is new is believers’ access to God rather than the doctrine of God as such. The same is true a hundred years later in the Reformation works of Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531), in which the concept of God is fully oriented to the supreme good (summum bonum; → Zwingli’s Theology).
Martin Luther (1483–1546), like the Lutheran confessional writings, accepted the rulings of the early councils and condemned all heretical teachers and → anti-Trinitarians, past and present (→ Luther’s Theology). The doctrine of the Trinity, however, played no decisive role in his theology. The kind and gracious God who grants us → righteousness, coming to us in Jesus Christ and making himself known in him, can be known by reason at most only theoretically. It is only by the witness of the Holy Spirit, with no merit of works or piety, that he comes into the heart as the forgiving and gracious God. Luther’s roots are unmistakably in the Franciscan, Ockhamistic tradition, which holds that philosophy can give us no real knowledge of God. Nevertheless Luther, reflecting his Augustinian legacy, could allow a dualistic concept to enter into his doctrine of God. On the one hand, God is the Deus absconditus, the hidden, mysterious, and fearful God, who undoubtedly sustains the world but whose “work on the left hand,” an “alien work” (opus alienum), we do not know as → gospel but can perceive only through the admonitions of the → law (→ Law and Gospel). On the other hand, God is the Deus revelatus, the revealed, gracious, and pardoning God, whom we know through Jesus Christ in Scripture and the preaching of the church, and whose “work on the right hand” is his “proper work” (opus proprium).
Although John Calvin (1509–64) also had a doctrine of two kingdoms (Inst. 3.19 and 4.20), we do not find in him any such → dualism (→ Calvin’s Theology). He is more in the tradition of medieval realism, with its question of God’s being and intellect and a monistic rather than a dualistic view. For this reason, even in textbooks constant attention has been paid to the emphasis on God’s sovereignty, although it is doubtful whether one may find in Calvin himself any key concept along these lines, such as predestination, the majestic ruler-God, or God’s glory. Of central importance in both Luther and Calvin is Christ’s mediatorship between God and us, God’s presence in the world, and his suffering along with us.
7.1.2.2. From the end of the 16th to the early 18th century, Protestant orthodoxy found itself forced by confessional debates into an analysis of the Reformation ideas of God, with special regard for the relation between natural and revealed knowledge of God, and also for the attributes of God. The resultant ossification, particularly in the use of the Reformation Scripture principle (→ Biblicism; Reformation Principles), came acutely to light in contact with the Enlightenment theologians and their orientation to reason and → experience. Nature and God were seen together, with God as the epitome of all stability and order. The starry heaven was a revelation of God. “Physicotheology” is a general term to describe the various attempts to arrive at God from a consideration of purpose in nature.
At the Enlightenment, philosophical and theological doctrines of God parted company. The separation became complete in England and Scotland with the → deists, at the latest with David Hume (1711–76), in Germany with Christian Wolff (1679–1754) and Immanuel Kant (1724–1804; → Kantianism), who banished classical → metaphysics with his critiques, and in France already with René Descartes (1596–1650; → Cartesianism), Charles de Montesquieu (1689–1775), and Voltaire (1694–1778). In America a new and imposing synthesis was achieved by Jonathan Edwards (1703–58).
7.1.2.3. The reaction of Protestant theology can hardly be described as uniform, since many important writers saw themselves as both theologians and philosophers, notably Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher (1768–1834; → Schleiermacher’s Theology) and Georg W. F. Hegel (1770–1831; → Hegelianism). If we set aside the special situation in England, we find that especially in Germany the choice for a theological doctrine of God lay between (1) a radical restriction of what may be said metaphysically about God, in view of Kant’s work, and (2), along the lines of Hegel’s philosophy of history, a linking of God and the world by an overarching concept of history that, as a model to defeat → atheism, even included God’s self-negation and self-alienation on the path to his own self-actualization. Schleiermacher and Albrecht Ritschl (1822–99) chose the first way, while the theological Hegelians, mostly historians, chose the second.
The criticism leveled at the first choice, namely, that it ignores God’s → wrath and reduces him to love and finally to a point of orientation for → ethics, is too simplistic. To say that statements about God are value judgments is not to reduce the doctrine of God to ethics. Today English → philosophy of religion is asking again whether statements about God are not by their very nature moral. It is right to observe, however, that theologies at the turn of the 20th century that amount to little more than social ethics (→ Religious Socialism; Social Gospel) arose from this tradition of a comprehensive conception oriented toward the “goal” of the → kingdom of God.
The Hegelian way left both clear and hidden traces throughout the 19th century. Some have even wanted to set K. Barth (1886–1968) on this path, although his concept of history is not above God but is grounded in the Trinitarian God (in his history with himself). The → history-of-religions school undoubtedly took this course, with its great exegetes at the turn of the century and its systematic theologians Rudolf Otto (1869–1937) and Ernst Troeltsch (1865–1923). Otto’s rediscovery of Luther’s Deus absconditus and God’s awe-inspiring transcendence (→ Immanence and Transcendence), the tremendum (The Idea of the Holy [1917; ET 1923, 1970), kept theology from being simply philosophy or ethics (see Schleiermacher). God as the Wholly Other is like the God of Barth’s early concern (→ Dialectical Theology).
In Barth, however, talk about God, on the basis of his exegetical works, his rejection of Schleiermacher, and his study of Anselm (1931), found its basis and possibility only in a strict reference to God’s revelation in his Word (Jesus Christ). His Church Dogmatics develops what is to be said about God along these lines and in II/1 and II/2 (1957) offers an explicit doctrine of God that—in opposition to Kant’s restrictions, Hegel’s historicizing, and Schleiermacher’s reconstruction in terms of the believing consciousness—deals with God’s being, his perfections, his electing, and the basis of ethics in the doctrine of God. The influence of this doctrine of God was profound. Dietrich Bonhoeffer had received these volumes before his death, and for all his agreement, he voiced the first objection (regarding the “positivism of revelation”). The great questions raised against classical doctrines of God by 18th- and 19th-century theologians still remained and, in constant debate with Barth, became a theme again in English-speaking and more recent German-speaking theology.
7.1.2.4. The reaction of Roman Catholic theology to 18th-century criticism of the Christian doctrine of God took shape in the Catholic Tübingen School (after 1817) in a strong commitment to philosophical → idealism and to Schleiermacher(!). Syntheses of → Romanticism, church tradition, and historical research made possible speculative ideas of God along similar lines to the seeking of truth in history in the → Oxford Movement (John H. Newman [1801–90]). There was also theological debate with Kant.
After the middle of the 19th century, however, neo-Thomism (→ Neoscholasticism), confirmed in 1879 in Leo XIII’s → encyclical Aeterni Patris, attempted a revival of timeless theological truth and a safeguarding of tradition. Thomistic teaching was deployed against every form of → modernism. Against this background we are to evaluate the liturgical movement and the biblical movement of the first half of the 20th century, which found a place for personalism (→ Person) and → existentialism in the doctrine of God.
Already before → Vatican II there were new syntheses of philosophical metaphysics and the Christian doctrine of God, but with some attention to situational questions and the political and cultural problems of the age. With Karl Rahner’s “transcendental anthropology” (i.e., the linking of our destiny, as beings oriented to God’s absolute transcendence, with the knowledge of God), these matters have now become a theme in the doctrine of God, so that theocentricity and anthropocentricity are no longer polar opposites. Rahner himself, however, did not draw out the implications in the sense of → political theology (J. B. Metz; → Liberation Theology).
7.2. Problems and New Approaches

Agreements and differences in the theological question of talk about God cut across the (Western) confessions today. As regards schools, one might think primarily of Barth, not of Paul Tillich (1886–1965) and his complementary relating of a metaphysics of being and the biblically revealed God, or of Rahner and his transcendental theology. Almost without exception the churches and their teachers have had to face the question of → theodicy, in view of two shattering world wars, the → Holocaust, and the millions of lives lost around the world in countless savage wars and disturbances. It is no longer possible to talk so naively of God’s action as the Lord of history. God’s condescension is a closer and more comforting theme than his omnipotence or transcendence. Above all, no one any longer finds it so easy to claim God for national and cultural goals. Liberation theology should not be too hastily criticized as a fresh example of the misuse found in older generations. (There were in fact some new versions of the claiming of God for political goals, such as the claim that the advent of Marxism-Leninism in eastern Europe was God’s doing.)
The following ten problems and new approaches have arisen in modern theological and ecumenical discussion.

7.2.1. The first question is whether we can talk and think about God at all, or whether we are driven back to feeling and mysticism. The theology of the Word of God insists that we can conceive of God and speak about him (K. Barth, E. Jüngel). But is the God of human formulation the same as the living God? Gordon Kaufman, Langdon Gilkey, Joachim Track, Ingolf U. Dalferth, and others are working on this problem with the instruments of classical theology and → analytic philosophy.
7.2.2. A second question is whether the human inquiry into meaning and history is not unavoidably referred back to God (W. Pannenberg, K. Rahner, G. Ebeling). Tillich’s question regarding our ultimate concern points in the same direction.
7.2.3. Another issue is that of rediscovering and reformulating the doctrine of the Trinity as the most appropriate way of talking about God, about his relation to history, and about his fellow-suffering with us (J. Moltmann, D. Ritschl, C. Gunton).
7.2.4. The fourth question is that of God’s omnipotence. Is it causal, or is it an omnipotence of love (E. Jüngel)? How does the stress on God’s impotence differ from the errors of classic patripassianism, from an absolutized theology of the cross? Does contesting the classical idea of omnipotence bring comfort or discouragement? The various liberation theologies insist that God takes the side of the oppressed, but do they understand the resurrection in their own political interest as their liberation (minjung theology; → Asian Theology 4.2)?
7.2.5. In Jewish-Christian dialogue it is asked whether we can talk of God at all after Auschwitz, what right Christians have for critical theological → dialogue, and what forms Christology must take in order to speak with Jews about God in Trinitarian terms with reference to Jesus and the Holy Spirit (H. Gollwitzer, F. W. Marquardt, P. von der Osten-Sacken, R. Rendtorff, P. M. van Buren, M. Stöhr, et al.).
7.2.6. The question of God and → nature, a new “natural theology,” and not simply the ecological crisis (→ Ecology), has initiated a testing of the classical concepts of God and creation. Furthermore, awareness of the philosophical implications of modern science (J. Polkinghorne) has raised the question of an ultimate identity between the rationality of God and the world (T. F. Torrance), though no one is taking the path to a knowledge of God that was suggested by classical → natural theology (→ Science and Theology).
7.2.7. In → process theology the classical way of knowledge finds renewed interest on the basis of the metaphysics of A. N. Whitehead (1861–1947), as developed theologically by American process theologians (Schubert M. Ogden, John B. Cobb). In his own experience and self-creation, God is supposedly synthesizing the process of completed and not yet actualized reality. In God there is a distinction between his primal nature and the process that triggers reality. This view seems particularly difficult to harmonize with classical doctrines of God.
7.2.8. The → World Council of Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, numerous churches in Asia and Africa (→ African Theology; Asian Theology), and individual authors still champion the God of the Bible in debate with other concepts of God held by representatives and writings of non-Jewish and non-Christian religions (see 1). The search for synthesis or for a common denominator, which began with the Enlightenment, tries to find a place for insight into the truth of the particular “story” of confessional traditions.
7.2.9. Feminists’ questioning of the classical way of talking about God brings up the problem of whether the male attributes of God are an integral part of the biblical testimony or a projection of earlier patriarchal structures in church and society (→ Feminist Theology).
7.2.10. Finally, in the debate with → atheism the question arises how far Jews and Christians in this discussion must cling to classical → theism. Is the theistic thesis a meaningful and legitimate compendium of the creed of biblically oriented believers (→ God Is Dead Theology)?
→ Absolute, The; Anthropology; Black Theology; Language; Monotheism; Philosophy of Religion; Theology of History; Word of God

Bibliography: J. BAUR, “Gott,” HST 6 ∙ R. BERNHARDT, Was heißt “Handeln Gottes”? (Gütersloh, 1999) ∙ G. VAN DEN BRINK, Almighty God: A Study of the Doctrine of Divine Omnipotence (Kampen, 1993) ∙ V. BRÜMMER, Speaking of a Personal God: An Essay in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge, 1992) ∙J. M. BYRNE, ed., The Christian Understanding of God Today (Dublin, 1993) ∙ I. U. DALFERTH, Gott. Philosophisch-theologische Denkversuche (Tübingen, 1992); idem, Religiöse Rede von Gott (Munich, 1981) ∙ P. DAVIES, God, Cosmos, Nature, and Creativity (Edinburgh, 1995) ∙ N. FISCHER, Die philosophische Frage nach Gott. Ein Gang durch ihre Stationen (Paderborn, 1995) ∙ H. GOLLWITZER, The Existence of God, as Confessed by Faith (London, 1965) ∙ D. W. HARDY, God’s Ways with the World (Edinburgh, 1996) ∙ T. W. JENNINGS JR., Beyond Theism: A Grammar of God-Language (Oxford, 1985) ∙ R. W. JENSON, Systematic Theology (New York, 1997) ∙ E. JÜNGEL, God as the Mystery of the World: On the Foundation of the Theology of the Crucified One in the Dispute between Theism and Atheism (Grand Rapids, 1983) ∙ W. KASPER, The God of Jesus Christ (London, 1984) ∙ G. D. KAUFMAN, God the Problem (Cambridge, Mass., 1972); idem, The Theological Imagination: Constructing the Concept of God (Philadelphia, 1981) ∙ T. A. KELLY, Language, World, and God (Dublin, 1996) ∙ H. KÜNG, Does God Exist? An Answer for Today (New York, 1980) ∙ S. MCFAGUE, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological Nuclear Age (London, 1987) ∙ J. MOLTMANN, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God (London, 1981) ∙ G. NEWLANDS, God in Christian Perspective (Edinburgh, 1994) ∙ E. OSBORN, The Beginning of Christian Philosophy (Cambridge, 1981) ∙ W. PANNENBERG, Basic Questions in Theology (2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1970–71) 2.119–83 ∙ G. L. PRESTIGE, God in Patristic Thought (London, 1952) ∙ K. RAHNER, Foundations of Christian Faith (New York, 1978) ∙ D. RITSCHL, The Logic of Theology (Philadelphia, 1987) ∙ E. SCHLINK, Ökumenische Dogmatik (2d ed.; Göttingen, 1993) pt. 4 ∙ D. STANILOAE, Orthodoxe Dogmatik (vol. 1; Gütersloh, 1985) ∙ T. F. TORRANCE, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons (Edinburgh, 1996); idem, God and Rationality (London, 1971); idem, Transformation and Convergence in the Frame of Knowledge (Grand Rapids, 1984) ∙ J. WERBICK, Bilder sind Wege. Eine Gotteslehre (Munich, 1992) ∙ N. WOLTERSTORFF, Divine Discourse (Cambridge, 1995). See also the bibliography in “God Is Dead Theology” and “Trinity.”

DIETRICH RITSCHL and REINHOLD BERNHARDT

God, Arguments for the Existence of

1. General
1.1. Arguments, Proofs, and Basic Beliefs
1.2. Essence and Existence
1.3. Argument Forms
2. Logical Structures
2.1. Ontological Arguments
2.2. Axiological Arguments
2.3. Epistemic Arguments
2.4. Cosmological Arguments
2.5. Teleological Argument
3. Assessment
1. General
1.1. Arguments, Proofs, and Basic Beliefs

William Clifford (1845–79) wrote that “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence” (“The Ethics of Belief”). This evidentialist position reflects the view, common in the modern era after R. Descartes (1596–1650; → Cartesianism), that belief in God should be justified by arguments. This strong evidentialism contrasts somewhat with the prior Augustinian tradition (→ Augustine’s Theology), which viewed the arguments for God’s existence as arising from faith seeking understanding. → Anselm (1033–1109), for example, couches his argument in the context of a prayer to God, who is properly understood as the greatest conceivable being (Pros. 1). Traditionally, arguments for God’s existence were treated deductively as proofs deriving from premises more readily knowable by us; thus → Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–74; → Thomism; Scholasticism) reasons deductively from effect to cause. He holds that such reasoning is proper and not contrary to faith, for although one cannot have both faith and demonstration concerning the same article of faith, the existence of God is a preamble to the articles of faith.
Within the last century theists like F. R. Tennant (1866–1957, Philosophical Theology [vol. 2; 1968]) and Richard Swinburne have placed greater emphasis on inductive or probabilistic reasoning on the grounds that not only are the deductive theistic proofs or arguments flawed but proofs are not required for everything we know. Indeed, proofs play a minor role in our intellectual life, for little is provable, and what is provable is often uninteresting. Other contemporary theists such as Alvin Plantinga have proceeded further, contending that we can be justified in believing in God’s existence without arguments, that belief in God can be properly basic (Plantinga and N. Wolterstorff).
1.2. Essence and Existence
Anselm, Descartes (Med. 5), and others believe that when we truly understand God, we see that existence belongs necessarily to God’s essence. Descartes argues that God has all perfections, and existence is a perfection. Aquinas contends that although God’s being does not differ from God’s essence, God’s existence is not derivable merely from God’s essence, since the self-evidence of this truth is not known to all (Summa theol. I, q. 2, art. 1). This feature differentiates the claim that God necessarily exists from necessarily true claims that are self-evident both in themselves and to us.
1.3. Argument Forms

Arguments for God’s existence may be classified as either a priori or a posteriori, depending on whether the premises are deemed true prior to → experience or on the basis of experience. The most common form of the a priori argument is the ontological argument, which commences from a claim about the nature of God (Anselm, Charles Hartshorne, Plantinga) or our conception of God’s nature (Descartes). The axiological argument holds that because the moral law requires that the highest good be attainable, we must postulate (I. Kant; R. Adams, The Virtue of Faith [1987]) or infer (H. Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil [vol. 2; 1924; repr., 1971]; C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity [1952; repr., 1997]) that God exists. Augustine’s epistemic argument also falls in this category.
A posteriori arguments derive from Aristotle’s (384–322 B.C.; → Aristotelianism) analysis of → causality (Ph. 2) and → metaphysics. According to the cosmological argument, whatever is moved must be moved by something already actual, and since the series of intermediate movers cannot continue to infinity, a logically first mover must exist (Ph. 7–8; Metaph. 12). The cosmological argument takes on a more temporal tone in the Islamic kalam argument (→ Islam 5), where the first cause is not merely logically but temporally prior. In the modern era the cosmological argument eventually loses a particularly Aristotelian causal frame while maintaining the emphasis that contingent beings, individually or in totality, must be grounded in a necessary being, appealing rather to versions of G. W. Leibniz’s (1646–1716) principle of sufficient → reason (W. L. Rowe). The teleological argument (→ Teleology) is also traced back to Aristotle, who invokes the notion of a final cause, according to which all things act for an end, to account for how the unmoved mover moves everything else.
2. Logical Structures

The demise of → positivism and the verification theory in the second half of the 20th century gave rise to renewed interest in the theistic arguments. The criticisms advanced by D. Hume (1711–76) and Kant (1724–1804) were revisited, new forms of the arguments were developed employing modal logic (Plantinga, Nature of Necessity, x), and deductive forms of reasoning frequently were replaced by inductive reasoning.
2.1. Ontological Arguments

This argument form deduces the existence of God from certain concepts or an analysis of God’s essence. Anselm’s argument (Pros. 2–4) may be recast as follows:

Presuppositions:

(a) A being than which no greater can be thought is conceivable (i.e., it exists in the mind); we call this being A.
(b) A being than which no greater can be thought can be thought of as existing (i.e., it exists in reality); we call this being B.
(c) If A and B are the same in every respect except that B actually exists and A does not, then B is greater than A.

Proof:

(1) Suppose A does not exist in reality (initial hypothesis).
(2) B is greater than A, given (c).
(3) But what is said in (2) contradicts (a); that is, the claim that A is a being than which none greater can be thought.
(4) Thus the hypothesis of (1) is false and must be rejected.
(5) A exists in reality.

Formally, as a reductio ad absurdum, this argument is valid. To reject the argument one must reject one of the presuppositions (→ Axioms). Gaunilo (11th cent.), for example, argued against (a) that such a being is inconceivable. For example, a highest number is inconceivable. Anselm replied that we can know enough about God to know that, at the very least, God must be the greatest conceivable being; more recent defenders argue that God must be conceived as exemplifying “necessarily a maximally perfect set of compossible great-making properties” (T. V. Morris, Anselmian Explorations [1987] 12). Objections to (c) are even stronger, for one may doubt that existence is a great-making property. Whereas Kant argued that existence is not a real predicate and hence adds nothing to the concept, Hartshorne, in discovering a so-called second Anselmian argument, contended that necessary existence is a great-making property (Anselm’s Discovery [1991]), such that if God’s necessary existence is possible, God necessarily exists. The soundness of the ontological argument clearly hinges on the status of existence and necessary existence as proper predicates, on distinguishing different kinds of existence, and on whether ultimately one can move from the conceptual to the ontological.
2.2. Axiological Arguments

Thomas Aquinas proposed an axiological argument based on the concept of maximums that cause the values in their respective genus. The best-known version, however, was produced by Kant, who, though he critiqued the traditional arguments, proposed an argument of his own. He contended that attainment of the highest good, which is virtue and happiness, is both necessary for us and unattainable because we cannot control nature to harmonize it with our ends. Hence, we must postulate a cause of all nature that is distinct from nature and is the ground for reconciling happiness with morality (Critique of Practical Reason). Consequently, although God’s existence cannot be the subject of proof, it can be postulated as a necessary prerequisite of an adequate conception of the moral law.
2.3. Epistemic Argument

In the context of showing the rationality of what one already accepts, → Augustine offered an interesting but little-regarded epistemic argument. The mind apprehends eternal → truths that are superior to it because they are unalterable by the mind, for we make judgments not about the truth but according to it. Truth is either ultimate, in which case truth is God, or there is something higher than truth, which is God (De lib. arb. 2.25).
2.4. Cosmological Arguments

This argument form is older than the ontological argument, being found in Plato (427–347 B.C.; → Platonism), Aristotle, and the → Islamic philosophers. The argument begins by invoking an alleged empirical fact about the universe (contingent beings exist; something is in motion; the universe began to exist) and proceeds to determine the cause or explanation of this fact. If the immediate cause is itself contingent, then another cause or explanation is sought. We must either postulate an infinite series of causes or assume that there is a first, noncontingent cause to the series. But since an infinite series of contingent causal conditions cannot provide an adequate explanation or sufficient reason, a first cause or necessary being must exist.
Two importantly different versions of this argument can be discerned. One, advanced by Thomas Aquinas (Summa theol. I, q. 2, art. 3), S. Clarke (1675–1729), F. Copleston (in J. Hick, The Existence of God [1985]), and R. Taylor (Metaphysics [4th ed.; 1992]), considers the explanatory causal conditions in terms of their logical, rather than their temporal, relation to the effect, so that the first cause to which the argument concludes is not necessarily a first cause in time but a sustaining cause—a necessary being on which all else depends for its continued existence. The other version, advanced by the Arabic philosophers al-Kindī (d. ca. 870) and al-Ghazālī (1058–1111) and by William Craig (The Kalam Cosmological Argument), argues for a first cause in time.
Swinburne has accused defenders of the first version of the completist fallacy. He holds that an explanation is provided once we derive the existence of the contingent thing from some relevant theory plus the existence of what is necessary for its existence (The Existence of God). Recent objections to the second form of the argument have rejected the causal principle, contending that it is possible that the universe can come into existence without a cause from a vacuum state. Kant rejected the cosmological argument for being grounded on the ontological argument. More fundamentally, he held that since the domain of human reason is limited, the idea of God cannot be a constitutive, but only a regulative, idea.
2.5. Teleological Arguments

Although both the teleological and cosmological arguments are causal arguments reasoning from effect to cause, the starting point of the latter is the ordered structure of the universe, not its mere existence. Because the universe contains evidences of means-ends ordering, it is believed to have an intelligent designer (→ Physicotheology). We find this reasoning in the Bible in the form of hymns in praise of the glories of the world (→ Doxology) that point to its Creator. Wisdom 13 (→ Apocrypha) contains a formally correct logical argument to which → Paul obviously alludes in Rom. 1:18–20.
The teleological argument has a long history of formulations that reflect the prevailing → worldviews of the time. Thomas Aquinas developed a deductive version utilizing Aristotle’s notion of final causation. The demise of final causation prior to the → Enlightenment led to the reformulation of the argument by Hume (Dialogues, eventually to be rebutted) and William Paley (1743–1805) as an analogical argument. The means-ends ordering of the universe and its components approximates that of a watch; since the latter requires an intelligent maker, so does the former. Charles Darwin’s proposal that natural selection provides an adequate, nonteleological explanation for means-ends ordering brought about the demise of the analogical versions of the argument in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Recently, however, the argument has been revived in post-Darwinian forms, such as the anthropic argument, whose defenders hold that the universe contains a vast complex of seemingly unrelated conditions, any of which have a very low antecedent probability. Had any of these initial conditions been different from what they were, there would be no observers of those conditions. Hence, the existence of such observers argues for a teleological account as the best explanation.
3. Assessment

Assessment of the theistic arguments can proceed on three fronts. The first evaluates the soundness or cogency of the individual arguments, taking account especially of their metaphysical framework. For example, Hume’s critique both of the traditional view of causation and of the causal principle itself led to serious criticism of the a posteriori arguments framed in terms of causation (Enquiry 7–8).
The second approach evaluates the function of the arguments. Many theists contend that it is a mistake to base the belief that God exists simply on one argument; instead, the arguments function as part of a cumulative case that may be constructed for God’s existence. This approach resembles reasoning in → science and → jurisprudence. Critics contend that conjoining unsound arguments cannot establish a true conclusion.
The third kind of assessment concerns whether the arguments are relevant to → religion. In particular, is the being to which the arguments conclude (necessary being, greatest conceivable being, intelligent being) to be identified with the God of religion? That these diverse concepts have the same referent is not immediately apparent; some sort of method of correlation must be invoked to determine which concept of God espoused by the various religions best correlates with that put forth by the philosophical arguments.

Bibliography: F. BERTOLI and U. CURI, The Conditions for the Existence of Mankind in the Universe (Cambridge, 1991) ∙ W. L. CRAIG, The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz (New York, 1980); idem, The Kalam Cosmological Argument (London, 1979) ∙ S. T. DAVIS, God, Reason, and Theistic Proofs (Grand Rapids, 1997) ∙ C. HARTSHORNE, A Natural Theology for Our Time (La Salle, Ill., 1967) ∙ J. HICK and A. C. MCGILL, eds., The Many Faced Argument (New York, 1967) ∙ A. KENNY, The Five Ways (New York, 1969) ∙ M. MARTIN, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (Philadelphia, 1990) ∙ R. MESSER, Does God’s Existence Need Proof? (New York, 1993) ∙ T. L. MIETHE, “The Cosmological Argument: A Research Bibliography,” NSchol 52 (1978) 285–305 ∙ G. OPPY, Ontological Arguments and Belief in God (Cambridge, 1995) ∙ H. P. OWEN, The Moral Argument for Christian Theism (London, 1965) ∙ A. PLANTINGA, God, Freedom, and Evil (New York, 1974); idem, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford, 1974) ∙ A. PLANTINGA and N. WOLTERSTORFF, eds., Faith and Rationality (Notre Dame, Ind., 1983) ∙ R. PREVOST, Probability and Theistic Explanation (Oxford, 1990) ∙ B. R. REICHENBACH, The Cosmological Argument: A Reassessment (Springfield, Ill., 1972) ∙ J. M. ROBSON, ed., Origin and Evolution of the Universe: Evidence for Design? (Kingston, Ont., 1987) ∙ W. L. ROWE, The Cosmological Argument (Princeton, 1975) ∙ R. SWINBURNE, The Existence of God (Oxford, 1979) ∙ M. WYNN, God and Goodness: A Natural Theological Perspective (London, 1999).

BRUCE R. REICHENBACH
God Is Dead Theology

David Hume’s formulation and defense of empiricist nontheism in Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) initiated the modern effort to write God’s death certificate. Derived mostly from philosophical, sociological, political, scientific, and literary contexts, such writings have contributed significantly to the texture of the last 200 years of theological history. They have contained protests and refinements to doctrines of → God as Necessary Being, Transcendent → Mystery, and even “acting in history.” In the two centuries following the → Enlightenment, God is not seen as Ultimacy or Ground of Being so much as a fascinating and inescapable problem. Theology as usually understood is rendered an obfuscating discipline or a tangle of incredible uncertainties or annoying evasions. The “God problem” looms large in the antitheological literary artistry of such writers as Thomas Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, Thomas Hardy, Edward Gibbon, and George Eliot; in eminent and persuasive philosophical luminaries such as Ludwig Feuerbach, Auguste Comte, and Friedrich → Nietzsche; and in political and psychological movements initiated by Karl → Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Thomas Huxley. It is obvious that the God-is-dead theology (or, perhaps more commonly, the “death-of-God movement”) is a clear and influential theme in the history of modern religious and theological life and letters.
In sharp contrast to these remarkably creative 18th- and 19th-century affirmations of God’s mortality has been the largely American death-of-God movement of the 1960s. Current critical responses to the few theologians who energized this short-lived and now largely forgotten protest insist that these theological diagnoses were largely overblown, sensationalized, and seriously mistaken. The prediction that → atheism and → naturalism would finally reign after the unsettling sixties has been proved either unlikely or clearly wrong. Instead of the divine death, what has come to pass—quite unexpectedly in light of the → cynicism of that decade, with its traumas of cold war and Vietnam War—has been a pluralistic rebirth of religion and the vitalizing of theological symbols, both traditional and popular.
The earliest published statement of what came to be a controversial and popular literature was The Death of God (1957), by Gabriel Vahanian. Hardly a theological manifesto, it was an iconoclastic cultural analysis claiming that God was no longer a factor or a presence that means anything in the spiritual dryness of modern life. Somewhat in the mode of Søren → Kierkegaard, Vahanian blamed facile and conventional religiosity for God’s death as the Transcendent Other. This opening salvo was a widely read rejection of → theism as compatible with human → experience. What can be said to distinguish God as Totaliter Aliter from the experience that God is dead? Vahanian made his case energetically, though after the book appeared, he dissociated himself from like-minded writers because their efforts to define a godless faith turned into one more of the conventional idolatries he had rejected.
Vahanian’s book was followed a few years later by Honest to God (1963), a widely discussed best-seller by the bishop of Woolwich, John A. T. Robinson. The best-known English work on the subject, it was a livelier version of work by Ronald Gregor Smith of Glasgow (e.g., The Doctrine of God [1970]), who affirmed the primacy of → secularization in a way similar to the later work of Harvey Cox. Robinson’s book—an analysis and interpretation of Paul → Tillich, Rudolf Bultmann, and Dietrich → Bonhoeffer—offered a restatement of God in panentheistic and somewhat mystical terms that a secular culture, with its post-Enlightenment views of Ultimacy, might find congenial. These efforts of Vahanian and Robinson to reconstruct a critical nontheism for modernity and its “cultured despisers” endeavored to go beyond the dense doctrines of closed theological systems in favor of the clarity of the “ordinary language” of → analytic philosophy.
Paul van Buren’s work The Secular Meaning of the Gospel (1963) continued what by then was the discernible momentum of this movement. Van Buren used the methods of logical → empiricism to correct traditional God-language that could not meet the standards of verifiability required by analytic philosophy. Van Buren, as well as other like-minded sympathizers with British empiricism, was vigorously responded to by Langdon Gilkey in Naming the Whirlwind (1969). (In his later work van Buren turned to other issues, notably the relation of → Judaism to Christianity, which brought him back more closely to Karl → Barth, his original teacher.)
Thomas Altizer, another contributor to the death-of-God movement, proposed an even more radical view in his Gospel of Christian Atheism (1966). According to his theory (as in classical → Buddhism), what is ultimate is what is discovered only in the fullness and passion of human life. In that passion, the very act of denying God actualizes the liberation of human beings.
William Hamilton, trained in theology and ethics by Paul Tillich and Reinhold → Niebuhr, held that the need for a modern atheism is inspired by the great creativeness of classical literature. Through a kind of Nietzschean hermeneutics of protest, Hamilton argued that the genius of the art of great literature affirmed and inspired human (and humane) greatness throughout all history. In his “Orestean theology,” religious mythology was stood on its head so that an all-too-human world in all its squalor and meanness would define the great divine absence, which was to be filled by the purpose and order of humanity itself.
Richard Rubenstein in After Auschwitz (1966) defended an essential pessimism that construes the → Holocaust as the paradigmatic event requiring a thoroughly tragic vision of human life without God. How can God’s death not be acknowledged “after Auschwitz”—and, by extension, after all the unspeakable evil in the post-Holocaust world?
By the middle of the 1960s, when this protest movement was being popularly debated, Harvey Cox published The Secular City (1965), refined in 1970 in a notable article in Playboy magazine. A scholar who derived his views both from constructive interpretations of classical biblical motifs and the history of theology and philosophy rather than from the vigors of atheistic protest, Cox relied on an interpretation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Friedrich Gogarten and their conviction that reliance on the secular is a sign of humanity’s having “come of age.” Secularization was in; it was not, however, religion’s enemy. The modern locus of theological vision was seen to be immediate and empirical. The essential model and symbol was the → city, whether polis, town, or metropolis—or, by extension, this world (i.e., cosmopolis). Such symbolizing contained a modern understanding of the human and the divine, because the human is the unique Homo symbolicus, or “the man at the giant switchboard” capable of denoting and naming. For Cox, Bonhoeffer was accurate in his claim that God is not a problematic concept vulnerable to denial. God is, for Cox, the name that is mysterious, beyond speech, meaning absolutely nothing. Moderns will say that God is the name that indicates the omnipresence that vitalizes such an omnipresence as urban civilization itself. Cox’s view was not atheistic or nontheistic; it was an effort at describing the secular model as an alternative to theological and metaphysical idolatries.
This recent and modest movement of religious and theological radical criticism, briefly energized by a company of American theologians, is at best a pale reflection of creative modern atheistic thought. It will be remembered as one of the many features of a turbulent decade that decried transcendence and ultimate mystery as well as the traditions that carried them. By attempting to name new symbols and fresh religious attitudes, it tried to define and actualize the denouement of modern theology—specifically, deicide.

Bibliography: T. J. J. ALTIZER, The Gospel of Christian Atheism (Philadelphia, 1966) ∙ T. J. J. ALTIZER and W. HAMILTON, Radical Theology and the Death of God (Indianapolis, 1966) ∙ J. BOWDEN, ed., Thirty Years of Honesty: Honest to God Then and Now (London, 1993) ∙ P. M. VAN BUREN, The Secular Meaning of the Gospel: Based on an Analysis of Its Language (New York, 1963) ∙ H. COX, The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective (New York, 1965) ∙ L. GILKEY, Naming the Whirlwind: The Renewal of God-Language (Indianapolis, 1969) ∙ W. HAMILTON, The New Essence of Christianity (New York, 1961) ∙ J. A. T. ROBINSON, Honest to God (Philadelphia, 1963) ∙ R. RUBENSTEIN, After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism (Indianapolis, 1966) ∙ G. VAHANIAN, The Death of God (New York, 1957; 4th ed., 1961) ∙ A. N. WILSON, God’s Funeral (New York, 1999).

RALPH HJELM
Godparent

1. Historical Development
2. Suggested Reinterpretation
1. Historical Development

Research into the ecclesial role of godparents has revealed many different legal, social, liturgical, pastoral, and educational dimensions of the practice. Little, however, has as yet been done regarding many sociological and popular religious aspects (→ Piety: Social History). Borrowing from non-Christian practice, the church used godparents (Lat. sponsor, patrinus, Ger. Vadder, It. padrino, Sp. compadre) as early as the second century to vouch for adults in baptism and to be responsible companions for them in their catechumenate (→ Catechesis). The parents of those baptized had primary responsibility, but with the rise of infant → baptism, godparents assumed the task of asking for baptism on the children’s behalf, in their stead promising renunciation of sin and making → confession of faith. In the Middle Ages a demand for more responsible Christian nurture resulted in both the establishment of a spiritual relationship between godparents and children and the exclusion of parents from the office. In the eighth century an examination of godparents was initiated, focusing on their knowledge of basic Christian texts in order to establish at least minimal fitness for their responsibilities.
The Reformation churches took over essential parts of earlier practice. In particular, the baptismal theology of Martin → Luther gave godparents the responsibility of acting as aides at baptism who would offer special prayers for the candidates. The → Reformation strengthened civil and familial piety and, in the process, enhanced the social tasks of godparents. Subsequent criticism of the practice often overlooks the important practical functions taken up by godparents in the traditional social structures of village and rural life (e.g., helping materially, contributing to education and nurture, becoming adoptive parents) where they helped to create for children an → identity independent of that of the biological parents.
Godparents still have important functions in the countries of southern Europe and Latin America where the influence of Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches has been strong (M. E. Kenna, J. Pitt-Rivers, H. V. C. Harris). A progressive loss of teaching functions can be judged only in the context of broader developments. Relevant in this regard are the loss of many people to the churches (→ Secularism), the tendency to make religion a private family affair, and the development of more specialized and institutionalized forms of religious education (→ Confirmation; Religious Education). The role of godparents in → Third World churches depends largely on the traditions of the earlier mission churches as well as local social structures.
Protestant churches generally regulate the practice of baptismal sponsorship by their understanding of the rite itself. The special responsibility assumed by godparents for prayer, assistance, and Christian upbringing is derived from the basic responsibility of the whole → congregation. Sponsorship as such normally ends with confirmation. In most cases the practice of accepting godparents from other churches is accepted. Some churches record the names of godparents in a baptismal register, not allowing later deletions or additions. Under certain circumstances baptism without godparents is allowed.
In the Roman Catholic Church rules regarding godparents are more comprehensive (1983 CIC, 762–69), although there is a growing tendency to allow variations (K. Baumgartner). Reform of the practice on the basis of church discipline has been rejected on theological grounds (M. Metzger).
2. Suggested Reinterpretation

Two main concerns have guided attempts in the Protestant world at reform of the practice of baptismal sponsorship by godparents: (1) a concern to strengthen congregational involvement in sponsorship, though without neglecting irrevocable family responsibilities; and, (2) a desire for a fresh integration of liturgical, pastoral, and pedagogic functions. With the relative diminution of the role of parents, such reappraisal began in relation to the liturgical dimensions of the baptismal rite.
In the process of relating the → occasional services of the church to the human life cycle, the participation of godparents in the baptismal catechumenate, a practice extending over all of life and spanning the generations, seems to make good sense. This catechumenate begins at baptism and then relates lessons regarding Christian faith to the actual life experiences of the baptized persons and their parents. Only thus can a foundation be laid for a later relation with the baptized that will allow godparents to play a continuing role that fosters trust without ceasing to be critical.
The relativizing of parental authority by dedication of the child to God, which baptism symbolizes, is given a social dimension in this view of sponsorship. The actualization of this understanding depends on how successful the congregation is in freeing the selection of godparents from purely family considerations. The education of the entire congregation is, in this context, necessary—not only in traditional ways such as baptismal services, classes regarding baptism, or in communications to godparents, but at all occasions of worship and all occasions for the education of children and adults (→ Continuing Education).
→ Initiation Rites

Bibliography: G. ANDERSON, “Il Comparragio: The Italian God-Parenthood Complex,” SWJA 13 (1957) 32–53 ∙ K. BAUMGARTNER, “Neue Wege des Taufpastoral,” in Glauben lernen, Leben lernen (ed. K. Baumgartner et al.; St. Ottilien, 1985) 439–71 ∙ H. V. C. HARRIS, “Human Sexuality as a Religious Phenomenon” (Diss., Lancaster, 1982) ∙ H.-G. HEIMBROCK, “Taufpaten,” Handbuch Religiöser Erziehung (ed. W. Böcker, H.-G. Heimbrock, and E. Kerkhoff; Düsseldorf, 1986) 82–92 ∙ M. E. JOHNSON, ed., Living Water, Sealing Spirit: Readings on Christian Initiation (Collegeville, Minn., 1995) ∙ B. JUSSEN, Patenschaft und Adoption im frühen Mittelalter (Göttingen, 1991) ∙ M. E. KENNA, “The Idiom of Family,” in Mediterranean Family Structures (ed. J. G. Peristiany; Cambridge, 1976) 347–62 ∙ G. W. LATHROP, Holy People: A Liturgical Ecclesiology (Minneapolis, 1999); idem, Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology (Minneapolis, 1993) ∙ J. H. LYNCH, Godparents and Kinship in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton, 1986) ∙ M. METZGER, Die Amtshandlungen der Kirche (vol. 1; 2d ed.; Munich, 1963) ∙ J. PITT-RIVERS, “Ritual Kinship in the Mediterranean: Spain and Balkans,” in Peristiany, Mediterranean Family Structures, 317–34 ∙ S. A. STAUFFER, ed., Baptism, Rites of Passage, and Culture (Geneva, 1999).

HANS-GÜNTER HEIMBROCK
Golden Age

In his epic poem Works and Days (lines 109–201), the Greek poet Hesiod (fl. ca. 800 B.C.) tells the story of a golden age in which humans lived like gods with no cares, illnesses, or wickedness. This period was followed by successive declines into the silver age and then the bronze. A heroic age arrested the decline but was followed finally by the iron age, which was full of plague and evil.
To the ancient idea of an ideal primitive age there correspond the myths in different cultures concerning an ideal place, → paradise (an Iranian word), a garden (Eden, see Gen. 2:4–3:24), the mountain of God (see Ezek. 28:11–19), the island of the blessed, the Elysian fields, and, in Greek comedy and fairy tales, lotusland and other places. Often these places are present not merely at the beginning of the world but, as something perfect, coexisting with our imperfect time and world in a sphere beyond, as in Jewish and Islamic piety and doctrine. Later Jewish and Christian piety has this notion, though with no biblical support.
Theologically important questions are whether Hesiod’s vision of decay, which strongly influenced Greek and Roman literature, indicated a pessimistic view of history typical of antiquity, and whether the OT and later Christian → hope of the → kingdom of God contradicts the Greek and Roman understanding, as is often maintained. It is striking that the OT and NT seldom refer back to Genesis 2 or to a happy primal age. Instead, they contain many promises of → peace, divine justice, and a new → heaven and new earth. The Greeks and Romans, though, also had a concept of → progress and perhaps of a golden age in the → future, mentioned, for example, in the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil (70–19 B.C.). Nor was the Christian view of history wholly oriented to the future, especially as it extolled Jesus Christ as the fulfillment and center of time (O. Cullmann; → Time and Eternity).
→ Paul also spoke about aeons, and later Christian doctrine about saecula (generations, ages). In accordance with early church concepts of → salvation history, Joachim of Fiore (ca. 1135–1202) divided the ages into three (→ Millenarianism). There have always been divisions and end-time calculations of this kind, especially to some extent under the influence of → apocalyptic.
→ Historiography; Philosophy of History; Theology of History; Worldview

Bibliography: O. CULLMANN, Christ and Time (New York, 1977; orig. pub., 1946) ∙ K. LÖWITH, Meaning in History (Chicago, 1964) ∙ E. ROHDE, Psyche, Seelencult und Unsterblichkeitsglaube der Griechen (vol. 1; 1893; 10th ed., 1925) ∙ H. STRACK and P. BILLERBECK, Str-B IV/2, 1016–1165 ∙ C. WESTERMANN, Genesis 1–11 (Minneapolis, 1994) excursus “Eden.”

DIETRICH RITSCHL
Golden Rule

The “Golden Rule” (a phrase not used before the 16th cent.) identifies the principle formulated in Matt. 7:12a and its parallel Luke 6:31, with either positive or negative parallels also among the Greeks (though hardly in philosophical → ethics), the Romans, and the Jews (from the Hellenistic period), as well as in China, India, and elsewhere. It rests on the insight that life in society demands regulated giving and receiving, acting and reacting. It is thus a formal statement of what is generally demanded by way of social conduct, with no attempt to state the related values. It is a kind of universal ethical rule that is not specifically Christian. It may be used in very different ways, even opportunistically and subjectively.
With the Golden Rule, Luke 6:31 universalizes love of → enemies. It thus has in view how to behave in → conflicts. When fellowship is disrupted, it must be restored unilaterally. It is hoped that, because both opponents are human, they will respond to one another.
According to Matt. 7:12 the Golden Rule sums up the → law expounded in the → Sermon on the Mount (see 5:17–20); it functions analogously for the Jews and the Greeks. It is thus a form of the command to love one’s neighbor “as yourself” (Matt. 22:34–40).
Matthew and Luke were both using → Q (→ Synoptics); Luke is perhaps closer to the original and possibly to → Jesus. Both have been very influential, among other things as a bridge between Christian and non-Christian ethics.

Bibliography: W. D. DAVIES and D. C. ALLISON, The Gospel according to St. Matthew (vol. 1; Edinburgh, 1988) ∙ A. DIHLE, “Goldene Regel,” RAC 11.930–40; idem, Die Goldene Regel (Göttingen, 1962) ∙ H.-P. MATHYS, R. HEILIGENTHAL, and H.-H. SCHREY, “Goldene Regel,” TRE 13.570–83.

CHRISTOPH BURCHARD
Good, The

1. Definition and Terminology
2. The Good in the History of Philosophy
3. The Good in the Philosophy of Religion
1. Definition and Terminology

The good (Gk. agathon, Lat. bonum) is that which contributes to the perfection of something or constitutes it. Distinction is made between the absolute good and the relative good. The former involves the actualizing of every innate possibility of perfection (Gk. entelecheia, Lat. bonum honestum). The latter, along the lines of utility (bonum utile) or satisfaction (bonum delectabile), contributes to the fulfillment of another and produces a hierarchy of goods, at the head of which is the supreme good (summum bonum).
2. The Good in the History of Philosophy

For Plato (427–347 B.C.) it was only in the light of the “idea of the good” (idea tou agathou) that the ideas acquire their real being as a being-known (Resp. 503E-509D; → Platonism). Aristotle (384–322) defined the good as “that for which everything strives”; among human beings it is → happiness (eudaimonia), which is achieved in philosophical → contemplation (Eth. Nic. 1094a–1103a, 1176a–1179a; → Aristotelianism). With his → hedonism Epicurus (341–270) linked the good to desire (hēdonē). For Augustine (354–430) God was the supreme good, and since all creatures have a share in his goodness, → evil could be seen only as a diminution of good (De nat. boni; → Augustine’s Theology). On this basis → Scholasticism distinguished between God as bonum per essentiam and the creation as bonum per participationem, this participation being the basis of the doctrine of transcendentals (Thomas Aquinas Summa theol. I, q. 1, arts. 3–4).
In the modern period the ontological and theological understanding of the good has given way to an ethical understanding. The → utilitarianism of T. Hobbes (1588–1679) defined the good as that which satisfies needs according to particular place, time, and person. I. Kant (1724–1804) rejected a material definition in terms of an ethics of → values and proposed the → “categorical imperative” as a formal interpretation of the good (→ Kantianism). Action according to this imperative makes us worthy of happiness as the supreme good but does not achieve happiness as the consummated good. For G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) Kant’s formalism was not enough, and he gave it concrete content in the → institutions of morality (i.e., → family, → society, and the → state; → Hegelianism). F. Nietzsche (1844–1900) argued that the superman must replace the notion of the good by the law of might. G. E. Moore (1873–1958) understood the good as an indefinable “simple notion” (→ Analytic Philosophy). From the nonverifiability of the concept A. J. Ayer (1910–89) concluded that it was meaningless, but R. M. Hare (b. 1919) thought that it might find meaningful use in value judgments (→ Analytic Ethics).
3. The Good in the Philosophy of Religion

The moral good (in the sense of Kant’s ethics of → motive) never replaces the ontological good (as perfection of being) because action under the sign of the good is always implicated in → guilt and is helpless when confronted by → death. The final inability of the good to solve the question of the → meaning of human existence can be overcome only on the level of → faith.

Bibliography: A. C. EWING, The Definition of the Good (New York, 1947) ∙ E. FARLEY, Good and Evil: Interpreting the Human Condition (Minneapolis, 1990) ∙ R. M. HARE, The Language of Morals (Oxford, 1952) ∙ G. W. F. HEGEL, Elements of the Philosophy of Right (Cambridge, 1991; orig. pub., 1821) §§129ff. ∙ I. KANT, Critique of Practical Reason (trans. M. Gregor; New York, 1997; orig. pub., 1788) A54ff. and A198ff. ∙ M. E. MARTY, The One and the Many: America’s Struggle for the Common Good (Cambridge, Mass., 1997) ∙ G. E. MOORE, Principia ethica (Cambridge, 1903) ∙ F. NIETZSCHE, Beyond Good and Evil (New York, 1974; orig. pub., 1886) ∙ W. NIKOLAUS, “Ist Religionsphilosophie möglich?” WJP 16 (1984) 61–80 ∙ W. W. POWELL and E. S. CLEMENS, Private Action and the Common Good (New Haven, 1998) ∙ J. G. STACKHOUSE, Can God Be Trusted? Faith and the Challenge of Evil (New York, 1998) ∙ C. SWEIG and S. WOLF, Romancing the Shadow: Illuminating the Dark Side of the Soul (New York, 1997).

WOLFGANG NIKOLAUS
Gospel

1. Biblical
1.1. Greek Usage
1.2. OT and LXX
1.3. Early Judaism
1.4. Jesus
1.5. Primitive Community
1.6. Paul
1.7. Post-Pauline Witnesses
1.8. Synoptics
1.9. Luther
2. Dogmatic
2.1. Concept
2.2. Genre
2.3. Controversies
2.4. Ethical and Political Aspects
1. Biblical
1.1. Greek Usage

The word “gospel” is a translation of Gk. euangelion. Often found in the plural and attested from Homer, this word means “that which is proper to an euangelos, or messenger of good news.” The verb euangelizomai (mid. and pass.) means “speak as an euangelos,” that is, “bring (good) news.”
The verb and noun have religious significance in the Greco-Roman world only in the emperor cult, in which ta euangelia is used for the good news of the birth or benevolence of the emperor. This usage has only background importance; it is not the source of the NT vocabulary of proclamation, which goes back to → Jesus, to early Judaism, and to the OT.
1.2. OT and LXX

The OT uses the verb bśr (Pi. and Hithp.) in the sense “spread (good) news” (e.g., Ps. 40:10 [40:9]; Isa. 60:6). The related noun bĕśōrâ means “(good) news” (e.g., 2 Sam. 18:27; 2 Kgs. 7:9) or “reward for (good) news” (e.g., 2 Sam. 4:10).
In Deutero-Isaiah (and Ps. 96:2) the verb can also relate to news of the dawn of God’s rule. The messenger of good news (mĕbaśśēr, Nah. 1:15) proclaims to → Israel (and the world) the coming of God (Isa. 40:9; 52:7). The one who bears this message that promises liberation to the poor is, according to Trito-Isaiah (Isa. 61:1–4), anointed by the Spirit (i.e., is a → prophet). The noun bĕśōrâ, however, is not yet used in a specific sense in the Hebrew OT.
The LXX makes no actual use of euangelion. Yet the use of the euangel. stem for the Hebrew root bśr alerts Greek readers to the fact that messages of salvation are at issue (e.g., Ps. 95:2 [96:2]; Isa. 40:9; 52:7; 61:1).
1.3. Early Judaism

In early Jewish and rabbinic sources bśr and bĕśōrâ occur along with other words for “proclaim” (e.g., šmʿ Hiph.) and “message” (e.g., šĕmûʿâ). Especially in the older and later Targums, bĕśōrâ is used for the message of the prophets, whether good or threatening. The early text of Tg. Isa. 53:1 also has bĕśōrâ rather than šĕmûʿâ. We now find a specific use of bĕśōrâ, which helps us to understand NT examples like Rev. 14:6 and Mark 1:15.
Early Judaism offers an interpretation of Isa. 52:7 (Nah. 1:15) and 61:1. From Qumran, 1QH 23:14 refers Isa. 61:1 to the message of the “teacher of righteousness,” 4QMessApoc 12 refers it to the message of God’s salvation, and 11QMelch 2:15–25 refers both verses to Melchizedek as a heavenly deliverer. In the → rabbis the mĕbaśśēr of Isa. 52:7 is God himself (as also Acts 10:36) or Elijah as the precursor of the Messiah or the Messiah (→ Messianism) or (as in Rom. 10:15) one of the many evangelists in the end time (see Midr. Ps. on 147:1 §2; see also Joel 3:5 LXX [2:32]). Isa. 61:1 is understood messianically.
1.4. Jesus

How Jesus understood and described his message may be seen from the → Q traditions in Luke 7:18–23 and parallel; 16:16 and parallel; Mark 1:14–15; 8:35; 10:39; 14:9. Viewed with “critical sympathy” (W. G. Kümmel), the sources invite the following reconstruction. Jesus worked as a messianic evangelist to the poor (cf. Luke 4:16–21; 6:20–26; 7:18–23 and par. with Isa. 61:1–4); we catch echoes of Isa. 52:7 and Targ. Isa. 53:1 in Mark 1:14–15. Whether the message was called bĕśōrâ (Aram. bĕśōrtâ) before → Easter, though quite possible in view of the traditional wording of Mark 1:15, must be left open because of the influence of early missionary vocabulary on Mark 1:14, 8:25, 10:39, and 14:9. The Matthean expression “good news of the kingdom” (Matt. 4:23; 9:35; 24:14) is a good historical characterization of the proclamation of Jesus.
From time to time Jesus sent out his → disciples “to proclaim the → kingdom of God” (Luke 9:1–6 and par.). The message, though, was firmly linked to Jesus’ person and work (cf. Luke 16:16 with 11:20; 17:21). His work culminated in his vicarious self-offering (Mark 10:45 and par.; 14:22–25 and par.).
1.5. Primitive Community

Following the mission command of the Resurrected (Matt. 28:18–20), the → apostles after → Pentecost preached that God had elevated Jesus as both “Lord and Messiah” (Acts 2:36; 5:42). Jesus’ message of God’s rule thus became the gospel of Jesus Christ (→ Christology). The translation of the root bśr by euangelizomai/euangelion followed in → Jerusalem with the → mission to Greek-speaking Jews.
Acts 10:36–43 and Mark 14:9 and parallels show that in this mission the story of Jesus was told as the gospel (of God). Early formulas like those in 1 Cor. 15:3–5 helped to preserve the recollection of the heart of the gospel—namely, the death and resurrection of Jesus “for our sins.” This tradition came to Paul.
1.6. Paul

Called to be an apostle instead of a persecutor (Gal. 1:15–16), → Paul stands or falls with the proclamation of the gospel. The word occurs in his universally accepted epistles 48 times. The “gospel of God” (1 Thess. 2:2, 8; Rom. 1:1), as Christ’s commanding word, is for Paul a salvific power (Rom. 1:16), to which he owes → obedience (1 Cor. 9:16).
According to his calling, the gospel is for Paul (1) the preaching of Christ. God caused the true knowledge of Christ to shine upon him outside Damascus (2 Cor. 4:6; 5:16), and from that time on, Paul proclaimed the Crucified as the power and wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:23–24, 30; 2:2).
The gospel is then (2) the word of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:17–21), surpassing the → law. The revelation of Christ put an end to Paul’s zeal for the law (Gal. 1:13–14) and set him in the service of Christ. He thus preached Christ as “the end of the law … for everyone who believes” (Rom. 10:4). “His gospel” (1 Thess. 1:5; Gal. 1:11; Rom. 2:16) stands in eschatological contrast to the law.
The gospel is also (3) the message of justification. Taken up into service by Christ even as a sinner (1 Cor. 15:8–10), Paul found in the atoning death of Christ the basis of → justification of the sinner by faith alone, without the works of the law. This justification stood at the heart of the gospel (Phil. 3:7–10; Rom. 3:21–30). Thus Paul could proclaim “the message about the cross” (1 Cor. 1:18) as the gospel of the righteousness of God in Christ (Rom. 1:16–17).
Because of this gospel, Paul was an “apostle to the Gentiles” for the sake of Israel (Rom. 11:13–15) and was involved in controversies all his life (Gal. 2:11–14; 2 Cor. 11:24–28; Romans). Since the gospel was inalienable for him, he could not preach “another Jesus” (Gal. 1:6–9; 2 Cor. 11:4), nor could he tolerate a deemphasis of Christ’s authority as judge (Rom. 2:16).
For Paul the gospel was an oral word of promise still concealed from unbelievers (1 Cor. 2:6–16; 2 Cor. 4:3–4). Its origin lay in God’s → promise in the OT (Rom. 1:1–2); its goal was the parousia of Christ and the salvation of “all Israel,” which would follow the mission to the → Gentiles (Rom. 11:25–31; 15:16).
1.7. Post-Pauline Witnesses

For Paul’s school (Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, 1-2 Timothy, and Titus), the legacy of Paul is normative. As in Rom. 16:25–26, the gospel reveals the “mystery” of God’s saving plan in Christ (Eph. 1:9–14; 6:19), and it is thus the mighty “word of (the) truth” (Eph. 1:13; Col. 1:5) that promises deliverance.
The → Pastoral Epistles also emphasize that the gospel handed down by Paul is a trust and must be kept unfalsified in the face of → Gnostic error (1 Tim. 6:20–21; see also 2 Tim. 1:14; 2:8–14, etc.). Here, as in 1 Cor. 15:1–4 and Rom. 6:17–18, the gospel is the doctrinal tradition.
In 1 Peter also, the gospel is the word of God that abides for ever (1:23–25). Those who do not believe it will fall under the judgment of death (4:17). In Revelation we find an older Jewish-Christian use. The “eternal gospel” (14:6) is the message of imminent divine judgment (→ Last Judgment).
1.8. Synoptics

On the basis of the → Midrash pattern in Acts 10:36–43 (G. N. Stanton), (John) Mark (mentioned in Acts 12:12; 1 Pet. 5:13) shortly before A.D. 70 combined the passion story with the essential Petrine → tradition (→ Peter) to form the first written Gospel. According to the heading in 1:1 and the summary in 1:14–15, the message and history of Jesus are the origin and normative content of the gospel, which is to be universally proclaimed (13:10). Mark 8:35, 10:39, and 14:9 confirm this program.
Following Mark, Matthew emphasizes that Jesus preached the “good news of the kingdom” (Matt. 4:23; 9:35; 24:14). In Matt. 24:14 and 26:13 “this good news” refers to the Gospel of Matthew itself. Luke in his Gospel uses only the verb euangelizomai for the message of the angels (1:19; 2:10), John the Baptist (3:18), and Jesus (4:18; 7:22, etc.). In Acts it denotes missionary proclamation (5:42; 8:4, 12, etc.), and euangelion is used for the preaching of Peter and Paul (15:7; 20:24). The absence of the stem euangel. from John and the Johannine Epistles points to an independent tradition.
The titles and colophons added to the Gospels already in the first century were meant to distinguish them in the congregational archives and to give indication of the contents when they were read (e.g., see Mark 13:14). “The gospel according to …” does not simply identify the author but has the force of “the one (revealed) gospel according to the witness of …” (M. Hengel).
1.9. Luther

Luther felicitously summed up the biblical meaning of “gospel” when he said that it “signifies nothing else than a sermon or report concerning the grace and mercy of God merited and acquired through the Lord Jesus Christ with his death.… [It] is not what one finds in books and what is written in letters of the alphabet; it is rather an oral sermon and a living Word, a voice that resounds throughout the world and is proclaimed publicly, so that one hears it everywhere” (LW 30.3).

PETER STUHLMACHER
2. Dogmatic
2.1. Concept

The term euangelion was taken over from secular speech, in which it was used, for example, for bringing news of a victory. It acquired a religious nuance in the emperor cult, in which good news focused on the ruler as a divine person. NT usage (see 1) is based primarily on the OT and early Jewish understanding of the messenger of joy (Matt. 11:5; Rom. 10:15). The term is rare in the → Synoptics. Yet in Mark 1:14–15 and par., the whole work of Jesus is set under this guiding motif. The one who brings the message of eschatological salvation is identical with the coming of divine → salvation. Whether → Jesus himself used the concept cannot be decided from the sources. In → Paul, to proclaim (euangelizomai, 1 Cor. 1:17) the eschatological message of the coming of Christ is part of the office of the → apostle. Paul’s vocabulary gave the concept its normative use. In the apostolic tradition “gospel” became a technical term embracing the proclamation of Jesus, his person as the one proclaimed, and his destiny of → cross and → resurrection as God’s eschatological act of salvation.
2.2. Genre

In the second century the term “gospel” came to be used for an authentically Christian literary genre in which the sayings of Jesus and accounts of his life and work were presented as the result of bringing together and editing original fragments, both oral and written. In this sense the word can be used in the plural, and in the first Christian generations there were evidently many gospels (note the Gospels of Thomas and Philip, discovered in 1945). In his → canon Marcion (d. ca. 160; → Marcionites) accepted only the Gospel of Luke, but in opposition to → Gnosis and → Montanism the → early church fixed on the Gospels kata (according to) Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew was viewed as particularly authentic in light of the incident and words recorded in Matt. 9:9–13.
2.3. Controversies

A mutual tension and ordering of → law and gospel is latent already in the Pauline writings (Gal. 4:8–31). Marcion made of this tension a radical antithesis, which the → church fathers tried in different ways to relieve. Along the same lines → Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–74) followed → Augustine in referring to the nova lex evangelii (Summa theol. I of II, q. 106, arts. 1–2). The Council of → Trent (1545–63), in opposition to the → Reformation, did not make the problem an independent theme. All the more plainly Vatican II (1962–65) made the decisive statement that the gospel “always offers itself as a leaven with regard to brotherhood, → unity, and peace” (Ad gentes 8).
The centrality of the problem goes back to the Reformers’ doctrine of → justification. In M. → Luther’s theology the gospel is, next to the law, God’s other word, his promise, in which all → grace, → righteousness, → peace, and freedom are vouchsafed to believers in Christ (WA 7.24). Penitence flees from the commands, faith flees to the promise, and hence through faith we are justified by the divine words (WA 7.34). There are detailed debates within Protestant theology, especially regarding the third use of the law (i.e., the command for Christians, who are under the gospel).
2.4. Ethical and Political Aspects

The problem assumed an ethical and political dimension in Luther’s controversy with the left wing of the Reformation. New inquiry into the social relevance of the gospel came with the “social question” of the 19th century. Not just religious socialists (→ Religious Socialism) like A. Stoekker, C. F. Blumhardt, L. Ragaz, and H. Kutter put this question, but A. von Harnack (1851–1930) could also say that the gospel is a social message—that is, the proclamation of solidarity and brotherhood on behalf of the poor (see his What Is Christianity?).
The controversy reached a climax in the debate between K. → Barth (1886–1968) and neo-Lutheranism (→ Lutheranism) when he reversed the formula “law and gospel,” arguing that the law is nothing other than the necessary form of the gospel, whose content is grace. This thesis had dogmatic and ethicopolitical implications that emerged in theses 1 and 2 of the → Barmen Declaration. The ethicopolitical aspect may also be seen in the contextual → liberation theology of the → Third World.
Always a central issue is the problem of the scope of the Protestant freedom of Christians (Luther) in relation to the world, which tendentiously claims autonomy for itself (F. Naumann).

Bibliography: Biblical materials: C. H. DODD, Gospel and Law: The Relation of Faith and Ethics in Early Christianity (New York, 1951) ∙ H. FRANKEMÖLLE, Evangelium. Begriff und Gattung. Ein Forschungsbericht (Stuttgart, 1988) ∙ G. FRIEDRICH, “Εὐαγγελίζομαι κτλ,” TDNT 2.707–37 ∙ M. HENGEL, Die Evangelienüberschriften (Heidelberg, 1984); idem, Studies in the Gospel of Mark (London, 1985) ∙ W. H. KELBER, The Oral and the Written Gospel (Philadelphia, 1983) ∙ H. KOESTER, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (London, 1990) ∙ J. H. REUMANN, Righteousness in the NT (Philadelphia, 1982) ∙ J. SCHNIEWIND, Die Begriffe Wort und Evangelium bei Paulus (Bonn, 1910); idem, Evangelion. Ursprung und erste Gestalt des Begriffs Evangelium (2 vols.; Gütersloh, 1927–31) ∙ G. N. STANTON, Jesus of Nazareth in NT Preaching (Cambridge, 1974) 70ff. ∙ G. STRECKER, “Εὐαγγέλιος,” EDNT 2.70–74 ∙ P. STUHLMACHER, Gerechtigkeit Gottes bei Paulus (2d ed.; Göttingen, 1966); idem, Das paulinische Evangelium (vol. 1; Göttingen, 1968); idem, Reconciliation, Law, Righteousness: Essays in Biblical Theology (Philadelphia, 1986); idem, ed., The Gospel and the Gospels (Grand Rapids, 1991).
Martin Luther’s theology: G. EBELING, Luther: An Introduction to His Thought (Philadelphia, 1960) ∙ B. LOHSE, Martin Luther’s Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development (Minneapolis, 1999) ∙ G. RUPP, The Righteousness of God: Luther Studies (London, 1953) ∙ P. S. WATSON, Let God Be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther (London, 1947).
Dogmatic questions: P. ALTHAUS, The Divine Command (Philadelphia, 1966) ∙ K. BARTH, “Gospel and Law,” God, Grace, and Gospel (Garden City, N.Y., 1960) ∙ R. BULTMANN, “Christ the End of the Law” (1940), Essays: Philosophical and Theological (London, 1955) 36–66 ∙ G. EBELING, Dogmatik des christlichen Glaubens (vols. 2–3; Tübingen, 1979); idem, “On the Doctrine of the Triplex usus legis in the Theology of the Reformation” and “Reflexions on the Doctrine of the Law,” Word and Faith (London, 1963) 62–78, 247–81 ∙ W. ELERT, Law and Gospel (Philadelphia, 1967) ∙ W. VAN GEMEREN, The Law, the Gospel, and the Modern Christian: Five Views (Grand Rapids, 1993) ∙ F. GOGARTEN, Der Mensch zwischen Gott und Welt (Stuttgart, 1956) ∙ A. VON HARNACK, What Is Christianity? (New York, 1957; orig. pub., 1900) ∙ W. PANNENBERG, Systematic Theology (vol. 2; Grand Rapids, 1994) chap. 11 ∙ E. SCHLINK, “Gesetz und Evangelium als kontroverstheologisches Problem,” KuD 7 (1961) 1–35 ∙ S. SYKES, The Identity of Christianity: Theologians and the Essence of Christianity from Schleiermacher to Barth (London, 1984) ∙ T. J. WENGERT, Law and Gospel: Philip Melanchthon’s Debate with John Agricola of Eisleben over Poenitentia (Grand Rapids, 1997).

ALFRED JÄGER
Gospel Song

The term “gospel song” refers to a particular kind of religious song that flourished in the United States during the religious → revivals of the Reconstruction era (1865–77) following the Civil War. Its texts are generally characterized by simple, direct words describing the condition of sinners and of their “being saved,” joined with music rooted in various European, British, and Afro-American folk traditions.
The musical origins of the gospel song are found in the camp-meeting song (from 1800), one of the most important of its antecedents, together with the later songs associated with the → Sunday school movement, the → YMCA, “prayer and praise” meetings, the → Salvation Army, the temperance movement, and the patriotic songs of the Civil War.
Philip P. Bliss (1838–76) was the first to use the term in his Gospel Songs (1874). Bliss, together with evangelist D. W. Whittle, was among the first in a line of songwriter-publisher-evangelists who used these simple, popular songs in the evangelistic meetings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (→ Evangelism). Other such teams included, among many, Dwight L. → Moody and Ira Sankey, Billy Sunday and Homer Rodeheaver, and, more recently, Billy Graham and George Beverly Shea. The establishment of the U.S. Copyright Office in 1870 effectively centralized copyright registration of many gospel songs, allowing only their owners to print and copy these materials for their exclusive use in their own revival meetings.
Other writers of gospel songs in the days of Reconstruction include Fanny Crosby (1820–1915), Annie S. Hawks (1835–1918), Will L. Thompson (1847–1909), Joseph M. Scriven (1819–86), and Joseph H. Gilmore (1834–1918). A continuing line of writers still produces songs in this genre to the present day, and there has also been a development of new kinds of gospel songs in improvisatory style with piano, guitar, and percussion.
Though viewed by many as America’s unique religious song, the gospel song has been criticized as being inadequate in expressing the social demands of the Christian → gospel and as providing “much too friendly musical settings for words that describe the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ” (C. Young). Its close connection with exclusive copyright ownership, mass printing, and distribution in both printed form and through recordings has also incurred the criticism of bringing an unhealthy commercial grounding to this form of religious song.
→ Hymn; Hymnal; Hymnody

Bibliography: L. F. BENSON, The English Hymn (rev. ed.; New York, 1962; orig. pub., 1915) ∙ P. P. BLISS, Gospel Songs: A Choice Collection of Hymns and Tunes, New and Old, for Gospel Meetings, Sunday Schools (Cincinnati, 1874) ∙ J. H. HALL, Biography of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers (New York, 1914) ∙ E. J. LORENZ, Glory, Hallelujah! The Story of the Camp Meeting Spiritual (Nashville, 1980) ∙ E. H. PIERCE, “Gospel Hymns and Their Tunes,” MQ 26 (1940) 355ff. ∙ W. J. REYNOLDS, Hymns of Our Faith (Nashville, 1964) ∙ C. YOUNG, “Gospel Song,” Key Words in Church Music (ed. C. Schalk; St. Louis, 1978) 173–77.

CARL SCHALK
Gothic → Middle Ages
Government Ethics → State Ethics
Grace

Overview

1. Bible
1.1. OT and Judaism
1.2. Paul
1.3. Other NT Writings
2. Orthodox Teaching
2.1. Grace as God’s Self-Communication
2.2. Theological Development of the Concept
2.3. Human Action and the Work of Grace
3. Roman Catholic Teaching
3.1. Augustine and His Influence
3.2. Middle Ages
3.3. Molinism
3.4. New Tendencies
4. Reformation Teaching
4.1. Reformation Breakthrough
4.2. Protestant Orthodoxy
4.3. Methodism, Awakening, and Enlightenment
4.4. New Approaches
Overview

In common parlance the words “grace” and “gracious” denote a human attitude. A gracious person is kind, well-disposed, considerate, gentle, and ready to show favor, to pardon, or to show clemency. The terms also occur in courtly formulas. In a legal setting grace is shown by the authorities when a reprieve or amnesty is granted. The language of religion (cf. ideas of redemption in → Buddhism, → Hinduism, → Islam, and → Jainism) understands grace as divine assistance, the unmerited mercy of God, though also the mercy that may be expected on the basis of sacrifices or works.
Grace is a central expression in Christian faith and → piety and a basic concept in theological reflection and church activity. It concerns the relation between God and us (or the world) and has as its content God’s loving and saving address to his creatures, his favor, and his act of deliverance that is manifest in the Christ-event (→ Christology) and that has in view our → salvation. The grace of God discloses itself only to → faith, which is a gift of God that we again owe to grace.
In the context of a multiplicity of divergent religious understandings (→ Meaning; Religion), grace as a total theological concept seems to have been relativized, individualized, and restricted to a partial sphere (→ Subculture). In the same vein is the attempt in religious sociology to characterize grace as a concept of → identity and to link the traditional dogmatic substance to the → everyday world. Grace here means liberation from biographical and socioeconomic determinations, which can be overcome by fundamental acceptance and love (M. Schibilsky).
A juridical view (W. Grewe) draws attention to the rise of the canonical idea of a → dispensation and its dependence on a theological understanding of grace. The dispensation is the legal form of a decision that has grace as its motive and meaning. As the idea of grace influenced the development of law (see the formula “by the grace of God,” found from the 5th cent. for spiritual, later also for secular, rulers), so human sinfulness (→ Sin), which was the target of divine grace, stimulated medieval political thinking; that is, the fall validates secular → power and → force (W. Stürner).
The legal structure of grace that defines it as the restitution of a broken legal relation, or as the reconstitution of an earlier one, can be used to show that → church law is a law of grace (H. S. Dombois). In the process it may be seen how far theological reflection has neglected to its own detriment the legal character of its basic concepts, for example, → righteousness, → law, and → justification (grace being understood as a purely nonlegal process in salvation history). Here such reflection is closely linked with the changing course of legal ideas and contributes to that change.
The presentation of the Christian doctrines of grace in the history of dogma and theology (note the following partial contributions) focuses not only on biblical findings but also on various theological options and initiatives. In the largely typological view (Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Reformational), key elements include, in addition to theological motifs and questions and church interests and considerations, also the cultural and biographical conditions affecting the various concepts.
The references provided in the sections below give some indication of the outstanding problems and tasks. The ecumenical context, which includes not only the various Christian churches but also the Jewish tradition and other religions and worldviews, might offer theological reflection and church practice a chance to take up the reality denoted by grace as a leading theme (at the expense of questions of ecclesiastical structure and specific theological and pastoral problems). With a view to the urgent present-day situation of human existence, such a context could look anew at the implications of divine grace and show its practical relevance.

Bibliography: H. S. DOMBOIS, Das Recht der Gnade (3 vols.; Bielefeld, 1961–75) ∙ W. GREWE, Gnade und Recht (Hamburg, 1936) ∙ M. SCHIBILSKY, “Gnade 1,” TRT (4th ed.) 2.208–10 ∙ W. STÜRNER, Peccatum und Potestas (Sigmaringen, 1987).

ERWIN FAHLBUSCH
1. Bible
1.1. OT and Judaism

The closest Hebrew equivalent of “grace” is the noun ḥēn (or verb ḥnn), a word that probably comes from court usage. The king (1 Sam. 16:22; 27:5; 2 Sam. 14:22, etc.) or someone highly placed (Gen. 39:21; Exod. 3:21; 11:3) shows ḥēn. There is also reference to the ḥēn of Yahweh (Gen. 6:8; Exod. 33:12–17; Ps. 84:11), but this use has no theological precision. For this reason the LXX rendering charis plays no role in postbiblical → Judaism.
Far more common and theologically much more important is ḥesed (originally “kindness, friendship”; LXX eleos). This word does not describe the attitude of a greater to a smaller but a partnership within which people show kindness to one another and help one another (Gen. 21:23; Josh. 2:12, 14; 2 Sam. 2:5–6, etc.). It is debated whether ḥesed presupposes a prior relationship between the partners (in the case of Yahweh and Israel, the → covenant; N. Glueck) or whether it simply constitutes such a relationship (H. Reventlow). In any case, steadfastness is of the essence of ḥesed. It is not just a spontaneous act but a characteristic attitude on which one can rely (1 Kgs. 20:31; Prov. 11:17, etc.).
The many references to the ḥesed of Yahweh are structured accordingly. Because → Abraham and the other patriarchs have already experienced Yahweh’s ḥesed (Genesis 24; 32), Israel can count upon it that he will act according to his ḥesed (Ps. 25:7; 51:1; 109:26). At the same time, ḥesed is for Israel the fruit of God’s gracious acts, his salvation, as such parallel terms as “salvation” (Ps. 85:7), “faithfulness” (Ps. 85:10; 98:3), “life” (Job 10:12), and “redemption” (Ps. 130:7 RSV) show.
The term occurs supremely in praise of God (Exod. 34:6). In the liturgy of the postexilic temple we find the recurrent phrase “for his ḥesed endures forever” (K. Koch). The element of relationship may be seen in the fact that an answering of Yahweh’s ḥesed by human ḥesed is presupposed (Hos. 4:1; 6:4, 6; Jer. 2:2, etc.). The latter shows itself in → obedience to God’s gracious, saving will, to the → Torah. → Law and grace thus correspond to one another in meaning; no conceivable tension is possible between them.
That these meanings hold true also for postbiblical Judaism may be seen paradigmatically in the → Qumran writings, in which a rigorous legalism accompanies an emphatic theology of divine grace. The Qumran community is aware that humanity has fallen into sin and therefore sets its hope solely on the grace of God, which it extols in forms that are ever new (1QS 4:4; 10:4, 16; 1QH 5:17–18, etc.). It views this grace as a fulfillment of the counsel in virtue of which God ordained them to be sons of light. “He will draw me near in his mercies, and by ḥesed set in motion my judgment; he will judge me in the justice of his truth, and in his plentiful goodness always atone for all my sins” (1QS 11:13–14). This encompassing by grace proves itself in radical obedience to the Torah. Grace thus does not close the path of salvation by law; rather, it directs us to it.
1.2. Paul

We owe it to Paul that grace became a leading concept in Christian theology. Paul took the word charis, which in secular Greek meant “charm, favor, thanks” and which had not been a specifically theological word in the biblical tradition, and brought it into the theological vocabulary, primarily within the message of → justification, as the heavy concentration of instances in Romans 3–6 makes clear.
Grace is God’s free and loving turning to sinners in the atoning death of Jesus Christ. “They are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24). By his choice of charis Paul obviously wants to stress the fact that God’s saving act has the character of a gift and is not tied up with any human presuppositions. God’s grace is closely linked to his love as an act and not just as an attribute. God gives up his Son to declare his love to those who are hostile to him, in this way reconciling them and opening up for them fellowship with himself (5:1–11). This act is a powerful event and is superior to the power of → sin, which, coming into the world with the first man’s disobedience, has set us in bondage. Grace disarms this power (vv. 12–17). All this has taken place in Jesus Christ, the man who followed the way of obedience and suffering even unto death (→ Christology 1), so that in him, weak and powerless though he may be by human standards, the power of God is manifest.
Paul, however, does not merely contrast sin and grace. In a most important deviation from the OT and Jewish view of grace, he also contrasts law and grace (Rom. 6:14–15; Gal. 2:21; 5:4). The dominion of sin results from our failure to tread the saving path of law. Because all of us defy God’s good and holy will in the law and because, in an attempt at autonomy, we are betrayed into enmity against God, the law has become an accusing and judging power of condemnation (Rom. 3:20). It can no longer be a way of salvation; none can now be justified by its works. → Salvation can come only by the act of God in Christ. Grace, then, is the way of salvation, having definitively replaced the way of salvation by law (Rom. 3:21–31; 4:16).
It does not contradict this understanding of grace as act and event that Paul can see it also as a sphere of force in which believers “stand” (Rom. 5:2; 6:14; 2 Cor. 6:1). Expressed hereby is the fact that grace is not just a single event that we appropriate in an act of subjective understanding but a transsubjective reality that determines believers, just as sin is a similar reality. The possibility, then, of leaving room for sin where grace reigns is quite absurd for Paul (Rom. 6:14). By the working of the → Holy Spirit there is manifested in the sphere of the rule of grace the eschatological reality of salvation. Grace, then, takes concrete form in the many gifts of grace (the charismata, e.g., 1 Cor. 2:12; 12:4–11; Rom. 12:6; → Charisma). Grace, to be sure, is not a fixed possession. Those who do not subject themselves consistently to it in → faith run the risk of falling from it (Gal. 5:4; cf. Rom. 3:28).
A special, concrete form of grace is Paul’s own apostleship (→ Apostle). He can describe both his calling (1 Cor. 15:10) and the office itself (Rom. 1:5) as grace because he realizes that he is a messenger and instrument of grace (2 Cor. 5:11–6:1). Grace encounters the churches through his presence (2 Cor. 1:15) but also through his letters, as may be seen from the liturgical ascription of grace in the greetings and the closing blessings.
1.3. Other NT Writings

In the rest of the NT the term “grace” stands largely under Paul’s influence and, for the most part, tends to be more weakly formal. Closest to Paul are 2 Tim. 1:9 and Titus 3:4–7, which take up the link between grace and justification and the antithesis of grace and works (see also Eph. 2:5–9).
In 1 Pet. 2:19–20; 5:12 grace is a gift with the appropriate form of the Christian life (i.e., → suffering) as its content. Luke gives us to understand that he is aware of the relevance of grace for Paul’s message (e.g., Acts 14:3; 15:11; 20:24). Elsewhere, however, he either uses the term charis (in the OT sense of ḥēn) for God’s condescension to us (Luke 1:30; 2:40; Acts 7:46) or uses it formally for the state of grace that is granted to the church and its members (Acts 13:43; 14:26; 15:40). Secular usage (“grace” as an official favor) occurs in Acts 24:27; 25:3, 9. In John 1:14, 16–17 grace is a result of the working of the Logos among us, probably in the sense of a state of grace.

Bibliography: V. BRÜMMER, The Model of Love: A Study in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge, 1993) ∙ R. BULTMANN, Theology of the NT (2 vols.; New York, 1951–55) 1.292–98 ∙ B. S. CHILDS, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible (London, 1992) ∙ H. CONZELMANN and W. ZIMMERLI, “Χαίρω κτλ.,” TDNT 9.359–415 ∙ D. J. DOUGHTY, “The Priority of χάρις: An Investigation of the Theological Language of Paul,” NTS 19 (1972/73) 163–80 ∙ D. N. FREEDMAN, J. LUNDBOM, and H.-J. FABRY, “חָנַן ḥānan” etc., TDOT 5.22–36 ∙ N. GLUECK, Das Wort ḥesed im alttestamentlichen Sprachgebrauch als menschliche und göttliche gemeinschaftsgemäße Verhaltensweise (Berlin, 1927) ∙ K. KOCH, “Denn seine Güte währet ewiglich,” EvT 21 (1961) 531–44 ∙ N. LOHFINK and E. ZENGER, The God of Israel and the Nations: Studies in Isaiah and the Psalms (Collegeville, Minn., 2000) ∙ A. E. MCGRATH, Christian Theology: An Introduction (Oxford, 1994) ∙ W. A. MEEKS, “Law versus Grace and the Problem of Ethics,” The Writings of St. Paul (New York, 1972) 215–72 ∙ H. REVENTLOW, R. GOLDENBERG, and E. RUCKSTUHL, “Gnade I-III,” TRE 13.459–76 (bibliography).

JÜRGEN ROLOFF
2. Orthodox Teaching
2.1. Grace as God’s Self-Communication

Patristic thinking about grace always has a → Trinitarian reference. To receive grace is thus to receive the Trinitarian God. By his grace God does not give something of himself; he gives himself. The inseparability of grace from God’s essence and the perichoretic mode of existence of the divine hypostases explain why the presence of the one person includes that of the others (Athanasius Ep. Serap. 3.6; cf. John 14:23). Grace is not monistically related to one person of the Trinity. There is only one grace; the one God and each of the divine hypostases is its source and giver (Rom. 1:7; 5:5; 1 Cor. 15:10).
Patristic theology (→ Church Fathers; Patristics) understands by “grace” the almighty, unconditioned, undeserved, free, and loving divine act of the → creation of the world and humanity, of redemption in Christ (→ Soteriology), of the appropriation of redemption in the → church in the power of the → Holy Spirit, of our liberation from the dominion of → sin, and of our renewal up to the eschatological consummation (→ Eschatology 4). Hence the term “grace” stands for the whole act of God’s creation, redemption, and providence in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit (→ Salvation 2).
We ourselves are less prominent in this view of God’s saving acts (→ God 6). We can bring to God only the “sacrifice of praise” (Heb. 13:15) and prayers for mercy. Yet statements about grace are also statements about humanity (→ Anthropology). The power of grace is infinitely stronger than that of → sin (Rom. 5:20). The Son of God came because we were totally unable to achieve salvation on our own. With his → incarnation and the redemption that was achieved by his death and → resurrection (→ Christology 2) and that becomes a present reality in the church by the Holy Spirit, the term “grace” is Christologically and pneumatologically defined.
Since grace and → truth came by Jesus Christ (John 1:17), → salvation history in Christ becomes a present event in → faith through the Spirit whom Christ sent (John 16:7). Christ and the Holy Spirit are inseparably linked in their working in the economy of salvation. The grace of the Holy Spirit relates to Christ’s redeeming work (John 15:26; 16:14), which does not mean that it is in any way subordinate to the grace of the Son (V. Lossky). Christ sends the Spirit to us, and the Spirit sets us in relation to Christ, yet not merely as an instrumental mediator. The grace of the Holy Spirit is itself a hypostatic force. Cyril of Jerusalem (ca. 315–?386) speaks of the personal, sanctifying, and efficacious power of the Holy Spirit (Cat. 17.34). Only thus can it enable us to participate in the divine persons. Cyril of Alexandria (ca. 375–444) does not view the Spirit’s grace as ministerial but as a grace that makes possible our participation in God (Dial. Trin. 7 [PG 75.1089B]).
Although the stream of grace flows everywhere, having a rich source in Christ, we receive it particularly through the → means of grace in the church, where we find a variety of gifts of grace (1 Cor. 12:27–31; → Charisma). As the Spirit gives all his grace to all who have a share in him (Basil De Spir. S. 9.45), they become through him the children of God (Rom. 8:14–15). This biblical thought of adoption is an important theme in patristic theology. Whereas Irenaeus (ca. 130–ca. 200) refers only to the Christological aspect (Adv. haer. 3.19.1), Athanasius (ca. 297–373) in his discussions about the adoption of Christians as God’s children points to the function of the Spirit. Sonship is a gift of the Spirit (Ep. Serap. 1.19; Contra Arian. 3.19).
Essential to supernatural sonship, says Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 330–ca. 395), is participation by grace. To become a child of God is a grace that far transcends our human nature (De beat. 7). We attain to divine likeness, or → theōsis (Athanasius De incar. 54.3), with the help of divine grace. Basil (ca. 330–79) ascribes to grace, as the operation of the Spirit, a new formative power. It fashions our divine likeness, making us conformable to the image of the Son of God (De Spir. S. 26.93). Among the results of baptismal grace Basil mentions the forgiveness of sins, life-giving power, a new beginning of life, and being born again from above (15.60). According to John Chrysostom (ca. 347–407), grace also gives → righteousness, → sanctification, sonship (In Joh. hom. 14.2 [PG 59.94]), → regeneration, and new creation (not merely cleansing; see Cat. 1.3 [PG 49.227]).
2.2. Theological Development of the Concept

Development of the concept of grace proceeded differently in the East than it did in the West (see 3). Although the term “grace” is fairly common in most of the Greek fathers, no specific doctrine of grace emerged. Instead of dogmatic definitions or theological treatises, we find many early statements mentioning grace that deal with the doctrines of God and salvation. In discussion of the saving work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the function of grace emerges clearly. The dogmatic decisions made in the fourth century concerning the Trinity and Christology must not be overlooked as the background of the understanding of grace. It is in this light that we are to view the relation of grace to the Trinity and the soteriological and Christological framework of statements about the function of grace. Grace is not a power divorced from the divine persons but their own direct and personal operation, an insight that tends to check the development of a special doctrine of grace. That which is inseparable in the reality of faith—namely, the operation of grace on the one side and the divine persons on the other—may not be presented separately in theological reflection.
The result of this personal understanding of grace (i.e., that grace cannot reach human beings independently of the divine persons) was that the doctrine of grace was unable to extricate itself from Christology and pneumatology, or that grace itself was understood in a material sense. In Orthodox worship, grace is experienced as the immediate effect of a Trinitarian person, something evident in a prayer from the liturgy of St. Chrysostom: “May your good Spirit of grace descend upon us, upon the gifts here, and upon your people.”
Just as God’s compassion and love, both of which count as grace, are not something God sends to human beings without communicating himself to them as well, so also is grace God’s immediate personal effect on human beings. God does not have an “inventory of grace” from which he distributes grace to human beings; rather, he is himself gracious and thus is himself present and active when he sends his grace. The reality of grace becomes the experience of grace. God’s graciousness is not a transcendent characteristic of his essence. Rather, he is communicating or mediating himself to human beings, and only for that reason can they experience him as the gracious God.
Leaning on this early understanding, Gregory Palamas (ca. 1296–1359) offered a more precise theological definition of grace in the Byzantine Middle Ages (→ Palamism). Grace for him is an uncreated energy that emanates from the one essence of God that is common to all the persons. It is not distinct from God but is present in the operation of the persons. This teaching, which does justice both to God’s transcendence (in his essence) and to his immanence (in his work in the economy of salvation; → Immanence and Transcendence), has benefited all of Orthodox theology. It put a concern for pneumatology at the center of theology and liturgy. Thus the doctrine of grace developed particularly in the context of pneumatology and also of sacramental teaching. Attention has also been directed recently to an understanding of the word of proclamation as a means of grace.
2.3. Human Action and the Work of Grace

Patristic theology did not regard human action and the work of grace as antithetical. Attention and expectation focus on God’s action. For our part, we are seen as recipients of grace, but not from the standpoint of achievement or cooperation. Our deeds are a response, a gift in virtue of the gifts of grace that are received.
The antithesis of our work and God’s (cf. the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius; see 3) never bothered the Eastern church. Concentration on God’s work in the church, which experiences and extols him as the only Savior, did not lead Eastern theology, with its strong liturgical links, to theoretical reflection on a precise definition of the relationship between our work and God’s. In modern Orthodox theology the relationship is even deeper. Grace does not rule out human cooperation (→ Synergism) but includes it. Underlying discussion of the relationship are the fundamental presuppositions that grace is decisive and an absolute necessity for salvation, that it is not given on the ground of human achievement but is granted freely, that it is a merciful initiative of God, and that we are totally unable to achieve salvation on our own. The only question is whether, as coworkers with God after receiving grace, we contribute in any way to our salvation. The problem of synergism arises if a positive answer is given to this question.
Synergism, however, is not a wholly negative concept. Cooperation between God and us is a common thought in the Fathers. It is of decisive importance that in them the absolute necessity of works in no way obscures the absolute necessity of grace. We must not misunderstand our cooperation with grace as though it made of the believer a coredeemer. The believer is a recipient of grace, yet not passively, but is also a coworker with God. God wills and brings it about that the believer is a coworker.
To the deepening and development of the understanding of grace belong discussions of pneumatological Christology and ecclesiology (N. A. Nissiotis) as a correction of Christomonistic tendencies and as insight into the need for an ongoing renewal of the church as the source of impulses for the renewal of the world and all creation. Orthodox theology views grace as oriented to the cosmos, as may be seen in the → worship (§3) of the → Orthodox Church (→ Liturgy 2). It views grace not merely as a unifying bond in the church but also as the basis of synodal, Catholic → unity. The free working of grace finds expression, then, in the fact that this unity rests on a plenitude of varied gifts of grace (D. Staniloae).
→ Orthodoxy 3

Bibliography: T. B. BARNES, Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire (Cambridge, Mass., 1993) ∙ C. BAUMGARTNER and P. TIHON, “Grâce,” DSp 6.701–50 ∙ C. DRATSELLAS, “Questions of the Soteriological Teaching of the Greek Fathers,” Theol(A) 39 (1968) 621–43 ∙ A. FRANGOPOULOS, Our Orthodox Christian Faith (Athens, 1984) 172–85 ∙ N. N. GLOUBOKOVSKY, “Grace in the Greek Fathers (to St. John of Damascus) and Inter-Church Union,” The Doctrine of Grace (ed. W. T. Whitley; London, 1932) 61–105 ∙ V. E. F. HARRISON, Grace and Human Freedom according to St. Gregory of Nyssa (Lewiston, N.Y., 1992) ∙ V. LOSSKY, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (2d ed.; Crestwood, N.Y., 1976) ∙ A. NICHOLS, Byzantine Gospel: Maximus the Confessor in Modern Scholarship (Edinburgh, 1993) ∙ N. A. NISSIOTIS, Die Theologie der Ostkirche im ökumenischen Dialog. Kirche und Welt in orthodoxer Sicht (Stuttgart, 1968) ∙ E. OSBORN, The Emergence of Christian Theology (Cambridge, 1993) ∙ D. STANILOAE, Orthodoxe Dogmatik (Zurich, 1985) ∙ T. F. TORRANCE, The Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers (Grand Rapids, 1960) ∙ C. N. TSIRPANLIS, Introduction to Eastern Patristic Thought and Orthodox Theology (Collegeville, Minn., 1991).

VIOREL MEHEDINTU
3. Roman Catholic Teaching
3.1. Augustine and His Influence

Theologically, East and West took different paths, especially in → anthropology. For the → apologists and Greek fathers redemption meant paideia—that is, example, teaching, instruction (education)—by Jesus Christ, with → theosis as the goal (see 2). The West, however, tended to lay more stress on the subjective, human side of redemption (in close connection with the humanity and mediatorship of Jesus Christ). Thus in the East human beings were seen from the very first more in their anchoring in God, the image of God being manifested in the teaching activity of the Logos. In the West, however, attention focused on human beings in their subjectivity and autonomy (though not in the full modern sense).
The reasons for this difference may be briefly stated. On the one side is the role of Plato (427–347 B.C.), with his teaching on ideas (→ Platonism). On the other is the priority of political and legal thinking. The approach in terms of the → incarnation differs from the approach in terms of redemption, the restoration of the broken order by expiation. With logical historical consistency, then, it follows that very early (beginning with Tertullian) the West worked out the difference between subjective and objective redemption. Grace comes into play as a specific divine power by which we who are independent by nature attain to → salvation. On a larger canvas this emphasis led to an extensive coupling of the teaching on grace with → Christology.
The development that is briefly sketched here is profiled in Augustine (354–430), especially in his controversy with Pelagius (→ Pelagianism). Pelagius (d. after 418) is misunderstood if he is thought primarily to have championed a theory of natural self-redemption. In his view grace is mediated concretely through → salvation history and its continuation in church history. We cannot take for granted, however, a divinely given working within us. Face to face with the moral decadence of the age, Pelagius, for predominantly pastoral reasons, contended for the goodness of creation and natural human → freedom.
In opposition, Augustine, relying especially on insights from Holy Scripture and the practice of infant baptism and influenced by his own personal experiences, argued for the absolute primacy of the work of divine grace (→ Augustine’s Theology). Through the mediation of Christ and his → church (totus Christus—the whole person of Christ), God grants salvation in pure mercy. Profoundly unfree and enslaved, humankind cannot be liberated from without (e.g., by examples from history, by education, or the like). Instead, we are radically thrown back on the God who saves. Not illogically from this standpoint, Augustine introduced the ambivalent concept of → predestination.
Augustine’s basic options and leading ideas are hard to discern plainly in his powerful work and are set out in many versions, even stylistically. The history of the Western teaching on grace is largely identical with that of the reception or interpretation of Augustine. A first point is that various councils, especially the Synod of Carthage in 418, dealt with Pelagianism. In the spirit of Augustine, Carthage opposed Pelagius and described grace as adiutorium—that is, absolutely necessary for action oriented to salvation.
The semi-Pelagianism of the fifth and sixth centuries is characterized more by a refusal to follow Augustine than by any systematic view of grace. As was noted, the underlying concern was more pastoral than doctrinal. The theological core was that, in protection of human freedom, a prayer for grace stands at the beginning of the salvation-event. This prayer is the first step on the way to the → faith that leads to salvation (initium fidei), though God’s grace is unconditionally necessary for any further steps. The Second Council of Orange (529) adopted a radical Augustinianism in opposition to semi-Pelagianism, arguing that we of ourselves have nothing but sin and falsehood (DH 392).
3.2. Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages the teaching on grace continued in a constant dialogue with Augustine, though it followed different directions and models (→ Scholasticism). The ninth century saw another debate about predestination, which reminds us of the earlier semi-Pelagian controversies. Gottschalk, Ratramnus, and Remigius of Lyons were strong supporters of Augustine; Rabanus Maurus and Hincmar of Reims took a moderate position but in obvious relation to Augustine.
From the 12th century onward the problem was that of describing the preparation for grace. It was unfortunate that various important documents from the Pelagian and semi-Pelagian conflicts were not then known (e.g., the statement of the Second Council of Orange). Hence many important theologians (e.g., Thomas Aquinas) sometimes said things that sound semi-Pelagian. But step by step under the influence of Aristotelian philosophy and Thomas (ca. 1225–74; → Aristotelianism; Thomism), the terms and categories of a full treatise on grace were worked out, including dispositio (disposition), dispositio ultima (final disposition), habitus infusa (infused disposition), gratia gratis data (grace given undeservedly) and gratia gratum facens (grace making gracious).
The theology of the → Franciscans, especially Bonaventura, remained more dynamic, existential, and concrete. Important medieval scholars have agreed that beyond all the controversies, the uncontested core of the theology of grace was God’s presence in us by grace (Deus per gratia inhabitans)—the presence of the God who is the one God in three persons. There was thus a link between the theology of grace and the doctrine of the → Trinity.
Later medieval → nominalist trends, especially among the Franciscans, deserve mention because under some conditions they are important for the positions of the Reformers. As regards the Augustinian Martin Luther (1483–1546), we must note not only the influence of Scripture and of the father of his order but also that of mystical tendencies (→ Mysticism; Luther’s Theology).
In its decree on justification the Council of → Trent represented in some sense a break and conclusion when it established the following convictions about grace: we can achieve salvation only by God’s grace; God respects our freedom; we can thus cooperate in the work of grace; we become active as we are awakened, helped, and preceded by grace; and God’s grace has an effect in us, since it is not merely a mode of the presence of the acting God himself (gratia increata) but a new reality in and upon us (gratia creata).
3.3. Molinism

In post-Reformation thinking (→ Catholic Reform and Counterreformation) we again find positions for and against Augustine. This struggle is especially palpable in the so-called Molinist controversy, which was not just a theological debate but a battle between two orders, the → Dominicans and the → Jesuits. On the one side stood the Dominican Domingo Báñez (1528–1604), who sought to preserve God’s absolute transcendence (→ Immanence and Transcendence) in describing the cooperation of divine grace and human freedom. God first gives us grace to enable us to decide, in which grace we are given the possibility of free saving action, but we can still make it a reality only by a fresh divine initiative (praemotio physica). On the other side the Jesuit Luis de Molina (1535–1600) championed a stronger emphasis on human freedom (→ Molinism), contending that divine and human actions are in “simultaneous concursus.”
The Dominicans, who viewed themselves as the true representatives of Augustine, decried the Pelagian → heresy they saw in their opponents. The Jesuits thought that they were the proper interpreters of the church father and that the other side had radicalized him. No official judgment was passed on the controversy.
3.4. New Tendencies

The Roman Catholic teaching on grace has experienced serious upheavals in the modern age and has adopted a series of new approaches. The so-called personalist thinking that increasingly began to penetrate Roman Catholic theology in the middle of the 20th century (esp. through Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, Otto Semmelroth, and Karl Rahner) had a special impact on the doctrine of grace by way of its thesis that God himself gives himself to us. This approach put “uncreated grace” at the center. It set the distinctions of → neoscholasticism, and therefore many distinctions in the doctrine of grace, firmly in the background, giving center stage instead to biblical perspectives and the perspectives of salvation history.
→ Vatican II did not focus explicitly on grace. Yet this dimension is everywhere present in the texts, whether in traditional formulations or in new perspectives and formulas. Grace as participation in the divine life, as sonship, and as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is totally unearned. This principle is old. What is new is that the grace of God finds a partner, particularly in ecclesial encounter (Lumen gentium 12, 19; Presbyterorum ordinis 16).
A truly new approach is the linking of the modern idea of freedom with what is said about grace (see esp. Gisbert Greshake and Karl Rahner). Christ is the place of human freedom. God’s turning to us in Jesus Christ frees us for service of God and neighbor. From this point it is only a small step to the understanding of grace as liberation and therefore to interaction with sociopolitical processes. → Liberation theology believes that grace (quite apart from its sin-destroying character) has to do with human self-fulfillment and → identity and thus that we must take into account the horizontal, social aspects of this truth.
→ Catholicism (Roman); Soteriology

Bibliography: S. DUFFY, The Dynamics of Grace: Perspectives in Theological Anthropology (Collegeville, Minn., 1993) ∙ A. D. FITZGERALD, ed., Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, 1999) ∙ G. GRESHAKE, Geschenkte Freiheit. Einführung in die Gnadenlehre (Freiburg, 1977); idem, Gnade als konkrete Freiheit. Eine Untersuchung zur Gnadenlehre des Pelagius (Mainz, 1972) ∙ H. GROSS, P. FRANSEN, et al., “Gottes Gnadenhandeln,” MySal 4/2.595–982 (bibliography) ∙ M. C. HILKERT, Naming Grace: Preaching and the Sacramental Imagination (New York, 1997) ∙ H. DE LUBAC, Die Freiheit der Gnade (2 vols.; Einsiedeln, 1971) ∙ L. J. O’DONOVAN, A World of Grace: An Introduction to the Themes and Foundations of Karl Rahner’s Theology (Washington, D.C., 1995) ∙ K. RAHNER, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity (New York, 1978) ∙ T. A. SMITH, De Gratia: Faustus of Riez’s Treatise on Grace and Its Place in the History of Theology (Notre Dame, Ind., 1990) ∙ H. WAGNER, “Báñez” and “Molina,” Theologen-Lexikon (Munich, 1987) 21–22 and 166–67 (bibliography).

HARALD WAGNER
4. Reformation Teaching
4.1. Reformation Breakthrough

The → Reformation brought a far-reaching turn in the evaluating and profiling of the doctrine of grace by going back directly to → Paul, by viewing grace especially in the light of → soteriology, and by making the → justification of the sinner “by grace alone” the predominant theological motif. Thus the Augsburg Confession, for example, states: “It is also taught among us that we cannot obtain forgiveness of sin and righteousness before God by our own merits, works, or satisfactions, but that we receive forgiveness of sin and become righteous before God by grace, for Christ’s sake, through faith, when we believe that Christ suffered for us and that for his sake our sin is forgiven and righteousness and eternal life are given to us. For God will regard and reckon this faith as righteousness” (art. 4). John Calvin taught similarly that justification is simply “the acceptance with which God receives us into his favor as righteous men.… It consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness” (Inst. 3.11.2).
Statements of this kind present the grace of God primarily as that of the Judge who for Christ’s sake pardons and justifies those who are accused and guilty. Grace as taught by the Reformers can be understood only in the framework of justification. The doctrine is not an abstract one of grace in itself; it is the doctrine of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Accordingly, as in the NT itself, grace is seen as an attribute of God himself, not as a mediating substance between God and the world that works quasi-mechanically, let alone as a quality of the creature.
In this way the Reformation doctrine about grace took on a different coloring and orientation from that of the scholastic theology of the high and late Middle Ages (→ Scholasticism; see 3). In fact the teaching of Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–74) about grace, forgiveness, and justification was not miles apart from that of the Reformation. The church father Augustine (354–430) lay behind both (→ Augustine’s Theology; Thomism). Yet the Reformation emphasis on soteriology was stronger, whereas in Thomas the schema of → nature and grace held the field.
Much greater were the differences between the Reformation doctrine of grace and that of later Scholasticism, with its tendency to objectify grace, to divide it into various gratiae creatae (created graces), with which it linked very closely the concept of merit. For this reason Martin Luther in his “Disputation against Scholastic Theology” (1517) protested, “It is dangerous to say that the law teaches that its performance takes place in the grace of God” (thesis 57; LW 31.13). Such a formulation means that having the grace of God is a new demand beyond that of the law, and consequently grace becomes more hateful to us than the law itself. In other words, the late scholastic teaching on grace fails to perceive the distinction between → law and gospel, and hence grace can no longer be recognized as grace.
In contrast, as P. Melanchthon (1497–1560) noted in his Loci (1559), the doctrine of grace and justification (Locus de gratia et de iustificatione) contains the sum of the gospel, and it is thus closely related to many others, that is, to → predestination, → sin, → reconciliation, and → eschatology. Even the doctrine of God cannot be excluded, and for this reason K. Barth in CD II/2 dealt with predestination as the election of grace within the context of the doctrine of → God.
Many questions that had arisen before the Reformation in connection with the doctrine of grace came up again in Reformation theology and, in some cases, were put even more radically. Does grace work infallibly, or can we successfully resist it? How does divine grace relate to human → freedom? Must we deny the freedom of the will with Luther’s De servo arbitrio (Concerning the bondage of the will, 1525; → Luther’s Theology)? Must we accept the final logic of double predestination with Calvin (→ Calvin’s Theology)? Or can we, like Melanchthon, evade conclusions of that kind? What place is there for “good works” or for → obedience to the → law of God if → salvation finally depends solely on God’s grace? Is justification purely forensic, or does it bring about a real change in us? These and similar questions were hotly debated in the 16th century. → Lutheranism arrived at a provisional conclusion in the → Formula of Concord (1577), which taught that although grace does it all, it is not irresistible. The Reformed arrived at their own conclusion in the Canons of Dort (1619; → Arminianism), which in the context of a consistent doctrine of predestination stressed the irresistibility of grace (→ Calvinism).
4.2. Protestant Orthodoxy

In Protestant → orthodoxy there was a fresh development of the doctrine of grace in two areas. On the one side, Reformed federal theology (→ Covenant 3) found the true driving force of → salvation history in the covenant of grace in tension with the covenant of works. On the other side, Reformed → Puritans, like the Lutherans, developed an interest in coordinating the practical outworkings of grace in an orderly sequence. The term ordo salutis (→ order of salvation) soon came into use for the resulting schemata, which were very numerous. An example was that of Theodore Beza (1519–1605), which made a great impact (also in Germany) when it was republished in expanded form in W. Perkins’s A Golden Chaine (1592). This schema depicted the whole life of the elect and the reprobate in the setting of all salvation history from the eternal decree of the triune God to the → last judgment. The Westminster Confession (1647) follows a similar path in its central articles 10 through 18 (effectual calling, justification, adoption, sanctification, saving faith, repentance unto life, good works, the perseverance of the saints, and assurance of grace and salvation; → Westminster Assembly and Confession).
The last proponent of Lutheran orthodoxy, D. Hollaz (1648–1713), distinguished nine stages in the working of the “applicative grace of the Holy Spirit” (gratia Spiritus Sancti applicatrix): calling, illumination, conversion, regeneration, justification, mystical union, renewal, confirmation and preservation in faith, and glory (cited in K. Barth, CD IV/3, 505–6). In this development the question of → assurance of salvation and the “practical syllogism” (syllogismus practicus—a logical construction to establish the certainty of a person’s election) undoubtedly played a great part, but so too did the concern to link → faith and doctrine concretely to → experience. This concern later became very important in → Pietism.
4.3. Methodism, Awakening, and Enlightenment

Not only in Pietism was there a widespread desire in the 18th century to relate grace and justification in a new way to experience, → piety, and → sanctification of life. Alongside N. L. von Zinzendorf (1700–1760) and the → Moravian Brethren, who found renewal at Herrnhut and who were characterized by a fervent devotion to Christ, Methodism, which was vitally influenced by them, and the associated movement of awakening in the second third of the 18th century were also of significance for both church and theology.
J. Wesley (1703–91) called himself an Arminian and viewed with scorn the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. His concern so bore witness to the power of grace as he himself had experienced it that others also were gripped by it and began a striving for Christian perfection. Among his most important allies, however, were Calvinists, who regarded predestination as guaranteeing the power of grace. Thus J. Edwards (1703–58), the most significant Reformed theologian of his generation, wrote Religious Affections (1746) on the basis of his experiences in → revivals in New England. Long before F. D. E. Schleiermacher (1768–1834), this work was a first pioneering investigation of the links between doctrine, → preaching, personal experience, and the Christian life.
The → Enlightenment, however, could hardly understand the Reformation doctrine of grace, whether in its rationalistic first phase, which was marked by → deism, or later in the profounder moral phase introduced by I. Kant (1724–1804). To the Enlightenment the idea of justification seemed to be morally untenable, and the idea of supernatural intervention dubious except in the sense of ethical influence. (Typical are the general observations at the end of the fourth part of Kant’s Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone [1793], e.g., the observation that the concept of supernatural intervention to aid our moral but deficient capacity is transcendental and is a mere idea, of which experience can give us no guarantee.)
4.4. New Approaches

→ Romanticism and → idealism soon brought new views of the relation between God and the world that burst through the dualism of Kant. J. G. Fichte (1762–1814) believed that the emergence of the moral will, which we cannot explain in terms of the sensory nature, has a religious character. It is therefore grace, to the degree that it participates in the will of God, though Fichte’s approach had the disadvantage of forcing him to give up the doctrine of God as Creator. For the theology influenced by G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831), the self-revelation of the absolute spirit in the finite spirit was itself grace (→ Hegelianism; cf. A. E. Biedermann [1819–85]).
The treatment of the theme by Schleiermacher deserves special notice (→ Schleiermacher’s Theology). The whole second part of his Christian Faith (2d ed., 1830/31) is based on the thesis that “the distinctive feature of Christian piety lies in the fact that whatever alienation from God there is in the phases of our experience, we are conscious of it as an action originating in ourselves, which we call Sin; but whatever fellowship with God there is, we are conscious of it as resting upon a communication from the Redeemer, which we call Grace” (§63). A primary question that we must still put to Schleiermacher is whether he does not here think of grace too horizontally and not vertically enough.
This question was raised by the → dialectical theology of the 20th century and led to pregnant discussions between E. Brunner (Nature and Grace [1934, ET 1960]) and K. Barth (No! Answer to Emil Brunner [1934]). Among other 20th-century contributions we may refer here only to J. W. Oman’s Grace and Personality (1917), an important work for Anglo-Saxon theology.

Bibliography: Works with bibliographies: W.-D. HAUSCHILD and K. OTTE, “Gnade IV-V,” TRE 13.476–511 ∙ A. I. C. HERON, ed., The Westminster Confession in the Church Today (Edinburgh, 1982) ∙ R. T. KENDALL, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (Oxford, 1979) ∙ O. H. PESCH and A. PETERS, Einführung in die Lehre von Gnade und Rechtfertigung (Darmstadt, 1981) ∙ G. WAINWRIGHT, Geoffrey Wainwright on Wesley and Calvin (Melbourne, 1987) ∙ G. WENZ, Geschichte der Versöhnungslehre in der evangelischen Theologie der Neuzeit (2 vols.; Munich, 1984–86).
Dogmatic development and the Reformed reception: W. BOGGS, Sin Boldly: But Trust God More Boldly Still (Nashville, 1990) ∙ K. A. DAVID, Sacrament and Struggle: Signs and Instruments of Grace from the Downtrodden (Geneva: 1994) ∙ EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA, The Use of the Means of Grace: A Statement on the Practice of Word and Sacrament (Minneapolis, 1997) ∙ S. KIERKEGAARD, Practice in Christianity (Princeton, 1991; orig. pub., 1850) ∙ F. VON LILIENFELD and E. MÜHLENBERG, eds., Gnadenwahl und Entscheidungsfreiheit in der Theologie der Alten Kirche (Erlangen, 1980) ∙ E. MÜHLENBERG, “Synergism in Gregory of Nyssa,” ZNW 68 (1977) 93–122 ∙ J. RUTHVEN, On the Cessation of the Charismata: The Protestant Polemic in Postbiblical Miracles (Sheffield, 1993) ∙ A. SCHINDLER, “Gnade,” RAC 11.382–446 ∙ H. H. SCHMITT, Many Gifts, One Lord (Minneapolis, 1993) ∙ T. R. SCHREINER and B. A. WARE, eds., The Grace of God, the Bondage of the Will (Grand Rapids, 1995).

ALASDAIR I. C. HERON
Gradual

In the medieval Roman → Mass, the gradual, a structure of psalmodic material usually sung from the ambo, or reading desk, came between the Epistle and Gospel readings. In the early centuries of the church, this chant was a simple psalm sung by a solo voice, with the → congregation singing a recurring refrain. In the later development of the Mass, the gradual became one of its most elaborate and melismatic chants.
The Lutheran → Reformation replaced the gradual with a congregational hymn. M. → Luther’s Formula Missae (1523) first suggested a congregational hymn immediately following the gradual, then his Deutsche Messe (1526) replaced the gradual with a congregational hymn. In either case the hymn was to be de tempore (i.e., appropriate to the character of the day, or at least related in meaning and content to the psalmodic material that it replaced). Thus this psalmodic song, which in the early church was the response of the people and which gradually became the province of cantors and choirs in the Middle Ages, was restored to the people in a new and significantly different form: the gradual hymn (the de tempore hymn, or “hymn of the day”), around which an important choral and organ literature developed.
In the period of liturgical decline in the 17th and 18th centuries, the close connection between the gradual hymn and the lessons was lost. Instead, the hymn became attached to the sermon and was increasingly referred to as the sermon hymn, a practice and terminology that continues in much of American Protestant nonliturgical worship.
The period of liturgical renewal in 19th-century Germany saw a revived interest in the de tempore hymn largely because of the work of such men as Rochus von Liliencron and Ludwig Schoeberlein and, in the 20th century, Christhard Mahrenholz, Wilhelm Thomas, and Konrad Ameln. Its introduction into America can be credited largely to the pioneering work of men like Ralph Gehrke and Edward Klammer in the middle of the 20th century. With the publication of Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), Lutheran Worship (1982), and Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal (1993), the hymn of the day for the first time achieved official recognition in the → liturgies of North American → Lutheranism, its placement occurring either after the Gospel reading or following the sermon. In recent liturgical revisions the → Anglican churches have also largely reintroduced the gradual hymn prior to the Gospel reading.

Bibliography: F. BLUME, Protestant Church Music: A History (New York, 1974) ∙ E. KLAMMER, “The Hymn of the Day,” Lutheran Worship: History and Practice (ed. F. Precht; St. Louis, 1993) 559–65 ∙ P. PFATTEICHER and C. R. MESSERLI, Manual on the Liturgy: Lutheran Book of Worship (Minneapolis, 1979) ∙ C. SCHALK, The Hymn of the Day and Its Use in Lutheran Worship (St. Louis, 1983).

CARL SCHALK
Great Britain → United Kingdom
Greece

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
8,327
9,643
10,597
Annual growth rate (%):
0.53
0.60
0.09
Area: 131,957 sq. km. (50,949 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 80/sq. km. (208/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 1.01 / 1.06 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 1.45 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 8 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 78.6 years (m: 76.0, f: 81.1)
Religious affiliation (%): Christians 94.7 (Orthodox 94.2, indigenous 2.2, other Christians 1.3), Muslims 3.6, nonreligious 1.4, other 0.3.

1. Churches
2. Ecumenism
3. Church and State
4. Other Religious Groups
1. Churches

Greece is a unidenominational country, with the vast majority of citizens belonging to the Orthodox Church of Greece. Constitutionally, this church represents the “dominant,” established religion. The church is divided into some 80 bishoprics. The number fluctuates as provinces are divided when the population increases. Control is exercised by the → Synod of the Hierarchy, comprising the members of the Holy → Hierarchy, or all the metropolitans. The 12-member Permanent Holy Synod, consisting of metropolitans who serve in a one-year rotation under the presidency of the archbishop of Athens and all Greece. This synod deals with the church’s ongoing business.
1.1. The Autocephalous Church of Greece came into being when the national Greek church gained its independence from the → Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1833 on the initiative of T. Farmakides (1784–1860), who already in 1826 had founded an autocephalous (i.e., independent) church. In 1850 the ecumenical patriarch confirmed → autocephaly. Some territories that later joined the Greek state are still under the ecumenical patriarch’s → jurisdiction, including Crete and the Dodecanese islands. The 20 monasteries on Mount → Athos also come under the ecumenical patriarch, as do several dioceses in northern Greece (which, however, are administered by the Church of Greece).
1.2. The church’s work is done by the approximately 80 metropolitans and 8,000 parish priests, who, unlike the bishops, are mostly married. For the most part, the clergy simply meet the elementary religious needs of the people, celebrating the liturgy and handing on a Greek Christian tradition, which is a mixture of classical elements and the Byzantine spirit of → Orthodoxy (§3), along the lines of the Eastern church. After 1936, with the founding of the church organization Apostoliki Diakonia, there has been an intensification of nonparochial church activities, bringing a great advance to → diakonia and → mission.
1.3. The laity are still the most essential factor in the renewal of church and society in terms of the gospel. Christian movements, especially the Zoe Fraternity, filled the gap prior to 1936. Lay theologians, who play the most important part in academic theology, are also vital. Most of the more recent Greek Orthodox theology has been done by lay theologians. For Greek theology, → dogma, → canon law, and → liturgy are still the most significant elements.
1.4. Roman Catholics and Protestants each claim less than 1 percent of the population. The churches represented are the Catholic Church of the Latin Rite, the Greek Church in Union with Rome, the Greek Evangelical Church, the German-speaking Evangelical Church, the Anglican St. Paul’s Church, and the interdenominational American St. Andrew’s Church. The last three are all in Athens and are extensions of a home church of the respective countries. Finally, note should be taken of the Oriental Orthodox → Armenian Apostolic Church, with its 10,000 members.
2. Ecumenism

In Greece interchurch relations are very weak. In particular, the relation between Orthodox and Roman Catholics (especially Uniate) is very unsettled. Since the → Uniate Church uses the same rite as the Orthodox, it is regarded as a Trojan horse whose aim is → proselytism. Savas Agouridis mentions a “Roman Catholic neurosis” that impedes logical discussion.
Another manifestation of this neurosis came with the decision of the Greek government to enter into diplomatic relations with the → Vatican. For the first time since Greek independence in 1821, there is a Greek representative at the Holy See and a → nuncio in Athens. This development has not been a positive element in the → dialogue between the churches because it is the work of the government and aroused stiff opposition in ecclesiastical and religious circles.
2.1. Furthermore, we cannot say that relations between the Church of Greece and the → ecumenical movement, including the → World Council of Churches, are positive. Conservative groups within Greece still call ecumenism a superheresy and defame the late Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras (d. 1972) for his contribution to ecumenical openness in the Orthodox Church.
This sphere also includes laypeople who do the main theological work (→ Lay Movements). All that the Orthodox Church contributes to the → ecumenical movement, and any openness it expresses, is due to the work of the laity. After World War II the Greek church was the only free Orthodox church, and it had to assume the whole burden of representing Orthodoxy in the ecumenical movement.
2.2. The monks help to perpetuate resistance to ecumenism (→ Monasticism). Their true sociological importance is very slight, though there are still 200 monasteries and 12,000 monks in Greece. These monks (esp. those of Athos), however, embody an extremely conservative Orthodox spirit. This spirit undoubtedly influences the religious life of Greece, and the antiecumenical efforts of the monks significantly hamper the attempts of the → Ecumenical Patriarchate to foster interchurch relations.
Supporters of the Old Style calendar aid the monks. Some 200,000 believers under the leadership of a schismatic hierarchy continue to resist the transition made by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1923 to change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian.
3. Church and State

The antiecumenism of the Greek church is linked, among other factors, to its ethnocentrism, which in turn is explained by the church’s relation to the state. Already in → Byzantium, on the theory of an imitation (mimēsis) of the → kingdom of God in the state of Constantine the Great, a link was forged between → church and state that was to the detriment of each other. The question who would be supreme—the patriarch or the emperor—is now seen to have been decided in favor of the emperor.
3.1. The dominance of the state was possible only because the church and theologians in Byzantium believed that the conflicts resulting from the two roles of serving God and serving the emperor could finally be resolved by sacralizing the emperor (i.e., in Caesaropapism; → Empire and Papacy). The most important contributor to this line of thinking was Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260–ca. 340), who integrated the emperor into a theological system that related the empire and the gospel in such a way that imperial absolutism corresponded to Christian → monotheism.
3.2. The collapse of Byzantium led to the development of an incipient national consciousness in the Orthodox churches. These churches entered into close relations with the newly emerging national states, a development that was clearest in Russia before the revolution (→ Nation, Nationalism). But it has also been a factor in Greece, where to the present the political arm guarantees the church economic support; in return, religion legitimizes and sacralizes political power.
3.3. The coup in Greece in April 1967 offers an illustration of the church-state relation. It confirmed the fact that church and society are two different and alien worlds in Greece, but also that they are united by common national interests. The leaders of this revolt, ostensibly protecting these interests against the “enemy,” had to bring about a minirevolution in the church so as to make the church a worthy bearer of their Greco-Christian → ideology and thus to show that the revolt was a sacred event. Some church circles were ready at once to lend their active support. With the help of the military they seized power in the church and legitimated the ideology of the new government, declaring it to be necessary for the protection of the country.
3.4. At that time A. Papandreou brought in a → socialist government, the first in Greek history, winning the election with the slogan Allagē (Change). The change initiated by the new government also affected the church. Article 3 of the new constitution of June 9, 1975, stated (as before) that the “Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ” is the “prevalent” religion. A separation between the two was planned, however, and relations between church and state have become more difficult.
Furthermore, most of the younger supporters of the new government were against the church because it symbolized the conservative and reactionary forces that had thus far shaped the destiny of Greece. Greece, then, began a process of secularizing that, in contrast to similar processes in the West, might well destroy the church. Greece is repeating a phenomenon that was so decisive in Russia. As Ernst Benz has shown, most sociopolitical impulses in Russia did not arise from Orthodox believers, whereas in Anglo-Saxon countries it was believers, especially in the → free churches, who took the lead in social renewal.
Nevertheless, the Greek people are still religious, and Greek socialists are not against religion, though they may be against the church. Thus the church may well escape the dangers that threaten it. Whether it does so or not depends primarily on whether it is ready to accept social change—not merely to develop a social teaching and ethics in keeping with political demands but to put these ideas into dynamic practice.
4. Other Religious Groups

The church in Greece, now for the first time in its history, must reckon with → religious liberty and → tolerance, that is, pluralism. It is thus forced to coexist with other religious groups. The new constitution grants all “recognized religions” full freedom of practice. The result is that the Orthodox Church can no longer count on the help of the government, the judiciary, or the police to prevent competition.
4.1. Groups regarded as sects, especially → Jehovah’s Witnesses, profit the most by this change. The number of Witnesses is still small, but they do very intensive and widespread work among the people. For this reason the Church of Greece, with help from the state, persecuted them for so long. Under the new constitution in 1975, however, it was unable to stop the Witnesses from organizing an international congress in Greece to which 20,000 members came. In view of the religious neutrality of the socialists, the church is also helpless to block the entrance of foreign → sects and religious movements that appeal especially to the younger generation.
4.2. Though the Orthodox Church is hostile to sects, it coexists peacefully with the few Muslims (→ Islam) and Jews (→ Judaism). In all Greece there are well below a half million Muslims (mostly in Rhodes or in northern Greece). The number of Jews has been very small since the German occupation in World War II.
4.3. The following reason from the → sociology of religion might be advanced for the failure of the Greek church to come to terms with religious liberty and tolerance. Although Greece is part of highly developed and industrialized Europe, its social system is strongly oriented to a tradition whose religious and national elements are united against all the forces that seek an overturn of traditional values. Until now, this focus has been possible only because the church’s own values, norms, and traditions could be mobilized (with the backing of the government) to reject any competing value system.

Bibliography: E. BENZ, The Eastern Orthodox Church: Its Thought and Life (Garden City, N.Y., 1963) ∙ P. BRATSIOTIS, The Greek Orthodox Church (Notre Dame, Ind., 1968) ∙ J. CAMPBELL and P. SHERRARD, Modern Greece (New York, 1969) ∙ C. CAVARNOS, Modern Greek Thought (Belmont, Mass., 1986) ∙ R. CLOGG, A Concise History of Greece (Cambridge, 1997) ∙ A. M. CONIARIS, Introducing the Orthodox Church: Its Faith and Life (Minneapolis, 1998) ∙ D. J. CONSTANTELOS, Understanding the Greek Orthodox Church: Its Faith, History, and Life (Brookline, Mass., 1998) ∙ P. EVDOKIMOV, The Art of the Icon: A Theology of Beauty (Redondo Beach, Calif., 1990) ∙ D. J. GEANAKOPOULOS, A Short History of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, 330–1990 (Brookline, Mass., 1990) ∙ S. S. HARAKAS, The Orthodox Church: 455 Questions and Answers (Minneapolis, 1988) ∙ F. LITSAS, ed., A Companion to the Greek Orthodox Church (2d ed.; New York, 1988) ∙ J. MEYENDORFF, The Orthodox Church: Its Past and Its Role in the World Today (Crestwood, N.Y., 1996) ∙ T. WARE, The Orthodox Church (rev. ed.; London, 1993).

DEMOSTHENES SAVRAMIS† and GEORGE C. PAPADEMETRIOU
Greek Language

Ancient Greek, a daughter language of Indo-European, was the language of the tribes that in the second millennium B.C. pushed into various areas of the mainland of Greece, into the Aegean Islands, and onto the west coast of Asia Minor. At this time there were only two dialects, Northern Greek and Southern Greek, which did not differ so greatly as the dialects of the historical period. From Southern Greek there developed Old Ionic, Mycenaean, Ionic (with Attic), Arcadian, and Cypriot. From Northern Greek arose Aeolic (Lesbian, East Hessalian, Boeotian) and Doric-Northwest Greek, which gradually became more and more distinct from Ionic.
Of literary significance were the heroic poems of Asia Minor written in Ionic (with some Aeolic features). A literary language came into being in which the Iliad and the Odyssey have come down to us. These epics are the end result of a long tradition that is not wholly exhausted by them.
Since the first prose writers wrote Ionic, this was the language of prose up to the fifth century B.C. From the middle of the fifth century Attic extended its range because of the cultural eminence of Athens. It became the basis of a Mediterranean lingua franca, the Koine, and although individual peculiarities were eliminated, the structure and vocabulary remained Attic, and up to the imperial period the style of Attic authors of around 400 B.C. was imitated. When the Romans conquered the eastern Mediterranean (→ Roman Empire), they used Koine as an official language. Greek syntax, with its wealth of nuances, served as a model for Latin, on which the syntax of many European languages is based (although Latin itself lacks the range of semantic and syntactic forms present in Greek).
As Koine achieved dominance in the Mediterranean lands, it inevitably became the form of Greek into which the OT was translated. The LXX, however, tried to follow the original in its choice of words and sentence structure, often at the cost of intelligibility (→ Bible Versions). The NT books were written in the first century A.D. in the Koine of the day and under LXX influence. The stylistic range covers Luke at one end (with occasional Atticisms) and Mark at the other. Greek remained the language of the Western church until Latin replaced it after Tertullian (d. ca. 225) and Minucius Felix (d. ca. 250).

Bibliography: W. BAUER, W. F. ARNDT, F. W. GINGRICH, and F. W. DANKER, A Greek-English Lexicon of the NT and Other Early Christian Literature (5th ed.; Chicago, 1979) ∙ F. BLASS, A. DEBRUNNER, and R. W. FUNK, A Greek Grammar of the NT and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, 1973; orig. pub., 1896) ∙ P. CHANTRAINE, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue Grecque (Paris, 1968) ∙ G. W. H. LAMPE, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford, 1961) ∙ H. G. LIDDELL and R. SCOTT, A Greek-English Lexicon (9th ed.; Oxford, 1940; repr., 1996; orig. pub., 1843) ∙ H. RIX, Historische Grammatik des Griechischen (Darmstadt, 1976) ∙ E. SCHWYZER, Griechische Grammatik (6 vols.; Munich, 1968–94).

HELMUT DÜRBECK
Greek Orthodox Church → Orthodox Church
Greek Philosophy

1. Epochs
2. Pre-Socratics
3. Sophists
4. Socrates
5. Plato
6. Aristotle
7. Postclassical Philosophy
7.1. Epicureans
7.2. Stoics
7.3. Skeptics
1. Epochs

Greek philosophy was developing from the sixth century B.C. to the first century A.D. Within this period we may distinguish the archaic or preclassical, classical, and postclassical epochs.
The archaic period is essentially characterized by questions that the so-called pre-Socratics (thinkers preceding Socrates and his followers) posed in the sphere of the → philosophy of nature. These questions served the interests of rational explanation and involved a breaking free from → myth and its approaches. The classical period, represented in particular by Plato’s dialogues and Aristotle’s treatises, opened up a view of reality in general and reflected on the position of humanity sub specie aeternitatis. In the postclassical period there was a narrower focus on matters of individual lifestyle in a world that was increasingly felt to be threatening.
2. Pre-Socratics

The thinking of the pre-Socratics made the step from myth to Logos and in so doing laid down the conditions necessary for the development of philosophical reflection. We see this step clearly in the use of such terms as kosmos and physis.
2.1. The word kosmos came from everyday speech, where it referred to any kind of order or adornment, and also was used in ethical and political connections. With its application to what we now call the world, there opened up for early thinking a new dimension of comprehensive order within which things and events have their place. In particular, the use of kosmos for the world as a whole brought out a normative element, namely, the idea that all that is, is well ordered as it is. This normative element found expression in the concept of right (dikē). Becoming and perishing are happenings that obey a specific order and follow the principle of compensatory → righteousness. Above all, the normative significance applies to the concept of origin. The archē is the starting point, the beginning, the genesis, the basis—and it can also be used for political government. It is not surprising, then, that the origin of all things (e.g., air or → fire or, in Anaximander [610–546/45 B.C.], the boundless) is also that which directs and governs all the things that arise from it.
No less significant was the concept of physis. This word, usually translated “nature” (Lat. “place of birth”), etymologically suggests in its root phy- the idea of seeding, bearing, and growth, with the suffix -sis indicating a process. Thus when the word was applied to the world of → experience in general, the early philosophers depicted in terms of growth that which we now call reality and think of in terms of action. The term physis is a first term for reality. Also worth noting is the fact that reality, in this depiction, is self-controlling. This thought finds particular expression in Empedocles (ca. 490–430 B.C.), who described the four basic elements of earth, air, fire, and water as the roots (rizōmata) of all being (Frg. 6.1) and thus anchored reality, as it were, in itself. But reality was also seen as something that may be meaningfully and adequately described in terms like growth. We find this thought in Anaxagoras (ca. 500–ca. 428), who postulated that seeds (spermata) and aggregates (panspermia) of seeds were the basic qualities (Frg. 4), and in Anaximander, who postulated a generative potential (gonimon). There are close connections here with the physiological theories of medical writers.
2.2. The development of philosophical inquiry was determined further by reflection on the conceptual implications of the above ideas. The Pythagorean school was interested in such matters as measure, proportion, and harmony. Especially Philolaus (fl. ca. 475 B.C.) seems to have applied such concepts to cosmological matters. His discussion of the definite (peras) and the indefinite (apeiron) influenced speculations on the conditions that are posed for the objects of real knowledge.
Heraclitus (ca. 540–ca. 480 B.C.), who attracted Hegel, pondered the question of unity and stressed that things and forces that everyday thinking regards as polarities are to be properly understood as expressions of a universal → reason (Logos). Nor is the reference merely to the becoming and perishing of individual things, for the perishing of one thing corresponds to the genesis of another, and vice versa; terms like “stability” and “change” go together. This thought gave rise to the metaphor of the river (“one cannot step twice into the same river,” for new currents are constantly flowing by; Frg. 12). This metaphor shows that the identity of a thing involves movement and change. Here is the root of the thinking that would later be called dialectical (→ Dialectic). Everyday thought isolates and separates, whereas in reality there is unity and integration.
Early philosophical thought entered another dimension with the question of being, which was raised in particular by Parmenides (d. after 480 B.C.), the founder of Western → metaphysics and → ontology. In a didactic poem stylized as the revelation of an unnamed goddess, Parmenides espoused the thesis that the sensory world of multiplicity and change is a product of the erroneous conception of human thought. In what seems to be an anticipation of Spinoza, he argued that we may think truly and coherently only of the one eternal being. His distinction between an unreal world of physis and a true world of being inspired the two-world teaching of Plato. Above all, his deliberations on the → logic of being forced all subsequent philosophers to reflect in a new way on the phenomenon of becoming, perishing, and change. They did so by viewing the processes of change as a mixing or unmixing of previously existing and eternal elements (Empedocles); as a reordering of eternal, physically autonomous atoms (Leucippus, Democritus); or as an unmixing and mixing of seedlike particles (Anaxagoras).
3. Sophists

In the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. there was also a trend of thought that is usually known as Sophistry, which can be viewed as an anthropological development in philosophy. It quickly gained ground, for a change in political structures highlighted the need for skill in argument and for abilities that could be put to practical use. This need was met by men like Gorgias (ca. 483–ca. 376 B.C.) and Protagoras (ca. 485–ca. 410). Among the themes of the day was the question whether values exist in nature or are a matter of mere agreement. There is especially impressive witness to such discussions in Plato’s early dialogues. Thus Callicles in Gorgias argues for the right of the stronger—a thought that influenced F. Nietzsche. Antiphon, another Sophist, attempted to see in legal norms a perversion of our true nature. Protagoras’s most famous principle (Humans are the measure of all things—of things that are, that they are, of things that are not, that they are not) is the manifesto of a mode of thinking traditionally regarded as → relativism.
4. Socrates

Socrates (ca. 470–399 B.C.) comes into the story as the opponent and opposite of the Sophists. This evaluation of a person about whom we know next to nothing historically derives from Plato’s dialogues. They depict Socrates as the thinker who pressed the Sophists with questions such as What is virtue? and What is bravery? Looking for general definitions, he entangled his opponents in contradictions. To a desire to be successful in politics he opposed the need to reflect on the health of one’s soul. The → soul alone counts, for it is the true person. In this light we can understand what are sometimes felt to be the paradoxical Socratic theses that doing wrong is worse than suffering wrong, and that no one does wrong voluntarily. Socrates, the victim of a politically motivated accusation, was the first philosopher to be put to death for his views.
5. Plato

Plato (427–347 B.C.) transformed the initiatives of Socrates into a broad net of deliberations. In him → philosophy reached its full range and developed all its special themes (→ Platonism). With good reason, A. N. Whitehead once described the philosophical tradition of Europe as merely a series of footnotes on Plato. In his dialogues Plato dealt with all the themes he regarded as worth discussing. This literary form prevents us from making an overly strict systematization and sets a certain distance between what Plato was really thinking and what he presented.
The main figure in the debates is Socrates. The early dialogues discuss primarily themes that arose in discussion with the Sophists. In the so-called middle dialogues the literary Socrates goes beyond destroying the claims of others to set forth his own theses, and here Plato’s own views find expression. He gives his thoughts about the true nature of reality, about knowledge, about his soul, and about the task of living as a philosopher. In the later dialogues Plato seems to think out many of his views afresh. In Parmenides, for example, he discusses difficulties of understanding that some of his disciples had experienced. Sometimes these so-called critical dialogues are interpreted as evidence of Platonic self-criticism.
5.1. At the heart of Plato’s philosophy is the doctrine of the two worlds, a development of the ideas of Heraclitus and Parmenides. Plato shares with the former the view that the world of experience is in constant flux, offering no firm foothold for thought. He shares with the latter the idea that this world is one of appearance. In contrast, as we see in Phaedo and the Republic, there is the world of unchangeable being, the realm of the ideas. Gk. idea means strictly a visible form, which Plato uses to describe that which the mental eye sees and which irreversibly influences us. The ideas are thus objects of mental knowledge. They are models or archetypes (see Plotinus, whom C. G. Jung read sporadically). They serve as → norms of thought and as models for the world and the things in it (thus esp. Timaeus, which is of central importance for an understanding of medieval philosophy).
The ideas—for example, beauty in itself—are the purest form of what we know in the empirical world only as an aspect (e.g., the beauty of this statue or of that music), which, however, is not to be confused with the thing itself. Things share in the ideas, but they are not that for which the ideas alone stand. If we want to know the true nature of virtue, for example, we must turn to the idea itself.
5.2. Human beings (→ Anthropology 4) or their souls are citizens of two worlds. In virtue of its relation to the ideas, however, the soul really belongs to the world of being. In fact Plato, like Pythagoras, seems to have assumed that after physical → death the soul must answer for all the deeds done in life. We thus have the task of living with a view to eternity and in this way finally escaping the cycle of birth and rebirth (→ Reincarnation). It is thus in our best interest to know how to order life’s conditions, in the broadest sense, in such a way as to achieve this eternal perspective to the greatest possible extent. To this end Plato, in the Republic, constructs an ideal → state that takes into account our objective interests.
6. Aristotle

Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), from Macedonia, joined the school of Plato when he was 18 years old. Relatively early in his stay there, Aristotle seems to have argued against many of the views of his teacher (esp. regarding the concept of transcendental ideas). His own thinking first found expression in dialogues, which are now lost, and then especially in didactic writings that were later revised and put in their present form and sequence (→ Aristotelianism). His works show a definite system, and his own systematic interest may have contributed to the distinguishing of various philosophical disciplines and the corresponding separation of subjects. Along with logic, which he founded, we have such purely theoretical disciplines as mathematics, natural philosophy, and metaphysics (lit. “[books] after physics”), and then practical or action-oriented disciplines like → ethics and politics.
6.1. Belonging to logic in the broader sense is the inquiry into the structures of statement and thought, which are treated together along the lines of → realism. In this connection Aristotle speaks also about → categories (originally “accusations”), which he regarded as natural divisions of → language and reality.
To logic in the narrower sense of logical theory belong the teaching on syllogisms and then, on that basis, → epistemology. In this connection we find a theory of explanations and an inquiry into claims to knowledge. Like Plato, Aristotle had a strict concept of knowledge. To know something is to be able to say why it is. Claims to knowledge thus are justified only by explanations of the things at issue.
6.2. Like Plato, Aristotle criticized previous thinkers who in their explanations simply referred to immanent structures and took no account of metaphysical structures. Unlike Plato, however, he did not postulate the existence of ideas outside time and space. For him, the forms of things were immanent in the things themselves. He distinguished material cause (the physical stuff of the thing in question), formal cause (the plan or idea of the thing), efficient (or moving) cause (the agent actually producing the thing), and final cause (the end or purpose of the thing).
Consideration of these concepts led Aristotle to the postulating of an eternal, unmoved mover beyond time and space who exists without matter and without change (→ God 3). Of central importance in his explanation of natural processes was also his distinction between possible being (dynamis) and actual being (energeia), along with his distinction between the being of substance (ousia) and the being of properties.
6.3. In ethics Aristotle focused primarily on an analysis and description of moral phenomena as they offer themselves for reflection. In this sense he was the first to conceptualize that which in some sense we know. We see this accomplishment especially in the discussion of actions as actions, in the description of voluntariness and involuntariness, and in the description of → virtue as the mean between two negative extremes. Crucially important are his discussions of desire and of human well-being (eudaimonia. → Happiness). The supreme form of human life consists of the contemplation (theōria) of eternal truths.
7. Postclassical Philosophy

Greek philosophy after Aristotle is characterized by the Epicureans, Stoics, and Skeptics. Political changes and menacing personal conditions gave philosophy new priorities. All philosophers expressed trust in Socrates, adopting his concern for human welfare.
7.1. Epicureans

Epicurus (341–270 B.C.) taught that the immediate task of philosophy is to free the soul from unfounded anxieties (e.g., fear of death or fear of the gods). The atomism that he championed (and tried to justify with what were at times complicated arguments) can be understood as a way to make the world seem to be a product of → chance. Empirical reality has no meaning; there is nothing metaphysical. Chance—the free, unmotivated, inexplicable variation of atoms—is the answer to all questions. The only meaning is that which we ourselves posit. Learning from experience, Epicurus found this meaning in the natural striving of all living creatures for pleasure. Humans alone can achieve true well-being. Surprisingly, Epicurus defined pleasure primarily as the state of freedom from pain (which suggests that he himself had a painful life). This definition, though, is hard to justify, and the general thesis of → hedonism, with its equation of the desirable and the good, suffers from the fact that a thing is not worth striving for simply because we do strive for it.
7.2. Stoics

→ Stoicism, named after the Athenian stoa (colonnade) in which it was taught, was in direct rivalry with the school of Epicurus. The older Stoics—Zeno (ca. 335–ca. 263 B.C.), Cleanthes (331/30–232/31), and Chrysippus (ca. 280–ca. 206)—were rigorous moralists who found the ideal of life in freedom from passions, which intellectually they either regarded as the result of wrong judgments (Zeno) or equated with such judgments (Chrysippus). A life of virtue was for them a life of reason. They viewed reason as a part of the rational structure of the whole. The world itself was permeated by a firelike pneuma and was a providentially ordered unity. Philosophy thus had the task of recognizing that the totality is a rationally governed structure of meaning to which we must fatalistically adjust. If we see ourselves as parts of the whole, we also live in harmony with ourselves.
Later Stoics like Panaetius (ca. 180–109 B.C.) and Poseidonius (ca. 135–ca. 51) seemed to have softened much of Stoic teaching. The Stoicism of the empire (esp. that of Marcus Aurelius) displays many contacts with the Platonic tradition.
7.3. Skeptics

→ Skepticism (Gk. skeptikos, “thoughtful, reflective”) derived from Pyrrho of Elis (ca. 360–ca. 272 B.C.), who regarded the relativizing of all claims to knowledge as the way to peace of soul. The developed skeptical arguments of Sextus Empiricus (fl.early 3d cent. A.D.) display the basic undogmatic attitude of such thinkers. Exaggerated claims to knowledge seemed to him to be dangerous.
A competing skeptical tradition arose temporarily in the Platonic Academy. Arcesilaus (316/15–ca. 241 B.C.) and even more so Carneades (ca. 213–129) attacked the dogmatism of the Stoics. At times for them the principle that nothing is knowable even seems to take the form of a negative → dogmatism. There is a difference here from the followers of Pyrrho, who did not seek to advance any claims to knowledge at all but, within the limits of the present state (“we are still seeking”), left things hanging in the air.
→ Hellenism

Bibliography: T. COLE, Democritus and the Sources of Greek Anthropology (Atlanta, 1990) ∙ F. M. CORNFORD, From Religion to Philosophy: A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation (Princeton, 1991) ∙ A. GRAESER, Die Philosophie der Antike, vol. 2, Sophistik und Sokratik, Plato und Aristoteles (Munich, 1983) ∙ G. W. F. HEGEL, Lectures on the History of Philosophy (3 vols.; trans. E. S. Haldane; Lincoln, Nebr., 1995) ∙ M. HOSSENFELDER, Die Philosophie der Antike, vol. 3, Stoa, Epikureismus und Skepsis (Munich, 1985) ∙ W. RÖD, Die Philosophie der Antike, vol. 1, Von Thales bis Demokrit (Munich, 1976) ∙ C. STEAD, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (Cambridge, 1999).

ANDREAS GRAESER
Greek Religion

1. General Character
2. Historical Development
1. General Character

As a product of the → polytheism of pagan antiquity, Greek religion had no concept of a transcendent → God or of an omnipotent Creator and Ruler of the world. Its pantheon is a hierarchically and, in part, genealogically integrated system of immanent, functionally limited deities of various types who represent natural forces (→ Nature Religion) and cosmic phenomena (Poseidon as god of the sea, Helios and Selene as astral gods, Boreas as a wind demon) or terrestrial, agrarian powers (Demeter as goddess of the harvest, Dionysus [Bacchus] as god of wine, Hades [Pluto] as lord of the underworld) or forces that are important for human existence in an uncertain environment (Artemis as goddess of the chase, Aphrodite as goddess of love, Ares as god of war, Hermes as god of commerce and travel, Hecate as mistress of the underworld). In some deities, too, the aptitude of the Greeks for technical and artistic creativity comes to light (Athena as goddess of handicraft and practical wisdom; Apollo as god of poetry, healing, and prophecy; Hephaestus as god of fire and metalworking).
To the distinctiveness of these figures as specific potencies with anthropomorphic or anthropopathic qualities, and with activities oriented to spheres of human life, there corresponds a formally established canon of cultic rites and practices with → prayer, → sacrifice, and feasts. There was, however, no written or oral confession, no religious proclamation or instruction, and no revealed content of belief.
2. Historical Development

Because of the lack of political unity and the formation of only regional states, there was never any homogeneous Greek religion. Instead, we find cultic centers with transregional significance (e.g., Delos, Delphi, Dodona, Eleusis, and Olympia). The Olympian circle came together before the time of the Greeks, when the religious ideas of an indigenous Mediterranean population, already of varied cultural status, were influenced by the traditions of Indo-European migrants into the Balkan peninsula, along with marginal elements from Pontus and other Near Eastern regions.
Among the deities attested by Mycenean Linear B tablets is Zeus (Myc. Diwo), the original Indo-European god of sky and weather, but later partially infiltrated by a childish numen of Cretan-Mediterranean provenance (Zeus Kretagenes) and Anatolian West Semitic weather gods (Zeus Labrayndos, Zeus Kasios). Ares, the god of war (Myc. Are), has on the one side Thracian Indo-European roots but might also be compared to the Carian battle demon Enyalios (Myc. Enuwarijo). Behind the armed daughter of Zeus Athena (Myc. Atana Potinija) may be seen an old Minoan goddess of shield and palace whose position as ruler (Potnia) finally made her Athena Polias (i.e., guardian of the city). Hera (Myc. Era), the spouse of Zeus and patroness of marriage, gives evidence of Aegean influence, as may be seen from traditional wooden statues (xoana) in Argos and Samos that display her genealogical relation to Eileithyia (Myc. Ereutija), the pre-Hellenic goddess of childbirth. Artemis (Myc. Atimite), who with her brother Apollo is a bow-carrying twin-numen with roots in Asia Minor, has the features of a Near Eastern-Anatolian mistress of animals. Even by name Hermes is related to a heap of stones such as was used to mark highways (Gk. herma) or to phallic pillar idols (Myc. Emaa) of an aniconic stone cult of a Mediterranean type. Dionysus (Myc. Diwonusojo), with an ancient sanctuary on Chios, took on features of Thrace and Phrygia (sometime being identified with the god Sabazius) and of Lydia (from association with Semele). Similarly, Hephaestus displays Tyrrhenian features (esp. from Lemnos), as Aphrodite does Semitic-Oriental features (of Ishtar-Astarte). In contrast, the hippomorphic Poseidon (Myc. Posedaone), the counterpart to Zeus, is related to the horselike Demeter and is Indo-European in origin, though possibly incorporating Minoan prefigurations of an animal-like god of the sea and of earthquakes (the Cretan bull).
The mythology of the Homeric epics unites these genetically disparate gods into an Olympian family modeled on the early Greek feudal nobility and oriented to a world of heroes living by a knightly code. The relating of this world to similar but immortal gods (Hesiod Theog. and Cat.) fixed also the religious practice and experience of the Homeric period (which involved sacrifices, individual veneration, oaths, visions, and direction through dreams). It also influenced its eschatological vision (which included Elysium and the veneration of heroes).
In contrast, the religion of the polis in the post-Homeric age stressed the official worship of locally significant numina from a patriotic standpoint and the respecting of personified communal values (e.g., Dike, Themis, Nike, and Aidos, the goddesses of justice, wisdom and good counsel, victory, and shame). It also emphasized the unifying factor of Pan-Hellenic festivals and games (including the Olympic games every fourth summer beside the Alpheus River, Isthmian games at Corinth, biennial games at Nemea), which take up older features of extralocal significance (the Eleusinian mysteries, the ecstatic cult of Dionysus, the Orphic doctrine of transmigration; → Mystery Religions). Two aspects of religious life in the later archaic and classical periods—the questioning of divine-human relations in Attic tragedy, and reflection on the ideas and manifestation of the divine in → Greek philosophy (by pre-Socratics, Sophists, and → Platonism)—are landmarks on the way to the postclassical religion of → Hellenism (→ Hellenistic-Roman Religion).
→ Myth, Mythology

Bibliography: C. M. ANTONACCIO, “Contesting the Past: Hero Cult, Tomb Cult, and Epic in Early Greece,” AJA 98 (1994) 389–410 ∙ H. D. BETZ, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells (2d ed.; Chicago, 1992) ∙ J. N. BREMMER, Greek Religion (Oxford, 1994) ∙ W. BURKERT, Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche (Stuttgart, 1977) ∙ R. G. A. BUXTON, Imaginary Greece: The Contexts of Mythology (Cambridge, 1994) ∙ E. DES PLACES, La religion grecque (Paris, 1969) ∙ K. DOWDEN, The Uses of Greek Mythology: Approaching the Ancient World (London, 1992) ∙ R. GARLAND, Religion and the Greeks (London, 1994) ∙ M. GERARD-ROUSSEAU, Les mentions religieuses dans les tablettes mycéniennes (Rome, 1968) ∙ P. J. JENSEN, “Die griechische Religion,” HRG 3.135–216 ∙ M. C. NUSSBAUM, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton, 1994) ∙ R. PARKER, Athenian Religion: A History (Oxford, 1996).

WOLFGANG FAUTH
Gregorian Chant

1. Term
2. Historical Development
3. Repertory
3.1. Genres
3.2. Musical-Aesthetic Description
4. Liturgical Function
4.1. Roman Catholic Church
4.2. Lutheran Church
1. Term

“Gregorian chant” is the collective name and stylistic designation for the (medieval) tradition and repertory collected in liturgical books of the monodic, originally unaccompanied chant of the → liturgy of Roman Catholic ritual. The designation derives from a legend arising in connection with the Frankish reception of the Roman liturgy in the eighth and ninth centuries, one identifying Pope Gregory I (590–604) as the author or editor first of the texts, then also of the melodies of the cantus gregorianus (first in the 9th cent.). Although no historical proof has been adduced for Gregory as the initiator either of the texts or of the melodies, his efforts at organizing the liturgy itself may well have indirectly affected the emergence or editing of the choral repertory.
Gregorian chant, an expression concerned with a linguistically appropriate choral development of liturgical texts based on a spiritual understanding of the words, continues to influence musical developments in → worship today. It represents a potential, specific genre of irreplaceable significance for liturgical music in general even today, one that cannot be replaced, for example, by the hymnic form (→ Church Music; Hymnody).
2. Historical Development

The transition from Greek to Latin in the Roman liturgy (3d–4th cent.) was accompanied by a corresponding adaptation of choral elements. The beginnings of this musical development are as complex as they are obscure. The earliest sources of the choral tradition initially called cantilena romana (by Paul the Deacon [d. ca. 800]) or cantus romanus are manuscripts from the eighth and ninth centuries, primarily from the Frankish sphere, containing liturgical texts as yet without any musical notation.
The first manuscripts with complete repertory and with the neumatic notation date from the early 10th century. Although these manuscripts do not yet provide information regarding tonal intervals, they do contain extremely detailed instructions for the interpretation of the melodies and melodic models the singers already knew by heart. The earliest manuscripts fixing the melodic intervals by means of notation lines appear a century later.
Beginning in the 11th/12th centuries, regional choral traditions can be discerned, including what is known as the ancient Roman tradition. Distinct choral traditions have also been identified for Milan (“Ambrosian chant”), Spain (“Mozarabic chant”), and Benevento. Scholars also speak of a Germanic and East Frankish choral dialect that spread from Germany to eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Musicologists in this area try to determine how changes in the (oral) tradition caused by certain elements being committed to writing (Frankish redaction) and the subsequent modifications (tropes, → motets) then interact within the context of altered liturgical conditions. Recasting of Gregorian chants for new feast days (of saints) and the blossoming of polyphony support the weakening, already evident beginning in the 10th century, of the Gregorian tradition.
Efforts to restore the authentic tradition began in the mid-19th century. Commensurate with the order of Pius X (1903–14) to reproduce the Gregorian chant according to the earliest manuscripts, the most important chants were published between 1905 and 1912 in connection with research conducted at the abbey at Solesmes. Insufficient scientific grounding, the influence of “living choral traditions,” and an interest in solutions capable of immediate pastoral-liturgical implementation, however, resulted in faulty compromises in melodic reconstruction and in the theoretically inappropriate transposition of modern or Greek-influenced metrical rhythmic systems to Gregorian melodies, even though the theory of oratory choral rhythms advanced by Dom J. Pothier (1835–1923) had already pointed in a different direction.
Semiology, emerging in the mid-20th century and founded by Dom E. Cardine (1905–88), marks a new stage in restoration efforts. A paleographically based study of sources has attempted to reconstruct the melodies behind the earliest manuscripts and to establish a choral interpretation as authentic as possible by determining the exact meaning of the neumatic signs. The results of these efforts, ecclesiastically confirmed at Vatican II (Sacrosanctum concilium [SC] 117), have included works from Graduel neumé (1966) to Benediktinisches Antiphonale, vol. 4, Vorsängerbuch (1997).
3. Repertory
3.1. Genres

Gregorian repertory consists essentially of songs for the → Mass and for the canonical → hours, the former of which can be classified according to liturgical recitatives and songs of the proper and the ordinary of the Mass (the Proprium missae and Ordinarium missae). The cantillation (i.e., solemn recitation with musical tones of prayer or scriptural texts) by the leader, lector, or → congregation draws from recitational models underscoring a text’s syntactic structure with an emphasis on meaning.
Songs of the proper include antiphonal (introit, originally the offertory, communion) and responsorial (→ Gradual) types. Commensurate with their various liturgical functions, the former are cast as songs for accompanying a rite within a more simplified (oligotonic) compositional style, while the latter, as liturgical actions, have a pronounced meditative or proclamatory character and, with their melismatic compositional style (several tones per syllable), make higher demands on the singers. In the tract (the song preceding the Gospel during Lent), Psalm verses are sung one after another, without any interceding repetition pieces. During the 9th and 10th centuries, the strophic sequence arose, a song providing the foundation in both music and liturgical history for the vernacular → hymn in the Roman liturgy.
The songs of the ordinary, in contrast to those of the proper, do not exhibit any fixed musical forms. Depending on their liturgical function and textual form, they exhibit either a basic acclamative or hymnic character (Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) or (more often) a recitative character (Gloria, Credo). Early on, the song of the → Psalms (§2) and → canticles of the canonical hours developed recitative models (Psalm melodies) whose structure corresponded to the literary structure typical of the Psalter and other biblical canticles. The various intervals between the basic tone (the finalis of the antiphon) and psalm tone with the accompanying location of half-steps yields the characteristic key (“tuning”) of the various choral modes and simultaneously the criterion for classifying the psalm tones into an eight-tone schema.
3.2. Musical-Aesthetic Description

The basis for melodic construction in (nonrecitative) Gregorian chant is both modally and rhythmically the sound of the (Latin) word and the semantic structure of the text itself. As a given word’s dynamic center, its accented syllable supplies the impulse for the movement of melodic tension and release, and in the final word, the melodic movement itself serves an important function of either release (architectonic) or buildup (rhetorical). Choral chant thus does not mean that “music is added to the word or the word made into music,” but that “the resonance or sounding of the word itself is the music” (G. Joppich).
4. Liturgical Function

Given its inclination to generate a uniformity and “objectivity” of musical expression, Gregorian chant functions specifically as a musical expression of word proclamation and of its response in the form of → meditation, → prayer, confession, and praise as the basic acts of the communal celebration of the liturgy.
4.1. Roman Catholic Church

The admittance of the vernacular into the Roman Catholic liturgy by → Vatican II does not eliminate the acknowledgment of Latin Gregorian chant as the proper choral style of the Roman liturgy (SC116). The council, however, expressly approved of using all musical forms of true art in structuring a worship service commensurate with the liturgy (SC112.3). Such statements signaled a willingness to structure worship in a way that considers the needs of the participants and allows a critical review of the traditional Gregorian repertory (uneven in its quality) with regard to liturgical function and musicological qualities.
4.2. Lutheran Church

The Lutheran tradition edited large portions of the Gregorian repertory in anthologies for worship (e.g., by M. Luther and T. Müntzer; → Lutheranism). German reworkings of the Latin choral tradition emerged first in the liturgical recitatives of the Mass (from 1521), then also among the other parts of the Latin repertory for the Mass and the canonical hours. These reworkings involved several different approaches. Either the German text was set to unaltered melodies (maintaining the melismata), or the melismata were eliminated in order to adapt the melodies to the syllabic structure of the text. Luther was very critical of both procedures, pointing out the necessity of maintaining a strict correspondence between melody and language (“Against the Heavenly Prophets” [1525], LW 40.141). He therefore reworked only the psalmody and lectionary models for the German text, fitted the melody to the German text in other songs, or created new, linguistically appropriate compositions following motifs and structures of original melodies. Latin Gregorian chant now began to lose significance in Protestant services, and the tension between a more ornamental, “musically oriented” style and a direct structuring of German hymnic modes based more rigorously on the sound of the language itself now shaped the development of the repertory.

Bibliography: Journals: Beiträge zur Gregorianik (Regensburg, 1985–) ∙ Études grégoriennes (Solesmes, 1954–) ∙ Studi gregoriani (Cremona, 1985–) ∙ Tijdschrift voor Gregoriaans (Breda, 1975–).
Other works: L. AGUSTONI and J. B. GÖSCHL, Einführung in die Interpretation des Gregorianischen Chorals (2 vols.; Regensburg, 1987–92) ∙ L. AGUSTONI et al., “Gregorianischer Choral,” Musik im Gottesdienst (ed. H. Musch; 2d ed.; Regensburg, 1983) 1.203–374 ∙ W. APEL, Gregorian Chant (3d ed.; Bloomington, Ind., 1966) ∙ E. CARDINE, Gregorian Semiology (Solesmes, 1982) ∙ G. J. CUMING, The Liturgy of St. Mark Edited from the Manuscripts, with a Commentary (Rome, 1990) ∙ S. J. P. VAN DIJK, “Recent Developments in the Study of the Old-Roman Rite,” StPatr 8.299–319 ∙ B. HÖCKER, Lateinische Gregorianik im Lutherischen Gottesdienst? (St. Ottilien, 1994) ∙ H. HUCKE, “Gregorian and Old Roman Chant,” NGDMM 7.693–97 (bibliography); idem, “Toward a New Historical View of Gregorian Chant,” JAMS 33 (1980) 437–67 ∙ A. HUGHES, Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office (Toronto, 1995) ∙ K. W. HUMPHRIES, ed., The Friars’ Libraries: Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues (London, 1990) ∙ C. S. JAEGER, The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe, 950–1200 (Philadelphia, 1995) ∙ S. KLÖCKNER, “Semiologie,” MGG (2d ed.) 8.1241–50 ∙ M. PFAFF and J. STALMANN, “Gregorianik,” TRE 14.191–99 (bibliography) ∙ B. STÄBLEIN, “Gregorianik,” MGG 5.786–96 ∙ R. STEINER, “Gregorian Chant,” NGDMM 7.697–98.

MARKUS EHAM
Gregory I

Pope Gregory I (ca. 540–604), known as Gregory the Great, was the last of the traditional Latin “Doctors of the Church.” Little is known of his life apart from a letter he attached to his work on the Book of Job (Magna moralia in Iob) and scattered references in his other letters and writings. Unlike some other figures of the → patristic church, there is no contemporary biography. Most medieval accounts of his life are dependent upon the same sources available to modern scholarship.
The son of a senator, Gregory in 573 occupied the highest civil position in → Rome (praefectus urbi). Shortly after this date, in an act not unusual for his time, Gregory sold his considerable holdings, provided assistance to the poor, and established the monastery of St. Andrew in Rome and six others in Sicily. He became a monk at St. Andrew and at some point around the year 579 was ordained one of the seven → deacons of Rome (regionarius), either by Benedict I or by Pelagius II.
In the following year the same pope sent him to Constantinople as episcopal representative (apocrisarius). Gregory remained as representative at the Imperial Court of the Eastern Empire for about seven years. There he knew Leander, who later became bishop of Seville, and engaged in theological discussions with Patriarch Eutyches. The degree to which Gregory knew Greek is subject to disagreement among experts. By 586 Gregory was back in Rome and again at St. Andrew’s monastery. It is uncertain whether at this time he became → abbot of the community, but as a monastic he assisted the next pope, Pelagius II, with his papal duties. Upon Pelagius’s death in 590, Gregory was the overwhelming choice of the people of Rome to become their bishop. He resisted, however, genuinely not desiring the office, even to the extent of urging Emperor Maurice not to approve of his election. Finally Gregory accepted election and entered into the papal office on September 3, 590.
He was the first monk chosen bishop of the Roman church. As a person skilled in administration, Gregory quickly moved on a number of fronts. The wars of Justinian I to reestablish control over Italy and the invasion of the Lombards had placed Italy in distressing circumstances. In 592 or 593 Gregory established peace with the Lombards, setting aside the authority of the emperor’s representative. Gregory encouraged friendly relations with the Franks and Visigoths. He sought to alleviate shortages of food and help the many refugees entering Rome. The mission of Augustine, later of Canterbury, was promoted by Gregory, along with → Benedictine → monasticism. He provided for the efficient administration of the estates of the Roman church. Gregory, as pope, insisted on the supreme authority of the Roman See and rejected the claim of the patriarch of Constantinople to the title “ecumenical patriarch.” His relations with the East were often strained.
After an eventful pontificate of 14 years, Gregory died on March 12, 604. He was canonized by popular acclaim immediately after his death. The appellation “the Great” indicates his contributions to the church of Rome. Contemporary scholarship sees Gregory as an educated late Roman aristocrat who converted to the ascetic ideal and was caught in a tension between his monastic vocation and papal ministry at a time of profound change for the western Roman world.
Throughout his life Gregory applied himself to writing. Not a speculator of original intellect, his works reflect pastoral and practical concerns. There is a vast number of Gregory’s letters, collected in a work known as Registrum epistolarum. Two additional collections of letters are extant. Together these groupings contain 854 letters and provide a detailed picture of this period.
Regula pastoralis, dating from the early years of Gregory’s pontificate, is a set of instructions for bishops in the discharge of their responsibilities. Its popularity was immediate and immense. Dialogi de vita et miraculis patrum Italicorum describes the lives and miracles of the saints of Italy. Its purpose was to offer comfort and encouragement to the people of Italy in this time of wars and famine.
Moralia in Iob is Gregory’s major exegetical work. He began it during his days in Constantinople and continued to work on it with interruptions until July of 595. Gregory interpreted the biblical text of Job in a threefold manner: historical, typological, and moral. In this work of 35 books his preference was decidedly for the moral meaning. There is also a commentary on 1 Kings 1–16, which only within the past 50 years has been identified as Gregory’s.
Several series of Gregory’s sermons survive. They include those on the liturgical cycle of gospel lessons and on sections of the Book of Ezekiel and the Song of Solomon.
Gregory has also been identified with a sacramentary and a form of liturgical chant. His relationship to both developments is slight at best. He certainly wrote some prayers, but beyond this observation it is difficult to assign him with certainty a role in the evolution of the Western → liturgy.

Bibliography: Primary sources in English: Book of Pastoral Rule and Selected Epistles, NPNF (ser. 2) 12–13 ∙ Dialogues, FC 39 ∙ Forty Gospel Homilies (trans. D. Hurst; Kalamazoo, Mich., 1990) ∙ Pastoral Rule, ACW 11.
Secondary works: J. C. CAVADINI, ed., Gregory the Great: A Symposium (South Bend, Ind., 1996) ∙ F. H. DUDDEN, Gregory the Great (2 vols.; London, 1905) ∙ E. DUFFY, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes (New Haven, 1997) esp. 45–57 ∙ G. R. EVANS, The Thought of Gregory the Great (Cambridge, 1986) ∙ R. A. MARKUS, Gregory the Great and His World (Cambridge, 1997) ∙ C. STRAW, Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection (Berkeley, Calif., 1988) with valuable bibliographic essay.

WILLIAM G. RUSCH
Gregory VII

Gregory VII (ca. 1018–85), whose baptized name was Hildebrand, was a pope and reformer of the church in the 11th century and one of the major figures in the struggle of that time between → church and state. The exact date of Hildebrand’s birth is unknown. It was certainly before 1034, and a date around 1018 is probably quite accurate. He was born in Tuscany, probably in the vicinity of the modern city of Savona. Early in his life he went to → Rome and was educated there, presumably in the monastery of St. Mary on the Aventine. By the year 1047 or 1049 he had taken his monastic vows.
In 1046 Hildebrand was with Gregory VI when the latter was exiled to Germany. Even at this time Hildebrand was known for his concern to reform the church. By 1049 he had returned to Rome, Pope Leo IX having selected him to be the administrator of the patrimony of St. Peter. During the ensuing years Hildebrand played a major role in the affairs of the Roman church. He was involved during the pontificate of Nicholas II in the production of a decree that assigned the election of → popes to the cardinals. In 1059 Hildebrand became the archdeacon of the church of Rome, a position that he held until 1073.
That year saw the death of Pope Alexander II, under whom Hildebrand had served as chancellor of the Apostolic See. Immediately after his death a heated and disputed election took place to select his successor. The person finally chosen was the Archdeacon Hildebrand, who upon his election took the name of Gregory VII. It was recognized by many that the proceedings were irregular; even the decree of Nicholas II, in which Hildebrand had a hand, was ignored. The dubious nature of this election cast a shadow over Gregory VII’s pontificate and more than once was used by his enemies to discredit him.
Quite soon after his election, in a Lenten synod of 1074, the new pope issued decrees against clerical incontinence, → simony, and lay → investiture. Gregory clearly saw the reform of the church as his highest priority, and here he could argue that he was continuing the activities of his predecessors. He saw his responsibility as being the restoration to the perfection of the apostolic church and sought models in the NT, → canon law, and → monasticism. Unfortunately, many of the sources to which he gave credence were Carolingian forgeries. His view of the apostolic church was a collection of history, legend, and even misunderstanding.
In 1074 Gregory’s efforts to mount a campaign against the Turks failed. Also his efforts to bring about a reconciliation between the Western and Eastern churches had no success. In 1078 and 1079 Gregory condemned the opinions of Berengar of Tours, who denied that the bread and wine really changed into the body and blood of Christ in the liturgy of the → Mass.
Papal legates, especially in Germany and France but also elsewhere, had difficulty in enforcing the new, reforming decrees of 1074. In Germany this situation led to the famous confrontation between the German emperor Henry IV and Gregory VII. Henry had threatened Gregory with a ban and deposition and held two synods in 1076, at Worms and Piacenza, which declared the pope deposed. Gregory replied in kind by deposing and banning Henry. At the castle of Canossa near Reggio nell’Emilia in northern Italy, Henry in 1077 submitted to Gregory and was absolved. Some authorities have seen too much attention given to the events at Canossa. Yet this collision with Henry is a significant example of Gregory’s will to implement his policy of reform, and its effects on the papacy were profound.
The peace of Canossa did not endure for long. In 1080 Henry was again → excommunicated. During the next three years the emperor built up his position in northern and central Italy. This strategy had the result of opening up the split between Gregory and a large group of discontented persons within the church at Rome. By 1084 some 13 cardinals and much of the papal staff dropped their alliance to Gregory. In the same year a council at Brixen selected Clement III as the new pope, who was soon enthroned in Rome. This antipope crowned Henry emperor, for the second time, in the same year.
Neither Gregory nor Clement, claimants to the papacy, could hold the city of Rome. Gregory left the city under the protection of the Normans and spent the remainder of his life under their protection. He first went to Monte Cassino and later Salerno, where he died on May 25, 1085. Gregory VII was canonized in 1606; his feast day is May 25.
There has been considerable disagreement concerning how Gregory and his papacy should be assessed. Past scholarship has tended to view him as an unbridled tyrant. Recently this view has shifted, with Gregory’s intentions being seen in a more positive light. He is viewed as committed to righteousness (iustitia) and genuine reform of the church.
A final evaluation of Gregory depends upon the interpretation of his Registrum, or Dictatus papae, the fundamental statement of the “Gregorian reform.” This document, consisting of 27 statements compiled by Gregory probably at the beginning of his papacy, emphasized the position of the Roman church in the church universal, drew conclusions for the authority of the pope as universal leader, and specified the privileges of the pope as the head of the sacerdotium over against regnum and imperium. Does this document convey Gregory’s response to his dispute with German bishops and Henry, or is it a broad statement of policy that clarifies Gregory’s future actions? No final answer seems possible to this question, but much recent research tends to see the document not as a statement of papal absolutism but of emergency powers so that the Roman See can reform the church.

Bibliography: Primary sources in English: H. E. J. COWDREY, trans., The Epistolae vagantes of Pope Gregory VII (Oxford, 1972) ∙ E. EMERTON, trans., The Correspondence of Pope Gregory VII: Selected Letters from the Registrum (New York, 1990).
Secondary works: E. DUFFY, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes (New Haven, 1997) esp. 94–99 ∙ I. W. FRANK, A Concise History of the Mediaeval Church (New York, 1995) ∙ M. J. MACDONALD, Hildebrand: Life of Gregory VII (London, 1932) ∙ R. MORGHEN, Gregorio VII e la riforma della chiesa nel secolo XI (Palermo, 1975) ∙ C. MORRIS, The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (Oxford, 1989) esp. 109–21, 597–99.

WILLIAM G. RUSCH
Gregory the Great → Gregory I
Grief

1. Symptoms
2. The Grief Process
3. Support

Grief is the reaction to a loss. It is caused especially by the death of a loved one, but also by divorce (→ Marriage and Divorce 4), moving, the loss of a job, sickness, the loss of cultural elements, destruction of the normal conditions of life, and so forth. → Animals can also experience grief.
1. Symptoms

Those who grieve experience a profound shattering of their understanding of themselves and of their world (Identity). Each type of grief has its own form. In many cases it involves preoccupation with a former loved one who has died and withdrawal from other relations and tasks. It may involve a feeling of meaninglessness (→ Meaning), pressure on life even to the point of → suicide, restlessness, insomnia, tears (→ Laughing and Crying), → aggression, feelings of → guilt, psychosomatic reactions (e.g., asthma, heartbeat disturbances, greater risks of infection, headaches), changes in attitudes, differences in perception even to the point of delusions, or drug dependence (→ Substance Abuse). Socially, grief often involves isolation through withdrawal from daily activities (→ Everyday Life).
Grief is a difficult → experience that can be a threat even to one’s personality. This experience, however, is a necessary part of life. To repress it brings sickness to the → soul. A conscious acceptance of loss in an “existence of partings” (V. Kast) can give depth to → life and prepare us for → death. Though their symptoms may be similar, → depression differs from grief (S. Freud, 1917). Freud called depression melancholy, borrowing from the four basic temperaments of Hippocrates (ca. 460–ca. 377 B.C.).
2. The Grief Process

Dealing with grief consists of accepting loss and seeking to loosen ties to the departed, thus becoming free for a new orientation. Literature dealing with death lists a multiphasic grief process (see Y. Spiegel). First, a usually short phase of shock comes with news of the loss. The bereaved reacts with numbness and cannot really believe what has happened.
Next is the phase of control. → Funeral arrangements and calls have to be made. These tasks claim the attention of the bereaved and have a controlling effect upon their feelings and attitudes.
After the burial a phase of repression comes as the reality of the loss sinks in. Grief now involves intense feelings. Earlier experiences of loss come again to mind. Grief takes hold with thoughts of the relation to the departed. The one grieving feels → despair, → anxiety, helplessness, aggression, and feelings of guilt. He or she may seek the loved one in dreams, in fantasies (→ Imagination), in other people, and elsewhere. It is a time for wrestling with the history that has been shared and its conclusion.
The phase of adaptation is finally reached when we know the departed only inwardly and the loss has been so well integrated that a new perspective on life can be reached (→ lifestyle). We must apply these four phases very cautiously, since individual grief may take different forms.
3. Support

The bereaved need others to stand by them and support them. For Christians, such sharing of grief is an important pastoral duty (→ Pastoral Care). At the burial, pastors come into very close contact with the bereaved. They can show human understanding, help them to express their grief as they listen to them, carefully interpret this grief with traditional Christian → symbols, and engage in → prayer. The ritual of burial is an important pastoral help.
Problems with the grieving process can arise especially when the relation to the departed has been ambivalent, when the loss is that of a child, or when death is sudden and unexpected. In such cases professional help may be needed. Emotional numbness, the threat of severe self-injury, persistent grief, or serious psychosomatic disturbances are all indications of the need for therapy (→ Crisis Intervention).
Therapy will usually be short, helping the bereaved through the process of grief. They must accept their feelings, even the forbidden ones of aggression. They must learn about the process in a way that reduces anxiety and must work through their feelings of guilt. Therapy must pay special attention to anger at the loss and to any attempt to cling on in some way to the departed. The different schools of psychology (→ Psychology 4; Psychotherapy) have their own forms of therapy, and there are also therapeutic grief-groups under professional leadership or the leadership of bereaved who themselves have undergone training. As far as therapy is concerned, purely self-help groups that have had no grief training have not proved to be of great value (→ Consolation, Comfort; Counseling).

Bibliography: J. BOWLBY, Attachment and Loss, vol. 1, Attachment; vol. 2, Separation: Anxiety and Anger; vol. 3, Loss: Sadness and Depression (New York, 1969–81) ∙ S. FREUD, Trauer und Melancholie (Berlin, 1982; orig. pub., 1917) ∙ V. KAST, Trauern (Stuttgart, 1982) ∙ E. LINDEMANN, Jenseits von Trauer (Göttingen, 1985) ∙ C. M. PARKES and R. S. WEISS, Recovery from Bereavement (Northvale, N.J., 1995) ∙ B. RAPHAEL, The Anatomy of Bereavement: A Handbook for the Caring Professions (London, 1989) ∙ Y. SPIEGEL, Der Prozeß des Trauerns (8th ed.; Munich, 1995) ∙ W. S. STROEBE and M. STROEBE, Bereavement and Health (New York, 1987) ∙ M. S. STROEBE et al., eds., Handbook of Bereavement (Cambridge, Mass., 1993) ∙ W. J. WORDEN, Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner (2d ed.; New York, 1991).

ULRIKE WAGNER-RAU
Group and Group Dynamics

1. Group
2. Group Dynamics
2.1. Psychodynamic Perspectives
2.2. Sociopsychological Perspectives
2.3. Systems Perspectives
2.4. Implications for Churches
2.4.1. Theology and Piety
2.4.2. Pastoral Leadership
2.4.3. Congregational Participation
2.4.4. Pastoral Care
1. Group

A group is a number of individuals organized to fulfill a common purpose or purposes. Thus, as Wilfred Bion has commented, a crowd of sunbathers lying on a beach is not yet a group. If, though, they are aroused by the cries of a girl who is drowning and begin to cooperate in her rescue, they become a rudimentary group. All groups have purpose, structure, and dynamics. Their complexity lies in the variability and interaction of these aspects.
A group’s purposes may be few or many. They may also be explicit or tacit, conscious or unconscious. Even a temporary, spontaneously formed group like the crowd of sunbathers now trying to effect a rescue can have a complicated array of primary and secondary goals (e.g., saving a drowning child, allaying primal anxieties stimulated by the child’s cry, fulfilling unconscious rescue fantasies on the part of some members, gratifying curiosity, and discharging excited impulses). Most organized groups are motivated by an amalgam of competing purposes, many of which are emotionally charged. For this reason staying oriented to a primary mission or work goal proves challenging at times for most groups and → organizations.
A group’s structure includes such aspects as its size, boundaries, functional roles, decision-making formats, and leadership structure. It also includes formal and informal → norms that regulate group behavior, patterns of → communication that regulate → information flow, and recurring feedback processes that stabilize and destabilize the group’s overall structure. Most groups have both a visible structure based on conscious designs and an invisible structure based on unconscious or tacit assumptions.
Finally, a group’s dynamics include the political and emotional forces that shape its purposes and structure and that affect its attempts to live them out. It also includes the developmental processes by which groups mature over time.
Churches are complex groups that vary greatly in purpose, structure, and dynamics. Since the primary purposes of a → church are religious and involve matters of ultimate concern, they are apt to be charged with high levels of emotional investment. Because they are often broad and visionary, a church’s purposes are also subject to idiosyncratic interpretation by its members. Structurally, churches may be influenced by traditional denominational patterns and still evolve into unique congregational cultures. Because of the felt ultimacy of congregational commitments, church dynamics often involve primal emotional processes with deep unconscious roots.
2. Group Dynamics

Groups are living systems that interact with their environments and develop over time. Their behavior, while purposive, is also fluid and unpredictable, for at any given time it is influenced by multiple social, psychological, and systemic forces of which it is only partially aware.
Since the end of World War I the subject of group dynamics has occupied theorists and professionals, ranging from → psychoanalysts to economists (→ Economy), sociologists, marketers, therapists, and managers. Overall, three perspectives have contributed most to our understanding of this important field, those of psychodynamics, → social psychology, and systems.
2.1. Psychodynamic Perspectives

Psychodynamic perspectives focus on the deep and often unconscious psychological currents that influence groups and their members. S. Freud focused on the irrational expectations groups have of their leaders and the emotionally charged bonds of loyalty that hold groups together. According to Freud, these bonds and expectations have their source in unconscious wishes for a father-protector who can guard the group and its members from danger and uncertainty. Such a leader must be at once powerful, caring, omniscient, and morally incorruptible. He must also be strong and fair enough to subdue the competitive, incestuous, and aggressive currents in group life. To secure and protect such a leader, Freud argued, group members regularly sacrifice their own intelligence, freedom, and even moral integrity.
Later psychoanalytic theorists emphasized the deeper maternal longings and dependencies that influence members’ expectations of leaders. These longings are even more primal and emotionally charged than those Freud described. Both male and female leaders are targets of both maternal and paternal transferences. These transferences are responsible for many of the strong reactions members have toward group leaders and the group as a whole. Often unconsciously, these dynamics exert powerful psychological pressure on group leaders.
The pioneering work of Wilfred Bion continues to be influential among psychodynamically oriented group theorists. Bion distinguished between two levels of group life that occur simultaneously. The “work group” describes the rational, task-oriented level of group life. The “basic assumption group” describes the unconscious emotional life of the group that tends to manifest itself in “as if” behavior. For example, a church finance committee might behave as if its real task were to place the whole burden for solving the congregation’s budget problems on the minister’s shoulders (→ “dependency”). At another time the group might act as if its purpose were to find someone to blame or do battle with over the issue of finances (“fight-flight”). According to Bion, primal hopes and fears originating in infancy are activated by the vicissitudes of group life and lie at the source of such behavior.
Modern psychoanalytic thinkers have continued to study the mental processes that affect the behavior of group members, leaders, and the group as a whole. For example, Otto Kernberg emphasized the role that innate → aggression and fears about aggression play in the emotional life of groups and their members. Kernberg also emphasized the psychological pressures groups exert on their leaders, as well as the effects a leader’s character disturbances can have on a group. Heinz Kohut and Robert Randall emphasized the role that groups, including churches, play in supporting or undermining the healthy self-cohesion and self-esteem of their members. They also argued that groups have a group self that can be nurtured or injured in its relations with leaders, members, and the environment. According to Kohut and Randall, group violence and destructiveness often result from some real or felt injury to the core self of the group or its members. In his Psychodynamics of Work and Organizations (1993), on the psychology of the workplace, William Czander presented a comprehensive review of the major psychodynamic theories of group dynamics.
2.2. Sociopsychological Perspectives

While psychoanalytic thinkers focus on hidden psychological forces in group life, social psychologists emphasize the study of observable patterns of social behavior in groups. The development and application of sophisticated research methods have been important in shaping social psychology as a science. Such methods include both quantitative studies that focus on measuring → behavior and qualitative methods that emphasize learning from → experience and participant-observation.
In the decades following World War II, many social psychologists focused on problematic social behavior like authoritarianism, conformity, classism (→ Class and Social Stratum), crime, intolerance, and racial → prejudice. Their studies helped clarify common features, precursors, and effects of such behavior and suggested strategies for progressive change.
Indeed, promoting positive social change has been a common concern among social psychologists. In 1947 the National Education Association in the United States sponsored the establishment of the National Training Laboratories to help train teachers, business leaders, and other professionals how to study and apply group-dynamic insights to help create more effective and democratic learning and work environments. Their training events focus on increasing participants’ awareness of group dynamics as well as their own participation in them.
An early shaper of this perspective was Kurt Lewin, who argued that groups can best be understood by studying their here-and-now relationship to primary goals of survival and mastery. In pursuit of these goals, groups are motivated by “driving forces,” frustrated by “opposing forces,” and held back by “restraining forces.” Their dynamics are determined by the alignments among these forces at any point in time. Thus, for example, a → congregation struggling to increase its membership might be helped by analyzing the extent to which this goal is one of survival or of taking its next step as a community of faith. It might then examine the current configuration of driving, opposing, and restraining forces related to the goal of increased membership. This effort, in turn, might clarify the current mix of factors keeping the congregation from meeting its goals and suggest new strategies for progress. For Lewin, there is never one cause or one cure for group dysfunction. Groups must be viewed as whole social entities. Focusing on relationships instead of single factors or individuals is thus the most effective way to bring about change.
Today, topics studied by social psychologists continue to be rich and far-ranging in scope. Interpersonal and intergroup relations, communication processes, cognitive functioning, power relations, → conflict, multicultural diversity, and organizational culture are some of the themes frequently revisited.
2.3. Systems Perspectives

Before the mid-20th century the prestige of the social sciences suffered from comparisons to the physical → sciences, where experimental methods of observation and prediction were thought to be more objective and reliable. Classic scientific models assumed that all dynamics, even human dynamics, were ultimately mechanical and deterministic. In this view, → social science deserved respect only to the extent that it could approximate the experimental rigor of the physical sciences and reveal the deterministic rules that govern its subject matter.
This view was challenged by Kurt Lewin, but even more profoundly by Ludwig Bertalanffy. Bertalanffy was a biologist who argued that living systems differ in essential ways from classic mechanical systems. Mechanical systems are closed in that they operate independently of their environments. They behave like clocks that “wind down” when they run out of stored-up energy. Living systems, in contrast, are open in that they are constantly exchanging energy with their environments. This feature gives them the ability to sustain themselves and to evolve complex forms that are neither mechanical nor deterministic in the classic sense.
Bertalanffy’s theory of general systems emphasized the independence between open systems and their environments. It also emphasized the interdependence between parts of complex systems. According to this perspective the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. Thus ministers trying to understand the dynamics of their congregation should not focus only on the dynamics of individual members. Rather, they should focus on the way members influence and are influenced by the whole system and its relationship to its various environments. They should not look for simple causes of behavior but study broad patterns of interaction and performance, especially those that reoccur over time. Finally, they should observe the way the group is structuring itself both to maintain balance and to develop new adaptations.
Drawing on Lewin and Bertalanffy, Yvonne Agazarian has developed an approach to working with groups and organizations that focuses on helping individuals take up their roles as group members and cooperate in building a group that matures as a whole while simultaneously fostering the maturation of its individual members. According to Agazarian, groups mature through predictable phases of → development that pose challenges both to its members and to the whole group. Leadership focuses on reducing restraining forces that prevent member and group from meeting these challenges.
One of Agazarian’s most important contributions has been her emphasis on functional subgroups. There is a tendency in all groups for members to seek security by aligning with others they perceive as similar to them and distancing from those they perceive as different. These spontaneously formed subgroups tend to be based on stereotypes that hinder group cooperation. Rather than oppose subgrouping, Agazarian encourages leaders to train subgroups to explore similarities and differences in more conscious and realistic ways. The formation of functional versus stereotypical subgroups is the way healthy groups contain and explore the different emotional positions that inevitably arise when groups face developmental hurdles. By encouraging functional communication within and between subgroups, leaders can help prevent scapegoating, avoidance, polarization, and other defensive behaviors that impede progress.
Systems theory has gained increasing influence among students of family, group, and organizational dynamics over the past two decades. Murray Bowen studied the ways families structure themselves to maintain togetherness while providing for the individuation of their members. E. H. Friedman applied Bowen’s family system theory to congregational dynamics. P. M. Senge focused on the complex systemic dynamics that characterize modern business organizations. W. N. Fletcher has emphasized ways religious congregations function more like specialized organizations than like families.
The most recent developments in systems theory are emerging from a new rapprochement between the social and the physical sciences. Over the last 50 years physicists have increasingly left the classic model of dynamics behind. → Relativity, → quantum mechanics, nonlinear mathematics, chaos theory, and complexity theory have created a picture of the physical world that looks in ways as “messy” as the one social scientists have always inhabited. In the last decade a number of these developments in the physical sciences have been published in works for nonphysicists and nonmathematicians. Of special relevance to group theorists is the emphasis on defining complexity and the impact complexity has on group dynamics. Physicists and social scientists are now cooperating in the study of complex adaptive systems that are able to evolve in changing environments by exploiting the tension between order and chaos.
Depth psychology, social psychology, and systems theory provide a broad range of perspectives on group dynamics. While there is tension between these views, Ronald Heifetz is one of a growing number of theorists who believe that good leadership requires integrating insights from all three. In particular, Heifetz argues that leaders must strike a balance between focusing on emotional and on systemic dynamics. The subjectivity of members and of the group as a whole must be considered along with broad systemic patterns and challenges. The work of the leader should be that of “facilitating adaptive work.” This task requires a delicate mix of emotional support, sensitive timing, confrontation, and respect for dissenters.
2.4. Implications for Churches

A congregation is a group, and thus group dynamics pervade every aspect of congregational life. Ministry is essentially group work, from leading worship to teaching Sunday school to conducting administrative meetings. Even the most private and confidential of pastoral encounters occurs within this group context. Indeed, the definitions of “private and confidential” often reflect tacit group norms that vary considerably from congregation to congregation.
Taking seriously the implications of group dynamics for the church requires considering their relevance in at least these four categories: → theology and → piety, pastoral leadership, congregational participation, and → pastoral care.

2.4.1. Theology and Piety

Group theory favors approaches to theology and piety that view life and faith as essentially social and dynamic. It is simultaneously critical of individualistic and static tendencies in theology and piety. Paul → Tillich argued, for example, that human fulfillment requires both individuation and participation. Because these two potentialities pull in different directions, anxiety, conflict, and faulty choices are inevitable parts of life. → Process theology emphasizes interconnection and unfolding as essential features of → creation. Human and divine nature are thus created through the ongoing and often messy processes of social and cultural → evolution (§4). Social-justice theologies emphasize the necessity of → covenant in human and divine-human relationships. Accordingly, group dynamics are inherently ethical. Finally, → postmodern theologies emphasize the embeddedness of all human acts in the particularity of group/cultural contexts. There is no other reality than social reality. In each of these perspectives, therefore, group life points to matters of ultimate concern for the theology and piety of the church.

2.4.2. Pastoral Leadership

Congregations are living systems. They have many goals and expressions, but their deepest purposes derive from the greatest commandment (Mark 12:28–34) and can be fulfilled only in and through living communities of faith. Because congregations are living systems, they cannot remain static or insular. They are meant to develop and evolve progressively mature expressions of their faith in response to new environments and new calls to ministry. The primary responsibility of pastoral leadership is to facilitate this maturational work.
Congregations, like their members, do not grow smoothly without fear, resistance, interruption, or conflict. The main purposes of pastoral leadership are to help congregations discern and stay oriented to their missions, face developmental challenges, and resolve issues that impede congregations from fulfilling their unique potential as missional communities.
For a number of reasons, emotional forces, vulnerabilities, and conflicts operate closer to the surface in religious groups than they do in other types of organizations. First, religious communities involve matters of ultimate concern to their members. Therefore, commitments are often passionate and viewed in either/or terms. Second, religion addresses ultimate human dependence and thus arouses primal longings, fears, and conflicts originating in childhood dependence. Third, some congregations have ethical commitments to welcoming racial, ethnic, gender, and religious diversity. Dealing with diversity is difficult, however, and often exposes deep-rooted fears and prejudices. Fourth, many congregations operate under conditions of real or felt scarcity. Such conditions are inherently frustrating and stimulate anxieties about survival or annihilation. Finally, modern congregations are increasingly bound by voluntary commitments. Such bonds can be fragile in times of stress or conflict. They also place limits on authority, which make it difficult to lead decisively in times of crisis.
For all of these reasons, congregations are highly vulnerable to emotional upheaval and to defensive operations like wishful thinking and fight-flight. These conditions impose great psychological and spiritual demands on leaders, who must deal very sensitively with emotional dynamics while keeping groups oriented to their mission, work goals, and adaptive challenges. Meeting such demands requires high capacities for self-awareness, knowledge about group dynamics, interpersonal skills, ability to exercise → authority without abusing it, skills in managing conflict, and → empathy for group struggle. It also requires keen abilities to discern and articulate the deep religious and theological dimensions of group process and development.
Despite the importance of these disciplines, most clergy and lay leaders have received little formal training in group dynamics and congregational leadership. Though some American seminaries include elective courses and some denominations require → Clinical Pastoral Education for ordination, the study of group and congregational dynamics remains a neglected topic in → theological education.

2.4.3. Congregational Participation

Early theories of group dynamics emphasized relations between leaders and followers. Modern thinkers and trainers tend to view leadership as a number of functions that can and should be shared widely among group members. They point out the dangers of overdependence on individual leaders and emphasize the responsibility of all group members for helping the congregation meet its purposes and goals.
According to this viewpoint, most churches remain too pastor- or priest-centered in their expectations and performance. Healthy congregations do not look to pastors to fulfill all their leadership needs; rather, pastors should help congregations discern their maturational work and mobilize the leadership resources within the group to accomplish it. Such congregations devote resources to leadership and discipleship training throughout the congregation. They understand and rely on the specialized leadership functions of clergy and lay leaders while encouraging all members to share responsibility for the mission and maturation of the group.

2.4.4. Pastoral Care

Finally, understanding group dynamics has broad implications for pastoral care. First, pastoral care focuses not only on the emotional and spiritual needs of individuals but also on those of the whole group. Congregations experience crisis, trauma, and growing pains just as their members do. Pastors who are able to tune in and minister to the needs and wounds of the group as a whole are less likely to collude in making individual members function as symptom-bearers for the congregation.
Second, pastors who understand systems thinking are better equipped to understand and respond to individual members in crisis. Even when they are working one-on-one, they are able to take into account the complex familial, group, and cultural contexts in which their parishioners’ struggles are embedded. They are aware that the most private act of pastoral caregiving occurs within a communal religious context that greatly determines its meaning and efficacy. Viewing parishioners’ struggles in this more holistic way can significantly enhance the resources pastors have to offer.
Congregational expectations of pastoral care tend to be highly personalized and emotionally charged. In most congregations, these expectations are pastor focused and emphasize one-to-one interactions. Group dynamics theory suggests wider possibilities, including the use of small- and large-group pastoral interventions as well as greater congregational participation in pastoral caregiving. Optimally, pastoral care is viewed as a ministry of the whole church, with pastor and lay members collaborating. Such a situation cannot be accomplished by decree, however. Because of the emotional expectations and vulnerabilities connected with pastoral caregiving, congregations must be carefully prepared for any changes in focus or approach.

Bibliography: Y. M. AGAZARIAN, Systems-Centered Therapy for Groups (New York, 1997) ∙ C. E. BENNISON JR., with K. DAVIS, A. LUMMIS, and P. NESBIT, In Praise of Congregations: Leadership in the Local Church Today (Cambridge, Mass., 1999) ∙ W. R. BION, Experiences in Groups, and Other Papers (London, 1961) ∙ W. M. CZANDER, The Psychodynamics of Work and Organizations: Theory and Practice (New York, 1993) ∙ W. N. FLETCHER, “The Congregation and the Sphinx: Group Dynamics in Religious Congregations” (Diss., Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 1995) ∙ S. FREUD, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (New York, 1959) ∙ R. T. GOLEMBIEKWSKI and A. BLUMBERG, eds., Sensitivity Training and the Laboratory Approach: Readings about Concepts and Applications (Itasca, Ill., 1970) ∙ R. A. HEIFETZ, Leadership without Easy Answers (Cambridge, Mass., 1994) ∙ O. F. KERNBERG, Ideology, Conflict, and Leadership in Groups and Organizations (New Haven, 1998) ∙ R. L. RANDALL, Pastor and Parish: The Psychological Core of Ecclesiastical Conflicts (New York, 1988) ∙ P. TILLICH, The Courage to Be (2d ed.; New Haven, 2000; orig. pub., 1952) ∙ M. J. WHEATLEY, Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe (San Francisco, 1994).

WALLACE N. FLETCHER
Grundtvig, Nikolai Fredrik Severin

Nikolai Fredrik Severin Grundtvig (1783–1872) was a Danish theologian, philosopher, historian, pedagogue, and writer. His accomplishments ranged from the development of a distinctive view of Christianity to ground-breaking studies in Anglo-Saxon poetry, the composition of more than 1,500 hymns (→ Hymnal 1.3), leadership in the establishment of the Danish system of parliamentary → democracy, and the formation of a philosophy of education that has had global influence.
Grundtvig grew up in an orthodox Lutheran, pietistic parsonage in Udby on southern Sjælland. While studying theology in Copenhagen between 1800 and 1803, he broke with the traditional Christianity of his parents and embraced a → rationalistic theistic faith. From 1805 through 1808 he worked as a private tutor on the Egeløkke estate on the island of Langeland. Here, his hopeless love for Constance Steensen de Leth, the wife of the landowner, plunged him into a profound crisis from which he was able to emerge only by losing himself in the study of German → Romanticism and Nordic mythology. Between 1808 and 1811 Grundtvig worked as a secondary school teacher in Copenhagen, in 1810 undergoing another crisis of faith, this one prompting him to turn away from Romanticism and back to the Christianity of his parents. He also returned to his parents physically insofar as he accepted his father’s invitation to return to Udby in 1811 as an assistant pastor. After his father’s death in 1813 he returned to Copenhagen, trying unsuccessfully to find a permanent position as a → pastor. From 1816 to 1821 he lived exclusively as a writer.
In 1821 Grundtvig became pastor in the small town of Praestø in southern Sjælland. In 1822 he returned to Copenhagen as curate at Our Savior’s Church, where in 1824 he composed his two great visionary poems “De levendes Land” (Land of the living) and “Nyårs-Morgen” (New Year’s morning). In this and other works of the same period, Grundtvig began to articulate a new view of Christianity, rooted in the early church but still nourished by Romanticism. In this view, frequently described as Grundtvig’s “matchless discovery,” the church’s foundation is not the Bible but the living Christ himself as present in the marks of the church that have remained the same through the centuries, namely, the → Apostles’ Creed, → baptism, and the → Eucharist. He also developed this sacramental understanding of Christianity in 1825 in Kirkens gienmæle (The church’s rejoinder), a writing directed against Henrik Nikolai Clausen, a theologian at the University of Copenhagen who was a disciple of Friedrich → Schleiermacher,. Unfortunately, this writing resulted in Grundtvig’s being censured for life; he thus resigned his post in 1826 and lived until 1831 again as a freelance writer.
Between 1829 and 1831 Grundtvig made three trips to England, with financial support from the Danish crown, in order to study medieval Anglo-Saxon MSS, notably Beowulf, the tenth-century Exeter Book, and others. English liberalism, including its views on freedom of faith and confession, made a considerable impression on him. A later visit, in 1843, was meant to provide contacts for Grundtvig with leaders of the → Oxford Movement of the Church of England.
After 1832 Grundtvig’s → censure, in an exceptional act, was lifted, and in 1839 he accepted the position of pastor at the Spital Church in Vartov, Copenhagen. Between 1848 and 1858 he was also a member of Parliament, in which capacity he was able strongly to influence Denmark’s first democratic legislation. He summarized his own theology in 1868 in Den christelige Børnelærdom (a title variously translated “Elementary Christian Doctrine” and “Christian Children’s Teachings”).
One characteristic feature of Grundtvig’s basic theological and philosophical position was his differentiation between the human and the Christian. To be a Christian, Grundtvig thought that one must of necessity reflect on the unique value of human existence as created by God; “human first and then Christian,” he wrote with reference to John 1:4. This position enabled him to exchange views openly and to cooperate even with those who were not of his persuasion, without having to focus on specifically Christian goals. Grundtvig did not mean that human living has primacy over Christian living, but rather that the humanity of individual living and of the indigenous life of a people, created in the image of God, has a primary influence upon Christian experience and fellowship in the church.
Grundtvig was a prodigious writer and editor. He was an acknowledged scholar of Anglo-Saxon poetry as well as of Nordic mythology, producing popular Danish translations of medieval Nordic works as well as of the great Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. He also published interpretations of world history and edited, from 1816 to 1819, the periodical Danne-Virke, which contained his own historical and philosophical essays. In 1848 he started a small weekly, Danskeren (The Dane), chiefly in order to promote his democratic and political ideas. Finally, he composed his own church hymns and reworked hymns from the early church and medieval periods.
Grundtvig occupies a major position in respect to sociopedagogical issues, having instigated and supported free education for both children and adults on the basis of the language, myths, poetry, and history of folket (the people). He envisioned skolen for livet (the school for life) as preparation for participation in all aspects of social, cultural, and political life. Such education was to be marked by lively interaction between teachers and students. As an educator, Grundtvig became a pioneer in the Folkehøjskoler (folk high school) movement. These schools appeared between 1840 and 1850 in Denmark and have given inspiration to the importance of such schools in present-day Denmark as well as in many other parts of the world, not least increasingly in certain → Third World countries.
Grundtvig’s influence has persevered long after his death. His work remains a lively source of insight for theological, ecclesial, cultural, and educational life.

Bibliography: Primary sources: Selected Writings (trans. J. Knudsen; Philadelphia, 1976) ∙ Udvalgte skrifter (10 vols.; ed. H. Begtrup; Copenhagen, 1904–9) ∙ Værker i udvalg (10 vols.; ed. G. Christensen and H. Koch; Copenhagen, 1940–49) ∙ What Constitutes Authentic Christianity? (trans. E. D. Nielsen; Philadelphia, 1985).
Secondary works: A. M. ALLCHIN, N. F. S. Grundtvig: An Introduction to His Life and Work (Århus, 1997) ∙ A. M. ALLCHIN, S. A. J. BRADLEY, N. A. HJELM, and J. H. SCHJØRRING, eds., Grundtvig in International Perspective: Studies in the Creativity of Interaction (Århus, 2000) ∙ A. M. ALLCHIN, D. JASPER, J. H. SCHJØRRING, and K. STEVENSON, eds., Heritage and Prophecy: Grundtvig and the English-Speaking World (Århus, 1994) ∙ S. M. BORISH, The Land of the Living: The Danish Folk High Schools and Denmark’s Non-violent Path to Modernization (Nevada City, Calif., 1991) ∙ N. DAVIES, Education for Life: A Danish Pioneer (London, 1931) ∙ J. KNUDSEN, Danish Rebel: A Study of N. F. S. Grundtvig (Philadelphia, 1955) ∙ H. KOCH, Grundtvig (Yellow Springs, Ohio, 1952) ∙ E. D. NIELSEN, N. F. S. Grundtvig: An American Study (Rock Island, Ill., 1955) ∙ K. THANING, N. F. S. Grundtvig (Copenhagen, 1972) ∙ C. THODBERG and A. P. THYSSEN, eds., N. F. S. Grundtvig, Tradition and Renewal: Grundtvig’s Vision of Man and People, Education and Church, in Relation to World Issues Today (Copenhagen, 1983).

THEODOR JØRGENSEN and NORMAN A. HJELM
Guatemala

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
3,964
6,917
12,222
Annual growth rate (%):
2.84
2.82
2.68
Area: 108,889 sq. km. (42,042 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 112/sq. km. (291/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 3.39 / 0.60 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 4.43 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 34 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 69.0 years (m: 66.5, f: 71.7)
Religious affiliation (%): Christians 98.0 (Roman Catholics 79.4, Protestants 17.4, unaffiliated 12.0, indigenous 9.9, marginal 2.0), nonreligious 1.0, other 1.0.

1. The Land
1.1. Geography
1.2. Population
1.3. Political Development
1.4. Economic Development
2. The Churches
2.1. Roman Catholic Church
2.2. Protestant Churches
2.3. Ecumenism
1. The Land
1.1. Geography
Among the eight nations in Central America, Guatemala is the fourth largest in area. It has a narrow access to the Caribbean and a long coastline along the Pacific. It is traversed by the Cordillera, a mountain chain that stretches from Alaska to Patagonia. Two-thirds of the country is mountainous. Along the Pacific coast there is a range of 33 partly active volcanoes. One of these, Tajumulco (4,220 m. / 13,845 ft.), is the highest mountain in Central America outside of Mexico. Several geological faults cause frequent earthquakes. To the north there is a large, flat rain-forest region, the sparsely populated Petén.
1.2. Population

In 2000 the estimated population of Guatemala made it the second most populous country in Central America (after Mexico). The capital is Guatemala City, 1,525 m. (5,000 ft.) high, with an estimated population of 2.2 million. The proportion of Indians is variously estimated at between 45 percent and 60 percent, according to whether physical features or sociocultural allegiance is emphasized. Ladinos, of mixed Indian and Spanish descent, are the second largest group (also called mestizos in other countries). Blacks, mulattoes, and whites form only a small percentage of the population. The official language is Spanish, but over 50 others are spoken, the most important being Quiché, Cakchiquel, Mam, and Kekchí. Descendants of the Maya-Quiché peoples, who live mostly in the high country of the North and West, still preserve their traditional customs.
1.3. Political Development

In the second half of the 19th century, Guatemala was opened up to outside economic interests, first from central Europe, then also from the United States. Early exports included indigo, then coffee and bananas. After 1901 the United Fruit Company was active in Guatemala. Along with its plantations it developed a railway and a harbor, key elements of the country’s transportation system. Under the dictators Manuel Estrada Cabrera (1898–1920) and Jorge Ubico (1931–44), the large plantations prospered.
After the revolution of October 20, 1944, limited reforms under the presidency of Juan José Arévalo (1945–51) led to the development of political parties, factories, agricultural diversification, and the beginnings of national industry. Further reforms came under Jacobo Arbenz (1951–54), as the privileges of landowners were reduced and agrarian reforms redistributed underutilized estates, compensating the owners. The amount of compensation for the United Fruit Company led to a dispute with the United States, whose secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, had been a legal adviser for the company. Isolation and the charge of Communism led to a coup. In July 1957 Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, with air support from the United States, ended the reforming period. Subsequently, civilian presidents drawn from the oligarchy alternated with generals, who achieved power by assassination, coups, or electoral fraud.
Guerrilla groups with close ties to Cuba started operations in the 1960s. By the eighties they had found much support among the Indians, and the military regime under General Efraín José Ríos Montt (1982–83) reacted with harsh repression. The nation returned to civilian rule in 1986 with the election of President Vinicio Cerezo (1986–90).
In 1996 President Alvaro Arzú Irigoyen concluded peace negotiations with the leftist rebels, thus ending more than 35 years of armed conflict, in which as many as 200,000 people were killed or simply disappeared. Presidential elections in 1999 were won by reform-minded Alfonso Portillo.
1.4. Economic Development

The economy of Guatemala is to a large extent dependent on expensive imports of industrial products, motor vehicles, iron and steel, and oil. Agriculture is largely oriented to exports—coffee, sugar, bananas, vegetables, flowers and plants, timber, rice, and rubber—which in 1999 represented only 55 percent of the value of the imports. There is some mining of nickel and drilling for oil, but these resources are not significant.
Though the country is rich in natural resources, → poverty is rampant. As much as 40 percent of the people are unemployed or underemployed (e.g., migrant workers on the large plantations). The result is that people leave the land and move into city slums. Illiteracy stands at around 45 percent (much higher among the Indians).
2. The Churches

Like almost all Latin American countries, Guatemala is predominantly Roman Catholic. Protestant missions, however, have been especially effective here.
2.1. Roman Catholic Church

In Guatemala the → Roman Catholic Church in 1996 had ten → dioceses, one prelature, and two vicariates apostolic. Of the 916 priests active in Guatemala in 1996, only a small minority were Guatemalan.
At the time of the Spanish conquest in 1524 (→ Colonialism), the Mayas lived in theocratically governed tribes mainly in the highlands. Agriculture and trade were well developed, although the high point of cultural development (A.D. 200–900) had passed. With the conquerors came the → Franciscans, soon after the → Dominicans and Mercedarians, and later the → Jesuits. In 1537 Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474–1566), a Dominican, launched a nonviolent missionary effort in the Province of Vera Paz. He defended the human rights of the Indians (→ Mission 3). From 1543 to 1547 Las Cases was bishop of Chiapas, which has belonged to Mexico since 1823.
From the second half of the 18th century, the colonial rule of the Spanish crown and of the Roman Catholic Church began to weaken. Political independence was declared in 1821. After 1870 conflicts increased between liberals and the church, which wanted to retain its privileges. In 1871 the archbishop and the Jesuits were expelled, and in 1879 came constitutional separation of → church and state, the dissolving of the orders, and the appropriation of church property. In 1884 a new → concordat was concluded that gave the church legal status, although tensions continued for another 50 years.
Christianity came as the religion of the conquerors (→ Colonialism and Mission), and by 1610 two-thirds of the original population had been wiped out. The few priests could not do extensive missionary work, and thus pre-Christian Mayan religious elements survived, to an increasing degree as a distinct religion, but to some extent also syncretistically. Such syncretism was helped by aspects of the Christian faith being easily integrated into Mayan religion—for example, the → cross, which might be seen as a symbol of the four quarters of heaven or the universe. Features that have been retained are the mythical understanding of nature, the land, and the harvest; ceremonies of sacrifice and prayer on the steps of the church of Santo Tomás in Chichicastenango; and veneration of the Black Christ of Esquipulas. Some elements of older traditions have gained new vitality in the → base communities.
Inspired by → Vatican II and the second → Latin American Bishops’ Conference (at Medellín in 1968), Roman Catholics have engaged in → Catholic Action, in base communities, and in social projects. Bible study in basic groups led by → catechists (→ Catechesis) has had a formative effect (→ Biblical Theology 2.5). Sociopolitical clashes between various interest groups culminated in 1978–83 in civil disorders, which included military repression, death squads, popular resistance, and guerrilla fighting. Persecution and massacres (→ Persecutions of Christians 4.2) forced many Christians underground or into armed conflict. From 1976 to 1983, a total of 13 priests were murdered, and another 5 disappeared.
Since 1990 the number of Catholics in Guatemala has remained steady or actually declined. One factor has been the disciplining of the large charismatic renewal movement, which has led many Catholic charismatics to join evangelical churches of Pentecostal persuasion.
2.2. Protestant Churches

According to the Alianza Evangélica de Guatemala (Evangelical Alliance of Guatemala), there were 318,000 active, baptized members of Protestant churches in 1980 (about 5 percent of the population). In 2000 the number of Guatemalans who regard themselves as evangélico was estimated to be as high as 30 percent. Strongest are the → Pentecostal churches (some two-thirds of all evangelicals and growing). Other groups include the Evangelical Church of Central America, → Adventists, Christian Brethren, → Baptists, and Presbyterians (→ Reformed and Presbyterian Churches).
Protestant work began in 1824, when English merchants distributed Bibles and tracts. The Anglican F. Crowe started educational work in 1845, but the next year the Roman Catholic archbishop secured his expulsion. With the rise of the liberal anti-Catholic movement, Protestantism gained influence in Guatemala. The first Protestant missionary from the United States (John Hill, a Presbyterian) came to Guatemala in 1882 at the express invitation of President Justo Rufino Barrios, who gave the Presbyterians land adjacent to the national palace for a church building. After 1900 other missions from the United States started work (→ North American Missions): the Central American Mission (Congregationalists from Texas), the Society of Friends and the → Nazarenes (both from California), and the Primitive Methodists (from Pennsylvania). The Synod of the Evangelical Church of Guatemala was founded in 1935, but only as a vehicle of cooperation. It was renamed the Evangelical Alliance in 1951. Between 1931 and 1938 the NT was translated into the four most important Indian languages (→ Bible Versions), and in 1978 the → Bible Society of Guatemala came into being.
Guatemala was the birthplace of the Theological Education by Extension (TEE) movement, which was launched in 1963. Also it was the site of the Bible translation and “people movement” emphasis generated during the 1930s by William Cameron Townsend (1896–1982), founder of the Wycliffe Bible Translators. These two thrusts have reverberated throughout the global missions movement.
The period of Protestant work in Guatemala has been divided into founding (1882–1923, with about 5,000 members), spread (1923–44, up to 15,000 members), and explosion (1944 to the present, with numbers in the millions). Different reasons are given for this significant growth: the work of the → Holy Spirit (as the movement understands itself), the contrast to a weak → Catholicism and the combination of → millennial elements with the striving for social betterment. A special impact was made by North American → evangelical missions with a → fundamentalist and anti-Communist thrust. The aim of making Guatemala the first Latin American country with a Protestant majority was supported by the coup that made Ríos Montt the first Protestant president in 1982. He had been converted through the El Verbo denomination in 1978. He was replaced by another coup, however, 16 months later. A papal visit in March 1983 was in part a reaction to radical evangelical mission.
2.3. Ecumenism

Little ecumenical cooperation is evident in Guatemala, as the interdenominational climate is marked by competition and hostility. Among themselves, the evangelical denominations have cooperated in major united → evangelism efforts, such as Evangelism in Depth (1960s) and the movement Discipling a Whole Nation (DAWN, 1980s). They also work together in the Protestant university Mariano Gálvez and in Protestant schools and hospitals.
The Protestant churches have not joined the → World Council of Churches or the → Latin America Council of Churches (CLAI). Some belong to the Latin American Evangelical Fellowship (CONELA; → World Evangelical Fellowship). A few congregations or groups also engage in some common projects with the World Council of Churches or its member churches. After 1980 the work for human → rights done by the Comité Pro Justicia y Paz de Guatemala was represented abroad by the → liberation theologian Julia Esquivél, living in exile in Switzerland.

Bibliography: C. ALVAREZ, People of Hope: The Protestant Movement in Central America (New York, 1990) ∙ P. BERRYMAN, Stubborn Hope: Religion, Politics, and Revolution in Central America (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1994) ∙ B. DÍAZ DEL CASTILLO, The Conquest of New Spain (trans. M. Cohen; Baltimore, 1963; orig. pub., 1632) ∙ J. ESQUIVÉL, Paradies und Babylon (Wuppertal, 1985) ∙ Guatemala, Never Again! [official report of the Human Rights Office, Archdiocese of Guatemala] (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1999) ∙ S. JONAS, Of Centaurs and Doves: Guatemala’s Peace Process (Boulder, Colo., 1999) ∙ B. DE LAS CASAS, History of the Indies (trans. A. Collard; New York, 1971) ∙ D. M. NELSON, A Finger in the Wound: Body Politics in Quincentennial Guatemala (Berkeley, Calif., 1999) ∙ S. C. SCHLESINGER and S. KINZER, Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (New York, 1982) ∙ D. SULLIVAN-GONZÁLEZ, Piety, Power, and Politics: Religion and Nation Formation in Guatemala, 1821–1871 (Pittsburgh, 1998).

BRANKO NIKOLITSCH and EKKEHARD ZIPSER
Guest Workers → Foreigners, Aliens
Guilt

1. Definition and Phenomenon
2. Theological Aspects
3. In Religious History
4. Philosophical Aspects
5. Psychological Aspects
6. Legal Aspects
7. Theological Demarcation
1. Definition and Phenomenon

Guilt is to be understood in relation to the violation of a fixed → norm or ideal, or to the failure to live up to it. It presupposes some authority that calls us to account, such as → God, → reason, → nature, or human law (→ Rights, Human and Civil). In content it is hard to distinguish among criminal, political, moral, metaphysical, and religious guilt. Today guilt is also felt in geoeconomic, ecological, social, and technological matters.
2. Theological Aspects

In the Bible it is hard to differentiate guilt from → sin (§§1, 2; see Luke 15:18; 18:13). Guilt stresses the individual aspect more strongly; in sin we see a more generalizing trend.
In → Augustine (354–430; → Augustine’s Theology) the understanding of sin as pride, self-love, and concupiscence emphasizes the element of guilt in sin. The teaching of the → Reformers defines → sin (§3) in terms of a basically perverted orientation in relation to God. The Reformers questioned the classifying of sins as mortal, cardinal, and venial. In distinction from → Scholasticism, they viewed original sin as real guilt along the lines of radical or essential sin. Actual sins result from it. In this context the → justification of sinners (Romans 1–3) is solely a work of divine → grace in Christ that overcomes the power of sin (Romans 6) and brings → reconciliation to God (2 Cor. 5:18–21), thus eliminating guilt.
In the post-Reformation era an ethical view of sin developed (→ Ethics 4.2) that was described in terms of → anthropology (§3.2). → Pietism ran the risk of trying to explain sin psychologically and to overcome it almost along perfectionist lines.
3. In Religious History

In the history of religion guilt involves the breaking of a God-given → taboo or the violating of a divinely given social order. It has cultic and ethical aspects; attempts are made to → atone for it by various expiatory acts.
4. Philosophical Aspects

In the ancient Greek and Roman world, guilt arose from the breaking of laws that it was the task of the → state to enforce. On the scholastic view (→ Thomas Aquinas; → Thomism) guilt results from disobeying the → conscience as the voice of God, and it is meant to lead to → repentance (→ Trent, Council of). For I. Kant (1724–1804; → Kantianism) guilt arises out of a deficient sense of → responsibility before “the voice of the inner judge.”
In the → Enlightenment and the → modern period, however, increasing questions have been put to the concept of guilt. Often we can no longer say clearly what guilt is, for there is a conflict between obedience to → authority and preserving our → human dignity. Radically causal thinking also probes into the origin of guilty behavior. Evolutionary thought (→ Evolution) and sociological determinism argue that the concept is merely a social product. Theorems that claim to unmask guilt (K. → Marx, F. → Nietzsche, S. Freud) raise the issue of a morality without guilt. Behavioral research, social philosophy (→ Critical Theory 2.1), and → sociology note the close connections that guilt has with both inborn impulses and social influences (A. Plack, K. Z. Lorenz, H. Marcuse).
The modern age has seen the development of the concept of an individual experience and assigning of guilt (W. Oelmuller). To the fore is discussion of tendencies to eliminate guilt (B. F. Skinner, N. Luhmann, G. Kaufmann) or to restrict it to actions in intrapersonal relations and social institutions for which we know we are responsible (Oelmüller). Since what we do affects all humanity (→ Action Theory 3), we need a broader sense of guilt, an ethic for the age of → science (K. O. Apel), and an orientation to the principle of responsibility (M. Jonas) that embraces humanity and → nature.
5. Psychological Aspects

Various schools of psychology—behaviorist, developmental (J. Piaget), structuralist (R. Wellek), and psychoanalytic (Freud, C. G. Jung, A. Adler)—have addressed the problem of guilt (→ Psychology 4; Development 2; Sin 4; Behavior, Behavioral Psychology). → Psychoanalysis suggests a close relation between feelings of guilt and the emergence of the superego. According to Freud (1856–1939), the social feeling of guilt associated with the conscience (as it feels guilty for breaking a taboo) is followed by the feeling of guilt resulting from the inner conflict between the superego and those impulses opposed to it. Jung (1875–1961) argued that guilt occurs when the voice of conscience, not the same as the superego (E. Fromm), is not followed as the voice of the → self, and thus the path of individuation that it indicates is not taken (→ Development 2). Under the influence of M. Heidegger (1889–1976; → Existential Philosophy), an anthropological psychiatry and psychotherapy developed (W. von Siebenthal, G. Condrau) that viewed psychological sickness as a form of defective existence, defined as a flight from the personal → conscience (§2.4).
Disruption of spiritual development can involve the suppression of guilt feelings and the denying of guilt in principle. Relief might be sought in projection, excessive → narcissism, intellectualizing, anonymity, depersonalizing, identification with a collective, or expiatory acts. In such approaches, however, real dealing with the phenomenon is hardly possible (H. Häfner, L. Wurmser).
Pathological guilt feelings are often part of misguided efforts to subject the ego to excessive demands of the superego. The result may be neuroses or → psychoses, with a domination by either compulsion or melancholy (Freud, Häfner, Wurmser).
Psychotherapy tries to distinguish between psychologically analyzable feelings of guilt and real guilt. It aims to identify elements of the personality that have been harmed and deformed by overly strict superego structures, freeing them from automatic impulses, and promoting responsibility and a true sense of guilt. Somatic therapy may be needed in the case of psychotic guilt feelings.
6. Legal Aspects

Legally we must differentiate guilt in civil law from guilt in criminal law. Penalties (→ Punishment 1) still rest on the principle of guilt but now aim more at prevention. No consensus exists regarding the nature and content of guilt. Empirically and pragmatically it is defined as failure to live up to the standards of conduct expected of ordinary citizens (H. L. Schreiber). Legislators presume that we are responsible for our acts and thus that we enjoy ethical and legal → freedom.
Legal systems allow that there may be diminished guilt or no real guilt at all in cases of mental or emotional disturbance, weakness of mind, or other psychological impairment. Such conclusions require evaluation of the psychological state, personality, motivation, situation, and biographical development.
7. Theological Demarcation

The humanities can bring to light pathological guilt feelings, a defective sense of guilt, or special circumstances. Such insights are important, and in both → proclamation and → pastoral care we need to use them relative to various presuppositions and situations of → suffering. Even if one understands sin as the essential conduct human beings display toward God, as conduct completely shaped and determined by the power of sin and by the accompanying sense of guilt, one still cannot reduce sin simply to psychological or moral concepts and terminology. We must differentiate the moral view of guilt, that of autonomous persons, from the theological concept of sin. We cannot define sin solely on the basis of a phenomenology of guilt. We can know it truly only as we hear the → Word of God. Knowledge of sin comes only in → faith and is the work of divine → grace. Sin manifests itself as lack of faith (Rom. 14:23) and failure to meet the claim of God’s love (Matt. 5:43–48). In → forgiveness (Matt. 6:12) the gift of new life in fellowship with Christ is conferred (Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 5:17). Sin, which is a false orientation of human life that has lost contact with God, can be forgiven only with restoration of fellowship with God.
The decisive point is the distinction between guilty conduct, which can be analyzed and clarified and perhaps corrected, and sin, which needs forgiveness. Involved is a new ability to distinguish between wickedness and evil (C. Gestrich). Wickedness must be forgiven, but in all spheres of human life there are also evils that can be tackled and perhaps set aside by human efforts in → counseling, psychotherapy, and involvement in the struggle for justice, → freedom, and the responsible handling of → science and → technology.
→ Ego Psychology; Humanistic Psychology; Identity; Pastoral Psychology; Psychology of Religion; Shame

Bibliography: B. BRON, “Schuld und Freiheit-psychiatrisch-psychotherapeutische und anthropologische Aspekte,” Psychotherapie, Psychosomatik, medizinische Psychologie 40 (1990) 480–87 ∙ G. CONDRAU, Angst und Schuld als Grundprobleme der Psychotherapie (Bern, 1962) ∙ S. FREUD, “Trauer und Melancholie” (1917), Gesammelte Werke (London, 1946) 10.428–46 ∙ C. GESTRICH, The Return of Splendor in the World: The Christian Doctrine of Sin and Forgiveness (Grand Rapids, 1997) ∙ H. HÄFNER, Schulderleben und Gewissen (Stuttgart, 1956) ∙ M. HEIDEGGER, Being and Time (Albany, N.Y., 1996; orig. pub., 1927) ∙ K. JASPERS, The Question of German Guilt (New York, 1961; orig. pub., 1946) ∙ G. KAUFMANN, ed., Schulderfahrung und Schuldbewältigung. Christen im Umgang mit der Schuld (Paderborn, 1982) ∙ H. S. KUSHNER, How Good Do We Have to Be? A New Understanding of Guilt and Forgiveness (Boston, 1996) ∙ A. P. MORRISON, The Culture of Shame (New York, 1996) ∙ W. OELMÜLLER, “Schwierigkeiten mit dem Schuldbegriff,” Schuld und Verantwortung (ed. H. M. Baumgartner and A. Eser; Tübingen, 1983) 9–30 ∙ H.-L. SCHREIBER, “Was heißt strafrechtliche Schuld und wie kann die Psychiater bei ihrer Feststellung mitwirken?” Nervenarzt 48 (1977) 242–47 ∙ W. VON SIEBENTHAL, Schuldgefühl und Schuld bei psychiatrischen Erkrankungen (Zurich, 1956) ∙ P. TOURNIER, Guilt and Grace: A Psychological Study (New York, 1962) ∙ A. VERGOTE, Guilt and Desire: Religious Attitudes and Their Pathological Derivatives (New Haven, 1988) ∙ M. WESTPHAL, God, Guilt, and Death: An Existential Phenomenology of Religion (Bloomington, Ind., 1984) ∙ L. WURMSER, The Mask of Shame (Baltimore, 1981).

BERNHARD BRON
Guinea

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
3,136
4,461
7,861
Annual growth rate (%):
2.13
2.23
2.86
Area: 245,857 sq. km. (94,926 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 32/sq. km. (83/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 4.53 / 1.65 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 6.07 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 114 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 48.5 years (m: 48.0, f: 49.0)
Religious affiliation (%): Muslims 67.4, tribal religionists 28.0, Christians 4.4 (unaffiliated 1.8, Roman Catholics 1.3, other Christians 1.3), other 0.2.

1. General Situation
2. Religious Situation
1. General Situation

The Republic of Guinea, on the west coast of Africa, was a French colony from 1904 until it gained independence in 1958 under the leadership of the Parti Démocratique de Guinée, the Guinea branch of the Reassemblement Démocratique Africaine (→ Colonialism). The constitution of 1958 declared Guinea a secular state, with equal rights guaranteed to all citizens, regardless of religion (art. 39). The independence struggle was led by Sékou Touré, who in 1952 became the party’s secretary-general. Although a potentially rich country with abundant land, rich soil, plenty of water and sunshine, and abundant mineral resources (esp. gold, diamonds, bauxite, and rubber), francophone Guinea has been poor. In 1998 the per capita gross domestic product was estimated at only $1,180; furthermore, the country has great imbalance in its distribution of wealth, poor medical development, and a literacy rate of only 36 percent (1995 est.).
Part of Guinea’s difficult situation results from the corruption and mismanagement of the country’s affairs by its first president, Sékou Touré (1958–84). After breaking with the French community in 1958, even though the French maintained their interests and investment, he adopted → socialism as the ideology of the state and, in consequence of that decision, forged links with the Eastern bloc. Curiously, he also maintained economic links with North America, especially with its bauxite industry. The economic sector of Guinea was subjected to state control and collectivization. Any criticism of government policy was met with violence and incarceration. In light of this situation, many went into exile.
The collapse of the economy and the abuse of human → rights led the army under Colonel Lansana Conté to stage a coup d’état in 1984, just days after the death of Sékou Touré. The ensuing military government, led by military officers, lasted until 1993, when Lansana Conté changed hats to head a civilian government, leading the Parti de l’Unité et du Progrès. Under this dispensation there was political reform and a legalization of political parties, which were most often ethnic parties.
2. Religious Situation

African religion has been the traditional religion of Guinea from time immemorial. It evolved without a founder and developed strong roots in Guinea as in other African countries (→ Tribal Religions). It acknowledges God as Creator and Sustainer of all things. Each African people or language has a name for God, such as Hala (Kissi), Hununga (Tenda), and Gala, Guele, and Jalang (Malinke). Prayers are usually made to God. People believe that life continues after death, and the spirits of the dead are said to be in close contact with their families for up to four or five generations (→ Ancestor Worship). Communal shrines are important centers of such religious activities as → prayer, → sacrifice, rituals, and festivals. → Priests and priestesses are responsible for communal religious activities and sacred places. African traditional religion permeates all life and culture; it has been the country’s cultural solvent, making it difficult, if not impossible, to draw a division between sacred and secular realms of life.
Guinea is a predominantly Muslim country, with → Islam claiming the vast majority of the population. Tribal religionists represent the second largest number of adherents, with only a small minority claiming to be Christians. A Muslim holy war (jihād) was proclaimed in 1725, initiating the process of Islamization among the indigenous peoples.
Christianity came to Guinea with the Portuguese in 1462 during the reign of King John II. From 1481, largely in connection with the establishment of trading ports along the West African coast, he pursued a policy of using the influence of African rulers to advance the cause of Christianity. Those earliest attempts at → evangelism, led by Capuchin monks, did not, however, yield much fruit. Much later, in 1877, the Holy Ghost Fathers resumed this mission, which yielded results, even though it encountered stiff Muslim opposition.
The → Christian and Missionary Alliance came from the United States to Boro in the Niger Valley in 1918. The Église Évangélique Protestante, a grouping of Protestant denominations and the Church of the Province of West Africa (Anglican), is also present. Radio ELWA, an organ of the SIM mission (→ Evangelical Missions) broadcasting from Ivory Coast, carries regular programs of Christian teaching and preaching in local languages.
The Christian presence in Guinea is small, virtually lost in a sea of Islam. Of the Christian population, the → Roman Catholics are predominant, with a large number of unaffiliated. Its first African archbishop, Raymond Tchidimbo, was consecrated in 1962; later he suffered a period of imprisonment (1970–79; → Persecution of Christians). In 1967 all foreign missionaries were expelled except 11 from the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Even African priests and pastors from other African countries were expatriated. There are no independent churches. Although there is no ecumenical council, the church is gradually assuming a significant role in the country.

Bibliography: L. ADAMOLEKUM, Sékou Touré’s Guinea (London, 1976) ∙ J. ARULPRAGASAM, Economic Transition in Guinea: Implications for Growth and Poverty (New York, 1997) ∙ M. A. KLEIN, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa (New York, 1998) ∙ T. E. O’TOOLE, Historical Dictionary of Guinea (Metuchen, N.J., 1995) ∙ L. SANNEH, Piety and Power: Muslims and Christians in West Africa (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1996).

JOHN MBITI
Guinea-Bissau

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
542
795
1,180
Annual growth rate (%):
–0.68
1.87
1.98
Area: 36,125 sq. km. (13,948 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 33/sq. km. (85/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 3.89 / 1.91 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 5.05 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 123 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 45.3 years (m: 43.8, f: 46.8)
Religious affiliation (%): tribal religionists 45.5, Muslims 41.6, Christians 11.1 (Roman Catholics 8.1, indigenous 2.9, Protestants 1.1, other Christians 0.3), nonreligious 1.6, other 0.2.

1. General Situation
2. Religious Situation
1. General Situation

Guinea-Bissau, a republic on the west coast of Africa, is bounded to the west and south by the Atlantic Ocean, by Senegal to the north, and by Guinea to the east and south. This small country contains over 27 ethnic groups speaking 22 languages. The official language is Portuguese, and Creole is the language of trade.
Guinea-Bissau’s first encounters with Europe came when Portuguese traders arrived in 1446 and → Roman Catholic → missionaries followed in 1462. More striking was the → slave trade, which the Portuguese carried out in the 17th century. In 1879 Guinea-Bissau become a Portuguese colony (→ Colonialism).
In that period there was a rather ambivalent relationship between Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands, lying 620 km. (385 mi.) off the coast of West Africa. Between 1446 and 1870 the Portuguese ruled as a dependency of Cape Verde. Consequently, the mixed settlers (mestiço) from Cape Verde and their descendants in Guinea-Bissau constituted a privileged class that controlled all trade. This history explains the rather frosty subsequent relationship between Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, a growing enmity that came to its culmination in the coup d’état of 1980 and the subsequent suspension of all plans for unification of the two countries. Relations thus reverted to the situation at independence, when the two were governed as nonaligned socialist states under the African Independence Party of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC).
The story of Guinea-Bissau is often remembered because of the 11-year people’s war (1962–73) under the leadership of the celebrated socialist theoretician Amílcar Cabral, which culminated in the independence of Guinea-Bissau in 1974. That war was costly and ruined the country. The leader of the war of independence died just at independence, and Luiz Cabral became head of a civilian government (1974–80). The military government that seized power in 1980, led by João Bernard Vieira, was socialist. As avowed socialists, the leaders were initially oriented toward the socialist countries of Eastern Europe.
Guinea-Bissau changed its constitution in 1984, and there were further revisions in 1991 and 1993. The last constitution contained provisions for multiparty democracy. In the meantime the country, in bondage to rigid and blind ideology, was reduced to poverty. The gross domestic product was estimated at $1,000 per capita in 1998. Compounding the plight of the country, there was a civil war in 1999, which led to the flight of Vieira.
2. Religious Situation

In spite of the avowal of → socialism, religion has continued. The Sunni tradition of → Islam is represented among the peoples of the east and south, especially the Soninke, Susu, Jola, and Fula. In the 1973 state constitution, and in subsequent revisions, all persons are recognized as equal before the law and possessing religious liberty.
The first to bring Christianity to the area were Roman Catholic → Franciscans, who arrived in 1462. In 1532 the diocese of St. James of Cape Verde was created, and it was given responsibility for doing missionary work on the mainland. The → Jesuits joined in this mission. → Evangelism, however, was slow. With the 1940 concordat between the Holy See and Portugal, Guinea-Bissau became a mission independent of Cape Verde. In 1955 it became a prefecture apostolic, in 1977 a diocese.
On the Protestant side, the World Evangelical Crusade came to Guinea-Bissau in 1939. Its work continues in the Evangelical Church of Guinea-Bissau, the largest Protestant group. The Church of the Province of West Africa’s Diocese of the Gambia (Anglican) also has a small community.
The civil war of 1999 destroyed much of the work of the missions in the interior, forcing the workers to retreat to the western part of Guinea-Bissau. The complete Bible has been translated into one indigenous language, the NT into three languages, and other portions of Scripture into four additional languages (→ Bible Versions). There is no central or ecumenical organization of churches in the country.

Bibliography: M. DHADA, Warriors at Work: How Guinea Was Really Set Free (Niwot, Colo., 1993) ∙ J. B. FORREST, Guinea-Bissau: Power, Conflict, and Renewal in a West African Nation (Boulder, Colo., 1992) ∙ R. E. GALLI and L. J. JONES, Guinea-Bissau: Politics, Economics, and Society (London, 1987) ∙ R. LOBBAN and J. FORREST, Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau (Metuchen, N.J., 1988) ∙ C. LOPES, Guinea Bissau, from Liberation Struggle to Independent Statehood (Boulder, Colo., 1987) ∙ S. URDANG, Fighting Two Colonialisms: Women in Guinea-Bissau (New York, 1979).

JOHN S. POBEE

Guru Movement → Ānanda Mārga; Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh; Divine Light Mission; Krishna Consciousness, International Society for; Transcendental Meditation
Guyana

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
569
759
874
Annual growth rate (%):
2.52
0.87
0.98
Area: 215,083 sq. km. (83,044 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 4/sq. km. (11/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 1.88 / 0.70 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 2.10 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 52 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 66.2 years (m: 63.1, f: 69.4)
Religious affiliation (%): Christians 51.3 (Protestants 22.6, Roman Catholics 9.5, Anglicans 7.8, unaffiliated 6.0, indigenous 3.3, Orthodox 1.1, marginal 1.0), Hindus 32.4, Muslims 8.0, tribal religionists 2.1, Baha’is 2.0, spiritists 1.7, non-religious 1.5, other 1.1.

1. History, Society, Economy, and State
2. Churches
3. Church and State
4. Non-Christian Religions and Cults
1. History, Society, Economy, and State

Guyana (officially The Co-operative Republic of Guyana), on the north coast of South America, is the only English-speaking country in the continent. Its capital is Georgetown, which in 1995 had an estimated population of 254,000.
European settlement began in 1616–21 with the arrival of the Dutch West India Company. England took possession for the first time in 1796 but then returned the land to Holland in 1802. In 1814 it was partitioned among contending powers, with a commission awarding one part to Britain and the rest to the Netherlands (present-day Suriname) and France (Cayenne, in French Guiana).
By 1830 over 100,000 black slaves had been shipped to Guyana to work on the plantations. Following the abolition of → slavery in 1834, the blacks spread out over Guyana, some of them becoming small landowners. The plantation owners now had to look for other sources of labor, a need filled by Indians from India, a smaller number of Chinese, and also Portuguese from the Azores and Madeira. Up to 1917 some 239,000 workers had come from India alone. Though 76,000 (32 percent) returned home when their contracts expired, by 1949 the number of Indians in Guyana had risen to 185,000 (out of a total population of 460,000).
This complex history of settlement has produced a population that is greatly divided racially. In the interior are Amerindians (6.8 percent in 1992–93), mostly Caribs and Arawaks. On the coast we find Indians (49.4 percent), the descendants of the slaves and the so-called Bush Negroes (i.e., descendants of those who fled from the plantations into the interior, 35.6 percent), mixed (7.1 percent), Europeans (mostly of Portuguese descent, 0.7 percent), and Chinese (0.4 percent).
After 1949 the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), under the leadership of Cheddi Jagan, fought for self-government and social revolution. Britain granted a constitution in 1953, and independence in internal affairs began in 1961 with a PPP government under a British governor. Violent unrest in 1962–64 brought elections in 1964 by proportional representation, which enabled the two opposition parties, the People’s National Congress (PNC) and the United Force, to form a coalition government with Forbes Burnham (PNC) as prime minister. In 1966 Guyana became an independent member of the Commonwealth. In 1970 a republic was proclaimed with Raymond Arthur Chung as the first president and Burnham as prime minister. Burnham, who enjoyed American aid and had campaigned on a strict anti-Communist line, quickly emerged as a reformist who entered into diplomatic relations with states in the socialist camp, adopted a policy of cooperatives, and, following a referendum in 1978, pushed through a constitution in 1980 that declared Guyana to be a “cooperative republic … in transition from capitalism to socialism.” Under this constitution, Burnham became executive president with considerably expanded power.
In the 1970s key industries were nationalized with the help of advisers from Cuba, China, and East Germany. Nevertheless, Guyana remained in the international organizations of the West. Strong tensions between Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese caused constant political instability. A sharp rise in population and rapid urbanization created severe social and economic problems for the new state, in which there have been no local elections since 1970. The large-scale abandonment of cooperatives and a fall in world prices of sugar and bauxite, which with rice are Guyana’s main exports, led to a steady worsening of the economic situation after 1978, exacerbated by a serious brain drain. In 1982 the currency reserves were completely exhausted, which left Guyana able only to barter.
When Forbes Burnham died in 1985, his successor, Desmond Hoyte, tried to follow a neutral line, avoiding anti-American rhetoric in order to draw closer to the West and also improving conditions in the private sector so as to attract investment and secure credits for the large foreign debt, which is three times the gross national product. The later, general collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union allayed United States’ fears of a possible leftist regime in Guyana, with the result that in 1992 it supported free and fair elections, from which the Marxist-Leninist Cheddi Jagan (PPP/Civic), the representative of the largely rural Indo-Guyanese, emerged victoriously as the third president.
With a per capita income of $330/year and a national debt that consumes 90 percent of the country’s income, this impoverished country finds itself in an almost hopeless situation. The Bretton Woods Reform Organization developed an alternative program for “structural accommodation” in 1995. After Jagan’s death in March 1997, however, the implementation of this program seemed increasingly doubtful. Jagan’s widow, the 77-year-old Janet Jagan, won the subsequent, well-organized election, in the face of which former president Desmond Hoyte (PNC) announced that he would do everything in his power to “make the country ungovernable.” Even though Janet Jagan has long been politically active, the fact that her origins were in a U.S. Jewish-American family suffices for many Afro-Guyanese to consider her unqualified. As the representative of the largely urban Afro-Guyanese, the PNC controlled the government between 1964 and 1992 by means of election fraud and is now having a difficult time giving up power. Ethnic tensions also contribute to making any genuinely rational policy-making impossible.
2. Churches

Capuchins began missionary work in 1657 (→ Catholic Missions). In the colonial era there was little penetration into the interior and only superficial work among some of the Amerindians, much of which was reversed under the Dutch. The → Moravians began work in the Dutch period, but this work suffered serious setbacks after a rebellion by blacks in 1763; by 1962 the Moravians counted less than 3,000 members. In 1743 Dutch settlers founded a Lutheran congregation that, at the beginning of the 20th century, received help from the United States. By 1999, as the Lutheran Church in Guyana, it had grown to 11,000 members. After 1766 Scottish settlers started what is now the Presbytery of Guyana. Anglicans began work in 1826 with the help of British missionary societies (→ British Missions). In 1842 an independent diocese was founded under William Pierce Austin, who worked there for 50 years and became primate of the West Indies Church. The Anglicans and Scottish Presbyterians both enjoyed state recognition, but the former were more active. The Anglican Church numbered 76,000 members by 1900, or about one-quarter of the population; by 2000 its percentage of the total population had shrunk dramatically.
The → Roman Catholic Church, which at first recruited mainly from the Portuguese section, by 1985 had become larger than the Anglican Church and is today the largest church body in the country. The first Roman Catholic priest of recent times came in 1826, a vicariate apostolic was established in 1837, and later a diocese. Of the 78 priests in 1971, however, only 15 were born in Guyana. In 1967 the church was made up of 60 percent Afro-Americans, 20 percent Amerindians, 5 percent Portuguese, and 15 percent Indians, Chinese, and non-Portuguese Europeans.
The Methodists (→ Methodist Churches) began work among blacks in 1892. They enjoyed success among freed slaves who had come from the island of Nevis, but they also numbered some 5,600 Hindus. After the abolition of slavery in 1834, the planters and the government took a more favorable view of work among blacks, subsidizing education and even encouraging the missionaries to give religious instruction. By the end of the 19th century not only the descendants of Europeans but most of the blacks and Chinese were Christians.
Beginning in 1887 the Seventh-day → Adventists and the → Salvation Army established a presence in Guyana. Other Christian groups came after World War II, including the Southern → Baptists, Baptist Mid-Missions, Pentecostals (→ Pentecostal Churches), three → Churches of God, Assemblies of God, and Congregationalists (→ Congregationalism). The Unevangelized Fields Mission works among various Indian tribes close to the Brazilian border. National churches began to form in the 19th century, such as the Hallelujah Church, an Amerindian prophetic movement that attempts a synthesis of Amerindian religion and Christianity, and, in the 1920s, the Jordanites. Several African American denominations from the United States are active among Afro-Guyanese, including the African Methodist Episcopal and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches.
In 1937 an Anglican layman founded the Christian Social Council, which included Roman Catholics and Protestants. In 1967 this group merged with the Evangelical Council (which had been established in 1960) to form the present Guyana Council of Churches. The council includes the 2 U.S.-based black churches, plus 13 others, and is organized in four autonomous regional councils. In cooperation with government departments it maintains the Davis Rose Centre, a self-help project, in the poorest parts of Georgetown. The member churches cover five different strata of the population, with seven of the churches serving mainly Afro-Guyanese, and two mainly Indo-Guyanese.
3. Church and State

The preamble to the Guyanese constitution of 1966 declares that the people of Guyana find in the worship of the deity “the basis of freedom, justice, and peace in society.” → Religious liberty is guaranteed (→ Church and State). In September 1976 the Christian Social Council mounted vigorous protests against the nationalizing of schools, which were then almost all church schools.
The Roman Catholic and Anglican bishops met with leaders of the opposition and expressed their deep disillusionment over the elections of 1985. The result was an attack on the churches by the controlled press, searches of the residences of the bishops and Moravian leaders for weapons, the banning of English Jesuits, and the intimidation of other clergy—all of which led to a visit by a delegation of Caribbean archbishops in December 1986. When Anthony Dickson, the Roman Catholic bishop of Barbados, was detained for 17 hours at the airport and then expelled from the country, protests arose from statesmen of the Caribbean Community (Caricom).
4. Non-Christian Religions and Cults

In November 1978 the mass suicide-execution of 911 members of the U.S. People’s Temple sect in Jonestown captured international headlines.
About one-third of the people of Guyana (some 70 percent of the Indo-Guyanese) are → Hindus, whose organizations range from the American Aryan League, representing reformed Hinduism, to the traditionalist Hindu Orthodox Guyana Sanathan Maha Sabba.
Another 9 percent overall are Muslims, but 18 percent of the Indo-Guyanese people, especially those engaged in agriculture, adhere to → Islam. Some are orthodox Sunnites (→ Sunna), and others belong to heterodox Aḥmadīya sects.
Finally, 4 percent of the people, largely Tarumas and Arawaks, follow Amerindian religions or are adherents of the → voodoo cult (mostly persons of Afro-Guyanese descent; → Afro-American Cults), though at the same time maintaining a nominal identity as Christians. Only a few Afro-Guyanese have adopted Hinduism or Islam.

Bibliography: C. BARBER and H. JEFFREY, Guyana: Politics, Economics, and Society (London, 1985) ∙ P. BEATTY JR., A History of the Lutheran Church in Guyana (South Pasadena, Calif., 1972) ∙ A. J. BUTT, “The Birth of a Religion: The Origins of Hallelujah, the Semi-Christian Religion of the Carib-Speaking People of the Borderlands of British Guayana, Venezuela, and Brazil,” Time, September 1959, 37–48 ∙ M. COLCHESTER, Guyana: Fragile Frontier. Loggers, Miners, and Forest Peoples (London, 1997) ∙ K. S. LATOURETTE, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, vol. 5, The Great Century in the Americas, Australia, and Africa, A.D. 1800-A.D. 1914 (London, 1945) ∙ T. MERRILL, ed., Guyana and Belize: Country Studies (Washington, D.C., 1993) ∙ R. PRICE, The Guiana Maroons: A Historical and Bibliographical Introduction (Baltimore, 1976) ∙ C. SEECHARAN, Tiger in the Stars: The Anatomy of Indian Achievement in British Guiana, 1919–29 (London, 1997) ∙ A. THOMPSON, Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Guyana, 1580–1803 (Bridgetown, Barbados, 1987).

HANS-JÜRGEN PRIEN and WINSTON D. PERSAUD
Gypsies → Roma

H
Habakkuk, Book of

The Book of Habakkuk has a liturgical form. A complaint by the prophet in 1:2–4 is followed by God’s reply (vv. 5–11), which announces the coming of the Chaldeans (v. 6). When the prophet objects (vv. 12–17), Yahweh gives a fresh answer (2:1–5), to which a series of woes is appended (6–20). Chap. 3 contains a prayer, the heart of which is the depiction of a → theophany. This chapter is structured in such a way that it can be used in → worship.
The presence of social criticism, which in the present context is directed at international events and especially at the Babylonians, creates something of a discrepancy, which has led some scholars to postulate a process of redaction. Habakkuk was supposedly a prophet of judgment who addressed domestic evils (the oppression of the weak and the perversion of justice) and expected divine punishment at the hands of the Babylonians. During the exile, however, redactors turned the threat of judgment against the Babylonians and gave the book its liturgical form (J. Jeremias, cf. E. Otto).
Little is known about the person of Habakkuk. He was presumably a cult prophet at the Jerusalem → temple at the time of early Babylonian expansion, perhaps after the battle of Carchemish (605 B.C.) and certainly before the first capture of Jerusalem (597). His sayings were probably handed down and edited in prophetic circles.
The earliest exposition of Habakkuk is the Qumran commentary 1QpHab, which deals only with the first two chapters and relates the text to contemporary events.
→ Prophet, Prophecy

Bibliography: Commentaries: K. L. BARKER, W. BAILEY, and D. W. BAILEY (NAC; Nashville, 1997) ∙ A. DEISSLER (NEchtB; Würzburg, 1984) ∙ K. ELLIGER (ATD; 8th ed.; Göttingen, 1982) ∙ J. J. M. ROBERTS (OTL; Philadelphia, 1991) ∙ O. P. ROBINSON (NICOT; Grand Rapids, 1990) ∙ K. SEYBOLD (ZBK; Zurich, 1991) ∙ R. L. SMITH (WBC; Dallas, 1984).
Other works: J. JEREMIAS, Kultprophetie und Gerichtsverkündigung in der späten Königszeit Israels (Neukirchen, 1970) ∙ E. LOHSE, ed., Die Texte aus Qumran (3d ed.; Darmstadt, 1981) ∙ E. OTTO, “Habakuk / Habakukbuch,” TRE 14.300–306 (bibliography) ∙ M. A. SWEENEY, “Habakkuk, Book of,” ABD 3.1–6 (bibliography) ∙ A. VAN DER WAL, Nahum, Habakkuk: A Classified Bibliography (Amsterdam, 1988).

WINFRIED THIEL
Hadith → Sunna
Haggadah

Haggadah (Heb. for “story”) is the narrative form of Jewish rabbinic literature. It embraces all the forms and themes that do not count as → Halakah, or legal texts. Small forms of Haggadah are the parable, the exemplary tale, the case, exegesis (insofar as it does not serve Halakic purposes), the legend, the sermon, and biographical, ethical, and historical notes. Larger forms are commentaries (→ Midrash) on the biblical books, which most clearly demonstrate the tendency of Haggadah to relate Israel’s → salvation history to the given present. There is thus a distinction between Haggadic literature and the individual Haggadah as a literary unit and form.
The Haggadah may be linked to a purpose and may thus illustrate a Halakah, but one may not derive a Halakah from a Haggadah or base it on a Haggadah. The Haggadah can be an end in itself and may simply present playful or associative narrative fancy. Its significance depends on the sphere of reference in which the Haggadic tradition now stands or from which it arose.
The paschal Haggadah deserves special attention, for it reflects the decisive event in Israel’s salvation history (the exodus from Egypt; → Passover). The counterpart of Haggadah in → Judaism is Halakah.
→ Jewish Theology

Bibliography: A. R. E. AGUR, Hermeneutic Biography in Rabbinic Midrash: The Body of This Death and Life (Berlin, 1996) ∙ R. AUS, Samuel, Saul, and Jesus: Three Early Palestinian Jewish Christian Gospel Haggadoth (Atlanta, 1994) ∙ S. H. DERNER, Rachel (Minneapolis, 1994) ∙ A. KAMESAR, “The Narrative Aggada As Seen from the Graeco-Latin Perspective,” JJS 45 (1994) 52–70 ∙ S. E. KARFF, Agada: The Language of Jewish Faith (Cincinnati, 1979) ∙ M. LATTKE, “Haggadah,” RAC 13.328–60 ∙ H. L. STRACK and G. STERNBURGER, Introduction to Talmud and Midrash (Edinburgh, 1991) ∙ G. VERMÈS, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies (2d ed.; Leiden, 1973).

GERD A. WEWERS†
Haggai, Book of

The Book of Haggai contains sayings of the prophet woven into a narrative and set in a chronological framework. Haggai emerged in Jerusalem in 520 B.C., the second year of the Persian monarch Darius I, and served there for only four months. Economic difficulties stemming from poor harvests were troubling the community, and reconstruction of the temple had come to a halt. This setting provided the occasion of Haggai’s (and Zechariah’s) ministry.
The → temple stood at the heart of Haggai’s message. The distress of the day, he taught, was the result of breaking off the rebuilding of the temple. He admonished the people to resume the work, and his plea found a hearing among the leaders. Zerubbabel, a descendant of David, and Joshua, the → high priest, whom the Persian court had sent back to Palestine with a group of returning exiles, again took up the work of reconstruction and carried it through to the end. Haggai evidently did not live to see the dedication of the temple (in 515 B.C.).
Along with his demand for the rebuilding of the temple, Haggai proclaimed a positive hope for the future. A divine shaking of the nations and a redistribution of power would bring the wealth of the nations to Jerusalem (2:6–9), where Zerubbabel would reign as God’s anointed (vv. 20–23). This hope of deliverance was perhaps kindled by unrest on the accession of Darius to the throne of Persia. Darius, however, was able to consolidate his kingdom. Zerubbabel disappeared, and Judah continued to form part of the Persian empire as a community centered on the temple.
→ Prophet, Prophecy

Bibliography: Commentaries: K. ELLIGER (ATD; 8th ed.; Göttingen, 1982) ∙ C. L. MEYERS and E. M. MEYERS (AB; Garden City, N.Y., 1987) ∙ D. L. PETERSON (OTL; Philadelphia, 1984) ∙ H. GRAF REVENTLOW (ATD; Göttingen, 1993) ∙ R. L. SMITH (WBC; Dallas, 1984) ∙ P. A. VERHOEF (NICOT; Grand Rapids, 1987) ∙ H. W. WOLFF (BKAT; Neukirchen, 1986).
Other works: W. A. M. BEUKEN, Haggai-Sacharja 1–8 (Assen, 1967) ∙ K.-M. BEYSE, Serubbabel und die Königserwartungen der Propheten Haggai und Sacharja (Berlin, 1971) ∙ K. KOCH, “Haggais unreines Volk,” ZAW 79 (1967) 52–66 ∙ C. MEYERS and E. M. MEYERS, “Haggai, Book of,” ABD 3.20–23.

WINFRIED THIEL
Hagiography → Lives of the Saints
Hail Mary → Ave Maria
Haiti

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
3,804
5,353
7,817
Annual growth rate (%):
1.71
1.81
1.84
Area: 27,700 sq. km. (10,695 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 282/sq. km. (731/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 3.29 / 1.19 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 4.40 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 73 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 55.7 years (m: 54.0, f: 57.3)
Religious affiliation (%): Christians 95.9 (Roman Catholics 83.2, Protestants 21.1, indigenous 5.5, unaffiliated 2.9, Anglicans 1.5, other Christians 0.7), spiritists 2.6, nonreligious 1.3, other 0.2.

1. General Situation
2. Religious Situation
2.1. Roman Catholicism
2.2. Protestantism
2.3. Voodoo
2.4. Ecumenical Relations
1. General Situation

The Republic of Haiti is located in the western third of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. The country is mostly mountainous; the population of almost 8 million has a black majority and a mulatto minority. The great majority of Haitians are descendants of African slaves who, brought as a labor force by the Spaniards or (from 1659) the French (→ Slavery), replaced the original indigenous Indian inhabitants, who had been largely exterminated by the 16th century because of the cruelty of slavery and epidemics of European diseases.
Hispaniola was discovered by Columbus in 1492 and was the first part of the New World colonized by Spain. Spain ceded the western third of Hispaniola to France in 1697. The struggle for independence began in 1791 with an uprising of the 450,000 slaves on the sugar and cocoa plantations against the approximately 40,000 whites (there were also 28,000 freed slaves). Led by Toussaint Louverture, the rebellion involved a period of almost constant battles, accompanied by horrific massacres. After winning control over the whole island, Louverture was deceived by the French and died in a French dungeon. NapoleŒon’s Third Army under his brother-in-law General LeClerc regained Haiti for France, but Jean-Jacques Dessalines, with his general Henri Christophe, liberated the country again in 1803 and declared its independence from France on January 1, 1804, the second country in the New World to win its freedom from a colonial power. After independence Christophe ruled in the North and A. S. PeŒtion, a mulatto leader against Dessalines, in the South. PeŒtion divided the land among the people, but the socioeconomic oppression experienced in the colonial period ultimately continued.
Anarchic conditions in 1915 caused the United States under the Monroe Doctrine to send marines to Haiti, which they occupied until recalled by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934. The political influence of the United States remained dominant. Dr. François Duvalier (“Papa Doc”) won election in 1957 as a champion of black interests. After the revolution in Cuba in 1958, François and his son Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”) won support from the United States because of their firm opposition to Communism. F. Duvalier, however, established a reign of terror that ultimately claimed some 50,000 victims. At the same time, the stable government and the “Duvalier Revolution” encouraged a new rising educated middle class of blacks and a rapid increase in light industry and a large migration to Port-au-Prince, the capital. Under J.-C. Duvalier the repression subsided somewhat, but plundering the country for personal gain continued, causing further deterioration of an already weak → economy. The regime fell in February 1986, leaving Haiti the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, with an undernourished population, a literacy rate of only 15 percent, an unemployment rate of 60 percent, the highest infant mortality rate in the → Third World (20 percent), and over a million → refugees in neighboring lands. Drastic social reform was urgently needed.
After J.-C. Duvalier’s fall the country was ruled by army generals except for Leslie Manigat’s six-month presidency. General Avril was forced to resign in March 1990 because of massive antigovernment protest. Supreme Court Justice Ertha Pascal-Trouillot became the acting president, the first woman to lead the country. In December 1990 a Catholic priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, won the election fairly, a process that was more democratic than any previous election in Haiti. President Aristide took office in February 1990 and started to investigate all former officials. His followers who were impatient for reform reacted with acts of violence. Artistides’ followers forced the Assembly to adjourn while they were debating a vote of no confidence. Many were killed during this time of instability. Rebel troops in September 1991 seeking to end the excessive acts of the president’s supporters put Aristide out of office. This bloody military coup forced Aristide, whom the masses viewed as a bearer of hope, to leave the country that month.
The rightest Progressive Front (FRAPH) was a paramilitary unit that was responsible for the murder and → torture of hundreds of people during the three-year military dictatorship. The 2 percent of the population that controls 44 percent of gross domestic production, also the majority of the Catholic hierarchy, supported the military regime. A trade embargo imposed by the United Nations drove Haiti even further into misery, destroying Haiti’s fragile economic infrastructure, causing almost all industry to close or move to other countries and intensified its economic dependency. Industry eliminated some 100,000 jobs. The fuel shortage caused by the embargo resulted in enormous environmental damage in the form of forest destruction.
Backed by the threat of U.S. military intervention as approved by the U.N. Security Council, U.S. mediator Jimmy Carter managed to extract an agreement from the military to step down in 1994. After intervention by U.S., and then U.N., troops, Aristide returned as president in 1996 but at the end of his legal mandate handed over the office to his colleague, the former Maoist ReneŒ PreŒval, who had been elected with 88 percent of the votes. PreŒval dissolved Parliament in January 1999. Foreign aid has been frozen because no budget has been passed since 1996.
Conditions within Haiti at the turn of the century are dismal: the average annual income is only $250 (1998), 80 percent of the population live in extreme poverty, and the unemployment rate stands at perhaps more than 65 percent. Inflation remains high, and 40 percent of the national budget depends on foreign aid (1996). Since Haitians have confidence only in real estate as a long-term investment, there is major new building construction throughout the country; money is coming primarily from family members residing abroad and from drug trafficking. Haiti has the highest rate of AIDS infection in the Western hemisphere. Although 66 percent of the population derives its living from agriculture, almost half of all foodstuffs must be imported, including even sugar. Clear-cutting and erosion have decimated the countryside. In this, the poorest country in the Americas, women bear the main burden and yet have few opportunities.
2. Religious Situation

The religious life of the people is characterized by Christianity and the syncretistic → voodoo cult.
2.1. Roman Catholicism

Even after two centuries of a presence in Haiti, the → Roman Catholic Church had not been able to establish its own → hierarchy there. Two prefectures apostolic were set up only in 1705 under the supervision of the → Dominicans and → Jesuits. Because of the lack of → missionaries and the colonists’ failure to support → evangelism, the effect of Christianity on the African masses, who regarded it as the religion of the slaveowners, was very small (→ Mission 3). The → priests, though, must have shown greater concern for the blacks in the 18th century, for most of them survived when plantation-owner whites were massacred in the struggle for independence. After the conclusion of a → concordat in 1860, Haiti was divided into five → dioceses, including the Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince.
Two small seminaries were founded in the second half of the 19th century, and the resultant emergence of a native clergy entered upon a decisive phase with the establishment of a large seminary by the Jesuits in 1942. The pastoral work of the church was hindered by the interference of the government, especially after 1959, when it forcibly nationalized the church, banned many missionaries and priests, including the archbishop, and closed the seminary, the result being that for a time the Vatican broke off diplomatic relations with Haiti.
The church has long struggled against the role of voodoo in Haitian society, which Haitians have used as a means of establishing their identity. In 1941 church and state together attempted finally to destroy the voodoo temples. Every baptized person had to take a vow to renounce the practices and teachings of voodoo, which was condemned as a Satanic cult. Papa Doc Duvalier, however, who was close to voodoo, ended the persecution and used voodoo as a political instrument.
When John Paul II visited Haiti in 1983, he encouraged the official church to oppose the brutal regime of Duvalier. Already by 1980 Roman Catholic young people had increasingly assumed the role of a political opposition and were building up political awareness among the oppressed people, many of whom were nominal church members. To be sure, the 11-member episcopate included only one voice opposed to the country’s dictatorship, namely Willy RomeŒlus, bishop of JeŒreŒmie (in southwestern Haiti). Moreover, because of Aristide’s political activity in the spirit of the unpopular → liberation theology, the Vatican excluded him from his Salesian Order. Earlier, Archbishop François Wolff Ligonde, with the support of the military, actively opposed this message of liberation theology. For his own part, Aristide, who was also dismissed from the priesthood in 1994, upon his return demonstratively embraced the conservative bishop François Gayot; three bishops received him at his return, offering a glimmer of hope for reconciliation in the church and among Haiti’s inhabitants.
2.2. Protestantism

In 1807 two British Methodist missionaries began work among black slaves who had fled from the United States to Haiti. But later the → Methodist Church, like the Anglican (→ Anglican Communion), became more a church of the ruling caste. The → Baptists began work in the 19th century, but Protestant missions made a noticeable impact only from the time of the American occupation. According to sociologist Charles-Poisset Romain, Protestants grew from only 1.5 percent of the population in 1930 to 20 percent in 1978.
Today the Baptists are the largest Protestant church, followed by the → Adventists and two → Pentecostal churches. A sizable proportion of Protestants are organized in native churches that are independent of missions from abroad. Because many Haitian pastors are poorly trained and financial resources are small, many of the Haitian church groups are still greatly dependent on U.S. missionaries and their money (→ North American Missions).
2.3. Voodoo

The majority of Haitians practice an animistic cult called voodoo, which is a mixture of African → animism and a distorted understanding of Roman Catholic beliefs and rites. It is not viewed as a religion but simply as a way of life. (When asked about religious preference, most Haitians identify themselves as either Roman Catholic or → “Evangelical.”)
Voodoo is → monotheistic in that the Great Master’s permission is asked before almost every ceremony. Practically, however, it is → polytheistic, with many loas (identified as local gods, deified ancestors, or Catholic saints). Priests of voodoo are either male (houngan) or female (mambo). They function also as fortune-tellers, magicians, medicine men and women, and very often as heads of an extended family. While there are collective → altars, voodoo is primarily a family religion, giving greater importance to the family altar (houmfo). There are many ceremonies, with the climax being the possession (or “mounting”) of a worshiper by a loa. Each loa has its own symbol, ritual, drumbeat, and often a Catholic saint counterpart.
Although voodoo has many taboos, it does not foster a sense of → guilt. Its practitioners thus typically show little interest in the Christian message of → forgiveness. What interest there is in the → gospel usually arises from a dream or from a wish to be delivered from a → curse.
2.4. Ecumenical Relations

Many of the Protestant groups participate in the Council of Evangelical Churches of Haiti (comprising 11 conservative denominations and affiliated with the World Evangelical Fellowship) and also in the broader based Protestant Federation. The Roman Catholic Church cooperates in the Ecumenical Research Group (1968) and the Commission of Haitian Churches for Development. Some believe that there cannot be a full → acculturation of Christianity in Haiti until there is serious → dialogue with the representatives of voodoo.
→ Afro-American Cults

Bibliography: E. ABBOTT, The Duvaliers and Their Legacy (New York, 1991); idem, Haiti (New York, 1991) ∙ J.-B. ARISTIDE, In the Parish of the Poor: Writings from Haiti (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1990) ∙ D. B. BARRETT, ed., WCE 348–51 ∙ J. M. DASH, Haiti and the United States: National Stereotypes and the Literary Imagination (2d ed.; New York, 1997) ∙ J. DAYAN, Haiti, History, and the Gods (Berkeley, Calif., 1995) ∙ A. DUPUY, Haiti in the New World Order: The Limits of the Democratic Revolution (Boulder, Colo., 1997) ∙ J. L. GONZÁLEZ, The Development of Christianity in the Latin Caribbean (Grand Rapids, 1969) ∙ L. E. HARRISON, “Voodoo Politics,” Atlantic Monthly, June 1993, 101–7 ∙ R. D. HEINL, Written in Blood: The Story of the Haitian People, 1492–1995 (2d ed.; Lanham, Md., 1996) ∙ C. KUMAR, Building Peace in Haiti (Boulder, Colo., 1998) ∙ M. LUNDHALS, Peasants and Poverty: A Study of Haiti (London, 1979) ∙ A. METRAUX, Voodoo in Haiti (New York, 1972) ∙ E. H. PREEG, The Haitian Crisis: Two Perspectives (Coral Gables, Fla., 1988); idem, The Haitian Dilemma: A Case Study in Demographics, Development, and U.S. Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C., 1996).

HANS-JÜRGEN PRIEN, LAËNNEC HURBON, and EDWIN S. WALKER
Halakah

Halakah (Heb. for “going” or “way”) is a postbiblical norm or rule in rabbinic → Judaism that applies the legal judgments of the → Torah to existing situations. As far as rabbinic practice and the rabbinic understanding of tradition are concerned, Halakah effectively can count just as much as the Torah (i.e., as the → revelation to → Moses from → Sinai). It is oral torah. It decides (often by specific cases) what is clean or unclean, innocent or guilty, permitted or forbidden. In an actual case the decision is binding, but later it forms a basis for discussion with support and refutation. In cases of doubt the majority decides, though on occasion the authority of the champion of a single view might prevail.
From the discussions of Halakah there developed Halakah as a literary genre. The various works fall into two classes: compendiums (→ Mishnah, Tosepta, → Talmud, and medieval and modern collections) and commentaries (→ Midrash). The compendiums arrange the materials in tractate form or thematically. The biblical commentaries base Halakah directly on the Bible, compare it with the Bible, and thus give the Bible regulative relevance. The counterpart of Halakah in Judaism is → Haggadah.

Bibliography: N. DANZIG, Introduction to Halakhot Pesuqot (New York, 1993) ∙ M. FISHBANE, ed., The Midrashic Imagination: Jewish Exegesis, Thought, and History (Albany, N.Y., 1993) ∙ R. HAMMER, The Classic Midrash: Tannaitic Commentaries on the Bible (Mahwah, N.J., 1995) ∙ M. LATTKE, “Halakah,” RAC 13.372–402 ∙ J. NEUSNER, The Components of the Rabbinic Documents (12 vols.; Atlanta, 1997–98); idem, Introduction to Rabbinic Literature (New York, 1994) ∙ J. NEUSNER and W. S. GREEN, Writing with Scripture: The Authority and Uses of the Hebrew Bible in the Torah of Formative Judaism (Minneapolis, 1989) ∙ J. ROTH, The Halakhic Process: A Systematic Analysis (New York, 1986) ∙ A. SAGI, “ ‘Both Are the Words of the Living God’: A Typological Analysis of Halakhic Pluralism,” HUCA 65 (1994) 105–36 ∙ L. H. SCHIFFMAN, From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism (Hoboken, N.J., 1991) ∙ H. L. STRACK and G. STERNBURGER, Introduction to Talmud and Midrash (Edinburgh, 1991) ∙ E. E. URBACH, The Halakhah: Its Sources and Development (Jerusalem, 1986).

GERD A. WEWERS†
Hamartiology → Sin
Hammurabi, Code of

The Code of Hammurabi is one of the oldest and best-known cuneiform law codes in Akkadian. It appears on a stele over 2 m. (6 ft.) high (now in the Louvre; there are many copies). It was promulgated by Hammurabi, king of the first dynasty of Babylon (1792–1750 B.C.), in an attempt at legal reform. In 282 casuistically formulated legal rulings, selected cases from various branches of law (trial, property, family, and inheritance) are dealt with, along with judgments concerning bodily injuries, various occupations, the hiring of cattle and servants, and the holding of slaves.
Worth noting is the severity of the punishments with which Hammurabi hoped to put an end to the people’s widespread ignoring of the law. In over 30 cases a capital sentence is imposed, and there are also maimings (§§192ff.) and talionic penalties (§§196ff.). For the latter there are parallels in the OT (Exod. 21:23–25 and par.), as also for many laws, though there are also differences (cf. §14 with Exod. 21:16 and par., §129 with Lev. 20:10 and par., §132 with Num. 5:11–22, §§195–214 with Exod. 21:12–27, §§250–52 with Exod. 21:28–32, etc.). A direct link with the OT is certainly improbable.
→ Babylonian and Assyrian Religion

Bibliography: R. BORGER, “Der Codex Hammurapi,” TUAT 1/1.39–80 ∙ C. H. GORDON, Hammurabi’s Code: Quaint or Forward-Looking? (New York, 1957) ∙ V. KOROŠEC, “Keilschriftrecht,” HO 1.E.3.94–118 (bibliography) ∙ B. M. LEVINSON, ed., Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform Law: Revision, Interpolation, and Development (Sheffield, 1994) ∙ T. J. MEEK, “The Code of Hammurabi,” ANET 163–80 ∙ S. M. PAUL, Studies in the Book of the Covenant, in the Light of Cuneiform and Biblical Law (Leiden, 1970) ∙ H. PETSCHOW, “Gesetze A §3.6,” RLA 3.255–69 (bibliography) ∙ M. T. ROTH, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (Atlanta, 1995) ∙ S. A. WEST, “The Lex Talionis in the Torah,” JBQ 21/3 (1993) 183–88.

HERMANN SPIECKERMANN
Happiness

1. Definition
2. Judeo-Christian Tradition
2.1. Biblical Macarism
2.2. Augustine
2.3. Scholasticism
2.4. Luther
3. Modern View
4. Transcultural Aspects
1. Definition

Both linguistically and materially, it is hard to define “happiness” and related terms such as “(good) fortune,” as many interdisciplinary attempts show (e.g., Was ist Glück? Ein Symposion). Some have emphasized that, while happiness may fulfill desires and longings, it is not at the disposal of the will and cannot be attained by us (U. Hommes, in F. G. Jünger et al., 242). A. Gehlen finds happiness only in acquisition, not in possession (ibid., 29). We can grasp it plainly in terms neither of past nor of future. As M. Freund says, we are all the semantic forgers of our own fortune. But none of these descriptions is really felicitous.
2. Judeo-Christian Tradition
2.1. Biblical Macarism

The biblical macarism (“Blessed [i.e., happy] are those who …”) ascribes to us an ability to achieve happiness and shows both how to achieve it and what to expect by way of it. In the OT, material and spiritual blessings constitute happiness, which is not blind fate but is at God’s disposal. Such → blessings include a “sensible wife” (Sir. 25:8), children (Gen. 30:13), beauty (Cant. 6:9), well-being, riches, honor, and wisdom (Job 29), also divine reproof and discipline (Job 5:17) and even martyrdom (4 Macc. 7:15).
The NT macarism is regulated by the Christ-event and is more comprehensive than in the OT, though statistically rare (D. Ritschl). In expansion of the Jewish tradition happiness is eschatological and spiritual, and in contrast to what we find in → Greek philosophy, it is fundamentally Christological. Not the whim of fate but the new reality disclosed in Christ’s cross and → resurrection is the source of good fortune for believers (→ Christology). Macarisms thus do not apply to the gods, as in Aristotle (Eth. Nic. 1178b25), but paradoxically to living people (Matt. 5:1–12). The blessing is → salvation (→ Assurance of Salvation), participation in the → kingdom of God (Matt. 13:16–17), belonging to the Lord in life and death (Rev. 19:9; 22:14), or being in Christ (Rom. 4:7–8). The new creation lives by the blessing of illumination (2 Cor. 4:5–6); enjoys total blessing in spirit, → soul, and body (1 Thess. 5:23); clings to it eschatologically, even in misfortune (2 Cor. 4:7–10); and experiences it dialectically (1 Cor. 4:7).
2.2. Augustine

In The City of God (19.1) Augustine (354–430) finds 288 forms of happiness in antiquity, distinguishing between pagan felicitas and Christian beatitudo. Defining happiness as having all that we want (De Trin. 13.5), he thinks that “having” reaches its climax in “knowing” or “seeing” in the beatific vision (J. Pieper, in Jünger et al., 47–48), the alternatives of having and not having being fixed by → predestination (→ Augustine’s Theology). Along with the beatific vision, the enjoyment of God (frui Deo) plays an important role in Augustine’s theology (see De doc. christ. 1.22.33; Enarr. in Ps. 121.3). This concept had an important influence on the Scholastic tradition, the later Reformation catechisms (Westminster Shorter and Larger in 1647), and English-speaking Protestant piety in general.
2.3. Scholasticism

On the basis of the beatific vision, borrowing from 1 Tim. 1:11 and 6:15, and in analogy to the theology of happiness in antiquity, → Scholasticism found in the vision of God the supreme blessing. A debate arose between → Thomism and → Scotism whether we achieve this vision by an act of mind or by an act of will.
2.4. Luther

In his Romans commentary of 1515–16 M. Luther (1483–1546) cut the ground from under the whole theology of beatitude with the idea of resignation to hell. He viewed humankind rather from the standpoint of → law and → gospel. This approach, however, could lead to a dialectical understanding of the concept of happiness such as we find today in a radical version of the doctrine of → justification.
3. Modern View

The modern age has taken up the question of what happiness is and whether it is for all or only for the individual. In “foreseen effects” (see T. Hobbes, 9) the → Enlightenment counts on the kindness to others that is necessary for the happiness of all (A. Smith, 382–83). B. Pascal (1623–62), however, drew attention to the incompatibility of earthly and eternal felicity (W. E. Mühlmann, in Jünger et al., 207).
At the same time, the right to the pursuit of happiness was stated especially to be one of the “unalienable rights” of all people (U.S. Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776). Enjoying the benefits of nature is happiness, according to P. T. d’Holbach (p. 13). Individual conditions make the happy seem to be “outside the theater of world history” (G. W. F. Hegel, 56–58).
For this reason K. Marx (1818–83), protesting against individual privilege, demands a situation that will reconcile universal reason with individual claims to happiness (A. Schmidt, in Jünger et al., 93; → Marxism). F. Nietzsche (1844–1900), in contrast, argues that “man has discovered happiness” (p. 11), while S. Freud (1856–1939) is resigned to the view that happiness is “not included in the plan of creation” (p. 434). Happiness is substantially understood, even though it is projected nostalgically or along utopian lines in time. The absence of it is tedium (Gehlen, in Jünger, 34–35).
F. Engels (1820–95) made the breakthrough to a dialectical view of happiness with his statement that “living is dying” (p. 554). The weighting of happiness with unhappiness is itself happiness, according to O. Marquard (p. 32). As lived out self-transcendence, happiness can transform a hopeless situation into an achievement. “Out of the Calvary of Ausschwitz has come our Easter sunrise” (V. E. Frankl, in Jünger et al., 121–22).
4. Transcultural Aspects

The basic dialectical structure of happiness corresponds also to modern experience in the humanities and can appeal to → Paul and the → Reformation inasmuch as it finds a place for existential dying and rising again with Christ. In Eastern religions the question arises whether happiness is the removal of antitheses (W. Bauer, in Jünger et al., 200). If the impossibility of deciding whether happiness exists leads to the belief that perfect happiness is precisely the absence of happiness (R. Wilhelm, 135–36), an appeal is made to a nothing that makes possible the power of a dialectical being (cf. K. Nishitani). Happiness is the experienced identity of what is not truly identical (R. Okochi and K. Otte, 63–64). If Islamic (H. Ritter) and Judeo-Christian thinking about happiness is still under the influence of a substantial concept (I. Maybaum), enlightenment by divine dialectic can become real happiness in vibration over nothingness.
→ Zen argues that those who seek happiness must venture the primal leap (Ur-Sprung), which is its origin. According to Paul, they must believe as → Abraham did that God “calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Rom. 4:17). “If they survive this venture, their destiny is to meet unbroken truth …, the formless origin of all origins, the nothing that is all things, being engulfed by it and born again out of it” (Herrigel, 94). May it be that the “forge of happiness” lies in the transcultural act?
→ Blessing; Curse; Fatalism; Joy; Life; Meaning; Suffering; Worldview

Bibliography: R. F. CAPON, Health, Money, and Love-and Why We Don’t Enjoy Them (Grand Rapids, 1990) ∙ J. DELUMEAU, History of Paradise: The Garden of Eden in Myth and Tradition (Urbana, Ill., 2000) ∙ R. A. EMMONS, The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns: Motivation and Spirituality in Personality (New York, 1999) ∙ F. ENGELS, “Dialektik der Natur,” MEW 20 (= MECW 25.311–587) ∙ S. FREUD, “Das Unbehagen in der Kultur” (1930), Gesammelte Werke (London, 1948; ET Civilization and Its Discontents [New York, 1994]) ∙ M. FREUND, “Glück—das unfaßbare Gefühl,” Psychologie heute 11 (1984) 26–29 ∙ G. W. F. HEGEL, Vorlesung über die Philosophie der Geschichte (Stuttgart, 1961; ET Lectures on the Philosophy of World History [Cambridge, 1975]) ∙ E. HERRIGEL, Zen in der Kunst des Bogenschießens (N.p., 1979) ∙ T. HOBBES, De corpore (1655; Leipzig, 1949) ∙ P. T. D’HOLBACH, System der Natur oder von den Gesetzen der physischen und moralischen Welt (Berlin, 1960) ∙ F. G. JÜNGER et al., Was ist Glück? Ein Symposion (3d ed.; Munich, 1980) ∙ A. H. KHAN, “Salighed” as Happiness? Kierkegaard on the Concept “Salighed” (Waterloo, Ont., 1985) ∙ O. MARQUARD, Glück im Unglück. Philosophische Überlegungen (Munich, 1995) ∙ I. MAYBAUM, Happiness outside the State (London, 1980) ∙ F. NIETZSCHE, Also sprach Zarathustra (Wiesbaden, n.d.; ET Thus Spake Zarathustra [London, 1960]) ∙ K. NISHITANI, Was ist Religion? (Frankfurt, 1982) ∙ R. OKOCHI and K. OTTE, Tan-Ni-Sho. Die Gunst des Reinen Landes (Bern, 1979) ∙ D. RITSCHL, The Logic of Theology (Philadelphia, 1987) ∙ H. RITTER, Al Ghasali. Das Elexier der Glückseligkeit (Jena, 1923) ∙ L. S. ROUNER, ed., In Pursuit of Happiness (Notre Dame, Ind., 1995) ∙ F. SCHLEIERMACHER, On What Gives Value to Life (1792; Lewiston, N.Y., 1995) ∙ A. SMITH, Theory of Moral Sentiments (Amherst, N.Y., 2000; orig. pub., 1759) ∙ R. WILHELM, ed., Zhuang Zhou. Das wahre Buch vom südlichen Blütenland (Jena, 1920).

KLAUS OTTE
Hare Krishna → Krishna Consciousness, International Society for
Harvest Festivals

The harvest festival is one of the oldest of religious feasts. Because of the different times of harvest we naturally find that there is no single date. In the OT there were two such feasts, Weeks and Tabernacles (Exod. 23:16). In the Roman sphere there were four feasts. The Middle Ages continued these in the context of the ember seasons (→ Church Year), but only the one in September bore reference to the harvest. Masses of thanksgiving, with blessing of the fruits, were also held, commonly on the last Sunday in September in central Europe.
The → church orders of the 16th century set aside days for sermons or → worship services after harvest, often on the Sunday after St. Michael’s Day (September 29). In 1773 Prussia officially instituted a common harvest festival on this Sunday, and the first Sunday in October is now the usual day in the Protestant churches and Roman Catholic dioceses of Germany. The Catholic services often include the blessing of the produce and local observances. In other countries, such as England, there is more flexibility, the town parishes often taking a Sunday in September, rural parishes tending to prefer early October, when the harvest is complete. The Eastern churches have no special harvest festival.
In the United States the Pilgrim Fathers celebrated a harvest feast some time between September 21 and November 11. In the 18th century its character as a holy day vanished in favor of an emotional and family occasion. The Continental Congress proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving Day as a “solemn” occasion in 1777; later it evolved into state observances. In 1863, in the midst of the U.S. Civil War, Thanksgiving Day was proclaimed as a national holiday by President Abraham Lincoln, to be held on the last Thursday in November. The date was changed and fixed by the Congress in 1941 as the fourth Thursday in November. It has become a shopping as well as a family event, with little reference to the harvesting season.
In Canada the English navigator Martin Frobisher held a formal ceremony of thanksgiving in present-day Newfoundland for the journey to America. Other settlers continued this practice. The French settlers, under the leadership of Samuel de Champlain, also held huge thanksgiving feasts. In 1879 the Canadian Parliament declared November 6 a day of Thanksgiving. After World War I, Armistice Day and Thanksgiving Day were joined commemorations until 1931. In 1957 Parliament proclaimed the second Monday of October to be the permanent “Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed.”
The dilemma of celebrating a festival due to the bounty of nature and the work of humans, by Christianity, a religion based on God’s revelation not in nature but history, has never been satisfactorily solved. These two completely different approaches may be irreconcilable, with an ensuing unease about a harvest festival proper. Nowadays, however, with a growing concern for the → environment (→ Ecology) and world → hunger, the harvest festival has increasingly become an important occasion for instruction on Christian → responsibility in the handling of → nature.

Bibliography: O. BISCHOFBERGER et al., “Feste und Feiertage,” TRE 11.93–143 ∙ R. N. MCMICHAEL JR., ed., Creation and Liturgy (Washington, D.C., 1993) ∙ T. A. SCHNITKER, “Erntedankfest,” RGG (4th ed.) 2.1464–65.

THADDEUS A. SCHNITKER
Hasidism

The term “Hasidism” (from Heb. ḥāsı̂d, “devout, pious”) is a general one for various popular movements in → Judaism that historically bore no relation to one another.

1. There was first the “assembly of the devout” (synagogē asidaiōn), which came on the scene at the beginning of the Maccabean revolt (1 Macc. 2:42) and was distinguished for strict adherence to the Torah (vv. 29–38). It is conjectured that the Essenes (→ Qumran) and → Pharisees had their roots here.
2. There was then Ashkenazic Hasidism, in Germany in the 12th and 13th centuries. Perhaps influenced by the → Crusades, this group developed an ascetic-pietistic theology of penitence (the chief work being Sefer Ḥasidim[Book of the pious], presenting the teaching of Judah the Ḥasid and others), which helped shape early Jewish → esotericism (Elazar of Worms).
3. Eastern European Hasidism arose in southern Poland in the first half of the 18th century and soon became a mass movement among all eastern European Jews. Its founder was the charismatic healer Israel ben Eliezer (ca. 1700–1760), later called Baʿal Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name), which was shortened to Besht. His pupils Jacob Josef of Polonne, and especially Dov Baer of Mezhirichi (both towns in present-day Ukraine), the Great Maggid (= Preacher; d. 1773), laid the theoretical foundations of Hasidism. Also important were Naḥman of Bratslav (ca. 1800) and Shneur Zalman of Lyady (before 1800, both towns then Russian), the founder of Ḥabad Hasidism.

The teaching of Hasidism popularized the → cabala and is strongly individualistic (stressing the → immanence of God, inwardness, and suppression of collective messianic expectation). The → piety of the group contains ecstatic features, and song and → dance play a major role. At the heart of the religious life is the Ṣaddiq (the righteous one), who vicariously links himself to the deity on behalf of his followers and can later have messianic qualities. Increasing stress on the Ṣaddiq led to hereditary Ṣaddiq dynasties, which sometimes held court in great style and competed with one another.
Hasidism produced a considerable and as yet little-known literature. M. Buber (1878–1965) published narratives taken from this literature that in particular have facilitated the modern reception of Hasidism. His popularizing and in part inaccurate renderings, however, obstruct adequate religious and historical evaluation of Hasidism.
After the destruction of eastern European Judaism, new fellowships arose in the United States and Israel, mostly in the direction of Ḥabad Hasidism, which attempts a synthesis between the traditional and the modern. These fellowships are now enjoying a renaissance and are playing a decisive part in the religious renewal of Judaism.

Bibliography: M. BUBER, “Die Erzählungen des Chassidismus,” Werke (vol. 3; Munich, 1963) 69–712 ∙ J. DAN, “Chassidismus, aschkenasischer,” TRE 7.705–10 ∙ S. DUBNOW, Geschichte des Chassidismus (2 vols.; Jerusalem, 1969; orig. pub., Berlin, 1921–32) ∙ R. ELIOR, The Paradoxical Ascent to God: The Kabbalistic Theosophy of Habad Hasidism (Albany, N.Y., 1993) ∙ A. GREEN, Tormented Master: A Life of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (University, Ala., 1979) ∙ L. GULKOWITSCH, Der Hasidismus religionswissenschaftlich untersucht (Leipzig, 1927) ∙ M. IDEL, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic (Albany, N.Y., 1995) ∙ I. MARCUS, Piety and Society (Leiden, 1981) ∙ G. SCHOLEM, “Martin Bubers Deutung des Chassidismus,” Judaica (vol. 1; Frankfurt, 1963) 165–206.

PETER SCHÄFER
Hasmonaeans

The Hasmonaeans (also sometimes called the Maccabees) were the last Jewish ruling family. Under the Hasmonaeans the Jews in Palestine enjoyed a period of political independence in the second and first centuries B.C. The Hasmonaean name occurs for the first time in Josephus (Asamonaioi), and later it is common in the rabbinic writings (beth/bĕnê ḥašmonai). The derivation is uncertain. Josephus (Ant. 12.265; J.W. 1.36) refers to an ancestor of the same name, but more likely it arises from an association with the place Heshmon (Josh. 15:27) or Hashmonah (Num. 33:29–30).
The family was of priestly origin. It did not originally belong to the priestly aristocracy (→ Priest, Priesthood) but to a simple priestly group (the family of Joarib, 1 Macc. 2:1–5; cf. Joiarib in Neh. 11:10; 12:6, 19). It owed its rise to power to the leading role played by the Hasmonaean Mattathias (1 Macc. 2:15–28, 42–48) and his sons Judas (“who was called Maccabeus,” 166–160 B.C., 1 Macc. 3:1–9:23; 2 Macc. 8–15), Jonathan (160–143, 1 Macc. 9:31–12:52), and Simon (143–135, 1 Macc. 13:1–16:16) in the war against the Seleucids.
The Hasmonaeans became dynastically established in 140 B.C. with the recognition of Simon as ethnarch, commander-in-chief, and → high priest (1 Macc. 14:25–48). His descendants developed their rule in the style of Hellenistic potentates (→ Hellenism) and thus came into conflict with the original goals of the Maccabean revolt. John Hyrcanus I (135–104) extended his kingdom beyond the borders of the Judean heartland. Aristobulus (104–103) took the title of king. Alexander Jannaeus (103–76) combined external expansion with internal repression (e.g., of the → Pharisees). His widow, Salome Alexandra (76–67), attempted a policy of moderation but with no lasting success.
The way was prepared for the collapse of Hasmonaean rule by the struggle for the succession between Salome’s sons Aristobulus II (67–63 B.C.) and John Hyrcanus II (67, 63–40). Its fate was finally sealed by the penetration of the Romans into Syria and Palestine. First the Romans restricted the dominion of the Hasmonaeans to Judea, then they removed the last Hasmonaeans, Hyrcanus and Antigonos (40–37), from office and set up → Herod the Great as a client king. Herod ended the Hasmonaean dynasty both politically and, to a large extent, physically.
→ Israel 1

Bibliography: B. BAR-KOCHVA, Judas Maccabeus (Cambridge, 1989) ∙ J. G. BUNGE, “Zur Geschichte und Chronologie des Untergangs der Oniaden und des Aufstiegs der Hasmonäer,” JSJ 6 (1975) 1–46 ∙ J. A. GOLDSTEIN, “The Hasmoneans: The Dynasty of God Resisters,” HTR 68 (1975) 53–58 ∙ T. RAJAK, “Hasmonean Dynasty,” ABD 3.67–76 ∙ E. SCHÜRER, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (trans. G. Vermes and F. Millar; vol. 1; Edinburgh, 1973) 125–286. ∙ J. SIEVERS, The Hasmoneans and Their Supporters: From Mattathias to the Death of John Hyrcanus I (Atlanta, 1990).

BERNDT SCHALLER
Haustafeln → Household Rules
Healing

Healing deals therapeutically with sicknesses or injuries, whether of body or soul, in a living organism (→ Health and Illness). It does so in at least four ways:
(1) It may be self-healing. The organism reachieves stability, the balance of all bodily and psychological functions and cycles. The aggression of infection, injury, sickness, and so forth is warded off, resolved, set aside, or addressed. Self-healing is also an important aspect of psychotherapy, though percentages are hard to ascertain. “Time heals” many ills.
(2) Healing takes the form of restoration. The ideal state prior to the onset of sickness or injury is reached again. Sickness was a disruption of the norm; it interrupted the ability to work and to enjoy. By healing, the disrupted state of the patient’s life story is dismissed, and the old capacities are fully restored. Modern medicine, in spite of criticism on various sides, orients itself largely by this model.
(3) Healing may also be acceptance of limitations. In it the sick go through a learning experience. They will not be as they were before. Healing shows them that → life, sickness, and → suffering go together, and ultimately also → old age and → death. The sick (even sick children) grow by means of their sickness. They learn to understand themselves afresh. This broad and less precise concept of healing also has a pedagogical place in learning how to find a full life in spite of physical and psychological disabilities (→ Persons with Disabilities), and also in rehabilitation.
(4) Healing also involves renewal of relations, not merely to the self, as in (3), but to others. In relation to the self, one is healed when one has learned how to be sick in a healthy way (instead of healthy in a sick way). In relation to others, true healing shows itself in orientation to life rather than sickness. This view leads us closest to the Judeo-Christian understanding of → salvation.
The four concepts of healing point to different views of illness and of the meaning of life. An absolutizing of (1) can lead to the renouncing of medical help and, in a religious exaggeration, to the identification of God and natural processes. → Christian Science, which in the last resort sees only spirit and not matter, will not accept medical help. The spirit alone brings healing. An overvaluing of (2) rests on a nonhistorical and hedonistic view of humanity and the world (→ Ethics; Hedonism; Worldview). Human beings are ultimately thought of as functioning like machines. Even a fully psychosomatic standpoint offers no automatic protection against this kind of exaggeration. Concepts (3) and (4), in contrast with the idealizing of the strong and victorious sick in (1) and (2), include the danger of putting sickness, suffering, and inescapable death at the center of life and thus distorting the profound biblical significance of these views of healing.
Undoubtedly the postbiblical and modern Jewish view of the great importance of life finds full support in the OT. It does not escape the ambivalence, however, that suffering is part of life (as in the Book of Job) and that the God of Israel is to be found among the weak and not the strong. The NT develops this theme with a powerful focus on the suffering of → Jesus and the first churches. The healings of Jesus were not the beginning of a great work of healing or even the model for a new health system. They were signs, visible sermons, pointing to the dawning of the new and imminent → kingdom of God (→ Miracle). A therapist could never justify singling out one person for healing out of “five porticoes” full of the sick, blind, lame, and consumptive, as Jesus actually did (John 5:1–29). Yet he summoned his disciples to acts of healing (Matt. 10:8), and the accounts in Acts and the lists of charismatic gifts (1 Cor. 12:9) include healing by the → congregation (→ Charisma).
Over the centuries the church has discharged the commission to heal in different ways but has never forgotten it. Miraculous healings still take place today, with → prayer and → laying on of hands. It is hard to draw a line between responsible Christian practices and esoteric practices. In the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, congregations have been divided and even destroyed over this issue. We also read of services of healing in Africa, though, that are more generally accepted. To this context also belong → Fatima and → Lourdes (→ Pilgrimage) in the Roman Catholic sphere. The Vancouver Assembly of the → World Council of Churches (1983) made the church’s ministry of healing one of its themes.
The diaconal task of the church (→ Diakonia) is undoubtedly therapeutic, at least in the sense of (4). The central theological problem of healing is that of the relation between medical and psychotherapeutic/pastoral healings and the biblical promise of the new creation. Do healings reflect the new creation?
→ Medical Ethics; Pastoral Care

Bibliography: N. COUSINS, Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient (New York, 1979) ∙ D. M. FELDMAN, Health and Medicine in the Jewish Tradition (New York, 1986) ∙ H. KOHUT, The Restoration of the Self (Independence, Mo., 1977) ∙ L. LESHAN, You Can Fight for Your Life: Emotional Factors in the Causation of Cancer (New York, 1977) ∙ M. MADDOCKS, The Christian Healing Ministry (2d ed.; London, 1985) ∙ M. E. MARTY and K. L. VAUX, eds., Health/Medicine and the Faith Traditions: An Inquiry into Religion and Medicine (Philadelphia, 1982) ∙ H. REMUS, Jesus as Healer (Cambridge, 1997) ∙ F. ROSNER, Medicine in the Bible and Talmud (New York, 1977) ∙ K. W. SCHMIDT, Therapieziel und Menschenbild (Münster, 1995) ∙ H.-H. STRICKER, Krankheit und Heilung (Stuttgart, 1994).
In conjunction with the volume edited by Marty and Vaux, note G. F. Snyder, Health and Medicine in the Anabaptist Tradition (Valley Forge, Pa., 1995), with similar volumes on 13 other traditions: Anglican, by D. H. Smith (New York, 1986); Catholic, by R. A. McCormick (New York, 1984); Christian Science, by R. Peel (New York, 1988); Eastern Orthodox, by S. S. Harakas (New York, 1990); evangelical, by L. I. Sweet (Valley Forge, Pa., 1994); Hindu, by P. N. Desai (New York, 1989); Islamic, by F. Rahman (Chicago, 1998); Jewish, by D. M. Feldman (New York, 1986); Latter-day Saints, by L. E. Bush Jr. (New York, 1993); Lutheran, by M. E. Marty (New York, 1983); Methodist, by E. B. Holifield (New York, 1986); native North American, by Å. Hultkrantz (New York, 1992); and Reformed, by K. L. Vaux (New York, 1984).
See also the bibliography in “Health and Illness.”

DIETRICH RITSCHL
Health and Illness

The terms “health” and “illness” denote a variety of conditions—individual and institutional—that are variously perceived and understood from one culture to another, as well as within cultures. Common to all is a perception of health as a sense of well-being—physical, mental, social, and societal—and of illness as a lack thereof.
Common to all is also the premium placed on health, however defined. In the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, where illness often led to poverty or an early death, health was a supreme good. In the Hippocratic oath, to which physicians still subscribe in principle if not verbatim, Hygeia—“Health” personified—follows the name of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing. The frequent references in the Bible to illness manifest a similar concern, as do the enormous sums spent on health care today.
Responses to illness show some common patterns. Home remedies, a traditional first response, are attested in the Bible (2 Kgs. 20:1, 7; Isa. 1:6; Mark 6:13; Luke 10:34; 1 Tim. 5:23; Jas. 5:14) and described in Roman agricultural treatises (Cato, Varro). Persisting or severe illness or trauma commonly leads to seeking out a physician. So too in the ancient world. Though physicians are mentioned frequently in the Bible (Jer. 8:22; Matt. 9:12 and par.) and in ancient Jewish literature (Sir. 38:1–15; Josephus Ant. 17.171; 20.46; J.W. 1.246; Life 420–21), little is said of their lore. That information is imparted in Greek and Roman medical treatises. Medical works ascribed to or associated with the name of Hippocrates (ca. 460–ca. 377 B.C.), which were influential into the modern period, offer both case studies and theory (e.g., health is the normal state and the true “nature” of an individual, illness a disturbance of it, → healing a return to it, and “nature” one of the means the physician employs to effect that return; H. Remus 1983; R. Jackson).
Consulting a physician can be costly as well as futile (Mark 5:25–26). The many shrines and temples of Asclepius in the ancient Mediterranean world show both how common illness was and how inadequate were the theory and practice of medicine to deal with it (E. J. Edelstein and L. Edelstein). The many recipes, incantations, and spells in the “magical” papyri (1st-11th/12th centuries) calling on deities and powers to maintain or restore health (H. D. Betz; M. Meyer and R. Smith) offer further evidence of the same, as do the many healing accounts in early Christian literature and other writings of the same period (S. Davies, H. Remus 1997).
With the rise of modern scientific medicine, “health” and “illness” have come to refer primarily to physical and, more recently, also mental states, with corresponding diagnosis and treatment. Religious traditions have commonly offered understandings and explanations of health and illness that place them, and human → life generally, in a wider context of relations between humans and the divine. When these relations are askew, illness may result (Lev. 26:14–16; Num. 21:4–7; 2 Kgs. 5; 1 Cor. 11:27–30). If some malign agent is causing an illness, a benign power should be mustered against it (1 Sam. 16:14–23; Mark 1:32, 34; 3:11; 5:1–20; magical papyri in Betz and in Meyer and Smith). One of the Hippocratic treatises, The Sacred Disease, disparages such diagnosis and treatment. The so-called sacred disease is epilepsy; it has diagnosable, natural causes, and will respond to medical treatment. The treatise is not antireligious, nor were (or are) physicians necessarily or generally. Tensions between the two approaches to illness and health were (and are) inevitable, however, given the often divergent presuppositions of each.
Sometimes medical and religious views of illness are seen as antithetical. Relying on physicians rather than God for healing is seen as reprehensible in one passage in the Hebrew Bible (2 Chr. 16:12), for God is the great Healer (Gen. 20:17; Exod. 15:26; 2 Kgs. 20:5; Ps. 6:2; 30:2; 103:3; Isa. 19:22; 30:26). Tatian, a second-century convert to Christianity, portrays recourse to medicine as manifesting lack of trust in God (Orat. 18). More common today is inclusion of medicine in a religious view of health and illness, a tradition with ancient antecedents: physicians and their art and medicines are gifts “from the Most High” (Sir. 38:2); Asclepius, famed as a physician, becomes the god of healing, and physicians were present at his temples.
Alongside medicine, or when it falters or fails, → prayer and healing rituals—individual and communal—have been common responses to illness, from ancient times (2 Cor. 12:7–9; Acts 9:40; Jas. 5:13–16; Irenaeus Adv. haer. 3.31.2) to the present. Prayer and ritual may fail, too, however, posing questions about the source of illness and the suffering it causes. Religions such as → Judaism and Christianity, which stress human responsibility, have often ascribed illness and → death to → sin (Numbers 12; 16:41–50; Deuteronomy 28; 2 Sam. 12:1–15; 2 Kgs. 5:19–27; 1 Cor. 11:29–30; Acts 5:1–11; 12:21–23). Such a cause-and-effect relationship does not go unchallenged, however (Job; John 9:1–3). The “wintry” psalms (M. Marty) of the Hebrew Bible bewail → suffering and puzzle over the reason for affliction, even as they also look to God for deliverance.
Illness is also corporate. The Hebrew prophets decry “sick” societies that inflict suffering and that will in turn suffer at the hand of a just God. The → prophets sometimes dramatized such impending suffering through symbolic actions (Isaiah 20; Jeremiah 19; 27; Ezek. 4:4–8), even to the point of invoking physical trauma on themselves (1 Kgs. 20:35–43). Today an individual’s illness can “voice” society’s illness (A. Siirala); for example, Alice James sickens into invalidism in a society and culture that discouraged full self-expression of women (J. Strouse).
In recent decades the relation between mind and body and the implications for health and illness have received increasing attention, both in religion and medicine (W. B. Cannon, N. Cousins, T. Harpur, M. E. Marty and K. L. Vaux, B. Moyers). That health and illness have to do with the whole person is implicit in the NT gospel traditions. While illness or suffering as divine punishment is denied (Luke 13:1–5; John 9:2–3), yet the one healing story in which Jesus first proclaims forgiveness of a man’s sin before healing him (Mark 2:5 and par.) implies that more than healing of the physical body is involved. The restoration to health in the many gospel healing accounts is also a restoration of the person to society, and thus also a restoring of health in that society. The various assertions of → forgiveness for, and acceptance of, the → marginalized (Matt. 18:27; Luke 7:42; 15) and Jesus’ association with “sinners” function similarly.
The story of the physician who comes to call the sick (Mark 2:17), heals the sick, and then himself suffers death on a cross has been significant for Christian interpretation of health and illness in several ways. Jesus’ acceptance of suffering has been taken as modeling patience for those in pain and suffering, or these experiences have been interpreted as a way of participating in Christ’s suffering; conversely, Christ is seen as suffering with the sufferer. Furthermore, Jesus’ healing of illness has served as incentive to strive against illness, both individually and institutionally (e.g., in hospitals).
Aging as illness (→ Old Age)—ineluctable infirmity and senility—is increasingly disputed (B. Friedan). Along with many other literatures, the Bible honors age (Lev. 19:32; Job 32:6; Prov. 23:22; 1 Tim. 5:1) and promises long life to the faithful (Deut. 5:33; 11:20–21; Psalm 91; Prov. 10:27). Also, however, it contemplates the fragility of life and the inevitability of death (Psalm 90; Isa. 40:6–8; Jas. 1:10; 1 Pet. 1:24) and envisages continuity between life before and after death, between deeds done or left undone and life hereafter (Luke 16:19–31; Rom. 2:1–13; 2 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 14:13). In Christianity, forsaking or dying to an old way of life and embracing or rising to a new are prominent, promising “salvation”—health—now and hereafter (Luke 15:11–32; Mark 8:34–35 and par.; Rom. 6:1–11; Gal. 2:20). Similarly, the “healthy” society, in which “justice roll[s] down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” (Amos 5:24) and peace and justice reign (Isa. 11:1–9), stands in continuity with visions of a final, eschatological deliverance of both creation and creatures (Rom. 8:20–23), an ultimate reconstitution of what is, with God and humanity reconciled, privation and suffering banished, and all tears wiped away (Rev. 7:13–17; 21:1–5).

Bibliography: H. D. BETZ, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation (Chicago, 1992) ∙ W. B. CANNON, “Voodoo Death,” AmA 44 (1942) 169–81 (repr., abridged, Reader in Comparative Religion [ed. W. Lessa and E. Z. Vogt; 3d ed.; New York, 1972]) ∙ N. COUSINS, Head First: The Biology of Hope and the Healing Power of the Human Spirit (London, 1989) ∙ S. DAVIES, Jesus the Healer (New York, 1995) ∙ E. J. EDELSTEIN and L. EDELSTEIN, Asclepius (Baltimore, 1945) ∙ B. FRIEDAN, The Fountain of Age (New York, 1993) ∙ T. HARPUR, The Uncommon Touch (Toronto, 1994) ∙ R. JACKSON, Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire (Norman, Okla., 1988) ∙ H. G. KOENIG, The Healing Power of Faith: Science Explores Medicine’s Last Great Frontier (New York, 1999) ∙ M. E. MARTY, A Cry of Absence (San Francisco, 1983) ∙ M. E. MARTY and K. L. VAUX, eds., Health/Medicine and the Faith Traditions: An Inquiry into Religion and Medicine (Philadelphia, 1982) ∙ M. MEYER and R. SMITH, eds., Ancient Christian Magic (San Francisco, 1994) ∙ B. MOYERS, Healing and the Mind (New York, 1993) ∙ H. REMUS, Jesus as Healer (Cambridge, 1997); idem, Pagan-Christian Conflict over Miracle in the Second Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1983) ∙ A. SIIRALA, The Voice of Illness (Philadelphia, 1964) ∙ J. STROUSE, Alice James: A Biography (London, 1980).

HAROLD REMUS
Heaven

1. Meaning
2. Biblical Traditions
3. Theological and Scientific Cosmologies
1. Meaning

From antiquity onward, across various cultures, the concept of heaven unites and distinguishes several notions and systems of reference.
1.1. Heaven is what people see above the earth, marking it off or securing it (i.e., the firmament). It is sometimes regarded as a material half-globe or a disk arching over the earth.
1.2. Heaven is also a syndrome of powers and uncontrollable forces. We cannot directly measure or manipulate it. It has a decisive impact on life on earth by granting or withholding life and water, also by sending storms, hail, and so forth.
1.3. Heaven is the place of the gods, the home of the Supreme Being or various supernatural forces, to which many orders, including social orders, ascribe their coherence.
1.4. Heaven can be equated with → God, the Godhead, or his manifestation and thus gives rise to many more or less figurative and nuanced concepts of the transcendent or transcendence (→ Immanence and Transcendence).
1.5. Finally, heaven is the place of life after → death, in which a more perfect and indestructible → life is possible and from which standards for the orientation of this present life are derived (e.g., → hope).
2. Biblical Traditions

In the biblical traditions we find elucidation and systematization.
2.1. The deifying of heaven is resisted (see 1.4). Heaven is created by God (e.g., Gen. 1:1; 14:19, 22; Ps. 8:3; 33:6; Prov. 3:19; 8:27; Isa. 42:5; 45:18; Acts 4:24; Rev. 10:6). Its stability is under threat, and although it typifies endurance (Deut. 11:21; Ps. 89:29; Sir. 45:15), it will perish or be destroyed in the → last judgment (Job 14:12; Ps. 102:25–26; Isa. 34:4; 51:6; Jer. 4:23–28; Amos 8:9; Matt. 5:18; Mark 13:31 and par.; 2 Pet. 3:7–10). Heaven and earth must be perfected or created anew (Isa. 65:17; 66:22; 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1). Being created, heaven is part of the world, which is made up of heaven and earth (e.g., Gen. 2:4a; Matt. 11:25) or of heaven, earth, and sea (Exod. 20:11).
On this basis the demonizing of cosmic entities can be challenged, and cosmological theorizing can begin (e.g., Genesis 1; Job 36:27–33; 38:33; Isa. 55:10; see THAT 2.967–68). Especially noteworthy in this regard is the doctrine of seven heavens (oriented to the seven constellations). It is hardly possible today to trace other numberings.
2.2. Although created by God and part of the world, heaven is also the dwelling place of God (Deut. 26:15; 1 Kgs. 8:30–51; 2 Macc. 3:39; Ps. 2:4; Matt. 5:34; 23:22; Acts 7:49; Rev. 4:2) and the sphere of God’s rule (Deut. 4:39; Judg. 5:20; 1 Kgs. 22:19–23; Job 1:6–12; Ps. 11:4; Eph. 1:20; Heb. 1:3). God comes down or looks down from it, especially on humans (Ps. 14:2 etc.). God speaks from heaven, blessing and punishing (e.g., Gen. 11:5; 19:24; 49:25; Exod. 20:22; Deut. 26:15). In a special way God’s reign there is uncontested.
2.3. As the place of God’s uncontested lordship (Matt. 6:10), heaven is the dwelling place of the “heavenly hosts,” or the → angels who surround, worship, and serve God (Neh. 9:6; Ps. 103:20–22; 148:1–6; Matt. 18:10b; Luke 2:13, 15; 22:43). Heaven, then, is not just the point of departure for natural forces (see 1.2) but also the sphere of social forces that direct history.
Nevertheless, although heaven is the location of great powers, the Bible clearly maintains the distinction between it and God (Deut. 10:14; 1 Kgs. 8:27; 2 Chr. 2:5–6; 6:18; Heb. 7:26). In the NT it is from heaven that the triune God does his work for us as the “Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16, 45; 6:1, 9; 23:9, etc.; cf. Mark 1:11 and par.) through the Christ-event (see 2.4) and the sending of the → Holy Spirit from heaven (Mark 1:10 and par.; Acts 2; 1 Pet. 1:12).
2.4. Through the Christ-event (→ Christology) there is communion (J. Moltmann) between heaven, the sphere of the undisputed lordship of the God who is distant from us and relatively inaccessible to us, and earth. This communion is set forth in the descent of Christ from heaven (John 3:13; 6:38, 42; Eph. 4:9), the opening of heaven at his → baptism (Matt. 3:16–17 and par.), his → ascension (Mark 16:19 and par.; Acts 1:9), his session at the right hand of the Father (Eph. 1:20; Heb. 1:3; 8:1), his awaited coming again as Kyrios (Matt. 24:30; 26:64; Mark 14:62; 1 Thess. 1:10; 4:16–17), and his being given all power in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18; cf. Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:16). The coming → kingdom of God can also be called the kingdom of heaven (almost always in Matthew).
2.5. Heaven is the place where the dead are either close to God or distant from him. It is also the place where believers experience their definitive personal (Matt. 16:19; Luke 10:20; Heb. 12:23) and public (2 Cor. 5:1; Phil. 3:20; Heb. 3:1; 13:14) calling and the fulfillment of their hope (Col. 1:5).
3. Theological and Scientific Cosmologies

Direct conflicts between theological and scientific cosmologies have led both to escape in the deifying of heaven—strengthened and attacked by the philosophical criticism of religion (L. Feuerbach; → Religion, Criticism of)—and to a suppression of the doctrine of heaven. Rehabilitation of the doctrine is possible on the basis of a multisystemic thinking, which shows that different reference systems combine in different ways in what is said about heaven as cultures and perspectives change (J. Moltmann, largely following M. Welker 1981). In modern Western culture temporal ideas predominate (heaven as the future), or modal-theoretical concepts (heaven as the reign of possibilities) prevail.
A developed doctrine of heaven can help give us a better grasp of the political and cosmic dimensions of the Christ-event and the differentiated unity of the work of the triune God. Serious theological and conceptual difficulties stand in the way of such a development, however, especially unresolved conceptions of eternity (see Aristotle’s De caelo 283b29: heaven containing and enclosing immeasurable time) and problems in fixing the relations between creatures of nature and those of culture.
→ Eschatology; Worldview

Bibliography: K. BARTH, CD III/3, §51.2 ∙ H. BIETENHARD, Die himmlische Welt im Urchristentum und Spätjudentum (Tübingen, 1951) ∙ L. BREŒMOND, Le ciel, ses joies et ses splendeurs (Paris, 1925) ∙ L. FEUERBACH, The Essence of Christianity (New York, 1957; orig. pub., 1841) chap. 19 ∙ T. FLÜGGE, “Die Vorstellung über den Himmel im Alten Testament” (Diss., Borna-Leipzig, 1937) ∙ J. HAEKEL, J. SCHMID, and J. RATZINGER, “Himmel,” LTK 5.352–58 ∙ C. HOUTMAN, Der Himmel im Alten Testament (Leiden, 1993) ∙ J. MOLTMANN, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God (New York, 1985) 158–84 ∙ S. MORENZ and G. GLOEGE, “Himmel,” RGG (3d ed.) 3.328–33 ∙ U. E. SIMON, Heaven in the Christian Tradition (London, 1958) ∙ J. A. SOGGIN, “שָׁמַיִּם šamájim Himmel,” THAT 2.965–70 ∙ H. TRAUB and G. VON RAD, “Οὐρανός κτλ,” TDNT 5.497–543 ∙ M. WELKER, Creation and Reality (Philadelphia, 1999) chap. 3; idem, Universalität Gottes und Relativität der Welt (Neukirchen, 1981) esp. 203ff.

MICHAEL WELKER
Hebrew Language

1. Apart from some Aramaic sections, the OT is written in Hebrew. The word “Hebrew,” absent from the OT, occurs first in the prologue to Sirach, and then among the → rabbis, who stressed the dignity of the language of the canonical Scriptures by calling it a holy language.

2. Hebrew represents a dialect group whose local idioms (see Judg. 12:6; 2 Kgs. 18:26) the Israelites adopted. Like the South Canaanite of the Amarna Letters, Phoenician Punic, Moabite, Ammonite, Ugaritic, and Amorite, Hebrew is a Canaanite language (see Isa. 19:18). Canaanite and Aramaic (→ Arameans) form the Northwest Semitic branch of Semitic languages.

3. Three linguistic stages may be distinguished. Ancient Hebrew (lasting ca. 1,000 years) runs from the earliest parts of the OT (e.g., Judges 5) by way of the classical Hebrew of the monarchy to the late postexilic period. Sources apart from the OT include the farming calendar of Gezer, the ostraca of Arad and Samaria, the Siloam tunnel inscription, the Lachish Letters, seals, coins, vessels, and inscribed weights.
Middle Hebrew occurs in an older stage (Ecclesiastes, Tobit, Sirach, nonbiblical → Qumran texts) and a later scholarly stage (→ Mishnah and other rabbinic works).
Modern Hebrew is the form revived in the 19th century under the influence of the Jewish enlightenment and → Zionism, greatly enriched lexically, and syntactically influenced in part by European languages. Hebrew (along with Arabic for the Arab minority) is the official language of the State of Israel.

4. As a Semitic language, Hebrew has the following features:

• gutturals and emphatic sounds;
• two genders, masculine and feminine;
• roots mostly with three consonants and carrying the general sense, with more specific meanings and grammatical forms being indicated by the vocalic pattern or by a prefix, infix, or suffix;
• an attributive relation between two nouns whereby the governing noun comes first in the so-called construct state and the governed noun comes second in the absolute state;
• frequent parataxis in sentence construction;
• distinction between a nominal statement (with no “to be”), which says something about the state of a subject, and a verbal statement, which usually puts the verb first and can describe an act, a process, or a state.

Historically, Hebrew went through a series of stages. Thus an originally long ā became ō, and diphthongs were contracted (ay to ê, and aw to ô). Nouns lost their early case endings. An originally more complex system of verbs was simplified to result in (1) a durative (or continuative) yiqṭōl (< yaqṭulu), with a mainly present-future function; (2) past tense wayyiqṭōl (< yaqṭul); (3) a constative qāṭal, with a mainly past function; and (4) a wĕqāṭal, with a future, imperative, or iterative function.
Gradually replaced by Aramaic as the language of the people from the sixth century B.C., Hebrew developed under the influence of Aramaic into Middle Hebrew.
Biblical Hebrew took its present shape in the long and complex process of standardizing, which finally fixed the consonantal text (ca. A.D. 100) and ended with the adding of vowel points by the Tiberian Masoretes (8th to 10th cent.; → Masorah, Masoretes).

Bibliography: W. JOHNSTONE et al., Computerized Introductory Hebrew Grammar (4 disks; Edinburgh, 1993) ∙ P. JOÜON, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Rome, 1991) ∙ P. H. KELLEY, Biblical Hebrew: An Introductory Grammar (Grand Rapids, 1992) ∙ L. KOEHLER et al., The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the OT (Leiden, 1994–96) ∙ E. Y. KUTSCHER, A History of the Hebrew Language (Jerusalem, 1982) ∙ W. RICHTER, Grundlagen einer althebräischen Grammatik (3 vols.; St. Ottilien, 1978–80) bibliography ∙ A. SÁEZ-BADILLOS, A History of the Hebrew Language (Cambridge, 1993) ∙ H.-P. STÄHLI, Hebräisch-Kurzgrammatik (3d ed.; Göttingen, 1992) ∙ E. ULLENDORFF, “A History of the Hebrew Language,” JJS 46 (1995) 283–92.

HANS-PETER STÄHLI
Hebrews

The term “Hebrews”—in Hebrew ʿibrı̂ (pl. ʿibrı̂m), in Ugaritic ʿpr (pl. ʿprm), in Egyptian ʿpr (pl. ʿpr.w), in Akkadian ḫab/piru (pl. ḫab/pirū, ideogram lúSA.GAZ, with the broader reading ḫabbātu = robbers), in Greek Hebraios—common in the ancient Near East from the late third millennium B.C., designated people who had lost their position in society through war, debt, criminal acts, and so forth, who were organized in loose bands, and who offered their labor to foreign masters in return for recompense. Not by accident in the second half of the second millennium, a time of political and social disintegration and migration, there is a great increase in records of such groups.
The OT examples begin at this period, and though the dating is hotly contested, a connection is rightly seen with the parallel constitution of the people of Israel. The name now acquired a new accent. It was still in the first instance a foreign designation used by Egyptians and → Philistines, but it was now applied to the groups out of which → Israel (§1) was composed. This pejorative sociological term was deliberately adopted by those concerned and made into a proud, ethnically understood self-description.
When the Israelites are called Hebrews in the conflict with the Philistines (1 Sam. 4:6, 9; 13:3, 7, 19; 14:11; 29:3), we can see that the Hebrews have become a people. The exodus tradition, though more literary, embodies an authentic recollection when it calls the people of → Moses Hebrews (Exod. 1:15–16, 19; 2:6–7, 11, 13; 3:18; 5:3; 7:16; 9:1). It is natural, then, that we should find the term also in the Joseph cycle (Gen. 39:14, 17; 40:15; 41:12; 43:32).
Finally, in the law concerning slaves in Exod. 21:2–11, the emphatic characterization of slaves as Hebrews (v. 2) is probably following theological considerations, recalling thereby the people’s own perilous beginnings in the Egyptian “house of → slavery” (20:2 etc.; note amendment of the law concerning slaves in Deut. 15:12[–18], as a → Deuteronomistic citation in Jer. 34:14, and as a Deuteronomistic commentary in 34:9).
Genealogical speculations deriving the ancestral father Eber (ʿēber) from the gentilic ʿibrı̂ represent a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of transmission (Gen. 10:21, 24–25; 11:14–17; 1 Chr. 1:18–19, 25; cf. Num. 24:24). The ʿibrı̂ themselves derived from the same tradition within which during the exilic-postexilic period the term “Hebrew” became a historically unburdened, ethnic-religious honorific name (Gen. 14:13; Jonah 1:9; similarly in the NT: 2 Cor. 11:22; Phil. 3:5 [alongside the designation of the Aramaic-speaking Jews as Hebrews, Acts 6:1; cf. 21:40; 22:2; 26:14]).

Bibliography: G. W. AHLSTRÖM, The History of Ancient Palestine from the Palaeolithic Period to Alexander’s Conquest (Sheffield, 1993) ∙ R. B. COOTE, Early Israel: A New Horizon (Minneapolis, 1990) ∙ F. M. CROSS, “An Interview I: Israelite Origins,” BibRev 8 (1992) 20–32, 61–62 ∙ O. LORETZ, Habiru-Hebräer (Berlin, 1984) bibliography ∙ D. B. REDFORD, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (Princeton, 1992) ∙ M. WEIPPERT, Die Landnahme der israelitischen Stämme (Göttingen, 1967) 66–102.

HERMANN SPIECKERMANN
Hebrews, Epistle to the

1. Structure and Contents
2. Historical Questions
3. Literary and Theological Character
4. Place in the History of Primitive Christian Theology
1. Structure and Contents

The Epistle to the Hebrews, which begins like a theological tractate (1:1–4) and ends like a Pauline congregational letter (13:22–25), is an artistic construct that uses many literary and rhetorical devices. A constant interchange of teaching and admonition marks its structure. At its heart, as an address to the mature (5:11–6:20), is the development of a high-priestly → Christology (7:1–10:18). The preceding section leads up by several detours (2:5–18; 4:14–5:10; 6:19–20) to this main Christological theme but also shows that the development of the doctrine aims at the consoling, admonishing, and warning of the recipients (2:1–4; 3:1–6; 3:7–4:13; 5:11–6:20). Along similar lines an expansive conclusion follows the central teaching section (10:19–12:29; 13:1–21). Here the admonition reaches its climax as faith → parenesis, again on the Christological basis (10:19–25; 12:2–3; 13:8–17).
2. Historical Questions

The author of Hebrews is unknown. Probably he was an early Christian teacher in the Pauline tradition (13:22–25) who used the exegetical method developed in the Hellenistic synagogue (preeminently by Philo). Since the traditional title (“The Letter to the Hebrews,” i.e., Jewish Christians) seems to derive secondarily from the material, the original recipients are also unknown. Their situation seems to be the typical one of a postapostolic Gentile church that, under pressure, was growing slack in faith and afraid of suffering, so that there was the danger of apostasy (2:1–4; 3:12; 10:25, 32–39; 12:12–13) rather than of relapse into Judaism. If we agree that Hebrews is quoted in 1 Clement (17.1; 36.3–5), then it must have been written by at least between A.D. 80 and 100.
3. Literary and Theological Character

The presupposed church situation corresponds to the literary character and theological concern of Hebrews as a work of comfort and admonition after the manner of the Hellenistic synagogue (13:22), the aim of the author being to motivate the pressured community to hold fast to the confession (3:1; 4:14; 10:23) and to remain steadfast in → faith (10:35–12:3). The specific means used is an exposition of the confession oriented to the OT (LXX), using a high-priestly Christology that interprets the death and exaltation of Jesus as a once-for-all and definitive self-offering. The offering of Jesus shows the cultic and sacrificial order of the OT to have been earthly and provisional, and it constitutes entry into the heavenly sanctuary. This Christology, which is oriented to the antithesis of the earthly and the heavenly, is applied to the specific situation of the assaulted church by means of the motif of the pioneer, or forerunner. The exalted → high priest is the one who himself learned → obedience by suffering (5:7–10; cf. 2:10–18) and who thus became the church’s “forerunner” (6:19–20; 12:2–3; 13:12–13).
4. Place in the History of Primitive Christian Theology

Although Hebrews formulates its own answer to the trial of the church separately from → Paul, in its exposition of the confession with reference to the church situation, it stands in continuity with the history of primitive Christian theology. Doubts about its authorship were current already in the → early church, but its final acceptance into the NT → canon rested not merely on its mistaken ascription to Paul but also on the self-contained kerygmatic conception that is found in it.

Bibliography: Commentaries: H. W. ATTRIDGE (Hermeneia; Philadelphia, 1989) ∙ P. ELLINGWORTH (NIGTC; Grand Rapids, 1993) ∙ E. GRÄSSER (EKKNT; Neukirchen, 1997) ∙ H.-F. WEISS (KEK; Göttingen, 1991).
Other works: E. GRÄSSER, “Der Hebräerbrief, 1938–1963,” TRu 30 (1964) 138–236 ∙ G. HUGHES, Hebrews and Hermeneutics: The Epistle to the Hebrews as a NT Example of Biblical Interpretation (Cambridge, 1979) ∙ E. KÄSEMANN, Das wandernde Gottesvolk (2d ed.; Göttingen, 1975) ∙ F. LAUB, Bekenntnis und Auslegung. Die paränetische Funktion der Christologie im Hebräerbrief (Regensburg, 1980) ∙ A. VANHOYE, La structure littéraire de l’épı̂tre aux Hébreux (2d ed.; Paris, 1976).

HANS-FRIEDRICH WEISS
Hedonism

Deriving from Gk. hēdonē (pleasure, joy), hedonism is an ethical theory that is close to → utilitarianism. It regards → happiness as the goal of human action (so generally eudaemonism; → Ethics), equating this happiness positively with the achieving of the greatest possible pleasure and negatively with the avoiding of unhappiness or pain. The term has been used since the 19th century to describe the ethical theories of the Cyrenaics (Aristippus, Euhemerus), the Epicureans, the philosophers of the → Renaissance (L. Valla), those of the → Enlightenment (C.-A. HelveŒtius, P.-H. D. d’Holbach), and some moderns (J. S. Mill, H. Sidgwick; → modernity).
Besides practical hedonism, an unthinking readiness for enjoyment found among many people, two types of hedonism are distinguished. First is psychological hedonism. As a psychological description, this position makes a statement about the final motivation of human action, finding it oriented exclusively or chiefly to the attainment of as much pleasure as possible and the avoidance of pain. The pleasure principle of S. Freud (1856–1939) is close to this concept. Second, ethical hedonism at the normative level finds the basis of all ethics in pleasure as the only or supreme good, whether it be momentary pleasure or a more lasting pleasure that includes some renunciation.
It is beyond question that people seek happiness. It may be doubted, however, whether pleasure is all that is desired, or whether it may not be simply the accompaniment of a striving for something else, and whether hedonism does not make an empirical fact—the experience of pleasure—into a starting point for normative ethics. In so doing, it commits the naturalistic fallacy (→ Analytic Ethics).

Bibliography: R. B. BRANDT, “Hedonism,” EncPh 3.432–35 ∙ J. W. DRANE, “Christians, New Agers, and Changing Cultural Paradigms,” ExpTim 116 (1994) 172–76 ∙ W. K. FRANKENA, Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963) ∙ J. GOLLNICK, Love and the Soul: Psychological Interpretations of the Eros and Psyche Myth (Waterloo, Ont., 1992) ∙ I. KASSORIA, Nice Girls Do-and Now You Can Too (Los Angeles, 1980) ∙ D. KINSLEY, The Goddesses’ Mirror (Albany, N.Y., 1989) ∙ M. E. MARTY, ed., Modern American Protestantism and Its World (Munich, 1993) ∙ G. E. MOORE, Principia ethica (Cambridge, 1903).

WERNER SCHWARTZ
Hegelianism

1. The Hegel School
2. Decline of the School
3. Left and Right Wings
4. Impact of Hegel’s Philosophy
5. Hegel Renaissance

A definition of Hegelianism is hardly possible. Various positions in modern thought appeal to the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831), both those of his direct and indirect followers, as well as those of thinkers who had nothing directly to do with the Hegel school. We can achieve an adequate concept of Hegelianism only by reconstructing its development.
1. The Hegel School

Hegel’s philosophy took up an idea that influenced modern thought from the time of R. Descartes (1596–1650; → Cartesianism); namely, it tried to present the totality of secular thought and knowledge insofar as it could be ascertained without recourse to the truths of faith. The result was a circular system in three divisions (→ logic, → philosophy of nature, and philosophy of spirit), each of which itself had three parts. The philosophy of spirit is of particular interest as it divides into the philosophy of subjective, objective, and absolute spirit. In turn the last is divided into the philosophy of art, religion, and → philosophy itself, with which the system returns to its starting point, logic. The method that made the system possible was Hegel’s developed → dialectic.
This conception, which from Hegel’s Heidelberg period (1816–18) went under the title Encyclopedia of Philosophical Science, and the dialectical method (→ Dialectic), which made systematic use of the operation of negation, soon brought Hegel many followers. Already from the Jena years (1801–7) came G. A. Gabler (1786–1853), who was called to Berlin as Hegel’s successor in the chair of philosophy. Among the Heidelberg disciples were F. W. CaroveŒ (1789–1852), F. W. Hinrichs (1794–1861), and K. Daub (1765–1836), a professor of theology in Heidelberg. Hegel’s work in Berlin (1818–31) attracted the greatest number of followers, the Hegel school in the narrower sense. This school included the theologian P. K. Marheineke (1780–1846), the philosopher L. von Hennecken (1791–1866), the historical theologian F. C. Baur (1792–1860), the jurist E. Gans (1798–1839), the jurist and philosopher K. L. Michelet (1801–93), and the aestheticians G. Hotho (1802–73) and H. T. Rötscher (1803–71), to mention only the most important.
As one may see from the composition of the school, → law, the → state, and → religion were the main themes that made Hegel’s teachings attractive to students. Against the attacks of the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung (1829) on Hegel’s philosophy as pantheistic and atheistic, K. F. Göschel (1781–1861), also in 1829, published a work in which he expounded Hegel’s attempt to reconcile → faith and knowledge. His ideas were the starting point for the Hegelian right wing. The left wing can be traced back by way of L. A. Feuerbach (1804–72) to the time when Hegel taught in Berlin.
Along with religious questions Hegel’s disciples gravitated to the politically relevant themes of law and state. From the Bern period (1793–96) Hegel was interested in political matters; in particular, thinking about → revolution was central for him. His Philosophy of Right (1821), published at a politically explosive time, represented his attempt to defend liberal advances against both foes and false friends. For Hegel, contradictory elements in the early stages of modernity found reconciliation in the state.
2. Decline of the School

Hegel’s school did not divide into two hostile camps immediately upon his death. Instead Marheineke, Gans, L. von Henning (1791–1866), Hotho, and others, along with Hegel’s biographer K. F. Rosenkranz (1805–79), formed a society to produce an edition of the writings of their late teacher.
The work that is usually regarded as making the split apparent is The Life of Jesus (1835), by D. F. Strauss (1808–74). Strauss adopted the Enlightenment biblical criticism that Hegel had himself used in his early writings and made a theological attack upon both supernaturalism and → rationalism. He expounded the NT narratives as → myths, which “do not stand on a historical basis or ground.” Understandably this view provoked strong reactions. In a polemical defense of the work (1837), Strauss distinguished between left-wing and right-wing Hegelians and a middle group between them. Contrary to a widespread but mistaken interpretation, the difference was not exclusively or even primarily politically motivated but concerned different positions in the controversy about → Christology. For Strauss, the right wing holds the position of the Gospels, whereby Christ unites in himself a divine and human nature; the left wing doubts the truth of the gospel accounts; and the center seeks a middle course between the two. Strauss put himself on the left wing, Rosenkranz in the center, and Göschel, Gabler, and B. Bauer (1809–82) on the right.
3. Left and Right Wings

In hindsight the left-wing Hegelians, or Young Hegelians, were rather differently constituted than in the sketch by Strauss. According to K. Löwith, it included not only Feuerbach and Bauer but also H. Heine (1797–1856), A. Ruge (1803–80), M. Stirner (1806–56), M. Hess (1812–75), S. → Kierkegaard (1813–55), and K. → Marx (1818–83). What united these men, in spite of their different positions, was their common interest in applying philosophy, that is, in translating into practice Hegel’s theoretical proposals for reconciliation.
This reconciliation did not take place independently of the question of the criticism of religion (→ Religion Criticism of), which was central for the direct followers of Hegel. We see this connection most clearly from the role played by Feuerbach’s philosophy, which had a decisive influence on German thought in the mid-19th century. Feuerbach’s criticism of religion led to the same point as his criticism of Hegel, namely, that our sensory nature may be seen in both. Philosophy derives from this tie, for as religion is a mere projection of defective human reality, so true philosophy is a genetically critical reduction of all thoughts to “natural grounds and causes.”
This reversal of Hegel’s idealistic mode of thinking into a materialistic mode impressed Marx among others. He and F. Engels (1820–95), however, missed in the anthropological → materialism of Feuerbach both the concrete politicoeconomic expression of human nature and the dialectical method. If we add these factors, the result is that the social relations that constitute human nature develop in the context of a history whose dialectic is the real history of class conflict (→ Marxism). The Christological → salvation history of the self-manifesting God has taken the secular form of political → economy, and the eschatological element has become the idea of a classless society linked to expectation of the “parousia” of the imminent and final → proletarian revolution.
According to H. Lübbe the right wing, or Old Hegelians, included the historians of philosophy J. E. Erdmann (1805–92) and K. Fischer (1824–1907), the biographer Rosenkranz, followers like CaroveŒ, Gans, Hinrichs, and Michelet, the liberal publicist and politician H. B. Oppenheim (1819–80), and the publicist and philosopher of law and society C. Rössler (1820–96). The strongest impact of Hegel’s philosophy may be seen in this group. Up to the middle of the century this philosophy in its right-wing form was the background against which individualists could appear like A. Schopenhauer (1788–1860), Kierkegaard, and F. W. → Nietzsche (1844–1900), as well as the thinkers of historical and dialectical materialism.
Along with upholding the idea of a personal God (→ Theism) and the → immortality of the → soul, what united this group was a liberal, middle-class consciousness. They adopted the clear-cut but pragmatic position of the → liberalism of the period 1815–48 and of the 1848 revolution itself.
4. Impact of Hegel’s Philosophy

In the second half of the 19th century there was a spread of thinking oriented to Hegel outward from Germany—to France, Russia, Britain, Italy, Scandinavia, and the United States.
V. Cousin (1792–1867) introduced Hegel’s philosophy to France in lectures (1828–29) on the history of philosophy. More important was the → positivist H. Taine (1828–93), who admired Hegel’s philosophy and tried to combine it with the → empiricism of eŒ. Condillac and J. S. Mill. Yet one can hardly speak of a Hegelian Taine. The theologian J.-E. Renan (1823–92) could hardly find a place for the God of the theologians in his eclectic → pantheism, in which a self-generating God evolves in the → progress of humanity to the rule of the spirit.
The first to bring Hegel to Moscow was the → anarchist theoretician M. Bakunin (1814–76). Bakunin also made Hegel known to the philosopher and aesthetician V. G. Belinsky (1811–48), who was already inclined to a left-wing Hegelian standpoint. A. I. Herzen (1812–70) tended in the same direction, as did N. G. Chernyshevsky (1828–89), with whom he opposed the czarist regime after 1860.
The beginning of acquaintance with Hegel’s philosophy in Great Britain is usually connected with the publication of the book The Secret of Hegel (1865) by J. H. Stirling (1820–1909), the first British monograph on Hegel. Other important British thinkers influenced by Hegel were the Oxford Hegelians—for example, T. H. Green (1836–82)—who were motivated by their studies of classical antiquity. Green found in German → idealism a way to combat → atheism and empiricism with a rehabilitation of spirit and the idea of a personal God.
In Italy Hegelianism was welcomed for its liberating effect after the risorgimento as almost a cult or a substitute for religion. At first oriented in a radically democratic direction, it interested B. Spaventa (1817–83) and F. De Sanctis (1817–83) by way of Hegel’s political works, but then interest spread to his other writings as well. In the 20th century the neo-Hegelians B. Croce (1866–1952) and G. Gentile (1875–1944) adopted this Neapolitan Hegelianism.
In Denmark Hegel’s thinking had a strong influence on theology and, through J. L. Heiberg (1791–1860), also on literature and → aesthetics. Kierkegaard sharply criticized Hegel’s pure theory of absolute spirit as totally out of touch with real human existence, but even his opposition helped make Hegel known. In Sweden J. J. Borelius (1823–1909), in Norway M. J. Monrad (1816–97), and in Finland J. V. Snellman (1806–81) contributed to the spread of Hegelian ideas, though more along the lines of the right wing.
Hegelianism made a very early entry into the United States. F. A. Rauch (1806–41), who had been a student of Hegel’s, went to the United States in 1831 and in 1836 became president of Marshall College in Pennsylvania. The first pages of Hegel appeared in English in German Prose Writers (1832), by F. H. Hedge. From this work W. T. Harris (1835–1909), the most zealous American Hegelian, learned Hegel. His teacher was H. C. Brokmeyer (1826–1906), translator of Hegel and founder of the St. Louis school, which also included T. Davidson (1840–1900), D. J. Snider (1841–1925), and others. This school, through the Journal of Speculative Philosophy (1867–93), which Harris founded and edited, plus his career as U.S. commissioner of education (1889–1906), influenced directly the American system of schools and → kindergartens.
5. Hegel Renaissance

In the 20th century Hegel’s philosophy was been taken up again in various places and for various reasons. Neo-Hegelianism in Italy was a continuation of existing trends, but a genuine Hegel renaissance occurred in Germany with W. Dilthey (1833–1911) and H. Nohl (1879–1960). In particular, Nohl’s edition of Hegels theologische Jugendschriften (The theological writings of Hegel’s youth, 1907) stimulated discussion of the philosophy of religion. A first phase of philological and critical debate with Hegel now began.
In an advance on neo-Kantianism, Hegel was set in some proximity to early National Socialism. In opposition to this development H. Simon, A. Kojève, A. KoyreŒ, and others in France developed a realistic historical interpretation of Hegel that was strongly affected by French philosophy after 1940 and that followed Kojève’s lectures on Hegel’s Phenomenology. These lectures influenced many, including J.-P. Sartre (1905–80).
Also in opposition to the National Socialist usurping of Hegel there was at the same time a revival of left-wing Hegelianism in a critical movement that deviated from orthodox Marxism and that ranged from explicit Marxist approaches (G. Lukács and E. Bloch) to middle and later → critical theory (M. Horkheimer, T. Adorno, and J. Habermas). This movement especially took over from the left wing the emancipatory motif of reflection and engaged in criticism of the preoccupation of orthodox Marxism with economics.
The nationalist interpretation of Hegel faded out completely after World War II, but the left-wing movement of social criticism and the hermeneutical approach (→ Hermeneutics) persisted. From the mid-1950s these two interests came together in an International Hegel Society and a closely related society for the publication of a critical edition of Hegel’s works. In 1981 they spawned an International Society for Dialectical Philosophy (Societas Hegeliana), whose main aim is to promote dialectical philosophy and its relations with the development of learning. There are also various national Hegel societies.
New theological interpretations and appropriations of Hegel have appeared in the past quarter century, and a critical edition of the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, edited by W. Jaeschke and translated by P. C. Hodgson and others, appeared in 1983–85. Hegel is viewed as providing to theology a postmetaphysical ontology that stresses the processive, relational character of absolute spirit and the interaction of God and the world.
→ Absolute, The; Philosophy of History; Philosophy of Religion

Bibliography: W. J. BRAZILL, The Young Hegelians (New Haven, 1970) ∙ E. L. FACKENHEIM, The Religious Dimension in Hegel’s Thought (Bloomington, Ind., 1967) ∙ P. C. HODGSON, ed., G. W. F. Hegel: Theologian of the Spirit (Minneapolis, 1997) ∙ W. JAESCHKE, Reason in Religion: The Foundations of Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1990) ∙ C. O’REGAN, The Heterodox Hegel (Albany, N.Y., 1994) ∙ L. STEPELEVICH, ed., The Young Hegelians: An Anthology (Cambridge, 1983) ∙ J. E. TOEWS, Hegelianism: The Path toward Dialectical Humanism, 1805–1841 (Cambridge, 1980) ∙ R. R. WILLIAMS, Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other (Albany, N.Y., 1992) ∙ R. K. WILLIAMSON, Introduction to Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion (Albany, N.Y., 1984).

WALTHER C. ZIMMERLI
Heidelberg Catechism

1. Occasion
2. Composition and Author
3. Contents
4. History, Spread, and Significance

The Heidelberg Catechism (1563), which was originally the catechism of the Palatinate (Catechismus oder christlicher Unterricht, wie der in Kirchen und Schulen der kurfürstlichen Pfalz getrieben wird), took its name from the city in which it was first printed. Its wide dispersal finally made it the Reformed equivalent of Martin Luther’s Small → Catechism.
1. Occasion

The Palatinate, though it went over only late to the → Reformation under Elector Ottheinrich (1556–59), achieved no stability. When Frederick III (1559–76) became ruler, forces devoted to M. Luther, P. Melanchthon, and Reformed teaching were struggling for mastery in the university, church, and government. A Heidelberg eucharistic controversy and competing orders of worship and catechisms polarized the territorial church. Elector Frederick turned step by step to the Reformed confession, and in December 1561 he introduced the Reformed rite of breaking bread (→ Eucharist) to Heidelberg. A new and unifying catechism that would also serve as a standard for pastors was the first act in a wider movement for liturgical and ecclesiastical reform along Reformed lines.
2. Composition and Author

We have only a few scattered accounts of the development of the Heidelberg Catechism. Among the theologians and church councillors of Heidelberg, the main author seems to have been Melanchthon’s disciple Zacharias Ursinus (1534–83), who had become professor of dogmatics in Heidelberg in 1562. From him we have a Latin draft with 108 questions dating to 1562. He used Lutheran and Reformed catechisms of the period along with → confessions and doctrinal writings. The elector took a personal interest, adding supporting biblical texts. The project was put before a conference of superintendents in January 1563. On January 19 the elector signed the preface, and on March 5 the first printed copies were available. At the suggestion of church councillor Caspar Olevianus (1536–87), another question (80) was added to the second edition concerning the difference between the Lord’s Supper and the → Mass. The final form came in April 1563 in a corrected German copy and a Latin translation for use in schools (now with 129 questions). In November 1563 the text was added to the new church order, and along with this order it was everywhere made definitive in a visitation (→ Church Orders).
3. Contents

The Heidelberg Catechism used the Geneva Catechism of John Calvin (1509–64) as a model, but in its much-quoted first question concerning our “only comfort in life and in death,” and throughout the series, it gives precedence to personal → assurance of salvation. To have knowledge of → salvation three things are necessary: (1) knowledge of sin (qq. 3–11, on the human plight), (2) knowledge and appropriation of redemption (12–85, on human redemption, with the creed and sacraments to vouch for salvation in Christ), and (3) living for God (86–129, on gratitude, according to the → Decalogue and in → prayer). The definitions of faith (21), the church (54), and justification (60) have become classic. Reformed features may be seen in the → Christology, in the emphasis on pneumatology (→ Holy Spirit) and the → sacraments, especially the Eucharist, and also in the puritanical thrust in the exposition of the Ten Commandments. There is sharp differentiation from Roman Catholicism.
4. History, Spread, and Significance

Continuous reading on each of ten Sundays before worship, along with regular catechetical preaching (→ Worship) in 52 sections on Sunday afternoons, helped to make the Heidelberg Catechism part of the congregational heritage. In scope and nature it was more a book for the congregation as a whole than a catechism for children. From 1576 there were shorter versions for the instruction of children and first communicants. Netherlanders in the Palatinate adopted it in 1563, as did the Netherlands as a whole in 1571 and Hungary in 1567. With Nassau-Dillenburg in 1581 it began to be accepted in German Reformed churches (esp. Lower Rhine and Westphalia), and the Swiss Reformed adopted it in 1614. It achieved confessional status when the Synod of Dort (1618–19) made it a formula of unity. Emigrants and missionaries took it to South Africa, Indonesia, and the United States. In the 1990s some branches of the Reformed Church in America and the Christian Reformed Church continued to make direct use of the Heidelberg Catechism, in some cases basing the regular Sunday preaching on its questions and answers.
Many important Reformed theologians have expounded the catechism, including G. Voetius (1589–1676) in a methodology of the spiritual life, J. Cocceius (1603–69) along the lines of federal theology (→ Covenant 3), F. A. Lampe (1683–1729) in terms of Pietism, H. F. Kohlbrügge (1803–75) in opposition to sanctification-synergism (→ Sanctification), and K. Barth (1886–1968) in the interests of Reformed reconstruction. The → Enlightenment took no interest in it, but the Awakening rediscovered it. Its twofold nature as a confession and a congregational book forms a link between theology and the congregation. An ecumenical explanation was added in 1976 to the rejection of the Mass in q. 80. Its widespread and distinctive character have made it a classic document of the Reformed understanding of the faith.
→ Calvinism; Calvin’s Theology; Reformed and Presbyterian Churches

Bibliography: K. BARTH, Learning Jesus Christ through the Heidelberg Catechism (Grand Rapids, 1982) ∙ The Commentary of Dr. Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism (trans. G. W. Willard; Columbus, Ohio, 1851) ∙ The Heidelberg Confession (trans. A. O. Miller and M. E. Osterhaven; Philadelphia, 1962) ∙ Der Heidelberger Katechismus (ed. V. O. Weber; 2d ed.; Gütersloh, 1983) ∙ H. HOEKSEMA, The Triple Knowledge: An Exposition of the Heidelberg Catechism (3d ed.; Grand Rapids, 1990) ∙ M. NOLL, ed., Confessions and Catechisms of the Reformation (Grand Rapids, 1991) 133–64 ∙ C. OLEVIAN and L. D. BIERMA, A Firm Foundation: An Aid to Interpreting the Heidelberg Catechism (Grand Rapids, 1995) ∙ C. PLANTINGA JR., A Place to Stand: A Reformed Study of Creeds and Confessions (Grand Rapids, 1979) ∙ D. VISSER, ed., Controversy and Conciliation: The Reformation and the Palatinate, 1559–1583 (Allison Park, Pa., 1986) 73–100 and 197–225.
J. F. GERHARD GOETERS†
Heilsgeschichte → Salvation History
Heliand

Heliand (from an Old English word meaning “Savior”; Ger. Heiland) is an Anglo-Saxon poem in various related sections, consisting originally of more than 6,000 alliterative verses. Combining the tradition of later Latin Bible poetry and the Anglo-Saxon Christian epic, it is by an unknown author and dates to the second half of the ninth century. Using Tatian’s Diatessaron and various contemporary commentaries (by the Venerable Bede, Alcuin, Rabanus Maurus, and others), it narrates the life, teaching, suffering, death, and resurrection of the Savior.
The distinctive use of the language and style of Germanic epic for the gospel story raises a problem in Christian literary aesthetics and is not an expression of → syncretism. The dogmatic orthodoxy and the propagation of the → Sermon on the Mount push pagan connotations (esp. the language of fate) into the background. The general avoidance of → allegory in favor of elemental catechetical additions has led to erroneous interpretations (e.g., as missionary literature, as forerunner of Protestant Bible piety).
M. Luther (1483–1546) and P. Melanchthon (1497–1560) knew the work, and M. Flacius (1520–75), in the second edition of his Catalogus testium veritatis (1562), published a Latin preface that introduced a (lost) codex of Heliand and a later Anglo-Saxon Genesis. To Flacius’s work we owe the only direct references to the author and the time of composition.
→ Literature, Biblical and Early Christian 3

Bibliography: Primary sources: O. BEHAGHEL, ed., Heliand und Genesis (9th ed.; ed. B. Taeger; Tübingen, 1984) ∙ J. E. CATHEY, Hêliand: Text and Commentary (Amherst, Mass., 1996) ∙ G. R. MURPHY, The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel. A Translation and Commentary (New York, 1992).
Secondary works: K. GANTERT, Akkommodation und eingeschriebener Kommentar. Untersuchungen zur Übertragungsstrategie des Helianddichters (Tübingen, 1998) ∙ A. HAGENLOCHER, Schicksal im Heliand. Verwendung und Bedeutung der nominalen Bezeichnungen (Cologne, 1975) ∙ G. R. MURPHY, The Saxon Savior: The German Transformation of the Gospel in the Ninth-Century Heliand (New York, 1989) ∙ B. SOWINSKI, Darstellungsstil und Sprachstil im Heliand (Cologne, 1985) ∙ B. TAEGER, “Heliand,” VL 3.958–71.

DIETER KARTSCHOKE
Hell

1. Religious History
2. The Bible and Dogma
1. Religious History

The word “hell” comes from Old Ice. hel, the term in Nordic mythology for the place of the dead in the underworld and for its female ruler. All the dead are there or under her rule except for those killed in battle. The idea was not negative from the outset, as the etymology also shows, for the meaning of the root is “hide, conceal.”
The concept became a negative one only with the demonization of virtually all pre-Christian material by the repressive methods of missionaries and by those who after conversion engaged in committing German myths to writing. Although the term became the Germanic designation for the world of the → dead in popular Christian belief, one now evoking fear and focusing on rescue from postmortem punishment, a neutral, scientific use remained admissible as well, one that, in lieu of the terms “underworld” or “realm of the dead,” does cover a large number of extremely disparate ideas about a more or less concretely subterranean “beyond.” In our own cultural sphere, the most important ideas alongside hell as an underworld, one not simultaneously a place of punishment, include Israelite Sheol, Greek Hades or Tartarus, and Roman orcus.
Among ancient peoples, according to the relevant → worldview, the underworld lies where known land or sea moves into the unknown, or below the grave of the deceased, who have been interred beneath the surface of the earth and now live a diminished life. The two ideas sometimes merge. Ideas deriving from the cultural sphere of the Aegean allude historically to conceptionally similar though geographically different notions of the underworld in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Beginning in the middle of the second millennium B.C., the latter acquire → dualistic features, whereby the conditions of life in the beyond also exhibit features of torture, burning, beating, and butchering. The interpretation of these features as repayment for torments the deceased inflicted upon others while alive—that is, as actually → punishment—represents a basic human notion with parallels especially in Mahayana → Buddhism and among Central American Indians.
The closest concept in the Aegean sphere was the Orphic view of the underworld reflected in the (Christian) Apocalypse of Peter (→ Apocrypha 2.4). A synthesis of this kind, which included Jewish ideas of the → last judgment, converged from the third century A.D. onward with other, diverse notions. The clearest of these ideas were localized hypostatizations of the rule of → evil from Iranian tradition (→ Iranian Religions) as altered when mediated through Hellenized magicians (→ magic) and → Manichaeans. We must also refer to concepts of Gehenna (originally the Hinnom Valley at → Jerusalem, known from the time of Isaiah and Jeremiah as the site of every abomination because of the human sacrifices to Molech offered there during the Israelite monarchy in the eighth and seventh centuries). In the first century A.D. hell came to designate the place of punishment reserved for the ungodly in the intermediate state. In the Arab world, Muh\ammad further developed and updated this idea in the seventh century (→ Islam).
The various concepts all came together in grandiose form in the inferno of Dante’s (1265–1321) Divine Comedy, including influences from the visionary literature of Islam, itself nourished only in part by the → Koran. The fear of hell in the West, which culminated probably in the 13th century, has entered into associations with the utterly independent demonizing of the pagan underworld (see above) such that, given the possibility of a nuclear inferno in today’s world, these associations will for the foreseeable future continue to entangle both historical-psychological and therapeutic-psychological enlightenment.

Bibliography: P. ARNOLD, Das Totenbuch der Maya (Bern, 1980) ∙ M. ASIN PALACIOS, Islam and the Divine Comedy (London, 1926) ∙ A. E. BERNSTEIN, The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds (Ithaca, N.Y., 1993) ∙ S. G. F. BRANDON, The Judgment of the Dead (London, 1967) ∙ P. CAMPORESI, The Fear of Hell: Images of Damnation and Salvation in Early Modern Europe (University Park, Pa., 1991) ∙ J. JEREMIAS, “Αδης” and “Γέεννα,” TDNT 1.146–49 and 657–58 ∙ H. KEES, Totenglauben und Jenseitsvorstellungen der alten Ëgypter (3d ed.; Berlin, 1977; orig. pub., 1926) ∙ J. KROLL, Gott und Hölle. Der Mythos von Descensuskampfe (Darmstadt, 1963) ∙ A. MASTERS, The Devil’s Dominion: The Complete Story of Hell and Satanism in the Modern World (New York, 1978) ∙ E. PAGELS, “The Social History of Satan, the Intimate Enemy: A Preliminary Sketch,” HTR 84 (1991) 105–28 ∙ Str-B 4/2.1016–165 ∙ P. THIEME, “Hades,” BSAW 98/5 (1952) 35–55 ∙ K. VAN DER TOORN, B. BECKING, and P. W. VAN DER HORST, eds., Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (2d ed.; Grand Rapids, 1999).

CARSTEN COLPE
2. The Bible and Dogma

The OT does not refer to hell in the later sense but speaks only of a shadowy existence in the realm of the dead (in Sheol, or LXX Hades). This existence, which includes neither enjoyment of life nor praise of God, is a state of remoteness from God. In later → Judaism ideas of → resurrection and retribution developed under Iranian and Hellenistic influence, and there was some discussion of the nature of the hereafter (→ Apocalyptic; Pharisees). Up to the → last judgment the realm of the dead will be divided into separate sections for the wicked and the righteous. In Josephus (ca. 37–ca. 100) the → souls of the righteous go straight to → heaven at death (see Luke 16:19–22), so that hell is simply a place of punishment for the damned. Finally, the school of Hillel (1st cent. B.C.-1st cent. A.D.) found in hell a place of purification.
In the NT we find various identifications. Hades is the realm of the dead, Tartarus the prison for disobedient → angels (2 Pet. 2:4). In Revelation hell is the abyss (11:7) or the lake of fire (19:20; 20:10). Gehenna, the Hinnom Valley south of Jerusalem (Mark 9:45–48), is the place of lurking → evil. It will be an eschatological prison and the place of punishment for the damned after the last judgment (though cf. Luke 16:19–26). In general the NT shows little interest in the geography of the realm of the dead. Even Christ’s → descent into hell is only alluded to very indirectly. What is said about hell does not give us a cosmic → worldview as much as it sharpens the message of → salvation in Jesus Christ.
In 543 a synod meeting in Constantinople proclaimed nine anathemas against the teachings of Origen, the last of which (DH 411) specifically rejected the doctrine of → apocatastasis, according to which ultimately even the → devil would be redeemed. During the Middle Ages the West came to distinguish between the limbus patrum (borderland of the patriarchs), which has allegedly been empty since Christ’s descent into hell; the limbus infantium (borderland of infants), where the souls of infants burdened only with original → sin are kept; → purgatory, through which those are purified who did not die in mortal sin; and finally hell in the narrower sense, the place of eternal punishment for the damned (DH 925–26), who are sent there immediately after death (DH 1002).
From the eighth and ninth centuries onward, impressive depictions of hell began to appear in both East and West (e.g., in Dante’s Divine Comedy, the frescoes of Michelangelo, and Milton’s Paradise Lost). One could speak of hell as a component of an entire worldview (→ Iconography). These concepts are still influential today, though less in theology than in literary fancy, which (largely in detachment from Christian faith) is fascinated by the idea of a hellish hierarchy, of Satanism, and of black magic and which accepts → faith at most only as a means of → exorcism.
On biblical and theological grounds, the → Reformation rejected the ideas of limbo and purgatory but not the usual concepts of hell. Only with the → Enlightenment did the opinion gain ground that hell is not a place but a state of distance from God and consequent dereliction. Thus F. M. Dostoyevsky (1821–81) declared that hell is the pain of no longer being able to love, and J.-P. Sartre (1905–80), pressing the same concept atheistically, said that other people are hell. It may well be that descriptions of hell, both ancient and modern, are to a large extent the projection of human horrors (e.g., Auschwitz). Theologically, however, we must cling to the fact that Jesus Christ bore distance from God and dereliction on the cross and that he overcame them there—indeed, for all humanity—so that we have to ask whether there is not some truth in apocatastasis, at least in hope (see F. D. E. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, §163) or de jure, though not in every case necessarily de facto (K. Barth, CD IV/3a, §70.3).
→ Eschatology

Bibliography: R. BAUCKHAM, “Hades, Hell,” ABD 3.14–15 ∙ A. BRENK and A. BRULHART, “Hölle,” LCI 2.313–21 ∙ F. F. CHURCH, The Devil and Dr. Church: A Guide to Hell for Atheists and True Believers (San Francisco, 1986) ∙ N. COHN, Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come (New Haven, 1993) ∙ J. GNILKA, J. RATZINGER, and K. BEITL, “Hölle,” LTK (2d ed.) 5.445–50 ∙ F. C. GRANT et al., “Hölle,” RGG (3d ed.) 5.400–407 ∙ F. HEER, Abschied von Hölle und Himmeln (Munich, 1970) ∙ M. HIMMELFARB, Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (Philadelphia, 1983) ∙ T. RASMUSSEN, “Hölle II,” TRE 15.449–55 (bibliography) ∙ J. L. WALLS, Hell: The Logic of Damnation (Notre Dame, Ind., 1992).

ALASDAIR I. C. HERON
Hellenism

1. Problems
2. Development
2.1. Politics
2.2. Economy
2.3. Education, Science, Culture
2.4. Philosophy
2.5. Religion
3. Judaism and Christianity
1. Problems

In the days of J. G. Droysen (1808–84), “Hellenism” was a term used for Greek culture and thought, and more specifically for nonclassical biblical Greek. Droysen, however, applied it to the epoch of the fusion of Greek and Near Eastern patterns, which began with Alexander the Great (336–323 B.C.). For him the postclassical age was no longer one of decay but a time of transition from Greek to Christian → culture. He also saw a development in the Greek world itself to a rational view of things and a rationalistic replacement of pagan religion as a driving force in the historical process.
These contradictory evaluations have confused the debate ever since. The idea of fusion has also proved to be inappropriate. Yet one can accept the beginning of a new era with the campaigns of Alexander, for his conquests made Greece the dominant and unifying force—politically, economically, and culturally—from Sicily to the Indian peninsula, and from the Caspian Sea to Nubia. The end came in 31 B.C., when the last Hellenistic kingdom, Egypt, became a Roman province. Even then, however, there was a marked impact on the Roman world, so that one might speak of a Hellenistic Roman culture, which for its part affected the Byzantine Empire.
2. Development
2.1. Politics

Alexander’s vision of an empire that would unite Greece and Persia remained unfulfilled. The conflicts of his successors gave rise to the system of Hellenistic territorial states. The most important of these were Antigonid Macedonia, Ptolemaic Egypt, and the kingdom of the Seleucids, which embraced Syria and parts of Asia Minor. These dynasties were all rivals. There were also several medium-sized and smaller states, all of which were absolute monarchies. The rulers viewed the countries as private property won by the spear.
Power was maintained primarily by the Greek-Macedonian army and by Greek bureaucracy. The costs of the court, the army, and the administration were borne by the native populations through an ingenious system of direct and indirect taxation. Absolutism found its clearest expression in → emperor worship, the basis of which was the veneration of city founders, lawgivers, and warriors in the Greek cities.
2.2. Economy

Alexander opened up Asia to Greek trade. The introduction of Attic coinage as the imperial currency made international commerce possible. → Alexandria was the main port for Egyptian goods (grain, papyrus, glass, cosmetics). Goods from the north coast of the Black Sea (grain, hides, wood) were marketed in Sinope, Byzantium, and Rhodes. Raw materials from Asia and India were manufactured in → Antioch on the Orontes. Banking and a system of credit were developed. Greek science aided the domestic economy, for example, with inventions to aid agriculture. The working class did not share the profits, which resulted in social conflicts, especially in Egypt. → Slave labor prevailed in agriculture and industry.
2.3. Education, Science, Culture

Since the army, administration, and economy were mostly in Greek hands, Greek in the form of Koine (→ Greek Language) soon became the lingua franca of the Hellenistic world. In the many cities that the Seleucids founded to protect their far-flung and heterogeneous kingdom and that the Ptolemies set up in their extensive possessions, but also in the many Egyptian villages that were inhabited by Greeks, there were Greek primary schools and gymnasiums. The gymnasium was the school of Hellenistic urban culture (teaching sports, music, and literature). The graduates kept up contacts in clubs, just as societies played a lively part in other aspects of Greek life. Social advance was linked to adoption of the Greek language and education in the gymnasium. In Egypt non-Greek aliens (Persians, Jews) could more easily move up to the class of Hellenes than could native Egyptians.
The exact sciences blossomed in Hellenism, with major contributions from Euclid (fl. ca. 300 B.C., geometry), Archimedes (d. 212, π, infinitesimal calculus, the principle of buoyancy, and the Archimedean screw), Aristarchus of Samos (ca. 310–230, the heliocentric system), Eratosthenes (ca. 276–ca. 194, mathematical geography), and Herophilus (d. ca. 280, the function of the brain, the circulation of the blood, and the nervous system). The Hellenistic kings promoted science and literature.
Ptolemy I (king 323–285 B.C.) founded the Museion at Alexandria, which financially supported poets and scholars and provided excellent opportunities for work (including the library, observatory, and zoological garden). Alexandria was a center of philology (textual criticism, commentaries, lexicography) and also of the new literature and its pursuit of formal excellence, notably Callimachus in the short epic, Theocritus in pastoral poetry, and Aratus in didactic poems on astronomy and meteorology. → City culture included the theater. The new comedy of Hellenism presented neither mythology nor politics but general human problems. Prominent was Menander (ca. 342–ca. 292) with his character delineation, translated into Latin and adapted by the Roman comic poets Plautus (250–184) and Terence (186/85–?159).
2.4. Philosophy

The philosophy of Hellenism (→ Greek Philosophy) was marked by a turning to the individual and an attempt to find a center of meaning for an extended world with no orderly outward structure or sheltering conventions. Epicurus (341–270 B.C.), appealing to the atomic theory of Democritus, sought to free his contemporaries from fear of the gods, from unrest, and from sorrow and to lead them to a joyous life in a circle of like-minded people.
The founder of the Athenian Stoa, Zeno of Citium (ca. 335–ca. 263 B.C.; → Stoicism), viewed the world and humanity as overruled by the purposeful creative world spirit, the Logos, and urged a life in harmony with this Logos. The masses venerated this universal deity (which represented a monotheistic thrust) under various names. The supreme goal was individual moral perfection. Later, Panaetius (ca. 180–109) regarded the fulfilling of → duty in society as the chief goal and made Stoicism acceptable to the Roman world. His disciple Poseidonius (ca. 135–ca. 51), called the Leibniz of antiquity, brought religious elements to Stoicism (including belief in the afterlife, demonology, astrology, and divination).
The movement of the anticultural Cynics was started by Diogenes of Sinope (d. ca. 320 B.C.); their popular didactic address, the diatribe, was adopted by the Stoics. → Platonism focused on problems of knowledge (→ Epistemology) and fell victim to skepticism. Neoplatonism, preeminently through Plotinus (ca. A.D. 205–70) and Porphyry (ca. 232–ca. 303), restored a religious dimension.
2.5. Religion

→ Greek religion, which was traditionally oriented to society, lost significance with the decay of the polis, to which also the religious criticism of the philosophers, sophists, and poets contributed. In keeping with the mood of the age, a large following attached to the cults of deities that taught a personal relation with adherents, including Asclepius, Dionysus, and the mystery gods (→ Hellenistic-Roman Religion). Mysteries (→ Mystery Religions) had long existed in Greece, but in Hellenism Near Eastern cults (e.g., Isis, the Great Mother; see Lucian’s De Dea Syria) also assumed a mystery character. Here was the closest fusion of East and West (→ Syncretism). By their exclusive nature, their individual claim on believers, and their promise of immortality to initiates, these cults gave security to many who would otherwise have thought themselves the playthings of capricious → chance (tychē) or the victims of the iron laws of fate (Heimarmenē).
From the second century B.C., → astrology, which came originally from Babylon, became increasingly important. Starting with an ancient philosophical belief in the deity of the stars and with the axiom of a strict → causality that determines all that takes place, and with the added influence of Stoic concepts, there arose a closed system of scientific explanation. Elements of astrology found their way into many forms of religion, including the mysteries.
3. Judaism and Christianity

Judaism encountered Hellenism at home as well as in the → diaspora, for there were traces of Hellenistic influence in Palestine from the middle of the third century B.C. Ecclesiastes reflects the rationalistic spirit of early Hellenism. Even the conservative Jesus, son of Sirach (→ Apocrypha 1), adopts popular philosophical presuppositions when he equates the divine world reason with wisdom and the → Torah. Indeed, the groups that arose out of opposition to Hellenism were also under Hellenistic influence, including → Qumran (→ Dualism) and the → Pharisees (in their educational system, chain of tradition, exegetical methodology, and general cosmological, anthropological, and eschatological ideas). Dispersion Judaism, linked to → Jerusalem by pilgrimages and the temple tax, had a closer encounter with Hellenism, as the translation of the OT into Greek (the LXX; → Bible Versions) demonstrates. Alexandrian Judaism produced a good deal of literature around 200 B.C. Jewish history was glorified in the form of novels and verse. Around 160 Aristobulus of Paneas expounded the Torah allegorically in order to make it acceptable to Greek scholars. Philo of Alexandria (15–10 B.C.-A.D. 45–50) tried to show the harmony between the Torah and both the Platonic doctrine of ideas and Stoic ethics.
Primitive Christianity thus arose out of a Judaism that was permeated by Hellenistic thought. → Paul linked up with the monotheistically and eschatologically oriented preaching of the Hellenistic synagogue but set Christ in place of the → law (1 Thess. 1:9–10; 1 Cor. 8:5–6). The Logos Christology of → John had roots in Hellenistic Judaism; it was Justin Martyr (d. ca. A.D. 165) who brought in the concept of the Stoic Logos. From the time of the → apologists an explicit debate with Greek → metaphysics was an unavoidable task that, according to modern research, resulted not so much in the Hellenizing of Christianity as in the Christianizing of Hellenism.
→ New Testament Era, History of; Roman Empire

Bibliography: R. BICHLER, “Hellenismus.” Geschichte und Problematik eines Epochenbegriffs (Darmstadt, 1983) ∙ G. W. BOWERSOCK, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 1990) ∙ J. G. DROYSEN, Geschichte des Hellenismus (2 vols.; Darmstadt, 1952–53; orig. pub., 1836–43) ∙ J. H. ELLENS, Alexander the Great and Hellenistic Culture: The Impact of Political and Military Achievements upon the Life of the Mind and Spirit (Claremont, Calif., 1997) ∙ P. GREEN, Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age (Berkeley, Calif., 1990); idem, ed., Hellenistic History and Culture (Berkeley, Calif., 1993) ∙ M. HENGEL, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period (2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1981) ∙ H. LAUTER, Die Architektur des Hellenismus (Darmstadt, 1986).

HELMUT MERKEL
Hellenistic-Roman Religion

1. Basis in Hellenism after Alexander
1.1. Spread
1.2. Urbanization
2. Main Ideas
2.1. Philosophy
2.2. Worldview
2.3. Divine Overcoming of Fate
2.4. Liberation for Divine Life
2.5. Dualistic Tendencies
2.6. General View of the Divine
3. Official and Popular Forms
3.1. The Cult as a Bond
3.2. Astrology, Magic, and Belief in the Underworld and Miracles
4. Development in the Roman Empire
4.1. Impact of the Hellenized Near East
4.2. Hermetic and Neoplatonic Synthesis
1. Basis in Hellenism after Alexander

The Hellenistic-Roman period embraces many centuries. “Hellenistic” is used for the time from the conquests and alliances of Alexander the Great (336–323 B.C.) to the incorporating of the last great Hellenistic state into the → Roman empire, namely, the seizure of Egypt by Augustus in 31 B.C. “Roman” is used for the time when → Rome, Italy, and the western provinces adopted Greek and Near Eastern ideas and practices, and on to the final stages of antiquity. For all the differences in detail the → history of religion finds certain common features that justify our speaking about Hellenistic-Roman religion during the period of the development and decay of Roman rule.
1.1. Spread

The conquests of Alexander (→ Hellenism) led to the collapse of the earlier Greek city-state (the polis) and eroded belief in the ancient gods (→ Greek Religion), leaving this belief to linger on only by habit. At the same time, the extension of the horizon of philosophers propagated a cosmopolitan understanding of people as world citizens. As the Greeks who spread across the Near East were concerned to maintain themselves, belief in fortune (tychē) gained currency, and along with it city cults of political personages, the founders and benefactors upon whom so much depended.
The worship of the Greek gods rested solely on the upper classes, who kept it alive by literary instruction and the official cult. Although poorer people took part in the feasts, the gods were alien to them. Their allegiance was to the smaller local deities and heroes, whom they could not take with them when they moved and who lost much of their significance with the devastation of their motherland. As the empire of Alexander was broken up, the political background of a world religion vanished, but the question had been raised and was tackled in the Hellenistic dominions of Alexander’s successors.
1.2. Urbanization

The rural population played little part in the development of religion. The masses of little people who gathered in the cities were the engine of change. They had been uprooted, had little political influence, were on their own, and made their own choices about contacts and marriages with Greeks or natives. They also decided upon their gods. To promote their religious interests they had to form a new mode of community by way of private societies or mass movements, in which women also became important and which posed a task of integration for statecraft.
The many new Greek cities in Asia Minor, the Semitic Near East, and Egypt became the focal point as centers of political life and Greek culture. Since this culture claimed leadership and was not immediately accessible to the natives, it tried to make itself attractive, and as a result Greek religion had a palpable impact on native religions in the Greek interpretation of these religions and in the fusion of traditions in religious → syncretism. This process began with theocrasy, the linking of formerly separate gods on the assumption that the name of a god may be translated like any other word. This development overcame the elements of different origin (Greek among the educated, non-Greek among the ordinary people), first by setting them alongside one another, then by a process of admixture. At the same time, political inequality provoked national reactions, which strengthened the native religious elements. This process occurred especially when Greek power began to wane about 200 B.C. and the Hellenistic states were unable to resist the rise of Rome.
2. Main Ideas

Characteristic of Hellenistic-Roman religion is its orientation to demonstrations of divine power rather than to divine personages.
2.1. Philosophy

From the time of the Sophist criticism of religion about 400 B.C. (→ Greek Philosophy), philosophy replaced religion in educated circles. It increasingly offered a criterion for life and protection against the vacillations of fortune, dispensing comfort and summoning to repentance and conversion in order that people might achieve redemption in their own strength. The gods of mythology were lost in physical and often related allegorical explanations such as we find especially in → Stoicism. They thus became at most only semipersonal. Euhemeristic interpretation found in them human beings who were honored as deities because of their great deeds.
2.2. Worldview

At the same time, the firmly established ancient → worldview underwent tremendous extension as it came to be believed that the earth floats in a void, surrounded by an atmosphere that reaches as far as the moon and that is peopled by semispiritual souls and → demons. Beyond the atmosphere are the seven spheres of the planets, where the gods are discerned in their regularity, and then the starry heaven as the eighth and highest sphere. The doctrine of power as very real emanation or breath gave consistency to this worldview and determined the religious ideas. Along with belief in fortune there was also belief in the destiny of individuals, which is directed by the demon or genius assigned to each.
Philosophy also discussed the supreme god, while → astrology regarded the stars as the entities whose forces shape cosmic destinies. Similar forces were also found in rocks, rings, amulets, and parts of bodies or plants on the basis of the idea of a sympathetic working together of the world as macrocosm and the human being as microcosm. In both → philosophy and → magic or → divination, the traditions of good and bad demons were linked to this cooperation.
2.3. Divine Overcoming of Fate

People turned to a deity primarily because of the demonstration of its superior power by → healing, → exorcisms, and so forth. The deity was honored with titles like Absolute Ruler (→ Emperor Worship) and also furnished with stellar powers and omnipotence to determine human fate. Astrologers argued that people could not obviate what is foreordained by → prayer and → sacrifice, yet Near Eastern deities like Isis were attractive specifically in the promise to those initiated into their mysteries that they could overcome fate. Once Greek astronomy had constructed the astrological system (on the basis of Babylonian belief in the power of the stars; → Babylonian and Assyrian Religion), the inevitability of occurrence in the world (= Gk. Heimarmenē) was felt to be an oppressive burden that people tried to escape.
2.4. Liberation for Divine Life

In ecstatic exaltation above the earthly, people found an experience of regeneration and even deification. If they did not think they could save the earthly body, they left it confidently to the fate that controls the material world and concentrated on the → soul or inner self as the divine part of humanity, seeking its absorption into the spiritual or transcendent realm that is beyond the reach of determinism. The decisive aspect could not be put in words but was an irrefutable certainty for initiates into the mysteries (→ Mystery Religions) and for philosophers. Life, they believed, would find a happy continuation. The key concept in all the new movements was redemption, that is, deliverance from danger in a world that had become too big, and increasing assurance of a positive afterlife in the world to come.
2.5. Dualistic Tendencies

Religious experience of ecstatic mystical union with the divine as the sublimely spiritual, through which people knew liberation from the body and a rising above the sensory world, produced a disparagement and even a despising of the corporeal as an obstacle to this state of divine communion that is our true being. As Near Eastern religions encountered Greek Orphic teaching and the Platonic doctrine of → dualism between the eternal world of ideas and the transitory world of physical phenomena (→ Platonism), the feeling grew stronger that a sinful soul is imprisoned in the body. Asceticism and search for knowledge of the divine would make it possible for the soul to attain a place of bliss instead of remaining in the underworld of punishments. In accordance with the current cosmology, this place was localized in the air. In literary and philosophical circles the writings of the Hellenized magi of Iran (→ Iranian Religions) claimed great attention, and frequently the Iranian dualism of → good and → evil sharpened the Greek dualism of soul and body.
2.6. General View of the Divine

Since divine power in general captured the people’s interest, there was no exclusive god. Offerings were made to all the gods, and the attributes of one god could be attributed to another in order to express the fullness of divine powers. One god could be regarded as ontically one with the others whose attributes it had, and along the lines of → henotheism it could be invoked under the most effective name as the god of all peoples, going under different names among the different peoples.
Philosophy and astrology constructed a system at the head of which stood the god of heaven—not the abstract Greek god, but the Near Eastern sun god. Or in the interest of mediation the transcendent god was accompanied by a second god as mediator, as in the doctrine of the Demiurge as creator of the lower world, or of the Logos as the divine word that is responsible for creation and redemption (→ Gnosis, Gnosticism). Faith and hope against the background of a gloomy fear of annihilation were thus typical concepts in Hellenistic-Roman religion. Love of the deity was uncommon, however. When love did appear, it was as striving love, erōs, and not the love of human interrelationship.
3. Official and Popular Forms
3.1. The Cult as a Bond

As individuals sought to gain divine power, they had also to seek it for the ruler insofar as their own well-being depended on his. Thus alongside honor given for specific benefactions from the ruler, an emperor cult was propagated from above.
As a religious bond, the Ptolemies in Egypt promoted the cult of Alexander and their own predecessors, and finally that of living rulers. To increase religious allegiance, they propagated in this connection the worship of Sarapis, a deity half Egyptian and half Greek, through links to the Demeter mysteries of Eleusis. Other Near Eastern religions spread among the Greeks as their deities were strongly Hellenized in presentation and operation, and especially their views of the afterlife, notwithstanding their exotic appearance. As Greek culture took deep root and exerted a major influence in the great centers of Ptolemaic Egypt, this country became the most significant melting pot.
3.2. Astrology, Magic, and Belief in the Underworld and Miracles

Bolos of Mendes gave the concept of power its predominant occult form in about 200 B.C. The Babylonian doctrine of the stars then developed into the astrological constructs of Nechepso-Petosiris and Hermes Trismegistos. As in other → occult teachings, the authors used pseudonyms designed to give their writings greater authority among the Greeks.
Magic appeared at the same time as astrology. It sought to modify for personal advantage the laws of nature and their normal operation. The use of amulets aimed to satisfy the demand for security, especially against the hostile powers to which magic was oriented. As the power of the god could be invoked into his image by certain rites, so → demons possessed powers that could be directed by the use of exact formulas as we know them best from the many Greek magic papyri found in Egypt.
With the magic on execration tablets and the Orphic gold texts, we also find a belief in the underworld that gave instructions to the deceased in the tomb on how to reach the place of blessedness. For the living there was a similar belief in miracles, which could link up with Greek traditions in the case of helper-gods like Asclepius, but which also turned to Near Eastern deities.
4. Development in the Roman Empire
4.1. Impact of the Hellenized Near East

In the course of the third century B.C., the Hellenization of all spheres of culture, intensive acquaintance with other civilizations, and destructive and often precarious wars led even Rome, now quickly becoming an empire rather than a city, to uncertainty regarding its own → identity and to a search for new certainties (→ Roman Religion). Greek rites were adopted by ruling circles for political reasons, usually on the recommendation of the Sibylline Oracles. The new cult was meant to guarantee the stability of the state.
In 205 B.C. an official delegation brought the cult of the Great Mother Cybele from Asia Minor to Rome. In Rome the goddess had to put off all the features that were dangerous for state and people, and there could be no question of personal veneration or a mystery cult. These elements, for which there was intense yearning, were suppressed in 186 B.C. with the bloody crushing of the Dionysian mysteries, which were setting up what was almost a countergovernment in Italy and Rome.
The introduction of the cult from Asia Minor opened a gap through which the Hellenized Near East could finally make an entry. Near Eastern cults offered people fellowship in the veneration of a god for whom they had made a conscious decision, and also fellowship with this god. This nearness also gave added glory to the power of the god and caused adherents to dedicate themselves to it. When the related orgiastic rites could no longer be celebrated, the state preserved the Roman character of the Cybele Attis mysteries by setting up a Roman as high priest and by instituting the sacrifice of a bull as the new main rite. This Romanizing did not happen, however, in the case of the worship of Isis. Only the emperor cult, which was officially designed to perpetuate the old religion, and worship of the sun as the ideological basis of the divinity of the emperor remained as pillars of a single empire-wide religion.
Special cults, however, refused to be excluded, and like the Mithra cult or that of Jupiter Dolichenus as the religion of soldiers, they could have important functions in integrating social groups and upholding Roman power. Along with the mysteries, which flourished in the imperial period, wonder-workers like Apollonius of Tyana (fl. 1st cent. A.D.) gained many followers and came to be honored as theios anēr (a divine man).
4.2. Hermetic and Neoplatonic Synthesis

Small circles of educated people met to study edifying works deriving from the revelations of Hermes Trismegistos as the Egyptian god Thoth. These works, which have come down to us mainly in versions from the second and third centuries A.D., contain the core of Platonic philosophy in the language of religious revelation in an Egyptian dress, along with many other elements of Greek popular philosophy and mythology, astrological speculations, and ideas from the Jewish creation story. → Alchemy, which developed in Egypt, also came to be linked to this type of piety. In its variety, which is not very well systematized and even admits of contradictions in individual works, Hermetism is typical of the age and of the integrative power of small syncretistic groups of a mystical type. These groups regarded themselves as the elect, for unlike the ignorant world around them, they had Gnosis, the knowledge of the true nature of God, the world, and humanity. In part this basic attitude, as we see it especially in “Poimandres,” the introductory tractate of the Corpus Hermeticum, involved dualistic trains of thought and became Gnosis in the narrower sense as we know it also from Christian Gnosticism.
Like Hermetism, Neoplatonic religious philosophy was a later product of Hellenistic-Roman religion, which was most influential in passing on the traditions of antiquity. In connection with the theurgy of Chaldean oracles, which showed how to evoke revelations from gods and demons, this philosophy achieved a monistic systematizing of the legacy of Hellenistic-Roman religion. Beginning with the Supreme One, it set up a → hierarchy of all the things that, as more immediate or more distant reflections of the One, have more or less being and worth. In Rome this idea meant recognition of the emperor as head, and all traditional forms of national religion were regarded as truth imparted by knowledge of the one supreme god. It thus became an apt basis for the reform by Emperor Julian (360–63) of Hellenistic-Roman religion as a counterblast to Christianity.

Bibliography: M. M. AUSTIN, ed., The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest: A Selection of Ancient Sources, in Translation (Cambridge, 1981) ∙ G. W. BOWERSOCK, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1990) ∙ R. BULTMANN, Primitive Christianity in Its Contemporary Setting (New York, 1956; orig. pub., 1949) ∙ W. BURKERT, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, 1987) ∙ H. CANCIK and J. RÜPKE, eds., Römische Reichsreligion und Provinzialreligion (Tübingen, 1997) ∙ F. CUMONT, The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism (New York, 1956; orig. pub., 1906) ∙ M. DZIELSKA, Apollonius of Tyana in Legend and History (Rome, 1986) ∙ C. ELSAS, Neuplatonische und gnostische Weltablehnung in der Schule Plotins (Berlin, 1975) ∙ G. FOWDEN, The Egyptian Hermes (Cambridge, 1986) ∙ L. R. FOX, Pagans and Christians (London, 1986) ∙ J. G. GRIFFITH, “Hellenistic Religions,” EncRel(E) 6.252–66 ∙ H.-J. KLAUCK, Die religiöse Umwelt des Urchristentums (2 vols.; Stuttgart, 1995–96) ∙ L. H. MARTIN, Hellenistic Religions: An Introduction (New York, 1987) ∙ M. W. MEYER and P. A. MIRECKI, eds., Ancient Magic and Ritual Power (Leiden, 1995) ∙ A. D. NOCK, Essays on Religion and the Ancient World (2 vols.; Oxford, 1972).

CHRISTOPH ELSAS
Helvetic Confession

With the Confessio et expositio simplex orthodoxae fidei of 1566, the so-called Second Helvetic Confession, the Reformed churches in German-speaking Switzerland achieved a definitive, common, and lasting confession (→ Confessions and Creeds). The original principle of the sole authority of Scripture, which had been argued against the → Roman Catholic Church, contained no spur to the formulation of a confession. The impulse came with the introduction of the → Reformation to individual cities. Thus we have the Berne Theses in 1528, the Berne Synod in 1532, and the → Basel Confession in 1534.
The announcement of a council and negotiations for agreement with Martin Luther (1483–1546) then forced the German Reformed churches at a conference in Basel in February 1536 to adopt a short, common confession of faith, usually known as the First Helvetic Confession or sometimes as the Second Basel Confession, since it followed the Basel model. The main themes of the confession are the doctrines of Holy Scripture, of Christ’s person and reconciling work (→ Christology), and of the → church and its ministry. Martin Bucer (1491–1551) helped to draw up the article on the → Eucharist, and at his urging the confession was not published at once. A copy was sent to Luther, who expressed his delight at the Christian character of the work and promised to do what he could to promote unity. Leo Jud translated the Latin into Swiss German, and he and Bullinger were in favor of a rider subjecting the confession to the primary authority of Scripture.
The hope that the Swiss might be brought into the Wittenberg Concord of 1536 proved illusory. Instead, in May 1549 John Calvin (1509–64) and the Zurich theologians concluded the Consensus Tigurinus (Zurich Agreement), which defined it as the chief purpose of the Eucharist to attest and seal the → grace of God to believers.
The drafting of a Second Helvetic Confession was first of all a private enterprise of Heinrich Bullinger (1504–75) in Zurich in 1561. He completed it as his personal theological testament when sick of the plague in 1564. Prior to the Augsburg Diet in 1566 the Reformed elector Frederick III of the Palatinate (1559–76) requested a confession. Bullinger’s text was proposed, and it received its final form in consultation with Theodore Beza (1519–1605) and Bern. It was published in 1566 in the names of the churches of Zurich, Bern, Schaffhausen, St. Gall, Chur, Mühlhausen, Biel, and Geneva. Basel at first declined to accept it, since it already had its own confession, but it later consented. Beza prepared a French version. The confession later found approval not only in St. Gall, Appenzell, and Neuchâtel but also as far afield as Scotland (1566) and France (1571). It was adopted by the Reformed church in Hungary (1567) and Poland (1570). Beginning in 1781 all Reformed churches under the Hapsburgs were officially known as churches of the Helvetic Confession. The Second Helvetic still retains its validity in Switzerland, though subscription to it ceased to be demanded in the 19th century.
The most comprehensive of the Reformed confessions, the Second Helvetic takes up the main theses of the First Helvetic and deals with almost all the articles of faith on a broad biblical and historical basis. Primary emphases are the doctrine of the → Word of God, the rejection of → images in the churches, a doctrine of → predestination that carefully amends Calvin’s teaching (→ Calvin’s Theology), the Reformed understanding of → law and gospel, justification by → faith and its fruits, the church under Christ as its sole Head, the Reformed understanding of the sacraments, and a Reformed concept of the church’s ministry and → worship. A point that merits special attention is Bullinger’s insistence that Reformed teaching is in full concert with that of the creeds and early councils and Fathers. He also maintains that agreement in essentials can go hand in hand with differences in nonessentials.
→ Calvinism; Heidelberg Catechism; Reformed and Presbyterian Churches; Reformers; Zwingli’s Theology

Bibliography: Primary sources: BSRK 26.101–9; 29–30. 159–63; 31–32.170–221 ∙ A. C. COCHRANE, ed., Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century (1966) 97–111 and 220–301 ∙ P. SCHAFF, ed., The Creeds of Christendom (6th ed.; 3 vols.; New York, 1931) 3.211–31 and 233–306.
Secondary works: E. KOCH, Die Theologie der Confessio Helvetica Posterior (Neukirchen, 1968) ∙ R. PFISTER, Kirchengeschichte der Schweiz (vol. 2; Zurich, 1974) 196–99, 211–14, 298–312 ∙ J. STAEDTKE, ed., Glauben und Bekennen. 400 Jahre Confessio Helvetica Posterior (Zurich, 1966) ∙ E. ZSINDELY, “Confessio Helvetica Posterior,” TRE 8.169–73 (bibliography).
J. F. GERHARD GOETERS†
Henotheism

“Henotheism” (or “kathenotheism”) refers to veneration of a single god as the true deity (→ God). It is a relative → monotheism that does not rule out the existence of other gods (→ Polytheism) and that finds cultic expression in the subjective monolatry of individual deities, which in turn may emerge as supreme. Inspired by the distinction made by F. W. J. von Schelling (1775–1854) between henotheism (Gk. heis, henos, “one”) and monotheism (Gk. monos, “only”), Orientalist Max Müller (1823–1900) developed the concept, pointing out that the singer of the Vedas, invoking a particular god, was turning simply to the one god (Gk. kathʾ hena theon), the other gods retreating into the background and their mighty acts and attributes being ascribed to this one god. This form of religion, which makes it possible for one god to be invoked after another, each having the attributes of a supreme being not transcended by the others, Müller regarded as a transitional stage between polytheism and monotheism. Other scholars found similar thinking in the hymns of other religions, especially those of → Babylonian, → Egyptian, and → Greek religions.
Today, however, henotheism no longer ranks as a stage in the → evolution of → religion, nor is the term used to describe any special religion. Instead, it comes into use in the → phenomenology of religion inasmuch as religious people find special manifestations of power and love and wrath in their encounters with the particular deity that seems to be especially important for their lives. Historically speaking, henotheism might be regarded as an essential element in the movement of → syncretism that was promoted by the extension of the early kingdoms and that came to full flower in the empire of late antiquity.

Bibliography: H. VON GLASENAPP, Die Religionen Indiens (2d ed.; Stuttgart, 1956) 73–74 ∙ F. HEILER, Erscheinungsformen und Wesen der Religion (2d ed.; Stuttgart, 1979) 460; idem, Das Gebet (5th ed.; Munich, 1923) 171ff. ∙ G. VAN DER LEEUW, Phänomenologie der Religion (2d ed.; Tübingen, 1956; orig. pub., 1933) 189 ∙ F. M. MÜLLER, Vorlesungen über den Ursprung und die Entwicklung der Religion (2d ed.; Strasbourg, 1881) 6th lect. ∙ F. W. J. von SCHELLING, Philosophie der Mythologie (Stuttgart, 1857; repr., 1966) 4th lect. ∙ W. SCHMIDT, Der Ursprung der Gottesidee (vol. 1; 2d ed.; Münster, 1926) 87, 94ff. ∙ M. YUSA, “Henotheism,” EncRel(E) 6.266–67.

CHRISTOPH ELSAS
Herder, Johann Gottfried

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), Lutheran theologian and philosopher, was born in Mohrungen in East Prussia. He began his study of → theology and → philosophy in 1762 in Königsberg, being strongly influenced there by the pre-Critique I. Kant and by J. G. Hamann, with the latter of whom Herder developed a lifelong friendship. Herder’s studies included historical-critical biblical scholarship, the philosophy of G. W. Leibniz and C. Wolff, and so-called rational orthodoxy (e.g., S. J. Baumgarten). In 1764 Herder became a teacher at the cathedral school in Riga, serving also as a preacher. A sea journey led him to Nantes and Paris in 1769, where he studied French literature and historical philosophy. In 1770 Herder visited M. Claudius and G. E. Lessing. In Darmstadt he met Caroline Flachsland, whom he married in 1773.
Herder’s Essay on the Origin of Language was awarded first prize by the Berlin Academy in 1771. Herder’s thesis, prompting severe criticism from J. G. Hamann, was that human → language arose neither through supernatural instruction from God nor on the basis of pure convention; rather, it is rooted in the intellectual nature of human beings themselves. Also in 1771 Herder became a member of the consistory in Bückeburg, where he studied primeval history (writing Oldest Documentation of the Human Race). Developing influences from Hamann and combining these with his own understanding of history as God’s planned revelatory activity, Herder discovered the language of the book of nature, that is, of creation’s own glorification of God. Herder’s mode of → exegesis is characterized by his interest in interpreting biblical texts in the context of Near Eastern and Eastern religions, in the light of, for example, the Zend-Avesta, and also by his poetic-literary assessment of the → Hebrew language (On the Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, 1782–83), a work that influenced later form-critical studies.
In 1776, on J. W. von Goethe’s initiative, Herder became general → superintendent in Weimar, where he spent the rest of his life. In 1801 he became president of the High Consistory there. He supervised the establishment of a teacher’s seminary and worked on reforming the → liturgy and → hymnal, opposing any → rationalist reworking of chorales. In 1788 he was offered and declined a professorship in theology in Göttingen.
This period in Weimar was Herder’s most productive. In his Letters concerning the Study of Theology (1780–81), he drafted a plan of study circumscribing the entirety of theological science, responded to Lessing’s (and Reimarus’s) Wolfenbüttel Fragments (1774–78), and drew on Reformation-hermeneutical principles in defending the → canonical status of the Holy Scriptures as witness to God’s revelation. In contrast to enlightened → rationalism, Herder sensed no contradiction between → reason and → revelation, subscribing instead to Lessing’s notion as outlined in The Education of the Human Race that it was through revelation that the truths of reason became such in the first place.
→ Christology receded in Herder’s thinking, and he distanced himself from the classical doctrine of → reconciliation. With a theory of the revivification of the Crucified resembling C. F. Bahrdt’s thesis of Jesus’ merely apparent death, Herder tried to assert at once both the historical credibility and the revelatory character of the Holy Scriptures.
During 1778–79 Herder edited a collection of folksongs (Volkslieder) and developed a draft of → salvation history in his Outlines of a Philosophy of Human History (1784–91). In the latter work Herder defined God as the origin and goal of all events, a view that exerted considerable influence all the way to Teilhard de Chardin.
In a synthesis of world history and anthropology, Herder understood history as a progressive development and education of the human genius in God’s image, the human form of existence then culminating eschatologically in eternal life. I. Kant rejected this notion as the kind of metaphysical speculation that he had already overcome. In 1799 and 1800, and under the renewed influence of Hamann, Herder published two “metacritiques” of Kant, signaling at the same time his break with the Fichtean philosophy of → identity. This quarrel with Kant isolated Herder, a situation made even worse through his break with F. Schiller and Goethe. Herder died on December 18, 1803.

Bibliography: Primary sources: M. BUNGE, ed., Against Pure Reason: Writings on Religion, Language, and History (Minneapolis, 1993) ∙ J. G. HERDER, On the Origin of Language (Chicago, 1986); idem, The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry (Naperville, Ill., 1971) ∙ B. SUPHAN, ed., Sämtliche Werke (33 vols.; Berlin, 1877–1913).
Secondary works: P. GARDINER, “Herder, Johann Gottfried,” EncPh 3.486–89 ∙ G. GÜNTHER, A. A. VOLGINA, and S. SEIFERT, Herder-Bibliographie (Berlin, 1978) ∙ R. HÄFNER, Herders Kulturentstehungslehre (Hamburg, 1995) ∙ R. HAYM, Herder nach seinem Leben und Werken (2 vols.; 2d ed.; Berlin, 1958; orig. pub., 1877–85) ∙ F. W. KANTZENBACH, Johann Gottfried Herder mit Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (6th ed.; Reinbek, 1996; orig. pub., 1970) ∙ W. KOEPKE, ed., Johann Gottfried Herder: Innovator through the Ages (Bonn, 1982) ∙ D. KUHLES, Herder-Bibliographie, 1977–1992 (Stuttgart, 1994) ∙ M. MORTON, The Critical Turn: Studies in Kant, Herder, Wittgenstein, and Contemporary Theory (Detroit, 1993) ∙ R. E. NORTON, Herder’s Aesthetics and the European Enlightenment (Ithaca, N.Y., 1991) ∙ T. ZIPPERT, Bildung durch Offenbarung (Marburg, 1994).

JOHANN ANSELM STEIGER
Heresies and Schisms

1. Dogmatic Aspects
2. Historical Data
2.1. Primitive Christianity
2.2. Early Church
2.3. Middle Ages
2.4. Reformation
2.5. Modern Period
2.6. Ecumenical Discussion
2.7. Roman Catholic Church
3. Historical Schisms
1. Dogmatic Aspects

Heresy is the opposite of pure doctrine (→ Orthodoxy). As schismatic deviation from the unity of faith, it belongs to the doctrine of the → church. It presupposes (1) the idea of a pure doctrine that, at least in demarcation, formulates → truth in doctrinal statements and thus defines the church’s → unity. A verdict of heresy, however, also points to (2) criteria by which to distinguish redeeming faith in → Jesus Christ from sinful falsification. Finally, to establish heresy there is needed (3) a court that, in the name of the faithful, can name and lawfully exclude falsification.
1.1. All three criteria are necessary if the church is to be able to constitute itself as a community that achieves unity of → faith and publicly preserves and communicates the true message of the → gospel. On a Protestant view, however, the three criteria cannot be institutionalized but are open to constant theological reflection, with the result that heresy lies on the outer edge of the church’s theological discipline. A zeal to confess should not lead us astray at this point, for it can work out in practice only in the form of an appeal to freedom of → conscience. The → Roman Catholic Church has put the problem in the hands of the → teaching office and thus decided what is orthodox for the church as an → institutions. Since an evaluation of what is heresy belongs to the esse of the church in its unity of faith, by means of this papal teaching office the church has given itself a self-definition whose claim the members of the → World Council of Churches cannot accept and the Protestant churches of the → Reformation period condemned as itself heresy. The Reformation argument that no earthly institution can have the → authority to bind consciences is still convincing. A compelling slogan in this regard is that no one has control over the → Word of God.
1.2. The concept of pure truth gives rise to the opposing concept of heresy, which either falsifies truth or deviates from it by reduction. Since the Christian faith is not without content, it may be formulated, and its content may be taught in dogmatic theology (→ Dogmatics). Elements of truth are enumerated in the formulas of → confessions, which state positively what must be held and negatively what must be ruled out or even condemned. The demarcation of what is distinctively Christian from an arbitrary multiplicity of formulations rests on the fact that truth can only be one, and also on the fact that faith can have assurance of → salvation and that the content of such faith can also come to expression.
Such an approach also raises the whole problem of heresy, for, as a life of trust, faith is more than can be stated in doctrine; formulations in the form of theological teaching and confessional statements cannot fully and adequately express the truth that is believed. The exclusion of heresy is thus related to the joint inquiry into truth; a single person cannot be condemned as a heretic. We can thus understand why the path to unity in faith is one of convergence rather than full → consensus. In the process separations will occur, for attempts at the persuasion of others run up against limits at which it is impossible to find agreement.
1.3. On a Protestant view the most common criterion is the Word of God as we have it in the Holy Scriptures, the biblical → canon. Although sola Scriptura (→ Reformation Principles) is the unconditional norm, the canon itself has many voices, so that we also need to seek beyond its center. The church historically has decided for various expositions, which have then served as a basis for unity of faith. Protestants believe that the Reformation confessions correspond to the center of Scripture, which must be constantly established afresh by a combination of biblical → exegesis, church history, and dogmatics. In the Lutheran tradition (→ Lutheranism) there was a definitive collection in the Book of Concord (1580). In the Reformed tradition (→ Calvinism) each confession is a testimony that can be expanded. Hence the Lutherans debated whether the Barmen Declaration (1934) could be accepted as a no less binding confession than those already endorsed, though there was no dispute concerning the declaration’s repudiations as heresy.
1.4. A court that can pronounce anathema upon a doctrine runs contrary to the truth of the priesthood of all believers. On a Protestant view individuals can judge any doctrine. They cannot delegate their freedom of conscience, not even to a democratic process of discussion or the majority vote of a synod. The only possible authority is an obligation (albeit institutionalized) to the responsibility of understanding aright the Word of God as we have it in the Bible. This understanding is a special responsibility of those whom the church calls to public preaching and teaching. In extreme cases these persons may be removed from office, though not → excommunicated.
2. Historical Data

“Heresy” is derived from a Greek word. It denoted the various philosophical schools (→ Greek Philosophy) and, in the Jewish sphere, religious groups. In Christian usage it took on a negative connotation (1 Cor. 11:19). In the sense of → heterodoxy, it came to mean erroneous teaching (2 Pet. 2:1; see also 1 Tim. 6:3–5). It implied moral disqualification (see Gal. 5:20). Tertullian (ca. 160–ca. 225), linking it to the basic Greek idea of choice, found in it something arbitrary. Ephesians sums up the basic idea in a formula: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all” (4:4–6).
2.1. Primitive Christianity

The earliest sources show that (1) Christians were conscious of a claim to → truth, (2) belonging to the fellowship was dependent on agreement with the message, and (3) the person of Jesus was the basis of the common proclamation. The absolute claim to truth rested on direct divine → revelation, as one may see, for example, in → Paul (see Galatians 1–2). Human communication, which Paul himself allows (1 Cor. 15:1–3), is limited at first to the imparting of historical information concerning the life of Jesus, though it successively came to include insights deriving from this information. We see this process in the Gospels in their concealed redaction history and also in the Pauline Epistles up to the → Pastoral Epistles, in which preservation of the tradition is openly a basic principle (e.g., 1 Tim. 1:18–20). The Johannine writings also show interest in preserving a tradition that traces back to contemporaries of Jesus (1 John 1:1–4), but here the process of expansion is not simply reflected (v. 10) but is related to basic elements in the tradition of Jesus (2:22; 4:1–4).
It was an unusual thing in antiquity to contend so exclusively for the possession of truth that deviations were rejected as heterodox and the existence of schools like the philosophical schools was condemned as disruptive of fellowship. There were two reasons for it, both unique to Christianity and both alien to the philosophical spirit. The first was the tracing back of all doctrines to the person of Jesus, and the second was the religious certainty of possessing in the → confession of Jesus (→ Confession of Faith) as God’s revelation the truth that links us to God. Insofar as faith in Jesus as Christ and Lord gave assurance of eternal → salvation, it created an exclusive fellowship in confessional formulations (see Ignatius). Those who in their preaching did not adopt the basic elements (e.g., among the itinerant preachers and teachers) were said to be led astray by the → devil. In the earliest documents there is no toleration of competing forms of belief except in the apostolic decree of Galatians 2 and Acts 15 (echoed in Justin Martyr Dial. 47). In the → canon, however, different traditions were left unreconciled side by side.
2.2. Early Church

In the middle of the second century the rise of Christian → Gnosticism made the distinguishing of correct belief from heresy a main theme of theology and a main problem for the church. Perhaps it was not by chance that this issue arose at the time when the → apologists were speaking in the name of Christianity and the application of the name “Christian” also became problematic because of external considerations (see also the views of the pagan philosopher Celsus, in Origen C. Cels. 3.10–12). The case of Marcion (d. ca. 160) was plain at once, even without theological deliberation. His hatred of the Creator, his rejection of Scripture (the Jewish Bible), and his revision of the canon made his irreconcilability apparent. Two churches resulted (→ Marcionites).
The Christian Gnostics (e.g., Basilides and Valentinus) founded schools that, on the basis of exposition of the Gospels and Paul, tried to elevate simple Christians to higher knowledge and greater separation from the world. Accordingly, they were credible and even attractive, in spite of coming under suspicion of harboring a sense of superiority. The first generation could apparently indulge only in futile denunciations of individuals, but Irenaeus (d. ca. 200) unmasked their system and, in spite of similarities of confession, pointed out the differences, namely, the doctrine of the Creator and the identity of Christ and Jesus (Adv. haer. 4 pref.). In addition to illogicalities in the system, Irenaeus found as his formal basis for refutation the fact that all that we know about Jesus Christ was written by the → apostles and is publicly known and preserved in the church’s → tradition. Since the Christian Gnostics began with biblical interpretation and built on the canon, teachers like Irenaeus and Tertullian also set forth a → rule of faith (regula fidei) as a doctrinal summary.
Broader theological debate came first with the Alexandrians Clement (ca. 150–ca. 215) and Origen (ca. 185–ca. 254), who, quoting 1 Cor. 11:19, realized that orthodox theology is formed only in controversy with heresies (→ Alexandrian Theology; Origenism). At the end of the second century we also hear that Roman bishops were removing heretics, and in Asia Minor a synod took action against the → Montanists. The decisions of regional bishops in condemnation and exclusion of heresy found general recognition inasmuch as the → church was universal and was regarded as → catholic.
The rulings of the → synods that Emperor Constantine (306–37) and his Christian successors called could be regarded as accepted by the whole church. The → bishops formulated orthodoxy as a confession and rejected heretical teachings in the form of anathemas. Those who refused to subscribe were deprived of office and banished by the emperor. Heretical books were burned, and their possession was forbidden. The laity had to do penance (→ Penitence) for heresy in accordance with the church’s regulations. Nevertheless, although the confession of Nicaea (endorsed at the First Council of Constantinople, 381; → Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) prevailed against → Arianism, and the church had imperial support against heretical deviations from orthodoxy, heresy remained a constant threat. Churches still exist (→ Oriental Orthodox Churches) that arose out of the heresies condemned at the Councils of → Ephesus (431) and → Chalcedon (451).
Clarity was sought by the compiling of lists of heresies (notably by Epiphanius and Philaster), but even in regard to past heresies it had to be conceded that these were incomplete. Even Augustine (354–430) regarded the definition of heresy as very difficult, and the simple formula was adopted that everything that differs from the catholic faith is heretical. (Cf. the canon of Vincent of LeŒrins, which defines catholicity as “what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.”)
2.3. Middle Ages

Inasmuch as medieval theologians simply collected the teachings of the Fathers and unified them in new systems (→ Scholasticism), they could regard agreement with tradition as the criterion of orthodoxy and disagreement with it as the mark of heresy. The new element in the Middle Ages, apart from doctrinal controversy, was the rise of the → Cathari and the → Waldenses, who in opposing ways contested the sacramental way of salvation in the papal church. In the Investiture Controversy (→ Empire and Papacy) church office had been tied to the papal → hierarchy. Laity who made church appointments were declared to be heretics (→ Simony), with excommunication as the penalty for disobedience; ongoing excommunication with no sign of penitence raised the suspicion of heresy. Measures against the new deviations were thus simply a logical attempt by the new official sacramental hierarchy to assert itself (→ Clergy and Laity). The → Inquisition was set up against them, against their adherents, and against those who protected them by failing to denounce them. The secular arm punished the guilty by burning, for despising the church counted as a form of lèse-majesteŒ. The long-simmering conflict between Pope Gregory IX (1227–41) and Emperor Frederick II (1215–50) typifies these tensions.
2.4. Reformation

The papal church condemned the → Reformation as heresy, excommunicating M. → Luther (1483–1546) in 1521 (for details, see the proceedings of → Trent, Council of). The → Reformers then had to defend themselves against the charge of heresy. Luther called for a general council, but he still insisted that he be refuted by the → Word of God (“the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason,” as he said at Worms [LW 32.112]). Zwingli took the same view, claiming in article 1 of his Sixty-seven Theses (1523), “All those who say that the gospel is nothing without the confirmation of the church make a mistake and blaspheme God.” Calvin, too, justified separation from the church by the fact that the unity of the church rests on pure doctrine according to God’s Word (see Inst. 4.2.5). They all maintained this position in considerable deviation from traditional modes of exposition (→ Calvin’s Theology; Luther’s Theology; Zwingli’s Theology). By making loyalty to the Bible the only criterion of orthodoxy as distinct from heresy, they set up in principle an institutional court that could decide concerning heresy (see 1), equating personal trust in God’s Word with the understanding of the Bible.
The Reformation churches defended themselves against individual caprice by laying down pure doctrine in confessions for the public (for both church and school) and appealing to the fact that these presentations and rejections are established by the Word of God in Holy Scripture. The Reformers charged the → Anabaptists and enthusiasts with not keeping to the written (“external”) Word of God. They were thus heretics, and by setting up conventicles they incurred secular punishment for rebellion. The new imperial law of 1532 contained no sections on heretics.
2.5. Modern Period

The Reformation churches believed that the secular powers had a duty to provide for true worship of God (the first table of the → Decalogue). By the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 (→ Augsburg, Peace of) the states had responsibility in this sphere. Although → orthodoxy almost equated theology with the faith that is necessary to salvation, and polemical demarcation resulted in increasingly comprehensive statement, some—especially among Lutherans (→ Lutheranism) and Calvinists (→ Calvinism)—wanted to transcend mutual condemnation; theological argument was to be a recourse to fundamental articles of faith (G. Calixtus [1586–1656]).
From the → Enlightenment and → Pietism came a demand to end heresy-hunting on the ground that true faith does not consist of agreement with doctrines and that state law can provide religious tolerance (freedom of conscience) without in any way damaging community. Where theology took a historical path in the 18th century, a history of religious parties and teachings resulted, as did the history of dogma, which divested historical confessions of their binding → authority and charged fanatics and enthusiasts with heresy (→ Dogma, History of).
Demonstration of the historical emergence of the biblical books (→ Exegesis, Biblical) seemed to eliminate any objective reference point to which dogmaticians might appeal (→ Dogmatics). The unavoidable result would have been to make heresy the heteronomy of authority as opposed to autonomous → reason. It was recognized, however, that faith as the pious consciousness has a concern to promote itself, so that doctrines of the faith could also speak of heresies. Yet there should be no condemnation, for the pious mind is a bond of fellowship, and a fellowship of mind is canceled where there is defective → Christology or → soteriology (F. Schleiermacher). The → theology of revivals sought the required objectivity in confessionalism (→ Denomination) and fervently denounced heresies in its own church.
F. C. Baur (1792–1860) viewed the history of theology according to the dialectical principle of G. W. F. Hegel (→ Dialectic; Hegelianism) and tried to understand the historical heresies as steps to a synthesis that still had to be found. In this regard he saw it as the inalienable task of church history to give a fresh hearing to the heresies that had been condemned but, in so doing, to appropriate critically the nexus of tradition.
2.6. Ecumenical Discussion

Ecumenical discussion of heresy is deeply characterized by a relativity of dogmatic claims, which are differentiated not so much by historical priorities (see W. Bauer, 1934) as by consideration of the arguments. The experience of encounter in ecumenical conversations (esp. in the world conferences of → Faith and Order, beginning at Lausanne in 1927; → Ecumenism, Ecumenical Movement) has taught, on the one hand, that the division of Christianity is to be felt as a burden and, on the other, that there can be no → unity without common doctrinal formulation. The Third World Conference of Faith and Order, at Lund in 1952, discussed the terms “schism,” “heresy,” and → “apostasy” and determined that heresy can arise only in relation to certain essential articles, though orders and structures are not exempt inasmuch as they are grounded in the concept of the church (Edinburgh, 1937).
In keeping with the increasing attention to the world responsibility of Christians, → koinonia is expounded as a “fully committed fellowship” (Third Assembly of the → World Council of Churches, at New Delhi in 1961). The idea of moral heresy has been introduced relative to the practical conduct of church members (W. A. Visser t’ Hooft at the fourth assembly, at Uppsala in 1968).
German church history under A. Hitler showed the need for condemnation, and follow-up is needed in the ethical field in such matters as → racism and → peace.
2.7. Roman Catholic Church

Since the Reformation the Roman Catholic Church has maintained an impressive identity in an institutionalized self-consciousness (→ Catholicism [Roman]). Against the Reformation churches it appealed to the Bible and also to unwritten apostolic teachings that had either been given orally by Christ or dictated by the Holy Spirit and preserved in unbroken succession in the church. It gave highest place to “holy mother church, whose function is to pass judgment on the true meaning and interpretation of the sacred scriptures” (Trent sess. 4; DH 1507; Tanner, 2.664).
What the Reformation churches claimed for the invisible church, the Catholic Church claimed for the papacy. “When the Roman pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals” (DH 3074; Tanner, 2.816; → Vatican I; → Infallibility; Teaching Office). The corresponding legal definition of heresy is thus obvious: “Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same” (1983 CIC 751).
There is lively debate among theologians on how to apply this definition. → Vatican II recognized “an order or ‘hierarchy’ of truths” (Unitatis redintegratio 11) but did not offer a closed list. It is also allowed that churches deriving from heresies share in the fundamentals of the faith, so that → dialogue with them can be profitable to both sides. Theologians argue for a legitimate → pluralism in the church. Since this feature involves the risk of error, the question of heresy and its demarcation from orthodoxy is raised within the church. How is the discipline of theology to be related to the church’s teaching office?
3. Historical Schisms

The term “schism,” like “heresy,” denotes separation from the one church. A schism is a division that breaks the bond of love. The idea that a schism relates only to order and not, like heresy, to dogma, goes back to Origen (→ Origenism). By way of a canonical letter of Basil the Great of Caesarea (ca. 330–79, Ep. 188), it made its way into church law in the East. Because Cyprian (ca. 200–258) judged that separation from a valid → bishop was an offense against belief in the unity of the church, he regarded the opposing church of Novatian (ca. 200–257/58) as heresy (→ Heretical Baptism). Jerome (ca. 345–420) claimed that every schism thinks up a heresy to justify the split. Augustine, after initial hesitation, finally denied to the → Donatists the status of schismatics, since their separation amounted to stubborn rebellion.
Dogmatic differences caused (e.g., the Acacian schism, 484–519) or accompanied (e.g., the Photian schism, from 867; mutual excommunications by the bishop of Rome and the → patriarch of Constantinople in 1054; → Byzantium) the schisms between the Eastern and Western churches. This split has not yet been healed. In the West differences brought about schisms that reached a climax in the Great Schism (1378–1417; → Conciliarism; Pope, Papacy; Reform Councils).
These historic experiences produced a canonical definition in the Roman Catholic Church: “Schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him” (1983 CIC 751, cf. 1364). Since the primacy of papal → jurisdiction is a dogma, the definition of schism hardly differs from that of heresy.
Given their understanding of the church, the Protestant churches have found it hard to develop a doctrine of schism, either canonically or theologically.
→ Church; Ecumenical Theology; Hussites; Legitimation; Monophysites; Pelagianism; Religion, Legal Protection of; Religious Liberty; Teaching Office

Bibliography: C. A. F. ALLISON, The Cruelty of Heresy: An Affirmation of Christian Orthodoxy (Harrisburg, Pa., 1994) ∙ D. BAKER, ed., Schism, Heresy, and Religious Protest (London, 1972) ∙ W. BAUER, Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum (Tübingen, 1934; 2d ed., 1964) ∙ P. L. BERGER, Der Zwang zur Häresie. Religion in der pluralistischen Gesellschaft (Frankfurt, 1992) ∙ H. D. BETZ, A. SCHINDLER, and W. HUBER, “Häresie,” TRE 14.313–41 (bibliography) ∙ P. BILLER and R. B. DOBSON, eds., The Medieval Church: Universities, Heresy, and the Religious Life (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1999) ∙ D. J. BINGHAM, Irenaeus’ Use of Matthew’s Gospel in Adversus Haereses (Louvain, 1998) ∙ N. BROX, “Häresie,” RAC 13.248–97 ∙ M.-J. CONGAR, “Schisme,” DTC 14/1.1286–1312 ∙ Y. CONGAR, “Abspaltungen von der Einheit der Kirche,” MySal 4/1.411–57 ∙ B. D. EHRMAN, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the NT (New York, 1993) ∙ R. M. GRANT, Heresy and Criticism: The Search for Authenticity in Early Christian Literature (Louisville, Ky., 1993) ∙ M. D. LAMBERT, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from Bogomil to Hus (2d ed.; Oxford, 1992) ∙ G. LEFF, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages: The Relation of Heterodoxy to Dissent (2 vols.; Manchester, 1967) ∙ W. LOURDAUX and D. VERHELST, eds., The Concept of Heresy in the Middle Ages (11th-13th Cent.) (Louvain, 1976) ∙ G. LÜDEMANN, Heretics: The Other Side of Early Christianity (Louisville, Ky., 1996) ∙ A. MICHEL, “HeŒreŒsie. HeŒreŒtique,” DTC 6.2208–57 ∙ K. RAHNER, “Häresien in der Kirche heute?” Schriften zur Theologie (vol. 9; Cologne, 1970) 453–78; idem, “Was ist Häresie?” ibid. (vol. 5; Cologne, 1962) 527–76 ∙ E. SEHLING, “Schisma,” RE 17.575–80 ∙ N. P. TANNER, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (2 vols.; London, 1990) ∙ H. E. W. TURNER, The Pattern of Christian Truth: A Study in the Relations between Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Early Church (1907; New York, 1978) ∙ S. L. WAUGH and P. D. DIEHL, Christendom and Its Discontents: Exclusion, Persecution, and Rebellion, 1000–1500 (Cambridge, 1996) ∙ K. WENGST, Häresie und Orthodoxie im Spiegel des 1 Johannesbriefs (Gütersloh, 1986).

EKKEHARD MÜHLENBERG
Heretical Baptism

1. In the third century the question arose for the first time how to treat believers returning to the → church from dissident groups. Was the → baptism that they had received outside the church valid or not? In North Africa (perhaps under the influence of Tertullian’s De bapt. 15) and also in Asia Minor, synods were held between A.D. 220 and 230 that ruled that heretical baptism was invalid and hence that believers who came over to the church had to receive the church’s baptism (as their first baptism; see Cyprian Ep. 73.3.1, 75.7.5; Eusebius Hist. eccl. 7.5.5, 7.7.5). As regards Rome, there is no record of any synodal decision, but Stephen I (254–57) appealed to the Roman tradition of receiving returning baptized converts in the same way as returning Catholics, namely, by the mere → laying on of hands (Cyprian Ep. 74.1).
Conflict arose between the two different practices only in 255, when for the first time Novatianists in North Africa wished to join the Catholic Church. The Novatianists seem themselves to have rebaptized the baptized Catholics who joined them (see Cyprian Ep. 73.2). Cyprian of Carthage (ca. 200–258) became a strong champion of the African tradition (Ep. 69). As he saw it, it made no difference that the Novatianists were just schismatics and not heretics (→ Heresies and Schisms). They had founded their own church, and the African confession that they used in baptism was against them, namely, the confession of faith in the remission of sins and eternal life through the holy church (Ep. 69.7.2). The Council of Carthage in 255 supported Cyprian (Ep. 70).
In answer to the question whether this ruling did not go against the Roman tradition, Cyprian drew attention to the difference between the two kinds of converts. Those baptized in the Catholic Church did not need baptism, but those baptized by dissidents did (Ep. 71.2). Early in 256 another Carthaginian council ruled in Cyprian’s favor. The decision was sent with an accompanying letter to Stephen (Ep. 72), but the latter would not receive the African delegation and threatened → excommunication (see Ep. 75.25).
When Firmilian of Caesarea in Cappadocia (d. 268), in a letter to Cyprian (Ep. 75) at the end of 256, assured his colleague of the full support of the churches of Asia Minor on the issue and complained vehemently of Stephen’s lack of collegiality, Stephen threatened these churches as well with excommunication (Eusebius Hist. eccl. 7.5.4). With the death of both Stephen and Cyprian, however, the dispute ended with no further consequences. Possibly Dionysius of Alexandria (d. ca. 265) acted as a mediator shortly afterward, though his own position is not clear.

2. In the fourth and fifth centuries, during the → Donatist controversy in North Africa, the issue arose again. The Council of Arles in 314 (can. 8) had ruled against the Donatists in favor of the Roman practice, as long as the heretics had been “baptized into the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” The Donatists, however, cited Cyprian as their main witness. Augustine (354–430) was at great pains to whitewash Cyprian (De bapt.). He himself accepted the Roman view and gave it an ecclesiological basis (→ Augustine’s Theology). In spite of its toleration of dissident baptism, the Catholic Church could take very intolerant measures against heresy and schism.
Augustine wanted the → state to force the Donatists back into the church for their own → salvation (appealing to Luke 14:23; see also his Ep. 93, 185). His practice shows that the question of the relation between baptism and ecclesiology, or baptism and the gift of the Spirit as the Reformation would see it, had not been solved by his interpretation of the rite and the resultant recognition of heretical baptism.
→ Early Church

Bibliography: Primary source: C. MIRBT and A. ALAND, Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums und des römischen Katholizismus (vol. 1; 6th ed.; Tübingen, 1967) 182–207.
Secondary works: G. VON BAREILLE, “Baptême des hérétiques,” DTC 2.219–33 ∙ A. BENOı̂T and C. MUNIER, Le baptême dans l’église ancienne (Bern, 1994) ∙ W. C. FREND, The Donatist Church: A Movement of Protest in Roman North Africa (Oxford, 1985) ∙ P. B. HINCHLIFF, Cyprian of Carthage and the Unity of the Christian Church (London, 1974) ∙ G. KRETSCHMAR, “Die Geschichte des Taufgottesdienstes,” Leit. 5/1.1–346 ∙ G. W. H. LAMPE, The Seal of the Spirit (2d ed.; London, 1967; orig. pub., 1951) ∙ C. MUNIER, Le baptême dans l’église ancienne (Bern, 1994) ∙ J. J. SEBASTIAN, “… Baptisma unum in sancta ecclesia …”: A Theological Appraisal of the Baptismal Controversy in the Work and Writings of Cyprian of Carthage (Delhi, 1997) ∙ G. S. M. WALKER, The Churchmanship of St. Cyprian (Richmond, Va., 1969) ∙ G. G. WILLIS, St. Augustine and the Donatist Controversy (London, 1950).

WILLY RORDORF
Hermeneutics

1. OT
1.1. Significance
1.2. Approach
1.3. Task
2. NT
2.1. Concept and Task
2.2. History
2.3. Modern Problems
3. Philosophy and Theology
3.1. Concept and Task
3.2. Hermeneutical Philosophy
3.3. Hermeneutical Theology
3.4. Results and Criticism

The original meaning of “hermeneutics” is “translation” in the broadest sense: the authoritative → communication of a message (e.g., from God) that needs a mediator, the rendering of a text from one language into another, and the exposition of something said or written with a view to bringing out its → meaning. The term is derived from the Greek hermēneuō, “interpret, explain, translate.” The root derives from the name of the Greek god Hermes, the mediator of meaning between the realm of gods and that of human beings. In the NT the term (including its use with the prefixes dia. and meta-) is translated “interpret” (Luke 24:27; see also 1 Cor. 12:10), “explain” (Luke 24:27 NEB), “translate” (John 1:38, 42), and “mean” (Heb. 7:2). In Acts 14:12 Paul, taken to be a god in human form, is “called Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.”
1. OT
1.1. Significance

The Hebrew Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament, has status as Holy Scripture for both → Judaism and Christianity and is also important to the Koran of → Islam as a source of information and tradition for that faith. Its vitality to Judaism began early in the formation of the community of → Israel (§1), when parts of its present form were considered authoritative for faith and practice, such as core statutes and summaries of law, ritual prescriptions, poetic outcries of both pain and celebration, and collections of sayings of prophets and wise thinkers.
Its vitality to Christian faith began with the use of parts of it by → Jesus, → Paul, the gospel authors, and writers of other NT books. The argument over its necessity for Christian guidance, raised by Marcion (d. ca. 160), was answered by the church with a decisive Yes in its march toward establishing a → canon of Scripture.
Its importance to Islam is seen both in the Koran’s dependence on various narratives, characters, and events (e.g., Hagar’s exile [Genesis 16; 21:8–21; cf. Koran 14:35–39]) and in the prominence of some ideas in Islamic theology, such as the apocalyptic vision of the end times and the judgment of the human race (Dan. 11:40–12:13; cf. Koran 12; 81; 82).
1.2. Approach

Even with the development of various aspects of biblical research (from earliest scribal corrections to canonical criticism) over 3,000 years, each of which contributes its part to the total understanding and → interpretation of the OT, still the most basic hermeneutical encounter is with an individual textual unit, or pericope. In seeking to interpret a given story, song, law, poem, or other segment of the material now enclosed in the OT, a sound hermeneutical approach includes the elements and perspectives outlined in the following paragraphs. The overall approach applies for any version of the OT, → Apocrypha and → pseudepigrapha included.
The first task is to ascertain the state of the text itself. Are all the words clear? Are there different readings or different witnesses to what the text says? Use of the various language options, the textual variants, the changes in vocabulary, and all related materials are basic to ascertaining just what sentences have been produced in the unit under consideration.
The second step is to discern the form of the unit. Is it poetry of a particular sort, a special type of prophetic speech, a conditional or absolute law, a new or unique form of expression without parallel elsewhere in Scripture? The form itself sometimes has a certain meaning, including its use in a given context, with implications for the overall application of the pericope.
Once the text and form are clear, one should look for any pre- or extrabiblical use of such a unit in other ancient Near Eastern texts. Israel borrowed materials from Canaan as well as other surrounding countries. Light from such sources can occasionally illuminate what biblical writers had in mind by using material that reflected the “common knowledge” of the times. The prohibition against cooking a kid in its mother’s milk (Exod. 23:19; 34:26), for example, makes more sense when it is seen as proscribing Israel’s participation in a common Canaanite ritual (see J. C. Rylaarsdam, “Exodus: Text, Exegesis,” IB 1.1013–14).
Given the centuries-old enterprise of examining physical remains for evidence of the biblical people and the events they report, one should ask whether there are → archaeological data that shed light on the unit, and if so, what they suggest. Arguments persist about the value of such connections. To see the actual size of ancient defensive and other walls, however, and to know the location of old travel routes can enable one to gain new insight into “the shade of a great rock” (Isa. 32:2), both as refuge from the midday heat and as a dangerous place where robbers or others of ill will might be hiding, or even a place from which to spring a military ambush (Josh. 8:1–23). References to water jars, broken pots, and the hazards of cisterns all beg for the light of archaeology to be shed on them. Jeremiah’s teaching about how the Lord would break rebellious Judah “as one breaks a potter’s vessel” by smashing it on the ground (Jer. 19:11) reflected a real slice of everyday life then, just as it remains vivid to this day.
At this point one may ask about the first OT use of the unit and what its meaning or meanings may have been in that literary setting. Given the long period of oral transmission of most units before they were put into writing, however, it is sometimes impossible to trace back the original meanings to the community out of whose travels and experiences, faith and practices, the utterance was first coined. To begin with, the best we can do is to approximate its apparent use and meaning in its present context, unless there are clear extrabiblical evidences of its earlier functions.
It is appropriate to ask, beyond the immediate impressions the unit gives, whether it appears in later OT contexts, how it may have been revised, and what use and meaning(s) each revision suggests. That is, the OT itself is the first “hermeneutical workshop” for OT texts. This feature is apparent in the → Pentateuch, for examination of the stories of Israel’s beginnings shows that the earliest ones were first systematically collected and edited about 950 B.C. (commonly referred to as the J source, for its association with Judah and its use of YHWH [Yahweh, Ger. Jahwe] for God’s name). A century later the earliest texts were reexamined, sometimes revised, supplemented with new material, and sometimes rearranged (by the so-called E source, for its northern association [tribe of Ephraim] and its use of Elohim for the name of God). Then in the eighth century Deuteronomic reformers produced another revision (the D source, for the new material in Deuteronomy), and later again, between the sixth and fourth centuries, by scribes with priestly and ritual interests (P source, mainly in Leviticus) trying to reconstitute a pure Israelite community in place of the one destroyed by Assyrian and → Babylonian aggression (ca. 721 and 597–586 B.C.). In each stage, new circumstances saw new meanings and new emphases take shape in the treatment of the stories. Just as in our own time, the meaning was searched for its relevance to the new situations encountered in life, and the interpretive process was continued for each successive audience. The same process occurred when early Christian writers took basic prophetic texts and reapplied them to their understandings in the wake of Jesus’ life among them.
It is also vital to examine the various OT literary settings in which the unit may appear. Events are sometimes celebrated poetically as well as reported in a prose form. Major examples here are the celebration of Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian slavery to freedom as a people. The story and event described in Exodus 12–14 are also celebrated and interpreted poetically in the Song of Moses (Exod. 15:1–18) and the Song of Miriam (vv. 20–21). Similarly, the Song of Deborah (Judges 5) puts the memories of the slaying of the Canaanite commander Sisera (Judges 4) in a different literary form. The aids to remembering, such as summaries of law as ten commandments (e.g., in Exod. 20:1–17; Deut. 5:6–21; lit. “the Ten Words,” Exod. 34:28 NEB), or repetitive phrases citing the same idea in a prophet’s speech (Jer. 25:30) or a psalm (Ps. 92:12), reflect what it was like to keep important things in mind while living without available written records, or without libraries for storing important materials for managing life. The literary forms of a curse, of a lament over loss at death, or of an obligation conditional on some combination of circumstances all speak of regular patterns of utterance used and considered transportable for use in various times and places judged appropriate. They help us understand the life situation in which a form took shape, to which it was intended to speak with particular power.
It is now possible to ask what role or meaning the unit has for Israel’s theology, that is, Israel’s sense of God, God’s presence, God’s character, God’s will. Israel’s pilgrimage worked its way theologically from multiple gods in the religions of its neighboring cultures to hints of multiple gods worshiped and served by its ancestors (e.g., “the gods [that] your ancestors served,” Josh. 24:14–15). First clearly cited by the prophet of the exile commonly called Second Isaiah, Israel’s belief that besides YHWH “there is no other” (Isa. 45:5–6) became normative in the exilic period as the → monotheism that characterizes Judaic, Christian, and Islamic theology to this day. While some changes in the characterization of God occur, each biblical unit reflects its place in the process of theological formation occurring throughout the OT. Variations in theological aspects of the meaning of a pericope will occur within each of the religious communities devoted to these texts, as well as from one community to the others. Serious effort to find what the text may mean in today’s life requires that we determine, if possible, what role it has played in the growing awarenesses of God, both God’s character and will.
At this stage one should ascertain, as relevant, the first use in the NT. Writers of the NT use OT passages in a variety of ways. Both the criteria of selection and the specific application to the “new” situation will shed light especially on what meaning the NT writer intended to convey. One of many illustrations of this point appears in Joel Marcus’s discussion of uses made of OT material by the author of the Gospel of Mark in the very first verses of the gospel. Here the writer conflates OT material and applies it in the context of “proclamation” to a Christian community under stress in the agitation of the Jewish revolt against Rome in A.D. 66–70 (J. Marcus, Mark 1–8 [New York, 2000] Introduction and 141–49). As the “beginning of the good news,” it is intended to interpret Jesus and his proclamations in a context of stress and suffering, giving aid and hope to the audience the writer addressed in the mid-first century. That setting suggests clues to its possible meaning for modern people, also suffering stress, if not political persecution or the devastations of war.
As with the OT, so also with the NT, units are sometimes used in more than one place or by more than one author; in the process, the use and meaning may change. Thus it is incumbent to search for other NT uses of the unit. The writer of the Gospel of Matthew clearly intends to employ as many OT references as possible to support his claim that Jesus fulfilled OT expectations in all aspects of his life and death (e.g., Matt. 1:22; 2:5, 17; 3:3, etc.). OT apocalyptic expectations are “translated” in the speech attributed to Jesus in Matt. 24:3–8, as they are in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians (4:13–18), Mark’s chapter 13, and the bulk of the book of Revelation. Tracking a single unit or a pattern of ideas is important in determining the use and meaning the early Christians found in the OT material.
In addition to insights gained from the NT canonical material, it is often helpful in understanding an OT pericope to examine its use by other groups. A first choice might be the → Gnostics, given the abundance of materials from → Nag Hammadi. Marcion and his arguments could also be explored. Attention should also be paid to the differences between the emerging Christian churches and their Jewish neighbors. Christians borrowed heavily from Jewish hermeneutical methods (esp. in their attention to texts, translations, and methods of historical and allegorical interpretation; → Bible Versions), and the emergence of a Christian theology that accommodated not only the God of the OT but the person of Jesus and the continuing felt presence of God’s activities in their communal life was itself a process that continues into modern life.
It is also important to examine the place of a pericope in the history of doctrine and the life of the church—liturgical, devotional, and even organizational. Some units have become firmly planted in Judaic, Christian, and Islamic thought. Deut. 6:4, for example, claiming that God is one, is an example of a biblical text that has become central to all three bodies of believers. An implication of this belief is that all activity involving human devotion to, worship of, or obedience to any other power, reality, or ideal is what defines idolatry, unfaithfulness, misguided behavior, and mistaken thinking. Islam goes so far as to cite forgetfulness of God as the primary sin of humans (hence the requirement to pray five times every day). Ritual life in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (→ Rite) reflects in common the obligation to remember God’s gracious acts, thus keeping life focused where its center belongs.
The purpose of all these explorations is to interpret the biblical text for modern human life. What are the contemporary applications of this pericope in daily life? For some units there may not be any clearly in view. Conditions change, and some admonitions no longer apply in today’s largely urban setting (→ City). Furthermore, with the changing conditions of life in the digital age, only extrapolated or analogous applications may be possible. Yet basic human questions about what life is, what it can become, how the self may interact in various social formats from family to the global village, and related questions of how to treat one’s fellow humans in all their conditions and locations are always relevant. The limitation of → death still needs to be understood and interpreted within the theology given in biblical forms. Theological, intellectual, ritual, social, and global concerns call for translating biblical insights into the stuff of daily life for ordinary people. Such translation is the primary task of → preaching as biblical → proclamation. Patterns of organization to allow it must be explored in the ever-changing social scene, and the fellowship of believers must be nourished by the best proclamatory and educational insights believers can muster.
Third World perspectives need to be explored for the riches they can provide and for the insights that Western intellectual history may have missed in its affluence, power, and gross self-absorption. Westerners need to listen to their brothers and sisters in other cultures. The relative lack of sophisticated technological distractions in the → Third World (however short-lived such lack may be) may allow a different focus and sensitivity and, most important, a differently stirred imagination by which to hear and speak the will of God conveyed through Scripture.
Interest in unfolding biblical insights continues to draw new voices into the discussion. We have had about 30 years of genuine help from women’s work on interpreting biblical texts (→ Feminist Theology). Voices added from Latin American perspectives (→ Liberation Theology), as well as from African and African American participants (→ African Theology), complement the evolution of subspecialties such as rhetorical criticism, linguistic analysis (→ Linguistics), storytelling, and many others that explore the pericopes from new angles and perspectives.
1.3. Task

If the center of the OT is the interaction of → Yahweh with the people of Israel, its goal is surely the creation and support of human life at its maximum potential for mutual support and excellence in achievements—from → healing the sick to all forms of nourishing wholeness and richness of human expression.
The hermeneutical task is to proclaim the biblical content in the face of all misguided human standards and endeavors. Then can begin a creation of new life that not only well serves the human communities but endures far beyond the span of any given society or time. Such is God’s gift of life in a universe in which, viewed both temporally and spatially, the natural condition is death. Such is the biblical message of → grace, which comes from God alone.
→ Exegesis, Biblical

Bibliography: J. BARTON, Reading the OT: Method in Biblical Study (Louisville, Ky., 1996); idem, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation (Cambridge, 1998) ∙ A. BRENNER et al., eds., A Feminine Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods, and Strategies (Sheffield, 1997) ∙ W. BRUEGGEMANN, Interpretation and Obedience: From Faithful Reading to Faithful Living (Minneapolis, 1991) ∙ R. CARROLL and M. DANIEL, Contexts for Amos: Prophetic Poetics in Latin American Perspective (Sheffield, 1992) ∙ M. FISHBANE, The Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics (Bloomington, Ind., 1989) ∙ F. C. HOLMGREN, The OT and the Significance of Jesus: Embracing Change-Maintaining Christian Identity. The Emerging Center in Biblical Scholarship (Grand Rapids, 1999) ∙ J. KALTNER, The Use of Arabic in Biblical Hebrew Lexicography (Washington, D.C., 1996) ∙ A. LACOCQUE and P. RICOEUR, Thinking Biblically: Exegetical and Hermeneutical Studies (Chicago, 1998) ∙ J. D. LEVENSON, The Hebrew Bible, the OT, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies (Louisville, Ky., 1993) ∙ S. SEKINE, Transcendency and Symbols in the OT: A Genealogy of Hermeneutical Experiences (Berlin, 1999) ∙ R. S. SUQIRTHARAJAH, Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1991).

ROGER S. BORAAS
2. NT
2.1. Concept and Task

The task of biblical hermeneutics to make the Bible, as the canon of the church, intelligible so that the church is equipped to make an “accounting [apologia]” (1 Pet. 3:15) for faith in → Jesus Christ and its proclamation (→ Canon). The NT itself offers clear standards for this process. The object of interpretation is the biblical witness to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
The center of Christian theology is the Christ-event (→ Christology). This event can be understood only within the totality of the OT and the NT (1 Cor. 15:3–5; 2 Cor. 1:20; Luke 24:25–27; John 5:39). The → gospel of Jesus Christ is a divine gift demanding obedient reflection and response (1 Cor. 1:30; 2:6–16; 2 Cor. 4:5–6). Exposition, therefore, must orient itself to the tradition of the apostolic faith (1 Cor. 15:1–11; Rom. 6:17; 2 Tim. 3:14–17; 2 Pet. 1:20–21; → Exegesis, Biblical). These criteria place biblical hermeneutics in fruitful tension with any exposition that would set up its own criteria apart from them.
2.2. History

The Christian exposition of the NT (and OT) arose in the second century in opposition to → Gnostic theosophy, the anti-Jewish reduction of the tradition to (a misunderstood) → Paul in → Marcion, and the fanaticism of → Montanism. Its framework was the → rule of faith (→ Irenaeus Adv. haer. 1.10.1–3). It moved from a focus on the literal sense of a text to its spiritual sense, the goal being to advance love of God and neighbor (→ Augustine De doc. christ. 3.10.15). By the time of the Scholastics, Scripture was interpreted according to its four major senses: (1) the literal sense, and then various figurative senses relating to (2) faith, (3) ethics, and (4) hope. According to → Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–74), the literal sense alone is decisive in theological argumentation (Summa theol. I, q. 1, art. 10). According to the medieval church, the normative authority for the interpretation of Scripture, therefore, rested solely within the church.
Faced with what they felt to be an abuse of this authority, the → Reformers argued that it was possible to expound on the meaning of Scripture (in the original Hebrew and Greek) apart from the authority of the church and that Scripture alone is the measure of faith. M. → Luther’s principle of sola Scriptura was itself a hermeneutical thesis, maintaining that the meaning of Scripture is not obscure and thus that its interpretation does not necessitate a tradition to understand it. Scripture, Luther maintained, possesses a certain clarity (claritas), and he further maintained that the light shining from Scripture illumines the tradition of the church. Luther and the Protestant reformers who followed him asserted that there is a literal sense to every passage of Scripture (sensus literalis unus est) and that Scripture can function as its own interpreter. Jesus Christ alone, they affirmed, is the basis of → salvation and is at the center of all Scripture. Faith in him alone leads to salvation in the form of → justification. This hermeneutical reorientation gave the task of biblical exposition enormous importance and enforced the practice of the continual testing of tradition by Scripture.
In reply, the Council of → Trent (1546) asserted that both Scripture and → tradition were the norms of Christian faith and declared the canon and text of the Vulgate to be officially normative for the church (DH 1506–7; → Bible Versions). Trent argued that the revelation testified to in Scripture could not be correctly understood without the hermeneutical assistance of the traditions of the church. The insistence on the Vg as the authoritative Scripture of the church, and not the Greek or Hebrew, also served to preserve the cogency and authority of the traditional doctrines and theological formulations as developed and maintained within the Latin language.
In the theological controversies of the 17th century, Protestant → orthodoxy appealed to the authority of the verbally inspired canon and as a result lost any influence it might have had on the developing (rationalistic) historicocritical understanding of Scripture. → Pietism’s separation of biblical hermeneutics into critical and noncritical components offered no protection against this development.
At the beginning of the 19th century F. → Schleiermacher (1768–1834) achieved a forward-looking synthesis of biblical criticism and the Christian faith (see 3.1.2). Because everyone did not follow the path Schleiermacher took, the 19th century witnessed a polarization between historicocritical exposition (e.g., J. C. Baur) and → biblicist exposition of Scripture that still exists today (e.g., J. T. Beck). A. Ritschl and A. Schlatter could do nothing to bridge this gap. Overall during the 18th and 19th centuries, realist interpretation of biblical texts steadily declined with the rise of historicocritical methods of interpretation.
A more fruitful hermeneutical polarity between historicocritical and biblicist methods of exposition came into play in → dialectical theology. K. → Barth (1886–1968) worked out his hermeneutics dogmatically from Scripture, demanding that exposition always be faithful to the scriptural texts. He found historical criticism to be only an aid in expressing the biblical witness to revelation.
R. Bultmann (1884–1976), in contrast, placed historicocritical exposition at the center of his theological and hermeneutical method. For him, exposition (of the NT) must penetrate to the → kerygma so that it might have critical validity within a modern scientific and rationalist worldview. In cooperation with M. Heidegger (1889–1976) and H. Jonas (1903–93), Bultmann developed his program of the → demythologization of the NT proclamation, which he saw as a consistent application of the doctrine of justification to the field of biblical hermeneutics. Taking Bultmann and Luther as their point of departure, G. Ebeling (b. 1912) and E. Fuchs (1903–83) further developed hermeneutics into a “language of faith,” at whose beginning and end stands Jesus himself.
Beginning in the 1960s, the criticism of Bultmann’s program and of the theological understanding of language and the limitations of historical biblical criticism led to the development of new, competing hermeneutical paradigms (political, materialistic, psychological, linguistic, feminist, etc.). Characteristic of this development was the well-known claim made by W. Wink, in advancing a psychological hermeneutic for biblical study, that “historical biblical criticism is bankrupt” (see below 3.2.3, 3.3.3, 3.4).
2.3. Modern Problems

If biblical hermeneutics (of the NT) accepts the criteria mentioned under 2.1, it comes into tension with contemporary hermeneutical theory, which often centers on a “hermeneutic of suspicion” (P. Ricoeur). In the interpretation of Scripture, however, a hermeneutics of historical → doubt or suspicion must give way to a hermeneutical procedure that, out of interest in the original witness of Scripture, leaves room not only for the insights of biblical criticism but also for their dogmatic exposition. The understanding and interest that lie behind the exposition of Scripture must not be that of critical doubt but that of critical sympathy with the textual tradition (W. G. Kümmel). Because of the central role of Scripture within the life of the church, historical criticism must make room for the possibility of nondeducible historical events as they are recorded in Scripture. Since there are no originally objectifying myths in the NT (and OT), → myth should be viewed primarily as the means that religious → language uses to make things understandable.
The criterion for a theologically sound and material criticism therefore cannot be located with the culturally variable horizon of modern understanding. Rather, it must be located within the gospel of Christ and the criteria of true and false, of free and unfree, and of good and bad posited by it (1 Thess. 5:21). The task of the theological explication of the NT is to interpret the inspired biblical texts in connection with the canon of the Old and New Testaments “through faith for faith” (Rom. 1:17). The center of Scripture is the gospel witness to the definitive saving work of the one God in and through his Son Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:1–6, 16–17). In its history, exposition always engages in (critical) dialogue with → confessions of faith, the normative summaries of the expositions of faith by previous generations of Christians.
Finally, it should be noted that the given truth of the gospel seeks not only to be known by the mind but also to be acknowledged by the will. Only then is the gospel truly understood in the biblical sense (John 7:16–17). Biblical hermeneutics therefore not only assists in the interpretation of the faith of the church; it also points to it.

Bibliography: K. BARTH, CD I/2, III/2 ∙ C. E. BRAATEN and R. W. JENSON, eds., Reclaiming the Bible for the Church (Grand Rapids, 1995) ∙ R. BULTMANN, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York, 1958); idem, NT and Mythology, and Other Basic Writings (ed. S. M. Ogden; Philadelphia, 1984) ∙ G. EBELING, “Hermeneutik,” RGG (3d ed.) 3.242–62; idem, Word and Faith (Philadelphia, 1963) ∙ H. FREI, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven, 1974) ∙ K. FROEHLICH, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church (Philadelphia, 1984) ∙ R. A. HARRISVILLE and W. SUNDBERG, The Bible in Modern Culture: Theology and Historical Critical Method from Spinoza to Käsemann (Grand Rapids, 1995) ∙ P. RICOEUR, Essays on Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia, 1980) ∙ P. STUHLMACHER, “ ‘Aus Glauben zum Glauben’-zur geistlichen Schriftauslegung,” ZTK.B 9 (1995) 133–50; idem, Historical Criticism and Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Philadelphia, 1977); idem, Vom Verstehen des Neuen Testaments (2d ed.; Göttingen, 1986) ∙ A. C. THISELTON, New Horizons in Hermeneutics (London, 1992); idem, The Two Horizons: NT Hermeneutics and Philosophical Description (Grand Rapids, 1980) ∙ H. WEDER, Neutestamentliche Hermeneutik (Zurich, 1986) ∙ W. WINK, The Bible in Human Transformation: Toward a New Paradigm for Biblical Study (Philadelphia, 1973).

PETER STUHLMACHER and CRAIG A. PHILLIPS
3. Philosophy and Theology
3.1. Concept and Task

3.1.1. Hermeneutics, as the art of interpretation, is central both to Christian theology and to Western philosophical and legal traditions (→ Philosophy; Jurisprudence). Recognizing the distance between the reader (or interpreter) and the text (or object of interpretation), hermeneutics seeks to develop criteria for the interpretations of texts or aesthetic objects. Biblical hermeneutics addresses the question of how the meaning of biblical texts can be interpreted and communicated. The assumption that interpretation is always historically rooted and grounded in specific temporal and spatial contexts is central to modern hermeneutics (→ Interpretation).
The interpretation of the Bible is still an important task of hermeneutics (see 1, 2). The literal translation of a biblical text alone is often not enough to convey its meaning or import, as the history of Christian → mission teaches. Even when translation from a foreign language is not involved, Christian → preaching always faces the problem of conveying the meaning of a text written in another place and time in the context of what is now being experienced in the life of the local congregation. What is said may sound strange, even if the words themselves are familiar. What is meant in the Bible can often be communicated only by giving the words a new twist. Hermeneutics confronts its limit at this point. The expositor or preacher has to trust that the Word of God can be put into human language and that the preconceptions or prejudgments found in every human expression and in every act of comprehension are nevertheless unable to control what God wants to communicate in his way.
In the NT, hermeneutics is understood to be the art of exposition or translation. Paul regarded the hermeneutical task as a → charisma (1 Cor. 12:10). Ecstatic utterances needed interpretation if what was said to God alone was to be opened up for the congregation (14:9–13).
3.1.2. The definition of hermeneutics by F. → Schleiermacher (1768–1834) as the art or doctrine of understanding was a turning point in the history of this discipline. As a theologian, he was concerned primarily with the interpretation of traditional texts, particularly the Scriptures. If one is to understand these writings, one must enter into the world in which they were produced and so open oneself to them that they become fresh and lose their strangeness. → Tradition represents a problem that can be resolved only as interpreters delve into the situation out of which the traditions arose. They must see what is handed down as a medium of historical life so that it can help to illuminate the present. Understanding takes place in the creative repetition of an original perception of humanity, world, and God that, although expressed at first in one way, now takes a new linguistic form.
The philosophy of I. Kant (→ Kantianism; Philosophy of History) and other philosophers of the Enlightenment provided the impetus for the development of a philosophy of interpretation freed from the constraints of dogmatism. Texts now could be interpreted according to a set of rationally defined principles or rules and not according to any preexisting dogmatic formulations. The emerging discipline of hermeneutics sought to provide such rules and methodologies.
Schleiermacher, enriched by → Romanticism, developed his hermeneutical methods in debate with the issues raised by the → Enlightenment and German → idealism. His hermeneutics employed both grammatical and psychological methods to arrive at an “understanding” of the text being interpreted. Where the grammatical methods examined the structure, terminology, and literary form of the text, the psychological methods sought the divination of the author’s immediate intentions.
Building on the work of Schleiermacher, W. Dilthey (1833–1911) developed a method of hermeneutics in which the interpreter attempted to reconstruct the subjective life-world of the author of the text under investigation. Romantic hermeneutics sought the retrieval of meaning (Verstehen) by means of an imaginative identification with the author’s intention. Dilthey maintained that everything within the life-world of human beings is historical, and therefore all human persons are included within the ongoing process of the adoption, appropriation, and alteration of traditions. These traditions, freed from the constraints of external → institutions (i.e., state, church, law), now could be seen to have their own autonomy. They formed the basis of the discipline of the humanities (or human sciences), which, in contrast to the natural sciences of the Enlightenment, were oriented to the question of human understanding and meaning.
Hermeneutics thus became a theory that sought to provide scientific validation for human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften). After the two world wars, especially in Germany, hermeneutics began to be understood as the philosophical method by which a person might come to a sense of his or her own historical situation. From this point on, hermeneutics as the task of exposition, particularly in the areas of theology, philology, and jurisprudence, must be distinguished from hermeneutics as a method of basic philosophical reflection, a revision of → ontology, with attempts to replace → metaphysics.
3.2. Hermeneutical Philosophy

M. Heidegger (1889–1976) traced all actions (including thought) to the existence that unfolds in time and that is oriented to one’s own → death as the ultimate possibility of understanding (→ Existentialism). Because human beings are always situated within a particular time or history and within traditions that they are not able to see as an object, they are unable to break free of this historical situatedness and understand themselves apart from this history or these traditions. All attempts at human understanding are thus trapped within a hermeneutical circle. To the question of the apparent subjectivism that this hermeneutical circle might imply for the interpretation of a text, Heidegger answered that whenever persons consult a text, they must be so challenged by it that in reply they can only ask further questions of it. In this way subjectivism is avoided.
H.-G. Gadamer (b. 1900) has shown in an exemplary fashion that part of the universal claim of hermeneutics is its constant reevaluation of its own claims as they have developed throughout its history. Hermeneutics is a theory of real → experience, that is, a way of thinking or reflecting on human experiences situated within particular live and historical traditions so that they cast light on present-day life. The horizon of the present can never exist apart from the influence of tradition. Whenever a human being attempts to understand a text or cultural object from the past, there can only be a convergence of the horizons of the past and present and never a fusion of them.
According to contemporary hermeneutical theory after Heidegger and Gadamer, human beings meet the world only in the medium of language. Hermeneutics thus becomes a world-hermeneutics, in the course of which the possibilities and difficulties inherent in every communication are made more visible. The act of putting something into words (e.g., experiences in → psychotherapy) is already a hermeneutical achievement. In the interpretation of texts and other forms of communication, the need is to press on to the language-event, in which reality identifies and expresses itself. In this respect the attention of hermeneutics is directed to the narrative process, to the relation of story to history (e.g., by P. Ricoeur). Experience is therefore always communicated in narrative form. Knowledge (→ Epistemology) remains embedded in a linguistic nexus and can never be exhaustively developed or explicated by concepts (M. Polanyi).
3.3. Hermeneutical Theology

The development of historical biblical criticism and biblical → exegesis and the question of the place of tradition within theological discourses opened Protestant theologians to the need for basic hermeneutical reflection. Only after → Vatican II were hermeneutical principles generally employed within Roman Catholic theology. We must distinguish, however, between an integration of hermeneutical methods into theology and an understanding of theology as applied hermeneutics that was thus named as human science (→ Philosophy of Science).

3.3.1. R. Bultmann (1884–1976), like Heidegger, concentrated on the issue of human self-understanding and tried theologically to extend the possibilities of Heidegger’s philosophy into biblical theology. → Faith, Bultmann argued, gives rise to a new self-understanding when a person is called to the cross of Jesus Christ and thus finds liberation from every sort of bondage, whether to self or others. Those who have faith are freed from the world by the → grace of God, which calls them to decision in the word of the cross, the → kerygma (1 Cor. 1:18). The program of the → demythologization of the NT seeks a hearing for this message (see 2.2). The picture of the world that is presented in the biblical texts, it argues, must always be interpreted existentially, that is, it must be expounded as the expression of the experience of existential change (→ Existential Theology).
3.3.2. G. Ebeling (b. 1912) and E. Fuchs (1903–83) placed more stress on language as an exposition of reality and called the salvation that is communicated in faith in Jesus a word-act or language-event. Ebeling also linked the doctrine of the → Word of God, which both kills and makes alive, to the experience of successful or unsuccessful communication, whether between God and the world or among human neighbors. At this point hermeneutics became a form of → fundamental theology. A Roman Catholic version of this view also took the form of a hermeneutics. This position is evident in the work of E. Biser (b. 1918), for whom faith is understood in terms of God’s promise of salvation, which helps human beings regain wholeness in their lives.
3.3.3. The claim of hermeneutics to offer a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of history has been attacked by many scholars, including those who wish to return to an idealistic conception of world history (e.g., W. Pannenberg). One particular question addressed to hermeneutics concerns the concept of tradition: Is tradition a continuum of imparted insights that forms an objective fact, or is tradition a series of comparative and integrative investigations and ongoing textual interpretations?
The question of the relationship between the philosophy of language and hermeneutics is also important. Hermeneutics has made us aware of how ambivalent language is and how easy it is to exploit the ambiguity of words and become lost in word games when precision is demanded. It also reminds us that a fixation on language as a self-acting and self-contained entity is questionable.
3.4. Results and Criticism

The development of hermeneutics brought an integrative attitude and style of thinking to philosophy and theology. It reminded these disciplines of their common roots in the Western tradition. It also reiterated many of the historical points of contact between Protestant and Roman Catholic theology. In hermeneutical theology the boundaries of historical research, dogmatic theology, and preaching merge into one another.

3.4.1. This unifying view of hermeneutics (within which there are still many tensions) primarily describes the hermeneutics of central Europe. At the same time, given the very real differences in human understanding of existence and activity in the world, a hermeneutical view of the world, language, and history cannot be given worldwide translation. A universal hermeneutics could not of itself be achieved.
3.4.2. From its outset, the program of hermeneutics was advanced as an alternative to empirical and analytic modes of operation and therefore was opposed to any kind of intellectual constructivism. The growing influence of empirical and analytic approaches to → linguistics and → sociology poses a dilemma for hermeneutics. On the one hand, hermeneutics might pay more attention to human society and the forces of social conditioning and control employed within it; in this regard → critical theory might be viewed as a further development of hermeneutics (J. Habermas). On the other hand, it might investigate its own historical, social, and political presuppositions and ideological commitments (H. Albert).
3.4.3. Whereas analytic thinking concerns itself with regularity within observable limits (e.g., with usage and changes of meaning within linguistics), hermeneutics addresses that which already seems to be valid or that which seems to have become quite commonplace (even if it is not!). To this degree Anglo-Saxon analytic philosophy is in competition with hermeneutics. The analytic observation of common conditions and the hermeneutical observation of historically diachronous developments, however, can fruitfully supplement one another.
Comprehensive explanatory concepts (in theology, → Feminist Theology, and → political theology; see also materialistic exegesis) have contested the claim of conventional hermeneutics to offer a total understanding of the world. This conflict is most pointed in contextual theology. At its core this theology argues hermeneutically in its understanding and exposition of the social and political milieu of the church and its theology as a textual nexus. Nevertheless, because it sees texts as the product of an attempt to master the world, contextual theology scrutinizes textual traditions, especially the Bible and → dogma, so that they can be made to address the complex demands of the present situation.

Bibliography: I. BALDERMANN et al., eds., Biblische Hermeneutik (Neukirchen, 1997) ∙ H.-G. GADAMER, Truth and Method (2d ed.; New York, 1994) ∙ W. JEANROND, Theological Hermeneutics: Development and Significance (London, 1991) ∙ A. LACOCQUE and P. RICOEUR, Thinking Biblically: Exegetical and Hermeneutical Studies (Chicago, 1998) ∙ R. LUNDIN, C. WALHOUT, and A. C. THISELTON, The Promise of Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids, 1999) ∙ K. MUELLER-VOLLMER, ed., The Hermeneutics Reader: Texts of the German Tradition from the Enlightenment to the Present (New York, 1985) ∙ M. OEMING, Biblische Hermeneutik (Darmstadt, 1998) ∙ F. F. SEGOVIA and M. A. TOLBERT, eds., Readings from This Place (Minneapolis, 1995) ∙ A. C. THISELTON, New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading (Grand Rapids, 1993); idem, The Two Horizons: NT Hermeneutics and Philosophical Description (Grand Rapids, 1980) ∙ G. WARNKE, Gadamer: Hermeneutics, Tradition, and Reason (Stanford, Calif., 1987).

GERHARD SAUTER and CRAIG A. PHILLIPS
Hermits → Anchorites
Herod, Herodians

1. Herod the Great (“the Elder,” according to Josephus Ant. 18.130), the founder of the last Jewish dynasty, derived on his father’s side from Idumeans, who had been forcibly Judaized, and on his mother’s side from Nabateans. He was born in 73 B.C. Already in his youth he was given political appointments by his father Antipater, one of the highest officials in the → Hasmonaean kingdom. In 47 B.C. he became military commander in Judea. Like his father, he exploited power struggles between the Hasmonaean brothers Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, who were under Roman protection, for the advancement of his own power.
In 40 B.C. the Parthians, who had invaded Palestine, helped Antigonus II, the son of Aristobulus, to the throne. Herod fled to Rome and there was made king of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea. Returning to Palestine with a Roman army, he conquered it in 37 B.C. after hard fighting.
As a client king of Rome, Herod had little scope in foreign policy, but thanks to good relations with Octavian (later the emperor Augustus), his kingdom soon became as large as → David’s had been. At home he acted as an absolute monarch. With the support of a standing army, he enforced his rule everywhere, removing opponents by force, even in his own family (probably the basis of the legend of the slaughter of the innocents at Bethlehem in Matthew 2).
The establishment of a central government enabled Herod to control the economy, priming it by a vigorous building program (including the new cities of Caesarea and Samaria, plus the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem; see John 2:20). He also promoted culture. His relationship with → Judaism was mixed, for he both observed and scorned Jewish customs. On the whole, apart from personal ambition, his policies were pro-Jewish but with a cosmopolitan concern to bridge the gulf between the Jewish people and the Hellenistic world (→ Hellenism).

2. After the death of Herod the Great in 4 B.C., the kingdom was divided among his three surviving sons.
2.1. Herod Archelaus became ethnarch of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea. The Romans terminated his unbridled rule (see Matt. 2:22) in A.D. 6.
2.2. Herod Antipas became tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. Jesus of Nazareth was his subject (Luke 13:31; 23:7–12), and he was responsible for the death of → John the Baptist (Mark 6:14–29). Antipas was deposed in A.D. 39.
2.3. Philip took over the non-Jewish territories of Gaulanitis, Batanea, Trachonitis, and Auranitis, northeast of the Sea of Galilee (see Luke 3:1). He was succeeded in A.D. 33/34 by Agrippa I, a grandson of Herod the Great (also called Herod in Acts 12). The whole kingdom of Herod was briefly reunited under Agrippa (41–44), but finally it became a Roman province apart from Philip’s former tetrarchy, which was assigned to Agrippa II (ruled ca. 50 to ca. 93 or 100; see Acts 25:13–26:32), a son of Agrippa I and the last Herodian.

Bibliography: G. BAUMBACH, “Herodes / Herodeshaus,” TRE 15.159–62 (bibliography) ∙ D. C. BRAUND, “Herodian Dynasty,” ABD 3.173–74 ∙ R. K. FENN, The Death of Herod (New York, 1992) ∙ M. GRANT, Herod the Great (New York, 1971) ∙ H. W. HOEHNER, Herod Antipas: A Contemporary of Jesus Christ (rev. ed.; Grand Rapids, 1980) ∙ A. H. M. JONES, The Herods of Judea (2d ed.; London, 1967; orig. pub., 1938) ∙ L. I. LEVINE, “Herod the Great,” ABD 3.161–69 ∙ P. RICHARDSON, Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans (Minneapolis, 1999) ∙ S. SANDMEL, Herod: Profile of a Tyrant (Philadelphia, 1971). ∙ D. R. SCHWARZ, Agrippa I: The Last King of Judaea (Tübingen, 1990).

BERNDT SCHALLER
Hesychasm

In the → Orthodox Church, Hesychasm (from Gk. hēsychia, “quietness, stillness”) is the tradition of quiet, inner, prayerful contemplation of God. The early monks (→ Monasticism) of the 3d and 4th centuries sought this stillness in their ascetic program by outward flight from the world and the combating of inner unrest (→ Anchorites). Simeon the New Theologian (949–1022), who described his encounters with God as visions of light, must be regarded as the pioneer of Hesychasm. Tractates of the 12th to the 14th centuries (esp. by Nicephorus of Athos and Gregory of Sinai) show that on Mount → Athos a form of intellectual → prayer was used that was linked to breathing exercises and that had as its goal the vision of divine light (→ Light; Mysticism).
In the Hesychast controversy Gregory → Palamas (ca. 1296–1359), an Athos monk and later archbishop of Thessalonica, championed Hesychasm, and Barlaam the Calabrian (ca. 1290–ca. 1350) emerged as its opponent. Starting with the mystical experience of the monks (who claimed to see the transfiguration light of Mount Tabor), theological discussion focused on whether the essence of the triune God is accessible to us. Palamas, who distinguished between essence and energies, regarded the light as one of the energies with which the divine Trinity turns to us. Formal acceptance of Hesychasm occurred at three councils of Constantinople (1341, 1347, and 1351), ending the controversy and opening the door for its acceptance as a basic pillar of Eastern → spirituality.
The collection of mystical Hesychastic texts assembled by Nicodemus the Hagiorite (1748–1809) known as the → Philocalia (Love of what is beautiful; published in Vienna in 1782) helped to spread Hesychasm, right up to the present day, even beyond the borders of the Eastern church.
→ Starets

Bibliography: H. BACHT, “Das Jesusgebet. Seine Geschichte und Problematik,” GuL 24 (1951) 326–38 ∙ H.-G. BECK, “Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich,” Byzantinisches Handbuch (vol. 2/1; Munich, 1959) 344–68, 780–85 ∙ M. DIETZ and I. SMOLITSCH, Kleine Philokalie. Belehrungen der Mönchsväter der Ostkirche über das Gebet (2d ed.; Zurich, 1981; orig. pub., 1956) ∙ K. HOLL, Enthusiasmus und Bußgewalt beim griechischen Mönchtum. Eine Studie zu Symeon dem Neuen Theologen (Hildesheim, 1969; orig. pub., 1898) ∙ F. VON LILIENFELD, “Hesychasmus,” TRE 15.282–89 ∙ J. MEYENDORFF, Byzantine Hesychasm: Historical, Theological, and Social Problems (London, 1974) ∙ G. PALAMAS, Apology for the Holy Hesychasts (ed. J. Meyendorff; New York, 1983) ∙ The Philokalia: The Complete Text (3 vols.; ed. G. E. H. Palmer, P. Sherrard, and K. Ware; London, 1979–84) ∙ G. PODSKALSKY, Theologie und Philosophie in Byzanz (Munich, 1977) ∙ I. SMOLITSCH, Lehre und Leben der Starzen (2d ed.; Cologne, 1952; orig. pub., 1936) ∙ D. WENDEBOURG, Geist oder Energie. Zur Frage der innergöttlichen Verankerung des christlichen Lebens in der byzantinischen Theologie (Munich, 1980).

RUTH ALBRECHT
Heterodoxy

“Heterodoxy” (Gk. heterodoxia, “other opinion”), in a theological and ecclesiastical context, denotes teaching that diverges from official church doctrine. In the → early church it meant the same as → heresy (Ignatius). Today, however, especially for Roman Catholics, it means formal divergence from → orthodoxy, with “heresy” used for outright denial of the truths of the faith (see 1983 CIC 1364).
→ Dogma

THE EDITORS
Hierarchy

1. Church Law
2. Criticism
1. Church Law

1.1. Hierarchy derives from Gk. hiera archē, denoting holy origin or rule. Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite seems to have been the first to use the term in theology to expound and rank the ministry. His works The Celestial Hierarchy and The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy at the end of the fifth century give clear evidence of a Neoplatonic origin, which he tries to fuse with Christian doctrine. For him the ecclesiastical hierarchy is a reflection of the celestial hierarchy. As the latter comprises three “triads” with three “choirs” each, so the former comprises three triads, each with three members: three sacraments (baptism, Eucharist, confirmation), three orders (bishop, elder, deacon), and three lesser ranks (monks, members, and those not fully members—i.e., catechumens and penitents). God is the author of the hierarchy, and participation in it is participation in God. Hierarchy is both a task and a state.
Theology and → canon law adopted this arrangement as far as the second two triads are concerned. Hierarchy thus became a central concept in church law.
1.2. From about the 18th century (→ Enlightenment), “hierarchy” has also been used for the ranking in religious organizations (as also the priesthood in Egypt and → Judaism). It then came into secular use (→ Bureaucracy).
In one text of → Vatican II we also find the phrase “hierarchy of truths” (Unitatis redintegratio 11.3). This wording implies that the revealed truths of Christian faith differ in weight and significance according to their relation to → salvation history and the mystery of Christ. The ranking of truths arises out of their connection with the basis or center of the faith.
1.3. As a result of the separation between ordination and office, there arose in canon law after the 12th century the concepts of hierarchia ordinis and hierarchia iurisdictionis, which according to the teaching of the → Roman Catholic Church are given by sacramental → ordination and canonical sending (→ Missio canonica; Codex Iuris Canonici; see 1917 CIC 109). The hierarchy of ordination is that of → bishop, elder (→ Priest, Priesthood), and deacon; the hierarchy of jurisdiction is that of → pope and bishop. According to Catholic teaching, both are based on divine law (see 1983 CIC 330–41, 375–411, 1008–9). As R. Sohm (1841–1917) insightfully points out, it would be a theological misunderstanding to regard the two as separable and independent.
Vatican II (see Lumen gentium) and the 1983 CIC that followed worked out ever more clearly the unity of powers, though without neglecting the primacy of the pope (see 1983 CIC 331–36) or the difference between spiritual officeholders (i.e., the hierarchy) and other believers (can. 207.1; → Clergy and Laity). The 1983 CIC avoids the term “hierarchy,” speaking instead of “sacred authority” (potestas sacra), which is conferred by ordination. Nevertheless it uses the adjectival form “hierarchical” to describe the structure of the church (can. 207.2), its constitution (bk. 2, pt. 2), and the nature of the episcopal college (cans. 336, 375.2; → Church 3.2).
1.4. The → Orthodox Church and the → Anglican Communion have also used the term “hierarchy” for the threefold ministry (bishops, priests, and deacons) and in this way established a distinction from the nonordained (the laity). The Reformation churches, on the basis of the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, do not recognize orders (ordo) in the Roman Catholic sense and make no legal distinction between hierarchy of ordination and hierarchy of jurisdiction.
→ Church Government; Jurisdiction, Ecclesiastical; Offices, Ecclesiastical

Bibliography: J. T. BURTCHAELL, From Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in the Earliest Christian Communities (Cambridge, 1992) ∙ R. A. CAMPBELL, The Elders: Seniority within Earliest Christianity (Edinburgh, 1994) ∙ G. DIX, Jurisdiction in the Early Church: Episcopal and Papal (London, 1975) ∙ P. EICHER, “Hierarchie,” NHThG 2.177–96 ∙ R. F. HATHAWAY, Hierarchy and the Definition of Order in the Letters of Pseudo-Dionysius (The Hague, 1969) ∙ P. KRÄMER, Dienst und Vollmacht in der Kirche. Eine rechtstheologische Untersuchung zur Sacra-Potestas-Lehre des II. Vatikanischen Konzils (Trier, 1973).

HERIBERT HEINEMANN
2. Criticism

In → sociology the term “hierarchy” denotes the pyramid of relations within an → organization. The vertical ranking of responsibility and authority structures the modes of command and communication and makes possible the execution of a unified, highest-ranking will (→ Bureaucracy; Power). Criticism in structural sociology, system theory, and social psychology has noted the limited efficiency of hierarchical organizations in dynamic socioeconomic development and its ambivalent effects, since it favors the abuse of authority and works against → emancipation. Theological criticism is aimed primarily at the → clergy-laity distinction, which has been historically and materially a feature in church hierarchy.
2.1. In the climate and ideology of the reforms of Gregory VII (1073–85), a hierarchical order was stabilized that committed the execution of Christ’s saving work in the world exclusively to those whom the → pope, as the successor of Peter, either directly or indirectly called and commissioned for the purpose. With the rejection of the claims and powers of secular rulers (→ Empire and Papacy; Middle Ages 2), all influence of the laity on the church was rejected (→ Investiture; Proprietary Church; Simony).
In his Defensor pacis (Defender of the peace; 1324), Marsilius of Padua opposed the papal hierarchical system, which divided the church into rulers (clergy) and ruled (laity; see the bull Unam sanctam [1302]). Legislative power, he argued, belongs to the people in council; → congregations should choose their → priests, and there is no biblical basis for papal primacy.
Religious movements from the 11th century onward resisted the primacy of the priestly office and normative papal authority. For them the evangelical counsels (e.g., voluntary → poverty) and the vita apostolica were the rule. At first limited to monasticism (Cluny) and church reform and thus only to monks and the clergy, these movements began to shape the lives of all Christians and to engage them in the apostolate without ordination or → missio canonica (including preaching on the basis of Mark 16:15). The discrepancy between hierarchical-sacramental orders and an apostolic lifestyle according to the law of Christ led the → Cathari and → Waldenses into heresy and forced John Wycliffe (Tractatus de ecclesia [1378]) and Jan Hus (→ Bohemian Brethren; Hussites) into an enduring movement of reform that branded the papacy and the hierarchy as → antichrist (→ Reformation).
The criticism of hierarchy in → conciliarism, which gives power to the congregation of the faithful (congregatio fidelium), is not consistent, for it retains the priestly office (sacerdotium) as an essential mark of the church, commits representation to the clergy alone, and thus restricts active lay rights (Nicholas of Cusa, De concordantia catholica [1431–33]). Criticism of hierarchy as the structural principle of the sociopolitical order of the Middle Ages (a hierarchically guaranteed unity of the priesthood and the monarchy [regnum] and a ranking on the model of body and soul; → Organism) continued with the disintegration of the medieval worldview (→ Middle Ages 1) and the rise of nationalism. The sovereignty of the people as a principle and the representative constitutional state required no theological validation by the concept of a celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchy.
2.2. Reformation polemics took up the medieval criticism of the pope as antichrist and his institution as founded by the devil (e.g., M. Luther, “Against the Roman Papacy, an Institution of the Devil,” LW 41.263–376; Calvin Inst. 4.7.24–30). It was not just a matter of papal abuses. The primacy of the pope and his claim to be Christ’s vicar on earth were contested on biblical and theological grounds, as was the distinction between → bishop and → pastor by reason of ordination (Melanchthon, Treatise [1537]). Criticism of the hierarchical-sacramental priestly office went hand in hand with this rejection.
For the Reformers there could be no question of a separate spiritual office. Within the priesthood of all believers that is given at baptism, the only difference is in work, not in status (LW 13.331, 44.129–30). The distinction among believers is functional, not qualitative (Inst. 4.19.28). All church offices (→ Offices, Ecclesiastical) have a pneumatic character (Inst. 4.3.1–9); in principle they are equal (LW 39.74; WA 8.426). Pastor and congregation (clerus et plebs) are mutually committed to one another, bound to God’s Word and to Christ as Head and Lord of the → church. Relations between them are according to the law of brotherliness (ius fraternae coniunctionis). Regulated in this way, the relation between public office and universal priesthood was for Calvin the principle that shapes the church’s constitution (see J. Bohatec, 417ff.). The term “hierarchy” became no more than an anti-Romanist slogan.
2.3. Criticism of the hierarchy within Roman Catholicism is pastorally, ecclesiologically, and socially an enormous problem that still hangs over the church (P. Eicher). It reflects the tension between → church law and alternative practice and projects perspectives for the structuring of what E. Schillebeeckx called “the church to come.”
The → teaching office, however, insists on the essential distinction between “the common priesthood of the faithful” and “the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood” (Lumen gentium 10.2). This distinction comes to light in the celebration of the Eucharist (the “summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed,” as well as “the fount from which all her power flows,” Sacrosanctum concilium 10.1; → Mass). Only an ordained priest may officiate at the liturgy (which includes the sermon and homily, Lumen gentium 28.1; lay preaching is also forbidden, 1983 CIC 766, 767.1). This sacramental order, which relativizes functional structures of ministry and in some cases sets them aside, gives lay ministries their standing (see Zur bischöflichen Verantwortung, 132–33).
2.4. In ecumenical → dialogue (→ Ecumenism, Ecumenical Movement) the threefold ministry of bishops, priests, and → deacons is contested to the degree that it involves hierarchical ranking, excludes other offices, and is viewed as obligatory for all churches. Also controversial are the ontological description of it (hierarchy as the reflection of an order of being; see 1.1), its binding dogmatic and canonical nature in church order, and the sacramental element as an essential mark of spiritual office and a condition of the mediation of salvation, as though there could be no “eucharistic mystery” in “the absence of the sacrament of Orders” (Unitatis redintegratio 22.3). Any theoretical or practical alteration of the ordained priesthood as the church’s infrastructure seems to be utopian if it does not also change the overarching hierarchical system of the church (according to a protest statement at the 1971 Synod of Bishops on “the crisis in the priesthood”).

Bibliography: J. BOHATEC, Calvins Lehre von Staat und Kirche (Aalen, 1968; orig. pub., 1937) ∙ P. EICHER, “Priester und Laien-im Wesen verschieden?” Priester für heute (ed. G. Denzler; Munich, 1980) 34–51 ∙ E. GELDBACH, Ökumene in Gegensätzen (Göttingen, 1987) ∙ J. S. GRAY and J. C. TUCKER, Presbyterian Policy for Church Officers (2d ed.; Louisville, Ky., 1990) ∙ M. HARRIS, Organizing God’s Work: Challenges for Churches and Synagogues (New York, 1998) ∙ W. MAURER, Luthers Lehre von den drei Hierarchien und ihr mittelalterlicher Hintergrund (Munich, 1970) ∙ PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR THE LAITY, Zur bischöflichen Verantwortung für die Laienapostolat (Vatican City, 1982) ∙ J. H. PROVOST and K. WALF, eds., The Tabu of Democracy within the Church (London, 1992) ∙ E. SCHILLEBEECKX, Christliche Identität und kirchliches Amt (Düsseldorf, 1985); idem, Das kirchliche Amt (Düsseldorf, 1981) ∙ A. C. TURNQUIST, A Lutheran-Episcopal Vision and Practicum (St. Paul, Minn., 1997).

ERWIN FAHLBUSCH
Hierarchy of Truths → Hierarchy 1
High Priest

The office of high priest, directing the cult and its personnel, was one of the religious institutions of → Israel (§1), as it was of most ancient societies.

1. We have no documentation from the earliest period. The oldest references come from the age of the → monarchy (Amos 7:10–15; 1 Sam. 14:3; 21:1–9; 2 Kgs. 12:7; 16:10–16), but with no specific description of the office. Postexilic texts first include the titles hakkōhēn haggādôl (Lev. 21:10; Num. 35:25–28; Hag. 1:1) and kōhēn hārōʾš (2 Chr. 19:11 etc.). The tasks are set forth (atonement of the whole congregation, Lev. 4:16–20), along with the rights (entering the holy of holies, chap. 16). Details also appear regarding the insignia (breastplate, ephod, robe, tunic, turban, and sash, Exodus 28–29), institution (anointing, Lev. 8:10–13; 21:10), tenure (for life, Num. 20:26–28), and qualification (descendant of Aaronic Zadok, 1 Chr. 6:50–53; Sir. 51:12 Heb.).

2. Historically we know little about the function of the high priest at the → temple in Jerusalem before the Hellenistic period. Some names have come down to us (e.g., 1 Chr. 6:15; Zech. 3:1; 6:11). At the end of the monarchy the high priest took over political functions as leader of the people (Sir. 50:1–21).
More is known from the beginning of the second century B.C. The legitimate Zadokite high priesthood came to an end in 176/175 B.C., when Antiochus IV deposed Onias III (2 Macc. 4:7–22). Political and economic interests then determined the choice. The → Hasmonaeans again created a dynasty but on no valid basis. → Herod the Great and the Romans appointed and removed high priests at will. The office finally came to an end with the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70.

3. Despite the historical developments, the office of the high priest stood in high regard in → Judaism. The high priest was the symbol of atonement, and the office was given a cosmic dimension. Expectation of a coming heavenly high priest was common in many circles (e.g., Qumran and the Essenes). Christian theology took up this theme and found the office of high priest fulfilled in Christ (Heb. 4:16; 7:11–28; 9:11–12).
→ Priest, Priesthood

Bibliography: I. GAFNI, “High Priest,” EncJud 8.470–74 ∙ J. JEREMIAS, Jerusalem zur Zeit Jesu (2d ed.; Göttingen, 1962) 167–81 ∙ W. C. KAISER JR., “Leviticus,” NIB 1.983–1191 ∙ K. KOCH, “Ezra and Memeroth: Remarks on the History of the High Priesthood,” Sha‘arei Talmon: Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East (ed. M. Fishbane and E. Tov; Winona Lake, Ind., 1992) 105–10 ∙ E. SCHÜRER, G. VERMÈS, F. MILLAR, and M. BLACK, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (vol. 2; Edinburgh, 1979) 226–36.

BERNDT SCHALLER
Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) was a theologian, pastoral adviser, poet, monastic administrator, composer, preacher, and scientific and medical encyclopedist. Born into a noble family in Bermersheim in the Rhineland, at the age of 8 she was dedicated by her parents to the religious life. When she was 14 her parents formally bound her to the Benedictine community of St. Disibod, under the care of Jutta, a 20-year-old kinswoman who became the mistress of the small community of female recluses attached to that monastery (→ Orders and Congregations). After Jutta’s death in 1136 Hildegard became her successor as mistress, and five years later, in 1141, Hildegard began her literary activity. The impetus for this transition was, according to her testimony, divine: she describes herself as being overcome by a fiery light coming from the opened heavens and as “suddenly tasting the understanding of the exposition of Scripture.” Then she heard a voice from heaven identified as the Living Light, commanding her to write down what she saw and heard.
Hildegard claimed that she had had unusual visionary powers since her early childhood, but the experience of 1141 marked a significant turning point, crystallizing her sense of being mandated by God to communicate her → visions for the → edification of the faithful. From this point until her death, Hildegard spoke, wrote, and acted in the voice of the “Living Light.” Although she asserted that it was not with normal eyesight and hearing that she learned God’s will, her physical well-being was intimately connected to her sense of receiving divine → revelation. She interpreted her physical maladies—diagnosed in modern times as migraine—and her much rarer physical exuberance as part of her overall → experience (§2) of “divine invasion.” Hildegard’s claims that her words came from the Living Light have unduly vexed modern analysis of her education and the influences on her thought. These claims should not be construed as a denial of any normal form of human learning. In fact Hildegard seems to have absorbed much of the intellectual traditions available to a 12th-century monastic, whether through direct study or mediated through → liturgy, while she remained critical of newer styles of scholastic education that did not directly serve pastoral ends.
Progress on the Scivias, her first major work, brought Hildegard into a wider circle of attention. She sought and received encouragement from → Bernard of Clairvaux, who also directed the attention of Pope Eugenius III to her activities. Her growing fame benefited the → monastery at Disibodenberg, but in 1148 she announced a divine mandate to move the women’s community to Rupertsberg. As mistress of this new convent, Hildegard diversified her literary endeavors, composing music for the nuns’ liturgy, writing hundreds of letters to a wide range of correspondents, and synthesizing what she read and observed concerning the natural world around her. Her correspondence attests to the spread of her reputation; she responded to letters from nuns and laywomen, → bishops and → priests, kings and princes, most of whom sought her insight about the troubles vexing them.
Letter writing was also one of Hildegard’s means for intervening in situations she thought demanded her prophetic attention. Many of her letters, as well as her major theological works, were expressions of her commitment to the moral regeneration of the Christian society that she saw crumbling around her, largely because of clerical corruption and the greed of ecclesiastical as well as political leaders. The threat of → heresy, for example, particularly the appeal of the radically → dualistic → Cathari, not only elicited Hildegard’s theological critique of Cathar perspectives but inspired even more fervent condemnation of the clergy for their pastoral failure. Such urgent pastoral convictions inspired Hildegard to move beyond the written word and leave her convent to undertake preaching tours in which she addressed audiences of clergy, laypeople, and monastics, in ecclesiastical settings, warning them of imminent apocalyptic judgment.
Hildegard’s major theological works—Scivias (Know the ways), Liber vitae meritorum (The book of life’s merits), and Liber divinorum operum (The book of divine works)—are constructed as records of her visions. The visions, often painted in vivid detail, are also described verbally as experiences usually including movements and sound, and invariably with long sections in which a voice from heaven is said to explain the meaning of the images seen. The Scivias is a wide-ranging compendium of Christian theology treating → salvation history from → creation to → apocalypse and final judgment, with particular attention to Ecclesia, the divinely established institution that supersedes Synagoga as the embodiment of the eternal counsel (Caritas and Sapientia) of God. As these Latin nouns indicate, Hildegard envisioned various feminine entities as expressions of divine manifestation in this world, even as she affirmed the male Son of God as the fullest divine → incarnation in history. In the Liber vitae meritorum Hildegard contributes to the promotion of the → sacrament of penance by exploring the nature of → sin, the virtues that correspond to particular human failings, and the penitential means of atoning for sin. The Liber divinorum operum offers a grand theological vision of the harmonies between Creator and creation, permeated by the fiery force of Caritas. Hildegard also wrote a long musical play, several minor theological, pastoral, and hagiographic works, and a glossary of her own neologisms.
Hildegard gathered her liturgical music into a collection entitled Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum (Symphonia of the harmony of celestial revelations). This collection contains over 70 pieces, including sequences, hymns, antiphons, and responsories. These pieces were largely intended for use in the Divine Office, the one service of → worship for which most contemporary liturgical music was composed, since texts for the → Mass were already largely fixed by her time. The compressed poetic images of these poems are set to haunting music that her contemporaries recognized as different from the traditional chants of the Office (→ Hymnody 2.5).
Two scientific texts are attributed to Hildegard, although their MS transmission and place in the chronology of Hildegard’s works have yet to be clarified. The Physica, or Liber simplicis medicinae (The book of simple medicine), is an encyclopedia of natural history, including works on the properties of plants, animals, stones, and other elements of nature. Liber compositae medicinae, or Causae et curae (Book of compound medicine, or Causes and cures), is a treatise describing diseases and their cures.
Although Hildegard was well known and respected in her day, her immediate influence seems to have been limited to two major directions. On the one hand, her works were combed for apocalyptic prophecies by Gebeno of Eberbach, a Cistercian monk, who in 1220 produced a compilation of extracts entitled Speculum futurorum temporum (The mirror of future times). This was the form in which later medieval generations came to know Hildegard and interpret her as a prophet—variously, as a prophet of the rise of the mendicant orders, prophet of the Protestant → Reformation, or prophet of the apocalypse. On the other hand, she was known to other women as a model of visionary experience and writing. Her contemporary Elisabeth of Schönau knew the Scivias and had a personal and epistolary relationship with Hildegard. It is not surprising that the genre Hildegard developed for her theological writing—the record of visionary experience—became the most important vehicle for women’s religious expression in the Middle Ages.
In our own day, Hildegard has been the focus of a new flowering of attention. The early music movement has rediscovered her liturgical compositions, and thus through performances and recordings Hildegard has been introduced to a nonscholarly, Anglophone audience. Also, feminist scholars have turned their attention to Hildegard’s complex life and works. While it is still possible to find simplistic views of Hildegard as protofeminist, feminist scholarship has in general sketched a much more nuanced picture. Most salient in these analyses is a recognition that Hildegard dealt extensively with questions of gender. She struggled to articulate her sense of herself as a woman empowered to act in untraditional ways because of the failure of men who wielded power granted in traditional ways. This empowerment was not something totally unique to her and unavailable to other women. Although she articulated one of the earliest theological arguments prohibiting women from priestly ordination, she developed a view of women’s virginal life as exalted beyond priestly status and unencumbered by the strictures of the subordination to male authority that marked the lives of married women. Her repeated meditations on the story of Eve, the fall from divine favor, the divine feminine power of Sapientia, and the role of the Virgin → Mary in the redemption of the human race, all developed in the context of her life within a community of women committed to virginity, suggest how profoundly Hildegard dealt with gender as a theological and pastoral issue. Although 20th-century commentators have been disappointed by Hildegard’s typically 12th-century views about class hierarchy, the richness of her theological vision is only beginning to be appreciated.

Bibliography: Primary sources: Causae et curae (ed. P. Kaiser; Leipzig, 1903) ∙ “Ordo virtutum,” Nine Medieval Latin Plays (ed. P. Dronke; Cambridge, 1994) 147–84 ∙ Physica, PL 197 ∙ Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum (ed. B. Newman; Ithaca, N.Y., 1998). In addition, the major visionary works and the letters have been newly edited and published by Brepols, Louvain, in the series CChr.CM.
Primary sources in English translation: J. L. BAIRD and R. K. EHRMAN, trans., The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen (2 vols.; New York, 1994–98) ∙ M. BERGER, trans., Hildegard of Bingen: On Natural Philosophy and Medicine. Selections from “Causae et curae” (Cambridge, 1999) ∙ M. FOX, Hildegard of Bingen’s Book of Divine Works, with Letters and Songs (Santa Fe, N.M., 1987) ∙ C. HART and J. BISHOP, trans., Scivias (New York, 1990) ∙ B. W. HOZESKI, trans., Hildegard of Bingen: The Book of the Rewards of Life (Liber vitae meritorum) (New York, 1994) ∙ P. THROOP, trans., Hildegard von Bingen’s Physica (Rochester, Vt., 1998).
Secondary works: P. DRONKE, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1984) ∙ S. FLANAGAN, Hildegard of Bingen, 1098–1179: A Visionary Life (2d ed.; London, 1998) ∙ K. KERBY-FULTON, Reformist Apocalypticism and Piers Plowman (Cambridge, 1990) ∙ M. B. MCINERNEY, ed., Hildegard of Bingen: A Book of Essays (New York, 1998) ∙ B. NEWMAN, Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine (Berkeley, Calif., 1997); idem, ed., Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World (Berkeley, 1998).

ANNE L. CLARK
Hinduism

1. Characteristics
2. Spread
3. Historical Development
3.1. Vedic Period
3.2. Classical Hinduism
3.3. Hindu Middle Ages
3.4. Modern Period
4. Present Situation
1. Characteristics

Hinduism is a very complex, contradictory, yet coherent nexus of writings, rites, and ways of life. It is not an organized → religion stabilized by dogmatic unity but an order that is believed and lived out as supratemporal and cosmic (as sanātana dharma, “traditional duty” or “traditional practices”) and that regulates precisely all the spheres of individual life and the arrangement of social groups (→ Caste). It unites in itself widely divergent religious types, from personalistic → theism to a doctrine of transpersonal isolation, from magical rites to objectless → meditation. It regards all these forms as different ways, suited to varying human abilities, to the one goal of liberation (mokṣa) from entanglement in the conditioning factors and situations that resist the full development of being or truth (satya).
Between the Hinduism of the higher castes, which has produced philosophical systems, and that of the common people, which expresses itself in innumerable rites and cults (honoring the village deity [grāmadevatā], snake cults, animistic forms of belief, etc.), there are both differences and similarities. Popular Hinduism seems externally to be only a form of → polytheism. Each god (deva) is a personified force (śakti) of the one primal force experienced in the multiplicity of the cosmic and human drama. Reality is a hierarchy of levels of existence. Each level relates to the whole and gives it relative expression. By means of this model Hinduism can integrate all religious forms and values.
Typical of almost every manifestation of Hinduism are (1) belief in an eternal order (ṛta) that rules events as well as the moral and intellectual spheres (dharma) and that, as → karma, relates individuals’ responsibility for their own destiny to a universal nexus, thus guaranteeing a temporal-eternal continuum that is not limited to this one life but manifests itself in the life-stream of many existences (→ Reincarnation); (2) an intuition of the unity of reality that sees all things as manifestations of the primal ground or personal God, that can honor God in every creature, and that culminates in the doctrine of the nonduality (advaita) of the human self (ātman) and the basis of the world (Brahman); and (3) the desire for a direct experience of the mystery of the spirit (anubhava), which as transrational knowledge can be achieved either by shamanistic extension of consciousness, the concentration of all mental energies (e.g., in loving dedication to God, or bhakti), or systematic training of the body-consciousness continuum (→ Yoga).
2. Spread

From the subcontinent of India, Hinduism spread by migration to Indonesia (esp. Bali), Malaysia, Oceania (esp. Fiji), Mauritius and East Africa, South Africa, the Caribbean, and South America. Through Indian immigrants it has also gained a foothold in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. The conversion of non-Indians (esp. in western Europe, the United States, and Australia) is a new phenomenon that is changing Hinduism itself.
3. Historical Development

The beginnings of Hinduism are lost in prehistory. Incontestably, many cultures came together to produce that which emerged as Hinduism during the first millennium B.C., which has continued to develop in new combinations ever since. These cultures were (1) the Indus culture (3500?–2000 B.C.), which had female deities, phallic symbols, and a seal of the god who, enthroned in heaven (yogāsana) with a trident (triśūla), perhaps became a model for the later god Siva; (2) the Dravidian cultures of the south, which provided a basis for the main worship ritual (pūjā) and also for, among others, temple architecture, most of the gods, food and dress, and pilgrimages (i.e., for most of the essential practices of Hinduism); (3) tribal cultures, with elements such as → shamanism; and (4) the culture of the Indo-European tribes that after 1500 B.C. gradually subdued the subcontinent, bringing with them the hymns of the Veda, composed in archaic Sanskrit, and rituals of sacrifice. The Indo-Europeans came under Dravidian cultural and religious influences but escaped racial assimilation by means of the caste system. Dravidizing and Sanskritizing processes went constantly hand in hand. The stages of cultural fusion may be seen in the various historical epochs.
3.1. Vedic Period

The Vedic period (1500–500 B.C.) rests on the four Vedas (the Rig-, Sama-, Yajur-, and Atharva-Veda) brought by the Indo-Europeans. The oldest of these was the Rig-Veda, hymns to gods and cosmic forces. They are in the Indo-European Vedic (Sanskrit) language, with Dravidian borrowings. The central cultic action is → sacrifice (yajña), which requires very complicated rituals carried out by the highest, priestly caste (the Brahmans) and laid down in the Sama-Veda and Yajur-Veda. Other rites are domestic, including the responsibility of the father in the household. The Atharva-Veda contains magical sayings and represents an assimilation of indigenous cults.
Later ritual commentaries—the Brahmanas—were added to the Vedas that, in practical and mythological detail, relate sacrifice to the central position of the priestly caste. There followed the Aranyakas and the → Upanishads, whose theme, developed at ever deeper philosophical levels, is experience of the One (ekam) behind the manifestations, or the identity of the self (ātman) with the All (Brahman).
3.2. Classical Hinduism

Classical Hinduism emerged from 500 B.C. to about A.D. 600. The Upanishads led the way from a religion of sacrifice to a more inward religion of spirit (cf. parallel developments in → Buddhism and → Jainism). They reflected a new feeling for life. The multiplicity of the cosmic drama had awakened awe in the Vedic period, but now an attempt was made to find the mystery of the world inwardly. Metaphysical and psychological parallels were drawn that could reinterpret sacrifice and lay a foundation for psychosomatic teaching on the development of the spirit (through Yoga), which was designed to lead to a liberating experience of unity.
The division of Vedic literature into Mantra (sayings of the Rig-Veda), Brahmana, Aranyaka, and Upanishad corresponds to the ideal of the four ages of life: the state of being a celibate student (brahmacarya), then that of being a householder (gṛhastha), that of a forest-dwelling hermit (vanaprastha), and finally that of a wandering, mendicant ascetic (sannyāsa). The celibate student (brahmacārin) learns the sayings and their philosophical implications and applies them in household life, with an obligation to maintain the sacrificial flame as studied in the Brahmanas. Later he returns to a hermit fellowship in the forest (vānapraha), where study of the Aranyakas (forest books) prepares him for philosophical insight into the unity of atman and Brahman, which, according to the Upanishads, he actually enjoys as an itinerant monk (sannyāsin), along with liberation, or moksha, from the cycle of births (saṁsāra). These ideals are laid down in the books of law (the dharmaśāstras), which regulate every sphere of life (dharma, “duty,” here the earning of religious merit; artha, “wealth, property,” here the goal of honest commercial success; and kāma, “love, desire,” here the moderate satisfaction of sensual desire), and are finally oriented to moksha.
Sanskrit literature came to full flower in the six orthodox systems (darśana) of philosophy—that is, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Sankhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta—which are systematized in the sutras and set forth with great logical precision in the later commentaries. The two epics → Ramayana and → Mahabharata also belong to this period.
The → Bhagavad Gita (part of the Mahabharata) influenced the religious history of India more than almost any other text by relating the unity of the three aspects of spiritual striving (sādhana)—namely, selfless action (karmayoga), love of God (bhaktiyoga), and knowledge (jñānayoga)—to a religion of grace centered on dedication to the one God. Even uneducated Hindus know parts of the Gita by heart and recite certain mantras (along with some of the Rig-Veda) in daily → prayer. Non-Vedic cults were already common in the classical age and blossomed in that which followed.
3.3. Hindu Middle Ages

The Hindu middle ages (from ca. A.D. 700 to the 18th cent.) were marked by the spread of → Bhakti religion, which dissolved Vedic sacrifice (yajña) in puja, or worship. Dravidian deities were now equated with the Vedic deities and replaced them. Three groups of cults became influential and still dominate Hinduism: Saivism, Vaishnavism (with the Krishna mysticism of the North), and Shaktism. Grouped around the main deities were divine families that comprised local gods. In the Puranas (6th-16th centuries) we read about these families in creation myths, genealogies, and so forth. The literature of the Agamas might be regarded as theological speculation explaining liturgical rules.
Saivaism, Vaishnavism, and Shaktism based their teachings and practices on the relevant Agamas. Southern Saivaism, which culminated in the philosophical system of Saiva Siddhanta (which taught a realist, dualistic doctrine of grace), and Kashmir Saivism (which taught an idealistic monism, viewing the world’s unity in differentiation, and, esp. through the brilliant Abhinavagupta [11th cent.], made an impact and integrated Tantric elements) each regarded their Agamas as having revelatory authority (śrūti) like the Vedas.
Siva is the transcendent, one God. He is gracious and yet destroys all created things. He is located at places of burning but is also enthroned, sunk in eternal meditation, on Mount Kailas. Now he is lord of animals, now the epitome of the desire of love and the regeneration of the world. Vishnu comes to earth in different forms in times of trouble. There are ten classical forms of descent (avatāra), which theologically may be viewed as docetic → incarnations. The most important are the seventh (Rama) and the eighth (Krishna).
Vishnu’s consort, Lakshmi, is the goddess of fortune and riches, while Siva stands related to the female deities Durga (the wrathful aspect) and Parvati (the kindly aspect). These two represent old mother cults and are venerated in Shaktism, or in Tantric movements, which are always present in India’s religious history. The primal energy of becoming is represented in the great mother (Kali, a fierce aspect of Devi, the supreme goddess), in whose power (śakti) there may be ritual participation and who plays an important saving role by controlling the forces that bring redemption through the uniting of polarities. Tantrism is a universal sacramentalism that awakens spiritual powers by sublimation (kuṇḍalinı̄-yoga) and that may be used to give actualization to the spiritual in material form.
The Siva and Vishnu cults have at times been exclusive (though not everywhere), but the choice of a favorite deity (iṣṭadevatā) does not depend on considerations of caste or cult. In later Hinduism the god Brahma (now seldom worshipped) is the Creator, Vishnu the Sustainer, and Siva the Destroyer. They are thus three aspects (trimurtı̄, “three forms”) of the one god.
The Hindu middle ages saw struggles with Buddhism and → Islam. There thus arose philosophical schools with an apologetic aim. In the battle with Buddhism we find the three schools of the Vedanta. First is the nondualism (advaita) of Śankara (700?–750?), who in his nondualistic theory (vivartavāda) viewed the variety of the world as a deception or illusion (māyā) of the consciousness. Then there is the qualified nondualism (viśiṣṭādvaita) of Rāmānuja (ca. 1017–1137), who depicted the relation of God and world in terms of the unity of soul and body, which permeate one another but are eternally distinct. Finally there is the dualism (dvaita) of Madhva (ca. 1199–ca. 1278), who strictly separated God, world, and individual souls.
The bhakti movements brought together elements that were otherwise hard to unite socially and historically. This unifying trend is plain in mystics and singers like Kabı̄r (1440–1518), Mı̄rā Bāı̄ (1450?–1547?), and Caitanya (1485–1533). Puja, feasts, pilgrimages, and → astrology (which controls everything, including politics and economics) all helped to give piety its shape. Tradition was handed down by priest (purohita), scholar (paṇḍita), and sannyasin, who often served as a personal teacher (guru) of individuals or families, guiding their study of the writings, initiating them into methods of mediation, and offering them counsel. Pujāris serve as religious functionaries at temples.
3.4. Modern Period

The modern period (from the 18th cent.) has seen a renaissance of Hinduism through the experience of British rule (→ Colonialism), the challenge of Christianity, and modern means of communication and printing. These factors and others are changing Hinduism as its power of assimilation deals with the legacy and forms of life of Western civilization.
The first impulses came from Bengal. There Rammohan Ray (1772–1833) was influenced by Christian ethics and in 1828 founded Brahmo Samaj (Society of Brahma), which taught → theism and rationality against the background of Indian mysticism and which made an impact on the elite that had received English schooling. It turned away from the magical rites of popular Hinduism and sought reform. Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905), the father of a famous Bengali poet, joined the society in 1842 and added the dimension of prayer.
In 1857 the young Keshub Chunder Sen (1838–84) joined the society and stressed social Christianity. Later he formed a new group, the Brahmo Samaj of India, which adopted some Christian teachings, championed the emancipation of women, and favored marriage between people of different castes.
With the Arya Samaj (Society of Aryans [i.e., nobles]), founded by Dayananda Sarasvati (1824–83) in 1875, Hinduism, which had achieved greater self-awareness through the enthusiasm of European Orientalists and a developing sense of nationality, went on the offensive against Christianity. A ceremony of reconversion (shuddi) to Hinduism was initiated, and colleges were founded on a Hindi basis.
Neo-Vedantic movements began with Ramakrishna (1836–86), who in glowing love for God was often taken up for days into altered states of consciousness, and who also had a vision of Christ. He is considered one of India’s most significant holy men.
Ramakrishna’s disciple Swami Vivekenanda (1863–1902) united Ramakrishna mysticism with the Vedanta and believed that he could integrate the noblest teachings of other religions into this universal Vedanta. With a message of worldwide unity and love, he came before the World’s Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893, where he enjoyed great success. He claimed that all religions are true, that India is the mother of religions, that the Vedanta does not contradict natural science, and that he could free the materialistic West with the spiritual message of India. In 1897 he founded the Ramakrishna Mission, which is organized like a Roman Catholic order. It runs schools and hospitals, publishes classical texts in popular editions, and promotes dialogue with the academic world.
Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) applied the love of God that is taught in the Bhagavad Gita and the ethics of the → Sermon on the Mount to India’s social and political fight for liberation, with special emphasis on the ideal of nonresistance and nonviolence (ahiṁsa, “noninjury”; → Force, Violence, Nonviolence) and on the method of satyāgraha (devotion to truth), or sticking to the truth at all costs. He linked these ideals to the serving of all people and the promoting of the common good. Living a simple lifestyle, Gandhi believed in village industries, which would be ecologically sound and would bring social integration and a modest prosperity to India. He wanted to end untouchability (but not the caste system) and to reconcile Hindus and Muslims. These efforts earned him the enmity of radical Hindus and led to his assassination.
Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950), who combined Western doctrines of → evolution with eastern Yoga in an integral Yoga covering all spheres of life, was also at first a political revolutionary. Later, however, he founded an ashram at Pondicherry. In → Theosophy, too, we find a tendency to integrate elements of religion from Hinduism and Christianity.
Ramana Maharishi (1879–1950) was not affected by modern trends. As a “living Upanishad,” he taught an uncompromising ideal of the wandering, ascetic life (sannyāsa) and of a self-pondering inquiry (vicāra), a contemplative method of self-examination. He had great influence in India and became one of the first gurus to attract seekers from the West.
In 1953 Swami Chinmayananda (1916–93) began to teach an easily intelligible Vedanta adapted to the modern world and designed to protect educated people against secularism and materialism. He attracted millions of followers, including many from abroad. He sometimes attacked Christianity, unlike other gurus, who sought → dialogue. Swami Chidananda Saraswati (b. 1916), called the St. Francis of Rishikesh, especially illustrates the latter strategy, for he has many important Indian Christians among his friends and pupils.
Sri Satya Sai Baba (b. 1926) gained fame through spectacular healings and materializations and attracted millions of adherents, especially among the Indian middle classes. He used vast sums of money to build his own center of healing and education, which combines modern studies with classical Hindu courses. He causes much controversy in India, which only increases his popularity.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (b. 1911), with his popularization of a method of → transcendental meditation (a form of japa, or constant repetition of a mantra as an aid to concentration), has made little impact on traditional Hindus but has had more of a following abroad.
Shree Rajneesh (1931–90), who let himself be called → Bhagwan (i.e., “god”), espoused an eclectic Tantric philosophy that supposedly leads to peace of spirit through sexual emancipation and the experience of creative joy. Hindus rejected him, but he gained about one million followers among estranged Christians.
Swami Muktananda (1908–82) taught a form of kuṇḍalinı̄-yoga against the background of the philosophy of Kashmir Saivism. He founded over 100 centers worldwide and has followers among → New Age scholars. Some Christians are among his pupils.
The Hare Krishna movement (from 1965) has its roots in the ecstatic Vaishnavism of Bengal and has enjoyed great success in both India and the West (→ Krishna Consciousness, International Society for). Millions gather for its feasts in Mathura and Delhi.
4. Present Situation

Hinduism in the modern era has shown remarkable resiliency and adaptability in response to forces of modernization and secularization. Through encounter with Christianity (→ Hinduism and Christianity), Hindu intellectuals and leaders have come to emphasize social responsibility and the need to eliminate the caste-based social discrimination of people. The growing revolt of the outcaste, tribal, and other economically backward communities, often inspired by impulses from Christianity and Buddhism, has forced Hinduism to be open to social change. Traditional caste structure has been co-opted by political forces for democratic mobilization of people (in electoral politics), which thus positively empowers people but also, negatively, perpetuates the traditional caste structure in society.
The politicization of Hinduism during the last quarter of the 20th century through the ideology of hindutva (the Hindu way of life) has given birth to an intense Hindu nationalism, or “fundamentalism,” that is hostile toward other religious communities in India. The Hindu-Muslim conflict in the aftermath of the destruction of a medieval mosque in 1992 and subsequent persecution of Christian communities by fanatic Hindus in India are examples of an emerging attitude of intolerance that has tarnished the image of Hinduism and its purported openness toward other religions. A corollary development is the emergence of a historically unprecedented “Pan-Hindu ecumenism,” with an emphasis on a unity that blurs traditional Hindu sectarian divisions. The growth of the Hindu diaspora, especially in the West, with more than 120 Hindu temples in the United States alone, and the use of modern communication technology and media (video, audio, websites, etc.) have contributed both to the expansion of Hinduism beyond its traditional boundaries and to the development of a more strident posture for the movement.
The future of Hinduism depends on its continued ability to accommodate forces of modernization and social change without a perversion of its spiritual values into a nationalistic ideology. Put differently, its future depends on its openness to dialogue with other social forces and religions in India and elsewhere.

Bibliography: D. R. KINSLEY, Hinduism: A Cultural Perspective (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1982) ∙ K. K. KLOSTERMAIER, A Survey of Hinduism (Albany, N.Y., 1988) ∙ J. LIPNER, Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London, 1994) ∙ T. M. P. MAHADEVAN, Outlines of Hinduism (2d ed.; Bombay, 1984) ∙ G. OBERHAMMER, ed., Studies in Hinduism: Vedism and Hinduism (2 vols.; Vienna, 1997–98) ∙ W. D. O’FLAHERTY, ed., Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism (Totowa, N.J., 1988) ∙ R. PANIKKAR, The Vedic Experience (2d ed.; London, 1979) ∙ R. PRAMESH, Hinduism (New Delhi, 1996) ∙ G.-D. SONTHEIMER, ed., Hinduism Reconsidered (New Delhi, 1997) ∙ B. M. SULLIVAN, Historical Dictionary of Hinduism (Lanham, Md., 1997) ∙ D. VASHUDA, ed., Representing Hinduism: The Construction of Religious Traditions and National Identity (New Delhi, 1995) ∙ B. WALKER, The Hindu World: An Encyclopedic Survey of Hinduism (2 vols.; New York, 1968).

MICHAEL VON BRÜCK and J. PAUL RAJASHEKAR
Hinduism and Christianity

A first attempt at communication between Hinduism and Christianity was made by Robert de Nobili (1577–1656), who, with a view to missionary effectiveness (→ Mission 3), adopted the lifestyle of a sannyasin, or itinerant ascetic, in order to understand Hinduism better. Only with the Hindu renaissance in the 18th and 19th centuries (through Rammohan Ray and others; → Hinduism 3.4) did a dialogic exchange begin. Hindu reformers found in → Jesus a divine → incarnation, gained inspiration from him, and made his → ethics a criterion for reforming Hinduism. They rejected the church, however, as an → institutions alien to Indian culture. At the same time, 19th-century Western linguists (e.g., Max Müller) were enthusiastic about Indian culture, and 20th-century Westerners who practiced Hindu → meditation found in Hinduism spiritual depth, a universal symbolism, and a channel of Christian renewal.
Already at the beginning of the 20th century (e.g., through the teaching of Brahmabandhav Upadhyaya, V. Chakkarai, P. Chenchiah, and A. J. Appasamy), and especially after independence in 1947, Christians began to adapt Hindu spirituality and to find it in Jesus and his experience of God (e.g., as taught by P. D. Devanandan, R. Panikkar, Swami Abhishiktananda, Bede Griffiths, and Sister Vandana). The Christian ashram movement belongs in this context, especially Christukula Ashram, in Tirupattur (founded in 1921); Christa Prema Seva Sangha Ashram, in Pune (1927); Shantivanam, near Tiruchchirappalli (1950); and later almost 100 other Christian or interreligious ashrams. After the 1960s there were conferences initiated by Christians (→ Dialogue) with a view to overcoming prejudices on both sides. Disenchantment followed when there was not the courage to engage in common → prayer and meditation or to undertake practical social work together.
Only a few groups make a place for dialogue. The Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society (1956), in Bangalore, pursues it from the standpoint of an Indian → liberation theology. Catholic institutes (ashrams; Vidyajyoti, Institute of Religious Studies, in Delhi; National Biblical, Catechetical, and Liturgical Center, in Bangalore; and Inter-Faith Dialogue Center, Aikiya Alayam, in Madras) add the → contemplative dimension. Education for dialogue occurs primarily in theological colleges and seminaries but is seldom promoted at the level of churches and congregations.
The plurality of religions and their values (→ Theology of Religions) and the complementarity of Hindus and Christians find increasing recognition. Hindus have displayed respect and reverence to Jesus Christ, and some consider him to be an avatar (i.e., an incarnation). Christians and Hindus work together in economic and other spheres, though such partnership hardly leads to a conscious religious encounter. Hindus are aware of the social commitment of Christians but complain of their lack of → spirituality and their foreign dependence. This climate creates problems of identity for the Indian Christian minority. The evangelistic impulse of Christianity (→ Evangelical Movement) does not make cooperation easy, nor does the intolerance of Hinduism.
Two recent developments have considerably derailed Hindu-Christian encounter. One is the emergence of politicized Hinduism, under the ideology of hindutva (the Hindu way of life), as promoted by Viswa Hindu Parishad, Rashtria Swayam Sevaks, Siva Sena, and the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has precipitated considerable anti-Christian and anti-Muslim sentiment among Hindu masses. Sporadic persecution of Christians in some northern Indian states, including destruction of churches, murder of missionaries, and forced reconversion of Christians who had converted to Hinduism, has poisoned the atmosphere for Hindu-Christian interaction.
The second development concerns the Indian Christian community, 65 percent of whom are converts or descendants of outcaste or dalit (oppressed) communities. Overall, they have come to experience a resurgence of dalit consciousness, which is overtly antagonistic toward Brahmanic Hinduism, since the latter has oppressed them for centuries. As a result, there is a growing interest in the recovery of dalit symbols in the development of a dalit theology that is concerned with issues of justice and social change. Dalit Christians have little interest in dialogue with the religion of their Brahmanic oppressors.

Bibliography: K. P. ALEAZ, Jesus in Neo-Vedanta: A Meeting of Hinduism and Christianity (Delhi, 1995) ∙ W. ARIARAJAH, Hindus and Christians (Grand Rapids, 1991) ∙ J. L. BROCKINGTON, Hinduism and Christianity (New York, 1992) ∙ M. VON BRÜCK, The Unity of Reality: God, God-Experience, and Meditation in the Hindu-Christian Dialogue (New York, 1990); idem, ed., Emerging Consciousness for a New Humankind (Bangalore, 1985) ∙ B. GRIFFITHS, The Marriage of East and West (London, 1982) ∙ R. PANIKKAR, The Unknown Christ in Hinduism (London, 1981) ∙ S. SAMARTHA, The Hindu Response to the Unbound Christ (Madras, 1974) ∙ V. F. VINEETH, Self and Salvation in Hinduism and Christianity: An Inter-religious Approach (New Delhi, 1997).

MICHAEL VON BRÜCK and J. PAUL RAJASHEKAR
Historicism

1. The term “historicism,” now used mostly in a critical sense, still had positive significance in the mid-19th century. Thus it could denote a philosophy that, following G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831; → Hegelianism), viewed world history as a realization of the absolute (C. J. Braniss). It then soon became a polemical title for Hegel’s own → philosophy of history (R. Haym), for the historical school of law (I. H. Fichte), and finally for a concept of human life oriented primarily to historical facts and contexts.
Critics of historicism did not dispute the historicity of this life but stressed that human nature cannot be viewed as merely the object of academic study. Thus F. Nietzsche (1844–1900), in part 2 of his Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen (1873–76; ET Thoughts out of Season [1909]), criticized the dominion of history as that of an objectifying and relativizing outlook that threatens the survival and enhancement of life by setting it in artificial political and cultural constructs. For H. Cohen (1842–1918) and G. Simmel (1858–1918), historicism constituted a danger analogous to the naturalizing of humanity in natural science. In opposition Cohen posited an ethics of pure will, and Simmel countered it with the insight that history is sovereignly created by → categories proper only to those who study it.
Working out these categories and thus overcoming historicism was the task of W. Dilthey (1833–1911), though Dilthey finally achieved an understanding of history only on an aesthetic and relativizing level. Hence E. Husserl (1859–1938) complained that only a strictly scientific phenomenological approach could offer an alternative to historicism, namely, orientation to the factual sphere of the empirical intellectual life (→ Phenomenology).
Historicism came under criticism in → theology as well as → philosophy. Thus P. Tillich (1886–1965) described it as the name for an irresponsible attitude to history and tried to block any attempt to propagate the relativity of historical perspectives or to overcome it by maintaining supposedly valid standpoints, pointing instead to the experience of the “prophetic spirit” and the model of “prophetic interpretation.”

2. E. Troeltsch (1865–1923) adopted a position that was not merely critical of historicism. He tried to develop a concept of historicism that would avoid the objectifying and relativizing of human life yet do justice to the movement of this life from the past into the → future. Thanks to Troeltsch historicism came increasingly to bear a neutral or positive sense, and as in F. Meinecke (1862–1954), it could become a general term for historical thinking from the days of the → Enlightenment. This use has been influential in later theological discussion, as in the systematic theology of G. D. Kaufman.

3. The various efforts to rehabilitate historicism have not been able fully to eliminate its polemical connotation. Even when M. Heidegger (1889–1976) in Being and Time (1927) described human existence as fundamentally historical, he could still say that the problem of historicism is a very clear indication that history as a discipline tends to rob existence of its true historicity. The → hermeneutics of H.-G. Gadamer, following Heidegger, then undertook to demonstrate the truth of the historical consciousness as distinct from historical research that is oriented to the ideal of method. The influence of Heidegger and Gadamer helped to make the problem of historicism a historiographical problem.

4. K. R. Popper spoke of historicism in what was still a polemical yet also a different sense. Nietzsche and Husserl had prepared the ground for this usage, in which historicism describes attempts to find the laws of historical development, especially in opposition to → Marxism.

Bibliography: K. ARASOLA, The End of Historicism: Millerite Hermeneutic of Time and Prophecies in the OT (Uppsala, 1990) ∙ C. R. BAMBACH, Heidegger, Dilthey, and the Crisis of Historicism (Ithaca, N.Y., 1995) ∙ W. D. DEAN, History Making History: The New Historicism in American Religion (Albany, N.Y., 1988) ∙ Essays on Historicism (Middletown, Conn., 1975) ∙ H.-G. GADAMER, Truth and Method (2d ed.; New York, 1990) ∙ E. HUSSERL, Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft (ed. W. Szilasi; Frankfurt, 1965; orig. pub., 1910–11) ∙ G. D. KAUFMAN, Systematic Theology: A Historicist Perspective (New York, 1968) ∙ K. R. POPPER, The Poverty of Historicism (London, 1957) ∙ M. RIEDEL, Erklären oder Verstehen? Zur Theorie der Geschichte der hermeneutischen Wissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1978) ∙ H. SCHNÄDELBACH, Geschichtsphilosophie nach Hegel. Probleme des Historismus (Freiburg, 1974) ∙ G. SIMMEL, Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie (Leipzig, 1892) ∙ P. TILLICH, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 6, Der Widerstreit von Raum und Zeit. Schriften zur Geschichtsphilosophie (Stuttgart, 1963) ∙ E. TROELTSCH, Der Historismus und seine Probleme (Tübingen, 1922; repr., 1961) ∙ M. H. VOGEL, Rosenzweig on Profane/Secular History (Atlanta, 1996).

GÜNTER FIGAL
Historicocritical Method → Exegesis, Biblical
Historiography

1. OT
1.1. Historiography and Historical Thinking
1.2. Main Works
2. NT
2.1. Acts
2.2. Synoptics
2.3. Revelation
3. Church History
3.1. General
3.2. Beginnings of Christian Historiography
3.3. Augustine and Orosius
3.4. Middle Ages
3.5. The Reformation and Its Opponents
3.6. Enlightenment and Nineteenth Century
3.7. Twentieth Century
1. OT
1.1. Historiography and Historical Thinking

To a greater extent than is sometimes realized, ancient → Israel (§1) shared in the very diverse “mythical” historical thinking of the surrounding world. It read present events in the light of past events, beginning in a distant primal period, which would both explain and if necessary validate them. It thus narrated, established, and handed down the stories of the past, not least of all in the cult. The course of history was determined by human conduct in response to divine ordinances. Presenting this history, either in detailed episodes or in larger frameworks, had a paradigmatic function, offering warning and admonition by means of actual examples.
The uniqueness of OT historical thinking arose out of the historical experiences of Israel, and even more so out of their interpretation. The basic event was the exodus from Egypt, probably historically the successful escape from Egyptian rule of a small people group that was later interpreted as the miraculous liberation of Israel’s forefathers by God, → Yahweh of → Sinai, whom henceforth Israel knew and confessed as God.
Another crisis then came in the eighth-sixth centuries B.C., during which Israel in several stages lost the national independence that had been magnificently established by King → David and became permanently integrated into alien world empires. → Prophetic proclamation intimated the end of Israel in this crisis, but the prophets did not interpret such a development as blind fate or as the withdrawal of Yahweh, who had shown himself to be Israel’s God at the exodus. Instead, they found in it a judgment of this God, besides whom there neither is nor can be any other, upon a disobedient people—a judgment that could be followed by a redemptive new beginning only in virtue of a gracious, miraculous act on God’s part.
From this point onward Israel engaged in constant reflection on its past and put together several major sketches that make up more than half of the OT. In the process it used various older traditions (stories, poems, lists, and annals) that can now be reconstructed only with varying degrees of probability, the dates of which are contested.
Another debatable question is whether what we have here is real history. E. Meyer (1855–1930), trained in Greco-Roman historiography, believed that the history goes back as far as the period of the early monarchy, but he was dubious as regards anything earlier. The boundaries of “saga” are undoubtedly fluid, and religious pragmatism is far more important here than world politics, yet the realism of the depiction of individual events and characters, and the power with which disparate elements are forged into comprehensive accounts in the various works, are totally without parallel in the surrounding world.
1.2. Main Works

The story of the succession to David’s throne (2 Samuel 9–20; 1 Kings 1–2) might well be contemporary. It is a masterly account of the complicated happenings as a result of which → Solomon became king. The few passages (2 Sam. 11:27; 12:24; 17:14) referring to God’s part in these events are probably later additions, so that some scholars rightly see here political rather than theological history, if so sharp a distinction is drawn at all (E. Würthwein).
The collection and redaction of the traditions of Israel’s pre-Palestinian period culminates in the work of the Yahwist (J) and is by contrast eminently religious (→ Pentateuch 1). Yet even if the term “historiography” in the modern sense is not appropriate, it must be emphasized that Israel saw here the story of its true beginnings and that this fact alone had great historical force.
The half millennium from the conquest to the exile is the subject of the → Deuteronomistic history. Interest focuses here almost exclusively on God’s relation to Israel and its kings (→ monarchy in Israel), but many ancient sources are used that would otherwise have been lost, and we are also given a fairly reliable chronology of the period of the monarchy.
On the basis of the works of the Yahwist and Deuteronomist (which in the meantime had been substantially expanded), the Priestly writing (P) and the Books of Chronicles offer a fresh presentation of the same period. Any differences rest on shifts in theological emphases rather than on new sources. The more original work Ezra and Nehemiah is appended to Chronicles.
The victorious struggle of the Maccabees in the second century B.C. provided the occasion for the final engagement in historiography during the OT period (→ Apocrypha 1).

Bibliography: B. ALBREKTSON, History and the Gods (Lund, 1967) ∙ R. E. COLLINGWOOD, The Idea of History (New York, 1956) ∙ H. GESE, “Geschichtliches Denken im Alten Orient und im Alten Testament” (1958), Vom Sinai zum Zion (Munich, 1974) 81–98 ∙ A. K. GRAYSON, D. LATEINER, and T. L. THOMPSON, “Historiography,” ABD 3.205–19 ∙ K. KOCH, “Geschichte / Geschichtsschreibung / Geschichtsphilosophie II,” TRE 12.569–86 (bibliography) ∙ P. W. LAPP, Biblical Archaeology and History (New York, 1969) ∙ B. PECKHAM, History and Prophecy: The Development of Late Judean Literary Traditions (New York, 1993) ∙ G. VON RAD, “Der Anfang der Geschichtsschreibung im alten Israel” (1944), Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament (4th ed.; Munich, 1971) 148–88 ∙ H. H. SCHMID, “Das alttestamentliche Verständnis von Geschichte in seinem Verhältnis zum gemeinorientalischen Denken,” WD 13 (1975) 9–21 ∙ R. SMEND, “Elemente alttestamentlichen Geschichtsdenkens” (1968), Die Mitte des Alten Testaments (Munich, 1986) 160–85 ∙ R. DE VAUX, The Early History of Israel (Philadelphia, 1978) ∙ M. WEIPPERT, “Fragen des israelitischen Geschichtsbewußtseins,” VT 23 (1973) 415–42 (bibliography) ∙ E. WÜRTHWEIN, Die Erzählung von der Thronfolge Davids-theologische oder politische Geschichtsschreibung? (Zurich, 1974).

RUDOLF SMEND
2. NT

In antiquity historiography often served specific purposes (see Thucydides Hist. 1.22.4; Polybius Hist. 1.1), which is true also of 1–3 Maccabees and Josephus (J.W. 1.2–3, 6; Ant. 1.4–14) as Jewish historiography in the milieu of the NT. The listing of the OT historical books as “former prophets” shows that written history was seen as an unfolding of God’s revelation to Moses, with relevance for both the present and the future (see 1).
2.1. Acts

We find true historiography in the NT only in Acts. This book depicts the spread of the → gospel from → Jerusalem to → Rome and is thus a historical monograph. Its aim is to present the spread of the gospel as a universal way of salvation and thus to establish assurance of faith. The method used—connected episodes, along with key speeches—is consistent with the historiography of antiquity.
When we consider the purpose and the state of the sources, the depiction is astonishingly accurate, in spite of minor problems and simplifications in detail. The educated author must have had some acquaintance with pagan historiography, though in content the main impact comes from OT Jewish historiography. Since God is to be in action, he discloses himself in history. Acts shows how the witness to God’s definitive act of salvation works itself out in history. The Gospel of Luke is presupposed. Sources probably include lists of places at which Paul stopped on his journeys and reports of the mission of the Hellenists, with → Antioch as the focus.
There can hardly have been true historiography before Acts. Yet 1 Cor. 9:5–6; 15:32; 2 Cor. 11:23–27, 32–33; Gal. 1:13–2:14; Phil. 3:5–6, along with 1 Thess. 1:9 and Gal. 1:23, show that biographical data had already been given as testimony to the life of faith.
2.2. Synoptics

The link between Luke and Acts (see Acts 1:1–2), together with Luke 1:1–4, gives evidence that also Luke is meant to be in some respect true history. Though faithful to its predecessors, Luke develops the gospel genre as historiography. Yet Mark had already shown an interest in history. The biographical tradition of OT Jewish historiography influenced the writing of the Gospels. In Matthew the biography of Moses had an impact in various ways.
All the Gospels present the story of Jesus because it has decisive present significance as the story of God. In Christ God has acted definitively and yet historically, and therefore the account of this act may and must be applied to each new situation and reinterpreted. The nature of historiography emerges clearly here.
2.3. Revelation

The Book of Revelation represents a special kind of historiography—the → apocalyptic (§3.5). By means of concealing symbols it presents and predicts world history in its relation to the history of God and his community.

Bibliography: R. BULTMANN, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (2d ed.; Oxford, 1972) ∙ O. CULLMANN, “Geschichtsschreibung II,” RGG (3d ed.) 2.1501–3; idem, Heil als Geschichte (Tübingen, 1965) ∙ M. HENGEL, Zur urchristlichen Geschichtsschreibung (Stuttgart, 1979) ∙ H. KOESTER, Introduction to the NT, vol. 1, History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age; vol. 2, History and Literature of Early Christianity (2d ed.; New York, 1995–2000) ∙ J. KREMER, ed., Les Actes des Apôtres (Gembloux, 1979) esp. arts. by W. C. van Unnik (pp. 37–60) and E. Plümacher (457–66) ∙ U. LUZ, “Geschichte / Geschichtsschreibung / Geschichtsphilosophie IV,” TRE 12.595–604 (bibliography) ∙ R. MADDOX, The Purpose of Luke-Acts (Göttingen, 1982) ∙ J. NEUSNER, The Christian and Jewish Invention of History (Atlanta, 1990) ∙ E. PLÜMACHER, “Lukas als griechischer Historiker,” PWSup 14.235–64; idem, “Wirklichkeitserfahrung und Geschichtsschreibung bei Lukas,” ZNW 68 (1977) 2–22 ∙ J. ROLOFF, Das Kerygma und der irdische Jesus (Göttingen, 1970) ∙ H. STEICHELE, “Vergleich der Apostelgeschichte mit der antiken Geschichtsschreibung” (Diss., Munich, 1971) ∙ H. STRASBURGER, Die Wesensbestimmung der Geschichte durch die antike Geschichtsschreibung (3d ed.; Wiesbaden, 1975). See also the bibliographies in “Acts of the Apostles” and “Theology of History.”

TRAUGOTT HOLTZ
3. Church History
3.1. General

The separation of the discipline of church history from general or universal history in academic teaching and research took place in the 17th and 18th centuries (see 3.6 and → Theology of History 3.8). Yet from the 1st century to the 21st there has been a continuity between the writing of church history and general historical writing.

3.1.1. Concentration on the → institutions of the church has meant, and still means, that the setting must also be taken into account. Naturally as regards the reciprocal influence, interdependence, and overlapping of church and world, there have been enormous fluctuations from the black-and-white depiction of the first three centuries in Eusebius and the stories of ancient heresies (see the principle of M. Flacius’s Catalogus testium veritatis) to Otto of Freising (d. 1158) and modern sociological studies (→ Social History), which present the interaction in very different ways.
3.1.2. As regards the temporal framework of history, there was for many centuries a claim to absoluteness that has now largely vanished. Church history used to regard its theme as the central event between → creation and the → last judgment (→ Eschatology). Hence a universalist claim persisted up to the 19th century (seen particularly in the historiography of G. W. F. Hegel and F. C. Baur; see 3.6) and on into the 20th century (note the history of → mission [§3] in its relation to the coming → kingdom of God). Besides the claim regarding creation and eschatology, division into epochs (e.g., the evaluation of the → Reformation) has also served to link church history to world history. For centuries the idea of the four monarchies was dominant (see 3.3). Then a threefold division into antiquity, Middle Ages, and the modern period characterized both church history and secular history. Today this question has been reopened, especially by the self-understanding of the countries and churches of the → Third World.
3.1.3. A usually unwanted and often unrecognized effect of the interaction between the world and the church was the formation of divergent traditions that partly coexist peacefully but also partly condemn each other and in this way divide the church. Up to the → modern period the typical reaction of each group was simply to assume that it alone had preserved the true apostolic heritage and that all the rest were heretics. Individualistic spirituality and the transvaluation of all (orthodox) values, most clearly and influentially seen in G. Arnold’s Unparteiischer Kirchen-und Ketzer-Historie (1699/1700), brought about a change and led among other things to strivings for visible → unity (i.e., the → ecumenical movement).
With the recognition of legitimate ecclesiastical → pluralism (§2), the way became clear for every church to have its own historical understanding and for the orthodox to have a proper estimation of the church history written by earlier heretics (→ Heresies and Schisms). Thus the classic church history of the great denominations is brought into ecumenical tension and can close its eyes neither to its alleged heretical siblings of the past nor to the indigenous historical sketches that will come from the Third World in the future.
3.2. Beginnings of Christian Historiography

The fact that the NT → canon (§2) includes a unique type of church history is no accident. Since the church is the fellowship in which the risen Lord is at work by the → Holy Spirit (see Acts 1:1–8), and since it is thus an object of → faith and yet also a secular phenomenon subject to temporal change, a thoughtful faith inevitably must face the question of where and how the church that is the object of faith can be seen in the documents and events of the past. Failure to face this question always means either that continuity between the Christ-event and the present-day church is (naively) thought to be self-evident or that it is (skeptically and resignedly) rejected as incomprehensible. The latter course, however, runs into conflict with belief in the historical → incarnation of the Son of God (→ Christology).
The Book of Acts is thus the first work of Christian historiography inasmuch as it presents the events of the first decades in terms of the acts and journeys of the → apostles (see 2.1). The temporal claim to universality rests, on the one hand, on continuity with the OT and → Judaism and, on the other, on expectation of the end. The spatial claim, as in → Paul, is indicated by the journeyings of the apostle from east to west (Acts 1:8). So far, however, it has not been possible to detect a fully thought out purpose on the part of the author, or one that gives historiographical unity to the material.
In contrast, both are achieved to a high degree by Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260–ca. 340), whose church history cannot be detached from his world chronicle. The universalist claim of the works of Eusebius is plain both horizontally and vertically. As he saw it, world history had now taken a decisive turn, for now pagan wisdom, the divine wisdom revealed in Scripture, and the many earlier kingdoms had all come together in the rule of Constantine. There is no sense of crisis here, no anticipation of the end, and no expectation of further cataclysms. The continuation of Eusebian history led through later Greek historians without fundamental break to Byzantine history (esp. as written by Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Evagrius Scholasticus, Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos, and, as the historians of heretical churches, Philostorgius and John of Ephesus).
3.3. Augustine and Orosius

Although The City of God by Augustine (354–430) does not represent historiography in the strict sense, since it is an apology, the historical argument dominates, especially in books 11–22, to such an extent that it is legitimate to regard the work as a history of the two cities (civitates; → Augustine’s Theology). For Augustine, strongly affected by the sack of Rome in 410, what is to the fore is the distinction between all who love God above all things (civitas Dei) and those who love themselves, loving God at most only in their own interests (civitas terrena or diaboli). This emphasis leaves no place for the division of history into epochs or for identifying the “cities” with church and state. Even though the worldwide spread of Christianity is regarded as a fulfillment of biblical prophecies, history as a whole shows no progress, nor does it legitimate a Christian empire, as in Eusebius.
In contrast, Orosius (early 5th cent.), whose view almost became dogma in the Middle Ages, believed that we are now in the fourth and last monarchy (Daniel 7), which is identical with the Roman Empire, and that the breakup of this kingdom will herald the approach of → antichrist (Revelation 17). His influential Historia adversus paganos is also a true world history in terms of Augustine’s task, though not his spirit.
3.4. Middle Ages

This concept of the fourth monarchy in different ways affected both East and West. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, historians there could not adopt it without modification. But when the papacy made alliance with the Franks and Charlemagne was crowned emperor (800), belief in it revived and it was accepted for hundreds of years. This framework explains the type of history that developed later, especially in the Holy Roman Empire, with its universalist claim and perspective but also with its Germanocentric conviction that the Holy Roman Empire had to maintain its identity and could not perish, undergo division, or forsake its roots, which were traced back to biblical times and late antiquity.
At the same time, the ideology of the Byzantine Empire and—from the time of George Hamartolos (9th cent.)—its historiography clung to its claim that the Roman Empire, or, now that the first Rome had fallen, → Byzantium (the second Rome), was to be equated with the fourth kingdom of Daniel. When Constantinople itself fell in 1453, the Russian state and Russian → Orthodoxy declared Moscow to be the third Rome (attested from 1540).
Apart from national and local histories, the world history of western Europe remained dedicated to the same schema. Differing views had little effect on historiography. Yet the interpretation of Abbot Joachim of Fiore (ca. 1135–1202) offered a counterproposal that would have an incomparable influence on the future. On his view the first age, that of the OT, was the age of the Father, the present age is that of the Son, and the age of the Spirit is to follow (→ Millenarianism). This conception introduced the idea of progress into medieval historical thinking. When dissident groups applied this idea to themselves (e.g., the → Franciscan Spirituals as pioneers of the third kingdom), it became discredited in the eyes of official authorities in both church and state. But according to the understanding of history found in sects condemned as heretical (→ Cathari; Waldenses; Wycliffe, John; Hus, Jan), the official church itself had to be denounced and opposed as the result or victim of decadence.
3.5. The Reformation and Its Opponents

The decadence model became dominant wherever the Reformation triumphed (its way having been prepared by → humanism). As this model had it, the first centuries were largely free of decline, but under the rule of the papacy the church had been laid waste and pure doctrine was corrupted. The historiography corresponding to this view found monumental expression in the Historia ecclesiae Christi (1559–74) produced by the Centuriators of Magdeburg, under the direction of Flacius. The indispensable presupposition of this concept was the conviction that biblical teaching and the true form of the church had now been rediscovered and that isolated witnesses to the truth could be found even in the “dark centuries.” Even more extreme examples of the decadence model may be seen in dissident and heretical groups (e.g., the → Anabaptists and → Anti-Trinitarians) and a few Joachimist elements. It figures most broadly in Sebastian Franck’s Chronica (3 vols., 1531), which dates the decline to the age of the apostles and does not identify itself with any of the newly arisen confessions.
Roman Catholic historiography, which developed alongside that of Protestantism, had the declared aim of showing continuity between the true church and the visible church, especially during the centuries under the papacy (→ Pope, Papacy). It did so by presenting the result of massive research into Vatican sources. Thus the Annales ecclesiastici (12 folio vols., 1588–1607) of Casare Baronius served implicitly to refute the Centuriators of Magdeburg. In the 17th century came the impressive editions of sources by the Bollandists (hagiography) and the Maurists (church fathers). By relying on critically evaluated sources, Gottfried Arnold (see 3.1.3) achieved a high degree of scholarship on the nonconformist side. All these approaches saw God at work in history.
3.6. Enlightenment and Nineteenth Century

The Protestant Enlightenment, classically represented by Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1694–1755) and, earlier, by some Humanist scholars of the 16th and 17th centuries (e.g., Jean Bodin [1530–96]), viewed history from the standpoint of human activities, though not deliberately trying to exclude God. For the first time, the church history of the → Enlightenment interpreted the churches programmatically and consistently as human societies, with their → dogmas as variable human opinions. Integration of the past in terms of → salvation history now yielded partly to its contingency (→ Chance) and partly to God’s general → providence. Belief in → progress emerged as a basic concept related both to rational knowledge of God and to culture and science (e.g., G. B. Vico, Voltaire, G. E. Lessing, J. S. Semler, I. Kant). With the rationality of true religion (and its individualizing, esp. as in → Pietism) and with the resultant relativizing of dogmatism, the 18th century was confident that it had transcended the older Protestant orthodoxy.
→ Romanticism, however, developed a feeling for past peoples and religions as individualities with their own intrinsic value (J. G. → Herder). Individuality, however, cannot stand alone and needs a universal setting. The “idea” thus became a unifying concept (already in W. von Humboldt and F. D. E. Schleiermacher), especially in → Hegelianism and the application of it by F. C. Baur (1792–1860) to church history and the history of → dogma, though on different presuppositions. For the first time it was now possible to read the antitheses in ecclesiastical and doctrinal history as the development of the idea, the inner process of the spirit, and hence to interpret them in terms of the synthesis that transcends the thesis and antithesis—that is, in terms of the future (→ Dialectic).
The great historians of the 19th and early 20th centuries abandoned these speculative presuppositions in favor of strict adherence to what is historically documented and positively proved. Yet a basic religious character was still normative in L. von Ranke (who said that each epoch was immediate to God) and A. von Harnack (who described a synthesis of Christianity and culture). These generations of historians ran into the dangers of → historicism, that is, of the relativism that inevitably results from a historicizing of all our thinking about humanity and human culture and values, as E. Troeltsch (1865–1923) put it. Troeltsch himself, though, could offer no tenable alternative to historicism.
3.7. Twentieth Century

New thinking under the banner of → dialectical theology put an end to the dominance of historicism in German-speaking Protestant theology. K. Barth (1886–1968) energetically demanded theology’s return to talk about God as the exclusive theme of theology and gave to history, and especially church history, only the servant function of an auxiliary discipline, since even church history “answers, from the point of view of Christian language about God, to no question that need be put independently, and is therefore not to be regarded as an independent theological discipline” (CD I/1, 3).
Since World War II there have been various approaches aimed at reinstating church history as a theological discipline and describing it more positively. Much debated and amended has been G. Ebeling’s treatment of church history as the history of the exposition of the Bible. If this position is not understood too narrowly but embraces all that flows from the → gospel, it would seem to ensure the theological character of the discipline and yet achieve openness to universal history. If there can never be a corresponding comprehensive presentation, this limitation is connected with the changed state of theoretical discussion that also characterizes these later developments.
The traditional definition of history as an intellectual discipline has thus been partly abandoned in favor of various attempts to see it as a social discipline (related to anthropological structuralism, critical sociological theology, or historical sociology). The significance of this debate for church history lies in the tools provided for an analysis of the interdependence of church, → state, → society, economy, and culture, this interrelationship being studied methodically and not just sporadically.
Changed ecclesiastical conditions are another essential feature of modern development. Prominent here is the advanced ecumenical process. For church historiography this development poses a challenge to overcome traditional national church or denominational barriers. Often proclaimed, this task has been partly achieved only in individual sectors (e.g., K. S. Latourette’s history of mission) or joint presentations (e.g., the work of Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox historians published by R. Kottje and B. Moeller). As regards the history of → Third World churches, the implication is an approach oriented to context (→ Contextual Theology) rather than mission. Since the early 1970s various attempts at a contextual church history have been made in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. With their interest in the independent development of Christianity in the context of different regions, these attempts raise the question of a global church history with new urgency.
→ Culture; Philosophy of History; Teleology; Theology of History; Worldview

Bibliography: M. ADAS, Islamic and European Expansion: The Forging of a Global Order (Philadelphia, 1993) ∙ M. BAUMAN and M. I. KLAUBER, Historians of the Christian Tradition: Their Methodology and Influence on Western Thought (Nashville, 1995) ∙ K. BORNKAMM, “Kirchenbegriff und Kirchengeschichte,” ZTK 75 (1978) 436ff. ∙ J. E. BRADLEY and R. A. MULLER, Church History: An Introduction to Research, Reference Works, and Methods (Grand Rapids, 1995) ∙ G. CHESNUT, The First Christian Histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius (Paris, 1978) ∙ J. COLEMAN, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge, 1992) ∙ E. DUSSEL, A History of the Church in Latin America (Grand Rapids, 1981) ∙ C. GINSBURG, History, Rhetoric, and Proof (Hanover, N.H., 1999) ∙ H.-W. GOETZ, Die Geschichtstheologie des Orosius (Darmstadt, 1980) ∙ H. GRUNDMANN, Geschichtsschreibung im Mittelalter. Gattungen-Epochen-Eigenart (Göttingen, 1965) ∙ W. KÖHLER, Luther und die Kirchengeschichte (vol. 1; Erlangen, 1900) ∙ R. KOTTJE and B. MOELLER, Ökumenische Kirchengeschichte (3 vols.; Mainz, 1979–83) ∙ K. S. LATOURETTE, A History of the Expansion of Christianity (7 vols.; New York, 1937–45) ∙ P. MEINHOLD, Geschichte der kirchlichen Historiographie (2 vols.; Freiburg, 1967) ∙ G. PODSKALSKY, Byzantinische Reichseschatologie (Munich, 1972) ∙ F.-J. SCHMALE, Funktion und Formen mittelalterlicher Geschichtsschreibung (Darmstadt, 1985) ∙ H. R. SEELIGER, Kirchengeschichte-Geschichtstheologie-Geschichtswissenschaft (Düsseldorf, 1981) ∙ C. UHLIG, Funktion und Situation der Kirchengeschichte als theologische Disziplin (Frankfurt, 1985) ∙ S. L. VERHEUS, Zeugnis und Gericht. Kirchengeschichtliche Betrachtungen bei Sebastian Franck und Matthias Flacius (Nieuwkoop, 1971) ∙ L. VISCHER, Towards a History of the Church in the Third World (Bern, 1985) ∙ T. J. WENGERT, Telling the Churches’ Stories: Ecumenical Perspectives on Writing Christian History (Grand Rapids, 1995) ∙ K. WETZEL, Theologische Kirchengeschichtsschreibung im deutschen Protestantismus, 1660–1760 (Giessen, 1983) ∙ M. WICHELHAUS, Kirchengeschichtsschreibung und Soziologie im 19. Jahrhundert und bei E. Troeltsch (Heidelberg, 1965) ∙ H. ZIMMERMANN, Ecclesia als Objekt der Historiographie (Vienna, 1960).

ALFRED SCHINDLER and KLAUS KOSCHORKE
History, Auxiliary Sciences to

1. Survey
2. Philology
3. Paleography
4. Epigraphy
5. Numismatics
6. Diplomatics
7. Chronology
8. Geography/Cartography
1. Survey

Of great importance in the writing of church history (→ Historiography 3) are a comprehensive knowledge, critical evaluation, and reliable assessment of the extant sources. Writings that were once unknown and materials that have been neglected can bring to light new facts and open up new perspectives. A scientific discussion of existing opinions rests on such endeavors. Reliable accounts of historical events often must be reconstructions. In depicting the views, goals, and motives of historical personages, subjective judgments, intentional propaganda, and time-bound or confession-bound appraisals must be differentiated from actual facts. The date and authenticity of traditions must be clarified, as must also the facts concerning those who start them. An original tradition cannot always be understood at once, which is where the need for the auxiliary sciences arises.
Some of these sciences—philology, paleology, and diplomatics—deal mainly with written or printed sources, while others—epigraphy, numismatics, heraldry, and sphragistics—deal with artifacts or monuments. The auxiliary sciences move on from the external sources to their content and thus also involve philology, chronology, geography, and genealogy. They have undergone increasing development from → humanism and the → Renaissance, especially during the 19th century, and there is now specialization in specific epochs or areas. Historians can consult them individually or in combination. To the extent that they can still yield results, independent work must still incorporate the appropriate methods.
2. Philology

The science of philology deals with the history of languages and the critical analysis and exposition of literary texts. A knowledge of older languages makes possible a better understanding of the sources. Research into vocabulary and the resultant etymological dictionaries, glossaries, and accounts of intellectual and linguistic influences all add their contribution, making possible a better appreciation of the thoughts behind the writing. Philology also clarifies the textual history by bringing to light alterations, dependencies, and various strands of tradition. It offers guidelines for the establishment of an authentic text and thus permits evaluation of available editions.
Ancillary to philology and the history of art is emblematics. By consulting contemporary handbooks and collections, one finds that this field can open up a treasury of images. Emblems served to objectify abstractions, for example, in sermons, spiritual lyrics, and genealogies, as well as on signets, books, coins, badges, and flags. They can allude to the character, feelings, and aims of individuals or to historical situations, and they shed light on intellectual relations. Emblematics is especially important with regard to many written and nonwritten sources of the period from the 14th to the 17th century.
3. Paleography

Paleography investigates a work in terms of time-related features, classifies it by genre and purpose, clarifies materially conditioned and technical presuppositions, and examines factors affecting style and tradition (e.g., chancelry customs, writing schools). Graphological studies are also undertaken relative to individual practices. Tables are made of alphabets and their development, plus handbooks of the development of writing, codes and shorthand, and abbreviations. These various branches make possible the deciphering of texts and an estimation of date and place of composition. If features do not correspond to the supposed date, fraud may be present.
Paleography also brings to light later emendations and helps to unravel deleted passages that may be read with technical means. It examines writing materials and, by means of them, can establish the authenticity and age of a text (e.g., by identifying watermarks). It is especially valuable in the study of undated and anonymous works or in correcting erroneous assumptions about authorship. Bringing to light earlier misreadings often results in wholly new insights.
4. Epigraphy

The science of epigraphy deals with inscriptions on buildings, sculptures, monuments, pictures, and other places. Its most important task is to assemble, describe, catalog, and publish the texts. It solves questions of date and origin with the help of the history of art, philology, and paleography. With its study of decorative writing on ornaments and monuments, it helps to integrate and interpret unpublished inscriptions. When other written sources are not available for an era, locality, or social stratum, the study of inscriptions can be very rewarding. So too can be the study of the inscription tradition (e.g., in intellectual or religious centers) as well as the use of inscriptions in biographical research. Evaluation of inscriptions can often correct traditional historical judgments. Religious inscriptions on tombs are a rich source in studying the history of religion.
5. Numismatics

Numismatics deals with coins and medals. Their form, writing technique, inscriptions, marks, and figures (e.g., with weapons) shed light on their date, place of origin, those who issued them, and other historical factors. The titles, devices, and allegorical or symbolic figures give evidence of religious views or political claims. In deciphering abbreviations and interpreting figures, paleography, the history of art, and the study of weapons and seals are all helpful. Comparative research relies on catalogs and publications, and general histories of coinage and economics play a part. Church history uses numismatics to trace the extent of ecclesiastical jurisdictions and the course of religious and political change. Numismatics is of special value when written sources are defective or when coins and medals were valued as means of propaganda, as in the period leading up to and just before the 17th century.
6. Diplomatics

The science of diplomatics originally had the task of testing the authenticity of documents in the advancing or defending of legal claims. It then applied these methods to history in the evaluation and correct interpretation of sources. It is helpful in dealing with documents relating to the rights, finances, and property of churches and in understanding political aims and power relations. It differentiates documents according to those who issue them (e.g., pope, emperor, king, or private person). By style and structure it distinguishes solemn documents establishing lasting rights and privileges from everyday documents of transitory significance. Examples and collections help in this regard. There are also specific means of accreditation. By establishing regular patterns, diplomatics can spot deviations and thus unmask fraud or falsification.
Earlier church histories can be supplemented by diplomatics. From studying the composition of documents, diplomatics has now gone on to study the records of chancelleries and their personnel, offering new insights of general significance. Many documents of the later Middle Ages and early modern period still await investigation.
7. Chronology

Chronology helps in the dating and interrelating of events. Different peoples and churches have used different dating systems. Christian dating rested at first on the Julian calendar, introduced into the → Roman Empire in 46 B.C.
Along with dates from the founding of → Rome or the regnant years of the emperor and high officials, dating by popes and bishops came in during the Middle Ages. Because it helped in fixing movable feasts (→ Easter), dating from Christ’s birth began sometime between the 6th century and the 11th. From the 12th century to the 15th the cycle of the → church year and holy days increasingly affected secular dating. Up to the late Middle Ages there were various ways of relating the new year to church festivals.
In 1582 the Roman Catholic Church introduced the Gregorian calendar to solve the problem of deviations between the Julian calendar and astronomical calculations. The Protestant world adopted it after 1700. To keep straight the calendar used for a given date, it was sometimes necessary to specify “New Style” or “Old Style.” The French Revolution established its own dating between 1792 and 1805. The Eastern church kept its own system up to the 18th century (in some places, even up to the 20th cent.).
Chronology uses comparative handbooks, tables, surveys, and lists of the names of days and months, by the help of which it can interpret dating contradictions in documents. It harmonizes church history with modern dating and corrects errors in older works.
8. Geography/Cartography

Historical geography provides aids for identifying and describing historical locations. Using archaeology, natural science, and written and artistic sources, it reconstructs landscapes, dwellings, and towns. It may work comparatively or in isolation, either looking at longer processes or studying conditions at a particular time. The facts in reference works and atlases often stand in need of correction. Geography is essential in studying the church’s administration, property, and history of → mission (§3). Cartography provides the means to put the results on maps.

Bibliography: On 1: F. BECK and E. HENNING, eds., Die archivalischen Quellen. Eine Einführung in ihre Benutzung (Weimar, 1994) ∙ A. VON BRANDT, Werkzeug des Historikers (9th ed.; Stuttgart, 1980; orig. pub., 1958) ∙ S. B. CHILD and D. P. HOLMES, Checklist of Historical Records Survey Publications: Bibliography of Research Projects Reports (rev. ed.; Washington, D.C., 1943) ∙ F. M. CROSS, “How the Alphabet Democratized Civilization,” BibRev 8/6 (1992) 18–31 ∙ R. DELORT, Introduction aux sciences auxiliaires de l’histoire (Paris, 1969) ∙ L.-F. GÉNICOT, Introduction aux sciences auxilières traditionelles de l’histoire de l’art. Diplomatique, héraldique, sigillographie, chronologie, paléographie (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1984) ∙ B. KRUITWAGEN, Laatmiddeleuwsche paleografia, paleotypica, liturgica, kalendalia, grammaticalia (The Hague, 1942) ∙ J. MAZZOLENI, Paleografia e diplomatica e scienze ausiliare (2d ed.; Naples, 1970).
On 2: A. BÖCKH and R. KLUSSMANN, Encyklopädie und Methodologie der philologischen Wissenschaft (2d ed.; Leipzig, 1886) ∙ P. M. DALY, Emblem Theory: Recent German Contributions to the Characterization of the Emblem Genre (Nendeln, 1979) ∙ F. W. DANKER, A Century of Greco-Roman Philology: Featuring the American Philological Association and the Society of Biblical Literature (Atlanta, 1988) ∙ Y. GIRAUD, ed., L’emblème à la renaissance (Paris, 1982) ∙ A. HENKEL and A. SCHÖNE, Emblemata. Handbuch der Sinnbildkunst des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1967; supp. vol., 1976) ∙ K. J. HÖLTGEN, Aspects of the Emblem: Studies in the English Emblem Tradition and the European Context (Kassel, 1986) ∙ M.-T. JONES-DAVIES, ed., Emblèmes et devises aux temps de la renaissance (Paris, 1981) ∙ J. LANDWEHR, ed., Bibliotheca emblematica (vols. 1, 3, 5–6; Utrecht, 1970, 1972, 1976) ∙ P. MAAS, Textkritik (3d ed.; Leipzig, 1957; orig. pub., 1927) ∙ S. PEUKERT, Emblem und Emblematikrezeption (Darmstadt, 1978) ∙ M. PRAZ, Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery (2d ed.; Rome, 1964; addenda and corrigenda added 1974; orig. pub., 1939) ∙ J. E. SANDYS, A History of Classical Scholarship (3 vols.; Cambridge, 1906–8) ∙ SBO ∙ P. VERNEUIL, Dictionnaire des symboles, emblèmes et attributs (Paris, 1897) ∙ H. WALTHER, Die Namenforschung als historische Hilfswissenschaft. Eigennamen als Geschichtsquelle (Potsdam, 1990) ∙ U. VON WILLAMOWITZ-MOELLENDORFF and H. LLOYD-JONES, History of Classical Scholarship (Baltimore, 1982).
On 3: J. AUTENRIETH, ed., Renaissance- und Humanistenschriften (Munich, 1988) ∙ R. BARBOUR, Greek Literary Hands, A.D. 400–1600 (Oxford, 1982) ∙ B. BISCHOFF, G. J. LIEFTINCK, and G. BATTELLI, Nomenclature des écrits livresques du IXe au XVIe siècle (Paris, 1954) ∙ M. P. BROWN, A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 (Toronto, 1990) ∙ G. CENCETTI, Scritti di paleografia (2d ed.; ed. G. Nicolai; Dietikon, 1993) ∙ J. P. DEVOS and H. SELIGMAN, eds., L’art de déchiffrer (Louvain, 1967) for the 17th cent. ∙ V. FEDERICI, La scrittura delle cancellerie italiane. Dal secolo 12 al 17 (2d ed.; Rome, 1964; orig. pub., 1934) ∙ J. G. FÉVRIER, Histoire de l’écriture (Paris, 1948) ∙ H. FOERSTER, Abriß der lateinischen Paläographie (2d ed.; Bern, 1963; orig. pub., 1949) ∙ W. FRANZ, Kryptologie. Konstruktion und Entzifferung von Geheimschriften (Stuttgart, 1988) ∙ H. HAARMANN, Universalgeschichte der Schrift (2d ed.; Frankfurt, 1991) ∙ L. C. HECTOR, The Handwriting of English Documents (London, 1958) ∙ H. HUNGER et al., eds., Geschichte der Textüberlieferung der antiken und mittelalterlichen Literatur (vol. 1; 2d ed.; Zurich, 1975; orig. pub., 1961) ∙ H. JENSEN, Die Schrift in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (3d ed.; East Berlin, 1969; orig. pub., 1935) ∙ B. M. METZGER, Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: An Introduction to Paleography (New York, 1981) ∙ M. B. PARKES, English Cursive Book Hands, 1250–1500 (Berkeley, Calif., 1980) ∙ J. RÖMER, Geschichte der Kürzungen (dt. Texte) (Göppingen, 1997) ∙ E.-D. STIEBNER and W. LEONHARD, Bruckmanns Handbuch der Schrift (Munich, 1977) ∙ J. STIENNON, L’écriture (Turnhout, 1995).
On 4: J. L. VAN DER GOUW, “Epigrafica,” NAB 70 (1966) 37ff. ∙ R. M. KLOOS, Einführung in die Epigraphik des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit (Darmstadt, 1980) ∙ W. KOCH, “Epigraphica,” UH 46 (1975) 69–94 ∙ A. LEMAIRE, “Writing and Writing Materials,” ABD 6.999–1008 ∙ R. J. WILLIAMS, “Writing and Writing Materials,” IDB 4.909–21.
On 5: A. BLANCHET and A. DIEUDONNÉ, Manuel de numismatique française (Paris, 1912–36) ∙ G. DEPEYROT, Histoire de la monnaie des origines au 18e siècle (3 vols.; Wetteren, 1995–96) ∙ H. FENGLER, G. GIEROW, and W. UNGER, Lexikon der Numismatik (3d ed.; Berlin, 1982) ∙ H. FRÈRE, Numismatique. Initiations aux méthodes et aux classements (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1982) ∙ F. FRIEDENSBURG, Münzkunde und Geldgeschichte der Einzelstaaten des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (Munich, 1926) ∙ P. GRIERSON and A. R. FREY, Dictionary of Numismatic Names (New York, 1973) ∙ W. HOLZ, Lexikon der Münzabkürzungen (Munich, 1981) ∙ F. W. MADDEN, History of Jewish Coinage, and of Money in the Old and New Testament (New York, [1967]) ∙ L. A. MAYER and M. AVI-YONAH, A Bibliography of Jewish Numismatics (Jerusalem, 1966) ∙ M. PRICE, Coins and the Bible (London, 1975) ∙ B. PROKISCH, Grunddaten zur europäischen Münzprägung der Neuzeit ca. 1500–1990 (Vienna, 1993) ∙ B. SPRENGER, Das Geld der Deutschen (bis zur Gegenwart) (2d ed.; Paderborn, 1995) ∙ P. SPUFFORD, Handbook of Medieval Exchange (London, 1986) ∙ C. H. SUTHERLAND, Art in Coinage (London, 1955).
On 6: A. DE BOÜARD, Manuel de diplomatique française et pontificale (Paris, 1948) ∙ H. BRESLAU and H.-W. KLEWITZ, Handbuch der Urkundenlehre für Deutschland und Italien (4th ed.; Berlin, 1968) ∙ C. BRÜHL, “Derzeitige Lage und künftige Aufgaben der Diplomatik,” MBM 35/1 (1984) 37ff. ∙ A. GIRY, Manuel de diplomatique (2d ed.; Paris, 1925; repr., 1972) ∙ E. J. POLAK, Medieval and Renaissance Letter Treatises and Form Letters (2 vols.; Leiden, 1993–94) ∙ L. SANTIFALLER, Urkundenforschung (2d ed.; Darmstadt, 1968; orig. pub., 1937).
On 7: L. BASNITZKY, Der jüdische Kalender. Entstehung und Aufbau (Königstein, 1986) ∙ W. G. DEVER, “The Chronology of Syria-Palestine in the Second Millennium B.C.E.: A Review of Current Issues,” BASOR 288 (1992) 1–22 ∙ R. W. EHRICH, Chronologies in Old World Archaeology (Chicago, 1965) ∙ O. FAMBACH, Kalendarium der Jahre 1700 bis 2080 (Bonn, 1982) ∙ H. GROTEFEND, Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung des deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (11th ed.; Hannover 1971; orig. pub., 1898) ∙ H. LIETZMANN, Zeitrechnung der römischen Kaiserzeit, des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (4th ed.; Leipzig, 1984; orig. pub., 1934) ∙ F. MAIELLO, Storia del calendario. La misurazione del tempo, 1450–1800 (Turin, 1996) ∙ F. M. POWICKE and E. B. FRYDE, Handbook of British Chronology (2d ed.; London, 1961; orig. pub., 1939) ∙ A. E. SAMUEL, Greek and Roman Chronology: Calendars and Years in Classical Antiquity (Munich, 1972) ∙ H. ZEMANEK, Kalender und Chronologie (6th ed.; Munich, 1990).
On 8: A. R. H. BAKER and M. BILLUNGE, eds., Period and Place: Research Methods in Historical Geography (Cambridge, 1982) ∙ R. H. BAKER, ed., Progress in Historical Geography (Newton Abbot, 1972) ∙ P. CLAVAL, La géographie culturelle (Paris, 1995) ∙ S. COURVILLE, Introduction à la géographie historique (Quebec, 1995) ∙ K. FEHN et al., eds., Siedlungsforschung. Archäologie, Geschichte, Geographie (Bonn, 1988) ∙ S. FRANZ, Historische Kartographie (2d ed.; Bremen, 1962) ∙ A. HÜTTERMANN, Karteninterpretation in Stichworten, vol. 1, Geographische Interpretation topographischer Karten (3d ed.; Berlin, 1993) ∙ H. JAEGER, Historische Geographie (Wiesbaden, 1969) ∙ H. JEDIN et al., eds., Atlas zur Kirchengeschichte (Freiburg, 1970) ∙ V. H. MATTHEWS and J. C. MOYER, “Bible Atlases: Which Ones Are Best?” BA 53 (1990) 220–31 ∙ K. NEBERZAHL, Maps of the Holy Lands: Images of Terra Sancta through Two Millennia (New York, 1986) ∙ R. OGRISSEK, Die Karte als Hilfsmittel des Historikers (Gotha, 1968) ∙ N. J. G. POUNDS, An Historical Geography of Europe (Cambridge, 1990) ∙ G. TANNER, E. SCHULZ, and R. JÄCKER, Einführung in die Kartographie und Luftbildinterpretation (2d ed.; Gotha, 1983).

EVA GIESSLER-WIRSIG
History of Religion

1. According to the view one takes of → religious studies, the history of religion is either one department of such studies or it is the main discipline itself. In about 1694 G. W. Leibniz (1646–1716) became the first to differentiate the histoire des religions from church history. In his Natural History of Religion (1757), D. Hume (1711–76) became probably the first to juxtapose critically religion’s “natural history” (terminology adopted by the whole Enlightenment) with the → salvation history represented by the church. In French and Italian, for example, the use of the plural “history of religions” recognizes that many historical religions must be investigated. English and German use the singular to maintain focus on the one religion in all of them.
In what follows, for the sake of clarity (which only academic study and not practice allows), we will presuppose that religious studies in the larger sense (the “study of religion” that can refer to the singular or plural form of “religion(s),” depending on the given case) can be divided into the separate disciplines of the history of religion(s), the → phenomenology of religion, the → sociology of religion, and the → psychology of religion. Even when we limit the field in this way, however, the problems that are now raised differ from those dealt with in the past.

2. We may distinguish four different approaches to the research and writing of the history of religion. They are based not on terms or definitions or types of religion(s) but on the facts and data and phenomena that go beyond those definitions as found in the history of everyday or private life, of societies, of peoples, and of states. Historians can successfully investigate the history of religion only if they do not just survey the whole chronologically but divide it into several historical classifications, which in principle can be mastered only one at a time. We thus must consider the following four approaches, in each case raising the question of comparable factors.
First we have the history of religion as it has a place in the life of societies and individuals (what up to the Enlightenment was called religio naturalis, “natural religion”), the focus here being largely on regions and periods, with little account taken of → acculturation.
Then we have the history of religion(s) as represented positively through prophets, seers, → priests, founders, and reformers. It thus stands independently within or over against the secular, largely in times in which stable ethnic groups developed along with their religions, even though some may now have perished.
Then we have the history of religions as they have become institutionalized in their own organizations, cults, → temples (§1), and so on, largely in times in which conflicts played a dominant role. These conflicts might be between the more widespread or world religions, often linked to states, in Asia from the beginning of the third century B.C. to the end of the European, Byzantine, and Islamic Middle Ages (though noncontemporaneously!), with parallel phenomena in South and East Asia. Or the conflicts might be between states that had confessionalized world religions within their borders, that is, situations obtaining largely in modern times and before industrialization.
Finally, we have the history of religion and of religions that in a secularized form play a part in general history or take elements of this history into (or back into) themselves and thus represent the dialectic of secularization, largely in periods inclined toward an economic and technological worldview (→ Modern Church History; Technology).

3. The history of religion is not a theological discipline (→ Theology), and we must not view it in the light of theological issues. Nevertheless, we may in principle have new cause to reconsider theology as the history of religion (H. W. Schütte).
Furthermore, historical theology can also use the methods of the history of religion if it offers a history of the Israelite religion instead of a historical theology of the OT; or if it presents a comprehensive history of religions—one including early Christianity—focusing on Hellenism (→ Hellenistic-Roman Religion), ancient Judaism, and the Roman Empire (→ Roman Religion; History of Religions School) instead of simply juxtaposing the theology of the NT and the surrounding world, in a fashion dictated by an existentially focused hermeneutic; or if it prepares a critical history of the church instead of a history of dogma and theology prepared for use by systematic theology.
Systematic theology can take up the problem of the absoluteness of Christianity and the history of religion (E. Troeltsch) in a theology of religions, directing special attention precisely to the history of religion.
The → theology of history (§3) may also deal with all these issues, with additional attention given the history of religion.

4. History as event cannot be separated from the writing of history, from historians, and from all those who view themselves historically. History thus has an additional dimension that is constituted by the self-understanding of the nonreligious as well as of the religious person. We can view what has taken place in the history of religion as the past of religion or religions only to the extent that it offers answers to the questions posed by both believers and atheists.

Bibliography: C. J. BLEEKER and G. WIDENGREN, eds., Historia religionum: Handbook for the History of Religions (2 vols.; Leiden, 1969–71) ∙ J. BOTHAMLEY, Dictionary of Theories (London, 1993) ∙ P. D. CHANTEPIE DE LA SAUSSAYE, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte (4th ed.; 2 vols.; ed. A. Bertholet and E. Lehmann; Tübingen, 1925; orig. pub., 1887–89) ∙ CRE ∙ EAR ∙ M. ELIADE, A History of Religious Ideas (3 vols.; Chicago, 1978–85) ∙ C. ELSAS, H. G. KIPPENBERG, et al., eds., Loyalitätskonflikte in der Religionsgeschichte (Würzburg, 1990) ∙ N. GOTTWALD, The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours (Atlanta, 1993) ∙ HR ∙ HRG ∙ H.-I. MARROU, De la connaissance historique (4th ed.; Paris, 1960) ∙ J. PELIKAN, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (5 vols.; Chicago, 1971–89) ∙ RM ∙ H. W. SCHÜTTE, “Theologie als Religionsgeschichte. Das Reformprogramm Paul de Lagardes,” NZSTh 8 (1966) 111–20 ∙ E. TROELTSCH, Die Absolutheit des Christentums und die Religionsgeschichte (Tübingen, 1912) ∙ H. ZINSER, ed., Der Untergang von Religionen (Berlin, 1986).

CARSTEN COLPE
History of Religions School

The history-of-religions school was a group of young theologians who, in the late 1880s, influenced → theology and the → church first at Göttingen and then over wider circles, handling exegesis and church history in a way that made an impact not only on Protestant but also on Roman Catholic theology (→ Modernism) and on the dialogue with the world religions. In OT and NT scholarship the history-of-religions school helped to prepare the way for form criticism and redaction criticism and made methodological demands today that only a sociologically concerned theology and → historiography can meet.

1. The group, whose main proponents were A. Eichhorn (1856–1926), W. Wrede (1859–1906), H. Gunkel (1862–1932), J. Weiß (1863–1914), W. Bousset (1865–1920), E. → Troeltsch (1865–1923), and the religion historian H. Hackmann (1864–1935), did not form a school in the strict sense, but its leaders shared common academic interests and methods. They had in common with historically oriented 19th-century theology (→ Theology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries) the ethos of autonomous historicocritical research, but they attempted more deliberately than that theology, and especially at a critical distance from A. Ritschl (1822–89) and their other liberal teachers (→ Liberal Theology 3.4), to exclude theological and practical church interests and presuppositions from their historical inquiries, thus incurring criticism from the theological opponents of → historicism.

2. The history-of-religions school aimed to achieve an objective understanding of the → religion underlying the documents of primitive Christianity and → Judaism (→ Hellenism), which they tried to unlock and understand in terms of psychological and sociological questions and categories. In their historical work → eschatology (Weiß), the cult (Eichhorn, Bousset), and pneumatology (Gunkel; → Holy Spirit) played a prominent part as loci and principles of interpretation experientially understood. Under → Romantic influences, they viewed religion not primarily as an ethical matter but instead as something psychological and even, in many cases, nonrational.
In their portrait of Jesus, however, the history-of-religions school was still captive to liberal ethical value judgments. Characteristic for the methodology was the renewed adoption of the literary interests of the 18th century, as suggested by Eichhorn. Wrede in his Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien (1901, ET Messianic Secret [1972]) engaged in study of the history of → traditions, showing how motifs and ideas might undergo shifts in meaning in the course of their history and viewing the changes in understanding as expressions of specific religious needs in the → congregations. In relation to contemporary biblical theology opposition arose especially against a historically improper fixing of the → canon on the basis of → inspiration, the role of exegetical work as subservient to practical theology, and a doctrinal concept method that isolates religious life.
Wrede envisioned a replacement of NT theology by a history of the religion of primitive Christianity (→ History of Religion) that would be purely historically oriented and that would take into account the broader history of religion and the social context. He was never able to execute his plan, but thematically limited monographs such as Bousset’s Kyrios Christos followed his methodological suggestions and ranged far beyond the canon.
A historical understanding of Christianity, viewed as a syncretistic religion (→ Syncretism), sought to define it primarily in terms of the religious history of what was then called later Judaism. The next generation of the history-of-religions school focused more on Hellenism and → Gnosticism. Many people assumed that the academic study and theological handling of Gnosticism and its redeemer myth were the chief concern of the history-of-religions school, a misunderstanding that retained a certain influence throughout the century.

3. The attempt of the history-of-religions school to give an objective depiction of the religion of Judaism and early Christianity resulted in some striking theological antitheses—for example, between Jesus and Paul (Wrede) or between the radically eschatological experience of early Christianity and modern cultural Christianity (Weiß).
When we contextualize the history-of-religions school, we are struck by the generation gap between its advocates and their liberal teachers, as also by the definite rejection of historical work in the service of the institutional church in favor of a concept of academic autonomy. Even though Ritschl and A. von Harnack (1851–1930) are indeed to be reckoned among the fathers of the history-of-religions school, the school itself differed from liberal theologians insofar as it was not inclined to press its scientific work and findings precipitously into the service of → denominations or of → culture (→ Culture Protestantism), although it was certainly willing to place those same findings at the disposal of the quest for human self-understanding.
The influence on the school of teachers like B. Duhm (1847–1928), P. de Lagarde (1827–1891), and U. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (1848–1931), who were nondenominational or hard to place denominationally or even hostile to the church and theology, is typical as regards the interdisciplinary work that was demanded. The popularizing of the history-of-religions school in lectures and publications (e.g., the RV series, the RGG, and Lebensfragen) sharpened the tensions with denominationally oriented theologians and church authorities but made the findings more widely known.
The history-of-religions school did more than stimulate Protestant exegesis, systematics (e.g., the question of the absoluteness of Christianity; → Systematic Theology), and missiology (e.g., the legitimacy of → mission). Its congregationally oriented and experiential understanding of early Christianity found an echo in Roman Catholic modernism and produced a new → apologetic against Protestant theological liberalism that was profoundly misunderstood in its own church (A. F. Loisy, G. Tyrrell). In the second generation a further stimulus was given to dialogue with world religions and with the → phenomenology of religion and the → history of religion (R. Otto, F. Heiler).

Bibliography: Works by members of the school: W. BOUSSET, Kyrios Christos. Geschichte des Christusglaubens von den Anfängen des Christentums bis Irenaeus (6th ed.; Göttingen, 1967; orig. pub., 1913) ∙ A. EICHHORN, Das Abendmahl im Neuen Testament (Leipzig, 1898) ∙ H. GUNKEL, Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit. Eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung über Gen 1 und Apk. Joh. 12 (Göttingen, 1895); idem, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes nach der populären Anschauung der apostolischen Zeit und die Lehre des Apostels Paulus (2d ed.; Göttingen, 1899); idem, Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verständnis des Neuen Testaments (Göttingen, 1903) ∙ E. TROELTSCH, Die Absolutheit des Christentums und die Religionsgeschichte (2d ed.; Tübingen, 1912; orig. pub., 1902); idem, “Die Dogmatik der Religionsgeschichtlichen Schule” (1913), Gesammelte Schriften (vol. 2; 2d ed.; Tübingen, 1922; repr., 1962) 500–524 ∙ J. WEISS, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (3d ed.; Göttingen, 1964; orig. pub., 1892) ∙ W. WREDE, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien. Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des Markusevangeliums (Göttingen, 1901); idem, Über Aufgabe und Methode der sogenannten Neutestamentlichen Theologie (Göttingen, 1897).
Other works: E. BARNIKOL, “Albert Eichhorn (1856–1926). Sein ‘Lebenslauf,’ seine Thesen 1886, seine Abendmahlsthese 1898 und seine Leidensbriefe an seinen Schüler Erich Franz (1913–1919) nebst seinen Bekenntnissen über Heilige Geschichte und Evangelium, über Orthodoxie und Liberalismus,” WZ(H).GS 9 (1960) 141–52 ∙ H. BOERS, What Is NT Theology? (Philadelphia, 1979) ∙ C. COLPE, Die Religionsgeschichtliche Schule. Darstellung und Kritik ihres Bildes vom gnostischen Erlösermythus (Göttingen, 1961) ∙ H. GRESSMANN, Albert Eichhorn und die Religionsgeschichtliche Schule (Göttingen, 1914) ∙ J. S. HELFER, ed., On Method in the History of Religions (Middletown, Conn., 1968) ∙ W. KLATT, Hermann Gunkel. Zu seiner Theologie der Religionsgeschichte und zur Entstehung der formgeschichtlichen Methode (Göttingen, 1969) ∙ B. LANNERT, Die Wiederentdeckung der neutestamentlichen Eschatologie durch Johannes Weiß (Tübingen, 1989) ∙ G. LÜDEMANN, “Die Religionsgeschichtliche Schule,” Theologie in Göttingen. Eine Vorlesungsreihe (ed. B. Voeller; Göttingen, 1987) 325–61 ∙ G. LÜDEMANN and M. SCHRÖDER, Die Religionsgeschichtliche Schule in Göttingen. Eine Dokumentation (Göttingen, 1987) ∙ H. RENZ and F. W. GRAF, Troeltsch-Studien. Untersuchungen zur Biographie und Werkgeschichte (Gütersloh, 1982) ∙ H. ROLLMANN, “From Baur to Wrede: The Quest for a Historical Method,” SR 17 (1988) 443–54; idem, “Theologie und Religionsgeschichte. Zeitgenössische Stimmen zur Diskussion um die religionsgeschichtliche Methode und die Einführung religionsgeschichtlicher Lehrstühle in die theologische Fakultäten um die Jahrhundertwende,” ZTK 80 (1983) 69–84 ∙ G. STRECKER, “William Wrede. Zur hundertsten Wiederkehr seines Geburtstages,” ZTK 57 (1960) 67–91 ∙ A. VERHEULE, Wilhelm Bousset. Leben und Werk: Ein theologiegeschichtlicher Versuch (Amsterdam, 1973).

HANS ROLLMANN
Holiness Code

The Holiness Code, which is found in Leviticus 17–26, is the earliest book of law that forms part of the → Pentateuch. A. Klostermann coined the name with an eye to the significance of the concept of holiness in this section (see 19:2; 20:26; 21:8). God’s holiness is here the basis of the demand for holiness that is addressed to → Israel (§1).
The Holiness Code opens in chap. 17 with rules of → sacrifice, which particularly regulate the contact with blood, and closes in chap. 26 with statements about → blessing and → cursing. In between are various legal regulations, for example, about sex (18), rules for the priests (21:1–22:16), the quality of animals used for sacrifice (22:17–33), feasts (23), and the land (25). At the heart of the code are laws oriented to social ethics (19).
Various theories have been advanced as to the origin of this code. It is thought by most to be an independent entity that was integrated into P (K. Grünwaldt), though K. Elliger, V. Wagner, and A. Ruwe do not agree. It is also debated whether different parts were put together to make up the code (C. Feucht) or additions were made to an original text (R. Kilian). In any case there seems to have been some editing. W. Thiel thinks the work dates from the exile, which would explain the similarity that many find to Ezekiel. Such provenance, however, would not rule out the use of much older legal materials.

Bibliography: A. S. DARLING, “The Levitical Code: Hygiene or Holiness?” Medicine and the Bible (2d ed.; ed. B. Palmer; Carlisle, Cumbria, 1992) 85–99 ∙ K. ELLIGER, Leviticus (Tübingen, 1966) ∙ C. FEUCHT, Untersuchungen zum Heiligkeitsgesetz (Berlin, 1964) ∙ K. GRÜNWALDT, Das Heiligkeitsgesetz Leviticus 17–26 (Berlin, 1999) ∙ H. K. HARRINGTON, The Impurity Systems of Qumran and the Rabbis: Biblical Foundations (Atlanta, 1993) ∙ J. E. HARTLEY, Leviticus (Dallas, 1992) ∙ J. JOOSTEN, People and Land in the Holiness Code: An Exegetical Study of the Ideational Framework of the Law in Leviticus 17–26 (Brussels, 1994) ∙ R. KILIAN, Literarkritische und formgeschichtliche Untersuchung des Heiligkeitsgesetzes (Bonn, 1963) ∙ B. A. LEVINE, Leviticus (Philadelphia, 1989) ∙ A. RUWE, “Heiligkeitsgesetz” und “Priesterschrift.” Literaturgeschichtliche und rechtssystematische Untersuchungen zu Leviticus 17, 1–26, 2 (Tübingen, 1999) ∙ H. T. C. SUN, “Holiness Code,” ABD 3.254–57 ∙ W. THIEL, “Erwägungen zum Alter des Heiligkeitsgesetzes,” ZAW 81 (1969) 40–73 ∙ V. WAGNER, “Zur Existenz des sogenannten ‘Heiligkeitsgesetzes,’ ZAW 86 (1974) 307–16 ∙ W. ZIMMERLI, “ ‘Heiligkeit’ nach dem sogenannten Heiligkeitsgesetz,” VT 30 (1980) 493–512.

HANS JOCHEN BOECKER
Holiness Movement

1. General Description
2. Distinguishing Doctrine
3. History
3.1. Phoebe Palmer and the Shorter Way
3.2. Dissenting Methodism
3.3. Revivalism and the Camp Meeting
3.3.1. Finney and Oberlin Perfectionism
3.3.2. National Camp Meeting Association
3.3.3. Conflict
3.4. Denominations and Associations
3.4.1. Holiness Church
3.4.2. Church of God (Anderson, Ind.)
3.4.3. Church of God (Holiness)
3.4.4. Salvation Army
3.4.5. Church of the Nazarene
3.4.6. Wesleyan Church
3.4.7. International Holiness Convention
3.4.8. Cooperation
1. General Description

The Holiness movement is a worldwide aggregation of evangelical Protestant individuals, congregations, and denominations whose distinguishing mark is adherence to John → Wesley’s teaching concerning Christian → perfection. Somewhat fewer than half of the 9 million who would identify with the Holiness movement belong to the various mainline Methodist denominations; most of the rest belong to denominations, associations, and congregations that identify themselves primarily as Holiness bodies. Many of this latter group recognize strong Methodist roots and maintain ties of varying strength to mainline Methodism. About 70 percent of the Holiness movement is represented in the → World Methodist Council.
Most of the Holiness groups bear other Methodist characteristics along with their commitment to Wesley’s doctrine of scriptural holiness. Such beliefs and personal traits include their commitment to historic Trinitarian → orthodoxy; a commitment to Protestant understandings of → justification by → grace alone through → faith alone; the sufficiency and ultimate authority of the Old and New Testaments for faith and practice; the priesthood of all believers; → Arminianism; an emphasis upon evangelical experience; evangelistic zeal; and a tendency to organize with → evangelism and social action as priorities.
The largest of the Holiness denominations are the → Church of the Nazarene (1.3 million members worldwide) and the → Salvation Army (1 million officers and soldiers worldwide). Together, the Church of God (Anderson, Ind.; → Churches of God), the Wesleyan Methodist Church, a worldwide federation of autonomous denominations, and the Free Methodist Church, also a global federation, account for approximately another 1.5 million persons worldwide. Another half million or more belong to about 60 smaller Holiness denominations and a dozen missionary associations (→ Methodist Churches).
Most Holiness bodies carry on active evangelizing efforts in fields far from their home bases—for example, the Church of the Nazarene has congregations in about 70 nations; the Salvation Army has corps (i.e., congregations) in about 90 nations; and the Wesleyan Church in about 20. A global figure of 4.5 million members of Holiness churches would be conservative and realistic, and it is noteworthy that more than half of that figure are citizens of countries other than the United States.
There is, however, an anomaly in connection with these statistics: it is estimated that some 9 to 10 million persons are in attendance in the → Sunday schools and → worship services in Holiness churches on a given Sunday. This anomaly arises from the fact that while the Holiness bodies’ doctrinal and behavioral requirements for membership are almost universally stringent, those same bodies almost universally encourage attendance and participation in their services by “all sorts and conditions,” insofar as the conscience of the given community and the given nonmember allow. Communion is open to all who believe in Jesus Christ as personal savior. Few of the Holiness bodies require one to be “in the experience” of Christian perfection for membership; most require members at least to be seeking and expecting it. Neither fidelity to the doctrinal standards nor adherence to the behavioral requirements is taken as a sign of either justification or entire → sanctification, except in some of the “folk theology.”
In addition to its intense evangelistic activities, the Holiness movement has since its earliest days established schools at all levels in its home countries and in its missions areas. At present in the United States 34 fully accredited liberal arts colleges and universities identify with the Holiness movement, as do 7 fully accredited graduate-level theological schools; also identifying with the movement in the United States are several dozen Bible colleges and junior colleges and about a dozen liberal arts institutions not regionally accredited. As a specific denominational example, the Church of the Nazarene operates one liberal arts college, seven universities, a graduate-professional theological seminary, and a Bible college in the United States; universities in Kenya and Korea; five university-level theological schools, some 30 baccalaureate-level theological institutions, and a handful of nurses’ training schools (all residential) outside of the United States (most of the U.S. universities have schools of nursing); and close to 100 theological institutes and extension programs (→ Religious Education).
All of the larger Holiness → denominations maintain extensive programs of ministry to social needs and provide disaster → relief in cooperation with other national and international relief bodies, ecclesiastical and secular, around the world. Such work is indeed the special vocation of the Salvation Army.
Camp and revival meetings are still quite common among Holiness people. And most of the larger Holiness bodies publish at least one periodical, a hymnbook, and literature for Christian education at all age levels. Five of the larger denominations have developed the Aldersgate Group and publish Sunday School and Vacation Bible School materials cooperatively. The publishing houses of the Church of the Nazarene, Salvation Army, Church of God (Anderson), Wesleyan Church, and Free Methodist Church develop and print materials in several languages.
2. Distinguishing Doctrine

The Holiness movement claims John Wesley (1703–91), Church of England priest, Oxford don, and a principal founder of → Methodism, as its major mentor and as the source of its distinguishing doctrine. Wesley said that God had raised up the Methodists “to spread scriptural holiness over these lands and to reform the nation [i.e., Great Britain].” For Wesley, “scriptural holiness” referred to what he believed was biblical teaching, confirmed by significant Christian tradition, reason, and evangelical experience, namely, that Christ’s atoning work makes available to the justified and regenerate believer the grace fully, or “perfectly,” to keep the Great Commandment—to love God and → neighbor unconditionally.
Wesley taught that subsequent to justification and → regeneration, the → Holy Spirit perfects the believer in holiness in an instantaneously granted second work of grace, “entire sanctification,” which purifies the heart so that we may “perfectly love [God] and worthily magnify [his] name” (e.g., see Plain Account of Christian Perfection and sermon 43, “The Scripture Way of Salvation”). Grace is understood to be the unmerited favor of God. As a work of grace, this evangelical experience of entire sanctification, or Christian perfection, is receivable only through faith in the provisions of the atoning work of Christ, not through works. Faith, from God’s side, is a divine gift. Humanly, it is grace-driven active assent to the promises, commands, and work of God. The Holy Spirit assures the believer that entire sanctification has been granted, but assurance too comes independent of works, and as a gift of grace it is received by faith.
Wesley referred to the biblical, theological, and experiential dimensions of this gift of divine grace with such terms as “scriptural holiness,” “Christian perfection,” “perfect → love,” and “entire sanctification.” His followers have expanded the vocabulary to include a number of synonyms, synecdochic terms, and abbreviations. These include “holiness,” “full salvation,” “freedom from sin,” “perfect cleansing (from sin),” “fullness of the Spirit,” “fullness of the blessing,” and “the second blessing.”
The Holiness movement has generally followed Wesley’s teaching, but it has emphasized more than he did the instantaneous character of entire sanctification and of its attendant → assurance. It has also emphasized somewhat more than he did the definiteness of the experience. Holiness people have often referred to it as a crisis experience to distinguish it from an → experience (§2) that is solely progressive. The movement has always struggled, primarily against strong currents of folk theology, to retain Wesley’s insistence that → salvation, including entire sanctification (or Christian perfection), is all of grace.
Except for some theologically careless adherents, the Holiness movement, with Wesley, absolutely rejects the notion of sinless perfection in this life. Rather, it teaches that the experience of entire sanctification, or Christian perfection, always entails the need for Christ’s atoning work and continuing growth in grace. It always entails participation in the life of the church, for the church provides the means of grace for nurturing and sustaining it, and likewise provides avenues for its expression. Works do not save, but the expression of Christian perfection appears in works of compassion in the church and in the world as well as in personal piety. Hence, the great majority of the movement agrees with Wesley’s dictum: “There is no holiness but social holiness.”
Some elements of the movement, such as the Salvation Army, have persisted in keeping a strong social conscience. Other elements, wanting to avoid the very appearance of supporting the theologically liberal → Social Gospel, especially in the period from about 1940 to the early 1970s, closed or reduced their support of orphanages, homes for unwed mothers, hospitals, and other social service agencies, tended to accept uncritically the social values of their surrounding cultures, and emphasized personal piety alone. Since the early 1970s, however, the whole movement has experienced a strong resurgence of social action rooted in the same Wesleyan theological base that had led the movement to social activism in its earlier days.
Wesley did not require his Methodists to be “in the experience [of Christian perfection],” but he did require his preachers to be “groaning after [or ‘going on to’] perfection,” expecting to be “made perfect in this life” (Large Minutes, q. 51). Contrary to this openness, most Holiness denominations require definite testimonies to entire sanctification from candidates for → ordination. Some require such testimonies from those holding significant congregational responsibilities (e.g., Sunday School teachers and members of official church boards).
3. History

Wesley’s Methodists came to America in the late 1760s and brought the Wesleyan doctrine of Christian perfection with them. Their perfectionist teaching, if not their organization itself, attracted followers in other traditions almost immediately. Examples are the German Reformed pietists and → Mennonites, who united in 1800 to form the United Brethren denomination, and those Lutheran pietists who joined in the founding of the Evangelical Association in 1807 (from 1822, the Evangelical Church).
From the early 1900s, however, mainline Methodist bodies tended to mute Wesleyan perfectionism, and only since the 1970s have they begun again to give serious attention to the Holiness people among them. Ironically, until the mid-1900s, the largest concentrations of those deliberately advocating Wesley’s doctrine of Christian perfection were still be found in the mainline British and British-originated American Methodist denominations, both in their indigenous settings and in their missionary enterprises. Only since about 1970 could it be said with some certainty that the majority of the Holiness movement are to be found outside of those denominations.
The preaching of the doctrine of Christian perfection, usually under the terms “entire sanctification” or “holiness,” was prominent in American Methodism’s first century, with some flagging of interest immediately following the death of Bishop Francis Asbury in 1816. The late 1830s saw an intense renewal of the doctrine and experience, especially in the northern and border states in the United States and in Great Britain. This renewal carried on for another 60 years or so.
Three linked elements played the primary roles in this renewal. Of principal importance at first was an intensely loyal, articulate, ecclesiastically well-placed, and financially well-fixed urban minority in the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) in the United States (together with some in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South [MECS], after the division of 1845), matched, as it were, by a significant minority of intensely loyal, articulate, evangelistically energetic British Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists who “spread scriptural holiness” at home and abroad. Of some importance at first and of greater importance after the 1860s were the activities of two, and after 1860 three, dissident Methodist denominations in the United States. Of great importance on both sides of the Atlantic was the development of camp and revival meetings as instruments for propagating Holiness.
3.1. Phoebe Palmer and the Shorter Way

The renewal that became clearly visible in the MEC by the late 1830s was deeply influenced by Phoebe Worrall → Palmer (d. 1874) and the Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness in New York City. Founded in 1836, by Phoebe’s sister, Sarah Worrell Lankford, the Tuesday Meeting met in the commodious home shared by the Palmer and Lankford families. A typical session included hymn singing, various “seasons” of → prayer, and a “talk” by Phoebe Palmer. By 1840 all recognized “Sister Phoebe” as the Tuesday Meeting’s natural leader. She directed it from that year until her death, except for the years 1861–64, when she and her husband, Walter, a physician, evangelized in Britain. There they built upon the work done by American evangelists, especially James Caughey (d. 1891) and Asa Mahan (d. 1889). And they left a strong foundation for the further work of Robert Pearsall Smith (d. 1898) and his spouse, Hannah Whitall Smith (d. 1910) and others.
Rather rapidly, the Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness became a gathering place for prayer and → Bible study for religious leaders across the spectrum of Protestantism, but especially for Methodists. Its tone was clearly urban, upper-middle class, and professional. The theme of the meetings—“holiness of heart and life”—was applied to the needs of both those “in the experience” and those seeking it.
In addition to leading the Tuesday Meeting, Phoebe Palmer wrote nine highly popular books and many articles, especially appearing in the Guide to Holiness, which she edited from 1864 to 1874. She actively engaged in several significant humanitarian projects in New York City, including the founding and management of the Five Points Mission. And at least 317 times she spoke at revival and camp meetings in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. She herself did not seek ordination and would not allow her “talks” to be referred to as sermons, but she did argue very strongly for the women’s right to preach. Phoebe Palmer’s principal legacy within the Holiness movement is her “altar theology,” or “shorter way.” She had come into the experience of entire sanctification after a long struggle for assurance, during which she was relieved to find what she called the shorter way.
Wesley had insisted that God granted the grace of perfect love definitely and instantaneously, but in God’s own good time, and that the gift of assurance would also come in God’s good time. Phoebe Palmer, fusing Romans 12:1 and Matthew 23:19, believed that a justified, regenerate person, by consecrating (giving or surrendering) himself or herself—that is, by “placing oneself on the altar”—met the single qualification necessary for the reception of the second blessing (entire sanctification, perfect love). Having consecrated oneself (i.e., placed oneself on Christ, who is our altar), one could receive the blessing and the assurance of having received it, simply by trusting in the biblical promises and declarations (for “the altar sanctifies the gift”).
A number of Methodist theologians, including some who generally supported her work, especially Nathan Bangs and Randolph Sinks Foster, opposed this altar theology. Besides offering sharp exegetical critique, they insisted that in spite of her disclaimers, it made → consecration a meritorious work, thereby making entire sanctification a consequence of a good work rather than a work of grace. Palmer’s doctrine of assurance, they said, made one dependent upon personal appropriations of biblical texts rather than the internal witness of the Holy Spirit. They urged her to retain Wesley’s less rigid delineation of the experience in order to avert attempts to force God to follow human calendars, as it were; to fend off any kind of works-righteousness; and to ensure that assurance itself be understood as a gift of grace and not as a product of human appeals to biblical texts.
Generally, these theological and experiential warnings went unheeded. Phoebe Palmer’s shorter way, which was eminently suited for revivalism, became almost immediately dominant and all but absolute in the Holiness movement. The great majority of Holiness people, deeply influenced by the emphases of revivalism on immediate decision, instantaneous divine response, and vivid evangelical experience, found the shorter way sure and empirically satisfying. And they were fully convinced that Palmer’s view in no way contradicted Wesley’s. Those holding the older understanding tended to tolerate, sometimes only barely, the majority view, believing, in typical Methodist fashion, that the cause of “spreading scriptural holiness” outweighed the problems inherent in Palmer’s teaching.
By the 1920s Holiness people almost universally accepted the shorter way and now identified the altar theology as Wesley’s own. More than a half century of marked success in spreading scriptural holiness, largely through camp meetings and revival campaigns, had convinced them of its correctness. The Church of the Nazarene alone, for example, grew from 10,000 members in 1908 to 136,000 by 1936.
The New York City Tuesday Meeting, ecumenical in spirit and in fact, was imitated across the country. But Mrs. Palmer and her closer associates remained strictly and loyally MEC. Mrs. Palmer’s ministry had led a significant proportion of MEC (and a few MECS) leaders, some of whom would become bishops, into the experience of Christian perfection. This fact, together with the social location of the Palmers and Lankfords, made the Tuesday Meeting quite sensitive to the concerns of MEC leadership. Supporters of the Tuesday Meeting consistently declared that it existed solely to “spread scriptural holiness.” This understanding clearly placed discussion of several roiling issues out of bounds, including ecclesiastical polity, slavery, and festering debates about personal piety (e.g., regarding styles of dress, forms of entertainment, and use of leisure time). Ironically, most supporters of the Tuesday Meeting were abolitionists and held very conservative views regarding issues of personal piety. To them, charges leveled by radical abolitionist MEC Holiness loyalists—of being disloyal to earlier MEC polity regarding slavery and personal piety, moral cowardice, and spiritual weakness—seemed ignorant at best, if not impertinent.
By 1860 the dissonance had created two camps within the young Holiness movement: on one side, those aligned with Mrs. Palmer and her friends, mostly MEC and some MECS adherents, along with a scattering of non-Methodists; on the other, the radical abolitionists and the critics of behavioral issues and ecclesiology, mostly dissident Methodists, including some MEC radicals. Between them stood MEC Holiness people whose ideology matched the latter group but whose primary desire was ecclesiastical peace and unity, especially after the wrenching division into the MEC and MECS in 1844–46. The social location of the Tuesday Meeting exacerbated the division. Those who looked to Mrs. Palmer and her friends tended to be, or aspired to be, urban and middle or upper-middle class—in perspective, if not also in fact.
3.2. Dissenting Methodism

It is here that dissenting Methodism enters the picture as the second of the three elements critical to the formation of an identifiable Holiness movement. Between the mid-1820s and 1860, four distinctly Wesleyan perfectionist, anti-MEC bodies arose in the United States. The Primitive Methodist Church came to the United States with British immigrants in 1826. It had arisen in Britain as a revivalist and Wesleyan perfectionist protest against the middle-class pretensions of of mainline Methodism. In America it retained its emphases on revivalism and Holiness. The Methodist Protestant Church (MPC), founded in 1830, arose primarily in dissent from within the MEC over issues of episcopal control. It generally retained the earlier MEC emphasis on Christian perfection. In 1877 it added to its articles of faith an article, “Of Sanctification,” in the style of the Holiness movement. (The MPC rejoined the episcopal Methodists in 1939, bringing with it its article of faith on [entire] sanctification.) The Wesleyan Methodist Connection (WMC; later, Wesleyan Methodist Church and, since 1968, the Wesleyan Church) and the Free Methodist Church (FMC), radical abolitionist Wesleyan perfectionists, were founded in 1843 and 1860 respectively, in protest against the heavy-handedness and temporizing of MEC bishops, primarily on the question of the abolition of → slavery. Both bodies also charged the MEC with worldliness, especially in matters of dress, entertainment, use of leisure, association (esp. membership in oath-bound secret societies or lodges), formality in worship, and catering to the tastes of the well-to-do at the expense of the poor. They generally supported Mrs. Palmer in her concern to spread scriptural holiness but freely criticized her silences as self-contradictions, furthering the division within Holiness ranks.
These four groups pointedly wrote Christian perfection into their basic articles of faith and consistently proclaimed it. Each of the four saw itself as a reradicalizing of Methodism and linked Holiness with their more democratic polities and their enforcement of behavioral rules. Each tended to view the eddy of the Holiness movement that swirled about Mrs. Palmer as inconsistently Wesleyan.
Since the 1840s, when the MPC sought to unite with the WMC, these dissident Methodist bodies have occasionally talked about merger in varying combinations, but generally it has evaded them. Differences in polity and → piety, born of experience rather than theology, have seemed insuperable.
After the Civil War many WMC and FMC clergy and laity returned to the MEC, not a few of them still bearing their criticisms of MEC laxity and middle-class status. This number would eventually serve as bridges between the Holiness people in the MEC, the WMC, and the FMC, which now self-consciously preached Wesleyan perfectionism as amended by altar theology.
3.3. Revivalism and the Camp Meeting

The third element in the development of a clearly definable Holiness movement in the United States was the quasi-Wesleyan revivalism, along with its offspring: the revival meeting and the camp meeting. Especially important here is the influence of Oberlin perfectionism, which abetted the love of revivalism manifested in all branches of Methodism for their first hundred years, longer for most Holiness branches.

3.3.1. Finney and Oberlin Perfectionism

By the mid-1820s Charles Grandison → Finney (1792–1875) had risen to prominence as an innovative and astoundingly effective evangelist and pastor. Deeply influenced by the modified → Calvinism of Yale’s Nathaniel Taylor, Finney developed a voluntaristic (some said Pelagian) understanding of justification. By the early 1830s the unacceptably high rate of “backsliding” he was seeing among converts at his → revivals led him to undergird that doctrine of justification with an equally voluntaristic doctrine of entire sanctification.
Finney’s Holiness language sounded quite Wesleyan to many Holiness people. He taught that God promises believers grace to love God and neighbor unconditionally in this life and that this grace, given subsequent to regeneration, is instantaneously received by faith and cleanses the heart of all sin. In contrast to the antebellum Wesleyan Holiness people, Finney declared the human will to be naturally free. Grace necessarily aided such decisions but was not their sole ground. Wesleyans of both Wesley’s way and Palmer’s shorter way taught that prevenient grace is the source of such → freedom (§2). Finney taught that faith is a conscious decision to appropriate the justifying and sanctifying provisions of the → atonement. Wesleyans of both sorts understood that faith is a grace-driven trust in the justifying and sanctifying provisions of the atonement.
From 1851 to his death Finney served as president and professor of theology at the new, radical abolitionist, coeducational college at Oberlin, Ohio. There, he and his friend and colleague Asa Mahan (a Congregationalist deeply affected by Wesleyan teaching) matured their long-developing doctrines of sanctification into what became known as Oberlin perfectionism. While many Holiness people rejoiced in believing that in Oberlin perfectionism a form of Calvinism had become Arminian, they did not see that they themselves were increasingly trading their Arminian doctrine of prevenient grace for → Pelagianism’s naturally free will. By the late 1870s Holiness people generally saw the theological differences between the Oberlin and Wesleyan perfectionisms as niceties for classroom debate but without practical consequences.
Both the Oberlin and the Wesleyan perfectionists reveled in the revivalistic milieu that they supported, and sometimes dominated. Finney, Mahan, and the Palmers, among others, evangelized in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain even before the American Civil War. Especially effective in Victorian Great Britain and in Germany were the “transatlantic Smiths,” Hannah and her husband, Robert, wealthy American → Friends. Also significant as Holiness evangelists and writers on both sides of the Atlantic were William Arthur (d. 1901), an Irish clergyman-author in the British Wesleyan Methodist Church, and William Boardman (d. 1886), a U.S. Presbyterian.
From the 1860s British and American Wesleyan perfectionist advocates evangelized with no little success in what was becoming a united German state and with limited success in Scandinavia. More important still was the activity of Wesleyan perfectionists in the burgeoning missionary enterprises of British and American Methodism—episcopal and dissenting—especially in Latin America and in British colonies. Two peripatetic examples are William Taylor (d. 1902), an MEC missionary and bishop firmly committed to the doctrine and experience of Christian perfection, who evangelized tirelessly on every continent but Australia and Antarctica, and Vivian Dake (d. 1892), an FMC missionary and founder of the Pentecost Bands, who evangelized in Europe and Africa. The Salvation Army, founded in 1865 East London as the Christian Mission, and building on a perfectionist foundation, developed a radical Wesleyan combination of revivalism, missionary enterprise, and social action.

3.3.2. National Camp Meeting Association

The critical moment for what is now called the Holiness movement came in July 1867. John Inskip, William McDonald, George Hughes, John A. Wood, and several other ever-loyal MEC pastors conducted a camp meeting at Vineland, New Jersey, with two stated purposes: reviving the doctrine and experience of “holiness of heart and life,” principally among Methodists, and recovering the camp meeting, lately plagued by emotional excesses, as an instrument for reviving holiness within Methodism.
The Vineland camp meeting exceeded expectations and gained the informal blessing of the MEC bishops. Immediately about a dozen of the Vineland preachers formed the National Camp Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness, with John Inskip, New York City pastor, as president. (From 1893 it was known both as the National Association for the Promotion of Holiness and as the National Holiness Association; in 1971 it became the Christian Holiness Association and, in 1997, the Christian Holiness Partnership. Another direct descendant is the smaller Interdenominational Holiness Convention, an ultraconservative association formed in 1947 by persons who believed that the National Holiness Association was succumbing to worldliness.)
The National, as it came to be called, held about 60 ten-day camp meetings across the United States, in India, and in Australia between 1867 and 1894, always on invitation from local committees. These events usually attracted thousands (e.g., in 1869, at Round Lake, near Troy, N.Y., over 20,000 attended). They were public news, and the press noted their clarity of purpose and their decorum. Those held near urban areas often drew wealthy urban Methodists who used them to combine spiritual edification and physical rest.
Throughout this time the National itself remained a slowly growing, relatively small group of denominationally loyal MEC pastor-evangelists (e.g., in 1869 there were only 19). In its first 52 years, it had only three presidents: John Inskip (1867–84), William McDonald (1884–93), and Charles Fowler (1893–1919). Only in the late 1880s did it begin to admit non-MEC clergy to membership, and only in 1942 did it elect its first non-MEC president.
The National’s successful camp meetings spawned scores of local, state, and regional Holiness camp meeting associations that, by the 1880s, were sponsoring scores of camp meetings and hundreds of revival campaigns per year with considerable success. The National increasingly became a rallying, consultative, and advisory body. The smaller associations courted support and leadership from outside the MEC and MECS, tended to be less urban and middle-class in perspective than the National, and more directly criticized the MEC and MECS for alleged compromises with sin and worldliness.

3.3.3. Conflict

By the mid-1870s, thanks in part to the success of the local, state, and regional associations, the Holiness movement faced stiff opposition in both the MEC and MECS. By the late 1870s this opposition was actively negating the doctrine of Christian perfection itself in both its classically Wesleyan and shorter-way forms. It objected to several demands that the movement was making, such as that the MEC and MECS make Holiness revivalism the denominations’ priority, that the MEC and MECS firmly enforce their behavioral standards, and that Holiness evangelists be free to preach when and where they saw fit, without having to gain permission first from → bishops, presiding → elders, or → pastors. The National, loyally MEC, sought to mediate, only to face criticism from both sides.
Within the MEC and the MECS the Holiness cause had become “the Holiness question.” The bishops publicly declared official allegiance to the Holiness cause, but in both denominations they sought to stave off the division that they saw coming. The MEC General Conference of 1872 had elected eight new bishops, six of them self-identified “Holiness men.” Holiness voters had hoped for a denominational Holiness revival; other voters had hoped to corral the Holiness people institutionally. The Bishops’ Address to the MECS General Conference of 1874 lamented the divisiveness of the Holiness people, and the conference called for the Holiness evangelists to work by invitation only. Some MECS leadership looked upon the Holiness movement as an MEC doctrinal and experiential exaggeration and as one more of the MEC’s continuing attempts to establish itself in the South. In addition, a significant body of leaders in both the MEC and the MECS saw the Holiness movement, the National excepted, as an obstacle in the way of their march to social power and respectability. They responded with an emphasis on ecclesiastical discipline. In response, the movement, except for the National, became even more strident in its criticisms, demands, claims, and free-lancing practices.
From the early 1870s Holiness laity in the MEC and MECS began to find anti-Holiness pastors being assigned them, and Holiness pastors began to find themselves assigned to anti-Holiness congregations, or so-called hardscrabble circuits. MEC and MECS Holiness evangelists found themselves unable to commend new converts or the newly entirely sanctified to MEC or MECS congregations.
By the early 1880s the Holiness question had become the church question: Should Holiness people remain with the MEC or MECS? Should they join existing Holiness bodies, or should they form new Holiness churches? The leadership of the National urged denominational loyalty, insisting that the Holiness cause could still carry the day in the MEC, if not in the MECS. To do so, it needed the support of the non-MEC/MECS adherents to the Holiness movement. To encourage the cause and to keep the flame burning brightly within episcopal Methodism (→ Episcopacy), the National issued official calls for four conferences of Holiness people between 1877 and 1901. The first two, in 1877, were essentially MEC gatherings. The last two, in 1885 and 1901, called for accredited delegates from all Holiness bodies, and each was attended by persons from at least two dozen denominations and other bodies. Leaders from at least a dozen Holiness and mainline bodies endorsed the call to the meeting of 1901, including bishops of the MEC and representatives of its German conferences in the United States, bishops of the United Brethren Church, several yearly meetings of Friends, and the African Methodist Episcopal and African Methodist Episcopal, Zion, churches. Altogether 229 persons registered as delegates.
In these assemblies, all agreed that fanatics—including especially the advocates of sinless perfection—were heretical. All opposed, however, any understanding that asserted that “entire sanctification is sin under control, and not sin exterminated,” or that “entire sanctification is holiness imputed and not holiness imparted.” But the really controversial issue, the church question, could not be resolved. Nor could they resolve the issue of ecclesiastical control over itinerant evangelists.
Both clergy and laity tended to see opposition to the Holiness movement anywhere as opposition to the Holiness movement everywhere. In regional, state, and local Holiness associations, sentiment grew in favor of new ecclesiastical arrangements. Holiness people began to identify themselves as “come-outers” (or “pushed-outers”) with reference to their decisions to leave established denominations, especially the MEC and, to a lesser degree, the MECS.
3.4. Denominations and Associations

In the 1870s, largely on personal rather than on denominational bases, and in spite of misgivings over its allegiance to the MEC, some members of the distinctly Holiness WMC and FMC had established fraternal if not formal ties with the National. And WMC and FMC clergy found welcome and places of leadership in the local, state, and regional associations, if not (at least not for a quarter-century) in the National. An anomaly lies in the fact that the majority of Holiness people disaffected by the MEC and MECS did not join the WMC or the FMC. Instead, from about 1880 to 1914, they established some 50 new distinctly Holiness denominations or associations in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. And between 1896 and 1914 they formed another 20 in Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, and Japan. Some of these groups were schisms from older bodies, but most were fresh starts. From about 1900 to 1920 roughly half of these 70 groups engaged in partial or complete mergers, reducing the total number of denominations and associations to about 50. At the same time, however, large numbers of Holiness congregations remained independent, and new Holiness denominations and associations continued to form. Few Holiness congregations, denominations, or associations simply disbanded, and none went back into the MEC or MECS.

3.4.1. Holiness Church

To no one’s surprise, the first associations of independent, distinctly Holiness congregations (apart from the WMC, FMC, and ethnically originated Wesleyan Holiness denominations) arose in 1880—one in Great Britain, one in the United States. The Holiness Church in Britain seems not to have survived organizationally past the mid-1890s. The American group arose out of the Southern California and Arizona Holiness Association and was predominantly, but by no means solely, MEC and MECS in origin. It called itself the Holiness Bands until 1896, when it took the name “Holiness Church.” Its ecclesiology was congregational with elements of primitivism, and it required all members to be in the experience of entire sanctification. In 1946 it merged with the Pilgrim Holiness Church.

3.4.2. Church of God (Anderson, Ind.)

Between 1880 and 1883 two more distinctly Holiness bodies formed, both of which survive at present. Probably the first was the association now known as the Church of God (Anderson, Ind.). In 1877 Daniel S. Warner (d. 1895), a minister in a small German pietist denomination with a basically primitivist or → restorationist ecclesiology, influenced by some workers from the National, experienced entire sanctification.
By January 1878 Warner was preaching the necessity of both Holiness and Christian (ecclesiastical) unity. He and his people asserted that denominations (which they called churches of sect) are biblically untenable. Even terms such as “Wesleyan” and “Protestant” have validity only as they meet biblical criteria. This body has always been intensely primitivist in polity, refusing even to keep membership lists, but its congregations have a keen sense of association. Adherents celebrate three “ordinances” (they reject sacramental terminology): believer’s baptism by immersion, the Lord’s Supper, and → foot washing. The Lord’s Table is open to all believers. Most adherents are amillennial.
Early on called the Gospel Trumpet people (after a publishing company that Warner started), it is now, more formally, the Church of God Reformation movement. Popularly, it is the Church of God (Anderson, Ind.). The parentheses indicate the location, since 1906, of its publishing house and its first and principal training school (now Anderson University). It has congregations in some 60 countries.

3.4.3. Church of God (Holiness)

The third association of independent Holiness congregations in the United States resulted from a dissident takeover of the Southwestern Holiness Association, which had been established in 1880 in the wake of a National camp meeting held that summer near Lawrence, Kansas. The dissidents, mostly MEC and MECS pastors and people, sought to establish a truly NT church. The first congregation of this body, which called itself the Church of God (Holiness), was “set in order” in Centralia, Missouri, in 1883, and eight were ordained to ministry as elders. By 1897 a debate over representation to its General Convention brought division, but by 1922 the two groups had reconciled to re-form the Church of God (Holiness). Its principal offices, publishing house, a camp meeting ground, and its largest Bible college are in Overland Park, Kansas. It has congregations in seven countries.

3.4.4. Salvation Army

In 1879 the Salvation Army arrived in the United States (in Philadelphia) to stay, an effort in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1869 having been aborted. It unhesitatingly became an integral part of the Holiness movement. The Salvation Army, however, is atypical of the movement in four of its features: its unique military ecclesiology, its indifference to → sacraments or ordinances, its indifference to the establishment institutions of higher education, and its steadfast commitment to remaining physically near the urban poor and needy. By the end of the 19th century, still largely under the command of various members of the Booth family, the Salvation Army was well established almost everywhere where there were North Atlantic commercial interests. It currently has corps in some two-thirds of the world’s countries.

3.4.5. Church of the Nazarene

The process of merger in the period 1896–1914, together with the exit of a significant number of clergy and laity from the MEC and MECS into the Holiness bodies, gave rise to the Church of the Nazarene (CN) and to the more radical, but still quite Methodistic, Pilgrim Holiness Church (PHC), among others.
A group of predominantly MEC laity and clergy led by Phineas Bresee (d. 1915), a prominent MEC minister associated with the National, established the First Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles, California, late in 1895. By 1907 this congregation had quickly become the nucleus of a denomination, with congregations as far east as Iowa. In that year the Church of the Nazarene joined forces with the rather more loosely organized (and more loosely Methodist) Association of Pentecostal Churches of America, itself the product of a number of mergers that began in 1895 in New York and New England. The oldest congregation in this group, the People’s Evangelical Church in Providence, Rhode Island, founded in 1894, originated among disaffected members of the MEC. The newly merged denomination took the name Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene (PCN). A year later, 1908, the Holiness Church of Christ, another product of a series of mergers in the old Southwest, with a few congregations in Tennessee and Georgia, joined forces with, and took the name of, the new PCN. This step made the PCN the first distinctly Holiness denomination to become nationwide. In fact, by 1908 missionaries of the various groups in the mergers were already working in the Cape Verde Islands, Mexico, and India, and the Nazarenes had established Chinese congregations on the West Coast.
Between 1899 and 1901, in Nashville, Tennessee, J. O. McClurkan, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, had formed the Pentecostal Mission, with considerable support of laity and clergy from both the MEC and the MECS. This organization, at first more → mission than congregation, soon gave birth to mission congregations in several of the large cities in the old South and border states. In 1915, upon his death, as McClurkan wished, the Pentecostal Mission merged with the PCN. Also in 1915 George Sharpe, a former Methodist and Congregationalist pastor and now leader of the Pentecostal Church of Scotland, centered in Glasgow, brought his congregations into the PCN. In 1919 the PCN became simply the Church of the Nazarene (CN), seeking to distance itself from the rapidly growing “tongues movement,” as early Pentecostalism was called.
As early as 1910 many Holiness people, including several of the leaders of the National, opined—some happily, some with foreboding—that the PCN would soon unify the entire Holiness movement. By 1920, however, it was clear that the CN was insufficiently Methodist to win away from the MEC and MECS more than a minority of their Holiness people; it was too flaccid in both doctrine and ethic to attract many of the more doctrinally and behaviorally conservative Holiness people, and it was too denominational to win over the primitivists. Most of the MPC, FMC, and WMC, as well as the ethnically originated Wesleyan denominations that still held to Holiness teaching, saw the Nazarenes offering nothing that they did not already have, including, especially, formative tradition.
In the course of the mergers, the (P)CN accepted the views of both Wesley and Palmer regarding entire sanctification and assurance, but it leaned in practice toward Palmer’s position. It received baptism and the Lord’s Supper as sacraments while not disparaging foot washing as a pious practice; and it also practiced both infant baptism and infant dedication (according to the desire of the parents). Its prescribed sacramental rituals are essentially those of Methodism. It has practiced rebaptism, especially outside of North Atlantic cultures, but its theology clearly runs against the practice, and Nazarenes are slowly abandoning it. Until the 1990s, when it added the order of deacon, the CN, with the great majority of Holiness bodies, held to one order of ordained ministry. Ordination is “ordination to ministry in the Church of God.” The (P)CN has not required reordination of ministers transferring credentials, as is typical of the Holiness denominations. In principle, the (P)CN has had no objection to ordaining women to ministry since its founding, but principle yielded to practice in the period 1925–80, when the proportion of ordained women dropped from 20 percent in 1908 to 3 percent in 1980. Principle has again begun to rule, and the proportion is rising. The story of the relationship between principle and practice in the (P)CN is typical of that of almost all other Holiness denominations. The Salvation Army, with its military ecclesiology, has been the consistent exception.
Ecclesiologically, following a path of compromise in the course of its many mergers, the CN has sought a middle ground between episcopalianism and → congregationalism. Its quadrennial General Assembly, which is theoretically half lay and half → clergy, is its highest legislative body. Executive authority lies with quadrennially (re-)elected general superintendents, who itinerate. On many narrower issues of concern to evangelicals—including millennialism, mode of baptism, the nature of the inspiration and authority of Scripture, and divine healing—the CN has generally taken no specific stance.

3.4.6. Wesleyan Church

The PHC began in 1897 as the International Apostolic Holiness Union and Prayer League. In 1905 it became the International Apostolic Holiness Union and Churches; in 1913, the International Apostolic Holiness Church; and in 1919, the International Holiness Church. In 1919 it became the PHC, which merged in 1968 with the WMC to form the Wesleyan Church.
At its outset, it was led by Martin Wells Knapp (d. 1901) and George Kulp (d. 1939), both MEC clergy, and from the 1910s by Seth C. Rees (d. 1933), a former Friends and PCN minister. Knapp and Kulp were both closely associated with the National and with God’s Bible School, which Knapp had founded in Cincinnati in 1900. At first they intended their group to serve as a nonecclesial prayer gathering, not altogether unlike the Tuesday Meeting. But the general resistance of urban MEC congregations to Holiness preaching and the absence of a strong, united Holiness voice in the northern cities between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi, in the mill towns and furniture manufacturing towns in North Carolina, and in urban California, especially in the inner cities among the recent arrivals, led to the development of congregations and the formation of a denomination.
At least six mergers have marked the development of this denomination, which was characterized by deep commitment to revivalism, seen best in its vigorous missionary and inner-city ministries and in its style of worship. Only in the strength of its commitment to a camp meeting style of worship, its rather more rigorous behavioral requirements for membership, its stronger tendency toward a → fundamentalist understanding of Scripture, and its insistence on premillennialism did it differ from the Nazarenes. Both denominations practiced pedobaptism and also offered believer’s baptism in the mode requested by the one baptized; both required personal acceptance of Christ as Savior for membership; both opened the Lord’s Supper to all who personally accepted Christ as Savior; and their forms of → church government were similar. The PHC brought to its 1968 merger with the WMC a very strong tradition of giving and a deep interest in world evangelization—with missionaries in some 30 countries and two-thirds of its membership outside of the United States. It also had one liberal arts college and several Bible colleges. The WMC also brought a tradition of strong financial support and a deep interest in both liberal arts education (four colleges) and world evangelization (missionaries in eight countries and among North American indigenes). And while it had on several occasions turned away merger overtures from the FMC, fearing a too-strong centralization, the WMC, over the years, had experienced about the same number of mergers as had formed the PHC.
Neither the WMC nor the PHC could bring all of their congregations into their 1968 merger. Already in 1963 the New York District of the PHC voted to become the independent PHC of New York, which now has congregations in five states and two Canadian provinces; and a majority of the Allegheny Conference of the WMC withdrew from the denomination and formed the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection in 1966, in advance of the 1968 merger. In the previous decade, the CN had suffered the secession of three groups, largely over the general issue of worldliness, and more specifically over centralization of denominational power, television, apparel, amusements, and jewelry, including wedding bands. All of these denominations have Bible colleges and vigorous overseas missionary programs.

3.4.7. International Holiness Convention

These denominations and associations and others like them—about 25 in all—are the heart of the Interdenominational Holiness Convention (IHC). H. E. Schmul (d. 1998), a Wesleyan Methodist minister who later was a principal in the formation of the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection, founded the IHC in 1947 as a source of fellowship for the more conservative Holiness individuals, congregations, denominations, and associations and as a conscience for the Holiness movement as a whole. The Convention Herald, official paper of the IHC, has carried out this latter role with important effect. The IHC does not have a membership list, as the Christian Holiness Partnership (CHP) does.

3.4.8. Cooperation

Relationships between affiliates of the IHC and members of the much larger CHP are not always cordial, but they are seldom acerbic. Cooperation across the lines of these umbrella organizations is quite common. Some denominations, such as the Churches of Christ in Christian Union, belong to the CHP but also have strong ties with the IHC. This body separated from the Christian Union Movement in 1909 in response to strong anti-Holiness movement sentiment in the older movement. It has retained much of the primitivist polity of its originating movement and, like the PHC, has held to a revivalistic style of worship as the ideal. Most of its 200 congregations are in southern Ohio and neighboring states. It maintains a Bible college and has a strong missionary interest in about a dozen countries and among North American indigenous peoples.
In addition to the CHP and IHC, both descendants of the National, the Wesleyan Theological Society (WTS) has served as a locus of cooperation within the Holiness movement. Officially the theological commission of the CHP, the WTS has increasingly served as a formative and influential forum for theological discussion among the movement’s English-speaking scholars and teachers since its founding in 1966. The Wesleyan Theological Journal is the society’s official periodical.
Generally, the → World Council of Churches and the → National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. have proved unattractive to Holiness bodies because of the latter’s view of the councils’ political commitments and involvement. Holiness bodies have cooperated with both councils in disaster relief, however, and Holiness movement adherents have sat on the councils’ respective commissions on Faith and Order. The five largest Holiness bodies and others belong to the → National Association of Evangelicals but, with their own extensive missionary enterprises, do not formally cooperate with the → World Evangelical Fellowship. Most Holiness bodies encourage their pastors to participate in local ministeriums.

Bibliography: M. E. DIETER, The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century (Metuchen, N.J., 1980) ∙ C. E. JONES, Black Holiness: A Guide to the Study of Black Participation in Wesleyan Perfectionist and Glossolalic Pentecostal Movements (Metuchen, N.J., 1987); idem, A Guide to the Study of the Holiness Movement (rev. ed.; Metuchen, N.J., 2000); idem, Perfectionist Persuasion: The Holiness Movement and American Methodism (Metuchen, N.J., 1974) ∙ T. L. SMITH, Revivalism and Social Reform: American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War (Baltimore, 1980; orig. pub., 1957) ∙ V. SYNAN, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentienth Century (2d ed.; Grand Rapids, 1997; orig. pub., 1971).

PAUL BASSETT
Holland → Netherlands
Holocaust

During the second half of the 20th century, “Holocaust” became the usual term for the mass extermination of Jews during World War II. Seldom used at first, the word gained ground in the 1960s, especially in the United States, and finally found universal acceptance, though it is often misused analogically for any forms of mass murder and not merely for the National Socialist → genocide.
The Vg uses holocaustum for Gk. holokautōma and holokautōsis, which in the LXX, and later in Philo and Josephus, are mostly translations of Heb. ʿōlâ (burnt offering), less commonly kālı̂l (whole burnt offering). The Greek terms derive from holokauteō (also -tizō), another derivate being holokautos (occasionally -stos). They signify “what is wholly burnt” (-tōma) and “incineration” (-tōsis). The biblical whole offering (→ Sacrifice) led to the further sense of the complete destruction of people or animals, total annihilation or slaughter, when “Holocaust” became a loan word, particularly at first in English.
When the mass murder of the Jews in occupied Europe after 1939 came to be known in Palestine, it was first described in the 1940s by the Hebrew-Yiddish word ḥurban (destruction) or by šōʾā (catastrophe). Then as awareness of the historical significance of the mass murder developed in the 1960s and 1970s, especially in the United States, “Holocaust” became the common term for National Socialism’s “final solution of the Jewish question.” The related term “genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944.
Of all the above words šōʾâ might well be the best to describe what happened. But all of them, especially “Holocaust,” reflect both abhorrence of the Nazi concept of a final solution and the helplessness of language before the Nazi policy of extermination. Historical analysis shows that the attack on the Jews involved more than mass murder. Step by step the German Jews were singled out, isolated, and deprived of civil rights from 1933 onward. Early in World War II came Hitler’s call for racial and political “purification,” which led to mass murder. Jews were systematically destroyed in the conquered and occupied countries of Europe. There also was an equally systematic expurgation, unparalleled in history, of the psychologically ill (→ Euthanasia), an attempted extirpation of the leading classes (e.g., in Poland and Russia), and a killing of Gypsies (→ Roma). The Nazi aim was a new biological order for Europe. We must see the Holocaust against the background of this total vision of the Hitler government.
Traditional → anti-Semitism, the establishment of a pseudoscientific doctrine of race, and imperialistic plans for a National Socialist Europe were all features of Hitler’s policy. The different stages of the Jewish policy saturated German society with anti-Semitic propaganda and increasingly brought the apparatus of state and society into the assault upon the Jews. When, therefore, at the height of the expectation of victory in 1941, the “final solution” was adopted, the various institutions, bureaucracies, and units that had had a direct or indirect part in the campaign, being now accustomed over many years to defaming the Jews and denying them their rights, became the executors. The exploiting of national aspirations and the linking of supposed racial superiority with racially motivated imperialism (→ Racism) made it possible for the mass murder to be carried out without a serious hitch. Many of Hitler’s plans had to be abandoned as impracticable, but the policy of persecuting and exterminating the Jews was one of the policies of the regime that was most consistently adopted and executed.
The religions have thus far found it hard to offer any interpretation of these events. For Christianity they raise the question of → guilt and → responsibility, and especially also that of the relation to → Judaism in the mirror of history and religion (→ Jewish-Christian Dialogue). In → Jewish theology, after long hesitation, the question of → theodicy has again come under discussion, though no answers have been found that shed light on the events. Historical interpretations and explanations of the mass murder under National Socialism may be discerned in outline, but theological explanations of something so incomprehensible can be sought only in the strength of → faith.

Bibliography: A. BEIN, Die Judenfrage (Stuttgart, 1980) ∙ H. J. CARGAS, Shadows of Auschwitz: A Christian Response to the Holocaust (rev. ed.; New York, 1990) ∙ A. T. DAVIES and M. T. NEFSKY, How Silent Were the Churches? Canadian Protestantism and the Jewish Plight during the Nazi Era (Waterloo, Ont., 1997) ∙ K. P. FISCHER, The History of an Obsession: German Judeophobia and the Holocaust (New York, 1998) ∙ R. S. GOTTLIEB, Thinking the Unthinkable: Meanings of the Holocaust (New York, 1990) ∙ S. R. HAYNES, Prospects for Holocaust Theology (Atlanta, 1991) ∙ R. HILBERG, Die Vernichtung der europäischen Juden (Berlin, 1982) ∙ S. T. KATZ, “Holocaust: Jewish Theological Responses,” EncRel(E) 6.423–31 ∙ D. E. LIPSTADT, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (New York, 1993) ∙ J. ROBINSON, J. LITRACK, G. LEWY, and J. M. SNOECK, “Holocaust etc.,” EncJud 8.828–916 ∙ E. SCHUSTER and R. BOSCHERT-KIMMIG, Hope against Hope: Johann Baptist Metz and Elie Wiesel Speak Out on the Holocaust (New York, 1999) ∙ L. THOMAS, Vessels of Evil: American Slavery and the Holocaust (Philadelphia, 1993) ∙ R. G. WEISBORD and W. P. SILLANPOA, The Chief Rabbi, the Pope, and the Holocaust: An Era in Vatican-Jewish Relations (New Brunswick, N.J., 1992).

WOLFGANG SCHEFFLER
Holy Communion → Eucharist
Holy Kiss → Kiss of Peace
Holy Spirit

1. Biblical Data
1.1. OT and Early Judaism
1.2. NT
1.2.1. Mark and Matthew
1.2.2. Luke and Acts
1.2.3. Paul
1.2.4. John
1.2.5. Later Writings
2. Theological Data
2.1. Problems
2.2. NT Variety
2.3. Resultant Problems
2.4. Trinity and Filioque
2.5. Open Questions in Modern Ecumenical Theology
1. Biblical Data
1.1. OT and Early Judaism

Statements about the rûaḥ (spirit) of Yahweh are of direct pneumatological interest. The working of the rûaḥ is at first ecstatic, equipping charismatic leaders (Judg. 3:10; 6:34; 1 Sam. 10:6; → Charisma) and → prophets (1 Sam. 10:6; 19:20–24) for their tasks. Time and again those concerned are gripped by the Spirit. More permanent endowment first appears in the case of → David (1 Sam. 16:13). The great preexilic prophets appeal to the Word of Yahweh rather than to his Spirit (though see Hos. 9:7 and Mic. 3:8; → Word of God). Perhaps they wished to stay at a distance from the traditional ecstatic prophets of deliverance. After the exile the ecstatic element was less prominent, and the Spirit became more important theologically as the force behind prophetic proclamation and a moral → lifestyle (Isa. 59:21; 61:1; Ezek. 36:27; Joel 2:28–29; Hag. 2:5, etc.). At this period too the Spirit was viewed as a creative power to which we owe → life (Job 34:14–15; Ps. 104:30) and which, especially in eschatological expectation (→ Eschatology 1), accomplishes the new creation and thus establishes the reign of Yahweh in the world. The Messiah in particular (→ Messianism) would be permanently endowed with the Spirit (Isa. 11:2), but all God’s people would also share in the Spirit (Joel 2:28–29; Ezek. 39:29). This gift was understood as the steadfast promise of Yahweh, not as a possession (Ps. 51:10–11).
In early → Judaism Gk. pneuma (wind, spirit, breath) is an expression of the divine being and activity, present especially in prophecy and wisdom (Isa. 61:1; Wis. 1:6; 7:22; → Wisdom Literature). In this way a link exists between the transcendent God and → creation (Philo De opif. mun. 135, 144). As the → rabbis saw it, the Spirit was at work particularly in the prophets. Sometimes we find the idea that the Spirit left → Israel (§1) after the last prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi and will be given again only in the end time (t. Sona 13.2; → Apocalyptic 2). Elsewhere, however, the ongoing work of the Spirit is in view, whether in the rewarding of lives pleasing to God or in outstanding acts of rabbis (Lev. Rab. 35:7, on 26:3). At → Qumran the spirit of → truth was seen opposing the spirit of deceit (1QS 3:18–19). A striking point, and an important one relative to what Christians would later say about the Spirit, is that already in early Judaism the Spirit was seen as a separate entity that represents God but is not the same as God.
1.2. NT

Along with the tradition of the earthly → Jesus and the appearances of the risen Lord, the experience of the Spirit was the third essential element in the constituting of the first Christian congregation (see esp. Acts 2:1–21; → Primitive Christian Community). The giving of the Spirit shows the church that it is an eschatological fellowship that is equipped in all respects for the life it must lead (→ Worship; Lifestyle; Mission).

1.2.1. Mark and Matthew

The understanding of the Spirit in Mark and Matthew is strongly rooted in the tradition of the OT and Judaism (see Mark 1:12 and par.). Jesus is endowed with the Spirit from his → baptism (Mark 1:10) and even from birth (Matt. 1:18–20), and he drives out → demons through the Spirit (Matt. 12:28). Such presence of the Spirit shows that the → kingdom of God is at hand. Blasphemy against the Spirit is thus the unforgivable sin (Mark 3:28–30 and par.). That is, those who do not perceive that in Jesus God himself is present and who interpret his power as devilish (→ Devil) exclude themselves from the new aeon that is dawning.
Jesus not only bears the Spirit as a prophet but also gives the Spirit as the risen Lord. We may surely see in Mark 1:8–9 and parallel a link to early Christian experience of the Spirit and, perhaps, indirectly to water baptism. The same applies to the so-called Great Commission in Matt. 28:18–20, now with a direct reference to a triadic formulation of baptism in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Mark and Matthew do not speak of an ongoing work of the Spirit in believers, but they do say that the Spirit, as the power of God sovereignly at work, enables believers to say the right thing at the right time (Mark 13:11 and par.).

1.2.2. Luke and Acts

The Spirit has a much larger role in the Lukan writings. Here the ecclesiological aspect, closely linked to the Christological (→ Christology 1), is central. The endowing of Jesus with the Spirit plainly goes hand in hand from the outset with his ministry (Luke 4:18–19, quoting Isa. 61:1–2). Similarly, when the risen Lord imparts to his → disciples the Spirit, whom he has received from the Father (Acts 2:33), he is equipping them for global witness by this baptism of the Spirit (1:4–8). In keeping with his theology of history, Luke sees the Spirit as typifying the age of the → church (§2.1). The Spirit is given permanently to all members of the church and is at work especially in the worldwide → proclamation to those outside (8:29; 13:4; 16:7). The problem of the relation of the Spirit to ministry arises in 20:28 (cf. 6:3; → Offices, Ecclesiastical).
We also find in Luke at least the beginnings of a pneumatology, though only in the form of hints and leaving many gaps. The relation to baptism is plain (Acts 2:38) but not its nature. The giving of the Spirit may precede baptism (10:44–47), or it may follow baptism with the → laying on of hands (8:17; 19:6). Nothing is said about the relation of the Spirit to → faith (§2), to sonship, or to the deeds of believers. In Luke the Spirit is often seen as a force that makes extraordinary deeds of power possible.

1.2.3. Paul

→ Paul does more than other NT authors to think through in its different aspects what is said about the Spirit of God. He takes the common view that the Spirit is God’s gift that shows believers to be standing in the eschaton (Rom. 8:1–30). Not the law (nomos) as letter but the law of the Spirit (nomos tou pneumatos) characterizes this life (→ Law 2). The latter law alone leads to life (8:2). In the Spirit, that which is intended in the law but not achieved by it finds fulfillment (2 Cor. 3:14–18). Paul’s formula for the enthusiastic claim of primitive Christianity is that those who are “in Christ” (en Christō̧) are a “new creation” (5:17; cf. “in the Spirit” [en pneumati], Rom. 8:9 etc.; → New Self). The Spirit of God as the “spirit of faith” (pneuma tēs pisteōs, 2 Cor. 4:13) fully defines believers. Less prominent here is the idea of the OT and early Judaism that the Spirit is a sovereign power that masters us; instead we find the more Hellenistic idea of continuous filling and controlling. By describing the Spirit as arrabōn (first installment, guarantee, 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5) or aparchē, (first fruits, Rom. 8:23), Paul guards against a negatively enthusiastic misunderstanding of this new being (→ Gnosis, Gnosticism).
Believers are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16). The classic formulation of the problem of indicative and imperative—“if we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit” (ei zōmen pneumati, pneumati kai stoichōmen, Gal. 5:25)—means that the Spirit who has been given produces fruit consisting especially of → love (agapē, Gal. 5:22; 1 Corinthians 13). The Spirit, as in Luke, is thus the power that constitutes the assembly of the church. The understanding of the church as the “body of Christ” (sōma Christou) brings out the ecclesiological dimension of what Paul has to say about the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13, 27). Each member of this sōma has a particular spiritual gift whose use must serve to build up the → congregation, as the view of → glossolalia demonstrates (chap. 14). In this regard the Spirit-directed distinction of spirits by means of the confession that Jesus is Kyrios (Lord) is very important (12:3).
Many sayings closely link God, Christ, and Spirit. In 2 Cor. 3:17 Lord (kyrios) and Spirit (pneuma) are equated, and then there is immediate reference to “the Spirit of the Lord” (pneuma kyriou, see Gal. 4:6; Phil. 1:19). The formulas “in Christ” (en Christō̧) and “in the Spirit” (en pneumati) are interchangeable (Rom. 8:1, 9). We read similarly of the presence of both Christ and the Spirit in believers (Rom. 8:9–10). In Rom. 8:9 we find both “the Spirit of God” (pneuma theou) and “the Spirit of Christ” (pneuma Christou). In Gal. 4:6 God sends forth the Spirit of his Son. In 1 Cor. 12:4–5 the many spiritual gifts are related to the one God, the one Christ, and the one Spirit; also note the triadic formula in 2 Cor. 13:13. An inner Trinitarian process is also present in the Spirit’s prayer in Rom. 8:26–27. All these sayings promote, if they do not actually present, an explicit doctrine of the → Trinity.

1.2.4. John

John typically sets “spirit” (pneuma) in antithesis to “flesh” (sarx, 3:1–8). Being born “of the Spirit” (3:6; or “of God,” 1:13; or “from above,” 3:3, 7) describes the new life of believers, who are no longer governed by the flesh but incorporated into the life of the Spirit and thus belong to the sphere of God, for God is spirit (4:24). There will be a future consummation (see 14:2–3; 17:24), but the present aspect of this new being is especially strongly emphasized. John does not describe the Spirit as an ecstatic phenomenon but as the life-giving power of God that summons to new and true life (6:63).
In John the Spirit is more personal than elsewhere in the NT and is endowed with loftier titles (→ Christological Titles): He is “another Advocate” (or “Helper,” allos paraklētos), who will abide with the community after Jesus has returned to the Father (14:16). In five Paraclete sayings Jesus announces what the Spirit will do in the community (14:16–17, 26; 15:26; 16:7b–11, 13–15). He will teach the disciples all things, remind them of the sayings of Jesus (14:26), and thus lead them into all truth (16:13). This promise does not imply supplementing inadequate proclamation but suggests giving it eschatological force, since Jesus only now is seen as the exalted Lord. John most consistently, then, linked the Spirit to Christ as the former is present in proclamation. We find similar-sounding statements about both—sending by the Father (14:24, 26), teaching (7:14; 14:26), bearing witness (8:14; 15:26), convicting the world (kosmos) of sin (3:18–21; 16:8–11), and so forth—yet there is no identity, for the risen Lord sends the Paraclete (15:26; 16:7; 20:22), as the Father also does (14:16, 26; 15:26). Here again the doctrine of the Trinity is needed to explain such statements. The Paraclete shows what is the true eschatological significance of the history of Jesus. It is not just a record but a present reality. He thus adequately continues that history after Easter.

1.2.5. Later Writings

The later NT writings contain many relevant pneumatological sayings. In Ephesians the understanding of the Spirit is very eschatologically oriented as the power of → revelation through → apostles and prophets (1:17; 3:5) and also of the growth of the church by inner renewal (3:16). In the Pastorals the Spirit effects the resurrection of Jesus (1 Tim. 3:16), authoritative prophetic utterance (4:1), the safekeeping of the deposit of faith (2 Tim. 1:14), and a responsible lifestyle (2 Tim. 1:7; Titus 3:5). In Hebrews the Spirit signifies the → grace of God (10:29), speaks through Scripture (3:7; 9:8), and works → miracles (2:4).
Similar statements in the Catholic Epistles and Revelation relate the Spirit to prophecy (1 Pet. 1:11–12; 2 Pet. 1:21; 1 John 5:6–7; Rev. 19:10), sanctification (1 Pet. 1:2), and Christ’s abiding in believers (1 John 3:24; 4:13). What we find is for the most part traditional, and because of the brevity and the situational nature of the writings, there is no systematizing. That development would come later.

Bibliography: H.-D. BETZ, “Geist, Freiheit und Gesetz,” ZTK 71 (1974) 78–93 ∙ U. BROCKHAUS, Charisma und Amt. Die paulinische Charismenlehre auf dem Hintergrund der frühchristlichen Gemeindefunktion (Wuppertal, 1987) ∙ Y. CONGAR, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (New York, 1997) ∙ M. GREEN, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids, 1989) ∙ K. S. HEMPHILL, Spiritual Gifts (Nashville, 1988) ∙ A. HOLL, The Left Hand of God: A Biography of the Holy Spirit (New York, 1988) ∙ H. HÜBNER, “Der Heilige Geist in der Heiligen Schrift,” KuD 36 (1990) 181–208 ∙ B. J. JAHNKE and C. M. KELLER, How Does the Spirit Lead? Questions of Faith (2 vols.; Minneapolis, 1992) ∙ H. KÜNG and J. MOLTMANN, Conflicts about the Holy Spirit (New York, 1979) ∙ G. W. H. LAMPE, God as Spirit (Oxford, 1977) ∙ M. E. LODAHL, Shekinah/Spirit: Divine Presence in Jewish and Christian Religion (New York, 1992) ∙ F. MARTIN, “Le baptème dans l’Esprit,” NRT 106 (1984) 23–58 ∙ J. MOLTMANN, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life (Minneapolis, 1997) ∙ C. F. D. MOULE, The Holy Spirit (Oxford, 1978) ∙ P. SCHÄFER, Die Vorstellung vom Heiligen Geist in der rabbinischen Literatur (Munich, 1972) ∙ E. SCHWEIZER, Heiliger Geist (Stuttgart, 1978) ∙ A. E. SEKKI, The Meaning of Ruah\ at Qumran (Atlanta, 1989) ∙ M. TURNER, The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts, Then and Now (Carlisle, Cumbria, 1996) ∙ J. S. VOS, Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur paulinischen Pneumatologie (Assen, 1973) ∙ M. WELKER, God the Spirit (Minneaplis, 1994) ∙ R. M. WILSON, “The Spirit in Gnostic Literature,” Christ and Spirit in the NT (ed. B. Lindars and S. S. Smalley; Cambridge, 1973) 345–55 ∙ M. WINTER, Pneumatiker und Psychiker in Korinth (Marburg, 1975).

WILHELM PRATSCHER
2. Theological Data
2.1. Problems

The rather clumsy word “pneumatology” itself raises a basic problem. It is used for the attempt to clarify theologically the function and work of the living Spirit of God in the hearts of believers, in the church, in the world, and in all → creation. But can one make the living Spirit of God a doctrinal theme? There is a widespread call for the development of an independent pneumatology in Europe (→ European Theology), and especially in the English-speaking churches and in the → Third World, and this interest is not merely in the increasingly numerous charismatic groups and churches (→ Charismatic Movement; Pentecostal Churches). It often goes hand in hand with the complaint that there is no specific doctrine of the Spirit in most classical or even modern Christian theologies. This concern has been prompted in similar ways and almost independently by traditional believers wanting clarification about the basic significance of the Holy Spirit, by more recent charismatic movements, and by the → Orthodox Church (→ Orthodoxy 3), with its longtime criticism that the West has neglected pneumatology in both → faith and doctrine.
In both → piety and theology the Western churches have indeed little to offer by way of pneumatology that is original, concrete, or intelligible. One may ask, however, whether anything of that kind is possible, whether we can make an independent theme of the Spirit of God (the Father and the Son) as though it were something separate, a concretely definable “it,” graspable by definitions. It might be objected that the Spirit is not separate from God the Father and Creator or from Jesus, in whom God is present, and not even from believers, for faith itself is called a work of the Holy Spirit. Nor can we really lay hold of the Spirit if he is truly Spirit and moves where he wills (John 3:8). As for understanding, he is himself the understanding of that which we understand in faith. It seems, then, that the call for a new and understandable pneumatology is an unrealizable wish.
Nevertheless, the modest resignation or excused neglect on this topic that typifies the West is out of place. For one thing, the Western tradition in both church and theology is not in fact so poor in profound insights into the work of the Holy Spirit, whether in → prayer or in clarifying texts, as modern criticism asserts. For another, the biblical basis, insights from the history of theology, and observation of the survival crises of humanity make possible the development of new and profound and helpful theological thoughts contributing to an understanding of what is said about the Holy Spirit.
Nevertheless, complaint of a gap at this point is valid. In the West the Holy Spirit has been largely detached from an understanding of the Trinity or linked only formally with it. Unhappy polarizations have hampered the theological explication of the Spirit over long periods—for example, the contrast between spirit and matter (→ Platonism), between the individual (→ Individualism) and the → institutions (both in Roman Catholic theology), as well as that between the divine and the human spirit. That is, there has been an emphasis on radical separation and a criticism of spiritual experience apart from the Word of God (both in Reformation and esp. in → dialectical theology). A new and ecumenically responsible pneumatology must overcome these antitheses.
2.2. NT Variety

The biblical material, which is rich and yet simultaneously quite disparate, demands a new look. Scholarly studies have analyzed this material with philological, historical, and religiohistorical tools (see the bibliography in M. Welker), and over the past few decades the noticeable lack of unity within the Bible materials—compared with the ancient Oriental and Greek understanding of the spirit—has once more yielded at least a relative sense of unity.
Negatively, at least we can say what most of the biblical passages do not say about the Spirit: There is no automatic endowment of all people, or of special dignities such as kings, with the Spirit of God; there is no idea of a rising up of the human spirit to the height of the divine Spirit; there is no permanent hostility between spirit and body, but also there is no crass embodying or “materializing” of the divine Spirit (→ Materialism). Varied though the biblical sayings about the Spirit may be (the decisive distinctions are not so much between the OT and NT but between Paul and John, on the one side, and, on the other, Luke and Acts), doctrines of the above type are not present at all in the Bible or are so only on the margin.
Positively—and here a suitable summary is more difficult—the biblical writings always present the Spirit as God’s Spirit; indeed, God himself is Spirit, and we must worship him in the Spirit. The Spirit is God at work among us to bring → life, → truth, → righteousness, and → mercy. Death is the opposite of the Spirit. The Spirit, who does new things, is in fact the Creator Spirit.

2.2.1. In early → Israel (§1) certain people had the gift of the Spirit. The judges were led by the Spirit, as were later the kings, though not automatically (→ monarchy in Israel). The same was true of the → prophets, often in opposition to the kings. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on the Messiah King—“the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord” (Isa. 11:2; → Messianism). He receives the Spirit, and in the Spirit the → covenant (§1) is actualized. The end time will bear the marks of the Spirit, who will be poured out “on all flesh” (Joel 2:28).
2.2.2. These and similar OT passages are often quoted in the NT and are seen to be fulfilled or on the point of fulfillment. The NT does not really transcend them or give them new content but makes them concrete and historical by relating them directly to Jesus and to the → Pentecost-event in the community, in which the Holy Spirit does things that are in accord with the recollections and promises of Israel. New features are the relating to the coming and sending of Jesus and the strong accentuating of the link between the Holy Spirit and the work of the risen (and in John also the glorified) Lord.
2.3. Resultant Problems

2.3.1. The relating of the Holy Spirit to the coming of Jesus and to his ongoing ministry after his death and → resurrection also raised serious problems (→ Eschatology). Paul and especially John stressed the sending of the Spirit by Jesus, but in the Synoptic gospels Christ himself is endowed with the Spirit. Luke sees in the Holy Spirit a continuation of the work of Jesus, but Paul and John emphasize the bringing of believers by the Spirit into the fellowship of the Father and the Son. We see here the beginning of later confessional distinctives (→ Denomination), that is, of the differences between (1) Eastern theology and piety and (2) the theology of Western Catholicism and the Reformation. These distinctives can often justify themselves exegetically—an important insight for ecumenism.
The relating of the Spirit to Jesus gave the doctrine of the → Trinity its true theme. Another possibility might have been a “binity”—God the Father and Creator reaching his creation, especially his human creation, through a Mediator. This Mediator would then have been the Spirit-filled Jesus, the Messiah, whose earthly work after his death is continued by the Spirit of God, who once dwelled in him. This approach might have yielded an ideal, simple doctrine that Jewish believers could have accepted (→ Jewish Christians) and interested Greeks would have found intelligible (→ Hellenistic-Roman Religion).
It was not so much the Trinitarian formulas in the NT (the blessings, the missionary command in Matt. 28:19) as the Johannine Prologue that blocked this kind of development. There the Logos and not the Spirit was that in God that became incarnate. At a deeper level Spirit and Logos, for all the intimate relation between Word and Spirit, are not one and the same. Jesus, the true Son, calls out “Abba!” in his passion and dereliction, and that is the Spirit’s cry. Romans 8:1–8 especially tells us that only because we have been adopted in the Spirit, in the place of the Son, because we too have become children of God, are we able to cry “Abba!” amid the sufferings of the present time.
The Spirit is the Spirit of adoption who takes us up into the fellowship of the Father and the Son and in authentic humanity enables us to maintain the tension between → suffering and → hope. He is the Spirit of → freedom, the Comforter (→ Consolation, Comfort). Believers greet and bless one another in the Spirit (→ Blessing). He heals infirmities (→ Health and Illness) and manifests God’s mercy to the weak. As he thus makes God present to us, we see him to be personal and pray to him as a → person.
2.3.2. The fact of the Spirit’s personhood was not always perceived in church history. (A “new pneumatology” would have to begin here.) Attention first centered on God and Christ, Father and Son. The Spirit was valued for his work in the church, but he was a problematic third in the doctrine of the Trinity, within which he was “officially” recognized only at Constantinople in 381 (→ Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed). He had mostly been viewed only as a bridge between God and creation, between the Word and believers. This approach could involve trivializing, for in fact the Spirit is not just a mediating something, a divine phenomenon between the Father and the Son, or a mere representation of the Father in the Son or of Jesus Christ to the church. The promises of Jesus that he would send the Paraclete after going away (John 14:16–17; 16:7–15) might suggest this kind of interpretation, which for the rest entails a reading of historical Trinitarian ideas into the “immanent Trinity,” the source of many misunderstandings.
2.4. Trinity and Filioque

The doctrine of the Trinity must be seen as a help to believers, not an obstacle. It links Israel and the Creator God to the coming of Jesus the Logos and the functioning of the church in the Spirit. The Eastern church has kept this role in mind better than the Western, in which the three persons in God have been hard to differentiate and hence the Spirit has been handled in theology largely in terms of “mediation,” for example, with reference to creation, the church, charisms, offices, justification, and so forth.
By adding filioque (lit. “and the Son”) to the Nicene Creed (→ Nicaea, Councils of), the West has stated that the Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son, as though he were a continuation of Christ or his representative. This idea was attractive because it could be used to validate the church’s ministry (→ Pope, Papacy) and its exclusive claim to grant salvation (→ Order of Salvation) or, later, the Word-monopolism of Protestantism (i.e., the total linking of the Spirit to the biblical Word; → Word of God).
To this day the East has maintained its strong protest against the filioque and has upheld the strict differentiation of the Son and the Spirit, who both proceed from the Father. This belief makes it possible to think of the Spirit as also operating outside the church (see examples in Russian piety and literature). The Eastern teaching, though, is not without its dangers. Its advantage is that it makes room for a freer and richer doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
Some churches of the West (e.g., the → Anglican Communion) are prepared to delete the filioque, and John Paul II omitted it at a joint mass with the Orthodox to celebrate the 1,600th anniversary of the Council of Constantinople. These churches still assert, however, that the Spirit be understood as the Spirit of Christ and not as a spirit floating in the void (esp. as we recall the 1934 → Barmen Declaration, with its rejection of ideological appeals to a new “spirit”).
2.5. Open Questions in Modern Ecumenical Theology

Ecumenical theology has new tasks in this area (→ Ecumenical Theology). It must still deal with the filioque, which is not simply a matter of theological quibbling but implies different understandings of the Trinity in East and West. It also must deal with the ongoing tension between the classic Roman doctrine of infused grace, which seems to replace the direct work of the Spirit with a habitual capacity for faith (by grace), and the Reformation emphasis on the actual working of the Spirit in the proclamation of the Word. Fresh theological thinking might help to bridge these gulfs (see esp. the works listed below by K. Blaser, A. Heron, J. Moltmann, and M. Welker). Related are questions regarding the understanding of the sacraments, the question of the Spirit and the institution (much debated within Protestantism), and that of the relation between the freedom the Spirit gives and political freedom (→ Liberation Theology; Political Theology). The simple reduction of the Spirit to intrahuman → communication hardly calls for serious discussion.
New work focuses on the Trinitarian anchoring of pneumatology, the concrete experience of the Spirit, and his liberating work in believers and also in the threatened world (→ Ecology). The Trinitarian God and the working of the living God might perhaps be described in analogy to dynamic fields of force in the new physics (W. Pannenberg, D. Ritschl).
→ Christology; Dogmatics; God; Spirituality

Bibliography: K. BARTH, CD IV/1–3, §§62–63, 67–68, 72–73 ∙ H. BERKHOF, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Atlanta, 1982) ∙ K. BLASER, Vorstoß zur Pneumatologie (Zurich, 1977) ∙ E. BRUNNER, Dogmatics, vol. 3, The Christian Doctrine of the Church, Faith, and the Consummation (Philadelphia, 1978; orig. pub., 1946) ∙ Y. CONGAR, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (New York, 1997) ∙ C. HEITMANN and H. MÜHLEN, eds., Erfahrung und Theologie des Heiligen Geistes (Hamburg, 1974) ∙ G. S. HENDRY, The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology (Philadelphia, 1956) ∙ A. HERON, The Holy Spirit (London, 1983) ∙ H. KREMKAU, ed., Das religiöse Bewußtsein und der Heilige Geist in der Kirche (Frankfurt, 1980), see esp. the part by R. Williams ∙ G. H. W. LAMPE, God as Spirit (Oxford, 1977) ∙ J. MCINTYRE, The Shape of Pneumatology (Edinburgh, 1997) ∙ J. MOLTMANN, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (London, 1992) ∙ O. NOORDMANS, Das Evangelium des Geistes (Zurich, 1960) ∙ C. SCHÜTZ, Einführung in die Pneumatologie (Darmstadt, 1985) ∙ P. TILLICH, Systematic Theology (vol. 3; Chicago, 1963) ∙ L. VISCHER, ed., Spirit of God-Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy (Geneva, 1981) ∙ O. WEBER, Foundations of Dogmatics (2 vols.; Grand Rapids, 1981–83; orig. pub. 1955) 2.227–407 ∙ M. WELKER, God the Spirit (Minneapolis, 1994).

DIETRICH RITSCHL
Holy War

→ War as the resistance of one’s orderly world to an alien and dangerous nonworld has always been integrated into religion. It is only recently that there have been real “secular” wars, and the term “holy war” raises problems not merely in relation to → Israel (§1). Warlike acts are often accompanied by ritual acts, and in many religions (e.g., → Islam) war is also the theme of theoretical religious reflection. In fact, wars are seldom exclusively or even predominantly religiously motivated. In Israel, where war could be differentiated from ordinary marauding (see 1 Sam. 21:5), it was self-evidently encompassed with ritual, as in other lands in its day.
As regards Israel, certain literary strata present a relatively unified picture of the “war of Yahweh” (see esp. Deuteronomistic works). At a summons the people of Yahweh gather, and after certain preliminaries (→ Sanctification) they go out to battle with the promise of victory, → Yahweh being the leader and fighting for them. Linked to victory there is often a ban (see esp. Joshua 6–12; Judges 4; 6–7; the introductory speeches of Deuteronomy). This theology of war articulates Yahweh’s claim to exclusiveness and the corresponding fact that Israel is not to make treaties with other nations.
Behind this conception lies a cultic and political ideology common to the Near East. On this view the authority of one’s own gods must be asserted against alien disorder. Historical experiences also shaped the religion of Israel from the earliest times. These events are echoed in the traditions behind the stories of the judges and in songs like the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 (see also the Book of the Wars of Yahweh, Num. 21:14). In the epoch of the formation of state and people, the wars of Yahweh were elementary experiences that fashioned Israel’s consciousness of being one people, the people of Yahweh. The theory that an institution like the amphictyony (→ Tribes of Israel) waged these wars is unnecessary.
→ Peace

Bibliography: I. CORNELIUS, “The Iconography of Divine War in the Pre-Islamic Near East: A Survey,” JNSL 21 (1995) 15–36 ∙ P. C. CRAIGIE, The Problem of War in the OT (Grand Rapids, 1978) ∙ G. H. JONES, “The Concept of Holy War,” The World of Ancient Israel (ed. R. E. Clements; Cambridge, 1991) 299–321 ∙ S. M. KANG, Divine War in the OT and in the Ancient Near East (Berlin, 1989) ∙ H. G. KIPPENBERG, “ ‘Pflugscharen zu Schwertern.’ Krieg und Erlösung in der vorderasiatischen Religionsgeschichte,” Töten im Krieg (ed. H. von Stietencron and J. Rüpke; Munich, 1995) 99–123 ∙ M. C. LIND, Yahweh Is a Warrior (Scottdale, Pa., 1980) ∙ A. VAN DER LINGEN, Les guerres de Yahvé. L’implication de YHWH dans les guerres d’Israël selon les livres historiques de l’Ancien Testament (Paris, 1990) ∙ P. D. MILLER, The Divine Warrior in Early Israel (Cambridge, Mass., 1973) ∙ S. NIDITCH, War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study of the Ethics of Violence (Oxford, 1994).

FRITZ STOLZ
Holy Water → Water, Consecrated
Holy Week

1. Origins of Holy Week
2. Palm (Passion) Sunday
3. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
4. Holy (Maundy) Thursday
5. Good Friday
6. Easter Vigil
1. Origins of Holy Week

Did. 7.4 calls for a fast of one or two days before → baptism (§2.2). When baptism came to be celebrated at the paschal (Easter) celebration, this tradition applied to the two days before the Pasch (Friday and Saturday). Third-century sources from Alexandria and Syria (the festival letters of Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria and the Syrian Did. apos. 21) indicate that this fast was extended to six days before → Easter. References to the commemorations of the events of the last week of Jesus’ life in the third century were greatly expanded in the fourth century. Especially influential on the development of “Holy Week” (or, in the East, “Great Week”) were the pilgrimage sites and offices developed by the Jerusalem church during and after the reign of Constantine I (306–37). Descriptions of these sites and offices appear in the diary of the Spanish pilgrim-nun Egeria, narrating a journey she took to holy sites (ca. 381–84).
2. Palm (Passion) Sunday

Egeria describes the reading of Matthew 21 and a → procession down the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem led by the bishop “in that manner in which our Lord was then led,” with all carrying palm branches and singing → hymns. This dramatic reenactment was introduced in Spain in the 5th century, in Gaul in the 7th century, and in England by the 8th century, but in Rome not before the 12th century. The earliest blessing of palms is found in the Spanish Liber ordinum (6th cent.) and is attested in the Gallic Bobbio Missal (8th cent.). The procession typically began outside the church building. The hymn of Theodulf of Orlé (ca. 750–821) Gloria, laus, et honor (All glory, laud, and honor) came to be widely sung.
The → Reformation typically suppressed the blessing of palms, but the procession was retained in some places (e.g., Brandenburg). In the 20th century the distribution of palms has been restored in Protestant practice, for example, after the service as a memento of attendance. In 1955 the → Roman Catholic Church greatly revised its Holy Week rites to make them more accessible to the people. The Book of Offices (1960) of the Episcopal Church restored the blessing of palms and procession, and Lutherans in North America followed suit in the 1970s (Contemporary Worship-6 [1973]; Lutheran Book of Worship [ministers ed., 1978]).
The unique feature of the medieval Palm Sunday → Mass was the dramatic chanting of the entire passion according to Matthew by three voices: a tenor for the Evangelist, a bass for Jesus, and an alto for all other roles. This practice was expanded with a role for the chorus in the passion oratorios of Lutheran composers in the 17th and 18th centuries (e.g., the St. Matthew and St. John passions of J. S. Bach; → Passion Music). In the revised Roman → lectionary (1969) and its adaptation in the Episcopal, Lutheran, Common, and Revised Common lectionaries, the Matthew, Mark, and Luke passions are read over the course of three years (→ Passion, Accounts of the).
3. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

There are no special liturgies for the first three days of Holy Week, although traditionally the passions according to Mark and Luke were read on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. These are now replaced by gospel readings that portray the betrayal of Jesus. The medieval Roman → liturgy for Wednesday in Holy Week included the Solemn Prayers, also known as the Bidding Prayers, which were repeated in the Good Friday liturgy. This element probably reflected the desire to pray for the candidates who would be baptized at the Easter Vigil.
In the practice of the → Orthodox Church, the → Eucharist is not celebrated on a → fast day, so the main liturgy of these three days is that of the presanctified (a liturgy of the Word followed by the distribution of Communion from elements consecrated on Sunday). In some Orthodox churches the Matins of Holy Wednesday is replaced with a communal form of anointing of the sick, perhaps inspired by the gospel episode of the anointing of Jesus at Bethany before his passion.
4. Holy (Maundy) Thursday

“Maundy” is an Old English corruption of the Lat. mandatum (commandment) of John 13:34. Holy Thursday is one of the most crowded liturgical days in the → church year. The Gelasian Sacramentary (8th cent.) provided propers for three masses: the Reconciliation of Public Penitents, the Blessing of the Chrism, and the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper.
Tenebrae (Lat. “darkness, shadows”) is the morning Office of Lauds anticipated on the evenings before Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. Hence it includes psalmody, the Benedictus as the proper → canticle, and the Lauds psalms (148–50). Its unique feature is the progressive extinguishing of candles until the last candle is removed and the church is in darkness. A loud noise is made, said to symbolize the earthquake that opened the tomb of Christ, and the candle is brought back into view. The rationale for the extinguishing of candles is debated: it either was utilitarian as dawn approached, or else it was conceived purely as a dramatic device. Many Protestant congregations have a service of shadows on the evening of Good Friday with the gradual extinguishing of lights, but it is not usually the historic Office of Tenebrae.
In the fourth century Lent became a time during which the church prayed for the reconciliation of its public → penitents as well as for its catechumens. In his letter to Decentius (416), Pope Innocent I (402–17) mentions the custom of absolving the penitents on the Thursday before Easter. The penitents were led into the church before the bishop, who prayed for their forgiveness and received them back into the communion of the church with the → kiss of peace. This Mass remained in the sacramentaries long after the institution of the order of public penitents had effectively died out. In Lutheran practice the Order for Corporate Confession with individual absolution and the → laying on of hands had been used on Wednesday night during Holy Week and is now incorporated into the Maundy Thursday liturgy. Where the reconciliation of penitents is being practiced in the Roman Catholic Church today, the rite of reconciliation is also being integrated into the Mass of the Lord’s Supper.
The Gregorian Sacramentary, unlike the Gelasian, has only the Chrism Mass for Holy Thursday. This Mass is for the blessing of the oils that will be used in the → initiation (§2) of the baptized at the Easter Vigil, in → exorcisms performed on the catechumens, and for the anointing of the sick. This custom is being revived today in non-Roman Catholic churches as an opportunity to emphasize the bishop’s pastoral role.
The most important liturgy of Maundy Thursday is the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, which begins the continuous three-day paschal period (Triduum Paschali) that includes the Good Friday liturgy and the Easter Vigil. The unified liturgical rites of these days commemorate the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. The noteworthy features of the Maundy Thursday liturgy include the → foot washing after the homily in imitation of the servant action of Jesus in the upper room (John 13), the removal of the Communion elements and vessels after the Communion during the singing of Thomas Aquinas’s hymn Pange lingua corporis (Sing, my tongue, of the glorious body), and the stripping of the → altar and chancel during the chanting of Psalm 22.
5. Good Friday

Good Friday is a day of devotion to the life-giving sacrifice of Christ on which, except in some Lutheran and Protestant practice, the Eucharist is not celebrated.
The popular late-medieval devotion known as the Way of the Cross with its 14 stations has been revived for use on Good Friday mornings, especially in Hispanic communities, in which the events in the passion of our Lord are acted out in the streets and parks of cities. Meditations at the stations frequently include homiletic application to current events.
The Three-Hours’ Service originated in Lima, Peru, in the 17th century and has become popular throughout the Americas. It lasts between noon and 3:00 P.M., the hours Jesus was on the cross, and often focuses on the so-called seven last words of Jesus from the cross. This devotional service has lent itself to ecumenical use in which clergy from different churches give homilies on the seven last words.
The Good Friday liturgy, which is part of the Triduum Paschali, is usually celebrated after 3:00 P.M. It includes an ancient form of the liturgy of the Word, the center of which is the reading of the passion according to John, and concludes with the Solemn, or Bidding, Prayers. To these elements is added the Veneration of the Cross, which includes the Reproaches that originated in sixth-century Gaul and the adoration hymn of Venantius Fortunatus Pange lingua gloriosi (Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle). In the Roman Rite Holy Communion is distributed from the presanctified elements. A popular practice in Eastern → Orthodoxy is reenactment of the burial of Christ at Vespers. The devout prostrate themselves before the winding cloth on Good Friday evening and Holy Saturday up until the beginning of the Paschal Vigil.
6. Easter Vigil

The Great Vigil of Easter, which is the climax of the Triduum Paschali, is regarded as the most significant liturgy of the church year. The earliest references to the Paschal Vigil are from the Quartodeciman practice in Asia Minor in the second century, which was the Jewish Passover transcended and Christianized (see the Peri Pascha of Melito of Sardis). The vigil has been considered the premier time of the year for Christian initiation since the third century. During the Middle Ages in the West the vigil decreased in importance, probably because of the prevalence of the separation of baptism from the paschal celebration, and it came to be celebrated on Saturday morning. This arrangement was made obligatory in the Missal of Pope Pius V (1570). In 1951 the decree Dominicae resurrectionis vigiliam from the Roman Congregation of Rites (→ Curia) allowed the vigil to be restored to the night before Easter “by way of experiment.” The night vigil was completely restored in 1955 with the general restoration of Holy Week liturgies (in Maxima redemptionis nostrae mysteria). → Anglican and → Lutheran churches also experimented with the restoration of the Easter Vigil in the 1960s.
The structure of the vigil includes a service of light, a service of readings, the liturgy of Holy Baptism, and the first Eucharist of Easter. In Western practice the vigil begins around a new → fire lighted outside the church building, at which the paschal candle is lighted and carried into the darkened church as the deacon sings “The Light of Christ.” There are various forms of the paschal blessing in early medieval sacramentaries, but the Gallican form known as the Exsultet is the one most widely used today. The service of readings includes up to 12 OT readings. The Gloria in Excelsis is sung at the start of the paschal Eucharist, and it has become popular to ring bells and to decorate the altar with Easter flowers during this dramatic beginning of the Easter celebration.
It is not considered appropriate to begin the vigil before sundown. In Eastern Orthodox churches the paschal celebration does not begin until midnight; it lasts all night, ends with the Eucharist at dawn, and is concluded with Easter breakfast. Attempts to use the vigil as a form of the Easter sunrise service so popular in Protestant practice have not proved to be successful precisely because the service of light requires darkness for effectiveness and a vigil is, by definition, nocturnal.

Bibliography: A. ADAM, Das Kirchenjahr mitfeiern (Freiburg, 1979) ∙ J. F. BALDOVIN, “Holy Week, Liturgies of,” NDSW 542–52 ∙ K.-H. BIERITZ, Das Kirchenjahr (Munich, 1987) ∙ P. F. BRADSHAW and L. A. HOFFMAN, eds., Passover and Easter: Two Liturgical Traditions (vol. 6; Notre Dame, Ind., 1999) ∙ J. G. DAVIES, Holy Week: A Short History (Richmond, Va., 1963) ∙ P. PFATTEICHER, Manual on the Liturgy: Lutheran Book of Worship (Minneapolis, 1979) ∙ K. STEVENSON, Jerusalem Revisited: The Liturgy of Holy Week (Washington, D.C., 1988) ∙ T. TALLEY, The Origins of the Liturgical Year (New York, 1986) ∙ J. W. TYRER, Historical Survey of Holy Week: Its Services and Ceremonial (Oxford, 1932).

FRANK C. SENN
Holy Year

The holy year is a year in which → Roman Catholics are invited to make a special → pilgrimage to Rome, for which the → pope grants a special jubilee → indulgence. The practice began in 1300, and since 1400 a holy year has been proclaimed every 25 years, with special proclamations in 1933 and 1983 commemorating the 1,900th and 1,950th anniversaries of Christ’s act of redemption. The special indulgence is hardly the attraction for pilgrims when so many others are available; rather, it is the chance of gaining a stronger sense of religious fellowship, especially at the great papal masses (→ Eucharist). The year opens and closes with the opening and closing of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s by the pope on the eve of → Christmas (originally the beginning of the new year).
In contrast to previous custom, at midnight on December 24, 1999, Pope John Paul II pronounced the blessing “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city [i.e., Rome] and for the world). For the first time, the pope himself opened the three additional Holy Doors in December and January, namely, St. John Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore, and St. Paul’s outside the Walls. Moreover, representatives from other churches participated in opening the fourth door in St. Paul’s on January 25, 2000, thereby making this act an ecumenical one for the first time.

Bibliography: A. GIANNINI, ed., Holy Year: The Jubilee of 1950 (2 vols.; Milan, 1950) ∙ W. LURZ, “Heiliges Jahr II: In der Kirche,” LTK 5.125–26 (bibliography with works in several languages) ∙ D. O’GRADY, Rome Reshaped: Jubilees, 1300–2000 (New York, 1999) ∙ H. THURSTON, The Holy Year of Jubilee: An Account of the History and Ceremony of the Roman Jubilee (St. Louis, 1900).

BALTHASAR FISCHER
Home Mission → Inner Mission
Homiletics → Preaching

Homosexuality

1. Definitions
2. Debates
3. Dialogue

In the years leading up to the 21st century, one of the topics most heatedly debated by the churches was homosexuality. Some are convinced that homosexuality is forbidden by Scripture. Some see homosexuality as a sign of Western moral decadence. Some focus on it as a threat to → marriage and the → family. Others, however, believe that the dignity and worth of each person created in the image of God is at stake. Informing these divergent views are varied interpretations of Scripture and diverse understandings of theological anthropology, as well as of → sin and → salvation. Different beliefs about the nature of God (esp. regarding God’s love and mercy and judgment) are also at issue.
1. Definitions

The definition of “homosexuality” is difficult to clarify. Many scholars today argue that the term is best understood in the context of western European societies in the late 19th and early 20th century. “Homosexuality” is derived from the Gk. homos, “the same,” and referred to both men and women. Historically speaking, the term is first attested in writing in a letter from Hungarian-German writer and translator Karoly Maria Kertbeny to Prussian “Uranian” (i.e., gay) activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, on May 6, 1868. “Homosexuality” was first widely used in Germany at the kaiser’s court in 1907, with reference to an espionage scandal that implicated, at least according to the press, a “homosexual clique.”
Linguists argue that “homosexual” became the term with the most common currency at this time both because it could be transposed into an abstract noun, “homosexuality” (thereby facilitating the increasing medical and scientific interest in the topic), and because it had a convenient binary opposite, “heterosexuality.” Given the Western cultural proclivity toward binary oppositions and → dualisms, it is noteworthy that many contemporary terms for same-gender sexual relations come in pairs, for example, “heterosexual/homosexual” and “gay/straight.”
Although “homosexuality,” etymologically speaking, refers to both → men and → women, already in the late 19th century, in Western societies, distinct terms for sexual relations between men and for those between women were emerging. These terms include “sodomite” for men and “sapphist” or “lesbian” for women. Interestingly, these are terms whose geographic specificity has been metaphorically extended. “Sodomite” is the proper name for the inhabitant of a historical city, whose story is told in Genesis 19. As an extended metaphor, it refers to all who are associated with the sexual practice (considered by later interpreters as “against nature”) of the residents of that city. “Sapphist” and “lesbian” both derived from Sappho, the first known poet to make love for other women the subject of her writing. So doing, already 2,500 years ago, she put her home, the Aegean island of Lesbos, on the linguistic map. At different times, many other terms have been used to refer to persons who desire same-gender sexual relations, including “bugger,” “dyke,” “faggot,” “fairy,” “grinder,” “molly,” “queen,” “queer,” and “tribade.”
Although this discussion of definition has so far focused on Western societies, most anthropologists agree that in nearly all times and places there have been, and are, persons who desire sexual relations with persons of the same gender. This reality is easily overlooked, since in nearly all cultures around the world, → marriage and children are definitive of full → adulthood. Anthropologists argue, however, that the apparent absence of terminology says more about Western cultural bias about → sexuality than about the reality of sexual relations in the rest of the world, past and present. Anthropologists, in collaboration with the accounts of Western missionaries, have identified at least three forms of same-gender sexual relations that are globally widespread and significant: (1) transgenerational, in which partners are of different ages; (2) transgenderal, in which same-sex partners take on different gender roles; and (3) egalitarian, in which partners are socially similar. In each instance, it is clear that this same-gender sexual behavior cannot be construed apart from the whole social and cosmological scheme of things, including kinship, marriage, and family, and the sacred.
2. Debates

The most heated debates about homosexuality are focused on the interpretation of Scripture. For those who read the Bible rather literalistically, there is considerable clarity: homosexuality is a sin, an abomination. Passages such as Lev. 18:22, Rom. 1:24–32, and 1 Cor. 6:9–10, as well as the Genesis narratives (18:20–21; 19:4–7), are cited as definitive condemnations. For those who read the Bible less literalistically, these passages are set in the wider narrative of God’s → salvation history, which is a history of liberation for those who are oppressed, including gay and lesbian liberation from oppressive systems of gender.
Another arena of debate is Christian → tradition. Early Christian writings of the first and second centuries, such as the Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas, were unequivocally opposed to male → prostitution and pederasty. In the early third century, Clement of Alexandria also condemned homosexuality in his Paedagogus. He condemned homosexuality more generally because it was nonprocreative and therefore unnatural. Because Clement also believed that patriarchal gender roles were natural, he specifically judged lesbians for acting contrary to nature (i.e., acting like men). In nature’s gendered order, according to Clement, men were active and women were passive; therefore, women who took an active role sexually were unnatural. Clement’s near contemporary Tertullian wrote that those who engaged in “all the other frenzies of passions [other than adultery and fornication] … beyond the laws of nature” should be banished “not only from the threshold, but from all the shelter of the Church, because they are not sins, but monstrosities” (De pud. 4).
Some scholars, however, note that in the early church homosexuality was not a primary category for distinguishing acceptable sex from unacceptable; the primary distinction, rather, related to procreation. Homosexuality was a derivative category of nonreproductive sexual activity. Nonetheless, by the 12th century, homosexuality was closely associated with → heresy. In the late medieval and early modern eras, the church played an active role in the persecution of homosexuality. Until quite recently, there has been little change in the church’s condemnation and persecution of homosexuality.
By the late 20th century churches had adopted various positions on homosexuality. Especially since the early 1970s, many churches, at least in the United States and Canada, have conducted studies, held debates, and voted on position statements. These statements address issues such as Scripture and traditional Christian teaching, civil and human rights for gays and lesbians, as well as the ordination of gays and lesbians. The United Church of Canada, for example, has said that all persons, “regardless of sexual orientation,” can be received as members and be considered as candidates for ordained ministry. Gay or lesbian persons can be ordained in congregations of the United Church of Christ (U.S.A.), but the national church cannot impose this policy on its congregations.
Most Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches have declared that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, and they therefore argue that ordination of noncelibate gays and lesbians is impossible; some of these churches have, however, affirmed gays and lesbians as persons of sacred worth. An analogous distinction between the person and the behavior, or orientation and → lifestyle, is made in recent statements by the → Roman Catholic Church. While these statements reiterate the teaching that homosexual activity or a homosexual lifestyle is sinful, there is also recognition that some persons have an orientation that is unchosen, the origin of which remains a mystery. Such persons, viewed from this perspective, are worthy of the → pastoral care of the church. Other churches maintain that homosexuality is a disease or a sort of sexual dysfunction and advocate therapeutic treatment.
The contemporary controversy about homosexuality, at least in the United States and Canada, also focuses on whether clergy may perform same-sex union ceremonies. In the United Methodist Church, for example, clergy who have presided at such “holy unions” have been brought to trial, convicted, and stripped of holy orders.
3. Dialogue

Although churches and other religious bodies have most often chosen to speak about homosexuality abstractly, the actual lives of gays and lesbians have become increasingly visible. This visibility has been occasioned by the formation of gay and lesbian support and advocacy groups in many churches and religious bodies, as well as in secular societies. Such organizations include Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and Jews, as well as Christians of various ecclesial traditions. Most of these groups are independent of, and not formally endorsed or funded by, their respective religious bodies. Groups exist in most North Atlantic countries, as well as in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Greece, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
The lives of gays and lesbians have also become more visible through the theologies being written from the perspectives of gays and lesbians. An early, and by now classic, text is John McNeill’s The Church and the Homosexual. Other theologies include Elizabeth Stuart’s Just Good Friends: Towards a Lesbian and Gay Theology of Relationships and Richard Cleaver’s Know My Name: A Gay Liberation Theology.
The → World Council of Churches has not directly addressed ethical, theological, and ecclesiological issues related to homosexuality. The sixth assembly (Vancouver, 1983) encouraged churches “to examine and study for themselves and with one another the question of homosexuality, with special stress on the pastoral responsibility of the churches everywhere for those who are homosexual.” Most recently, homosexuality was the subject of discussion at the eighth assembly (Harare, 1998). The assembly further called for the council to conduct a study of human sexuality, most especially homosexuality.

Bibliography: D. L. BALCH, ed., Homosexuality, Science, and the “Plain Sense” of Scripture (Grand Rapids, 2000) ∙ J. BOSWELL, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (Chicago, 1980) ∙ A. A. BRASH, Facing Our Differences: The Churches and Their Gay and Lesbian Members (Geneva, 1995) ∙ B. J. BROOTEN, Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (Chicago, 1996) ∙ R. CLEAVER, Know My Name: A Gay Liberation Theology (Louisville, Ky., 1995) ∙ G. D. COMSTOCK, Unrepentant, Self-Affirming, Practicing: Lesbian/Bisexual/Gay People within Organized Religion (New York, 1996) ∙ L. W. COUNTRYMAN, Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the NT and Their Implications for Today (Philadelphia, 1988) ∙ P. GERMOND and S. DE GRUCHY, ed., Aliens in the Household of God: Homosexuality and Christian Faith in South Africa (Cape Town, 1997) ∙ D. F. GREENBERG, The Construction of Homosexuality (Chicago, 1988) ∙ G. HERDT, Same Sex, Different Cultures: Gays and Lesbians across Cultures (New York, 1997) ∙ Homosexuality: Some Elements for an Ecumenical Discussion (= ER 50/1 [1998]) ∙ J. MCNEILL, The Church and the Homosexual (Boston, 1976) ∙ M. NISSINEN, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective (Minneapolis, 1998) ∙ S. M. OLYAN and M. C. NUSSBAUM, eds., Sexual Orientation and Human Rights in American Religious Discourse (Oxford, 1998) ∙ K. RUDY, Sex and the Church: Gender, Homosexuality, and the Transformation of Christian Ethics (Boston, 1997) ∙ R. SCROGGS, The NT and Homosexuality: Contextual Background for Contemporary Debate (Philadelphia, 1983) ∙ C.-L. SEOW, ed., Homosexuality and Christian Community (Louisville, Ky., 1996) ∙ J. S. SIKER, ed., Homosexuality and the Church: Both Sides of the Debate (Louisville, Ky., 1994) ∙ E. STUART, Just Good Friends: Towards a Lesbian and Gay Theology of Relationships (London, 1995) ∙ W. WINK, ed., Homosexuality and Christian Faith: Questions of Conscience for the Churches (Minneapolis, 1999).

MELANIE A. MAY
Honduras

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
1,894
3,569
6,485
Annual growth rate (%):
3.39
3.19
2.49
Area: 112,492 sq. km. (43,433 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 58/sq. km. (149/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 3.00 / 0.51 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 3.72 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 31 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 71.0 years (m: 68.6, f: 73.4)
Religious affiliation (%): Christians 97.2 (Roman Catholics 91.3, Protestants 8.6, indigenous 3.4, marginal 1.5, unaffiliated 1.1, other Christians 0.2), spiritists 1.1, other 1.7.

1. History, Society, Economy, State
2. Churches
3. Ecumenical Relations
4. Church and State
5. Non-Christian Religions
1. History, Society, Economy, State

Honduras, a Central American republic, was first sighted by Columbus in 1502. It shares borders with Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Its coasts touch both the Caribbean Sea, often referred to as its Atlantic coast, and the Pacific Ocean.
From the first millennium A.D. the western part of Honduras was inhabited by the Maya, who built Copán as one of their most impressive cult cities. The site of that city, however, had already decayed by the time the territory of the modern republic of Honduras became part of the Spanish Captaincy General of Guatemala in 1538. As part of the United Provinces of Central America, Honduras gained independence from Spain in 1821. In 1838, after the dissolution of that federation, the country became politically independent.
The population of Honduras, which reached its pre-Spanish level of 1.2 million only in 1945, shows much Indian influence among its mestizos. Honduras became the prototype of a so-called banana republic, as three banana companies dominated virtually the whole Atlantic coast up to World War I. Those companies had decisive influence on the country, a role consolidated by the political and military actions of the United States. Economic independence was achieved in Honduras after the depression of the 1930s, and at the end of the 20th century only the United Fruit Companies remained in a position of influence.
The fall in the prices of coffee, cotton, and sugar after 1980 brought economic crisis. → Industrialization in accord with capitalist ideology, the importation of → technology, and attendant socioeconomic → development together served only to increase geographic imbalance, with undue concentration on Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. Monopolization and domination by foreign capital resulted. After the United States withdrew its support from the ruling conservative forces in 1980, the Liberal Party took power in 1982, signaling the end of the de facto military dictatorship. Until the end of the Contra war, however, the Liberals’ range of activity remained severely restricted because of both the massive U.S. military presence and the country’s enormous dependence on American economic aid. With the end of the Contra war, however, Honduras lost its geopolitical significance for the United States, and the country thus lost America’s financial aid. In consequence of these developments, Honduras became marked by economic stagnation, a high crime rate, bombings and assassinations, and increasing corruption in public life.
In 1997 over 70 percent of Hondurans lived below the → poverty line. Although almost 60 percent of the population work in agriculture, a 1992 law of agricultural modernization has increasingly curtailed people’s access to credit. Although 125,000 families are waiting for land grants, citizens have been forbidden to use the forests for hunting or gathering, since they have been sold to firms engaged in the export of tropical wood. Even though the production of basic foods (e.g., corn and black beans) has decreased since 1992, the state has encouraged the export of foodstuffs as a means of acquiring foreign currency. The Ministry of Health estimates that 80 percent of all Hondurans exhibit symptoms of malnourishment. Roman Catholic leaders have repeatedly criticized the government of Honduras, next to Haiti the poorest country in the Americas, for engaging in excessive economic repression at the expense of the poor as well as for diverting, in accord with neoliberal ideology, almost half of the country’s export income to external debt payment.
In order to implement comprehensive changes in the structure of the national police and to remove the police from the control of the military, Parliament in 1997 named Archbishop Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga to oversee a board for police reform. In this position the archbishop also has responsibility for the investigation of 184 instances of the suspicious disappearances of persons, dating from the 1980s.
In January 1998, in the fifth national election since the ending of the military dictatorship in 1982, Carlos Flores of the ruling Liberal Party, and one of the wealthiest persons in Honduras, was elected president of the country. The → Roman Catholic Church decried the election campaign as a “dialogue of deaf-mutes,” since none of the five candidates for the presidency discussed the country’s economic problems or the impoverishment of the country’s inhabitants. The devastating effects of Hurricane Mitch in October 1998 only exacerbated an already desperate situation, causing the socioeconomic development of Honduras to become completely uncertain.
2. Churches

In 1531 the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honduras was established, first based in the Caribbean port of Trujillo and then, from 1539, in Valladolid in the Comayagua Valley. Spanish → Franciscans began intensive missionary work in 1550.
Most of the people of Honduras belong to the Roman Catholic Church, which itself forms a province with an archbishopric and six bishoprics (1996). Its main organs are the Bishops’ Conference (nine bishops), a National Pastoral Commission, a Council of Parish Churches, and a Council of Members of Orders (→ Latin American Council of Bishops). There are 327 priests, only a small minority of whom are nationals. In light of this shortage of ordained clergy, the work of ten apostolic → lay movements is extremely important, not least in the leadership of Services of the Word, in which some 10,000 persons are involved. The church is at work in evangelization, → catechizing, → liturgy, and → pastoral care.
Most Protestant → missionary work did not begin in Honduras until the late 19th century. By 1859 → Anglicans were working on the Bay Islands off the northern coast, at that time under English control. By 1891 the Seventh-day → Adventists had established work, and in July 1896 the Central American Mission became the first Protestant group to initiate organized missionary activity on the mainland. The → Plymouth Brethren established work in San Pedro Sula in 1898, and by 1911 the → Friends were at work in the country. The first denominational mission in Honduras was the Evangelical Synod of North America, which arrived in 1921; the Evangelical and Reformed Church of Honduras emerged from this work. In 1931 the → Moravians began work among the Miskito Indians, and in 1937 the first missionaries from the → Assemblies of God entered Honduras from nearby El Salvador.
No fewer than 110 Protestant denominations are now active in Honduras. Rapid growth came to these groups in the 1960s, with increases averaging four times greater per year than that of the population at large. Groups with a large membership are the → Baptists (which began their efforts in 1954), Seventh-day Adventists (1887), the Central American Mission, Evangelical Church of the Brethren (1930), and the Assemblies of God (1937). Pentecostal church growth—which includes the Assemblies of God, the Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.), the Foursquare Gospel Church, the Church of God of Prophecy, and several Pentecostal groups indigenous to Mesoamerica, as well as many independent charismatic churches—has accelerated so rapidly since the 1950s that this movement now constitutes the largest sector of Honduran Protestantism.
Protestants engage primarily in → evangelism and church establishment. Mass evangelism campaigns as well as radio and television ministries and the translation and distribution of the Bible contribute to this thrust. Leaders receive biblical and theological instruction through institutions that employ a variety of delivery systems. Protestants also engage in extensive cultural and educational work, including the operation of schools and → literacy programs.
In addition, small communities of Orthodox believers are present in Honduras, the result of immigration from Middle Eastern nations.
3. Ecumenical Relations

Relationships between Roman Catholics and Protestants are marked by tension as a result of doctrinal differences and vigorous evangelistic efforts by Protestants among nominal Roman Catholics. Also, many Protestants have supported government repression of Roman Catholics working in organizations to support the poorest classes, in the belief that these organizations were pursuing a → Marxist agenda.
In Honduras, Protestant ecumenism is relatively weak, mainly because most Protestant churches and movements are very conservative theologically, and many are not only independent in spirit but ecclesiologically separatistic. Yet there are some common efforts, notably the Evangelical Committee for Development and National Emergency (comprising 30 groups and organizations), the Commission for Development and National Emergency (9 local organizations and churches with a readiness for cooperation and coordination with Roman Catholic parishes), and the National Alliance of Evangelical Pastors. Other organizations that cross denominational lines include World Relief, the Alliance of Evangelical Institutions, the Christian Fraternity of Businessmen, and some regional clergy associations.
4. Church and State

Relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the state began to deteriorate in the 1980s because of an increasing alienation of the church from the overall social system (→ Church and State). For reasons the church attributed to institutionalized injustice, the system became less and less able to deal with the national social, political, and economic crisis.
Protestant churches enjoy good relations with the state, in spite of a constitutional separation between the two. Most of the Protestant denominations and organizations are politically conservative and are uncritically obedient in principle to the establishment, which makes them easy for the state to favor.
5. Non-Christian Religions

Christianity, even though often nominal, is part of the cultural identity of Honduras. Non-Christian religions that include Christian elements are therefore more important than those that do not. Honduras includes pseudo-Christian groups (e.g., → Jehovah’s Witnesses, → Mormons), Gnostic groups (e.g., Universal Movement of Christian Gnostics), Afro-American animists (marked by a surprising → syncretism between the blacks of the Caribbean and those of the Honduran Atlantic coast; → Afro-American Cults), indigenous → animists in the isolated communities of Paya, Sumo, and Jicaque; and other, smaller religious groups (e.g., → Judaism and → Baha’i).

Bibliography: C. ALVAREZ, People of Hope: The Protestant Movement in Central America (New York, 1990) ∙ G. BLANCO and J. VALVERDE, Honduras. Iglesia y cambio social (San José, C.R., 1990) ∙ K. BRAUNGART, Heiliger Geist und politische Herrschaft bei den Neo-Pfingstlern in Honduras (Frankfurt, 1995) ∙ M. CARIAS, La Iglesia Católica en Honduras, 1492–1975 (Tegucigalpa, 1991) ∙ D. A. EURAQUE, Reinterpreting the Banana Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870–1972 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1996) ∙ H. K. MEYER and J. H. MEYER, Historical Dictionary of Honduras (Metuchen, N.J., 1994) ∙ J. A. MORRIS, Honduras: Caudillo Politics and Military Rulers (Boulder, Colo., 1984) ∙ D. E. SCHULZ, The United States, Honduras, and the Crisis in Central America (Boulder, Colo., 1994) ∙ R. SIERRA FONSECA, Fuentes y bibliografía para el estudio de la historia de la iglesia de Honduras (Choluteca, 1993).

HANS-JÜRGEN PRIEN, EDWIN AGUILUZ, and KENNETH MULHOLLAND

Hong Kong and Macao

1. Hong Kong
2. Macao
1. Hong Kong

Hong Kong, an enclave of southeastern China now comprising over 200 islands plus part of the Chinese mainland, was occupied by the British in 1839 and ceded to them in 1842 by the Treaty of Nanking. Boasting one of the world’s busiest ports, Hong Kong became an important commercial and financial center. By terms of a joint declaration between China and Great Britain in 1984, Hong Kong reverted to the People’s Republic of China on July 1, 1997, when it became a special administrative region of China. It occupies an area of 1,075 sq. km. (415 sq. mi.). In 1999 its estimated population was 6.85 million, 95 percent of whom were ethnic Chinese. At least 10 percent of the people are Christian.
Following World War II the population of Hong Kong expanded quickly because of the → revolution and civil war in China. Cheap labor and foreign investment soon brought strong industrial development to Hong Kong, and it became one of the most productive areas in the Far East. While many industrial enterprises have been transferred to other parts of China, the service sector has gained increased importance. Although Hong Kong overall is affluent, there continue to be sharp social and economic contrasts within the population.
Various church groups and organizations engage in social ministry. The Industrial Committee of the Hong Kong Christian Council, the Hong Kong Christian Institute, and other Christian initiatives attempt to meet the challenges underlying a highly divergent society. Besides medical work, the churches carry on comprehensive educational programs, an effort that relies heavily on government grants. In Hong Kong 16 theological seminaries and Bible schools provide theological training not only for Hong Kong but also for other areas of Asia.
The → Roman Catholic population is gathered in the Diocese of Hong Kong, established in 1946. There is a wide range of Protestant → denominations, including → Anglican, → Methodist churches, the Church of Christ in China, → Baptists, → Christian and Missionary Alliance, Presbyterians (→ Reformed and Presbyterian Churches), and → Lutherans. Anglo-Saxon and continental European missionary activity, which started in 1842 (→ British Missions; German Missions), played an important and influential role in the development of this Christian community. When → missionaries were forced to leave mainland China in 1949, many mission groups and organizations settled in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong Chinese Christian Churches Union includes over 225 congregations. With so many different church groups and denominations, the Hong Kong Christian Council, founded in 1954, has a challenging ecumenical task. In the Roman Catholic community, there are many congregations, social service agencies, schools, and orders of clergy and laity.
The Tao Fong Shan Ecumenical Centre and the Christian Study Centre on Chinese Religion and Culture (founded in 1957, and having become an institute within the Chinese University of Hong Kong) help the churches to interpret the intellectual, social, and religious context in which the tradition of China (→ Buddhism, → Confucianism, → Taoism, and other traditional Chinese religions) converges with Western → secularism and the emerging ideological challenges of the People’s Republic of China.
The transition to Chinese rule, under the principle of “one country, two systems,” was smooth and has had little impact on public life, although there have been currents objecting to perceived infringements on democratic proceedings. With the reversion of Hong Kong to China, churches are being required to rethink their discipleship, witness, mission, and ministry, including the fundamental question of their role in a country that now has brought together two different political systems.
2. Macao

Macao, also an enclave of southeastern China, situated roughly 65 km. (40 mi.) west of Hong Kong, consists of a peninsula and two small islands in the Pearl River delta. It was founded in 1557 as a Portuguese trading colony. By the terms of a 1987 agreement, Portugal returned Macao to the People’s Republic of China on December 20, 1999, under terms similar to those in Hong Kong. Its area of 18 sq. km. (7 sq. mi.) is home to 435,000 people (1999 est.). Ethnically, 95 percent of the people are Chinese and 3 percent Portuguese.
In its early days, Macao was a center of Christian → mission in East Asia. After the founding of Hong Kong in 1842, this small colony lost its importance. The majority of Christians in Macao are Roman Catholic (est. 65,000 persons). The much smaller Protestant community (ca. 1,500 persons) is linked very closely with the church bodies and congregations in Hong Kong.

Bibliography: D. H. BAYS, Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Stanford, Calif., 1996) ∙ G. T. BROWN, Christianity in the People’s Republic of China (Atlanta, 1986) ∙ C. L. CHIOU and L. H. LIEW, eds., Uncertain Future: Taiwan-Hong Kong-China Relations after Hong Kong’s Return to Chinese Sovereignty (Aldershot, 2000) ∙ Y. P. GHAI, Hong Kong’s New Constitutional Order: The Resumption of Chinese Sovereignty and the Basic Law (2d ed.; Hong Kong, 1999) ∙ T. LAMBERT, The Resurrection of the Chinese Church (London, 1991) ∙ P.-K. LI, Hong Kong from Britain to China: Political Cleavages, Electoral Dynamics, and Institutional Changes (Aldershot, 2000) ∙ J. MCGIVERING, Macao Remembers (New York, 1999) ∙ S. SHIPP, Macau, China: A Political History of the Portuguese Colony’s Transition to Chinese Rule (Jefferson, N.C., 1997) ∙ C. T. SMITH, Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1985) ∙ A. Y. SO, Hong Kong’s Embattled Democracy: A Societal Analysis (Baltimore, 1999) ∙ J. SPENCE, The Search for Modern China (New York, 1996).

WINFRIED GLÜER and THOMAS F. SCHAEFFER
Hope

1. The Bible
1.1. Usage
1.2. OT
1.3. NT
2. Theology and Ethics
2.1. The Phenomenon
2.2. Development of the Christian Doctrine
2.3. Determinants of the Christian View
3. Present-Day Discussion
1. The Bible
1.1. Usage

The biblical vocabulary of hope includes also important terms that are rendered “expect,” “wait,” “trust,” and “rely.”
1.2. OT

Eccl. 9:4 states a general truth in saying that “whoever is joined with all the living has hope.” What is hoped for is something positive (e.g., marriage and children, Ruth 1:9, 12). Hope can be disappointed, such as that of the owner of the vineyard in Isa. 5:2, 4, 7. Those who suffer can be without hope or have only a distant object of hope (Job 6:19–20); they can complain to God, who has “uprooted” their hope (Job 19:10). Hope reaches only up to → death and not beyond. → Suffering may be so severe that only death is hoped for (Job 6:8). For the righteous, loss of hope means ungodliness (Job 8:20; 11:13–20). → Israel (§1) as a whole may also lose hope or have its hope destroyed (Ezek. 37:11).
In the OT hope is not set on people but on → salvation, deliverance, light, an end of distress, and so forth. It must not be set on riches (Ps. 52:7; Job 31:24), one’s own → righteousness (Ezek. 33:13), other people (Jer. 17:5), human thoughts (Ps. 94:11; 33:10; Isa. 19:3), religious centers like the → temple (Jer. 7:4) or Bethel (Jer. 48:13), idols (Hab. 2:18), or power and alliances (Hos. 10:13; Isa. 31:1)—indeed, on anything that one might think to count on or control. Rather, hope is to be set on → Yahweh and his free → grace, which is not at our disposal but which will never disappoint us, since it is rooted in his → covenant (§1) faithfulness (Hos. 12:6; Jer. 31:17; Ps. 40:1). This hope is God’s gift (Ps. 62:5; Jer. 29:11). Believers obediently bow to his rule (Ps. 33:18; 147:11) without allowing anxiety (Isa. 7:4; 12:2).
This kind of hope in God is new in Israel and typifies its relation to God. No worshipers in Babylon ever called one of their gods “my hope.” Hope in Yahweh and waiting upon him are rooted in the confession of trust in Yahweh as we find it especially in the Psalms. In prayer believers can say that they hope in the word of Yahweh (Ps. 130:5) or his arm (Isa. 51:5) or his salvation (Mic. 7:7). In place of something that is hoped for stands the one from whom it is hoped. Yahweh is he whose very being is help and salvation. He is thus hope for Israel.
The goal of hope is Yahweh’s kingdom, his reign on the new earth, the conversion of Israel and the peoples, the new covenant (Isa. 25:9; 49:6; 65:17–25; Jer. 31:31–34; Hos. 3:5). “Those who wait for the Lord” (Ps. 31:24; 37:9, etc.) characterizes the righteous. We find a new turn in Isa. 42:4: “The coastlands wait for his teaching,” that is, the → Gentiles wait for his salvation. The confession of confidence becomes an address to the self (Ps. 42:5; 43:5). Complaint can end with a confession of trust and a call to the community to hope (Ps. 27:13–14). Believers move on from → prayer to admonition and devout wisdom.
1.3. NT

In the NT hope is theologically important, especially in the Epistles. It is motivated by its object, for which it waits, leading to patience and endurance. For → Paul, → Abraham is a model of hope. When, humanly speaking, Abraham had nothing to hope for, he still hoped. This response showed his → faith, for he put his trust in God alone (Rom. 4:18).
NT faith is essentially hope. Especially for Paul triadic formulas are important: faith, hope, and → love (1 Cor. 13:13; 1 Thess. 5:8; linked to work, labor, and steadfastness in 1 Thess. 1:3). The Christian life is described in terms of the faith and love of those who hope for the eschatological consummation (1 Thess. 3:6; Gal. 5:5–6). A mark of love is that it hopes all things (1 Cor. 13:7). In distinction from Christians, pagans have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13; Eph. 2:12). Faith and hope belong together (Rom. 6:8; 8:38–39). Hope rests on the act of God in the → resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor. 15:20–23). Not based on anything human, earthly, or calculable, it reaches beyond death and has a universal goal (1 Cor. 15:28). The hope of Christians is that of every creature (Rom. 8:22–25): deliverance, righteousness, resurrection, eternal life, and the vision of God. It is personalized, for Christ himself is our hope (1 Cor. 15:19; Col. 1:27; 3:1–4; 1 Tim. 1:1).
Christians hope in the future of him who came and who is now exalted (Phil. 2:9; Eph. 1:22; 1 Thess. 1:3, 10). They live in the tension of the Now and the Then (Rom. 8:23–24; 1 John 3:2). Like faith, hope is a gift of the Father in heaven (2 Thess. 2:16), of the one who is the God of hope (Rom. 15:13). Being a Christian means being born again to a living hope (1 Pet. 1:3). This hope is that of being saved in the judgment (1 Thess. 5:9), of experiencing sonship and the redemption of the body (Rom. 8:23), righteousness (Gal. 5:5), and life with Christ (1 Thess. 5:10). Hope is bound up with reception of the → gospel and entrance into the → church (Eph. 1:18; 4:4).
The work of the → apostle is governed by hope (2 Cor. 1:10; 3:11–12; Titus 1:2), and Christians themselves are his hope (1 Thess. 2:19). In Acts hope also has a place in apologetics, for Paul is brought to judgment for his hope of the resurrection (Acts 23:6; 28:20). Hope of the resurrection is a motive for a devout life (Acts 24:15–16). The resurrection is the hope of Israel (Acts 24:15; 26:7; 28:20).
According to Heb. 11:1, faith is “the assurance of things hoped for,” and the community endures as it holds fast its confidence in hope, which assures access to God (3:6; 7:18–19). Hope is the anchor of the soul (6:19). It derives from Christ’s appointment as → high priest (10:23). In 1 Peter hope is central (1:3–9; 3:5, 15): we are born again to a living hope based on Christ’s resurrection. Faith in Christ, who was raised from the dead, becomes hope.
→ Eschatology; Kingdom of God; Promise and Fulfillment; Soteriology

Bibliography: J. BARR, The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality (London, 1992) ∙ G. R. BEASLEY-MURRAY, Jesus and the Last Days (Peabody, Mass., 1993) ∙ A. E. BERNSTEIN, The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds (London, 1993) ∙ R. BULTMANN and K. H. RENGSTORF, “Ελπίς ̓κτλ,” TDNT 2.517–35 ∙ N. COHN, Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic (New Haven, 1993) ∙ W. J. DUMBRELL, The Search for Order: Biblical Eschatology in Focus (Grand Rapids, 1994) ∙ W. C. KAISER, The Messiah in the OT (Grand Rapids, 1995) ∙ F. LANG, Die Briefe an die Korinther (Göttingen, 1986) ∙ B. MAYER, “Ελπίς ̓κτλ,” EDNT 1.437–41 ∙ G. VON NEBE and J. GÖTZMANN, “Hoffnung / Furcht / Sorge,” TBLNT 1.993–1015 ∙ G. J. RILEY, Resurrection Reconsidered: Thomas and John in Controversy (Minneapolis, 1995).

HANS BIETENHARD
2. Theology and Ethics
2.1. The Phenomenon

Hope is a feature of the emotional life. It is rooted in the sense of time, which gives us an awareness of change. We can imagine future events and relate to them. This relation to future events affects the present, for it presupposes a view of reality and of existence in the future. The NT witness shows that being a Christian includes hope (see 1.3). The task of a dogmatic and ethical theology of hope is to reflect on the relation between → faith and hope and therewith on the relation between what is hoped for and the → act of hope. It must seek to conceptualize and categorize these relations.
2.2. Development of the Christian Doctrine

2.2.1. After early beginnings in Augustine (354–430), we find a thorough discussion of the concept of Christian hope first in → Scholasticism, especially in Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–74; → Thomism). Thomas set Christian hope within the Aristotelian theory of the emotions (→ Aristotelianism). Hope is an emotional orientation to a future good that is hard to obtain but that may be reached under certain conditions (Summa theol. I of II, q. 40, art. 1). Thomas modified this general view, however, by relating hope to eternal life in fellowship with God (the beatific vision as the final goal of creaturely life) and by linking the attainability of this good, in line with the doctrine of → grace, to the help given by God’s power and goodness (ibid. II of II, q. 17, art. 2). Hope is thus the emotional side of the certainty of faith, and like faith, it is a theological and supernatural → virtue that derives from God’s gracious action. The orientation of hope to the reality of God is the ground of Thomas’s criticism of the speculative theology of history advanced by Joachim of Fiore (ca. 1135–1202; → Theology of History).
2.2.2. Reformation theology protested against the philosophical framework of this teaching regarding hope and also against the dominant role that the idea of merit played in it. In its strict doctrine of → sin and the forensic implication of its concept of → justification, hope was an essential element of the relation to God governed by trust. The object of hope is the → righteousness of humankind before God. This gift is promised in the → gospel of Jesus Christ and grasped in faith, but it is deeply hidden by the assaults of sin, the → law, and → death (→ Temptation). In the precise formula of M. Luther (1483–1546), Christian hope is “purest hope in the purest God” (WA 5.166.18). The point is that the hope that is of the essence of faith is confidence relative to God’s work (→ Luther’s Theology). This eschatological orientation of the Christian life, precisely in its expectation of the imminent end of the world, meant decided rejection of → apocalyptic and chiliastic (→ Millenarianism) transformations of Christian hope.

2.2.3

From the beginning of the → modern period complex intellectual and social changes brought a far-reaching shift in the objects of possible hope. The → philosophy of history that arose with G. B. Vico (1668–1744) and Voltaire (1694–1778), using models from the theology of history, developed the idea of a fulfillment of history within history, all prior historical periods being considered prehistory (R. Koselleck). Within this concept hope thus assumes the character of a → utopian consciousness, its certainty being based on the postulates of historical or evolutionary regularity (→ Evolution).
F. D. E. Schleiermacher (1768–1834) did not make Christian hope a special theme, but in his doctrine of the perfecting of the → church, he carefully expounded the object of individual and collective hope. He also gave an eschatological orientation to his teaching on → prayer (→ Schleiermacher’s Theology). He initiated attempts to reconcile hope in God’s eschatological future with creative historical action.
The mediating trends in neo-Protestantism were opposed by → dialectical theology, which defined the Christian life exclusively as life in hope. K. Barth (1886–1968) moved beyond this criticism with his doctrine of the glorifying of here-and-now existence (CD III/2, §47.5). The various attempts at → political theology also try to formulate theologically a tenable reconciling of human historical action with God’s redemptive action.
2.3. Determinants of the Christian View

Dealing with hope is an urgent task today both internally in worldwide Christianity and externally in general → culture. We must avoid both the apocalyptic visions of → fundamentalism and the determinism of historical → materialism. The assurance of hope must be described in such a way that its practical value is clear and also its difference from prognostic guesses, illusory wishes (→ Illusion), or a “principle of hope” (E. Bloch) with no clear certainty. As Christian hope is conceivable only in a nondeterministic view of reality, its emotional power is significant for action only under contingent conditions.
According to Christian teaching, the object of hope is the fulfillment of the newness of → life in which → baptism into the death of Christ places us (cf. Rom. 6:3–5 with 8:17–25). Its object, then, is the completion of what begins in encounter with the word of the gospel through the Holy Spirit but that stands in need of a constant renewal and preservation of → faith and → love. The statements that express this object of hope are grounded in the life with Christ (see Gal. 2:20). The life that is lived in faith and love is referred to hope, not only because sin is still a determinative factor right up to death, but also because God’s action is deeply hidden under the sufferings of time. By its origin, then, the hope of the church in the world is always hope for the world. Statements about hope can be credible only if it is possible for God to create conditions for participation in his eternal life beyond the space-time experiences of today. Christian hope is thus an implication of the doctrine of → God, but the eschatological perspective of Christianity also has ontological ramifications.
The assurance of hope is ethically significant, but not because the object of hope might involve practical, normative knowledge. Hope is objectified if the unconditionality of the imperative or the end that is constitutive for action is declared to be its object. In terms of a theory of → action, hope has to do neither with the genesis of moral insight nor with its voluntary affirmation. It relates instead to the realizing of ends under natural and interpersonal conditions. The assurance of hope becomes important in the crisis of expectations (see Rom. 4:18). It can overcome the resignation and despair that come when our own acts encounter superior opposition or when the test of → conscience shows them to be defective or a failure. It gives us the power to persevere. A test of the viability of a church doctrine of hope is whether we can quietly hope in God even in the existentially worst situations of incurable → suffering or dying. This hope is exercised in prayer.
In the present theological situation it may be doubted whether we can deal with hope in the purely objective language of religion. Theology, rather, has the duty of expounding rationally the relation between the object of hope and the assurance of hope and thus making possible a → hermeneutics of eschatological statements. The term of reference of such an exposition cannot be an arbitrarily chosen theory that contradicts the elementary content of a description of Christian existence. A theory is demanded that does justice to our creaturely being-in-the-world. Such a theory might be sketched on the ground of a material concept of → freedom. Freedom is the condition in which it is possible to engage individually in theoretical and practical action. As such, it is given by God, the ground of freedom, but in the situation of unbelief it is perverted into lying and wickedness. Christian hope can be effective as the power of endurance because it is not oriented to what is beyond our being-in-the world. It is longing for fellowship with the basis of freedom, in which the conflicts that we now experience and suffer between truth and falsehood, good and evil, life and death, will be transcended and overcome.
→ Eschatology; Ethics; Future; Immanence and Transcendence; Progress; Resurrection; Salvation; Salvation History

Bibliography: R. ALVES, A Theology of Human Hope (Washington, D.C., 1969) ∙ P. BADHAM, Christian Beliefs about Life after Death (London, 1981) ∙ K. BARTH, CD III/2, §47; IV/3, §73 ∙ E. BLOCH, The Principle of Hope (Cambridge, Mass., 1995; orig. pub., 1954) ∙ S. T. DAVIS, ed., Death and Afterlife (London, 1989) ∙ G. FLOROVSKY, “The ‘Immortality’ of the Soul,” Collected Works (vol. 3; Belmont, Mass., 1976) 213–40 ∙ A. A. HOEKEMA, The Bible and the Future (Grand Rapids, 1979) ∙ G. MARCEL, Philosophie der Hoffnung (Munich, 1957) ∙ J. MOLTMANN, Theology of Hope (Minneapolis, 1993) ∙ W. PANNENBERG, Theology and the Kingdom of God (Philadelphia, 1969) ∙ F. D. E. SCHLEIERMACHER, The Christian Faith (2 vols.; New York, 1963; orig. pub., 1821–22) ∙ K. STOCK, “Hoffnung als Dimension der Freiheit,” Gottes Zukunft-Zukunft der Welt (Munich, 1986) 14–22 ∙ T. P. WEBER, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism, 1875–1982 (Chicago, 1987) ∙ B. WITHERINGTON III, Jesus, Paul, and the End of the World: A Comparative Study in NT Eschatology (Downers Grove, Ill., 1992).

KONRAD STOCK
3. Present-Day Discussion

During the 1960s the theme of hope assumed great importance. This prominence was due in part to the growing relevance of the idea of the future in a situation of increased tension between the threat to humanity and the possibility of its development, but also in part to the intellectual tendency to view humanity in its temporality in terms of the future, or of the “principle of hope” (E. Bloch). Thus → ecumenical theology (enriched by the rediscovery of biblical → eschatology) became a “theology of hope” (P. Teilhard de Chardin, J. Moltmann, J. B. Metz; → Liberation Theology).
The Second Assembly of the → World Council of Churches, in Evanston (1954), took as its overriding theme “Jesus Christ, the Hope of the World,” and the fourth assembly, in Uppsala (1968), focused on the theme “See, I Am Making All Things New” (Rev. 21:5). This ecumenical focus on hope reflected the feeling of new beginnings regnant in both the industrial world and, to a certain extent, also in developing countries at that time. The 1970s and 1980s, however, were marked by a noticeable change. Too many efforts at renewal in all “three worlds” had failed, thus eroding confidence in any universal principle of hope. Still, the biblical theme of hope was not abandoned, and especially the ecumenical commission on → Faith and Order worked intensively between 1971 and 1978 on rendering an account of hope that was both biblically grounded and oriented toward contemporary life.
A theology of hope does justice to the biblical basis only when it bears comprehensive witness to the theme. In this regard three dimensions must be kept in mind. The first is the political dimension. We need to recognize and activate this dimension in view of the strong tendency to make hope private and spiritual. The central concepts and motifs of biblical hope are (in an elementary sense) political concepts: the kingdom and the city of God (→ Kingdom of God). Eschatological hope is never a matter of human politics. It is God-oriented, but still it reflects the politics of God. The divine promises relate to political relations. None of our cities will be the New Jerusalem. Hope for the New Jerusalem, however, affects us in our earthly cities. Hope that would ignore political relations is shortsighted and truncated.
Second, there is a personal dimension. Christian hope is also truncated if it undervalues the personal element. It has in view the kingdom and city, but not in the sense of anonymous collectives. It concerns unique people with their own names, their personal present and future in life and in death. Augustine, the Schoolmen, the Pietists, and the existentialists were all right to link hope to the personal concerns of the human soul and human life. No human tears (Rev. 21:4) or human dreams are insignificant on this view.
Finally, there is the theological dimension. Christian hope is inseparably bound up with a name: God. Here is its beginning, even historically. The entrance of biblical hope into history is related to the Easter-event. The NT knows no other basis, and this accent is still relevant today. If God is erased, the only carrier of hope is the cosmic process or human achievement. Experience and the modern situation teach us not to rest our final hope in either of these. Biblical hope frees us from any transfiguring of the human world or ideology of achievement. Confessing God, it gives us → freedom over against the world, not as beati possidentes, those who have “already reached the goal” (Phil. 3:12), but as those who in solidarity with the world seek to practice hope in the world and for it.
→ Immanence and Transcendence; Political Theology; Salvation History

Bibliography: K. BARTH, CD IV/3, §73 ∙ J. BOWKER, The Meanings of Death (Cambridge, 1991) ∙ M. BULL, ed., Apocalypse Theory and the Ends of the World (Oxford, 1995) ∙ C. W. BYNUM, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity (New York, 1995) ∙ D. COHN-SHERBOK and C. LEWIS, eds., Beyond Death: Theological and Philosophical Reflections on Life After Death (London, 1995) ∙ W. CROCKETT, ed., Four Views on Hell (Grand Rapids, 1992) ∙ F. M. KAMM, Morality, Mortality, vol. 1, Death and Whom to Save from It (New York, 1993) ∙ H. KÜNG and W. JENS, A Dignified Dying (London, 1995) ∙ A. L. LESTER, Hope in Pastoral Care and Counselling (Louisville, Ky., 1995) ∙ J. M. LOCHMAN, Christ and Prometheus? A Quest for Theological Identity (Geneva, 1988) ∙ J. MACQUARRIE, Christian Hope (London, 1978) ∙ P. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, The Phenomenon of Man (New York, 1959) ∙ F. J. TIPLER, The Physics of Immortality (New York, 1994) ∙ W. A. VISSER’T HOOFT, The Evanston Report: The Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches, 1954 (New York, 1955) ∙ WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES, Sharing in One Hope: Reports and Documents from the Meeting of the Faith and Order Commission … Bangalore, 15–30 August, 1978 (Geneva, 1979).

JAN MILIČ LOCHMAN
Hosea, Book of

1. Hosea was the only native writing prophet of the northern kingdom. He was active between 755/50 and 725 B.C., a period that saw the last years of peace for → Israel (§1) under Jeroboam II, the so-called Syro-Ephraimite war of 733, and the successive dismantling of the northern kingdom by the Assyrian king Shalmaneser V. The defeat of Samaria and deportation of Israel by the Assyrians are not yet reflected in the book. Hosea worked in Samaria but probably also in Bethel and Gilgal. He differs from Amos in that his message contains less social complaint and more criticism of the cult.

2. The book is made up of three complexes. Chaps. 4–11 contain sayings of Hosea, probably composed by disciples, that are well thought out and well arranged, both chronologically and substantively. The lack of insertions or framework formulas shows that the aim was to present the original sayings as a literary and material unity that would embody Hosea’s total message (J. Jeremias). In chaps. 12–14 we have another complex of Hosea’s late sayings relating especially to Israel’s historical guilt. Chaps. 1–3 contain traditions about Hosea’s marriage. After the collapse of the northern kingdom in 722, the Hosea traditions came to Judah and underwent some revision as they were applied to the Judean situation.

3. Hosea’s message goes to the root of Israel’s → faith and → worship and shows it to be perverted. Israel has responded to God’s loving attention and gifts of salvation, not with commitment, but with → apostasy. It has fallen away to the fertility gods of Canaan, equating Yahweh with Baal. It has violated both the first and the second commandments and has adopted wrong policies that are detached from God. The → priests and → monarchy come under special criticism. God’s reaction to apostasy is judgment. He withdraws his favor and hands over the land and its products to destruction.
Hosea, however, also expects salvation on the basis of God’s mercy. From the zero point of judgment God will begin a new history with his people, lead them back from the wilderness to the land, and establish a state of unbroken fellowship.

4. There has been debate about Hosea’s → marriage. Various materials come together in chaps. 1–3, where third-person (chap. 1) and first-person (chap. 3) narratives frame a sequence of sayings (chap. 2). The stress in chap. 1 is on the ominous names of Hosea’s children, in chap. 3 on dealings with his unfaithful wife. What happens symbolizes Yahweh’s relation to Israel and the people’s destiny.
Hardly in keeping with this intention is the view that Hosea’s wife was a normal Israelite woman who had submitted (as was common) to Canaanite rites of initiation (H. W. Wolff). Chap. 3 points to adultery rather than temple prostitution. Another view is that the condemnation of Hosea’s wife in chap. 1 is redactional (W. Rudolph). Hosea at any rate vividly describes the broken relation between Israel and Yahweh in terms of marriage—a daring comparison inasmuch as it derives from the myth of divine marriage.
Hosea’s message found followers in the Deuteronomic movement and in Jeremiah.
→ Prophet, Prophecy

Bibliography: Commentaries: F. I. ANDERSEN and D. N. FREEDMAN (AB; Garden City, N.Y., 1980) ∙ D. A. GARRETT (NAC; Nashville, 1998) ∙ J. JEREMIAS (ATD; Göttingen, 1983) ∙ A. A. MACINTOSH (ICC; Edinburgh, 1997) ∙ W. RUDOLPH (KAT; Gütersloh, 1966) ∙ D. STUART (WBC; Dallas, 1987) ∙ H. W. WOLFF (BKAT; 3d ed.; Neukirchen, 1976).
Other works: D. R. DANIELS, Hosea and Salvation History (Berlin, 1990) ∙ G. I. EMMERSON, Hosea: An Israelite Prophet in Judean Perspective (Sheffield, 1984) ∙ J. JEREMIAS, “Hosea / Hoseabuch,” TRE 15.586–98 (bibliography) ∙ C. L. SEOW, “Hosea, Book of,” ABD 3.291–97 (bibliography) ∙ H. UTZSCHNEIDER, Hosea. Prophet vor dem Ende (Fribourg, 1980) ∙ G. A. YEE, Composition and Tradition in the Book of Hosea (Atlanta, 1987).

WINFRIED THIEL
Hours, Canonical

1. Term
2. Elements
3. History
1. Term

The canonical hours are the regular → worship service of the → church based on the change of hours, especially in the morning and evening, through which the church in the → Holy Spirit hears the → Word of God and responds in praise and petition. The → congregation celebrating the canonical hours picks up the daily rhythm, especially the sunrise and the commencement of night, understands it as symbolizing God’s central salvific deed in the death and → resurrection of Christ. As the voice of all → creation, the church offers to God expressis verbis the veneration and worship due him (→ Prayer). All those who are baptized are called to this service of worship.
2. Elements

Certain elements are present in every celebration of the canonical hours. It is God’s Word that is being proclaimed, though for centuries this particular feature was missing from some canonical hours. The church’s response includes → psalms, → hymns, and prayers as praise and petition.
3. History

At least in the two most important times of prayer, morning and evening, the Christian canonical hours pick up on features long known to religious phenomenologists, namely, the numinous quality of sunrise and sunset, and the impulse to offer thanksgiving for light. In this natural context, the canonical hours arose as a product of Christianity in its emergence from paganism rather than from → Judaism, however much the Jewish prayer times were still scrupulously observed by the early Christians. Alongside the morning and evening prayers, brief times of prayer also arose during the second century for the third, sixth, and ninth hours of the day, since in the larger cities these hours were publicly announced and at the same time could be associated with the remembrance of the passion of Christ and events of → Pentecost. A prayer at midnight was also advised, exemplifying the Christian’s watchfulness and anticipation of the → parousia.
At the end of the fourth century, this schema then became fixed as the classic system of daily prayer for all Christians, and in the middle of the same century the fundamental distinction developed between the cathedral and the monastic canonical hours, a development of crucial significance. Especially at sunrise and sunset all the members of the congregation assembled in church to give thanks and praise and to pray for protection, in what later became Morning Prayer and Evensong. These two prayer times were specifically obligatory for everyone and included the full participation of all services and offices (→ Bishop, Episcopate; Deacon, Deaconess; Elder; Lector; Ordination).
In fourth-century Egypt, nascent → monasticism focused on Luke 18:1 in taking a different path. Here the morning and evening assemblies served not the celebration of communal → liturgy but → meditation on the Holy Scriptures, which is also communal. This action involves personal prayer, which is performed sometimes communally, sometimes individually, though the important factor here is not when, where, and with whom one prays but the idea that the monk’s entire life should become prayer.
A mixed form of the canonical hours developed in the East, with Egyptian monasticism still providing the standard. In the West, Benedict (ca. 480–ca. 547; → Benedictines) fixed this schema of hours as Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline, as well as the vigils positioned before the Lauds as a night service. In his rule for monks, he fixed also the structure of the individual hours themselves, the admixture of cathedral and purely monastic elements already being historically self-evident for him.
In the church of the West, the cathedral offices were abandoned in the early → Middle Ages, since monasticism had in the meantime come to represent the ideal embodiment of Christian life. Whereas earlier the entire Christian congregation was obligated to offer this praise during the canonical hours, it now became the commission of the cleric as an individual (→ Clergy and Laity).
Beginning in the 11th century, breviaries emerged summarizing the various books for the canonical hours (→ Liturgical Books), and in 1568 the first unified Roman breviary was published for clerics. Private recitation continues to be the point of departure, the books constituting prayer books for clerics and members of orders, while the congregation itself is permitted to join within this framework.
The → Reformers followed the same path in the 16th century by starting with the monastic form. Martin Luther (1483–1546; → Luther’s Theology) wanted to recast morning and evening hours into services of the Word serving instructional purposes, but he failed because his suggestions were unsystematic and incapable of implementation. The → Book of Common Prayer of the → Anglican Church succeeded in reviving the morning and evening hours as congregational worship, although here too the monastic form has provided the point of departure, with the reading of the entire Psalter being spread out over several weeks, and the Old and New Testaments being read in (almost) every service.

Bibliography: J.-J. VON ALLMEN, “The Theological Meaning of Common Prayer,” StLi 10 (1974) 125–36 ∙ H. GOLTZEN, “Der tägliche Gottesdienst,” Leit. 3.99–294 ∙ C. JONES, G. WAINWRIGHT, E. YARNOLD, and P. BRADSHAW, eds., The Study of Liturgy (rev. ed.; New York, 1992) 399–454 ∙ M. KLÖCKENER and H. RENNINGS, eds., Lebendiges Stundengebet (Freiburg, 1989) bibliography ∙ F. KOHLSCHEIN, “Den täglichen Gottesdienst der Gemeinden retten,” LJ 34 (1984) 195–234 ∙ A. G. MARTIMORT, ed., The Church at Prayer: An Introduction to the Liturgy (Collegeville, Minn., 1992) ∙ P. SALMON, L’office divin (Paris, 1959) ∙ T. A. SCHNITKER, “The Liturgy of the Hours and the History of Salvation: Towards the Theological Penetration of ‘The Public and Communal Prayer of God,’ StLi 15 (1983) 145–57; idem, “Morgen- und Abendlob. Prolegomena zu einer aus dem Geist der Alten Kirche erneuerten Tagzeitenliturgie,” Christus spes. Liturgie und Glaube im ökumenischen Kontext (ed. A. Berlis and K.-D. Gerth; Frankfurt, 1994) 265–75 ∙ H.-J. SCHULZ, In deinem Licht schauen wir das Licht (Mainz, 1980) ∙ R. TAFT, The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West (Collegeville, Minn., 1986) bibliography.

THADDEUS A. SCHNITKER
House Church

The term “house church” refers to a group of Christians meeting in a private house for mutual pastoral support, for celebration and fellowship, and for common ministry to others. Such groups traditionally engage in → Bible study, → prayer, and → meditation (→ Devotion, Devotions). They may be linked to traditional churches, although many function as small independent churches, especially in cases of persecution or isolation (→ Diaspora). Especially in China since 1949, when the government ended foreign missionary involvement, several types of house churches have flourished, representing in 2000 approximately two-thirds of all Chinese Christians.
In many respects (esp. in size, structure, and orientation), house churches follow early Christian models (see Rom. 16:3–5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Phlm. 2). They also reflect the influence of such groups as the → Waldenses, → Bohemian Brethren, Society of → Friends, Methodists (esp. their class meetings; → Methodism), → Moravians, and (Zurich) → Anabaptists. M. Luther considered the idea of a kind of house church (see “Third Way,” in the preface to his German Mass [1526]). The most direct influence was that of German → Pietism, especially of P. J. Spener and A. H. Francke (with the idea of the ecclesiola in ecclesia, “a little church within the church”). More recently the → Oxford Movement and the Marburg circle adopted the same model.
Today two types of house church may be discerned. There is the more traditional base community movement similar to the Roman Catholic → base communities, but more ecumenical. Then there is the movement of intentional communities in the United States and elsewhere, particularly from the 1970s and 1980s. The latter are trying to recapture the vitality, fellowship, and simple → lifestyle of the early church; stress personal religion; commit themselves more fully to the gospel and to their fellows; grant equal roles to men and women; maintain a critical loyalty to the church and the Christian tradition; relate faith to the world; and place more value on deepening of faith and life than on numerical growth.
According to A. L. Foster, house churches fall into seven types on the basis of their relation to the established churches: (1) the supplemental house church; (2) the substitute house church, which offers all that a church does; (3) the ecumenical house church, with members from various denominations; (4) the satellite house church, which sees itself as a responsible part of some larger church; (5) group house churches, composed of several groups; (6) the solo house church, which is independent, may or may not be linked to a denomination, and may at times be underground; and (7) the house church that is part of a network of house churches.
Under the influence of the human potential movement, recent house churches are characterized by (1) commitment for a set time; (2) free, face-to-face interactions; (3) self-understanding as ministering fellowships on the basis of the priesthood of all believers; and (4) a great variety of forms of communication (discussion, exchanges, sharing of feelings, dancing, etc.). Defects that might occur are elitism and self-centeredness, difficulties because of intimacy or distance, too great demands placed on a small group by problems that arise, and hostility or manipulation on the part of a larger church. The house church has great ecumenical and educational possibilities, especially through the experience of deep personal membership in a supporting group.
→ Church Growth; Congregation

Bibliography: P. ANDERSON, The House Church (Philadelphia, 1975) ∙ R. BANKS, Paul’s Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Historical Setting (Grand Rapids, 1980) ∙ L. BARRETT, Building the House Church (Scottdale, Pa., 1986) ∙ V. BRANICK, The House Church in the Writings of Paul (Wilmington, Del., 1989) ∙ J. S. CAMPBELL, “The Translatability of Christian Community: Ecclesiology for Postmodern Cultures and Beyond” (Diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, Calif., 1999) ∙ J. CHAO, ed., “Independent House Church Movement,” The China Mission Handbook (Hong Kong, 1989) 44–49 ∙ S. B. CLARK, Building Christian Communities: Strategy for Renewing the Church (Notre Dame, Ind., 1972) ∙ A. L. FOSTER, ed., The House Church Evolving (Chicago, 1976) ∙ R. FUNG, Households of God on China’s Soil (Geneva, 1982) ∙ H.-J. KLAUCK, Hausgemeinde und Hauskirche im frühen Christentum (Stuttgart, 1981) ∙ G. LANCZKOWSKI, F. WERNER, K.-H. BIERITZ, and C. KÄHLER, “Haus,” TRE 14.474–92 (bibliography) ∙ T. ODEN, The Intensive Group Experience (Philadelphia, 1972) ∙ O. SCHWEITZER, Werkbuch Hauskreis (Wuppertal, 1986) ∙ E. TROELTSCH, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches (2 vols.; Louisville, Ky., 1992; orig. pub., 1912) ∙ J. VANIER, Community and Growth: Our Pilgrimage Together (New York, 1979).
G. KEITH PARKER
Household Rules

The so-called household rules are NT → parenetic lists describing the duties of the members of Christian households (the oikos, which included wives and husbands, children and parents, slaves and masters). In the strict sense they occur in the NT only in Col. 3:18–4:1 and Eph. 5:22–6:9. Closely related are the passage on socioethical duties in 1 Pet. 2:13–3:9 and various unstructured statements (1 Tim. 2:8–15; 6:1–2; Titus 2:1–10; 3:1–2; 1 John 2:12–14; 1 Clem. 1.3; 21.6–9; Ign. Pol. 4–6; Pol. Phil. 4.1–6.1; Did. 4.9–11; Barn. 19.5–7). The household rules set Christians in the framework of the household as the smallest social unit in the social structure of antiquity and thus introduce a fixed schema into Christian exhortation that corresponds to the more developed situation in the later NT church.
The problems relating to religious history and the history of the tradition have been intensively discussed. A Stoic background to the rules (M. Dibelius, K. Weidinger) has been largely accepted. Yet so have links to Jewish tradition (E. Lohmeyer), to the authentically Christian household (K. H. Rengstorf), to the Jesus tradition and Pauline theology (L. Goppelt, D. Schroeder), and to Hellenistic Jewish propaganda (J. E. Crouch).
The schema of household rules is shaped by threefold division, by pairs or reciprocal structure, by apodictic form, and by the household situation. The main elements occur in pre-Christian Greek and Jewish-Hellenistic tradition. The origins lie in the unwritten laws of Greek folk tradition, which had influenced the ethical systems of the philosophy of antiquity, especially the → Stoics, and which had linked up with Jewish elements in Hellenistic → Judaism. Christian instruction was probably the connecting link to the NT Christian household rules.
The distinctively Christian element is the Christological, ecclesiological, and futurist-eschatological setting. Thus the relations between married couples (→ Marriage 3.2) are to be controlled by mutual subjection to the lordship of the Kyrios (Eph. 5:21–30). Being respected as a partner results from integration into the church (§2) as the body of Christ, whose members belong to each other (Eph. 5:30). The relations between slaves and masters (→ Slavery) are shaped by common brotherly responsibility before the world Judge (Col. 3:22–4:1). The NT household rules thus regulate the household with reference to being in Christ, which is understood as the key principle.
→ Ethics 3

Bibliography: M. BARTH and H. BLANKE, Colossians (New York, 1994) ∙ J. E. CROUCH, The Origin and Intention of the Colossian Haustafeln (Göttingen, 1972) ∙ M. DIBELIUS, “Exkurs zu Kol 4, 1,” An die Kolosser, Epheser, An Philemon (Tübingen, 1953) 48–50 ∙ L. GOPPELT, Der erste Petrusbrief (8th ed.; Göttingen, 1978); idem, “Jesus und die Haustafeln-Tradition,” Orientierung an Jesus (Freiburg, 1973) 93–106 ∙ A. E. HARVEY, Strenuous Commands: The Ethic of Jesus (London, 1990) ∙ B. HOOSE, Received Wisdom? Reviewing the Role of Tradition in Christian Ethics (London, 1994) ∙ E. LOHMEYER, Kolosserbrief (8th ed.; Göttingen, 1930) ∙ E. LOHSE, Colossians and Philemon (Philadelphia, 1971) ∙ W. A. MEEKS, The Origins of Christian Morality: The First Two Christian Centuries (New Haven, 1993) ∙ S. PINCKAERS, The Sources of Christian Ethics (3d ed.; Washington, D.C., 1995) ∙ K. H. RENGSTORF, Mann und Frau im Urchristentum (Cologne, 1954) ∙ D. SCHROEDER, “Die Haustafeln des Neuen Testaments” (Diss., Hamburg, 1959) ∙ K. WEIDINGER, Die Haustafeln (Leipzig, 1928).

GEORG STRECKER†
Huguenots

The name “Huguenots” for French Protestants at home and abroad derives from the transferring of a local story from Tours concerning Hugh Capet (d. 996) to the Protestants who met by night. It does not derive etymologically from Iguenots (= Eidgenossen, “confederates,” i.e., part of the Swiss Confederation) but is a diminutive of Hugo. It was used by others from about 1555 and adopted by the Protestants, especially emigrants, as a term for themselves after 1685.
The rise of the party name marks the transition from the Protestant movement to a church that, under the influence of → Calvinism, was formed in 1559 out of its organized congregations. It held its first national synod at Paris, where it adopted its own confession (the Gallican Confession, which is a statement of J. Calvin’s theology; → Calvin’s Theology) and own → constitution. The latter also shows evidence of Calvinism in its decentralized synodal and presbyterial structure (→ Confessions and Creeds).
Besides their church, the Huguenots also developed their own social profile of → Gallicanism. Sociologically, their strength lay among the urban middle class and the landed nobility. Some of the higher aristocracy (e.g., the Navarre, Condé, and Coligny families) were also Huguenots. Both religiously and politically they opposed royal absolutism, a position that led to open conflict in eight religious wars between 1562 and 1598. When the fighting ended, leadership passed from the nobility to the middle class, and though its members were largely excluded from office, the Huguenots enjoyed a period of expansion, their main centers being in the trading cities and manufacturing areas of southwest, southeast, and northwest France.
The intellectual centers of Huguenot life were the academies of Nı̂mes, Orthez, Montauban, Sedan, and Saumur. In the theological controversies within Calvinism they firmly resisted → Arminianism. They engaged especially in → polemics and → apologetics. Saumur played a leading role, making an important contribution to Reformed → orthodoxy (§2).
When Henry IV of Navarre (1589–1610) was converted, his Edict of Nantes (1598) granted limited toleration to the Huguenots as a politically privileged minority. From the beginning of the 17th century, however, their unity suffered, and the new religious wars of 1620–29 failed to restore it. The recatholicizing policy of Louis XIV (1643–1715), at first concealed but constantly becoming more forceful, aimed at ending what was seen as a state within a state. It reached a climax with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685. Ultimately over 200,000 Huguenots fled the country, which represented a severe economic setback for France. In England, Holland, Switzerland, Germany (esp. Prussia and Hesse-Cassel), and the United States, they and their descendants played an important economic, academic, and artistic role. After the French → Revolution and the Napoleonic era, the Huguenots were ultimately integrated into the countries in which they had sought refuge.
In France a new phase began for the Huguenots after 1685. Under brutal persecution apocalyptic prophecy arose in the Cévennes, and there was armed resistance. As a “wilderness church” (Rev. 12:6), the Huguenots lived on illegally until they were finally granted equal rights by the Edict of Versailles (1787) and the Napoleonic Code (1804).
→ France; Reformed and Presbyterian Churches

Bibliography: H. DUBIEF, “Hugenotten,” TRE 15.618–31 (bibliography) ∙ R. P. GAGG, Hugenotten. Profil ihres Glaubens (Basel, 1984) ∙ R. M. GOLDEN, ed., The Huguenot Connection: The Edict of Nantes, Its Revocation, and Early French Migration to South Carolina (Dordrecht, 1988) ∙ J. G. GRAY, “The Origin of the Word ‘Huguenot,’ ” SCJ 14 (1983) 349–59 ∙ O. REVERDIN et al., Genève et la révocation de l’édit de Nantes (Geneva, 1985) ∙ O. E. STRASSER-BERTRAND, Die evangelische Kirche in Frankreich (Göttingen, 1975) ∙ G. S. SUNSHINE, “From French Protestantism to the French Reformed Churches: The Development of Huguenot Ecclesiastical Institutions, 1559–1598” (Diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1992) ∙ N. M. SUTHERLAND, The Huguenot Struggle for Recognition (New Haven, 1980) ∙ R. VON THADDEN and M. MAGDELAINE, eds., Die Hugenotten, 1685–1985 (2d ed.; Munich, 1986) ∙ K.-H. WEGNER, Dreihundert Jahre Hugenotten in Hessen (Kassel, 1985).

HANS SCHNEIDER
Human Being → Adam; Anthropology; Men; Women
Human Dignity

1. Term
2. Theological Aspects
2.1. Roman Catholic View
2.2. Protestant Approaches
2.3. Ecumenical Discussion
3. Non-Christian Ideas
4. Philosophical Concepts
5. Questions and Problems
1. Term

In the → modern period the concept of human dignity has been inseparably related to human and civil → rights. Human dignity is generally seen as the inner basis of these rights, and it thus serves as a moral term that legally states and politically ensures the independence and inviolability of the → person. It finds constitutional expression in article 1 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948): “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with → reason and → conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” On the basis of human dignity, human rights involve at their heart the inalienable rights to → life, physical security, → freedom, and → equality (W. Lienemann, 191).
In the 20th century human dignity found a place in the constitutions of many countries of different and even contrary political composition, including Afghanistan (1987, art. 41), Brazil (1988, art. 1; cf. art. 5), Costa Rica (1949, art. 33), Federal Republic of Germany (1949, art. 1), Greece (1975, art. 2), Guatemala (1985, art. 4), Ireland (1937 and 1987, preamble), Nicaragua (1986, art. 26), Peru (1979, preamble), Portugal (1982, art. 1), South Korea (1987, art. 10), Spain (1978, art. 12), and Turkey (1961 and 1972, art. 14). (On international law, see P. Häberle, 818–19).
2. Theological Aspects
2.1. Roman Catholic View

The theological tradition derives human dignity from the divine likeness (→ Anthropology 3.4.3). Thus for Roman Catholics it is a common opinion that “all things on earth should be ordained to man as to their center and summit” (Gaudium et spes 12). This supreme position of humanity in the cosmos serves as a basis and origin for the claim to dominion over → nature. Human dignity manifests itself in → reason, with which we seek → truth and → wisdom (15). Conscience is another element of human dignity, for “by conscience, in a wonderful way, that → law is made known which is fulfilled in the → love of God and of one’s → neighbor” (16). This transcendental constitution of conscience (→ Transcendental Theology) is the basis of the possibility that we cannot lose human dignity, even though conscience may err “through ignorance which it is unable to avoid” (16, though cf. the stricter position of Thomas Aquinas, who links error to human reason, which ought to know God’s law, Summa theol. I of II, q. 10, arts. 5–6; → Thomism).
The fact of → sin calls into question this understanding of human dignity based on a theology of creation. It obscures but does not completely destroy our ability to live and act in accordance with the will of God. In recognition of the brokenness and ambivalence of human reason, recourse is thus had to the divine likeness in the light of the NT eschatological motif of the relation between Adam and Christ. Christ is the → new self, and Adam represents the old and sinful self (→ Christology 2), who needs redemption but who is also capable of it (→ Soteriology). This qualification in understanding human dignity serves to correct any unjustified optimism deriving from our natural capacities.
2.2. Protestant Approaches

Protestants have no uniform view of human dignity. For all the differences, however, they share the view that we must give much greater significance to (original) sin than Roman Catholics do. Already in his 1517 “Disputation against Scholastic Theology” (LW 31.9–16; → Scholasticism), M. Luther (1483–1546; → Luther’s Theology) formulated the thesis “There is no moral virtue without either pride or sorrow, that is, without sin” (thesis 38), and “We are never lords of our actions, but servants” (thesis 39).
Since no place in the world has not seen the invasion of sin, there is no → autonomy of reason or conscience. All need the → grace of God, which does not perfect nature (as Thomas claimed) but creates anew. The divine likeness and human dignity are not, then, self-evident. They are a matter of eschatological → promise (→ Eschatology).
Taking up this problem, K. Barth (1886–1968) tried to find a Christological basis for human dignity and to understand its practice as an implication of God’s reconciling the world (2 Corinthians 5; cf. E. Jüngel, 239–45; → Christology 6.4).
In a contemporary proposal J. Moltmann set human dignity within the dimensions of → politics (pp. 20–23), cohumanity (23–25), cocreatureliness (25–27), and → responsibility for the → future (27–28). An unmistakably modern concern is not primarily to derive dominion over → creation from the divine likeness that underlies human dignity but to determine the limits of this dominion and to stress instead such parameters as care or responsibility (C. Link, 17–26, 32–45, and the legal discussion in O. Kimminich, 291–95).
2.3. Ecumenical Discussion

Ecumenical discussion deals with human dignity especially in the context of human and civil rights. In the battle for racial equality (both political and social) in the United States (M. L. King Jr.) and South Africa (D. Tutu), in the rise of → liberation theologies in Latin America or of the minjung theology in Asia (→ Asian Theology), which fight for political conditions that are indispensable to a life of human dignity, we see many international efforts to practice human dignity and not merely to discuss its theological basis.
An interesting test case was the → Program to Combat Racism, begun by the → World Council of Churches in 1970. In discussing this program, it became clear that precisely the churches and theologians that most vehemently demanded human rights and human dignity in the then socialist states had the most reservations and criticisms about the program. The context was the debate about the “politicizing” or “individualizing” of the gospel and its social and political implications (→ Political Theology).
3. Non-Christian Ideas

The common thesis that the idea of human dignity derives most clearly from the Christian tradition proves to be only partially correct. A consideration of (non-Christian) → Stoicism and of the constitutions of non-Christian countries (see 1) relativizes such a connection. → Buddhism, for example, whose doctrine of → reincarnation prevents it from recognizing the singularity or one-time nature of human existence, takes seriously the notion of practical responsibility for all creatures. It shows that human dignity relative to that of the rest of creation does not require derivation from a relationship of opposition or of dominion.
4. Philosophical Concepts

Human dignity plays an important role also in philosophical approaches. We find the issue itself, if not the term, in the Stoic idea of human equality. Some centuries later it occurs again in the Italian humanists (→ Humanism). It then assumes central importance in the philosophy of I. Kant (1724–1804; → Kantianism). According to Kant, “Humanity itself is a dignity; for a human being cannot be used merely as a means by any human being … but must always be used at the same time as an end. It is just in this that his dignity (personality) consists, by which he raises himself above all other beings in the world that are not human beings and yet can be used, and so over all things.” As Kant saw it, a person “is under obligation to acknowledge, in a practical way, the dignity of humanity in every other human being” (Metaphysics of Morals, “The Doctrine of Virtue,” §38 = A 140). As ourselves ends (Kritik 210 = A 156), we have clear precedence in creation in virtue of our reason and the autonomy of our freedom (Grundlegung 69 = BA 79).
By deriving human dignity from freedom, German → idealism followed a similar course. A. Schopenhauer and S. Kierkegaard, however, disagreed, and this motif came under radical questioning at the end of the 19th century by F. Nietzsche, and in literature by é. Zola, G. Hauptmann, H. Ibsen, and others. In the English (J. Locke, T. Hobbes) and French (B. Pascal, J.-J. Rousseau) traditions, we find attempts to base rights in society on contract theories derived in different ways from → natural law. Discussion of human dignity, however, was not at the center of interest, as it was not in the American tradition.
Human dignity acquired a fresh orientation with K. Marx (1818–83; → Marxism 3), who focused on real material and political relations and opposed “all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, forsaken, and despicable being” (MECW 3.182). Yet even this approach remained idealistic in the sense that it proclaims “man to be the highest being for man” (189). E. Bloch (1885–1977) took up the same line of thinking in an attempt to reconcile human dignity with classical natural law and to see in it something that still must be achieved and that has utopian potential in the shaping of social relations (→ Utopia). The 20th century recognized the ambivalence of such overemphasis (→ Critical Theory). In a later attempt to detach human dignity from Promethean anthropocentrism, R. Spaemann tried to reclaim dignity for all creation and to extend Kant’s dictum to acting in such a way as to use nothing in creation as merely a means, but to use all things also as ends (302).
5. Questions and Problems

The idea of human dignity proves to be a lofty theoretical claim that reality often contradicts. Putting it in a constitution offers no safeguards against abuses, particularly as it has in the main a defensive purpose and does not underlie any positive actions on the part of the state. The legal understanding of human dignity is inclined to view it as intrinsic to human nature as such and thus as a human characteristic; that is, it views human dignity as the intrinsic value of a person.
In many situations indeed, a legal understanding of human dignity may be affronted (e.g., in cases involving → women, children (→ Childhood), elderly, the sick, or → persons with disabilities; → Medical Ethics). Difficulties can also arise at the level of systems. In → socialism individuals are under the tutelage of the party and the → state (→ Political Parties), and there is a massive curtailment of human rights (e.g., freedom). In → capitalism various economic decisions and the concentration of productive capacity in the hands of a few mean other losses (e.g., sharing resources). In the so-called developing countries of the → Third World much of the population does not even have a minimal means of subsistence and thus effectively loses the right to → life (see 1).
The positive link between human dignity and human freedom and conscience is unmistakable and inalienable (→ State Ethics). Nevertheless, when human dignity serves to validate an unlimited human claim to dominion over creation, it loses the link to freedom. Even when it is used, as on the mission of John Paul II to Africa in 1990, to buttress the prohibition of contraception in an age of → hunger, overpopulation, and AIDS, it degenerates into an ideological mask (→ Ideology) for heteronomy, → suffering, and mass poverty.
→ Jurisprudence

Bibliography: G. BAKER-FLETCHER, Somebodyness: Martin Luther King and the Theory of Dignity (Minneapolis, 1993) ∙ K. BAYERTZ, ed., Sanctity of Life and Human Dignity (Dordrecht, 1996) ∙ M. BEDNÁR, ed., Human Dignity: Values and Justice (Washington, D.C., 1999) ∙ E. BLOCH, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 6, Naturrecht und menschliche Würde (Frankfurt, 1977) ∙ D. EGONSSON, Dimensions of Dignity: The Moral Importance of Being Human (Dordrecht, 1998) ∙ P. HÄBERLE, “Die Menschenwürde als Grundlage der staatlichen Gemeinschaft,” Handbuch des Staatsrechts der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (vol. 1; ed. J. Isensee and P. Kirchhof; Heidelberg, 1987) 815–61 ∙ M. HARMIN, Inspiring Discipline: A Practical Guide for Today’s Schools (West Haven, Conn., 1995) ∙ E. JÜNGEL, “Der königliche Mensch. Eine christologische Reflexion auf die Würde des Menschen in der Theologie Karl Barths,” Barth-Studien (Gütersloh, 1982) 233–45 ∙ I. KANT, Critique of Practical Reason (trans. M. Gregor; New York, 1997; orig. pub., 1788); idem, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (trans. M. Gregor; New York, 1998; orig. pub., 1785) ∙ O. KIMMINICH, “Die Verantwortung für die Umwelt in der Wertordnung des Grundgesetzes,” Verantwortlichkeit und Freiheit (ed. H. J. Faller, P. Kirchhof, and E. Träger; Tübingen, 1989) 277–95 ∙ W. LIENEMANN, “Die Zerstörung der Menschlichkeit im Nationalsozialismus und das Ethos der Menschenrechte,” Ethik in der europäischen Geschichte, vol. 2, Reformation und Neuzeit (ed. S. H. Pfürtner; Stuttgart, 1988) 148–65 ∙ C. LINK, “Der Mensch als Geschöpf und als Schöpfer,” Versöhnung mit der Natur? (ed. J. Moltmann; Munich, 1986) 15–47 ∙ G. MARCEL, The Existential Background of Human Dignity (Cambridge, Mass., 1962) ∙ M. J. MEYER and W. A. PARENT, eds., The Constitution of Rights: Human Dignity and American Values (Ithaca, N.Y., 1992) ∙ J. MOLTMANN, Menschenwürde, Recht und Freiheit (Stuttgart, 1979) ∙ D. RITSCHL, “Der Beitrag des Calvinismus für die Entwicklung des Menschenrechtsgedankens in Europa und Nordamerika,” EvT 40 (1980) 333–45 ∙ M. A. SMITH, Human Dignity and the Common Good in the Aristotelian-Thomistic Tradition (Lewiston, N.Y., 1995) ∙ R. SPAEMANN, “Über den Begriff der Menschenwürde,” Menschenrechte und Menschenwürde (ed. E.-W. Böckenförde and R. Spaemann; Stuttgart, 1987) ∙ D. TUTU, “God Intervening in Human Affairs,” Missionalia 5 (1977) 111–17.

EKKEHARD STARKE
Human Sacrifice

1. Almost all religions include reports of people sacrificing the dearest thing they have, even → life. Only in rare cases, however, do we find accounts of the regular killing of people as → sacrifices, as among the Mayans and Aztecs. Human sacrifice usually took place in times of extraordinary danger such as prolonged drought, with expiation being attempted in the face of serious pestilence, disaster, or other emergencies. Reports of the practice almost always reflect distaste for the horror.
In its aims human sacrifice differs in principle from other forms of sacrifice. It serves the end of purification (→ Cultic Purity), expiation (the scapegoat, Gk. pharmakon), offering to affirm the deity and gain its support, payment or compensation for infringements on what belongs to the deity (e.g., one’s firstborn), more rarely → communication with the gods or spirits, and finally the maintaining or ensuring of the fertility of fields or of the life cycle (see ERE for examples).
Whether an execution is to be seen as a human sacrifice to restore the divinely instituted social order is hard to decide. It may have no religious significance, but in some tribal societies religion, → law, and → culture are closely intertwined (→ Tribal Religions). Another debated issue is whether the killing of Christians in the → persecutions or the autos-da-fé and burnings of witches (→ Inquisition 3; Witchcraft) for the glory of God and the purging of the → devil should be regarded as an extreme form of capital punishment (→ Death Penalty) or as human sacrifice for the upholding of the religious order. In any case human sacrifice is contrary to Christian teaching.

2. The OT expressly abhors and forbids human sacrifice (Lev. 18:21; 20:2–5; Deut. 12:31–32; 18:10; 1 Kgs. 16:30–34). In particular, sacrificing children is seen as an atrocity and an offense against God’s commands (e.g., Jer. 7:31; Ezek. 16:20–21; 20:31). There are, however, some neutral accounts of such offerings (Judg. 11:30–40; cf. also 1 Kgs. 16:34; 2 Kgs. 16:3; 17:17; 21:6; 23:10; Ezek. 20:26; Mic. 6:7). Even though these accounts are mostly critical and offer no proof of the regular offering of children, they show how widespread was the idea. Whether God’s command “the firstborn of your sons you shall give to me” (Exod. 22:29; cf. 13:2) meant the actual offering of all firstborn is contested. Other passages refer to an equivalent payment (Exod. 34:20; Num. 18:15–16), such as we find in the story of the sacrifice of → Isaac (Genesis 22).

3. The substituting of an animal for Isaac supports the theory that in the course of the → history of religion, sacrificial customs underwent humanization (first → animals, then straw figures). This theory is not solid, however, for apart from a few poorly attested exceptions, we do not find human sacrifice among hunters and gatherers, only at later agricultural stages.
→ Cannibalism; Cultic Meal; Dead, Cult of the; Magic

Bibliography: W. BURKERT, Anthropologie des religiösen Opfers (Munich, 1984) ∙ A. E. CRAWLEY et al., “Human Sacrifice,” ERE 6.840–67 ∙ J. DAY, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the OT (Cambridge, 1989) ∙ E. S. GERSTENBERGER, “ ‘… He/They Shall Be Put to Death’: Life-preserving Divine Threats in OT Law,” ExAu 11 (1995) 43–61 ∙ J. D. LEVENSON, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven, 1993) ∙ R. J. QUINONES, The Changes of Cain: Violence and the Lost Brother in Cain and Abel Literature (Princeton, 1991) ∙ A. WENDEL, Das Opfer in der altisraelitischen Religion (Leipzig, 1927) ∙ E. WESTERMARCK, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas (2 vols.; London, 1906–8).

HARTMUT ZINSER
Humanism

1. History
2. Content
3. Modern Discussion
1. History

Several stages of humanism may be distinguished: (1) the Renaissance humanism of the 15th and 16th centuries; (2) the new humanism of German classicism; (3) the “third humanism,” or attempted revival of idealism after 1900; (4) the anti-idealistic humanism of the 19th century; and (5) modern movements that are critical of classical humanism (including existential philosophy, dialectical theology, → critical theory, and practical realism).

1.1. In the first instance, humanism is the literary and intellectual movement that arose with the Italian → Renaissance and that represents free and independent human development in conscious opposition to → Scholasticism. Liberation from the church’s → authority and from dogmatic ties went hand in hand with adherence to a classical view of culture and humanity. Parallel to the revival of ancient art, learning, and culture was the discovery of the national element, which led humanists, especially Germans, to study their own past.
In Italy from the time of the poet Petrarch (1304–74), this idea of culture also assumed significance as a philosophy of religion (G. Gemistus Plethon, Bessarion, M. Ficino, Pico della Mirandola). Criticism of tradition was accompanied by a revival of especially Platonic ideals (P. Ramus, J. L. Vives; → Platonism). The uomo universale (Renaissance man) stood above all groupings.
In Germany humanism developed specifically nationalistic components (J. Agricola, Celtes, U. von Hutten, J. Reuchlin). It soon came into conflict with the church (Reuchlin, D. Erasmus). → Erasmus (1469?–1536) in particular stressed a concept of culture that would lead to true humanity and thus resisted the danger posed by an overemphasis on poetry and rhetoric.
The stress on → human dignity, → freedom, and → autonomy was fundamentally Christian, but although the → Reformation at first adopted some of the motifs, humanism could not easily be reconciled with M. Luther’s (1483–1546) central concern for the soul’s salvation and the relation to God (→ Luther’s Theology). Through P. Melanchthon (1497–1560) and his valuation of the idea of culture, humanism certainly made an important contribution to the Reformation. In general, however, the connections between the two did not have too great an impact.
1.2. Melanchthon’s ideas about education, which later earned for him the title praeceptor Germaniae, were adopted again at the beginning of the 19th century in connection with the ideals of German → classicism. J. Winckelmann’s (1717–68) enthusiasm for Greece and some elements in the philosophy of German → idealism contributed to this new humanism, as did also the → Enlightenment concept of toleration and general opposition to an idea of → education that relied mainly on utility and profitability. Along these lines the Bavarian educational reformer F. I. von Niethammer (1766–1848) used the term “humanism” to differentiate our humanitas from our animalitas.
The ideal of a human individuality that is fully developed both aesthetically and morally and that covers every sphere of human learning and action signifies also an ideal of humanity as such. This ideal is prefigured in the Enlightenment, which viewed autonomy, reason, freedom, and tolerance as key elements of humanism. Similarly, the Enlightenment considered one essential goal of humanism to be an emancipation from the idea of creation and from the theologically given order of things. These goals are articulated in the English tradition (J. Locke, D. Hume) as well as among the French (J.-J. Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire) and in I. Kant.
1.3. The reform of personality, above all by a return to antiquity as classical guide, was the main point for the so-called third humanism, which arose out of dissatisfaction with the positivist and materialistic atmosphere of the first half of the 20th century. It stressed the need to revive classical culture (W. Jaeger) and to reassert the ethical and political element in antiquity.
1.4. Already in the 19th century, following G. W. F. Hegel but also in reaction to him, there was criticism of idealistic humanism and the postulating of a concrete, or real, humanism. A. Ruge (1803–80) promoted the dialectical historical principle that the spirit overcomes nature (→ Dialectic; Philosophy of History). L. Feuerbach (1804–72) advocated human unity as the basic principle of his “new philosophy,” which he defined as → anthropology. K. Marx (1818–83) demanded “true human emancipation,” which posits communism as perfected naturalism (i.e., humanism) and perfected humanism as naturalism, and which is derived from the basic concept of → labor (→ Marxism).
The humanism demanded by the early Marx was revived from different standpoints by the neo-Marxism of the 20th century (H. Marcuse, H. Léfèbre, L. Kolakowski, A. Schaff, P. Vranicki, G. Petrovič, M. Machoveč, etc.). In Marx himself, however, further development led to a modification, if not an abandonment, of his original humanistic approach.
1.5. In opposition to prior forms of humanism, various modern philosophers have entered the debate. M. Heidegger (1889–1976) was most comprehensive, believing that humanism of every type is tied to → metaphysics and, in his thought about being, rejecting every material definition of humanism and every attempt to find a basis for humanitas. Human nature, he thought, cannot be fixed and must be thought out and defined afresh in terms of new historical events (→ Existentialism).
→ Dialectical theology shared this turning aside from ego-related autonomy, setting God’s creative and gracious act to the fore. We thus can speak somewhat as did K. Barth (1886–1968) about God’s humanity and about the → love of God, which enables us to see ourselves as God’s creatures by → grace.
From another angle J.-P. Sartre (1905–80) called his existentialism a humanism precisely because he did not begin with a metaphysically or theologically preconceived human nature. For Sartre the dimension of selfhood and humanity, understood existentially and in freedom, derives from situational conditioning and the free possibility of projecting human existence, and he accused the humanism that builds on a given human nature of an alienating and ontologically inadequate view of humanity. A. Camus (1913–60), in early parallelism with Sartre, began with the basic absurdity of the “human condition.” Later, however, he came closer to acknowledging or subscribing to the notion of “human nature,” which, rather than being fixed or presupposed, abides in a permanent state of human revolt and rebellion. As such, it is precisely history, for which it prescribes a boundary shaped by just this nature.
M. Merleau-Ponty (1908–61) thought along similar lines, beginning with the basic ambiguity of meaning and history. He thus posited a humanism that is against any preconceived interpretation of the person and that defines → humanity as an ethical and social claim.
In the United States the → pragmatism of W. James (1842–1910) and F. C. S. Schiller (1864–1937) called itself humanism; it judged human conduct, not by an absolute supernatural standard, but by its social and individual consequences. Schiller also argued that “rehumanizing” can begin only when we cease to overrate the intellect at the expense of the totality and fullness of our humanity. For him, human nature as a whole, along the lines of Protagoras, was the axis of “pragmatic” humanism. Humanism might be a historical movement, but it could also be a philosophy concerned about human nature and → human dignity.
2. Content

Closely related to the self-understanding of humanism is the metaphysical-ontological or theological basis of the view of humanity. Modern thought has increasingly moved beyond the Enlightenment, idealism, and the related reactions and on to a secularized discussion that is guided largely by the individual disciplines and in which, for example, comparative studies, sociobiology, and social science openly or implicitly reject any views of humanity that raise normative claims.
Philosophical anthropology raises the question of the “special place” of humanity in and over against nature, and it is in this light that most philosophical and anthropological approaches today regard themselves as humanist (→ Anthropology 4). Beginning with the work by M. Scheler (1874–1928) on the structure of the biophysical world and the differentiating of human beings in terms of spirit, there are various biologically controlled theories such as those of A. Gehlen (1904–76) and A. Portmann (1897–1982), but also that of H. Plessner (1892–1985), who in opposition to → racism draws attention to the specifically biological conditions of human existence. Meeting biological defects and achieving culture by way of compensation are viewed here as signs of human openness to the world, which alone forms humanism. The fact that humans cannot be pinned down makes of humanism a constant demand that lies in the very nature of humanity and that is part of our biological conditioning.
The tie back to philosophy or to philosophical anthropology that emerges in this context is often understood as a criticism of humanism, one that in its own turn imputes ideological features to the (metaphysically) derived ideal of a balanced, harmonious development of humanity, its spirituality, or its divine likeness. The antianthropocentric trend discernible in this context is of special significance, a trend emerging especially in the present and also manifesting itself in ecological themes or in criticism of society and science.
3. Modern Discussion

The present discussion of humanism contains many of these elements and is characterized by a polarity between, on the one hand, clinging to a traditional ideal of humanity and, on the other, destroying the special status accorded human beings. The “decentralizing” of human beings has been advocated especially as a result of poststructuralist debates, thus robbing human beings of their modern status as autonomous, self-controlling subjects. At the same time, the debate concerning the universality of human rights as well as concerning the dignity of human beings postulates a form of humanity that is essentially accepted by almost all the countries of the world, even though it remains rather vague and cannot be defined with any real precision. This debate concerning human dignity has been prompted not least by the rapid development of science and technology and is particularly volatile in the sphere of medicine (e.g., genetics).
By contrast, postmodern thinking views humanism as a specific accomplishment of modernity and goes on to criticize the attendant logocentrism as well as the special status accorded human beings as subjects (M. Foucault, J. Derrida, J. F. Lyotard). Computer and information technology allegedly presents yet another threat to humanism, where contemporary debate concerning humanism focuses on the tension between subject-oriented autonomy, on the one hand, and, on the other, an objectifying material view of human beings.

Bibliography: R. ABEL, The Pragmatic Humanism of F. C. S. Schiller (New York, 1955) ∙ K. BARTH, Humanismus (Zurich, 1950) ∙ G. BÖHME, Humanismus zwischen Aufklärung und Postmoderne (Idstein, 1994) ∙ A. BULLOCK, The Humanist Tradition in the West (New York, 1985) ∙ R. BULTMANN, “Humanismus und Christentum,” StGen 1.70–77 ∙ J. BURCKHARDT, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (London, 1960; orig. pub., 1860) ∙ A. CAMUS, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt (New York, 1991) ∙ T. DAVIS, Humanism (London, 1997) ∙ P. DESAN, ed., Humanism in Crisis (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1991) ∙ R. A. ETLIN, In Defence of Humanism (Cambridge, 1996) ∙ M. FOUCAULT, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New York, 1971) ∙ E. GARIN, Italian Humanism: Philosophy and Civic Life in the Renaissance (Oxford, 1966) ∙ F. GEERK, 2000 Jahre Humanismus (Basel, 1998) ∙ A. GEHLEN, Anthropologische Forschungen (Hamburg, 1961) ∙ E. GRASSI, Humanismus und Marxismus (Hamburg, 1973); idem, Renaissance Humanism: Studies in Philosophy and Poetics (Binghamton, N.Y., 1988) ∙ M. HEIDEGGER, Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit. Mit einem Brief über den “Humanismus” (4th ed.; Frankfurt, 1997; orig. pub., 1947) ∙ U. HORSTMANN, Das Untier (Frankfurt, 1983) ∙ P. KAMPITS, Der Mythos vom Menschen. Zum Atheismus und Humanismus Albert Camus’ (Salzburg, 1968) ∙ L. KOLAKOWSKI, Traktat über die Sterblichkeit der Vernunft (Munich, 1967) ∙ E. LÉVINAS, Humanisme de l’autre homme (Montpellier, 1972) ∙ C. LÉVI-STRAUSS, Structural Anthropology (2 vols.; New York, 1963–76) ∙ J. M. LOCHMAN, “Bilanz des europäischen Humanismus,” Das radikale Erbe (Zurich, 1972) 55–68 ∙ H. MARCUSE, Kultur und Gesellschaft (Frankfurt, 1965) ∙ K. MARX, “On the Jewish Question” (1844) and “Contributions to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law” (1843/44), MECW 3.146–74 and 175–874 ∙ M. MERLEAU-PONTY, Humanism and Terror: An Essay on the Communist Problem (Boston, 1969) ∙ J.-P. SARTRE, Existentialism (New York, 1946) ∙ M. SCHELER, Man’s Place in Nature (Boston, 1961) ∙ F. C. S. SCHILLER, Humanisme (London, 1903) ∙ E. STEELWATER, “Humanism,” EncAE 2.641–49.

PETER KAMPITS
Humanistic Psychology

1. Source
2. Theoretical Presuppositions
3. Content and Objectives
4. Significance for Psychology
1. Source

Humanistic psychology was started in the 1960s by A. Maslow, C. Bühler, C. Rogers, R. May, A. Koestler, J. Bugental, and others. Without the pioneering work of K. Goldstein, O. Rank, K. Horney, and V. Frankl in → psychology, plus the → group methods of K. Lewin and J. Moreno and the “totality psychology” of the Würzburg school, humanistic psychology would not have been conceivable. It has firmly established itself as a possible third alternative to behaviorism (→ Behavior, Behavioral Psychology) and orthodox → psychoanalysis.
2. Theoretical Presuppositions

For its theoretical presuppositions humanistic psychology draws on three philosophical sources: (1) the humanist tradition (J. G. → Herder, K. → Marx; → Humanism), (2) → existentialism (H. Bergson, M. Buber, G. Marcel), and (3) → phenomenology (E. Husserl, M. Merleau-Ponty). Humanistic psychology sets the human → person at the center as a totality, key aspects of which are corporeality, history, values, → norms, social relations, and the → ecological setting (→ Anthropology).
People are both active and positive. They live consciously and are fundamentally oriented to → meaning. Understanding among human beings results from mutual acceptance and encounter; growth comes as self-fulfillment. → Creativity enables people to compensate for defects and to integrate tensions. The ability to decide makes possible an independence of external control and acceptance of → responsibility for acts. The idea of self-responsibility contains the polarity of → autonomy and interdependence.
3. Content and Objectives

As a dialogic science, humanistic psychology does not isolate individuals or merely collect data. It finds interdependence between the subjects and objects of research (i.e., between therapists and patients), for it thinks in terms of interdependence and process. Its goal is the living out of the reality of one’s own existence. Negative experiences, sorrows, → sufferings, and → conflicts are part of life and merit attention.
Important goals in humanistic → psychotherapy are the ability to meet people, the ability to decide, self-consciousness, self-responsibility, meaning, activity, and creativity. The accent throughout is on the here and now. In a climate of mutual appreciation and partnership, clients learn to accept themselves, including conflicts in their → identity. Techniques include → Rogerian psychotherapy, → Gestalt psychotherapy, psychodrama, transactional analysis, logotherapy, body therapy, therapeutic community, and bonding psychotherapy.
4. Significance for Psychology

Humanistic psychology is not just descriptive and academic but attempts to work out a positive anthropological concept oriented to the healthy person. It tries to overcome both the mechanistic concept of behaviorism and the pessimistic concept of psychoanalysis. The danger here is that of anthropological truncation. Humanistic psychology thinks it can replace spirituality (→ Immanence and Transcendence) by belief in the self. Will, the ability to decide, responsibility, activity, creativity, meaning, self-fulfillment, and readiness for encounter are the only pillars of human → freedom.
A. Maslow saw this danger and demanded a fourth psychology that would not put human beings alone at the center but rather would be transhuman and suprapersonal, looking beyond human needs, interests, identity, and self-fulfillment. According to Maslow, without transcendence we become sick, hyperactive, nihilistic, hopeless, and apathetic; we need something greater than ourselves to venerate.
→ Ego Psychology

Bibliography: C. BÜHLER and M. ALLEN, Einführung in die humanistische Psychologie (Stuttgart, 1974) ∙ J. COHEN, Humanistic Psychology (Louisville, Ky., 1958) ∙ H. G. COWARD, Jung and Eastern Thought (Albany, N.Y., 1985) ∙ R. J. DECARVALHO, The Founders of Humanistic Psychology (New York, 1991) ∙ W. J. LOWE, Evil and the Unconscious (Chico, Calif., 1983) ∙ A. MASLOW, Toward a Psychology of Being (3d ed.; Princeton, 1998) ∙ R. MAY, The Courage to Create (New York, 1994) ∙ D. MOSS, ed., Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology: A Historical and Biographical Sourcebook (Westport, Conn., 1999) ∙ R. D. NYE, Three Psychologies: Perspectives from Freud, Skinner, and Rogers (Monterey, Calif., 1986) ∙ C. ROGERS, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy (Boston, 1995) ∙ J. B. P. SHAFFER, Humanistic Psychology (New York, 1978) ∙ T. A. WALLACH, Psychology’s Sanction for Selfishness: The Error of Egoism in Theory and Therapy (San Francisco, 1983) ∙ F. J. WERTZ, “The Role of the Humanistic Movement in the History of Psychology,” JHPs 38 (1998) 42–70.
KONRAD STAUSS
Humanity

1. The term “humanity” is used in different ways: (1) in distinction from animality, (2) as a collective term for the human race (humankind), and (3) as a norm of human existence—for example, in distinguishing the person from the → animals, as in (1), or relating the individual to humankind, as in (2). In the third sense it relates both to everyday activities and to ethical reflection on human enterprises. Such things change, which makes it always necessary to test them against Christian belief.

2. Humanitas was a fixed term in the Ciceronian rhetorical tradition. Rhetoricians refused to leave → truth (as wisdom) only to the logicians. They devoted themselves to topics such as the art of finding truth in linguistic disclosure rather than merely to the analytics of Aristotle, the source of Western → logic. Humanity for them was not a matter of correct statement but of knowledge related to life (→ Epistemology). Cicero (106–43 B.C.) stressed both the distinction from animals and also aesthetic-intellectual education, which was to form the ruler-ideal. Early and medieval Christianity was interested more in the humanity of Christ and stressed the distinction from his deity (→ Christology 2).
With the arrival of the → Renaissance, humanity came to involve a distinctive lifestyle. Education was an aid to true humanity (→ Humanism), and the humanities replaced theology as the core. “Humanity” came to mean certain qualities of a lifestyle. For M. Luther, it was mercy; in aristocratic circles, it was honesty, civility, and courtesy. Johann Zedler’s Universal-Lexikon (1732–50) equated humanity with politeness and affability.
A conception tied in this way to social strata and historical developments inevitably reflected social restructuring. Such changes occurred with the → Enlightenment and the middle class that sponsored it (→ Bourgeois, Bourgeoisie). I. Kant (1724–1804) stressed rational self-determination in → freedom (→ Autonomy; Kantianism); his homo noumenon would not follow outward inclination but in relation to self and others would view humanity as an end, not a means. While Kant was among those who seek the universally human in terms of a logical idea of unity, J. G. Herder (1744–1803) stood more in the topical-rhetorical tradition. He viewed humanity as a disposition that must be unfolded according to nature, spirit, and soul. In the course of their life, people will develop their humanity through speech and education.
Around 1800 the term “humanism” came into vogue to denote the cultural ideal. A subject of debate in German → idealism and among its later critics was the relation between rational self-determination, natural history, and social influences. J. G. Fichte (1762–1814) found in the division between → reason and life an imperfect autonomy. G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) located the ideal of humanity in the abstract freedom of middle-class society (→ Hegelianism), arguing that the morality of the → state must give substance to the ideal concept. Critics saw the problems in such mediation. L. Feuerbach (1804–72) wanted to give to humanity the greatness attributed to an imaginary deity. The young K. Marx (1818–83) regarded true naturalism (appropriation of nature by → work) as true humanism (the finding of the human self).
In the Anglo-Saxon sphere two contributions helped to promote the idea of humanity. On the one hand, ideas of → natural law and the principles of moral philosophy combined with a fading → theism to promote the idea of human rights, that is, the belief that “all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights” (art. 1 of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights), or the conviction that there is in all people an innate compassion that will help to control the egoism that rules in the economic marketplace (Adam Smith). On the other hand, → pragmatism brought together the two ways of thinking mentioned earlier: the analytic-logical tradition in the theory of signs and the rhetorical tradition in pragmatic concern for meaningful conduct (C. Peirce). In this context, coexistence (with others; see G. H. Mead) and communication (or a community based on communication) oriented toward the → future become constitutive for human existence as such.

3. New problems and questions have been added to the old in modern discussion, concerning:
• education (What contents and lifestyles are appropriate for a humane → society?)
• psychology (What work on the outer and inner conditions of life will make self-discovery possible? Identity)
• human and civil → rights
• economic foundations and the response to the various human needs
• the shape of a world that will make humane life possible (→ Culture; Ecology; Technology).
These questions involve the various perspectives of human biology. Anthropology in the narrower sense defines human beings, in distinction from animals, as defective creatures (A. Gehlen) that compensate for their defects in institutions (including → speech). The idea of the development of humanity is less prominent here. New developments such as sociobiology (the cultural effects of genetic materials) and biological epistemology (thinking as a strategy for survival in → evolution) act in the same way as biological anthropology to minimize the question of the future and the human antithesis to nature.

4. Seeking human dignity and the human norm is a central theme in → ethics. In spite of Kant, Hegel, and Marx, it constantly raises the question of the coordination of reason both individually and ecologically, that is, in relation to nature and society. To coordinate the two perspectives it is not enough merely to begin with the humanum, for this concept is always mediated socially and historically. The theology of the Word of God (→ Dialectical Theology) opposed humanism, having in view the presuppositions—not yet discussed—of the unquestioned ideals of humanity. But it knew well enough that an abstract → Word of God does not allow debate with dubious assertions, especially of an ideological nature. Such theology thus turned to the man → Jesus Christ and did not classify individuals a priori according to any overriding universal concept of “humanity.” For the humanity of individuals lies also in their diversity and therefore in the vulnerability and need that are experienced concretely by each and every individual.
This Christological insight, however, needs translation into the more general questions of our humanity. Personal ethics and social ethics belong together. The former deals with people who are reconciled to God within their creaturely limits; instead of virtues or values it seeks to offer them life perspectives. The NT looks in different directions: to the blessedness of the needy whom God has accepted (→ Sermon on the Mount), to → justification for → freedom to test the → good and to live it out (Paul), to life in → love and truth (John). → Social ethics finds in economic and social processes concurrent and often unconsciously practiced or enforced pictures of humanity (as lifestyles). These views entangle people in a social and economic nexus (with needs and ideals of achievement etc.), but they may be politically limited or changed in such a way as to achieve penultimately (so D. Bonhoeffer) the freedom of those who are reconciled to God.

Bibliography: I. ASHEIM, ed., Humanität und Herrschaft Christi (Göttingen, 1968) ∙ K. BARTH, The Humanity of God (Richmond, Va., 1970) ∙ E. BLOCH, Natural Law and Human Dignity (Cambridge, 1986) ∙ H. E. BÖDEKER, “Menschheit, Humanismus,” GGB 3.1063–1128 ∙ I. EIBL-EIBESFELDT, Human Ethology (New York, 1989) ∙ L. FEUERBACH, The Essence of Christianity (London, 1854) ∙ E. FROMM, The Nature of Man (ed. E. Fromm and R. Xirau; New York, 1968) ∙ P. GAY, The Party of Humanity (New York, 1959) ∙ A. GEHLEN, Man, His Nature and Place in the World (New York, 1988) ∙ J. H. HALLOWELL and J. M. PORTER, Political Philosophy to Search for Humanity and Order (Scarborough, Ont., 1997) ∙ G. W. F. HEGEL, Elements of the Philosophy of Right (Cambridge, 1991; orig. pub., 1821); idem, Phenomenology of Spirit (Oxford, 1977; orig. pub., 1807) ∙ J. G. HERDER, Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität (1794), Sämtliche Werke (33 vols.; ed. B. Suphan; Berlin, 1877–1913) vol. 17; idem, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784), ibid., vol. 13 ∙ T. HOBBES, Leviathan (Harmondsworth, 1968; orig. pub., 1651) ∙ O. HÖFFE, Strategien der Humanität (Freiburg, 1975) ∙ I. KANT, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (The Hague, 1974; orig. pub., 1799); idem, The Metaphysical Elements of Justice (Indianapolis, 1999; orig. pub., 1797) ∙ D. KRIES, ed., Piety and Humanity: Essays on Religion and Early Modern Political Philosophy (Lanham, Md., 1997) ∙ P. O. KRISTELLER, Renaissance Thought (2 vols.; New York, 1961–65) ∙ J. LOCKE, Essays on the Law of Nature (Oxford, 1958; orig. pub., 1664) ∙ K. MARX, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844) (Moscow, 1959) ∙ T. G. MASARYK, The Ideals of Humanity (London, 1937) ∙ R. NIEBUHR, The Nature and Destiny of Man (New York, 1953) ∙ I. PAPE, “Humanismus, Humanität,” HWP 3.1218–30 ∙ C. S. PEIRCE, W. JAMES, C. LEWIS, J. DEWEY, and G. H. MEAD, Pragmatism: The Classical Writings (Indianapolis, 1982) ∙ T. RENDTORFF and A. RICH, eds., Humane Gesellschaft (Zurich, 1970) ∙ J.-J. ROUSSEAU, The First and Second Discourses (New York, 1964; orig. pub., 1750, 1753) ∙ J. R. SACHS, The Christian Vision of Humanity: Basic Christian Anthropology (Collegeville, Minn., 1991) ∙ F. SCHILLER, On the Aesthetic Education of Man, in a Series of Letters (Oxford, 1967) ∙ O. S–IK, For a Humane Economic Democracy (New York, 1985) ∙ H. E. TÖDT, ed., Das Humanum als Kriterium der Gesellschaftsgestaltung (Tübingen, 1972).
CHRISTOFER FREY

Humility

1. History of the Term
2. Development as a Christian Virtue
3. Relevance
4. Theology

1. History of the Term

Humility is the → virtue of respect and true self-evaluation. Antiquity rejected it but demanded a sense of one’s own limitations in fear of the envy of the gods. The OT finds in it an expression of basic dependence as we realize that existence is a gift of God, not a necessity. Humility arises out of astonishment and unconditional trust and is less a trait of character than a lifestyle (Ps. 51:17; Prov. 15:33; Isa. 57:15). The NT links it to childlikeness and poverty of spirit. → Jesus was a model as he humbled himself in self-giving to God’s loving action (Phil. 2:2–8; Matt. 11:29; 18:4 and par.; Luke 14:11). Paul admonished us to subject ourselves to one another and to avoid boasting (1 Cor. 1:29, 31; Rom. 12:10, 16).

2. Development as a Christian Virtue

For Augustine (354–430) humility was a disposition in which we seek out humanity. Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–74) related humility to the cardinal virtue of temperance (moderation and discipline). J. Calvin (1509–64) called it the chief virtue for → faith. M. Luther (1483–1546) called for a preaching of sin that would lead to humility (Heidelberg Disputation [1518], thesis 17; WA 55.203). As he saw it, God definitely promises his → grace to the humble, that is, to those who have despaired of themselves and given up on themselves (LW 33.61–62).
The history of humility is also one of its perversions. Often to the fore is not a recognition of limitations but self-repudiation, self-abasement, resentment (Nietzsche), and → dogmatism. The preaching of humility has been an instrument that those in power have used against weaker groups (in a patriarchy esp. to keep women in order). In this regard it helped to lessen conflicts in feudal relations (in chivalry, the troubadours in their relations with noble women; → Feudalism). It also helped to motivate unselfish action in → orders and religious communities.

3. Relevance

Ethics and pastoral psychology have given us good reasons for speaking about humility today. With reference to the world, humility is respect for the world, especially for living creatures, as we see ourselves as part of → creation with a responsibility to conserve it and protect it against destruction.
With reference to the self, we need the humility with which we can affirm ourselves in a balanced manner, knowing the self and being true to it.
With reference to politics, humility is underdeveloped in Western culture, or it would not have crushed other cultures in the belief that its form of life and religion were superior. Humility springs from regard for the → human dignity of others, binds to the duty of justice, and frees from envy at the situation of others. This kind of humility constitutes the lifestyle of “reciprocity” (H. Stierlin) and includes → dialogue with others, a preservation of the → autonomy of every individual, and an appreciation of differences.
With reference to mystery (→ Mysticism), humility is a surprised feeling of being taken under God’s protection, rests on a readiness for values higher than one’s own life, and results in love as recognition.

4. Theology

Theologically, humility must be understood as (1) a readiness to accept being directed to God and to → justification, (2) a concern to be true to one’s self, and (3) a social virtue, insofar as the → discipleship of Christ that is sought in humility leads to service on behalf of one’s neighbor.

Bibliography: P. ADNÈS, “Humilité,” DSp 7.1136–87 (bibliography) ∙ S. R. DUNDE, “Neid,” IKZ 4 (1984) 233–46 ∙ R. J. FUREY, So I’m Not Perfect: A Psychology of Humility (Staten Island, N.Y., 1986) ∙ F. NIETZSCHE, On the Genealogy of Morality (Indianapolis, 1998; orig. pub., 1987) ∙ H. STIERLIN, Das Tun des Einen ist das Tun des Anderen: Eine Dynamik menschlicher Beziehungen (7th ed.; Frankfurt, 1995).

SIEGFRIED RUDOLF DUNDE

Humor

The idea that humor is laughing in spite of one’s circumstances carries an essential point. Dealing humorously with difficult inner or outer realities is a way of controlling life. As distinct from wit, mockery, or irony, humor deals nonaggressively with circumstances of trouble or conflict. Its affinity to grinning or → laughing finds clearest expression where such forms of psychological release are found to relieve tension or bring liberation and where they can be an “infectious” aid to communication.
The modern use of the term must be seen against a significant change in meaning. It first had a physical connotation, then came to denote a quality, and was then increasingly viewed as one of the most powerful forces of the human spirit. Ancient Greek → philosophy of nature had a doctrine of four humors (i.e., fluids; Lat. umor means “sap, juice, moisture”). By way of medicine (Hippocrates and his school), a so-called humoral pathology developed in the last centuries B.C. (Galen, 2d cent. B.C.), which influenced the medieval doctrine of the temperaments.
With the changed view of humanity in the → Renaissance, the idea of humor, especially as influenced by the → Enlightenment and idealistic philosophy (→ Idealism) and in the context of an increasingly independent → anthropology, now became an essential element in the structure of human behavior. By way of definitions in Jean Paul, I. Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, S. Kierkegaard, and also S. Freud, it served as a way of illuminating and mastering existence. Deliberate exercise of humor came to be regarded as a signal of inner freedom, for it distances individuals from things that they cannot change or from psychological → anxiety. The element of the comic relativizes tragic destiny. In opposition to apparently unavoidable doubt about the meaning of events, the self, and others, one can meet life under the banner of wisdom and humor (H. Kohut). It is not surprising, then, that from antiquity humor has been used creatively in literature and the plastic arts to express and mediate → joy in life, in spite of all the contrarieties of human existence.
A theological definition of the relation between humor and → faith must begin at the point where both alleviate difficult, real-life situations. Humor, like an illusory faith, might perhaps negate reality. Thinking eschatologically, we should define it positively as a provisional possibility of experiencing reality that will finally be transcended in the event of reconciliation that embraces all reality, thus interpreting it Christologically (so best K. Barth). In → everyday human interactions, humor needs to be cultivated and strengthened to where it clarifies the human (esp. the all-too-human) and offers a better understanding of it. At that point it can fulfill the hermeneutical principle of truly human conduct, that is, conduct characterized by love of neighbor.

Bibliography: J. P. ALBERT, “Humor als Autonomie und Christonomie” (Diss., Erlangen, 1975) ∙ K. BARTH, CD III/4 ∙ J. BREMMER and H. ROODENBURG, A Cultural History of Humor: From Antiquity to the Present Day (Cambridge, 1997) ∙ S. FREUD, Studienausgabe, vol. 4, Psychologische Schriften (ed. A. Mitscherlich; Frankfurt, 1982) ∙ W. FRINGS, Humor in der Psychoanalyse (Stuttgart, 1996) ∙ C.-R. GRUNER, The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh (New Brunswick, N.J., 1997) ∙ S. KIERKEGAARD, The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates (Princeton, 1989) ∙ H. KOHUT, The Analysis of the Self: A Systematic Approach to the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorders (New York, 1971) ∙ H. KOTTHOFF, ed., Das Gelächter der Geschlechter (Constance, 1996) ∙ D. L. F. NILSEN, Humor Scholarship: A Research Bibliography (Westport, Conn., 1993) ∙ W. THIEDE, Das verheißene Lachen (Göttingen, 1986).
KLAUS WINKLER†
Hungary

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
9,984
10,707
9,811
Annual growth rate (%):
0.33
–0.24
–0.56
Area: 93,033 sq. km. (35,920 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 105/sq. km. (273/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 1.03 / 1.49 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 1.40 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 12 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 70.0 years (m: 65.4, f: 74.7)
Religious affiliation (%): Christians 87.0 (Roman Catholics 65.7, Protestants 24.7, indigenous 1.4, other Christians 1.5), nonreligious 7.6, atheists 4.2, other 1.2.

1. Historical Survey
2. History of the Church
3. Contemporary Churches
3.1. Roman Catholic Church
3.2. Reformed Church in Hungary
3.3. Lutheran Church
3.4. Unitarian Church
3.5. Free Churches
3.6. Orthodox Church
4. Interchurch Relations
5. Non-Christian Religions
1. Historical Survey

During their migration in the fifth to the eighth centuries, the Finno-Ugric Magyars came into contact with → Byzantine missions (→ Mission 3). Toward the end of the ninth century they settled in the Carpathians and Alps and by the Danube. After decades of fighting (esp. after the battle of Lechfeld, in 955), St. Stephen I (prince 997–1000, king 1000–1038) established Christianity; he called missionaries from Rome, received a royal crown from Rome, and organized ten dioceses. When the Mongols invaded in the 13th century, King Béla IV (1235–70) and Hungary acted as the bulwark of Christianity. Hungary played the same role in the time of the Turkish wars. In 1526 Sultan Süleyman I the Magnificent (1520–66), allying himself with the papacy (→ Pope, Papacy), France, England, Florence, and Venice in the League of Cognac, declared war. Hungary was decisively defeated by the Turks at the battle of Mohács in 1526. The kingdom was divided into three parts, with Buda, the capital, under Turkish rule from 1541 to 1686. Turkey occupied the middle of the country. In the East was the princedom of Transylvania, and the rest of the kingdom of Hungary was to the north and west under the rule of the Hapsburgs.
After 1686, when Hungary was liberated from the Turks, it became part of the Hapsburg Empire. In 1867 it regained its internal independence under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, under which it continued until after World War I, when, by the Treaty of Trianon (1920), Hungary lost more than two-thirds of its former possessions. The policies and social relations of the divided states increased Hungarian emigration, and there is today a large-scale Hungarian → diaspora.
Hungary became a “people’s republic” after World War II (→ Socialism 2.1). Domestic problems in 1956, 1968, and 1987/88 brought political and economic reforms. The Republic of Hungary was proclaimed in October 1989, beginning a political and economic transformation (including a multiparty system and a market economy), though not without difficulties.
2. History of the Church

Church life in the Middle Ages was much the same as in other Western countries (→ Middle Ages 3): the church organization was built up, one in ten villages built a church, and religious orders appeared throughout the country. The → Reformation at first followed the Wittenberg pattern (→ Luther’s Theology; Reformation 2.10), but it quickly came under Swiss influence (→ Calvin’s Theology; Zwingli’s Theology). The Hungarian reformers (esp. János Sylvester, Mátysó Biró Dévai, István Szegedi Kis, Michael Sztárai, Gallus Huszár, Péter Melius, Johannes Honterus, Caspar Heltai, and Gáspar Károlyi) displayed a certain independence in their teaching, though they wished to incorporate the various emphases into a unified system. By the beginning of the 17th century, two trends were evident, with support both for the church of the → Augsburg Confession and for the church of the → Helvetic Confession. In the 16th century Transylvania adopted a policy of → toleration for four religions: Roman Catholicism (→ Catholicism [Roman]), → Lutheranism, → Calvinism, and → Unitarianism (→ Religious Liberty). Such granting of equal recognition to four → confessions was unique in its time (→ Augsburg, Peace of; Cuius regio eius religio).
Roman Catholics under Hapsburg leadership attempted counterreformation (→ Catholic Reform and Counterreformation). The princes of Transylvania—I. Bocskay (1557–1606), G. Bethlen (1580–1629), and G. Rákóczi I (1593–1648)—resisted the state and its agents, the → Jesuits. By the second half of the 17th century, however, the princes had lost their power, and counterreformation proceeded in the kingdom of Hungary. Hundreds of Protestant pastors and teachers were arrested and condemned to death, then “graciously” pardoned—but only to be sold as galley slaves. International action eventually freed those who did not find a → martyr’s death.
In the 18th century the Counter-Reformation continued more quietly. In 1781, however, Joseph II (1764–90) issued an edict of toleration (→ Josephinism 4). The situation now improved, more than 1,000 congregations were reestablished, and Protestants were now able to set up their own church organization. By this time, because of the influence of the 200-year-long Counter-Reformation, more than two-thirds of the population again belonged to the Roman Catholic Church.
After World War I and the dismemberment of Hungary, the churches had to organize themselves afresh. They ran into difficulties under socialism after 1948. In that year the Protestants came to terms with the state, as did the Roman Catholics in 1950 and 1964. The state provided financial support and granted relative freedom for worship, religious instruction, publishing, and printing and distributing Bibles. → Evangelism, however, was forbidden outside the church, and economic activities remained restricted. The churches regained full freedom in 1989.
3. Contemporary Churches

Statistical data on the various churches today are based on partly conflicting sociological surveys or church records. In 1989 there were 14 registered religious groups in Hungary; by 1999 the number had risen to 92. The so-called historical churches exist somewhat in the framework of a → people’s church (Volkskirche). These churches practice infant baptism, and their membership is based on the number of baptized people, although they also make a distinction between membership in name only and active membership. The smaller → denominations typically record active membership only.
3.1. Roman Catholic Church

The → Roman Catholic Church in Hungary is divided into four archbishoprics and eight dioceses. For ministry in the more than 3,500 parishes there are only approximately 2,400 → priests. Before 1989 four religious orders were permitted to maintain only eight schools, none higher than high school. In 1999 there were 55 sisterhoods and 25 brotherhoods, plus over 200 Roman Catholic educational institutions from → kindergarten through university. In 1997 the Hungarian state signed a → concordat with the Vatican, according to which the government began funding the schools and charitable institutions run by the church.
The → uniate Greek Catholic Church has one bishop, 160 parishes, and 230,000 members. It maintains a seminary in Nyíregyháza.
3.2. Reformed Church in Hungary

The Hungarian Reformed Church has 4 districts and 27 presbyteries (→ Reformed and Presbyterian Churches), each of which is led by a double presidency—a church president (bishop or senior) and a lay president (a chief elder). In 1999 there were 1.9 million church members in 1,200 congregations, served by 1,300 pastors. Training for ministry is offered at four seminaries: in Budapest, Debrecen, Pápa, and Sárospatak.
Similar to the concordat with the Vatican, the Hungarian government in 1998 reached an agreement with the Reformed Church in Hungary. The state now supports the schools and charity institutions run by the church. Whereas in 1989 the church had only one high school and two seminaries, plus about 20 charitable institutions, in 1999 it supported more than 100 educational institutions, with another 40 institutions engaged in charity or mission work. The latter efforts included homes for those with mental and physical handicaps, plus facilities for the elderly, homeless, alcoholics, and drug addicts (→ Diakonia).
3.3. Lutheran Church

The Lutheran Church was divided into two districts in 1999 (and will become three in 2001). Each district is led by a bishop and a lay district inspector. The church has approximately 410,000 members in 350 congregations, under the care of 400 pastors. Training for ministry is offered at the Lutheran University in Budapest. Altogether, the church sponsors more than 50 educational institutions.
3.4. Unitarian Church

Only in pre-Trianon Hungary did the → anti-Trinitarian movement develop into an organized Unitarian church. Most of the adherents now live in Transylvania (Romania), with only 12,000 members left in Hungary.
3.5. Free Churches

The majority of the 75 registered Christian groups in Hungary are small, free churches, together totaling approximately 100,000 members. The largest are the → Baptists (30,000 members), followed by the Nazarenes, → Assembly of God, Seventh-day → Adventists, → Apostolic Church, Methodists (→ Methodist Churches), and Christian Brethren. Under socialism, many of the free churches belonged to the Council of → Free Churches, an association that disbanded after the political change in 1989.
3.6. Orthodox Churches

The → Orthodox Church in Hungary has about 40,000 members in four groups. Altogether there are 50 congregations served by 30 priests and under the → Patriarchates of Moscow, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Sofia.
4. Interchurch Relations

The Protestant and Orthodox churches belong to the Ecumenical Council of Churches in Hungary (since 1943), which is a member of the → World Council of Churches, the → Conference of European Churches, and the Leuenberger Church Fellowship (→ National Councils of Churches). They are also part of their respective international organizations. For some years Protestants and Roman Catholics have drawn closer together, talking about → mixed marriage and also about common translations of the → Lord’s Prayer and the → Apostles’ Creed (→ Confessions and Creeds). In 1998 discussions began regarding the preparation of a joint Roman Catholic-Protestant translation of the Bible.
5. Non-Christian Religions

In 1894 → Judaism was granted → religious freedom. It suffered persecution during the years 1938–44 (→ Holocaust), although in Budapest, unlike in the other cities of Europe, the Jews survived as a community. An institute for the training of → rabbis is located at Budapest, the only one in eastern and central Europe. The Christian churches engage in → Jewish-Christian dialogue.
In 1999 there were 17 non-Christian religious groups among the 92 registered. Of this number, 12 had a Buddhist background, 3 Hindu, and 1 Muslim.

Bibliography: On 1: S. R. BURANT, ed., Hungary: A Country Study (Washington, D.C., 1990) ∙ T. COX, ed., Hungary: The Politics of Transition (London, 1995) ∙ G. CSEPELI, National Identity in Contemporary Hungary (New York, 1997) ∙ P. HANÁK, ed., Die Geschichte Ungarns (Budapest, 1988) ∙ E. LENGYEL, One Thousand Years of Hungary (New York, 1958) ∙ J. NANAY, Transylvania: The Hungarian Minority in Romania (New York, 1976) ∙ L. NËHÄM, The Cultural Aspirations of Hungary from 896 to 1935 (Budapest, 1935) ∙ G. RÁNKI, ed., Hungary and European Civilization (Budapest, 1989) ∙ J. SZÜCS, Nation und Geschichte (Budapest, 1981).
On 2–5: J. BARCZA et al., eds., Geschichte und Gegenwart der Reformierten Kirche in Ungarn (Budapest, 1986) ∙ M. BUCSAY, Der Protestantismus in Ungarn, 1521–1979 (2 vols.; Vienna, 1977–79) ∙ B. DERCSËNYI, Lutheran Churches in Hungary (Budapest, 1992) ∙ F. DUSICZA, ed., Egyházunk, a Magyarországi Református Egyház—Our Church: The Reformed Church in Hungary (bilingual, Hungarian and English) (Budapest, 1997) ∙ G. GOMBOS, The Lean Years: Hungarian Calvinism in Crisis (New York, 1960) ∙ I. KÁDÁR, The Church in the Storm of Time: The History of the Hungarian Reformed Church during the Two World Wars, Revolutions, and Counter-Revolutions (Budapest, 1958) ∙ LUTHERAN WORLD FEDERATION, The Hungarian Lutheran Church of Today (Lund, 1947) ∙ K. MARTON, Wallenberg (New York, 1985) ∙ M. TOMKA, Religion und Kirche in Ungarn. Ergebnisse religionssoziologischer Forschung (Vienna, 1990) ∙ A. S. UNGHVÁRY, The Hungarian Protestant Reformation in the Sixteenth Century under the Ottoman Impact: Essays and Profiles (Lewiston, N.Y., 1989).
MIHÁLY MÁRKUS
Hunger

The term “hunger” denotes a shortage of nourishment that, if it lasts, can lead to → death. Hunger crises persist in the Third World, even with all the socioeconomic → development of the recent decades (of which crises the public seems now generally more aware). Natural causes of hunger like drought are overestimated. In the past, farming structures and systems were better able to cope with cyclic changes in natural conditions. At the beginning of the 21st century, Bread for the World estimates the number of hungry in the world to be 800 million, or one-sixth of the population of the world’s developing nations.
In the monetary sphere (→ Money) and the sphere of subsistence production, the structures that we have now created seem to make famines more likely and more severe. First, the market mechanism is partly to blame. In some cases production for export hampers the growing of food for home consumption; often the money gained is not enough to make good the deficiency. Second, the widespread cutting down of rain forests can also be a threat to food production. The remaining small groups of hunters and gatherers, those who live in the vicinity, and coming generations can all suffer from the so-called external effects of ecological mismanagement.
The needs of a wealthy minority can control production much more strongly than do those of the destitute, a pattern found also in developed countries. Lack of purchasing power is plainly a cause of hunger. If there is no possibility of increasing the purchasing power of the poor, their better nourishment is often attempted by political intervention to regulate the market, an approach that often leads to other forms of imbalance.
A striking feature of policies of development is their urban bias (→ City), which shows a preference for urban populations that is not economically justified. The effect is to promote an antiagrarian policy, where the fixing of prices and food aid from abroad govern farming prices. Instead of encouraging farmers to raise more food by offering higher prices, governments often try to dissuade them with subsidies.
Subsistence farming is production for individual needs, for immediate neighbors, and for barter. If it is a constituent of a farming economy along with the production of goods, it can maintain cycles of production in a controlled system. In most strategic planning it is forgotten that subsistence farming is declining and that rural → solidarity is being weakened by the dissolution of traditional social structures. Yet subsistence farming and the traditional social solidarity are still buffers that prevent the worst from happening when natural conditions change and agrarian policies fail. Today, however, global realignments and changes in rainfall patterns are injuring the very poorest in an unprecedented way.
To produce enough for emergencies social structures are needed that make possible and even demand an output above what is normally needed. Production thus needs to be geared to the worst circumstances that can be expected. So many fields are thus worked and are so carefully weeded that even part of the crops that may normally be expected will be enough. If the surplus cannot be sold, in a long series of good years it makes such efforts seem unnecessary. To encourage farmers there must be financial and moral inducements.
Networks of economic solidarity and distribution systems make it possible to support households with a high proportion of children and older or sick people. Even in normal years such households can survive only if they are brought into a network of traditional economic solidarity that makes up the deficit. The network involves complicated relationship of relatives and friends in which individuals have qualitatively different rights and duties.
Famines show that the household cannot always be regarded as the unit of reproduction. All members of a household do not always have adequate means for physical reproduction. In some places malnutrition of children has served as a means of population control. The malnutrition of older people or married women is often also a phenomenon of social disintegration.
Linked to each social mode of production is a specific form of social control. Today, however, the link between production and control has disappeared in many forms of agricultural economy. Village and family authorities used to organize social control, and those who would not participate in the production and storing of surpluses lost regard or came under sanctions. The expansion of the colonial and postcolonial state, however, broke the power of these authorities, rendering religious, social, and political systems unable to stabilize the storing of surpluses. When marriage contracts became so loose that the extended family was weakened, there was no longer any social control, and new families could no longer protect the married women against neglect and undernourishment (→ Family 1.7; Sexism).
In South America especially, the processes of land acquisition promote famine. Small farmers are led into debt, pressure may be brought to bear on them, or political influence may be exerted, and big landowners take over the land of the poor without any obligation to feed those who are left landless.
After periods of high yield, agrarian and ecological change can also result in environmental degradation or lead to great fluctuations in production, both of which favor famine.
Developmental organizations have programs of famine relief. With their own logistics governmental agencies can distribute the agricultural surplus from industrialized countries. Church programs (e.g., Bread for the World, Misereor, Oxfam, World Vision) make use of partner organization (e.g., Caritas, Action by Churches Together, Lutheran World Service) in developed states. Gifts of food, however, depress producer prices in the same regions. Social anthropologists are thus asking that gifts of food be brought into traditional forms of distribution and aid; with the churches, they want more emphasis on preventive projects.
→ Colonialism; Dependence; Ecology; Fasting; Poverty

Bibliography: S. BARBOUR, ed., Hunger (San Diego, Calif., 1995) ∙ D. M. BECKMANN, Grace at the Table: Ending Hunger in God’s World (New York, 1999) ∙ D. M. BOUCHER, ed., The Paradox of Plenty: Hunger in a Bountiful World (Oakland, Calif., 1999) ∙ L. F. DEROSE, E. MESSER, and S. MILLMAN, Who’s Hungry? And How Do We Know? Food Shortage, Poverty, and Deprivation (New York, 1998) ∙ J. DRÈZE and A. SEN, eds., The Political Economy of Hunger (3 vols.; New York, 1990–91) ∙ R. GALER-UNTI, Hunger and Food Assistance Policy in the United States (New York, 1995) ∙ L. JIMÉNEZ SÁNCHEZ, R. S. MORGENTHAU, and B. PEÑA OLVERA, eds., Fighting Rural Hunger in a World Full of Grain: South-South Transfer of Village-Level Experience (Pueblo, Mex., 1988) ∙ P. L. KUTZNER, World Hunger: A Reference Handbook (Santa Barbara, Calif., 1991) ∙ L. F. NEWMAN and W. C. CROSSGROVE, Hunger in History: Food Shortage, Poverty, and Deprivation (Cambridge, Mass., 1990) ∙ G. RICHES, ed., First World Hunger: Food Security and Welfare Politics (New York, 1997) ∙ R. SIDER, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity (rev. ed.; Waco, Tex., 1999) ∙ L. YOUNG, World Hunger (London, 1997). See also recent annual hunger reports of Bread for the World (Washington, D.C.): A Program to End Hunger (2000); The Changing Politics of Hunger (1999); Hunger in a Global Economy (1998); What Governments Can Do (1997); Countries in Crisis (1996); Causes of Hunger (1995).
GEORG ELWERT
Hus, Jan

Born into poverty in Husinec in southern Bohemia, Jan Hus (ca. 1372–1415) became a significant leader in what has been called the First Reformation. Upon receiving his master of arts degree in 1396, he became professor at Charles University in Prague. In 1402 he began a ten-year pastorate at Bethlehem Chapel, center of the growing reform movement within Bohemia and the symbol of expanding nationalism against the → Roman Catholic Church and the Germans, who exerted the major control at Charles University. This situation inspired a life-long passion in Hus for moral purity and → truth. His → preaching in the vernacular attracted large crowds to hear sermons that predominately explored the need for morality, especially in reforming the → corruption of the church, urged increased spiritual zeal, and searched the Scriptures for truth. Hus consistently asserted that it was more important to follow Christ and the Scriptures than the pope or tradition. He was responsible for modest liturgical reforms in introducing and expanding congregational participation, translating and writing → hymns in Czech, and a sung mass. The inscription on the Hus monument in Prague’s Old Town square bears these words from his Exposition of the Faith: “Therefore, O faithful Christian, search for truth, hear truth, learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth, defend the truth till death.” This passion for uncovering the truth led Hus to make major improvements in the Czech language and to publish the Orthographia Bohemica.
Philosophically, Hus favored the → realism of Wycliffe over the prevailing approach of → nominalism. Some 19th-century scholarship, notably of German origin, has erroneously derided Hus as being little more than a carbon copy of the English reformer. Hus expressed greater admiration for Wycliffe’s philosophical works than for his works of theology. It is a grievous misunderstanding to see Wycliffe as the sole or even major formative influence upon Hus. Parallel developments within Bohemia had been formulating a national reform movement. While Wycliffe obviously shaped Hus’s thinking, Hus was equally inspired by the Czech leaders Jan Milič of Kromĕřı́ž (ca. 1325–74), the acknowledged father of the Czech Reformation, and by Matthew of Janov (1355–93), a brilliant NT scholar.
Morally, Hus was incensed by the growing corruption among the clergy. Pope John XXIII’s decision in 1412 to fund his war with King Ladislas of Naples through the sale of → indulgences only exacerbated this situation and increased the need for church reform. Drawing upon Pauline and Augustinian principles, Hus understood the church to be a body of those predestined in heaven and earth who believe by faith in Jesus Christ, not a corporation governed by the → pope or councils. For Hus the central focus was internal conviction, not mere outward display. It was for his doctrine of the church more than anything else that Hus was branded a heretic.
After his fourth → excommunication Hus withdrew into exile in southern Bohemia (1412–14), thus allowing the interdict to be lifted from Prague. This heightened crisis led to his most prolific period of writing, as he produced 15 books, including his most mature and radical work, De ecclesia. Among his other major writings were “On Simony”; expositions on the → Apostles’ Creed, the → Decalogue, and the → Lord’s Prayer; plus Postilla, a collection of sermons. Hus agreed to attend the Council of Constance (1414–18) once Emperor Sigismund promised safe passage and the opportunity to defend his position. This council was convened to deal with the growing Bohemian heresy and the Great Schism aggravated by the Council of Pisa (1409). Upon arriving, however, Hus was thrown into prison and relocated only when it appeared he would die before the council could consider his case. The trial repeatedly sought for Hus’s recantation, which he refused, for to abjure statements falsely credited to him would have been perjury. On July 6, 1415, Hus was convicted as a heretic, degraded from the priesthood, and burned at the stake, singing to his last breath a hymn of praise to God (→ Martyrs).
Hus was a significant reformer and inspirational leader of the First Reformation. Yet he never became a → Protestant, nor was the theological divide as narrow as Luther had assumed between the two reformers. While Hus held to the supreme authority of Scripture and encouraged the practice of Utraquism (from the Lat. phrase sub utraque specie, “under each kind”), or receiving both the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper, he maintained the doctrine of transubstantiation and of → purgatory throughout his ministry, as well as encouraging proper veneration of the Virgin → Mary and the saying of special masses for departed souls. Furthermore, for Hus salvation was forged on the anvil of love and necessitated good works, contrary to Luther’s emphasis upon divine grace. Additionally, while Hus asserted that one must obey Christ rather than custom or human leaders, he encouraged obedience to the pope and other authorities, provided they were faithful to Scripture. The reforming flame ignited at Constance immediately spread to the nascent Hussite movement as well as inspiring the later Unitas Fratrum, or → Moravian Church.

Bibliography: Primary sources: De ecclesia (trans. D. S. Schaff; Westport, Conn., 1974) ∙ John Hus at the Council of Constance (trans. M. Spinka; New York, 1965), an eyewitness acccount ∙ The Letters of John Hus (trans. M. Spinka; Totowa, N.J., 1972) ∙ “On Simony” (trans. M. Spinka), Advocates of Reform from Wyclif to Erasmus (Philadelphia, 1953) 187–278.
Secondary works: T. FUDGE, “ ‘Ansellus dei’ and the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague,” CV 35 (1993) 127–61 ∙ M. SPINKA, John Hus: A Biography (Princeton, 1968) ∙ P. DE VOOGHT, L’hérésie de Jean Huss (2d ed.; Louvain, 1975) ∙ E. WERNER, Jan Hus: Welt und Umwelt eines Prager Frühreformators (Weimar, 1991) ∙ J. ZEMAN, The Hussite Movement and the Reformation in Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia, 1350–1650: A Bibliographic Study Guide (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1977).
TOM SCHWANDA
Hussites

1. Background
2. The Four Articles of Prague
3. Legacy
1. Background

Like the → Waldenses, the Hussites were a medieval movement summoning the church back to its original Christian form. The condemnation and burning of Jan Hus (ca. 1372–1415) at the Council of Constance (→ Reform Councils) on July 6, 1415, provoked a national protest in Bohemia that led to the adoption of reforming ideas and the rise of the Hussites.
In 1414 Jacob of Mies, with the approval of Hus, had given the cup to the laity in Prague (→ Eucharist), a departure from custom that became a symbol of the Hussites. The moderate Hussites of Prague thus came to be known as Utraquists (from Lat. sub utraque specie, “under each kind”) or Calixtines (from their demand for the calix, “cup”). The Utraquists found support especially among the nobles and middle class.
South of Prague at Tábor, however, a fellowship arose in 1420 among the lower classes under the leadership of Jan Z–ižka (ca. 1376–1424) that attempted to live out the primitive Christian model in → poverty and → community of goods. This extreme party of Hussites, which became known as the Taborites, rejected all ecclesiastical customs that were not commanded in God’s law (→ fasting, veneration of → saints, → monasticism, → relics, etc.). With their revolutionary social ideas the Taborites combined → apocalyptic tendencies.
2. The Four Articles of Prague

In July 1420 the Utraquists and the Taborites accepted the Four Articles of Prague, a statement formulated by Jacob of Mies (d. 1429) that reflects the essential themes of the Hussites. It would have been accepted by Hus himself.
The first article calls for freedom of preaching the Word of God. This point addresses the origin and foundation of the Czech Reformation—Scripture—along with the Hussites’ belief that centuries of tradition had layered human accretions over the core doctrines of Christianity. The instrument of renewal was the free preaching of God’s Word, from which followed the central concern to translate the Bible, sermons, and hymns into the language of the people. This desire to speak from the Scriptures brought a renewed emphasis upon → truth, which required those who had eyes to see and ears to hear to speak out against the rampant abuses.
The next article defends Communion in both kinds (hence “Utraquism”). The Hussites returned the chalice to the laity. While previously the average layperson communicated only once a year, the Hussites stressed a more frequent, even weekly, celebration as more biblical. This second principle reflects many key Hussite concerns.
In withdrawing the chalice, the church authorities had dared to manipulate even the sacramental memory of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The realization that the actual church practice in effect ignored Christ’s command to “do this in remembrance of me” scandalized the Hussites. According to Jacob of Mies, “All priests are actually the thieves of the blood of Christ” (Lochman, 81). Furthermore, since Christ’s blood is the basis of salvation for all the people of God, it must not become a privilege of a select group of church officials. In the presence of God, all distinctions and barriers collapse. The Hussites took the priesthood of the laity seriously in believing that all are priests at the Lord’s Table. For them, the chalice signifies the community of all Christians. Also, eschatological awareness was particularly strong among the Hussites, who celebrated the sacrament as an anticipation and representation of the coming of God’s kingdom. Frequently the Eucharist was celebrated on mountaintops (esp. by the Taborites), which further heightened this eschatological sense.
The third article argues for poverty of the clergy and expropriation of church property. Priests should live an obedient life based on the apostolic model. Such an attack on the privileged lifestyle of the institutional church was, not surprisingly, staunchly resisted. Hus had often sharply contrasted the life of Jesus as the “poor King of the poor” to the power and wealth of the pope and his church bureaucracy.
The final article demands punishment of all public sinners; moral discipline and purity of lifestyle were to be practiced by all citizens, regardless of social class. All Christians need to reflect the law of God in loving God and one’s neighbor.
3. Legacy

In 1420 Emperor Sigismund (king of Bohemia 1419–37) initiated a military crusade against the Hussites. Under the brilliant military leadership of Z̆ižka and Prokop Holý (or Procopius the Great, ca. 1380–1434), the Hussites were able to repel all attacks by emperor and pope. As a result the Hussites negotiated with the Roman Catholics on equal terms at the Council of Basel (1431–49), which devised a peaceful solution to the dispute, granting the cup to the Hussites as well as meeting several other demands (in the council’s “Compactata”). This agreement divided the Utraquists from the Taborites (who did not agree to the terms reached), which led to the battle of Lipany in 1434, where the moderates decisively defeated the Taborites.
In connection with the work of the radical pacifist Hussite Peter Chelčcký (ca. 1390–ca. 1460), the → Bohemian Brethren continued the reforming efforts of the Hussites. Martin Luther (1483–1546) and Thomas Müntzer (ca. 1489–1525), who each looked up the remnants of the Hussites in Bohemia itself, found in the Hussites forerunners of their own attempts to reform the church.
→ Middle Ages 2; Moravian Church; Reformation

Bibliography: Primary sources: J. ERŠIL, ed., Acta summorum pontificum res gestas Bohemicas aevi praehussitici et hussitici illustrantia (2 pts.; Prague, 1980) ∙ J. HUS, Opera omnia (3 vols.; ed. W. Flajshans; Osnabrück, 1966; orig. pub., 1903–5); idem, Tractatus de ecclesia (ed. S. H. Thomson; Prague, 1958) ∙ Hus in Konstanz. Der Bericht des Peter von Mladenowitz (trans. J. Bujnoch; Graz, 1963).
Secondary works: W. R. COOK, “The Eucharist in Hussite Theology,” ARG 66 (1975) 23–35 ∙ R. FRIEDENTHAL, Ketzer und Rebell. Jan Hus und das Jahrhundert der Revolutionskriege (Munich, 1972) ∙ T. FUDGE, The Magnificent Ride: The First Reformation in Hussite Bohemia (Brookfield, Vt., 1998) ∙ F. HEYMANN, John Z–ižka and the Hussite Revolution (Princeton, 1955) ∙ H. KAMINSKY, A History of the Hussite Revolution (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967) ∙ J. M. LOCHMAN, Living Roots of Reformation (Minneapolis, 1979) ∙ J. MACEK, “Die böhmische und die deutsche Radikale Reformation bis zum Jahre 1525,” ZKG 85 (1974) 149–73; idem, The Hussite Movement in Bohemia (New York, 1958) ∙ A. MOLNÁR, “Die eschatologische Hoffnung der böhmischen Reformation,” Von der Reformation zum Morgen (ed. J.-L. Hromádka; Leipzig, 1959); idem, Jean Hus, témoin de la veriteé (Paris, 1978) ∙ F. SEIBT, Hussitica. Zur Struktur einer Revolution (Cologne, 1965) ∙ F. S–MAHEL, Husitská revoluce (4 vols.; Prague, 1993) ∙ M. SPINKA, John Hus: A Biography (Princeton, 1968) ∙ J. ZEMAN, The Hussite Movement and the Reformation in Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia, 1350–1650: A Bibliographical Study Guide (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1977).
RUTH ALBRECHT and TOM SCHWANDA
Hutterites

The founder of the Hutterites, or the Hutterian Brethren, was Jacob Hutter, an → Anabaptist who was burned at the stake as a heretic in Innsbruck in 1536. He had led a group that practiced the → community of goods along the lines of Acts 2:44.
The Hutterites enjoyed a golden age of development from 1565 to 1592. Every community had a minister of the word, a minister to the needy, and also a → kindergarten and school—all of which continue as features of Hutterite communities. A leader or elder directs the whole community.
Plundering by the Turks and by various armies during the → Thirty Years’ War, along with persecutions by the → Jesuits, caused the decimated Hutterites to move to Hungary and later, by way of Transylvania and Walachia, to Russia (1770). When a general draft was introduced in 1871, they moved to North America in three groups between 1874 and 1879. The “Darius people” arrived in 1874, led by Darius Walter; the “Schmiede [blacksmith] people,” in 1877, led by Michael Waldner, a blacksmith; and the “Lehrer [teacher] people,” in 1879, led by Jacob Wipf, a teacher.
The Hutterites engage in agriculture with the most modern machinery. The size of their farms averages 3,000 ha. (7,400 acres). Individual members, who are admitted by → baptism between 14 and 18, receive only pocket money. The community as a whole is wealthy. Once the number of members in a community rises above 130, a daughter community is founded, which poses a need for capital.
For the Hutterites, German functions as a religious language, which reduces their contacts with the outside world. In daily devotions and Sunday services they read the addresses and teachings of their 16th- and 17th-century leaders. In their clothes, furniture, and indeed whole lifestyle, simplicity reigns; theologically, they call this value Gelassenheit (calmness). Their community is “a pure and holy people separate from the abominations of the world,” the ark of God “in which each gives according to ability and receives according to need.”
There are now more than 25,000 Hutterites, who live in approximately 200 communities, or “colonies,” in the prairie states and provinces of northwest United States and Canada.
In Germany, Eberhard Arnold (1883–1935) adopted the Hutterite tradition when he founded the Rhön-Bruderhof (1927). His community, or Bruderhof, was expelled from Nazi Germany in 1937, with members moving to England, Paraguay, and the United States. In 2000 there were six Bruderhofs in the United States, two in England, and one in Australia. The U.S. group publishes the works of Arnold and like-minded authors under the imprint of the Plough Publishing House.

Bibliography: E. ARNOLD, Eberhard Arnold: A Testimony to Church Community from His Life and Writings (2d ed.; Farmington, Pa., 1998) ∙ M. BAUM, Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof (Farmington, Pa., 1998) ∙ J. W. BENNETT, Hutterian Brethren: The Agricultural Economy and Social Organization of a Communal People (Stanford, Calif., 1967) ∙ Brothers Unite: An Account of the Uniting of Eberhard Arnold and the Rhön Bruderhof with the Hutterian Church (Ulster Park, N.Y., 1988) ∙ D. F. DURNBAUGH, The Believers’ Church: The History and Character of Radical Protestantism (Scottdale, Pa., 1985) ∙ R. FRIEDMANN, Hutterite Studies (Goshen, Ind., 1961) ∙ E. GELDBACH, “Der reiche Mann und der arme Lazarus. Kanadisch-japanische Begegnung auf Hutter-Deutsch,” ZRGG 34 (1982) 347–63 ∙ L. GROSS, The Golden Years of the Hutterites (Scottdale, Pa., 1980) ∙ S. HOFER, Hutterites: Lives, Histories, and Images of a Communal People (Saskatoon, 1998) ∙ B. S. HOSTETLER and J. A. HOSTETLER, The Hutterites in North America (New York, 1995) ∙ W. S. F. PICKERING, The Hutterites (London, 1982) ∙ M. K. TOWNE, Jacob Hutter’s Friends: Twelve Narrative Voices from Switzerland to South Dakota over Four Centuries (Indianapolis, 1999).
ERICH GELDBACH
Hymn

1. OT
2. NT
1. OT

From the time of W. M. L. de Wette and H. Gunkel, the term “hymn” (Gk. hymnos, corresponding in part to Heb. tĕhillâ) has been used in studies of the Psalms for psalms of praise such as Psalms 8, 19, 29, 33, 46–48, 65, 67–68, 76, 84, 87, 93, 96–100, 103–5, 111, 113–14, 117, 135–36, 145–50, as well as Exodus 15, 1 Samuel 2, Deuteronomy 33, Judges 5, Habakkuk 3, and texts from Amos 4–9 and Isaiah 40–66. Insofar as these passages are not just portions of a larger text but independent texts themselves, a threefold structure may be discerned: (1) introduction or introit, (2) main section or predication, and (3) conclusion or epilogue. There are many variations on this structure.
Special forms and characteristics define a subgroup of “imperative hymns,” with the typical kı̂ statement in the main part, which is more affirmative than causal (e.g., Exod. 15:21; Psalm 136). As Gunkel saw it, this type arose out of hallĕlû-yāh (“praise Yahweh”), the “primary cell of the hymn.” Another type is a psalm with a “hymnic participle,” a feature common throughout the ancient Near East (e.g., Psalms 104 and 146; F. Crüsemann). Other subgroups include the Yahweh-kingship hymns (47; 93; 96–99) and the Zion hymns (46; 48; 76; 84; 87). For other groupings, see works by Gunkel and Crüsemann.
Typical stylistic features and forms probably go back to unknown but undoubtedly very varied rhythmic and musical presentations, including choral and solo works (e.g., → litanies like Psalms 29 and 136), liturgies (100), instrumental accompaniment (150), and other types. Such forms correspond to the liturgical needs of the worshiping community. The general function of these psalms is that of invocation and praise. In appellative speech there is a call to respond to the action of God set forth in basic statements and an invitation to participate in celebrating these events (→ liturgy as response). In predicative speech God’s → glory (Heb. kābôd, Gk. doxa) is descriptively represented (C. Westermann’s “descriptive praise”). These hymnic statements thus have the character of confession (→ Confession of Faith) and even credo as they set forth the objective side of religion (note the creation hymns Psalms 8; 19; 104; cf. Job 38–39). The widespread recitative use of such hymnic pieces confirms this confessional function.
There are many such hymns in the Psalter, and they are very varied. Thus Psalm 8 hymns the order of creation and humanity’s high destiny, while Psalm 19 praises God’s majesty in his work and word; Psalm 29 celebrates the epiphany of the Almighty, Psalm 104 expresses astonishment at the system of preservation based on the primal element of water, and Psalm 150 summons to praise of God in a multiplicity of voices: “Let everything that breathes praise Yahweh.” The texts all have their own history, but little is known about the history of → hymnody overall in Israel.
→ Literature, Biblical and Early Christian 1

Bibliography: W. BRUEGGEMANN, Israel’s Praise (Philadelphia, 1988) ∙ W. BURKERT and F. STOLZ, eds., Hymnen der Alten Welt im Kulturvergleich (Freiburg, 1994) ∙ F. CRÜSEMANN, Studien zur Formgeschichte von Hymnus und Danklied in Israel (Neukirchen, 1969) ∙ E. S. GERSTENBERGER, Psalms, Part 1, with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry (Grand Rapids, 1988) ∙ H. GUNKEL and J. BEGRICH, Einleitung in die Psalmen (4th ed.; Göttingen, 1984; orig. pub., 1933) ∙ C. WESTERMANN, The Praise of God in the Psalms (Richmond, Va., 1965; orig. pub., 1953).
KLAUS SEYBOLD
2. NT

2.1. In the → worship of the → primitive Christian churches, jubilation at God’s gift of end-time → salvation found its clearest expression in praise. In 1 Cor. 14:26 (cf. 14:15) Paul puts the psalmos (psalm) first among the elements of worship in the Spirit. In Col. 3:16 (par. Eph. 5:19) we find the two other important LXX terms for spiritual songs used for Christian praise: hymnos and ō̧dē (song [of praise]). Acts 2:46–47 and Heb. 13:15 both affirm the central function of praise and thanksgiving, as does also Pliny’s account of Christian worship to Emperor Trajan: “They met regularly before dawn on a certain day to chant verses antiphonally among themselves in honor of Christ as if to a god” (Ep. 10.96.7). Nor were hymns used only in worship, as may be seen clearly from Acts 16:25 and Jas. 5:13.
2.2. NT hymns were modeled on the praise songs of the OT and later → Judaism. The NT congregations show dependence on both the Psalter and Jewish hymns, such as the Magnificat in Luke 1:46–55. In the case of the Benedictus (Luke 1:68–79), it is debated whether a whole psalm has been adapted, a Jewish hymn (vv. 68–75) has been combined with a Christian part (vv. 76–79), or both parts are Christian in origin.
2.3. Apart from these psalms in the Lukan infancy narrative and the hymnic portions in Revelation, which are literary compositions (K.-P. Jörns), we also find hymns in the narrower sense as independent larger units in John 1:1–18 and the Epistles. They are used here in argument and → parenesis but are not identified as such. Thus it is often uncertain whether larger or smaller hymn fragments are present or to what extent they have been altered in their new context. There is virtual consensus that hymns may be discerned in Phil. 2:6–11; 1 Tim. 3:16; Col. 1:15–20; 1 Pet. 2:21–24; Heb. 1:3(-4), all of which are hymns to Christ. There is also a hymn to God in Rom. 11:33–36, where → Paul rounds off with adoration and praise his account of the mercy of God, which leads Gentiles and Jews to → salvation in spite of their disobedience.
2.4. The hymns to Christ, which were especially important in the development of primitive → Christology (M. Hengel), depict and praise Christ’s saving work. The most influential were those that hymned the history of his way as Savior (Phil. 2:6–11 and John 1:1–18; see also Heb. 1:3–4 and 1 Tim. 3:16). Literarily the oldest is the pre-Pauline hymn in Philippians 2. In two strophes (vv. 6–8 and 9–11) the hymn contrasts the self-humbling of the pre-existent Jesus to the lowest depths (→ Kenosis) with his exaltation as Lord over all creatures. We catch a glimpse here of the three modes of Christ’s being that made the greatest impact on later Christology, though with differing accents: as he who comes from God, he is the Revealer; as he who became man, he is the Redeemer; and as the exalted, he is the Kyrios, whom all creatures will worship in the final consummation.
Prose insertions conspicuously interrupt the artistic form of John 1:1–18 (see vv. 6–8, 12c–13, 15, 17, 18). The culmination and endpoint of the underlying hymn is the gift of becoming children of God, a gift constituting the goal of the Logos’s work in creation and redemption (12b). The congregation responds with the confession in vv. 14, 16: “The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory … [and] we have all received, grace upon grace.”
→ Benediction; Canticle; Doxology; Literature, Biblical and Early Christian 2

Bibliography: R. DEICHGRÄBER, Gotteshymnus und Christushymnus in der frühen Christenheit (Göttingen, 1967) ∙ C. DEMKE, “Der sogenannte Logos-Hymnus im johanneischen Prolog,” ZNW 58 (1967) 45–68 ∙ M. HENGEL, “Hymnus und Christologie,” Wort in der Zeit (Leiden, 1980) 1–23 ∙ O. HOFIUS, Der Christushymnus Philipper 2, 6–11 (2d ed.; Tübingen, 1991); idem, “Struktur und Gedankengang des Logos-Hymnus in Joh 1, 1–18,” ZNW 78 (1987) 1–25 ∙ K.-P. JÖRNS, Das hymnische Evangelium (Gütersloh, 1971) ∙ R. J. KARRIS, A Symphony of NT Hymns: Commentary on Philippians 2:5–11, Colossians 1:15–20, Ephesians 2:14–16, 1 Timothy 3:16, Titus 3:4–7, 1 Peter 3:18–22, and 2 Timothy 2:11–13 (Collegeville, Minn., 1996) ∙ R. P. MARTIN, A Hymn of Christ: Philippians 2:5–11 in Recent Interpretation and in the Setting of Early Christian Worship (Downers Grove, Ill., 1997); idem, “Hymns in the NT,” ISBE 2.788–90 ∙ J. T. SANDERS, The NT Christological Hymns (Cambridge, 1971) ∙ G. SCHILLE, Frühchristliche Hymnen (Berlin, 1965) ∙ K. WENGST, Christologische Formeln und Lieder des Urchristentums (2d ed.; Gütersloh, 1973).
GERT JEREMIAS
Hymnal

1. Europe
1.1. Germany, Lutheran
1.2. Calvinism and Western Europe
1.3. Scandinavia and Eastern Europe
1.4. Roman Catholic Church
2. Anglo-American Sphere
3. New Hymnals

Today, the term “hymnal” refers in general to any collection of congregational songs intended primarily for use in the public → worship service. Such collections are the creation of reforming movements, especially in the early 16th century. In the → Reformation period hymnals frequently bore such titles as Enchiridion, Spiritual Songs, or (in the Calvinist tradition) Psalter or Psalms of David. Since the mid-18th century “hymnal” has been the common designation in both Roman Catholic and Protestant circles. Hymnals employ one of three basic formats: melody with text, text only, or full music edition (i.e., text plus parts for several voices).
1. Europe
1.1. Germany, Lutheran

1.1.1. We find the beginnings of hymnals in the lay brotherhoods of the late 15th century. The St. Ursula Brotherhood printed a first song in Strasbourg in 1481, and the (Bohemian) → Moravian Brethren published the first hymnal in 1501. The → Reformation, too, began with individual pieces that were then collected (Achtliederbuch [Nürnberg, 1524]).
The move toward collections with a specific orientation (often described in the preface) led to the hymnal. Thus two Erfurt enchiridions (handbooks), with almost the same contents, appeared in 1524 as the first hymnals designed to be carried by “every Christian so that these spiritual songs and psalms can be practiced and meditated upon at any time” (from the title page). Wittenberg produced a choral hymnal in 1524 (J. Walter, preface by M. → Luther) and a congregational hymnal in 1526 (H. Lufft).
1.1.2. Luther (1483–1546) helped in the development of hymnals up to 1545, with hymnals appearing in many different places beginning in 1525. Most of them copied the first Erfurt and Wittenberg hymnals in structure and contents, which were themselves basically alike. Often, however, the texts and tunes were not authentic, with doubtful material being added. In J. Klug’s Wittenberg hymnal of 1529, for which he wrote a new preface, Luther attempted to set a new direction in selection, version, and arrangement, all of which, in the Wittenberg sphere of influence, was largely successful. V. Schumann added an appendix (Leipzig, 1545), which became a common way of cautiously expanding the tradition. The hymnal of V. Babst (also published in Leipzig in 1545), with “a new preface” by Luther himself, was the climax of the Wittenberg tradition during Luther’s own lifetime.
Beginning with the 1529 Klug edition, the arrangement in these hymnals was always the same: first Luther’s hymns (arranged according to the → church year, → catechism, metrical psalms, other hymns and liturgical pieces), then other Reformation hymns, pre-Reformation hymns, biblical psalms, and other spiritual hymns “composed by devout Christians.” Additions included Luther’s burial hymns (1542), then also (similarly since 1529) collects, versicles, → psalms, and → canticles (some for several voices) for family and congregational worship. Most hymnals thus far usually also contained melodies or indicated previous or familiar tunes. G. Rhau of Wittenberg brought out a new choral book in 1544 closely related to that of Babst. Newer types developed such as the Strasbourg and Constance hymnals, as well as the German hymnals of the Bohemian Brethren (the first by M. Weisse in 1531).
1.1.3. From the middle of the 16th century to the end of the 17th, Babst’s arrangement and contents pointed the way. Territorial churches now took the initiative instead of publishers (who had often worked with theologians), now granting publishing licenses and controlling the official introduction of new hymnals. Private initiative concentrated on collections of individual authors (e.g., J. Heermann in 1630, J. Rist from 1641) or composers (e.g., J. H. Schein in 1627, J. Crüger in 1640), who from the end of the 16th century published simple choral works in Cantionalia, to which they later added a harmonic key (figured bass).
The next step was hymnals with figured bass for home use that complemented the text with melodies and bass lines. J. Crüger (1598–1662) of Berlin did pioneering work with his new hymnal of 1640. His Praxis pietatis melica of 1647, which went through several expanded editions, was a primary source for most of the hymns of P. Gerhardt (1607–76).
1.1.4. From the end of the 17th century on, → Pietism and its “springtime of hymns” introduced a new and enduring type that made the older family hymnal a book of devotion for individuals and groups. To be noted here are a hymnal by J. A. Freylinghausen (1704), one for the Moravians by N. L. → Zinzendorf (1700–1760) and C. Gregor (1723–1801), and a hymnal by J. Porst (published anonymously in 1708, reprinted from 1711 to 1908). The last hymnal had no musical notation—a common practice from the middle of the 17th century. At this time organists began using special choral books as sources for melodies.
1.1.5. To a large extent, even officially, → rationalism led to the replacement of the traditional orthodox hymnal by a pedagogical hymnal that engaged in ruthless modernization with new versions and compositions. Its loss of biblical substance and tradition sharply altered → piety and the character of worship, most radically perhaps in S. Diterich’s Lieder für den öffentlichen Gottesdienst (Berlin, 1765).
1.1.6. The 19th-century restoration sought to hold the line by reverting to the pre-Pietist hymnal. E. M. Arndt (1769–1860) showed the way in his programmatic work Von dem Wort und dem Kirchenliede (1819). With the striving for national unification came the call for a united interconfessional German hymnal. The draft at a conference at Eisenach was not followed up, however, and it was only after World War I that some territorial churches moved in this direction, using a foreign hymnal from 1915 as the basis.
In 1937 a completely new hymnal was planned, under the direction of C. Mahrenholz (1900–1980) and O. Söhngen (1900–1983). This hymnal was completed after World War II and since 1950 has been in use in most German and Austrian churches. It follows clearly the Reformation pattern in both contents and structure. It emerged from movements of musical renewal between the wars, but both the modern period and material from ecumenical sources are underrepresented.
1.1.7. Beginning in 1994 and after years of preparation, a new standard hymnal replaced the older one in the Evangelical Church in Germany. This new hymnal addresses the devotional needs of individual Christians and house churches as well as traditional worship services and other parts of congregational life. It contains not only church hymns but also shorter songs (often in canon form), liturgical songs, prayers, and confessions (including one for the Psalter arranged for call and response), as well as considerably more hymns from the 19th and 20th centuries. Similarly, foreign hymns from the global → oikoumene have also finally been incorporated into the German Protestant hymnal (in German translation, often with the addition of the text in the original language). As did the earlier hymnal, so also this new one consists of a basic section applicable to all territorial churches as well as regionally specific sections.
1.2. Calvinism and Western Europe

Up to the end of the 16th century the hymnals in German-speaking Switzerland were based on the Constance hymnal of 1540 and followed the traditions of German Lutheranism. J. → Calvin (1509–64), however, took a completely different path in Geneva. Because he allowed only biblical texts, especially the Psalms, the Reformed hymnal became a Psalter. The first such hymnal, which appeared in 1539 during Calvin’s exile, contained 18 psalms as well as the Nunc Dimittis, the → Decalogue, and the creed, all in verse form. In later editions (from 1542 in Geneva) there were more psalms, and all the psalms by 1562. The French texts of C. Marot and T. → Beza, with tunes by G. Franc, L. Bourgeois, and P. Dagues, became canonical and the standard on which other translations were based. The German hymnal of the Lutheran A. Lobwasser (1573) became the standard until it was replaced in 1793 by the work of M. Jorissen with new psalms.
Dathen’s Dutch translation of the Geneva Psalter similarly replaced W. van Nievelt’s Souterliedekens and was itself replaced in 1773. The Gesangbundel, with some free compositions (usually from the German), appeared in 1807. After a revision in 1938 the interconfessional Liedboek voor de Kerken was introduced in 1973, which contained mostly revised texts and new compositions.
In German-speaking Switzerland the hymnal of 1952 revived the independent local tradition. In 1998 a new hymnal for the Reformed Churches of German-speaking Switzerland was introduced, closely related to the contemporaneous Catholic hymnal for the German-speaking Catholic Church of Switzerland and to the hymnal for the Swiss Old Catholic Church. It represented the fruits of the Study Group for Ecumenical Hymns (AÖL).
In French Protestantism a Psalter from 1938 was reintroduced in 1979 with psalms and hymns (Louange et Prière).
From Reformed Pietism came J. Neander’s Bundeslieder (1680) and G. Tersteegen’s Geistliches Blumengärtlein (1727).
1.3. Scandinavia and Eastern Europe

The first hymnal in northern and eastern Europe was that of the Danish reformer H. Tausen (1494–1561) in 1544. H. Thomissøn’s Danske Psalmebog of 1569 was later supplemented by liturgical and devotional materials (note T. Kingo’s Aandeligt sjunge kor of 1674 and 1681). In 1699 Kingo’s Gradual replaced Thomissøn’s hymnal and pursued a style modeled on the spiritual aria. A Pietist hymnal appeared in 1740, and in 1852 N. F. S. → Grundtvig (1783–1872), Denmark’s greatest hymnal reformer, published Psalmebog. In 1953 the reforming efforts of T. Laub resulted in a thorough revision.
In Sweden the brothers Claus and Lorenz Petri made the first collection, and Lorenz published a full hymnal in 1569. Other important hymnals included a Pietist hymnal in 1695, a rationalist hymnal in 1819, one in 1937, and an interconfessional hymnal in 1986.
Norway had its own hymnal only after separating from Denmark (from 1869). In Finland the Latin Piae cantiones came out in Greifswald (1582). Sweden published a proposal for a new hymnal in 1983, as did Finland in 1984. Iceland has had its own hymnal since 1972. Poland published a Protestant hymnal abroad in Königsberg around 1544. A Reformed Psalter came out in Kraków in 1558, and a Lutheran hymnal in a new edition in 1976. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia there have been various hymnals since the Reformation. In Hungary Reformed and Lutherans share a common hymnal.
1.4. Roman Catholic Church

Whereas one can hardly speak of a hymnal in the → Orthodox Church, the → Roman Catholic Church since the 16th century has tried to promote popular singing by regional hymnals. The first was that of M. Vehe (Leipzig, 1537). A notable achievement was the hymnal of J. Leisentritt in 1567. The German-speaking bishops produced Gebet- und Gesangbuch in 1975. Gotteslob reveals a new Catholic understanding of the hymnal, from the fostering of popular piety (→ Popular Religion) to a congregational “role book” in keeping with the reforming impulses of → Vatican II. Similar developments may be noted in other countries (concerning Switzerland, see 1.2 above).
→ Calvinism; Choir; Gradual; Hymn; Hymnology; Liturgical Books; Liturgy; Mass; Prayer 4

Bibliography: General: C. ALBRECHT, Einführung in die Hymnologie (pt. C; 2d ed.; Berlin, 1984) ∙ JLH (1955–).
Bibliographies: K. AMELN, M. JENNY, and W. LIPPHARDT, eds., Das deutsche Kirchenlied. Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Melodien (2 vols.; Kassel, 1975–80) ∙ W. BÄUMKER, Das katholische deutsche Kirchenlied in seinen Singweisen (4 vols.; Hildesheim, 1962; orig. pub., 1886–1911) ∙ A. FISCHER, Das deutsche evangelische Kirchenlied des 17. Jahrhunderts (vol. 6; Hildesheim, 1964; orig. pub., 1916) ∙ P. WACKERNAGEL, Bibliographie zur Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenliedes im 16. Jahrhundert (Hildesheim, 1961; orig. pub., 1855) ∙ J. ZAHN, Die Melodien der deutschen evangelischen Kirchenlieder aus den Quellen geschöpft und mitgeteilt, vol. 6, Chronologisches Verzeichnis der benutzten Gesang-, Melodien- und Choralbücher (Hildesheim, 1963; orig. pub., 1893).
Articles and monographs: H. C. DRÖMANN, “Grundsätze für die Arbeit an einem neuen Gesangbuch,” MuK 50 (1980) 166–75 ∙ H. GLAHN, “Melodistudier til den lutherske Salmesangshistorie fra 1524 til ca. 1600” (2 vols.; Copenhaven, 1954) ∙ K. HLAWICZKA, “Zur Geschichte der polnischen evangelischen Gesangbücher,” JLH 15 (1970) 169–91 ∙ M. HOBERG, Die Gesangbuchillustration des 16. Jahrhunderts (2d ed.; Baden-Baden, 1982; orig. pub., 1933) ∙ M. JENNY, Geschichte des deutschschweizerischen evangelischen Gesangbuches im 16. Jahrhundert (Basel, 1962) ∙ C. MAHRENHOLZ, Das evangelische Kirchengesangbuch. Ein Bericht über seine Vorgeschichte (Kassel, 1950); idem, “Gesangbuch,” MGG 4.1876–89 ∙ T. SCHULEK, “Kurzer Abriß der Geschichte des ungarischen Kirchengesangbuchs und des Standes hymnologischer Forschung in Ungarn,” JLH 14 (1968) 130–40 ∙ J. STALMANN, “Gotteslob evangelisch. Zur Frage einer Theologie des neuen Gesangbuchs,” MuK 65 (1995) 246–55 ∙ A. WANTULA, “Das neue polnisch-lutherische Kirchen-Gesangbuch,” JLH 16 (1970) 199–201.

JOACHIM STALMANN
2. Anglo-American Sphere

The first English hymnal was Miles Coverdale’s Goostly Psalmes and Spirituall Songes (ca. 1535), which included the first attempt to introduce the German chorales in English translation. Soon banned by Henry VIII (1509–47), English congregational song continued to draw almost exclusively on T. Sternhold and J. Hopkins’s Psalter (1562) and later the “New Version” of N. Tate and N. Brady (1696). By the turn of the 18th century a new epoch of congregational song arose, principally through the influence of Isaac Watts, an English → Dissenter, who was instrumental in loosing the ties of congregational song to psalmody. His Horae lyrica (1705) but especially his Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707) and The Psalms of David Imitated (1719) remain monuments to the man who is called the father of English → hymnody.
The work of John → Wesley and Charles Wesley, especially their hymnals A Collection of Psalms and Hymns (Charlestown, S.C., 1737; another under the same name published in London in 1738) and Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739), were important contributions to the Evangelical hymnody of the day, as was John Newton and William Cowper’s Olney Hymns (1779), the last of a group of hymnals that sought to bring Evangelical hymnody within the Church of England without any accommodation to the → Book of Common Prayer.
The 1830s saw the beginning of the so-called → Oxford (or Tractarian) Movement in England, which decisively affected the future development of hymnody. John Keble’s Christian Year (1827) and John Mason Neale’s many translations from the Greek and Latin Office hymns and sequences that appeared in The Hymnal Noted (1851) were joined by other translations by Edward Caswall (Lyra Catholica [1851]) and Catherine Winkworth (Lyra Germanica [1855]), greatly enriching the English repertoire from the early church and from Reformation times. This movement reached further fruition with the publication of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861), a landmark collection in the history of English hymnals. The early 20th century saw the publication of several important English hymnals, the most important of which were The English Hymnal (1906) and Songs of Praise (1925).
The first book of any kind published in America was the Bay Psalm Book (1640). Early American hymnody was shaped primarily by the Psalter tradition, including the Psalters that the early settlers brought with them from their homelands, such as the Ainsworth Psalter (Amsterdam, 1612). Early American “singing schools” produced many important collections, among them James Lyon’s Urania (1761) and the various publications of William Billings, including The New England Psalm Singer (1770), The Singing Master’s Assistant (1778), The Psalm Singer’s Amusement (1781), Suffolk Harmony (1786), and Continental Harmony (1794).
American hymnody in the 19th century was significantly affected by the development of the camp-meeting song in numerous collections and by the southern “shape-note” tradition, which produced such collections as Kentucky Harmony (1817), Southern Harmony (1835), and Sacred Harp (1844). The → gospel song tradition, which is associated with the revivals of the later 19th and early 20th centuries, also contributed countless collections to American hymnody.
In general, the immigrants who came to the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries brought with them the hymnals of their homelands in their native languages—German, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and other languages. By the 20th century, however, most groups had made the transition to an English-language hymnody. The 1960s in both England and America saw the beginning of the rise of popular musical styles in hymnody, much of it criticized as deficient in both texts and music; this development has had relatively little effect on the contents of denominational hymnals published in the intervening years.
From the 1960s to the present, most → denominations in North America have issued new or newly revised hymnals for their constituencies. Among the more important of these recent collections are Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), Lutheran Worship (1982), The Hymnal 1982 (Episcopalian), Worship (Roman Catholic; 3d ed., 1986), The United Methodist Hymnal (1989), and Presbyterian Hymnal (1990). In addition, significant books have been produced by → Moravians, → Mennonites, the United Church of Christ, and a number of other churches in both the United States and Canada.

Bibliography: L. F. BENSON, The English Hymn: Its Development and Use in Worship (New York, 1915; rev. ed., 1962) ∙ F. BLUME, Protestant Church Music: A History (New York, 1974; orig. pub., 1965) ∙ L. ELLINWOOD, ed., Bibliography of American Hymnals (New York, 1984) ∙ H. ESKEW and H. T. MCELRATH, Sing with Understanding (Nashville, 1980) ∙ J. JULIAN, A Dictionary of Hymnology (2 vols.; New York, 1937; orig. pub., 1907) ∙ W. REYNOLDS and M. PRICE, A Joyful Sound: Christian Hymnody (New York, 1978).

CARL SCHALK
3. New Hymnals

An explosion of new hymns and songs has resulted in the production of many new hymnals. The hymns come in all styles, although the main influence is still the traditional → hymnody of the West. Poets have created new texts using familiar hymn meters and using familiar tunes for congregational singing accompanied by a keyboard. New melodies, often with popular rhythms, are transforming old words. Most often new words are put to new tunes, with guitars, synthesizers, and drums providing the instrumental support. In places that can afford them, hymnals remain the most common means for congregational participation in singing its faith.
Although the predominance of Western → missionary hymns is not broken, increasingly hymns in styles appropriate for their own culture are being created and sung. Particularly lively are the songs from Africa, with their vibrant and often complicated rhythms. The pattern of leader-response is common, which encourages improvisation by both the leader and the assembly. The Africans have led the way in bringing → dance into worship, not as an art form but as an expression of community. Unfortunately, most hymnals are lacking the basic instructions necessary to help congregations and congregational leaders know how to move. In some cases companions to the hymnals and audio tapes have filled this gap.
The popularity of the African → Independent Churches, the struggle toward independence from → colonialism, and the fight against apartheid have brought African music into the former missionary churches. A first attempt to put some of this music into notation was a collection in 1987 called Africa Sings (vol. 2), produced by the → All Africa Conference of Churches. A badly needed new version of this hymnal has long been in the planning but not yet produced. Much has now been notated, however, and become available in the North, even if not so much in Africa itself. One major difficulty is that the notation freezes a song, which in its original African context is often passed on orally with great fluidity. Another is the difficulty of transcribing the complexity of African rhythms in a way that is not daunting for congregational use. A third problem is the need to produce materials in Africa in tonic sol-fa notation, the method used there.
With all the new songs available now in Latin America, new hymnals are kept from being produced only by the lack of funds. The liturgy network of the → Latin American Council of Churches keeps encouraging the production of new songs. Each Assembly of that ecumenical organization brings out a new worship book complete with new songs. With its mixtures of cultures (indigenous, African, and European), the music appears with a variety of rhythms and instruments. This series builds on the work that for many years has come out of Instituto Superior Evangélico de Estudios Teológicos (ISEDET), the ecumenical seminary in Buenos Aires. Their series Cancionero abierto broke new ground. In Brazil a collection edited by Jaci Maraschin, O novo canto da terra (1987), brought many new rhythmic Brazilian songs into a hymnal with a simplified piano accompaniment to give a hint at the rhythm.
In the Caribbean, the → Caribbean Conference of Churches produced Sing a New Song (1981). This hymnal appeared with a version with piano accompaniment and, for some hymns, four-part harmony, and also a words-only edition. Unfortunately, with the exception of a couple of very popular Caribbean hymns, this hymnal has not become widely used in the Caribbean churches themselves. Lois Kroehler has edited a hymnbook in Spanish for Cuba, Toda la iglesia canta (1989), combining traditional Western hymns with new hymns from Cuba and the rest of Latin America.
The → Christian Conference of Asia, in cooperation with the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music (Manila), has produced Sound the Bamboo (1990), edited by I-to Loh and others. It is the largest and most comprehensive compilation of songs in the wide variety of Asian musical languages. The use of ornaments, microtones, and differently tuned scales marks much of the music. There is an extensive introduction to help the uninitiated into the correct style, as well as an accompanying tape. Most of the songs have transliterated lyrics with a guide to pronunciation. Although Asian churches continue to look to the West for the bulk of their singing, composers are providing alternatives that increasingly find a place. Gongs, all kinds of drums, ching (a kind of finger cymbal), and marimbas accompany and give character to the music, much of which is sung without harmony. (A common Western distortion of this music is to add Western harmony.) New hymnals have been produced by the Lutherans in Hong Kong (1992) and by the Kyodan, the United Church of Christ in Japan (1997). The latter has a fine collection of new Japanese hymns, many moving outside traditional Western patterns.
Two particular places in Europe have had a profound influence on the use of music in worship, and both have produced music books. The → Iona Community in Scotland has often put new words to Celtic folk songs. Iona demonstrates that musical inculturation in worship was also useful in the West. The → Taizé Community in France has developed a whole body of short repetitive pieces, many in Latin or in a range of translations. Jacques Bertier, who wrote much of this music, was a master of finding simplicity that does not yield to boredom even after the 30th repeat. Taizé brought a new mysticism to church music. Both Iona and Taizé are widely represented in the new hymnals around the world.
In both North America and Europe many denominations have developed new hymnals within the last 20 years. Of particular note are those in Sweden and Scotland, which have been produced ecumenically. The Scottish book, Common Ground (1998), is accepted for use by the major confessions, including the Roman Catholics. In Sweden two-thirds of the basic hymnal, Den svenska psalmboken (1986), contains common songs. Separate editions fill the remaining third with music particular to each confession. In Germany each of the Landeskirchen has produced a new hymnal, although most share a common core. The edition by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria and Thuringia is particularly innovative, for it is designed for private or family devotion as well as for congregational use. It includes many → prayers, but also notably many pages of art. The sections are color coded for easy use.
The influence of the → women’s movement has provided one of the greatest impulses for new hymnals in North America. If new images of God were going to enter the human consciousness, they needed to be sung. The New Century Hymnal, produced in the United States by the United Church of Christ (1995), is the hymnal that has taken this challenge most seriously.
Other issues or needs have produced new texts and tunes in the major new hymnals. The common lectionary has inspired some songs connected to the biblical lessons of the day. New concerns for justice and the → environment, along with a new sense of community, have found their place in hymnals. More choices for weddings, baptisms, healing services, and Communion have been included. Almost all the major denominations have produced new hymnals since the 1980s. The Lutheran Book of Worship served as a uniting factor in the creation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (1988). A Spanish-language hymnal, Libro de liturgia y cántico, produced for the same church in 1998, is one of the first to have an appendix with notes on Latin American rhythms along with notation for a variety of instruments appropriate for each style. Voices United (1996), the hymnal of the United Church of Canada, includes many new Canadian hymns.
Most new hymnals have at least a few songs that cross cultural and stylistic boundaries, and many include significant contributions from other parts of the world. This change in content proclaims the wonder and gift of the diversity of music that God has given the church. The global meetings of the → World Council of Churches (WCC) with their worship books and also those of international church groups have furthered the use of music from many cultures and languages and have demonstrated their potential utility within the liturgy. These hymnals build on the initial work in Cantate Domino (1974), produced by the WCC, and Laudamus (the most recent edition in 1984), by the Lutheran World Federation. Mission agencies of larger churches have begun publishing songs from a variety of cultures as part of mission education, most of them being accompanied by CDs. The largest compilation of songs from around the world, Thuma mina: Singing with our Partner Churches. An International Ecumenical Hymnbook (1995), has been edited by Dieter Trautwein, Beatrice Aebi, Johanna Linz, and Dietrich Werner. Although it was produced for Germany and Switzerland, it keeps the original language and often other translations as well.
Many parts of the church do not use hymnals. In some traditions the music for the congregation is so well known that books are unnecessary. Orthodox churches would be an example, as well as those churches in predominantly oral cultures. In many settings, books are too expensive for mass use. In the West another phenomenon leads to the disuse of hymnals. New technology allows words or sometimes words and music to be flashed on screens in front of the congregation. This change signals more than just a stylistic trend, for in this format songs for worship do not come from a bound repository of collected musical faith but arrive for the congregation according to current need and local taste. The influence of the → charismatic movement and Pentecostal churches with their choruses and gospel songs, and with their connection to the music industry, have made this practice a powerful (although in some circles an unwelcome) force. It remains to be seen whether modern technology will lead to the demise of hymnals as we have known them for the last four centuries.

Bibliography: Hymnals mentioned: Africa Sings / L’Afrique chante (Nairobi, 1987) ∙ Cancionero abierto (Buenos Aires, 1982) ∙ J. C. MARASCHIN, ed., O novo canto da terra (São Paulo, 1987) ∙ P. PRESCOD, ed., Sing a New Song (Bridgetown, Barbados, 1981) ∙ L. C. KROEHLER, ed., Todo la iglesia canta (Havana, 1989) ∙ F. FELICIANO, I. LOH, and J. MINCHIN, eds., Sound the Bamboo (Manila, 1990) ∙ Hymns of Praise (Hong Kong, 1994) ∙ Hymnbook 21 (Tokyo, 1997) ∙ Common Ground: A Song Book for All the Churches (Edinburgh, 1998) ∙ Den svenska psalmboken (Stockholm, 1986) ∙ Evangelisches Gesangbuch-für Gottesdienst, Gebet, Glaube, Lehre (Munich, n.d.) ∙ New Century Hymnal (Cleveland, 1995) ∙ Lutheran Book of Worship (Philadelphia and Minneapolis, 1978) ∙ Libro de liturgia y cántico (Minneapolis, 1998) ∙ Voices United: Hymn and Worship Book of the United Church of Canada (Etobicoke, Ont., 1996) ∙ Cantate Domino (Geneva, 1974) ∙ Laudamus: Hymnal for the Lutheran World Federation (Geneva, 1984; orig. pub., 1952) ∙ D. TRAUTWEIN, B. AEBI, J. LINZ, and D. WERNER, eds., Thuma mina: Singing with Our Partner Churches. An Intnal Ecumenical Hymnbook (Basel and Hamburg, 1995).
Additional hymnals and other sources: Alleluia Aotearoa: Hymns and Songs for All Churches (Christchurch, N.Z., 1993) ∙ A.M.E.C. Hymnal (African Methodist Episcopal Church) (Nashville, 1984) ∙ The Book of Praise (Presbyterian Church in Canada) (Don Mills, Ont., 1997) ∙ Cantate all’eterno un cantico nuovo (Federation of Evangelical Churches in Italy) (Rome, 1994) ∙ The Chalice Hymnal (Christian Church-Disciples of Christ) (St. Louis, 1995) ∙ The Divine Liturgy (Orthodox Church in America) (Crestwood, N.Y., 1982) ∙ Ghana Praise: Tunes from Ghana, Africa, and the World (Accra, 1979) ∙ P. HARLING, Hela världen sjunger (Stockholm, 1997) ∙ Holy Cross Liturgical Hymnal (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America) (Brookline, Mass., 1988) ∙ Hymnal: A Worship Book, prepared by Churches in the Believers Church Tradition (Elgin, Ill., Newton, Kans., and Scottdale, Pa., 1992) ∙ Hymns Ancient and Modern: Revised (Norwich, 1981; 1st ed., 1861) ∙ Hymns and Psalms (Baptist Union, British Methodist Conference, Church of England, Churches of Christ, Congregational Federation, Methodist Church in Ireland, United Reformed Church, Wesleyan Reform Union) (London, 1983) ∙ Ina Pepese la (Apia, Western Samoa, 1986) ∙ The Presbyterian Hymnal: Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs (Louisville, Ky., 1990) ∙ Psaumes. Cantiques et textes pour le culte (Swiss Reformed Churches, French) (Monthey, Switz., 1976) ∙ Rejoice and Sing (United Reformed Church) (London, 1991) ∙ Sing Alleluia: A Supplement to the Australian Hymn Book (Blackburn, Victoria, 1987) ∙ Songs for a Gospel People: A Supplement to the Hymn Book of 1971 (Winfield, B.C., 1987) ∙ Songs of Zion (United Methodist Church) (Nashville, 1981) ∙ Teimbiitezimbuka (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia) (Ondangwa, 1993) ∙ Tuomaslauluja (Helsinki, 1991) an ecumenical hymnal ∙ United Methodist Hymnal-Book of United Methodist Worship (Nashville, 1989) ∙ With One Voice: A Lutheran Resource for Worship (Minneapolis, 1995) ∙ World Praise: Jubilate Hymns (London, 1993).
TERRY MAC ARTHUR
Hymnody
1. Antiquity
1.1. Hellenism
1.2. Non-European Cultures
1.3. OT
2. Early Church
2.1. NT
2.2. Early Christian Worship
2.3. Syriac and Armenian Hymns
2.4. Greek Hymns
2.5. Latin Hymns
3. Roman Catholic Hymns
4. German Hymns
5. Scandinavian Hymns
6. Reformed Hymns
7. Britain
8. United States
9. Canada
10. Other Places
10.1. China and Southeast Asia
10.2. Australia and New Zealand
10.3. Africa
10.4. Caribbean, Central and South America
10.5. Eastern Europe
11. Ecumenical Aspects
12. Recent Developments
1. Antiquity
1.1. Hellenism

→ Hellenism produced a variety of monodic and choral songs in honor of gods and heroes, as well as individual and group epic narratives, incantations, and marriage songs, sometimes combined with → dance when in a liturgical context. Later refinement led to hymns in three forms: paean (e.g., a hymn to Apollo), dithyramb (e.g., a hymn to Dionysus), and liturgical → processions. The tripartite form of the Homeric hymn greatly influenced the development of classical Greek poetry and is also reflected in the hymns in the Hebrew Psalms. Until Proclus (5th cent. B.C.) the instrumental accompaniment was by kithara (stringed instrument), aulos (woodwind), syrinx (panpipe), or kalamos (reed-pipe, flute). Hymns functioned in old and new cultic → rites and in the revival of festivals in the second century B.C., which were replete with libation and sacrifice.
1.2. Non-European Cultures

A significant repertory of hymns and hymnic performance practice have come from non-Western sources, including (1) Mesopotamian hymns dating from 1200 B.C.; (2) ancient Indian Vedic hymns of offering and sacrifice from the Rig-Veda (modified in Sama-Veda performance practice) that some date as early as 4000 B.C., though most date them about 1500 B.C. (→ Hinduism); (3) Buddhist hymns (→ Buddhism); (4) the Gatha songs or hymns in the Zoroastrian Avesta (→ Iranian Religions 7); (5) Egyptian hymns to Amon-Re and Akhenaton’s Great Hymn to Aton (ca. 1300 B.C.); (6) Islamic liturgical chanting of the Koran, the teachings of Muh\ammad (ca. 570–632; → Islam); (7) Chinese hymns extant as early as the T’ang dynasty (618–907) and imitated in the 13th-century Chin Twelve Hymns; and (8) a Korean hymn of thanks to Confucius dating from the 14th century A.D.
1.3. OT

Important OT hymns include the tripartite hymn in Exodus 15:1–18 and the great collection of hymns in the Psalter (e.g., Psalm 100 or 117), an opening festival hymn of praise quoted by → Paul in Rom. 15:11 (→ Hymn 1), and the Hallel (Psalms 113–18), sung or recited at the Passover meal, one of which may have been sung by Jesus and the disciples as they left the Last Supper (Mark 14:26 and par.).
2. Early Church
2.1. NT

The psalmody of Jewish synagogue and household worship is thought to be linked with Christian → worship.
2.2. Early Christian Worship

NT hymns contain Christological and → apocalyptic descriptions and → metaphors, whose overall style maintains both Hellenistic poetic form (e.g., 1 Tim. 3:16) and Semitic/Hebrew characteristics of parallelism and accentual rhythm (→ Hymn 2). Many writers consider these hymns to have formed part of the earliest catechetical instruction. Hymns and hymn-singing with the Psalms, particularly those with messianic content, became the essential components of early Christian worship and → proclamation.
2.3. Syriac and Armenian Hymns

The Eastern worship-song is the precious link (cf. Eric Werner’s [1901–88] Sacred Bridge) between Jewish and Christian traditions of Scripture-song, prayer, and praise. Creating and singing hymns to teach doctrine and celebrate the incarnation of God in Christ are a distinctive feature of Eastern worship, which began in NT and patristic times and culminated in the elaborate, varied, and complex repertory of Byzantine classic hymnody.
Syrian hymnody has recently been identified and evaluated as a distinct body of literature. Ephraem Syrus (ca. 306–73), author of “The Pearl: Seven Hymns on the Faith,” is considered the father of Eastern hymnody. The hymnody of the Armenian church probably stems from Syriac sources beginning in the 5th century. Most of the 1,200 hymns written since the 12th century are arranged chronologically in the Sharakan (Hymns), the traditional collection of Armenian hymns.
2.4. Greek Hymns

Four periods of Greek hymnody have been identified.

2.4.1. The first is the Gnostic-Hellenistic, beginning with the Paedagogus of Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–ca. 215) and the second-century Didache (→ Apostolic Fathers 2.1). Greek hymns of this period often reflect preaching and teaching to converts against the excesses and contradictions of apocalyptic and → Gnostic teaching.
2.4.2. The Judeo-Hellenistic period (late 3rd through 5th cent.) saw a return to Hebrew metaphor and biblical story. The Apostolic Constitutions (late 4th cent.) includes many hymns of this period. One example is the anonymous third-century evening hymn Phos hilaron, “O gladsome light, pure brightness.” The fifth-century Codex Alexandrinus lists 14 canticles that were performed by a soloist, the congregation responding. Other forms of Greek hymnody of the period are the troparion, short prayers troped between verses of a psalm, later composed in strophic form, and the kontakion, made up of between 18 and 30 troparia connected by an acrostic. During this period the Coptic and Ethiopian churches, their unique oral chant repertory, and instruments such as the sistrum (a kind of rattle), still used in Ethiopian Orthodox churches and Fellasha synagogues, were separated from the Eastern church.
2.4.3. Next was the Syrian-Hellenistic period, which saw the flowering of Greek hymnody with the development of the contrapuntal canon.
2.4.4. Finally was the period of iconoclasm and schism (9th to 14th cent.; → Heresies and Schisms), an unproductive time marked by the decline of the empire. The iconoclasts destroyed many ancient hymn MSS.
The 1,500-year proliferation, development, and expansion of this body of hymnody in the many languages of Eastern liturgies, and their prominence in those liturgies, is unprecedented in pre-Reformation hymnody. Two aspects of its repertory and performance practices—Christological hymns and responsory psalmody—were taken into early Western hymnody and are perpetuated in its worship song and hymnic literature.
2.5. Latin Hymns

Early Latin hymns were composed in defense of orthodoxy against the preaching and hymn singing of the Arians (→ Arianism). The encyclopedist Isidore of Seville (ca. 560–636) considered Hilary of Poitiers (ca. 315–ca. 367) the first significant hymn writer, followed by his prominent and influential contemporary Ambrose of Milan (ca. 339–97), who is thought to have incorporated the style of the simple and direct Syrian doctrinal hymns in the 18 iambic Office hymns often attributed to him. Hymns came into use in monastic worship centered on the seven canonical hours. → Benedict of Nursia (ca. 480–ca. 547; → Benedictines) made the practice compulsory, and it spread to other → orders. The monastic worship-song included Office hymns and other early doctrinal hymns (e.g., the Te Deum), plus the Psalter, which was usually recited or sung in one week. The musical settings of early Western hymns and the Psalms are thought to be some form of chant.
By the 9th century the growth of → monasticism, combined with the Carolingian liturgical reforms, increased the need for hymns reflecting the monks’ contemplative, otherworldly, and often mystical lifestyle (→ Contemplation; Mysticism), culminating in the 12th century in the writings of Bernard of Cluny, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Peter Abelard. In Germany → Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) wrote hymns and sequences for the worship of her communities. Other contributions of Latin hymnody are the topical hymns for feasts, festivals, processionals, saints days, feasts of the Virgin Mary, and the sequence. Hymns were admitted into the → Mass in the 12th century. Medieval and Renaissance composers made polyphonic settings of chant hymns; the earliest source with several settings is Codex Apt (ca. 1400). Italians composed Laudi, popular songs in the vernacular, including Francis of Assisi’s (1181/82–1226) “Cantico de le creature comunemente de lo frate Sole” (Canticle of the sun).
3. Roman Catholic Hymns

→ Roman Catholicism, responding to the popular appeal of → Reformation hymnody, published two hymnals, M. Vehe’s (ca. 1480–1539) Ein neue Gesangbuchlein Geistlicher Lieder (1537) and J. Leisentritt’s (1527–86) Geistliche Lieder und Psalmen (1567). Efforts toward simplicity and singability resulted in diocesan hymnals (e.g., the Paris antiphoner of 1681). At a later time in England, following the reestablishment of the Roman → hierarchy in 1850, the needs of parish worship and the influence of the Anglican Tractarians initiated a distinctively Anglo-Roman hymnody (illustrated by F. W. Faber’s [1814–63] hymn “Faith of Our Fathers”; → Hymnal 1.4).
4. German Hymns

Martin → Luther (1483–1546; → Luther’s Theology), musician and articulate writer, translator, and preacher, in shaping the chorale used (1) the sequence and Office hymn, such as “Veni, Creator Spiritus” (“Komm, Gott Schöpfer”); (2) the Leisen, which integrated, for example, the pre-Reformation folk hymn “Christ ist erstanden” and the Latin sequence “Victimae paschali laudes” to form “Christ lag in Todesbanden”; (3) Latin songs such as “In dulci jubilo”; (4) contrafacts, for example using the melody of “Aus fremden Landen” for the setting of “Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her”; and (5) original texts (hymns and psalms in metrical paraphrase) and tunes. Poets and composers of this period, influenced by the Meistersingers, used the bar form “Stollen, Stollen, Abgesang” (essentially AAB), as in “Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott,” to enhance the memorable qualities of the texts. Rhythmic, vigorous, and memorable unison tunes were composed to be sung without accompaniment, sometimes alternately by choir and congregation. Johann Walter (1496–1570), Luther’s musical colleague who served as compiler and editor of early collections of chorales, contributed both original melodies and adaptations of old tunes.
Two decades after Luther’s death a second generation of poets turned toward a more devotional and reflective style, illustrated by P. Nicolai’s (1556–1608) “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” and “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern.” L. Osiander (1534–1604) simplified the earlier vocal style, contrapunctum simplex, into the popular song style by placing the principal melody in the upper voice and, in performance, allowing all possible combinations for choir, → organ, instruments, and congregation.
In the period 1618–48 hymns of the cross and of consolation were composed, many of which became masterpieces of devotional poetry, such as P. Gerhardt’s (1607–76) “Befiehl du deine Wege.” Major and minor keys replaced the earlier church modes, and the rhythmic chorale was replaced by the isometric chorale. In the baroque period, hymnody drew new impulses from Pietists J. Neander (1650–80), G. Tersteegen (1697–1769), and N. L. von → Zinzendorf (1700–1760), among others. Important collections of this period are J. A. Freylinghausen’s (1670–1739) Geistreiches Gesangbuch (1704) and Neues Geistreiches Gesangbuch (1714) and G. C. Schemelli’s (1680–1762) Musikalisches Gesangbuch (1738), with J. S. Bach (1685–1750) as music editor. Orthodoxy was championed by B. Schmolck (1672–1737) and E. Neumeister (1671–1756), the latter a cantata lyricist for Bach. Melody was increasingly influenced by the more lively solo-aria.
Hymns and chorales from 18th-century → rationalism include M. Claudius’s (1740–1815) “Wir pflügen und wir streuen” and C. F. Gellert’s (1715–69) “So jemand spricht: Ich liebe Gott.” This hymnody featured the rational-religious recasting of classic hymns, isometric melodies, and melodic reworking.
The confessional revival of the 19th century (→ Confession of Faith) expanded the hymnic repertoire through the influence of the awakening movement, mission, and retrospective confessional reflections (e.g., K. J. P. Spitta [1801–59], “O komm, du Geist der Wahrheit,” and A. Knapp) (1798–1864), through the initial adoption within the German-speaking sphere of hymns deriving from the Anglo-Saxon movement of awakening, hymns that in their own turn were being spread worldwide, and through the tradition of free church hymnody. Efforts also were being made to unify the collection of hymns (e.g., by E. M. Arndt [1769–1860]) and to recover the original versions. J. Zahn’s (1817–95) six-volume Melodien der deutscher evangelischen Kirchenlieder (1889–93) traces nearly 9,000 tunes and their variants. Hymnic research in the 20th century was advanced by K. Ameln (1899–1994), M. Jenny, and P. Harnoncourt. German-language hymns in North American hymnody are discussed in A. Haeussler (1891–1967), The Story of Our Hymns, and in M. Stulken, Hymnal Companion to the Lutheran Book of Worship.
Hymnic renewal in the 20th century affirmed the choral movement of the period between the 1920s and 1940s with its retrospective on Reformation hymns, melodies, and structures of the 16th and 17th centuries, and newer hymns that in their own turn drew from these and earlier traditions (e.g., J. Klepper’s [1903–45] Geistliche). This development led to the strict selection and restoration of hymns in the Protestant hymnal of the 1950s. Hymns from the Kirchentag (church conference) movement, including D. Trautwein’s pop and folk-derived songs, provide the first really viable alternatives to the classic hymn. The melodies of H. W. Zimmermann and R. Schweitzer represent learned, academic counterparts to this lighter music. On the whole, the texts depart from the traditions of → Pietism and turn instead to concern for the earth, the → environment, and to nonviolent alternatives to → conflict (→ Force, Violence, Nonviolence). The Protestant hymnals of the 1990s, for example, the Swiss Evangelisch-reformiertes Gesangbuch (1998), are increasingly pluralistic and ecumenical, yet maintain a core of traditional hymns and chorales. Translations of recent British, American, and global hymns have been added to the repertory, including those of H. Handt.
5. Scandinavian Hymns

In the 19th and 20th centuries Scandinavian hymnody, which was profoundly influenced by the Lutheran chorale tradition, developed into two distinct streams: (1) Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic; and (2) Swedish and Finnish, each with remarkably unique features. The revitalization of Scandinavian hymnody is reflected in the recent hymnals of Norway (Norsk salmebok [1980]), Iceland (Sálmabók [1997]), Sweden (Den svenska psalmboken [1986]), and Finland (Virsikirja [1986]). The supplements Salmer (Norway, 1997) and Psalmer i 90-talet (Sweden, 1994) include a wider range of music from many cultures around the world. Important contributions have been made by composers S.-E. Bäck (1919–94) and E. Hovland (b. 1924); poets O. Hartmann (1906–82), B. G. Hallqvist (1914–97), A. Frostenson (b. 1906), and S. Ellingsen (b. 1929); and contemporary composer/poets P. Harling and T. Boström.
6. Reformed Hymns

A second stream of Reformation hymnody—metrical psalmody, a by-product of the reforms of M. Bucer (1491–1551) and others—emerged in the 1520s in Strasbourg, Basel, Zurich, and parts of Germany and became identified with the Genevan liturgy of John → Calvin (1509–64), who limited congregational song to the unaccompanied, unison singing of metrical paraphrases of the Psalms, the Lord’s Prayer, the Song of Simeon (Nunc Dimittis), and the → Decalogue (→ Calvin’s Theology). Calvin enlisted the services of poets C. Marot (ca. 1497–1544) and T. → Beza (1519–1605), who composed metrical paraphrases in a variety of meters. Composers L. Bourgeois (ca. 1510-after 1561) and C. Goudimel (ca. 1510–72) carefully crafted modal and rhythmic tunes for Calvin’s Psalters with no apparent reference to plainsong, the chorale, or folk melodies. Calvin published five Psalters from 1539 to 1562, culminating with Les Psaumes mis en rime, françoise, par Clement Marot et Théodore Bèz (the so-called Genevan Psalter), which included 150 psalms, the Ten Commandments, and the Song of Simeon composed in 110 meters and set to 125 different tunes.
In France and the southern areas of the Low Countries, psalm singing was identified with religious descent; in the latter a Spanish royal decree banned their singing. In the northern provinces, where Calvinism flourished, the Genevan texts were translated into Dutch and sung to the original tunes. Goudimel and others in France and the Netherlands composed thousands of arrangements of Genevan psalm tunes for voices and instruments, and later for organ, intended to be performed outside the church. These efforts culminated in Jan Sweelinck’s (1562–1621) florid motet-style settings of all the Genevan psalms in four volumes (1604–21). Metrical psalm singing was brought to southeast Europe by the spread of Calvinism, especially to Hungary. Dutch traders and settlers brought it to Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, Canada, and to the area of the later United States, where it was introduced by four groups: French Huguenots who settled in Florida, Dutch Reformed settlers in New York, English colonists in Jamestown, and English separatists (Pilgrims) who, after some time in exile in the Netherlands, settled in Massachusetts. The last group produced the Bay Psalm Book (1640), the first book of any kind published in British North America.
7. Britain

English metrical psalmody began with translations of Lutheran psalms in M. Coverdale’s (1488?–1569) Goostly Psalmes and Spirituall Songes (ca. 1535), probably used as devotional reading. The first attempt at English-style metrical psalms, perhaps influenced by Reformed exiles from France and the Low Countries, was by T. Sternhold (d. 1549), who included 19 in his Certayne Psalmes chosen out of the Psalter of David … (London, ca. 1547), whose work was expanded by J. Hopkins (d. 1570) in Al such psalmes of David … (London, 1549). Their texts were set in ballad meter, called common meter (8.6.8.6), which distinguished them from multimetered Genevan Psalters. Clergy exiled during the reign of Mary Tudor (1553–58) issued a complete Psalter in Geneva, One and fiftie Psalmes of David in Englishe metre … (1556), called the Anglo-Genevan Psalter. At the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth (queen 1558–1603), the exiles returned and, after much debate, published a basic Psalter that was unrivaled for nearly a century and a half, The Whole Book of Psalmes … (1562), popularly known as the Old Version.
Within a century the extensive publication of Psalters for public worship had established psalm singing as the norm of English congregational song. The repertory and performance practice of psalm singing developed in very dissimilar places and circumstances, including the Chapel Royal, → cathedrals, parish churches, abbeys, and college chapels.
Genevan-style psalmody was brought to Scotland by J. → Knox (ca. 1513–72). The Anglo-Genevan Psalter was reprinted and revised in Edinburgh in 1564, with additional psalms added from the 1562 English Psalter. The definitive Psalmes of David in Prose and Meeter was published in 1635.
By the mid 17th century the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) and the King James Version (1611) of the Bible (→ Bible Versions) constituted the language base for future hymn writing. T. Ken (1637–1711) and S. Crossman (1624–83) both wrote hymns, J. Cosin (1594–1672) translated Veni, Creator Spiritus, and in 1623 O. Gibbons (1583–1625) composed tunes for Hymnes and Songs of the Church, the metrical paraphrases of Scripture and the hymns of G. Whither (1588–1667). N. Tate (1652–1715) and N. Brady (1659–1726) published New Version of the Psalms of David (1696), including in its Supplement (1710) six hymns for Christmas, Easter, and Holy Communion. Isaac Watts (1674–1748) transformed English Protestant congregational song from strictly psalmody to a mixture of psalmody and hymnody. Watts Christianized the Psalms, wrote them in the language of the day, and established the practice, common among English Evangelicals in the early 18th century, of paraphrasing sermons and key biblical words, phrases, and images into congregational hymns that were easily learned and sung.
The greatest figure in English hymnody of the mid and late 18th century was John → Wesley (1703–91), who translated, compiled, edited, and distributed hymns and hymn tune collections. While serving in the American colony of Georgia as a missionary priest, John compiled his Collection of Psalms and Hymns (1737), the prototype of the modern English hymnal, which included translations from Freylinghausen’s Geistreiches Gesangbuch and Neues Geistreiches Gesangbuch, English metrical psalms, and devotional poetry. John’s brother Charles (1707–88), the most prominent hymn writer of the 18th century as a whole, lyrically expressed in hymns the revival’s themes of salvation, universal love, perfection, justification by faith, and assurance. In the Wesleyan interplay of preaching and song, hymn singing was at once the confession of → dogma and an act of → piety, → prayer, and → liturgy. Variants of Wesleyan-style hymn singing developed in urban hospital chapels (e.g., in foundling hospitals), where it was led by choirs, keyboard, and instruments. Also there were recitals of operatic-style solo settings with keyboard (e.g., J. F. Lampe’s [ca. 1703–51] Hymns on the Great Festivals and Other Occasions [1746]).
Not until 1821 was hymn singing officially sanctioned for Anglican worship (→ Anglican Communion), but already in the previous century Evangelical hymns had made inroads into parish worship by way of the Anglican hymn writers J. Newton (1725–1807) and W. Cowper (1731–1800) and the Moravian J. Montgomery (1771–1854). R. Heber (1783–1826), in his Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Services of the Year (1827), prepared the first Evangelical hymnal that was arranged topically and doctrinally. In other settings, urban reform and charity missions, temperance societies, the YMCA, and the Salvation Army sang cause-oriented marching songs and choruses that are precursors of the gospel song.
In its search for the “Catholic roots” of the Anglican Church, the → Oxford Movement posed the first significant challenge to almost a century of Evangelical hymnody. Hymns were written about the → church, its → mission, and its → sacraments. Also many Greek and Latin hymns were translated, for example, by J. M. Neale (1818–66), and plainsong melody was introduced, albeit in four-part harmony. During this period German hymns were translated as well, notably by Christina Rossetti (1830–94). Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861; ed. H. W. Baker, musical ed. J. Barnby) was the culmination of Anglican hymnic activity and became the most popular English-language hymnal.
The English Hymnal (1906) is the most important literary and musical reaction to the inbred popular and comfortable Victorian worship practice, and the most influential single volume of English hymns for use in Anglo-Catholic worship. Its content of plainsong, Roman Catholic hymn tunes, carols, folk tunes, and hymn tunes by R. Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), who was musical editor and author of the remarkable preface, C. H. Parry (1848–1918), C. V. Stanford (1852–1924), C. Wood (1866–1926), G. Holst (1874–1934), and J. N. Ireland (1879–1962), with new texts and translations by M. Bridges (1800–1894) and general editor P. Dearmer (1867–1936), was imitated by Songs of Praise (1925) and mainly similar denominational hymnals appearing during the next half century in Great Britain and the United States. Important commentators on English hymnody include J. Julian (1839–1913), L. Benson (1855–1930), P. Dearmer, M. Frost (1888–1961), J. Wilson (1905–92), and E. Routley (1917–82), also R. A. Leaver, A. Luff, N. Temperley, and J. R. Watson.
The mid-1960s saw a hymnic explosion whose texts demonstrate the shift in the language base away from the KJV and BCP toward the metaphors and descriptions contained in recent translations of the Bible and revisions of the language of liturgy. They reflect also the impact of 20th-century science and technology. They name the church as servant and its people as pilgrims in a world whose environment as well as the human family faced extinction. They show the influence of → Vatican II and other gestures of Christian → unity depicting the → sacraments, particularly the → Eucharist, in a global and ecumenical setting. Geoffrey Beaumont’s (1903–70) Twentieth Century Folk Mass (1957), Sydney Carter’s (b. 1915) quasi-folk hymns such as “Lord of the Dance,” and the Light Church Music Group’s Eleven Hymn Tunes (1957) made pop-style music a viable alternative to traditional worship music. The Dunblane Consultations and Workshops (1962–67) identified and developed multistyle hymn writers and composers who fashioned a modest but influential repertory of texts and tunes. Evangelical Anglicans such as M. A. Baughen (b. 1930) and M. A. Perry (1942–96) formed the Jubilate Hymns Trust, a group of writers and composers. The Church of Scotland and the → Iona Community produce ecumenical and global hymnals and recordings. Roman Catholic hymnals also reflected the explosion, beginning with New Catholic Hymnal (1970) and Sing a New Song to the Lord (1970).
The period’s most important and articulate influences were J. Wilson and E. Routley, who linked the “hymnic explosion” in Great Britain with the “hymnbook explosion” of the 1980s in North America. Representative hymn and song writers of the explosion were A. Bayly (1901–84), F. P. Green (b. 1903), T. Dudley-Smith, F. Kaan, and B. Wren. Composers of hymn tunes such as P. Cutts and M. Williamson have used traditional as well as 20th-century compositional technique.
8. United States

African American spirituals and other religious songs, the gospel hymn, and the Social Gospel hymn are the unique contributions of the United States. Early U.S. hymnody falls into three periods. The first covers 1620–1721, from the Pilgrims’ earliest settlement to the Bay Psalm Book, the publication of the first standard tune book. The second, 1721–93, saw the rise of the singing schools, shape-note notation, the fuguing tune, and finally the publication of the earliest U.S. tune still in common use, “Coronation.” William Billings (1746–1800) was the foremost composer of this period. The third runs from 1793 to 1861, an era that saw the widespread use of precursors of the gospel hymn: spiritual songs and choruses from the camp meetings of the Great Awakening, folk and shape-note hymnody, and the songs and songbooks of the → Sunday school, → Salvation Army, → YMCA and YWCA, and temperance movement.
Over a period of 250 years African American slaves in colonial America and the rural South developed a variety of work and freedom songs and spirituals. W. F. Allen, C. P. Ware, and L. M. Garrison’s Slave Songs of the United States (1867) was one of the first attempts to transcribe the melodies of this oral tradition into standard musical notation. Many of the 113 texts are rendered in dialect, with commentary and sources. The bulk of this distinctive religious song remained in the oral tradition, expressed and taught in African American worship; only recently have African American denominational hymnals included them in any great number. In the 1870s spirituals plus freedom and work songs were arranged for the Fisk Jubilee Singers, who performed this music around the world. In the mid-20th century arranged spirituals entered the standard vocal and choral repertory.
Early in the 20th century the urban black gospel hymn was originated by the Philadelphia Methodist preacher C. A. Tindley (1851–1933) and by composer T. A. Dorsey (1899–1993), who pioneered a distinctive gospel performance style. Liberation themes and improvised style set it apart from the 19th-century “white” gospel hymn. The black spiritual and gospel hymn were sung by blacks and whites in the antiwar and → civil rights movements of the 1960s. Roman Catholic and Protestant publishers have produced African American supplements to their hymnals, including Songs of Zion (1981), edited by J. Cleveland (1937–86) and V. Nix (b. 1933), whose work W. F. Smith (1941–97) continued in The United Methodist Hymnal (1989).
In the era of Reconstruction (ca. 1870) P. P. Bliss (1838–76) and I. Sankey (1840–1908) styled the gospel song with its repetitive music and words to complement the urban revival preaching, in the United States and Great Britain, of D. L. → Moody (1837–99; → Revivals 2.1). Many of the simple, singable, and memorable harmonies, rhythms, and melodies are styled after the military march, the waltz and other dance steps, the popular parlor ballads and minstrel songs of S. C. Foster (1826–64), and the camp-meeting choruses, folk hymns, and traditional melodies of the expanding American frontier. The most prolific writers and composers of gospel songs include F. Crosby (1820–1915), W. Bradbury (1816–68), and W. Doane (1832–1915). Western missionaries brought the gospel song to Asia and the Americas, where it remains the most characteristic and popular congregational song of evangelical Protestantism.
The third contribution of American hymnody is the Social Gospel hymn, whose precursors are abolitionist hymns and hymns formed from the works of poets such as J. G. Whittier (1807–92) (e.g., “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind”), hymns of pastor-poet Unitarians such as E. H. Sears (1810–76) (“It Came upon the Midnight Clear” and S. Longfellow (1819–92) (“Holy Spirit, Truth Divine”), Congregationalist W. Gladden (1836–1918) (“O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee”), Methodist F. M. North (1850–1935) (“Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life”), and Episcopalian W. R. Bowie (1882–1969) (“O Holy City, Seen of John”). The 20th-century Social Gospel hymn is grounded in the writings and teachings of W. Rauschenbusch (1861–1918), whose book Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907) was the manifesto for the theological reconstruction of the mainline church, including its worship, mission, education, and hymnody. Social Gospel hymns by W. P. Merrill (1867–1954) (“Rise Up, O Men of God”), H. E. Fosdick (1878–1969) (“God of Grace and God of Glory”), and H. H. Tweedy (1868–1953) (“O Spirit of the Living God”) became the marching songs of liberal Protestantism.
The hymnic explosion in Great Britain tended to obscure the work of less prolific but skilled U.S. writers such as F. B. Tucker (1895–1984), C. Daw, R. Duck, G. Grindal, and J. Vajda; hymn tunes by D. Damon, W. Dirksen, C. Doran, C. Hampton, M. Haugen, R. Hillert, D. Hurd, J. Marshall, R. Proulx, W. Rowan, and C. Schalk; pop-style ballads and songs by R. Avery and D. Marsh; and neogospel songs by W. Gaither, J. Peterson, and D. Rambo. A recent development in mainline hymnals is a significant increase in Anglo-American frontier folk hymns and spirituals, the Reconstruction era and African American gospel hymns, the charismatic chorus and Scripture song, praise and worship hymns, and songs and hymns from African American, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian American sources. During the past two decades nearly all denominations have produced new or revised hymnals, and in some instances their supplements.
The People’s Mass Book (1964) was the first Roman Catholic hymnal to reflect the liturgical and language changes initiated at the Second Vatican Council. Among recent hymnals that reflect an increased ecumenical hymnic repertory and breadth of musical styles—including, for example, the rounds and choruses sung in the → Taizé Community and the psalm settings of J. Gelineau (b. 1920)—we should note Worship (1985), Gather (1988, 1994), and Glory and Praise (3d ed.; 1997).
Principal commentators on U.S. hymnody include R. McCutchan (1877–1958), A. Haeussler, F. Gealy (1894–1976), J. V. Higginson (1896–1994), and L. Ellinwood (1905–94), plus E. Brink, A. Clyde, M. Costen, H. Eskew, R. Glover, D. Hustad, A. Lovelace, D. Music, M. Oyer, W. Reynolds, P. Richardson, J. Spencer, M. Stulken, P. Westermeyer, D. Yoder, and C. Young.
9. Canada

Canadian hymnody has undergone a transformation in style and content beginning roughly in the 1980s, as well as demonstrating an increasing confidence and self-reliance, coupled with an ability to produce significant congregational song. This development is due in part to the rise of Canadian writers such as M. Clarkson (1915–98) and T. H. O’Driscoll, plus composers, including H. B. Cabena, who are well represented in major hymnals in North America and the United Kingdom. Recent Canadian hymnals include The Catholic Book of Worship (1994), Voices United (1996), and Common Praise (1998). If Such Holy Song: The Story of the Hymns in the Hymn Book (1971), by Stanley Osborne (1907–98), and Lionel Adey’s Class and Idol in the English Hymn (1988) rank with the best hymnological research and commentary.
10. Other Places
10.1. China and Southeast Asia

The first pandenominational Chinese hymnal was Putian songzan (Hymns of universal praise, 1936; rev. ed., 1977; Eng. ed., 1981), with music editor B. Wiant (1895–1975). It contains 678 selections, including 62 indigenous hymns and 72 Asian melodies with Western harmonies. In 1983 the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of Protestant Churches (→ China 2), Shanghai, published Zanmei shi ximbian (New hymns of praise; Chinese-English ed., 1998), which by 2000 had distributed 22 million copies. Many hymnals are published in Hong Kong by denominations and private presses to be distributed in Chinese-language communities throughout the world, such as Huaren shengsong (Chinese praise, 1992). The first representative source for pan-Asian hymns was the EACC Hymnal (Tokyo, 1964), compiled by D. T. Niles (1908–70) and J. M. Kelly. Its successor, Sound the Bamboo (Manila, 1990, rev. 2000), edited by I-to Loh, includes a greatly expanded repertory and instructions for performance practices.
Other recent South Asia hymnals include Cambodian collections in Khmer; examples are Christian Missionary Alliance Hymnal (1993), with 229 translations of Western hymns with their tunes and 298 indigenous hymns and melodies, many composed by Sarin Sam; CCM Hymnal (1986), for Malaysian churches; Laotian Hymns (1985); Thai Indigenous Hymns (1984); Madah bakti (1982), an Indonesian Roman Catholic hymnal; and Mazmur dan kidung jemaat (1995), with 478 selections, including 100 indigenous hymns and 150 psalm settings, many by Louis Bourgeois. I-to Loh has compiled and edited a number of collections of indigenous and global hymns for Taiwanese churches, including Hoan-lok ko-siong 1 (Rejoice and sing 1, 1992) and Ban-bin siong-chan (All peoples praise, 1995). Filipino hymnals include Alawiton sa pagtao (Songs of faith; ed. E. Maquiso), Imnaryong pilipino (Filipino hymnal, 1990), and Ang pilipino himnal (The Filipino hymnal, 1995). Indian hymnals include Sacred Hymns in Marathi (1930) and Tamil Christian Lyrics (1932), both with recent tune editions, and the recent Christian Lyrics and Songs of Life (1988).
The Korean/English Hymnal (1989), prepared by Methodists, is widely used elsewhere in Korean-language communities, including those in the United States. Recent collections include Chanyong chanyong (Praise, praise, 1991) and Heenyonul uihan norae (Songs for Jubilee, 1991, texts by Goh Jung-hee, music by Lee Geonyong). U.S. Korean Methodists produced a Korean/English hymnal in 2000. In Japan the United Church hymnal Sambika 21 (The hymnal 21, 1997), with 580 selections, is the successor to previous editions in 1954 and 1967, and to Tomo ni utaoo (Let’s sing together, 1976) and the children’s Sambika (Songs of praise, 1987).
10.2. Australia and New Zealand

The hymnals of mainline churches in Australia and New Zealand, once dominated by Anglican-style words, music, and performance practice, now include a variety of musical styles as well as indigenous hymns. Recent Australian hymnals include the ecumenical Australian Hymn Book (1977), published elsewhere as With One Voice (1978–79), and its supplement, Sing Alleluia (1987), each with noteworthy companions by Wesley Milgate (1918–99); the Presbyterian Rejoice! (1987) and Reformed Book of Worship (1990); and from New Zealand, With One Voice, New Zealand Supplement (1982) and the indigenous Alleluia Aotearoa: Hymns and Songs for All Churches (ed. J. Murray). New Zealand composer C. A. Gibson and hymn writer S. E. Murray have made significant contributions to Australian, New Zealand, U.S., Canadian, and U.K. hymnals. The predominately Western hymnals of Pacific Rim churches (e.g., in Fiji and Samoa) include some indigenous hymns with folk performance practices.
10.3. Africa

The hymnals and hymnic performance practices of African churches were basically Anglo-European until the 1960s and 1970s, when Western missionaries, ethnomusicologists, and their African students encouraged the use of indigenous music in African-style liturgies. Among the first collections from the mid-continent were Tamale Orders and Hymns (ed. T. Colvin), Tunes of Nyasaland (comp. H. Taylor), and Africa Praise (1969). African independence movements sang and danced call-and-response pan-African liberation songs and Christian hymns accompanied by traditional instruments, hand clapping, and body movement. A significant number of indigenous hymns and hymnals have appeared, and congregational song is increasingly styled after tribal practices. The first ecumenical hymnal was Africa Sings (1987). Other recent collections include Sing Freedom! Songs of South African Life (comp. M. Hamilton), Let Us Walk This Road Together (comp. T. Colvin), and Africa Praise Songbook (comp. P. Matsikenyiri).
10.4. Caribbean, Central and South America

In the 16th and 17th centuries Roman Catholic missionary priests in the Caribbean and in Central and South America taught native Indians the Roman-Spanish liturgy and Western musical notation, style, form, and vocal technique. Some encouraged the collecting and performance of their indigenous religious folk expressions, including dance instruments. Typical of indigenous religious folk hymns are the alabados (songs of praise), sung in village churches, and the corito (praise and Scripture chorus), often accompanied by tambourine, maracas, drums, and guitar. While gospel hymns and choruses brought by Protestant missionaries remain the most characteristic song of Haitian-, Portuguese-, and Spanish-speaking evangelical Protestants, new songs have been composed in these languages to be sung using indigenous instruments and performance practices.
Roman Catholic and Protestant hymn writers from the Caribbean, the Americas, and Spain have recently composed hymns of liberation and hope, including W. Soto (1935–96); P. Sosa, compiler of the six-volume Cancionero abierto (Open Songster, 1974–90), S. Monteiro, and S. Chávez-Melo (1944–92); and C. Gabaraín (1936–91). Recent Caribbean collections include Caribbean Hymnal (1980), Responsorial Psalms (1984), Sing a New Song 3 (1981), and Caribbean Praise (1999, ed. G. Mulrain, featuring calypso-style melodies). Latin American hymnals include Cantemos, Hermanos, con Amor (1985), CançoÅes de rua (1992), and Abierto (1993). A number of U.S. publishers have produced collections of Spanish-language hymnals and supplements, such as Flor y canto (1989), Mil voces para celebrar (1996, ed. R. M. Martínez), and Himnario y libro de adoración (1999, ed. R. Gutiérrez-Achon).
Songs from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America are included in ecumenical collections such as Cantate Domino (1974), Many and Great: Songs of the World Church (vol. 1, 1990), Worshipping Ecumenically (1994), Thuma mina (1995), and Global Praise 1 & 2 (1996–2000).
10.5. Eastern Europe

After the end of the cold war, most Eastern European churches began to reprint hymnals published in the early 20th century. Others have published new hymnals, including Baptists (ca. 1991), Korean Methodists (1993), and Lutherans (1995). Methodists in Russia and Lithuania are completing work on their first hymnals since early in the 20th century.
11. Ecumenical Aspects

Research in indigenous hymns is expressed in recent companions to hymnals, the work of the three hymn societies, Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, Hymn Society in Great Britain and Ireland, and Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Hymnologie (→ Hymnology), and → World Council of Churches consultations and workshops on indigenous hymnody that precede their assemblies. Prominent leaders of global song include J. Bell, C. M. Hawn, S. T. Kimbrough Jr., I-to Loh, T. MacArthur, P. Matsikenyiri, and P. Sosa.
12. Recent Developments

An increasing effort is being made by hymnal editors and revision committees to modify archaic expressions and traditional descriptions and forms of address to both people and deity. We also find a much broader selection of themes, now including liberation, → ecology, → peace, justice (→ Righteousness, Justice), the human → family, and the world Christian church as servant in the world (→ Ecumenism, Ecumenical Movement). Hymnic research, for example The Hymn Tune Index (comp. N. Temperley, 1998), and HymnQuest (project chair A. Luff, 2000), is increasingly produced on CD-ROM, and accessible from Internet Websites. Licensing local churches to allow copying of copyrighted hymns has expanded authors’ and publishers’ income with no apparent letup of churches’ insatiable appetite for (and the ability to purchase) new hymnic products. In many places the traditional performance practice of singing thick didactic texts from hand-held hymnals has given way to choruses and Broadway-style songs voiced from throw-away word sheets and fleeting images on screens.
→ Cantata; Canticle; Church Year

Bibliography: L. F. BENSON, The English Hymn: Its Development and Use in Worship (Richmond, Va., 1962; orig. pub., 1915) ∙ W. BLANKENBURG, Der gottesdienstliche Liedgesang der Gemeinde (vol. 4; Kassel, 1961) ∙ E. R. BRINK, ed., Psalter Hymnal Handbook (Grand Rapids, 1998) ∙ M. W. COSTEN, African American Christian Worship (Nashville, 1993) ∙ F. FORMAN, ed., The New Century Hymnal Companion ∙ M. FROST, English and Scottish Psalm and Hymn Tunes, ca. 1543–1677 (London, 1953); idem, ed., Historical Companion to Hymns Ancient and Modern (London, 1962) ∙ R. GLOVER, The Hymnal 1982 Companion (4 vols.; New York, 1990–96) ∙ C. M. HAWN, “The Tie That Binds: A List of Ecumenical Hymns in English Language Hymnals Published in Canada and the United States since 1976,” Hymn 48/3 (1997) 25 ∙ J. JULIAN, A Dictionary of Hymnology (2d ed.; 2 vols.; New York, 1907) ∙ R. LEAVER, “Goostly Psalmes and Spiritual Songes”: English and Dutch Metrical Psalms from Coverdale to Utenhove, 1535–1566 (London, 1991) ∙ G. F. LOCKWOOD, “Recent Developments in U.S. Hispanic and Latin American Protestant Church Music” (Diss., Claremont, Calif., 1981) ∙ I-TO LOH, Asian Resources on Music, Worship, and the Arts (T’ai-nan, 1997) ∙ C. MCCONNELL, Comentario sobre los himnos que cantamos (El Paso, Tex., 1985); idem, La historia del himno en Castellano (3d ed.; El Paso, Tex., 1987) ∙ J. A. MCGUCKIN, At the Lighting of the Lamps: Hymns of the Ancient Church (Harrisburg, Pa., 1995) ∙ C. MAHRENHOLZ and O. SÖHNGEN, eds., Handbuch zum evangelischen Kirchengesangbuch (3 vols.; Göttingen, 1956–70) ∙ W. MILGATE, ed., A Companion to “Sing Alleluia” (rev. ed.; Sydney, 1988); idem, ed., Songs of the People of God: A Companion to “The Australian Hymn Book/With One Voice” (rev. ed.; Sydney, 1985) ∙ J. M. NEALE, Hymns of the Eastern Church (London, 1862) ∙ New Oxford History of Music, vol. 1, Ancient and Oriental Music (London, 1957) ∙ W. J. REYNOLDS, M. PRICE, and D. MUSIC, A Survey of Christian Hymnody (Carol Stream, Ill., 1999) ∙ E. ROUTLEY, The Music of Christian Hymns (Chicago, 1981); idem, A Panorama of Christian Hymnody (Collegeville, Pa., 1979) ∙ E. SOUTHERN, The Music of Black Americans: A History (3d ed.; New York, 1997) ∙ M. STULKEN, Hymnal Companion to the Lutheran Book of Worship (Philadelphia, 1981) ∙ N. TEMPERLEY, The Music of the English Parish Church (2 vols.; Cambridge, 1979) ∙ P. WACKERNAGEL, Das deutsche Kirchenlied von der ältesten Zeit bis zum Anfang des 17. Jahrhunderts (5 vols.; Leipzig, 1864–77) ∙ J. R. WATSON, The English Hymn (London, 1997) ∙ R. WATSON and K. TRICKETT, Companion to Hymns and Psalms (London, 1988) ∙ E. WELLESZ, History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography (London, 1949) ∙ E. WERNER, The Sacred Bridge (2 vols.; 2d ed.; London, 1960) ∙ V. WICKER, ed., The Hymnology Annual (vols. 1–5; Berrien Springs, Mich., 1992–97) ∙ A. WILSON-DICKSON, A Brief History of Christian Music (Oxford, 1997) ∙ C. R. YOUNG, Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal (1989) (Nashville, 1993); idem, Music of the Heart: John and Charles Wesley on Music and Musicians (London, 1995); idem, My Great Redeemer’s Praise: An Introduction to Christian Hymns (Akron, Ohio, 1995).

CARLTON R. YOUNG
Hymnology

Hymnology (from Gk. hymnos) is the study of → hymns, a science that is both pure and applied. Hymnology intersects with the disciplines of biblical studies (→ Exegesis, Biblical), → theology, literature, history, → biography, → anthropology, musicology, and → liturgy. Hymnology is connected with the mission of the church, including its → worship, → evangelism, and → education. A related term is → “hymnody,” which refers to the hymns of a particular time, place, or group. In its broadest scope, hymnology is the study of all the particular hymnodies.
Hymnology includes the history and bibliography of the sources of hymns. This discipline encompasses the life and work of poets and composers, as well as the study of → hymnals and collections of hymn texts and tunes. Hymnology also contributes toward understanding the form and meaning of hymns, including their cultural contexts and functions.
Hymnology is concerned with applying the knowledge of various hymnodies to the practice of congregational singing, as in the editing of hymns for current use, the teaching of unfamiliar hymns to a congregation, and the selection of appropriate hymns for public worship. Hymnologists have researched the development of hymns in each age of the church from the early Greek and Latin hymns to current hymnic expressions.
Three contemporary organizations that support hymnology are the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada (founded 1922), the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1936), and the Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Hymnologie (1957).

Bibliography: L. F. BENSON, The English Hymn: Its Development and Use in Worship (New York, 1915; rev. ed., 1962) ∙ L. ELLINWOOD, ed., Bibliography of American Hymnals (New York, 1984); idem, ed., Dictionary of American Hymnology: First-Line Index (New York, 1984) ∙ H. ESKEW and H. T. MCELRATH, Sing with Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Hymnology (2d ed.; Nashville, 1995) ∙ M. FROST, ed., Historical Companion to Hymns Ancient and Modern (London, 1962) ∙ J. JULIAN, A Dictionary of Hymnology (2 vols.; New York, 1937; orig. pub., 1907) ∙ D. W. MUSIC, Hymnology: A Collection of Source Readings (Lanham, Md., 1996) ∙ E. ROUTLEY, The Music of Christian Hymns (Chicago, 1981) ∙ S. P. SCHILLING, The Faith We Sing (Philadelphia, 1983) ∙ J. R. WATSON, The English Hymn: A Critical and Historical Study (Oxford, 1997).

HARRY ESKEW

I
Iceland

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
176
228
282
Annual growth rate (%):
1.74
1.13
0.88
Area: 102,819 sq. km. (39,699 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 3/sq. km. (7/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 1.57 / 0.69 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 2.19 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 5 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 79.8 years (m: 77.9, f: 81.7)
Religious affiliation (%): Christians 97.5 (Protestants 94.7, indigenous 4.8, Roman Catholics 1.1, other Christians 0.5), nonreligious 1.2, other 1.3.

Overview
1. From Earliest Settlement
2. The Modern Era
3. Evangelical Lutheran Church
4. Other Religious Groups
5. Church and State
Overview

Iceland is one of the least-populated countries in Europe. It has nevertheless preserved a vigorous culture and a distinct national identity. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland (ELCI) is an integral part of this identity and of the way of life of the Icelandic people (→ Lutheran Churches; Lutheranism).
Iceland was an independent republic from 930 until 1262, when civil war and anarchy allowed it to come under the rule of the kings of Norway. In 1380 it passed, with Norway, under the Danish crown. Not until 1944 did Iceland regain its status as a fully independent republic.
In the year 2000 the Icelandic people celebrated the millennium of Christianity in their country.
1. From Earliest Settlement

The first people setting foot on Icelandic soil, perhaps in the early ninth century, were Celtic hermits seeking refuge to worship Christ. They were driven out by later Norse settlers, some of them Christian, but most worshiping the old Norse gods. When Iceland was constituted as a republic in the year 930, it was based on the heathen religion. Beginning in the late 900s, missionaries from the Continent sought to spread Christianity among the population (→ Germanic Mission).
Soon the nation was deeply divided between the adherents of the two different religions, which refused to tolerate each other. In the legislative assembly (the Althing, at Thingvellir, the world’s oldest surviving parliament) in the year 1000, the country stood on the brink of’ civil war. The leaders of the two groups realized the danger and found a solution. They chose a person whom everyone respected for his wisdom, the heathen priest and chieftain Thorgeir of Ljosavatn, to decide which way the people should go. Thorgeir retired to his dwelling, where he spent the day in meditation. On the next day he called forth the assembly and made known his decision: “If we put aside the law, we will put aside the peace. Let it be the foundation of our law that everyone in this land shall be Christian and believe in one God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” The people agreed and were subsequently baptized. This remarkable story, which marks the beginning of the church in Iceland, continues to be an important part of Icelandic culture and identity.
Missionary bishops and priests from Germany, England, and eastern Europe worked among the population to organize the church. The first Icelandic bishop was Ísleifur, who was consecrated in Bremen in 1056. He established his episcopal see at Skálholt, which became the center of Christian learning and spirituality in the country up through the 18th century. The church was originally part of the Province of Bremen, later came under the archbishop of Lund, and in 1153 became part of the Province of Nidaros (Trondheim), Norway.
There was great literary activity between the 11th and 13th centuries, producing extensive religious literature in the Icelandic language as well as the well-known sagas (most of which were doubtless written by clergy). By the 13th century parts of the Bible had been translated into Icelandic. This powerful and enduring literary tradition, with its strong national character, has shaped the Icelandic language and inspired literary activity. Icelandic has had a continuity that makes it the oldest living language in Europe. Icelanders can easily read texts dating from the 13th century.
In 1540 the Lutheran Reformation was established in Iceland, enforced by the Danish crown. Monasteries were dissolved, and much of the property of the episcopal sees was confiscated by the king of Denmark, who became the supreme head of the church. A dark spot in the history of Iceland was the execution in 1550 of Catholic bishop Jón Arason of Hólar, along with his two sons.
The Reformation began a period of renewed literary activity in the country. The publishing of the Icelandic translation of the NT in 1540 and the whole Bible in 1584 was an important step in the history of the language and a major factor in its preservation. Passı́usálmar (Hymns of the passion; 1666), 50 meditations on the cross by the poet and pastor Hallgrímur Pétursson (1614–74), were for generations the most important instruction in prayer and wisdom. The same can be said of Húss-Postilla (Sermons for the home), by Jón Vídalín, bishop of Skálholt (1698–1720).
The 19th century saw the beginning of a national → revival in Iceland and a movement toward political independence. Many churchmen played an important part in this effort.
2. The Modern Era

Around the turn of the 20th century church legislation was reformed, parish councils were established, and → congregations gained the right to elect their → pastors. A new translation of the Bible was printed in 1912, revised in 1981.
In the early 1900s → liberal theology was introduced in Iceland, which led to great theological strife between liberals and conservatives. Textual criticism of the Scriptures and radical theological liberalism were quite influential in the newly founded Department of Theology of the University of Iceland. Spiritism and theosophical writings were also influential in intellectual circles. Opposing this trend were the → inner mission, the → YMCA and → YWCA, and missionary societies with orthodox pietistic leadership. This conflict marred church life in the country well into the 1960s.
At the turn of the century a couple of Lutheran → free churches were founded, based on the same confession as the national church and using the same liturgy and hymnal, but structurally and financially independent. Earlier, → Roman Catholic priests and nuns established missions and founded hospitals. In the early decades of the 20th century, Seventh-day → Adventists and Pentecostal missions were quite successful (→ Pentecostal Churches).
Until the 20th century the population of the country was predominantly rural farmers and fishermen, whose lifestyle was traditional. Modern social upheavals have brought with them problems for the church in Iceland, as Iceland has become a modern and highly urbanized society, highly secularized (→ Secularism), with increasing → pluralism of belief.
3. Evangelical Lutheran Church

Even though Iceland is becoming increasingly multicultural, with a variety of faiths, 90 percent of the population belong to the ELCI. More than 90 percent of the children are baptized and later confirmed; 75 percent of the people are married in the church, and 99 percent are buried in the church. A recent Gallup poll shows that only 12 percent of adults in Iceland attend at least one church service a month. The state broadcasting system transmits worship services every Sunday morning and daily devotions morning and night.
Iceland is one diocese under the bishop of Iceland, whose office is in Reykjavík. There are about 300 Lutheran parishes nationwide, served by approximately 150 priests and 10 ordained deacons, with 10 other priests working in specialized ministries in hospitals and other institutions. The ELCI also has priests serving Icelandic congregations abroad. Women have been ordained since 1974 (→ Ordination); in 1999 about one-quarter of the pastors were women.
The theological faculty of the University of Iceland, founded in 1911, educates the clergy and deacons of the church. Many theologians go abroad for further studies in seminaries and universities on both sides of the Atlantic. The church, far from being isolated, is subject to all influences of the times, including theological trends.
The ELCI is a member of the → Lutheran World Federation and the → World Council of Churches. It signed the Porvoo Declaration between the Anglican churches of the British Isles and the Nordic and Baltic Lutheran churches.
The Missionary Societies of Iceland, in cooperation with the Norwegian Lutheran Mission, has operated missions in China, Ethiopia, and Kenya (→ Scandinavian Missions), with the African missions still active. The Icelandic Church Aid has worked in cooperation with foreign relief and developmental agencies in development work and emergency aid in various parts of the world.
4. Other Religious Groups

According to the census of 1999, just under 90 percent of the population belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland (247,245 people), 4 percent to the Evangelical Lutheran Free Churches (10,622), and 1 percent each to the Roman Catholic Church (3,827) and to Pentecostal and charismatic congregations (2,999).
Several other groups have less than 1,000 members each: Seventh-day Adventists, → Jehovah’s Witnesses, and → Mormons; also → Baha’is, → Buddhists, Old-Norse Asa-cultists, and Muslims (→ Islam).
5. Church and State

The constitution of 1874, which guaranteed → religious liberty, declared that the “Evangelical Lutheran Church is a national church, and as such it is protected and supported by the State.” This provision continued in the constitution of the Republic of Iceland of 1944. Although the church is established by law, it is autonomous in internal matters. The state is pledged to support the church, and it also collects membership dues for the church and other denominations and religious communities in the country.
On January 1, 1998, a new law came into effect defining the status of the ELCI and its relations with the government. Most → church law, which previously had been enacted by the Althing, is now made by the annual Kirkjuthing (Church assembly), which is the highest legislative authority of the church. The highest executive authority is the Kirkjurad (Church council), with two clergy and two laymen elected by the Kirkjuthing and presided over by the bishop of Iceland. In addition, the bishop annually summons all the pastors and theologians of the church to the pastors’ meeting, the Synod, to discuss the affairs of the church and society.

Bibliography: J. H. ADALSTEINSSON, Under the Cloak: The Acceptance of Christianity in Iceland (Uppsala, 1978) ∙ M. FELL, And Some Fell into Good Soil: A History of Christianity in Iceland (New York, 1999) ∙ K. HASTRUP, A Place Apart: An Anthropological Study of the Icelandic World (Oxford, 1998) ∙ M. M. LÁRUSSON and S. EINAARSSON, “The Church in Iceland,” Scandinavian Churches (ed. L. S. Hunter; London, 1965) 104–11 ∙ P. PÉTURSSON, Church and Social Change: A Study of the Secularization Process in Iceland, 1830–1930 (Vänersborg, 1983).

BERNHARÐUR GUÐMUNDSSON
Icon

1. Term and Definition
2. Rise
3. Philosophical and Cultural Context
4. Theological Basis
5. Aesthetics and Typology
6. Place and Function
1. Term and Definition

The term “icon” denotes a sacred picture (eikōn) in the Eastern church. On the Orthodox view (→ Orthodox Church) it points to the suprasensory original, presenting it in realistic symbolism.
As distinct from religious pictures in the West, which are aesthetic tools of instruction (“art for the sake of religion”), → devotion, and → meditation, the icon is a → revelation of the transcendent in the immanent (→ Immanence and Transcendence). The metaphysical → ontology of the icon as a manifestation of heavenly realities, or their → identity and existential vindication, lies in the mystical presentation of the invisible original.
2. Rise

The pre-Nicene → church fathers, out of regard for their pagan setting, still related the Christian faith to the prohibition of images in the → Decalogue (Exod. 20:4–5). After the toleration of Christianity and its recognition as the state religion at the end of the fourth century, however, the Fathers integrated the Greek cultural legacy (→ Hellenism) into Christian culture and thus adopted a more favorable attitude toward images. By the early seventh century the icon no longer came under suspicion of idolatry, although there were still some critical voices. Apart from the latter and the superstitious abuses associated with the growing cult of icons, we cannot explain the iconoclasm (→ Images) that shook the → Byzantine Empire for a century and a half until the seventh ecumenical council—Nicaea II (787)—ratified a theologically based veneration of icons and related icon and word.
3. Philosophical and Cultural Context

It was not by accident that the veneration and theology of icons developed in a sphere shaped by Greek culture. Images played a dominant role in the everyday life of the Greeks. Their poetry and philosophy (→ Greek Philosophy) are characterized by a plastic thinking that closely relates presentation to what is presented, or image to original. Plato (427–347 B.C.) underlined the transcending function of images, providing a classical basis for the venerating of images in antiquity (Leg. 930E-F). His doctrine of the ideas (→ Platonism) as it was developed in Neoplatonism and especially the writings of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite (A.D. ca. 500) forms the philosophical background to the patristic theology of icons, in which the ancient Greek idea of the close relation between content and visible form, or idea and phenomenal reality, survives (see A. Kallis art. in D. Papandreou, L’icône).
4. Theological Basis

Although the theology of icons borrows from Platonic thinking, in content it has a biblical and Christological basis. It thus overcomes the Platonic → dualism of the intelligible and the sensory world. Christ’s assumption of flesh (→ Incarnation) denotes the ontological unity of the intelligible and the sensory.
In defense of the icon the Fathers used biblical, ethical, religious, anthropological, didactic, cosmological, and epistemological arguments, along with the argument from tradition. The decisive argument, however, was from → Christology. The veneration of icons was for them a logical consequence of belief in the reality of the incarnation of the Logos, who in his human form is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). Dogmatically the victory of veneration meant a consistent acceptance of the Council of → Chalcedon (451), while intellectually it meant the triumph of Greek Orthodox thinking (→ Orthodoxy 3) over the formlessness of the East.
5. Aesthetics and Typology

As a symbol expressing inexpressible metaphysical realities, the icon has its own → aesthetic, depicting neither an idealistic nor an objective reality of earthly naturalism but a spiritual reality. This reality constitutes its strangeness and its distinctive inner beauty, the beauty of the → truth that is God himself.
The iconographic types that went hand in hand with dogmatic development form a supratemporal language that is common to all Orthodox churches and that is not the work or achievement of individual artistic skill. Proof of this commonality lies in the anonymity of the Hagiographa, the signature “by the hand,” and especially the tradition of the acheiropoiētoi (not made by [human] hands), which points to the heavenly and spiritual dimension (see Mark 14:58; 2 Cor. 5:1; Col. 2:11).
Limits are thus set to the arbitrary imagination of the hagiographa, though without restricting their creative powers; note the icons of Manouel Panselinos (first half of the 14th cent.), Theophanes the Greek (ca. 1330/40–1405), Andrey Rublyov (ca. 1360/70–1430), Theophanes the Cretan (ca. 1500–1559), and Michael Damaskinos (16th cent.). The development of → iconography proves this dynamic, for the icons bear the specific imprint of the different periods. Models for iconic art arose relatively late (16th cent.) and were not canonized by the church but simply served as aids. A slavish imitation of old icons gives evidence of an imitation mentality that wrongly seeks its justification in → dogmatics.
6. Place and Function

The inner link between icon and → liturgy protects the icon against superstitious misuse (→ Magic). Whether in church or at home, the icon has a liturgical function, namely, encounter with the heavenly world. It bears witness to the presence of the original, not ontically, but in mystical hypostasis that gives access to the original. Hence Nicaea II distinguished between simple veneration (timētikē proskynēsis) and true worship (alēthinē latreia), which must be offered to God alone. It quotes Basil’s famous saying that the honor paid to the icon transfers to the original (De Spir. S. 18.45).
The icon is seen as the visible ray of the invisible → absolute, which reveals itself in the icon but remains hidden in essence. Its shining enhances sense perception and understanding and demands a special liturgical contemplation so that through the visible there may be access to the invisible, the true reality of the icon. This theognōsia (knowledge of God) comes in the process of theōria (contemplation) of that which is beyond logic as participation in invisible transcendence. The icon shatters the idolatrous images of the understanding (→ Apophatic Theology) and frees us for encounter with the ineffable.
→ Christian Art; Iconostasis; Liturgy 2; Piety; Saints, Veneration of; Worship 3

Bibliography: H. BELTING, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art (Chicago, 1994) ∙ “Bild und Glaube (Nikaia II 787–1987-Ringvorlesung der Universität Munich im SS 1987),” OrthFor 1 (1987) 131–267 ∙ F. BOESPFLUG and N. LOSSKY, eds., Nicée II, 787–1987. Douze siècles d’images religieuses (Paris, 1987) ∙ P. EVDOKIMOV, The Art of the Icon: A Theology of Beauty (Redondo Beach, Calif., 1990) ∙ W. FELICETTI-LIEBENFELS, Geschichte der byzantinischen Ikonenmalerei (Olten, 1956); idem, Geschichte der russischen Ikonenmalerei in den Grundzügen dargestellt (Graz, 1972) ∙ H. P. GERHARD, The World of Icons (London, 1971; orig. pub., 1957) ∙ L’icône dans la théologie et l’art (Geneva, 1990) ∙ A. KALLIS, “Nikaia II (787). Aktualität und ökumenische Relevanz des letzten ökumenischen Konzils,” Hermeneia 3 (1987) 186–92; idem, “Der philosophisch-kulturelle Kontext der Ikonenverehrung und -theologie,” L’icône dans la théologie et l’art (Geneva, 1990) ∙ K. KALOKYRIS, Orthodox Iconography (Brookline, Mass., 1985) ∙ T. NIKOLAOU, “Die Ikonenverehrung als Beispiel ostkirchlicher Theologie und Frömmigkeit nach Johannes von Damaskus,” OS 25 (1976) 138–65 ∙ K. ONASCH, Icons (London, 1963); idem, Ikonen. Faszination und Wirklichkeit (Freiburg, 1995) ∙ L. OUSPENSKY, Theology of the Icon (rev. ed.; 2 vols.; New York, 1992) ∙ L. OUSPENSKY and V. LOSSKY, The Meaning of Icons (rev. ed.; New York, 1982) ∙ C. VON SCHÖNBORN, L’icône du Christ (Paris, 1986) ∙ P. SHERRARD, The Sacred in Life and Art (Ipswich, 1990) ∙ N. THON, Ikone und Liturgie (Trier, 1979).

ANASTASIOS KALLIS
Iconoclasm, Iconoclasts → Images
Iconography

1. The Study of Images
2. The Body of Christian Imagery
2.1. Early Church
2.2. Middle Ages
2.3. Reformation to Modern Times
3. Christian Iconography in Architecture

In the context of Christian art the term “iconography” (Gk. eikonographia, “description, sketch,” from eikōn, “image,” and graphia, “writing”) has three possible meanings: (1) the production and study of icons, those images of holy figures or narratives devoutly prepared and venerated as possessing a special sanctity through which the faithful may pray to the original of the image; (2) the identification and analysis of → images and their meanings; and (3) the repertory of images included and employed in → Christian art. The first has been discussed elsewhere (→ Icon); this entry treats the second and third meanings.
1. The Study of Images

At its simplest level, iconography may be a description of a visual image, either basic or, as in the ancient literary form of ekphrasis (description), embellished with commentary or (usually laudatory) critical judgment. At its most complex, iconography may involve not only the identification of subject matter or theme but also an investigation of possible meaning(s), sources (visual, literary, theological, philosophical, etc.), and reasons for the artist’s and/or patron’s choices; this intensive approach is often termed “iconology.”
Cultures become adept at constructing and deciphering → meaning in their own use of imagery, especially the imagery of substitution, such as → symbols, emblems, and → allegorical figures and episodes. In the history of art, over time certain images or combinations of images (often called programs) were sanctioned and even codified by religious or secular authorities and, by virtue of widespread circulation and commonality of form and presentation, were fully legible even to the uneducated and illiterate over a much larger geographic area than their point of origin and a much longer period of time. Christianity constructed its imagery gradually, but the cumulative effect was prodigious: once in the repertory of images, very little ever disappeared. Even now, what is not still actively employed is usually remembered and understood.
The recognition of Christian imagery in its earliest periods was aided by the fact that most of the images were reflected or reiterated in → prayers, Scripture and biblical commentaries, liturgical texts, sermons, apologia, hymn texts and poetry, and hagiographic and theological works. It was in fact the clerics, theologians, and philosophers producing such literature who dictated the content and form of Christian images to the largely nameless artists of the first 1,500 years of the faith. In the late Middle Ages and the → Renaissance, the construction of religious images was often achieved not only with the collaboration of erudite theologians, humanists, and poets but also in combination with motifs and subjects from Greek and Roman literature and history. The results were complicated and intricate, meant to be completely unraveled only by a small group of cognoscenti, but it was not unusual for detailed commentaries and exegeses to be circulated, at least by word of mouth.
The dissemination throughout Europe of printed books such as Andrea Alciati’s Emblemata (Augsburg, 1531) and the even more influential Iconologia by Cesare Ripa (Rome, 1593; first illustrated ed., 1603) signal the first works of iconography, in which symbols, emblems, narratives, and the physical appearance and attributes of allegorical figures and designs were minutely described and often illustrated, providing patrons and artists with a common vocabulary. Ripa’s work was utilized by artists until nearly the end of the 18th century, and following his usage the term “iconology” was employed for what we now call iconography, whereas the latter term was restricted to the description of portraiture.
With the progression of history and the destruction or temporary loss of pertinent documents, both visual and written, successive generations lost the clues needed to decipher many visual images, and speculation and subjectivity were rife. In the 18th century Johann Joachim Winckelmann advocated the careful study of works of art in order to perceive and understand their meanings; this program set the stage for the formal art-historical approach known as iconography, established and given form in the later 19th and earlier 20th centuries primarily by French and German scholars such as Adolphe-Napoléon Didron, Fernand Cabrol and Henri Leclerq, Émile Mâle, Anton Springer, Karl Künstle, Raymond van Marle, Aby Warburg, and Erwin Panofsky.
During the first two-thirds of the 20th century, iconography was, with the study of form and of context, one of the major art-historical methodologies. If not mutually exclusive, these three nevertheless existed in separate realms: practitioners of iconography rarely dealt with style and included only what context was necessary for the identification of sources. In more recent scholarship, iconography as an approach often incorporates a consideration of both the form that conveys meaning and the historical and cultural context from which the image emerges. In the last three decades of the century, many of the critical approaches to art adopted from literary theory are in fact iconographic in nature, such as semiotics, the study of the assignment and perception of meaning, and deconstruction, the detachment of meaning from the concept of original intention. Because of the human desire for order and meaning, iconography is unlikely to vanish from the scholar’s repertoire of tools.
2. The Body of Christian Imagery
2.1. Early Church

As noted above, very few motifs that ever became part of the repertoire of Christian imagery ever completely disappeared. A number of the oldest symbols are still in use, and many more have survived in only slightly altered form. The iconography of scenes from the OT, of the life of Christ, and of many episodes depicting the Virgin → Mary and other saints is as recognizable to the modern Christian as it was to those who first invented it in the early centuries of the church (although reference works on iconography must sometimes be relied upon).
From extant evidence, the earliest perceptibly Christian images were simple or complex symbols, many derived from the cultures from which the Christians came (and of which they were still a part) and transformed in meaning through scriptural or theological justification. These images included the fish, anchor, ship, plow, star, tree, and → cross, as well as letters or combinations of letters such as the Chi-Rho (the → monogram of Christ), scratched on a stone ossuary or traced in plaster over a sealed tomb.
Christians in the East employed figural imagery, even representations of Christ, as early as the middle of the third century. For example, the → baptistery of the → house church at Dura-Europos, on the Euphrates River at the eastern edge of the → Roman Empire, included the temptation of Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, the Good Shepherd and his flock, the Samaritan woman at the well, Christ healing a paralytic and walking on water (pulling Peter up, watched by a shipful of apostles), and a procession of ten women divided into two groups of five at a door, a scene that was probably a conflation of the holy women coming to the tomb on Easter morning and the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. Such a combination of Old and New Testament themes, including some taken from gospels and other writings excluded from the NT → canon, was common in funerary art in both East and West and demonstrated an important concept in Christian art: visual typology, in which a figure or event from the OT is read as a prefiguration of an event from the life of Christ or another NT figure.
A chronology of motifs in Rome and the Western Empire is difficult to establish because of the paucity of dated or datable evidence. In → catacomb paintings and carved sarcophagi, scenes of OT patriarchs and prophets in dire peril proclaimed the → salvation that comes from God alone; especially popular was Jonah, whose three days in the belly of the fish corresponded to Christ’s three days in the tomb (Matt. 12:40). Many catacomb figures were shown orans (lit. praying), with arms raised, a prayer posture dating from the most ancient religions. Also found in Western funerary art in the same period were pagan substitutes for Christ, including Orpheus for his resurrection-like return from the underworld, Hercules for his strength and good deeds, and a brace of sun gods, Apollo and Helios or Sol Invictus (the Invincible Sun), for their power and splendor. There were also transitional images that might be read as either pagan or Christian, depending on their context, such as the philosopher (Christ with his disciples) or the herdsman, a figure going back at least to the seventh century B.C. in Greece, which was perceived as a good luck charm by pagan Romans and as the Good Shepherd by Christians.
→ Images of Christ himself appeared in the West by the end of the third century. He is distinguished not by distinct facial features but by his → baptism and → miracles, scenes in which he appears as one of several short-haired, togaed Romans, distinguished only by a “magic” wand or gesture of power. Sculptural representations, especially on marble sarcophagi, depict him as a young man distinguished from his companions by his long, curly hair and lack of beard, in possible reference to pagan gods he was replacing. The dark, bearded Christ that has become the most familiar representation in Christian art seems to have come from Syria and Palestine in the fourth century. Also in the fourth century, with the imperial sanction of Christianity, comes the image of Christ enthroned as god or emperor, the passion of Christ (in which he is never seen to suffer), the lamb as a sacrificial substitute, and the earliest images of saints (esp. → martyrs) as holy helpers, by whom the recently deceased are led to eternal life, the saints here taking over the role of Hermes/Mercury in Greco-Roman religion.
Other themes were gradually added, such as extended cycles of the life and passion of Christ and scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary, particularly after the Council of Ephesus in 431 that declared her theotokos (God-bearer). As the company of saints grew, they were featured more prominently, as single figures, in episodes from their lives, or in company with Christ and the Virgin in icons, church frescoes, or codices and scrolls.
Just as theological and liturgical rifts occurred between the Christians of the East and West, so did iconographic motifs diverge. The → resurrection was at first universally indicated by the encounter of the holy women with the angel at the empty tomb; then, in the sixth century, the East began to favor a warrior Christ standing on a serpent and a lion, later followed by an image of Christ descending to the underworld (the Anastasis) to pull his faithful forebears from the jaws of death, while the West shifted in the Middle Ages (by the 9th cent.) to Christ stepping from the tomb.
2.2. Middle Ages

Despite a long period of iconoclasm in the East (726–843) and a few outbursts in the West, Christian iconography, while retaining the body of images mentioned above, was enriched with new saints, new legends, and new extensions and refinements of previous narratives. Images in the East (including Greece and, later, Russia) remained static in type and style out of a reverence for ancient representations possibly created by divine intervention, such as the Mandylion of Abgar, believed to have been created when Christ wiped his face on a linen napkin. Important developments in the West include a gradual shift, beginning shortly before 1000, from an “imperial” Christ enthroned in the heavens to the suffering Savior hanging on the cross, lying dead across his sorrowing mother’s lap (the Pietà), or displaying his broken body as a sacrifice (the Man of Sorrows), motifs that sprang from popular piety and proliferated in the penitential atmosphere of the Middle Ages. It was also customary for huge representations of the last judgment or other apocalyptic themes in stone, mosaic, or fresco to be prominently displayed on the interior or exterior entrance wall of churches to encourage the faithful in a holy life on this earth.
Symbolic and allegorical figures from the classical past often reappeared in medieval Christian art, particularly personifications of the liberal arts, virtues, and vices, as well as the zodiac and a popular calendar of agricultural scenes known as the labors of the months; often the last two are combined with an image of Christ to suggest that the endless cycle of time is broken once and for all by the unique event of the → incarnation (e.g., in the Church of Mary Magdalene, Vézelay). The sibyls, prophetic women of ancient Greece and Rome, were absorbed into Christian iconography as companions for the OT prophets because their ambiguous predictions seemed to encompass the birth of Christ. OT imagery remained important: stone carvings of prophets and patriarchs, biblical kings and queens encrusted the exterior of medieval churches, and stained-glass windows told their stories.
In the 14th century the church itself sanctioned a typological iconography in which each episode from the life of Christ (sub gratia, “under grace”) was accompanied by two OT scenes, one from before the time of Moses (ante legem, “before the law”) and one from his life or later (sub lege, “under the law”). This Biblia pauperum, or “Bible of the poor,” was intended both to educate the clergy, many of whom were too illiterate to read works of theology or even the Bible, and to combat the Albigensians and other heretics who insisted the OT had no validity after the coming of Christ.
In the 15th century, popular piety, → humanism, and the rebirth of interest in the classical past introduced new elements into Christian iconography. In the northern countries, in the work of artists such as Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck, biblical scenes took place in contemporary domestic interiors furnished with minutely depicted household objects, but these ordinary elements were suffused with hidden meaning: a ray of light passing through a glass of water, for example, represented the conception of Christ in the womb of the Virgin. A new appreciation of humanity and human achievement prompted an increase in depictions of living men and women in Christian art, as donors or participants in holy mysteries; images of the saints, those once-flawed mortals who rose to glory, outnumbered images of the adult Christ. In Italy especially, sophisticated visual “programs” were developed for artists such as Sandro Botticelli and their patrons by humanists who strove to reconcile the Christian and classical worlds. For example, tales of Greek and Roman morality were conflated with good works of the saints, characteristics of Venus with those of the Virgin Mary.
2.3. Reformation to Modern Times

The period of the Protestant and Catholic → Reformations in the 16th century saw great changes in religious imagery. In Protestant areas where imagery was not prohibited altogether, the number of acceptable themes was considerably decreased, primarily to the Last Supper, the crucifixion, and often convoluted theological allegories; even in iconoclastic areas such as Zurich and Geneva, however, newly translated and printed German Bibles were illustrated with woodcuts. A few artists such as Albrecht Dürer and the Lucas Cranachs (father and son) attempted to develop a Protestant iconography, Lucas the Elder introducing some new or rarely depicted themes to illustrate the → grace and accessibility of Christ, such as the woman taken in adultery or Christ with the children, but no artists continued their work. Not until a century later did Christian imagery revive in Protestant cultures, some of it disguised as moral messages in the symbolism of still lifes, landscapes, or genre scenes. Biblical narratives became a common subject for prestigious history paintings; a few artists such as Rembrandt chose scenes from Scripture for the opportunity to study the human condition.
In Roman Catholic countries imagery became, if anything, more effusive, but also more carefully controlled by the church and the rulings of the Council of → Trent (1545–63); artists were permitted to depict only what was scriptural and morally edifying. Violations could be addressed by the → Inquisition itself, before which the Venetian artist Paolo Veronese was brought in 1573 for the inclusion of “frivolous” elements in a vast painting depicting the Last Supper. Despite the church’s call for restraint and moderation, vast exploding church ceilings and saints of remarkable physical beauty writhing in exquisite torments or ecstasies were calculated to awe the faithful and win back the schismatics by the glory and splendor of the faith. Religious art became high theater, with the traditional themes enhanced and at times overwhelmed by the elaborate set designs of Gian Lorenzo Bernini or the dramatic lighting of Caravaggio or the multimedia spectacle of pilgrimage churches of Bavaria and Austria, where architecture, sculpture, and painting are inseparably linked.
In the increasingly secular culture of the → Enlightenment, as → religion became a more private concern and the beleaguered church devoted its decreasing resources to more pressing needs than the patronage of art, traditional Christian iconography was depicted less and less frequently. “Christian values,” however, were communicated by seemingly secular subject matter in the 18th century, such as William Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress, a popular transformation of the parable of the prodigal son, and historical figures were shown in poses and situations resonant with Christian meaning, such as Jacques-Louis David’s assassinated revolutionary Marat in the pose of the dead Christ or John Singleton Copley’s harpoonist in Watson and the Shark in the pose of the militant archangel Michael.
In the age of → Romanticism and → realism in the 19th century, artists in movements such as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England and the Nazarener in Germany, and even self-proclaimed anticlerical artists throughout Europe, chose to depict narratives from the Old and New Testaments, seeing the protagonists as the epitome of romantic heroes or heroines, in moments of high drama and pathos; not the least of the heroic figures were Christ himself, dying young for a noble cause, and Mary Magdalene, the redeemed sinner, faithful to the end. The realists often depicted Christ and his apostles as poor working men of great dignity and presence or as authentic Palestinians. Landscape artists from the American Thomas Cole to the German Caspar David Friedrich incorporated religious scenes and images or simply imbued their panoramic works with a sense of the Creator, who had formed such wonders. Even the new art form of photography posed men and women as biblical characters or saints.
The 20th century saw two significant developments in Christian iconography: the readoption of traditional imagery, and the increasing abstraction of art, often simultaneously encompassed in the same work. Developments in the 19th and earlier 20th century, from the → impressionists to the abstract → expressionists, gave artists new vocabularies of color and form imbued with a potential for not only expressing content but enlisting the composition itself in the expression of religious feeling. The titles of many abstract or nonrepresentational works suggest religious content, but it is not an easy matter to judge whether Christian subject matter has been employed purely for its associations or whether an artist is expressing deeply felt personal faith. Was the reappearance of traditional Christian imagery among the German expressionists—for the most part a hard-bitten, cynical lot—when faced with a disintegrating society and personal angst in the 1920s and 1930s, an ingrained cultural impulse or a personal choice? Artists who professed no faith were sometimes enlisted by clergy who decried the declining quality of Christian art and felt that Christian imagery executed by great artists who were not believers was more meaningful than bad art executed by Christian artists. Christian themes and concepts have now been widely appropriated by artists of every persuasion, for nearly as many reasons: deliberately, in order to express personal faith, comment upon or criticize Christianity and its practitioners, or challenge the viewer; unconsciously, because Christian imagery is part of the culture in which the artist lives; ultimately, because of the recognizability of such themes and their ability to carry meaning to many people.
3. Christian Iconography in Architecture

Architecture has its own iconography, for shapes, sizes, materials, and even construction methods may deliberately convey meaning (→ Church Architecture). For centuries the circle, a perfect and eternal form, was considered the ideal shape for a church. Octagonal baptisteries were derived from the mystical meaning of the number 8, referring to the survivors of the great flood and the day of resurrection. Circles and the shapes that could be inscribed in them also carried into Christian architecture a reference to the tombs of ancient kings and heroes, just as the form of the dome suggested the heavens and was often decorated as such. The shape of most medieval, Renaissance, and baroque churches was that of a cross, and the elaborately ornamented Gothic cathedrals were intended to be earthly configurations of the heavenly Jerusalem as described in the Book of Revelation.
Throughout the history of architecture the revival of earlier styles suggested a return to the values and meanings of earlier cultures; certain supporters of the Gothic revival in Great Britain and Ireland in the 19th century, such as A. W. N. Pugin, believed that the style exercised a moral imperative, a call to return to the orthodoxy of an age when God governed human affairs, and that it was the only possible style for Christian architecture. The early → Puritan meetinghouses in the New World were built without central aisles in a rejection of the processional pomp of the High Anglican churches; the pulpit was centrally placed to symbolize the primacy of the Word. In contemporary church architecture there are many interpretations of older motifs and referential or symbolic configurations of the sanctuary, such as the use of a semicircular arrangement of pews to remind worshipers of the Christian community and the placement of the baptismal font at the doorway of the sanctuary to symbolize entrance into Christian life.

Bibliography: J. DRURY, Painting the Word: Christian Pictures and Their Meanings (New Haven, 1999) ∙ G. FINALDI et al., The Image of Christ (London, 2000) ∙ A. GRABAR, Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins (Princeton, 1968) ∙ S. KOSTOF, A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals (2d ed.; rev. G. Castillo; New York, 1995) ∙ É. MÂLE, Art religieux après le Concile de Trent (Paris, 1972); idem, Religious Art in France (3 vols.; ed. H. Bober; Princeton, 1978–86) ∙ T. F. MATHEWS, The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art (rev. ed.; Princeton, 1999) ∙ D. MORGAN, Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images (Berkeley, Calif., 1998) ∙ L. MURRAY and P. MURRAY, The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture (Oxford, 1996) ∙ H. VAN OS et al., The Art of Devotion in the Late Middle Ages in Europe, 1300–1500 (Princeton, 1994) ∙ L. RÉAU, Iconographie de l’art chrétien (3 vols.; Paris, 1955–59) ∙ G. SCHILLER, Iconography of Christian Art (2 vols.; Greenwich, N.Y., 1971).
SUSANNA BEDE CAROSELLI, S.S.G.
Iconostasis

The iconostasis, or templon, is a lattice screen of marble or wood that is decorated with → icons and that, in Byzantine churches, separates the sanctuary (→ Altar) from the main body of the church. The two parts are linked by three doors: two side doors and the so-called Beautiful Gate, or Holy Door, in the middle. In the early period of the church this barrier was very low and undecorated. In the Byzantine period small pillars were then added, with an architrave above. Curtains were put between the pillars, as were, from the end of the 13th century, the so-called great, or despotic, icons: those of Christ, the divine mother (→ Mary, Devotion to), and the patron saint. To these were added the 12 images of the great festivals (the dōdekaorton).
According to one theory, the proscenium of the ancient Greek theater was the model for the iconostasis. Obviously the curtain in the Jewish temple had an influence. The iconostasis gradually increased in height, and it now separates a special area that has mystical significance. The various prayers of the priests at → worship, as well as the → iconography on the walls of this area, which relates to the mystical offering of the Lamb, give evidence of this significance. The fathers of the Orthodox Church, and its painting, confirm that the sanctuary is regarded as a symbol of the heavenly Jerusalem, a place of → reverence and respect. Those who do not have the grace of the priestly office (→ Priest, Priesthood) are denied access to it. This division, however, does not imply an ideological separation based on the distinction between → clergy and laity. Such a separation is unknown in the Orthodox Church.
→ Images

Bibliography: M. CHATZIDAKIS, “Ikonostas,” RBK 3.326–52 ∙ P. FLORENSKIJ, “Ikonostas,” BoTr 9 (1972) 80–148 ∙ K. HOLL, “Die Entstehung der Bilderwand in der griechischen Kirche,” ARW 9.365–84; idem, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte (vol. 2; Tübingen, 1928) 225–37 ∙ J. B. KONSTANTINOWICZ, Ikonostasis. Studien und Forschungen (vol. 1; Lvov, 1939) ∙ J. WALTER, “The Origins of the Iconostasis,” ECR 3 (1971) 251–67.
KONSTANTINOS D. KALOKYRIS
Idealism

1. Meanings of “Idealism”
2. Platonism
3. Descartes to Berkeley
4. Kant
5. Fichte
6. The Early Schelling
7. Hegel
8. The Later Schelling
9. Critics of German Idealism
10. Later Idealism
11. Idealism and Christian Theology
1. Meanings of “Idealism”

Idealism in the philosophical sense embraces a range of positions affirming that ultimate reality consists of mind(s), thought(s), or a domain of nonphysical, mental, or spiritual entities. Some idealists hold that minds and their thoughts are all there is, that physical or phenomenal objects are illusory if taken to be more than just thoughts. Others hold the less extreme view that physical or phenomenal objects actually exist as such, but their existence and natures are understood to be the self-actualization of a spiritual or mental realm, that what makes them what they are is not matter in motion but their mind-given, intelligible natures. Absolute idealists affirm a single mind behind the phenomenal universe. Personal idealists speak of a number of finite minds (persons) that collectively engender the world of known objects. These and other varieties of philosophical idealism have exerted great influence on religion, including Christian thought and practice.
2. Platonism

Plato (427–347 B.C.; → Platonism) held that the metaphysical objects he called ideas (perfect, unchangeable, and eternal objects) are the ultimate foundation of the kinds of sensible objects that exist in space and time. Each concept (and its definition) has its correlative idea, accessible to thought alone and fully “real” (genuine, substantial) in a way that its phenomenal exemplifications are not. The term “idealism” has its historical roots in Plato’s theory of ideas. Though these ideas have affinities with our minds or → souls, Plato regarded them not as thoughts or thinking but as the objects that minds think about. His Neoplatonic heirs, such as Plotinus (ca. A.D. 205–70), speak of them as an array in a supersensible mind (nous), but not, as such, a thinking process as we know it. In scholastic debates of the Middle Ages this Platonic philosophy was called → realism (in contrast to → nominalism), an indication that it differs considerably from what is meant by idealism in the modern era.
3. Descartes to Berkeley

René Descartes (1596–1650; → Cartesianism) changed the philosophical landscape with his focus on the ego, or subject, as knower and on clarity and distinctness as criteria of the truth of our ideas. But with his → dualistic segregation of extended substance from thinking substance and his mechanistic view of nature, he cannot be called an idealist. Likewise Baruch Spinoza (1632–77), whose → pantheistic → metaphysics treats the mode of extension (body) as parallel and irreducible to the mode of thought. Only Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) among the great rationalists could be termed an idealist in a limited sense, in that his “monads,” the fundamental and immaterial entities, exist in a noninteractive, preestablished harmony, each being a unique perception of, or perspective on, all the others.
Oddly enough, we find the only full-fledged idealist in this period among the British empiricists, namely, George Berkeley (1685–1753), who held that “to be is to be perceived,” that matter and physical objects as such are not real, that all our perceptions of the ostensibly physical world are actually thoughts given to our minds by the mind of God. (Samuel Johnson sought to refute him by kicking a stone, but the pain in his foot was likewise a sensation placed in his mind by God.) It is the brand of idealism most often discussed and criticized in Anglo-American philosophy.
4. Kant

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) set the agenda for subsequent German idealism. In his Critique of Pure Reason (1781; rev. 1787) synthetic a priori knowledge configures the sensible manifold into our world of experienced objects. This doctrine weds → rationalism and → empiricism so that the knowing subject’s constitutive activity predominates, but without making the given or phenomenal aspect of experience itself into thought. A brief “refutation of idealism” criticizes Descartes and Berkeley and argues that “consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me.” → Reason errs in forming pure concepts (transcendental ideas) with no empirical component, namely, the ideas of the thinking subject as soul or substance, of the world as a whole, and of God. Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason (1788) expounds the noumenal domain of moral obligation, deriving from it the certainty (though not the knowledge) of our free will, of God, and of our → immortality. Kant’s Critique of Judgment (1790) treats aesthetic and teleological judgment, the last part showing how regulative (not constitutive) employment of reason usefully organizes our knowledge of the world hierarchically, as if it were purposively ordered by a higher intelligence. The principal German idealists can be approached according to the particular facet of Kant’s philosophy on which each chiefly dwells.
5. Fichte

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) sought to unify the theoretical and practical domains of → Kantianism by giving primacy to practical reason and human → freedom. In his Science of Knowledge (1798) the self-positing by the subject, or I, of theoretical knowing directly involves its positing of its other, the not-I, which is both constituted by it and a limit to it. This complex dialectic underlies both the objective world as known by theoretical reason and the realm of natural necessity that opposes our free moral striving. This I, common to both domains, is Kant’s noumenal self, now said to be absolute and the originator of all knowing and doing. (Kant repudiated this effort to unite the two distinct domains, with the I producing the very manifold of perception itself.) Elevating the free, noumenal I to this absolute, originative standpoint makes Fichte an idealist. He kept his main focus on ethics throughout his career and developed from it a social and political philosophy that recognizes some limits to the freedom of the individual I, limits set by its inescapable coexistence with other free selves. His version of Kantian → ethics led him to deny that the moral order needs a personal God as its overseer, for which stance he was accused of atheism. This position, together with his derivation of all philosophy from individual self-consciousness, makes his brand of idealism of limited interest to Christian thought.
6. The Early Schelling

Although at first enamored of Fichte’s preoccupation with self-conscious freedom, Friedrich Schelling (1775–1854) soon moved on to a wider vision, embracing knower and known in a system transcending the limits of a dialectic of self-consciousness. We can view him as transforming Kant’s third critique so that systematic reasoning about reality as a whole now has a constitutive, not just a regulative, status. One aspect, explicated in his System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), depicts the known world as the product of the constructive activity of the knower. Its correlative, his → philosophy of nature, depicts the world as disclosing its real structures to empirical, scientific investigation. For the two taken together, what we know is both our knowing self’s construct and a knowable structure existing apart from us.
There is an “absolute identity” between these parallel domains of mind (subject) and physical, organic world (object), an identity indifferent to, but also the source of, this ideal-real distinction and the many finite constituents of each of its poles. This identity, both ontological and noetic, is accessible to our minds if we abstract from particular instances of thinking. Here “absolute idealism” means that the ultimate principle and source of all is rational, that all reality (subjective and objective) derivative from it has rational structure, and that the finite knower has direct, intuitive access to this all-pervasive rationality. Schelling’s correlative philosophy of art holds that, in aesthetic intuition, the → absolute unifies the inspired artist’s intention with the unconscious properties of the artist’s medium, so as to resolve the tension between the two and result in a beautiful object expressing the perfection of the whole.
7. Hegel

For G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) every possible object for consciousness is in principle knowable. Kant was mistaken in positing noumenal objects and so setting indefensible limits to knowing. Knowledge of particulars is contextual, and knowledge is complete only as a system, with everything comprehended in an interrelated way. In his logic Hegel delineates in a hierarchy the general concepts employed in thinking anything whatsoever (not just in experiencing phenomenal objects). These concepts structure our knowing and all its objects, including the very being of concrete existents. (“The rational is the real; the real is the rational.”)
Hegel’s absolute is → reason; finite thinkers and the objects of their thought are actualizations of this universal reason. Hegel thus resembles Schelling, except that for him the movement of thinking proceeds through contradiction or opposition. Furthermore, its development (and that of its objects) is from implicit to explicit phases and grasps concrete actualities, not mere abstractions. Hegel’s principal mentor in this respect is Aristotle, whereas Schelling’s is Plato. Hegel derides Schelling’s absolute identity as “the night in which all cows are black,” an abstraction presupposed, not a concept constructed from careful distinctions. Hegel calls his own absolute “spirit” as well as “reason,” indicating thereby that it is a motive power and not just a principle of knowing. His Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) exhibits the layers of spirit’s operation from the simplest (matter, sensation) to the highest (art, religion, philosophy).
The realization of absolute spirit in thinking and being is thoroughly historical. Hegel’s lectures on world history chart the twists and turns of spirit through historical epochs, culminating in the modern consciousness that human beings as such are free. His lectures on the history of philosophy present the sequence of philosophies as spirit’s self-correcting labor of coming to full self-consciousness in the domain of thought as such. Hegel’s philosophy of spirit is the most well-articulated and influential instance of absolute idealism.
In the religious domain, Hegel’s early essays take up such themes as positive religion, Christianity in comparison to → Judaism and to → Greek religion, the divine and the human in → Jesus, and the spirit in the church as successor to the historical presence of Jesus. In Phenomenology religion conveys, in the form of representations, the higher, conceptual truths of philosophy. The later lectures on the → philosophy of religion construct historical-conceptual sequences of the world religions, culminating in their fulfillment in Christianity, the “consummate” religion. The incarnation—absolute spirit’s self-actualization in a concrete being in historical time—marks the complete conjunction of the divine with humanity. Christ’s dying and rising (the “Golgotha of spirit”) is the cost of reconciliation and, for Hegel, concrete proof that spirit must suffer contradiction to emerge as fully self-knowing, fully reconciled with itself.
But is Hegel’s speculative interpretation of the → Trinity a proper elucidation of the theological doctrine? Is his absolute spirit a suitable conception of a personal, Christian God? Is his spirit indeed the → Holy Spirit? Does he give undue primacy to spirit in the Trinity? Opinions on such issues varied widely in his day and afterward. The “right wing” among his Christian disciples favored his absolute idealism as the correct religious philosophy. Others did not. Some on the “left wing” rejected a theistic reading entirely, going as far as to hold that “spirit” denotes nothing transcendent but stands only for progressive developments in human thought and culture.
8. The Later Schelling

Influenced by the heterodox speculation of Jakob Böhme (1575–1624), Schelling, beginning in 1809, conceived cosmic evil as grounded in a pole of nonbeing (mē on) in God. By subordinating nonbeing to his will, God establishes his own being and then freely wills a creation mirroring him, but one vulnerable to evil when creaturely will freely actualizes the possibility of nonbeing within itself. On this view, radical contingency and → irrationality are features of reality. Schelling then portrays → Hegelianism and his own earlier idealism as “negative philosophy” (rational speculation) that needs confirmation and completion by a “positive philosophy,” an “empirical” account of God’s self-manifestation in history, of what God actually wills to be and do—Schelling’s “philosophy of mythology” and “philosophy of revelation.”
As with Hegel, the culmination of humanity’s religious history comes with Christianity. In Schelling’s case, however, it is not the concrete realization of absolute spirit as rational, but instead God’s freely willed activity in overcoming evil, one neither foreseeable nor comprehensible by reason alone. The larger framework of idealism survives, namely, that underlying all reality, both knowing and being, is a single principle or power that is fundamentally spiritual, not material, in nature. Yet this self-conscious, spiritual foundation is ultimately will more than reason.
9. Critics of German Idealism

Hegel’s absolute idealism remained a powerful force through the mid-1800s, though incisive critiques soon followed his death. Søren → Kierkegaard (1813–55), in attacking the Danish Hegelian H. L. Martensen (1808–84), championed the subjectivity of the existing individual over against an absolute idealism that seems to swallow it up by subordinating personal faith to abstract reason. On the antireligious side, Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–72) depicted Hegel’s philosophy as a transposing of religious consciousness into an abstract logical system (he is “the modern Proclus”), whereas the correct philosophy is → materialism (“man is what he eats”), and religious beliefs are simply mental projections on the part of finite individuals and their culture. His follower and fellow materialist Karl → Marx (1818–83) accused Hegel of making philosophy “walk on its head,” while borrowing his seminal analysis of the master-slave relation and also distorting his method into the wooden “thesis-antithesis-synthesis” apparatus of dialectical materialism. Nearly all of the philosophy of Friedrich → Nietzsche (1844–1900) conflicts with idealism’s view of God, the world, reason, and human existence.
10. Later Idealism

In Britain the most influential idealists were Bernard Bosanquet (1848–1923) and F. H. Bradley (1846–1924). Each regarded reality as a comprehensive whole, the absolute, and wrestled with the connections of human thoughts and judgments to this absolute, Bosanquet doing so in a way somewhat closer to Hegel. Bradley, more of a monist in the ancient sense, treated relations and thoughts about them as contradictory, as appearance and not reality. G. E. Moore (1873–1958), a realist, published an article “Refutation of Idealism” in 1903 that many Anglo-American philosophers took to be definitive, although it addresses only Berkeleyan or Bradleyan types of idealism. Other notable idealists include the Englishmen J. M. E. McTaggart (1866–1925) and the early R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943), as well as the Italians Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) and Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944). The American idealist philosopher Josiah Royce (1855–1916) dealt explicitly with Christian themes of → the church, → sin, and → atonement in several of his major works. None of these later idealists, however, had an impact on Christian theology comparable to that of the German idealists.
11. Idealism and Christian Theology

The romantic idealism of Schelling’s early writings influenced mainly the Roman Catholic theologians of Bavaria and of the Tübingen school, including Franz von Baader (1765–1841) and J. J. von Görres (1776–1848). Hegel’s chief disciples on the theological side were Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860) and David Friedrich Strauss (1808–74), who wrestled with the relation of the Hegelian idea to historical facts, in particular with the relation of Christ and the Spirit to the historical Jesus and the church. I. A. Dorner (1809–84), a prominent historian of Christian doctrine, constructed a ground-breaking treatise on divine immutability with elements drawn not only from Friedrich → Schleiermacher but also from Hegel and Schelling.
In the 20th century the theme, from the later Schelling, of a mē-onic basis in God for the being and freedom of the creation was revived by Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948) and by Paul → Tillich (1886–1965), whose Systematic Theology (1951–63) also shows Hegel’s influence in its structure and in its treatment of spirit. Theologians of the late 20th century whose works incorporate elements drawn from Hegel include Jürgen Moltmann and Peter C. Hodgson.

Bibliography: Primary sources: G. W. F. HEGEL, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (3 vols.; ed. P. C. Hodgson; Berkeley, Calif., 1984–87) ∙ P. C. HODGSON, ed., G. W. F. Hegel: Theologian of the Spirit (Minneapolis, 1997).
Secondary works: H. ALLISON, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism (New Haven, 1983) ∙ E. BEACH, The Potencies of Gods: Schelling’s Philosophy of Mythology (Albany, N.Y., 1994) ∙ A. BOWIE, Schelling and Modern European Philosophy: An Introduction (London, 1993) ∙ R. BROWN, The Later Philosophy of Schelling (Lewisburg, Pa., 1977) ∙ W. JAESCHKE, Reason in Religion: The Foundations of Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion (Berkeley, Calif., 1990) ∙ K. LÖWITH, From Hegel to Nietzsche (Garden City, N.Y., 1967) ∙ N. SMART et al., Nineteenth Century Religious Thought in the West (3 vols.; Cambridge, 1985) ∙ C. TAYLOR, Hegel (Cambridge, 1975) ∙ G. VESEY, ed., Idealism, Past and Present (Cambridge, 1982) ∙ A. WHITE, Schelling: An Introduction to the System of Freedom (New Haven, 1983).
ROBERT F. BROWN
Identity

The question of how the → self and the world maintain their identity in the midst of apparent change and flux has been a perennial issue debated throughout the history of Western → philosophy. Since the time of Parmenides (ca. 540-after 480 B.C.), the idea of being as an infinite and changeless substance undergirding and guaranteeing the permanence of both the world and the self has been a major answer to the problem of how a sense of identity is sustained in the midst of change and flux. The Parmenidian answer influenced the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (→ Greek Philosophy) and, through these figures, much of Western philosophical and religious thought. In German → idealism G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) used his triad in the → philosophy of history to describe the coming of the human spirit to itself.
On the whole, modern philosophy and psychology have been dissatisfied with the classical answer, especially as it was applied to account for the identity of the self. The American psychologist and philosopher William James (1842–1910) advanced a complex critique of the substance theory of the self’s identity. The subsequent history of concern by psychology with the problem of identity has followed only half of his solution, and the modern post-James psychological theories of identity have had a major influence on 20th-century discussions of the problem. In chap. 10 of his monumental Principles of Psychology, James developed a theory of the self that addressed the problem of identity in two ways. First, he developed a theory of the empirical self that viewed the self as an object in the world identified with the sum total of all that a person can call his or her own. Although James subdivided the empirical self into the material, social, and spiritual selves, his followers, especially George Herbert Mead (1863–1931), primarily developed his theory of the social self. In his theory of the social self, James taught how the gestures and attitudes of significant individuals in our social worlds build our sense of identity and self-definition. This building occurs when we take attitudes toward ourselves that reflect the attitude that significant others have toward us.
But James was also interested in a second perspective on the problem of identity, which he addressed in his doctrine of the “pure ego.” Indeed, James admitted, identity was partially a product of social recognition. But there was also an internal sense of identity—an inner sense of “I”—for which socially mediated identity did not account. James explicitly repudiated the classical doctrine, which claimed that our sense of inner identity comes from the transhistorical and unchangeable substantial → soul with which all humans are born. He proposed instead a complicated theory of the “I” as born anew in separate pulses of experience that communicate continuity and identity through the sense of familiar feelings that they transmit to one another.
James’s interest in explaining the continuity of the “I” was basically dropped in later developments in both American → social psychology and → psychoanalysis. Mead accounted for the sense of identity through an amplification of James’s theory of the social self. This view, in turn, was influential on American → psychiatry in the work of both Harry Stack Sullivan (1892–1949) and Erik Erikson (1902–94).
In the work of Erikson, the concept of the self and the concept of identity are virtually identical. Erikson introduced and popularized the concept of identity in American psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Yet he built his concept on both Mead’s idea of the social self and Heinz Hartmann’s theory of self-representation. Hartmann (1894–1969) was the first psychoanalyst to suggest that there was a fourth structure of the personality, namely, the “self-representation,” which could be distinguished from the id, superego, and ego. Without explicitly building on the American tradition of James and Mead, Hartmann did indeed introduce into psychoanalysis a rudimentary but analogous concept of the social self.
Erikson amplified insights from both Hartmann and Mead into the concept of identity. Erikson defined identity as “the accrued confidence that the inner sameness and continuity prepared in the past are matched by the sameness and continuity of one’s meaning for others” (p. 261). In another place Erikson says that identity is the child’s sense “that his individual way of mastering experience (his ego synthesis) is a successful variant of a group identity and is in accord with its space-time and life plan” (235; → Childhood). This last quotation points out that Erikson believed that → groups can have identity just as can individuals. Furthermore, Hans Mol in his Identity and the Sacred has argued that it is precisely the function of religion to protect and enhance the fragile sense of group and individual identity. In fact, Mol defines religion as sacralized identity or sacralized → ideology. This insight became important in Europe after World War II as → nation and → vocation seemed to lose significance. To help young people find identity became a task of → religious education.
The concept of identity has sensitized ecumenical theological discussions to the psychological infrastructures underneath all religious identity. Religious identity is a source of psychological cohesion and is not easily changed or disrupted. In the area of → proclamation and → mission, this insight has sensitized Christians to the need to take the identity of others seriously and to work to change the identity of others only when the new, perhaps Christian, identity being offered in its place has a genuine chance of becoming sufficiently deep to provide a durable and cohesive self-definition.
→ Acculturation; Contextual Theology; Culture; Development 2; Dialogue; Ecumenical Theology; Ego Psychology

Bibliography: E. ERIKSON, Childhood and Society (New York, 1963) ∙ H. J. FRAAS, Glaube und Identität (Göttingen, 1983) ∙ H. HARTMANN, Essays on Ego Psychology (New York, 1964) ∙ E. HERMS, Radical Empiricism (Gütersloh, 1977) ∙ W. JAMES, The Principles of Psychology (3 vols.; Cambridge, Mass., 1981; orig. pub., 1890) ∙ G. H. MEAD, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago, 1962; orig. pub., 1934) ∙ H. J. MOL, Identity and the Sacred (New York, 1976) ∙ H. REISER, Identität und religiöse Einstellung (Hamburg, 1927).
DON S. BROWNING
Ideology

1. Term
2. Ideologies in Relation to Theology and Religion
1. Term

1.1. An early history of the concept of ideology might be reconstructed from F. Bacon (1561–1626). The actual word itself, however, goes back to A.-L.-C. Destutt de Tracy (1754–1836), who first used it in a talk in 1796 to refer to the strictly scientific study of ideas. In the tradition of sensationalist epistemology, sense perception was for him the source of perceptions (idées), by an exact analysis of which we may attain to sure knowledge and proper rules for politics, morality, and education.
The philosophical school of the Idéologues adopted the principles that Destutt de Tracy formulated and had a great impact on the French educational system. This fact, along with their political claims, brought Napoléon (1804–15) into the picture. After initial agreement he ridiculed them as hair-splitting metaphysicians and thus gave the term a new and negative content. In 19th-century Germany, with no direct connection to the French Idéologues, the term became a general one used to defame liberal tendencies.
1.2. Modern use of the word “ideology” derives primarily from K. Marx (1818–83), who developed it in his critical adoption of the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) and along the lines of L. Feuerbach (1804–72; → Religion, Criticism of; Marxism; Hegelianism). In his Wesen des Christentums (1841; ET The Essence of Christianity [New York, 1957]) Feuerbach described God as the inner self whom we project and worship externally before finding him within. Rightly, according to Marx, Feuerbach thus traced back the apparent independence of religion, morality, and → metaphysics to human nature itself but unfortunately understood this “self” abstractly, thus missing the social character of the process of becoming independent (see Marx’s critique in “Theses on Feuerbach”).
According to Marx and F. Engels (1820–95) in their long essay “The German Ideology,” material life is objectively beyond our grasp. In form, that nontransparent nature has its basis in the social contradictions that are immanent in the present historical stage. These social relations seem to people to be naturally given, and people’s thinking seems to be something different from a simple awareness of current praxis. As ideological thinking provides a basis for the current world in thoughts and ideas and independent conceptual expression, it hypostatizes the present stage of social development as historically and epistemologically universal, masks the underlying reality, and offers an apparent mediation between the universal and the particular.
In Marx’s day, however, the hypostatized universality also favored in practice the particular interests of the ruling class, whose ideas were the historically dominant ones (→ Class and Social Stratum). Criticism of ideology can thus show that the mediation is a sham one and attack in practice the apologetic interpretation of the world. In Marx, at least, this criticism was always conducted implicitly against the background of self-evident universality as the basis of criticism. This universality would increasingly become a problem after Marx (E. Bloch) and can ultimately be defined only as the negation of bad universality (T. W. Adorno). In a different nuance that was a great help in popular interpretation, Marx also called ideologies forms of consciousness that correspond to the political superstructure erected on an economic basis and in which we struggle with our social → conflicts. In a positive reformulation V. I. Lenin (1870–1924) could even use the term to denote the class interests of the workers that the party must communicate to them, since these interests are not immediately apparent.
1.3. Outside the Marxist tradition the term “ideology” became an important one in the → sociology of knowledge, which tried to make it neutral in differentiation from Marxist criticism. K. Mannheim (1893–1947) in particular radicalized the tendency already present in M. Scheler (1874–1928) to generalize the concept by showing the essential relationship of all thinking to its structural features in their historical and social context. As Mannheim put it, the content of thinking is dependent on its social setting, so thinking itself always posits being at some point and thus posits some sphere as absolute, thereby pointing beyond given reality. In contrast to a → utopia, whose realization can admittedly be ascertained only retrospectively, ideology is without consequence and conceals existing social relations (→ Society). The task of the sociology of knowledge is to work out the relation between the social situation and perspective and to relate the content of consciousness to the social situations in which it arises.
1.4. The critique of ideology and the sociology of knowledge represent the most important stations on the path along which the concept of ideology acquired in part extremely different meanings during the second half of the 20th century. The critique of totalitarianism articulated by critical theory as well as attempts at expanding the concept of ideology psychoanalytically (initiated esp. by E. Fromm [1900–1980]) also understand themselves as a critique of ideology. By contrast, the neutralization of the concept by the sociology of knowledge led to its psychological treatment in a multiplicity of monographs and finally resulted in skeptical relativism.
After the collapse of “real socialism” in 1989 and the attendant end of what was also a competition at the level of worldview between the two blocs, the significance of the concept of ideology was greatly diminished, and the area it formerly covered seems to have shifted in two directions. On the one hand, debates on economic and technological globalization—corresponding, as well, to a “globalization” of culture and thus of worldview—have implicitly adopted elements of the Marxist critique of ideology. On the other hand, themes formerly covered by the concept of ideology itself are now increasingly reflected at the level of cultural differences.
2. Ideologies in Relation to Theology and Religion

2.1. Forms of ideology undoubtedly existed before the modern period and, in their hypostatized universalizing, had an influence by supporting established power by means of art, → religion, → theology, and → philosophy. Yet they could hardly be distinguished from the latter as separate forms. When external dependence on power and systems cannot be broken, and where power and system instead are converted into the source of order and rule and take intellectual form in theology and philosophy, ideology is necessarily intermingled with the latter two.
Such forms of ideology for the mere perpetuation of power still exist, but Christian theology comes up against the fact that the incarnation, the concept of salvation, and the implications for freedom make totally impossible any transcendental grounding of social order. Working out the antitheses of human → freedom and the divine will results in a theological system in which we “control” the concept of → God by proofs (→ God, Arguments for the Existence of). Theologicophilosophical speculation thus contributes indirectly to the → secularization of religion, and finally ideology takes an independent form differing from philosophy and theology.
2.2. In the → modern period this secularization came to a head as the economic constraints were breached and as actions, orders, and systems found their justification in the being of humanity. Ideology came to differ from theology by reason of its practical claim, and from religion by the principle of rationality, which asserts that it can derive views of the world and actions from basic logical and axiomatic principles (→ Axiom; Logic). At first taking on a progressive bridge function, ideology soon came to posit one absolute form of human existence that is characterized by mastery over nature, by applied science, and by meeting human needs and conflicts with economically organized production and the resultant → consumption. The bridge function thus gave way to an appearance function. That is to say, ideological systems tried to give the appearance of solving the riddle of history by absolutizing one form of human existence. They thus could advance an apparent end of history or a discernible meaning for the future, one that is under human control and can be incorporated into human planning as something genuinely attainable. Finally, they could offer the appearance of a nexus in which we are assured that action within a certain rational system is good and will bring with it a better → future. With a practical purpose they thus can select the “truths” that serve the current political system and then absolutize them as the only possible form of human existence. In this regard the great ideologies of East and West are alike for all their material differences.
2.3. Modern ideologies, however, have run up against their limits as the limits of the economic basis to which they are politically committed have come to light. Structurally, they constantly simulate the future, but they have to infer from the present situation in order to offer guidelines for action. Their projections of the future become problematic when current limitations are seen that throw doubt on their basis. They have thus fallen into disrepute.
2.4. In theological discussions the concept of ideology undoubtedly involves in many cases overhasty rejections as the form in which some problems are stated arouses the suspicion of ideology. A consideration of the problems of ideology, however, can provide meaningful criteria relative to especially sensitive problems that confront Christians today. The concept has particular critical relevance to the problem of Christian → unity (→ Ecumenism, Ecumenical Movement) when the dialectic of unity and contradiction is threatened by a claim to absoluteness. In the discussion of the various → social systems and the related worldviews, we must also see that ideologies bring to light the problems and contradictions of human existence, in tandem with which ideological systems can develop their practical potential (→ Capitalism; Marxism and Christianity; Socialism). Finally, when it is a matter of the practical implications of the gospel for human action, the concept of ideology cannot be adduced in favor of limiting the social practice of the individual to the private sphere. All action takes place in the context of social practice and increasingly globally connected systems. For this reason it is eo ipso political. Thus the problems of the → Third World demand positions that must not be overhastily suspected of ideology (→ Liberation Theology).
In general, religion and theology can learn important lessons from the decay of the dominant modern ideologies. Negatively, they can avoid the idea that motivations result directly from theoretical and rational insights, the frightful consequences of self-dogmatizing when it is linked to power, and the ideological justification of a single principle of existence that is oriented solely to the mastering of nature and that ranks all other needs accordingly. Positively, they can learn to look at problems as a whole and not at isolated problem areas, to be more actively engaged, and to seek an economy that does not relate all needs to the principle of a technological mastering of nature and that can genuinely transcend the older ideologies.
→ Conservatism; Criticism; Ecumenical Theology; Fascism; Prejudice

Bibliography: T. W. ADORNO, Negative Dialectics (New York, 1973) ∙ F. BACON, The New Organon and Related Writings (Indianapolis, 1960; orig. pub., 1620) ∙ E. BLOCH, Erbschaft dieser Zeit (2d ed.; Frankfurt, 1962) ∙ C. DAVIS, Religion and the Making of Society: Essays in Social Theology (New York, 1994) ∙ A. DESTUTT DE TRACY, Éléments d’idéologie (5 vols.; Paris, 1801–15) ∙ L. FEUERBACH, The Essence of Christianity (New York, 1957; orig. pub., 1841) ∙ E. FROMM, Psychoanalysis and Religion (New Haven, 1950) ∙ C. GEERTZ, “Ideology as a Cultural System,” Ideology and Discontent (ed. D. E. Apter; New York, 1964) 47–76 ∙ A. F. GEYER, Ideology in America: Challenges to Faith (Louisville, Ky., 1997) ∙ P. HEINTEL, System und Ideologie (Vienna, 1967) ∙ K. LEHMANN, “Die Herausforderung der Kirche durch die Ideologien,” HPTh 2/2.148–202 ∙ J. M. LOCHMAN, “Ideologie und Toleranz,” Das radikale Erbe (Zurich, 1972) 84–96 ∙ N. S. LOVE, Dogmas and Dreams: Political Ideologies in the Modern World (Chatham, N.J., 1991) ∙ K. MANNHEIM, Ideologie und Utopie (3d ed.; Frankfurt, 1952) ∙ K. MARX, “Theses on Feuerbach,” MECW 5.3–8 ∙ K. MARX and F. ENGELS, “The German Ideology” (1846), MEW 5.19–539 ∙ K. RAHNER, “Christianity and Ideology,” The Church and the World (ed. J. B. Metz; New York, 1965) 41–58 ∙ M. SCHELER, Die Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft (2d ed.; Bern, 1960) ∙ P. SCOTT, Theology, Ideology, and Liberation: Towards a Liberative Theology (Cambridge, 1994) ∙ C. E. SHENK, When Kingdoms Clash: The Christian and Ideologies (Scottdale, Pa., 1988) ∙ N. SMART, Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human Beliefs (New York, 1983) ∙ P. D. STEEVES, Keeping the Faith: Religion and Ideology in the Soviet Union (New York, 1989) ∙ L. J. SWIDLER, The Meaning of Life at the Edge of the Third Millennium (New York, 1992) ∙ J. B. THOMPSON, Studies in the Theory of Ideology (Oxford, 1984).
PETER HEINTEL and WILHELM BERGER
Ignatius of Loyola

Iñigo López de Oñaz y Loyola (1491–1556) was the founder and first general of the Society of Jesus (1541–56), the → Jesuits. As a Basque nobleman, Ignatius underwent a courtly-knightly education (1506–16), then served from 1518 as an officer of the viceroy of Navarre. On May 20, 1521, his leg was shattered during the French siege of Pamplona, and while recovering at Castle Loyola, he read religious writings (esp. the Vita Christi by Ludolf of Saxony, also → biographies of saints) and experienced the initial religious turn of mind that would lead him to his future calling. Probably during a visit to the monastery at Montserrat in 1522, he became acquainted with the Exercises of the Spiritual Life of the abbot Francisco Ximénez de Cisneros, who stressed purification, illumination, and → union with God. In Manresa in 1522–23 Ignatius experienced a mystical illumination from which his new life plan and the basic concept of his “spiritual exercises” arose, which continued to develop until 1540. They focused on cultivation of the personality through contemplative training for exclusive, active service on behalf of Christ, who lives on in the visible church, the goal being “to help souls.”
For 15 years Ignatius’s goal was to work in → Jerusalem, and to this end he undertook a → pilgrimage there in 1523/24. From 1524 to 1526 he became a student of Latin in Barcelona and also studied in Alcalá and Salamanca. As a mystic (alumbrado, “enlightened one”) suspected of heresy and as a propagandist, Ignatius was brought before the → Inquisition but was found not guilty. He took his studies to Paris (1528), where in 1535 he received his master of arts degree. By way of guidance in spiritual exercises, he acquired six Spanish companions who united with him on August 15, 1534, on Montmartre as “friends in the Lord,” taking a vow of poverty and service to others in Jerusalem.
By way of Spain, Ignatius traveled to Venice in 1535/36, where his six Parisian companions joined him in 1537, and together they were ordained priests. Because the military situation with the Turks prevented them from continuing on to Palestine, they went to → Rome in 1537 and chose the name “Society of Jesus.” This step was preceded by a renewed vision (according to tradition, in La Storta, just outside Rome) in which Ignatius experienced God placing him at Christ’s side. Despite disputes concerning their orthodoxy, in November 1538 they petitioned Paul III (1534–49) to grant them a commission commensurate with their vows and decided to preserve their collective by establishing an order. The order would vow obedience to both the general and the pope, who would send the members out in his educational service and according to his judgment, for the salvation of souls, to “Turks, Indians, heretics, other believers, or nonbelievers.” The pope confirmed the order on September 27, 1540.
In 1541 Ignatius himself accepted his election as general and, until his death in 1556 in Rome, executed the duties of that office together with several secretaries in the form of an expanded but tight administration. Ignatius’s initial six companions included Pierre Favre, who in 1540 was sent to the imperial diet in Worms; Francis Xavier, who from 1541 was a missionary to India and the Far East; and conciliar theologian Diego Laínez. In 1549 the society began its mission in Brazil as well as its counterreformational activity in Germany (most effectively under Jesuit Peter Canisius). These pan-European and worldwide activities spanning the next 150 years were initiated by Ignatius himself, who in his spiritual exercises, in his order’s constitution, and in his administration, together with highly trained colleagues, was able to create an enduring form for his order.
Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises is a text for training the soul in which, for over four weeks and under the guidance of a spiritual director, one works at attaining self-cognition and trains one’s will. Only those who in the future will become full members (limited to 60) are to be admitted to the entire course of exercises, while the others complete only part of them. Ignatius sought to train his members to the point of a spiritual “either-or” in the service of an endangered church in transition to a new era of defensive struggle and world proselytizing through pedagogy and mission among the population at large. On its medieval-monastic foundation, the radical nature of the decision he demanded is structurally analogous to the Reformational alternative between serving God or serving idols and the devil. The order’s success in education, preaching, mission, recruiting (at Ignatius’s death, the order had 38 full members and 1,000 additional members), and longevity attests to its founder’s spiritual and organizational energy, his ability to establish tradition, and his contemporaneity. Ignatius was canonized in 1622; his feast day is July 31.

Bibliography: Primary sources: IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, Personal Writings: Reminiscences, Spiritual Diary, Select Letters, Including the Text of “The Spiritual Exercises” (trans. J. A. Munitiz and P. Endean; New York, 1996) ∙ J. N. TYLENDA, A Pilgrim’s Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola (Wilmington, Del., 1985).
Secondary works: D. LONSDALE, Eyes to See, Ears to Hear: An Introduction to Ignatian Spirituality (Chicago, 1990) ∙ G. MARON, “Ignatius von Loyola in evangelischer Sicht,” Ignacio de Loyola y su tiempo (ed. J. Plazaola; Bilbao, 1992) 819–36 ∙ L. VON MATT, St. Ignatius of Loyola (New York, 1963) ∙ W. W. MEISSNER, Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint (New Haven, 1992); idem, To the Greater Glory: A Psychological Study of Ignatian Spirituality (Milwaukee, Wis., 1999) ∙ K. RAHNER, Spiritual Exercises (New York, 1965) ∙ K. RAHNER, P. IMHOF, and H. N. LOOSE, Ignatius von Loyola (Freiburg, 1978) ∙ R. SCHWAGER, Das dramatische Kirchenverständnis bei Ignatius von Loyola (Zurich, 1970) ∙ J. I. TELLECHEA IDÍGORAS, Ignatius of Loyola: The Pilgrim Saint (trans. C. M. Buckley; Chicago, 1994).
KURT-VICTOR SELGE
Illness → Health and Illness
Illusion

1. Aesthetics
2. Metaphysics and Criticism of Religion

The word “illusion” derives from Lat. illusio (action of mocking) and illudo (mock at, play with). In common usage it denotes “self-deception,” “false idea,” “misleading perception,” or “fantasy,” but it also has more specific senses in → aesthetics, → metaphysics, and criticism of religion (→ Religion, Criticism of).
1. Aesthetics

In aesthetics illusion is the term for a state of perception induced by a work of art (plastic, literary, or rhetorical) in which those who see, read, or hear the work are voluntarily carried into the relation to its object that the work effects. The 18th century saw important discussions (by J. B. Dubos, M. Mendelssohn, et al.) focusing on the pleasure or moral value of artistic illusion and the degree of deception involved.
2. Metaphysics and Criticism of Religion

In the field of metaphysics and the criticism of religion, the → empiricism of D. Hume (1711–76) and the → criticism of I. Kant (1724–1804) describe all dogmatic metaphysical notions as illusory. Kant (→ Kantianism) points to the transcendental illusion, namely, the fact that in → epistemology there are basic rules in the use of → reason that seem to be objective principles. Hence the subjective necessity of a certain linking of concepts is viewed as an objective necessity in defining “things in themselves”—a process that we can detect but cannot avoid.
The idea of illusion in L. Feuerbach (1804–72) is more directly critical of religion. Feuerbach tries to show that the antithesis that → theology posits between God and humanity is an illusion, being a cleavage in humanity itself. K. Marx (1818–83) gives Feuerbach’s criticism a typical twist when he finds in religion an illusory comfort for comfortless reality (→ Marxism).
F. Nietzsche (1844–1900) calls all striving for truth or for solid concepts an illusion; destroying such illusions, however, leads us nowhere. In the → psychoanalysis of S. Freud (1856–1939), religion is merely wishful thinking and its strength is that of wishful thinking, a view that comes to pervade the academy. In the tradition of → positivism E. Topitsch (b. 1919) attempts to unmask as illusions all metaphysical, theological, and ideological thought forms (→ Ideology), and especially attempts to find some overarching and total → meaning.
The term “illusionism” is used for views that hold the external world of time and space to be mere appearance.
→ Imagination; Solipsism; Subjectivism and Objectivism

Bibliography: A. S. ABBOTT, The Vital Lie: Reality and Illusion in Modern Drama (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1989) ∙ J. C. EXUM and D. J. A. CLINES, The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield, 1993) ∙ L. FEUERBACH, The Essence of Christianity (New York, 1957; orig. pub., 1841) ∙ S. FREUD, The Future of an Illusion (ed. J. Strachey; New York, 1989; orig. pub., 1927) ∙ I. KANT, Critique of Pure Reason (trans. N. K. Smith; New York, 1987; orig. pub., 1781; rev., 1787) ∙ W. A. KORT, Take, Read: Scripture, Textuality, and Cultural Practice (University Park, Pa., 1996) ∙ B. D. PALMER, Descent into Discourse: The Reification of Language and the Writing of Social History (Philadelphia, 1990) ∙ W. STRUBE, “Illusion,” HWP 4.204–15 (bibliography) ∙ E. TOPITSCH, Erkenntnis und Illusion (Hamburg, 1979).
FRANK OTFRIED JULY
Image of God, Imago Dei → Anthropology
Images

1. Early Religion
2. Judaism
2.1. OT
2.2. Late Antiquity
3. Christianity
3.1. Early Period
3.2. Byzantine Iconoclastic Controversy
3.3. Reformation Churches
3.4. Present Situation and Theological Evaluation
1. Early Religion

Even in prehistoric times it was thought that images have power. By drawing objects, one could achieve control of them, for example, in the picturing of animals that were to be slain (such as in the cave paintings at Altamira, Spain, ca. 15,000 B.C.; → Magic). The divine was encountered at first in objects that had not been fashioned or in natural phenomena (stones, trees, etc.). Higher religions then had cultic images in animal or human form. These figures were always three-dimensional, were the focus of care and ceremony, and were clothed, anointed, provided with food, put to death, and destroyed. The cult required a priesthood, an → altar, and a → temple (§1). The point of images was to give visibility to the holy and to bring it under control (→ Sacred and Profane).
The Egyptians and Greeks made images that told the myths of the gods. These narrative images were fundamentally different from cultic images, for only the latter demanded veneration. In the assessment of images we may note a religious pluralism that ranges from acceptance (Egyptians and Greeks) to toleration to strict rejection (→ Judaism and → Islam). Already in classical antiquity we find criticism of images and their veneration. Xenophanes and Heraclitus (6th cent. B.C.) argued that images were incompatible with the dignity of God. In the Roman period Lucian (d. after A.D. 180) ridiculed elaborate images of God as the dwelling place of worms and mice. Despite this criticism the world into which the early church came was full of temples, images, and centers of pilgrimage that localized divine power.
2. Judaism
2.1. OT

Judaism was a religion fundamentally without images. When images did occur, they were regarded as an error and a breach of God’s command. The basis of the prohibition of images is the second commandment (Exod. 20:4–5; → Decalogue). If originally this law forbade only images of God, in the Deuteronomic version (Deut. 4:15–19) it forbids any artistic depiction. We often find this commandment linked to the abhorrence of foreign gods (Exod. 34:14; Lev. 19:4; Hos. 11:2), at times with the requirement to put away images (Gen. 35:2–4; Exod. 23:24). God’s → wrath is appeased when idolatrous images are put away (Judg. 10:6–16; Isa. 27:9). Yahweh sends faithful kings to do this removal (1 Kgs. 15:12) or stirs up the people to do it (2 Kgs. 11:18). There is debate as to the origin of the prohibition and its sphere of validity.
2.2. Late Antiquity

In the period of late antiquity there were two opposing trends in Judaism. The strict orthodox condemned the making and possessing of images. Those under Hellenistic influence, however, were open to them. Dispersion Judaism, which became increasingly important, could not avoid some adjustment to a world that affirmed images. An independent Jewish art thus developed that reached its climax in the third century A.D. We find an extensive artistic imagery both in the Jewish heartland (Beth-Alpha synagogue) and in the → diaspora (Dura-Europos synagogue).
3. Christianity
3.1. Early Period

Up to the end of the second century neither literary nor archaeological sources give any evidence of the existence of → Christian art. The NT says nothing about the use of images. One may infer from this silence a lack of interest due to many causes. One was that primitive Christianity lived in tense expectation of the → parousia. Another was that in the struggle against paganism (→ Gentiles, Gentile Christianity), images were regarded as idolatrous and magical signs. Finally, the small number of Christians, and their lowly social status, prevented them from building their own places of worship, which might have functioned as centers of Christian art. Furthermore, the church, which saw itself as the new and true Israel, viewed the OT commandment as binding.
The oldest record of the existence of an image of Christ comes from Irenaeus (d. ca. 200), who tells us that the → Gnostic sect of the Carpocratians set up and venerated an image of Christ, along with the images they maintained of great philosophers (Adv. haer. 1.25.6). In nonheretical churches voices against images increased toward the end of the second century, from which we may infer that such images were now present. Tertullian (d. ca. 225) denounced all images, but Clement of Alexandria (d. ca. 215) thought that neutral motifs might be used on seal rings. Origen (d. ca. 254) rejected images on the ground that they are a hindrance to spiritual knowledge. The Council of Elvira (ca. 306) decisively condemned images in the church.
Since, in spite of these negative voices of the theologians, we find Christian images at the latest by 220 (in the catacombs in Rome and in the Dura-Europos → house church), we may assume that in assimilation to pagan customs, Christians had images in defiance of official church teaching. These images, which revolved around the themes of → sin, → death, and redemption, arose at the same time in different parts of the Roman Empire, both in funerary and in liturgical settings.
In the Constantinian age criticism declined or focused on portraits or → images of Christ. Eusebius of Caesarea (d. ca. 340) did not oppose symbolic images or those that depicted scenes, but he sharply rejected the request of the emperor’s sister Constantia for an image of Christ on the ground that the divinely transfigured Christ cannot be depicted.
Although Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 403) still rejected images, the monuments of the fourth century show that, as distinct from the naive lay art of the third century, there had now developed a theologically shaped church art. Especially after the Council of → Nicaea (325), an attempt was made to express in art the dogmatically asserted coessentiality of the Son with the Father by making images of Christ similar to those of the all-powerful and divine emperor and by decorating churches more heavily with biblical and dogmatic cycles. Third-century images were influenced by the desire of lay piety for deliverance and preservation in death, in contrast to those of the fourth century, which became the expression of theological speculation. Obviously significant for private → devotion were souvenirs from → pilgrimages and the → relics of saints (→ Saints, Veneration of), which were regarded as worthy of veneration and were thought to bring good fortune.
3.2. Byzantine Iconoclastic Controversy

The story of images in Christianity became that of the dialectic between joyful acceptance and strict rejection. The chief example is the Iconoclastic Controversy, which lasted almost one and a half centuries, from 726 to 843. As in all such controversies, the motivation was not just religious. The struggle took place against the background of a monastic and imperial fight for precedence. In 726 Byzantine emperor Leo III (717–41) ordered the destruction of an image of Christ on the gate of the imperial palace in Constantinople. The enemies of images (iconoclasts, “destroyers of images”) used as arguments the OT commandment and our inability to portray the divine nature of the Son. Those who favored images (iconodules, “slaves of images”) were charged with Nestorianism and Monophysitism. John of Damascus (d. ca. 749) supplied the latter with their theological justification, namely, that the visible is an image of the invisible, and that the veneration of images is transferred to that of which they are images. The → incarnation provided Christological justification.
The seventh ecumenical council, Nicaea II (787), tried to mediate the controversy by distinguishing between the forbidden adoration of images (latreia) and the permitted veneration (timētikē proskynēsis). Those who favored images eventually prevailed, but they took steps to establish strict church supervision for the regulation and systematization of → Byzantine art.
3.3. Reformation Churches

It is against the background of a developed image-centered devotion and even bondage that we must see the → Reformers’ criticism of images. Certainly from the time of Augustine (354–430), the Roman church had made the usual distinction in principle between images and what they depict. They had thus accorded to images, not adoration, but only didactic and moral value. During the Middle Ages, however, popular → piety had increasingly seized upon images. The veneration addressed to them had increasingly come to resemble cultic adoration. This development was closely related to the emergence of a new, previously disparaged type of sculpture in the round (the cult of relics). Finally, new types of images were produced for veneration—→ devotional and wonder-working images.
Criticism of images had already arisen both within the church (→ Cistercians) and outside it (→ Cathari; Hussites). The arguments of Protestant image-breakers were the same as those already expressed in the → early church and during the Iconoclastic Controversy. The position of M. Luther (1483–1546) toward images was extremely subtle and in part situational. He could use the same vehemence against both the superstitious veneration of images and the vandalism of images by the so-called left-wing of the → Reformation (e.g., Carlstadt). Rejecting images in principle, he could also justify their educational use. We can plainly establish neither their rejection nor their use from Luther.
The Swiss reformers U. Zwingli (1484–1531) and J. Calvin (1509–64) were more consistent and more radical. Their absolute concept of God did not leave any place for an artistic depiction of Christ. They forbade even a didactic use of images on the ground that images always lead to idolatry. The Reformed Church thus instituted a worship without images, whereas the Lutheran Church still values images highly.
The → baroque brought rich decoration even to Protestant churches. Only in the age of the → Enlightenment did rationalistic tendencies and the desire for denominational differentiation lead to a → Protestantism without images.
3.4. Present Situation and Theological Evaluation

The renunciation of images in Protestant churches, reflected in present-day → church architecture, has its basis in the → Renaissance and → secularization as well as the → Reformation. It has brought some impoverishment to Christian piety. By its particular insistence that the church must be the church of the Word, Protestantism has made faith a matter of the head in a way that does not do justice to the full dimension of human beings as creatures of feeling as well as intellect. The attempts of Protestant Romantics (C. D. Friedrich, P. O. Runge) and the Catholic Nazarenes to revive religious art in opposition to Enlightenment trends must be regarded as a failure.
The mass production of sweetly pious images for private devotions on into the 20th century has had considerable influence, but Christian art has not been able to secure a place in the church. Religious images have not disappeared completely, but they have freed themselves from official church control and led to critical and often destructive complaints against established Christianity. Now that art has become autonomous, it will be difficult indeed to bring it back into the church.

Bibliography: On 1: F. HEILER, Erscheinungsform und Wesen der Religion (Stuttgart, 1961) ∙ H. SCHRADE, Der verborgene Gott. Gottesbilder und Gottesvorstellungen in Israel und im Alten Orient (Stuttgart, 1949).
On 2.1: O. KEEL and C. UELINGER, God, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis, 1998) ∙ T. N. D. METTINGER, No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near East Context (Stockholm, 1995) ∙ H. SCHÜNGEL-STRAUMANN, Gottesbilder und Kultkritik vorexilischer Propheten (Stuttgart, 1972) ∙ K. VAN DER TOORN, The Image and the Book: Iconic Cults, Aniconism, and the Rise of Book Religion in Israel and the Ancient Near East (Leuven, 1997) ∙ W. ZIMMERLI, “Das Bilderverbot in der Geschichte des Alten Israels,” Studien zur alttestamentlichen Theologie und Prophetie (Munich, 1974) 247–60.
On 2.2: C. ROTH, Die Kunst der Juden (2 vols.; Frankfurt, 1963) ∙ K. SCHUBERT, “Das Problem der Entstehung einer jüdischen Kunst im Lichte der literarischen Quellen des Judentums,” Kairos 16 (1974) 1–13; idem, “Spätantikes Judentum und frühchristliche Kunst,” SJudA 2 (1974) 1–86.
On 3.1: H. BECK and P. C. BOL, eds., Spätantike und frühes Christentum. Ausstellung im Liebighaus (Frankfurt, 1983) ∙ F. W. DEICHMANN, Einführung in die christliche Archäologie (Darmstadt, 1983) ∙ W. ELLIGER, Die Stellung der alten Christen zum Bilder in den ersten vier Jahrhunderten (Leipzig, 1930).
On 3.2: M. CAMILLE, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (Cambridge, 1989) ∙ J. IRMSCHER, ed., Der byzantinische Bilderstreit (Leipzig, 1980) ∙ K. A. KNAPPE, “Bilderstürmerei. Byzanz-Reformation-Französische Revolution,” Kunstspiegel 3 (1981) 265–85 ∙ G. LIMOURIS, ed., Icons, Windows on Eternity: Theology and Spirituality in Colour (Geneva, 1990) ∙ S. MICHALSKI, The Reformation and the Visual Arts: The Protestant Image Question in Western and Eastern Europe (London, 1993).
On 3.3: H. BELTING, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art (Chicago, 1994) ∙ J. ROHLS, “ ‘… unser Knie beugen wir doch nicht mehr.’ Bilderverbot und bildende Kunst im Zeitalter der Reformation,” ZTK 81 (1984) 322–51 ∙ G. SCAVIZZI, The Controversy on Images from Calvin to Baronius (New York, 1992) ∙ M. STIRM, Die Bilderfrage in der Reformation (Heidelberg, 1977).
On 3.4: L. ALEXANDER, Images of Empire (Sheffield, 1991) ∙ W. HOFMANN, ed., Luther und die Folgen für die Kunst. Katalog der Ausstellung in der Hamburger Kunsthalle (Munich, 1983) ∙ A. B. MOORJANI, The Aesthetics of Loss and Lessness (New York, 1992) ∙ H. SCHWEBEL, Das Christusbild in der bildenden Kunst der Gegenwart (Giessen, 1980) ∙ R. SÖRRIES, Die Evangelischen und die Bilder (Erlangen, 1983).
REINER SÖRRIES
Images of Christ

1. Theoretical Basis
2. Historical Trends
3. Eastern Church
4. Outside Europe
1. Theoretical Basis

The term “images of Christ” refers to the visual substitutes that art finds for the person of Jesus Christ (→ Jesus), which primarily and authentically has come down to us, and may be identified, only in verbal form. Since there are no original pictures of Christ and the NT tradition tells us nothing about the outward appearance of Jesus of Nazareth, all images of Christ are works of religious imagination. As such, they are important but also debatable in the history of devotion and theology.
As regards the origin and development of these images, the productive impulse came from writings (biblical, apocryphal, legendary, doctrinal, and spiritual) and from artistic models (→ iconography, types, use of various techniques, etc.). The status of images of Christ can be understood in analogy either to the Word (as having a kerygmatic or didactic function) or to the sacrament (as a mode of divine presence for veneration as a cultic image or for dialogic contemplation as a devotional image).
As an iconographic group, images of Christ are hard to classify. Cultic and devotional images demand that Christ be either isolated or dominant. When the function is kerygmatic or didactic, however, pictures that make any reference to Christ may be read as statements about him. (On theriomorphic or material symbols of Christ, see the articles “Cross,” “Fish,” “Monogram of Christ,” and “Symbolism of Animals.”)
2. Historical Trends

2.1. The earliest images of Christ in the third century (using symbols of the Good Shepherd and Teacher, with narratives of the baptism and miracles) were a kerygmatic presentation of his saving significance, his teaching, and his power over death. In iconographic form Christ appeared first as a young, beardless, Apollonian bringer of salvation. From the Constantinian age the dignified figure of an older, bearded man became increasingly dominant.
Then the → dogma of his deity and humanity (→ Christology 2) and the adoption of the imperial insignia created the new figure of Christ as the heavenly Basileus (king), the cosmic Pantocrator (almighty ruler), with scenes of homage and lawgiving. With the development of veneration of images in the sixth century came the first independent images of Christ linked to interest in the acheiropoiētoi, “those not made with hands” (in the East, the Abgar legend; in the West, esp. in medieval devotion, the vera icona [true icon], or Veronica legend).
2.2. Images of Christ in the age of Charlemagne and Otto and the Romanesque period (→ Middle Ages 1) developed the basic imperial model, depicting the divine majesty, with Christ as world judge or crowned on the cross. Soteriological and Christological teaching shaped the image cycles that came with early Romanesque.
From the 12th century a visual differentiation in the depiction of God developed, with the Father now being a separate figure in human form alongside Christ (at the mercy seat). This arrangement provided scope for Gothic to make humankind and the humanity of Christ a dominant theme (e.g., Christ as a child, Christ triumphant, and esp. the Christ of the passion). In the history of devotion this emphasis is connected with the spirituality of the mendicant → orders (→ Dominicans; Franciscans), the literature of mystical visions (→ Mysticism), and the mystery plays (→ Religious Drama).
2.3. Renaissance art tried to bring out the deity in the figure of Christ by depicting perfect bodily beauty. Scenes picturing the transfigured Christ predominated.
The → Reformation brought a decisive break either by stopping any further development of images of Christ (esp. where the influence of → Calvinism was strong) or by focusing interest on the painting of preaching and teaching. The selection and execution of scenes were meant to bring to light the Protestant understanding of the grace and → justification manifested in Christ. In Catholic → baroque (→ Catholic Reform and Counterreformation) the stress lay on images of Christ, on dramatic passion scenes infused with passion mysticism, and then on scenes of triumph that were given visual form with all the means available of spatial illusionism and handling of light. From the humanist tradition came also an interest in emblems and allegories of Christ.
The Christ images of Rembrandt (1606–69) are denominationally an isolated phenomenon. The artist depicted the incarnation in the human mystery of everyday situations and faces on which the light of the knowledge of God shines.
2.4. In images of Christ in the 19th and 20th centuries, one may see divergence between the Christian art that followed traditional Christian iconography and Christian art that pursued the avant-garde, which developed apart from the sacral tradition and made Christ a theme only occasionally or incidentally. Without being able to classify individual artists and their works unequivocally or exclusively, one may note some basic trends from the beginning of the 19th century. The church tradition promulgated and propagated by the Nazarenes and Pre-Raphaelites, following early medieval models (up to Raphael), sought to produce historical and devotional pictures that would establish cultural continuity with the ideal medieval world and a mood of subjective piety.
On the margin of the church, or outside it, two families of Christ images have emerged. One has produced images of Christ with private mythological and mystical features, which we could classify as:

• nature-mystical—C. D. Friedrich (1774–1840), P. O. Runge (1777–1810), J. Beuys (1921–86);
• syncretist-surrealist—W. Blake (1757–1827), M. Klinger (1857–1920), S. Dali (1904–89);
• symbolist—O. Redon (1840–1916), P. Gauguin (1848–1903), M. Denis (1870–1943);
• expressionist—E. Nolde (1867–1956), E. Barlach (1870–1938; → Expressionism); and
• meditative—A. Jawlensky (1864–1941), K. Malevich (1878–1935), A. Rainer (b. 1929).

In this context, the possibility of nonrepresentational images of Christ has been discussed by M. Rothko (1903–70), B. Newman (1905–70), and others.
The second family of Christ images are those that articulate the significance of Christ by putting his figure in individual situations (as the artist-Christ) or in social situations of contemporary suffering and conflict. Artists here include H. Daumier (1808–79), L. Corinth (1858–1925), J. Ensor (1860–1949), E. Munch (1863–1944), G. Rouault (1871–1958), A. Kubin (1877–1959), M. Beckmann (1884–1950), K. Schmitt-Rottluff (1884–1976), M. Chagall (1887–1985), O. Dix (1891–1969), G. Grosz (1893–1959), G. Sutherland (1903–80), and A. Hrdlicka (b. 1928).
Up to the middle of the 20th century, the church and theology adopted an attitude of reserve or even rejection toward these trends. They have now been accepted and adapted to church art and architecture, but there has still been too little theological reflection on the historical dimensions and demands of the plastic arts in the 19th and 20th centuries.
3. Eastern Church

The concept of artistic depiction that emerged from the Iconoclastic Controversy—a combination of the doctrine of the incarnation with prototypes (→ Images 3.2)—characterized images of Christ through the centuries. The relation of original and copy in terms of physiognomy was maintained, as was that of the grouping of narrative and representative themes. Within this framework, however, especially today, there are variations in piety and style. Iconographically worth noting are special types that diverge from the Western repertoire (e.g., the unsleeping eye and Christ as angel). The Eastern veneration based on the relation of original and copy gives images of Christ a central place in churches (→ Iconostasis; Icon) and liturgy.
4. Outside Europe

Thus far, images of Christ in churches outside European culture have been inadequately studied from a Eurocentric perspective. In a proper investigation of images of Christ in a developing polycentric world culture, these images would need to be set in a history of art of the individual cultures, with a discussion of their relation to the development of the European art (and its avant-garde), which has been dominant for centuries.
→ Devotional Images; Symbol

Bibliography: H. AURENHAMMER, “Christusbilder,” LCI 1.454–638 ∙ C. CARVARNOS, A Guide to Byzantine Iconography: Detailed Explanation of the Distinctive Characteristics of Byzantine Iconography (Boston, 1993) ∙ J. H. FOREST, Praying with Icons (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1997) ∙ P. HINZ, Deus Homo (2 vols.; Berlin, 1973–81) ∙ M. JONES-FRANK, Iconography and Liturgy (Chicago, 1994) ∙ J. KOLLWITZ et al., “Christus, Christusbild,” LCI 1.355–454 ∙ L. OUSPENSKY, Theology of the Icon (Crestwood, N.Y., 1992) ∙ M. QUENOT, The Resurrection and the Icon (Crestwood, N.Y., 1997) ∙ G. ROMBOLD and H. SCHWEBEL, Christus in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts (Freiburg, 1983) ∙ H. SCHWEBEL, Das Christusbild in der bildenden Kunst der Gegenwart (Giessen, 1980) ∙ N. P. S–ENČENKO, “Types of Christ,” ODB 1.437–39.
ALEX STOCK
Imagination

In its primary sense, the imagination (Lat. imaginari, “picture to oneself”) is the power to form mental images, or “likenesses,” of the objects that appear in the external world. Its function is to reproduce or represent these objects, even when they are not immediately present to the senses. Imagination complements perception by presenting to the rational faculty the images originating in the senses. It is thus a kind of bridge between the world of the senses and the world of conceptual thought.
A secondary power of the imagination is its ability to fantasize, that is, to envision pictures of things or events that do not actually exist in the natural world. The dual powers of representation and fantasy are related because fantasy depends on images that are already present in the mind. Whether imaging objects of the external world or composing new images via fantasy or dream, the imagination is representing or manipulating impressions originating from the sensory world.
These powers of the mind are included in what → Augustine called spiritual vision, “the kind of vision by which we represent in thought the images of bodies even in their absence.” For Augustine the weakness of the imagination (spiritual vision) was that it, like the senses, could be deceived, which happens when it “judges the objects of its vision to be real bodies, or when it attaches some property of its own fancy and false conjecture to bodies that it has not seen but merely conjures up in imagination.” The imagination escapes deception, however, “in the intuitions of the intellect” (De Gen. ad litt. 12.25)
The likelihood of sinful conjectures is what made the imagination suspect to many in the Christian tradition. John → Calvin, for example, thought that paying heed to fantasies would lead believers away from clear understanding of the natural laws of God’s creation: “As then vain men weary themselves with speculations, which have not in them, so to speak, any practical knowledge, it is no wonder that they run headlong into many delirious things” (Comm. Jer., at 51:19). The tendency to view imagination as the locus of natural depravity in the mind is enhanced by the use of the word “imagination” in the KJV and other translations of Gen. 6:5 and 8:21 (“the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth”). The disparagement of → images and → icons in Protestant churches is related to this distrust of imagination, as is the occasional suspicion of fiction, theater, and the arts generally.
An expanded view of the imagination emerges in what is commonly called the → Romantic era. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, following Immanuel Kant, ascribes to the imagination a new role that makes it an equal to, and a companion of, discursive or scientific reason. For Coleridge the imagination is not just a bridge to higher mental functions but is itself one of those functions. In developing his view, Coleridge distinguishes between primary and secondary imagination. The former embraces the two powers described above, whereas the latter goes beyond the powers of representation and fancy. Primary imagination is limited to the representation and manipulation of the images gleaned from perception, but secondary imagination is creative. Using the images given to it by the primary imagination, the secondary imagination creates new combinations of images that are produced only in the imagination, and thereby it brings about new forms of understanding. Understanding thus includes not only analytic and scientific processes of thought but also those that are intuitive or imaginative. The latter consist of seeing relationships among the constituent elements of observation and experience and integrating them into unified and truthful conceptions or visions of reality. → Reason is analytic, scientific, and discriminating, whereas imagination is integrative, poetic, and unifying. Reason predominates in the sciences, and imagination predominates in the arts, but both are necessary for the development of true understanding.
Many Romantic thinkers after Kant and Coleridge regard the imagination as the superior power of the mind, since it has the power to integrate disparate experiences and forms of knowledge into a cohesive unity. It is often seen as a power opposed to → science because it creates, primarily through the arts, a vision of the world that transcends the empirical limitations of science. Imagination, in this view, explores the universal conditions of all of reality, whereas science is limited to the universal conditions of the empirical world.
The elevation of, and faith in, the imagination that occurred in Romantic → aesthetics extended into the 20th century (e.g., J. Derrida, M. Foucault, J. Kristeva). It was brought into question, however, by the → postmodernists of the later 20th century. Much recent literary and historical scholarship concentrates on showing how the power of the imagination is tied to cultural and linguistic institutions. The imagination, in this view, cannot explore the universal conditions of experience, since it is necessarily conditioned by cultural environments.
Nevertheless, the imagination is still an agent of freedom; it can explore all of the new possibilities of → experience and thought that are continually opened up by the processes of history. And since it is concerned with cultural and historical rather than absolute → norms, it thrives in an intellectual environment characterized by unpredictability, → pluralism, and relativity. It seeks out what is unexpected, unusual, arbitrary, shocking, and often rebellious rather than what is universal, normative, or traditional. In the postmodern view, the imagination enables us to “play” with possibilities without requiring us to make commitments to any view of ultimate truth.

Bibliography: E. T. H. BRANN, The World of the Imagination (Totowa, N.J., 1991) ∙ J. M. COCKING, Imagination: A Study in the History of Ideas (London, 1991) ∙ J. DERRIDA, Dissemination (Chicago, 1988; orig. pub., 1972) ∙ M. FOUCAULT, The Order of Things (New York, 1973) ∙ R. KEARNEY, Poetics of Imagining: Modern to Post-Modern (2d ed.; New York, 1998) ∙ J. KRISTEVA, In the Beginning Was Love: Psychoanalysis and Faith (New York, 1987).
CLARENCE WALHOUT
Immanence and Transcendence

1. The Terms
2. Antiquity
3. Christian Theology
4. Modern Philosophy
5. Modern Theological Discussion
1. The Terms

In antiquity the terms “immanence” and “transcendence” (from Lat. immaneo, “remain in place,” and transcendo, “step over, pass over or beyond”) do not occur in their later metaphoric sense as substantive constructions for an all-encompassing relationship or for that to which the notion of “passing over or beyond” is referring. The metaphoric meanings seem to occur for the first time in the work of Duns Scotus (ca. 1265–1308) and William of Ockham (ca. 1285–1347).
2. Antiquity

If not the term itself, at least the metaphoric point of transcendence is undoubtedly present in the pre-Socratics (→ Greek Philosophy) when they base all being in a principle, although this principle admittedly still cannot be essentially distinguished from what is based on it. Parmenides (ca. 540-after 480 B.C.) and Plato (427–347), with his doctrine of the ideas (→ Platonism), find a more radical basis for being in which there is an ontological distinction between the basis and what is based on it. Thus in his comparison with the sun, Plato describes the idea of the → good as the epistemological and ontological basis of all being (Resp. 509B), though not itself of the quality of what is attested or known.
Aristotle (384–322), who views all being as motion initiated by an unmoved mover, does approach the notion of something transcendent to being (→ Aristotelianism). As the unmoved mover (Metaph. 1074b34, the noēsis noēseōs) directly effects and sustains cosmic order, however, its activity finds fulfillment in this function. The order of the cosmos is grounded in it and, as the aim of pure activity, is immanent to it (→ God 3).
3. Christian Theology

With the coming of the Judeo-Christian doctrine of God, the idea of transcendence, which has always received more emphasis in the history of Christianity than immanence, was decisively radicalized. In the philosophy of antiquity the ideal order of the cosmos had an origin that more or less transcended the phenomenological world but that could be perceived by philosophical effort. In contrast, the biblical understanding of God and the resultant Christian teaching developed a view of transcendence in which God is wholly other and is hidden from human knowledge (→ Epistemology); the existence of God absolutely transcends human existence. This Christian view of God thus brought a new stress on transcendence and consequently gave the terms “immanence” and “transcendence” a new significance.
At the same time, the ancient view of the world as one of statically cyclic occurrence yielded to an eschatological and historically defined view (→ Eschatology; Theology of History). This shift led to a desecularizing of the world that radically exposed humanity to divine → grace. God’s plan of salvation, which is beyond our comprehension, transcends history (→ Salvation History).
The new meanings of transcendence thus introduced have determined the usage right up to the → modern period. It should be noted, however, that from the first century A.D. antiquity’s view of transcendence began to mingle with the biblical understanding of God, resulting in the adoption of philosophical positions that led to a concealing of the authentic Christian concept. The idea of transcendence was not so radical in the resultant systems of thought and ran increasingly into the danger of being weakened by metaphysical conceptions according to the definition of the divine-human relation or the knowability of the divine. Finally, the question of God’s transcendence became an epistemological question. Either (as for Plotinus) God is infinite and nothing positive can be said about him (God’s transcendence), or (as for Thomas Aquinas) the nature of God discloses itself by analogy (God’s immanence).
4. Modern Philosophy

Knowledge of God’s total unknowability, which found its most impressive expression in Anselm (1033–1109), Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64), and M. Luther (1483–1546), lost its epistemological relevance with the rise of modern → philosophy. God’s transcendent being and qualities ceased to be a central theme as there developed a greater awareness of → reason, which increasingly focused on what it may know. For R. Descartes (1596–1650; → Cartesianism) God existed ultimately as governor of the mathematically determinable order of the world, and his existence could be deduced by pure reason. As reason was deified, divine and human knowledge came to be merged, thus weakening God’s transcendence. The idea of divine immanence penetrated instead into philosophical systems, reaching a climax in the doctrines of B. Spinoza (1632–77) and G. W. Leibniz (1646–1716).
With I. Kant (1724–1804) immanence and transcendence lost their exclusive link to the question of God (→ Kantianism). The distinction runs through all Kant’s works on theoretical philosophy but must be differentiated from the concept of the transcendental, which he introduced into German philosophy. This term describes a specific way of knowing objects insofar as it is possible a priori (Critique of Pure Reason, B25) and thus denotes a philosophical method. In contrast, an immanent method relates to the use of the categories of the understanding insofar as the latter derive exclusively from perception presented to → experience, and insofar as knowledge remains focused exclusively on such perception. If knowledge is to be commensurate with the criterion of scientifically certain knowledge, it will always derive from this immanent method. This criterion of scientific knowledge can be filled out, however, by the constant possibility of passing over the limits of experience and becoming transcendent (Prol. §40). In this way we view the synthesized multiplicity of what we observe in its totality, though not as an object of experience. For Kant the epistemological field is always open to a transcendence that makes possible an extension of knowledge.
J. G. Fichte (1762–1814) rejected epistemologically any form of transcendence, since it does not arise from the ego itself. For Fichte the concept of the act, which defines the ego as self-originating, made possible the deduction of the reality of the ego as both acting and knowing its action. In his view only this stage of knowledge as intellectual perception reached the level of true philosophy or criticism (→ Idealism).
Already the young G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831), in his criticism of Kant and Fichte, hit upon the idea of the identity of reason with itself, with no place for any world “outside” (→ Hegelianism). Mediation was the central category in the positing of this identity. Philosophy cannot begin, as in Fichte, with an absolute first principle, for it is mediated or defined by something else, which is opposed to that basic principle. Hegel’s whole system is thus rationally structured in stages, in which it reflects the degrees of mediation. For Hegel, then, the transcendent is the next stage of reason that has not yet reflected on its relation to the other that conditions it. From the standpoint of the → absolute (i.e., unceasing mediation), transcendence is immanent to the absolute.
The later F. W. J. Schelling (1775–1854) took up the problem of the self-mediation of reason. For him the central question was how reason, which takes all the steps of mediation, can establish its own existence. He had to admit that its being is thus transcendent for thought. The being of reason is absolutely transcendent being (SW 13.127). Its self-limitation, which he proposed in order to give the proper rank to its being and to its basis in God, brings to light the dilemma in all his later philosophy. By positing itself ecstatically outside its grounding impulse, reason grants transcendence its rights, as it were; these rights, however, are sanctioned only by the self-communication of reason itself.
“Self-transcendence in relation to origin” (W. Schulz) is also constitutive of the philosophy of S. Kierkegaard (1813–55) in the ethical demand that the subject should determine itself, in spite of the contrary experience of its being determined by its origin in God. Kierkegaard makes this situation a positive one as existence, by accepting mediation through transcendence, relieves itself of despair of the world and by this very fact establishes a relation that opens up new possibilities.
Less in terms of Kierkegaard’s existential questioning and more in terms of what he thought was his own more basic existentialist approach, M. Heidegger (1889–1976) said, in relation to transcendence, that “being is the transcendens pure and simple” (On Being and Time, 62). This understanding is the ontological basis of his philosophy, for ontologically he saw a distinction between that which exists (das Seiende) and being as such (das Sein), which is the basis of the former. That which exists can be truly grasped only on the basis of transcendence. Transcendence, then, is the basis of the possibility of → truth, because “there is Being [Sein] (not being [Seiende]) only in transcendence as world-projecting and situated grounding” (p. 123). Existence as the special being that alone understands being as such consists of the possibility of transcending the distinction (→ Existentialism). In this regard Heidegger parted company with his teacher E. Husserl (1859–1938), who argued that the world is a world only for the consciousness and that the question of transcendence is thus linked to subjective philosophy. Transcendence in every form is a meaning of being that constitutes itself in the ego.
In → Marxism there was a complete change in the approach to the question of transcendence. The interest of K. Marx (1818–83) focused not on the spiritual basis but on the concrete social relations that underlie it and their historical development, which Marx regarded as the cause of human self-alienation. For him, therefore, → ethics, → metaphysics, and → religion, in which transcendence is the theme, could be unmasked as an ideological superstructure, since they reflect a nonhistorical autonomy and have been made dispensable by revolutionary practice (→ Ideology). One might view Marxist philosophy as a way of setting aside the problem of transcendence.
T. W. Adorno (1903–69) took a different course, for although he advocated the social dimension in opposition to traditional subjectivism, he gave new significance to the problem of transcendence. Noting the basic disunion of the activities of thinking that establish identity and unity, on the one hand, and, on the other, a world that is totally alienated from this thinking, a world whose deformity cannot be grasped through thought, he found for philosophy the task of leaving open within and, as it were, over against thought itself a sphere of the nonconceptualized, the particular, the individual, or the nonidentical, which transcends the closed circle of thinking. By means of the concept, philosophy must reach beyond the concept.
English-speaking philosophy, unlike its German counterpart, has tended not to distinguish between “transcendental” and “transcendent” and generally uses the former term. This usage can be observed, for example, in the lively and still ongoing debate regarding “transcendental arguments,” triggered by P. F. Strawson’s rejection of skepticism in the late 1950s. The ambiguous use of the term “transcendent” can be also found in the early philosophy of L. Wittgenstein (1889–1951). In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1919), he describes logic and ethics as “transcendental” (6.13 and 6.421 respectively), whereas the analogous passages of his pre-Tractatus notebooks use the term “transcendent” (see entry for July 30, 1916). At this early stage of his work Wittgenstein explicitly designed philosophy as an instrument that sets the limits of meaningful language. Ethics and logic were considered to be beyond these limits, thus transcendent.
The reception of Wittgenstein’s philosophy entailed two major reactions. On the one hand, a positivist reaction eliminated all nonverifiable subjects (e.g., metaphysics) from serious (i.e., scientific) thinking, a view adopted by the Vienna Circle and neopositivism. On the other hand, a neopragmatic approach (→ Pragmatism) advocated dealing with metaphysical problems such as transcendence solely within their social contexts. Language was no longer considered to be a medium of world representation but rather an exchange of signs for specific purposes. So while for a positivist a philosophical consideration of “transcendence” was simply nonsense, for a pragmatist such an idea was of no philosophical interest. Both philosophical streams were influenced by the linguistic turn which replaced the mind-world relation with the language-world relation as a major paradigm of modern philosophy. The transcendent becomes the unspeakable.
So-called New England → transcendentalism was a philosophical and social movement in the northeastern United States in the middle of the 19th century. It used pantheistic, antiempiricist, and metaphysical ideas to express the spiritual unity of the world (thus highlighting immanence) and argued for “another reason” besides understanding that is better equipped to intuit metaphysical truths.
5. Modern Theological Discussion

→ Dialectical theology, or theology of the Word of God, which arose in the 1920s, borrowed from Heidegger’s analysis of being. Thus R. Bultmann (1884–1976) found in the concrete, nonobjectifiable processes of existence and in the existential framework of historicity a possibility of transcending ontic existence in a movement to our true origin. In this regard the same applies to P. Tillich (1886–1965), who tried to find a new meaning for transcendence in our ability, with a new perspective, to move beyond unsatisfactory reality to → hope.
This realization of → faith, which in Bultmann and Tillich was put in concrete existential acts, was linked by K. Barth (1886–1968) to an essentially more radical insight, namely, that only God himself in his → revelation posits the basis of knowledge of God (i.e., God is known only by God, C D II/1). In this way Barth could uphold God’s otherness from the world and humanity and protect himself against interpretations that link knowledge of the biblical message to a specific immanent experience. In this regard D. Bonhoeffer (1906–45) was akin, stressing the openness of the question of God and our being claimed by God in a way that no religion can match: “God is he who comes; that is his transcendence.” In contrast, J. Moltmann (b. 1926) proposed that immanence and transcendence are not alternatives but perspectives woven into history (a “forward-looking transcendence”).
In Roman Catholic theology K. Rahner (1904–84) brought transcendental considerations into his discussion of transcendence. To finite subjects God’s ineffability and sovereignty are known as the conditions of knowledge and contingency. God is the a priori presupposition of the world and our knowledge of it. He is an essentially spiritual being and in this way transcendent. He is present as a holy mystery.
H. Küng (b. 1928) also began with our experience of contingency, our imperfection, our hopes and expectations and longings. We confront these experiences with our capability of transcendence beyond our one-dimensional existence. On a similar basis E. Bloch (1885–1977) found here a critical urge to restructure society (transcending without transcendence). Küng, however, was interested in the ground of the divine. Encounter with God’s knowledge and action as an absolutely necessary and incontestable claim (K. Lehmann) points finally to something more, the precise definition of which can do justice to the various theological positions.
→ Future; Transcendental Philosophy; Transcendental Theology; Worldview

Bibliography: T. W. ADORNO, Negative Dialectics (trans. E. B. Ashton; New York, 1973) ∙ K. BARTH, The Epistle to the Romans (London, 1957; orig. pub., 1919; 2d ed., 1922) ∙ E. BLOCH, Atheismus im Christentum (Frankfurt, 1968) ∙ P. F. BOLLER JR., American Transcendentalism, 1830–1860: An Intellectual Inquiry (New York, 1974) ∙ D. BONHOEFFER, Gesammelte Schriften (vol. 5; Munich, 1972) ∙ R. BULTMANN, “What Does It Mean to Speak of God?” Faith and Understanding (vol. 1; New York, 1969; orig. pub., 1933) 53–65 ∙ D. CHIDESTER, Patterns of Transcendence: Religion, Death, and Dying (Belmont, Calif., 1990) ∙ Y. CONGAR and R. F. TREVETT, The Mystery of the Temple; or, The Manner of God’s Presence to His Creatures from Genesis to the Apocalypse (Westminster, Md., 1962) ∙ J. G. FICHTE, Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (Leipzig 1794) ∙ G. W. F. HEGEL, “Glauben und Wissen,” Kritisches Journal der Philosophie (Jena, 1802) ∙ M. HEIDEGGER, The Essence of Reasons (Evanston, Ill., 1969; orig. pub., 1929); idem, On Being and Time (London, 1962; orig. pub., 1927) ∙ E. HUSSERL, Cartesian Meditations (The Hague, 1965; orig. pub., 1931) ∙ J. W. JONES, Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Religion: Transference and Transcendence (New Haven, 1991) ∙ I. KANT, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science (trans. G. Hatfield; New York, 1997; orig. pub., 1783) ∙ S. KIERKEGAARD, The Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening (trans. H. V. Hong and E. H. Hong; Princeton, 1980) ∙ H. KÜNG, Vierundzwanzig Thesen zur Gottesfrage (5th ed.; Munich, 1993) ∙ K. LEHMANN, “Transzendenz,” LTK (2d ed.) 10.316–19 ∙ E. LÉVINAS, Alterity and Transcendence (New York, 1999) ∙ J. MOLTMANN, “Die Zukunft als neues Paradigma der Transzendenz,” IDZ 2 (1969) 2–13 ∙ L. OEING-HANHOFF, “Immanenz,” HWP 4.230–37 ∙ W. PANNENBERG, “Gott V,” RGG (3d ed.) 2.1717–32 ∙ K. RAHNER, Schriften zur Theologie (vol. 3; Einsiedeln, 1957) ∙ R. R. RENO, The Ordinary Transformed: Karl Rahner and the Christian Vision of Transcendence (Grand Rapids, 1995) ∙ R. RORTY, “Verificationism and Transcendental Arguments,” Noûs 5 (1971) 3–14 ∙ F. W. J. SCHELLING, Philosophie der Offenbarung (2 vols.; Stuttgart, 1858–59) ∙ W. SCHULZ, Die Vollendung des deutschen Idealismus in der Spätphilosophie Schellings (Stuttgart, 1955) ∙ F. SCHUON, Logic and Transcendence (New York, 1975) ∙ P. F. STRAWSON, Individuals (London, 1959) ∙ B. STROUD, “Transcendental Arguments,” JPh 65 (1968) 241–56 ∙ P. TILLICH, The Courage to Be (New Haven, 1952).
HERBERT HANREICH
Immortality

1. Term
2. Early Non-Christian Views
3. Christian Views
4. Post-Christian Views
1. Term

The word “immortal,” from Lat. immortalis, means “not susceptible to death” or “not going to die.” Like its Greek synonym, athanasia, the term explicitly negates → death, the apparently inevitable fate of all living things. The NT predicates athanasia of → God (1 Tim. 6:15) and also of resurrected humans (1 Cor. 15:53–54). All Christians affirm “the → resurrection of the body and the life everlasting” (Apostles’ Creed), yet some disagree about the immortality of the → soul and the nature of the resurrection. While the Christian understanding of immortality shares similarities with some other religions and philosophies, it is different from most and, in the final analysis, unique.
2. Early Non-Christian Views

The notion of immortality, both divine and human, is found in primal → animistic and → polytheistic religions, but it is neither universal nor uniform. While the high god or gods typically exist without end, lesser deities and spiritual beings may be killed or periodically die and be reborn. In → Babylonian mythology the god Marduk creates the world from the body of the goddess Tiamat, whom he has slain in combat. Beliefs about human immortality vary widely in primal religions. Some apparently do not affirm any kind of afterlife, as in the Gilgamesh epic. Others, such as the underworld in the ancient Near East and Greece, envision a shadowy, sleepy remnant of earthly life. In some primal religions important persons become immortal demigods after death, whereas the shades of commoners fade into oblivion. In others the dead are spirits who perpetually help or harm the living. Still others believe that their tribe is a permanent group of souls who are periodically reincarnated throughout the generations. Common to all these notions of immortality is belief that an essential part of earthly humans—a soul, spirit, or ethereal body—continues to exist beyond physical death and acquires the characteristics suited for the next life. In some religions (e.g., that of the Egyptian Book of the Dead; → Egyptian Religion), immortality is determined by divine judgment of the individual’s earthly life.
The great Oriental religions, → Hinduism and → Buddhism, also include a variety of beliefs about immortality. Most traditions affirm → reincarnation, the idea that individuals are part of the cosmic cycle of life (saṁsāra) and continually return as other living things until they generate enough good moral-spiritual energy (→ karma) to transcend the wheel of life. These traditions differ, however, concerning the ultimate destiny of the soul and its immortality. In monistic Hinduism the individual soul (jı̄va) is regarded as a temporary manifestation of Atman, the immortal cosmic consciousness, also called Brahman, God, or Ultimate Reality. When the individual transcends reincarnation, its identity with Atman/Brahman is realized, attaining immortality but losing its individuality. In nonmonistic branches of Hinduism and in Mahayana Buddhism, the individual soul retains its existence and is able to achieve immortality beyond reincarnation in the perpetual bliss of pure consciousness (samādhi, nirvāṇa). More austere Hinayana and → Zen Buddhist traditions are agnostic about what transcends earthly experience and affirm only that the goal of life is full awareness and oneness with Reality, which is neither mortal nor immortal.
A similar variety of views is found in → Greek philosophy. → Materialists, such as Democritus, held that the soul is generated by the body and thus ceases to exist when the body dies. Aristotle held that human individuals are constituted of matter and a “soul,” which he viewed as individuated, immaterial, rational-animal form. At death the two elements are separated, matter decomposing into more simple forms, and the form losing its individuality. Aristotle thus could affirm the immortality of the universal Active Intellect, but not of individual human souls. It was Plato whom later Christian thinkers found most useful. He held that individual humans consist of an eternal, uncreated rational soul and a naturally mortal material body. At death the soul is freed from the body for another incarnation or perhaps for eternal freedom from the impediments of material existence. The → Gnostics and some → mystery cults in the Roman Empire also believed in the immortality of the individual soul liberated from the material world.
3. Christian Views

All Christians believe in immortality, understood as a final resurrection to everlasting life. The majority have held that immortality also includes continuing existence of the soul or person between death and resurrection. Almost every detail of this general confession and its biblical basis, however, has been disputed.
The debate has been fueled by the development of beliefs about the afterlife within the Bible itself and the variety of language in which they are expressed. The Hebrew Bible does not present the human soul (nepeš) or spirit (rûaḥ) as an immortal substance, and for the most part it envisions the dead as ghosts in Sheol, the dark, sleepy underworld. Nevertheless it expresses hope beyond death (see Pss. 23 and 49:15) and eventually asserts physical resurrection (see Isa. 26:19; Dan. 12:2).
Intertestamental Judaism includes several accounts. The → Sadducees emphasized the dissipation of life in Sheol and sometimes adopted Greek materialism, which denied the afterlife altogether. Others, such as Philo, were strongly influenced by Plato and stressed the immortality of the soul rather than physical bodily resurrection. The → Pharisees embraced both the Sheol and the resurrection texts of the OT, affirming an intermediate state, a future bodily resurrection at the coming of the Messiah, and immortality in his kingdom.
The NT develops a position most like the Pharisees (see Acts 23:6–8). While its greatest stress is on the resurrection of the body, which is explicitly identified as “immortal” (see 1 Cor. 15:53–54), it also envisions personal communion with Christ immediately upon death (Luke 23:43, 46; 2 Cor. 5:1–10; Phil. 1:20–24). It uses “soul” (psychē) and “spirit” (pneuma) in largely synonymous, nontechnical senses and does not explicitly describe either as “immortal.” On the basis of this reading of Scripture, most Christians have understood immortality as “everlasting life,” a gift of God to the individual believer that is given already in this life (John 6:47), continues after death in an “intermediate state” until bodily resurrection, and endures forever with God in his eternal kingdom, the new heaven and new earth.
Two minority interpretations have challenged the majority reading of Scripture. One reflects → Platonism, the other materialism. The first view, as with Plato and Philo, focuses on the soul or spiritual dimension as the immortal essence of human nature, regarding bodily life as incidental or even as an impediment. It understands resurrection as transformation of the earthly human into a spiritual being (see 1 Cor. 15:44) and immortality as eternal communion with God in heaven. It tends to read the NT and even the OT texts about human nature and the afterlife as though they taught Platonism. This view has been defended by some theologians but has been more widespread in popular piety. It was challenged by Cullmann’s famous essay “Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?” (1956).
The other minority view is implicitly materialistic. It is found mainly among 16th-century → Anabaptists and later sects, such as Seventh-day → Adventists. Held in England by Thomas Hobbes and John Milton, it has gained popularity among intellectuals in the 20th century. It holds that a person cannot exist without a body and denies the immortality of the soul. It thus rules out the intermediate state, although it may speak of “soul sleep,” and affirms only the resurrection of the body to immortality at Christ’s second coming. It denies that the OT envisions an afterlife and that the NT teaches an intermediate state. It believes that the majority Christian view results mainly from Platonism, not the Bible. Both the Platonist and materialist minorities agree with the majority that the resurrection will occur at Christ’s return. There is another minority, including philosopher John Hick, who believe that resurrection, whether spiritual or physical, occurs at the instant of death. In spite of these disagreements, however, traditional Christians all believe that they will undergo resurrection and receive eternal life imparted by Jesus Christ on the basis of his own resurrection (1 Corinthians 15; Phil. 3:20–21).
Christian thinkers have affirmed the immortality of the soul in several ways. Some, like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas (who differ in their views of the nature of the soul and its relation to the body), held that the immortality of the soul is a biblical teaching but also offered philosophical reasons for it, such as its simple, indivisible nature: what is noncomposite cannot decompose. They disagreed with Plato in asserting that the soul’s immortality is conferred by God when created. Others, such as Duns Scotus, doubted that the immortality of the soul can be established philosophically. René Descartes, too, although he was rationally certain that the mind is a substance distinct from the body and thus can exist without it, came to doubt that he could prove its immortality but accepted it as a teaching of Scripture. Theologians have also debated whether the soul is immortal intrinsically or only because God perpetually maintains its existence.
4. Post-Christian Views

→ Deistic thinkers such as Voltaire, J.-J. Rousseau, and I. Kant continued to affirm the immortality of the soul as a rationally justified belief apart from → revelation. Kant considered it a postulate of moral reason: the unconditional obligations of morality justify belief in an unending afterlife necessary to fulfill them. Other non-Christian thinkers came to different conclusions. Some redefined immortality to mean the termination and transformation of personal existence into something else that endures. B. Spinoza, a → pantheist, believed that humans are immortal only in the sense that they are part of the eternal divine mind that endures beyond their individual lives. This view is similar to Aristotle’s Active Intellect and the Hindu Atman. Immortality by means of assimilation into a greater reality is also found among German and English → Romantics (J. W. Goethe, A. Tennyson), New England transcendentalists (R. W. Emerson, H. D. Thoreau; → Transcendentalism), and → idealistic philosophers (G. W. F. Hegel, F. H. Bradley). The → process philosopher A. N. Whitehead spoke of “objective immortality,” the view that individuals “live on” in the continuing effects of their lives in the world. In neopagan and naturalistic worldviews “immortality” is attained by reassimilation into the “life force,” or the perpetual life cycle of nature, or by “living on” in the memory or genes of one’s progeny. All these definitions of immortality are figurative and paradoxically affirm the extinction of individual persons at death.
More tough-minded, the 18th-century agnostic D. Hume stated that there is no reason to think that humans survive death any more than other physical objects and living things. This view is held by most materialists and scientific → rationalists. These thinkers simply deny human immortality and dismiss Romantic and idealistic notions of “living on” as sentimental nonsense. In contrast, spiritists, appealing to parapsychological phenomena and near-death experiences, have continued to assert immortality understood literally as personal survival of death.
Christians who find modern idealism, romanticism, naturalism, → spiritism, or reincarnationism more compelling than the traditional biblical worldview often replace the historic Christian view of immortality or attempt to harmonize it with another notion. However, the majority view of the Christian tradition—that personal immortality is a gift of God in Christ already in this life, continues between death and resurrection, and is completed with the resurrection of the body to life in God’s everlasting kingdom—remains the teaching of most churches and the belief of most Christians worldwide, whether Orthodox, Roman Catholic (see Catechism of the Catholic Church [1994]), or traditional Protestant.

Bibliography: AUGUSTINE, De immortalitate animae (On the immortality of the soul), CSEL 89 (1986) 101–28 ∙ J. CALVIN, Inst. 3.25 (“The Final Resurrection”) ∙ O. CULLMANN, Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? (London, 1958) ∙ M. ELIADE, “Death, Afterlife, Eschatology,” From Primitives to Zen: A Thematic Sourcebook of the History of Religions (New York, 1967) chap. 4 ∙ J. HICK, Death and Eternal Life (New York, 1976) ∙ J. RATZINGER, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life (Washington, D.C., 1988; orig. pub., 1977) ∙ S. D. F. SALMOND, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality (5th e d.; Edinburgh, 1903) ∙ F. SCHLEIERMACHER, The Christian Faith (2 vols.; New York, 1963; orig. pub., 1821–22) §161 (“The Resurrection of the Flesh”) and §163 (“Eternal Blessedness”) ∙ THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa theol. I, qq. 75–76, 89–90 (on the soul, body, and intermediate state), and III supp., qq. 69–93 (on the intermediate state and final resurrection).
JOHN W. COOPER
Immunity

Immunity is exemption from prevailing rules. It gives persons, things, and places a privileged position involving rights of both freedom and authority.

1. The concept of immunity derives from Roman law. It related first to relief from various public burdens. Under Constantine (306–37) the clergy (→ Clergy and Laity) and church property enjoyed relief from taxation. In Frankish law immunity included judicial immunity as well as freedom from taxes and duties. Modern constitutions have added new forms such as parliamentary immunity. A common practice is to grant immunity from prosecution to important witnesses.

2. Medieval → canon law used immunity for the comprehensive legal claims of the church in opposition to secular power, including the right of the clergy to be tried only in church courts. As → church and state drew apart in the 19th century and as the state suppressed ecclesiastical → jurisdiction, the church found it increasingly difficult to press its claim, in spite of the condemnations in the → Syllabus of 1864. The development of → Roman Catholic → church law corresponds to the loss of immunity. The 1917 → Corpus Iuris Canonici could still claim broad privileges for the clergy and → exemption for sacred places, but the 1983 CIC refrains from bringing such matters under church law.

3. The church’s claims to immunity are in many cases protected by → concordats that form part of state constitutions or by the de facto granting of the rights of self-determination and protection and other privileges. Churches and church buildings, however, seldom enjoy a legal immunity from police entry, although students in even secular universities often claim this privilege on the basis of the fact that universities originally enjoyed immunity as church institutions (and their members as clergy).
A much-debated issue in this field is that of → asylum, which has traditionally been an important aspect of church immunity. Thus some churches in the United States claim immunity on behalf of certain illegal aliens. The claim has no very clear legal basis, but probably in view of a proclaimed separation of church and state, plus the lingering impact of medieval → tradition, the authorities have shown no great enthusiasm to intervene.
→ Jurisprudence

Bibliography: R. DANIELI, P. S. LEICHT, and P. PALAZZINI, “Immunità ecclesiastica,” EC 6.1696–1700 ∙ J. E. DOWNS, The Concept of Clerical Immunity (Washington, D.C., 1941) ∙ F. MEEHAN, “Immunity,” NCE 7.391–93 ∙ O. VOLK, “Immunität,” TRE 16.84–91 ∙ D. WILLOWEIT, “Immunität,” HDRG 2.312–30 (bibliography).
BERND T. DRÖSSLER
Impressionism

1. Term
2. Development
3. Painting
3.1. Technique
3.2. Criticism
3.3. Models
3.4. Impact
4. Sculpture
5. Literature
5.1. Literary Technique
5.2. Criticism
6. Music
6.1. Musical Technique
6.2. Definition
7. Theory
8. Feeling for Life
9. Movement
1. Term

Impressionism is a stylistically uniform orientation in the history of art. It finds manifestation especially in paintings and graphics, but also in sculpture, literature, and music.
2. Development

The beginning of impressionism is usually traced to 1874, when a group of young artists who had been barred from an exhibition exhibited their works privately in Paris. At the time the impressionistic method had already reached a peak, and the showing did not enjoy any great success. Instead, the artists were subjected to scorn and contempt. Their pictures were said to give evidence of madness. In 1874 the famous journalist Louis Leroy, in reaction to Monet’s Sunrise, coined the ironically contemptuous term “impressionism,” which would come to characterize the whole movement.
3. Painting

The impressionists were almost all born between 1830 and 1840: C. Pissarro in 1830, É. Manet in 1832, E. Degas in 1834, A. Sisley in 1839, C. Monet in 1840, P.-A. Renoir and B. Morisot in 1841. They were often viewed as a group, but they rejected being called such, stressing their individual methods of work and modes of depiction.
3.1. Technique

What viewers missed in 1874 was the usual realism. While impressionism does seek a realistic portrayal, a significant change from tradition lies in the representation of light not merely as brightness but as illumination, strengthened by complementary contrasts. The comma technique (pointillism) with its short, spontaneous, undirected strokes brings complementary colors into inner, sparkling contact. In a light-filled atmosphere landscape, buildings, and people are then presented as the reflection of a moment. This technique makes demands on viewers, since their eyes must mix the colors from a distance to get the effect of illumination. With their freedom of form and coloring and brushwork, combined with objectivity, the artists achieve a high level of → illusion. For this reason impressionism is often seen as the beginning of abstract painting. It certainly abandons naturalism and shows that art has its own means of expression independent of nature.
Even before the famous 1874 exhibition the French artists had taken a revolutionary course. With the study of nature then in the forefront, impressionism came in 1874 in the form of landscape painting. Other pictures then depicted novelties in the developing cities, with paintings from the spheres of art, entertainment, the theater, the boulevards, and the restaurants. We also find still-life pictures, portraits, and nudes. The painters who used oils are the most famous; watercolorists are often unknown.
3.2. Criticism

Even before the first exhibition contemporaries charged that the new style of art was offensive. The public regarded many of Manet’s works, such as Luncheon on the Grass (1863), as scandalous. His Olympia (1863) deliberately avoids giving the impression of a statue. By contours and half-tones he gave a light-filled atmosphere distinctive expression. Young and independent artists who did not belong to any school soon recognized the typical character of the new style.
3.3. Models

Impressionism itself found its models in landscape and open-air paintings and in the Dutch painting of the 17th century. Already in 1834 J. Turner in England had painted a fire as an optical event with completely new methods. It would be a whole generation before young French painters adopted similar techniques.
3.4. Impact

The French painters made an impact beyond the borders of France. Painters in Germany such as M. Liebermann (1847–1935), F. Uhde (1848–1911), L. Corinth (1858–1925), and M. Slevogt (1868–1932); in England such as C. S. Keene (1823–91) and P. W. Steer (1860–1942); in the United States such as T. Eakins (1844–1916); in Holland such as J. Israëls (1824–1911), J. Maris (1837–99), A. Mauve (1838–88), and M. Maris (1839–1917); as well as artists in Poland, Scandinavia, and Russia all came under the influence of impressionism and neo-impressionism as the principles of the impressionistic use of color were systematized in a seemingly scientific fashion (e.g., in separation of colors and pointillism).
4. Sculpture

In sculpture, too, artists burst through the limits of convention and abandoned smooth, static works in favor of works with a dynamic interplay of light and shade. Particular attention was attracted by the bronze Citizens of Calais (1884–86), in which A. Rodin (1840–1917) presented the collective sacrifice as a secular version of the crucifixion. The painter E. Degas (1834–1917) also gave a new impulse to sculpture in Europe with his Little Dancer (1880).
5. Literature

Impressionism also invaded the world of literature. Influenced by French criticism of É. Zola (1840–1902), the literary critic H. Bahr (1863–1934) forecast in 1891 a new art and literature that would impress sensations, images of the moment, and fleeting events upon the nerves.
5.1. Literary Technique

Writers in Vienna especially devised a new technique while avoiding novelty in content. They dismissed attempts at seeing the world as it is as naive faith. For them the essential element in literature is constituted by sense impressions and momentary reflections of things in the ego. Authors experience with their nerves and grasp things as creative individualists who withdraw from society into an isolated artistic existence. The new work was in sharp contrast to naturalistic writing.
As in the case of painting and drawing, this literature needs a reader for the decisive step in the creation of art. In painting, the viewers have to mix the colors. In literature, they must make the associations that are consciously not stated, or only hinted at, in the work. Sound imitations, speech rhythms, and speech tempos characterize the style. The sentences are in part short and snappy, at other times syntactically incomplete.
Naturalistic principles of style were still dominant in the early days of impressionistic writing, so that the founders of consistent naturalism, A. Holz (1863–1929) and J. Schlaf (1862–1941), could be ranked as impressionists. Other important impressionist writers were D. Liliencron (1844–1909), A. Schnitzler (1862–1931), R. Dehmel (1863–1920), S. George (1868–1933), the early H. Hofmannsthal (1874–1929), R. M. Rilke (1875–1926), and especially P. Altenberg (1859–1919), also C.-P. Baudelaire (1821–67) and K. Hamsun [Pedersen] (1859–1952).
5.2. Criticism

This new direction in literature was called either symbolism (because of the symbolic style) or impressionism. The group was also given the name “decadent” because of (as critics saw it) the moral degeneracy and weaknesses of the authors. This term denotes the writers’ rejection of middle-class values, a luxuriating in sensory beauty through exaggerated subjectivism, and a repudiation of belief in → progress. Bahr called the poetry of the decadents pathological—a new form of madness. F. Nietzsche (1844–1900) found in it an unavoidable manifestation of European exhaustion but also the possibility of a new beginning. For him it was as necessary as any other step forward in life, and there was no way of avoiding it.
6. Music

Difficulties arise when we try to apply the term “impressionism” to music, but scholarship since the turn of the last century has used the word to describe the compositions of C. Debussy (1862–1918), though he himself did not like the term because of its originally pejorative use.
6.1. Musical Technique

Debussy’s style, which betrays some influence of the Far East, is marked by static, nonfunctional harmonies and circular themes with ornamental motifs. A warmth and softness evocative of the moods of nature predominates. The music tries to capture the open air, and by refined coloring Debussy manages to create an analogy to painting. It seems to be the task of his music to mediate the charm of multiple coloring, but it can be done only through synaesthesis on the part of the listeners. The harmonic devices (juxtaposition of dissonant chords, stacked thirds, etc.) are for the most part of → Romantic derivation.
6.2. Definition

Only in relation to Debussy is it possible to define an impressionistic style in music, so that one might just as well speak of Debussy’s style rather than that of impressionism. This style strongly influenced other composers such as E. MacDowell (1860–1908), R. Strauss (1864–1949), A. Roussell (1869–1937), the early M. Ravel (1875–1937), M. de Falla (1876–1946), O. Respighi (1879–1936), and C. M. Scott (1879–1971).
7. Theory

Common to all three artistic forms are psychologistic and → solipsistic features. Bahr traced the underlying theory to the work of the physicist and theoretician E. Mach (1838–1916), who found in objects only a relative consistency. Matter for him was simply a collection of elements, tones, and colors—a shifting impact of features that exist only as they are perceived. We can make objective statements about them because individuals have similar sensations. The receptive ego sifts the various impressions. Bahr seemed to think that for Mach each of us perceives the world differently and that all of us ourselves are in constant change. The effect of the moment becomes the fundamental feature.
8. Feeling for Life

The impressionistic feeling for life had ethical and religious implications (→ ethics). The artists of impressionism took up Christian themes (→ Christian Art) and thus cast a religious aura, but they reinterpreted traditional Christian contents and thus created a contemporary → faith with human creativity at the root. This understanding is clear in Rilke’s Book of Hours. The God of this modern prayer book does not exist but must be created subjectively (W. Falk).
Ethically, the egocentricity of this view of life is clear in the exaltation of life. Painters prefer the feminine nude as a means of expressing the element of enjoyment and intoxication. Writers like F. Wedekind (1864–1918) in his play Hidalla (1905) expound the duty of love and tear down the barriers of middle-class convention. We see this trend especially in the decadent movement. A naturalistic ethic of compassion is replaced in impressionism by an ethic of enjoyment (R. Hamann and J. Hermand) in a new form of → hedonism.
9. Movement

Like other periods, that of impressionism does not form a historical unity. Impressionism is more a category in artistic history. The fact that there is a gap of more than two decades between the first impressionistic painting and the first impressionistic literature shows that we are dealing more with a movement of impressionism than with an epoch. One might say that the only common feature is the break with tradition. In place of social confession and depiction of the milieu, we find a harmony parallel to nature and a subjective transcending of the given. This development leads on to cubism and prepares the ground for → expressionism.

Bibliography: H. ALBRECHT, “Impressionismus,” MGG 6.1046–90 ∙ H. BAHR, Die Überwindung des Naturalismus (Dresden, 1891) ∙ J. CLAY, ed., Impressionism (Secaucus, N. J., 1973) ∙ W. FALK, “Auswirkungen des epochalen Wandels auf Formen der Religiosität,” Religion und Zeitgeist im 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1982) 179–220 ∙ T. GARB, Die Frauen des Impressionismus (Stuttgart, 1987) ∙ P. GAY, Art and Act: On Causes in History-Manet, Gropius, Mondrian (New York, 1976) ∙ R. HAMANN, Impressionismus in Leben und Kunst (Marburg, 1907) ∙ R. HAMANN and J. HERMAND, Impressionismus (Berlin, 1977) ∙ J. D. HERBERT, “Impressionism,” EncA 2.473–77 ∙ R. L. HERBERT, Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society (New Haven, 1998) ∙ D. F. HOOPES, The American Impressionists (New York, 1972) ∙ D. KULLMANN, ed., Erlebte Rede und impressionistischer Stil. Europäische Erzählprosa im Vergleich mit ihren deutschen Übersetzungen (Göttingen, 1995) ∙ E. MACH, Erkenntnis und Irrtum (Leipzig, 1905) ∙ F. W. NIETZSCHE, Aus dem Nachlaß der Achtzigerjahre (9th ed.; ed. K. Schlechta; Munich, 1969) ∙ J. RENOIR, Renoir, My Father (Boston, 1962) ∙ R. M. RILKE, Poems, 1906–1926 (Norfolk, Conn., 1957) ∙ M. SCHAPIRO, Impressionism: Reflections and Perceptions (New York, 1997) ∙ P. SMITH, Impressionism: Beneath the Surface (New York, 1995) ∙ S. STRUMPER-KROBB, Impressionistische Erzählverfahren im Spiegel der Übersetzung (Göttingen, 1997).
HELMUT BERNSMEIER
Imprisonment → Punishment
Incarnation

1. Religious Aspect
1.1. Term
1.2. Non-Christian Examples
2. Theological Aspects
2.1. Concept
2.2. Development in Christian Theology
2.3. Significance
3. Controversial Aspects
3.1. Chalcedonian Definition
3.2. Orthodox Theology
3.3. Roman Catholic Theology
3.4. Reformation Theology
3.5. Modern Discussion
1. Religious Aspect
1.1. Term

The term “incarnation,” which is now used in religious discussion as well as Christian theology, is not always plainly distinct from related terms like “manifestation” or “epiphany.” There is thus no uniform usage, and the employment of the word is much debated. It seems best to limit its use to the idea that a divine being has embodied itself in human form and in this form lived on earth. A distinction might be made between continuous incarnation in an → institutions or dynasty and a discontinuous incarnation in single individuals.
1.2. Non-Christian Examples

In → Egyptian religion, at least in the early period up to the Fourth Dynasty, the idea of a continuous incarnation occurs. The name of Horus, the god of heaven, is put before that of Pharaoh, signifying that Pharaoh is an incarnation of this god.
In Tibetan → Buddhism the idea of a continuous incarnation is central. The Dalai Lama is supposedly an incarnation of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. Yet the use of “incarnation” here is open to question, since it is not clear that the idea of Buddha or the bodhisattva is the same as that of God.
In the Vishnu strand of → Hinduism the idea of a discontinuous incarnation arose. The descent (avatāra) of the god into the world brings disruption of cosmic order. The sources disagree on the number of avatars. Usually there are ten, the last of which is awaited in the future. Apart from avatars in human form, of which Krishna is the best known, there are also avatars in animal or mixed form. The divine being may also be either wholly or partially present in an avatar. In the 20th century Hindus and Indian Christians have discussed the similarity between this teaching and the Christian doctrine of the incarnation (→ Hinduism and Christianity).
In some extreme → Shia → sects various ideas of incarnation occur. The Druze regard the caliph al-Ḥākim (985–1021?) as the final incarnation of deity. The Nusayris of northern Syria find an incarnation of deity in ʿAlı̄ (ca. 600–661), the fourth caliph.

Bibliography: S. AKHILANANDA, Hindu View of Christ (New York, 1949) ∙ A. J. APPASAMY, The Gospel and India’s Heritage (London, 1942) ∙ M. ELZE et al., “Inkarnation,” HWP 4.368–82 ∙ D. E. BASSUK, Incarnation in Hinduism and Christianity: The Myth of the God-Man (London, 1987) ∙ J. B. COBB JR. and C. IVES, eds., The Emptying God: A Buddhist-Jewish-Christian Conversation (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1990) ∙ F. FRANKFORT, Kingship and the Gods (Chicago, 1948) ∙ M. H. HARPER, Gurus, Swamis, and Avataras: Spiritual Masters and Their American Disciples (Philadelphia, 1972) ∙ M. MUTAHHARI, Fundamentals of Islamic Thought (Berkeley, Calif., 1985) ∙ G. PARRINDER, Avatar and Incarnation (London, 1970).
ULRICH BERNER
2. Theological Aspects
2.1. Concept

The notion of a preexistent heavenly or angelic being (→ Angel) appearing on earth in the last days is by no means totally foreign to the Jewish world of the first century A.D. → Qumran knew of and developed traditions about Melchizedek returning as judge and king, and of Michael the archangel descending to defend or lead the people of God in the → eschatological battle. Likewise, both → Judaism and → Hellenism were familiar with the idea of historical figures representing or mediating the rational structures of the universe. Philo (b. 15–10 B.C.-A.D. 45–50) takes various OT figures as living symbols of the divine Logos (i.e., God revealing and sharing his eternal creative reason), and Hellenistic culture often described a king or sage as logos (or nomos) empsychos—the Logos (or law) of the cosmos clothed in a human → soul (→ Hellenistic-Roman Religion).
What is striking about early Christian belief is the combination of the following themes:
• → Jesus has a specific (and recent) human identity;
• he is not an angel or a resurrected patriarch;
• he is not an angel or a resurrected patriarch;
• the Logos he embodies is not a general and impersonal principle.

John 1:1–14 could be read in a “Philonic” way, yet the rest of the gospel assumes that whatever preexists the historical life of Jesus is in some sense a subject of knowing and loving (17:1–5). Likewise, the famous Christological hymn of Phil. 2:5–11 seems to assume (though there is some debate on this point among critical scholars) that the subject of the experiences of Jesus of Nazareth is continuous with a preexisting being capable of choice and purpose.
2.2. Development in Christian Theology
2.2.1. Incarnational language is only one of several options in the NT for describing or discussing Jesus’ nature and significance. As theology develops, however, such language is increasingly seen as an indispensable tool for asserting that, in Jesus Christ, human nature is radically transformed by union with the divine life (Ignatius, Irenaeus). If Jesus is—as the NT overall suggests—more than a teacher of enlightenment, if the history of his acts and sufferings is an essential component of Christian belief (→ Faith) in the changing of the world, there is a need to say of the presence and agency at work in him that it is not to be reduced simply to the ordinary dimensions of created activity. Jesus has God’s own authority and power to “re-create,” to reconstitute the bounds of the human world—yet he does so within that world (Irenaeus again).
2.2.2. Incarnational language constantly faces the risk of dissolving back into its original components. Those disposed to see Jesus as offering primarily enlightenment, liberation from darkness and ignorance, have no difficulty in thinking of his earthly form as phantasmal; for them his real identity is as a heavenly power (→ Christology 2). Human experience, especially suffering, is at best irrelevant to his work, at worst degrading and compromising. Such a position leads to classical → Docetism. Various forms of → Gnosticism either espoused this picture or distinguished sharply between an earthly figure (not necessarily fully human) who has a purely instrumental role and a heavenly spirit descending on this materially tangible individual (Basilides).
Other Christians, concerned equally about compromising the divine Logos’s immutability and impassibility, tended to minimize the distinct individuality of the Word and to see it as a power inspiring and exalting the man Jesus (Paul of Samosata [d. after 272]). Origen (ca. 185–ca. 254) attempted an ingenious solution in which the real subject of incarnation was the preexistent soul of Jesus. Being perfectly united with the Logos, this soul, on entering the flesh, transmits the power and life of the Logos to that flesh, so that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed “transparent” to the eternal Word (→ Origenism).
2.2.3. With the rejection first of Origen’s doctrine of preexistent souls, and then of Paul of Samosata’s view of the Word inspiring a complete and distinct human individual, some theologians tended to assume that a human soul was lacking in Jesus, being replaced directly by the Word. Arius (ca. 280–336) thus concluded that the Word, as subject to limitation and suffering, could not strictly speaking be divine (→ Arianism). The reaffirmation at → Nicaea of the Word’s full divinity (→ Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) guaranteed that the Word could not now be thought of as becoming part of a human being—and so, indirectly, guaranteed a recognition of Jesus’ full humanity and a rejection of the teaching of Apollinaris of Laodicea (ca. 310–ca. 390) that the Word replaced the nous or hēgemonikon (the ruling intellectual principle) in Jesus.
2.2.4. The insistence, however, of the Antiochene theologians (→ Antiochian Theology) on a sharp disjunction between the passible human Jesus and the unchanging Logos awakened memories of the teaching of Paul of Samosata. Alexandrian writers (→ Alexandrian Theology) accused their opponents of “teaching two Christs”—a charge whose origins lie ultimately in the struggle against Gnosticism. In reaction to Antiochene theology Cyril (ca. 375–444) developed the concept of hypostatic union: Word and man are uniquely related in such a way that the individuation and actuality of the particular human nature belonging to Jesus are wholly dependent on the presence of the Word as a kind of substratum, the hypostasis (foundation, substance) that sustains the natural predicates of Jesus’ humanity.
2.2.5. The language of hypostatic union was canonized at the Council of → Chalcedon in 451 (though not in a way that satisfied more consistent supporters of Cyril). The history of much subsequent Christology is a history of the refinement of this language. In the sixth and seventh centuries there was a refusal to merge either the human will of Jesus or his human energeia (his distinctively human “mode of operation”) in the divine will and activity. The hypostatic union continues to serve as a conceptual device for securing the total humanity of Jesus and the transcendence of the Word.
In the theology of → Scholasticism debates arose as to whether the divine Word “adds” anything to the particular human nature of Jesus. Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–74) considered that the Word provides the active principle by which Jesus’ humanity exists as something that itself has active and historical form (→ Thomism), while Duns Scotus (ca. 1265–1308) insisted that the presence of the Word is a purely negative determination—that which constitutes the individual humanity a nondependent, self-determining reality (→ Scotism). The two great doctors also disagreed over whether the incarnation was intelligible only as a response to the fall (Aquinas) or could have occurred simply as a gift consummating the human calling given in creation (Scotus).
2.2.6. The Reformation period was dominated at first by the problem of the communicatio idiomatum (the communication [i.e., interchange] of properties in the unity of the person)—M. → Luther’s (1483–1546) defense of the omnipresence of Christ’s glorified humanity and J. → Calvin’s (1509–64) insistence on the distinction between even glorified humanity (which remains limited and created) and the divinity of the Word. Later came the debate between Giessen and Tübingen theologians over the exercise of divine power by the Word in his incarnate and humbled condition (status exinanitionis, “state of self-emptying”), Giessen arguing for a real abandonment of this power (→ kenōsis), Tübingen for a concealment (krypsis). The question thus raised recurred still more forcibly in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was asked how a historically and psychologically plausible picture of the incarnate Word can be presented, especially when the evidential value of John’s gospel as testimony to Jesus’ self-consciousness was increasingly denied. In England C. Gore (1853–1932) and F. Weston (1871–1924) attempted reconstructions of a kenotic Christology, but with limited appeal and success.
The doctrine of the incarnation became increasingly significant for ecclesiology (→ Church) in Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox circles from the middle of the 19th century (see 3.3). These traditions have each sometimes called the church an extension of the incarnation, an eternal reality of the Son in time, especially in their sacramental life (→ Sacrament). In Roman Catholic theology during the last century much was made of the church as an organization. In the later 19th and 20th centuries some Anglican theology often used similar language and was inclined to view the incarnation as the climax of a general principle of the divine presence in creation and solidarity with it as it is now symbolized by the church’s sacramental life. Orthodox theology, especially in the 20th century, regarded the Christological → dogma of Chalcedon as providing a structure for reflection on the church, with the church, like Christ, being a human entity that is transformed into a divine entity without being denied or swallowed up thereby.
D. Bonhoeffer (1906–45) took up similar themes in his early conception of the church as Christ existing as a fellowship, although we also see here the themes and influences of → idealism and early sociological theories. Later this kind of model became much less popular. It has been increasingly recognized that it obscures the dialectical and challenging relation between Christ and the church and leaves little room for Christological criticism of the church in its existing form. Yet the Chalcedonian → analogy is still relevant in orthodox ecclesiology and has shown itself to be capable of nuanced development, thus avoiding some of the above dangers.
2.2.7. The 20th century has seen vigorous attacks on the “mythological” notion of preexistence (R. Bultmann); a sophisticated restatement of the → extra calvinisticum, qualified by a powerful account of the virtual identity of the Son’s eternal → obedience and Jesus’ historical obedience (K. Barth); a defense of preexistence imagery as something generated and validated by the eschatological event of the → resurrection (W. Pannenberg); a rejection of traditional doctrines of impassibility in a theology of divine → solidarity with human suffering (J. Moltmann); and a wholesale repudiation of incarnational language as such by several English writers (M. Wiles, J. Hick, D. Nineham). Outside the Protestant traditions, Roman Catholic theologians (esp. K. Rahner) have seen the incarnation as revealing the intrinsic orientation of human nature to the divine life (the “supernatural existential”), thus reviving the ancient Irenaean and Athanasian view that the purpose of the incarnation is to impart → theōsis, or deification. This understanding is closely paralleled in modern Eastern → Orthodox writing (G. Florovsky, V. Lossky).
2.3. Significance

Incarnation has increasingly been used to validate Christian options for solidarity, involvement, and vulnerability (Bonhoeffer, the Roman Catholic → worker-priest movement, etc.). Yet we need to be aware that such a theological → ethics uses the language of incarnation in a highly mythological way, as if the Word and Jesus were one psychological subject. A similar point, however, could be made in these terms: incarnation, seen from the already fairly demythologized perspective of “hypostatic union,” affirms that human meaning, dignity, and → hope are shown in Jesus to be capable of identification with God’s meaning; he made our cause his own (E. Schillebeeckx). God as responsive → love, as Son or Word, can be fully and unequivocally expressed in a human → identity, in a life of → poverty and a criminal’s death. On this basis it is possible to reconstruct a theology of theōsis as the fruit of incarnation. God’s → freedom for relationship, his eternal Trinitarian life, remains as a gift, a challenge, and a possibility for human beings over and above the apparent triumphs of oppression and dehumanization. Incarnation is still potentially a disturbing and a transforming doctrine.
→ Immanence and Transcendence; Soteriology; Trinity

Bibliography: D. M. BAILLIE, God Was in Christ: An Essay on Incarnation and Atonement (New York, 1948) ∙ H. U. VON BALTHASAR, The Scandal of the Incarnation: Irenaeus against the Heresies (San Francisco, 1990) ∙ J. D. G. DUNN, Christology in the Making: A NT Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (Grand Rapids, 1996) ∙ M. GOULDER, ed., Incarnation and Myth: The Debate Continued (London, 1979) ∙ A. E. HARVEY, ed., God Incarnate: Story and Belief (London, 1981) ∙ B. HEBBLETHWAITE, The Incarnation (Cambridge, 1987) ∙ G. S. HENDRY, The Gospel of the Incarnation (Philadelphia, 1958) ∙ J. HICK, ed., The Myth of God Incarnate (London, 1977) ∙ J. MOLTMANN, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology (New York, 1974) ∙ W. PANNENBERG, Jesus, God and Man (2d ed.; Philadelphia, 1977) ∙ W. L. PORTER, Tradition and Incarnation: Foundations of Christian Theology (New York, 1994) ∙ K. RAHNER, “Theology as a Science,” Theological Investigations (vol. 13; London, 1975) pt. 1, 1–102 ∙ K. RAHNER, Schriften zur Theologie (vol. 10/1; Einsiedeln, 1972) ∙ H. STICKELBERGER, Ipsa assumptione creatur (Bern, 1979) on the development of K. Barth’s doctrine of incarnation ∙ V. WHITE, Atonement and Incarnation: An Essay in Universalism and Particularity (Cambridge, 1991).
ROWAN D. WILLIAMS
3. Controversial Aspects
3.1. Chalcedonian Definition

The Chalcedonian Definition (→ Chalcedon) offered an authoritative interpretation of → Jesus of Nazareth and confirmed dogmatically his uniqueness as the bringer of salvation and of God’s redeeming → love to all humanity (→ Christology). The central statements of the Christian → faith regarding God’s presence in the man Jesus (John 1:14) and the → salvation that is given in him (Acts 4:12) found here a conceptual form. The Definition involved first the Christological affirmation that Jesus is “truly God and truly man” and that in this divine-human person deity and humanity conjoin with “no confusion” and “no separation” as two distinct essences, each of which retains its distinctive qualities. This statement also embraced the reality of a saving relation between the Holy One and human existence as this relation is experienced in encounter with Jesus and attested to in faith. The soteriological aspect of the event (→ Soteriology) was thus upheld, and the idea of incarnation with its specific terminology could have more than a Christological thrust.
To later interpreters it seemed, on the one hand, that the Definition could answer the basic question of the relation between God and us (Creator and creature) and, on the other, that it structures our participation in salvation and therefore individual and collective faith. Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and the Reformation all accepted Chalcedon in principle. They have used it in different ways, however, so that its interpretation and paradigmatic use belong properly to controversial theology.
3.2. Orthodox Theology

Orthodox theology regards the incarnation as the immeasurable and inexpressible divine mystery of salvation (→ Christology 3). It links that incarnation of Christ to his → resurrection, views both as the work of the Holy Spirit, and finds in them the reality of → theophany. The victory of the God-man over → death and corruptibility shapes the whole world of Orthodox belief.

3.2.1. The divinizing of human nature, which is accomplished in the incarnation, reveals the → reconciliation of the creaturely reality that had fallen into → sin and indicates the inner relation of God to the world, which is fulfilled in fellowship between Creator and creature. The incarnation, then, opens the way to our own deification (→ Order of Salvation 1.1; Theosis) and to the restoration of all things, the consummation of → creation.
3.2.2. The incarnation continues and is extended as the God-man Christ unites believers to himself and to one another in his mystical body, the church (→ Church 3.1), which is thus a divine-human → organism. God and humanity meet in the liturgical and sacramental life of the church. In this life believers experience the energies (modes) of the incarnation (→ Eucharistic Ecclesiology). In the divine liturgy (→ Liturgy 2; Worship 3) believers experience the mystical presence of Christ. The → icon leads them to the original, and they are taken up into mystical union. Divine forces permeate their nature and reason and give their lives quality and orientation.
3.3. Roman Catholic Theology

In Roman Catholic theology the incarnation serves as a basic principle of reflection on the faith and as a conceptual model for a whole series of relationships (→ Catholicism [Roman] 3.4). The mystery of the incarnation has this basic significance because the absolute and infinite God revealed himself in the incarnation of the Logos to what is creaturely and nondivine (humanity and the world) and accomplished salvation for it. Transcendence becomes here a this-worldly (saving) event, and the love of God becomes historically concrete (→ Immanence and Transcendence). An answer is given in principle to the question of the relation between God and humanity (the world), for as the Logos assumes human form, the absolute finds correspondence in the finite (in the analogia entis [→ analogy of being]), and there is a real relation between God and us. This interpretation carries with it further insights and permits the use of the incarnation as a paradigm.

3.3.1. The self-objectification of God’s saving will in history (→ Revelation) enables us to see that God is the basis of the world and its consummation, and consequently to see the inner connection between creation and redemption. It gives evidence of the supreme worth of humanity and its final destiny to share in the divine life. It reveals to us the unity and distinction between God and the world.
3.3.2. With its dynamic the incarnation embraces the whole cosmos. The work of the → Holy Spirit has an eschatological goal and is not limited to a once-for-all historical event. The incarnation thus involves the interrelationship of all reality, human dignity, temporal order, and all human talents, tasks, and activities (→ Everyday Life). In this permeation of the whole cosmos by the → grace of God, both natures retain their distinctiveness. God assumes and adopts temporal things and spheres and activities, but he does not take from them their self-determination. → Freedom and → autonomy are possible.
3.3.3. What the incarnation discloses and seeks is further “revealed to us and continued in the church” (Lumen gentium 52; → Church 3.2), the mystical body of Christ. The church is the “real symbolic working form of the Holy Spirit” (K. Rahner). It has a part in the mystery of the incarnation as the gracious and enduringly effective self-impartation of God takes place in the dimensions of the visible and palpable (→ Sacrament) and of the social and communal (→ Institution). The church owes its existence to the event of incarnation. This event, however, also constitutes the church’s nature (as a “theandric,” or divine-human, structure), qualifies its institution and discipline (→ Church Government; Church Law), defines its historical destiny (as giving ontic reality to the salvation-event), gives it its task (the sacrament that mediates salvation), regulates its functioning, and structures its work in the world. In short, the incarnation is a guiding concept in → pastoral theology, sociology, and → Catholic missions.
3.3.4. The incarnational principle of Chalcedon’s “no confusion” and “no separation” lives on in the theological reflection on qualitative differences and relations (e.g., between the crucifixion and resurrection, the church and Christ, nature and grace, reason and faith, law and love, world and church, universal and hierarchical priesthood). The principle also is relevant for the recognition of unity and truth—for example, in conjoining concrete plurality and universal totality (→ Catholic, Catholicity 2.2), → representation and what is represented (e.g., organ of salvation and presence of Christ), and sign and thing signified (e.g., as regards the understanding of the sacrament).
This conceptual model provides for interdependence in the Roman Catholic structure of doctrine, so that a new interpretation or accent in one sphere affects every other and threatens the integrity of the system. Thus to emphasize and bestow normative significance on what we might call the cause of Jesus as a principle instead of the incarnation has implications for the understanding of the church and pastoral practice (→ Liberation Theology; Political Theology).
3.4. Reformation Theology

Reformation theology avoids objective or ontological statements about Christ “in himself” and stresses instead his mediatorship (→ Christology 2.4 and 6.1–5). It regards the relation between God and us not as something incarnationally given and sacramentally mediated but as an ongoing personal event (of Word and proclamation) between God and us (→ Justification). The so-called → extra calvinisticum has this dynamic in view.

3.4.1. Christ’s mediatorship presupposes the incarnation of the Logos. In the incarnation the omnipotent God conceals himself in weakness, the Holy One in the accursed; the Son of God is made sin that is not his own sin but ours (by nature we do not want God to be God; see thesis 17 of Luther’s “Disputation against Scholastic Theology” [LW 31.10]). Hence the incarnation is not a sanctifying qualification of human nature. Taking the places of sinners, the Son of God can vicariously bear the divine judgment (the cross) and experience divine grace (the resurrection). What takes place in the cross and resurrection (i.e., the death of the old self and the creation of the new) becomes ours in faith, which trusts God’s promise and lays hold of the new life. In the → union with Christ that is ours in faith, Christ’s mediatorship reaches its goal, thus achieving the aim of the incarnation.
3.4.2. Believers, who are sinners in fact but righteous by God’s saving intervention (simul iustus et peccator), live by hearing the gospel (→ Word of God) and are always in the process of being forgiven (→ Forgiveness; Reconciliation). This relation alone (sola fide; → Reformation Principles) determines the divine-human relation, characterizes the fellowship of believers (→ Church 3.3–4), defines the church’s structure and task (→ Catholic, Catholicity 2.3.1), and is the norm of action in secular spheres (→ Social Ethics). Believers are called out of profane and ungodly relations and sent out to serve the fallen world in a union of gift and task, of being righteous and doing what is right.
3.5. Modern Discussion

Modern discussion of the form, content, and significance of the incarnation, insofar as it does not involve a total questioning of traditional doctrines and concepts, involves Christological, soteriological, anthropological, and ethical issues (see 2.2.7 and 2.3; → Christology).
The interpretation and application of dogmatic statements in the various Christian traditions show how tenaciously the incarnation and its vocabulary affect the thinking, → spirituality, devotional forms, and self-understanding of the churches concerned and provide for their continuity and stability. This phenomenon is hardly changed in any way, in spite of appearances, by new approaches in exposition of the history of Jesus or in understanding God, humanity, and the world in the context of modern experiences and insights and related practical efforts in everyday church life. The reasons for this continuity are in part anthropological, theological, psychological, and sociological.
It should also be noted that the relevance of this fact is often missed in ecumenical ventures and church conversations, or at least too little attention is paid to it. In the task of clarifying controverted issues between confessions and bringing to light the church’s → unity (→ Ecumenism, Ecumenical Movement), interest focuses on themes and practices that seem to serve an ecumenical purpose (esp. baptism, the Eucharist, the ministry, or common problems, programs, and activities). The point is thus neglected that behind ecclesiology in the various Christian traditions lies (implicitly or explicitly) the incarnation, the → reception of which—no matter in what interpretation or form—is a basic factor. Any comprehensive ecclesiology must take this constant element into account.
In answering the question of the significance of the incarnation, we first must decide whether the incarnation is to be viewed as a retrospective theological concept (D. Ritschl) or whether the message of Jesus, of his life and destiny in the context of the history of his people → Israel (§1), can be understood and interpreted in some other way. We then must consider what the impulses and implications of this basic decision are for Christian self-understanding and action, for the ecumenical process, and for the fellowship of the churches. In any case, the Christological problem is an ecclesiological problem, and vice versa.

Bibliography: M. AMBROSE, ed., Zimbabwe: The Risk of Incarnation (Geneva, 1996) ∙ ATHANASIUS, On the Incarnation (Crestwood, N.Y., 1996) ∙ A. CORN, Incarnation: Contemporary Writers on the NT (New York, 1990) ∙ E. FAHLBUSCH, Kirchenkunde der Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 1979) esp. 26–104, 114–19, 274–84 ∙ N. A. NISSIOTIS, Die Theologie der Ostkirche im ökumenischen Dialog (Stuttgart, 1968) ∙ M. A. RAE, Kierkegaard’s Vision of the Incarnation: By Faith Transformed (Oxford, 1997) ∙ K. RAHNER, “Incarnation,” SM(E) 3.110–18 (bibliography) ∙ B. C. RAW, Trinity and Incarnation in Anglo-Saxon Art and Thought (Cambridge, 1997) ∙ D. RITSCHL, The Logic of Theology (Philadelphia, 1987) ∙ T. SAWARD, The Mysteries of March: Hans Urs von Balthasar on the Incarnation and Easter (Washington, D.C., 1990) ∙ T. SCHNEIDER, ed., Handbuch der Dogmatik (2 vols.; Düsseldorf, 1992) ∙ O. SKARSAUNE, Incarnation, Myth or Fact? (St. Louis, Mo., 1991). See also the bibliography in §2.
ERWIN FAHLBUSCH
Incense

Incense (from the Latin for “burning”) is made of woods and resins that, when burned or heated, give off a fragrant odor. Frankincense, a pure incense (also called olibanum), was given as a gift to the Christ child by the Magi (Matt. 2:11). Incense is burned in a bowl or a thurible. It is stored in a vessel called an incense boat, from which it is spooned into the thurible.
Incense is widely used in world religions. In the OT it symbolized the presence of → Yahweh in the temple (Isa. 6:4); it was a pleasing offering; it had a purificatory significance, not only hygienically (→ Cultic Purity), but also as a sign of redemption (Num. 16:46–50; → Atonement); and it became a figure of the prayers of the faithful (Ps. 141:2; Rev. 5:8; 8:3–4). There is no evidence that it had a practical use as an agent to counter the odor of burnt sacrifices.
There was no ceremonial use of incense in the first three centuries of Christian → worship because of its association with emperor worship and use in pagan cults. In the fourth century incense came into widespread honorific use in association with the dignity granted to → bishops by the emperor (→ Roman Empire 3–4), as well as with the relics of saints and the dedication of altars and holy places. It also came into use in the prayer Offices. John Chrysostom interpreted its use in Vespers as a penitential rite. In the Western church it has been primarily a symbol of prayer (→ Symbol 4).
Incense has been used in an honorific sense in the eucharistic liturgy at the entrance procession (censing of the → altar), at the gospel procession (censing of the book), at the offertory (censing of the gifts, the ministers, and the people), and at the consecration (censing of the elevated Host and chalice). In the prayer Offices both East and West, it has been used at the gospel canticle and at Psalm 141 in Vespers.

Bibliography: E. G. C. F. ATCHLEY, A History of the Use of Incense in Divine Worship (London, 1909) ∙ W. J. GRISBROOKE, “Incense,” NWDLW 265–66 ∙ K. NIELSEN, Incense in Ancient Israel (Leiden, 1986).
FRANK C. SENN
Inculturation → Acculturation; Mission 1
Independent Churches

1. Term
2. Causes
3. History
4. Theology
5. Spirituality
6. Organization
7. Ecumenism
1. Term

In the broader sense, the term “independent churches” denotes simply churches that are independent (e.g., those belonging to the → International Council of Community Churches) or indigenous (e.g., → Pentecostal churches). More commonly, it applies especially to independent Christian churches that in the last century have been formed simultaneously in Africa south of the Sahara but have no organizational attachment to one another (in this usage, the term is often capitalized). Because these churches are biblically oriented, they are not → new religions and are not syncretistic (→ Syncretism), as often charged. Just as the gospel has been contextualized (→ Acculturation) in → European theology, so we find in them what might be described as an African Reformation. Of the more than 300 million Christians in Africa, approximately one-fourth of them belong to the Independent Churches, of which there are about 10,000. Their number is also growing rapidly as the search for African identity continues (→ African Theology 3).
2. Causes

Several features account for the development and spread of the Independent Churches. Politics played a part, especially the links between → missionaries and the colonial powers (→ Colonialism and Mission). The Independent Churches were often viewed as movements of emancipation and were in places suppressed, often through the use of force. Social and economic changes also caused an uncertainty that prompted new initiatives, one indicator being that the Independent Churches are strongest in industrialized countries such as Nigeria and South Africa (→ Industrial Society). Apartheid was also a contributory factor (→ Racism 2.7).
Though we must take account of these various factors, religious motivation was clearly the primary cause. Religion has always had a primary place in the everyday life of the people (→ Africa 2). Although the Christian message was gladly received, disputes arose concerning its Western form, which did not seem to accord with African ethical norms (→ Ancestor Worship; Marriage 2.7; Social Ethics 4). The North Atlantic missionaries were concerned to adapt their message to tribal religions and cultures (indigenization).
Bible translation into the various tribal languages, however, a work undertaken by the → Bible societies and fostered particularly by Protestant missions, made Africans directly aware of the sources of their faith and helped them to think things through for themselves. Statistically there is congruity between Bible translations and the rise of Independent Churches among the tribes of Africa. As these tribes want to preserve the valuable elements in their own traditions within their faith, innumerable groups in the mission churches have determined to think out afresh and articulate their faith within their own culture and environment (→ Contextual Theology) in order to live the Christian life.
Christians usually stayed within their churches, but if they ran into misunderstandings and patronization, they soon left the mother churches. Thus in Sierra Leone, for example, as early as 1819 a group of Creoles (the Settler’s Meeting) separated from the Wesleyans (→ Methodist Churches 2); in 1862 on the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana), the Methodist Society, a group of abstainers, also left the Methodist Church; and in 1872 in Basutoland (now Lesotho), the Hermon Community separated from the Paris Mission (→ French Missions). The acquisition of independence by such congregations was always only the tip of the iceberg of attitudes that were—and are—still widespread in the missionary churches.
3. History

The history of Independent Churches really begins with the separatist Ethiopian movement (a process having no connection with the → Ethiopian Orthodox Church). As the only African country independent of the colonial powers at that time, Ethiopia was a symbol of redemption for the peoples of color (see Ps. 68:31). In 1888 the Native Baptist Church in Nigeria split away from the mission of the American Baptists. Then in 1889 the Lutheran Bapedi Church, with their missionary J. A. Winter (1847–1921), left the South African church that had been established by the Berlin Mission (→ German Missions 1.3). In 1892 dissatisfied Wesleyans in South Africa took the name “Ethiopian Church.” With other secessions this movement developed into a group of tribal churches that later connected with an African American church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church (→ Methodist Churches 2.3). The aim was both ecclesiastical and political independence from whites, but political independence became secondary once independence movements started around 1910.
A new wave of ecclesiastical independence known as the Zionist movement was more strongly influenced by African → spirituality (§2). The name of this movement, which has nothing to do with Jewish → Zionism, indicates the influence that another African American church, the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion, had on the Independent Churches in Africa. On this wave came a great number of mostly smaller churches that usually have “Zion,” “Jerusalem,” “Apostolic,” or “Faith” in their names. The borders between the two waves were not fixed, with both types found in this movement and also in the traditional mission churches.
Larger African churches formed a third group of independents, a group bound together only loosely. Founded by charismatic → prophets, they have kept themselves free of foreign influences and are not tied down to particular tribes. Three of the most important are the Church of Christ on Earth called the → Kimbanguist Church), founded by the prophet Simon Kimbangu (1889?–1951) in Zaire; the Nazareth Church of the prophet Isaiah Shembe (1870–1935) in Zululand; and the Zion Christian Church of the prophet Engenas Lekganyane (1885–1948) in North Transvaal. The central position of the prophets, which carried with it the notion of a royal priesthood, meant that these churches could initially be seen as part of a messianic movement (→ Messianism 2). It is now understood that the prophets do not replace Christ but help believers to experience him. They are, as it were, icons, and their groups are known as Iconic churches.
This history is based on field studies by outsiders. The communities themselves know it only in the memories of believers, as is the rule among peoples without written culture. It is told at worship or around the fires. There are no historical tables or dates. Events and stories are recounted, as in the Gospels, and are seen to be witnesses to the faith. To preserve these valuable traditions, the Independent Churches have now begun to assemble this → narrative theology in cooperation with ecumenical historians, and to translate and evaluate it.
4. Theology

The Independent Churches have developed a → contextual theology that corresponds to African questions and needs (→ African Theology). The Africans think, as the Bible does, of the whole person as part of a collective, and so they find it easier to deal with the gospel (→ Biblical Theology 2.3) than with individualistic Western theology. Fellowship is important to these churches, for it sustains and is sustained by individuals. A holistic view of the person means that the → salvation (§6.3) anticipated from God covers body, mind, and soul. Worship in Independent Churches is in keeping with this view, drawing as it does from the members’ earlier experiences and from what it also finds in the Bible. A strong orientation toward Scripture acts as a barrier against → syncretism. The plurality of these churches, which is much greater than in centrally controlled denominational churches, can still, however, manifest common concerns.
As churches of the poor (→ Poverty), the Independent Churches do not have much money. They mostly use collections to help those in need. Similarly, few of the churches are architecturally imposing. Usually a circle of whitewashed stones around a tall tree serves as a → temple for → worship. The ministers (→ Bishop; Pastor) and congregation dress colorfully in garments that are adorned with → symbols expressing their identity. They use horns and drums instead of organs to accompany native chorales. They clap their hands and → dance gracefully to the glory of God. Each congregation has its own → liturgy, which includes → prayer and → preaching. Room is left, however, for spontaneous testimonies and in some cases for → glossolalia (§2).
The → sacraments are administered at the climax of feast days. Strong missionary activity means that baptism by immersion, preferably in flowing water, the river, or the sea, often involves many new members. Only mediums enjoy similar rites of → initiation in the tribal religions, but all Christians have access to God. The → Eucharist is usually celebrated at night and with native elements. It is linked to meals that demonstrate the fellowship of the living with deceased ancestors (→ Ancestor Worship) in the form of union with the exalted Lord and with the deceased. Preparation is made for reception of the sacrament by → fasting and confession of sins.
5. Spirituality

The Independent Churches follow Matt. 10:7–8 and Jas. 5:13–16 in praying for the sick. In older African religions the → priest (§1) was also the medicine man. Renunciation of his medicines comes with → conversion (§1). This aversion also serves as protection against the flood of modern pharmaceutical products. Trusting in God for full salvation, the congregation prays for those who suffer. The Independent Churches, however, do not believe in faith healing per se. As part of their concern and care, the members talk with God. → Suffering includes not only bodily and psychosomatic illnesses but also hunger, family disruption, → unemployment, accidents, and homelessness. Prayer is made, but also help is given. Childless women turn for help to the Independent Churches, for in Africa the blessing of children also provides for the women’s care in old age. The Independent Churches are caring communities in a world of rapid change.
What the Bible says about spirits and → demons is not strange to these churches. They are familiar with such destructive powers and use → exorcism in the name of Jesus to liberate those who are possessed. The ones who are healed are integrated into the churches as a safeguard against relapse. The ethics of the Independent Churches calls for a healthy life. They typically shun tobacco, hemp, and alcohol, and they stress hard work, purity, and peacefulness (→ Social Ethics 4). They have various attitudes toward polygamy (→ Marriage), but they consistently oppose divorce and premarital sex, which were taboo in tribal religions, and against which there is rigorous → church discipline in order to avert the detrimental influences of modern society.
Festivals help draw the larger churches together. They are held at the bishops’ headquarters, by the seashore, or on holy mountains. Often spending weeks at these festivals in grass huts or tents, the people find opportunity there for → Bible study, → meditation, discussion, and worship, which includes singing and dancing together.
6. Organization

As is the custom in Africa, the ministers (→ Offices, Ecclesiastical) need the approval of the churches. They are not trained theologically, for no faculties teach African theology, a fact that often brings them condemnation. Some take correspondence courses at Bible schools and afterward hang up their diplomas to win a measure of respect. Recently, individual candidates for the ministry have also been sent to attend training courses at institutions of mainline churches that are willing to accept the students without alienating them from the character of their particular Independent Church, for example at the Lutheran Theological College Umpumulo, Natal, South Africa.
The bishops of neighboring churches take part in → ordinations and thus confer a greater unity on the movement, an African version of apostolic succession (→ Bishop, Episcopate 1) that does not demand an organization. In smaller congregations the leader acts as a father who knows and cares for all his people. In larger churches the minister has the position of a chieftain and is respected and honored accordingly. Although these positions have emerged from tradition, a new development has come with the ordination of → women. Women bishops are now quite common in the Independent Churches.
7. Ecumenism

Ecumenical structures are a problem for the Independent Churches. Many attempts have been made to organize the churches, but membership tends to be haphazard. Personal friendship and informal contacts fit in better with the thinking of Africans, and such relationships are fostered through mutual visitations, as in the early church. Relations with the mission churches are strained by the fact that the latter are constantly losing members to the Independent Churches. The → national councils of churches understand the independents’ concerns, but the independents’ lack of structure does not mesh well with the organizational demands of the councils. The Independent Churches see themselves as churches of the people, but they desire ecumenical fellowship and cooperation. Some of them are represented on the → All Africa Conference of Churches, and a few have been welcomed into the → World Council of Churches (e.g., the Kimbanguist Church in 1969, and the African Israel Nineveh Church in 1975). The Organization of African Instituted Churches, founded at Nairobi in 1978, is concerned to bring together Independent Churches throughout the continent.
Rapid growth can be expected for these churches in the near future. A longer view sees the various open or latent streams converging into a people’s church in an African context. The path of division will perhaps lead ultimately to unity.

Bibliography: D. B. BARRETT, Schism and Renewal in Africa: An Analysis of 6,000 Contemporary Religious Movements (Nairobi, 1968) ∙ D. B. BARRETT and T. J. PADWICK, Rise Up and Walk! (Nairobi, 1989) ∙ H.-J. BECKEN, “Schrift und Tradition in den Afrikanischen Unabhängigen Kirchen,” Sola Scriptura (ed. H. H. Schmid and J. Mehlhausen; Gütersloh, 1991) 337–47; idem, Theologie der Heilung. Das Heilen in den Afrikanischen Unabhängigen Kirchen in Südafrika (Hermannsburg, 1972); idem, Wo der Glaube noch jung ist. Afrikanische Unabhängige Kirchen im Südlichen Afrika (Erlangen, 1985) ∙ I. HEXHAM, ed., The Scriptures of the AmaNazaretha of EKuphaKameni (Calgary, 1994) ∙ I. HEXHAM and G. C. OOSTHUIZEN, eds., The Story of Isaiah Shembe, vol. 1, History and Traditions Centered on EKuphaKameni and Mount Nhlangakazi; vol. 2, Early Regional Traditions of the Acts of the Nazarites; vol. 3, The Sun and the Moon: Oral Testimony and Sacred History of the AmaNazaretha under the Leadership of Johannes Galilee Shembe and Amos Shembe (trans. H.-J. Becken; Lewiston, N.Y., 1996–2000) ∙ E. KAMPHAUSEN, Anfänge der kirchlichen Unabhängigkeitsbewegung in Südafrika (Frankfurt, 1976) ∙ G. LADEMANN-PRIEMER, ed., Traditional Religion and Christian Faith: Cultural Clash and Cultural Change (Hamburg, 1993) ∙ G. C. OOSTHUIZEN, The Healer-Prophet in Afro-Christian Churches (Leiden, 1992); idem, The Theology of a South African Messiah: An Analysis of the Hymnal of “The Church of the Nazarites” (2d ed.; Leiden, 1976) ∙ G. C. OOSTHUIZEN et al., eds., Afro-Christian Religion and Healing in Southern Africa (Lewiston, N.Y., 1989) ∙ J. S. POBEE and G. OSITELU II, African Initiatives in Christianity: The Growth, Gifts, and Diversities of Indigenous African Churches (Geneva, 1998) ∙ B. G. M. SUNDKLER, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (2d ed.; London, 1961); idem, Zulu Zion and Some Swazi Zionists (London, 1976) ∙ B. TEMBE, Integrationismus und Afrikanismus (Frankfurt, 1985) ∙ H. W. TURNER, Bibliography of New Religious Movements in Primal Societies, vol. 1, Black Africa (Boston, 1977).
HANS-JÜRGEN BECKEN
India

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
442,344
688,856
1,006,770
Annual growth rate (%):
2.26
2.17
1.45
Area: 3,165,596 sq. km. (1,222,243 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 318/sq. km. (824/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 2.29 / 0.85 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 2.74 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 65 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 64.1 years (m: 63.4, f: 64.8)
Religious affiliation (%): Hindus 72.1, Muslims 11.9, tribal religionists 5.5, Christians 5.3 (indigenous 1.9, Protestants 1.7, Roman Catholics 1.7, other Christians 0.3), Sikhs 2.2, nonreligious 1.4, other 1.6.

1. General Situation
2. Religions
2.1. Hinduism
2.2. Islam
2.3. Sikhs
2.4. Jainism
2.5. Buddhism
2.6. Zoroastrians
2.7. Jews
3. Christian Churches
3.1. Orthodox Churches
3.2. Roman Catholic Church
3.3. Protestant Churches and Ecumenism
4. Church and Society
1. General Situation

India, consisting of 26 states and 6 union territories, became an independent nation-state in 1947, when British rule ended and the subcontinent was partitioned into India and Pakistan. Little is known about its early inhabitants. Advanced civilization has existed in India since 3000 B.C. but has undergone much change and destruction as successive waves of immigrants invaded from the northwest. Indo-European groups entered in the second millennium B.C., and from their intermingling with Dravidian, Proto-Australoid, and perhaps also Semitic cultures, → Hinduism resulted.
Six main races now live together in India, speaking over 1,600 languages and dialects, although only 19 of these are officially recognized—Hindi (the official language), English (the “associate official” language), and 17 regional languages. According to the 1991 census 75 percent of the population live in rural areas. The literacy rate for men is 81 percent and for women, 64 percent. It is estimated that nearly 40 percent of the population live below the poverty line; in spite of significant industrial, economic, and technological progress since independence, the elimination of mass → poverty, especially among the lower strata of society, has remained an elusive goal. India is the seventh largest and second most populous country in the world, and the per capita annual income is about $1,600. By the end of the 20th century, the population of India had exceeded one billion persons.
Despite its plurality of cultures, religions, languages, and races, India, since independence, has functioned as a secular democratic state, the largest in the world. The Congress Party has ruled independent India for the most part, but as the century ended, the country was going through a period of political instability because of frequent changes of government and the ascendency in 1998 of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power. Economic reforms initiated by successive governments in the 1990s have led to a rapidly developing economy.
2. Religions

Modern India comprises four major religious groups: (1) Hinduism, which evolved out of the interaction between indigenous religions with those of early immigrants; (2) religions that resulted from Hindu reform movements (→ Jainism, → Buddhism, and → Sikhism); (3) religions that entered by way of conquest and colonialism (→ Islam and Christianity); and (4) religions brought by isolated groups of immigrants (→ Judaism, → Zoroastrianism, and → Baha’i). In addition to these four groupings, one can add the continued existence of native tribal religions, whose adherents have been influenced by Hinduism and are counted as Hindus, even though their practice accords neither with Hinduism’s self-understanding nor with its social reality.
2.1. Hinduism

Hinduism is the dominant tradition of India. It represents an evolving tradition and therefore can not be regarded as a single, separate “religion” in the sense that this term is often understood. Hinduism has no founder or agreed-upon creedal system. It embraces with tolerance diverse philosophical, theological, and ideological viewpoints, on the one hand, and, on the other, socioethical discrimination and intolerance (→ Caste). Because of its pluralistic outlook, Hinduism has to some degree accepted or accommodated other religions within its framework. In the same spirit, the modern constitution of India, a secular state, accords the freedom to profess, practice, and propagate to all religions (→ Religious Liberty).
With the rise of religious and cultural nationalism in the postindependence period, however, some orthodox or radical Hindu groups (esp. Rashtria Swayam Sevaks [RSS], Vivekananda Kendra, Viswa Hindu Parishad [VHP], and Siva Sena) have politicized Hindu identity to the detriment of religious minorities in India. The most influential of these groups is RSS, which was founded in 1925 and was partly responsible for the murder of Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948), the pioneer of Indian independence. In recent years, pressure has been brought upon the national government and some state governments to restrict the right of Islam and Christianity to seek converts (→ Conversion 1). There have been sporadic persecution, violence, and the destruction of Christian and Muslim places of worship. While the chronic antagonism between India and Pakistan (nations that have fought three wars) over the disputed territory of Kashmir and the display of nuclear strength by both nations has indeed exacerbated Hindu-Muslim relations, the link between Christian missions and India’s colonial history has made Hindu-Christian relations difficult (→ Colonialism and Mission; Mission 3; Hinduism and Christianity). The Christian involvement in overcoming social exploitation in India has contributed to the negative reaction of the ruling castes toward Christianity.
2.2. Islam

Islam developed in India in four periods: (1) Arab invaders and the first trading settlements (711–1206); (2) the Islamic sultanate, first in the North, then pushing South (1206–1526); (3) the Mogul Empire, which at its height covered the whole of India apart from the extreme South and culminated in the attempt of Akbar (emperor 1556–1605) to integrate Hindu values and lifestyles into the Islamic state but declined as the Marathas gained power, the Persians mounted their campaigns (Delhi falling to Nāder Shāh in 1739), and the colonial power of Britain increased (from the first settlements in 1601 to all India coming under the British crown in 1858); and (4) the decay of Islamic influence, with independence and partition in 1947 into predominantly Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan.
The memory of more than 1,000 years of hostility between native Hindus and invading Muslims still poisons the atmosphere. The resurgence of Islam in the Muslim world has invigorated some Muslim groups to extend their influence by economic expansion and conversion. Since Islam to a large extent breaks down caste barriers, it is an attractive alternative for the untouchables. Mass conversions to Islam (such as in 1981 at Minakshipuram, Tamil Nadu) for political and social reasons have provoked violent reactions on the part of Hindus. Although the Muslims do not have castes, they do have religiously sanctioned → hierarchies, with sheikhs and sayyids at the top. Islam has taken over various ideas of purification and also Hindu → astrology. Muslims also participate in the Hindu → temple cult. Conversely, Hindus go on pilgrimage to the graves of Muslim saints (e.g., to a famous tomb in Ajmer in Northwest India) to find → blessing.
→ Sufism flourishes in India. It is close to Hinduism in its nondualistic → worldview and its practice of meditation. From medieval times in India → Bhakti Hinduism has embraced both Hinduism and Islam, with the result that some figures (e.g., Kabı̄r [1440–1518]) are claimed by both religions.
Hindu-Muslim relations in India have deteriorated considerably in recent times in light both of the ongoing territorial dispute between India and Pakistan in Kashmir and of the destruction of the Babri Mosque at Ajodhya in 1992 by radical Hindus who claim that the site was the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama. Hindus have claimed that Mogul rulers built some mosques in India over the site of destroyed Hindu temples and have sought to reclaim such sites for the rebuilding of those temples. This situation militates against Hindu-Muslim → dialogue.
Christians, however, do seek dialogue with Islam (→ Islam and Christianity). The Anglican Henry Martyn (1781–1812) and the Lutheran Karl Gottlieb Pfander (1803–65) each sought to engage in theological conversation, with a view to conversion. The reformer Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–98) tried to prepare the ground for a Muslim-Christian ecumenism. The Belgian Jesuit Victor Courtois (1907–60) published Notes on Islam (Calcutta) over a 14-year period. In 1959 the Henry Martyn Institute was founded at Hyderabad as a center for dialogue between Islam and Christianity.
2.3. Sikhs

The rise and importance of the Sikh religion are closely tied to the political history of the Punjab in India’s Northwest. Because of the presence there of many races and religions, it was the site of severe tensions between Hindus and Muslims in the 15th century. The result was the politicizing of the Sufis and also conflicts after the death of Akbar (1605). Guru Nānak (1469–1539) founded a new type of devotion on the basis of visions, going beyond both Hinduism and Islam. Nine other gurus followed him. The tenth (and last), Gobind Singh (1666–1708), organized the Khālsā (lit. “pure”), a religiopolitical, military brotherhood that helped give the Sikhs military significance.
In religious practice the Sikhs never wholly broke loose from Hinduism, borrowing rituals and feasts from it, yet they are persecuted by both Hindus and Muslims because of their political significance. There are still tensions in the Punjab, the breadbasket of India, which was particularly affected by the 1947 partition. The Sikhs feel that they are threatened both politically and economically—that is, that they are being robbed of their identity—since they are often subsumed under Hindu culture.
A radical Sikh movement in the 1980s sought to reassert Sikh identity through the establishment of a separate Sikh state. This effort resulted in a violent conflict between the radicals and the Indian army at the Golden Temple in the city of Amritsar, the most sacred Sikh religious center. The perceived sacrilege to the temple by the army led to the assassination of Indira Gandhi (1917–84), who was then prime minister of India, by two of her Sikh bodyguards.
2.4. Jainism

Compared with the other religious groups, Jainism is numerically small, and less powerful ideologically and economically, although still quite important. Its doctrine of ahiṃsā (nonviolence), which M. K. Gandhi reinterpreted, the strict → asceticism of its monks and nuns, and its lay asceticism inspired well-to-do circles in Bombay (now known as Mumbai) and Gujarat to found student centers, publishing houses, and benevolent institutions during the 20th century. Although Jainism repudiates the caste system, it fosters groupings that give family and economic stability. It maintains hardly any relations with other religions.
2.5. Buddhism

Siddhārtha Gautama, the Buddha (ca. 563–ca. 483 B.C.), founded the religion of Buddhism, which has practically died out in India in its original form. Contributing to its decline have been its strict repudiation of the caste system, its lofty spiritual and moral claims, the resultant discrepancy between its monks and others, the partial integration of Buddhist concerns into Hinduism (e.g., Śankaraʾs system), and the destruction of the great Buddhist centers in the North by Muslims.
After independence in 1947 R. B. Ambedkar (1893–1956) recommended and effected the conversion of about 200,000 Hindu untouchables to Buddhism, which rejects caste but is still a native religion. Several million people, especially in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, but increasingly also in the slums of the big cities like New Delhi and Bombay, have now officially gone over to Buddhism.
Since 1959 about 100,000 Tibetan Buddhists have been in exile in India. They have a relatively important role in India because of the high religious and moral influence of the Dalai Lama. They maintain cultural centers and share actively in religious dialogue for → peace and justice (→ Righteousness, Justice).
2.6. Zoroastrians

The Zoroastrian community (i.e., the Parsis) derives from immigrants who came from Persia in the seventh and eighth centuries, when it was conquered by Islam. Zoroastrian piety is based on an ideological → dualism but with a strong this-worldly orientation. This fact gives it a consistent → social ethics, which plays a role in leading economic and judicial circles. Since the Zoroastrians do not mix with other groups, they are threatened with extinction. They are open to dialogue with other religions but try to protect themselves from any outside influence that might threaten their identity.
2.7. Jews

Jews, who emigrated to India perhaps as early as pre-Christian times, founded colonies on the Malabar Coast under the protection of the Hindu kings. Today there are only a few Jewish families in Cochin and Bombay. Since the formation of the State of Israel, a large portion of the Indian Jewish community have migrated to Israel.
3. Christian Churches

The long history of the Christian presence in India has seen the establishment of all major Christian denominations or churches in the country. The Syrian Orthodox tradition represents the earliest Christian presence, with Roman Catholicism being established during the period of mercantile colonialism. Modern colonialism under Protestant powers led to the formation of Protestant churches. In the postindependence era, independent evangelical and Pentecostal churches have also flourished. As a former “mission field” of Western churches, India provided the necessary setting for the development of ecumenical cooperation and dialogue between Protestant churches. The most significant achievement in connection with ecumenism was the formation of the → Church of South India (CSI) in 1947 and the Church of North India (CNI) in 1970.
3.1. Orthodox Churches

All the Orthodox churches in India belong to the → Oriental Orthodox and derive from (Eastern) Syrian traditions (→ Syrian Orthodox Churches in India). In many cases they are under the corresponding → jurisdiction, which has led to numerous conflicts and splits that still persist. Overall, the Orthodox Indian churches are held in high regard. They often form a part of the caste system. They have only recently developed an interest in mission and are active in ecumenical fellowship with other Christians worldwide, and also in dialogue with Hindus.
It is asserted, but cannot be proved, that the apostle Thomas founded the first churches on the Malabar Coast and later the Coromandel Coast and then in A.D. 72 suffered martyrdom and was buried in Madras (now known as Mylapur). For many Indian Christians this tradition is the source of an irreplaceable sense of identity. By the 3rd century at the latest, a church was certainly in existence in India. What language it spoke, how far it spread, how much → autonomy it had, and whether it was → Nestorian are all debated questions. When the Portuguese came in the 15th century, they found a unified church that was using Syriac as its ecclesiastical language. There is a sure link to Persia, which probably goes back to the first Sassanid persecution under Shāpūr II (309–79) and the associated emigration. Persian sources bear witness to the autonomy of this church in the 7th and 8th centuries, since they mention an Indian metropolitan. Around the year 800 Timotheos I (780–823) put the Indian church under direct Persian-Nestorian jurisdiction.
In 1292 the Franciscan John of Monte Corvino (1247–1328), in the course of his → Mongolian mission (as an envoy from Pope Nicholas IV to the court of Kublai Khan), made contact with the Indian church. In 1329 John XXII founded the → Diocese of Quilon under the Dominican bishop Jordanus of Severac, but without accusing native Indian Christians of taking part in the Nestorian → heresy.
Only with Portuguese colonization (Vasco da Gama arrived in 1498) did the dogmatically based Romanizing of non-Catholic Christians begin. An attempt was then made to bring the Indian church under papal jurisdiction, and a history of division followed when the Syrian → patriarchs resisted. Under the Portuguese padroado (patronage), there were three groups: the Latins, the Syrians who were under Rome but kept the Syrian liturgy, and the independent Thomas Christians. The last group supported the Coonen Cross revolt of 1653 against the rulings of the Synod of Diamper (1599), at which the Portuguese archbishop of Goa, Alexis Menezes (1559–1617), ordered the Indian churches to take an oath of loyalty to the → pope, recognize the seven sacraments, and abandon many native customs.
Today Indian Christianity of the Syrian tradition is split into no fewer than 15 churches. The following eight are the most important.

3.1.1. The Syro-Malabar Church, or Syrian Catholic Church, is a Roman Catholic church with an Eastern Syrian liturgy (→ Uniate Churches). It has some two million members and 13 bishops.
3.1.2. The Syro-Malankara Church, or Malankara Syrian Catholic Church, is also a Roman Catholic church. It came into being with the split of Mar Ivanios from the Syrian Orthodox Church in 1930. It uses the Western Syrian liturgical tradition and has about 200,000 members.
3.1.3. The Syrian Orthodox (Jacobite) Church is the largest Indian Oriental Orthodox church. With 1.5. million members it is independent under the → catholicos of the East (whose seat is at Kottayam).
3.1.4. The Mar Thoma Syrian Church resulted from an evangelical reforming movement in the Syrian Orthodox Church around 1843. It has about 600,000 members and is now in communion with the CSI and the CNI, though distinct from the “Anglican Syrians,” who are also part of the CSI.
3.1.5. The Church of the East, with only 10,000 members, resulted from a split in 1874 when the Nestorian patriarch of Iran, Mar Elias Mellus, tried to claim jurisdiction over the Malabar Christians.
3.1.6. The Malabar Independent Syrian Church of Thozhiyur, with fewer than 1,000 members, arose for the same reason early in the 19th century. It is close to the Mar Thoma Church.
3.1.7. The St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India separated from the Mar Thoma Church in 1961 as a result of the work of American evangelicals. It has about 2,500 members (→ Proselytism).
3.1.8. The Travancore-Cochin Anglican Church (→ Anglican Communion) resulted from a split from the Kerala diocese of the CSI, essentially in a revolt of former untouchables against the caste mentality of Syrian Christians.
3.2. Roman Catholic Church

The → Roman Catholic Church is spread all across India and numbers about one-third of all Indian Christians. It runs many nationally recognized schools and hospitals, has an educated clergy (→ Clergy and Laity), and finds much support in influential → orders. There are tensions in the area of politics, since some socially committed → priests tend toward → Marxism as a political weapon.
The church owes its origin to Portuguese missionaries who came from 1502 onward, along with traders and colonizing soldiers. First to arrive were the → Franciscans and → Dominicans, then the → Jesuits, → Augustinians, and others (→ Roman Catholic Missions). One of the most significant missionaries was Francis Xavier (1506–52), who came to India in 1542. His grave in Goa is an important place of pilgrimage. The Diocese of Goa was founded in 1533, with Cochin following in 1557 and Madras in 1606. The → Inquisition came to Goa in 1560 and led to a mass exodus. The Carmelites worked in the South in the 17th century.
There has been accommodation to Indian culture in theology (e.g., R. Panikkar, Swami Abhishiktananda), in liturgy (an Indian Rite, now mostly withdrawn under pressure), and in lifestyle (the ashram movement). Robert de Nobili (1577–1656) made the first approaches in this direction. In Madurai in 1605 he became a “Christian Brahmin,” which meant a recognition of caste in the church. The result was a conflict with Rome. His method was approved in 1623, but later (1744) Rome decided against the introduction of Hindu customs into the church.
Since the end of the 19th century the church has systematically trained Indian → priests and appointed Indian → bishops. It is more active than other churches in dialogue with Hindus.
3.3. Protestant Churches and Ecumenism

Almost all Protestant churches belong to the CSI or the CNI, though the Lutherans (→ Lutheran Churches) and some → Baptists remain separate, along with several smaller groups.
Protestant missions began with the German theologians Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (1682–1719) and Heinrich Plütschau (1677–1752), who landed at Tranquebar on the Coromandel Coast in 1706 as “royal Danish missionaries.” They learned the language, published a Tamil translation of the NT in 1714, founded schools and orphanages, and made common cause with the Indian people, which won them high regard and much success. Their mission was supported by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK, founded 1698; → British Missions 1). The English Baptist William Carey (1761–1834) did successful work in the North from 1793 to 1834 and founded Serampore College, under whose charter the theological education and training of Protestant clergy continues to this day. After 1833 the British missions were supplemented by American societies (→ North American Missions), the Basel Mission around Mangalore (1834), the Gossner Mission in the North (1839), and the Leipzig Mission in the South (1841). The Hermannsburg Mission followed in the Telugu area (1865), followed by the Breklum Mission in Orissa (1882), along with various American and Scandinavian Lutheran missions.
The Northeast has had a largely separate missionary history. In the 17th and 18th centuries Portuguese Roman Catholics set up settlements in Assam and the neighboring hill country as way stations to Tibet, and even in 1850 Assam was still under the apostolic vicariate in Lhasa. In the early 19th century Baptists from Serampore founded two small mission stations. At the request of the British government in 1836, American Baptists from Burma founded a mission station in Sadiya (in Assam). In 1841 Methodists (later Welsh Presbyterians) began work among hill tribes, with the first larger churches being formed among the Khasi from 1875. The number of Christians grew rapidly from then on. Work had begun among the Garo tribes in 1860. In 1862 Anglicans came on the scene, continuing the work begun by two Basel missionaries at Tezpur. The Welsh Presbyterians by 1895 had set up central indigenous structures among tribes that were formerly hostile to one another.
After World War I the American Baptists made great efforts and achieved much success through a well-organized school system (over 250,000 Christians by 1941). The defeat of the Kuki revolt against Britain in Manipur; the replacement of tribal cultures (1917–19); the enhanced economic and educational influence of the British administration; the suppression of → slavery, headhunting, and tribal wars; and increasing communication with the outside world all contributed to the destruction of the tribal system. Christianity meant the cultivation of tribal identity in a new form that would fit in with the new political and economic relations. The attention to local languages by the missionaries and their reduction to writing played an important role in this regard. The North East India Christian Council was formed in 1926 to prevent splits. A vast majority of the tribal population in Northeast India is Christian. After World War II Roman Catholics enjoyed much success with their fine system of schools and colleges. The Indian government for the most part does not allow Protestant missionaries from abroad; the Roman Catholics use priests and teachers from South India. Conflicts of interest have arisen between Protestant and Catholic churches.
After independence the earlier hostility to the British (the Kuki revolt, the Naga resistance from 1929 to 1931, the revival of the Kampai cult) was now directed against the central Indian government. Economic neglect by the government of Assam led to open rebellion by the Mizos in 1966. Guerrilla groups in Mizoram and Nagaland had to be suppressed by the army. The political revolt was linked to a sense of Christian identity in the face of Hindu superiority, which often gave the conflict religious features. The churches officially declared their loyalty to India, but most of the rebel leaders were Christians who had been educated in Christian schools. For political reasons there has been news censorship on both sides, so that accurate statistics are not available. In Nagaland over 66 percent of the people are Christian, in Mizoram as many as 90 percent, about three-fourths of them Baptists. The Council of Baptist Churches in North India numbers some 800,000 members.
In southern and central India Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah (1874–1945), later the first Indian bishop of Dornakal, founded the National Missionary Society in 1905 to prevent Protestant splits and missionary competition. As a result of developing Indian nationalism, and under the inspiration of John R. Mott (1865–1955), the National Missionary Council was founded in 1912 to give advice to missions. It was the forerunner of the National Christian Council of India (NCCI; → National Christian Councils), which was formed in 1922 and to which almost all non-Roman Catholic churches now belong. The council’s studies of missionary and social questions and its initiatives on educational and social problems in concert with the Roman Catholics have made this an important body. Its work includes the founding of student centers, refugee work among Bengalis and Tibetans, radio → evangelism, and social services through the Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action, to which 26 churches belong, and which engages in relief, education, well-drilling, rehabilitation, and other projects in some 130 agricultural centers. The council also sends Indian missionaries overseas, including (since 1976) to Europe and America. It is an important means of contact between Christians and the state.
Of even greater ecumenical importance was the formation of the CSI and the CNI. As early as 1908, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Dutch Reformed groups had formed a union of churches, which in 1919 the Basel Malabar Mission also joined, forming the South India United Church (SIUC). In 1947 the Anglican dioceses in India, including those in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, the Methodist Church of South India (British Wesleyan), and the SIUC merged in the formation of the Church of South India. This church was considered a model for church union movements around the world, especially in its adoption of the Anglican doctrine of episcopal succession, which it reconciled with the views of other denominations. The CSI Book of Common Worship is also considered an ecumenical achievement for its utilization of the resources of several denominations. In 1991 the CSI had a membership of 1.6 million persons. Inspired by the union in the south, the CNI was formed on the same model in 1970; it also numbered Baptists within its membership. A common council of the CSI, the CNI, and the Mar Thoma Church was formed in 1978.
In 1928 eight Lutheran churches formed the Federation of Evangelical Lutheran Churches in India, and in 1975 these churches, joined by one founded by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, came together to form the United Evangelical Lutheran Churches in India (UELCI). Unlike the CSI and the CNI, the UELCI serves as an umbrella organization, under which the member churches retain their autonomy and divergent polities. Negotiations between the CSI and the UELCI began in 1948, and theological agreements were reached in 1959, but for the most part nontheological factors have prevented greater unity. The Baptist and Methodist churches that are not part of the CSI or the CNI have also organized themselves into regional or national conferences of their own. The growth of evangelical, Pentecostal, and nondenominational churches has similarly led to the formation of new organizations or networks of relationship.
Besides the NCCI, there are also a number of regional Christian councils. Other important ecumenical bodies are the Bishops’ Council of Kerala, on which all the episcopal churches (→ Episcopalianism) in the area are represented; the Christian Council of Kerala, comprising non-Roman Catholic and non-Orthodox churches; and the Commission for Higher Education (1969) and the Commission of Ecumenical Questions (1973), with which Roman Catholics also cooperate. The → YMCA and YWCA are also active ecumenically.
The caste system is present in church life down to the very roots. This anomaly leads to tensions in the various institutions and the leadership. A striving for economic power and social recognition is an obstacle to → unity. An intensive education of both laypeople and theologians against the background of social commitment and the rooting of the faith in Indian → spirituality, as well as the strengthening of ecumenical cooperation in promoting unitary models of development, is urgently necessary.
Impulses toward ecumenism have come from dialogue with → Hinduism, the resultant ashram movement (with its Roman Catholic and Protestant wings), and some 1,200 social action groups that, independently for the most part of the established churches and religions, have tried to be symbols of hope for human liberation in the slums and villages. These groups work for human rights by means of new forms of community, political analysis of situations, and the mobilizing of the disenfranchised. They are partly supported and partly opposed by the church organizations. They are often interreligious and, in some cases, antireligious. The denominational question does not arise in most of them. The emergence of dalit (oppressed) movements across religious lines against high-caste dominance and social exploitation has added a new dimension to Christian identity, unity, and involvement in society.
4. Church and Society

The relation of Christians to the nation (→ State and Church) is complicated by the link between Western Christianity and colonial history. Few Christians played an active role in the battle against colonialism. Christians are regarded as a foreign body by the Hindus, and their rights (e.g., in social legislation) are not fully respected.
In 1954 the government of Madhya Pradesh set up a commission of inquiry (the Niyogi Committee) that recommended the expulsion of missionaries because they destroy “traditional social structures and values.” Arunachal Pradesh followed suit in 1978. The same year representative O. P. Tyagi in New Delhi proposed legislation that would forbid conversion by improper means and would prevent the conversion of untouchables to Islam or Christianity for social reasons. The Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the NCCI in 1979 called for public demonstrations against the proposal, which some Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists joined, as well as Muslims. The government did not pursue the matter.
The emergence of the Hindu nationalist BJP as the ruling party, with the support of the RSS and VHP, has led to more pronounced and strident antiminority sentiments among Hindus. Under the ideology of hindutva (the Hindu way of life), radical groups have promoted anti-Christian propaganda and policies. The threat of persecution by Hindu groups has, to some degree, galvanized the Christian churches, regardless of denominational affiliation, to organize and protest in solidarity against atrocities committed against Christian institutions, workers, and missionaries. There has been an intense debate about conversion to Islam or Christianity in recent years.
The question of conversion is complex. Hindus complain of Christian intolerance, exclusivism, and false propaganda against Hinduism. Ecumenical connections with Western churches have also been regarded with suspicion. Hindus view Christian educational and service institutions, which have provided yeoman service to the Indian society, as proselytizing agencies. Historically, conversion to Christianity has taken place largely among oppressed, or dalit, communities seeking to escape exploitative caste structures, which has aroused Hindu fears over the continued Hindu identity of India. Experience shows, however, that dalit communities cannot attain emancipation except by becoming Buddhist, Muslim, or Christian. Conversion as a purely spiritual experience with no social ramifications is an abstraction. This intertwining of motivation makes trust among various religious communities very hard to achieve. The crusading spirit of certain Christian groups, often sponsored by independent North American churches, has not been helpful in promoting dialogue and harmony among the various religious communities in India. A Christian commitment to dialogue with a strong focus on the social emancipation of the oppressed will determine the future growth of Christianity in India.
→ Asia; Asian Theology

Bibliography: S. K. CHAUBE, Hill Politics in North-East India (Bombay, 1973) ∙ G. EICHINGER FERRO-LUZZI, ed., Rites and Beliefs in Modern India (New Delhi, 1990) ∙ C. B. FIRTH, An Introduction to Indian Church History (3d ed.; Madras, 1990) ∙ F. HARDY, The Religious Culture of India: Power, Love, and Wisdom (Cambridge, 1994) ∙ S. B. HARPER, In the Shadow of the Mahatma: Bishop V. S. Azariah and the Travails of Christianity in British India (Grand Rapids, 2000) ∙ H. KULKE and D. ROTHERMUND, A History of India (3d ed.; London, 1997) ∙ G. J. LARSON, India’s Agony over Religion (Albany, N.Y., 1995) ∙ D. S. LOPEZ, ed., Religions of India in Practice (Princeton, 1995) ∙ D. LUDDEN, ed., Contesting the Nation: Religion, Community, and the Politics of Democracy in India (Philadelphia, 1996) ∙ A. M. MUNDADAN, History of Christianity in India, vol. 1, From the Beginning up to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century (Bangalore, 1984) ∙ V. S. NARAVANE, A Cultural History of Modern India: Nineteenth Century (New Delhi, 1991) ∙ S. C. NEILL, A History of Christianity in India, vol. 1, The Beginnings to A.D. 1707; vol. 2, 1707–1858 (Cambridge, 1984–85) ∙ J. THEKKEDATH, History of Christianity in India, vol. 2, From the Middle of the Sixteenth to the End of the Seventeenth Century (Bangalore, 1982) ∙ P. VERGHESE, ed., Die Syrische Kirchen in Indien (Stuttgart, 1974) ∙ H. ZIMMER, Philosophie und Religion Indiens (9th ed.; Frankfurt, 1998).
MICHAEL VON BRÜCK and J. PAUL RAJASHEKAR
Indian Settlements → Reductions
Individualism

1. Term
2. History
3. Modern Development
4. Questions
1. Term

Literally, individualism is a view that gives precedence to the individual (Lat. individuum, “what cannot be divided”). The type of individualism depends on what the individual has precedence over— → society in the case of social individualism the → state in the case of political individualism, the economy as a whole in that of economic individualism, or the moral collective in that of ethical individualism. Other criteria might lead to emphasis on either the level of intensity or the function. Thus there are radical and moderate forms of individualism in each of the four cases, and each of these might function theoretically, methodologically, or existentially.
2. History

The term “individualism” first came into use in the 19th century, but the idea itself goes back much further. The framework for every sense is the logico-ontological distinction between the general concept and the proper name, which in antiquity (Plato, Aristotle) and the Middle Ages (Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham) governed the discussion of the atoma (the ultimate elements) and the individua. In this form (note S. Kripke’s “rigid denominators”), and in the form of the nominalist debate and the strife about universals (→ Nominalism; Scholasticism), the discussion continues today. The statement individuum est ineffabile, which is mistakenly ascribed to → Thomism, denotes the central insight that what can be expressed is not the individual but the universal concept.
3. Modern Development

The attempt undertaken in the → modern period to address the question of individualism in practical philosophy, including doing so through the notion of a transcendent creator God (though without validating such a step), has taken place in three stages: the theoretical contractual individualism of the 17th and 18th centuries, the economically oriented ethical individualism of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and finally the radical existential individualism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which renounces systematic thinking. In general we must say that all three forms developed in constant debate with various forms of collectivism, → socialism, and Communism and have always contained an element of ethical individualism.
3.1. The goal of the various contract theories of the 17th and 18th centuries was to show that we can deduce the rights and principles of life in society only from an analysis of the qualities of the individual. At root there were two ways of explaining the formation of the state and society from the characteristics of the individual in the natural state: the doctrine of power and the doctrine of right.
The English statesman and philosopher T. Hobbes (1588–1679) championed the doctrine of power. He began with the idea that the natural state is a constant battle of all against all, each being an → enemy of the other. In the interests of the weak this feature in individuals forces a concentration of power in the hands of an absolute prince who can protect the weak against the attacks of the strong.
The English philosopher and psychologist J. Locke (1632–1704), following the Dutch jurist H. Grotius (1583–1645), championed the doctrine of right, as did to some degree J.-J. Rousseau (1712–78). Before the existence of any contract, individuals have by nature rights and duties. It is not the warring urge for power but a natural social impulse that causes the individual to make a contract with other individuals. It is a legitimate natural → duty to protect the positive natural qualities of the human individual against their perverted reduction by the state.
3.2. From the basic assumptions of contractual individualism, which lead from absolutism to constitutionalism, it is a small but logical step to the enrichment of individualism with economic ideas. The individual must have both economic and political power to enjoy economic as well as logical, ontological, social, or political priority. Hence with the principle of a sharing of political power (Montesquieu [1689–1755]), the 18th and 19th centuries brought what is in effect an individualistic restriction of the power of government in economic matters. For the Scottish moral philosopher and economist A. Smith (1723–90), each individual is clearly an end, and the state and its economy are simply means to serve this end. Self-interest is the engine of economic prosperity.
→ Utilitarianism developed the logic of this economic form of ethical individualism. The English philosophers J. Bentham (1748–1832) and J. S. Mill (1806–73), with their “utilitarian calculus,” advocated the greatest happiness of the greatest number as an ethical antithesis to the nonindividualistic ethics of I. Kant (1724–1804; → Kantianism).
3.3. The end of the 19th century brought great individualistic reactions to the systematician G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831). M. Stirner (1806–56) championed a kind of egotistic materialism; S. Kierkegaard (1813–55) developed a Christian existentialism; F. Nietzsche (1844–1900) revived the doctrine of power. The existential surrender of the torn individual → self to the → absolute in a rejection of all official churchly Christianity (Kierkegaard) was just as influential for 20th-century → existentialism as the idea of a powerful individual that must shun weak Christian altruism and stride on to the next evolutionary stage, that of the superman (Nietzsche).
Aware of the difficulties and problems that beset this radicalizing of individualism to the point of → solipsism, M. Heidegger (1889–1976)—contrary to his own declared intention—aided existential individualism with his doctrine of the authenticity of existence as a movement toward death and his radical isolation of existence. Above all, the French existentialists around the early J.-P. Sartre (1905–80) and A. Camus (1913–60) linked existential individualism to an ethical individualism, in this way deriving from their idea of the meaninglessness and absurdity of human life a doctrine of human responsibility for others and for the whole world.
4. Questions

The present situation might be called one of reindividualizing in reaction to the dominance of the collectivist interpretations of neo-Marxism in the 1960s. With its more pronounced theoretical and methodological orientation, this reindividualizing focuses on the basic problem of individualism in the larger sense, a problem whose mirror image can be found in the analogous basic problem of all collectivism. Put briefly, the society is always more than the sum of individuals, while the individual is always more than merely a part of that society.
Politicoeconomic theories of order such as we find in F. A. von Hayek and J. M. Buchanan may be viewed as theories that measure the functioning of social regulation and well-being in terms of individual well-being according to the criterion of human → freedom.
The individualistic program that figures in many sociological approaches also proves to be an explicit methodological individualism. Such a program explains sociological events and generalizations by hypotheses about individual → behavior. The problem known as that of the individual and society appears here in the form that synergistic effects or higher linkages in social processes do not admit of explanation. The practical results may be seen in new and predominantly Eastern forms of religion, whose religious character consists of a radical individualism that aims at the elimination of the individual element by bodily exercise.
→ Anthropology 3–4; Autonomy; Ethics; Liberalism; Person; Subjectivism and Objectivism

Bibliography: R. N. BELLAH, Individualism and Commitment in American Life: Readings on the Themes and Habits of the Heart (New York, 1987) ∙ A. BÉTEILLE, “Individualism and Equality,” CA 27 (1986) 121–34 ∙ T. DOI, The Anatomy of Self: The Individual versus Society (Tokyo, 1986) ∙ E. FOX-GENOVESE, Feminism without Illusions: A Critique of Individualism (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1991) ∙ D. L. GELPI, Beyond Individualism: Toward a Retrieval of Moral Discourse in America (Notre Dame, Ind., 1989) ∙ F. A. VON HAYEK, Individualism and Economic Order (London, 1946) ∙ A. I. MCFADYEN, The Call to Personhood: A Christian Theory of the Individual in Social Relationships (Cambridge, 1990) ∙ D. L. MILLER, Individualism: Personal Achievement and the Open Society (Austin, Tex., 1964) ∙ W. RAUB and T. VOSS, Individuelles Handeln und gesellschaftliche Folgen (Darmstadt, 1981) ∙ B. A. SHAIN, The Myth of American Individualism: The Protestant Origins of American Political Thought (Princeton, 1994) ∙ D. SHANAHAN, Toward a Genealogy of Individualism (Amherst, Mass., 1992) ∙ R. ZINTL, Individualistische Theorien und die Ordnung der Gesellschaft (Berlin, 1983).
WALTHER C. ZIMMERLI
Indonesia

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
96,194
150,958
212,565
Annual growth rate (%):
2.14
2.06
1.31
Area: 1,919,317 sq. km. (741,052 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 111/sq. km. (287/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 2.09 / 0.71 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 2.37 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 39 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 67.3 years (m: 65.3, f: 69.3)
Religious affiliation (%): Muslims 55.4, new religionists 20.6, Christians 13.6 (Protestants 6.2, indigenous 4.3, Roman Catholics 3.0, other Christians 0.2), Hindus 3.5, tribal religionists 2.3, nonreligious 2.2, Chinese folk religionists 1.4, other 1.0.
Note: Figures do not include Timor.

1. Religions
2. Churches
2.1. Protestants
2.2. Roman Catholic
3. Society and Christianity
4. Islam and Christianity

The Republic of Indonesia, which covers the territory of the former Dutch East Indies, comprises over 13,500 islands, 6,000 of which are inhabited. Among over 100 ethnic groups, the dominant two are the Javanese (45 percent of the population) and the Sundanese (14 percent).
1. Religions

Most of the native Indonesians originally had only unwritten forms of belief and worship (→ Tribal Religions), and many of them have found a new identity in → Islam or Christianity. Small ethnic groups, as in Irian Jaya, retain their traditional tribal beliefs.
Mahayana → Buddhists have been in Indonesia from before the 5th century, reaching their high point in the 8th to the 11th centuries. By 1965 eight groups of different traditions and ethnic origins had gained recognition by the state as religious fellowships; 6,271 new adherents in the years 1970 to 1980 (WCE 382) give evidence of a revived interest.
Indian influence from around A.D. 200 resulted in a mixed religious culture, part Hindu and part Javanese, which is still influential today (→ Syncretism). → Hinduism established itself especially on Bali, and Indonesian independence in 1945 also gave impetus to Hinduism on Java. In 1958 it received government recognition.
Islam ultimately became more prominent than Hinduism. Merchants from India brought → Sunni Islam to Indonesia in the 13th century, where its → Acculturation led to different forms. There is a traditional and strongly orthodox form in Sumatra, West Java, South Sulawesi, and the northern Moluccas. In Central and East Java, Islam has combined with Hindu-Javanese mysticism in a religious practice known as Kebatinan, a set of religious practices that enables a practitioner to experience the inner reality of being (batin). Since 1966 there has been a missionary-oriented movement known as Dakwah (or Daʿwah, “summons”), which arose in reaction to foreign influences and seeks an active upholding of Islamic beliefs. A basic problem for Islam is the development in many areas throughout Indonesia of tensions between native lifestyles and Islamic Shariʿa. Some conservative Muslim groups press politically for the formation of an Islamic state. For the time being, however, the government and the military have successfully resisted these demands.
2. Churches
2.1. Protestants

Among the 270 Protestant denominations we can distinguish (1) smaller regional churches; (2) the Union of Protestant Churches of Indonesia (1970), which is close to the Far Eastern Council of Christian Churches at Singapore and also to the → World Evangelical Fellowship, most of whose member churches result mainly from the work of → fundamentalist or conservative Anglo-Saxon missions since 1945; and (3) the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (Persekutuan Gereja-Gereja di Indonesia [PGI], founded in 1950), which has 75 member churches and represents 85 percent of the Protestants in Indonesia. In their effort to achieve unity, the member churches in 1984 reorganized the PGI structure to combine as a fellowship or communion rather than as a council.
The history of the Protestant churches goes back to the change in colonial rule, when the Reformed Dutch drove the Catholic Portuguese out of the Moluccas in 1601–5. The result was the founding of the oldest Protestant church in Asia. With the support of the Dutch Reformed Church, the Dutch East India Company provided for pastoral and missionary work in its settlements in the territory. This church, which for nearly three centuries was the dominant Christian body, became a state church when the Dutch government took over the company in 1816.
In the 19th century several missionary societies from the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland founded many Christian congregations and institutions in what was then the Dutch East Indies. In the late 19th and early 20th century, a number of American mission societies also took up work in the archipelago. In the 1930s and during the aftermath of the Second World War, the Protestant Church in the Dutch Indies and other mission churches became autonomous. In many cases relations with Western missionary societies changed into partnerships, as promoted and coordinated especially by the European Working Group for Ecumenical Relations with Indonesia. North American churches developed bilateral relationships with churches in Indonesia and also pursued coordinated work through the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Most of the larger churches in the PGI developed among ethnic (tribal) groups. Thus the work of Rhineland Missionary Fellowship, for example, gave rise to several church groups in North Sumatra, the largest being the Batak Christian Protestant Church (HKBP, 1861), which in 1998 had 1.6 million members. The Christian Evangelical Church in Minahassa, North Sulawesi (1568), includes over 90 percent of the people of the area (555,000 members) and is notable for diaconal and educational work. The Evangelical Christian Church in Timor (1612), with 525,000 members, enjoyed revival and renewal in the latter part of the 20th century. The Moluccan Protestant Church (1534), with 505,000 members, is strongly traditional. In the Evangelical Christian Church in Irian Jaya (1855), with 400,000 members, there is ethnically and geographically varied work in parish development, education, and highland missions among the Jali tribes. The Nias Christian Protestant Church (1865), founded by the Rhenish Mission and with 280,000 members, has become the territorial church on the island of the same name. The Evangelical Christian Church in Sangihe-Talaud (1568), with 185,000 members, has a program of parish development and education supported by Dutch partners. The Toraja Church Rantepao of Sulawesi (1913), which resulted from the work of the Nederlandsch Zendelinggenootschap and has 175,000 members, is famous for its rapid growth and its martyrs. The Christian Church in Central Sulewesi (1893), with 125,000 members, does work among → marginal groups and migrants from Bali and Java. The Evangelical Church in Kalimantan in the Dayak region (1836) has 90,000 members and resulted from work by the Rhenish and Basel Missions.
The Christian Churches of Java (Jogjakarta, 1858), the product of Reformed missions, is also important and has a notable attraction for Islam (121,500 members). The Christian Church in Indonesia on Java (1934), with 65,000 members, is the largest church among native and immigrant Chinese.
In eastern Indonesia the percentage of Christians is relatively high (42 percent), but Christians are weakest in the most highly populated and fully developed regions, Java and Bali (at most, 1 percent). Over half of the member churches of the PGI are numerically small and are for the most part ethnic and rural.
Denominationally, 62 percent of the PGI member churches belong to the Reformed tradition (→ World Alliance of Reformed Churches). Those that resulted from the work of the Rhenish and Basel Missions are → union churches. Of this number, the Batak churches, though not Lutheran by name, joined the → Lutheran World Federation, having had its confession of faith accepted as conforming to the Lutheran confessional tradition, beginning in 1952. Pentecostals (→ Pentecostal Churches), Methodists (→ Methodist Churches), and → Mennonites are also found in Indonesia. Of the churches in Indonesia, 29 belong to the → Christian Conference of Asia, 26 to the → World Council of Churches. The PGI and its churches participate in many development projects on behalf of rural and coastal areas. The PGI also cooperates with the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference in matters of common concern vis-à-vis the government.
2.2. Roman Catholic

The → Roman Catholic Church was established in the 16th century by → Franciscans, → Jesuits, and → Dominicans in the course of Portuguese conquest. In the 19th century these orders laid great stress on education and the building up of a native structure. The first native Indonesian priest was ordained in 1926, and an Indonesian hierarchy was set up in 1961. Before 1974 there were 9 Indonesian bishops out of 31, and half the clergy were Indonesian. By 1980 there were 7 archbishoprics, 24 dioceses, and 2 apostolic prefectures. An active Roman Catholic consciousness may be seen in lay fellowships. The Roman Church strengthens itself by a variety of teaching and instructional activities, as well as through welfare institutions. It also has a remarkable outreach in businesses, in the press (e.g., at the Gramedia complex in Jakarta), and in hotels. Noteworthy is its dedication to the younger generation. Apart from its presence on the island of Flores, it manifests an urban character.
3. Society and Christianity

The relationship of the churches to state and society is marked by their participation in the national movement. In 1945 President Sukarno (1901–70) established Pancasila (“five pillars”) as the “soul” of the constitution, comprising belief in one Deity, human dignity, national unity, democracy, and social justice (→ Civil Religion 5). This worldview, as he saw it, guaranteed religious → pluralism (→ Religious Liberty) and therefore leaves room for churches to live, even as minorities. In 1985 the government adopted Pancasila as a binding norm for all social and political organizations, including religious groups.
Christians made a contribution to Pancasila with their own interpretation of its meaning and force. In article 3 of its constitution the PGI maintained that it is based on Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior (Matt. 16:18; 1 Cor. 3:11). It also stated (art. 5), however, that it is ready to share in efforts to practice Pancasila as the only basis for the life of society, the nation, and the state. The Roman Catholic Church affirms Pancasila, not because it sees in it a practical law, but on account of its lofty values, which are in accord with the striving of humanity for God and the view of humanity held in the Christian faith (National Conference of Catholic Fellowships in Jakarta, 1984).
4. Islam and Christianity

Relations between → Islam and Christianity alternate between neighborliness and aversion. The Fourth Seminar of Religions held by the PGI in 1984 laid a basis for understanding between central institutions. Representatives of both religions discussed the theme of education in religion and society from the standpoint of renewal by schools, Kebatinan, the gospel, and Pancasila.
Events in recent years following the fall of the 36-year rule of President Suharto have led to uncertainty concerning the path of future developments in Indonesia. There are signs that Indonesia is advancing toward further democratization, as evidenced by the holding of national elections in 1999, the selection of a new president, and the acceptance by the Indonesian government of the separation of East Timor from Indonesia. Nonetheless, the violence perpetrated in East Timor by military-backed militias and the demands for autonomy or independence from other areas such as Atyeh and Irian Jaya have given rise to questions concerning the ultimate viability of Indonesia as a unified nation state.
Such a climate of uncertainty has led to increased strains in relationships between Islam and Christianity, as well as in relations between Islam and the other recognized religions in Indonesia. Ongoing unrest between the Muslim and Christian communities in the Moluccan Islands as well as scattered acts of violence in other areas of Indonesian does not bode well. Yet voices from the Muslim community, as well as other faith communities, have been in the forefront of those calling for → peace. In a democratic state, Islam, as the majority religion, will clearly have great influence. The role of the other religious communities, including Christianity, still remains to be clarified.
→ Asian Theology

Bibliography: J. CAMPBELL-NELSON, Indonesia in Shadow and Light (New York, 1998) ∙ F. COOLEY, The Growing Seed: The Christian Church in Indonesia (Jakarta, 1982) ∙ R. CRIBB and C. BROWN, Modern Indonesia: A History since 1945 (London, 1995) ∙ E. DARMAPUTRA, Pancasila and the Search for Identity and Modernity in Indonesian Society (Leiden, 1988) ∙ T. VAN DEN END, Ragi Carita. Sejarah Gereja di Indonesia (vol. 1, 5th ed.; Jakarta, 1993; vol. 2; Jakarta, 1989) ∙ T. VAN DEN END et al., eds., Indonesische Geloofsbelijdenissen (Leiden, 1986) ∙ R. M. KOENTJARANINGRAT, Introduction to the Peoples and Cultures of Indonesia and Malaysia (Menlo Park, Calif., 1986) ∙ M. P. M. MUSKENS, Partner in Nation Building: The Catholic Church in Indonesia (Aachen, 1979) ∙ P. B. PEDERSEN, Batak Blood and Protestant Soul (Grand Rapids, 1970) ∙ D. E. RAMAGE, Politics in Indonesia: Democracy, Islam, and the Ideology of Tolerance (London, 1995) ∙ Report of the Bishops’ Conference of Indonesia to the Holy See (Jakarta, 1989) ∙ L. SCHREINER, Adat und Evangelium (Gütersloh, 1972) ∙ A. SCHWARZ, A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia in the 1990s (Sydney, 1994) ∙ Sejarah Gereja Katolik Indonesia (5 vols.; Jakarta, 1974) ∙ T. B. SIMATUPANG, Gelebte Theologie in Indonesia (Göttingen, 1992) ∙ A. A. YEWANGOE, Theologie Crucis in Asia (Amsterdam, 1987) ∙ A. G. ZAINU’DDIN, A Short History of Indonesia (New York, 1970).
LOTHAR SCHREINER and WARNER LUOMA
Indulgence

1. Definition
2. History
3. Modern Understanding
1. Definition

On the basis of the new order for penance in the apostolic constitution Indulgentiarum doctrina of Paul VI (1963–78), issued on January 1, 1967, and revised in 1968 in Enchiridion indulgentiarum, the 1983 → Codex Iuris Canonici defines an indulgence as “a remission before God of the temporal punishment for sin the guilt of which is already forgiven, which a properly disposed member of the Christian faithful obtains under certain and definite conditions with the help of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies authoritatively [auctoritative dispensat et applicat] the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints” (can. 992). According to canon 994, “The faithful can gain partial or plenary indulgences [indulgentias sive partiales sive plenarias] for themselves or apply them for the dead by way of suffrage [ad modum suffragii].” Finally, “No authority beneath the Roman Pontiff can commit to others the power to grant indulgences unless it was expressly given to him by the Apostolic See” (can. 995).
2. History

In the early Middle Ages public penance gave way to private penance (→ Penitence), and acts of penance to offset the temporal penalties of sin became part of reconciliation. This change opened the door for an increasing regulation of such acts. In this connection early ideas of commutation and redemption (deriving from Germanic law) led in France in the 11th century to the concept of the indulgence as the remission of temporal penalties through the official assurance of the all-powerful intercession of the church, the guilt of → sin and its eternal penalties having already been remitted by absolution in penance.
In 1095 Urban II (1088–99) proclaimed full indulgence for taking part in a crusade. In 1187 Gregory VIII (1187) granted an indulgence to those who helped to finance a crusade. In 1230 Hugh of St. Cher (d. 1263) worked out the doctrine of the “treasury of the church” (thesaurus ecclesiae); on this view the → pope can grant an indulgence out of the treasury of the superfluous merits of Christ and the saints. In the jubilee year 1300 Boniface VIII (1294–1303) declared a plenary indulgence for visiting the apostolic churches in Rome (→ Holy Year).
The indulgence, which had thus far been a subject of the church’s authoritative intercession, had now come under its jurisdiction. In 1343 Clement VI (1342–52) made the doctrine of the thesaurus ecclesiae official in the bull Unigenitus. Peter Abelard (1079–1142) had totally rejected indulgences, but Albertus Magnus (ca. 1200–1280), Bonaventure (ca. 1217–74), and Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–74, Summa theol. III supp., qq. 25–26) gave them a theological definition and basis.
In the 14th and 15th centuries the indulgence came to be increasingly commercialized in the form of letters of penance and indulgence (the latter for the dead). The resultant weakening of penance came under sharp criticism from John Wycliffe (ca. 1330–84), Jan Hus (ca. 1372–1415), John of Wesel (ca. 1400–1481), Wessel (ca. 1419–89), and then Martin Luther (1483–1546) in his 95 Theses (LW 31.25–33). According to Luther, “The entire life of believers [is] to be one of repentence” (thesis 1), and “any truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and → guilt, even without indulgence letters” (thesis 36).
The Council of → Trent (sess. 25) checked the commercialization of indulgences but refined and renewed the theory. In its basic elements it remains valid in the → Roman Catholic Church.
3. Modern Understanding

Especially K. Rahner (1904–84), following B. Poschmann (1878–1955), attempted a spiritual and personal interpretation of indulgence that sees in it not merely an amnesty for the temporal penalties of sin but a qualified (because infallible) act of intercession by the → church. This act helps to make penitence more intensive and therefore more swift and salvific, so that the growth of → love will set aside the temporal penalties of sin, which govern human nature as a whole. The indulgence, then, is not a substitute for penitential acts but their gracious intensification.
A somewhat different position set before → Vatican II in 1965 and promoted by Cardinal Charles Journet (Fribourg) found its way into the apostolic constitution Indulgentiarum doctrina of 1967. Although this position avoids some of the traditional mistaken developments, it enshrines the understanding of the indulgence as an authoritative jurisdictional act on the part of the papacy and the church.

Bibliography: G. A. BENRATH, “Ablaß,” TRE 1.347–64 ∙ F. BERINGER, Die Ablässe, ihr Wesen und Gebrauch (15th ed.; Paderborn, 1930; orig. pub., 1906) ∙ H. BORNKAMM, Thesen und Thesenanschlag Luthers (Berlin, 1967) ∙ J. E. CAMPBELL, Indulgences (Ottawa, 1953) ∙ K. RAHNER, “On the Official Teaching of the Church Today on the Subject of Indulgences,” Theological Investigations (vol. 10; New York, 1973) 166–98; idem, “Remarks on the Theology of Indulgences,” ibid. (vol. 2; New York, 1963) 175–201 ∙ R. W. SOUTHERN, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (Harmondsworth, 1970) 136–43.
KARL-HEINZ ZUR MÜHLEN
Industrial Society

1. Definitions
2. Capitalism, Industrial Society, Modern Age
3. Chief Problems
1. Definitions

We must distinguish between a narrower and a broader definition of “industrial society.” In the narrower sense the term indicates that a specifically industrial technology of production controls a country’s economy. The industrial element in this → technology is principally the use of machines in the mass production of goods (i.e., mechanization of production). K. Marx (1818–83) thought that the new thing in industrial technology was the profound change in the relation of people and machines (→ Marxism). “In handicrafts and manufacture, the workman makes use of a tool, in the factory, the machine makes use of him” (Capital, vol. 1, MECW 35.425).
Societies change from agrarian to industrial when the industrial sector (manufacturing), in which goods are made by machines, becomes economically dominant. In preindustrial, agrarian societies agriculture is the most important branch of the economy. In postindustrial → service societies the service sector (commerce, banking, business, the state) is central. C. Clark and others have called this distinguishing of societies by the dominant economic sector, and the postulating of a movement from the agrarian via the industrial to the service society, the three-sectors hypothesis.
The proportion of workers in a sector indicates whether that sector is dominant. A century or so ago it was common for over half of a country’s labor force to work on the land. Now, however, things have changed. In the mid-1990s in Germany, for example, only 6 percent of the labor force was engaged in agriculture, compared with 41 percent in industry and the majority in the service sector. In the narrower sense, German society has long since changed from industrial to service.
On a broader definition, however, which pays attention to the structural and cultural developments related to new production technology and the rise of big industry, Germany is still an industrial society. According to R. Aron these developments include the separation (materially as well as in space and time) between home and job (M. Weber), the technologically demanded division of labor, the concentration of labor in places of → work, the accumulation of capital, economic growth, and economic rationalization by making investment decisions on the basis of forecasts of profitability. In the literature (K. Kumar), changes brought about by the development of industrial societies are described in terms of population growth, urbanization, the decline of society, → secularization, rationalization (according to Weber, the debunking of religious worldviews by modern science), and democratization (→ Democracy). Judged by these criteria, a country like Germany is still an industrial society. Transition to a postindustrial stage does not reverse trends like increasing rationalization and bureaucratization. By standards of this kind the postindustrial society is simply a continuation of the industrial society.
2. Capitalism, Industrial Society, Modern Age

Whereas the narrower definition raises the question of the relation to → capitalism, the problem on the broader definition is that of the unity of the industrial society within the multiplicity of the features characterizing it.
2.1. An economy is organized capitalistically when the direct producers (the workers) are distinct from the means of production, when there is thus a market for labor, when decisions about production are based on profitability, and when these privately made decisions are decentrally coordinated with the market. On a Marxist view this capitalistic organization is the main thing, the basis on which industrial technology and the other qualities of industrial societies can develop. An argument in favor of this theory is that the capitalistic mode of production is older than industrialization. Its beginnings are in the 16th century (I. Wallerstein), whereas the industrial revolution dates only from about 1760. Since the work of Aron, it has become customary to view capitalism as one main form of the industrial society; → socialism is the other.
In socialist societies, too, home and job are separate (perhaps not so fully as in capitalist societies), a technological division of labor holds sway, and industrial methods of production are demanded. The relevant differences relate to the question of → property (private or collective) and the way of directing the economy (market planning).
2.2. American → sociology prefers the term “modern → society” to “industrial society,” which in the narrower sense is related too closely to industrialization and in the broader sense is simply a conglomerate of the typical features of industrial societies. In the sociology of modern societies an attempt is made to work out the basic structure of such societies in contrast to premodern, traditional societies (R. Bendix, T. Parsons). Functional differentiation is the key. In modern societies functional spheres such as the economy and → politics are distinct. Each sphere has its own basis and operates by its own rules. The primary presupposition is freedom from the shackles of tradition. For example, without free trade and the freedom to transfer property and labor rights, a capitalistic economy could never have arisen. → Religion is implicated in the process of differentiation. In modern society it is assigned specific tasks and loses its comprehensive social function as a “bracket” (→ Sociology of Religion).
Liberation from traditional bonds is demanded by the dynamic that typifies the functional systems of modern societies. This dynamic takes different directions according to the sphere in which it is at work. Socially, differentiation means the loss of traditional ties and increasing individualization. Culturally, it means the universalizing of social values and science’s dethroning of religion as a central point of orientation. Politically, the result is constitutional democracy. Economically, there is an unparalleled increase in productivity.
3. Chief Problems

The debate whether forces unleased by the development of industrial societies primarily are destructive or civilizing has not yet been laid to rest. A first point of discussion relates to the consequences of industrialization for workers. An argument that can be traced back to Adam Smith (1723–90) is that industrialization involves the degradation of labor. Today this negative view is thought to hold true only for specific branches and periods. The same applies to the basic law of Marx that capitalistic accumulation results in poverty.
Also discussed are the consequences for society. One important thesis is that industrial development is uneven both in specific spheres (as illustrated by economic crises) and as a whole. Social inequalities arise because behavior that might be economically appropriate (commercialization) invades other spheres. As A. Ferguson said as early as 1767, “The commercial arts may continue to prosper, but they gain an ascendant at the expense of other pursuits. The desire of profit stifles the love of perfection” (p. 217). In the sociological theory of society (e.g., of Parsons), failure to relate the different spheres (disintegration) is a primary problem in differentiated societies. There are then the consequences for the relation between the individual and society. Both conservatives (e.g., A. Gehlen) and radicals (e.g., H. Marcuse) have described the problems of alienation, such as treating people in the mass (→ Masses, The), → anonymity, rootlessness, bureaucratization, and individual experiences of powerlessness. One detects in many diagnoses of this type nostalgic lamentations for a past, lost world.
Next are the consequences for developing countries. Well over half a billion people in the → Third World suffer from → hunger. Next to avoiding nuclear → war the overcoming of → poverty and hunger is perhaps the greatest international problem. It seems natural to relate the poverty of nonindustrialized countries causally to the wealth of industrialized countries (→ Dependence), but the causal relation of the rising discrepancy between the poor South and the rich North to their respective industrial structures is far too general to be convincing. A more plausible theory is that the discrepancy involves the marginalizing of developing countries (D. Senghaas) when they are integrated into the world market. No less important than the study of mechanisms like markets, economic systems, and population growth is an analysis of the part that governments, leaders, banks, and so forth can play in fighting Third World poverty.
Finally, there are the consequences for the relation between society and → nature, that is, the polluting of the → environment with industrial waste and the using up of nonrenewable resources, both of which contribute to the destroying of nature on a global scale (→ Ecology). Although the harmful effects of industrialization on nature have been known for a long time, the limiting of growth became a widely influential theme only in the mid-1970s. Criticism of environmental degradation took a practical turn in new social movements (→ Counterculture). The future of the industrial society depends decisively on whether ecological problems are recognized and mastered.
→ Achievement and Competition; Consumption; Development 1; Economic Ethics; Social Partnership; Sociology of Churches; Unemployment; Worker-Priests

Bibliography: R. ARON, Die industrielle Gesellschaft (Frankfurt, 1962) ∙ R. BADHAM, ed., The Sociology of Industrial and Post-Industrial Societies (= CuSoc 32/1 [1984]) ∙ D. BELL, Die postindustrielle Gesellschaft (Frankfurt, 1975) ∙ R. BENDIX, “Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered,” CSSH 9 (1967) 292–346 ∙ M. L. BLACKBURN, ed., Comparing Poverty: The United States and Other Industrial Nations (Washington, D.C., 1997) ∙ S. P. BURGGRAF, The Feminine Economy and Economic Man: Reviving the Role of Family in the Post-industrial Age (Reading, Mass., 1997) ∙ C. CLARK, The Conditions of Economic Progress (3d ed.; New York, 1957) ∙ A. FERGUSON, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Edinburgh, 1966; orig. pub., 1767) ∙ J. K. GALBRAITH, The New Industrial State (New York, 1967) ∙ K. KUMAR, Prophecy and Progress: The Sociology of Industrial and Post-Industrial Society (Harmondsworth, 1978) ∙ D. NOHLEN and F. NUSCHELER, eds., Handbuch der Dritten Welt (vol. 1; 2d ed.; Hamburg, 1982) ∙ T. PARSONS, The System of Modern Societies (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1971) ∙ D. SENGHAAS, Von Europa lernen. Entwicklungsgeschichtliche Betrachtungen (Frankfurt, 1982) ∙ L. TIGER, The Manufacturing of Evil; Ethics, Evolution, and the Industrial System (New York, 1987) ∙ I. WALLERSTEIN, The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1974) ∙ M. WEBER, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie (vol. 1; Tübingen, 1920).
JOHANNES BERGER
Infallibility

1. “Infallibility” is a term common in the Christian tradition. It was first used for God and the truth of the → gospel (→ Dogma 2). Then by the 14th century it came to be used for the → church, its → councils, and the papal magisterium (→ Pope 1.3). Alternative words are “inerrancy” (inerrantia) and “indefectibility” (indefectibilitas).

2. The → church (§3.2) is infallible as long as it upholds the → truth of the gospel with the assistance of the Holy Spirit (e.g., see John 14:16–17; 16:13; 1 Tim. 3:15). In common with most Christians, Roman Catholicism teaches that the books of the Bible “firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures” (Dei Verbum 11; → Vatican II).
The Reformers and their successors made much of this point. Though the early confessions used the word “infallible” only rarely, the Belgic Confession could call Scripture “this infallible rule” (art. 7), equivalent to the “sure rule” of the Gallican (art. 4). Later the Westminster Confession stated that “assurance of the infallible truth” derives from “the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word” (1.5). Scripture is also “the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture” (1.9), though with a further reference to “the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture” (1.10). Authority rather than infallibility was the Reformers’ key concern. Calvin insisted that the authority of the church, even though it claims guidance by the Spirit, is inseparably “attached to” the Word, for the Spirit cannot contradict himself (Inst. 4.8.13). The infallible authority of Scripture is set in opposition to the infallible authority of the church.
Within the → Roman Catholic Church itself, disagreement arose concerning which witnesses of the → Word of God are able to deserve the unwavering loyalty of the church and claim infallibility themselves. Both the → Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church agree with the → early church that this promised guidance applies first of all to the → faith (§3.5.2) of the church as attested by the → consensus of faith in the church as a whole (→ Faith 3.5.7.2). This consensus is diachronous consensus by tradition and synchronous consensus by councils and their → reception. Vatican II says that “the whole body of the faithful who have an anointing that comes from the holy one (cf. 1 Jn. 2:20 and 27) cannot err in matters of belief” (Lumen gentium 12). These churches thus believe that a statement of the → teaching office cannot claim authority when it is contrary either to Scripture or to the witness of the faith of the whole church.

3. As church doctrine was developed and doctrinal decisions had to be made, the episcopal (→ Bishop, Episcopate) and papal offices (→ Offices, Ecclesiastical 2) gained, beside the authority of leadership (→ Hierarchy 1.3), also that of preserving tradition by making doctrinal decisions. Scripture and tradition were still the material criterion of truth, but the decisions of councils and popes as well as the consensus of the whole church were now the formal criterion and binding on all believers. Infallibility thus came to mean the binding nature of solemn dogmatic decisions (→ Dogma 3.3). The Roman Catholic Church bases this claim on the fact that bishops and popes now have the commission of the → apostles to proclaim and preserve the gospel in the name of Christ. They can be confident that this ministry will still enjoy the assistance that will protect the church from error.
This conviction caused → Vatican I to define the infallibility of the papal teaching office. The more general features of earlier development may be seen here. From the preeminence of the church at Rome as the place where the apostles → Peter and → Paul preached arose the teaching authority of the bishop of Rome, as Peter’s successor (→ Roman Catholic Church 1). According to Vatican I, when the pope speaks ex cathedra—that is, when he, exercising his supreme apostolic authority, defines a doctrine concerning faith and morals to be held by the whole church—he has the infallibility that Christ promised the church (DH 3074). It is added that the pope does not need the formal approval of the church, though in fact he does need this consensus if his decisions are to be received by the church. Vatican II linked papal infallibility more plainly to the infallibility of the church’s faith and the authority of Scripture.
The definition of papal infallibility raised a storm of protest from the Protestant churches and also a Roman Catholic minority. It also gave impetus, however, to a new emphasis on the infallibility or inerrancy of the Bible, which was developing in any case in reaction against both 19th-century secularism and the new and critical approach to Scripture. In the debates and controversies that followed, the issues tended to become confused. Opposing modernism, Roman Catholicism itself also contended strongly for the infallibility or inerrancy of the Bible. In this regard it fought a common battle with conservative Protestants. The infallibility of the papal office, however, was seen by Protestants to be contrary to the infallibility and authority of Scripture. The question of infallibility was thus a cause of division. Vatican II declared also that even outside the council setting as such, the college of bishops proclaims the doctrine of Christ with infallibility when, “in their authoritative teaching concerning matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement that a particular teaching is to be held definitively and absolutely” (Lumen gentium 25).

Bibliography: L. M. BERMEJO, Infallibility on Trial: Church, Conciliarity, and Communio (Westminster, Md., 1992) ∙ J. P. BOYLE, Church Teaching Authority: Historical and Theological Studies (Notre Dame, Ind., 1995) ∙ D. A. CARSON and J. D. WOODBRIDGE, eds., Scripture and Truth (Leicester, 1983) ∙ R. R. GAILLARDETZ, Witness to the Faith: Community, Infallibility, and the Ordinary Magisterium (New York, 1992) ∙ N. L. GEISLER, ed., Inerrancy (Grand Rapids, 1979) ∙ Infallibility in the Church: An Anglican-Catholic Dialogue (London, 1968) ∙ J. J. KIRVAN, ed., The Infallibility Debate (New York, 1971) ∙ H. KÜNG, Infallible? An Inquiry (Garden City, N.Y., 1971) ∙ J. W. MONTGOMERY, ed., God’s Inerrant Word (Minneapolis, 1973) ∙ M. O’GARA, Triumph in Defeat: Infallibility, Vatican I, and the French Minority Bishops (Washington, D.C., 1988) ∙ H. J. POTTMEYER, Towards a Papacy in Communion: Perspectives from Vatican Councils I and II (New York, 1998) ∙ B. TIERNEY, Origins of Papal Infallibility, 1150–1350 (Leiden, 1972).
HERMANN J. POTTMEYER
Infant Baptism → Baptism
Information

1. Definition
2. Historical Background
3. Information Theory
4. Information, Creativity, Access, and Analysis
5. Information Explosion, Information Revolution, Information Processing
6. Information Overload
7. Information Rich and Information Poor
8. Information and the Church
1. Definition

“Information” is not “communication.” The former refers to a message transmitted by a code, over a channel, to a receiving device at a particular destination. → Communication, in contrast, is the sharing of meaning between individuals, through a common system of → symbols. Information in itself, therefore, is not determined by any particular meaning.
A simple dictionary definition of “information” specifies “something told, news, intelligence, word,” plus, probably, “knowledge acquired in any manner, facts, learning, data.” The dictionary would then explain that the term applies to data gathered in any way, as by reading, observation, hearsay, and so forth, and does not necessarily connote validity. Relevant phrases are “information agency,” “information desk,” “information center,” and, more recently, “information highway.” The last example, with its connotations of Internet and the World Wide Web, provides the direction that must be taken in exploring the notion of information at the beginning of the 21st century.
2. Historical Background

The level of ability of individuals and the consequent means of presenting and storing information have always had an impact on the functioning of societies. The possession of information is a key to power over those who do not have that information, usually because they lack the means to obtain it. Historically this defect could have been as simple as not being in the circle where information was exchanged; in other words, one’s position in society dictated access. From the position of having access to information, one would then hope to gain skills of presentation and persuasion in order to become (e.g., in predominantly oral cultures) an effective orator. An orator would attempt to use information in a communicative process. An eloquent orator not only would provide information but also would use the power of oratory to persuade, to change the thoughts, hopes, or expectations of listeners.
This model could be extended in the following manner. With the invention of the printing press, information could more easily be transmitted. Again, however, only the people with access to the printed word—those who had both financial access and the skill of reading—could benefit from the results of the new technology. The gifted writer would be able to utilize the technology of printing and thus not only provide information but also convert or even subvert the minds and opinions of readers.
In both of these scenarios, oral and literary, the information available would be only what the presenter decided to pass on. Society, at the end of the 20th century, has undreamed of opportunity to be selective from virtually limitless information repositories. The skills now needed are not only those of listening, looking, or reading but those attendant upon organized analysis and wide-ranging, technically competent searching and recording. Great machines are already available; even greater minds are now needed to deal with the information age.
3. Information Theory

One major approach to understanding the concept of information has come from the study of the electronic sciences. In his Theories of Human Communication Stephen Littlejohn describes information theory as involving the quantitative study of signals and as having “practical applications in the electronic sciences that design transmitters, receivers, and codes [which] facilitate efficient handling of information” (p. 45).
Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver in The Mathematical Theory of Communication have examined the organization of events from the perspective of engineers and mathematicians. These authors’ model of communication was a starting point for many later attempts to construct theoretical models related to both information and communication. For Shannon and Weaver, information theory is not involved with the meaning of messages but only with their transmission and reception. Thus the elements of their model are source, transmitter, channel, receiver, and destination, with special attention to the implications of noise within the channel. For Donald MacKay, furthermore, information theory is concerned with the meaning of representations, that is, with symbolism in its most general sense.
Many forms of information theory have been severely criticized, mainly on the grounds of not dealing with standards of appropriateness. Some of the philosophical assumptions of these theories do not seem readily compatible with the human process of communication. Early work on information theory and the organization of events seems often to have been linked to the concept of entropy and its impact. Entropy in some situations causes uncertainty; the more entropy, the more unpredictability and thus less control over the organization of events and consequent information. The continuing link is that information is the measure of the uncertainty (entropy) in a situation. As Littlejohn points out, “The more information in a situation, the more choices you can make within that situation” (p. 46).
4. Information, Creativity, Access, and Analysis

Edward De Bono, who is celebrated for his work on so-called lateral thinking, claims that “if we had perfect information in a particular situation then thinking would be unnecessary. But our chances of getting perfect information are low.” Thus modern society faces an increasing dilemma of effectively handling the wealth of information now available. De Bono asserts that creativity comes into play when consideration is given to what exactly is wanted by way of information. How is what is desired best obtained? And how should what is discovered be analyzed and synthesized? And how should what has been found be shaped and used in order to be communicated as shared meaning? De Bono answers that, in order to “understand” acquired information, it is necessary to propose a hypothesis, which provides a framework in terms of which to look at information so that we begin to notice things that we have not noticed; it “gives us something to work towards in proving or disproving it” (pp. 13, 47).
5. Information Explosion, Information Revolution, Information Processing

The last decade of the 20th century has seen the multiplication of phrases and sloganized claims including the word “information.” We thus hear about the information explosion, the information revolution, “information rich” and “information poor,” the information superhighway, and, perhaps most important, information acquisition and information handling.
It is universally accepted that skills for information handling are necessary for success in today’s developed world. Of great relevance is the search for understanding with regard to the way individuals interpret or make sense of all the information with which they are bombarded. Information processing theory attempts to deal with the way in which individuals handle information.
Various researchers, particularly those devoted to the development of theories of → education, have argued that the main concern with regard to information should now be how information is processed. In their Mass Communication Theory—Foundations, Ferment, and Future, Stanley Baran and Dennis Davis provide a succinct outline of this process and also raise important issues concerning the complexity of the cognitive process itself. They stress the need to “routinely scan our environment, taking in, identifying and routinely structuring the most useful stimuli and screening out irrelevant stimuli.” This process and how to develop the abilities needed for its utilization may well be at the heart of what educators attempt to achieve: “We must be able to process the structured stimuli that we take in, hold these structures in memory long enough so that we can sort out the most useful ones, put the useful ones into the right categories (schemas), and then store them in long term memory” (pp. 273–74). Persuaders in such fields as advertising, public relations, and politics seek to structure (i.e., “spin”) their information in such a way that it fits readily into these processes.
For information providers or seekers who have access to modern technology, the Internet and the Web have become the source to which one turns. The danger is that this source contains an ever increasing, often bewildering torrent of information. Current offerings on the Web related to the concept, for example, of religious information illustrate the astounding number of sites and the range of information available. A few instances are instructive.
As of early November 1999 the website “BELIEVE Religious DataBase Program” (www.mb-soft.com/believe) had over 700 topics, ranging from “Amish” through “Bible,” “Book of Baruch,” “Christian Humanism,” “Hinduism,” “Martin Luther,” and “Reincarnation” to “Transubstantiation.” The website “Religious-Tolerance.org” provided some 780 essays on various topics relating to religion and religious tolerance, including the major categories “Christianity,” “64 Other Religions and Ethical Systems,” and “Religious Hatred and Other Not So Spiritual Topics,” with subcategories including “Medical Treatment vs. Prayer,” “Separation of Church and State,” and “Common Signs of Destructive Cults.” Also on this date the website of the Internet Christian Library—ICLnet, at www.iclnet.org—had several massively large categories, including “Guide to Christian Resources on the Internet” (subcategories “Christian College Web Sites,” “Periodicals,” etc.) and “Guide to Christian Literature on the Internet” (subcategories “Bibles,” “Sermons,” “Creeds/Confessions,” “News Sources,” etc.). A final example is “Finding God in Cyberspace,” a Web guide to religious studies resources that provides information on “Print Resources” (libraries, publishers, etc.), “Digital Resources” (e-texts, multimedia and graphics, etc.), and “Academic Disciplines” (archaeology, church-state studies, sociology of religion, and 11 others).
Browsing even briefly through sources of information such as these can unearth gems of information in electronic documents. To consult such documents has hitherto often involved long searches and subsequent delays in obtaining printed copies from libraries or other repositories. Readily accessible now are materials as diverse as the sermons of John Wesley, the canons of the Council of Orange from 529, the anathemas of the Second Council of Constantinople of 553, and reflections on the → spirituality of the → New Age.
Similarly, the coming together of news and information sources is growing rapidly. It is of considerable interest that newspapers, newsletters, and journals frequently no longer claim to provide full information in their stories and articles. Rather, they normally provide Internet and Web addresses that can give additional and relevant information on the topics they address.
6. Information Overload

Questions concerning information that face society at the start of the 21st century include: Can there be too much information? Will society be able to adapt and function effectively and happily in situations marked by increasing information overload? How is information that never becomes hard copy to be discovered and utilized?
The new technologies have enabled human beings to indulge in an obsessive development of information systems and information banks. Virtual mountains of processed information now tower over society, exponentially growing higher and higher, with few limits in sight. Stark questions concerning this development must be addressed: What shadows are cast by these mountains of information? What effect do such shadows have on life in the valleys beneath the mountains? What are the skills needed to climb these mountains? Finally, what will have been achieved when the mountains have been mastered, or will the horizon reveal only more and higher mountains?
7. Information Rich and Information Poor

Issues concerning the haves and the have-nots have marked the whole of human history in respect to wealth, food, housing, and water, as they now do with respect to information, particularly given the exponential growth of information systems. Access to such systems continues to demand higher and higher levels of wealth and education. Without access to new technologies and the wider world of information, individuals and countries too poor to join the information highway suffer in terms of societal, corporate, economic, and personal growth and development. Various aspects of this issue have always been a concern of those willing to cross global boundaries in their concern for the welfare of others. Many who have such concern have pointed out that the information → revolution is only a distant dream in large parts of the world, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere. Marshall McLuhan may have foreseen a global village, but did he anticipate one that contained so many informationless ghettos?
In recent years global initiatives taken by several groups have focused on these economic, technological, ideological, and structural imbalances in free access to, and use of, information throughout the world. Leading the way have been the London-based World Association for Christian Communication, the → Vatican, the → Lutheran World Federation, and the → World Council of Churches, largely in concert with, though sometimes in critical response to, the celebrated New World Information and Communication Order proposed by UNESCO and its MacBride Commission.
8. Information and the Church

It is commonly accepted that the invention of the printing press in the 15th century and subsequent increased opportunities for access to information were instrumental in the shaping of Christianity over the past five centuries. It is often claimed that the information revolution began with the change from script to print, which in turn hastened the → Renaissance, the → Reformation, and the scientific revolution.
Churches are presently marked by increasing and rapidly changing sophistication in their use of information technologies in → evangelism, education, journalism, and public relations. Professional journalists working within church frameworks—as publishers and editors of periodicals, journals, books, and audiovisual materials—are increasingly being required to deal with complexities hitherto seen as the exclusive province of secular journalism. Thoughtful journalists (e.g., those involved in professional organizations such as the Associated Church Press) and others concerned with the role of information in church life now must deal as a matter of course with an increasing range of professional, technical, ideological, and ethical questions: To what extent can impersonal, technologically determined conveyors of information be used for the support of authentic Christian community? Are there justified structural limitations that can be imposed by religious bodies on the spread of information—for example, does a journalist employed by a church body actually possess a fundamental right to free and responsible expression, or do perceived institutional needs of the denomination, which may often conflict with free expression, take precedence? How is information directed toward the religious community to be shared with the society at large? That is, how can the product of religious journalism be heard in the secular world?
The development of clear understandings of what is really at stake in the ongoing information revolution—for church, societies, and the world—seems to lag. The current development of an information economy within an information society has often led the church, like many other institutions, to accept the view that information and its messages are basically commodities, or consumer items. With this acceptance, even “God” is sometimes indiscernible in the midst of a plethora of information. To use information as a means of communication is one thing; to offer a critical analysis of that use is another thing. It is now incumbent on the church to offer new and prophetic views of the human use of information in our present technological age.

Bibliography: S. J. BARAN and D. K. DAVIS, Mass Communication Theory-Foundations, Ferment, and Future (Belmont, Calif., 1995) ∙ E. DE BONO, De Bono’s Thinking Course (New York, 1994); idem, Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas (New York, 1992) ∙ E. KATZ and P. F. LAZERSFELD, Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Communication (New York, 1955) ∙ S. W. LITTLEJOHN, Theories of Human Communication (6th ed.; Belmont, Calif., 1999) ∙ D. LOCHHEAD, Shifting Realities: Information Technology and the Church (Geneva, 1997) ∙ S. MACBRIDE, Many Voices, One World: Toward a New, More Just, and More Efficient World Information and Communication Order (London, 1988) ∙ D. M. MACKAY, Information, Mechanism, and Meaning (Cambridge, Mass., 1969) ∙ M. MCLUHAN, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York, 1964) ∙ D. MCQUAIL, Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction (Beverly Hills, Calif., 1987) ∙ W. J. ONG, “Information and/or Communication Interactions,” Communication Research Trends 16/3 (1966) 3–16 ∙ W. SCHRAMM, Mass Media and National Development: The Role of Information in the Developing Countries (Paris, 1964) ∙ C. SHANNON and W. WEAVER, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, Ill., 1949) ∙ M. TRABER, ed., The Myth of the Information Revolution: Social and Ethical Implications of Communication Technology (Beverly Hills, Calif., 1986) ∙ M. TRABER and K. NORDENSTRENG, eds., Few Voices, Many Worlds: Towards a Media Reform Movement (London, 1992).
JAMES KEEGAN
Infralapsarianism → Predestination
Initiation Rites

1. Religious
1.1. Term
1.2. Categories
1.3. Significance
2. Christian
2.1. Term
2.2. Basic Statement and Primary Order: Restoration and Renewal of the Catechumenate
2.3. Development of a Secondary Form: Confirmation
2.4. Relation of Baptism and Confirmation
2.5 Third World
1. Religious
1.1. Term

Deriving from Lat. initium, the term “initiation” denotes the ceremony of joining a mystery fellowship. Initium means “entry”; its use in the plural became linked with the concept of the sacred or holy (→ Sacred and Profane), which had much the same sense as “mysteries” had in late antiquity. At the same time, in a play on words, the Greek teletē for initiation into the mysteries came to be associated with teleutaō (finish, die). In an extension of usage the term then denoted various phenomena that laid claim to a qualitative change of social and/or religious life on the part of the initiate, along with secrecy vis-à-vis noninitiates.
1.2. Categories

Collective rites incumbent on all members of a society are a form of such “rites of passage.” These rites mark the end of → Childhood and entry upon the status of a responsible, adult member of society. Such ceremonies include puberty rites (→ Youth), maturity rites, tribal rites, and age rites. An example is the Hindu upanayana ritual, which is obligatory for the three upper → castes in → Hinduism. Initiates adopt the behavior, techniques, and institutions of adults along with the sacred traditions. In tribal groups that practice such rites, that which constitutes the new life—independence, → sexuality, and spiritual values—is basically traced back to the work of supernatural beings in primal antiquity. Rather drastic tests are part of the initiation and may include separation from one’s mother, isolation under a supervisor, special dieting, and physical measures such as blows, teeth extraction, and → circumcision, which symbolize death. These tests often precede a symbolic resurrection and the giving of a new name.
A second form of initiation is reception into a special group within the larger society. The introduction now is to a higher stage of mysteries, and the tests are more demanding. The examples include men’s and women’s fellowships, mystery groups, war bands like the ancient Nordic berserkers, → mystery religions, → orders, brotherhoods, lodges, guilds, and student unions and clubs.
A third form of initiation, with even more exacting tests, is the initiation that qualifies one for a specialized religious function. Ordination to → priesthood is an example, or initiation as a shaman (→ Shamanism), which is marked by specific → ecstatic elements that are also found in other categories of initiation. Among North American Indians responsible tribal membership is based on dreams and → visions (→ Tribal Religions); similar are the stages of → meditation in India and Tibet and the Islamic dervish order.
1.3. Significance

From a humanitarian standpoint many of the initiation tests must be rejected as humiliating tortures. Yet we should not forget the important content of initiation in religion and culture. Nothing expresses more clearly the definitive end of something than the symbolism of death, which is common in initiation. Significantly, too, the symbols of death—cosmic night, the womb of the earth, the belly of a monster—and such things as isolation and nakedness and dealing with ghosts do not denote annihilation but the return to an unformed embryonic state corresponding to precosmic chaos. New and stronger life is made possible by going back to the forces that originally imparted themselves in a special way to the human world and imposed order on chaos, or by going back to ancestors as representatives of this time of origin.
→ Baptism; Confirmation; Youth Dedication

Bibliography: A. DROOGERS, The Dangerous Journey: Symbolic Aspects of Boys’ Initiation among the Wagenia of Kisangani, Zaire (The Hague, 1980) ∙ L. EILE, Jando: The Rite of Circumcision and Initiation in East African Islam (Lund, 1990) ∙ M. ELIADE, Birth and Rebirth: The Religious Meaning of Initiation in Human Culture (New York, 1958) ∙ M. ELIADE, W. O. KAELBER, and B. LINCOLN, “Initiation,” EncRel(E) 7.224–38 ∙ J. S. LA FONTAINE, Initiation (Manchester, 1986) ∙ T. A. LEEMON, The Rites of Passage in a Student Culture: A Study of the Dynamics of Transition (New York, 1972) ∙ B. LINCOLN, Emerging from the Chrysalis: Studies in Rituals of Women’s Initiation (Cambridge, Mass., 1981) ∙ L. C. MAHDI, S. FOSTER, and M. LITTLE, Betwixt and Between: Patterns of Masculine and Feminine Initiation (La Salle, Ill., 1987) ∙ M. NTETEM, Die Negro-Afrikanische Stammesinitiation (Münsterschwarzach, 1983) ∙ S. OTTENBERG, Boyhood Rituals in an African Society (Seattle, 1989) ∙ R. TURCAN, “Initiation,” RAC 18.87–159.
CHRISTOPH ELSAS
2. Christian
2.1. Term

In ecumenical use, without the more general religious connotation (see 1), “initiation” denotes the acts associated with incorporation into the church—that is, → baptism, → confirmation, and the → Eucharist (First Communion). The usage seems to go back to L. Duchesne (Origines du culte chrétien [1889]), though his formulation was adopted only hesitantly. → Vatican II (Sacrosanctum concilium [SC] 65, 71) uses the term initiatio (christiana) in Duchesne’s sense (see also 1983 → CIC 879). The Lima Declaration (1982), Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry, avoided the term but affirmed the idea of incorporation by baptism and admission to communion.
2.2. Basic Statement and Primary Order: Restoration and Renewal of the Catechumenate

The term “initiation” reflects a basic biblical and patristic understanding of what it means to become a Christian. In Acts 2:38 Christians are those who are baptized in Christ’s name and who receive the gift of the → Holy Spirit. By the middle of the second century (as reported by Justin Martyr), initiation culminates with First Communion. → Tertullian (ca. 160–ca. 225) testifies that we become Christians by baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist of Christ (De res. car. 8). Only those who in the Eucharist partake of Christ’s body and blood in the sense of 1 Cor. 10:16 are fully incorporated into his body. Here initiation is completed, and since by nature the Eucharist may be repeated (unlike baptism or confirmation), it is also continually renewed.
In the first centuries baptism and confirmation preceded communion in a single liturgical act. Hippolytus of Rome gives the earliest detailed description (ca. 220). After washing and a first anointing come the laying on of hands and anointing on the forehead by the → bishop, with an accompanying prayer for the descent of the Holy Spirit on the candidate. In the Latin West the latter act came to be called confirmatio. The Eastern Orthodox Church and the → Uniate churches in chrismation still retain this original order. At infant baptism the → priest after the baptism confirms by anointing and offers the Eucharist (the wine alone in the case of infants). A bishop or → patriarch must consecrate the anointing oil. This provision ensures an ongoing place for episcopal participation.
Rome after Vatican II restored the primary order in the case of adults (1971). Previously confirmation often had to be postponed because it was reserved for the bishop, but now the priest who baptizes may also confirm (1983 CIC 883.2). Normally the original triad of baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist now stands again at the beginning of the Christian life. But the isolation of baptism, customary since the Middle Ages, continues in the new rite for infant baptism (see 2.3.1). The English (Anglican) Alternative Service Book of 1980 also combines the three for adults in a single liturgical act, though the bishop must officiate.
With the restoration of the primary form of initiation for adult candidates, the → Roman Catholic Church revived the adult catechumenate, no longer restricting it to the missionary situation but seeing in it a preparation for initiation, accompanied at each stage by liturgical rites. Both in → mission and at home, reception of the renewed catechumenate has been mixed. It has functioned in the United States but has hardly begun to do so in Germany. A new stage of → reception began when it became part of canon law (in 1983 CIC 788).
Other churches have also acted to restore the catechumenate. The English Alternative Service Book did not do so, but American Episcopalians (→ Anglican Communion) included it among their occasional services in 1979. Also in 1979 Lutheran churches in the United States and Canada took similar steps.
2.3. Development of a Secondary Form: Confirmation

2.3.1. Unlike the East, the Roman Catholic (and Anglican) West reserved confirmation for the bishop and thus laid such stress on its ecclesial value that it had to be postponed if the bishop was absent or could not be reached. Separation of the bishop from baptism (which began with → emergency baptisms) became unavoidable when regional bishops replaced city bishops. When Lateran IV (1215) made 7 the age of First Communion (the so-called age of discretion), the same age also often became the age of confirmation. The Council of → Trent stated that infant communion (still widely practiced) was unnecessary (DH 1730, 1734). Early in the 19th century the age of First Communion was raised to between 10 and 14, but Pius X (1903–14) restored the earlier custom with his Quam singulari (1910), and so also 1983 CIC 914.
The 19th-century idea was that the age of leaving school was a suitable one for confirmation, which could then serve as a → sacrament of passage from → Childhood to → youth. By putting confirmation after the age of discretion and First Communion between baptism and confirmation, the original order was lost, and the notion was strengthened that confirmation is independent of baptism. Today advocates of a very early confirmation want to maintain the connection with baptism and the original order, but they are in the minority.
2.3.2. The Reformation churches (→ Lutheran Churches; Reformed and Presbyterian Churches) no longer recognized the sacramental character of confirmation but gave it initiatory significance by linking it to admission to communion. There have now been many changes in this regard.
In the ecumenical world a cry is heard for the admission of unconfirmed children to communion (Lima Declaration, “Baptism,” par. 14, comm. b). Lutherans in the United States and Canada accept a more or less informal admission of unconfirmed children to the Lord’s Supper. In 1985 Episcopalians issued their Boston Statement “Children and Communion,” which viewed baptism as giving a right to communion without any intervening ceremony of admission. When pressed, this position leads to a demand for infant confirmation and communion, as in the Orthodox Church (see the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and the 1985 Canadian Book of Alternative Services). G. Austin advocates a similar course in the Roman Catholic world.
The primary order of initiation would be restored along such lines, but one has to ask whether the wheel of Western liturgical history can be turned so radically without damage. Primary solutions are not always the best. Yet outright condemnations of the development hardly do justice to a very complex situation (see J. Brosseder; H. A. J. Wegman, 178).
2.4. Relation of Baptism and Confirmation

Confirmation is often called a completion (perficere) of baptism. Laying on of hands and anointing of the forehead supplement and complete the act of baptizing. The question naturally arises, though, in what sense, in view of Paul’s theology of baptism, one can say that baptism needs completing, as though the Spirit were given only in the second act. The point can hardly be that baptism merely has the negative task of cleansing from original → sin and personal → guilt, while confirmation brings filling with the Holy Spirit. On the basis of the NT doctrine of baptism (John 3:5), the conviction has been growing in ecumenical circles that baptism itself is related to the outpouring of the Spirit in the full sense.
In recent decades Roman Catholic theology has engaged in incessant discussion of confirmation and the Holy Spirit—a sacrament, some have said, in search of a theology. The debate has shown that confirmation can be viewed only in very close relation to baptism. The fullness of what takes place in baptism cannot be put in a single sign. Coming up out of the water expresses the gift of the Spirit insofar as it denotes life from Christ’s death. It cannot denote, however, the horizontal, ecclesial, Pentecostal dimension of the gift of the → Holy Spirit. Formulations like “passing on the message,” “public confession,” and “the priestly task of the baptized vis-à-vis the world” do not find expression in it. The sign of confirmation, however, embraces exactly this dimension. Laying on of hands and anointing address the horizontal dimension of the baptism-event. The baptized are sent out and are to spread the savor of Christ everywhere. They have a prophetic task. Baptism and confirmation are related in the same way as → Easter and → Pentecost, the two feasts of redemption: Easter inasmuch as life flows to believers from Christ’s death (cf. John 7:37–39 with 19:34) and is breathed into them (John 20:22), Pentecost inasmuch as this life is given to the redeemed in order that they might proclaim it (the sign of tongues) and kindle it (the sign of fire).
2.5. Third World

Only in the 20th century has it been discussed how the Christian rite of initiation, which developed in the Mediterranean area, can preserve this essential character while fitting in to other cultures. In SC 65, Vatican II encouraged missionary churches to include elements from their countries’ own rites of initiation (→ Acculturation). Not surprisingly, there have thus far been only the first beginnings in this direction. Specialists still must be trained; Vatican II expressed a wish for their cooperation in liturgical reform (SC 40.3). In the Reformation churches stronger theological reservations regarding contextualization slow down the process.
In sum, one might say that what we see today in the field of initiation is advance on an unparalleled scale since the Reformation. For all the present confusion, it may finally be said that the movement is a hopeful one from an ecumenical standpoint.
→ Liturgics; Liturgy; Mass; Occasional Services; Worship

Bibliography: On 2.1: T. F. BEST and D. HELLER, Becoming a Christian: The Ecumenical Implications of Our Common Baptism (Geneva, 1999) ∙ O. CULLMANN, Baptism in the NT (London, 1950) ∙ A. KAVANAGH, The Shape of Baptism: The Rite of Christian Initiation (New York, 1978) ∙ WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES, Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry (Geneva, 1982).
On 2.2: C. ARGENTI, “Die Chrismation,” Ökumenische Perspektiven von Taufe, Eucharistie und Amt (ed. M. Thurian; Frankfurt, 1983) 64–87 ∙ C. BRUSSELMANS, ed., Becoming a Catholic Christian: A Symposium on Christian Initiation (New York, 1979) ∙ C. O. BUCHANAN and M. VACEY, New Initiation Rites: A Commentary on Initiation Services Authorized as Alternative Services in the Church of England from Easter, 1998 (Cambridge, 1998) ∙ L. DELLA TORRE, “Implementation of the Ordo Initiationis Christianae Adultorum: A Survey,” in Structures of Initiation in Crisis (ed. L. Maldonado and D. Power; New York, 1979) 47–56 ∙ M. E. JOHNSON, Living Water, Sealing Spirit: Readings on Christian Initiation (Collegeville, Minn., 1995); idem, The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation (Collegeville, Minn., 1999) ∙ A. KAVANAGH, “Christian Initiation in Post-conciliar Roman Catholicism,” StLi 12 (1977) 107–15 ∙ S. MADIGAN, Liturgical Spirituality and the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (Chicago, 1997) ∙ C. VINCIE, The Role of the Assembly in Christian Initiation (Chicago, 1993) ∙ R. WEBBER, Liturgical Evangelism (Harrisburg, Pa., 1992).
On 2.3 and 2.4: J. AMOUGOU ATANGANA, “Ein Sakrament des Geistempfangs? Zum Verhältnis von Taufe und Firmung,” OF 3/1 ∙ G. AUSTIN, The Rite of Confirmation: Anointing with the Spirit (New York, 1985) ∙ J. BROSSEDER, “Taufe/Firmung,” NHThG 4.169–82 ∙ C. BUCHANAN, ed., Nurturing Children in Communion: Essay from the Boston Consultation (Bramcote, Nottingham, 1985) ∙ G. DIX, The Theology of Confirmation in Relation to Baptism (London, 1946) ∙ P. FRANSEN, “Firmung,” SM 2.33–45 (bibliography) ∙ P. J. JAGGER, Christian Initiation, 1552–1969: Rites of Baptism and Confirmation since the Reformation Period (London, 1970) ∙ A. JILEK, “Die Diskussion um das rechte Firmalter. Eine Übersicht über die deutschsprachige Literatur der letzten Jahrzehnte,” LJ 24 (1974) 31–51 ∙ G. KRETSCHMAR, “Firmung,” TRE 11.192–204 ∙ G. W. H. LAMPE, The Seal of the Spirit: A Study in the Doctrine of Baptism and Confirmation in the NT and in the Fathers (London, 1967) ∙ B. NEUNHEUSER, “Taufe und Firmung,” HDG 4/2 ∙ H. RELLER, ed., HRGem (with information on the baptismal practice of the various Protestant denominations) ∙ F. SENN, The Witness of the Worshiping Community: Liturgy and the Practice of Evangelism (Mahwah, N.J., 1993) ∙ H. A. J. WEGMAN, Geschichte der Liturgie im Westen und Osten (Regensburg, 1979).
On 2.5: M. DUJARIER, “Developments in Christian Initiation in West Africa,” Structures of Initiation in Crisis (ed. L. Maldonado and D. Power; New York, 1979) 57–64 ∙ A. T. SANON and R. LUNEAU, Enraciner l’évangile. Initiations africaines et pédagogie de la foi (Paris, 1982) ∙ S. A. STAUFFER, ed., Baptism, Rites of Passage, and Culture (Geneva, 1999); idem, ed., Christian Worship: Unity in Cultural Diversity (Geneva, 1996); idem, ed., Worship and Culture in Dialogue (Geneva, 1994).
BALTHASAR FISCHER
Inner Mission

The term “Inner Mission” (Innere Mission) refers generally to the organized charitable endeavors of the German Protestant churches. It is often conflated into the larger conception of charitable or social service (→ Diakonia), and some writers even refer to it as a → social gospel. Essentially a conservative concept, Inner Mission (IM) included conscious efforts (1) to cope with the harmful effects of the industrial system, which caused the masses to fall victim to the power of → sin; (2) to bring about the moral and spiritual → regeneration of both the individual person and the church; and (3) to advance the → kingdom of God through the spread of Christian → piety and morals. The IM sought to renew the ideal of Christian → charity within the German Volk, or nation, and by this means to revitalize the two major orders of creation, → church and state. Both would then cooperate peacefully within God’s kingdom and thereby extend its boundaries on earth.
The movement’s founder was Johann Hinrich Wichern (1808–81), who was born into a petty → bourgeois family of limited means in the port city of Hamburg. As a youth, he was sensitized to the → poverty and misery of the working classes and was affected by the piety of the early 19th-century awakening (the Erweckungsbewegung). He studied theology at Göttingen and Berlin under Friedrich Lücke (1791–1855), August Neander (1789–1850), and Friedrich → Schleiermacher (1768–1843), who sharpened his understanding of Christian → ethics, the priesthood of all believers, and the kingdom of God. His association with the circle around Baron Hans Ernst von Kottwitz (1757–1843), the founder of workshops for impoverished laborers, introduced him to the pietistic ideal of a life spent in service.
After returning to Hamburg in 1831, the youthful Wichern worked as a teacher until a wealthy person helped him in 1833 to establish a residential shelter for destitute children in the suburb of Horn in an old building known as the Rauhe Haus (Rough house). Here he linked education, work, and faith in a communal effort to nurture the human spirit and to transform delinquent children into devout Christians. He also trained lay brothers (assistants) to serve as teachers, many of whom found employment in orphanages elsewhere. His enterprise operated independently of the other charities in the city, and he sought to extend this principle of voluntary organized charity, which in 1843 he first called the Inner Mission, throughout the Protestant church. In 1844 Wichern began publishing the Fliegende Blätter aus dem Rauhen Hause, a religious periodical in which he spread the message that Christian love expressed in deeds could save humankind. Reaffirming the faith of baptized Christians through charitable activity would be the moral counterweight to the irreligious forces of the age. This movement would bind together all social classes and the various segments of German Protestant life and assure the tranquility of Christendom.
At the first → German Evangelical Church Conference (Kirchentag), in Wittenberg in September 1848, Wichern called on German Protestants to deal with the social question by establishing city missions and sending preachers into the streets to reach the working class. Since public charities could not cope with the moral issues of poverty, he asked that the IM be given responsibility for them. The conference failed to achieve any semblance of church unity in Germany, but Wichern did proceed with his intention to form a Central Committee of the IM. Founded in early 1849, it was marked with political and social → conservatism from the outset and was seen as a bulwark against revolutionary disorders and communist schemes. At the same time, confessionalist critics of the emphasis upon lay resources mobilized in voluntary associations feared that the Inner Mission would undermine clerical authority and become a “church within the church.” Several regional churches showed little interest in the IM because of its close ties with the Prussian state.
Wichern fostered the formation of IM associations and committees in the various territorial churches to coordinate their charitable works, but the Central Committee had no power to direct these activities. Its task was largely that of holding regular conferences and providing a forum for discussion of social problems. The IM’s influence increased with the growing professionalization of social welfare, and by the early 20th century it had become one of the highest-profile church associations. The Central Committee now encouraged activism in the churches on such matters as drunkenness, → prostitution, honoring the Lord’s Day, literature distribution, and caring for seamen, migrants, and foreign laborers.
During World War I the IM was heavily involved in → social service work, and after the war it unsuccessfully sought formal integration into the new Protestant church structure. The welfare-state policies of the Weimar Republic that addressed the social needs of the immediate postwar years had a profound impact on philanthropic societies like the IM. Whereas before they had been dependent on private contributions, now public funds flowed into their coffers. Bureaucratic pressures increased, and the traditional emphasis on mission was pushed aside while the Central Committee’s new welfare department ballooned in size. The trauma of the Great Depression, along with outright mismanagement, led to the virtual financial demise of the Central Committee in the so-called Devaheim Scandal. The mood among the IM leaders was one of deep crisis, and they turned against the democratic republic that they had only grudgingly accepted and placed their faith in a strong, authoritarian → state.
Like most pastors and church members, the IM welcomed Hitler’s accession to power as the country’s salvation, but soon they were faced with the sober reality of what had happened. A new “state commissioner” was appointed to supervise the Prussian church, and he abruptly replaced two top IM officials with → German Christian pastors. The action was rescinded in 1934 only under pressure from the → Confessing Church’s task force for diaconal and missionary works. From that point on there were ongoing struggles with the regime’s public welfare program and social service entities like → kindergartens and nursing stations; ultimately, the only area in which the IM was allowed a free hand was care of the “unproductive” and those incapable of rehabilitation. The mission took the pragmatic approach of avoiding open confrontation with the authorities and negotiating quietly, in hopes of protecting as many areas of operation as possible from state intervention.
The IM’s greatest failure during the Nazi era was its stance on → eugenics and sterilization. In 1931 it set up a eugenics division and later one for racial hygiene, and it also accepted voluntary sterilization for the incurably mental ill in its institutions, but it would not extend the policy to the physically handicapped. That decision brought the IM institutions into collision with Nazi legislation, but they avoided compulsory sterilization and eugenic → abortions by referring such cases to state institutions. Eventually, however, they caved in to state pressures, which weakened their power to resist, and many patients in Protestant institutions were victims of → euthanasia. Although some individual doctors resisted, the leaders did not openly protest the policy. They felt that such actions would be of no use and would have severely hampered the IM’s other works.
In 1945 the new Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) decided to create its own Relief Organization (Hilfswerk), which assumed some of the responsibilities of the IM Central Committee. However, a renewed Inner Mission soon was active again in both parts of the divided Germany. In 1957 an organizational merger of the IM and Hilfswerk occurred, although the conceptual differences between the two were not fully smoothed over. In 1965 the new title “Diaconal Work of the EKD” was introduced, which made it clear that charitable and social service work would be the task of the church itself and not merely of parachurch voluntary societies.

Bibliography: E. BEYREUTHER, Geschichte der Diakonie und Inneren Mission in der Neuzeit (3d ed.; Berlin, 1983) ∙ M. GERHARDT, Ein Jahrhundert Jahre Innere Mission (2 vols.; Gütersloh, 1948) ∙ J. E. GROH, Nineteenth Century German Protestantism (Washington, D.C., 1982) ∙ H.-V. HERNTRICH, Im Feuer der Kritik. Johann Hinrich und der Sozialismus (Hamburg, 1969) ∙ J.-C. KAISER, Sozialer Protestantismus im 20. Jahrhundert. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Inneren Mission (Munich, 1989) ∙ J.-C. KAISER and M. GRESCHAT, eds., Sozialer Protestantismus und Sozialstaat. Diakonie und Wohlfahrtsplege in Deutschland, 1890 bis 1918 (Stuttgart, 1996) ∙ U. RÖPER and C. JÜLLIG, Die Macht der Nächstenliebe. 150 Jahre Innere Mission und Diakonie, 1848–1998 (Berlin, 1998) ∙ W. O. SHANAHAN, German Protestants Face the Social Question (Notre Dame, Ind., 1954) ∙ T. STROHM and J. THIERFELDER, eds., Diakonie im “Dritten Reich” (Heidelberg, 1990) ∙ W. R. WARD, Theology, Sociology, and Politics: The German Protestant Social Conscience, 1890–1933 (Bern, 1979) ∙ J. H. WICHERN, Sämtliche Werke (10 vols.; ed. P. Meinhold; Göttingen, 1958–88) ∙ J. M. WISCHNATH, Kirche in Aktion. Das Evangelische Hilfswerk, 1945–1957 (Göttingen, 1985).
RICHARD V. PIERARD
Innocence, State of

1. Biblical
2. Church History
3. Modern Period
1. Biblical

The dogma of the state of innocence represents an attempt to develop systematically what the Bible has to say about the creation of humanity according to (or “in”) the image of God (Gen. 1:26–27; 1 Cor. 11:7). It shows that the emergence of → sin was the decisive event in human history that triggered the events of → salvation history (Rom. 5:12–21). It also presents the standards set up with → creation that enable us to interpret both sin and → regeneration or renewal (Eph. 4:24).
Despite their dissimilarity, the two motifs—the historical and the anthropological (→ Anthropology 1–3)—come together in church tradition with the assumption of an original perfection in paradise of (the first) human beings. The theological problem put by the doctrine of this first estate has thus always focused on the sense in which one can say that the divine destiny of human beings established at creation was lost—that is, on what being created in the image of God might mean.
2. Church History

2.1. Development of the doctrine may be traced back to two exegetical decisions that today are still a matter of dispute. From the time of Irenaeus (d. ca. 200, Adv. haer. 5.6.1), a distinction was made between (1) the way in which we correspond to God by nature or condition, that is, the reflection of the divine original (the “image”: Gk. eikōn, Lat. imago), which never realizes the prototype itself, and (2) our ongoing relationship with that original (the “likeness”: Gk. homoiōsis, Lat. similitudo). These motifs were interpreted as our habitual states. The imago is the inner light of → reason, self-determinative → freedom for → good or → evil. The similitudo, as a superadded gift, is the gift of moral perfection enabling us to live in the original → righteousness (iustitia originalis).
The pseudo-Augustine Alcherus Claraevallensis (→ Augustine’s Theology) coined the pregnant formula that normatively determined Roman Catholic doctrinal development: imago, quia rationalis; et similitudo, quia spiritualis (“image,” because [human beings are] rational; and “likeness,” because spiritual; De spir. et an. 10, PL 40.786; see PL 194.1895). By supernatural → grace (prima gratia) → Adam enjoyed the ability not to sin (posse non peccare) and even not to die (posse non mori). He could know God without concealment, could fully harmonize his intellect and his free will, and could effortlessly reign over the → animal world. The Council of → Trent (sess. 5, can. 1) speaks of the holiness and righteousness with which Adam was equipped (constitutus [constituted], not creatus [created]!).
2.2. The theology of the → Reformers deviated considerably from the mainstream of tradition. It surrendered the distinction between imago and similitudo and thus equated the original righteousness with God (iustitia originalis) as realized in the primal state of innocence with original, natural human conduct, that is, with the ongoing relationship to God. It thus no longer found in this imago Dei any special, supernatural capacity but a basic orientation of human life (the knowledge, fear, trust of God [notitia, timor, fiducia Dei]).
Later definitions, both Lutheran and Reformed, identify the state of integrity with natural character. It is a natural gift, not supernatural (a habitus concreatus). This deviation raised serious problems of its own, for if the iustitia originalis was lost as a result of Adam’s transgression, the unavoidable consequence is that one must deny human beings now the imago Dei, which remained in Irenaeus’s distinction (along with free will; Trent, sess. 6, can. 5), even though the supernatural endowment had been lost.
The two positions are equally problematic, however, and as a result the renewal of the imago Dei (see 2 Cor. 3:18) was then expected from the justification and rebirth of the sinner. Justification, however, now came into unresolvable tension with the thesis of an original likeness. That is, the substance of the traditional doctrine of innocence is essentially surrendered if a new human being (→ New Self), Jesus Christ, had to arise in order that we humans might correspond to God, as is our destiny.
3. Modern Period

The modern age has brought revisions of the doctrine that amount almost to a new formulation. Viewing the Genesis story itself as legendary removed any foundation for the assumption of a historical condition of initial perfection. F. D. E. Schleiermacher (1768–1834; → Schleiermacher’s Theology) was the first to reject any temporally identifiable original state as an article of faith and to understand this tradition as a reference to the enduring and original perfection of nature that comes to fulfillment in a universal consciousness of God (and thus in ultimate perfection in Christ; The Christian Faith, §61.5).
The objection by S. Kierkegaard (1813–55) to the “fantastical” attempt to understand the figure of Adam as an exception to human history was no less influential. The turning point was his maxim—one adopted by P. Tillich (1886–1965), among others—that “that which explains Adam also explains the race and vice versa” (The Concept of Dread, 1.1; → Anxiety). Instead of searching for specific gifts possessed by some “first” human being, gifts that were subsequently lost, theologians focused on the inalienable measure whose actualization does indeed identify human beings as God’s creation, that is, on the question of human character or destiny as such (W. Pannenberg, with reference to J. G. Herder).
Instead of looking back at a historically inaccessible prepast, one should look forward to the promised → future, in which human nature will first “attain its full splendor” (Calvin Inst. 1.15.4). Only in this way can one overcome the objection to the idea of → evolution (addressed esp. by → process theology) and especially the tension with the doctrine of justification. In this light, the notion of an original condition emerges as our → hope, projected back into the past, for approximating the being and behavior of him who in his own character is our prototype (K. Barth, CD III/2). Understood in this way, the state of innocence is the critical standard revealing how we have failed in our own present task of shaping the world. Above all, however, it reminds us that human beings enter history not as lost sinners but under the auspices of the divine Yes (C. Gestrich).

Bibliography: K. BARTH, CD III/1 ∙ E. BRUNNER, Man in Revolt: A Christian Anthropology (London, 1939) ∙ J. COMBLIN, Retrieving the Human: A Christian Anthropology (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1990) ∙ C. GESTRICH, Die Wiederkehr des Glanzes in der Welt (Tübingen, 1989) ∙ M. P. HOGAN, The Biblical Vision of the Human Person: Implications for a Philosophical Anthropology (Frankfurt, 1994) ∙ S. KIERKEGAARD, The Concept of Dread (2d ed.; Princeton, 1957; orig. pub., 1844) ∙ H. D. MCDONALD, The Christian View of Man: Foundations for Faith (Westchester, Ill., 1988) ∙ B. L. MACK, Innocence and Power in the Christian Imagination (Claremont, Calif., 1989) ∙ R. NIEBUHR, The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation (2 vols.; Louisville, Ky., 1996; orig. pub., 1941–43) ∙ T. OTTEN, After Innocence: Visions of the Fall in Modern Literature (Pittsburgh, 1982) ∙ W. PANNENBERG, Anthropology in Theological Perspective (Philadelphia, 1985); idem, Systematic Theology (vol. 2; Grand Rapids, 1994) ∙ F. D. E. SCHLEIERMACHER, The Christian Faith (2 vols.; New York, 1963; orig. pub., 1821–22) ∙ U. SCHNELLE, The Human Condition: Anthropology in the Teachings of Jesus, Paul, and John (Edinburgh, 1995) ∙ P. TILLICH, Systematic Theology (vol. 1; Chicago, 1951) ∙ T. F. TORRANCE, Calvin’s Doctrine of Man (Edinburgh, 1948) ∙ O. WEBER, Foundations of Dogmatics (2 vols.; Grand Rapids, 1981–83; orig. pub., 1955).
CHRISTIAN LINK
Innocent III

Innocent III (1160/61–1216), whose baptized name was Lothario de’ Conti di Segni, was pope in the early 13th century. His pontificate represented the apex of the medieval papacy, as it attained unrivaled powers in church and state. Son of a noble family, the Scotti, Lothario was born in Anagni and was brought up and received his early education in → Rome. He later studied theology in Paris under Peter of Corbeil until 1187 and possibly → canon law in Bologna, although this latter phase of his education is less certain. His instruction in Paris was significant for him, and he always recalled it with a certain fondness.
By 1189 or 1190, when Lothario was barely 30, he was made a → cardinal and became active in the affairs of the pontificate of Celestine III. Within the next five years he wrote two works, one on contempt of the world (De contemptu mundi), and the other on the → Mass (De missarum mysteriis). Both works, though not representing original thinking, enjoyed great popularity during the Middle Ages.
On January 8, 1198, while not yet a priest and at the age of 37 years, Lothario was elected the successor of Celestine III. He received a majority on the first ballot at the conclave and the necessary two-thirds on the next vote. Upon his election Lothario took the name of Innocent III. From the outset of his pontificate Innocent displayed an exalted opinion of the papal office and a determination to strengthen, expand, and continue to define the “plenitude of power” of the church of Rome. He regularly began to employ for himself the title “vicar of Christ.”
At the collapse of German rule in Italy, the exceptional abilities of Innocent provided the papacy with a unique opportunity, and Innocent did not hesitate to seize the occasion. He insisted upon a role for the pope in the election process of any emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. His policies and actions were based both on the notion of the right of the papacy to interfere in secular matters in order to control the moral behavior of rulers, and on the concept of papal → feudal lordship.
Innocent actively involved himself in the politics of Europe whenever he felt the interests of the church were at stake. He removed German mercenaries from Sicily and elsewhere in Italy, and he established papal control in Campagna and Tuscany. Through a papal bull, Venerabilem (1203), Innocent insisted that the pope had the right and authority to examine the suitability of the person to be elected emperor. In 1214 Innocent supported successfully the French king Philip II Augustus against Emperor Otto IV at Bouvines. In a dispute over the selection of Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury, Innocent in March of 1213 secured the submission of King John of England, who acknowledged Innocent as his feudal lord. Innocent’s influence was felt in Scandinavia, Spain, the Balkans, and even Cyprus and Armenia. He did not confuse church and state, but he saw the exercise of his power as appropriate whenever there were problems among Christian rulers or quarrels requiring arbitration.
A major concern of Innocent was the recovery of the Holy Land. As early as 1198 he began to lay plans for the Fourth Crusade, which he planned to direct personally. This crusade did not get underway until 1202, however, and by that time Innocent had lost control of the venture to the doge of Venice. The crusade never reached the Holy Land but instead was diverted to Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern empire. The crusaders stormed the city, which fell on April 13, 1204. The fall of Constantinople was a disaster and, to the Greeks, an unforgettable insult. The Greek patriarch and Byzantine emperor were replaced by Latins.
Throughout his pontificate Innocent was concerned about → heresy. He promoted a series of preaching missions against the Albigenses and finally authorized a crusade against them. The pope also gave considerable support to the new orders of friars, both the → Franciscans and → Dominicans.
To encourage his goals of reform in the church and resistance to heresy, Innocent convened the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, which in many ways was the high point of his reign. The council condemned heresy, especially the Albigenses, formulated doctrine, encouraged the establishment of schools, required higher standards of conduct by the clergy, endeavored to regulate several political issues, and suspended Archbishop Langton from office. The implementation of this council’s decisions, however, was not to be Innocent’s. One year later, on July 16, 1216, he died. After his lengthy pontificate one can see in Innocent a major figure who succeeded in changing the Roman church and its relations with the world.
Throughout his active career Innocent was also a voluminous writer. Before becoming pope, he wrote the two works mentioned above, as well as De miseria humanae conditionis, on the misery of the human condition. Over 6,000 of his letters survive. His correspondence concerning the selection of an emperor after the death of Henry VI is contained in the Registrum super negotio Romani imperii.

Bibliography: Primary sources in English: C. R. CHENEY and W. H. SEMPLE, eds., Selected Letters of Pope Innocent III concerning England, 1198–1216 (Oxford, 1953) ∙ R. E. LEWIS, ed. and trans., De miseria humanae conditionis (Athens, Ga., 1978).
Secondary works: J. CLAYTON, Pope Innocent III and His Times (Milwaukee, Wis., 1941) ∙ E. DUFFY, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes (New Haven, 1997) 110–15 ∙ C. MORRIS, The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050–1250 (Oxford, 1989) esp. 417–51, 636–639 ∙ J. M. POWELL, ed., Innocent III: Vicar of Christ or Lord of the World? (2d ed.; Washington, D.C., 1994) ∙ J. E. SAYERS, Innocent III: Leader of Europe, 1198–1216 (London, 1994) ∙ H. TILLMAN, Pope Innocent III (Amsterdam, 1980).
WILLIAM G. RUSCH
Inquisition

1. Presuppositions
2. History
3. Process

The Inquisition (13th-19th cent.) was a process developed by the Latin church to detect and judge baptized heretics and their supporters so as to protect the divine world order and the eternal → salvation of believers. It was a typical manifestation of medieval church history (→ Middle Ages 2) and came under criticism in principle from → humanism, the → Reformation, and the → Enlightenment, which was later accepted by the → Roman Catholic Church itself. Efforts focused on → torture to secure “voluntary” confessions and on the death penalty (burning at the stake; → Punishment) for obstinate and relapsed heretics; the general assumption was that belief, once accepted, could be made compulsory.
1. Presuppositions

The remote presuppositions of the Inquisition lie in the → early church and the enforcing of church unity (→ Church 2), which resulted from the alliance with the → Roman Empire from the fourth century onward. Thus the later Augustine (354–430; → Augustine’s Theology) defended the compulsory conversion of the → Donatists, and Roman law threatened death for heretics, especially the → Manichaeans.
The more direct presuppositions lay in medieval developments. From the 11th century the Latin church centralized itself under hierarchical papal leadership (note esp. the Gregorian reforms and the Investiture Controversy). In the 12th and 13th centuries economic and social development, population shifts, and the growth of → cities formed a basis for popular → heresies. Revision of the law of the Holy Roman Empire came at the same time. Around 1200 the Roman church saw a moral threat to the divine world order and to the salvation of the members committed to its care.
Historically, one might view what took place as part of a crisis in adjustment. A church institution based on ancient foundations had to respond to a process of growth and differentiation in the High Middle Ages that was leading to the national and social pluralism of the later → Middle Ages and the → modern period. It saw a need to enforce uniformity of belief with new weapons. Its premises of thought could not allow any challenge to this uniformity, which was increasingly viewed in legal terms.
2. History

When heresies and divisive religious movements (esp. the → Cathari and → Waldenses) began to flourish in Upper Italy and southern France, the Roman church and Frederick I Barbarossa (1152–90) reacted at Verona in 1184 by ordering regular episcopal → visitations to spy out suspicious persons. This step was a departure from previous procedure, which allowed investigation only on accusation.
Since a → bishop was not able to carry out the order thoroughly, and since heresies continued to spread, Gregory IX (1227–41) decided in 1231 to entrust the execution of the order to the new mendicant orders, especially the → Dominicans and, soon after, the → Franciscans. After a disorderly start, which included attacks and spotty persecution that stirred up widespread resistance in France (e.g., against Robert le Bougre), Germany, and Italy (including the murders of papal inquisitors Conrad of Marburg and Peter Martyr of Verona), a more detailed judicial procedure was established. Bishops and inquisitors appointed by the orders now shared in the task, though not without friction.
The Inquisition was not a universal medieval institution but functioned only in areas that were under suspicion of heresy (southern and western Europe and, from the 13th and 14th cent., Germany and eastern Europe—but not, for example, Scandinavia; in England ordinary courts of church and state dealt with heretics from 1401 onward). Under a grand inquisitor appointed by the king, a centralized Inquisition came into Spain in 1487 and into Portugal in 1536 that spread to baptized → Jews (→ Anti-Semitism, Anti-Judaism) and later the Moors. The Portuguese Inquisition ended only in 1821, and the Spanish between 1808 and 1834. A special type of state and church Inquisition that controlled church work was set up in Venice in 1550.
Because of the threat of → Protestantism, which extended also to Italy, Paul III (1534–49) established a central authority in Rome in 1542, the Sacra Congregatio Universalis Inquisitionis, which was also put in charge of the Index of Forbidden Books drawn up in 1559 (→ Catholic Reform and Counterreformation; Censorship). When the classic Inquisition was abandoned, this authority received the new name “Congregation of the Holy Office” at the beginning of the 20th century, and then in 1965 it was again renamed as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The medieval inquisition was thus reduced to a matter of → church discipline, such as occurs also in premodern Protestantism.
In the Middle Ages those who were the targets of the Inquisition criticized it in terms of the → Sermon on the Mount, charging also that the Roman Catholic Church’s hands were stained with the blood of martyrs. Later, humanism, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment took up the attack. In 1518 M. Luther claimed that burning heretics is against the will of the Holy Spirit. The Roman Catholic Church accepted the criticism in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Evaluations in church history, however, suffer in some cases from apologetic bias. The universal claim of Christianity and the supposedly necessary uniformity of belief, which could hardly be achieved in practice, were both real problems for the Middle Ages. The Inquisition was thus a time-bound mistake in how it attempted to fulfill an intrinsically legitimate task. The questions that remain for our own century are what form church unity should take in keeping with the nature of Christianity and the present situation, and what appropriate and legitimate means we should adopt to achieve this unity.
3. Process

The classic Inquisition of the 13th to the 15th centuries opened with a “time of grace,” when those charged with heresy might give themselves up and escape punishment by recanting. Any confession of heresy, though, had to be done publicly, which was a momentous step, for any later (even external) association with heresy would then rank as relapse and be threatened with the most severe punishment. After the expiration of the grace period, those under suspicion were personally cited and forced to appear by secular officials or church laypeople (→ Clergy and Laity). Those who fled were tracked down by spies. The cooperation of the secular arm was essential, but it was often refused, even though such an action itself might involve suspicion of heresy.
The goal of the church-law trial—in which the judge was usually both prosecutor and sentencer, witnesses were heard in secret, and defense was difficult by modern standards for lack of lawyers willing to help the defendants—was always recantation and repentance (→ Penitence). Penances ranged from → pilgrimages (which had to be vouched for) to the feared carrying of a large yellow cross on the breast and back and finally to “perpetual” (usually multiyear) imprisonment on bread and water. Reductions might be granted later by the inquisitors.
The obstinate and apostate were handed over to the secular arm for execution (first generally ordered in 1231 but only gradually applied). Execution was by burning at the stake (which in Germanic law was reserved for witchcraft and poisoning; in Roman law it had been introduced against the Manichaeans). A few heretics were executed in the 11th and 12th centuries. Burning at the stake first became legal in Aragon in 1197. Frederick II (1215–50) ordered it in Lombardy in 1224; the papacy adopted it in 1231.
Recantation did not necessarily spare apostates (see Thomas Aquinas [ca. 1225–74]). Its genuineness might not be certain, and there was always the sense of having to forestall a renewed spread of heresy. Decisive for the intensification of punishments was a comparison with lèse-majesté, first used by Innocent III (1198–1216) in 1199. He initiated other penalties, such as the exclusion of even orthodox-believing children from inheritance (in addition to the original confiscation) and the destruction of homes. The same punishments were inflicted posthumously on heretics already dead.
Heresy must be put in its social context. As a deterrent, sentences were solemnly pronounced within the liturgy as “acts of faith” (or “auto-da-fé,” according to the Spanish term). At the same time, the church took pains to protect public penitents against social hostility. To force confessions Innocent IV (1243–54) in 1252 adopted tortures (the rack, the strappado, and singeing of the feet) from secular law and put secular officials in charge. The confessions exacted were valid only if later repeated without torture. In the 14th century, and especially the 15th, the procedure was extended to many other offenses (e.g., witchcraft as a relapse into idolatry; → Magic; Witchcraft). The persecution of witches increased in the 15th century and reached a peak in the 16th century. It took place in Protestant countries as well, where with the end of the Inquisition, as also in France, it was a matter for the secular courts.
In principle the Inquisition applied only to Christians. It was a church court that needed the secular arm when using force (→ Church and State), for the church itself technically shed no blood. The moral requirements for inquisitors were high. Inner contradictions arise at this point. They result from the fiction of the freedom of decision of faith and of the purely spiritual character of church measures in a uniformly Christian society, based on infant → baptism, in which governments should wield the secular sword under the direction of the spiritual authority, and both spiritual and secular courts demanded loyalty to a decision of faith once made. In fact this arrangement was merely the decision of the whole Christian society, in which illiterate individuals often never learned the doctrines or adopted them for themselves. Since this order was regarded as sacred and divinely established, there was no opposing it; the procedure of Inquisition seemed logical. Only with the demise of the presuppositions did (and could) it end.
→ Beguines; Empire and Papacy; Excommunication

Bibliography: A. ALCALÁ, ed., The Spanish Inquisition and the Inquisitorial Mind (Boulder, Colo., 1987) ∙ A. BRÜCK, “Hexen II,” RGG (3d ed.) 3.308–10 ∙ J. COHEN, The Friars and the Jews (Ithaca, N.Y., 1982) ∙ H. A. F. KAMEN, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (New Haven, 1998) ∙ H. C. LEA, A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (3 vols.; London, 1888) ∙ B. NETANYAHU, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth-Century Spain (New York, 1995) ∙ M. E. PERRY and A. J. CRUZ, eds., Cultural Encounters: The Impact of the Inquisition in Spain and the New World (Berkeley, Calif., 1991) ∙ K.-V. SELGE, Texte zur Inquisition (Gütersloh, 1967) ∙ E. VAN DER VEKENÉ, Bibliotheca bibliographica historiae sanctae inquisitionis (2 vols.; Vaduz, 1982–83).
KURT-VICTOR SELGE
Inspiration

1. Jewish and Early Christian Understanding
2. Early Church
3. Since the Middle Ages
4. Significance
1. Jewish and Early Christian Understanding

The belief that the Jewish and Christian Scriptures are “inspired” by God—that is, that their language and imagery are directly willed by God and committed to writing under his direction—is ancient and influential. Yet the notion of a text whose production is directed by God belongs more to the world of Hellenistic/Jewish culture than to the earlier strata of Israel’s traditions, in which → Torah and prophecy are indeed the direct speech of God to his people, but are so primarily in the context of the Israelite community’s liturgical and imaginative reflection on its own identity. Torah (esp. in Deuteronomy) has its place as a set of formulas recited in ceremonies of → covenant (§1) renewal; prophecy (ecstatic and shamanistic at first, more literary and controlled later) often arises in response to the unreality of such ceremonies against a general background of injustice and of refusal to hear in society at large. There is no suggestion that the formulas that “speak for” God can be seen in abstraction from their performance in the public life and ritual of Israel.
The legend of the divine inspiration of the LXX (→ Bible Versions) illustrates the shift to the view that the text, as a closed and determinate document, is the utterance of God. This understanding may be what is reflected in 2 Tim. 3:16 (where the word theopneustos, “breathed out by God,” recalls classical language about oracular dreams). Although the Christian communities were familiar both with ecstatic prophecy and with the authoritative teaching of the Lord through the ministry of the → apostles, they rapidly came to share the prevailing view of textual inspiration, particularly in reaction to the private “inspirations” of → Gnostic teachers and the ecstatic proclamations of → Montanist charismatics. In this context, the inspired text serves as a tangible and common bond in “catholic” Christian groups over against the arbitrary Schwärmerei of the sects (→ Canon 2).
2. Early Church

The early church at first used the image of the inspired author as an instrument (harp or flute) “played” by the Spirit. However, since the Montanists used such language and were thought to mean by it that the divine Spirit wholly suppressed the human personality, Catholic authors tended to prefer images of inspiration that allow a real place to the human mind (→ Reason). Even the idea of divine “dictation” (first in Irenaeus) was designed for this purpose. The ancient amanuensis was not a slavish copyist but often played an active role in giving final form to a composition. Such language underlies Theodore of Mopsuestia’s account of inspiration (late 4th cent.), in which the Spirit provides the inner structure of ideas and understanding, and the human author determines the detail of the final expression.
Earlier, Origen (ca. 185–ca. 254) had seen scriptural inspiration as a supreme case of human understanding raised to its full power as logikos (i.e., perfectly attuned to the eternal Logos). Origen saw Scripture as inspired throughout but did not see this quality as involving the inerrancy of the literal meaning of the text. Nor did he think that all Scripture is equally transparent to God. The → gospel is the heart of Scripture and controls the interpretation of other parts (like the epistles of → Paul), in which authors speak, not directly in the person of the Logos, but in their own → authority as holy men.
Augustine (354–430) qualifies the imagery of dictation, preferring suggestio, which allows him a certain latitude in regard to the literal sense of the text. No text can be held to provide, at the surface level, information about doctrine or practice independently of the doctrine and practice of the Catholic Church—an important point in the → Donatist controversy, where Augustine had to combat an exegesis both superficially literalist and arbitrarily fanciful (→ Augustine’s Theology).
3. Since the Middle Ages
3.1. High → Scholasticism challenged some features of traditional exegesis by stressing the primacy of the literal sense, thus laying the foundations for a strong doctrine of verbal inspiration in the later Middle Ages. In Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–74) the primacy of the literal has to do with God’s ability to speak first in the events underlying Scripture, not simply in the words of an isolated text. If God speaks through narrative, it is because he first speaks in the life of persons and communities (→ Thomism).
3.2. Outside this context, the doctrine of verbal inspiration changes its character noticeably. In the post-Reformation period we encounter the unprecedentedly rigorous doctrine of the inspiration of every detail of the original text, including vowel points in the Hebrew (e.g., the 1675 Swiss Formula of Consensus).
M. Luther (1483–1546) himself seems less consistent. All of Scripture—“every syllable”—is inspired, yet parts of it (the Books of Revelation, Second Peter, and, most famously, James, the “epistle of straw”) are of little or limited Christian use. Essentially, though, he was consistent in seeing Scripture in its wholeness as inspired, which also allows him to affirm that there are principles internal to Scripture (above all the doctrine of → justification) that enable us to see other portions in right perspective (→ Luther’s Theology). Scripture is given to lead us to unconditional dependence on divine → grace. The text is not, so to speak, a flat and uniform surface but a landscape.
So too with J. Calvin (1509–64), who speaks of the writers of Scripture as amanuenses of the Holy Spirit but does not assume that each portion of it is equally authoritative. The unifying pattern of true interpretation comes from the testimony of the Spirit in the believer’s heart (→ Calvin’s Theology).
3.3. Reaction to the Council of → Trent’s emphasis on Scriptural authority within the context of the church’s authoritative → tradition of interpretation helped to strengthen the Protestant doctrine of Scripture as its own interpreter and, ultimately, the more extreme doctrines of verbal inspiration common in the 17th century. The alliance of this view with a thoroughgoing rationalist philosophy pervaded a good deal of Continental orthodox theology (→ Orthodoxy 1–2) in the century following and reappeared in 19th-century America. There, under the influence of Scottish “common sense” philosophy (→ Empiricism), the Princeton school defended verbal inspiration against the questionings of incipient biblical criticism, assuming the identity of inspiration and factual inerrancy. B. B. Warfield (1851–1921) provided the fullest statement of this view in the last decades of the century, establishing the intellectual basis for modern → fundamentalism.
Alternatives to this approach appeared in the theories of “real inspiration,” developed by Richard Rothe and others in the 19th century, and “personal inspiration,” particularly in F. D. E. Schleiermacher (1768–1834), also, in rather different form, in W. Sanday in England at the beginning of the 19th century. For Rothe, Scripture is bound up with the revealing acts of God in the consciousness of the author. The focus is not the words written but the psychology of the writer, who for a fleeting moment has true insight into God’s work in history. → Revelation lies in this union of the subjectivity of the author and the objectivity of history, not in the words of the Bible. For Schleiermacher, inspiration must be a category that is used only of the human person. Scriptural inspiration means that the person and consciousness of an author, representing the “common spirit” of the community, become normative witnesses to it. It thus lies prior to the text and outside it.
3.4. Reaction in the 20th century against subjectivism led to heavy criticism of “personal inspiration.” For K. Barth (1886–1968), God’s utterance is not to be tied either to the state of a human consciousness or to a written text; it occurs where there is → obedience and self-yielding. Scripture is Holy Scripture because and insofar as it witnesses to God’s incarnate Word in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit speaks in and through it, so that faith hears and obeys God himself speaking, triumphing over human self-sufficiency and establishing himself as the ground of our speaking and our knowing (→ Dialectical Theology). Hence Scripture cannot properly be treated as an oracle in itself. It is a model of obedient speech, summoning us to the same obedience. In this transparency to God’s summons, its authority is God’s authority, not its own impeccability.
Roman Catholic theology in the 19th century (esp. J. H. Newman, influenced by the 17th–cent. H. Holden) considered the notion of grades of inspiration, which was compatible with some human error. Such views were condemned in the antimodernist encyclicals of Pius X (1903–14) but have been retrieved and partially vindicated since → Vatican II. A reaction against propositional doctrines of revelation has led to greater stress on the work of the → Holy Spirit in the whole experience of the believing community (K. Rahner, G. Moran). This focus has also been part of the → consensus emerging in the discussions of the → Faith and Order consultations on scriptural authority (→ World Council of Churches). The Word is really heard as such only in the community of the Spirit. It is “Word” not in virtue of its inerrancy or “inspirational” character for individuals but because it recalls the church to the confrontation with God’s summons in Jesus that is its origin and center. It is “Word” because it is part of the Spirit’s work of forming Christ in the community by bringing to mind (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:13–15) the work of Christ (→ Congregation).
Eastern → Orthodoxy (§3) has not developed many theories of inspiration since the patristic age. When it discusses the theme, it relates the inspiration of Scripture very closely to the Holy Spirit’s work in the church. A. S. Khomiakov (1804–60) insists that Scripture is a Spirit-inspired Word of the → church to its children. G. V. Florovsky argues that because the Bible is a book of the → covenant and because a covenant implies a covenant community, the Bible is read aright only where the history of the encounter between God and humanity continues—that is, in the sacramental assembly, in which the union of God and humanity is celebrated without disruption (→ Liturgy 2; Worship 3). The language of Scripture is a paradigm of the undisrupted union of divine initiative and human response.
4. Significance

Inspiration has thus increasingly been seen in relation to the Bible’s role in the worshiping church. As in the OT, God’s Word is heard when the people of God “narrate,” in word and act, the story of God’s commitment of himself to his creation in the making of a covenant for the church, the new covenant in Jesus Christ, constantly activated by the Spirit. In this light, room can be made for biblical criticism, and its frequent agnosticism about historical accuracy in the text, without denying that Scripture, in its overall pointing away from itself to God, is indeed a “Word from elsewhere.”
→ Biblicism; Exegesis, Biblical; Hermeneutics; Legitimation; Scriptural Proof; Word of God

Bibliography: J. BARR, The Bible in the Modern World (London, 1973) ∙ K. BARTH, CD I/2, §19 ∙ P. BENOIT, Aspects of Biblical Inspiration (Chicago, 1965) ∙ D. G. BLOESCH, Holy Scripture: Revelation, Inspiration, and Interpretation (Carlisle, Cumbria, 1994) ∙ J. T. BURCHAELL, Catholic Theories of Biblical Inspiration since 1810 (Cambridge, 1969) ∙ The Cambridge History of the Bible (3 vols.; Cambridge, 1963–70) ∙ E. FLESSEMAN-VAN LEER, The Bible: Its Authority and Interpretation in the Ecumenical Movement (Geneva, 1980) ∙ G. V. FLOROVSKY, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View (Belmont, Mass., 1972) ∙ T. E. FRETHEIM and K. FROEHLICH, The Bible as Word of God: In a Postmodern Age (Minneapolis, 1998) ∙ A. R. HUNT, The Inspired Body: Paul, the Corinthians, and Divine Inspiration (Macon, Ga., 1996) ∙ G. MORAN, Scripture and Tradition (New York, 1963) ∙ K. RAHNER, “Über die Schriftinspiration,” ZKT 78 (1956) 137–68 ∙ W. M. SCHNIEDERWIND, The Word of God in Transition: The Second Temple Period (Sheffield, 1995) ∙ K. R. TRENBATH, Evangelical Theories of Inspiration: A Review and Proposal (New York, 1987) ∙ B. B. WARFIELD, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (London, 1951) ∙ O. WEBER, Foundations of Dogmatics (vol. 1; Grand Rapids, 1981; orig. pub., 1955) ∙ O. WEBER and W. PHILIPP, “Inspiration,” RGG (3d ed.) 3.773–82.
ROWAN D. WILLIAMS
Institution

1. Meaning
2. Nontheological Usage
3. Theological Usage
1. Meaning
1.1. The term “institution” derives etymologically from the Latin group instituo/institutio, which originally had the broad sense of making or establishing or of its result (i.e., what is made or established). The term first took on a precise sense in Roman law, from which it passed into Latin → church law and then into the → apologetics and → dogmatics of the Western tradition. Here it mainly denotes an act of divine foundation or its effects, though it occasionally also has the sense of instruction (in the Christian life).
In common use today the word denotes what modern → sociology calls → organizations—that is, the large constructs that increasingly mark social life, including school, military, → state, justice system, church, business corporations, insurance companies, and so forth. Academically, it is so ambivalent that there is serious doubt as to its value. Yet it is gradually establishing itself as a basic concept in social science, and also recently it has been making its way into politics and social psychology. Its ambivalence is due in part to its use in various disciplines but also to its dependence on the various approaches within each discipline. One particular sociological semantic variation might function as a kind of common denominator. On this view, the concept of institution refers to generally inculcated patterns of behavior and relationships that in their own turn are characterized by longevity and by an often relatively diffuse matrix of validating acts, including various customs and traditions.
1.2. Connected to the concept are many sociophilosophical and sociopolitical problems that in part are highly abstract but still have great practical consequences. These matters are related both to the peculiar nature of the social phenomenon in question and to the context of the discussion. Theoretically, the various approaches rest on different definitions of the relation between the → individual and → society, → subjectivity and objectivity, the general and the particular, → freedom and commitment, or, more generally, → nature and → culture. At issue are principial anthropological ideas, personal experiences, and concrete political goals. Differences here make objective agreement difficult.
The polarizing impact of an attractive term like “institution” undoubtedly finds an important basis in the growing dependence of individuals on institutions like church and state that seem to be both characteristic of modern societies and unavoidable in them (→ Bureaucracy). An anti-institutional result is noticeable in many places. This reaction is occasionally connected with older spiritualist and → anarchist motifs, and in the churches it often expresses itself in a basic repudiation of the “official church,” whose enduring, suprapersonal, and obligatory qualities are seen very negatively as immobility, → anonymity, and coercion. This tension explains the rise of opposing movements in both church and state that aim and claim to suppress, or at least restrict, the formation of institutions in both personal and impersonal relationships.
2. Nontheological Usage
2.1. As a technical term in law, “institution” goes back to the Corpus iuris civilis, which the Roman emperor Justinian published in 533 as a binding basis for practical jurisprudence and the training of attorneys. The first book of the code is entitled Institutiones and contains a distinctive mixture of general and theoretical considerations and concrete legal principles on matters of private or civil law (e.g., family issues and civil offenses; → Jurisprudence).
Against this background European law that was oriented to Roman law developed in the 19th century a concept of the law of institutions covering the rules and → norms in a legal relationship (e.g., → marriage or → property ownership). As regards the founding of such institutions, from the standpoint of social theory recourse was often had to the contract doctrine of J.-J. Rousseau (1712–78), and stress was laid on the primacy of the will in the rise of institutions. In contrast, the so-called institutional view of law saw in institutions social constructs that are an organic product of the life and spirit of a people, that gradually come to expression in a general legal consciousness, and that are then translated into positive law and legal pronouncements. The idea of law that is immanent in institutions supposedly acts as a creative norm and inspiration in legal development.
The French jurist and sociologist M. Hauriou (1856–1929) similarly viewed the institution as an objective entity that does not derive from individual subjective decisions, that does not necessarily arise out of a legal norm, and that does not have itself a legal character, but one that still must take legal form and that thus always develops in specific legal relations. He distinguished between objective institutions (institutions-choses) and corporate or personal institutions (institutions-corps). Analyzing the latter, Hauriou found that an essential element in them was a “work idea” (l’idée de l’œvre) or a governing idea (l’idée directrice), which a group accepts collectively as the basic inspiration for its activities and which it must declare to be its organizing principle if it is to achieve social reality and legal permanence.
Common to both the above positions is criticism of will and contract theories and also of mechanistic explanations in social theory that intentionally or in fact bring it close to neo-Thomist ideas of → natural law or a theology of orders.
2.2. The English scholar H. Spencer (1820–1903) was a pioneer, and in spite of many later modifications, he provided a model for an approach along the lines of cultural anthropology and sociology. He viewed all societies as natural → organisms and saw institutions as their organs. Like organs, institutions differ in form and function, and as in a biological organism, growth demands of society an increasing differentiation of organs (i.e., institutions) and their functions, but also their integration into a harmonious common process. Here already the way was prepared for the lively modern debate regarding the relation of the institution to social change.
For B. Malinowski (1884–1942) institutions as a nexus of successful adjustments of individuals or → groups serve to satisfy vital biological and culturally mediated needs. In so doing, they may have several functions. Considering a hierarchy of needs, Malinowski saw the development of institutions, through a self-induced dynamic, as meeting secondary needs.
In the institution theory of A. Gehlen (1904–76), human beings are biologically defective. Lacking animal instincts, they must be open to the world but, at the same time, must forge substitutes (→ Anthropology 5). Institutions as cultural creations are a kind of second nature and they take over the task of stabilizing and orienting human relations, which must be relieved of the constant need to master new situations. Institutions are thus absolutely essential to our “humanizing” as natural creatures, and in the context of our wrestling with nature, they form autonomous sediments of rational → behavior quite apart from any individual goals.
2.3. Functional analysis, pioneered by Spencer, became the dominant methodology in the modern sociology of T. Parsons (1902–79). Parsons combined the perspectives of clinical psychology and social anthropology with the problem of social order—that is, the constitution of society in general. He noted that every social → system must meet four functional prerequisites in its environment if it is to survive: appropriateness, attainment of goals, integration, and structural stability. Since individuals and social systems constitute each other’s environment and thus are functionally dependent, harmony between (1) individual needs and interests and (2) social demands must be established by mechanisms of institutionalizing or role formation (the problem of order).
Parsons found the vital significance of institutionalizing and institutions in their ensuring of social → consensus and conformity and coordination of behavior. N. Luhmann, however, with his theory of systems found the core of the process in the binding adoption of what is in part a fiction. Since we can never establish consent or presuppose interaction with all other persons, we must accept it as given, and temporally, materially, and socially we generalize this acceptance. On this view institutions rest primarily on trust, which minimizes uncertainty.
P. Berger and T. Luckmann adopt an interactionist approach, which views the process of institutionalizing as a reciprocal stereotyping of people’s habitualized actions. As a process of objectivation (i.e., of objectifying the results of human creativity), this stereotyping mediates between externalizing and internalizing, so that individuals and society coexist.
3. Theological Usage
3.1. The theological struggle for an appropriate doctrine of institutions has focused with shifting emphases on three problems: the correct understanding of social institutions, the church as institution, and institutions in the church. Along with philosophical influences, the way in which the relation between the order of creation and that of redemption is defined has traditionally played a decisive role. Thus institutions may be viewed either as in principle an expression of our social nature by creation or as divinely willed emergency orders that exist only in virtue of the corruption of human nature.
Confessionally influenced controversies of this kind affect ecclesiology and sacramental theology (→ Sacrament), but especially they affect dogmatic views regarding the correct form of the church and its life, which, as may be seen in the debate about → early Catholicism and the history of → Reformation research, influence the evaluation of historical processes. Ecclesiological conceptions that invalidate institutions as such can describe the process of institutionalizing the Christian religion only as a decline, while a high dogmatic estimation of institutions leads from the outset to skepticism in principle regarding spiritualizing and individualizing tendencies. Within Protestant theology, such an estimation leads to the revival of R. Sohm’s antithesis of the church of law and the church of love in millenarian ideas that nondialectically oppose event and institution, → charisma and office, the basic church and the official church.
Criticism of such positions has three bases. In traditional apologetics it rests on the historical proof of the formal founding of the church by Jesus Christ. In the theology of law it rests on a reference to the legal nature of the divinely instituted fundamental institutions of the old and new → covenants. Finally, in → fundamental theology it rests on a sociological reference to the impossibility of understanding the church theologically and empirically as a unique construct that lies totally outside the ordinary institutionalizing of human existence.
3.2. In → ecumenical theology the problem of institutions involves their controversial character and the insight that church disunity is institutionalized by the formation of separate bodies and the favoring of institutionalizing by other institutions (the state, social groups, etc.). Along these lines the Second World Conference on Faith and Order, at Edinburgh in 1937, listed institutionalism as one of the nontheological factors in disunity. The third conference, at Lund in 1952, then tried to analyze its actual impact on the basis of a document on the significance for division of social and cultural factors. The resulting commission published a report in 1961 that, based on comprehensive studies, was presented at the fourth conference (Montreal, 1963) under the title Institutionalism and Church Unity (N. Ehrenstrom and W. G. Muelder). In the course of discussion its predominantly negative orientation was corrected by stress on the part that social factors play in promoting ecumenism and by serious recognition that, in analogy to church division, ecumenical relations also need institutionalizing. Since then the view has frequently been advanced that institutionalizing and “ecclesiasticizing” in reality bring a regrettable stagnation to the → ecumenical movement.
→ Base Community; Charismatic Movement; Church 4; Church Government; Democracy; Free Church; Functionalism; Hierarchy; House Church; People’s Church (Volkskirche); Social Movements; Sociology of Religion; Spirituality

Bibliography: H. U. VON BALTHASAR, Pneuma and Institution (Einsiedeln, 1974) ∙ G. BAUM and A. M. GREELEY, The Church as an Institution (New York, 1974) ∙ P. BERGER and T. LUCKMANN, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Garden City, N.Y., 1966) ∙ J. F. DRANE, Authority and Institution: A Study in Church Crisis (Milwaukee, Wis., 1969) ∙ N. EHRENSTROM and W. G. MUELDER, eds., Institutionalism and Church Unity: A Symposium (New York, 1963) ∙ A. GEHLEN, Urmensch und Spätkultur. Philosophische Aussagen und Ergebnisse (2d ed.; Bonn, 1964) ∙ M. HAURIOU, Die Theorie der Institution und der Gründung (Berlin, 1965; orig. pub., 1925) ∙ N. LUHMANN, “Institutionalisierung. Funktion und Mechanismus im sozialen System,” Zur Theorie der Institution (ed. H. Schelsky; Düsseldorf, 1970) 28–41; idem, Vertrauen. Ein Mechanismus zur Reduktion von Komplexität (2d ed.; Stuttgart, 1973) ∙ D. O. MOBERG, The Church as a Social Institution: The Sociology of American Religion (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1962) ∙ T. PARSONS, The Social System (New York, 1964) ∙ J. A. SCHÜLEIN, Theorie der Institution. Eine dogmengeschichtliche und konzeptionelle Analyse (Opladen, 1987) ∙ G. STRAUSS, Enacting the Reformation in Germany: Essays on Institution and Reception (Brookfield, Vt., 1993).
HEINZ-GÜNTHER STOBBE
Intercommunion → Eucharist 5
Interest → Usury
International Association for Religious Freedom

The International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF) is a “world community of religions,” an → oikoumene of world religions, and a world association of religiously liberal individuals and groups. It was founded in Boston in 1900 by American → Unitarians. In 1999 it had member groups in 30 countries, with chapters in Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, India, Japan, Netherlands, Philippines, and the United States. Overall, it had 10 million members. Represented in it are “free Christians,” → free religionists, religious humanists, Unitarians and Universalists, and liberal movements in → Buddhism, → Shinto, → Hinduism, and → Islam. Included are Unitarian churches from Romania and Hungary. The largest group is the lay Buddhist organization Rissho Kosei-kai from Japan, with about two million members. The Japanese Shinto group Tsubaki Grand Shrine also belongs, as does the Shinto group Misogi-Kyo. A member in India is the Hindu reform movement Sadharan Brahmo Samaj. In Germany free religious groups, Unitarians, and free Christians all belong, though their combined numbers amount to only 10,000 members. In the United States the Unitarian Universalist Association is a member, as is the International Association of Liberal Religious Fellowship, a liberal religious youth organization set up in 1923 as the Leyden International Bureau.
The IARF accepts both individual and group membership. At its head is a president, who is elected at a congress from the International Council of Ministers, the governing body of the IARF. The main activity is the congress, which is held every three years (most recently, in India in 1993, Korea in 1996, and Canada in 1999). Regional conferences are held annually in North America, Europe, and Asia. IARF is accredited as a nongovernmental organization by the → United Nations, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and UNESCO, and it shares in the work of the United Nations through a permanent representative in New York. In 1974 the seat of its general secretariat moved from The Hague to Frankfurt.
The IARF, which has no direct control over its member groups, rejects the idea of a super- or metadogmatics. Its program does not include the creation of a religious synthesis that might serve as a common denominator for all the member organizations. It sees itself, rather, as embodying a practical philosophy of → pluralism and → freedom with the aim of deepening internationally the sense of the importance of spiritual and religious values. Specifically, it seeks to give religious force to international movements for → peace, social justice, and human → rights, along with a sense of ecological responsibility (→ Ecology; Environment).

Bibliography: IARF publications: IARF Member Group Profiles (Frankfurt, 1985) ∙ IARF News ∙ Introduction to Our Association: Its Purposes, History, Programs, and Vision (Frankfurt, 1985).
Other works: F. HEYER and V. PFITZER, eds., Religion ohne Kirche (Stuttgart, 1977) ∙ H. MYNAREK, Religiös ohne Gott? Neue Religiosität der Gegenwart in Selbstzeugnissen (Düsseldorf, 1983) ∙ J. NEWMAN, On Religious Freedom (Ottawa, 1991) ∙ H. RELLER, ed., HRGem.
HUBERTUS MYNAREK
International Church Conferences → Ecumenical Movement
International Council of Christian Churches

The International Council of Christian Churches (ICCC) regards itself as a worldwide movement of → fundamentalism. Its founder and president, Carl McIntyre (b. 1906), belongs to the fundamentalist wing of the Presbyterian church (→ Reformed and Presbyterian Churches). Soon after taking a pastorate in Collingswood, New Jersey, he founded the Bible Presbyterian Church. To counter the → Social Gospel and the → liberal theology of the Federal Council of Churches, he founded the American Council of Christian Churches (ACCC) in 1940. Then, with antiecumenical objectives, the ICCC set up headquarters in Amsterdam and held its first assembly there in 1948, a few days before the founding of the → World Council of Churches (WCC) in the same city.
The ICCC, which was violently anti-Communist, accused the ecumenical movement in general of being servants of Communism. It publicly denounced church leaders from Communist countries who participated in ecumenical meetings. With the demise of Communism, the relevance of the ICCC has decreased. In 1998 it reported comprising 700 denominations from over 100 countries, many of these groups being the result of splits and divisions caused by the ICCC.
The doctrinal basis of the ICCC is the → Apostles’ Creed and a statement stressing the divine → inspiration and → infallibility of the Bible, the → Trinity, the deity and sinless humanity of Jesus, the → virgin birth, the substitutionary death and passion of Jesus, his bodily → resurrection and return, total corruption through the fall, → salvation by → grace alone through → faith and → regeneration, the eternal bliss of the saved and eternal torment of the lost, the spiritual unity of the saved, and church purity in life and doctrine according to the → Word of God. Historically the ICCC combines Reformed → orthodoxy with premillennialism, Darby-type → dispensationalism, and “fighting fundamentalism.” Against the WCC and its search for → unity (→ Ecumenical Theology), which it views as signs of apostasy and preparation for a world church, its weapons are separation, → apologetics, and → mission.
The ICCC is to be distinguished from the → evangelical movement, which does not find a solid basis for association in the negative motifs of criticism and rejection of the → ecumenical movement. The ICCC charges evangelicals with a readiness for compromise.
The organ of the ICCC is the Reformation Review. There is also the weekly Christian Beacon, which McIntyre founded. Regional and global conferences, often openly parallel to ecumenical gatherings, keep it in public view. The 16th World Congress is scheduled to take place in Jerusalem in November 2000.

Bibliography: G. K. CLABAUGH, “Carl McIntire’s Twentieth Century Reformation,” Thunder on the Right: The Protestant Fundamentalists (Chicago, 1974) 69–97 ∙ G. W. DOLLAR, A History of Fundamentalism in America (Greenville, S.C., 1973) ∙ “International Council of Christian Churches (ICCC),” EAR (6th ed.) no. 13 ∙ E. JORSTAD, The Politics of Doomsday: Fundamentalists of the Far Right (Nashville, 1970) ∙ J. REICH, Twentieth Century Reformation (Marburg, 1969) ∙ B. SHELLEY, Evangelicalism in America (Grand Rapids, 1967).
LUDWIG ROTT
International Council of Christians and Jews

Starting in the 1920s in Great Britain and the United States, and then especially after World War II, organizations were set up in various countries for promoting cooperation and mutual understanding between Christians and Jews. Gradually, international coordination between these organizations was sought. After almost three decades of looser organizational structures, the International Council of Christians and Jews (ICCJ) in its present form was established in 1974. In 1979 the former home of Martin Buber (1878–1965) in Heppenheim became its headquarters, so that the international coordination of joint Christian and Jewish work is now directed from Germany, the center of the atrocities against Jews under National Socialism.
The aim of the ICCJ is to promote mutual respect and cooperation between Christians and Jews, to give them a clearer insight into their distinctive historical and religious relations, to combat discrimination and prejudice in their dealings with one another and with others, and to give force to the religious and moral principles that underlie their traditions in the relations of religions, peoples, and states. Through annual colloquia in different countries the ICCJ promotes an exchange of experiences and insights among its member organizations and beyond. Special emphasis is laid, on the one hand, on the presentation of → Judaism and the Jewish people in non-Jewish instruction (i.e., in religious education and the teaching of history) and, on the other, on the presentation of Christianity in Jewish instruction. As distinct from Christian and church groups that deal with Judaism and → Jewish-Christian dialogue, in the ICCJ Jews and Christians work as equal partners.
The ICCJ unites people and groups from very different backgrounds, including North America, where there is a strong Jewish community; Latin America, with long-established Jewish communities; western, central, and eastern Europe, where relations between Jews and Christians still bear the marks of the → Holocaust and of the impact of Communist rule; and → Israel (§§2–3), with its specific relevance to the three Abrahamic faith communities. To bring together these different experiences, and in this way to deepen Jewish-Christian dialogue, has throughout been the declared aim of the ICCJ.
At present, the ICCJ has member organizations in 29 countries. In view of more recent developments relating to the growth of Islam, the council in 1995 formally decided to develop a trilateral dialogue involving also Muslims. To this end it created the Abrahamic Forum Council, which held its first conference in Berlin in October 1999.
→ Anti-Semitism, Anti-Judaism

Bibliography: M. BRAYBROOKE, Children of One God: A History of the Council of Christians and Jews (London, 1991) ∙ ICCJ News ∙ INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHRISTIANS AND JEWS, “Guidelines on the Portrayal of Jews and Judaism in Education and in Teaching Materials,” JES 21 (1984) 523–30 ∙ J. SCHONEVELD, “De ‘International Council of Christians and Jews’-een overzicht,” Ter Herkenning-Tijdschrift voor Christen en Juden 15/2 (1987) 109–19 ∙ W. W. SIMPSON and R. WEYL, The Story of the International Council of Christians and Jews (Heppenheim, 1995).
FRIEDHELM PIEPER
International Council of Community Churches

The International Council of Community Churches (ICCC) is a national organization of independent churches in the United States. It works particularly to foster a sense of Christian loyalty to a church’s own community, instead of primary loyalty going to a denomination or other organization outside that community. Its fourfold stated vision is to “affirm individual freedom of conscience; protect and promote church self-determination; proclaim that the love of God, which unites, can overcome any division; and be an integral partner in the worldwide ecumenical movement.” The ICCC insists on the absolute → autonomy of the local → congregation and rejects any supracongregational structure with doctrinal or teaching authority.
The council was formed in 1950 through a merger of the International Council of Community Churches (founded 1946), dominated by largely white congregations, and the Biennial Council of Community Churches, formed in the 1930s out of largely black congregations. In 1994 it encompassed 250,000 members in 398 churches. Within its wider sphere the ICCC serves over 1,500 Community Churches in all 50 U.S. states plus several nations.
The council stands in direct contact with each individual congregation, whose membership is renewed annually. The member churches send delegates to the annual conference, which chooses a Board of Trustees for overseeing the council’s ongoing business and appoints an executive director who oversees the work in the various council commissions (Ecumenical Relations, Men’s Work, Missions, Rural Church Work, Study Commission, Women’s Christian Fellowship, Youth Work).
The tasks and authority of the council are strictly limited by the principle of congregational autonomy. Its task is first to advise congregations, to supply them with informational materials, and to encourage them to participate in ecumenical, missionary (→ Mission), social, and political activities. In so doing, the council does not conduct any programs of its own but simply recommends participation in local and regional interconfessional activities or actions of other confessions. Commensurate with the council’s own origin, particular importance attaches to activities aimed at overcoming racial barriers (→ Racism); other important concerns include disarmament (→ Peace; Disarmament and Armament) and the problem of → poverty.
Second, the council offers aid and advice for congregations that have become independent from larger confessional bodies. Third, through its executive director the council represents its member congregations in the → National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (→ National Councils of Churches), as well as in the → World Council of Churches. In both organizations, the council is a member with an advisory vote.
The council’s annual full assemblies provide mutual counseling and support, discussion of substantive questions (esp. ecumenical concerns; → Ecumenism, Ecumenical Movement), and the continuing education of pastors and laity.

Bibliography: A. J. VAN DER BENT, ed., Handbook, Member Churches: World Council of Churches (rev. ed.; Geneva, 1985) 222–23 ∙ Christian Community (monthly) ∙ F. S. MEAD and S. S. HILL, Handbook of Denominations in the United States (10th ed.; Nashville, 1995) 122–23 ∙ Pastor’s Journal (quarterly) ∙ J. R. SHOTWELL, Unity without Uniformity (Homewood, Ill., 1984).
NOTGER SLENCZKA
International Ecumenical Fellowship

The International Ecumenical Fellowship (IEF) is an association with the religious and educational aim of “seeking to hear the Word of God, to do the will of God, to help the people of God to be perfectly one in God, breaking the bread of God to the glory of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Historically, the beginnings of this movement may be traced to the Anglo-Roman Unity Campaign, which was started in 1889 by Viscount Halifax and Père Étienne Fernand Portal and which reached a remarkable high point in the “Malines Conversations” (1921–26) through Cardinal D.-J. Mercier, who wrote in his ecumenical “Testament”: “In order to unite with one another, we must love one another; in order to love one another, we must know one another; in order to know one another, we must go and meet one another.”
Other important roots of the IEF can be found in the High Church movements in the European churches of the Reformation, the → Faith and Order movement, the Hochkirchliche Bewegung, the Evangelische Michaelsbruderschaft, the Hilversum Convent of the Dutch Reformed Church, and the → Old Catholic Church in Germany. All these mostly clerical circles consisted of non-Roman Catholics who saw the heartbeat of → ecumenism in the catholicity of the church as a worshiping body (→ Catholic, Catholicity).
In the 1950s these groups organized themselves—outside the → World Council of Churches and outside the → Roman Catholic Church—in the International League of Apostolic Faith and Order (ILAFO). When, after the ecumenism of → Vatican II, Roman Catholics could and would no longer be excluded, the ILAFO became too narrow for many. At their meeting in Fribourg in 1967, they decided to open their ranks to theologically educated and charismatically motivated laypeople (→ Charismatic Movement) from all mainline churches and formally organized themselves into a new body, called the IEF. They established an Executive Committee consisting of 11 members (4 → clergy and 7 lay, of whom 4 were women) representing Anglican, Lutheran, Orthodox, Reformed, and Roman Catholic traditions in Great Britain, Holland, and North America (→ Anglican Communion; Lutheranism; Orthodox Church; Reformed and Presbyterian Churches). Their inaugural conference took place in Gwatt, Switzerland, where the IEF presented itself as a fellowship of Christians from different nations daily worshiping together with members of other churches, thus taking over the principle of daily shared → Eucharist as developed by the ILAFO at Lund in 1952.
In 1999 the IEF could be described as a body of ecumenically spirited Christians from all mainline churches in the North Atlantic area that—for at least one week each year—tries to “live today as the church of tomorrow.” It is organized, independently of any church body, through a council based in Brussels as a representative body of 11 national regions, of which 2 in southeastern Europe are in the process of formation. Besides regional activities, the council holds an International Conference annually, with an attendance of about 300 members, who assemble for one week, mostly in a traditional pilgrimage center such as Canterbury or Vierzehnheiligen, in order to discuss, study and pray together, and especially to celebrate the Eucharist daily according to the different orders of the churches represented through their members.
→ Ecumenism, Ecumenical Movement; Liturgical Movements; Spirituality

Bibliography: J. BURLEY, “How IEF Began,” Newsletter of British Region of IEF (January 1993) ∙ G. CURTIS, The Malines Conversations, 1921–1926 (London, 1976) ∙ F. GLENDON-HILL, “Worshipping Witness-the IEF,” JES 15 (1978) 395–96 ∙ W. VON LUPIN, “Im Dienste der Einheit aller Christen. Die Internationale Ökumenische Gemeinschaft (IEF),” MDÖC no. 20 (December 1982).
ERNST L. SCHNELLBÄCHER
International Evangelical Church

The International Evangelical Church (IEC), originally called the International Evangelical Church and Missionary Association, was founded in 1959 by John McTernan in order to meet the needs of a missionary ministry in Italy. It was legally recognized in the United States in 1965. In addition to Italy, expansion of the church has extended largely to Brazil and Nigeria. The Nigerian constituency is now the largest regional group. In 1985 the IEC had 168,000 members in 459 congregations.
Holy Scripture is the basis of its church work, the only rule of faith, doctrine, and practice. It values the historic → confessions, but the → Word of God is above every interpretation of the faith (→ Biblicism). Behind its propagation stands the biblical conviction that all true believers are members of the one body of Christ. It views individual → conversion (§1) as very important. Along with → evangelism (esp. through the → mass media), → edification by → pastoral care and → diakonia are important goals. The emphasis varies with each region—for example, education and literacy programs are more prominent in Nigeria, social projects in Brazil, help for the homeless in the United States.
From 1972 to 1975, under McTernan, the IEC took an active part in → dialogue between the → Roman Catholic Church and the → Pentecostal churches, but it is now represented only by an observer. It is a member of the → World Council of Churches. Leadership of the IEC is placed in a three-person presidium, with members representing Nigeria, Brazil, and the United States. In 2000 headquarters of the church were in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.
SILVANO LILLI
International Fellowship of Reconciliation

The International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) is an international, spiritually based movement composed of people who, from the basis of a belief in the power of love and truth to create justice and restore community, commit themselves to active nonviolence as a way of life and as a means of personal, social, economic, and political transformation. Membership is open to all who are grounded in an absolute respect for human life and dignity. IFOR respects religious and cultural diversity.
The impulse toward the formation of the IFOR came in 1914, on the eve of World War I, from a conference in Constance of the World Alliance for Promoting Friendship through the Churches. The German Lutheran F. Siegmund-Schultze (1885–1969) and the English Quaker H. Hodgkin (1877–1933) pledged themselves to work against growing hatred, increasing militarization, and bellicosity in their respective countries, no matter what their governments might do.
IFOR was founded in 1919 at a conference at Bilthoven, Netherlands. Its basis was the common conviction that → discipleship of Jesus Christ sets us in the service of social justice and peace among the nations and summons us to vanquish war, to reject every form of violence (whether direct or structural; → Force, Violence, Nonviolence), and to espouse a principle of nonviolence in both the personal and the sociopolitical sphere. Traveling secretaries and active members formed local groups, which combined at the regional and national levels.
IFOR supported M. Gandhi (1869–1948) in India in his struggle for national liberation. During World War II many members were arrested for → conscientious objection, two of whom were executed in Germany. It gave aid to Jewish refugees and, in the United States, led the struggle against the internment of Japanese-Americans. It was the first nonviolent movement to establish East-West dialogue during the cold war period. In South Africa A. Luthuli (1898–1967), first president of the African National Congress, was a member. With M. Luther King Jr. (1929–68) as IFOR vice-president, the fellowship was active on behalf of → civil rights. It was influential in the founding of Servicio Paz y Justicia in 1975, a Latin American network for peace and justice. In 1983 it began work in South Africa against apartheid, and in 1986 in the Philippines against the Marcos regime. IFOR was influential in Chile in the toppling of General Pinochet in 1989, and in 1990–91 it was active in working to prevent war between Iraq and the U.S.-led alliance and then in giving relief to Iraq. It took various actions against the East-West arms race (→ Peace Movement). Individual members—among them five winners of the Nobel Peace Prize—have given the work its distinctive stamp.
Rejecting the theory of a just → war, IFOR supports → conscientious objection. Its members are active in initiatives against armaments (including demonstrations, mass meetings, and petitions). They also engage in civil disobedience (e.g., P. and D. Berrigan). They espouse an alternative concept of security (G. Sharp, T. Ebert). In the struggle for justice the IFOR seeks liberation from oppression, exploitation, and → racism and thinks that those responsible, as well as the victims, must be freed from the inhuman laws of unjust structures. By various acts of solidarity IFOR opposes capital punishment and → torture and advocates human → rights. Along the lines of the → Sermon on the Mount, it works for reconciliation among peoples and for open dialogue between those of opposite views, with a view to mutual agreement. It is at work in Northern Ireland, in the Middle East, and also among refugees (→ Asylum) and guest workers.
IFOR now has an international office at Alkmaar, Netherlands, which links the national branches. Every four years an International Council determines a common direction. An International Steering Committee makes all the necessary decisions in the intervening years. In 1999 there were branches in more than 40 countries in all continents.
IFOR is now a multireligious organization. Its membership includes adherents of all the major spiritual traditions, as well as those who have other spiritual sources for their commitment to nonviolence.
→ Disarmament and Armament; Pacifism; Peace; Peace Research; Weapons

Bibliography: G. BAUM and H. WELLS, The Reconciliation of Peoples: Challenge to the Churches (Geneva, 1997) ∙ D. BERRIGAN, No Bars to Manhood (Garden City, N.Y., 1970); idem, Ten Commandments for the Long Haul (Nashville, 1981) ∙ T. EBERT, Gewaltfreier Aufstand. Alternative zum Bürgerkrieg (Waldkirch, 1979); idem, Ziviler Ungehorsam (Waldkirch, 1984); idem, ed., Ziviler Widerstand (Düsseldorf, 1970) ∙ A. H. FRIEDLANDER, A Thread of Gold: Journeys towards Reconciliation (Philadelphia, 1990) ∙ H. GRESSEL, ed., Fünfzig Jahre IVB, Versöhnung und Friede (Dortmund, 1964) ∙ G. JOCHHEIM, Soziale Verteidigung (Düsseldorf, 1988) ∙ W. E. PANNELL, The Coming Race Wars? A Cry for Reconciliation (Grand Rapids, 1993) ∙ R. J. SCHREITER, Reconciliation: Mission and Ministry in a Changing Social Order (Cambridge, Mass., 1992) ∙ S. N. WILLIAMS, Revelation and Reconciliation: A Window on Modernity (Cambridge, 1995) ∙ W. WINK, When the Powers Fall: Reconciliation in the Healing of Nations (Minneapolis, 1998)
KONRAD LÜBBERT†
International Law

1. History
2. Subjects
3. Sources
4. Relation to National Law
5. Regulatory Spheres
1. History

Antiquity knew no international law, though early forms might be found in the relations among the Greek city-states. Even when the → Roman Empire collapsed, 1,000 years passed before the development of an international order. When the concept of the unity of Christendom was abandoned, it came to be seen as both necessary and possible that a legal system should be set up to regulate relations between powers that were both equal and independent. The theory of a law that should regulate the dealings of sovereign states was put forward in the 16th century. The Peace of Westphalia (1648; → Thirty Years’ War 1.4), with its recognition of state sovereignty, was the first stage in the practical application of international law. International law has now established itself as a way of handling the dealings of sovereign states with one another. It has never been a people’s law.
2. Subjects

The subjects of international law are sovereign states and alliances and confederations of such states. Historically the only exceptions are the → Vatican, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the sovereign Maltese Order. Increasingly from the late 19th century and especially since the end of World War II, international organizations have to some degree become subjects of international law, deriving this legal position from the will of their members (i.e., the sovereign states) as it finds expression in their statutes.
Nongovernmental organizations (e.g., international umbrella organizations of alliances, associations, or other bodies) cannot be the subjects of international law. They come under the laws of the countries in which they have their headquarters. Some of them enjoy consultative status in the → United Nations. The → World Council of Churches, for example, is a nongovernmental organization headquartered in Geneva. Individuals are not covered by international law except indirectly through the states of which they are citizens. The 20th century, however, considered changes that would extend international law also to individuals (→ Rights, Human and Civil) and to peoples (e.g., the right of self-determination).
3. Sources

The sources of international law are treaties, customs, and general legal principles (see art. 38 of the International Court of Justice; → Jurisprudence). Treaties both are legal affairs and establish objective laws for the signatory states, whether they are bilateral or multilateral (i.e., in conventions). To some degree they perform the same function as legislators. Law based on custom emerges when it is established by long-lasting or at least repeated usage on the part of several subjects sharing the same legal conviction. It may be global or regional, according to the nature of the participating states. General legal principles can be recognized as international law only if they have a worldwide reference and are in keeping with legal cultures.
4. Relation to National Law

International law is a closed system claiming no precedence over domestic law. Each state must see to it that by domestic law its own organs and representatives measure up to the norms of international law. The custom is that no state should be able to escape its international responsibilities by appealing to domestic law. It is in the interests of each state to incorporate the norms of international law in its domestic law.
5. Regulatory Spheres

From the very outset → war and → peace have been at the center of international law both in theory and in practice. The first major discussion was about just war with reference to Spanish conquests in the New World. A just war demanded authority, cause, and legal form, but only the first of these conditions was met. Sovereign states alone could wage war. Since by definition they could be subject to no higher power, there was no way of subjecting their decisions to wage war to any legal test. All decisions of sovereigns or sovereign states to wage war were justified. This right to wage war (ius ad bellum) has dominated all classic international law, which has left sovereigns with only two legal possibilities for dealing with other states: war or peace. In 1920, however, the League of Nations established a partial prohibition of war. In 1928 the Kellogg-Briand Pact was meant to put an end to war. In 1945 a decree of the United Nations forbade the general use of force. The states are now pledged to seek peace instead of insisting on their right to wage war. Armed defense against aggression, however, is still permitted.
Classic international law already contained not only the right to wage war but also rights in war (ius in bello), that is, rights of war and neutrality. Those dealing with war as such regulate the conduct of war (means and methods), on the one hand, and, on the other, address humanitarian concerns for the protection of both participants and civilians. Despite the prohibition against war, this convention is still valid, applying in the case of armed conflict to all participants regardless of who the aggressor is; nor does punishing those responsible for the aggression run counter to such application. A first effort was made in this direction by the Nürnberg Trials of 1945–46.
Peacetime dealings between nations come under laws that govern diplomatic and consular modes of conduct as codified under the 1961 and 1963 conventions. Questions dealing with treaties (entering, fulfilling, and ending them) are regulated by a 1969 convention. In all these matters, however, international custom also still rules. The United Nations has given increasing importance to civil rights. International law has also been refined regarding international spheres such as the high seas, the ocean floor, the Antarctic, and space. Attention is being paid as well to the → environment (→ Ecology). In such matters, however, the task of actually implementing international norms is still basically under the jurisdiction of the individual sovereign states. U.N. executives also need the help of the member states.
The International Court of Justice has no obligatory legal jurisdiction, relying instead on the voluntary subjection of the subject states to its jurisdiction. Nevertheless, a principle of mutuality and a system of limited self-help ensure that international law functions efficiently. The U.N. charter stipulates that flagrant violations be addressed as a priority issue by the collective action of its members.

Bibliography: C. HERMAN, ed., International Law and Institutions: Some Current Problems (New York, 1970) ∙ S. HOFFMANN, R. C. JOHANSEN, J. P. STERBA, and R. VÄYRYNEN, The Ethics and Politics of Humanitarian Intervention (Notre Dame, Ind., 1996) ∙ K. IPSEN, Völkerrecht (Munich, 1990) ∙ M. KHADDURI, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (New York, 1979) ∙ O. KIMMINICH, Einführung in das Völkerrecht (5th ed.; Munich, 1993; orig. pub., 1975) ∙ I. SEIDL-HOHENVELDERN, Völkerrecht (8th ed.; Cologne, 1994; orig. pub., 1965) ∙ J. D. VAN DER VYVER and J. WITTE, Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Legal Perspectives (Boston, 1996) ∙ B. WICKER and F. VAN IERSEL, Humanitarian Intervention and the Pursuit of Justice: A Pax Christi Contribution to the Contemporary Debate (Kampen, 1995) ∙ R. K. WOETZEL, The Nuremberg Trials in International Law, with a Postlude on the Eichmann Case (Boston, 1962).
OTTO KIMMINICH
International Lutheran Council

The International Lutheran Council (ILC) is a worldwide association of established confessional → Lutheran church bodies that possess an unconditional commitment to the Bible as the inspired and → infallible Word of God and to the Lutheran confessions contained in the Book of Concord (→ Confessions and Creeds) as the true and faithful exposition of the → Word of God.
The origins of the ILC can be traced to a meeting of leaders of confessional Lutheran churches in Uelzen, West Germany, in July 1952. At a meeting in Cambridge, England, in 1963 the name “International Lutheran Theological Conference” was chosen for periodic informal gatherings. The ILC as a council of church bodies officially came into existence in 1993 with the adoption of a constitution.
The ILC exists to encourage, strengthen, and promote confessional Lutheran theology and practice, both among member churches and throughout the world. It seeks to accomplish these goals by providing opportunities for the joint study of contemporary theological issues, by encouraging member churches in mission outreach, by strengthening → theological education, and by stimulating and facilitating the publishing of literature. Its official publication is ILC News, a quarterly.
The executive committee of the ILC includes representatives from six world areas: Africa, East Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, and Southeast Asia and Australia. An executive secretary, presently located in St. Louis, Missouri, is responsible for providing administrative and technical support. Member churches provide financial support for the ILC on the basis of their total baptized membership. The council, which meets every two years, had 28 participating church bodies as of August 1999 (the largest is the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod), together representing 3.3 million members.
The ILC is not a church, nor does it exercise churchly functions or prescribe any course of action for its member churches. Membership of church bodies in the ILC does not imply formally declared altar and pulpit fellowship between those churches, but they are pledged to mutual respect and to the preserving and strengthening of confessional agreement, which manifest themselves at the altar and in the pulpit. A few churches within the ILC are also members of the → Lutheran World Federation.
SAMUEL NAFZGER
International Missionary Council

1. Formation
2. World Conferences
3. Integration with the WCC

The International Missionary Council (IMC) was the most significant and effective planning organization for international Protestant → missionary cooperation of the 20th century. Its formal organization in 1921 came about as a direct outcome of the Edinburgh World Missionary Conference of 1910. In its brief 40-year history it was an important expression of the movement toward Christian unity, especially in the dimension of world mission, and a forerunner of the modern → ecumenical movement.
1. Formation

The Edinburgh World Missionary Conference of 1910—itself the successor to landmark 19th-century missionary conferences and to the New York Ecumenical Missionary Conference (1900)—created a Continuation Committee (CC) to carry out the mandates of that conference and to establish an agency for international missionary cooperation. John R. Mott, chairman of the conference, was designated CC chair, and Joseph H. Oldham, its secretary. The outbreak of World War I delayed the formal organization of the IMC but did not prevent the CC from carrying out important functions related to the formation of local mission councils and the response to wartime emergencies. In 1912 it began publication of the scholarly quarterly International Review of Missions.
The peripatetic Mott met with church and mission leaders in Asian countries, urging the organization of national missionary councils. Similar councils already existed in European countries and in North America and were planned in Africa. In 1918 an Emergency Committee of Cooperating Missions was formed under the leadership of Mott and Oldham. Oldham himself was active at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, working to protect German and other missions threatened with seizure by the Allied nations as wartime reparations. Oldham’s draft for article 438 of the Versailles Treaty accorded all missions “supranational” status and protected them from expropriation as wartime booty. These interim achievements underscored the need for a permanent organization for international missionary cooperation.
In October 1921 the IMC was formally constituted at Lake Mohonk, New York, uniting 17 Protestant national missionary councils or councils of churches, of which 13 were Western and the remainder from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The Germans at first held back but within six months joined the council. Joint IMC offices were opened in New York and London. Immediate concerns included securing the rights of German missions, work among Jews and Muslims, mission work in Latin America and Africa, and the production of Christian literature. As an international council of national mission councils, the IMC began its work of coordinating activities, initiating common studies, and planning consultations and global conferences.
2. World Conferences
2.1. During the Easter season of 1928 the IMC convened its first major world missionary assembly, on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. One-quarter of the delegates represented the new and growing “younger churches.” At Jerusalem the IMC set forth its consistent missiological conviction that the indigenous churches of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, rather than Western mission societies, were the responsible agents for mission in their respective areas. The message from Jerusalem in relation to non-Christian systems of thought, including → secularism, was “Jesus Christ … the revelation of what God is and of what man through him may become.” Furthermore, “Christ is our motive and Christ is our end. We must give nothing less, and we can give nothing more.” During the late 1920s the IMC set up a Department of Social and Economic Research, headed by J. Merle Davis, who prepared field studies on the social and economic environment of younger churches and the need for creative approaches to local self-support. The International Committee on Christian Literature for Africa was also created. Focus on rural mission led to the establishment of the Agricultural Missions Foundation. Emergency assistance to orphaned missions continued and was later intensified in the Hitler period.
2.2. Late in 1938 the Tambaram (India) World Missionary Conference was convened on the campus of Madras Christian College. More globally representative than the Jerusalem conference, the gathering at Tambaram drew half of its delegates from → Third World nations. Overshadowing the meeting were the threats of World War II, which underscored the urgency of maintaining ties of → solidarity, mutual support, and → prayer among churches on all six continents. Tambaram stressed that local churches, not foreign missions or parachurch groups, must become the principal agents in world → evangelism: “We summon the churches to unite in the supreme task of world evangelization until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord.”
The Tambaram theological message was strongly Christocentric, as expressed in Hendrik Kraemer’s monumental study The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, prepared for Tambaram at the request of the IMC. Kraemer called for “biblical realism” and asserted a total discontinuity between the gospel message and non-Christian cultures and systems of salvation. The relativistic theology of William Ernest Hocking, chairman of the American Laymen’s Foreign Missions Inquiry of the early 1930s, was also sharply criticized.
In 1938 the IMC began forging closer links with the incipient → World Council of Churches (WCC), then already “in process of formation,” following a joint meeting that year at Utrecht of committees from the → Life and Work and the → Faith and Order movements. Joint committees of the IMC and the WCC functioned from that time on “in association with” each other, a concrete embodiment of this arrangement being the Joint East Asia Secretariat of the IMC/WCC.
2.3. As World War II ended, it was discovered that many churches in Asia, Africa, and Oceania had grown and matured without benefit of foreign missionaries or mission support, including some that had been orphaned by war from parent mission societies. Former “receiving” churches were becoming mission-sending bodies. Decolonization and movements for independence in Asian and African countries increased pressure on Western mission boards and societies to hasten devolution and grant full independence to daughter churches. In 1947, under the theme “Partnership in Obedience,” the IMC convened a meeting at Whitby, near Toronto, Canada. Delegates from six continents rejoiced that their fellowship had survived the war and the years of separation, only to emerge with “an even deeper vision of the reality and fullness of the universal church.” Churches everywhere, older and younger, were asked to engage in a global partnership in which “all churches alike are called to the total evangelistic task.” The recovery of vast areas that had fallen prey to → atheism, as well as the conversion of nominal Western church members, was seen as part of the same global task as converting nonbelievers to faith in Christ.
2.4. The decade of the 1950s confronted the IMC with decisive challenges that could no longer be postponed, including (1) clarifying the theological basis of → mission and (2) determining the structural relation of mission(s) to the church. The Willingen Conference of 1952, the first IMC meeting to be held in Germany, set itself the tasks of reformulating the church’s missionary mandate and revising mission policies in conformity with a deeper theological understanding of mission. The world mission movement was being drained by powerful revolutionary forces in China and North Korea, and its response was weakened by hesitancy, defensiveness, and lack of unity. Theologically, Willingen could speak of a single calling of the church to mission and unity—“to be one family in Him and to make known to the whole world, in word and deed, His Gospel of the Kingdom.” Mission was the task of the whole church, of every baptized believer.
The church-centered concept of mission that had marked IMC thinking at Jerusalem and Tambaram, however, was now criticized as being too narrow. Rather, a Trinitarian understanding of mission as God’s own activity (missio Dei)—with the world as locus of mission, the kingdom as its goal, and the church as privileged agent and foretaste of the kingdom—began to replace the older thesis of the church as the starting point and goal of mission. The displacement of the church from its place at the center of mission activity would have far-reaching consequences, both positive and negative, in years to come.
3. Integration with the WCC

In 1948 the new World Council of Churches came into being at Amsterdam as a global fellowship of churches. Newly independent Third World churches wished to have direct church-to-church relationships with other churches throughout the world, not simply with representatives of Western mission societies or church mission boards. The Second Assembly of the WCC, held in 1954 at Evanston, Illinois, set up a joint committee with the IMC to study integration. The last full meeting of the IMC—in Accra, Ghana, in 1958—is remembered for having launched the Theological Education Fund, a major global initiative to upgrade training for ministry in the Third World, but the issue of integration with the WCC was also a crucial item of business. In Accra integration seemed a foregone conclusion, having been vigorously advocated by WCC general secretary W. A. → Visser’t Hooft, who believed that integration would compel all churches “to rethink the meaning of the missionary and apostolic calling of the church.” Lesslie Newbigin, last general secretary of the IMC, supported integration on the basis that “the missionary task is no less central to the life of the church than the pursuit of renewal and unity.”
There were important opposing arguments. Eastern Orthodox churches, which generally equated mission and evangelism with the proselytizing of their members, opposed integration. Some IMC supporters contended that mission was a special charism of voluntary groups, particularly mission societies, and that large bureaucratic state churches with no previous mission experience were not suited to carry it forward. The unique calling to mission across frontiers would be lost, they feared, in programs of interchurch aid. Many Latin American evangelicals remained cool toward the WCC, and conservative → evangelicals generally did not relish identification with liberal WCC programs. Yet the overwhelming support of Third World member councils in favor of integration won the day.
Thus in late 1961 in New Delhi, at the closing meeting of the Third Assembly of the WCC, the IMC approved integration with the WCC, with but two lone dissenting voices (the Norwegian Missionary Council and the Congo Christian Council). In a formal act of integration, the former IMC became the WCC Commission on World Mission and Evangelism.
The new WCC mission unit, itself now four decades old, has undergone many structural changes but has continued the tradition of world mission conferences, sponsoring gatherings in Mexico City (1963), Bangkok (1973), Melbourne (1980), San Antonio, Texas (1989), and Salvador (Bahia), Brazil (1996).

Bibliography: W. R. HOGG, Ecumenical Foundations: A History of the International Missionary Council and Its Nineteenth Century Foundations (New York, 1952); idem, “International Missionary Council,” CDCWM 289–91 ∙ L. NEWBIGIN, “Mission to Six Continents,” A History of the Ecumenical Movement, vol. 2, The Ecumenical Advance, 1948–1968 (2d ed.; Geneva, 1986; 1st ed., 1970) 171–97 ∙ T. STRANSKY, “International Missionary Council,” DEM 526–29.
JAMES A. SCHERER
Interpretation

In the history of the human sciences the distinction is often made between the interpretation of an event, object, or text and its meaning. In antiquity people turned to objects in the natural order to find the → meaning of the world around them. The entire cosmos seemed to be connected and interrelated in one comprehensive nexus of meaning. The interpretation of one object potentially might reveal larger meanings in the cosmos. For this reason the entrails of animals, marks on the human body, objects in the sky, or tea leaves, for example, might be consulted. While various forms of → divination are prohibited in the OT, the interpretation of dreams is frequently attested to. We see this practice, for example, in the accounts of the dreams of Jacob (Gen. 28:12–15), Joseph (Gen. 37:5–10), and Daniel (Dan. 7:1–27) and, in the NT, in the dreams of Joseph, the husband of Mary (Matt. 1:20; 2:12–13, 19–20).
Borrowing methods employed in the Hellenistic exegesis of Homer, Jewish and Christian exegetes of the Holy Scriptures, including Philo of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, and → Origen, often made use of → allegory. By the time of the Scholastics, four approaches were commonly employed in the interpretation of Scripture. The first, literal interpretation, was augmented by three spiritual methods, the allegorical, the moral or tropological, and the anagogical or mystical.
The questioning of the relation between the subject and the object of interpretation by René Descartes (1596–1650) shattered the idea of a comprehensive nexus of meaning in the cosmos. Natural phenomena no longer needed to be interpreted; they now needed to be explained according to human → reason and scientific methods of observance.
With the → Enlightenment the search for meaning shifted from religious traditions, including → magic and other superstitions, to human reason and scientific methodologies. This change is what Max → Weber (1864–1920) called the disenchantment of the world. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) urged others to think rationally on their own, without external constraints of force or any heteronomous authority, such as might be exercised by the state or by religious institutions. Kant’s focus on the central role of the human subject in the construction of the meaning of the sensible world around it forcibly raised the question of → subjectivity and objectivity in interpretation.
This emphasis on reason did not go unchallenged. Romantics investigated human experience and works of art (aesthetics) to find a way around the one-sided tyranny of reason in the rationalist philosophy of their day.
Following the Enlightenment, new fields of academic inquiry emerged to interpret the activity and meaning of human life. The disciplines of → sociology, → anthropology, → psychology, and the study of literature took their places alongside → philosophy and → theology in this task.
The depth psychology of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) sought to explain human beings and their behaviors both singularly and collectively. Freud introduced the concept of the overdetermination of meaning—when an action or behavior is brought about by a multiplicity of causes, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to determine the sole cause of that action. Freud focused his interpretive methods on the symbolic interpretation of → myths and → rites, seeking to interpret dreams and other hitherto unexplored activities of the singular human psyche and the larger collective society in which it lives.
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) argued that the conceptual violence of philosophy often merely imposed subjective meanings on the objects being interpreted. His philosophy, taking up the issues raised and methods employed by the Romantics, looked to find a constellation of meanings in even the most disparaged or marginalized object of interpretation. His philosophical methods sought the larger nexus of meaning absent in positivist Kantian and neo-Kantian philosophy.
In the later part of the 20th century a variety of philosophical and theological methods have been employed in the area of interpretation. Hans-Georg Gadamer (b. 1900) expanded on the earlier → hermeneutics of Friedrich → Schleiermacher (1768–1834) and Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911). Challenging → Cartesian epistemological foundationalism, Gadamer argued that every text or cultural object that is interpreted is already an interpretation itself. The horizon of the interpreter and the horizon of the object that is being interpreted do not fuse in the act of interpretation; rather, they form a new and ever-receding horizon of meaning. In its fullest sense, hermeneutics is not confined solely to the interpretation of texts or objects; it also describes the activity of the production and reproduction of all human knowledge. The speech-act theory formulated by J. L. Austin (1911–60) distinguished “linguistic meaning” from “speaker meaning” and examined how spoken and written discourses communicate meaning.
In Knowledge and Human Interests, Jürgen Habermas (b. 1929) proposed a nonfoundational and universal method of interpretation that sought to challenge the inherent conservatism of tradition and allow for the development of emancipatory practices. In The Theory of Communicative Action Habermas sought to develop the conceptual foundations for a critical theory of society. Where structuralists sought to describe the overarching totalities that seem to operate independently from the awareness of human persons, poststructuralists rejected the possibility of totalities and the power implicit in the “master narratives” of Western philosophical and theological discourses, pointing to the dispersal and multiplicity of meanings in everything that is interpreted.
Christian theology has employed a wide range of academic disciplines to interpret its message. Pastoral theology, for example, employing methods developed in the fields of psychology, sociology, and anthropology, has emerged as a theological discipline in which the questions of human meaning and purpose, including phenomena and ideas often ignored by scientific methodologies, are allowed to come to expression.

Bibliography: J. L. AUSTIN, How to Do Things with Words (2d ed.; Cambridge, Mass., 1975) ∙ W. BENJAMIN, Selected Writings (2 vols.; Cambridge, Mass., 1996–99) ∙ H. G. GADAMER, Truth and Method (2d ed.; New York, 1993) ∙ J. HABERMAS, Knowledge and Human Interests (Boston, 1971); idem, The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 1, Reason and the Rationalization of Society; vol. 2, Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason (Boston, 1984–87) ∙ I. KANT, “What Is Enlightenment?” (1783), Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and What Is Enlightenment? (trans. L. W. Beck; Indianapolis, 1959) 85–92 ∙ H. DE LUBAC, Medieval Exegesis, vol. 2, The Four Senses of Scripture (Grand Rapids, 2000) ∙ G. WARNKE, Gadamer: Hermeneutics, Tradition, and Reason (Stanford, Calif., 1987) ∙ M. WEBER, “Science as a Vocation,” Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York, 1974) 129–56.
CRAIG A. PHILLIPS
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship → Student Work; Youth Work
Intuition

Based on the Lat. intuitio, intuitus, and coined by W. von Moerbeke (ca. 1215–86) as a philosophical term, “intuition” in the sense of inspiration or an intuitive grasp of something belongs to a philosophical tradition that goes back to Epicureanism (→ Greek Philosophy), which used epibolē for a sudden, total, and immediate understanding of the whole object of knowledge. More broadly, “intuition” can denote the direct knowledge that carries within itself its own conditioning and justification. In → mysticism it relates to an intuitive → experience (§2) of God. In → epistemology it contrasts with discursive knowledge, which claims methodologically mediated validity.
The breadth of definition of “intuition” may be seen from the fact that it may be located purely in the intellect (Plotinus) or related to given objects (Duns Scotus). Terms such as “perception” (I. Kant), “intellectual perception” (F. W. J. Schelling), or “essential vision” (E. Husserl) also come close to it. Intuition is a basic concept in the philosophy of H.-L. Bergson (1859–1941). In modern epistemological discussion basic principles are often called intuitive. C. G. Jung (1875–1961) regarded the function of intuition as a primary psychological function by which we have unconscious perception of the world.

Bibliography: B. J. F. LONERGAN, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (London, 1957) ∙ I. MARCOULESCO, “Intuition,” EncRel(E) 7.269–70 ∙ R. RORTY, “Intuition,” EncPh 4.204–12 ∙ E. ROTHACKER and J. THYSSEN, Intuition und Begriff (Bonn, 1963).
FRANK OTFRIED JULY
Investiture

The term “investiture,” in the sense of the ceremonial conferral of symbols of office or honor, comes from the law of property under the Carolingian Empire, where it referred to a purchaser’s acquisition of authority over a piece of real estate in the form of a concrete vesting order or by the transference of representative symbols (e.g., a stalk). In the secular world investiture with the property later became a constitutive part of feudal law. In → church law similar symbolic acts of investiture occurred when a patron appointed a minister to a → proprietary church. From around 900 secular rulers invested imperial bishops with an episcopal staff as a symbol of their religious authority. The → bishop had to swear an oath of fealty to the king and to do homage. The investiture of bishops and → abbots became the general practice in Ottonian Germany.
The Gregorian reformers opposed the practice of investiture by secular rulers. Humbert of Silva Candida took the lead in his Adversus simoniacos (1057), but it was only after the November Synod at Rome in 1078 that the papacy prohibited investiture by emperors, kings, or any laypersons. The question of lay investiture now became a leading issue in the so-called Investiture Controversy between → empire and papacy (→ Middle Ages 2; Simony).
With the elimination of investiture by secular rulers, the term became equivalent to induction into ecclesiastical office by the proper authorities, and it occurs in this sense in the classic canon law of the 12th and 13th centuries (→ Corpus Iuris Canonici). From the middle of the 13th century a distinction was made between transfer of office, which conferred full right to the benefice, and a subsequent solemn institution, which was now called investiture. This distinction rested on the separation of the concept of office from the idea of legal possession, investiture being missio in possessionem (sending forth in possession). Along these lines the term lives on in the 1983 CIC, where in canon 527.2 it deals with the institution of a priest into his office by the ordinary or a → priest whom he delegates for this purpose.
In Protestant churches we occasionally find “investiture” used for the installation of ministers (→ Pastor, Pastorate) into their spiritual office. Investiture into a specific ministry is distinguished from → ordination.

Bibliography: R. BENSON, The Bishop-Elect: A Study in Medieval Ecclesiastical Office (Princeton, 1968) ∙ S. BEULERTZ, Das Verbot der Laieninvestitur im Investiturstreit (Hannover, 1991) ∙ U.-R. BLUMENTHAL, The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century (Philadelphia, 1988) ∙ N. F. CANTOR, Church, Kingship, and Lay Investiture in England, 1089–1135 (Princeton, 1958) ∙ W. HARTMANN, “Der Investiturstreit,” Enzyklopädie deutscher Geschichte (Munich, 1993) ∙ “Investiture Controversy,” ODCC 842–43 ∙ J. LAUDAGE, Gregorianische Reform und Investiturstreit (Darmstadt, 1993) ∙ R. SCHIEFFER, Die Entstehung des päpstlichen Investiturverbots für den deutschen König (Stuttgart, 1981).
PETER LANDAU
Iona Community

1. Origin
2. Aims
3. Contemporary Expression
1. Origin

The Iona Community, an ecumenical Christian community, was founded in 1938 when George F. MacLeod (later MacLeod of Fuinary) gathered a group of Church of Scotland ministers in training and unemployed craftsmen to rebuild the monastic quarters of an ancient Benedictine monastery on the island of Iona off the west coast of Scotland. Iona had been the base for the Celtic mission from the sixth century A.D.
2. Aims

The aims of the Iona Community have been to engage in mission, particularly in relation to industry (→ Industrial Society), to the great new housing schemes of Scotland, and to areas of → poverty both within and without that land. Central to the life of the community is corporate → worship and the search for the renewal of → liturgy. The community seeks to bring insights from the Christian faith to bear upon the politics and economics of the nations, which will lead to → peace and justice (→ Righteousness, Justice), → healing (both corporate and individual), the relating of worship to → everyday life, and local community development. To this end the community early began to promote work with young people and has established youth centers on Iona and the Ross of Mull. A house was also acquired in Glasgow for the furthering of its purposes on the mainland.
3. Contemporary Expression

The abbey, completed in 1967, has become a focus for the renewal of worship and for a permanent community of men and women, married and single, with their children. It offers hospitality to many visitors to the island. In 1999 the community, which is drawn from Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches, numbered over 200 people, with 1,500 associate members and 1,700 friends. The members (most of whom are in Great Britain) are committed to a common rule of daily prayer and Bible study, sharing and accounting for their use of time and money, and regular meeting and action for justice and peace. Members meet monthly in local “family groups” and in plenary gatherings three times a year on the mainland and for a week during the summer on Iona.
→ Communities, Spiritual

Bibliography: G. F. MACLEOD, Only One Way Left (Glasgow, 1956); idem, We Shall Rebuild: The Work of the Iona Community on Island and Mainland (Glasgow, 1944; repr., 1962) ∙ T. R. MORTON, The Iona Community: Personal Impressions of the Early Years (Edinburgh, 1977).
GRAEME BROWN
Iran

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
21,552
39,254
76,429
Annual growth rate (%):
2.70
4.40
2.60
Area: 1,638,057 sq. km. (632,457 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 47/sq. km. (121/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 3.13 / 0.54 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 4.23 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 35 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 70.8 years (m: 69.7, f: 72.0)
Religious affiliation (%): Muslims 97.9, other 2.1.

1. Geography and Recent History
2. Christians in Iran
2.1. Groups
2.2. Bible Translation
2.3. Muslim-Christian Relations
1. Geography and Recent History

Iran, lying between the 25th and 40th northern latitudes, borders on Turkey and Iraq to the west; Pakistan and Afghanistan to the east; Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and the Caspian Sea to the north; and the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the south. It includes a number of Persian Gulf islands in its territory. Iran is a land bridge between Asia Minor and central Asia. Its high country consists of mountains, steppes, and deserts. Iran’s main economic activities are petroleum, agriculture, and manufacturing, with its crafts especially notable for fine carpets. Some 90 percent of the population are Shiite Muslims (→ Islam; Shia, Shiites), with → Sunnites also present. The 1996 census showed Christians as less than 1 percent of the population, Jews and Zoroastrians as less than 0.1 percent, with → Baha’is and others also present. Persian is the main linguistic group, but there are also speakers of Kurdish, Luri, Arabic, Baluchi, and Turkic languages. Iran is home to the largest refugee population in the world, the greatest number coming from Afghanistan.
Present-day Iran is the heartland of the ancient Persian empire. Until 1979 it was ruled by monarchs, with the exceptional powers of the shah (king) continuing within the constitutional monarchy declared in 1906. With the “White Revolution,” Moḥammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–80, shah 1941–79) forced modernization and industrialization on Iran from 1963, making it a threshold country of the → Third World, with all the associated problems, including flight to the cities, especially Tehran (a hub in which about 10 percent of the population lives), the rise of an impoverished → proletariat, and a wealthy class with a Western lifestyle and the slackening of religious ties. As a result, the influence of the clergy (ayatollahs and mullahs) grew among the embittered poor, and even many intellectuals and the developing middle class turned against the police state.
An opposition alliance that ranged from religious Muslims to Communists made possible the revolution of 1979 that overthrew the regime of the shah and, with it, the monarchy. Under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900?–1989), the Islamic Republic of Iran was founded, and a new constitution was adopted by popular vote in 1979 (with revisions in 1989). The constitution (art. 4) states that “all civil, penal, financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria.” The form of government provides for ongoing guidance and interpretation of religious sources to ensure this orientation (see art. 2; cf. arts. 107–12 on the role of the Leader). After the initial stages of the revolution, power was consolidated, and some forces were ousted that were initially involved. The Islamic Republic has achieved basic stability; internal struggles, however, have involved questions of property, civic and civil rights, and ties with foreign nations. The leaders of the revolution have sought new self-understanding in culture, education, science, and finance. They have expected a degree of uniformity in language and public lifestyle (including Islamic standards of attire, gender segregation, and prohibition of alcohol). This expectation affects different Islamic and Christian groups, including Armenians and Assyrians, who have nonetheless been able to preserve their own language and culture. War with Iraq, beginning in 1980, had major impact upon Iranian life for a decade and has left its economic consequences. The population has more than doubled since the beginning of the revolution, also creating problems.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei succeeded Khomeini as Leader, the supreme political and religious authority, upon Khomeini’s death in 1989. In 1997 Mohammad Khatami, a moderate, was elected president by a substantial majority of the electorate. General elections in early 2000 supported the moderate policies of Khatami, with the newly elected Parliament largely comprising supporters of moderation. The impact of this shift in political leadership, for Iran and its international relations, remains to be seen.
2. Christians in Iran

Christianity has been present in Persia since the early days of the church and, in spite of tribulations, has never ceased its existence there. Persian Christian missionaries journeyed beyond their own region, as witnessed by an eighth-century inscription found in Xian, China; Armenians and Assyrians, however, have not understood Iran to be an area they entered in mission.
Today Christians, together with Jews and Zoroastrians—all adherents of “religions of the book”—are recognized by the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran as official religious minorities with rights to perform their own religious ceremonies, follow their own canons in personal affairs, and engage in religious education (art. 13; cf. 26, 64, 67). Minorities must not engage in “conspiracy or activity against Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran” (art. 14). Most of the Christians in Iran belong to the traditional Armenian and Assyrian/Chaldean churches (→ Oriental Orthodox Churches). Armenians and Assyrians are recognized according to the commands of the → Koran and have representation in Parliament. Their clergy and ecclesiastical bodies maintain their religious communities’ own personal status laws, and their church leaders are recognized. No special recognition is granted other Christians. In the Islamic Republic, as distinct from the caliphate or Ottoman regime, Christians do military service. Armenians have their own schools, which follow the government syllabus, according to which Persian is the primary language of instruction. Government-commissioned Islamic authors have prepared textbooks in religion for the minorities.
As distinct from members of the traditional Christian churches, those who have been won by missionary work (→ Mission)—that is, Protestants and Roman Catholics of the Latin Rite—find life more difficult in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in part because of persistent Iranian suspicions concerning perceived Christian links to the West and, in the case of Protestants especially, because of their mission to Muslims. (Historically, persecution of Persian Christians broke out in the sixth century after the Roman Empire, enemy of the Persian Empire, embraced Christianity.)
A disproportionate number of Christians have emigrated to North America, Europe, and Australia. Within the milieu of the Islamic Republic, Christians cannot expect full access in public life, but they have played an important role in the economy, trade, the oil industry, and transport. They can generally live their private lives as freely as do Muslims.
2.1. Groups

2.1.1. In 1990 there were somewhat over 10,000 Assyrian Christians in Iran. Frequently labeled → Nestorian by others, their traditional church is the ancient apostolic Church of the East. In pre-Islamic Persia they influenced culture, scholarship, medicine, and the economy. Even under Islamic rule they flourished up to the Tatar invasion around 1400. A few then lived on in the Kurdish highlands and around Lake Urmia in northwest Iran. In World War I the Assyrians, like the Armenians, fell victim to world politics. They lost their homeland in southeast Turkey and a third of their members. They revived in Iran under Shah Moh\ammad Reza Pahlavi, and the bishopric of Tehran was founded in 1962.
After losing many members to other churches, the Church of the East is now growing again, along with the development of a sense of its culture and language. The church is a member of the → World Council of Churches, has close ties to the Church of England (→ Anglican Communion), and has achieved significant agreements with the → Vatican through a series of dialogues.
Partly because ecclesiastical leadership is hereditary among Assyrians, some groups left their ancient church in the 16th century and joined Rome (→ Uniate Churches). Those Assyrians who became Catholic have been known as Chaldeans. Chaldeans in Iran belong to the Patriarchate of Babylon, which was founded in 1830 and located in Baghdad from 1850. Most Iranian Chaldeans live in Tehran, where their bishop has his seat. Emigration steadily reduces their numbers.
2.1.2. Most of the Armenians in Iran belong to the → Armenian Apostolic Church, whose bishops in New Julfa/Eşfahān, Tabrı̄z, and Tehran are under the Cilician catholicos (whose seat is Antelias, Lebanon). Their church has provided significant ecumenical leadership within the World Council of Churches and the → Middle East Council of Churches. Armenians honor St. Thomas and St. Thaddeus as the founders of their church and Gregory the Illuminator (ca. 240–332, the “Apostle of Armenia”) as converting their king and nation to Christianity in about A.D. 300. The Armenians’ brief independent kingdoms were destroyed by powerful neighbors, and they were scattered. In 1604 the Ṣafavid shah Abbas the Great (1588–1629) forcibly removed thousands of Armenians from the area around the Araks River to the New Julfa quarter of Eşfahān (named for the city of Julfa in Azerbaijan, their former home) in order to help with the construction of his new capital. In World War I many Armenians fled from eastern Turkey to Iran, and from there many later emigrated to the Republic of Armenia (which was a part of the U.S.S.R.). In spite of long years of persecution, the Armenian people and culture still persist in the Armenian Apostolic Church.
The Armenian Catholic Church, which came into being in the 18th century, has members in Iran. The church’s hierarchical structure was reorganized in 1928 with the patriarch of Cilicia in Lebanon and a diocese in Iran.
The Armenians live for the most part in Tehran, in New Julfa, around Eşfahān, in northwest Iran, and in the petroleum-industry areas. Many of them who achieved prosperity and status under the late shah in industry, learning, culture, and state service left Iran after the revolution. Left-wing intellectuals who had opposed the shah remained, however, along with small farmers and manual workers. Today, thanks to their ongoing church life, the Armenians have their own culture, manifested in schools, clubs, and educational institutions in Tehran, and they have been able to maintain a right to their own language. Many of them fell during the war with Iraq and are honored as national martyrs.
2.1.3. The Protestant churches in Iran are small. North American Presbyterians did successful missionary work among the Nestorians around Lake Urmia in the 19th century, where they built schools, hospitals, and mission stations and where modern Eastern Aramaic emerged out of the Christian dialect spoken around Lake Urmia. The Anglican Church, also active in Iran, and Presbyterians made many attempts to unite but were unsuccessful. The two missions divided their efforts so that Presbyterians worked in the North and Anglicans in the South. Major early Presbyterian work was among Assyrians; most Anglican work was among Armenians, Jews, and Muslims. After World War I the Anglicans founded the Episcopal Church of Iran, which is now a part of the Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. Eşfahān is the Episcopal bishop’s seat, where the first national bishop was consecrated in 1961. Presbyterian-related congregations formed the Evangelical Church of Iran, a fully independent church as of 1934, centered in Tehran, with membership in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. The Evangelical Church reported in 1971 that 55 percent of its membership was Assyrian, and this segment of its church life is now regarded by some as the most viable Protestant Christian expression in Iran today.
Other Protestant church bodies exist, notably Pentecostal congregations that affiliated with the General Council of the Assemblies of God in 1965.
Some half dozen church leaders in the Episcopal, Assemblies of God (Philadelphia), and Presbyterian churches died between 1979 and 1985 through assassination or execution. This number includes two men who had been presidents of the council of Protestant churches.
2.1.4. → Roman Catholic missions have left some Latin Christians (→ Roman Catholic Church). The → Dominicans, → Franciscans, Capuchins, Carmelites, and Lazarists set up schools, but since the time of the late shah, these have been nationalized together with other schools.
2.2. Bible Translation

In order to further education among ordinary people, a printing press was developed by Armenians in New Julfa. In Armenian history, the idea of printing a whole Bible in Armenian translation was first conceived in New Julfa, though the actual printing occurred in Amsterdam because of technological needs. The first widely circulated translation of Christian Scripture into Persian was the NT, published in 1815 through the work of Henry Martyn, an Anglican priest who came to Shı̄rāz by way of India. The Bible Society of Iran was established in 1967 for translation and distribution of Christian Scripture, but its work was closed by the government in 1990.
2.3. Muslim-Christian Relations

The relation between Christians and Muslims varies according to political relations (→ Islam and Christianity). Social relationships between people of various groupings are not extensive. In the period before and just after the revolution, there were more contacts, especially in the younger generation, but today groups mostly keep to themselves, the more so as the state demands a religiously governed life even from non-Muslim minorities.
In recent years several → dialogues have been held between Iranian religious and cultural leaders and Christians from the West.

Bibliography: S. BAKHASH, The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution (rev. ed.; New York, 1990) ∙ F. HEILER, Die Ostkirchen (Munich, 1971) ∙ N. HORNER, “A Guide to Christian Churches in the Middle East,” Present-Day Christianity in the Middle East and North Africa (ed. W. R. Shenk et al.; Elkhart, Ind., 1989) ∙ J. JOSEPH, The Nestorians and Their Muslim Neighbors (Princeton, 1961) ∙ N. R. KEDDIE, ed., The Iranian Revolution and the Islamic Republic (Syracuse, N.Y., 1986) ∙ D. LYKO, Gründung, Wachstum und Leben der evangelischen christlichen Kirchen in Iran (Cologne, 1964) ∙ S. MACKEY, The Iranians: Persia, Islam, and the Soul of a Nation (New York, 1996) ∙ R. MOTTAHEDEH, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran (New York, 1985) ∙ K. SARKISSIAN, The Armenian Christian Tradition in Iran (Eşfahān, 1973) ∙ B. SPULER, “Religionsgeschichte des Orients in der Zeit der Weltreligionen,” HO 8/2 ∙ K. J. THOMAS and F. BAHMAN, “Persian Translations of the Bible,” Encyclopedia Iranica (London, 1990) 4/2.209–14 ∙ R. WATERFIELD, Christians in Persia (London, 1973) ∙ R. WRIGHT, The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran (New York, 2000). The website “Iran: Virtual Library—Social, Political, and Economic Studies,” at http://www2.prestel.co.uk/neman/, provides Internet access to the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran and to a commentary on the political structure of the state.
HELGA ANSCHÜTZ
Iranian Religions

1. Definitions
2. Original Iranians
3. Western Iranians
4. Northern Iranians
5. Eastern Iranians
6. Zoroaster
7. Zoroastrianism
8. Hellenism and Syncretism
9. Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
10. Gnosticism
11. Shiite Islam
1. Definitions

Iranian religions are the authentic religions of peoples and tribes that spoke or speak Iranian languages. One may also refer to other religions whose features appear in Iranian religions and are material variants of them. We do not include religions in non-Iranian languages that are native to territories that came under the rule of Iran (e.g., the Elamites) or that came to Iran later and in so doing underwent changes (e.g., the many Turkic tribes) or that are regarded as their own only by a few Iranian speakers (e.g., the → Buddhism of the Sakas and Sogdians).
The Iranian languages are the western branch of the Aryan Indo-European family, whose speakers apparently lived in central Asia north of the Tian Shan Mountains. We assume that a people speaking Irano-Aryan, as distinct from Indo-Aryan, moved to the Aral Sea area by the rivers Oxus and Iaxartes (modern Amu Dar’ya and Syr Dar’ya) and to the northwest of modern Afghanistan (→ Nomads). The ethnogenesis and progress of the movement of this Iranian people, which began about 2000 B.C., are unknown. The only certainty is that around 1500 they spread west and south in several thrusts.
2. Original Iranians

Statements, names, and practices that are common to more or less all Iranian religions and the Vedic religions (→ Hinduism 3) permit certain hypotheses regarding the religions of the ancient Iranian people. Around 1500 B.C. a non-Iranian people lived in northern Mesopotamia, the Hurrites, whose dynasty had an Aryan name, the Mitanni. This group might have been simply an exclave of the ancient Iranian people. Here in the 14th century we find common features and Indo-Aryan or Indian developments that enable us to reconstruct a religious system that included a sun god (Sūrya), lords that guarantee → oath and treaty (Varuṇa, with a tendency to become the god of the rainy → heaven; Mitra, with a tendency to become the god of the starry heaven), a cosmic moral law (the rita, or rta), a war god (Indra), two horsemen who appear at dawn for a daily → sacrifice (the Nāsatyas), a nobility, charioteers, and peasants. Included are myths of the first man, early kings, and the Oxus goddess Ardvı̄ Sūrā Anāhitā (a variant of a pre-Aryan → mother goddess), also the first cattle stealing from non-Aryan neighbors, who are represented as a three-headed → serpent. In the cult a continual → fire was kept burning that was partly a medium and partly an object of worship. Libations were brought. The use of a hallucinogenic drink (Iranian haoma, Indian soma) points to → shamanism, from which derive the gift of → visions and the experience of having multiple souls, which are found among all later Iranians. Several of the elements discussed below (see 3–8) were present already, though many details are hotly contested.
3. Western Iranians
3.1. The most important migrations were those of peoples that later played a historical role. At the end of movements around the Caspian Sea, through the valleys of the Caucasus and Zagros Mountains, and through the Caspian Gates between the Damāvand peak in the Elburz Mountains and the uninhabitable salt desert, there appeared the Medes and Persians as the conclusion of the expansion of the Parthians to the area southeast of the Caspian Sea. In the ninth century the Persians came into contact with the Assyrians south of Lake Urmia. They then came into the southwest of modern Iran in the seventh century. For the previous thousand years Iran had been occupied by the culturally and linguistically independent Elamites.
The Medes moved into the northwest of modern Iran, where around 620 B.C. they founded a state that included the Urartians (a people related to the Hurrites) and a Persian subkingdom. The Mede Cyrus II the Great (ruled 558–529 B.C.) laid the foundation for a great empire under his own dynasty, the Achaemenian. He himself incorporated Lydia (547/546) and Babylon (539) by conquest, and his successors ruled over all the territory east to the Indus, including that of the original Iranian peoples, as well as over Egypt and Asia Minor. This first world empire lasted until it fell to Alexander the Great (336–323) in 333–323.
3.2. Among the Persians we find the “lords” (the ahuras), which were important along with cosmic forces like wind (Vayu) and fire (Ātar). But Indra and the Nāsatyas and others, which were gods for the Indians, were now denigrated as evil spirits. A mythological → dualism was constructed that found social expression in the antithesis of order or truth (Asha, for rita) versus deceit or falsehood (Druj). All slaughtering was sacrificial (→ Sacrifice), and like haoma, it served to renew life for both earthly and heavenly beings.
Among the Medes a special priestly office (→ Priest, Priesthood) was delegated to the magi, one of the six orders under the king, which the successors of Cyrus took over. The magi of Media created their own dualism. In their ritual practice they treated the earthly world in terms of two diametrically opposed spheres: the clean and the unclean. To the unclean sphere belonged human corpses, the burial of which became a central religious and social concern (→ Funeral). Since interment or cremation would make the two pure elements of earth and fire unclean, there remained only exposure in special places, where unclean birds would eat the corpses and thus limit the defiling of the air.
The religion of the Parthians can be reconstructed only from a few later attested words and from the archaeology of the early steppe peoples. We know the names of cultic places (including graves), along with priestly offices, rites, and gods. In their worship, components with an orientation to nature were more important than the social components. Relics of western Iranian religion appear in the folklore of the → Kurds.
4. Northern Iranians

Several nomadic peoples, breaking out from the original Iranian homeland in the steppes both westward and eastward, clung to their nomadic lifestyle. Greek writers from the time of Herodotus (ca. 484-between 430 and 420 B.C.) call them Scythians. In the eighth century B.C. they were scattered across southern Russia, and from the sixth century they lived in symbiosis with non-Iranian peoples of similar culture from the Ukraine to China. Shamanism was common to all of them and was probably more important structurally than the Iranian version of its → mythology.
5. Eastern Iranians

Ethnically we must regard as eastern Iranians the inhabitants of the vast area from Transoxiana across the Hindu Kush to around Hamun-i-Mashkel. These peoples spoke Khwarazmian, the dialect of Zoroaster, Bactrian, and Sogdian. The common Iranian tradition may be found especially in poems and epics about kings and heroes. The three-headed serpent is actualized from now on as a foreign usurper (Azı̄ Dahāka) from whom a hero must wrest back the kingdom. Gods of fertility, water, stars, destiny, and victory are also extolled in hymns. Relics of the Iranian religions (original, northern, and eastern) may still be found in the folklore of peoples between Nuristan and Dardistan.
6. Zoroaster

In eastern Iran, first around Balkh (now Wazirābād in northwest Afghanistan), Zoroaster lived for more than 75 years in the sixth century B.C. (or perhaps as early as the 10th cent.). Half his life he performed a priestly ritual (Yasna), and half he was the → prophet of a new relation to God. He consistently opposed an orgiastic nomadic religion and was the reformer of a farming religion that cherished plants and animals. He based the → truth on an ethos bound up with cattle raising and related falsehood to the → ecstasy induced by drinking the blood of beasts and haoma. In this way he established the strongest of all Iranian dualisms.
The relating of the truth to the most powerful of the traditional lords robbed this lord of the ambivalence that produced a milder dualism and made him unequivocally the Wise Lord (Ahura Mazda). To slacken the opposition to the new dualism, which was also generalized as that of good and evil, and which had an evil spirit (Angra Mainyu) on the bad side, a holy spirit (Spenta Mainyu) was set in dialectical relation to Ahura Mazda, partly identical and partly independent. Life as conflict between truth and falsehood and their two gods, or the principles of → good and → evil, brought for the first time a historical dimension to what had previously been a timeless worldview. Elements were spiritualized as “holy immortals” (Amesha Spentas), and ethical actions were related to them. God and humans could act by the same Good Mind (Vohu Manah). Zoroaster also had earthly “helpers” (Saoshyants) in the conflict, whose work he discerned in a kind of realized → eschatology. After death the truthful and liars would be separated at the “bridge of decision,” the good (i.e., Zoroaster’s followers) being able to cross the bridge, the bad being afraid to do so.
The strictness of decision that Zoroaster demanded seems to have stirred up the hatred of his contemporaries, so that he had to flee. His new protector, Vishtaspa, was king of northern Khwārizm (south of the Aral Sea). The message of Zoroaster spread there, and then in his original homeland.
7. Zoroastrianism

Soon after Zoroaster’s death his teaching spread west by way of central Afghanistan, not by conscious mission but because the Iranians found in his new unambiguously ethical interpretation an essential completion of their own religion. Later the Persian emperors accepted Zoroastrianism, relating truth to their own legitimacy and falsehood to the position of their political opponents. The cultic practices of the Median magi were integrated into Zoroastrianism, leading to the exposure of the dead on special towers. The message of Zoroaster was reinterpreted. Gods that had become irrelevant with the worship of Ahura Mazda were given a new meaning (as Mithra or Anahita). The dualism was not just that of the two chief gods but also of demons and the saving immortals and other good spirits. The “bridge of decision” now led to a sphere of perfect life, or endless lights. The wicked could also cross it but would fall into → hell.
In the period of the Sassanids (224–651), Zoroastrianism became a state religion. The power of Ohrmuzd (= earlier Ahura Mazda) and that of the king were the same, as were also the rebellions of the king’s opponents and of Ahriman (= earlier Angra Mainyu). A network of burial towers (the dakhma, “tower of silence”) and hierarchically graded fire-temples covered the land. Haoma was drunk again, but now for purification. The religious system became a cosmology with a cosmic year of 12,000 years. The religious tradition that had developed since Zoroaster was assembled and given a form corresponding to the cult (Avesta).
Zoroastrianism still lives on among the so-called Iranis in Yazd, Kermān, and Tehran, and among the Parsis who moved to Gujarat, India, in the 8th century and organized themselves in the 13th century.
8. Hellenism and Syncretism

After Alexander the Seleucids (from 312 B.C.), the Diodotids (from 239 B.C.), and several Indo-Scythian states (up to the 3rd cent. A.D.) made the Iranian territories and peoples quantitatively the most important agents of → Hellenism. They were culturally strong and pure Greek only in these areas and neighboring satrapies (i.e., Bactria, Aria, and Gandhara—today the Persian province Khorāsān, Afghanistan, and northern Pakistan), while between them and the Hellenized areas that linked the Semitic and Hellenistic worlds in the West, their presence seems to have been very minimal. Politically, the Parthians were its liquidators; culturally, while leaving it in the cities, they restored Iranian beliefs and Zoroastrianism in rural areas from the third century B.C. For various reasons Hellenistic religion adopted so many Iranian elements in zones of contact (→ Syncretism) that their transmission to Mediterranean Hellenism has left proportionately small, although discernible, traces.
The royal ideology of many Hellenistic rulers and several whole dynasties (→ Emperor Worship) were influenced by Iranian ruler charisma, or royal glory (the khvarnah). The phenomenon of → magic received its normative representatives, its theory, and its name from the magi, who by symbiosis with neo-Babylonian Chaldeans and the subsequent Hellenization had become a mobile guild of diviners, experts in nature and healing, everyday ritualists, rainmakers, and astrologers. Many demonologies (→ Demons) took on new forms and a dualistic character. Iranian speculation about infinite time (Zurvān Akarana, “Eternal Lord”) gave a new dimension to aeon theology. Iranian-Greek theocracies changed the nature of the gods in many mythologies, among them those that became the teaching of the Mithra mysteries (→ Hellenistic-Roman Religion) in Asia Minor and later in Rome.
9. Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity

By the second century B.C. futurist eschatology in conflict with foreign Hellenistic rule had developed into national Iranian → apocalyptic. Structural similarities with Jewish apocalyptic are explained by similar conditions of origin. In the first century A.D. the two traditions converged even in details (e.g., in angelology, demonology, world conflagration, resurrection, though not the Messiah). The exegesis of the Book of Daniel and the tradition of the Oracle of Hystaspes give evidence of the convergence. In the eschatology of the early church and the West as a whole, the idea of a millennium (the final millennium in the Zoroastrian cosmic year) came in by way of Rev. 20:2–10, where we also find the serpent in the form of a cosmic monster.
10. Gnosticism

→ Gnostic Sethianism contained a doctrine of cosmic ages that → Manichaeanism developed as a cosmogony after the Zoroastrian model, using peripheral older Iranian traditions in Middle Persian, Parthian, and Sogdian forms. For three generations there has been scholarly debate about an Iranian background for Gnosticism. The question is a good one as concerns the salvator-salvandus idea, the heavenly journey of the → soul, anticosmic dualism, and the dualism of light and darkness. Iranian influence would be on the nonhistorical surface, but Iranian (mostly Zoroastrian or Zurvanite) structures of thought played a role in dialectical historical processes that in many places led to central Gnostic statements.
11. Shiite Islam

→ Shia, which has been dominant in Iran since 1501 and which expects the hidden twelfth imam, or Mahdi, had its center in Arab countries (Iraq and Lebanon) and became the confession of the dominant Safawids in Anatolia. It was thus as non-Iranian as → Islam in general. Yet the local coloring that it was given by the neo-Persian that is spoken and written by the majority of Shiites, and by all of them in Iran, raises the question whether the many Iranian traditions (religious, legal, etc.) have not had an impact in modern as well as medieval Iran. Has the returning imam something to do with the Saoshyants, the → mysticism with Zoroastrian idealism? Is there a link between the orders and the former male guilds? Continuities of this kind are not certain, but popular belief suggests many common motifs and symbols, and the → esotericism suggests pre-Islamic illuminative or metaphysical movements.
One might speak of a kinship between Iranian → spirituality and Neoplatonic (→ Platonism) or Gnostic thought. In many forms it produced an independent → theosophy (e.g., in Suhrawardı̄ in the 12th cent.), though this association would always be regarded as an exaggeration and result in inner conflicts. Thus Shiite insistence on the link between divine inspiration (hulūl) and the genealogy of the imams might be regarded as an institutional reaction to the free inspiration of “zealots” (ghulāt), which leads to intellectual and political → anarchy. Paradoxically the Twelver Shiites in this way endowed their imams with a halo of legitimacy (the khvarnah, or farr) that they themselves never claimed and that had already been conferred on ancient Iranian rulers. The truly righteous scholar (faqı̄h), who represents the hidden imam on earth, profits from this legitimacy (see arts. 107–12 of the constitution of November 15, 1979). Thus an incontestably national self-consciousness can shine, even through the new institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
→ Mystery Religions

Bibliography: K. BARR, C. COLPE, and M. BOYCE, “Die Religion der alten Iranier / Zarathustra und der frühe Zoroastrismus / Der spätere Zoroastrismus,” HRG 2.265–372 ∙ M. BOYCE, A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism (Lanham, Md., 1989); idem, Zoroastrianism: Its Antiquity and Constant Vigour (Costa Mesa, Calif., 1992) ∙ The Cambridge History of Iran (6 vols.; Cambridge, 1968–86) ∙ C. COLPE, “Historische und religiös-politische Konfliktpositionen im iranisch-irakischen Krieg,” Praxis der Unwelt- und Friedenserziehung (vol. 3; ed. J. Calließ and R. E. Lob; Düsseldorf, 1988) 671–94 ∙ P. GIGNOUX, Recurrent Patterns in Iranian Religions: From Mazdaism to Sufism (Paris, 1992) ∙ G. GNOLI, “Iranian Religions,” EncRel(E) 7.277–80 ∙ K. GREUSSING, ed., Religion und Politik im Iran (Berlin, 1981) ∙ H. W. HAUSSIG, ed., Götter und Mythen der kaukasischen und iranischen Völker (Stuttgart, 1986) ∙ J. NEUSNER, Judaism and Zoroastrianism at the Dusk of Late Antiquity (Atlanta, 1993); idem, Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism in Talmudic Babylonia (Lanham, Md., 1986) ∙ S. A. NIGOSIAN, The Zoroastrian Faith: Tradition and Modern Research (Montreal, 1993) ∙ S. SHAKED, Dualism in Transformation: Varieties of Religion in Sassanian Iran (London, 1994); idem, From Zoroastrian Iran to Islam: Studies in Religious History and Intercultural Contacts (Brookfield, Vt., 1995).
CARSTEN COLPE
Iraq

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
6,847
13,007
23,109
Annual growth rate (%):
3.05
3.27
2.86
Area: 435,052 sq. km. (167,975 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 53/sq. km. (138/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 3.40 / 0.54 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 4.80 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 39 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 69.4 years (m: 68.0, f: 70.9)
Religious affiliation (%): Muslims 96.0, Christians 3.2 (indigenous 1.4, Roman Catholics 1.1, other Christians 0.7), other 0.8.

1. Geography and Economy
2. Political Development
3. Religion
4. Religious Policy
5. Shiite Role
6. Position of Christians
1. Geography and Economy

Iraq’s population is mostly Arabs, with about 23 percent → Kurds. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers create favorable conditions for agriculture, which is but poorly developed. Oil is the most important economic factor. It brought in 26 billion dollars in 1980 and is the basis of a large-scale development program. As a result of the Gulf Wars and the economic boycott imposed by the United Nations since 1990, however, this program largely came to a standstill.
2. Political Development

With the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, Iraq came under British mandate and then achieved independence in 1932. The 1958 revolution put an end to the monarchy and eliminated British influence. The Arab Socialist Ba‘th Party took over in 1968. The party, which promotes an → ideology of Arab → socialism, is attempting a comprehensive transformation of the economy and the society. It views itself as a progressive party shaping the sociopolitical process.
The long Kurdish War ended in 1975 when an arrangement with the shah of Iran stopped Iranian aid to the Kurds. In 1979 Saddam Hussein assumed all more important state and party offices (including president and general secretary of the Ba‘th Party). He tried to counter the danger emanating from Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution in Iran by waging a preventative war with Iran between 1980 and 1988, when this Gulf War ended in a cease-fire. The occupation of Kuwait by Iraqi troops on August 2, 1990, resulted in the second Gulf War (January 17–February 27, 1991) in which the anti-Iraq coalition, led by the United States, forced Iraq to withdraw. The social situation of the Iraqi people deteriorated as a result of the economic blockade imposed by the U.N. Security Council. In March 1997 the first transports of foodstuffs arrived in Iraq within the framework of the program “Oil for Food.” Attempts by the Iraqi leadership to prevent U.N. representatives from inspecting and destroying Iraqi chemical and bacteriological weapons programs were met by repeated air strikes carried out by the United States and Great Britain.
3. Religion

Among Iraqi Muslims, the Shiites are the largest religious group (55 percent; → Shia, Shiites). Other religions are represented by relatively small numbers of Yezidis, Mandaeans, Jews (→ Judaism), and → Baha’is.
The most significant Christian group is the Chaldeans, numbering between 500,000 and 600,000 and having been united with Rome since the 16th century (→ Uniate Churches). Its → patriarch resides in Baghdad. The next largest groups are the Catholic Syrian Church and the → Syrian Orthodox (Jacobite) Church, each with less than one-tenth as many adherents. Armenians in Iraq mostly belong to the → Armenian Apostolic (Gregorian) Church, but a minority to the Catholic Armenian Church. Other, even smaller Christian groups include → Nestorians (the Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East), → Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox (→ Orthodox Church), → Anglicans, and various Protestant groups.
4. Religious Policy

In the interests of maintaining internal stability, the Ba‘th Party follows a secular policy with strict separation of religion and the state. From the Islamic side charges have been made that the party wants to replace Islam by its own ideology. The party respects Islam as a significant part of the Arab legacy but will not accept it as the state religion. Since the war with Iran, and even more so since the Gulf War in 1991, Saddam Hussein has tried to use Islam to lend legitimacy to his regime by portraying himself as a pious Muslim, including the reintroduction of the basmala formula in speeches (Bismillāhi rahmāni rahı̄m, “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate”) and the addition of the words “Allahu akbar” (God is great) to the Iraqi flag.
5. Shiite Role

The Shiites have always felt repressed by the Sunnites (→ Sunna) and oppose the policies of the Ba‘th Sunnites. There has been periodic unrest, for example, in 1979 after Khomeini returned to Iran from exile. The general revolt for which Iran called, however, did not take place. In 1980 a secret organization (ad-Da’wa) was discovered, and about 60 leading Shiites, including their head, Ayatollah Baqir as-Sadr, were executed. An uprising of the Shiites after the end of the Gulf War was brutally put down in 1991.
Already in 1978 the government had put the Shiite clergy under its own control, supervising the income from religious endowments. But Saddam Hussein also sought better relations with the Shiites, stressing the compatibility of his policy with the principles of Islam and increasing government subsidies for → mosques.
6. Position of Christians

With its secular policy the regime grants toleration to the Christian → minorities. Legally, there is no discrimination against Christians; they can hold the highest offices. In 1999 the foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, was a Chaldean Christian. Christians generally have a better education and are especially well represented in the urban middle class, particularly as physicians and lawyers. Because of the opposition of Shiites and Kurds, the government increasingly seeks the support of the Christians, especially the Chaldeans, who have largely remained loyal. The situation is more difficult for non-Arabic minorities, such as the Assyrians and Armenians, who feel their identity threatened by the totalitarian claims of the Arabic nationalism attaching to Baʿth ideology.
→ Islam and Christianity

Bibliography: H. ANSCHÜTZ and P. HARB, Christen im Vorderen Orient. Kirchen, Ursprünge, Verbreitung. Eine Dokumentation (Hamburg, 1985) ∙ L. CHABRY and A. CHABRY, Politique et minorités au Proche-Orient (Paris, 1984) ∙ J. JOSEPH, Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East (New York, 1983) ∙ R. LAFITTE, “Chrétiens d’Irak. Rien n’est jamais acquis,” Cahiers de l’Orient 48 (1997) 73–79 ∙ B. LANDRON, Chrétiens et musulmans en Irak (Paris, 1994) ∙ R. LE COZ, L’église d’Orient. Chrétiens d’Irak, d’Iran et de Turquie (Paris, 1995) ∙ J. YACOUB, The Assyrian Question (Chicago, 1986) ∙ G. YONAN, Assyrer heute. Kultur, Sprache, Nationalbewegung der Aramäisch sprechenden Christen im Nahen Osten. Verfolgung und Exil (Hamburg, 1978).

THOMAS KOSZINOWSKI
Ireland

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
2,834
3,401
3,574
Annual growth rate (%):
0.29
0.87
0.23
Area: 70,285 sq. km. (27,137 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 51/sq. km. (132/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 1.36 / 0.85 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 1.80 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 6 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 77.4 years (m: 74.7, f: 80.2)
Religious affiliation (%): Christians 97.3 (Roman Catholics 89.2, Anglicans 3.9, unaffiliated 2.3, other Christians 1.9), nonreligious 2.2, other 0.5.

1. Churches
1.1. Roman Catholic Church
1.2. Church of Ireland
1.3. Presbyterian Church in Ireland
1.4. Methodist Church in Ireland
1.5. Other Churches
2. Interdenominational and Ecumenical Organizations
3. Church and State
4. Other Religions

Although Ireland became two states in 1922—with the establishment of the Irish Free State, which became the Republic of Ireland in 1949, and Northern Ireland, which remained part of the United Kingdom—the churches remained organized on an all-island basis. The pattern of membership distribution of the various churches on the island, however, is not uniform in the two states.
1. Churches
1.1. Roman Catholic Church

The Irish Catholic Church, which traces its roots in Ireland to at least the beginning of the fifth century, is the largest church on the island. The 1996 Irish Catholic Directory gives the Roman Catholic population in Ireland in 1994 as 3,919,568, which is 75 percent of the total population of the island. The church is served by 3,714 diocesan clergy in 26 → dioceses; the primate is the archbishop of Armagh. The membership of the church represents 92.5 percent of the population of the Republic of Ireland and 38.5 percent of the population in Northern Ireland.
In 1937 the Catholic Church was accorded a special place in the constitution of the Republic of Ireland, which was subsequently abolished by referendum in 1972. With a high average attendance at → mass, however, the church retains great influence in the Republic of Ireland and is associated with Gaelic nationalist culture throughout the land.
From the earliest days of Christianity in Ireland, a strong missionary movement to other countries was evident. This impulse has continued through the work of a variety of religious → orders that have been active above all in the educational and medical spheres.
The church in both states is heavily involved in → education, with primary and secondary schools and teacher training; though funded by the different governments, it is under the direct control of the church authorities. A wide range of social and medical services have also been provided by the church, though these are increasingly being brought under state control. Because of the high incidence of urban deprivation, a number of informal Catholic organizations have emerged to focus on the issues of justice (→ Righteousness, Justice) and → peace and to try to tackle → unemployment.
1.2. Church of Ireland

With the establishing of the Church of England in the 16th century, the government of Ireland passed into the hands of Anglicans (→ Anglican Communion). The Church of Ireland emerged in a manner parallel to that of the Church of England. Reinforced by the “planting” of English people who were faithful to the government in England, and who also provided the economic substructure for that government in Ireland, Anglicanism became associated with the establishment and the “ascendancy,” and with the Anglo-Irish section of the population on the island. In law the Church of Ireland was the established church until 1870.
Statistics of 1991 showed the membership of the Church of Ireland as 371,150, serviced by 484 clergy in 10 dioceses and 2 archdioceses. The primate is the archbishop of Armagh. The membership comprised 2.5 percent of the population in the Republic of Ireland and 18 percent of the population in Northern Ireland.
In the past the Church of Ireland was associated with the main institutions of the state and with the universities. Since disestablishment, however, this relationship has ended, and membership has been showing a gradual decline in the Republic of Ireland. The church has been involved in overseas missionary work.
1.3. Presbyterian Church in Ireland

The Presbyterian Church in Ireland (→ Reformed and Presbyterian Churches) emerged as part of the process of settlement, as did the Church of Ireland. The majority of the settlers came from Scotland and the church is regarded as having developed the “psychology of colonial frontiersmen.” This community, which was largely based in what is now known as Northern Ireland, became identified as Ulster-Scots. In 1997 there were 297,205 members in the church, supported by 430 ministers and organized in 21 presbyteries. The membership of the church comprised 23 percent of the population in Northern Ireland and 0.4 percent in the Republic of Ireland. For much of its history the church was regarded as being → “dissenter” and was subject to penal laws in the same way as the Catholic Church. This situation led to a large emigration to America, where Irish Presbyterians were very influential in the founding of the state and its institutions, especially universities.
The Presbyterian Church in Ireland has engaged in missionary work outside Ireland. In 1873 it became the first Presbyterian church to seek the foundation of the World Presbyterian Alliance, now the → World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Members of this church tend to be associated with the business and professional worlds, though its influence throughout the population of Northern Ireland is evident.
1.4. Methodist Church in Ireland

In 1996 the Methodist Church in Ireland (→ Methodist Churches) had 58,659 members, supported by 120 ministers and composing some 2 percent of the population of the whole island and 0.14 percent of the Republic of Ireland. Formed as a result of frequent visits to Ireland by John → Wesley (1703–91), it has been very active in overseas missionary work.
1.5. Other Churches

A number of other churches and communities exist in Ireland with much smaller memberships, including the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church (mainly in Northern Ireland), → Moravian Church, Religious Society of → Friends (two-thirds of whom live in Northern Ireland), → Lutheran Church (organized as one congregation throughout Ireland), → Salvation Army (mainly in Northern Ireland), Baptist Union (→ Baptists), and Free Presbyterian Church (the church of Ian Paisley).
2. Interdenominational and Ecumenical Organizations

The Irish InterChurch Process (Ballymascanlon), established in 1972, brought together representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and member churches of the Irish Council of Churches to discuss divisive theological questions and questions of common social concern. Since 1986 this process has been serviced by two advisory committees—on theological questions and on social questions—in the attempt to develop common theological perspectives and action throughout Ireland.
In 1923 the United Council of Christian Churches and Religious Communions in Ireland was established. Its member churches were the Protestant churches in Ireland, and it undertook a wide range of interchurch and social activities. This body was superseded in 1966 by the Irish Council of Churches (→ National Council of Churches), which is serviced by a full-time secretariat. The main member churches of the council are also member churches of the British Council of Churches, since Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. The Irish Council of Churches reflects the concerns of similar councils throughout the world.
In 1999 a proposal was discussed by each church in Ireland to establish a conference of churches in Ireland that would formally recognize and legally institutionalize the Irish Inter-church Meeting and that would have the effect of merging the Irish Council of Churches with it. At the time of writing, the discussions are continuing.
Tripartite conversations began in 1968, sponsored by the Church of Ireland, Presbyterians, and Methodists, after various bilateral conversations involving different combinations of these churches failed to bring the churches into → unity. The conversations came to an inconclusive end in 1988.
In the past 20 years a wide variety of interchurch bodies (about 65) have emerged to promote specific issues (e.g., interchurch families and community work). A number of reconciliation centres have also been established to promote ecumenism and peace (→ Ecumenism, Ecumenical Movement; Local Ecumenism), including the Corrymeela Community and the Glencree Centre for Reconciliation. Many of these groups have arisen as a response to the current conflict in Northern Ireland.
Both formal and informal contacts have transformed a situation in which the churches had tended to define themselves over against each other. Now, however, although the churches are still to a large extent associated with their respective cultural communities, no church is able to make a statement without its being sensitive to the reaction of the other churches.
3. Church and State

No Irish church is established in either the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland. All churches feel free to be critical of the governments and the institutions of state while enjoying state support for some of their activities (e.g., education; → Church and State). The Catholic Church, however, does wield considerable influence in the Republic of Ireland and has tried to ensure that the law of the state reflects Roman Catholic moral teaching (e.g., in matters of divorce and → abortion).
4. Other Religions

Muslim and Jewish communities exist in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland (→ Islam; Judaism). The Muslim community has 10,000 members in the Republic of Ireland and 5,000 in Northern Ireland, according to figures published in 1999. The Jewish community, largely Orthodox, was established in the 19th century and participates in the Irish Council of Christians and Jews, founded in 1981 (→ Jewish-Christian Dialogue). In 1996 there were 1,000 members each in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland. A number of → new religions have begun to appear in the Republic of Ireland in recent years, but as yet it is difficult to assess their size or importance.

Bibliography: D. BOWEN, History and the Shaping of Irish Protestantism (New York, 1995) ∙ P. J. CORISH, The Irish Catholic Experience: A Historical Survey (Dublin, 1985) ∙ I. ELLIS, Vision and Reality: A Survey of Twentieth Century Irish Inter-church Relations (Belfast, 1992) ∙ G. A. FORD, The Protestant Reformation in Ireland, 1590–1641 (Frankfurt, 1985) ∙ E. GALLAGHER and S. WORRALL, Christians in Ulster 1968–80 (London, 1982) ∙ J. A. WATT, The Church and the Two Nations in Medieval Ireland (Cambridge, 1970) ∙ J. H. WHYTE, Church and State in Modern Ireland, 1923–1970 (2d ed.; Dublin, 1980)
ALAN D. FALCONER
Irenaeus of Lyons

Irenaeus of Lyons (fl. 180) was a second-century → bishop whose work shaped the Scriptures, → exegesis, institutions, theology, and → spirituality of early Christianity so profoundly that his imprint remains discernible almost two millennia later. Through his teacher, Polycarp, Irenaeus retained a link to the first Christian generation, since Polycarp had talked “with John and with others who had seen the Lord” (Eusebius Hist. eccl. 5.20.6). Eusebius preserved part of the letter in which Irenaeus described his early years with Polycarp in Smyrna (modern-day Turkish İzmir). When Irenaeus traveled from his home in Asia Minor to the Rhone River town of Lugdunum (modern Lyons), he found compatriots settled there. Some formed part of the church in which he was a presbyter and whose emissary he was to Eleutherius, bishop of Rome, after the martyrdoms of 177 (5.4.1–2). When Pothinus, head of the church of Lyons, died in prison, Irenaeus succeeded him (5.5.8).
Two complete works of Irenaeus have survived: Eis tēn epideixin tou apostolikou kērygmatos (Proof/Demonstration of the apostolic preaching) and Adversus haereses (Against → heresies). The former, recovered in 1904, is a brief apologetic work couched in catechetical form. The latter is an extended reply to the → Gnostics (esp. the Valentinians) in which he describes those known to him (bk. 1), rebuts them rhetorically (bk. 2), and proclaims the Christian positions through the → interpretation of Scripture (bks. 3–4).
Fundamental to Irenaean thought is the → Rule of Faith, or Rule of Truth (see proof 3, Adv. haer. 1.9.5–1.10.2). It governs right exegesis, and the Scriptures (the object of the exegesis) in turn explain the Rule of Faith. The relationship here may seem circular, but in practice Irenaeus understands the connection between the Rule of Faith and the Scriptures primarily as dialogic. Text and interpretation, Scripture and tradition, word and experience are less mirror images of one another than conversation partners, each amplifying and correcting the insights of the other.
The Bible known to Irenaeus certainly included the Jewish Scriptures, the four Gospels, a collection of Paul’s letters, Acts, Revelation, 1 Peter, 1 and 2 John, and possibly also Shepherd of Hermas. Not only did Irenaeus first name the collection of Christian documents the “New Testament” (Adv. haer. 4.9.1), but he was the first to reflect thematically on biblical interpretation. In a prior step Christians had already effected a transformation of the sacred writings of the Jews by reading them as witnesses to Christ. At each stage what was involved was a theological reading of the Scriptures. Irenaeus asserted that the Scriptures belong to the church in such a way that any valid reading must be congruent with the faith of that community (e.g., 1.3.6). The question then becomes who enunciates the faith of the community.
Irenaeus contributed a theory of → authority that correlated the right of teaching (and thus of interpretation) with succession in office. In essence, he argues as follows: Jesus taught → truth to his disciples, all the truth necessary for salvation, intending that they hand it on in its entirety to their successors. These successors are the bishops, whence the importance Irenaeus attached to the apostolic lineage of any see. The process of → tradition is thus linked to a process of apostolic succession. He buttressed his argument by referring to the “succession lists” maintained by the churches, enumerating that of the church of → Rome (Adv. haer. 3.3.2–3).
Irenaeus stood for → faith in one God revealed by the one Son, → Jesus Christ, whose teaching was preserved in the one church through the one authoritative episcopal succession. In his view, the bishops succeed the → apostles through the gift of the Spirit. Thus for him the faith is ordinarily validated by the church’s authoritative teachers, the bishops; even his strongest passages on this topic, however, refer also to those whose belief seems to have been more immediately under the action of the Spirit of God (see Adv. haer. 3.4.2 and 3.24.1–3.25.7). Ultimately faith rests on the Jesus of the church, and allowance must always be made for the role of the Spirit. The situation undoubtedly was somewhat more ambiguous than Irenaeus’s analysis of the doctrine of succession would suggest.
Irenaeus held an economic Trinitarianism, maintaining that there is one God (the Father), who is revealed by the one Son, Jesus Christ. The strong emphasis on the oneness of God and of Christ counters any literal reading of the Gnostic myths of the pleroma. His rudimentary Trinitarian references (e.g., Adv. haer. 3.16.3) assign roles to each of the three persons in the divine economy. In other places (e.g., 4.20.1) he refers to the Son and the Spirit as “the hands of God,” who form and adorn the → creation.
Irenaean Christological emphases include Jesus as the recapitulation of Adam (from his reading of Rom. 5:12–19) and insight into the relation between → incarnation and → salvation. He insists that “it was necessary for the Mediator between God and humanity, through his own being at home in both, to lead both back to friendship and concord” (Adv. haer. 3.18.7). Here we have an early enunciation of what is today termed the soteriological principle, namely, that in the incarnation what Christ took to himself is what was saved. This principle, which remained influential in the Christological controversies through the Council of → Chalcedon (451), was applied to such questions as whether the Incarnate One had a human soul.
Concern for the reality of Christ’s human body finds an appropriate parallel in Irenaeus’s understanding of the → Eucharist. Irenaeus maintained that the consecrated elements are indeed the body and blood of Christ. In reflections wholly compatible with the thought of John 6, he writes, “Just as the bread which is from the earth, receiving the invocation of God, is now not common bread but Eucharist, constituted from two things, earthly and heavenly, so our bodies receiving the Eucharist are no longer corruptible, having the hope of → resurrection” (Adv. haer. 4.18.5). The parallel is clear: as bread receives word to become Eucharist, so through the medium of the Eucharist flesh receives spirit to enable humans to share in the risen life. This conception of the Eucharist, while still theologically somewhat naive, is dynamic and respectful of the diverse elements joined sacramentally. It exerted immense influence in shaping patristic sacramental theology from the second century through the time of → Augustine.
In the Irenaean perspective, the human person is what God became in order that humans might be drawn into God’s family. The nourishment for that process is the Eucharist, and the completion of the process will come in resurrection. As to the here and now, humans are in the image and likeness of God. The image, being in the flesh, was not lost in the fall. An aspect of the likeness to God is human → freedom, which is also retained after the fall. Irenaeus holds that humans use free will to taste good and evil, learning by experience to choose the good and reject the bad. Ultimately, through God’s vivifying gift of grace, humans are called to grow into the fullness of life, the vision of God: “The glory of God is the human person fully alive, and the life of the human person is the vision of God” (Adv. haer. 4.20.7).

Bibliography: D. L. BALÁS, “The Use and Interpretation of Paul in Irenaeus’s Five Books Adversus haereses,” SecCent 9 (1992) 27–39 ∙ D. J. BINGHAM, Irenaeus’s Use of Matthew’s Gospel in “Adversus haereses” (Louvain, 1998) ∙ Y. M. BLANCHARD, Aux sources du canon, le témoignage d’Irénée (Paris, 1993) ∙ M. A. DONOVAN, One Right Reading? A Guide to Irenaeus (Collegeville, Minn., 1997) ∙ J. FANTINO, La théologie d’Irénée. Lecture des Écritures en réponse à exégèse gnostique: Une approche trinitaire (Paris, 1994) ∙ R. M. GRANT, Irenaeus of Lyons (New York, 1997) ∙ D. L. HOFFMAN, Women and Gnosticism in Irenaeus and Tertullian (Lewiston, N.Y., 1995) ∙ D. MINN, Irenaeus (Washington, D.C., 1994) ∙ R. A. NORRIS JR., “Theology and Language in Irenaeus of Lyon,” ATR 76 (1994) 285–95 ∙ T. L. TIESSEN, Irenaeus on the Salvation of the Unevangelized (Metuchen, N.J., 1993).
MARY ANN DONOVAN, S.C.
Irrationalism

1. The term “irrationalism” comes from the Lat. irrationalis, which ranges in meaning from the opposite of rationalis (i.e., “incomprehensible” or “illogical”) to the opposite of “reasonable” (i.e., an attitude that is not subject to the universal and subjectively communicable laws and structures of thought but determined by illogical forces). According to the position vis-à-vis the rational and the related evaluation, there are two forms of irrationality: that which is above the rational (i.e., the suprarational or transintelligible) and that which is below it (i.e., the pre- or sublogical). If by “rationality” we mean the necessary regularity of the analytic and discursive understanding, then ontologically the former relates to the rational totality that is beyond the understanding, the → absolute, the divine sphere; the latter, then, relates to the individual, particular, or unique that is below the understanding. In → psychology, this subrational takes the form of the emotional, the impulsive life, the dark forces of the mind and soul; in history, the form of the contingently historical, of vital creative forces; and in → nature, the form of the accidental. Epistemologically, the former comprises abilities that transcend the understanding: → reason, intellectual intuition, → faith, and → revelation; the latter, those that are subordinate to the understanding: sensory perception, → intuition, feeling, emotion, and → empathy.
Unlike → rationalism, irrationalism has produced no philosophical positions or trends of its own; it arises only within other philosophical theories. The point is usually to clarify the relation between the rational and the irrational, showing either how they counterbalance one another or how one dominates the other.

2. According to the epistemological approach taken, irrationalism can assume many forms. It may be → agnosticism, which claims that we cannot know the suprarational. It may have the form of believing because absurd, that is, religious → paradox that accepts the suprarational because it is against our understanding. It may be → negative theology, which in the docta ignorantia (learned ignorance) teaching of Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64) begins with the rational but then thinks we can indicate what lies beyond it only by the via negativa (negative way) by renouncing finite rational predicates or, paradoxically, by a coincidence of opposites. It may be → mysticism, which embraces the other world by illumination or inner vision. It may be a theology of revelation that goes beyond theory to ontic revelation, as in the case of F. H. Jacobi (1743–1819) or S. Kierkegaard (1813–55).

3. When there is equation with the subrational—→ life, instinct, impulse, emotion, feeling, → love, immediacy, individuality, historical forces, → chance, and so forth—irrationalism may be historically viewed as emotionalism, as in the Sturm und Drang movement or in → Romanticism. Or it may be viewed methodologically as → historicism (esp. in 19th–cent. discussions). Or it may be viewed philosophically as life philosophy (→ Philosophy of Life) or → existentialism according to W. Dilthey (1833–1911), M. Heidegger (1889–1976), and J.-P. Sartre (1905–80).
Whereas these positions recognize the irrational as the unavoidable basis of the rational, extreme rationalistic positions reject the irrational as unreasonable. → Marxism pronounced the sharpest and most unequivocal verdict, viewing irrationalism as the opposite of scientific thought and → progress, as a disparagement of reason and understanding, and as an uncritical glorification of intuition. As such, it represents an aristocratic epistemology, a repudiation of social and historical progress, and a forging of myths (G. Lukács, 10).

4. The discussion of irrationalism achieved new relevance in the latter part of the 20th century. It did so in the field of politics in the form of a moral judgment on totalitarian systems like National Socialism, Stalinism, → fascism, and others, along with their irrational foundations and their inadmissible consequences, including → racism, the elimination of the Jews (→ Holocaust), the Soviet gulags, and myths such as that of blood and soil often underlying them. It did so also in the field of philosophy, where from the time of the provocative theses of the Paris avant-gardists (M. Foucault, J. Baudrillard, and J.-F. Lyotard) modern → philosophy has been brought under appraisal and a reversal is in process.
In philosophy the antithesis of rationalism and irrationalism—often under the symbols of Sarastro and the queen of the night, from Mozart’s Magic Flute—is discussed in terms of the modern (→ modernity) and the → postmodern. The modern is equated with → enlightenment, → freedom, → autonomy, → emancipation, subjectivity, but also systematization, a thrust toward unity, and a desire to generalize and equate concepts (T. W. Adorno; → Critical Theory). In contrast, the postmodern—which some decry as regression, while others laud it as modernity—is seen in complexity (of the world), heterogeneity, multiplicity of forms of life and speech, particularity, minority, also myth construction and irrationality.
Politically, irrationalism is negative. It is equated with lack of thought, reason, or responsibility, as well as with capricious action and an uncontrolled lust for power, uncritical ideologizing (→ Ideology), stereotypes of → enemies, and hate-filled → prejudices.
Philosophically, irrationalism is ambivalent. It has its supporters (as the modern euphoria for myth shows), who think that irrational emotional or mental forces complement more precise, abstract thinking, or who even rate mythical experience of the world above the scientific. It also has its critics, who see in it the dangers of anarchic → pluralism à la P. Feyerabend, of uncommitted → play and mere appearance, of a lack of any will for unity, and of apocalyptic visions.
→ Epistemology; Kantianism; Logic; Metaphysics

Bibliography: W. BARRETT, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (New York, 1958) ∙ G. R. DODDS, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley, Calif., 1963) ∙ H. P. DUERR, ed., Die Wissenschaftler und das Irrationale (2 vols.; Frankfurt, 1981) ∙ E. FEIL, Antithetik neuzeitlicher Vernunft. “Autonomie-Heteronomie” und “rational-irrational” (Göttingen, 1987) ∙ G. LUKÁCS, Die Zerstörung der Vernunft (Berlin, 1953) ∙ R. L. PATTERSON, Irrationalism and Rationalism in Religion (Durham, N.C., 1954) ∙ P. G. SWINGLE, The Structure of Conflict (New York, 1970).
KAREN GLOY
Isaac

1. Biblical Tradition
2. History of Scholarship
3. Isaac in the NT
1. Biblical Tradition

Stories about Isaac appear in Genesis 17–28. Although they are largely to be ascribed to J, P is represented at the beginning (17:15–27) and end (27:46–28:9), and E in 21:1–7 and 22:1–19 (→ Pentateuch). Chap. 26 elaborates most fully on Isaac’s life, including his adventures and quarrels in Gerar, God’s theophany in Beer-sheba with the promise to bless Isaac, and his covenant with Abimelech.
2. History of Scholarship

Isaac has been described as a legendary figure (H. Gunkel; → Abraham), as a figure representing tribal history (O. Eißfeldt), though also as a historical individual, as a seminomadic leader, or as the founder of a cult (A. Alt). The Isaac narratives belong to an older cultural stage than do the West-Jordanian Jacob narratives (M. Noth) and reflect an era in which the Israelite tribes were not yet sedentary (→ Tribes of Israel) and had, in the course of seeking grazing areas, come into contact in southern → Palestine with the inhabitants of the settled countryside. A. Jepsen maintains the connection between the Isaac tradition and the North, adducing in support especially Amos 7:9 (“the high places of Isaac”).
The figure of Isaac was enhanced when the theme of the → promise, previously bound to the cults of the “God of the Fathers” (Alt, Noth), was incorporated into the Israelite creed during the southern-Palestinian stage of the growth of the Pentateuch tradition. Although Isaac as the successor of → Jacob became established as one of Israel’s patriarchs (→ Patriarchal History), his tradition receded in favor of that of Abraham (Noth).
3. Isaac in the NT

The most interesting occurrences of Isaac in the NT are Gal. 4:28–31 and Jas. 2:21–24. The former associates Hagar with the Sinai covenant and Sarah with the → covenant of → grace, into which her son, Isaac, enters. The latter adduces Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac as proof that → justification requires works as well as → faith.
→ Israel 1

Bibliography: A. JEPSEN, “Zur Überlieferungsgeschichte der Vätergestalten,” WZ(L).GS 2/3 (1983) 265–81 ∙ R. MARTIN-ACHARD, “Isaac,” ABD 3.461–70 ∙ H.-J. RITZ, “Ἰσαάκ,” EDNT 2.199–200. See also the bibliography in “Abraham.”
WILLIAM MCKANE
Isaiah, Book of

1. Overall Structure
2. Trito-Isaiah
3. Deutero-Isaiah
3.1. Suffering Servant Songs
3.2. Other Themes
4. First Isaiah
1. Overall Structure

Ever since B. Duhm’s epochal commentary (1892), scholars have generally divided the Book of Isaiah into three parts:

• Isaiah I, chaps. 1–39, according to the dating in 1:1; 6:1; 36:1, the testament of the → prophet Isaiah from the eighth century B.C.;
• Isaiah II (Deutero-Isaiah), chaps. 40–55, which the reference to Babylon (43:14; 47) and the election of the Persian king Cyrus (558–29; Isa. 44:28; 45:1) identify as an exilic prophecy; and
• Isaiah III (Trito-Isaiah), chaps. 56–66, which the mention of the second → temple (§1) and of the rebuilding of → Jerusalem (60:7, 10) identifies as prophetic literature from the (early) postexilic period.

Faith in the presence and dominance of Israel’s God permeates all three parts, with self-criticism in times of hope, consolation in times of despair, and guidance in times of rebuilding among wretched circumstances.
That witnesses from such disparate periods coalesced into a single book derives both from external factors (the usual length of ancient scrolls, plus the possibility that several prophets bore the name yĕšaʿyāhû, “Yahweh helps”) and from the inner cohesion of the Isaiah tradition itself. The same comment applies also to the part added last, namely, the so-called Apocalypse of Isaiah (24–27). This small writing apparently grew in sequence from a series of late-prophetic oracles and responsory songs such that a kind of liturgy emerged. With its anticipation of a catastrophic final judgment (24:17–23; → Last Judgment) and a universal resurrection of the dead (25:8; 26:19), it recalls the kind of → apocalyptic articulated in Daniel.
Chaps. 33–35 provide virtually a key to understanding the Book of Isaiah as a whole. The dreadful Edom prophecy in chap. 34 transfers the catchword “[measuring] line,” which in 28:13, 17 appears in a threat against Judah, first to Edom (34:11) and then into a salvific promise for Judah (34:17). Reversals of oracles of disaster into oracles of salvation are also found in 35:5 over against 6:9–10, and in 33:7 over against 29:1. Furthermore, Deutero-Isaiah comes into view in the divine predicate “king” (“the LORD is our king,” 33:22; cf. 43:15; 52:7) and in the promise of miraculous profusion of water (35:7; cf. 41:17–19; 43:19–20). Finally, the sociocritical passage 33:7–8 points back to First Isaiah (e.g., chap. 5) as well as forward to Trito-Isaiah (e.g., 59:1–15; cf. also 33:14–22 with 10:20–23 and 65).
What are known as the Isaiah legends (chaps. 36–39) function as a bridge between the three parts of the book. The patriotic Isaiah portrayed here does not really fit with the Isaiah who comes to expression in 31:1–3 or 22:1–14, though he does admittedly harmonize well with the Zion theology in First Isaiah, whether that theology is (probably) authentic (1:21–26; 14:24–27) or appended (e.g., 2:2–5; 30:27–33). Chapter 39 points to Deutero-Isaiah with his fully developed Zion theology (40:9–10; 49:14–21; 54:11–17). The legends have been appropriated from 2 Kgs. 18:17–20:19, from the → Deuteronomistic history. The structure and appropriation of tradition in Isaiah 33–39 thus suggest a postexilic author living in Judah with access to both Deuteronomistic and exilic literature.
2. Trito-Isaiah

Trito-Isaiah combines themes that permeate the entire Book of Isaiah, for example, the notion of obduracy, blindness, and deafness, as well as the promise of healing these defects (cf. 6:9–10; 42:18–20; 43:8; 44:18; 59:9–10 with 29:18; 30:19–21; 42:7; 64:3–4), the critique of sacrifices (1:10–17; 43:22–28; 58), worship of foreign deities (cf. 57:3–13; 65:1–7 with 2:8; 17:7–11; 30:22; 44:9–20), and destruction and rebuilding (6:11; 44:26; 58:12; 60:10, 17–22; 61:4). These features identify the historical locus. The exile is past, but its wounds remain; the preexilic prophecy of doom must still be overcome; and the exilic prophecy of salvation offers the needed guidance and motivation.
These common features suggest that the linking of First Isaiah with Deutero-Isaiah possibly took place at the level of Trito-Isaiah. Statements from the two initial parts can be found in 57:14–20 in an extremely concentrated and independent reformulation. Strikingly, both 57:17b and 59:15 show a typically Deuteronomistic language. Because both this penitential confession as well as the lament in 63:7–64:12 and in the prophetic interrogation in chapter 58 attest elements from a worship context, the question arises whether the composition of the Book of Isaiah as a whole as well as its individual parts are not perhaps addressing liturgical needs. Other features suggesting a liturgical focus might include the sequence of disaster in First Isaiah and → salvation in Deutero-Isaiah/Trito-Isaiah, or the structure of chaps. 28–32, or even the interwoven accusations and laments in Deutero-Isaiah (e.g., 42:18–25; 43:22–28; 45:9–17; 46:8–13). The role of the → Sabbath (56:2; 58:13–14) and of the temple (60:7, 13; 66:20–21) might also suggest liturgical concerns. Isa. 56:7 even opens the temple cult to non-Jews, and 56:1–6 encourages the acceptance of → proselytes.
In contrast, we find efforts to delimit all non-Jews from the community (63:1–6; 66:15–16, 24; → Congregation) and to distinguish between the righteous and the unrighteous within it (57:19–21; 65). Such tensions suggest that the book was put together from various parts and that it also includes subsequent expansions in Trito-Isaiah. The vital energy of the Isaianic tradition even during the postexilic period is evoked by the ethical depth of 58:6–9a (expanded in 9b–12) and by the liberating power of 61:1–2 (incorporated in Luke 4:18–19).
3. Deutero-Isaiah
3.1. Suffering Servant Songs

Perhaps it was the basic author of Trito-Isaiah who edited Deutero-Isaiah and in the process inserted the Suffering Servant Songs (42:1–4; 49:1–6; 50:4–9; 52:13–53:12; with expansions in 42:5–9; 49:7–13; 50:10–11). The identity of the Suffering Servant is uncertain (→ Servant of the Lord). In Deutero-Isaiah, → Israel—in particular, those in exile—bears this title (41:8; 44:1 and elsewhere). The redactors probably also had this interpretation in mind, perhaps also inserting it into 49:3. The commission to engage in service to Israel in 49:5–6, however, and the juxtaposition of the “servant” and the community in the fourth song point to an individual rather than to a collective.
Whether the reference is to a → messianic figure, a ruler, or a past or present prophet, however, is uncertain. Much suggests that the Suffering Servant is the prophet from whom the core of Deutero-Isaiah ultimately derives. The other parts of Deutero-Isaiah may contain hints of the personality and biography of the prophet, but this conclusion depends on the respective interpretation of the texts. The Servant Songs, however, for one prepared to view them biographically, provide a sharp outline of the prophetic author himself.
3.2. Other Themes

Even apart from these songs, Deutero-Isaiah has been consciously composed and structured through a framework in 40:8, 10–11 and 55:10–13 (the power of God’s word and the promise of return), through an organizing of its 50–70 textual units according to themes, contrast, and keyword resonance, and through various expansions (e.g., 45:9–10; 48:22, probably also the polemic against idols such as that in 44:9–20). The structuring, however, does not eliminate the distinct individual profile of the prophet standing behind Deutero-Isaiah.
Precisely the demonstration of → Yahweh’s superiority over all other gods was especially important to the author, which he presented in disputation (40:27–31) or in judgment oracles (43:22–28; 44:6–8). Yahweh, whom the course of history had apparently repudiated, was nonetheless now, and would remain in the future, the master who can and would indeed guide history as he planned to a positive conclusion for Israel and to a disastrous end for Israel’s oppressors. Accordingly, Deutero-Isaiah is dominated by genres such as predictions and oracles of salvation, imitating (or perhaps even exercising) thus the function of the cultic prophets in the → worship service, namely, to respond to laments and petitions with the assurance of divine aid (a conclusion one may draw in Psalm 6, for example, from the juxtaposition of vv. 1–7 and vv. 8–10).
The content of this promise, though variously altered, is always the same in Deutero-Isaiah: the → suffering of the exile has atoned for Israel’s sin, and the exiles’ return is imminent. This → hope is so ambitious that the earlier exodus seems but a weak reflection of the new one (43:16–21); indeed, even → creation itself seems a mere preparation for Israel’s redemption (44:24–28). This message takes its cue from the political reality of the victorious campaigns by the Persian Cyrus (558–529 B.C.; cf. 44:28–45:7), which ultimately did indeed result in the fall of Babylon and the return to Judah, even though the former was not quite as catastrophic, and the latter not quite as triumphal, as the unknown exilic prophet anticipated.
The designation “Deutero-Isaiah” is justified by its various and clearly not merely redactionally appended connections with First Isaiah. The call scene before the heavenly council in 40:3–11 picks up on chap. 6; the concept of the witnesses in 43:10, 12; 44:8 on 8:2, 16; the reference to God’s plan in 46:11 on 14:24–27; the reference to Israel’s refinement in 48:10 on 1:22, 25; and so on. The tradition of First Isaiah seems to have traveled the path through the Babylonian exile and was thus not subject to Deuteronomistic redaction. During the exile, it elicited the quite contrary and yet congenial prophecy of Deutero-Isaiah. Then, having doubtless already been recast and expanded (for use in worship?), it was combined with Deutero-Isaiah at the level of Trito-Isaiah after the return home.
4. First Isaiah

Scholarship is uncertain about the form and the stages of growth of First Isaiah up to the exile and about the scope of later addenda. Various theories have been presented. O. Kaiser (in his OTL commentary) represents an extremely critical position, suggesting 11 developmental stages, the oldest being chaps. 36–39(!). A few others came from the sixth century, the 7 most important from the fifth century, and the rest later. U. Becker attributes some 20 verses—all of them oracles of salvation!—to the real Isaiah and postulates a growing Isaiah tradition from exilic times onward containing prophecies of doom and of salvation in a sequence of several stages. J. Barthel, however, assigns a considerable quantity of text material to the prophet of the eighth century.
H. Barth represents a mediating position, suggesting the presence in chaps. 2–32 of larger collections of authentic material put together in part by Isaiah himself, then a broad “Assyrian redaction” from the end of the seventh century, and finally a framework consisting of chaps. 1 and 33–39 from the (post)exilic period. In a similar vein, R. Kilian finds the presence of only a few pure oracles of disaster from Isaiah himself, with all oracles involving the Messiah, the remnant, Zion, anti-Assyrian sentiment, and repentance coming after the exile. H. Wildberger (in his BKAT commentary) represents a conventional position, finding a considerable basic collection of original Isaiah material, including oracles of salvation, in chaps. 1–12 and 28–32, also in 13–23; larger expansion did not take place until the exilic period, and then partly under the aspect of “salvation,” partly under that of “disaster”; a final postexilic redaction occurs only in chaps. 11–12, 13–20, 24–27, 33–35, and 36–39. The closest scholars have come to a consensus regards the cycle involving the foreign nations, chaps. 13–23; here the view is that a postexilic redactor constructed this section after the model of other prophetic books (Jeremiah 46–51; Ezekiel 25–32), also using Isaianic material (in chaps. 17–18, 20, 22, and probably also 14).
For the rest, scholars observe a growth pattern not in linear strata but through the sequential addition of partial collections. The first (1:1–2:5) offers a cross-section through Isaiah’s message, the second (2:6–5:30 and 9:8–12:6) especially his early proclamation, the third (6:1–9:7) oracles concerning the Syro-Ephraimite War (734/733), the fourth (28–32) concerning the Assyrian crisis (before 701 B.C.). All four, however, also contain non-Isaianic material largely of a salvific-consoling nature, especially the great concluding prophecies in 2:2–4(5); 9:2–7; 11:1–10 (and vv. 11–16); 32:15–20. This does not mean, however, that Isaiah proclaimed only disaster. Although the call account (6:9–10) might suggest as much, it was probably formulated later, nor does it exclude the possibility that it was an attempt to preserve Israel from judgment. Precisely such an attempt surfaces clearly in explicit admonitions (1:5, 16–17; 7:3–4; 28:12; 30:15) and reserved promises (1:21–26; 8:1–4; 10:5–15; 14:24–27; also 17:12–14 and 29:1–8?). Words of disaster, however, do clearly predominate (see merely 1:2–3; 5:1–7 [also vv. 8–25]; 8:11–14; 20; 28; 30).
Although these two aspects are difficult to harmonize, the extreme solutions mentioned above are of no help. The Isaianic borrowing from earlier salvific traditions is too concentrated and plausible (esp. from the tradition of Zion), the Isaianic language too multifaceted, and the multilinearity of the entire Isaianic tradition too obvious for one to conclude credibly that Isaiah himself was a one-sided prophet of doom (or of salvation). One can leave open the question whether he conceived judgment and → grace dialectically together or saw them coming one after the other, or whether his efforts at rescuing his doom-threatened people were repeatedly disappointed, prompting him to move from the proclamation of salvation to that of disaster. In any event, his final word is a biting No (22:1–14). Especially in the political sphere, Isaiah saw Israel and Judah fail its God, or its God fail his people. That precisely this God and this people, despite everything, had held to one another was to be brought to expression anew in the collections of First Isaiah and in Deutero-Isaiah and Trito-Isaiah, partly following and partly countering Isaiah himself.
→ monarchy in Israel; Monotheism

Bibliography: Commentaries: B. DUHM (HKAT; 5th ed.; Göttingen, 1968; orig. pub., 1892) ∙ K. ELLIGER (BKAT; Neukirchen, 1978) ∙ G. FOHRER (ZBK; Zurich, 1966–67) ∙ O. KAISER (OTL; Philadelphia, 1972–74) ∙ J. L. MCKENZIE, Second Isaiah (AB; Garden City, N.Y., 1968) ∙ C. WESTERMANN (OTL; Philadelphia, 1969) ∙ H. WILDBERGER (BKAT; Neukirchen, 1978–82).
On 1–2: W. A. M. BEUKEN, “Isaiah Chapters lxv-lxvi: Trito-Isaiah and the Closure of the Book of Isaiah,” Congress Volume Leuven 1989 (ed. J. A. Emerton; Leiden, 1991) 204–21 ∙ R. CLEMENTS, “The Unity of the Book of Isaiah,” Int 36 (1982) 117–29 ∙ G. I. EMMERSON, Isaiah 56–66: OT Guides (Sheffield, 1992) ∙ C. A. EVANS, To See and Not Perceive: Isaiah 6.9–10 in Early Jewish and Christian Interpretation (Sheffield, 1989) ∙ M. H. GOSHEN-GETSTEIN, ed., The Book of Isaiah (Jerusalem, 1995) ∙ C. HARDMEIER, Prophetie im Streit vor dem Untergang Judas (Berlin, 1990) ∙ K. KOENEN, Ethik und Eschatologie im Tritojesajabuch (Neukirchen, 1990) ∙ R. MELUGIN and M. A. SWEENEY, eds., New Visions of Isaiah (Sheffield, 1996) ∙ R. H. O’CONNELL, Concentricity and Continuity: The Literary Structure of Isaiah (Sheffield, 1994) ∙ O. H. STECK, Bereitete Heimkehr. Jesaja 35 als redaktionelle Brücke zwischen dem Ersten und dem Zweiten Jesaja (Stuttgart, 1985) ∙ M. A. SWEENEY, “The Book of Isaiah in Recent Research,” CR.BS 1 (1993) 141–62 ∙ H. G. M. WILLIAMSON, “Sound, Sense, and Language in Isaiah 24–27,” JJS 46 (1995) 1–9.
On 3: R. E. CLEMENTS, “Beyond Tradition-History: Deutero-Isaianic Development of First Isaiah’s Themes,” JSOT 31 (1985) 95–113 ∙ H. HAAG, Der Gottesknecht bei Deuterojesaja (Darmstadt, 1985) ∙ P. D. HANSON, Isaiah 40–66 (Louisville, Ky., 1995) ∙ H.-J. HERMISSON, “Israel und der Gottesknecht bei Deuterojesaja,” ZTK 79 (1982) 1–24 ∙ R. G. KRATZ, Kyros im Deuterojesaja-Buch (Tübingen, 1991) ∙ C. G. KRUSE, “The Servant Songs: Interpretive Trends since C. R. North,” SBT 8 (1978) 3–27 ∙ A. LABAHN, Wort Gottes und Schuld Israels. Untersuchungen zu Motiven deuteronomistischer Theologie im Deuterojesajabuch (Stuttgart, 1999) ∙ R. F. MELUGIN, The Formation of Isaiah 40–55 (Berlin, 1976) ∙ C. R. NORTH, The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah (2d ed.; Oxford, 1956) ∙ H. D. PREUSS, Deuterojesaja. Eine Einführung in seine Botschaft (Neukirchen, 1976) ∙ O. H. STECK, Gottesknecht und Zion. Gesammelte Aufsätze zu Deuterojesaja (Tübingen, 1992) ∙ C. WESTERMANN, “Sprache und Struktur der Prophetie Deuterojesajas,” Gesammelte Studien (vol. 1; Munich, 1964) 92–170 ∙ H. G. M. WILLIAMSON, The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah’s Role in Composition and Redaction (Oxford, 1994) ∙ W. ZIMMERLI, “Jahwes Wort bei Deuterojesaja,” VT 32 (1982) 104–24. See also the bibliography in “Servant of the Lord.”
On 4: H. BARTH, Die Jesaja-Worte in der Assyrerzeit (Neukirchen, 1977) ∙ J. BARTHEL, Prophetenwort und Geschichte. Die Jesajaüberlieferung in Jes 6–8 und 28–31 (Tübingen, 1997) ∙ U. BECKER, Jesaja-von der Botschaft zum Buch (Göttingen, 1997) ∙ E. W. DAVIES, Prophecy and Ethics: Isaiah and the Ethical Tradition of Israel (Sheffield, 1981) ∙ W. DIETRICH, Jesaja und die Politik (Munich, 1976) ∙ W. J. DOORLY, Isaiah of Jerusalem: An Introduction (New York, 1992) ∙ J. C. EXUM, “Isaiah 28–32: A Literary Approach,” SBLSP 17/2 (1979) 123–51 ∙ Y. GITAY, Isaiah and His Audience: The Structure and Meaning of Isaiah 1–12 (Assen, 1991) ∙ R. KILIAN, Jesaja 1–39 (Darmstadt, 1983) ∙ O. LORETZ, Der Prolog des Jesaja-Buches (1, 1–2, 5) (Altenberge, 1984) ∙ W. H. SCHMIDT, “Die Einheit der Verkündigung Jesajas. Versuch einer Zusammenschau,” EvT 37 (1977) 260–72 ∙ C. R. SEITZ, Isaiah 1–39: Interpretation Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, Ky., 1993) ∙ J. VERMEYLEN, Du prophète Isaïe à l’apocalyptique (2 vols.; Paris, 1977–78) ∙ W. WERNER, Eschatologische Texte in Jesaja 1–39 (Würzburg, 1982) ∙ H. G. M. WILLIAMSON, “Relocating Isaiah 1:2–9,” Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah (ed. D. D. Broyles and C. A. Evans; Leiden, 1997) 263–77.
WALTER DIETRICH
Islam

1. Muḥammad and the Prophetic Revelation
2. Spread
3. Cult and Ritual
4. Tradition and Law
5. Theology
6. Confessions and Movements
7. The Hereafter and Eschatology
8. Popular Customs, Cult of the Saints
9. Modern Developments, Organizations
10. Islam in America

Islam is the monotheistic, revealed religion founded by the → prophet Muḥammad. From its original home in the Arabian Peninsula, Islam spread over the Near East, North Africa, central Asia, India, and Indonesia, and it is still winning new adherents in Africa and around the world. In A.D. 2000 approximately 1.2 billion people are Muslims, some 20 percent of the world population. The countries that are home to the largest numbers of Muslims are Pakistan (150 million), India and Indonesia (120 million each), Bangladesh (110 million), Iran (75 million), Turkey (65 million), and Egypt and Nigeria (55 million each). About 90 percent of Muslims are Sunnites, the rest mainly Shiites.

1. Muḥammad and the Prophetic Revelation

Muḥammad, born in about A.D. 570, emerged in his home town of Mecca around 610 as the preacher of a divine revelation that he felt called upon to pass on to his pagan Arab fellow tribespeople. Although the form of the revelations—a strongly rhythmic, rhyming prose (→ Koran)—derived from the pronouncements of older Arab seers (kāhin), Muḥammad denied belonging to their number. As he saw it, God (Arab. Allāh, a contraction of al-Ilāh, “the God”) wanted to impart through him—in Arabic (Koran 16:103) and to Arabs—the same revelation God had given to the first man → Adam, then through → Abraham and → Moses to the Jews, then through → Jesus to Christians.
In Arabia the way had long since been prepared for → monotheism by Jewish and Christian communities along the Incense Road from Yemen to Syria. Islam respected the recipients of these older revelations as “people of the book” (ahl al-kitāb). Accepting monotheism—even that of the older revelations—is denoted by the Arabic verb aslama (submit to [God’s will]), from which come the noun islām (submission) and the participle muslim (one who submits). The main content of the oldest revelations was proclamation of the one Creator God (→ Creation) and the threat of judgment for unbelievers and wrongdoers (→ Last Judgment).
The first followers of Islam were close relatives of the Prophet, including his wife Khadı̄jah and his cousin and son-in-law ʿAlı̄. The pagan merchant oligarchy of Mecca, however, saw in the revelation a threat to their privilege of controlling the pagan pilgrim centers in the city, and Muḥammad was forced to leave Mecca. He was accepted by two rural tribes at the oasis Yathrib (modern Medina, formerly Madı̄nat an-Nabı̄, “city of the prophet”). From this so-called hegira (hijrah, “flight”) and his arrival on September 20, 622, begins the Islamic calendar.
In Medina Muḥammad, with the support of emigrants (muhājirūn) who followed him and locals who joined him (anṣār, “helpers”), founded a theocratic community whose laws were the divine revelations that steadily came from his lips. These proclamations increasingly contained laws in the strict sense (e.g., criminal law and laws of inheritance). The community (ummah) in Medina grew as both → nomads and settled tribes in Arabia accepted Islam.
After attacks on the caravans of pagan Mecca and military clashes, Muḥammad was able to seize Mecca in 630. He removed the idols and changed the pagan pilgrim rites at the city → sanctuary, the Kaaba (kaʿba, “cube”), into a pilgrimage in honor of the one God, ascribing its institution to the prophet Abraham and his son Ishmael. Mecca thus became the religious center of Arabia, which made it easier for the pagan aristocracy there to go over to Islam. Soon after his last participation in the Mecca rites, Muḥammad died on June 8, 632, at Medina.
Since Muḥammad had not named a successor (khalı̄fah, whence “caliph”), the Medina community rallied around his fellow refugee Abū Bakr, who, as “caliph of the messenger of God” (khalı̄fat rasūl Allāh), was the leader of the community in all secular and religious matters, although he could claim no prophetic → inspiration. Prophets arose in many Arabian tribes, but Abū Bakr during his brief caliphate (632–34) succeeded in overcoming external independence movements, suppressing false prophets, and establishing the hegemony of the original Medina community.
After Abū Bakr’s death ‘Umar became the second caliph (634–44), again with no prophetic inspiration but still able to lead the community, which provided the model for future organization. Under the next caliph, ʿUthmān (644–56), the proclamations of the Prophet, which had been handed down orally or in writing, were collected in a canon. The Koran (qurʾan, “reading, recitation”) thus received its final form and became the community’s most important standard.
2. Spread

Under Caliph ‘Umar the Islamic community began to expand by force beyond Arabia and to subjugate great portions of the → Byzantine and Sassanid Persian empires (gaining Damascus in 635; → Jerusalem in 638; Mesopotamia, with the founding of Basra and Al-Kufa in 638; Egypt from 640, with the founding of Al-Fustāt, or Old Cairo; Caesarea in 641; Iran from 642). With the cities, usually represented by their → bishops or local princes, the Islamic generals concluded treaties of surrender that guaranteed the safety of the persons and property of the inhabitants, the unhindered practice of their religion (→ Religious Liberty), and the possession of their houses of worship. In return they had to pay tribute, a practice based on the Koran (9:29). The protective treaty (dhimma) was a fixed part of Islamic law that governed the relations between, for example, the Turkish Ottomans and the Christians in the Balkans up to the 19th century. All adherents of monotheistic, revealed religions—“people of the book” (i.e., Jews and Christians, later also Zoroastrians [→ Iranian Religions 6–7] and Hindus)—enjoyed this treaty protection. The tribute of those under protection, or dhimmis (sing. dhimmı̄y, pl. ahl adh-dhimma), was soon changed into a regular poll tax (jizyah).
After the murder of the third caliph ʿUthman in 656, and during the confusion under his successor ʿAlı̄ (656–61), the conquests came to a halt, but they were resumed under the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750). The Umayyads made Damascus their capital, and they continued to spread both west and east (siege of Constantinople in 674–78; founding of Kairouan [al-Qayrawān] in 670; capture of Carthage in 696; conquest of West Gothic Spain in 711, Bukhara in 709–10, Samarqand in 712, and the area of modern-day Pakistan in 711–13). The attack on France (the battle of Tours and Poitiers in 732), the conquest of Tashkent, and the clash with a Chinese army at the Talas River in central Asia (751) marked the limits of Islamic expansion in the eighth century.
The Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258), which descended from Muḥammad’s uncle ʿAbbās and which founded the new capital of Baghdad in 762, did not extend the frontiers any further. At the same time, Islamic kingdoms on the borders began to set up more or less autonomous states as the military rulers of the provinces, the emirs (amı̄r, “commander”), refused to pay homage to the caliph (thus Spain in 756 and Morocco in 790) or were recognized as separate dynasties by the caliph (Tunisia under the Aghlabids in 800, Egypt under the Tulunids in 868, central Asia under the Samanids in 875). When the Turk Maḥmūd of Ghazna (998–1030), who had been a military slave, received recognition from the caliph as ruler over eastern Iran, the title “sultan” (sulṭān, “authority [moral or spiritual]”) became established for local rulers.
The conquests in central Asia brought Islam to Turkic peoples in the central Asian steppes. Turkish nomads under the leadership of the Seljuk clan then pushed into Iran, made Baghdad a protectorate (1055), and, in the battle of Manzikert (1071), conquered what had hitherto been Byzantine Asia Minor. This development led to a new phase of Islamic expansion headed by the Turks. Later the kingdom of the Ottoman sultans, based on a Turkish frontier emirate in Bursa in northwest Asia Minor, penetrated the Balkans and central Europe from 1357 (capturing Serbia in the battle of Kosovo in 1389, Constantinople in 1453, and Hungary in 1526; laying siege to Vienna in 1529 and 1683). When the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad fell to an invasion of Mongols in 1258, the Ottoman sultan became the leading Islamic power. After occupying Syria and Egypt in 1517, the sultans in Constantinople (now known as Istanbul) took also the title “caliph,” which continued until its abolishment by the first Turkish National Assembly on March 3, 1924.
The Islamic conquests spread Islamic rule over non-Muslims, but not with a view to their → conversion (§1) by force. The practice of protective treaties was still the model for relations with non-Muslim subjects. For a jihad (jihād, “striving [in the way of Allah],” 2:218]), or the holy war against unbelievers, there were strict rules. Over against the sphere of Islam (dār al-islām) stood that of war (dār al-ḥarb), with which in theory there could be only short armistices but no lasting → peace. In practice, ghazis (ghāzı̄), or volunteer fighters for the faith, gathered every year on the frontiers for plundering forays, which, if organized on behalf of the state, would result in permanent conquests.
With the failure of the Ottomans at Vienna in 1683, the classic jihad lost its meaning. The Islamic world now had to defend itself against European incursions. During European → colonialism the jihad could take on new meaning as anticolonial conflict. In the 20th century it was directed variously against → Zionism, American influence, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It is also often used for the fight against social injustice, economic backwardness, and illiteracy.
Since Islam has no missionary command or churchlike organization, there has never been any systematic → mission, especially to other higher religions. Mission to pagans in, for example, central Asia or Africa is always only the work of individuals or small groups such as the Sufis (ṣūfı̄y, “mystic”; → Sufism) or dervishes (Pers. darviı̄sh, “beggar”), or efforts of heterodox groups like the Pakistani Aḥmadı̄ya, which are trying to increase their own membership in this way.
3. Cult and Ritual

To distinguish themselves from the adherents of other monotheistic religions, Muslims call themselves “the people of direction in prayer” (ahl al-qibla). Practicing prescribed rituals (→ Rite) is more important in Islam than confession of doctrines; orthopraxis takes precedence over orthodoxy. Heretical deviation (→ Heresies and Schisms) is more commonly in terms of uncanonical innovation in applying the law than it is in terms of dogmatic error. The ritual of Islam goes back essentially to Muḥammad and is embedded in the Koran. Along with the transformed pagan pilgrim rites of Arabia and pre-Islamic → circumcision, we find practices that suggest Judeo-Christian models, such as ritual prayer and the Ramadan fast.
3.1. The rites of the pilgrimage to Mecca, which derive from pagan times, became in Islam a monotheistic cult that Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael supposedly instituted (2:124–27). Legends connected the rites with the three and explained them. The Kaaba in the center of the sacred sector (the ḥaram, “sanctuary”) of Mecca originally contained statues of the oracle-god Hubal and other old Arabian gods. Another sacred object built into the east corner of the building was the Black Stone, perhaps a meteorite (the best-known example of a baetyl). The pilgrimage ritual is restricted to Mecca. The “lesser pilgrimage” (ʿumrah) can be made throughout the year. It consists of a sevenfold circling (ṭawāf) of the Kaaba and then a sevenfold running (saʿy) between the two hills Safa and Marwa (2:158), which were once crowned with stone idols but have now been leveled and are connected by a covered corridor.
The great pilgrimage, or hajj (ḥajj, related to Heb. ḥāg, “make a circle”), can be made only during the pilgrimage month Dhu’l-Hijja, the 12th month in the Islamic lunar calendar (which loses 11 days a year relative to the solar calendar). The hajj connects the Mecca rites with a visit to the hill of Arafat, 24 km. (15 mi.) southeast of Mecca, which involves a ritual that stretches over several days. The pilgrims first enter into a consecrated state (iḥrām) by washing and putting on the pilgrim robe, made of two white pieces of cloth. After the individual ʿumrah rites the common rites begin on the seventh of the month with a sermon at the Kaaba. On the eighth day the pilgrims go to Arafat, where they spend the night and the following day devoutly standing (wuqūf) on the slopes of the Mount of Mercy (Jabal ar-Raḥma). After sunset they go in pilgrim procession to Muzdalifah (with another wuqūf) and Minā, where on the 10th day they all throw seven little stones on a stone monument (the so-called stoning of the → devil). On this same day the slaughtering of sacrificial animals (→ Sacrifice) takes place throughout the Islamic world. It is the main feast of Islam (al-ʿĪd al-Kabı̄r, “greater feast,” or ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā, “sacrifice feast”). After three festal days the pilgrims then cut their hair and nails. A procession seven times round the Kaaba concludes the ceremonies.
The hajj is required at least once for all Muslims who are able to undertake it (3:97). Those who make the pilgrimage gain for themselves the honorary title “hajji” (ḥajjı̄, Turk. hacı). Islamic law permits the sending of a substitute and regulates dispensations, for example, in the case of women with no male relatives to accompany them.
The sacred sites at Mecca are maintained by an endowment (waqf). The Islamic authorities—specifically, the caliph as the leader (imām) of the community—bore responsibility for the safety of pilgrims and the welfare of pilgrim caravans. From the 10th century this role was taken over by the dynasties that ruled the Hejaz (i.e., the western region of Arabia) from Egypt, the area that includes Mecca and Medina. It was they who set up the black and gold-flecked cover (kiswah), renewed every year, which lies over the Kaaba except at times of pilgrimage, when it is replaced by a white one. After 1517 the Ottoman sultans in Istanbul, as rulers of Egypt, became protectors of the holy places. In the 20th century the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia assumed this function.
3.2. The salat (ṣalāt, from Aram. ṣĕlōtā, “prostration”), or ritual prayer five times a day, is a duty for all Muslims. The times, calculated astronomically, are roughly dawn, midday, afternoon, sundown, and evening. A call to prayer (adhān) is given by the muezzin (muʾadhdhin, Turk. müezzin) and by optical signals (a flag or lantern on the mosque). Certain preparatory ablutions must be made to put one in a state of ritual cleanness (ṭahārah). A place of assembly (→ Mosque) can serve as the site of prayer, but individuals can also pray at home or in the open (e.g., while on a journey). The ground must be clean, which can be achieved by spreading a cover, usually a rug. Prayer must be made in the proper direction (qiblah). Muḥammad originally prescribed Jerusalem, but a revelation (2:136–50) changed the qibla to the Kaaba at Mecca. The salat proper consists of rakʿa (rakʿah), a fixed series of ritual movements and formulas, such as standing, bowing down, and touching the forehead to the ground. When there is a group, one person serves as leader. At the Friday midday prayer (ẓuhr), a sermon (khuṭbah) by the preacher (khaṭı̄b) precedes the prayers. Large mosques, often with courtyards, are built for Friday worship, for which, ideally, the whole community of a city should gather.
3.3. The month-long → fast (ṣaum, cf. Heb. ṣôm) during Ramadan, the ninth Islamic month and the month of the first Koranic revelation, is obligatory for all Muslims except those who are sick or traveling. Days that are missed can be made up (2:185). All eating, drinking, and sexual intercourse are forbidden (→ Asceticism) from morning (i.e., when “the whiteness of the day becomes distinct from the blackness of the night at dawn,” 2:187) until sunset. The month of fasting is ended by a feast (ʿĪd al-Fiṭr, “lesser festival”; Turk. Şeker Bayramı, “sugar festival”), the second most important Islamic feast.
3.4. These community rites give all Muslims a strong sense of unity and strengthen egalitarianism, for all Muslims are equally slaves (ʿabı̄d) of the divine Lord (rabb). Pilgrimage, prayer, fasting, as well as the confession (shahādah; see 5) and almsgiving (zakāt or ṣadaqah), are the five “pillars” (arkān) of Islam that unite all Muslims, no matter what their sect.
4. Tradition and Law

Along with the commands and prohibitions of the Koran, the sunna (sunnah, “custom, habit”), or words and deeds, of the first community soon became important. The hadith (ḥadı̄th, “speech, report”)—the traditional rules, decisions, and standards of the Prophet and his companions (his ṣaḥābah)—became binding on all Muslims. They were increasingly ascribed to the Prophet alone and at first handed down orally in the form of many dicta and anecdotes. The number of these hadith increased in the party struggles of the seventh and eighth centuries. Opposing opinions quoted alleged sayings of the Prophet, so that a critical sifting of the tradition became necessary. Six great collections were thus made in the ninth and early tenth centuries in which materials that were regarded as authentic were assembled, with the names of those who had handed them down, going back to the original earwitnesses and eyewitnesses. The best-known collections are those of al-Bukhārı̄ (d. 870) and Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj (d. 875), both entitled aṣ-Ṣaḥı̄ḥ (The authentic).
The sunnas collected in these materials regulate Muslim life in detail from religious and cultic duties to everyday matters of clothing and hygiene. Islamic law (fiqh, “understanding”) rests on them. From the eighth century onward, local legal traditions developed that were linked to the names of famous jurists and soon took on the character of schools. Four of these schools are regarded as legitimate in Sunnite Islam (→ Sunna).
The Koran, sunna, and jurisprudence constitute Islamic law, or Shariʿa (sharı̄ʿa, “path”), which no longer has the original sense of the divinely revealed religion but now denotes the divinely willed earthly legal and social order embracing every sphere of life. The Shariʿa is handed down by a professional class that, since Islam has neither a hierarchical priesthood (→ Priest, Priesthood) nor a central teaching office, acts as the collective guardian of tradition and the bearer of authority. This group is the class of jurists (fuqahāʾ, sing. faqı̄h) or scholars (ʿulamāʾ, sing. ʿālim).
The traditional place of training for these professional jurists is the madrasa (madrasah, “place of study”), a kind of legal and theological seminary. The madrasa developed in eastern Iran in the 10th century and spread to the whole Islamic world (e.g., reaching Egypt by the 12th cent.). Islamic rulers choose a judge, or qadi (qāḍı̄), from the ranks of the ʿulamāʾ, but the qadis’ authority rests on the expert opinions (fatwā) that the muftis (muftı̄), or experts, give on all questions of religion, → law, and → everyday life. In principle these opinions are not binding, and they thus depend on the personal authority of the mufti, who acts in place of the missing central authority. For Sunnites the rulings of the professors of al-Azhar University in Cairo—at its head the shaykh al-Azhar—have more than regional importance. In many countries the office of mufti has been regionally institutionalized (e.g., the mufti of Tashkent, for the central Asian Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union).
The Shiites (→ Shia, Shiites) of Iran address the ʿulamāʾ as mullah (Pers. mulla, from Arab. mawlā, “lord”). Especially important in Iran is a jurist (mujtahid), who can give independent legal decisions (ijtihād) and who is frequently given the honorary title “ayatollah” (Pers. for “sign of God,” from Arab. āya, “sign, miracle,” plus allāh).
The Koran allows a man to marry up to four wives as long as he can treat them equally well (4:3). The legal position of wives is dealt with specifically in sura 4. The Koranic rulings were meant to give women rights and protection against caprice in the Arab tribal society of the seventh century. But women do not have equal rights with men (4:34). Wives have a right of divorce only when their husbands can no longer support them or when their husbands mistreat them. They then keep their dowry, as do widows, and may also remarry (→ Marriage and Divorce). The social restrictions imposed on women in Islamic countries (e.g., arranging of marriages by male relatives, restriction to the home, veiling) are rooted in the patriarchal tradition of Near Eastern societies rather than in Islamic law, and Islamic modernizers now oppose them as outdated.
5. Theology

The confession (shahādah, “witness”) formulates the central belief of Islam: “There is no god but God, and Muḥammad is his prophet” (ashhadu an lā ilāha illa ʾllāh, wa-anna Muḥammadan rasūl Allāh). Over against this confession of God’s radical oneness, or tawhid (tawḥı̄d, a verbal noun of waḥḥadah, “declare as one”), the main sin is shirk (lit. making a partner [of someone]), or associating other gods with God. For those who do so (the mushrik, i.e., → polytheists), Islam has no tolerance. The → dogma of the tawhid was originally aimed at ancient Arab paganism but also at the Christian doctrine of the → Trinity (Koran 112).
The tawhid raised the two problems of → theodicy and the nature of the divine attributes (eternal or created?). Reflection on these problems gave rise to kalam (kalām, “word, speech, dialectic”), or Muslim scholastic theology. From around 670, different answers were given to the question whether God is also responsible for → evil. In the eighth century those who held that we are responsible for our own acts, that these were not foreordained by God’s creative word, formed in Syria and Iraq (Basra) the oldest theological school, the Qadarites (from qadar, “power, ability”).
The second question was whether the attributes (ṣifāt) that the Koran ascribes to God—omniscience, omnipotence, and goodness, plus anthropomorphic features such as eyes, mouth, and hands—are intrinsic to his nature and thus eternal, or whether they are independent entities (→ God 1). The danger in the latter view is that of associating divinelike entities with God and thus denying the tawhid. In the theological school of the Mu‘tazilites (muʿtazilah, separatist), whose main representatives worked in Basra (esp. Wāṣil ibn ʿAṭāʾ [d. 748]) and Baghdad from the late eighth century, exemplary answers were given to both questions. Their main points were that we have the capacity (qudra) for responsible action and that the word of God, the Koran, and the other attributes are created.
The doctrine that the Koran is not eternal was declared binding by Caliph al-Maʾmūn (813–33) and remained state dogma until Caliph al-Mutawakkil in 849 came out for the eternity of the Koran and strict determinism. The predestinarian tradition finally consolidated itself in the hadith tradition of the ninth and tenth centuries and has since been part of Sunnite theology.
6. Confessions and Movements

The division of the Islamic community into different groups or schools (firqah, “part, section,” or madhhab, “way, method”) goes back to the seventh century. Differences of opinion (ikhtilāf) flared up less over doctrinal differences than over the question who was the imam (imām), or legal head, of the community. Two great religious and political parties, the Shiites and the Kharijites (khārijı̄, one that departs, dissenter), formed after the third caliph, ‘Uthman, fell victim to his Islamic rivals in 656. The Shiites argued that only ʿAlı̄, the Prophet’s son-in-law, and his physical successors had a right to the imamate or caliphate. Against them the Kharijites contended that only the morally best person, no matter of what origin or descent, was qualified to lead the community, and they thus argued for an elective imamate. Shia, which in the tenth century dominated much of the Muslim world but which is now split up into many → sects and movements, is still the most significant Islamic grouping next to the Sunnites. The Kharijite view, which had its roots in Iraq, established itself as the national religion of the Berbers of North Africa and still exists in small pockets in this area (e.g., Tiaret and Ghardaïa in Algeria, the Tunisian island of Jerba) and in Oman.
Along with the three main groupings, which go back to division in the early community, Islam from time to time has seen movements of renewal that seek to restore the one pure Islam of the earliest days and to do away with all innovations. These movements have often resulted in the founding of separatistic, puritanical states, such as the movement of the Almohads (al-muwaḥḥidūn, “confessors of the tawhid”) in Morocco in the 12th century, or that of the Wahhabis in Arabia (led by reformer Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb [1703–92]), which led ultimately to the founding of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. Not infrequently these movements have had → eschatological traits and awaited the unifying of Islam by the coming of the Mahdi (mahdı̄, “divinely guided one”), a charismatic ruler figure (→ Charisma; Messianism). The reform movement of the Salafiyya at the end of the 19th century has had great influence on modern Islam. By a return to the spirit of the original Islam of the ancestors (salaf), it hoped for victory over the legal tradition that had led to sterility in the Middle Ages (note esp. the work of Egyptian Muḥammad ‘Abduh [d. 1905] and his Syrian disciple Muḥammad Rashı̄d Riḍā [d. 1935]).
Mystical trends (→ Mysticism), which may be detected from the ninth century, disparaged the outward cultic practices and legal regulations based on the Shariʿa and put personal experience of the vision of God beside them or in place of them. The jurists long suspected and opposed these trends, but Sunni Islam came to recognize them in a modified form through the work of the theologian al-Ghazālı̄ (d. 1111). The mystic congregation, or tariqa (ṭarı̄qah, “way, path,” later the mystic order itself), with its collective devotional exercises (dhikr), became a vital element in Islamic popular piety and, in the main, a stronghold of traditional conservatism.
7. The Hereafter and Eschatology

God is the Lord of heaven and earth (2:107). By hadith tradition his throne is in the highest of the seven heavens. Angels (malak) dwell in the heavens and praise God. Popular tradition gives some of them special functions: Jibrı̄l (Gabriel) brings the Koranic revelation, Riḍwān and Mālik are the gatekeepers of → heaven and → hell, ʿAzrāʾı̄l is the angel of death, Munkar and Nakı̄r question the dead in the grave, and Isrāfı̄l blows the trumpet on the last day. The disobedient angel Iblı̄s (from Gk. diabolos, “slanderer, the devil”) is the devil. He refused to bow down with the other angels before Adam, God’s representative, as God commanded (2:30–34; 7:11–18). Iblı̄s, who entices human beings into evil, is the same as Shayṭān (Satan) in 2:36, the one who persuaded Adam and Eve to eat of the forbidden tree.
The → resurrection (qiyāmah) of the dead and the day of judgment (yawm ad-dı̄n) are themes of Muḥammad’s earliest preaching. By God’s righteous judgment the righteous are set in a fertile garden (jannah), while the wicked are punished with terrible torments in an eternal → fire (nār).
8. Popular Customs, Cult of the Saints

Besides the two main feasts (see 3) the Prophet’s birthday (mawlid an-Nabı̄) is celebrated by tradition on the 12th day of the month Rabi I, and the birthdays of local mystics and saints are also observed. The Shiites have their own calendar of celebrations. The turning points of human life—birth, circumcision, marriage, and death—are marked by rituals and feasts, though with great regional differences. The circumcision (khiṭān) of boys is a fixed rite for Sunnis, since the Prophet was circumcised. Female circumcision (khafḍ, khifād), which is customary especially in African countries and Arabia, is not an Islamic practice per se and is sanctioned only by some legal experts (e.g., Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal [d. 855]; → Sexism).
The local veneration of the tombs of saints is found everywhere in Islam, especially in North Africa, where ascetics and contenders for the faith are called murābiṭ (“one who is garrisoned,” whence the Eng. and Fr. “marabout”). Among Shiites, visiting the graves of imams and their relatives (imām-zādeh) plays an important role. Puritanical renewal movements like that of the Wahhabis reject the veneration of → saints as an inappropriate bidʿah, or innovation.
9. Modern Developments, Organizations

Since the Islamic movement took a political form even under the Prophet, it did not have to develop anything like an ecclesiastical organization. The Islamic → state had the task of guaranteeing the validity of the Shariʿa for every sphere of life. The traditional unity of the civil and religious community was broken by European colonialism. The colonial rulers—and after them the governments in independent states—limited the scope of the validity of the Shariʿa or completely ended it, thus breaking the cultural and legal monopoly of the ‘ulamā’ (e.g., through the reforms of Kemal Atatürk in Turkey, Reza Shah Pahlavi in Iran, and Habib Bourguiba in Tunisia). Only in a few countries (e.g., Saudi Arabia) has the Shariʿa remained in full force.
Against secularizing European influence (→ Secularization) organizations were founded after World War I with the aim of again making Islam the determinative force in state and society. The Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn), founded in 1928 by Ḥasan al-Bannāʾ, is a conservative, traditionalist, and fundamentalist opposition in Arab countries such as Egypt and the Sudan that seeks political influence. The Jamaʿat-i Islami, founded in British India in 1941 by Sayyid Abul Aʾla al-Mawdudi, gradually changed Pakistan into an Islamic republic since 1947, with the introduction of an Islamic system in 1979 and the formation of a league of Shariʿa law in 1980. In Iran the Shia revolution of 1979 led to the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with a constitution that gives a leading position to Islamic jurists (vilāyet-i faqı̄h).
Since the caliphate of the Turkish sultan was abolished in 1924, pan-Islamic ideas have fueled efforts to overcome the particularism of the national states that the colonial powers left behind and that are in many cases artificial. A permanent Muslim World Congress was founded in Karachi in 1949, which lost its importance with the formation of the Muslim World League at Mecca in 1962. Members of the league are individuals and organizations, not states. There is a permanent office at Mecca, and the league enjoys observer status at the → United Nations. Its aim is to strengthen and spread Islam worldwide. At the country level there is the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the charter of which was accepted in 1972 at Jidda by 30 states at the third conference of Islamic foreign ministers. Now numbering over 40 member countries, it organizes summits of heads of state and conferences of foreign ministers.
→ Baha’i; Islam and Christianity; Islamic Philosophy

Bibliography: C. CAHEN, Der Islam, vol. 1, Vom Ursprung bis zu die Anfängen des Osmanenreiches (Frankfurt, 1968) ∙ CHIs ∙ N. J. COULSON, A History of Islamic Law (Edinburgh, 1964) ∙ EI2 ∙ W. ENDE and U. STEINBACH, eds., Der Islam in der Gegenwart (Munich, 1984) ∙ G. ENDRESS, Einführung in die islamische Geschichte (Munich, 1983) ∙ C. GLASSÉ, The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam (San Francisco, 1991) ∙ G. E. VON GRUNEBAUM, Der Islam im Mittelalter (Zurich, 1963); idem, Der Islam in seiner klassischen Epoche (Zurich, 1966); idem, ed., Der Islam, vol. 2, Die islamische Reiche nach dem Fall von Konstantinopel (Frankfurt, 1971) ∙ T. NAGEL, Staat und Glaubensgemeinschaft im Islam (2 vols.; Zurich, 1981) ∙ R. PARET, Mohammed und der Koran. Geschichte und Verkündigung des arabischen Propheten (Stuttgart, 1957) ∙ The Qur’an (trans. M. H. Shakir; 10th U.S. ed.; Elmhurst, N.Y., 1997) ∙ W. M. WATT, Islamic Philosophy and Theology (Edinburgh, 1962); idem, Muhammed at Mecca (Oxford, 1953); idem, Muhammed at Medina (Oxford, 1977); idem, A Short History of Islam (Oxford, 1996).
HEINZ HALM
10. Islam in America

Muslims in the United States and Canada represent a great many movements and identities: immigrant and indigenous, Sunni and Shiite, conservative and liberal, orthodox and hererodox. While exact numbers are difficult to determine, most estimates at the end of the 20th century assume that there are over four million, perhaps as many as six million, Muslims in North America.
The majority of American Muslims are themselves immigrants or are the descendants of those who first began to arrive in the West in the latter part of the 19th century. The early arrivals, primarily laborers and merchants, settled in the East, the Midwest, and the Pacific coast. Other waves of immigration occurred as a direct result of political and economic circumstances in the Arab and Muslim world, including the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the partition of India, Israeli defeat of the Palestinians, the Iranian revolution, and uprisings in Africa and Asia. Initially coming mainly from the Middle East, immigrants in the last decades of the 20th century represent all Islamic nations of the world. While the first arrivals generally were not well trained or economically advantaged, today they are often among the most highly educated and professionally successful Americans.
In earlier decades, because their numbers were relatively small, immigrant Muslims were forced to come together in mixed groups for → worship and social interaction. As more arrived and settled in various parts of the country, national and ethnic groups were able to meet and worship separately. These associations continue, although with the rise in consciousness of being Muslim in the North American context, more immigrant Muslims of differing nationalities are living in proximity and worshiping together. Shiites, who account for about one-fifth of the American Muslim community, observe some rites and holidays distinct from Sunnis and usually worship separately.
Growing numbers of Muslims in the United States are African American. In the early decades of the 20th century, several black nationalist movements began to claim Islamic roots and identity. The Nation of Islam became the most prominent African American freedom movement to identify with Islam, beginning in Detroit in the 1930s under the leadership of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Many of the teachings of the Nation are irreconcilable with traditional Islam, including recognition of the prophethood of Elijah and the promotion of racial separatism. The prominent and popular minister Malcolm X, one of the Nation’s most influential spokesmen, left the organization after experiencing the brotherhood of all Muslims while on pilgrimage. He was assassinated in 1965.
Meanwhile the Nation continued to grow. When Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, he was succeeded by his son Wallace. The new leadership brought momentous changes as the political → millenarianism of the earlier Nation gave way to a visible move toward orthodox Islam. Wallace, who changed his name to Warith Deen Mohammed, played down the nationalism that had characterized the preaching of both his father and Malcolm, focusing on Islam as a spiritual force rather than a political tool. His organization, whose name has evolved a number of times, is now called the Muslim American Society, and its members no longer consider themselves part of the Nation but simply Sunni Muslims. African Americans, including those belonging to other Sunni groups as well as a number of heterodox movements, constitute some 40 percent of the Muslim community in America.
The Nation of Islam itself is now under the leadership of Minister Louis Farrakhan, who first came to prominence as minister of a → mosque in Harlem, where he succeeded Malcolm X when the latter left the Nation in 1964. In 1977 Farrakhan broke with Warith Deen Mohammed, leader of what was then called the World Community of Islam, in order to rebuild Elijah Muhammad’s Lost-Found Nation of Islam in the Wilderness of America. Since then, Minister Farrakhan has become a celebrated and controversial figure within American society, largely as a result of his perceived → racism and → anti-Semitism. He has, however, succeeded in reconstructing the Nation of Islam and in recent years has shown an ability to bring various segments of the African American Islamic community together and thus has helped that community find a place within the pluralistic world of American religion.
A third grouping of American Muslims, far smaller than the immigrants or African Americans, is made up of others who have decided to adopt Islam as a faith and an identity. These Muslims include people associated with Sufi movements, women who change their faith on marriage, some who find Islam intellectually persuasive, and growing numbers of Hispanics and Native Americans. The daʾwa, or Islamic missionary movement, is strong in America, and Muslims are active in making conversions in prisons, in the academic world, and in various minority communities.
For many decades Muslims in America functioned with little or no trained leadership and without their own designated space for meeting and worship. Several places claim to be the site of the first American mosque, most notably Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Other mosques were built in New York, Massachusetts, and the Midwest in the 1920s and 1930s. The mosque movement began to gain momentum by the middle of the century, highlighted by the completion of the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., in 1957. Toward the end of the 20th century much of the funding for building Islamic establishments, as well as for providing trained leadership for Muslim congregations, came from oil-producing countries of the Middle East. Flourishing Islamic communities are now found in most major cities of the United States, and the number of mosques and Islamic centers has grown enormously. They provide a range of activities aside from worship, including after-school education, libraries, gymnasiums, facilities for the elderly, and contexts for social engagement. Many Muslim groups, especially African American congregations, for whom finances remain a major consideration, continue to worship and meet in much smaller facilities such as converted houses or storefronts.
While some imams trained overseas provide leadership to American mosques, their numbers are insufficient, and their training often is inadequate to meet the concerns of life in America. Significant efforts are underway to educate indigenous leadership. American imams are called on to function in capacities well beyond what is expected in Islamic societies. Paralleling the roles of Christian and Jewish clergy, imams not only preach and teach but also provide counseling, raise funds, perform weddings and → funerals, educate the public about Islam, and participate in community projects. Trained imams are increasingly present in the armed services, in the prison system, and as college chaplains.
Beginning in the 1960s with the establishment of the Muslim Student Association, America has seen a steady growth of Muslim organizations at the local and national levels. Some are specific to professions and interests, while others serve as umbrella organizations. Of the latter the two largest are the Islamic Society of North America and the somewhat smaller and more conservative Islamic Circle of North America. Organizations exist to advance the political presence of Muslims in America, to support women’s rights, and to spread accurate information about Islam in the effort to combat anti-Muslim → prejudice. The national Muslim Youth of North America and many local groups sponsor summer gatherings and work opportunities for teenagers.
Some of the Muslim organizations publish journals with articles designed to help Muslims live Islamically in the context of what they see as an essentially secular society. These journals, along with growing resources on the Internet, services provided by mosques and local communities, and the large amount of literature and media information available on Islam, offer a range of solutions to the concerns of → everyday life. These concerns include raising and educating children, dating and → marriage, women in the workplace, appropriate dress for both men and women, participation in the American economic system, observing daily prayer rituals in the public sphere, and maintaining proper Islamic diet. Some Muslims feel that the best way to maintain their Islamic identity in America is to avoid contact as much as possible with those who are not Muslim, while others are equally convinced that full participation and involvement are not only appropriate but necessary.
Muslims in America are in the process of determining the nature and validity of an indigenous American Islam. Immigrant Muslim communities are subject to a range of international influences, and they are struggling to determine when interpretations of Islam from different political and cultural contexts are appropriate to the practice of the faith in the West. Muslims who traditionally have not been active in American politics are increasingly aware of the potential for political power, and many are working to build coalitions and political action committees to sponsor Muslim candidates and support Muslim causes. As the children and grandchildren of immigrant Muslims find themselves increasingly distant from their international cultural heritage, they are engaging in the task of emphasizing commonality over distinctiveness. They also acknowledge that the creation of an American ummah, or community, must result in bringing together immigrant and indigenous Muslims, converts and those with a long heritage of Islam. To the extent to which they succeed, American Muslims believe that they will be able to contribute significantly to the international discourse about Islam in the contemporary world and the role to be played in it by Muslims in → diaspora.

Bibliography: C. L. ANWAY, Daughters of Another Path: Experiences of American Women Choosing Islam (Lee’s Summit, Mo., 1996) ∙ L. BAKHTIAR, Sufi Women of America: Angels in the Making (Chicago, 1996) ∙ S. BARBOZA, American Jihad: Islam after Malcolm X (New York, 1994) ∙ L. FARRAKHAN, A Torchlight for America (Chicago, 1993) ∙ M. GARDELL, In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam (Durham, N.C., 1996) ∙ Y. Y. HADDAD, ed., The Muslims of America (New York, 1991) ∙ Y. Y. HADDAD and J. L. ESPOSITO, eds., Muslims on the Americanization Path? (Atlanta, 1998) ∙ Y. Y. HADDAD and A. T. LUMMIS, Islamic Values in the United States: A Comparative Study (New York, 1987) ∙ Y. Y. HADDAD and J. I. SMITH, Mission to America: Five Islamic Sectarian Communities in North America (Gainesville, Fla., 1993); idem, eds., Muslim Communities in North America (Albany, N.Y., 1994) ∙ G. KEPEL, Allah in the West: Islamic Movements in America and Europe (Stanford, Calif., 1997) ∙ M. A. KOSZEGI and J. G. MELTON, eds., Islam in North America: A Source-book (New York, 1992) ∙ M. F. LEE, The Nation of Islam: An American Millenarian Movement (Syracuse, N.Y., 1996) ∙ C. E. LINCOLN, The Black Muslims in America (3d ed.; Grand Rapids, 1994; orig. pub., 1961) ∙ A. B. MCCLOUD, African American Islam (New York, 1995) ∙ C. E. MARSH, From Black Muslims to Muslims: The Transition from Separatism to Islam, 1930–1980 (Metuchen, N.J., 1984) ∙ B. D. METCALF, ed., Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe (Berkeley, Calif., 1996) ∙ L. POSTON, Islamic Da’wah in the West: Muslim Missionary Activity and the Dynamics of Conversion to Islam (New York, 1992) ∙ A. SHAHID, Reflections of an American Muslim (Chicago, 1994) ∙ J. I. SMITH, Islam in America (New York, 1999) ∙ R. B. TURNER, Islam in the African-American Experience (Bloomington, Ind., 1997) ∙ E. H. WAUGH, S. M. ABU-LABAN, and R. B. QURESHI, eds., Muslim Families in North America (Edmonton, 1991) ∙ R. WORMSER, American Islam: Growing Up Muslim in America (New York, 1994).
JANE I. SMITH
Islam and Christianity

1. Context and Historical Sketch
2. Islam as a Challenge to Christian Theology and Practice of Mission
3. Christian-Muslim Engagement Today
1. Context and Historical Sketch
1.1. As the 20th century drew to its close, many Christians sensed both the urgency and the promise of new developments in the 1,400-year-old history of Christian-Muslim relations. Dramatic gestures such as the visits of Pope John Paul II to Muslim leaders throughout the world communicated the widely felt sense that new Christian attitudes toward → Islam were developing and that new conversation and cooperation between Christian and Muslim theologians and institutions were possible. In Europe and North America, due in part to the increasing presence of Muslim guest workers, immigrants (including → refugees), and converts, interest in Islam has increased by leaps and bounds. Even in places where Muslims had long been seen as exotic outsiders, Christians began to encounter Muslims in their neighborhoods, their workplaces, and—through marriage—their own families.
Christian churches have turned their attention to → Islam at denominational and ecumenical levels, and specialized institutes for the study of Christian-Muslim relations have flourished, for example, those at the University of Birmingham (U.K.), Hartford Seminary (U.S.), Georgetown University (U.S.), and the Pontificio Istituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica (Rome). Such interest is by no means limited to the West. Some of the most moving testimonies of the possibilities for Christian-Muslim understanding and common work come from the churches of the non-Western world and from institutions such as the Christian Study Centre in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, the Henry Martyn Institute in Hyderabad, India, and the Program for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa (formerly the Islam in Africa Project).
1.2. The sense of urgency in these new developments in Christian-Muslim relations can be understood only against the background of a long history of hostility and estrangement (→ Force, Violence, Nonviolence). Even at the end of the 20th century, violence involving Christian and Muslim communities continued to be all too common in many parts of the world, including the Sudan, Nigeria, the Balkan states, and parts of Indonesia. While each case is complex and resists classification merely as a religious → conflict, each adds its own sad load to the burden of history that continues to weigh down individuals and communities seeking harmonious relations between Christians and Muslims.
1.3. Competition between the two faiths was present from the very beginning. Within a decade of the death of Muḥammad (in A.D. 632), the Prophet of Islam, Muslim armies had conquered a huge part of the ancient Christian heartland, including Palestine, Syria, and Egypt. For centuries, Islam and Christianity were the faiths of competing, expansionistic power blocs, each of which saw military success as a sign of divine favor. Therefore, in spite of intensive cultural exchanges, the prevalent attitude was one of hostility. Muslim armies conquered North Africa and Spain, and by 711 they had crossed into France; centuries later, the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople (1453) and reached the walls of Vienna (1529).
Echoes of the fears of Christendom may be found even today in Christian → worship. The celebration of the Feast of the Transfiguration on August 6 commemorates the lifting of the Turkish siege of Belgrade on that day in 1456, and many continue to sing M. → Luther’s hymn “Lord, keep us steadfast in thy Word / And curb the Turks’ and papists’ sword” (written after the Christians’ defeat at Budapest in 1541), with only slight revisions.
On the other side, Christians launched the → Crusades (in the Holy Land, 1095–1291) and the reconquista of Spain (completed in 1492). Aggression by Christians continued in the modern period with → colonialism, which brought about British rule in parts of the Near East, Egypt, the Sudan, and India, as well as Dutch rule in Indonesia and French rule in North Africa. The establishment of the modern state of Israel (1948) has been understood by many Muslims to be merely a continuation of this Western “crusading” history.
2. Islam as a Challenge to Christian Theology and Practice of Mission
2.1. As well as posing geopolitical challenges to Christian empires, Islam has posed theological challenges to Christian faith. The new faith arose in a region where → Judaism and Christianity were known, and it claimed to be the culmination of a → salvation history in which the older faiths figured: → Moses and → Jesus were prophets and apostles in a line that came to its climax in Muḥammad, “the Seal of the Prophets,” while the scripture revealed to Muḥammad, the → Koran, confirmed previous revelations, including the → Torah (Tawrāt) sent down to Moses and the Gospel (Injı̄l) sent down to Jesus. The Islamic revelation thus allowed a certain legitimacy to the Jewish and Christian communities (they were “people of the Book”), although the Koran and the developing Islamic tradition were also sharply critical of Jewish and Christian “distortions” in their beliefs, including the Christian worship of Jesus as Lord and God. In the light of Islam’s passionate → monotheism (tawḥı̄d), Christian teachings about the triunity of God and the → incarnation of the Son of God were immediately suspect, as were Christian practices such as the veneration of the → cross and → images. Furthermore, the portrait of Jesus that emerges from the Koran—an apostle of Islam whom, it appears, God took up into heaven in order to save him from an ignominious death by crucifixion—is obviously at odds with the portrait of Jesus in the NT Gospels.
2.2. While the fact of the rapid Islamic conquest of so much of the historical heartland of the Christian movement posed a theological problem to the church of the seventh and eighth centuries, resulting in much soul-searching and finger-pointing at → sins and → heresies that might have provoked God’s wrath, Christian thinkers were slow to grasp Islam itself as a challenge to Christian thought. Thus the church father → John of Damascus (d. ca. 750) was able to classify Islam as merely a recent Christian heresy. John’s casual and contemptuous dismissal of “the still-prevailing deceptive superstition of the Ishmaelites, the forerunner of the Antichrist” (Sahas’s translation) was characteristic of many early Greek and Latin writings on the subject, some of which amounted to little more than war propaganda. These works often treated Islam as merely a form of idolatry; indeed, until 1180, converts from Islam to Christianity in → Byzantium were required to anathematize “the god of Muḥammad.” Islam was frequently explained in apocalyptic terms; for example, in the late 12th century Joachim of Fiore (d. 1202) identified the fourth head of the dragon of the Book of Revelation with Muḥammad, and the sixth head as Ṣalāḥ al-Dı̄n al-Ayyūbı̄ (Saladin), who had recently (1187) recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders. In the Latin West wild stories about Muḥammad and the genesis of Islam were eagerly related without examination, since “it is safe to speak evil of one whose malignity exceeds whatever ill can be spoken” (Guibert of Nogent, writing before 1112; Southern’s translation).
Although the West’s knowledge of Islam grew in the centuries that followed (see 2.5), sharp antitheses between Christianity and Islam continued to be drawn by many of the → Reformers (see Luther’s remarks about Muḥammad and the Koran), by early Protestant → mission (§§1–2) theology (for which Islam, being post-Christian, was seen as anti-Christian), and by some currents of → dialectical theology (in which Islam is to be respected but is still judged to be mere → religion in contrast to the biblical → revelation, a view held by Hendrik Kraemer). The antitheses are still very strongly stressed by some contemporary Christians, especially some conservative Protestants (not only in the West but now throughout the world), who continue to hold very negative assessments of Islam in general, and in particular of its God (Allāh), its Prophet (Muḥammad), and its Book (the Qurʾān).
2.3. A somewhat different attitude was found among Arabic-speaking Christian theologians, who, in writings from the late eighth century onward, attempted to convince Muslims of the intellectual respectability of Christian faith (i.e., that Christian doctrines of the Trinity and of the incarnation were not merely forms of tritheism and idolatry), and even more to persuade Christians to remain within the Christian community (a task in which they were only partially successful, to judge from the wave of → conversions to Islam that marked the ninth and tenth centuries in many parts of the Islamic caliphate). These arabophone theologians diligently sought out common ground upon which apologies for Christian faith could be built. They all used the word “Allāh” without reservation to refer to the Christian God.
A church leader such as the Nestorian catholicos Timothy (d. 823) could make a carefully nuanced affirmation that Muḥammad had “walked in the path of the prophets.” Writers such as Theodore Abū Qurrah, Ḥabı̄b Abū Rāʾiṭah, and ʿAmmār al-Baṣrı̄ (all active early in the 9th cent.) were skilled in making use of Koranic vocabulary and content and were able to address Muslim dialectical theologians (mutakallimūn) in their own idiom. To these names may be added those of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq (d. 873) and Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdı̄ (d. 974) as examples of participants in the great projects of translating → Greek philosophy and science into Arabic and the creation of a tradition of Arabic philosophy (falsafah), as a result of which Arabic-speaking intellectuals came to share a common language and a common canon of philosophical and scientific literature to which an → apologist might make appeal. Thus was established an Arabic Christian apologetic tradition that has continued to our own day, one that may continue to give inspiration to Middle Eastern Christian communities that have survived over the centuries, coexisting with Muslims and making major cultural contributions, despite the vicissitudes of life under Islamic rule (see 3.1).
2.4. Contemporary with the development of an Arabic Christian apologetic tradition is the development of an Islamic “refutation of the Christians” literature, which developed the Koranic critique of Christian teaching and practice mentioned above (see 2.1). This literature fulfilled a variety of functions: it warned against trends in Islamic teaching and practice that could be considered Christianizing, it played a role in the making and “catechizing” of converts, and in its early decades it assured Muslims of the superiority of their faith, despite what at first was the greater intellectual sophistication of their Christian subjects. Some of this literature displays a very good grasp of Christian teachings (and Christian divisions!) and responds to them with impressive dialectic (e.g., by al-Warrāq [d. ca. 861], al-Nāshiʾ al-Akbar [d. 906], al-Bāqillānı̄ [d. 1013], and Ibn Taymiyyah [d. 1328]). The literature is also interesting for its varied treatments of Christian scripture, which is sometimes utilized although transposed into an Islamic key (e.g., by al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhı̄m [d. ca. 860] and ʿAlı̄ ibn Rabbān al-Ṭabarı̄ [d. ca. 860]), and sometimes attacked for its internal contradictions and general unreliability (e.g., by Ibn Ḥazm [d. 1064]).
2.5. A number of issues that would be important for the subsequent history of Christian-Muslim relations were raised in the medieval Christian West. The need for a greater understanding of Islam was perceived and addressed, a notable example being the translation project of Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, which included the Latin Koran translation of Robert Ketton (in 1143). Similar ventures grace the following centuries and are dramatically illustrated by Luther’s defense of Theodore Bibliander’s publication of a Latin translation of the Koran in Basel in 1543.
St. → Francis of Assisi (d. 1226) and the Franciscans pioneered a nonviolent → missionary approach to the Muslims (→ Mission); a weirdly brilliant → Franciscan tertiary, Ramon Llull (d. ca. 1315), was a champion of noncoercive rational apologetic. The → Benedictine monk Uthred of Boldon (at Oxford in the 1360s) explored possibilities for the salvation of non-Christians; although his opinions on the matter were censured, his idea that an individual’s destiny-deciding encounter with God takes place at the moment of death was picked up by others, such as John → Wycliffe (d. 1384).
After the fall of Constantinople, Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464) imagined a heavenly Christian-Muslim dialogue through which Christians could explain their faith; his friend John of Segovia (d. 1458) did his utmost to make such a → dialogue (contraferentia) an earthly reality. It was the same Nicholas who, in his Sifting of the Koran, affirmed that the Koran contains → truth. All of these issues would be revisited by Christian Islamicists and missionary thinkers in the 20th century.
2.6. The great age of Protestant Christian missions is marked by a number of initiatives aimed at bringing the → gospel of Jesus Christ to Muslims throughout the world. It should be noted from the outset that neither Catholic nor Protestant missionary work among Muslims has led any great number to → baptism, partly because of the Islamic “law of apostasy” prohibiting conversion out of the Islamic community (see 3.1). However, the missionaries’ work in countries throughout the world—frequently under colonial protection—enabled Christian values, philosophy, and culture to exert an indirect influence. In particular, extensive educational work has been very significant in the formation of Muslim elites.
Some individual figures who must be mentioned include missionaries to Muslims in South Asia such as Henry Martyn (d. 1812), Karl Gottlieb Pfander (d. 1865), Thomas Valpy French (d. 1891), and Lewis Bevan Jones (d. 1960). While adorned from the beginning with great linguistic and intellectual gifts and love for individuals, the work of such persons has moved from a reliance on the controversial method (esp. marked in the case of Pfander) to a dialogic approach that takes Islam seriously as a context within which to pursue the Christian theological task (esp. Jones and the Henry Martyn School/Institute, of which he was first principal). The American Reformed missionary Samuel M. Zwemer (d. 1952) may have done more than any other individual to generate the interest of Western Protestant churchgoers in the Muslim world. Anglican missions in the Near East contributed a special character of thoughtfulness and a desire to understand Islam “from the inside,” a tradition graced by figures such as Temple Gairdner (d. 1928) and Constance Padwick (d. 1968) and also producing Kenneth Cragg. Cragg, whose seminal work The Call of the Minaret (1956) has been followed by dozens of other elegantly written books, has exerted an enormous influence on Protestant missionary thinking and practice with respect to Islam in the second half of the 20th century. Many other Protestant theologians have made major contributions to the → theology of religions, the respectful Christian study of Islam, and the practice of Christian-Muslim dialogue, including Wilfred Cantwell Smith (d. 2000), W. Montgomery Watt, and Willem A. Bijlefeld.
2.7. The towering figure in the development of Catholic attitudes toward Islam in the 20th century is the French Islamicist Louis Massignon (d. 1962), who in his teaching, hundreds of publications, and a life full of activity on behalf of Muslims explored the spiritual kinship between the two faiths and probed the mystery of Islam’s place in God’s providence. His influence is plain to see in the large number of Catholic thinkers who have drawn inspiration from him, and especially in documents of the Second → Vatican Council (1962–65). Lumen gentium 16 explicitly states that the Muslims are included in “the plan of salvation,” while Nostra aetate 3 begins with the deceptively simple yet revolutionary statement that the church “looks with esteem upon” the Muslims and ends with a call for Christians and Muslims to strive for mutual understanding and to work together on behalf of all humankind. Other names that should be mentioned here include Massignon’s disciples Youakim Mubarac (d. 1994) and Guilio Basetti-Sani, the → Dominicans Jacques Jomier and Georges Anawati (d. 1994), the Père Blanc Robert Caspar, and the academic theologian Hans Küng.
3. Christian-Muslim Engagement Today
3.1. Islamic history is in general characterized by → tolerance toward communities of Christians and Jews, communities that have enjoyed → freedom of worship and that have ordered their affairs according to their own laws of “personal status.” At certain times and places there have been creative interaction and cooperation, and even theological discussion, between communities. This tolerance is dictated by the Koran itself, which not only prohibits coercion in matters of religion but positively enjoins respect for Jews and Christians as “people of the Book”—even though, as we have seen, the Koran also criticizes what it views as Christian and Jewish exaggerations or excesses in their beliefs.
A practical difficulty in intercommunal relations is the fact that Islamic tolerance does not in theory allow for the possibility of → conversion from Islam to any other religious community (see the Islamic Declaration of Human Rights of 1981). In contrast, conversion to Islam is encouraged and welcomed, with demographic results that are obvious in the (once Christian) Middle East and North Africa. Another pressing issue in some nations where Islam is dominant is the place of non-Muslims in an Islamic state. Can Christians, for example, be full co-citizens of such a state, or will they have the status of dhimmis (dhimmı̄y, “protected people”)? Muslim minorities in Western countries have analogous concerns: can their members live as Muslims and pass their faith on to their children in secularized Western societies?
3.2. During the final third of the 20th century, “dialogue” has been a key concept for thinking about new and renewed approaches in Christian-Muslim relations. Building on the developments adumbrated in 2.6 and 2.7 above, possibilities for dialogue have been explored by the → Roman Catholic Church’s Secretariat for Non-Christians (established in 1964), which in 1988 became the Pontifical Council on Interreligious Dialogue (PCID), and by the → World Council of Churches, which sponsored its first formal Christian-Muslim dialogue in 1969 in Cartigny, Switzerland, and two years later established a program subunit Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies. These efforts have helped to establish a new climate for dealing with both theological and practical problems. In frequent formal meetings between Muslim and Christian leaders, theological and spiritual issues have been discussed as well as common concerns about human → rights and dignity (the protection of minorities, → religious liberty, peacemaking, justice for oppressed peoples, etc.) and the practice of Christian mission and Islamic daʿwah (“summons,” including issues concerning → proselytism, diaconal work, and the entanglement of Christian mission with Western imperialism).
3.3. The present situation is full of complexity. Muslim communities continue to grow in once-predominantly Christian countries; clashes involving Christians and Muslims continue to occur with sad regularity in various parts of the world; the vigorous revival of Islam in many parts of the Islamic world brings an increasingly self-confident and assertive presence to Christian-Muslim relations; and Christians continue to hold widely divergent views on the proper “approach” to Muslims. Dialogue is here to stay, the reality and risk of conflict in some parts of the world making it a critical component of building both community and nation.
It has gradually become apparent that the most effective dialogue is not that carried on at major international conferences but that which takes place at the local level and which focuses on very concrete challenges and problems. In many places (e.g., Egypt, Pakistan, and Indonesia) there has been fruitful interaction between Christian and Muslim intellectuals in matters of human rights, the development of the civil society, and other areas, while at the grass roots Christians and Muslims have worked together to promote health, literacy, and economic development.
3.4. Another area for Christian reflection and dialogue involves a recognition of the continuing theological and ethical challenges of Islam (see 2.1). A growing number of Western Christian theologians in the current postmodern situation are realizing the importance of other faith traditions such as Islam—and not just Western philosophies—as major dialogue partners for Christian theology. As Christian theologians in the Islamic world gain a voice, they too (in continuity with the arabophone theologians mentioned in 2.3) point to new possibilities for elaborating a Christian dialogic theology in relation to Islam.
3.5. Intense interest in Christian-Muslim dialogue does not mean that traditional Christian concerns for the → proclamation of the gospel have been forgotten. Evangelical Protestants, many of them associated with the Lausanne Covenant (1974), have pressed to keep → evangelism at the top of the international Christian agenda, and the end of the 20th century witnessed intense activity aimed at the evangelization of peoples within the so-called 10/40 Window (i.e., the parts of Africa and Asia lying between 10 and 40 degrees North), many of them Muslim. (This activity is mirrored by that of Muslim groups that see the de-Christianized West as a field ripe for the harvest of Islam.)
Ecumenical Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians and missiologists have devoted much energy to the harmonizing of the twin imperatives of (1) genuine dialogue with people of other faiths and (2) faithful witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ (note the publication on this issue by the PCID in 1991). Christians of the post-Constantinian West may well have much to learn about these matters from the experience of those Christians who have lived as minority communities in Muslim lands and who have learned from long experience the practice of humble yet confident and joyful Christian witness in a context dominated by Islam.
→ Islamic Philosophy; Shia, Shiites; Sufism; Sunna

Bibliography: W. A. BIJLEFELD, ed., Christian-Muslim Relations (= MW 88/3–4 [1998]) ∙ M. BORRMANS, Guidelines for Dialogue between Christians and Muslims (New York, 1990) ∙ K. CRAGG, The Call of the Minaret (2d ed.; Maryknoll, N.Y., 1985) ∙ N. DANIEL, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (Edinburgh, 1960) ∙ J.-M. GAUDEUL, Encounters and Clashes: Islam and Christianity in History (2 vols.; Rome, 1990) ∙ Y. Y. HADDAD and W. Z. HADDAD, eds., Christian-Muslim Encounters (Gainesville, Fla., 1995) ∙ R. G. HOYLAND, Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Princeton, 1997) ∙ J. C. LAMOREAUX, “Christianity’s Earliest Encounters with Islam,” Touchstone 5 (1992) 26–31 ∙ T. MICHEL and M. FITZGERALD, eds., Recognizing the Spiritual Bonds Which Unite Us: Sixteen Years of Christian-Muslim Dialogue (Vatican City, 1994) ∙ R. E. MILLER, ed., Islam (= WW 16/2 [1996]) ∙ R. E. MILLER and H. A. O. MWAKABANA, eds., Christian-Muslim Dialogue: Theological and Practical Issues (Geneva, 1998) ∙ G. D. NICKEL, Peaceable Witness among Muslims (Scottdale, Pa., 1999) ∙ PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AND THE CONGREGATION FOR THE EVANGELIZATION OF PEOPLES, Dialogue and Proclamation: Reflections and Orientations on Interreligious Dialogue and the Proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Vatican City, 1991) ∙ D. J. SAHAS, John of Damascus on Islam: The “Heresy of the Ishmaelites” (Leiden, 1972) ∙ S. K. SAMIR and J. S. NIELSEN, eds., Christian Arabic Apologetics during the Abbasid Period (750–1258) (Leiden, 1994) ∙ J. I. SMITH, “Islam and Christendom: Historical, Cultural, and Religious Interactions from the Seventh to the Fifteenth Centuries,” The Oxford History of Islam (ed. J. L. Esposito; Oxford, 1999) 305–45 ∙ R. W. SOUTHERN, Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 1962) ∙ L. L. VANDER WERFF, Christian Mission to Muslims-the Record: Anglican and Reformed Approaches in India and the Near East, 1800–1938 (South Pasadena, Calif., 1977) ∙ J. D. WOODBERRY, ed., Muslims and Christians on the Emmaus Road (Monrovia, Calif., 1989) ∙ K. ZEBIRI, Muslims and Christians Face to Face (Oxford, 1997).
PAUL LÖFFLER and MARK N. SWANSON
Islamic Philosophy

1. Basis and the Various Approaches to Theology and Law
2. First Movements of Political and Theological Dissent
3. Other Influences
4. Individual Philosophers
4.1. Al-Kindı̄
4.2. Al-Fārābı̄
4.3. Ibn Sı̄nā (Avicenna)
4.4. Ibn Bājjah (Avempace)
4.5. Ibn Ṭufayl
4.6. Ibn Rushd (Averroës), Averroism
1. Basis and the Various Approaches to Theology and Law

The → Koran is the basis for the development of Islam, providing obligatory guidelines for its expression. In contrast, the tradition of the Prophet Muḥammad (ca. 570–632), with his sayings and deeds, gives Islam its practical side. The relation between the Koran and the tradition (sunnah) is like that between an architect’s master plan and the detailed instructions of the builder. When Islam spread outside Arabia, social and political issues arose that were not covered by the religious statutes. A way of giving religiously satisfactory answers to the various questions had to be found, for which jurists developed four categories: (1) qiyās (analogy), which used known cases to deal with similar ones; (2) ijmāʿ (agreement), which would ideally be full consensus; (3) raʾy (expert private opinion); and (4) istiḥsān (discretion, or what seems to be right and good, even though it differs from what might logically be deduced from revealed law or analogy).
Traditionalists rejected the independent use of → reason and preferred to build on the Koran and the tradition of the Prophet. Some of them even rejected qiyās and raʾy.
The mutakallimūn (Lat. loquentes), whom we might call the theologians of Islam, attempted to confirm the Koranic revelation by rational arguments alone, simply quoting the relevant verses from the Koran, followed by the relevant supporting points of tradition. They believed that God’s actions are in accordance with reason and that → good and → evil are not just arbitrary or conventional terms with a validity rooted in the divine commands but rational concepts that may be communicated with the help of reason alone.
Advocates of a middle way between theology and philosophy, such as al-Ghazālı̄ (Lat. Algazel, d. 1111), regarded philosophy as reliable but only when developed on a solid basis of faith. The Koran, al-Ghazālı̄ thought, shows us convincingly what is good and what is bad. Reason is subordinate to → revelation and does not have the unshakable certainty of → faith. Such certainty can be achieved only with the help of inspiration, a superior power that God alone can give. Human effort cannot achieve certainty.
The philosophers championed pure reason. They laid down rational premises and worked out the logical implications. If the results of their deliberations conflicted with revelation, they tried to achieve a reconciliation by a suitable interpretation of revelation.
2. First Movements of Political and Theological Dissent

The first notable conflict in the history of Islam that led to controversial speculations was the debate between ʿAlı̄ (the 4th caliph) and Muʿwiyah (later the 5th caliph). The struggle for leadership of the Islamic community produced the Kharijites (khārijı̄, “dissenter, seceder”), who opposed both men and who first raised the problem of the basis and limitation of political authority and also the thorny question of what constitutes a grave → sin, that is, one of such a nature that those who commit it must be banned from the fellowship of the faithful or, in the case of a caliph, must abdicate or be put to death. The Murjiʾites (murjiʾah, “postponer, believer in suspension of judgment”) thought that even this kind of sin should not necessarily involve a loss of membership and preferred to leave such matters to the judgment of God. The Shiites (→ Shia, Shiites) gave unconditional loyalty to ʿAlı̄ and, in dealing with the legal question, followed formal rather than material considerations.
Discussion of the nature of a grave sin led to the question of free will and predestination. The Qadarites (from qadar, “fate, destiny”) held to the doctrine of free will, arguing that only free sinners had to suffer the consequences of their sins and be banished from the community. Opposing them were the Jabarites (from jabr, “power, force”), who denied free will, viewing all acts as having their origin in God.
Wāṣil ibn ʿAṭāʾ (d. 748) tried to solve this problem by postulating an intermediate state between belief and unbelief. Wāṣil and Abū al-Hudhayl alʿAllāf (d. ca. 841) systematized for the first time the teaching that would later be known as the school of the Muʿtazilites (muʿtazilah, “those who stand apart”), who stressed the absolute unity and justice of God. The Muʿtazilites, the rationalists of Islam, focused on the decisive concepts of the divine → righteousness and unity. They expounded their teaching in five principles of faith that are the core of their confession: (1) the unity and uniqueness of God, (2) his righteousness, (3) the intermediate state of the grave sinner, (4) the inevitability of the divine threats and promises, and (5) the demand for good and the warning against evil.
3. Other Influences

In al-Rāzı̄ (Lat. Rhazes, d. 923/32) we can see some Indian influence deriving from al-Irānshahrı̄, especially his atomism. Some important differences between this teaching and its Greek predecessors—including the atomistic nature of time, space, and accidents, or the perishability of atoms and their accidents—reflect this influence.
Persian influence affected mostly the moralistic or aphoristic tradition and focused on the religious and philosophical implications of → Manichaean → dualism.
The encounter between → Greek philosophy and Islam provoked an ambivalent reaction in Islamic thought. One party tried to submit the foundations of religious revelation to critical investigation by philosophical thinking, Another, however, saw philosophy as audacious and refused to be engaged with it.
Progress came through constant interaction with reform movements such as that of al-Ashʿari (d. 935/36), for whom the final and basic source of good and evil is simply the command or prohibition of God, or Ibn Taymı̄yah (d. 1328), who attacked theologians (the mutakallimūn) as well as philosophers. This thought sought to validate the traditionalist concepts and presuppositions of the early protagonists of Islam, the so-called pious ancestors (al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ) of the Islamic fellowship.
4. Individual Philosophers
4.1. Al-Kindı̄

Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Ṣabāḥ al-Kindı̄ (d. ca. 870), called the Philosopher of the Arabs, was the first to make use of the Greek legacy. Influenced by Aristotle (384–322 B.C.; → Aristotelianism), al-Kindı̄ had knowledge of a mixture of legendary and historical sayings of Socrates (ca. 470–399). He also had a secondhand knowledge of Plato (427–347; → Platonism), whose views about the → soul he shared. He had a basic knowledge of Aristotle’s theology derived from Plotinus Enn. 4–6. The theology of Aristotle and the anonymous Liber de causis (Book of causes, by way of Proclus’s Stoicheiōsis theologikē [Elements of theology]), which had been translated into Arabic by Syrian Christians and ascribed to Aristotle, formed the main starting point for Islamic Neoplatonism.
Although following Aristotle’s insights for the most part, al-Kindı̄ deviated from Aristotle’s teaching at many points and was imbued with the spirit of Islamic dogma. Resisting the idea that the truth of Islamic revelation might be proved by syllogisms, he upheld the superiority of revealed → truth to human knowledge. With the theologians, he defended many Islamic beliefs against materialists, dualists, and others. He championed the creation of the world ex nihilo, the → resurrection of the body, the possibility of → miracles, the validity of prophetic revelation (→ Prophet, Prophecy), and the origin and final destruction of the world by God.
4.2. Al-Fārābı̄

Abū Naṣr Muḥammad al-Fārābı̄ (Lat. Alpharabius or Avennasar, d. ca. 950), known as the “second teacher” (after Aristotle), noted the antitheses between philosophical schools and made great efforts to reconcile the teachings of Plato with those of Aristotle. Following Simplicius of Cilicia (fl. ca. 530), al-Fārābı̄ wrote a treatise on the theme. In the problem of the eternity of the world and Plato’s doctrine of the ideas, al-Fārābı̄ came close to throwing doubt on the authenticity of Aristotle’s theology. He made many contributions to philosophy and political theology and had a varied influence on later Muslim philosophers.
Al-Fārābı̄’s system of emanations was original, though essentially he borrowed his images, terms, and ideas from Plotinus (ca. 205–70). Starting with the thought that from one, only one can come (not taken from Plotinus), he argued that from the first one comes only one being: immaterial and insubstantial intelligence. Then comes → emanation in a process of twofold regress to self-being and to the first one. This emanation is a natural and automatic process that brings forth ten distinct and totally immaterial intelligences. The first being is above the highest of the distinct intelligences. The tenth intelligence is the active intellect. Al-Fārābı̄ thus made a sharp distinction between God and the first impulse.
This distinction was the basis of the teaching of Avicenna that it is impossible to establish God’s existence by natural proofs. Both ideas would have a decisive influence on the Latin European Middle Ages by way of Avicenna (→ God, Arguments for the Existence of). Al-Fārābı̄ was the first to distinguish between existence and essence, a distinction that Avicenna adopted and developed in ontological terms. This insight was regarded as one of the great achievements of the Middle Ages.
4.3. Ibn Sı̄nā (Avicenna)

The Rasāʾil ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ (Discourses of the pure brothers, 10th cent.) and the works of al-Fārābı̄, along with the works of Aristotle and his Greek commentators, had a decisive impact on the thinking of Ibn Sı̄nā (Lat. Avicenna, d. 1037), a Persian physician who has been called the most famous Islamic philosopher-scientist. This work consists of 52 pamphlets dealing with the current knowledge in every field, from mathematics, physics, and psychology to epistemology, law, and theology. It outlines three kinds of faith: one for the elect, one for the → masses, and one that combines the two. The last is to be most extolled, for, rooted in knowledge, it is also based on revelation and is available to all, no matter how they seek the truth. Philosophy, → dogma, → metaphysics, and science are thus accessible to all. In many Islamic philosophers like al-Fārābı̄, Avicenna, al-Ghazālı̄, and Averroës (see 4.6), we find a classifying of people according to their intellectual abilities, with philosophers first, followed by theologians, then the common folk.
Avicenna, like al-Fārābı̄, developed a Neoplatonic, though strictly monotheistic, philosophy. Yet both were regarded by Muslim scholars as heretics because they believed in the eternity of the world as distinct from its creation ex nihilo. Avicenna had a great influence on → Scholasticism. Besides his distinction between existence and essence, which became a pillar of → Thomism, he introduced the idea of the person who is free from all external influences, who has no contact with the external world, but to whom it is revealed by individual thought that he or she both is and thinks. This → allegory shows much similarity to the cogito, ergo sum of R. Descartes (1596–1650; → Cartesianism).
At this point in philosophical development the political and theological situation in the Islamic world in the East blocked most further progress. An exception was the illuminationist philosophy Avicenna expressed in his Oriental writings, which was espoused and developed in Iran by such luminaries as Shihāb al-Dı̄n Yaḥyā al-Suhrawardı̄ (d. 1191) and Mullā Sadrā (also called Ṣadr al-Dı̄n al-Shı̄rāzı̄, ca. 1571–1640), whose long line of disciples have maintained the tradition to the present day.
Philosophy developed further in Islamic Spain, where it blossomed under Ibn Gabirol and the three philosophers considered in the following subsections. During the lifetime of Averroës, a great translation enterprise was launched under Archbishop Raymond of Toledo. Along with the works of Aristotle the philosophical and medical writings of Avicenna, al-Ghazālı̄, Averroës, and many others were translated into Latin.
The unbridgeable gulf that al-Fārābı̄ put between the first being and the highest of the distinct intelligences and his stress on the divine aspect of the active intellect (intellectus agens) prepared the way for the uniting of the human soul with this intellect. Avicenna’s God, too, was inaccessible, and the union that was sought may be ascribed to the mystical element in his philosophy, an element not wholly absent from that of al-Fārābı̄.
4.4. Ibn Bājjah (Avempace)

Ibn Bājjah, or Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Sāyigh (Lat. Avempace, d. 1139), a confessed pupil of al-Fārābı̄, was a Spanish Arab philosopher, physician, astronomer, mathematician, and poet. He espoused the theory of union between the soul and the active intellect, to achieve which a person must become ruled by will and reason and then increasingly strip off materiality in an upward movement toward the active intellect itself. His psychological and moral insights were his main contribution to philosophy.
4.5. Ibn Ṭufayl

Ibn Ṭufayl, or Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Ṭufayl (d. 1185/86), Moorish philosopher and physician, is best known for his book Ḥayy ibn yaqẓān (Alive son of awake). This parabolic work tells the story of Ḥayy, who grows up alone on a deserted island. Through private → contemplation he attains to wisdom and achieves knowledge of nature and God. In this state he comes across Asāl, a member of a religious community on a nearby island. After learning how to speak with Asāl, Ḥayy discovers that his philosophy and Asāl’s religion are two versions of the same truth. The basic theses of the → parable are that there is no contradiction between philosophy and religion; there is only one truth, which may be attained by different paths; union with the active intellect may be achieved by the persistent effort of philosophers; and there are various solutions to metaphysical problems.
→ Islam and Christianity; Middle Ages; Sufism; Sunna

Bibliography: G. C. ANAWATI, “Philosophie, Theologie und Mystik,” Das Vermächtnis des Islams (ed. J. Schacht and C. E. Bosworth; vol. 2; Zurich, 1980) 119–65 ∙ A. J. ARBERY, Reason and Revelation in Islam (London, 1957) ∙ A. BADAWI, Histoire de la philosophie en Islam (2 vols.; Paris, 1972) ∙ T. J. DE BOER, Geschichte der Philosophie im Islam (Stuttgart, 1901) ∙ H. CORBIN, Historie de la philosophie islamique (vol. 1; Paris, 1964); idem, “La philosophie islamique depuis la mort d’Averroes jusqu’à nos jours,” Histoire de la philosophie (vol. 3; Paris, 1974) 1067–1188 ∙ M. CRUZ HERNÁNDEZ, Historia de la filosofía española, filosofía hispano-musulmana (2 vols.; Madrid, 1957) ∙ M. FAKHRY, A History of Islamic Philosophy (New York, 1970) ∙ Mélanges de philosophie juive et arabe (Paris, 1859; repr., 1927) ∙ J. P. DE MENASCE, Arabische Philosophie (Bern, 1948) ∙ S. MUNK, De principaux philosophes arabes et de leur doctrine (Paris, 1955; repr., 1982) 309–458 ∙ M. M. SHARIF, ed., A History of Muslim Philosophy (2 vols.; Wiesbaden, 1963–66) ∙ R. WALZER, “Islamic Philosophy,” History of Philosophy, Eastern and Western (ed. S. Radhakrishnan; vol. 2; London, 1953) 120–48 ∙ W. M. WATT, Islamic Philosophy and Theology (Edinburgh, 1962) ∙ W. M. WATT and M. MARMURA, eds., Der Islam, vol. 2, Politische Entwicklungen und theologische Konzepte (Stuttgart, 1985) ∙ H. A. WOLFSON, The Philosophy of the Kalām (Cambridge, Mass., 1976). Also see the articles “Falsafa,” “Kalām,” and “Taṣawwuf,” Enzyklopädie des Islams (Eng., Leiden, 1960ff.).
SAMIR VOUWZEE
4.6. Ibn Rushd (Averroës), Averroism

4.6.1. Abū al-Walı̄d Muḥammad ibn Rushd (Lat. Averroës, 1126–98) integrated Islamic traditions and Greek thought. In 1169 Ibn Ṭufayl himself introduced Averroës to Caliph Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf, who asked Averroës to write a commentary on the Aristotelian corpus. He set about this task with great zeal, developing a detailed interpretation of Aristotle’s system that remained very influential for centuries.
The term “Averroism” denotes various philosophical movements in Italy from the mid-13th to the 17th century. These movements began with the reception of Aristotle (→ Aristotelianism) by way of the commentary of Averroës. Common to all of them was the scholastic method of dealing with the teaching of Aristotle sentence by sentence with the help of the commentary. Often the views would find only their starting point in Averroës. Averroism served as a stimulus to independent secular thinking, which produced various schools appealing to it. It was repeatedly condemned on the basis of its supposed denial of human freedom and personal immortality.
4.6.2. The thought of Averroës must be seen in conjunction with his total work as an Islamic jurist and theologian and must not be viewed solely from the perspective of his commentary on Greek philosophy. For him matter and the world were eternal, and their development was necessary. God is part of the world, its first cause or prime mover. Creation is a constant movement, not a static creation ex nihilo.
As regards the intellect, Averroës saw a passive as well as an active intellect. The real intellect is the functional union of the two, which is dissolved at death. The → immortality of the → soul and the → resurrection cannot be proved philosophically but may be known by → revelation. The nuanced position of Averroës became in Averroism a monopsychism that denied the soul’s individual immortality.
Averroës is remembered also as the author of the theory of double truth, which holds that philosophical thinking can sometimes lead to results that specifically contradict revealed truth. For Averroës, however, this contradiction had no material impact because, using the methods of Islamic jurisprudence, he resolved it in favor of philosophy by an → allegorical exposition of Koranic revelation. Philosophical learning is esoteric and beyond the masses, though philosophers also must follow religious orthodoxy outwardly. The contradiction became materially significant in the Latin Middle Ages. At first the doctrine of double truth was meant to protect philosophers (through mental reservation), who could recognize religious truth and present philosophy as merely mental play. Such teaching, though, ultimately produced and claimed knowledge that was independent of religious presuppositions, which introduced material conflict with orthodoxy.
4.6.3. The commentary of Averroës was known in the West from 1230. It played an important role for Albertus Magnus and → Thomas Aquinas (→ Scholasticism; Thomism); Boethius of Dacia took up Averroism as a scientific method. Paris synods in 1270 and 1277 under Bishop Stephan Tempier condemned the main teachings of Averroism and other tenets of the philosophers of the Paris faculty (esp. Siger of Brabant). This censure, however, did not end discussion of its method and teaching, which found critical adherents and developers in John of Jandun, Marsilius of Padua, Thomas Wilton, Walter Burleigh, Angelo of Arezzo, Taddeo of Parma, and others.
In Italy from 1320 Averroist schools arose in Bologna and Padua that recognized the teachings of the commentary as authoritative and developed them in a closed, rationalistic system. Here we might mention Pietro d’Abano, Cajetan of Thiene, and Pietro Pomponazzi, whose doctrine of double truth was contested by Nicholas Taurellus and Philipp → Melanchthon.
Averroism has many implications for social ethics. The idea that we must follow a natural way to → happiness and knowledge was popularized by wandering clerics (Goliards) and was taken up as a theme in literature. The rejection of individuality and the immortality of the soul, bound up with a psychological determinism that ruled out personal responsibility, became a weapon against the direction of conscience by the church. Philosophy’s claim to be a source of knowledge and truth independently of religious presuppositions was in keeping with the social situation in Italy after the 14th century, for the middle and merchant classes were now freeing themselves from clerical and feudal tutelage and laying the foundations of a modern understanding of the world (→ Renaissance).
Averroism eventually hardened into a closed doctrine, “learning nothing and forgetting nothing” (É. Gilson); in a world that it had originally changed, it became a reaction that rejected the modern scientific → worldview. This development, however, should not cause us to minimize the contribution of Averroism to the development of thought in the West. One of its main ideas, that of a single world intelligence, has gained a surprising new relevance today as the Darwinian theory of → evolution is being replaced by a cybernetic view that postulates a cosmic plan.

Bibliography: L’averroismo in Italia (Rome, 1979) ∙ L. V. BERMAN, Ibn Rushd’s Middle Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics in Medieval Hebrew Literature (Paris, 1978) ∙ E. GILSON, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York, 1955) ∙ Multiple Averroes. Acte du Colloque international organise a l’occasion du 850e anniversaire de la naissance d’Averroes (Paris, 1978) ∙ B. NARDI, Studi di filosofia medievale (Rome, 1960) ∙ F. VON STEENBERGHEN, Die Philosophie im 13. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1977).

MANFRED KROPP
Israel

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
1,777
3,233
4,982
Annual growth rate (%):
3.85
1.75
1.56
Area: 20,400 sq. km. (7,876 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 244/sq. km. (633/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 1.88 / 0.64 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 2.53 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 6 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 78.3 years (m: 76.3, f: 80.3)
Religious affiliation (%): Jews 76.2, Muslims 12.5, Christians 6.1 (Roman Catholics 3.0, indigenous 2.1, other Christians 1.0), nonreligious 4.2, other 1.0.
Note: Figures exclude the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights.

1. Historical Israel
1.1. Name
1.2. Prenational Period
1.3. Nation Building
1.4. David and Solomon
1.5. Northern Kingdom until 722
1.6. Judah until 586
1.7. Exile and Restoration
1.8. Hellenism
1.9. Roman Rule
2. Modern State of Israel
2.1. History
2.2. Society
2.3. Economy and Culture
2.4. Constitution
2.5. Religions
3. Christian Groups in Israel and Palestine
3.1. Orthodox Churches
3.2. Roman Catholic Churches
3.3. Oriental Orthodox Churches
3.4. Protestant Churches
3.5. Other Christian Bodies and Ecumenism
1. Historical Israel
1.1. Name

“Israel” is a theophorous name in which the proper name “El” (God) is combined with the verb śrh as its subject. The OT gives this verb the sense of striving. The patriarch → Jacob is called Israel because he had “striven with God” (Gen. 32:28, see also Hos. 12:3–4). This popular etymology, however, is not a reliable witness for the original meaning of the verb, and it also misunderstands the theophoric element “El” as an object.
In the OT, the name “Israel” refers to different, albeit related, entities: the early tribes, the united kingdom of → David and → Solomon, the northern kingdom after the disruption, Judah when the North collapsed, and finally, from a religious standpoint, the Jews as a whole (→ Judaism).
1.2. Prenational Period

The first historical occurrence of the name “Israel” is found in about 1225 B.C. in an extrabiblical witness, namely, the “Israel Stele” of Pharaoh Merneptah, which reads in part, “Israel is laid waste, his seed is not” (TGI [3d ed.] 40; ANET 378; AOT 24–25). The hieroglyphic orthography with the determinative “people” and the accompanying context make it likely that the reference is to a group of people rather than to a city or some other locale, and it proves that this particular Israel was already settled in precisely the area in which the biblical Israel did indeed find its homeland. Although some connection must thus obtain between the Israel of the stele and that of the OT, the connection itself is difficult to articulate, just as the history of Israel’s pre-state period in the larger sense can at best only be hypothetically disclosed.
The OT states that in its earliest period, Israel was a confederation of 12 tribes (Judges 5) genealogically descended from the patriarch Jacob-Israel and through him from → Isaac and → Abraham. That the genealogical line Abraham-Jacob-Israel is just as much a fiction as the notion of the 12 → tribes emerging from Jacob’s 12 sons does not necessarily mean that this richly developed OT tradition has no basis in historical fact. Rather, the patriarchal traditions (→ Patriarchal History) have been fused through genealogical references with authentic Israel traditions. Jacob becomes Israel, and the 12 tribes are viewed as descendants of Jacob’s sons. So even though the traditional historical combinations may be fictitious and secondary, the patriarchal traditions themselves, along with the (independent) traditions about a tribal confederation called Israel, do indeed contain the basic core of Israel’s prehistory.
The original core of the patriarchal stories betrays an early stage at which seminomadic groups became sedentary (→ Nomads) and, over the course of their seasonal moves to different pastures, acquired the right of domicile on the periphery of cultivated areas. Various considerations—including the meaning of the patriarchs’ names, the seminomadic backdrop, legal customs, and locales—make this understanding more probable than other attempts that understand the patriarchs as fictitious figures created by the pious exilic-postexilic imagination. Similarly, and despite its overlayering by legends and later attempts at standardization and idealization, the notion of a confederation of 12 tribes of Israel is certainly no mere fiction. No cogent reason can be adduced that might have prompted the later invention of this sort of fiction, particularly given Israel’s own profound and enduring attachment to the notion of tribe within its own identity, though the character and organization of such a confederation called Israel, a confederation apparently already presupposed by the Merneptah stele, can be described only hypothetically, and even then only in rough outline.
The hypothesis developed especially by Martin Noth regarding Israel’s pre-state identity in analogy to Greek and Italian amphictyonies has recently been subjected to justified criticism. That analogy was actually taken too far, drawing from in part more recent texts and from notions not actually attested until much later (e.g., the → covenant, making a covenant, the central sanctuary, amphictyonic law) in presenting an overly detailed picture of Israel’s prehistory and early history, one that cannot stand up to serious scrutiny. Nonetheless, one can still assert with some certainty that in the second half of the 13th century B.C., a tribal confederation existed that worshiped the God El and thus called itself Israel. Israel’s “religious” name as well as its religiously oriented traditions concerning that pre-state period do allow the assumption that especially shared religious beliefs and cultic ties were constitutive for its early history; these elements then found expression in fictitious kinship relations that for those affected did nonetheless manifest themselves in very real ways, and thus also in the idea of an amphictyony of 12 tribes.
Because this confederation did not, however, have any constant central authority with political and military powers, one can with F. Crüsemann also call Israel in its pre-state form an acephalous segmentary society. Although almost the only thing reported about the officeholders scholars describe as “lesser judges”—in contradistinction to the charismatic leaders (→ Charisma) described as “greater judges”—is that they “judged Israel” (Judg. 10:1–5; 12:7–15), which does not allow reference to a seamless succession of leaders, their tasks obviously did involve Israel as a whole. Formulas used almost as technical terms such as “such a thing ought not to be done,” “a disgraceful act in Israel,” or “such a thing is not done in Israel” (Gen. 34:7; Deut. 22:21; Judg. 20:6; 2 Sam. 13:12; Jer. 29:23) demonstrate that in the meantime, the pan-Israelite ties were not merely ideal but were also at least minimally institutionalized in binding → laws. These formulas refer to sexual transgressions prohibited in Israel, and the expression “in Israel” makes it clear that the situation is reflecting a specific law applicable to all of Israel rather than clan ethos.
A more difficult task is reconstructing Israel’s emergence in Canaan. The OT portrayal, which seems to be historically inaccurate, says that the tribes left Egypt under → Moses’ leadership, spent 40 years in the wilderness, conquered the land of Canaan in a unified campaign under Moses’ successor Joshua, and then divided the land among themselves. The traditions recounting this version are perhaps legends. Tradition criticism has also shown that the tradition complexes out of which the → Pentateuch and Joshua derive—namely, the patriarchal narratives, exodus, wilderness wanderings, → Sinai, and the conquest—were originally unrelated and reflect the experiences of different groups; only later did these groups fuse into the entity Israel. This insight, however, also caused the narrative framework extending from Abraham to Joshua to collapse, such that the framework itself can no longer be employed directly for any historical reconstruction, which must instead begin with the original individual traditions, critique them for historical accuracy, and then combine them with both archaeological (→ Archaeology 1) and extrabiblical findings. The following four hypothetical reconstruction attempts are currently on the table:

1.2.1. The biblical portrayal is essentially reliable; contradictions between Joshua 1–12 (conquest of Canaan in a single, pan-Israelite campaign) and Judges 1 (conquest by individual tribes) are only apparent, since Judges 1 is referring only to later area adjustments among the tribes (Y. Kaufmann, W. F. Albright, G. E. Wright). This activity thus constituted a conquest in the stricter sense whose traces archaeologists can discern in the destruction of Canaanite cities (e.g., Hazor) during the transition from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age (ca. 1200).
This view, however, overlooks the contradictions of the biblical portrayal and underestimates the legendary character of most of the traditions themselves. The actual cause of the destruction of cities can be surmised only with uncertainty, and precisely the cities of Jericho and Ai, whose conquest is traced back to Joshua himself (Joshua 7–8), had already become ruins during an earlier period.
1.2.2. The “conquest” was actually a gradual and peaceful process. During the course of seasonal changes of pastures, individual clans settled on the periphery of the cultivated land and on the as yet uninhabited mountains; only later did military clashes develop between the emergent Israelite tribes and the Canaanites, who controlled the cities (A. Alt, M. Noth).
This thesis remains problematic insofar as it maintains the untested presupposition that the wilderness was always the homeland of nomads and seminomads who repeatedly intruded into the cultivated areas and displaced or were absorbed into the earlier inhabitants.
1.2.3. The “conquest” actually represented a shift in social stratification. This shift, which took place only very gradually, caused the position of power that the internally divided Canaanite cities originally held to collapse and recede in the face of broader Israelite territorial organization. Israelite tribes of → Hebrews, persons of less rank attested elsewhere during this same period, extracted themselves from the previous feudal system of the cities and assumed power peacefully (G. E. Mendenhall) or seized it through revolution (N. Gottwald).
This view correctly recognizes that the traditional notion of a nomadic origin of the Israelites is highly unlikely, according to which they either entered from the wilderness or even intruded into Canaan in military campaigns. The hypothesis does not, however, do justice to the deeply rooted and widespread tradition of Israel’s receiving Canaan as a gift from its God or to the fact that → Yahweh, who is identified with El and whom Israel worshiped, does not represent a Canaanite deity.
1.2.4. The contradictory multiple strata of the various traditions correspond best to the assumption that the “conquest” was largely an inner-Canaanite process involving a shift in social stratification accompanied by an influx of nomadic and seminomadic elements from outside the cultivated regions who imported from Sinai the worship of Yahweh—a zealous, jealous, bellicose God. The identification of this God with the El of Israel must probably also be understood as taking place only gradually and contemporaneous with the transition from the initial, peaceful “conquest” to the second, military stage.
The so-called conquest narratives reflect these events (Num. 21:21–35; 32; Joshua 11; Judg. 1:1–26). Although they take place in their present context during the period of Moses and Joshua, or immediately after Joshua’s death, historically they date to the period during which Israel’s tribes were consolidating themselves. Israel itself became stronger and involved in disputes not only with Canaanite cities but also with neighboring peoples. The Book of Judges shows that it was individual tribes or smaller groups that were led into war (→ Holy War) by charismatic “judges,” though the → Deuteronomistic redaction does portray a continuity in the history of Israel as a whole between Joshua and → Saul’s accession by construing a succession of judges interrupted by interim periods of oppression “without judges” prompted by Israel’s apostasy from Yahweh.
Individual traditions, however, show that actual events took place with much less continuity. Apart from Ehud (Judg. 3:12–30), a Benjaminite who came into conflict with Moab, it is especially Jephthah of Gilead (10:17–12:7) and his battle with the Ammonites, and then also Gideon from Manasseh (6–8), who thwarted the Midianites, whose histories acquire sharper contours. The most important event, however, was the battle of Megiddo (4–5) against a coalition of Canaanite cities. Under the leadership of Barak of Naphtali and the Ephraimite charismatic Deborah, several Israelite tribes from Galilee fought together and defeated the superior opposing forces.
One of the leaders of that opposition, Sisera, bears an Illyrian name, showing him to be a member of the sea peoples (→ Philistines), whose emergence can be dated to approximately 1300 B.C. This movement was part of the Doric migrations and included non-Semitic elements (“the uncircumcised”) who also settled in the coastal regions of northern Syria and in southern Philistia, apparently with the permission of Egypt, resulting in the development of the Pentapolis of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. Whereas the name “Sisera” shows that the Philistines had acquired power in the North at the expense of the Canaanites by the time of the battle of Megiddo, the Samson stories (Judges 13–16) show that the Philistines had already come to rule virtually the entire southern part of the country. This Philistine threat prompted the emergence of the state of Israel itself.
1.3. Nation Building

Certain witnesses suggest that steps were taken to form a state earlier as well. Although the traditions concerning Abimelech (Judges 8–9) are legendary and somewhat muddled, it is clear that Abimelech did try to establish a state with its capital at Shechem to force a symbiotic relationship between Israel and Canaan, though this attempt ended with Abimelech’s own violent death. Traditions surrounding Gideon also reveal attempts to establish a more stable center of power. Gideon himself allegedly founded a sanctuary to Yahweh in his hometown of Ophrah, probably as a sacred center, and was asked to be king (8:22–23). His alleged rejection of this offer is, however, narrated with formulations from a later period (v. 23), presumably concealing the true course of events.
Whereas the OT views Abimelech as a usurper and Gideon as a devout judge who did not wish to challenge Yahweh’s own rule, traditions concerning the Benjaminite Saul openly proclaim not only that Saul affirmed the notion of kingship but that Yahweh himself bestowed kingship upon Saul. These traditions also show that threats from external enemies, namely, the Ammonites and especially the Philistines, made it necessary to establish a more tightly organized system of leadership, since the Israelite army was no match for the superior military power of the Philistines. After Saul proved himself as a charismatic leader in a war against Ammon, the people made him king (1 Samuel 11).
Saul’s kingship was above all a military kingship representing the highest military leaders of the tribal confederation, though it remains uncertain just which tribes acknowledged him as king. In any event, the judge Samuel, representing the tribal confederation, legalized this innovation, as shown by 1 Sam. 10:25, which mentions a book outlining the duties of the kingship. Under his own and his son Jonathan’s command, Saul organized a standing army (14:52) and established an ongoing leadership office in the person of the “commander of his army,” as the first of which he appointed his cousin Abner (14:50). These measures as well as the fact that his son Ishbaal was considered to be his successor after his death (2 Sam. 2:8–10) show that a dynasty was to be established, though it did not come about. After initial successes, Saul failed in his defeat at the hands of the Philistines on Mount Gilboa (1 Samuel 31).
1.4. David and Solomon

It seems almost miraculous that soon after the disastrous fall of Saul, David was able to defeat the Philistines, found a state, and expand it into a kingdom that, in more modest form, survived the vicissitudes of history up to 586 B.C. David had first served under Saul, then with the Philistines. He had formed his own force, and with its help he had himself proclaimed king of Judah (2 Sam. 2:1–4a). He then extended his rule to all Israel (5:1–3). He captured the Canaanite city of → Jerusalem in the neutral area between the southern and northern tribes and made it his capital (5:6–7). He took over any remaining independent Canaanite towns and in various forms integrated Moab, Ammon, Aram-Damascus, and Edom into his kingdom.
David’s empire was thus made up of (1) Judah, together with the southern confederated groups; (2) the territory of the northern tribes; (3) the city of Jerusalem; (4) Canaanite towns; (5) the territory of Philistine vassal princes; and (6) relatively autonomous neighboring states. Israel had now become multinational. The people did not wholly welcome this development, however, as may be seen from the revolts against David (Absalom in 2 Samuel 15–19, Sheba in 20:1–22). Contemporary → historiography also confirms this view in its free criticism of the → monarchy (see the history of David’s succession, 2 Samuel 9–20; 1 Kings 1–2).
The reign of Solomon (965–926), although it saw crumbling on the frontiers, was a time of consolidation and glory. Solomon extended the capital and built a palace complex with a → temple (§1) that had the dignity of a royal state → sanctuary. Tyre, with whose king (Hiram) David had established friendly relations, provided the model and the materials for the temple. As an Oriental king, Solomon was God’s own son, dwelling in his palace as God’s neighbor. Jerusalem became the entry point for foreign ideas such as the notion of Yahweh as a God reigning on Zion who makes his dwelling place impregnable (Psalm 46) and as the supreme God and Creator (Gen. 14:18–20). For the purposes of administration and taxation, the kingdom was divided into 12 districts (1 Kgs. 4:7–19). For security a force of chariots was established (4:26–28), with stalls and garrisons at Hazor, Megiddo, Gezer, and Beth-Horon (9:15–17). Trade flourished, and a fleet was built at Ezion-geber. The new state, however, brought with it the violation of many native freedoms and crushing taxation. Conservative resistance developed in the North, and after Solomon’s death disruption quickly followed.
1.5. Northern Kingdom until 722

The break became final when the northern tribes refused to accept Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, and chose as king instead Jeroboam, a former official under Solomon (1 Kgs. 12:20). The northern kingdom now came to be known as Israel. This shows that the name “Israel” had already become more firmly established here than in the south and that Judah too had already become a relatively independent entity. Nonetheless, the division of the kingdom was more than the dissolution of a mere personal union, since despite any establishment of independence, Judah and Benjamin and the rest of Israel did belong together as a result of their prehistory and worship of Yahweh. The histories of the two kingdoms, though, took different paths.
The Davidic dynasty was firmly established in Judah, but Israel had no such stability. Jeroboam gave it two sanctuaries in Bethel and Dan but did not build a capital. Shechem served first as the royal residence, then Tirzah. Bloody coups ended any hope of a dynasty. Throughout the period up to 722, only two of the ten houses lasted for any length of time: that of Omri (Omri, Ahab, Ahaziah, Joram/Jehoram, 881–845), and that of Jehu (Jehu, Jehoahaz, Joash, Jeroboam II, 845–746).
Omri gave the state a fortified capital at Samaria. He also ended border disputes with Judah, realizing that the two states had to stand together against the → Arameans of Damascus and the expansive, aggressive Assyrians. His son Ahab followed the same policy. According to an inscription of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (859–824), Ahab joined the coalition that defeated Assyria at the battle of Karkar in the Orontes valley in 854/853 (ANET 278–79; TGI [3d ed.] 49–50). The house of Omri attempted fusion with the Canaanites and the coexistence of Yahweh and Baal. This blending was the point of Ahab’s marriage with Princess Jezebel of Tyre, which the → prophets of Yahweh → Elijah, → Elisha, and their circle condemned and contested as apostasy. The bloody revolt of Jehu put an end to this policy. As recorded on the Black Obelisk (AOB [2d ed.] 121–25), Jehu paid tribute to Assyria.
A lull in Assyrian expansion after 838 ushered in the period of the worst Aramean crisis (see Amos 1:3–5). Only when Assyrian pressure on the Arameans brought relief could Israel blossom again (ca. 800–750). The prophets Amos and Hosea threatened judgment on the people’s lack of → righteousness and knowledge of God, and this judgment fell when bloody internal conflict followed the death of Jeroboam II in 746.
Around 733 Assyrian aggression provoked resistance on the part of Israel and other small states. When Asa of Judah prudently remained neutral, the allied Israelites and Syrians tried to topple him. This war (Isaiah 7–8; Hos. 5:8–11) was the beginning of the end for Israel. The Assyrians attacked and reduced it to Samaria and Mount Ephraim, dividing the rest among three Assyrian provinces. A last attempt at resistance on the part of Hoshea ended in 722 with the long siege and capture of Samaria. As happened ten years earlier, many leaders were deported, and a foreign upper class settled in Israel (ANET 284; TGI [3d ed.] 60–61; 2 Kings 17).
1.6. Judah until 586

Judah up to 586 enjoyed several stabilizing factors: the Davidic dynasty, Jerusalem as its capital and site of the temple, Zion as the place of the divine presence, and the smallness of the state after the loss of the associated territories. As Assyria expanded, Judah became a tributary state pledged to loyalty. Revolts in association with other small states, and with the hope of help from Egypt, worsened the situation in 723–711 and 705–701, and Jerusalem barely escaped capture in 701. Isaiah, who had warned Judah about seeking help from Egypt instead of from Yahweh (Isa. 30:1–5; 31:1–3), complained that the land had become a desert and that the cities had been burned with fire (1:4–9). Such a picture vividly portrayed the situation.
Like Israel 100 years earlier, Judah enjoyed another brief blossoming when Assyrian power declined at the end of the seventh century. The reform of → Josiah (639–608) was an expression of the new independence. Josiah was even able to annex territory in the North, including Galilee. It almost seemed as though the kingdom of David and Solomon might be restored. When the power vacuum was filled again, however, Judah inevitably came under new foreign subjection. Josiah’s death in fact meant the end of national independence.
Josiah’s successor, Jehoiakim, was named by Pharaoh in place of another son called Jehoahaz. At first an Egyptian vassal, Jehoiakim became a tributary of Babylon after the Babylonians (Chaldeans) defeated the Egyptians at Carchemish on the Euphrates (605). Jeremiah preached unmistakably that subjection to Babylon was the will of Yahweh, his judgment on his disobedient people. Attempts to break free from Babylon brought down disaster. In 598 Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim, had to capitulate to save Jerusalem from destruction. He and some of the upper class, probably including Ezekiel, went into exile. Jeremiah sent them a letter in Babylon in which he told them to prepare for a long captivity, to see in the well-being of the city their own → salvation, and to seek it from Yahweh (Jeremiah 29). When Judah’s last king, Zedekiah, attempted a new revolt against Jeremiah’s advice, Jerusalem was captured and destroyed in 586. More of the people were then deported.
1.7. Exile and Restoration

The biblical account, according to which the entire population had gone into exile (2 Kgs. 25:11, 21b; 2 Chr. 36:20–21), is not historically accurate; its intention is to point out that God’s judgment was total. Although they too diverge, the numbers reported in 2 Kgs. 24:14–16 and Jer. 52:28–30 are a bit more reliable. According to Jeremiah, 4,600 inhabitants were already deported in 598, and according to 2 Kings it was 10,000. Although it is clear enough that this deportation did deplete the population somewhat, especially since the leading classes were particularly affected, it did not decimate the Judean population. Gedaliah, a Judean, was made governor over those who remained. He lived at Mizpah in the north of Judah, which was now a province. He was assassinated, however, and it seems that Judah then became part of the Province of Samaria.
Although we speak of the Babylonian captivity, the exiles were not prisoners. They formed a semifree subject people on the Lower Euphrates and Tigris. As we see from Ezekiel, they practiced their religion as far as it was possible in exile. → Circumcision and keeping of the → Sabbath, which were not tied to the Holy Land, became very important as acts of confession. For many, however, the “land of their fathers” was the goal of their hope, as may be seen especially in the promises of a new exodus (see Isaiah 46–55).
When the Persians took over the Babylonian empire (538), pursuant to their policy of restoration the new rulers promoted the return of the exiles and the rebuilding of the temple. There was no united or otherwise miraculous return; as we see from Ezra and Nehemiah, groups of exiles went back in several stages. The second temple was dedicated in 515. Of the greatest significance for the future was the Persian revision of Israel’s legal status. The recognition of Israel’s own law forms the background of the accounts in Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra 7:25–26). The Israelites and Judeans had now become Jews in the sense of a legally recognized and autonomous religious society on the basis of descent and nationality. At the latest by the time of Nehemiah (445–432), Judah became a separate province with its own governor, a status it maintained up to the Roman period.
1.8. Hellenism

Alexander the Great’s march through Palestine to Egypt (333/332) ended Persian rule and began Hellenistic domination. After the conflicts between his successors were concluded, Israel and Judah became part of the Egyptian state of the Ptolemies up to 198. In keeping with the tolerant spirit of → Hellenism, we may assume that the autonomy and privileges of the Jews were left intact. The highest official was the → high priest, alongside whom was a council of notables, the Gerousia, later the Sanhedrin.
A Greek-speaking Jewish colony lived in → Alexandria, the capital, where it developed a rich cultural life. A Greek translation of the OT was made there (→ Bible Versions 2), the LXX, which later became Holy Scripture of the → early church. Jewish families also settled in Asia Minor, Lydia, Phrygia, Damascus, on Delos, and in Sparta. A worldwide Judaism arose that spoke Greek and was open to Hellenistic culture. The Hellenization of Samaria, where a military colony was settled, led conservative circles to build a temple of their own at Shechem (→ Samaritans). The way was thus prepared for the Samaritan schism, though it did not become final until after the destruction of the Gerizim temple by the Hasmonaean John Hyrcanus I (135–104).
In 198 B.C. Phoenicia and southern Palestine, including Judea, became part of the Seleucid kingdom. This change of power at first brought extended privileges, but it then ended the positive relationship with the foreign rulers. Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164) interfered with the inner affairs of the cultic community in Jerusalem, where a Hellenized and a conservative party were feuding, acting in favor of the Hellenists. He plundered the city, forbade the Jewish cult, including circumcision and the Sabbath, and in 167 made the temple into a sanctuary for Zeus Olympios (see Dan. 11:31; 12:11: “the abomination that desolates”). This forced Hellenization provoked a violent reaction in conservative Jewish circles. The priestly family of the Hasmonaeans-Maccabees took the lead, including Judas (166–160), Jonathan (160–143), Simon (143–135), and John Hyrcanus I, who like Simon was also high priest.
With the decline of the Seleucids the monarchy was restored: Aristobulus I (104–103), Alexander Jannaeus (103–76), Alexander’s wife, Salome Alexandra (76–67), John Hyrcanus II (67, 63–40), and Aristobulus II (67–63). The revolt of Judas and his brothers was so successful that resistance came from the devout groups known as the Hasidim (→ Hasidism), who only wanted a restoration of → religious liberty. The seizure of the office of high priest by the Hasmonaeans, who were not Zadokites, was illegal in conservative eyes and led to the secession of the Essenes (→ Qumran). The uniting of the high priestly and the kingly offices from the time of Aristobulus I was inevitably resisted as a sign of Hellenistic secularization.
Hasmonaean policies were rejected by the → Pharisees, who came into being at this time as a lay group. For them the expounding and practicing of the → law in everyday life was the essence of true religion and the mark of true Israel. They gained great influence over the people and were behind a revolt against Alexander Jannaeus. Salome in particular had to take their demands into account.
1.9. Roman Rule

When Salome’s death in 67 B.C. led to strife over the succession, Pompey in 63 saw a good reason to intervene, confirming Hyrcanus II as high priest but stripping him of the kingship. Judea now became part of the Province of Syria and lost the coastal cities and the cities in East Jordan (Decapolis) that the → Hasmonaeans had annexed. Samaria, conquered in 107, was also detached from Judea. Judea still included southern Idumea, which John Hyrcanus had Judaized by force, Perea east of the Jordan, and Galilee. With religious freedoms and privileges being upheld, the people in all these areas took part in worship at Jerusalem.
The situation changed when the Idumean → Herod the Great, son of the procurator Antipas (whom Rome had favored), became king with the blessing and assistance of Rome (ruled 37–4 B.C.). Along with Judea and Samaria, Augustus placed under his rule Jericho, Gaza, Anthedon, and Strato’s Tower on the coast, plus Gadara and Hippus east of the Jordan. Herod’s inclinations were Hellenistic and Roman, but he took into account the religious sensibilities of the people. He built the Jerusalem temple in the style of the day and more than doubled the size of the temple precincts. The surviving wall of this temple, the so-called Western Wall, once part of the city walls, is a testimony to his building activity. Fortresses were also built or extended, including Herodeion near Bethlehem, Macherus east of the Dead Sea, and Masada just west of the Dead Sea.
In spite of his services in strengthening the state, Herod, as a vassal of Rome, had no popular base. Believing that he was surrounded by enemies, he defended himself by merciless cruelty. After his death his territories were divided among his sons. Judea went to Archelaus (4 B.C.-A.D. 6), Galilee and Perea to Herod Antipas (4 B.C.-A.D. 39), and Trachonitis, Batanea, and Auranitis to Philip (4 B.C.-A.D. 34). In A.D. 6 Judea came under a procurator, with Caesarea as the seat of government. This would remain its status apart from a break in 41–44, when Herod Agrippa ruled as king over Judea and almost all Palestine.
Anti-Roman unrest began already with the death of Herod the Great. The most important leaders of resistance were the → Zealots, who directed their zeal against the Romans and all who did not accept their radicalism. Revolt came in 66 and ended in 70 with the capture and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. Masada held out until 73, when the Romans took it after desperate resistance.
A later revolt of Simeon bar Kokhba (i.e., “Simeon, Son of the Star,” afterward changed to bar Koziba, “Son of the Liar,” d. 135) enjoyed only initial successes, though coins were minted that, with fragments of authentic writings of the period found in 1951/52, suggest that the revolt had an eschatological character (→ Messianism). The revolt ended with defeat, devastation, and the decimation of the people. Many → rabbis were martyred, among them Akiba ben Joseph, who supposedly viewed Simeon as the Messiah. Jerusalem was now renamed Aelia Capitolina, and Jews were forbidden to enter the city. The province was named Syria-Palestina (→ Palestine), after Israel’s former enemies, the Philistines.
→ Monotheism; New Testament Era, History of; Roman Empire; Semites

Bibliography: General Histories: G. W. AHLSTRÖM, The History of Ancient Palestine from the Palaeolithic Period to Alexander’s Conquest (Sheffield, 1993) ∙ R. B. COOTE, Early Israel: A New Horizon (Minneapolis, 1990) ∙ F. M. CROSS, From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Baltimore, 1998) ∙ L. L. GRABBE, ed., Can a “History of Israel” Be Written? (Sheffield, 1997) ∙ A. H. J. GUNNEWEG, Geschichte Israels bis Bar Kochba (5th ed.; Stuttgart, 1984) ∙ J. M. MILLER, “Introduction to the History of Ancient Israel,” NIB 1.244–71 ∙ M. NOTH, Geschichte Israels (9th ed.; Göttingen, 1981; orig. pub., 1950) ∙ J. PEDERSEN, Israel: Its Life and Culture (Atlanta, 1991) ∙ J. B. PIXLEY, Biblical Israel: A People’s History (Minneapolis, 1992) ∙ J. A. SOGGIN, An Introduction to the History of Israel and Judah (London, 1993) ∙ R. DE VAUX, The Early History of Israel (Philadelphia, 1978).
Ancient texts: W. BEYERLIN, ed., Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating to the OT (Philadelphia, 1978) ∙ K. GALLING, ed., TGI ∙ H. GRESSMANN, ed., AOB; idem, ed., AOT ∙ O. KAISER, ed., TUAT ∙ J. B. PRITCHARD, ed., ANEP; idem, ed., ANESTP; idem, ed., ANET.
On 1.1: H.-J. ZOBEL, “יִשְׂרָאֵל yiśrāʾēl,” TDOT 6.397–420 (bibliography).
On 1.2: G. AHLSTRÖM, The History of Ancient Palestine from the Palaeolithic Period to Alexander’s Conquest (Sheffield, 1993) ∙ A. ALT, “Erwägungen über die Landnahme der Israeliten in Palästina” (1939), Kleine Schriften (vol. 1; 4th ed.; Munich, 1968) 126–75 ∙ D. EDELMAN, ed., The Fabric of History (Sheffield, 1991) ∙ I. FINKELSTEIN, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement (Jerusalem, 1988) ∙ N. K. GOTTWALD, “Recent Studies of the Social World of Premonarchic Israel,” CR.BS 1 (1993) 163–89; idem, The Tribes of Yahweh (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1979) ∙ Y. KAUFMANN, The Biblical Account of the Conquest of Palestine (Jerusalem, 1953) ∙ T. E. LEVY, ed., The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land (London, 1995) ∙ G. E. MENDENHALL, The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine (New Haven, 1962) ∙ H. M. NIEMANN, Die Daniten (Göttingen, 1985) ∙ M. NOTH, Das System der zwölf Stämme Israels (Darmstadt, 1980; orig. pub., 1930) ∙ G. A. RENDSBURG, “The Date of the Exodus and the Conquest/Settlement: The Case for the 1100s,” VT 42 (1992) 510–27 ∙ R. SMEND, Zur ältesten Geschichte Israels (Munich, 1987) ∙ T. L. THOMPSON, Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written and Archaeological Records (Leiden, 1992) ∙ K. W. WHITELAM, “Sociology or History: Towards a (Human) History of Ancient Palestine?” Words Remembered, Texts Renewed (ed. J. Davies, G. Harvey, and W. G. E. Watson; Sheffield, 1995) 149–66.
On 1.3: A. ALT, “Die Staatenbildung der Israeliten in Palästina” (1930), Kleine Schriften (vol. 2; 4th ed.; Munich, 1978) 1–65 ∙ R. B. COOTE, Early Israel: A New Horizon (Minneapolis, 1990) ∙ F. CRÜSEMANN, Der Widerstand gegen das Königtum (Neukirchen, 1978) bibliography ∙ J. A. SOGGIN, Das Königtum in Israel (Berlin, 1967) also relates to 1.4–1.6 ∙ K. VAN DER TOORN, “Saul and the Rise of Israelite State Religion,” VT 43 (1993) 519–42.
On 1.4: A. ALT, “Das Großreich Davids” (1950), Kleine Schriften 2.66–75 ∙ A. MALAMAT, Das davidische und salomonische Königreich und seine Beziehungen zu Ägypten und Syrien (Vienna, 1983) ∙ E. WÜRTHWEIN, Die Erzählung von der Thronfolge Davids (Zurich, 1974).
On 1.5: A. ALT, “Das Königtum in dem Reichen Israel und Juda” (1951), Kleine Schriften 2.116–34 ∙ W. H. BARNES, Studies in the Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel (Atlanta, 1991) ∙ B. BECKING, The Fall of Samaria: A Historical and Archaeological Study (Leiden, 1992) ∙ J. S. HOLLADAY, “The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah: Political and Economic Centralization in the Iron IIA-B (ca. 1000–750 B.C.E.),” The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land (ed. T. E. Levy; London, 1995) 368–98 ∙ S. A. IRVINE, Isaiah, Ahaz, and the Syro-Ephraimitic Crisis (Atlanta, 1990) ∙ J. A. SOGGIN, An Introduction to the History of Israel and Judah (Sheffield, 1993) ∙ S. TIMM, Die Dynastie Omri (Göttingen, 1982) ∙ W. I. TOEWS, Monarchy and Religious Institution in Israel under Jeroboam I (Atlanta, 1993).
On 1.6: W. H. BARNES, Studies in the Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel (Atlanta, 1991) ∙ A. MALAMAT, “The Kingdom of Judah between Egypt and Babylon: A Small State within a Great Power Confrontation,” StTh 44 (1990) 65–77 ∙ H. SPIECKERMANN, Juda unter Assur in der Sargonidenzeit (Göttingen, 1982) ∙ E. WÜRTHWEIN, “Die Josianische Reform und das Deuteronomisch,” ZTK 73 (1976) 395–423.
On 1.7: P. R. ACKROYD, Exile and Restoration (London, 1968) ∙ L. L. GRABBE, Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian (2 vols.; Minneapolis, 1992) ∙ K. C. HOGLUND, Achaemenid Imperial Administration in Syria-Palestine and the Missions of Ezra and Nehemiah (Atlanta, 1992) ∙ W. T. IN DER SMITTEN, Esra (Assen, 1973) ∙ U. KELLERMANN, Nehemia (Berlin, 1967).
On 1.8: R. J. COGGINS, Samaritans and Jews (Oxford, 1975) ∙ H. KOESTER, History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age (Berlin, 1995) ∙ J. D. PURVIS, The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Origin of the Samaritan Sect (Cambridge, Mass., 1968) ∙ P. SCHÄFER, Geschichte der Juden in der Antike (Neukirchen, 1983) bibliography (also relates to 1.9).
On 1.9: M. HENGEL, The Zealots: Investigations into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I until 70 A.D. (Edinburgh, 1989) ∙ P. SCHÄFER, Der Bar Kokhba-Aufstand (Tübingen, 1981) ∙ A. SCHALIT, König Herodes (Berlin, 1969) ∙ A. SCHLATTER, Geschichte Israels von Alexander dem Großen bis Hadrian (3d ed.; Stuttgart, 1925; repr., 1972).
ANTONIUS H. J. GUNNEWEG†
2. Modern State of Israel
2.1. History

The State of Israel is named after the patriarch → Jacob-Israel, whose descendants were promised the Holy Land (see 1.1). From the time of Joshua until today, the land has had a continuous Jewish presence, with the size of the population in direct proportion to the friendliness toward Jews of the regime in power.
The modern name “Israel” expresses the claim and self-understanding of the state. Its founding is seen as the realization of a political goal that was formulated in the Basel Program of the first Zionist Congress (1897), namely, a “publicly guaranteed homeland for the Jewish people in the land of Israel” (i.e., → Palestine), which found political recognition in the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Politically, “Palestine” meant only land west of the Jordan River. In 1921 Transjordan was closed to Jewish settlement and was made the Emirate, later the Kingdom, of Jordan.
On November 29, 1947, the U.N. General Assembly voted to divide Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Most Jews of the time welcomed this decision. The Palestinian Arabs, however, resisted. As the Jewish population grew, so did the nationalism of the Palestinian Arabs, who regarded the land as their own and saw their rights threatened by the Jewish immigrants. They attacked Jewish settlements, which had increased greatly between 1936 and the outbreak of World War II.
That same month saw the beginning of the Israeli War of Independence. With help from the Arab states, the Palestinian Arabs attacked and isolated Jewish settlements and cut off → Jerusalem from the rest of the country. On May 14, 1948, when Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973) proclaimed the State of Israel in Tel Aviv on the departure of the British troops, all the states bordering Israel had already taken up arms against Israel. The war, however, led to an extension of the Israeli boundaries set by the United Nations. Galilee, the Negev, the coastal strip, and the new part of Jerusalem all came within the new state. The old city of Jerusalem and the West Bank (comprising the traditional Jewish “Judea and Samaria”) were annexed by Jordan (an action recognized internationally by only the United Kingdom and Pakistan), and the Gaza Strip was occupied by Egypt. In 1949 separate armistices were signed with the various Arab nations.
The various armistices contained the seeds of future hostilities, especially as numerous camps of Palestinian refugees remained on Israel’s eastern borders, which increasingly became bases for Palestinian resistance. Israeli-Palestinian antagonism dominated the political, economic, and social life of Israel from 1948 onward, even as the state had arisen in the shadow of the → Holocaust. Its citizens, who were striving to build a normal life as a nation, felt the pressure of this trauma as they came up against the stubborn resistance of the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states, which challenged Israel’s right to exist. The fronts hardened.
When Arab guerrillas again atacked Jewish settlements, and when Egypt, Jordan, and Syria formed a joint command in 1956, Israeli troops invaded the Sinai peninsula in order to forestall further attack. Under pressure from the United Nations and especially the United States, led by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Israel withdrew from Sinai and the Gaza Strip four months later. General G. A. Nasser (1918–70), the president of Egypt, vehemently proclaimed a state of war between Egypt and Israel, in spite of the armistice. An uneasy truce prevailed on the border for the next ten years, with numerous attacks by Arab fedayeen between 1957 and 1967. Jewish settlements near the Golan Heights in the North were within the range of Syrian guns, and Palestinian attacks across the Jordan were the order of the day.
War appeared to be a certainty at the end of May 1967, when Nasser ordered a blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba, made a military alliance with Jordan and Iraq, and sent troops to the Sinai. In response Israel launched what became known as the Six-Day War, which ended with drastic boundary changes. Israel occupied the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip; until 1982 it also occupied the Sinai peninsula. East Jerusalem and the old city were put under the same administration as the new section and later annexed. The question of the future of the occupied areas has remained a thorny issue in Israeli politics ever since, for Israel won the war but not the peace. “No peace with Israel” was the slogan of the Arab states; “no negotiations without recognizing the State of Israel” was Israel’s response. A key event was the surprise attack on Yom Kippur in October 1973 by Egypt and Syria. Egypt enjoyed initial successes with its drive on the Sinai peninsula, but Israel’s counterattack brought it to the west bank of the Nile. A U.N. peacekeeping force later oversaw the return of Sinai to Egypt.
In November 1977 Egyptian president Anwar Sadat (1918–81) took an unconventional and bold peace initiative, traveling personally to Jerusalem for peace talks. After secret negotiations between Sadat, Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel, and U.S. president Jimmy Carter at Camp David, Maryland, Israel and Egypt signed a formal peace treaty. The main points were the handing back of the Sinai peninsula to Egypt, an agreement to enter into negotiations on the future of the occupied territories, and the establishment of diplomatic relations. Tensions mounted, though, on Israel’s other borders. Israel’s settlement policies in the occupied areas have been a constant source of friction. The leftist labor parties support these policies for security reasons, while the rightist national and religious parties favor them because of a historical claim to all the land of Israel.
The religious and national side of the argument, which won support from the settlers and the government of the national parties, aggravated the situation. The military authorities in the occupied territories reacted to partisan attacks by Palestinians with repression. Bombings, airline hijackings, and armed attacks by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and other resistance groups similarly met with reprisals from Israel.
In June 1982 Israel invaded southern Lebanon with the stated aim of pacifying Galil (northern Israel) by destroying resistance bases. This action led to the besieging and shelling of Beirut and thus took on dimensions that overshadowed the importance of pacifying Galil as a military goal. Israel, however, seemed to lose more by this war than it gained. Pressure from abroad, civil war in Lebanon, and new thinking at home, stimulated by a new → peace movement that demanded “peace now,” caused Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in the summer of 1985.
Widespread discontent among Palestinian Arabs led in December 1987 to a three-year period of defiance and revolt known as the intifada (Arab. “shaking”). Peace negotiations with the PLO eventually led in 1993 to the Oslo accords, in which for the first time the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist and Israel recognized the PLO as the Palestinians’ representative. Other significant events in recent years include the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the Vatican and the State of Israel (1993–94), the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1995), and repeated efforts by U.S. president Bill Clinton to mediate a settlement between the two sides (1998–2000).
Since its founding, the State of Israel has had to deal with 50 years of conflict with its Arab neighbors. Peace treaties have been signed only with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994); in 2000 Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon remained officially at war with Israel. The tension results from the ideology of an inalienable Jewish state, which is a main element in the unbroken historical thinking of the dispersion lands, deepened by the inextinguishable longing for Zion and the messianic hope (→ Messianism) of religious Jews. In the gathering together of the scattered (Qibuz Galuyot), Israel sees its most noble task; only in a state in the Holy Land can Israel work out its own history, promised in the Bible.
2.2. Society

Although the conception of the Jewish state was influenced by secular notions, the religious sense became stronger among the people and helped to justify Israeli policy, for example, in the “occupied territories.” The basic secular idea of the first generation of settlers was sustained by the attempted social renewal of the Jews in their own land on the basis of social justice and solidarity. The halutz (pioneer) was the ideal human type, actualized in the kibbutz. The kibbutz knows no distinction between different kinds of jobs. It raises the children in community houses, achieves complete freedom from poverty, and rejects the idea of wages. It runs its affairs after the model of parliamentary democracy. Although only a small part of the total population actually lives or has lived on kibbutzim, many influential people in public life have come from it, and it typifies the national social ideal.
A pioneering and community spirit also motivated the founders of the Israeli labor movement, Histadrut, which since 1920 has been the center of the economic, social, and political life of the workers. It promoted the kibbutz, founded many enterprises and cooperatives, and provided Israel with most of its labor. It created an autonomous Jewish labor market and developed a health insurance system that today protects most of Israel’s workers. For many decades it operated an egalitarian wage policy, but eventually the more highly skilled groups forced it to accept a wage differential. It has helped to absorb and integrate different waves of immigrants from the most diverse countries into the life of Israel.
2.3. Economy and Culture

For all its many achievements (e.g., in agriculture and technology) and for all its successes in developing natural resources (e.g., potash, phosphates, salts), Israel is still far from enjoying economic independence. Its economy is hampered by its large defense budget, social programs, and a negative balance of trade. The support of friendly states (esp. the United States) is of decisive economic importance.
In the spirit of its previous history as a “developing Jewish state” (T. Herzl), Israel has been sustained by an ideology of utopian → socialism, which has borne fruit in the fields of culture and education. Basic schooling for eight years, with one school for students from all social classes, has the aim of training the rising generation in a sense of solidarity with the founders.
One of the greatest cultural achievements of the first generation of settlers was the revival of Hebrew as a written and spoken language (→ Hebrew Language). Orthodox → Judaism might regard Hebrew as a sacred tongue that should not be used in → everyday life, but the settlers viewed it as a source for the renaissance of Jewish creativity.
Although the basic schools and high schools are divided into religious and general schools, Bible study is a central discipline in both. The language and history of the biblical books, as the common cultural heritage of every ethnic group, is an important factor in cultural integration. Israel has universities in all the large cities. The oldest and most important is Hebrew University (1925) in Jerusalem. Tel Aviv University (1953) followed the founding of the state. The Technion at Haifa (1912) and the Weizmann Institute of Science (1934) at Reẖovot enjoy international renown.
Although the founders had the vision of a future peaceful state and, at least in some cases, closed their eyes to the reality of the Arab population, pressure from the Arabs, and later from neighboring states, forced Israel to become heavily militarized. Its defensive army, the Zva Haganah l’Israel (Israel defense forces), commonly shortened to Zahal, is a people’s army. It consists of a professional core, men and women conscripts, and reservists. The principle of short service for the highest officers and frequent replacements prevent the development of a military caste distinct from society as a whole. Serious tension arose between the army, the minister of defense, and society only during the campaign into Lebanon in 1982. This was the first war that was not regarded as wholly defensive and necessary to sustain national existence. Criticism of its goal and conduct was the basis of a broad peace movement.
The interplay of a political need for security, an ethnic wish to ensure Jewish continuity, and a territorial claim based on biblical history, deepened and overshadowed by the Holocaust, influences social life and thinking in Israel. The settlement policy in the occupied territories must be seen against this background. The interweaving of religious and national elements in Israel’s self-image has an impact on the role of the religious parties in the government and Parliament. Although most of the people want a modern, secular society, they tolerate—often reluctantly—the dominance of the religious parties.
In family and inheritance cases Jews are subject to the rabbinic courts, and Christians and Muslims are under their own religious institutions. Israel has neither civil → marriage nor civil divorce. The Ministry of Religious Affairs is responsible to Parliament for the proper functioning of religious courts. It also sees to the observance of → dietary laws and feast days in public life (→ Jewish Practices). Although the boundaries of civil and religious → law are not closely defined, Israel is not a theocratic state. Individuals make their own decisions regarding individual lifestyle; religion is a private matter. The pressure of the minority religious parties in shaping public life (e.g., on the → Sabbath and on feast days, banning public transportation and prohibiting trade, theaters, and concerts) is the result of political pragmatism and of toleration on the part of the nonreligious majority, which views religious law as a factor in the integration of ethnic groups and as a link with Jews in other countries.
2.4. Constitution

Israel, a parliamentary → democracy, has no written constitution (similar to the United Kingdom). After its founding, however, some basic laws were passed, including the law of return, which establishes the right of any Jew to come to Israel and become a citizen.
The names of government institutions bear witness to the link with history: nassi (president), ssar (minister), and Knesset (Parliament) all come from the history of biblical and rabbinic Judaism. The nassi is elected by the Knesset for five years; his office is representative. The Knesset, a unicameral parliament, consists of 120 deputies; elections take place every four years. The government is chosen by the nassi with the Knesset’s consent. It is responsible to the Knesset and may be overthrown by a vote of no confidence. The justice system consists of magistrates’ courts, district courts, and a supreme court. The law contains elements from Ottoman and British law, along with laws passed by the Knesset. There are three main party groupings, though these are divided into many smaller parties: the socialist labor parties, the religious parties, and the coalition of liberal middle-class parties with the conservative Likud Party. In addition, there are smaller Communist and Arab parties.
2.5. Religions

Jerusalem, which Israel has proclaimed as its capital, is the “holy city” of three world religions. Each has its own groups of faithful and own holy places (notably the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Dome of the Rock, with other places sacred alike to Jews, Christians, and Muslims), making the city a little world in itself. About three-quarters of the population is Jewish, mainly represented by Orthodox Jews. The administration and workers of the Hebrew University are centered there, as well as the offices of the Israeli government. (Most countries, however, maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv.)
The largest non-Jewish group consists of Muslims (→ Islam). The oldest Christian church is the Greek Orthodox (see 3.2). Other Christian communions include Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, Maronite, and Protestant (Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Baptist). The heads of the various religious groups (the → patriarchs, archbishops, and → bishops) live in Jerusalem. Overall, for all the political tension, there is normally little disruption of daily life within the city, which some see as a sign of hope for Israel as a whole.

Bibliography: M. BUBER, Israel and Palestine: The History of an Idea (London, 1952) ∙ K. CRAGG, Palestine: The Prize and Price of Zion (London, 1997) ∙ M. GILBERT, Israel: A History (New York, 1998) ∙ E. KARSH, ed., Israel: The First Hundred Years (London, 2000) ∙ M. N. PENKOWER, The Holocaust and Israel Reborn: From Catastrophe to Sovereignty (Urbana, Ill., 1994) ∙ M. PRIOR, Zionism and the State of Israel: A Moral Inquiry (London, 1999) ∙ H. M. SACHAR, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time (2d ed.; New York, 1996) ∙ B. THOMAS, How Israel Was Won: A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Lanham, Md., 1999).
MARIANNE AWERBUCH
3. Christian Groups in Israel and Palestine

Followers of → Jesus have been present in Israel and Palestine since the birth of Christianity. The size and diversity of the various Christian groups have fluctuated for 2,000 years. At the beginning of the 21st century, approximately 150,000 Arabic-speaking Christians represent some 40 different churches and → denominations present in → Jerusalem and throughout Israel. (For the remainder of this section I use “Israel” only as a geographic term that includes the present State of Israel and the wider area of Palestine. This designation implies no prejudice to the ultimate political settlement involving both Israel and Palestine. Furthermore, it is recognized that determining the exact number and breakdown of Christians in modern Israel is particularly difficult, given the often conflicting claims and inconsistencies reported for the various groups.)
The importance of these Christians and churches extends well beyond numbers and statistics. The communities represent a continuing link to the larger community of Middle Eastern Christians as well as various churches around the world that have an ongoing connection to the historic lands of the Bible.
Many Middle Eastern churches trace their origins to the apostolic era. The NT portrays → Paul as a zealous missionary whose extensive travels helped establish churches in the northern and eastern lands of the Mediterranean basin. Long-standing traditions associate various disciples with the spread of Christian churches: Peter (and Paul) ventured west to Rome; Mark is revered in Egypt as the founder of the Coptic Church; Thomas is believed to have gone east and established churches in ancient Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) as well as in India.
The NT Epistles and late first-century documents depict the formative stages of ecclesiastical structures. During the second and third centuries the authority of → bishops was gradually extended. The most important changes, however, took place in the fourth and fifth centuries, when the bishops of the larger churches in the larger cities exercised their authority over bishops in smaller towns and villages. The former were also the ones who convened and led local councils (synods) of bishops. They came to be known as metropolitan archbishops.
By the time of the Council of → Chalcedon in 451, the metropolitan archbishops in the five largest and most influential cities had become heads of regional synods that encompassed large territories. Their status was recognized and codified at the council. They were also accorded the title → “patriarch,” with their areas of jurisdiction becoming known as patriarchates. The order of the five patriarchs was (1) → Rome, recognized as first among equals; (2) Constantinople (modern Istanbul), the second capital of the empire; (3) → Alexandria (in Egypt); (4) → Antioch (in Syria); and (5) Jerusalem. Jerusalem was recognized not because of its stature as a city, which then was minor, but because of its status as “the mother of churches” and the site of Jesus’ earthly life, crucifixion, and resurrection.
The churches in the contemporary Middle East continue to relate to the structures of these ancient patriarchates. Most of these ancient communities of faith have maintained a presence in Jerusalem and Israel.
It is difficult to characterize this diverse Christian community. Today, as has been the case throughout their history, relationships within and among these communities of faith have been complicated by doctrinal differences, internal disputes, and sometimes by turbulent political dynamics. Some contemporary Middle Eastern Christians are deeply involved with and committed to Christian ecumenism as well as Jewish-Christian and Muslim-Christian dialogue; others display little interest in ecumenical or interfaith initiatives.
Since the vast majority of indigenous Christians are Arabs, their experiences and perspectives have been shaped by the larger political and religious dynamics dominating the region, including the birth and spread of the churches under Roman rule, the coming of Islam, the great schism (1054) between the Western and Eastern churches, the → Crusades, the Ottoman Empire, the era of → colonialism, the emergence of modern Israel, the rise of Arab nationalism (→ Nation, Nationalism), the Arab-Israeli conflict, and political upheaval associated with various contemporary Islamist movements. To understand a particular community in a particular setting today requires thoughtful historical and contextual analysis.
The churches in the Middle East can be grouped into four “families”: Eastern Orthodox (→ Orthodox Church), → Roman Catholic, → Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant. The two largest groupings are among the Orthodox churches. Approximately 85 percent of the indigenous, Arabic-speaking Christians throughout the Middle East belong to Oriental (Coptic, Syrian, and Armenian) or Eastern (Greek) Orthodox Churches. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Rite Catholic Churches comprise some 12 percent of the region’s 15 million Christians, while the Protestant churches include roughly 3 percent of the total. A fifth distinctive community, the Assyrian Church of the East, now dispersed around the world, continues to have worshiping communities in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran.
In Jerusalem and Israel the proportional size of the various communities is somewhat different. The Eastern Orthodox and various Catholic Christians represent the largest communities, followed by the Oriental Orthodox and then the Protestant churches.
3.1. Orthodox Churches

The Greek Orthodox Church is one of the largest (26,000) in Israel. The patriarch of Jerusalem dates his authority to A.D. 451. His primacy is reflected in the title; the other patriarchates are merely “in” Jerusalem. He presides over 18 archbishops and archimandrites in the Holy Synod, which includes churches in neighboring Jordan and a special Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre. Western pilgrims and tourists frequently encounter this community because it has a major role and responsibility for the care and maintenance of holy places. Traditionally, the leadership of this church has come from Greece. The community reflects a blend of Arabic and Greek heritage, including the use of both languages in worship.
Two Russian Orthodox churches are visibly present in Jerusalem: The Russian Orthodox Church of the Patriarchate of Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia (headquarters in New York). Russian Orthodox missionary activity began in 1841. The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission was established in 1857, and the missionary Orthodox Palestine Society in 1881.
The Romanian Orthodox Church acquired land for a church, a monastery, and a hospice for Romanian pilgrims shortly before World War I. A congregation and a building were established in 1935. Under the leadership of an archimandrite, supported by a deacon and a community of nuns, this church cares for Christians of Romanian origin and the steady stream of Romanian pilgrims who visit the Holy Land.
3.2. Roman Catholic Churches

The Roman Catholic Church (or Latin Church, approximately 15,000 members) supports some 180 religious institutions and is represented by 24 orders. The Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem was established initially in 1099. It was discontinued about a century later and then reestablished in the middle of the 19th century. Over the centuries this church has shared in the upheavals and changing fortunes of the sacred city. It has also provided the framework for a wide variety of → mission efforts, including the establishment of various Eastern Rite churches. In an unprecedented move to affirm the Jerusalem Patriarchate as an indigenous church, Pope John Paul II named Michel Sabbah the first Palestinian Arab patriarch in 1988.
The Greek Catholic Church traces its origins to the early 18th century. This Eastern Rite community was formed out of the Eastern Orthodox churches within the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The term → “Melchite” is often used in relation to Greek Catholics. It derives from a fifth-century term meaning “the king’s men” and originally designated those Christians who embraced the theological formulations put forth at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Following the establishment of this Eastern Rite church, the designation shifted to the Greek Catholics. While the patriarch of the church resides in Damascus, the archdiocese in Jerusalem (founded in 1833) has been under the leadership of an archbishop. There are more than 400,000 Arabic-speaking → Melchites in the region. The large majority in Israel (over 40,000) reside in the Galilee region, where there are 27 parishes.
The Maronites, the Lebanon-based Catholic community, count more than 5 million members in the Middle East, Europe, and North and South America. Formally uniting with Rome in 1181, the Maronite Church includes some 6,000 members in Israel today. Most of the Maronites live in northern Galilee, near the border with Lebanon.
The Armenian Catholics are the most recent members of this family of churches. Although some Armenian Orthodox converted to Catholicism as early as the 14th century, the Armenian Catholic Patriarchate was not established until 1840. The large majority of this 35,000-person community lives in Syria and Lebanon today. The church in Jerusalem includes some 500 adherents under the care of a prelate.
The Syrian Catholic Church began in 1662 when part of the Syrian Orthodox Church sought union with Rome. The Patriarchate in Jerusalem, created in 1890, today cares for small congregations (about 300 members) in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
The Coptic Catholic Church traces its origin to 1824. Though formally united with Rome, its more than 100,000 members in Egypt continue to relate closely with the → Coptic Orthodox Church. This church includes a patriarchate in Jerusalem (dating from 1955) and a small congregation of some 35 members.
The Chaldean Catholic Church (formed in 1551) emerged from the Assyrian Church of the East. Approximately half of the 250,000 members of this church remain in the Middle East today, with the large majority (over 100,000) in Iraq. The patriarchate-vicariate was established in Jerusalem in 1908. The community in Jerusalem today includes about 35 members.
3.3. Oriental Orthodox Churches

For many centuries the → Armenian Apostolic Church has played a major role in caring for the sacred sites in the Holy Land. The Armenian patriarch has resided in Jerusalem since 1311. This Oriental Orthodox community has two churches, a monastery, a retirement home, and the residence of the patriarch in the Armenian Quarter of the old city of Jerusalem. Approximately 2,150 adherents live in Israel, most in Jerusalem and small numbers in Jaffa, Ramla, Haifa, and Nazareth.
The Syrian Orthodox Church (also known as the Jacobites) has a long history in the region. St. Mark’s Cathedral in Jerusalem has been the seat of their bishop since 1471. The community today includes approximately 1,000 members.
The Coptic Orthodox Church is, by far, the largest community of Christians in the Middle East, with some 6–7 million members in Egypt. Although Copts have been present in Jerusalem for many centuries, their first bishop was not installed until 1853. The church today includes monks and nuns, along with a few laypeople. It has many rights and responsibilities related to the holy places in Jerusalem.
3.4. Protestant Churches

The Anglican Church (→ Anglican Communion) installed its first bishop of Jerusalem in 1841. This archbishopric included five dioceses covering the lands between Iran and Arabic-speaking North Africa. In 1975 the name Evangelical Episcopal Church was adopted. The church today has over 2,000 members in its congregations in Jerusalem, Rām Allāh, Ābūd, Nazareth, and ‘Akko. It also supports a home for handicapped children, two colleges, and two hospitals.
The Lutheran Church set up a joint bishopric with the Anglicans in 1841. In subsequent decades, the Lutherans supported a variety of medical and educational mission programs. The Evangelical Lutheran Foundation was established in 1899 to provide support for several schools, an orphanage, and hospital care. In 1910 the Carmel Hospice and Augusta-Victoria Hospital were built on the Mount of Olives with the assistance of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. The → Lutheran World Federation has taken the lead in supporting these and other ministries in Israel since the 1950s. Today there are four Lutheran congregations in Jerusalem, serving speakers of Arabic (approximately 1,600 members), German (160 members), English (60 members), and Danish (30 members). The bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan, a body that in 1998 had 2,000 members, is at the heart of the various Lutheran ministries, including worshiping congregations in Rām Allāh, Beit Sahur, Beit Jala, Bethlehem, and Amman.
The Church of Scotland (Reformed) provides support for a hospital in Tiberias, a college in Jaffa, and an active church in Jerusalem.
3.5. Other Christian Bodies and Ecumenism

A wide variety of other Protestant and evangelical churches are also present in Israel today. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant community in the United States, operates several schools and supports small → congregations in several towns within Israel. The Baptist Convention in Israel (American Baptists) dates to 1923. Their work today includes a Baptist Center and the First Bible Church. Smaller Protestant communities include various → Pentecostal churches, → Churches of God, the → Mennonites, the Society of → Friends (Quakers), the → Church of the Nazarene, the Seventh-day → Adventists, and the Church of Christ. Other prominent churches, such as the United Methodist Church, are also actively involved in Israel. In some cases, these churches prefer to support and work through indigenous churches as part of their commitment to Christian ecumenism.
The → ecumenical movement among indigenous churches has grown stronger over the second half of the 20th century. Within Israel the International Christian Committee has been at the center of development and has done work among Palestinian Christians and Muslims since the 1950s. All of the indigenous churches in Israel now participate in the various ministries coordinated by the regional → Middle East Council of Churches (MECC). The Catholic churches, which are not formal members of ecumenical bodies in most parts of the world, joined the MECC in the mid-1980s. This cooperation is visible in the work of the Jerusalem office of the MECC.
Israel is also home to a wide range of nondenominational and parachurch Christian organizations. The → YMCA and YWCA, for example, have been present and active in the region for over 100 years. More recently, many small, independent groups have been visible and active. Most such groups or parachurch organizations are motivated by a theological frame of reference focused on → eschatology. Convinced that the end of the world is near, some appear eager to have a front-row seat for the apocalypse. Some such groups, like the International Christian Embassy, frequently associated with the Christian Right in the United States, have become fixtures in Jerusalem in recent decades. Others come and go, the latter particularly when the government of Israel perceives the groups or their adherents to present significant security risks.
The Christian landscape in Israel also includes a number of → organizations and institutes that are dedicated to ecumenical and interreligious cooperation. The Ecumenical Institute for Theological Research at Tantur (on the outskirts of Jerusalem and bordering Bethlehem), for instance, includes short-term and long-term programs, seminars, and conferences related to ecumenism and Jewish-Christian and Muslim-Christian dialogue. Other initiatives include Ness Amim (1961), a Christian guest house in western Galilee concentrating on Jewish-Christian relations, and the American Institute of Holy Land Studies, a group focused on the history of Israel and Jewish-Christian relations. These and a vast array of other groups have diverse theological orientations and goals.

Bibliography: N. S. ATEEK, Justice and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1989) ∙ E. CHACOUR and M. E. JENSEN, We Belong to the Land: The Story of a Palestinian Israeli Who Lives for Peace and Reconciliation (San Francisco, 1990) ∙ K. CRAGG, The Arab Christian: A History in the Middle East (Louisville, Ky., 1991) ∙ W. D. DALRYMPLE, From the Holy Mountain: A Journey among the Christians of the Middle East (New York, 1998) ∙ A. HILLIARD and B. J. BAILEY, Living Stones Pilgrimage: With the Christians of the Holy Land (South Bend, Ind., 1999) ∙ C. A. KIMBALL, Angle of Vision: Christians and the Middle East (New York, 1992). Much helpful information appears in the website www.christusrex.org/www1/ofm/cic/CICmain.html.
CHARLES A. KIMBALL
Italy

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
50,200
56,434
57,194
Annual growth rate (%):
0.75
0.12
–0.17
Area: 301,309 sq. km. (116,336 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 190/sq. km. (492/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 0.84 / 1.07 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 1.19 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 6 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 79.2 years (m: 76.0, f: 82.2)
Religious affiliation (%): Christians 82.0 (Roman Catholics 97.4, marginal 1.1, other Christians 1.9), nonreligious 13.0, atheists 3.6, Muslims 1.3, other 0.1.

1. Roman Catholic Church
1.1. Roman Empire
1.2. Papal States
1.3. Teaching and Culture
1.4. Secularism and Renewal
1.5. Hierarchy
2. Protestant Churches
3. Foreign Churches
4. Ecumenism
5. Other Religious Groups
1. Roman Catholic Church

As Raffaele Pettazzoni has stated, the history of Italian religion may be seen in terms of the creative tension between the institutionalized, dogmatic religion of the state (religione dello stato) and the personalized, voluntaristic religion of the individual (religione dell’uomo).
1.1. Roman Empire

The → Roman Empire, in which the Christian message first spread, had a religion that sought the perpetuity and “salvation” of social and political institutions (→ Hellenistic-Roman Religion). The Edict of Milan (313) ended the illegal status of Christianity and the → persecution of Christians (§2). The progressive organization of the church of the Roman Empire from the fourth century onward involved an intertwining of ecclesiastical and temporal order and power, mainly on the basis of the church receiving gifts of property throughout Italy.
The financial and political power of the church gave geographic and political esteem and influence to the → bishop of Rome. As the “patrimony of St. Peter,” the lands given to the church became a kind of independent state (→ Papal States); from the eighth century the church claimed the right to govern → Rome and Italy (→ Donation of Constantine). Already in the sixth century the Roman bishop had taken the titles papa and summus pontifex (supreme pontiff). The term “pope” is from the ancient Greek colloquialism papas, a respectful address for fathers, adopted by Gregory VII in his Dictatus papae (1075) as the official, singular title of the successors of the apostle Peter.
1.2. Papal States

The Roman Catholic Church and Italian Catholicism were deeply influenced by the vicissitudes of the Papal States, their relations with other dynastic states in the peninsula and the island regimes in Sardinia and Sicily, and relations also with foreign powers. Following favorable plebiscites, the Papal States were annexed to the emergent kingdom of Italy (1859–60). The pope’s temporal power ended when Rome was seized, was annexed by plebiscite, and became the capital of a united Italy (1870–71).
Having opposed the nationalist movement, the papacy reacted to the territorial losses by excommunication of the vocal exponents of Italian unification, rejection of the Cavourian formula “a free church in a free state,” and repudiation of the Papal Law of Guarantees (1871), which represented liberal Italy’s attempt to codify church-state relations in light of the new realities. Roman Catholic participation in the political process was prohibited by the decree of Pius IX Non expedit (1868). Earlier the same pope had issued Syllabus of Errors (1864), a virtual declaration of war on liberalism, nationalism, and evolving modern society, which together were held responsible for the alienation of the Papal States. Papal infallibility, first proclaimed in Pastor aeternus, issued on July 18, 1870, at the concluding session of the First Vatican Council, was not only conceived as an express statement of Catholic dogma; it was also designed to bolster the prestige of the supreme pontiff, thought to have been seriously undermined by the loss of his temporal sovereignty. Protesting that he had no choice, Pius IX relegated himself to the Vatican offices in Rome, where he ruled the church as the self-described “prisoner of the Vatican.”
By means of concordats with European states, the papacy sought also to defend its prerogatives by strengthening diplomatic ties, reinforcing the church’s role in education, protecting the religious liberties of its members, and confirming its concern for social welfare. It also countered with all possible means the aggressive anticlerical campaigns periodically unleashed by liberal and radical elements in Italy and other countries.
With the advance of socialism and secularism, a different approach was soon deemed essential by both church and state. Isolation and confrontation benefited only the enemies of both orders. Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum (1891), disavowing class struggle and the extreme utopias of the Left, endorsed the principle of labor-management collaboration in solving the problems of industrial society. Unions and employers were to engage in genuine collective bargaining for the establishment of safer and more congenial workplaces, viable wage standards, and the introduction of health and retirement assistance. Because of this newer outlook, and also the labor shortages caused by the demands of World War I, Roman Catholic laity and clerics, where permitted by the civil authorities, entrenched themselves in local administration, the national bureaucracy, private and public education, charitable institutions, chaplaincies (hospitals, prisons, armed forces), and health care institutions.
Between 1904 and 1918 a gradual relaxation of Non expedit occurred, to the point where Roman Catholics voted and, in increasing numbers, ran for public office. In 1919 the Italian Popular Party was formed by the prelate Don Luigi Sturzo under the watchful eye of the papacy and the Catholic Church. As a result of the elections of 1919, the “Popolari” won 100 seats out of 508 in the Chamber of Deputies, second only to the Socialists’ 150. By the general elections of 1922, although its parliamentary delegation had risen to 115, the party was in disarray, with the Left (the “Clerico-Moderates”) oriented toward Marxism, and the Right (the “Clerico-Fascists”) sympathetic toward fascism. The Popular Party rapidly lost favor with Pius XI, Catholics in general, and all voters; it was finally driven from the scene by the passage of the fascist state’s Exceptional Decrees (1926). The party was reborn in 1943, however, as the Christian Democratic Party, and it subsequently has had a commanding position in local and national governments of republican Italy, in spite of corruption and scandals.
As the fascist movement gained momentum, the church’s leadership increasingly viewed it positively as an authoritative, corporatist, youthful, patriotic, and spiritual antidote—a middle way between atheistic, collectivist Communism/socialism and militant, materialist, statist liberalism/social democracy. Roman Catholicism, in turn, appealed to Mussolini and his chieftains as a valuable instrument for the mobilization of the Italian masses in support of the fascist takeover of the government, which had occurred on October 28, 1922.
This incipient mutuality bore fruit in the Lateran Accords of 1929, secretly negotiated between the fascist state and the Holy See. The accords included the Conciliar Treaty, which settled the question of Rome, as the Holy See recognized the kingdom of Italy under the House of Savoy, with Rome as its capital, while the Italian state reaffirmed Roman Catholicism as the sole religion of Italy. Vatican City was at this time created from a section of Rome; there the papacy and church were free to conduct their activities without pressure or interference from civic or political bodies. In this concordat, Italy guaranteed the Roman Catholic Church complete independence in jurisdictional and ecclesiastical matters. According to the Financial Convention, Italy promised the church 750 million lire in cash and one billion lire in government bonds as partial indemnity for the papal territories, which had earlier been annexed to Italy.
Embedded pockets of racism and anti-Semitism in the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, its administrative curia, and among rank-and-file Catholics prevented the papacy from articulating an unequivocal stand against the racist and anti-Jewish laws and restrictions propagated by the fascist government in Italy and in its African empire.
After World War II the Lateran Accords were incorporated into the constitution of the Italian republic, adopted in 1948. Beginning in 1975, Italy contemplated changes in church-state relations, which were completed in 1984. These changes, formalized in a revised concordat, terminated the “one faith” confessional state, thus rescinding Roman Catholicism’s status as the only religion of the state.
1.3. Teaching and Culture

The presence of the Roman Catholic Church in Italian society may be seen in → religious instruction in both primary and secondary schools, chaplaincies (in hospitals, prisons, and military barracks), social work, and church schools.
Roman Catholic teaching and culture were much affected by the Counter-Reformation (→ Catholic Reform and Counterreformation; Trent, Council of), which tied worship to a fixed → liturgy in Latin (→ Worship 2.2). New impulses came only in the 20th century. The church’s opposition to → modernism hampered the development of biblical → exegesis and theological research. Only with the liturgical reforms of → Vatican II did Catholic believers secure more participation in worship and more access to Bible study.
→ Popular piety is esteemed and promoted. The veneration of → Mary and the → saints has been given liturgical form. Room is left for popular practices that are significant in → everyday life and that promote personal piety.
1.4. Secularism and Renewal

The process of increasing → secularism and renewal marked the latter part of the 20th century. The number of practicing Roman Catholics who follow the ethical and sociopolitical directions of their bishops has steadily declined. Although the church claims virtually 100 percent of the population, still (in 1983) 2 percent were not baptized, 18–20 percent were not confirmed, 8–11 percent of the → marriages were not church marriages, and 15–20 percent were not buried by a priest. Legislation regarding divorce (May 12, 1974) and → abortion (May 17, 1981) is no longer in conformity with the wishes of the church.
In the early 1970s the bishops and militant Catholic movements proclaimed a “condition of mission.” → Evangelism was to be the main sphere of the church’s work in society. This decision may be clearly seen in the pastoral program Evangelizzazione e Sacramenti (Proclamation and sacraments, 1973–75) and in the congresses Evangelizzazione e Promozione Humana (Proclamation and the promotion of humanity, 1976) and Riconciliazione Cristiana e Communità degli Uomini (Christian reconciliation and society, 1985). The → base communities, although marginal, are helping to put this basic emphasis into effect. Also working for renewal are spiritual movements like Communione e Liberazione and the Focolare movement (→ New Spiritual Movements).
1.5. Hierarchy

The Roman Catholic Church has 227 → dioceses in Italy. The bishops’ conference has 269 members, the largest in Europe. The number of → priests is declining. In 1982 there were only 355 ordinations, as compared with 708 priests lost by death or resignation. The seminaries were modernized in the late 20th century.
2. Protestant Churches

Less than a million people in Italy belong to Protestant or indigenous Christian churches. With the exception of the Waldensian churches, none of these groups was in Italy before the 19th century.
The renewal movement of the → Waldenses dates back to the 12th century. They made common cause with the → Reformation in 1532, were persecuted by the Inquisition, and faced attempts to exterminate them in the 16th and 17th centuries. They survived, nevertheless, in the Alpine valleys and in the 19th century spread across the whole country. A royal edict in 1848 lifted the ban on their work. They formed a theological faculty in 1855, moving it to Rome in 1921. With their historical tradition, territorial roots, and ecclesiastical structures, the Waldenses form the vital core of Italian Protestantism. In the climate of the risorgimento after 1830, when political ideas combined with hopes for religious revival in the struggle for Italian unity, other churches came on the scene, followed by yet others in the course of the → revival movement at the end of the 19th century.
The → Methodist Church (Chiesa Evangelica Metodista) goes back to the missionary activity of the Englishmen Henry Pigott in the North (from 1861, in Piedmont, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna) and Thomas Salvator Jones in the South (from 1864, in Naples). In 1871 Leroy Vernon came from the Episcopal Methodist Church of the United States and did work in Milan, Florence, and Rome. The missionary work from London resulted in the founding of the Chiesa Metodista Wesleyana, that from the United States in the founding of the Chiesa Metodista Episcopale. The two united in 1946 as the Chiesa Evangelica Metodista d’Italia and then, during 1975–79, formed a new church body with the Waldenses. In 1990 approximately 30,000 people were affiliated with this Waldensian-Methodist Church.
The → Pentecostal churches (Le Chiese Pentecostali Italiane) trace their origin to Giacomo Lombardi, who embraced the Pentecostal experience as a member of the First Italian Presbyterian Church of Chicago, Illinois. Between 1908 and 1923 he undertook six visits to Italy to preach the Pentecostal message. The first congregation was formed in Rome in 1908, the second at La Spezia in 1909, and the third in Milan in 1914. Some of the congregations came together in 1947 as the Assemblee di Dio in Italia (ADI), but others remained independent. The free congregations (Congregazioni Pentecostali) are linked by a correspondence center. Other, much smaller Pentecostal groups include the missionary movement Fiumi di Potenza (Streams of power), the Missione del Pieno Evangelo (Full Gospel Mission), and the Chiesa del Nazareno Puglia (Church of the Nazarene). The various Pentecostal groups together included some 425,000 adherents in 1990.
A group around Count Piero Guicciardini formed the Plymouth Brethren (Chiesa Cristiana dei Fratelli) in Florence around 1835. In exile in London, the count, with other evangelicals, had come into contact with the revival associated with John Darby (→ Plymouth Brethren). The fellowship that he founded on returning to Italy was the starting point for a wider spread across the country. In 1990 there were approximately 225 meetings with some 25,000 total adherents. Pledged to God’s Word as the only rule of faith and conduct, they have no organizational structure and shun ecumenical contacts.
The → Baptists (Chiesa Evangeliche Battiste) gained a foothold in Italy through the work of the English pastors John Wall in Bologna and Edward Clarke of the Baptist Missionary Society in La Spezia (from 1866). Other Baptist missionaries came from the United States and Canada in the 19th and 20th centuries. The majority of Baptists belong to Unione Cristiana Evangelica Battista d’Italia (10,000 adherents in 1990).
The → Apostolic Church (Chiesa Apostolica) came to Italy in 1927 through a delegation of English pastors. The Communità Evangelica Apostolica split off from it in 1978. The Chiesa Apostolica Italiana was founded in Florence in 1979. In 1990 it had approximately 10,000 adherents in 50 places of worship.
There are many smaller Italian Protestant groups. The → Adventists (Unione Italiana Cristiana delle Chiese Avventiste) formed small groups in 1864 as a result of the missionary work of the Pole M. B. Czechowski in Torre Pellice near Turin. They have members now also in Rome and the South. The → Salvation Army (L’Esercito della Salvezza) was introduced by Captain G. B. Vint of England in 1883. It began work in the North, then spread to the South. Banned by the Fascists in 1940, it resumed work, especially in the social sector, after World War II. The Chiesa di Cristo began work in 1949 under an American missionary. Italian Protestantism also includes many free churches (Chiese Libere) and missionary groups that are mostly → fundamentalist. These bodies usually have foreign contacts (mostly in the United States).
3. Foreign Churches

From the middle of the 17th century there have been foreign congregations in many cities, usually connected with diplomatic delegations. The → Lutheran churches, which have existed in various places for two centuries, came together in 1948 as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Italy (Chiesa Evangelica Luterana in Italia). Other foreign churches are the American Episcopal Church, the Church of England, and the Église Évangélique Réformée Suisse.
The community of → Orthodox churches included approximately 20 congregations and nearly 40,000 adherents in 1990. Most congregations were attached to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, with others belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia and to the Orthodox Churches of Russia, Romania, and Serbia.
4. Ecumenism

In the 1960s many parts of the Italian Protestant world heard a summons to unity on the basis of the gospel and common evangelical witness in Italy (Second Evangelical Congress, Rome, May 1965). As a result, the Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, and Waldenses founded the Federazione delle Chiese Evangeliche in Italia (FCEI) at Milan in November 1967. Most of the Protestant churches participate in this organization, whose statement of faith member churches subscribe to. The FCEI holds assemblies every three years and publishes the monthly bulletin Notizie evangeliche and the ecumenical weekly Com-Nuovi tempi.
The Protestant churches engage in → proclamation, → education, and → diakonia. They sponsor several institutions for biblical and theological training (including the Waldensian seminary in Rome), plus cultural institutions (libraries, museums, etc.), Bible societies, publishing houses, bookshops and presses, evangelistic organizations, newspapers and church papers, radio and television stations (many run by the Assemblee di Dio), youth and culture centers, hospitals, retirement communities, and various other social institutions.
→ Ecumenism is both a task within Protestantism and a matter of relations with Roman Catholicism (→ Local Ecumenism). Of the approximately two dozen ecumenical centers, most are under Roman Catholic direction. The Segretariato Attività Ecumeniche has run study leaves since the 1960s. The youth village Agape (in Prali, near Turin), dedicated in 1951, is a fruit of the ecumenical movement. It is a center for meetings and study conferences. Promoting ecumenical contacts is one of the main tasks of the FCEI, which is also concerned to make approaches to Protestant churches and groups that are hostile to the → World Council of Churches.
5. Other Religious Groups

The many other religious groups in Italy include → Jehovah’s Witnesses (close to 2,500 congregations and 400,000 adherents in 1990), → Mormons (14,000 adherents), → Christian Science, → Baha’i, and the International Society for → Krishna Consciousness.
By A.D. 2000 there were approximately 750,000 Muslims living in Italy (→ Islam), mostly guest workers from Arab lands. The numbers continue to increase with the flood of immigrants.
Jews (→ Judaism) have been in Italy since the second century B.C. Until modern times they were forced to live in → ghettos. Only with King Charles Albert’s edict of toleration in 1848 were they allowed to leave the ghetto—at first only in Sardinia, then throughout Italy in 1861. During World War II 8,000 Jews were deported for annihilation (→ Holocaust). In 1990 there were approximately 30,000 Jews in Italy.
The Italian state constitutionally guarantees minorities the right of assembly and grants them legal recognition. Historically, most Protestant and all evangelical churches in Italy, as almost always elsewhere, have refused to agree to concordats that, in effect, would make them religions of the state. The Assembly of the Federation of Evangelical Churches, meeting in Florence on November 4, 1970—and subsequently reaffirmed on October 28, 1976—by official letter to the Italian government adamantly refused to participate in a concordat strategy designed to stabilize church-state relations. Concordats were seen by the Assembly as invasive and morally untenable in a genuinely liberal national environment. The state was finally compelled to sign an unprecedented intesa (agreement) with the Waldensian-Methodist Church (February 21, 1984) which lifted all lingering restrictions preventing the free exercise of the privileges and responsibilities normally identified with organized religion. A similar agreement was negotiated by the government with the Assemblies of God in Italy in 1986, thus granting juridical recognition to the Pentecostal faith in Italy. It was expected that this precedent would become a model for all church-state understandings in Italy.

Bibliography: M. BUNSON, The Pope Encyclopedia: An A to Z of the Holy See (New York, 1995) ∙ F. J. COPPA, ed., Controversial Concordats: The Vatican Relations with Napoleon, Mussolini, and Hitler (Washington, D.C., 1998); idem, ed., Encyclopedia of the Vatican and Papacy (Westport, Conn., 1999) ∙ R. DAVIS, trans., The Book of Popes: Liber Pontificalis (Liverpool, 1989) ∙ E. DUFFY, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes (New Haven, 1997) ∙ E. HABSON, The Catholic Church in World Politics (Princeton, 1987) ∙ S. W. HALPERIN, Italy and the Vatican at War (Chicago, 1939); idem, The Separation of Church and State in Italian Thought from Cavour to Mussolini (Chicago, 1937) ∙ J. HUBERT and J. DOLAN, eds., History of the Church (10 vols., New York, 1980–82) ∙ A. C. JEMOLO, Church and State in Italy, 1850–1950 (Oxford, 1960) ∙ P. NICHOLS, The Politics of the Vatican (New York, 1968) ∙ G. TOURN et al., You Are My Witnesses: The Waldensians across 800 Years (Turin, 1989).
CESARE MILANESCHI and RONALD S. CUNSOLO
Ivory Coast

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
3,799
8,194
15,144
Annual growth rate (%):
3.51
3.75
2.32
Area: 322,463 sq. km. (124,504 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 47/sq. km. (122/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 3.57 / 1.29 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 4.55 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 78 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 52.3 years (m: 51.3, f: 53.4)
Religious affiliation (%): tribal religionists 37.1, Christians 31.7 (Roman Catholics 14.5, indigenous 10.8, Protestants 5.6, other Christians 0.8), Muslims 30.6, other 0.6.

1. General Situation
2. Religious Situation
1. General Situation

The Ivory Coast (or, its preferred form, Côte dʾ;Ivoire), a West African republic, became a French protectorate in 1842, a French colony in 1893, and in 1960 gained its independence. Its first contacts with Europe were with the Portuguese in the 15th century, followed by the Danes and French, who traded in ivory and → slaves (→ Colonialism). The country has been created out of more than 60 ethnic groups speaking as many native languages. The largest groups are the Baoulé (23 percent), Bété (18 percent), Senoufou (15 percent), and Malinké (11 percent); the most widely spoken language is Dioula (Jula). Ivory Coast is among the largest French-speaking countries in Africa.
Politically, the Ivory Coast has been relatively stable, in spite of attempts in the 1960s by Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghanaian government on its eastern border to subvert it and, more recently, the social and political chaos of neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone. At independence the government of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny built good and collaborative relationships with the Ivory Coast’s erstwhile colonial ruler, France. This policy was both insurance for political security and security for economic success.
Economically, the Ivory Coast is predominantly an agricultural country. It is one of the world’s largest exporters of coffee, cocoa beans, and palm oil. Its economy is therefore highly sensitive both to weather conditions and to international price fluctuations.
The economy has been hurt by the country’s highly centralized national presidential system, in which the resources of the nation were used for the president’s own political and personal benefit. These developments coincided with governmental loss of control over public expenditure and, in 1976–77, with an increase in world oil prices. The result was a considerable foreign exchange debt for Ivory Coast. In 1981 it thus adopted the World Bank’s recipe of a “structural adjustment” program. This effort failed, however, being frustrated by a collapse in world prices for cocoa and coffee. In 1986 a second dose of the structural adjustment program was administered. The drastic consequences of this program for salaries, employment, and so forth were predictable: strife became a mark of Ivorian society.
Houphouët-Boigny died in 1993. Henri Konan Bédié was elected to complete Boigny’s unfinished term and then in October 1995 was elected in his own right as the president of Ivory Coast. Bédié pursued a policy of “regulated openness,” by which political changes were made, including deregulation, liberalization, and privatization. In 1994 there were signs of improvement in the economy. The intensification of nontraditional agriculture and the improvement in the world cocoa and coffee prices led to this improvement. The net effect was that there was real economic growth of 6–7 percent.
On Christmas Eve 1999, just a year before scheduled elections, Konan Bédié was ousted by a junta led by retired General Robert Guei. A military government took control, and in July 2000 a new national constitution, supported by all political parties, was approved by 87 percent of the voting public.
2. Religious Situation

Religion is a major feature of Ivorian society. The principal religions include African traditional religions, which represented 94 percent of the population in 1900 but less than half in 2000 (→ Tribal Religions; Guinea 2). → Islam grew from 5 percent in 1900 to six times that percentage in 2000. Christianity, which represented only 1 percent of the population in 1900, has grown to slightly more than the current level of Islam.
One might take these figures as indicating that Islam and Christianity have grown at the expense of traditional religion. African religion, however, is also part of the culture, so that Christians at the crisis points of life continue to practice something of traditional religion. Also, because of the church’s involvement in social services, the influence of the Christian faith may go beyond the official statistics.
The Christian → missionary presence in the Ivory Coast dates back to about 1637, when six Capuchin priests from France came to Abiany. In spite of the goodwill of the king, the mission did not go far because of the death of four of the six priests within a year, and the two remaining had to depart to Axim in Ghana. Not until 1893, when Ivory Coast became a French colony, was there renewal of Roman Catholic work. In 1895 the Société des Missions Africaines de Lyon (SMA) also sent missionaries to Ivory Coast. In 1898 Religieuses de Notre Dame des Apôtres (Sisters of Our Lady of the Apostles) also sent missionaries. It took until 1934 before the first African was ordained. Roman Catholicism is mostly in the South and in the cities, but urbanization often goes with some de-Christianization. In other words, the church has yet to define its mission in the urban centers. In 1922 the Église Déimateste separated from the → Roman Catholic Church.
Roman Catholicism in the Ivory Coast has become globally celebrated through the erection by President Houphouët-Boigny (1986–89) of the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, advertised as the largest church in the world. Situated in Yamoussoukro, the official capital of Ivory Coast, the church was consecrated by John Paul II (1990) and remains a highly controversial structure.
Protestants came to the Ivory Coast after World War I. The British Methodist Missionary Society, arriving in 1924, was followed by Missions Biblique (→ French Missions), the → Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA, United States), the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade (WEC), and → Baptist groups. These groups, guided by a principle of comity, settled in different areas, in consequence of which the various Protestant denominations today look like tribal churches. Other Protestant denominations found in the Ivory Coast include → Methodists and Seventh-day → Adventists.
While there is no national Christian council, the Evangelical Federation of the Ivory Coast brings together churches that have grown out of the CMA, the WEC, the Unevangelized Fields Mission, Conservative and Freewill Baptists, and Missions Biblique. The Taizé Community of France promotes dialogue between Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches.
One of the most significant factors in the Ivory Coast church scene is the movement of indigenous churches (→ Independent Churches). The most widely known is the Harris Movement. It takes its name from William Wadé Harris (ca. 1860–1929), a charismatic leader from Liberia who appeared in the Ivory Coast in 1913 as a preacher of the gospel whose ministry was marked by the driving out of evil spirits (→ Exorcism), witchcraft, and → magic. Harris’s outstanding success caused considerable attention within the government and also created some tension with the Roman Catholics. After his imprisonment some of his followers joined the Roman Catholic Church and others the → Methodist Church. A remnant Harrist Church continues today, though there have been several schisms.

Bibliography: R. W. L. ALPINE, Agriculture, Liberalisation, and Economic Growth in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire: 1960–1990 (Paris, 1993) ∙ M. A. COHEN, Urban Policy and Political Conflict in Africa: A Study of the Ivory Coast (Chicago, 1974) ∙ A. GOTTLIEB, Parallel Worlds: An Anthropologist and a Writer Encounter Africa (Chicago, 1994) ∙ C. GROOTAERT, Analyzing Poverty and Policy Reform: The Experience of Côte d’Ivoire (Aldershot, 1996) ∙ G. M. HALIBURTON, The Prophet Harris: A Study of an African Prophet and His Mass-Movement in the Ivory Coast and the Gold Coast, 1913–1915 (London, 1971) ∙ R. LAUNAY, Beyond the Stream: Islam and Society in a West African Town (Berkeley, Calif., 1992) ∙ J. RAPLEY, Ivoirien Capitalism: African Entrepreneurs in Côte d’Ivoire (Boulder, Colo., 1993) ∙ D. A. SHANK, “The Legacy of William Wadé Harris,” IBMR 10 (1986) 170–76 ∙ S. S. WALKER, Religious Revolution in the Ivory Coast: The Prophet Harris and the Harrist Church (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1983).
JOHN S. POBEE

J
Jacob

1. Biblical Evidence
2. History of Scholarship
3. Jacob in the NT
1. Biblical Evidence

Apart from the mention of Jacob in the Joseph stories, the Jacob traditions are found in Genesis 25–35. Although these stories can be attributed largely to J, some material from P (esp. in chaps. 25 and 35) and E (esp. in chaps. 28; 30–33; 35) is also present. Genesis 35 can be ascribed almost entirely to E and P (→ Pentateuch).
Jacob deceives his older twin, Esau, and must flee. He acquires wives in Paddan-aram and attains considerable prosperity. After fleeing Laban, his father-in-law, he is reconciled with Esau, encounters God in Bethel just as he did earlier, and receives the new name “Israel.” The promises to → Abraham and → Isaac are fulfilled in him (→ Promise and Fulfillment).
2. History of Scholarship

The most satisfying explanation for Jacob is that involving tribal history. In this regard, Genesis 34 best suits the notion of such a history with its singling out of Levi and Simeon. Jacob’s 12 “sons” represent the → tribes of Israel. Jacob himself personifies the overriding unity of Israel, whence his new name. H. Seebass suggests that Jacob as the “father” of the 12 tribes represents a historical Jacob and a historical “Israel,” both of whom were clan leaders who entered Canaan and established their own tribal cults in connection with the cults of Canaanite sanctuaries.
Jacob founded a cult associated with the “God of the Fathers” (A. Alt, M. Noth). He is the wandering or homeless Aramean mentioned in the “shorter creed” (Deut. 26:5; see G. von Rad), and he was the first patriarch to attain pan-Israelite status in Shechem (Noth). He belongs to the earliest developmental stage of the Pentateuch traditions, a stage during which central Palestinian tribes were still shaping these traditions. The incorporation of the promised land into the theme of promise did not occur until the connection was made with the Jacob traditions themselves.
3. Jacob in the NT

The only important mention of Jacob in the NT is found in Rom. 9:10–13, where → Paul associates the secret of election and rejection with Jacob and Esau. Although both are Rebekah’s children and Isaac’s sons, the younger is given preference over the older; God loves the one and hates the other.
→ Israel 1

Bibliography: T. E. FRETHEIM, “Genesis,” NIB 1.319–674 ∙ H. GAMBERT, Isaac and Jacob, God’s Chosen Ones (New York, 1969) ∙ L. MEIER, Jacob (Lanham, Md., 1994) ∙ S. E. PORTER, “Jacob,” ABD 3.599 ∙ G. VON RAD, The Problem of the Hexateuch, and Other Essays (Edinburgh, 1966) ∙ J. A. SANFORD, The Man Who Wrestled with God: Light from the OT on the Psychology of Individuation (New York, 1981) ∙ H. SEEBASS, Der Ervater Israel (Berlin, 1966) ∙ H. M. WAHL, Die Jakobserzählungen. Studien zu ihrer mündlichen Überlieferung, Verschriftung und Historizität (Berlin, 1997) ∙ S. D. WALTERS, “Jacob Narratives,” ABD 3.599–608.
WILLIAM MCKANE
Jacobites → Syrian Orthodox Church
Jainism

Jainism, like → Buddhism, is an anti-Brahmanic Indian religion that stresses salvation but is without an ultimate personal God and without an impersonal universal soul (→ Hinduism; Mysticism). Its founder, Vardhamāna, known as Mahāvı̄ra (i.e., Great Hero), was an itinerant teacher in Bihar (northern India) contemporaneous with the Buddha (d. ca. 400 B.C.). Vardhamāna is presumed to have been the successor of Pārśvanātha, or Pārśva, although nothing is known about the latter’s life; he allegedly died 250 years before Mahāvı̄ra.
Jainism is a → monastic religion with strong lay participation and a community divided into three or four parts: monks, sometimes also nuns, lay brothers, and lay sisters. The tendency is to accommodate the life of the laity as much as possible to that of the monks, with the exception of celibacy. Ethical principles emphasize especially the notion of ahiṁsā (nonviolence, esp. nonkilling), fasting (even to death), → celibacy, and renunciation of possessions (→ Asceticism). The ahiṁsā is first and foremost a corpus of dietary regulations involving the use of water, prompted by the conviction that the entire cosmos is filled with life that may not be destroyed through use. The four elements of earth, water, fire, and air are all “alive” or “animated” insofar as they not only harbor small living beings but also themselves consist hypothetically of discrete, infinitesimally small living beings. Monks are therefore generally permitted to eat and drink only after laypersons have destroyed the living beings in these foods through cooking, whence also the absolute dependence of monks on the laity.
Through an endless cycle of rebirth (→ Reincarnation), unredeemed souls traverse the various forms of existence of those in → hell, of nonhuman earthly life forms (elements, plants, animals), of human beings, and of gods. Such rebirth is generally viewed as the highest misfortune; escaping it presupposes adherence especially to the ethical principles mentioned above. This ethical behavior is augmented by mental processes the Jains describe in exacting complexity in their doctrine of → salvation. The heart of what is generally called the theory of → karma is the conviction that karmic particles of a material nature become associated with the human soul through the four passions of anger, pride, deceit, and greed (the so-called mechanism of bondage). To rid itself of the burden of its karma, each individual soul must gain control over its passions. Once freed, the soul hastens upward to the sphere of the saved at the summit of the cosmos, from which no more rebirths are possible. The Jain → worldview is thus mechanistic.
The detailed description of the cosmos with its various hells and other spheres is complemented by an extensive → mythology concerned with, among other things, the religion’s founders, the 24 chronologically sequential Tirthankaras (Skt. tı̄rthaṅkara, “ford maker,” one preparing the way). Of the 24, only the last 2—Pārśva and Mahāvı̄ra—were genuine historical figures, the remainder being products of mythology. The various Tirthankaras have been protrayed and worshiped in countless representations, which are venerated as divine portrayals, largely reminiscent of the Buddha type (the Jain → Bhakti). Jain temples are found in most parts of India and attest the considerable influence the religion once enjoyed.
During the first to the fifth centuries A.D., the Jain community split into two groups: the Svetambaras (Skt. śvetāmbara, “white-clad”) and the Digambaras (digambara, “sky-clad,” i.e., naked). While the former include both monks and nuns, the Digambaras do not include nuns in the strict sense as adherents with a status comparable to that of monks; indeed, the devaluation of women, already widespread in India in early times, is more pronounced among the Digambaras than among the Svetambaras. Since the split the two groups have constituted separate denominations with distinct religious literary traditions. Over the course of time Jainism as a whole was increasingly influenced by Hindu religious culture, seen, for example, in the veneration of Jain versions of female Hindu deities.
Within the Svetambara area of western India (esp. the states of Gujarat and Rajasthan) and at the initiative of a certain Lonka Shah, a thoroughly reformed, nonidolatrous version of Jainism has developed since the 15th century. This version itself split into the rather loosely organized Sthānakvāsı̄s (beginning the first half of the 17th cent.) and the more tightly organized Terāpanthı̄s (community constituted in 1760; the best-known Terāpanthā leader was Acharya Tulsi [1913–97]).
In 1991 there were 3.4 million Jains in India, or less than half of 1 percent of the country, a slight drop in percentage when compared with figures for 1961. Jain laypersons are nowadays mainly traders and industrialists, and many are quite wealthy, having embraced “lay prosperity” rather than renouncing possessions.

Bibliography: K. BRUHN, “Five Vows and Six Avashyakas: The Fundamentals of Jaina Ethics,” http://www.here-now4u.de/eng/contents.html ∙ M. CARRITHERS and C. HUMPHREY, eds., The Assembly of Listeners: Jains in Society (Cambridge, 1991) ∙ J. E. CORT, ed., Open Boundaries: Jain Communities and Culture in Indian History (Albany, N.Y., 1998) ∙ P. DUNDAS, The Jains (London, 1992) ∙ H. VON GLASENAPP, Jainism: An Indian Religion of Salvation (Delhi, 1999; orig. pub., 1925) ∙ C. HUMPHREY and J. LAIDLAW, The Archetypal Actions of Ritual: A Theory of Ritual Illustrated by the Jain Rite of Worship (New York, 1994) ∙ H. JACOBI, trans., Jaina Sutras (2 vols.; New York, 1968; orig. pub., 1884–95) ∙ P. S. JAINI, Gender and Salvation: Jaina Debates on the Spiritual Liberation of Women (Berkeley, Calif., 1991); idem, The Jaina Path of Purification (Delhi, 1979) ∙ P. PAL, The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art from India (Los Angeles, 1994) ∙ W. SCHUBRING, The Doctrine of the Jainas (2d ed.; Delhi, 2000; orig. pub., 1935).
KLAUS BRUHN
Jamaica

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
1,629
2,133
2,587
Annual growth rate (%):
1.55
1.60
0.95
Area: 10,991 sq. km. (4,244 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 235/sq. km. (609/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 1.91 / 0.54 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 2.27 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 10 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 75.5 years (m: 73.2, f: 77.8)
Religious affiliation (%): Christians 84.1 (unaffiliated 39.1, Protestants 25.9, indigenous 9.1, Roman Catholics 4.5, Anglicans 4.1, marginal 1.3, other Christians 0.1), spiritists 10.1, nonreligious 3.7, Hindus 1.2, other 0.9.

1. General Situation
2. Christians
2.1. Roman Catholics
2.2. Anglicans
2.3. Baptists
2.4. Presbyterians and the United Church
2.5. Methodists
2.6. Other Protestant Bodies
3. Other Living Faiths
1. General Situation

The island of Jamaica is the third largest island of the Caribbean archipelago. A parliamentary democracy, Jamaica was given autonomy by the United Kingdom in 1959 and won its full independence in 1962. The great majority of its inhabitants are of African descent. The nation’s economy, dependent mainly on tourism and also on bauxite mining, has stagnated since 1995. Between 1996 and 2000 employment fell by roughly a sixth (→ Unemployment).
Before Europeans arrived, Jamaica was inhabited by Amerindians. The Tainos occupied the island from the middle of the first millennium, with evidence of their culture and beliefs surviving to the present day. Christopher Columbus, the first European to come to Jamaica, landed on the shores of the island on May 4, 1494. With Columbus came the → Roman Catholic Church. Both the church and the Spanish government maintained their dominance until the British conquest in 1655 (→ Colonialism). The advent of the Europeans had disastrous consequences for the Tainos, most of whom had perished from disease and cruelty by 1600.
Spanish colonization in the Caribbean was driven primarily by a search for precious metals. Jamaica actually produced very little such metals, but it was arable and fruitful, and agriculture developed well. To satisfy domestic as well as foreign needs for food, the local population was pressed into farming. When their numbers declined, Africans were brought in to take their place. The Africans came as slaves, and a lucrative trade in human cargo developed that supplied the sugar, coffee, and tobacco plantations. The practice of → slavery was rationalized on two religious grounds: since the Africans had largely become obedient to → Islam, they were regarded as apostate and in need of → evangelism; second, it was necessary for such apostates to be kept in the company of Christians if they were to acquire a true knowledge of the faith.
Spanish colonial rule reproduced the political and religious structures and the culture of Spain in the West Indies. The arrival of the English in 1655 under Admiral William Penn and General Robert Venables changed little at first, but in time Jamaica adopted the Cromwellian structures of Commonwealth England as laid down by the poet John Milton. These structures of English → Protestantism continue to have great influence in present-day Jamaica. Unfortunately, the competing interests of Catholic Spain and Protestant England left the Church of England more associated in people’s minds with buccaneering and booty than with piety.
The Quakers, who arrived in Jamaica shortly after the British, soon began erecting meetinghouses in Port Royal. George Fox (1624–91), the founder of the Society of → Friends, visited the island in 1672. Quakers have given enduring leadership to the Jamaican community in social work, education, art, and religion.
→ Moravian missionaries first came to Jamaica in 1754. They provided considerable impetus in the struggle to abolish slavery, as did the 18th-century evangelical revival. Abolition, which was decreed in 1833 and implemented in 1838, was followed by widespread → poverty and frequent periods of social unrest.
2. Christians
2.1. Roman Catholics

With the arrival of the British, Roman Catholics were officially proscribed and forced underground. This restriction lasted until 1837, when → Jesuits were allowed to come to the island. By the 1870s Roman Catholics had again become a significant presence in Jamaica and were granted freedom to worship in public. This new freedom enabled Catholics to evangelize, especially in the parishes of Kingston and St. Andrew, as well as in areas where the church had ancient land rights. This evangelization was aided by a series of politically caused migrations of Roman Catholics from Haiti.
Since the 19th century the Roman Catholic Church in Jamaica has never been large, but it has maintained an important place in national life. Its work has been concentrated in urban centers, and its leadership has consistently engaged in vigorous efforts on behalf of the poor and immigrants. Since the Second → Vatican Council (1962–65), Catholics in Jamaica have been very active in → ecumenism. The Roman Catholic Church was a founding member of the Caribbean Council of Churches (1973), and the archbishop of Kingston has often served as president of the Jamaican Council of Churches. Four Jamaicans have been consecrated → bishops, one of whom serves in the Bahamas, and one in Antigua.
2.2. Anglicans

When Jamaica was taken by the British in 1655, the Church of England became the church of the state, quickly establishing itself across the island. Anglicans remained dominant both as an evangelizing force and as a political force well into the 19th century. In the early 1800s there was a concerted effort to make the Church of England the Church of Jamaica; after 1870, however, all efforts at establishment were abandoned.
Church personnel continued to be drawn from England, and not until the 1940s was a Jamaican consecrated suffragan bishop. Since then a succession of Jamaican bishops has transformed the church into a truly Jamaican institution. The Anglican Church in Jamaica is now part of the Church in the Province of the West Indies. This church holds pride of place in Jamaican society, being known for its educational system, for its provision of → chaplains for the armed services and the constabulary, and for its community services.
2.3. Baptists

George Lisle (or Liele, ca. 1750–1828), a former slave in the American colonies, founded the Baptist church in Jamaica, a church that ultimately became the source of two of the largest church bodies in the island today—the Jamaica Baptist Union and Revival Zion, a charismatic Baptist church. The Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society, formed in 1842, trained ministers for both local and overseas service, with an emphasis on African missions, initially in the Cameroons. The society helped spur the growth of → Baptists in Jamaica in the 19th century. Even though the national leadership of the Baptists had become thoroughly Jamaican by the 1860s, however, class and social barriers still were tolerated in the community.
Only in the 1950s did some white Baptist churches open their pulpits to black Jamaicans. With considerable help from the U.S. Southern Baptist Convention, structures for church growth and nurture have been created with considerable success among Jamaican Baptists.
2.4. Presbyterians and the United Church

Scottish Presbyterians first came to Jamaica in 1824. Their situation was somewhat similar to that of the Anglicans from England, since their church was the established church of Scotland (→ Presbyterianism). At times, Presbyterians were recognized as the established church in Kingston, though its early work was largely limited to labor in plantations owned by persons who had ties to Scotland. It was not influenced by evangelical movements, and only the formation of the Scottish Missionary Society (1796) led to a modest presence in Jamaica. Significantly, when a Jamaican Presbyterian synod was formed, one of its first acts was to decide to start a mission in Africa, which led to the evangelization of Port Harcourt and the Ibo people in eastern Nigeria.
In 1956 Presbyterians, → Congregationalists, and the → Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) merged to form the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, one of the early united churches formed as a result of the modern ecumenical movement (→ United and Uniting Churches). The Congregationalists had come to Jamaica under the impetus of the London Missionary Society (formed in 1795). The Disciples came to Jamaica in the 1890s.
2.5. Methodists

Methodists were first organized in Jamaica in 1789 with the arrival and preaching of Thomas Coke (1747–1814). Their early appeal was primarily to British migrants, merchants, and sailors, as well as to freed slaves who had escaped from Cuba and the United States and developed small businesses. Over the years this church has had considerable influence in the creation of educational institutions and, not least, in the fostering of significant political and social movements through which Jamaican national aspirations have been formulated and expressed.
2.6. Other Protestant Bodies

Another Protestant body active in Jamaica is the Seventh-day Adventist Church (→ Adventists), whose work began toward the end of the 19th century and which grew considerably in the 20th century. Many → Pentecostal-type churches with roots in the United States are also strong in Jamaica, including the New Testament Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn., begun in Jamaica in 1917), Church of God of Prophecy (1923), Church of God in Jamaica (1907, Anderson, Ind.), and the United Pentecostal Church (1933, Jesus Only movement).
3. Other Living Faiths

A variety of other religious groups exists in Jamaica, some of which offer unique national expressions. The Universal Negro Improvement Association, founded in 1914 by the Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) as a movement to end discrimination against African people, inspired an emphasis on the African heritage of Jamaicans, especially that associated with Ethiopia. Although this movement led in part to expressions of the → Ethiopian Orthodox tradition, in Jamaica the most celebrated Ethiopian movement has been → Rastafarianism (→ Latin America and the Caribbean 2.6). This movement, an expression both of confidence in a coming redemption of Africans in the West and of interpretations of several biblical prophecies, has become internationally known for its hairstyle (dreadlocks), use of marijuana (ganja), and popular musical style (reggae).
West African religions, some with a Christian overlay, are also present in Jamaica, notably Kumina, Obeah (lit. “sorcery”), and Pocomania, groups that mix African, Roman Catholic, and Protestant elements (→ Spiritism).
The Jewish community in Jamaica, the United Congregation of Israelites, dates from Spanish times and consists today of Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews (→ Judaism). A mosque serves African, Indian, Pakistani, Syrian, and Egyptian adherents of Islam. Followers of the Baha’i faith are also found in Jamaica. Small groups of Hindus found among East Indian residents are present on the island, as are certain new religious movements such as the Church of Scientology and the Unification Church.

Bibliography: Jamaican Christianity: A. DAYFOOT, The Shaping of the West Indian Church, 1492–1962 (Gainesville, Fla., 1999) ∙ S. C. GORDON, God Almighty Make Me Free: Christianity in Preemancipation Jamaica (Bloomington, Ind., 1996) ∙ D. A. MCGAVRAN, Church Growth in Jamaica (Lucknow, India, 1961) ∙ F. J. OSBORNE, History of the Catholic Church in Jamaica (Chicago, 1988) ∙ H. O. RUSSELL, The Missionary Outreach of the West Indian Church: Jamaican Baptist Missions to West Africa in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 2000).
Other topics: B. CHEVANNES, Rastafari: Roots and Ideology (Syracuse, N.Y., 1994) ∙ E. DE SOUZA, United Congregation of Israelites (Kingston, Jam., 1995) ∙ E. B. EDMONDS, Rastafari: From Outcasts to Culture Bearers (Oxford, 2003) ∙ R. LEWIS and P. BRYAN, eds., Garvey: His Work and Impact (Trenton, N.J., 1991) ∙ J. G. MELTON and M. BAUMANN, eds., “Jamaica,” Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices (Santa Barbara, Calif., 2002) 2.713–15 ∙ K. E. A. MONTEITH and G. RICHARDS, eds., Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom: History, Heritage, and Culture (Kingston, Jam., 2002) ∙ I. MOORISH, Obeah, Christ, and Rastaman: Jamaica and Its Religion (Cambridge, 1982) ∙ P. SHERLOCK and H. BENNETT, The Story of the Jamaican People (Princeton, 1998) ∙ G. E. SIMPSON, Black Religions in the New World (New York, 1978); idem, Religious Cults of the Caribbean: Trinidad, Jamaica, and Haiti (3d ed.; Rio Piedras, P.R., 1980) ∙ R. J. STEWART, Religion and Society in Post-emancipation Jamaica (Knoxville, Tenn., 1992).
HORACE O. RUSSELL
James

The NT mentions several men called James.
James the son of Zebedee and brother of John. He seems to have been an early disciple of → Jesus (Mark 1:19 and par., cf. Luke 5:10) and was one of the → Twelve (Mark 3:17 and par.; Acts 1:13). With his brother and → Peter (and sometimes Andrew), he was one of the inner circle of Jesus’ → disciples (Mark 1:29; 5:37 and par.; 9:2 and par.; 10:35–41; cf. Matt. 20:20–24; also John 21:2). According to Mark 3:17, Jesus gave him and his brother the nickname “Boanerges” (meaning “Sons of Thunder”), thus indicating their calling as preachers. James was martyred under Agrippa I (41–44; → Herod, Herodians; Martyr). With Peter and John he no doubt played a prominent part in the early post-Easter community (→ Primitive Christian Community).
James the brother of Jesus (Mark 6:3 and par.; Gal. 1:19). This James evidently recognized the claim of Jesus only after meeting the risen Lord (→ Resurrection 1; see 1 Cor. 15:7; also John 7:5; Mark 3:21, 31–35). He quickly attained to a prominent position in the community (Gal. 1:19; 2:9; Acts 12:17; 15:13) and ultimately became the leader in Jerusalem (Gal. 2:12; Acts 21:18). Around A.D. 62 he was stoned to death under the → high priest Ananus (Josephus Ant. 20.200; → Persecution of Christians 2). His leadership role was due not merely to his relationship with Jesus but to his own significance. At the apostolic council (Acts 15; Gal. 2:1–10), in the Antioch affair (Gal. 2:11–14), and in → Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem (Acts 21:18–25), James maintained fellowship with uncircumcised → Gentile Christians so long as → Jewish Christians were not forced to live contrary to the → law. He himself lived as a strict Jew, as may be seen from his nickname “The Just” (Gos. Thom. 12; Hegesippus in Eusebius Hist. eccl. 2.23.4–7, etc.) and from the opposition of the Pharisees to his execution (Josephus Ant. 20.201). Later he became a leading figure in Jewish Christianity, with some sharply anti-Pauline views. The Epistle of James, traditionally ascribed to him, is an indication of his significance. Jude highlights the authority of his own letter by calling himself (v. 1) a brother of James.
James the son of Alphaeus. This James was one of the Twelve (Mark 3:18 and par.; Acts 1:13; see also Mark 2:14 v.l.).
James the father of Judas (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13; also John 14:22).
James the younger. He was the son, father, or husband of a Mary who was a witness of the crucifixion (Mark 15:40 and par.) and of the empty tomb (16:1 and par.).

Bibliography: R. BAUCKHAM, Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church (Edinburgh, 1990) 5–44 ∙ B. CHILTON and C. A. EVANS, James the Just and Christian Origins (Boston, 1999) ∙ M. HENGEL, “Jakobus der Herrenbruder-der erste ‘Papst’?” Glaube und Eschatologie (Tübingen, 1985) 71–104 ∙ K. NIEDERWIMMER, “Ἰάκωβος,” EDNT 2.167–69 ∙ W. PRATSCHER, Der Herrenbruder Jakobus und die Jakobustradition (Göttingen, 1987) ∙ W. SCHMITHALS, Paul and James (Naperville, Ill., 1965) ∙ H.-J. SCHOEPS, Jewish Christianity (Philadelphia, 1969).
TRAUGOTT HOLTZ
James, Epistle of

The Epistle of James is one of the → Catholic Epistles. Apart from its simple introductory greeting, it lacks the basic characteristics of letters and does not seem to be written with a specific situation in view; even the admonitions regarding wealth and poverty (1:9–11; 2:1–7; 5:1–6) relate to no particular circumstances in the church. The work is more in the nature of a tractate with exhortation as its goal (→ Parenesis). It strings together admonitory proverbs and didactic passages (2:1–13, 14–26; 3:1–12) in no special order. The recipients are “the 12 tribes in the Dispersion” (1:1)—that is, the whole → church. The book’s date and place of composition are uncertain (but probably ca. A.D. 100).
Although the author calls himself → James (1:1), several factors argue against this claim. The main point is that the Greek is better than one would expect from a strict Jewish Christian. Its literary style seems modeled on the LXX, and reference is lacking to the problem of Jewish Christians and → Gentile Christianity or to the ceremonial law. The tradition of Jesus attested in the letter points to a later date; the authenticity of the work was under debate into the fourth century. Similarly, some scholars argue that points of contact with 1 Peter and the → Apostolic Fathers (esp. Hermas) indicate a later stage of early Christianity (→ Primitive Christian Community).
The purpose of the Epistle of James is to give authoritative ethical instruction to the new Israel of the → diaspora and to summon believers to a concrete realization of the Christian life. The author draws on the broad tradition of the → ethics of antiquity, the Jewish Wisdom tradition (→ Wisdom Literature), the popular ethics of Hellenistic Judaism and Cynic → Stoicism, apocalypse, and the early Christian tradition.
The discussion of → faith and works in 2:14–26 is theologically significant. It is directed less against Paul than against a misunderstanding of his doctrine of → justification that leaves no place for works. It additively relates faith and works (→ Synergism), the main parenetic interest being in the latter. In an anti-Pauline fashion, works rather than faith alone are understood as the essential condition of → salvation. The demand for works rules out criticism of the law and implies continuity between the OT → Torah and “the perfect law, the law of liberty” (1:25; 2:12; cf. 2:8).
Objection is sometimes made that this position brings irresolvable tension with Paul’s doctrine of → grace and faith. Other signs of the difference between this letter and Paul are that no mention is made of the → cross and → resurrection, that it replaces the relation of indicative and imperative with direct ethical demand, that it no longer takes into adequate account the radical power of → sin, and that it misses the dialectic of the Christian life. None of these criticisms is unanswerable, however, and a summary rejection of the epistle as mere moralism fails to do justice to perhaps its real concern, namely, to correct a faith that is no longer oriented to works.

Bibliography: Commentaries: C. BURCHARD (HNT; Tübingen, 2000) ∙ P. H. DAVIDS (NIBC; Peabody, Mass., 1989) ∙ M. DIBELIUS and H. GREEVEN (Hermeneia; Philadelphia, 1976) ∙ R. P. MARTIN (WBC; Waco, Tex., 1988) ∙ F. MUSSNER (HTKNT; 5th ed.; Freiburg, 1987) ∙ W. SCHRAGE (NTD; 13th ed.; Göttingen, 1985) 5–59.
Other works: R. J. BAUCKHAM, James: Wisdom of James, Disciple of Jesus the Sage (London, 1999) ∙ T. B. CARGAL, Restoring the Diaspora: Discursive Structure and Purpose in the Epistle of James (Atlanta, 1993) ∙ R. HOPPE, Der theologische Hintergrund des Jakobusbrief (2d ed.; Würzburg, 1985) ∙ M. A. JACKSON-MCCABE, Logos and Law in the Letter of James: The Law of Nature, the Law of Moses, and the Law of Freedom (Leiden, 2001) ∙ T. C. PENNER, The Epistle of James and Eschatology: Re-reading an Ancient Christian Letter (Sheffield, 1996) ∙ W. POPKES, Adressaten, Situation und Form des Jakobusbrief (Stuttgart, 1986) ∙ W. H. WACHOB, The Voice of Jesus in the Social Rhetoric of James (New York, 2000).
GEORG STRECKER†
Jansenism

1. Doctrine of Grace
2. Controversy
3. Impact
4. Evaluation
1. Doctrine of Grace

Jansenism takes its name from Cornelius Jansen the Younger (1585–1638), who gave the movement its theological basis with his Augustinus (published posthumously in Lyons in 1640). As a student and professor at the University of Lyons, and later as bishop of Ypres, Jansen was in continual conflict with the → Jesuit-scholastic doctrine of → grace (→ Scholasticism). In the Lyons tradition he focused on the anti-Pelagian writings of → Augustine (354–430; → Augustine’s Theology) and methodologically, with an antischolastic bias, developed a pessimistic → anthropology. Already in 1514 John Eck (1486–1543), in answer to late medieval Augustinians, had rejected this view as an excessive interpretation of Augustine. Similarly, the Council of → Trent (1545–63), along with the condemnation in 1567 of the Lyons professor Michael Baius (1513–89, in the → bull Ex omnibus afflictionibus of Pius V; DH 1901–80), repudiated it, finding in it the basis of the Reformation doctrine of → justification.
On Jansen’s view the so-called state of grace enjoyed by the first pair is a natural endowment and not a superadded gift (donum superadditum), the loss of which at the fall meant that → Adam and the race lost completely the ability to restore a positive relationship with God. The work of Christ alone avails to salvation. In Augustinian fashion the idea is rejected that this work simply gives sufficient grace (gratia sufficiens), which we must freely accept if it is to become effective grace (gratia efficiens). Any good impulse is divine grace, but the grace of justification is overcoming grace (gratia victrix). Unconditional infralapsarian → predestination encompasses the whole way of salvation, especially the gift of perseverance. This rigorous rejection of → synergism made inevitable a conflict with the Jesuits, whose counterposition was radically presented by Luis de Molina (1535–1600) in his work Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis (1588) and maintained in a moderated form against the → Dominicans in the “congruism” of R. → Bellarmine and F. Suárez. Conflict with the → teaching office followed quickly and inevitably.
2. Controversy

The Jesuit College at Lyons replied to Jansen’s Augustinus with six countertheses. In 1641 the → Inquisition forbade both. In 1642 Urban VIII (1623–44) issued the bull In eminenti, which declared Augustinus heretical. The University of Lyons refused to be silenced, however, rejecting the bull as a Jesuit fabrication.
This conflict in France, however, did not remain one of theological faculties. Jean Duvergier de Hauranne (1581–1643), known as Saint-Cyran, had been in contact with Jansen since 1605. Carrying out reforms in the church and aiming to deepen → piety by self-responsible spiritual direction, Saint-Cyran had close links to the → Cistercian convent of Port-Royal (located originally 29 km. / 18 mi. from Paris), which became the center of Jansenism. After Saint-Cyran’s death Antoine Arnauld (1612–94) took up both the dogmatic defense of the Augustinus and the related → spirituality. Against the → casuistry and laxity of the Jesuits in preparation for Communion, he wrote his work De la fréquente communion (1643), which the Jesuits rightly saw as an attack on their priestly position in the church’s sacramentalist system. For its part, the government saw in Jansenism a threat to religious unity. With the question of the place of the Inquisition in France and the independence of the French clergy and French policy, the controversy quickly assumed political dimensions for both → church and state.
In 1653 Rome condemned five propositions taken from Jansen’s Augustinus (DH 2001–7). In his response Arnauld recognized the → infallibility of the papacy and accepted the charge that the propositions were heretical (the quaestio iuris, i.e., as a matter of law, the pope was always correct). Arnauld argued, however, that in the sense condemned, the propositions were in fact not in the Augustinus (the quaestio facti, or factual question). This evasion was possible because only the first proposition appears word-for-word in the Augustinus.
In 1656 Blaise → Pascal (1623–62), one of the most brilliant and uncompromising of the Jansenists, who came to know Jansenism through the sisters at Port-Royal, published his Lettres à un provincial (Provincial letters), in which he sharply attacked the Jesuits and the Thomists (→ Thomism). Along with Pascal’s literary successes there was a miraculous healing of a niece of his at Port-Royal, whose influence was then at its height.
For reasons of state Louis XIV (1643–1715) took the side of the Jesuits. With the support of Rome, in 1660 he set out to destroy Jansenism. In 1669, after sharp debate, the resistance of several French bishops forced Clement IX (1667–69) to provisionally relent from the anti-Jansenist efforts (the so-called Clementine Peace). When the Jansenists took the papal side in the → Gallican controversies, however, and when Arnauld furnished Rome with evidence of laxness in Jesuit morality (the “laxism” system, which in fact was ultimately condemned; DH 2101–67), the king renewed the attack on Jansenism. Leading Jansenists fled to the Spanish Netherlands (P. Quesnel in 1678, Arnauld in 1679, D. Gerberon in 1682).
The profound spirituality of the Jansenists came to expression in a translation of the NT, with commentary, by Pasquier Quesnel (1634–1719)—his Réflexions morales—leading to the winning of new adherents and increasing the confusion and persecution in France. The rigorism of Jansenism seemed to be a threat to the church system, on which the state relied, with Jesuit help.
In 1701 a conflict arose among the Jansenists themselves concerning the quaestio facti. The renewed condemnation of the five propositions by Clement XI (1700–1721) in the bull Vineam Domini Sabaoth (1705, DH 2390), backed by Louis and by Spain, led to the dissolution of Port-Royal and the destruction of the convent (1710) because the nuns refused to accept it. In 1713 the bull Unigenitus (DH 2400–2502), which became state law in France, condemned 101 propositions of Quesnel, many of which enshrined church tradition. Against this measure many French bishops appealed, unsuccessfully, for the calling of a general council (the so-called Appellants vs. the Acceptants).
Under severe persecution popular enthusiasm mounted, and devout fanaticism recorded → miracles and martyrdoms (→ Martyr), culminating in the question whether or not help (secours) should be given to ecstatics by blows on the breast (hence the Securist and Antisecurist parties). When, under Jesuit influence, the archbishop of Paris declared that penance administered by an Appellant priest was invalid (→ Penitence), a last controversy arose between king, Parliament, and church, which ended with the banning and overthrow of the archbishop. The banishing of the Jesuits in 1764 and the shadow of the revolution finally ended the conflict.
3. Impact

The Jansenist heritage is preserved in the Church of Utrecht (→ Old Catholic Churches), which was influenced by the Jansenist refugees Quesnel, Arnauld, and Gerberon; in the intellectual history of France (J. B. Racine, Père Grégoire, the French → Revolution); and, as a result of increasing French influence, in Italy (S. de Ricci, D. Palmieri) and Austria, where it pioneered → Josephinism. It could gain no foothold in Germany.
4. Evaluation

On the basis of a strict Augustinianism directed against synergism, Jansenism, which was often denounced as conservative and rejected as heretical by the → Roman Catholic Church, developed into a reforming movement with a theological, moral, and political impact. It stands opposed to the secularized optimistic anthropology of the → Enlightenment and the → baroque lifestyle. Basic theological and ethical questions, to which different answers were given in different countries, combine in it with ecclesiastical issues and matters relating to the state church. Questions of power politics were also involved; some Jansenists even took part in the French Revolution. A notable phenomenon, not explicable merely in terms of philosophical interest, is the energy with which Europe, then struggling with absolutism and the Enlightenment, discussed and thought through the issues.
In spite of Roman Catholic suspicions, the ontology of Jansenism is not compatible with that of the → Reformation. The “experience of the heart,” focused on personal passion and → righteousness, hides the Reformation message of the “alien righteousness” (iustitia aliena) that Christ alone gives us. Jansenism gave some support to the → Huguenots and in some cases showed a strong affinity to Gallicanism, being very critical of the absolutism of the French monarchy. In its → asceticism and ecclesiology, however, it was always closely related to the → early church.
→ Modern Church History; Molinism

Bibliography: J. VAN BAVEL and M. SCHRAMA, eds., Jansenius et la jansénisme dans les Pays-Bas (Louvain, 1982) ∙ C. BENTIVOGLIO, Istoria della Costituzione Unigenitus (3 vols.; Bari, 1968) ed. of the 18th–cent. MS by Raffaele Belvederi ∙ P. R. CAMPBELL, Power and Politics in Old Regime France (London, 1996) ∙ L. CEYSSENS, Jansenistica (4 vols.; Mechelen, 1950–59); idem, Jansenistica minora (11 vols.; Mechelen and Amsterdam, 1951–79); idem, La seconde période du jansénisme (2 vols.; Brussels and Rome, 1968–74); idem, Sources relatives à l’histoire du jansénisme et de l’antijansénisme des années 1677–1679 (Louvain, 1974) ∙ R. CLARK, Strangers and Sojourners at Port Royal: Being an Account of the Connections between the British Isles and the Jansenists of France and Holland (New York, 1972) ∙ W. DOYLE, Jansenism: Catholic Resistance to Authority from the Reformation to the French Revolution (New York, 2000) ∙ D. VAN KLEY, The Jansenists and the Expulsion of the Jesuits from France, 1757–1765 (New Haven, 1975) ∙ L. KOLAKOWSKI, God Owes Us Nothing: A Brief Remark on Pascal’s Religion and on the Spirit of Jansenism (Chicago, 1995) ∙ B. R. KREISER, Miracles, Convulsions, and Ecclesiastical Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris (Princeton, 1978) ∙ C. H. O’BRIEN, “Jansenists on Civil Toleration in Mid-Eighteenth Century France,” TZ 37 (1981) 71–93 ∙ M. R. O’CONNELL, Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart (Grand Rapids, 1997) ∙ A. SEDGWICK, Jansenism in Seventeenth-Century France: Voices from the Wilderness (Charlottesville, Va., 1977) ∙ F. E. WEAVER, The Evolution of the Reform of Port-Royal (Paris, 1978).
MANFRED BIERSACK
Japan

1960
1980
2000
Population (1,000s):
94,096
116,807
126,428
Annual growth rate (%):
0.99
0.68
0.12
Area: 377,835 sq. km. (145,883 sq. mi.)
A.D. 2000
Population density: 335/sq. km. (867/sq. mi.)
Births / deaths: 1.03 / 0.91 per 100 population
Fertility rate: 1.48 per woman
Infant mortality rate: 4 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 80.3 years (m: 77.3, f: 83.3)
Religious affiliation (%): Buddhists 54.5, new religionists 26.2, nonreligious 10.4, Christians 3.6 (indigenous 1.1, other Christians 2.5), atheists 3.0, Shintoists 2.0, other 0.3.

Overview
1. Earliest Christian Mission
2. Second Christian Period
3. Christianity after 1945
3.1. Rebuilding
3.2. Nonchurch Christianity
3.3. Ecumenical Relations
4. Religious Freedom
5. Other Religions
5.1. Shinto and Buddhism
5.2. New Religions
Overview

In what has been a generally vigorous globalization of world economy, Japan has stood out as a giant in the Pacific Asian theater, and indeed the world. After the United States, it has the most technologically powerful economy in the world. Economic decline threatened in the late 1990s, but Japan maintains an enormous trade surplus with the world. According to U.N. figures for 1996, Japan’s infant mortality rate (4 per 1,000 live births) was lower than that of any other country, and its average life expectancy (80.3 years) was higher than that of any other. Such data suggest a healthy society of high achievers dedicated to continuing their national and personal success.
In its long history Japan has had three encounters with Christianity, before which it embraced → Confucianism and → Buddhism. The last two—one a philosophy of life, the other a religion—were syncretistically united in → Shinto, the popular religion of Japan (→ Syncretism).
1. Earliest Christian Mission

In the history of Christian → mission (§3), the work in Japan has often been dramatic. Begun in 1549 by F. → Xavier (1506–52), an original member of the → Jesuits, it developed with astonishing speed. Arriving soon after the Jesuits, the → Franciscans, → Augustinians, and → Dominicans did successful work in the southwest island of Kyūshū and the center of the main island, Honshū. At the beginning of the 17th century there were an estimated 750,000 Christians.
From that time, however, the church came under long and severe persecution. The leaders of Japan saw Christian → mission (§§1–2) as a bridgehead for Western conquest and reacted accordingly. The obvious difference between the old religions and the associated popular customs, on the one side, and, on the other, the Christian lifestyle also provoked a reaction. Christianity was assailed by Shinto, Confucianism, and Buddhism. Many people who remained faithful, especially farmers, had to leave their homes, and many suffered a → martyr’s death by crucifixion. The final act was a farmers’ revolt in Shimabara in 1637, a social rather than religious protest, which ended with the brutal massacre of 37,000 Christians. The Tokugawa Shogunate (1603–1867) then engaged in further severe persecution, subjected believers to refined → torture, and closed the country to foreigners. Only the Dutch and Chinese were allowed to trade, and only in Nagasaki. The introduction of Christian symbols was strictly forbidden. Nevertheless, Christianity survived, though the faith became mixed with popular practices.
2. Second Christian Period

The second period in the history of Christianity in Japan began with the opening of the country to the West, which dates from 1853 and the arrival from the United States of Commodore Matthew Perry. In 1868 Emperor Meiji (1852–1912) ended the Tokugawa Shogunate. Under him Japan began to develop politically and culturally into a modern → state. Diplomatic pressure from countries that regarded → religious liberty as one of the basic principles of a modern state led to the lifting of the ban on Christian mission.
Roman Catholicism returned in 1859 in the person of the Paris Foreign Society priests. In 1865 a group of descendants of Japan’s first Christians contacted Bernard Petitjean in his church in Nagasaki, and thus began a search for more kakure (hidden) Christians, who had kept the faith alive underground for over 200 years. Of the 60,000 hidden Christians, about half listened to the teachings of the French priests, while the other half chose to continue their practice in secret, as they had been taught by their ancestors.
The first American Protestant → missionary also came in 1859 (→ North American Missions). Other missionaries included the Anglican C. M. Williams (1829–1910), the Presbyterian J. C. Hepburn (1815–1911), and the Dutch Reformed S. R. Braun (1810–80) and G. F. Verbeck (1830–98). Then came Methodists (→ Methodist Churches), → Baptists, Lutherans (→ Lutheran Churches), and the → Salvation Army from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom (→ British Missions). The Russian → Orthodox Church began work in Hokkaidō and then in Tokyo.
The new mission work met with rapid success. Christian witnesses included the Samurai Knights, a spiritual rather than a political knighthood, suppressed under the Meiji rule. In 1872 M. Uemura (1858–1925), later the leader of the Japanese church, formed some secretly baptized believers into the first Protestant church at Yokohama. Other centers of Christian mission were Kumamoto, where the Kumamoto Band was formed under the leadership of the American teacher L. L. Janes (1839–1909), and Sapporo, where W. S. Clark (1826–86) founded the Sapporo Band.
At first, Japanese Christians tried to preserve → unity and to avoid splitting up into → denominations. Christianity was viewed as having an inner relation to the democratic movement for human and civil → rights, and the church attained great influence in both urban and rural areas. Christian schools were founded, including the first Japanese school for girls—a vital step in education for women. Especially well known was the Doshisha English School in Kyoto, founded by J. Niijima (1843–90), which in 1876 enrolled 30 young men of the Kumamoto Band. Christian missionaries, including Roman Catholic women religious, also founded hospitals, orphanages, retirement communities, leper colonies, and clinics.
The 1889 constitution publicly recognized religious freedom for the first time in Japan, but the educational rescript of 1890 put emperor worship, which was firmly linked to state Shinto, at the spiritual center of Japan. Growing nationalism abated the enthusiasm for Western culture, which resulted in a decline in the number of Christians. Japan’s military victories in wars with China (1894–95) and Russia (1904–5) gave the people greater confidence in the empire. In this nationalistic atmosphere the church accommodated itself to emperor worship and the state ideology. Also, Japanese government officials began to link Christianity with socialism, further tarnishing its reputation.
After World War I the Christian politician S. Yoshino (1878–1933) opposed the antidemocratic tendency of the government. At a time of economic recession and social misery, T. Kagawa (1888–1960), a Christian evangelist and reformer, worked for the improvement of conditions among workers in the poorer sections of the cities. Kagawa helped found the Federation of Labor (1918) and the Farmers’ Union (1921).
Imperial → fascism came to Japan when the military seized power. Especially after conquests in China and Southeast Asia in the 1930s, emperor worship became the basis of the Japanese → worldview, and the emperor increasingly became the object of worship as a living deity. Direct and indirect persecution of Christians recommenced. At this time the Vatican gave Japanese Roman Catholics permission to visit Shinto shrines in order to avoid conflict with Japanese nationalism (→ Nation, Nationalism). Then the Protestant Church reluctantly came together as Nippon Kirisuto Kyodan (United Church of Christ in Japan) and adjusted itself to the war policy. Unity had been the ideal of Japanese Christians from the very first. The absolute deifying of the emperor was now pushed to such an extreme that the proclamation of the parousia by the Holiness Church was regarded as hostile to the state. Many Christians were imprisoned, and some were martyred.
3. Christianity after 1945
3.1. Rebuilding

After Japan’s defeat in 1945 the emperor publicly renounced his claim to deity. State Shinto was abandoned under pressure from the United States as the occupying power. The new (and present) constitution of 1947, which is based on the principles of sovereignty of the people, respect for human rights, and pacifism, separated the state and religion (→ Church and State), granting religious liberty in the true sense. A second opening up of the country followed, as political and intellectual obstacles to mission were removed. Overseas churches and missionary societies gave decisive help to the churches, which had been shattered by the war.
In 1951 the Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, part of the Reformed and Presbyterians, and part of the Holiness Church left Kyodan. Many new denominations were formed, and various missionary projects were planned and executed. Kyodan broke free from state interference and set up a new constitutional order. In 1967, in the name of its → moderator, Kyodan publicly confessed its war guilt after the model of the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt. Inside and outside Kyodan this step provoked vigorous discussion.
When the period of interest in Christianity and enthusiasm for American culture ended, missionary work became less intense. Missionary work in the 20th century focused on the cities, and work in small towns and rural areas declined. Overall, the church became more intellectual, with most new members coming from the educated middle class.
One positive feature has been the historic commitment of Japanese Christians to education and social welfare, as well as to the development of a democratic society. Such efforts have tended to give Christianity a national prominence much greater than might be expected from the relatively small number of Christians currently in Japan.
3.2. Nonchurch Christianity

The Mukyokai (lit. “nonchurch”) movement, or nonchurch Christianity, is significant in Japan. It was started at the beginning of the 20th century by K. Uchimura (1861–1930), who argued that the Japanese churches were making a vital mistake by imitating the Western churches in → theology, → liturgy, and orders (→ Church Orders). His aim was to bring the gospel to the Japanese without the garb of Western church institutions. His association has no pastors; it is run by the laity on the principle of the priesthood of all believers. It is no accident that some of its leaders and adherents bravely and resolutely opposed Japanese militarism during World War II. After the war T. Yanaihara and S. Nambara also played a leading role as → pacifists. Japanese churches should see in the Mukyokai movement a question put to themselves regarding their role within Japanese society.
3.3. Ecumenical Relations

The National Christian Council in Japan, founded in 1923, promotes communication between the denominations in Japan and churches abroad. The council, which has made some initial attempts at interreligious dialogue, organizes working parties for → peace and human rights. The educational and social work of the → YMCA and YWCA is also effective. The Roman Catholic group Justitia et Pax makes contributions along similar lines. This approach by Christians who previously were very conservative is arousing new attention in serious circles.
4. Religious Freedom

Article 20 of the constitution guarantees religious freedom to all citizens and bars state interference with, or support for, religious organizations. It also bars religious organizations from exercising any political authority. It bans coerced religious activity and prohibits the state from sponsoring religious education or other religious activity. It has reduced the dominant role of Shinto as the imperial cult.
Registered religious groups are exempt from taxes on land purchase or construction of religious buildings. They must supply annual reports and may be inspected. The education curriculum is prescribed by the government for public schools, but in addition private schools may include courses of religious instruction. Ecumenical organizations continue to thrive in the new environment thus provided.
5. Other Religions
5.1. Shinto and Buddhism

There has been an obvious shift in Japanese politics. Shintoists, who are becoming increasingly nationalistic, want the government to safeguard the position of the Shinto Yasukuni shrine. Long a symbol of Japanese militarism, this shrine is regarded as the site of the souls of the war dead, which are regarded as hero gods who will eternally protect the kingdom of Japan. The Shinto Political Union, which was founded to restore emperor worship, is seeking political influence. A Buddhist counterpart is the Komei Party within the new religion Soka Gakkai. This party has pursued a zigzag course between the Right and the Left.
The activities of other Buddhist orders are restricted almost entirely to celebrations of the dead as popular practices. Yet there are impulses of renewal within Buddhism. Convinced pacifist Buddhists oppose Yasukuni nationalism and act together with critical Christians.
5.2. New Religions

The events of World War I, the rise of fascism, and Japan’s defeat in World War II combined to spawn several so-called new religions in Japan, some that have experienced astonishing rates of growth and worldwide influence. Although difficult to characterize generally, these religions all offer salvation, often with the theme of Japan’s role as bearing a spiritual message to the rest of the world. They often involve magic and miracles, have an eclectic range of spirits and deities, and address the personal, social, and national concerns experienced by modern-day Japanese citizens.
The largest of the new religions is Soka Gakkai (Jap. for “value creation society”), founded in 1930. With legal recognition in over 150 countries and appealing especially to the lower classes, in 2000 its worldwide membership numbered upwards of 20 million persons. Stemming from Buddhist roots, it sees fundamental unity between religion and politics and has founded the political party Komeito (“clean government party”) to express its views. Since 1970 it has been marked by virulent anti-Christian efforts.
Rissho Koseikai (“society for the establishment of righteousness”), with 5 million adherents, is a modern Buddhist folk movement based on the teachings of the Japanese Buddhist leader Nichiren (1222–82). Founded in 1938 by Niwano Nikkyo, it teaches members to pursue their own enlightenment in fellowship with others.
Reiyukai (“friends of the spirit association”) follows a lay Buddhist tradition and combines temporal concerns with ancestor worship. Developed in the 1920s from the teaching of K. Kakutaro (d. 1944), it had approximately 3 million adherents in 2000. It was perhaps the most successful new religion before and during World War II, when, unlike most other religions, it was free of government control. It has been weakened by frequent defections (e.g., Niwano Nikkyo left it to form Rissho Koseikai).
Another new religion with approximately 3 million adherents is Seicho-No-Ie (“truth of life”), which began in 1930 with the publication of a magazine of this name by M. Taniguchi (d. 1985). Teaching that mind is the sole reality and that faith and mental purification can heal the body, this group resembles Christian Science.
Tenrikyo (“religion of divine wisdom”) was founded in 1838 by N. Miki (d. 1887); in 2000 it had over 2 million members. Developed as a protest against the feudal order, Tenrikyo at first was recognized as a branch of Shinto, later changed its affiliation to Buddhism (1880), and finally became an official Shinto group (1908). It has adopted three collections of Miki’s revelations as its central scriptures, which feature teachings on oracles, shamanistic practices, and ecstatic dances.
The Japanese new religion most publicized in the West has been Aum Shinrikyo (“supreme truth”; “aum” is a form of the Skt. sacred syllable om), infamous because of its nerve-gas attack in the Tokyo subway system in 1995. In January 2000 the Public Security Commission ruled that the group, which has changed its name to Aleph, continued to pose a threat to society and would be held under scrutiny for up to three years.
→ Asian Theology; Biblical Theology 2.4

Bibliography: P. B. CLARKE, ed., Japanese New Religions in Global Perspective (Richmond, Surrey, 2000) ∙ R. H. DRUMMOND, A History of Christianity in Japan (Grand Rapids, 1971) ∙ C. B. FRANCIS and J. M. NAKAJIMA, Christians in Japan (New York, 1991) ∙ Y. FURUYA, ed., A History of Japanese Theology (Grand Rapids, 1997) ∙ A. HARRINGTON, Japan’s Hidden Christians (Chicago, 1993) ∙ A. H. ION, The Cross and the Rising Sun (2 vols.; Waterloo, Ont., 1990–93) ∙ J. M. KITAGAWA, On Understanding Japanese Religion (Princeton, 1987) ∙ A. LANDE, Meiji Protestantism in History and Historiography: A Comparative Study of Japanese and Western Interpretation of Early Protestantism in Japan (New York, 1989) ∙ K. S. LEE, The Christian Confrontation with Shinto Nationalism: A Historical and Critical Study of the Conflict of Christianity and Shinto in Japan in the Period between the Meiji Restoration and the End of World War II (Philadelphia, 1966) ∙ M. MIYATA, Mündigkeit und Solidarität: Christliche Verantwortung in der heutigen japanischen Gesellschaft (Gütersloh, 1984); idem, “The Politico-Religion of Japan-the Revival of Militarist Mentality,” Bulletin of Peace Proposals 13 (1982) 12–17 ∙ I. READER and G. J. TANABE JR., Practically Religious: Worldly Benefits and the Common Religion of Japan (Honolulu, 1998) ∙ A. M. SUGGATE, Japanese Christians and Society (New York, 1996) ∙ G. J. TANABE JR., ed., Religions of Japan in Practice (Princeton, 1999) ∙ S. TURNBULL, ed., Japan’s Hidden Christians, 1549–1999 (2 vols.; Surrey, 2000).
MITSUO MIYATA
Jehovah’s Witnesses

1. Background
2. Beliefs
3. Organization
1. Background

Jehovah’s Witnesses were organized as a missionary “service corporation.” The parent organization is the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (1881, WTS) in Brooklyn, New York, with branch offices around the world. Leadership is vested in the lifelong president and (as of the year 2000) a corporation of 13 members, through which “God himself” rules (→ Theocracy). The worldwide field in which preachers are gathered and commissioned is divided into branches, districts, circuits, and congregations, under the care of district and circuit overseers and congregational elders. Only a few full-time workers with a half-year training at the Gilead School in Brooklyn are appointed by the WTS for a modest salary.
Every Witness has a preaching ministry in the form of conversations, letters, and silent street witness with the publications Watchtower and Awake! as well as house-to-house visits with literature or longer home → Bible study with those who are interested. There are also public addresses and conferences. Five gatherings a week serve for training.
The functional structure and beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses have historical roots. In 1872 Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916), a young Pittsburgh merchant, came into contact with an Adventist splinter group. In 1879 he began to publish the paper Zion’s Watch Tower. He had obviously adopted the ideas of the original → Adventists (the Millerite movement) and refashioned them as principles of belief and structure that are still basic for Jehovah’s Witnesses.
2. Beliefs

The first principle is radical separation from the churches (which are tools of Satan, the whore of Babylon, Revelation 17–18), from their theologians (“servants of religion”), from their teachings (e.g., the → Trinity, the immortal → soul, the torments of → hell), and from their ceremonies and practices, → baptism being replaced by dedication to obedient service “in the name of Jehovah,” and the → Eucharist (called the Lord’s evening meal, or memorial of Christ’s death) being celebrated once a year, after sundown on the 14th of Nisan. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not want an organized religion with a name, church buildings, ceremonies, or congregational life. They prove their loyalty to Jehovah God and his earthly fellowship by voluntary missionary service.
The second principle is lay Bible study on the basis of a strict → fundamentalism and an attitude of exclusive obedience. The exposition is legalistic and is centrally controlled. The drinking of blood and blood transfusions are prohibited, for example, on the basis of Acts 15:29.
The third point is an apocalyptic plan of redemption, with constant recalculation of the time when this era will end and the kingdom of Jehovah (the millennium; → Millenarianism) will be set up. Russell prophesied that the end would come in 1874, then 1878, finally 1914. His successor, Joseph F. Rutherford (1869–1942), later explained that 1914 was the date of the invisible establishment of Christ’s kingdom in heaven. Jehovah’s Witnesses have since proclaimed “the good news of the established kingdom.” The generation that lived in 1914 with believing hearts will live on until everything is manifest. Next, 1925 was proclaimed as the climax and conclusion of the great tribulation, and 1975 as the end of the 6,000 years of human history.
The fourth principle is the dualistic conflict between two kingdoms (→ Dualism). Satan is the lord of this world and has a large following, including all organized religion. → Religion is of pagan origin, and to be infected by → paganism is a serious sin. Customary feasts and holidays are rejected as pagan (e.g., → Christmas, → Easter, and birthdays). The whole political system also belongs to Satan’s realm, and Jehovah’s Witnesses must steer clear of it. They refuse military and civilian service, do not take → oaths, will not salute flags, do not take part in elections, reject appointments, and engage in no social action. The result is that they are proscribed in many countries and suffer persecution. During World War II some 6,000 were imprisoned by the National Socialists, and 800 were put to death. All those who oppose Jehovah’s Witnesses and reject their message belong to Satan’s kingdom. Their destruction in the bloody battle of Harmagedon (Rev. 16:16) is a central point in WTS teaching.
Finally, the Jehovah’s Witnesses set their hope on a new → paradise, rather than strictly on the return of Christ. The true worshipers of Jehovah will live in peace on a purified earth. The 144,000 (understood literally), of whom only a small remnant is still alive, will reign with Christ in heaven. There is thus a two-class system. → Jesus Christ himself has only a subordinate role in the WTS doctrinal system. He is the mediator in a more formal sense (by his sacrificial death) and is also Jehovah’s regent.
3. Organization

The Watch Tower organization is a closed system that isolates its members and makes them dependent by authoritarian leadership, indoctrination, and a demand for total commitment. This atmosphere results in conflicts of faith, disillusionment, distrust of social forces outside the group, and difficulties in relating to others. There is a rapid turnover in membership; in some places as many as one-third of those who join each year leave the organization. Worldwide in 2001 the Witnesses reported 6.1 million members in 235 countries.
→ Sect

Bibliography: M. ALFS, The Evocative Religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses: An Analysis of a Present-Day Phenomenon (Minneapolis, 1991) ∙ J. A. BECKFORD, The Trumpet of Prophecy: A Sociological Study of Jehovah’s Witnesses (New York, 1975) ∙ J. BERGMAN, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Kindred Groups: An Historical Compendium and Bibliography (New York, 1984) ∙ H. D. H. BOTTING and G. N. A. BOTTING, The Orwellian World of Jehovah’s Witnesses (Toronto, 1984) ∙ A. HOLDEN, Jehovah’s Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement (London, 2002) ∙ M. J. PENTON, Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah’s Witnesses (Toronto, 1985) ∙ S. F. PETERS, Judging Jehovah’s Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the Rights Revolution (Lawrence, Kans., 2000) ∙ D. A. REED, Blood on the Altar: Confessions of a Jehovah’s Witness Minister (Amherst, N.Y., 1996) ∙ H.-D. REIMER and O. EGGENBERGER, … neben den Kirchen. Gemeinschaften, die ihren Glauben auf besondere Weise leben wollen; Informationen, Verständnishilfen, kritische Fragen (6th ed.; Constance, 1986) 218–52 ∙ A. ROGERSON, Millions Now Living Will Never Die: A Study of Jehovah’s Witnesses (London, 1969) ∙ WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, Did Man Get Here by Evolution or by Creation? (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1967).
HANS-DIETHER REIMER†
Jeremiah, Book of

1. Content
2. Criticism and Composition
2.1. Criticism
2.2. Composition
3. Jeremiah the Prophet
3.1. Life and Ministry
3.2. The Suffering Prophet
1. Content

Chaps. 1–25 of the Book of Jeremiah consist largely of poetic oracles of doom directed against Judah, interspersed with longer and shorter prose sections (e.g., chaps. 7 and 11). The prose has → Deuteronomistic characteristics and has commonly been distinguished from the prose in which the so-called Baruch biography of Jeremiah is written. According to W. Rudolph, the latter is represented in 1–25 by 19:1–10, 14–15 and 20:1–6, although it is principally located in the second half of the book (26; 28; 29; 34:1–7; 36; 37–45; 51:59–64). A particular category of poetic material is constituted by the “laments” or “complaints” of Jeremiah, whether those that explore Jeremiah’s hard lot as a → prophet (8:18–9:1; 12:1–5; 15:10–21; 17:9–18; 20:7–9) or those where he appears as an intercessor in a communal context (e.g., 14:2–10; 14:17–15:4). Poetry is also employed in oracles against foreign nations, which are differently located in the Hebrew and Greek texts (25:15–38; 46–51 in the Hebrew, and 25:15–31:44 in the LXX).
The passage 25:1–13, regarded as a conclusion of the preceding part of the book, has been drawn into discussions about the contents of the two scrolls mentioned in chap. 36 (vv. 1–8, 27–32). The phrase bassēper hazzeh, “in this book” (25:13), has been taken as a reference to either the first or the second scroll, rather than to a book containing the oracles against foreign nations. The contents of the scrolls have been variously identified with the oracles of doom against Judah (although some prose is included in Rudolph’s definition of the contents of the scrolls), along with oracles against foreign nations. O. Eissfeldt has supposed that the scrolls were made up of the prose that principally appears in chaps. 1–25 and constituted a considered retrospect of the oracles that Jeremiah had delivered over a 23-year period (25:3).
2. Criticism and Composition
2.1. Criticism

Three differing critical appreciations of the contents of the Book of Jeremiah may be considered.

2.1.1. The first view is the source theory of S. Mowinckel (1914), which has been adopted and modified by Rudolph. The three sources are given as A, B, and C, and the contents of the B source (the so-called Baruch biography) have been given above. Rudolph describes the A source as constituted by poetic sayings of the prophet Jeremiah, which are to be identified, for the most part, with the oracles delivered against Judah in 1–25. The C source mostly consists of the prose that is interspersed with the poetry in 1–25 (7:1–8:3; 11:1–14 [17]; 16:1–13 [18]; 17:19–27; 18:1–12; 21:1–10; 22:1–5; 25:1–14) and otherwise only 34:8–22 and chap. 35. Thus the C source is mainly located in the first half of the book, and the B source in the second. The B source, attributed to Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe, has been widely regarded as a contemporary historical source; it is different in this respect from the C source, which is taken as an interpretation of Jeremiah’s prophetic activity shaped by exilic conditions and perspectives.
The validity of this distinction has been challenged by E. W. Nicholson and others, who have urged that the element of exilic reinterpretation of Jeremiah’s ministry is as much present in the one as in the other. The advantages of supposing (as Rudolph does) that the postulated C-source passages are parts of a once-continuous source that has been chopped up and distributed among the poetry are not obvious. A different kind of conclusion is that these poetic pieces have severally and separately attracted ad hoc exegetical comment in prose and that this prose itself has been subject to further processes of expansion. Rudolph does not pursue the rearticulation of his postulated C source, apart from a proposal that 22:1–5 is a continuation of 7:1–8:3.
2.1.2. The view that the Book of Jeremiah has received a thoroughgoing Deuteronomistic expansion and that the relation of the poetry to the prose of Rudolph’s source C is best understood on this assumption has been argued in great detail by W. Thiel. An important aspect of this method is the view that the prose compositions attributed to a Deuteronomistic redactor (D) have a kernel in relation to which they cohere. The kernel may be poetry, or poetry that Thiel critically reconstructs, but it may also be prose. The compositions may be small, medium, or large, for Thiel supposes that the work of D has an all-embracing and systematic character. The question to be asked is whether the book overall has as high a degree of literary and theological organization as Thiel maintains.
2.1.3. H. Weippert has argued that the prose of the Book of Jeremiah should be regarded as the product of the prophet himself and that the parallels that scholars have formulated between (1) the prose of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic literature and (2) the prose of the Book of Jeremiah are insufficiently refined. When they are subjected to closer scrutiny, whether statistical or semantic, it emerges (so Weippert) that the differences between (1) and (2) are more significant than their affinities.
2.2. Composition

Weippert’s view of the prose foreshortens the processes of composition, since it implies that the book may be regarded as having more or less achieved its extant shape in the lifetime of the prophet Jeremiah. There is a similarity and a difference between Weippert and Rudolph. Rudolph’s interest is also focused on the historical Jeremiah, but he does not suppose that the prose of his source C is Jeremiah’s prose. Nevertheless, this prose, although it comes to us in Deuteronomic/Deuteronomistic dress, does give us access (so Rudolph) to the historical Jeremiah and preserves the sense of his preaching.
Thiel’s assumptions remove us from the historical context of Jeremiah’s ministry to later times. His view that the processes involved in the growth and composition of the book are long and complicated, carrying us into exilic and postexilic times, is a realistic one.
3. Jeremiah the Prophet
3.1. Life and Ministry

Jeremiah, who was of a priestly family located in Anathoth, received his call in 626 B.C. in the reign of → Josiah and continued through the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah until the exile in 587 B.C. (1:1–3). The date 626 is usually associated with an assumption that there was a period of silence between 621 and 609, and some argue that a later date (609) for Jeremiah’s call is a more economical hypothesis.
The description of Jeremiah as a prophet to the nations in the call narrative (1:4–10) has troubled commentators, and it may be that the extant book is presupposed by the call narrative and that “prophet to the nations” (v. 5) is a reference to the oracles against foreign nations. It has been supposed that Jeremiah was a nationalistic prophet before becoming a doom prophet and that the oracles against foreign nations are attributable to the nationalistic phase of his activity. A more probable conclusion, however, is that these oracles are not attributable to the prophet Jeremiah.
3.2. The Suffering Prophet

Although H. Reventlow has argued to the contrary, the individual laments should be regarded as giving us access to the interior life of the prophet. His vocation is full of → suffering and contradiction; he feels the bitterness of his condition and cannot desist from attaching blame to → Yahweh and charging him with deceit (e.g., 20:7–9). Jeremiah is foredoomed to be rejected because the falsehood that defeats the truth of God’s word is installed as religious orthodoxy. The people are deceived by words of peace spoken by prophets who have an impeccable religious legitimacy, and Jeremiah asks Yahweh whether he is not responsible for deceiving them (4:10; cf. 6:14 = 8:11). Jeremiah cannot reach the people with the truth of God’s word and suffers pain in his estrangement and rejection. In this respect he is a forerunner of the One who “came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him” (John 1:11); it is understandable that Jeremiah was identified with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 40–55.
By the Jews who experienced the exile, Jeremiah is acknowledged as a true prophet whose witness was vindicated. Since, in their view, effective intercession was part of the equipment of a prophet, they explained the case of Jeremiah by holding that Yahweh had forbidden him to exercise his power as an intercessor. In this way they solved a theological problem that their understanding of the prophetic office created for them (7:16–20; 11:14; 14:2–10, 11–16; 14:17–15:4).
→ Israel 1

Bibliography: Commentaries: D. BERRIGAN, Jeremiah: The World, the Wound of God (Minneapolis, 1999) ∙ J. BRIGHT (AB; Garden City, N.Y., 1965) ∙ W. HOLLADAY (Hermeneia; 2 vols.; Philadelphia and Minneapolis, 1986–89) ∙ D. R. JONES (NCBC; Grand Rapids, 1992) ∙ G. L. KEOWN, P. J. SCALISE, and J. G. SMOTHERS (WBC; Waco, Tex., 1995) on chaps. 26–52 ∙ W. MCKANE (ICC; Edinburgh, 1986) on chaps. 1–25 ∙ W. RUDOLPH (HAT; 3d ed.; Tübingen, 1968).
Other works: M. P. KNOWLES, Jeremiah in Matthew’s Gospel: The Rejected Prophet Motif in Matthean Redaction (Sheffield, 1993) ∙ J. R. LUNDBLOM, “Jeremiah, Book of,” ABD 3.706–21 ∙ S. MOWINCKEL, Zur Komposition des Buches Jeremia (Oslo, 1914) ∙ E. W. NICHOLSON, Preaching to the Exiles (Oxford, 1970) ∙ K. M. O’CONNOR, The Confessions of Jeremiah: Their Interpretation and Role in Chapters 1–25 (Atlanta, 1988) ∙ G. H. PAUKE-TAYLOR, The Formation of the Book of Jeremiah: Doublets and Recurring Phrases (Atlanta, 2000) ∙ H. G. REVENTLOW, Liturgie und prophetisches Ich bei Jeremia (Gütersloh, 1963) ∙ W. THIEL, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion von Jeremia 1–25 (Neukirchen, 1973); idem, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion von Jeremia 26–45 (Neukirchen, 1981) ∙ H. WEIPPERT, Die Prosareden des Jeremiabuches (Berlin, 1973).
WILLIAM MCKANE
Jerome

Jerome (ca. 345–420), born Eusebius Hieronymus (perhaps as early as 333), was an outstanding translator, exegete, and theologian of the early church. He was the son of a well-to-do Christian family that owned property in Strido (near Emona, or modern Ljubljana, Slovenia). He was educated in → Rome, and his teachers included, until 363, the famous grammarian Aelius Donatus (though not Marius Victorinus, neither does Jerome seem to have been closely acquainted with Ambrose in Rome; he did, however, study together with Rufinus). Jerome’s student years in Rome deeply influenced him and seem to have been the source of his interest in biblical philology. The time in Rome was also the beginning of his orientation toward several of the empire’s significant political and religious centers.
Jerome traveled first (367/68?) to Trier, in Gaul, where Emperor Valentinian I (364–75) resided. Presumably the acquaintance with monasticism he made there prompted him to lead a communal life for several years (until 371?) in Strido, Emona, and Aquileia. He then left rather suddenly for Syria, one of his main goals being to become acquainted with monasticism in Antioch and Khalkís (on the Greek island Euboea) and to live an ascetic life himself, albeit in the form of a relatively comfortable “desert” sojourn (S. Rebenich). Here Jerome laid the foundation (ca. 375–77) for the linguistic expertise for which he became well known even during late antiquity itself (learning Greek, Hebrew, a bit of Arabic and Punic, naturally also Aramaic and Syrian). At the same time, his attitude toward his classical Roman education changed, which he later (384?) articulated as a change “from a Ciceronian to a Christian.” Jerome’s pronounced orientation toward the bishop of Rome is already noticeable in Syria. He inquired with Damasus of Rome (pope 366–84) about the Trinitarian conflicts and was ordained as a priest by the Antiochian bishop Paulinus, who was closely allied with Rome.
From 379/80 Jerome was in Constantinople, where one of his major contacts was Gregory of Nazianzus (329/30–389/90), to whom he owed especially his acquaintance with the works of → Origen (ca. 185–ca. 254), which would prove to be of such significance. After Gregory’s unexpected resignation as bishop of Constantinople, Jerome went back to Rome and lived among the urban aristocracy. Here he began his groundbreaking and important revisions of the Latin Bible, initially according to the Greek text, which led ultimately to the Vg, the Latin version of the Bible most widely used in the West. Scholars do not agree whether during this period he also actually served as secretary to Damasus. In any event, some in Rome seem to have favored him as the successor to Damasus. When Siricius (384–99) was elected instead, Jerome found himself in an untenable situation.
In 386 Jerome moved to Bethlehem, where he was followed by Paula, a Roman matron dedicated to a life of devotion, and her daughter St. Eustochium. After various academic journeys, including to various locales associated with Egyptian → monasticism and to Didymus the Blind (ca. 313–98), Jerome intensively pursued his scholarly projects. In Bethlehem he also engaged in what were in part extremely hateful literary controversies with contemporary theologians (Ambrose, John of Jerusalem, and his former fellow student Rufinus) and became entangled in the dispute regarding Origen and Pelagianism. His ten-year correspondence with → Augustine (394–404) was also burdened by considerable tension. Jerome died in 420 and was eventually canonized (feast day, September 30).
After Augustine, Jerome was the most productive Latin theologian of antiquity, though the chronology of his works can be reconstructed only indirectly. His earliest writings include the Vita Pauli, the first Latin monastic legend. Beginning with the Constantinople period, Jerome produced editions and translations of scholarly and exegetical works from the Greek (e.g., the chronicle of Eusebius and exegetical homilies of Origen; → Exegesis, Biblical). In Bethlehem he produced independent works on biblical interpretation (Quaestiones hebraicae in Genesim plus commentaries on Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Titus). After the fashion of Suetonius, he also wrote a kind of bibliography of ecclesiastical writers, De viris illustribus (with chap. 85 on himself). His voluminous correspondence (150 letters among those he wrote and received have survived) provides a unique look at the → theology and daily life of his time. As the large number of → pseudepigrapha show, Jerome’s translations of the Bible (→ Bible Versions 2.3) and his exegetical works exerted an almost incalculable influence on Western theological history.

Primary sources: AGLB 23, 27 ∙ BPat 12 ∙ CChr.SL 72–80 ∙ The Correspondence (394–419) between Jerome and Augustine of Hippo (trans. C. White; Lewiston, N.Y., 1990) ∙ CPL 580–621 ∙ CSEL 49 ∙ D. ERASMUS, The Edition of St. Jerome (ed. and trans. J. F. Brady and J. C. Olin; Toronto, 1992) ∙ GCS 6, 11/1, 33, 47, 49 ∙ PL 23–26 ∙ SC 242, 323, 386 ∙ Select Letters of St. Jerome (trans. F. A. Wright; Cambridge, Mass., 1963).
Secondary works: J. D. ADAMS, The Populus of Augustine and Jerome: A Study in the Patristic Sense of Community (New Haven, 1971) ∙ D. BROWN, Vir trilinguis: A Study in the Biblical Exegesis of St. Jerome (Kampen, 1992) ∙ A. FÜRST, Augustins Briefwechsel mit Hieronymus (Münster, 1999) ∙ A. KAMESAR, Jerome, Greek Scholarship, and the Hebrew Bible: A Study of the “Quaestiones hebraicae in Genesim” (Oxford, 1993) ∙ J. N. D. KELLY, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (New York, 1975) ∙ F. X. MURPHY, “Jerome, St.,” NCE 7.872–74 ∙ S. REBENICH, Hieronymus und sein Kreis. Prosopographische und sozialgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Stuttgart, 1992) ∙ E. F. RICE, St. Jerome in the Renaissance (Baltimore, 1985) ∙ A. DE VOGÜÉ, Histoire littéraire du mouvement monastique dans l’antiquité, vol. 4, Sulpice Sévère et Paulin de Nole (393–409), Jérôme, homéliste et traducteur des “Pachomiana” (Paris, 1997).
CHRISTOPH MARKSCHIES
Jerusalem

1. Topography
2. Pre-Israelite
3. Preexilic
4. Persian
5. Hellenistic
6. Roman
7. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
1. Topography

Jerusalem is situated immediately west of the Mount of Olives (790–820 m. / 2,600–2,700 ft. above sea level), at the junction of northern and southern → Palestine, on the Cisjordan highlands. Up to the last century it was bordered on the east by the Kidron Valley (2 Sam. 15:23; John 18:1) and on the west and south by the Hinnom Valley (Josh. 15:8; 18:16). It is divided by the Cross Valley, a central valley that runs from north to south (Josephus J.W. 5.140), separating a western hill from one on the east. Settlement began on the south side of the southeast hill, close to the source of the Gihon (1 Kgs. 1:33 etc.) in the Kidron Valley, with protection from all sides but the north.
2. Pre-Israelite

The oldest traces of settlement in Jerusalem consist of Chalcolithic ceramics from the fourth millennium B.C. The earliest architecture is a fragment of an Early Bronze Age house from the third millennium on the southeast hill. The history of the city begins in the Middle Bronze Age (18th cent. B.C.) with the construction of a fortress uncovered by K. M. Kenyon (pp. 76–97) and Y. Shilo (p. 12) above the source of the Gihon.
Egyptian texts of the time refer to ʒwš ʒmm (= Heb. yĕrûšālēm, “foundation [yrh I] of [the god] šālēm”). During the Late Bronze Age (14th/13th cent.), terracing was introduced above the Gihon spring on the east slope of the southeast hill, probably as the podium of an acropolis. The Amarna Letters (EAT 285–90) show that Jerusalem (Akkad. uruú-ru-sa-lim) was the urban center of the central hill-country, close to Shechem, which was a threat to it.
3. Preexilic

In the 11th century B.C. Jerusalem was a Canaanite enclave between the northern and southern tribes of → Israel (§1). → David captured it (2 Sam. 5:6–9) and made it the metropolis of his kingdom (→ monarchy in Israel). He renewed the terracing (v. 9) and built a palace (v. 11), but his building program was modest compared to that of → Solomon, who extended the city to the north by building the → temple (→ Sanctuary) and palace (1 Kings 6–7).
With the division of Israel into North and South (1 Kings 12), Jerusalem lost some of its importance, since it was now only the capital of little Judah. It was under threat from the empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia, Palestine being the boundary between them. When Assyria conquered the northern kingdom in 722/721 B.C., refugees fled to Judah and were perhaps the reason for the extension of the city to the southwest hill (see 2 Kgs. 22:14; Zeph. 1:10–11). A slum area developed on the southeast hill (Shilo, 28). Strengthening of the defenses there (2 Chr. 32:5) was no doubt connected with Hezekiah’s defiance of Assyria. To prepare Jerusalem for a siege Hezekiah built a tunnel 512 m. (1,680 ft.) long, ending in the pool of Shiloah (2 Kgs. 20:20; 2 Chr. 32:2–4, 30 [= Gk. Silōam, John 9:7]; KAI 189). The tunnel provided increased access to a spring and, during a siege, could replace the undefended aqueduct through the Kidron Valley (Isa. 8:6).
With the decay of Assyrian power → Josiah built a wall to defend the southwest hill (see N. Avigad, 46–49). Josiah’s political measures were accompanied by cultic reforms that culminated in centralization, which, in exilic interpretation (2 Kings 22–23), made Jerusalem the only legitimate place at which to worship → Yahweh. After Josiah’s fall (609 B.C.) Jerusalem came for a time under Egyptian and then under Babylonian influence. It was taken by the Babylonians in 597 (2 Kgs. 24:10–17) and then again, in response to Zedekiah’s revolt, in 586, when the temple was destroyed (25:8–21).
4. Persian

The rebuilding of the temple and the work of Nehemiah marked Jerusalem in the Persian period. At the urging of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, the rebuilding of the temple was begun under Zerubbabel in 520 B.C. and completed in 515. The southwest sector was unoccupied during the Persian period, and settlement on the southeast hill was limited to the ridge. The east slope was bordered by the wall that Nehemiah built in 545 (Neh. 2:11–3:32; 7:1–3). This fortification was part of a reform that made Jerusalem the capital of the Persian province of Judah, now detached from Samaria.
5. Hellenistic

Transition from Persian to Ptolemaic rule produced little construction. When Jerusalem became a Seleucid polis (2 Macc. 4:9), a gymnasium was built west of the temple, and in the final Seleucid phase the fortress Acra was built south of the temple (1 Macc. 1:33–35).
In the → Hasmonaean period the southwest hill was brought into the system of fortifications and resettled (the “first wall,” J.W. 5.136, 142–45). A royal Hasmonaean palace was built on the east slope, and the eastern section of Nehemiah’s wall was renewed on the southeast hill (Shilo, 30; cf. 1 Macc. 12:36–37).
6. Roman

Greater changes came with → Herod the Great (ruled 37–4 B.C.). From 20 B.C. to A.D. 63 the temple precincts were extended (Josephus Ant. 15.398–402), with the fortress Antonia being constructed at the northern edge of the precincts. If indeed the Antonia is no longer to be associated with the materials from the period of Hadrian found in the convent Notre Dame de Sion and in the Convent of Flagellation, then it is to be associated instead with the rock plateau north of the present temple precinct, a plateau severely reduced during the Muslim period. If the Antonia guarded the precincts, then these structures dominated the lower city on the southeast hill, the southern part of which was a slum area, but the northern part a district much favored by devout Jews because of its proximity to the temple. In this northern district were the palace of Adiabene (J.W. 5.252) and the Theodotus → synagogue of Greek-speaking Jews (Jeremias, 75–76), from which might well have come the Hellenistic circle to which Stephen belonged (Acts 6–7).
The upper city on the southwest hill was dominated by the palace and citadel of Herod. The palace was built in the Persian-Hellenistic pavilion style in a garden setting (J.W. 5.176–81), on an artificial platform. Under Pilate it served as the Roman praetorium (Mark 15:16), though in the fourth century the hearing before Pilate was linked to the Hagia Sophia church in the area of the Hasmonaean palace (CSEL 39.62 etc.). North of the palace the southwest hill was defended by the citadel with the named towers Mariamne, Hippicus, and Phasaelus (J.W. 5.161–71); the foundations of the last of these still remain. In front of the palace was the agora, or place of assembly (Mark 15:8–15), the central point of a quarter in which the house of Caiaphas was located (Matt. 26:57; Mark 14:53–54). North of the Cross Valley was the section for handworkers and merchants (J.W. 5.331), which under Herod had been brought into the defensive system by a second north wall (5.146).
More recent burials in the present-day Muristan (Otto, 154–59) show that the area of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is linked to the death and burial of Christ, was outside this second wall. Only under Herod Agrippa I (A.D. 41–44), with the extending of the “new city” to the north, was this area defended by a third wall that stretched northward to the present Damascus Gate.
7. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
7.1. Jerusalem was taken by Titus (39–81, emperor from 79) in A.D. 70 after a six-month siege. He destroyed the city, including the temple. Hadrian (emperor 117–38) rebuilt it as a city for Roman veterans and a garrison town, dedicating it in 135 to Jupiter Capitolinus and renaming it Aelia Capitolina. These and earlier developments led to a rebellion under Simeon bar Kokhba (132–35) in the hope that God would not allow a final desecration of the temple and the Holy City and that, with the expulsion of the Romans from Jerusalem, he would set up his messianic kingdom. Only at the end of the third century, on the ninth day of the month Ab, supposedly the day of the destruction of the temple, were the Jews permitted to mourn at a part of the western wall of the temple that had not been destroyed. This practice started the tradition of the Wailing Wall.
→ Judaism is irrevocably linked to Jerusalem in its bemoaning of → sin and the → wrath of God; in its scribal preoccupation with the temple and the cult, which seeks to replace the expiatory function of the cult; and finally in the eschatological expectation of the building of a new temple as the initiation of the messianic kingdom (→ Eschatology 1; Kingdom of God).
7.2. After the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, Christian → apocalyptic circles awaited the descent of the heavenly Jerusalem (Revelation 21). Representing the new earth, this renewed Jerusalem was the antithesis of → Rome, the representative of the old world (chaps. 17–18). The heavenly Jerusalem would belong to the Christians (21:2), who would be the new Israel and the new temple in the holy city (3:12). Hence there would be no need for the building of a new temple.
As apocalyptic expectation waned, Christian piety began to focus on the earthly Jerusalem as the place of the death and → resurrection of Christ (→ Christology 1) and of the early church (→ Primitive Christian Community). Already in the second century, Christian pilgrims were coming to Jerusalem from western parts of the empire and venerating the tomb of Christ. The early Byzantine Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built near the pagan temple, symbolized Titus’s destruction of the temple of the old → covenant. In the Byzantine period the temple square was a sign of the judgment of God on the ruined city.
7.3. Under Jewish influence Jerusalem became important for Muḥammad (ca. 570–632) in the early stages of → Islam. In Medina he prayed toward Jerusalem and only later toward Mecca (Qur’an 2:143–45). After the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem (638), the Umayyads built the Dome of the Rock (685–91) and the Al-Aqsa → Mosque (early 8th cent.), thus forging a direct link with the Israelite-Jewish temple tradition, giving it an Islamic form.
Qur’an 17:1 relates the night ascension of the Prophet from the Holy Rock, which we may relate to the → ascension of Christ from the nearby Mount of Olives. For Muslims, Jerusalem ranks only after Mecca and Medina as a place of heavenly → revelation.
Relations between the three → monotheistic world religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—are now regulated by the guarantee of unconditional → religious liberty in Jerusalem (→ Israel 3), a guarantee often sorely tested by the vagaries of Israeli-Palestinian disagreements.

Bibliography: N. AVIGAD, Discovering Jerusalem (Oxford, 1984) ∙ M. BARKER, On Earth as It Is in Heaven: Temple Symbolism in the NT (Edinburgh, 1995) ∙ B. CHILTON and C. A. EVANS, Jesus in Context: Temple, Purity, and Restoration (Leiden, 1997) ∙ C. COÜASNON, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (London, 1974) ∙ A. ELAD, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy Places, Ceremonies, Pilgrimage (Leiden, 1995) ∙ O. GRABAR, M. AL-ASAD, A. AUDEH, and S. NUSEIBEH, The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem (Princeton, 1996) ∙ L. J. HOPPE, The Holy City: Jerusalem in the Theology of the OT (Collegeville, Minn., 2000) ∙ A. HOUTMAN, M. POORTHUIS, and J. SCHWARTZ, eds., Sanctity of Time and Space in Tradition and Modernity (Leiden, 1998) ∙ T. A. IDINOPULOS, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Holy City from David’s Time to Our Own (Chicago, 1991) ∙ J. JEREMIAS, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (Philadelphia, 1969) ∙ K. M. KENYON, Digging Up Jerusalem (London, 1974) ∙ B. MAZAR, The Mountain of the Lord (Garden City, N.Y., 1975) ∙ E. OTTO, Jerusalem-die Geschichte der Heiligen Stadt. Von den Anfängen bis zur Kreuzfahrerzeit (Stuttgart, 1980) ∙ N. ROSOVSKY, City of the Great King: Jerusalem from David to the Present (Cambridge, Mass., 1996) ∙ Y. SHILO, Excavations of the City of David I, 1978–1982 (Jerusalem, 1984) ∙ J. Z. SMITH, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago, 1992) ∙ A. D. TUSHINGHAM, Excavations in Jerusalem, 1961–1967 (vol. 1; Toronto, 1985) ∙ Y. YADIN, ed., Jerusalem Revealed: Archaeology in the Holy City, 1968–1974 (Jerusalem, 1976).
ECKART OTTO
Jesuits

1. Establishment and Purpose
2. Constitutions
3. Founding (1540) to Suppression (1773)
4. Restoration (1814) to the Present
5. Statistics
6. Current Activities
1. Establishment and Purpose

The Society of Jesus (Societas Jesu, S.J.), officially established in 1540, traces its origin to the coming together of → Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) and six of his companions who had been influenced by his Spiritual Exercises: Nicolás Bobadilla (1507–90), Pierre Favre (1506–46), Diego Laínez (1512–65), Simão Rodrigues (d. 1579), Alfonso Salmerón (1515–85), and Francis → Xavier (1506–52). At Montmartre in Paris on August 15, 1534, these men took a → vow of poverty and chastity and also vowed that, if possible, they would go on a → pilgrimage to → Jerusalem to visit the sites of Jesus’ life and preach Christianity. By 1536 Paschase Broët (1500–1562), Jean Codure (1508–41), and Claude Jay (1504–52), similarly influenced, had joined the group. These ten made up the first members of the society. Prevented from going to Jerusalem in 1537, these men, by now all ordained priests, offered their services to the → pope in Rome in 1538 for → preaching, hearing confessions (→ Confession of Sins), catechetical instruction (→ Catechesis), and social work.
Early in 1539 this group resolved to found an order and drew up Prima formula instituti, which with few alterations was incorporated into the → bull Regimini militantis ecclesiae, by which Paul III (1534–49) approved the order on September 27, 1540. The society set itself the goal of “helping souls to progress in Christian life and doctrine and the propagation of the faith” under the banner of the cross “in service of the Lord and the Roman pope, his vicar on earth.” Members of the order took the customary religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, as well as a fourth vow of → obedience to the pope, thus expressing a readiness to undertake without hesitation any papal mission that was for the salvation of souls and the propagation of the faith. In 1541 Ignatius was elected the order’s general superior. From then until his death 15 years later, he oversaw the development of the society and, most important, engaged in writing its constitutions.
2. Constitutions

In writing the → constitutions, Ignatius received much help from Juan de Polanco (1516–77), his secretary. Promulgated in trial form by Jerónimo Nadal (1507–80), one of the early Jesuits and a trusted collaborator of Ignatius, the constitutions were put into force by the first General Congregation (1558). New features as compared with other, earlier orders were the Spiritual Exercises as the primary personal formative experience of the members, the absence of a specific garb and choral prayer, the centralization of leadership in general and provincial superiors, a variety of “experiments” undertaken in the novitiate, a long period of probation, and different grades of membership. After two years novices—both those intending to be priests (“scholastics”) and those who become lay brothers—take the three simple vows, from which the order can release them for cause. The “scholastics” (i.e., students) then study the humanities, philosophy, and theology, interrupted by a period of apostolic work, especially teaching.
After the completion of these studies and priestly → ordination, the members engage in a period of formation analogous to the novitiate. They then take final vows as spiritual coadjutors, or as professed of final vows. The structure is strongly monarchical but with ample provision for consultation. The general, advised by a group of assistants, has absolute power and appoints all the leaders. The General Congregation, the ultimate governing body of the society, which the assistants, provincial superiors, and elected representatives from each province attend, elects the general for life. This centralization is designed to make the order efficient in serving the cause of the church. The obedience is a full spiritual, sometimes called ascetic, obedience (→ Asceticism). Although the constitutions provide the order with its structure, the Spiritual Exercises shapes its inner spiritual principles and its external apostolic activities.
3. Founding (1540) to Suppression (1773)

The Society of Jesus grew rapidly. By 1615 it had 37 provinces (i.e., regional groupings), with total membership between 15,000 and 16,000. Although not established explicitly as a teaching order, the founding in 1547–48 of its first school specifically for lay students inaugurated education as a main focus of its work in secondary schools and → universities according to the principles laid down in Ratio studiorum (1599). These schools increasingly required teachers who were experts in fields beyond → philosophy and → theology, the disciplines customary for → priests, which led to Jesuits’ becoming engaged in teaching and scholarship in almost every field of Western intellectual life.
The Jesuits also served as confessors to princes in the major courts of Europe, a role that often led to political involvement (→ Church and State). Pastoral care was a major concern, especially in giving the Spiritual Exercises, in encouraging the sacrament of penance (now called → reconciliation) and frequent reception of the → Eucharist, in personal spiritual direction, and in the Marian congregations, which were started around 1565 for both → clergy and laity. With the aim of providing instruction and formation for the Christian life, P. Canisius (1521–1608) and R. → Bellarmine (1542–1621) wrote → catechisms that enjoyed widespread and long-lasting popularity.
Although the society had not been founded in opposition to the → Reformation, the range of its activities led naturally to its involvement in the Counter-Reformation. In addition to strengthening the Roman Catholicism of the Council of → Trent (→ Catholic Reform and Counterreformation), where several Jesuits took prominent parts as theological advisers, it also entered vigorously into theological controversies and pastoral initiatives, which the Protestant churches quite understandably regarded as adversarial. With these activities and their engagement in schools and universities, the Jesuits helped to shape the spirit of the post-Tridentine → Roman Catholic Church.
Jesuit → missionary work started by Xavier in the 1540s spread in the 17th century to Japan, China, and Latin America. In the age of Spanish and Portuguese conquest, Jesuits went as missionaries to newly opened overseas territories and made up for losses in Europe by successes based on the principles of accommodation and inculturation. In Latin America they brought social and cultural development, as well as conversion, by means of → reductions (i.e., Indian settlements) under missionary leadership. From around 1600 controversy and bloody persecution followed initial success in Japan. The Jesuits’ acceptance of Chinese religious customs and their regard for Chinese culture involved them in the Rites Controversy of the late 17th and 18th centuries. The rejection of inculturation in the 1742 papal resolution of this controversy greatly impeded subsequent missionary work in China and to an extent also in India (→ Acculturation).
The Roman College, founded by Ignatius in 1551 and later known as the Gregorian University, became a major center of academic work, especially in philosophy and theology. In these disciplines the Jesuits largely adhered to → Thomistic → Scholasticism as it had blossomed afresh in 16th-century Spain under F. Suárez (1548–1617). The Jesuits also staffed several of the national colleges in Rome, among them the German and the English colleges, with the aim of training a cadre of learned and devout priests for their native lands. Bellarmine devoted himself to elaborating systematic theology, as well as controversial theology with Protestant orthodoxy.
From the middle of the 17th century, the society also came into conflict with → Jansenism. In the debates concerning the capacity or incapacity to perform good works with or without → grace and in conflicts concerning the quality of the contrition preceding the sacrament of penance, they took a less rigorous view than the Jansenists. B. → Pascal (1623–62), himself a Jansenist, heaped scorn on the Jesuits in his Provincial Letters.
The Jansenist and Rites controversies, the Jesuits’ single-minded obedience to the pope, their various political entanglements, and the international character of the society aroused resentment against the order at the time of the → Enlightenment. A tendentious interpretation of the principle that the end justifies the means and a view of tyrannicide as legitimate were attacked as Jesuitical. From the middle of the 18th century, Enlightenment governments expelled the Jesuits from many European countries and their colonies. Portugal did so in 1759, France in 1764, Spain in 1767, Naples and Sicily in 1767 and 1768, and Parma in 1768. Under intense pressure from those governments, Pope Clement XIV (1769–74) finally felt compelled to disband the order, as he said, “for the peace of the church,” doing so in 1773 in his papal brief Dominus ac Redemptor noster.
Frederick II (1740–86) in Prussia, however, as well as Catherine II (1762–96) in White Russia, who was keeping an eye on her recently annexed part of Poland, opposed the measure. They refused to promulgate the brief in their territories, which allowed the Jesuits to survive regionally, at first with tacit, and then with explicit, papal permission.
4. Restoration (1814) to the Present

Pius VII (1800–1823) restored the Jesuits universally on August 7, 1814, in his bull Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum. The society soon made up for its reverses, although various edicts and persecutions continued to limit its work in some countries. France in particular often impeded that work. Russia restricted the order and expelled the Jesuits in 1820, as also, for various periods, did Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and several Latin American countries, often in reaction to the society’s support of a developing → Ultramontanism. That circumstance and the society’s championing of Vatican I led to the temporary banning of the Jesuits in Germany during the → Kulturkampf.
From the restoration until almost the middle of the 20th century, the Society of Jesus was much more conservative in thought and activity than it had been before it was suppressed. In the time immediately before and after World War II, however, Jesuits increasingly enlarged—both in breadth and in depth—the boundaries of their research, speculation, and activities. Exemplifying this change were several Jesuit scholars of the latter half of the 20th century, most notably Pierre Teilhard de Chardin of France in paleontology and spirituality; Karl → Rahner of Germany, John Courtney Murray of the United States, and Bernard Lonergan of Canada in → systematic theology; Henri de Lubac of France in → patristics; and Walter Ong of the United States in cultural studies.
As was true of the Roman Catholic Church in general, so in particular the Society of Jesus was greatly influenced by the Second → Vatican Council, at which several of its members played important parts as periti (i.e., expert theological advisers). The General Congregations since 1965 have responded vigorously and positively to the council.
The 31st General Congregation (1965–66), which took place during and after the last session of Vatican II, sought to adapt the internal life and external apostolic activity of the society to the visions of church and world that the council had developed. It elected as superior general Pedro Arrupe, a Spaniard who had spent years in Japan. The 32d (1974–75) specified the perennially central mission of the society in its contemporary circumstances to be the service of faith, of which the promotion of justice was an absolute requirement (→ Righteousness, Justice).
The 33d General Congregation (1983) confirmed the orientations of the previous two congregations and elected as general Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, a native of the Netherlands who had long worked in the Middle East. The 34th (1995) authoritatively annotated the original Jesuit constitutions, giving them a set of complementary norms as a current expression of the spirit of the original constitutions. It also situated the mission and ministries of the society, the service of faith and its integrating principle, the justice of the → kingdom of God, in the context of sympathetic engagement with other cultures and dialogue with other Christians, with members of other religious traditions, and with nonbelievers. Along with their attention to external apostolic works, these congregations have shown a renewed and explicit awareness of, and emphasis on, personal interior relationships with God and practices of spiritual discernment.
The first Jesuits to settle permanently in the United States came in 1634 as members of the Roman Catholic colonizers of Maryland, which was intended to be a haven for persecuted English Catholics. Only with the American Revolution, however, did Jesuits in the United States enjoy full religious toleration (→ Tolerance). At the restoration in 1814 there were 20 Jesuits in the United States. In the 19th century a good number came from Europe as missionaries; more important, the United States proved to be an extraordinarily fertile field for Jesuit vocations.
5. Statistics

Jesuit piety and activities have always attracted followers. There were 1,000 members when Ignatius died, and 22,601 at the suppression in 1773. On its restoration the society had 674 members, which rose to 15,073 in 1900, doubled to 30,579 in 1950, and reached its peak—36,038—in 1965.
In 2000 the society had 21,354 members living and working in 127 countries around the world, 8 of them having the presence of only a single Jesuit. Africa was home to 1,295 members (with the largest single contingent—299—in the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Asia and Oceania had 5,493 (India the largest with 3,766 members in 16 provinces), Europe had 7,170 (Spain the largest with 1,808 members), Latin America had 3,308 (Brazil the largest with 814), and North America had 4,088 (3,635 in the United States).
The greatest proportionate growth in number and geographic spread of the Society of Jesus since World War II has been in the → Third World. Between the years 1965 and 2000 the percentage of Jesuits in Africa increased from 1 to 6 percent of the worldwide total. In 2000 Jesuits were active there in 21 countries, including (besides Congo-Kinshasa) Madagascar (233 members) and Zambia (174). For the 38 countries in Asia with a Jesuit presence, the percentage of Jesuit membership doubled during the same period, from 13 percent to 26 percent. After India, the largest Asian provinces were the Philippines (367), Indonesia (305), and Japan (261). In Latin America, where the Society of Jesus began its service in the 16th century, Jesuit membership since 1965 has modestly increased its worldwide proportion from 12 percent to 15 percent of the total. In contrast, the number of Jesuits in Europe decreased during the same 35-year period from 47 percent to 34 percent of the total society membership, and in North America from 27 percent to 19 percent.
6. Current Activities

Several pontifical institutes in Rome are under Jesuit direction: the Gregorian University, the Biblical Institute, the Oriental Institute (→ Orthodox Church), the Vatican Observatory, and Vatican Radio. The society also continues to staff national colleges in Rome, residences for seminarians who are attending ecclesiastical universities.
Presently the activities of the Jesuits range from higher and secondary → education to parish ministry, from research institutes to spiritual centers, from programs of the fine and performing arts to agricultural stations, from justice advocacy to publishing houses. Jesuits publish more than 1,000 periodicals in 50 languages, including America and Theological Studies in the United States, Stimmen der Zeit in Germany, Civiltà cattolica in Italy, Études in France, Razón y fe in Spain, and The Way in England (→ Christian Publishing).
Education is the best known and most widespread work of the Jesuits in the United States, where they sponsor 46 secondary schools and 28 colleges and universities. Georgetown University, founded in 1789, was the first of its institutions of higher education, followed by St. Louis University in 1818 and then by 20 more colleges and universities in the 19th century, with 6 others added in the 20th century. Two national theological centers complete the roster of American Jesuit institutions of higher education. In 2000 these schools, which together had more than a million living alumni, enrolled 183,099 students and conferred 45,201 academic degrees. Other major Jesuit works in the United States include retreat houses and spiritual centers, a large number of parishes, and a great variety of social initiatives committed, especially in urban locations, to the service of the poor and the → marginalized. The 450 members of the two Canadian Jesuit provinces, anglophone and francophone, engage in similar works across that country.
Jesuits in Africa are heavily engaged in the seminary training of the native diocesan clergy, which is also growing rapidly. Jesuit education in general is a major commitment in African and Asian countries, with the most concentrated effort being made in India. There the society has more than 30 university colleges, 5 graduate faculties of theology and philosophy, almost 100 secondary schools, 10 technical/professional schools, and many primary schools connected with parishes. The promotion of justice and commitment to the poor and the marginalized in India has most conspicuously involved assistance to the Dalits.
As in the Third World developing countries, so in Latin America the society is heavily engaged both in educational work and in social action projects. The latter have been undertaken in response to widely perceived structural inadequacies in Latin American political and social circumstances. That involvement has given the society a high and somewhat controversial profile, and at the same time it has encouraged an increase in → vocations since approximately 1970.
→ Religious Orders and Congregations; Spirituality; Theological Education

Bibliography: Documents of the General Congregations: D. R. CAMPION and A. C. LOUAPRE, eds., Documents of the Thirty-third General Congregation of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis, 1984) ∙ J. L. MCCARTHY, ed., Documents of the Thirty-fourth General Congregation of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis, 1995) ∙ J. W. PADBERG, ed., Documents of the Thirty-first and Thirty-second General Congregations of the Society of Jesus: An English Translation of the Official Latin Texts (St. Louis, 1977) ∙ J. W. PADBERG, M. D. O’KEEFE, and J. L. MCCARTHY, For Matters of Greater Moment: The First Thirty Jesuit General Congregations. A Brief History and a Translation of the Decrees (St. Louis, 1994).
Other works: AHSJ ∙ A. DE BACKER and C. SOMMERVOGEL, eds., Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus (11 vols.; Paris, 1890–1932) with Supplément au “de Backer-Sommervogel” (2 vols.; ed. E. Rivière; Toulouse, 1911–30) ∙ W. V. BANGERT, A History of the Society of Jesus (rev. ed.; St. Louis, 1986) ∙ D. L. FLEMING, Draw Me into Your Friendship: The Spiritual Exercises, a Literal Translation and a Contemporary Reading (St. Louis, 1996) ∙ J. DE GUIBERT, The Jesuits: Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice (St. Louis, 1964) ∙ IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis, 1970); idem, A Pilgrim’s Testament: The Memoirs of St. Ignatius of Loyola (St. Louis, 1995); idem, Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works (New York, 1991) ∙ D. LETSON and M. HIGGINS, The Jesuit Mystique (Chicago, 1995) ∙ D. LONSDALE, Eyes to See, Ears to Hear: An Introduction to Ignatian Spirituality (London, 1990) ∙ MHSJ ∙ J. W. O’MALLEY, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, Mass., 1993) ∙ J. W. O’MALLEY, J. W. PADBERG, and V. J. O’KEEFE, Jesuit Spirituality: A Now and Future Resource (Chicago, 1990) ∙ C. O’NEILL and J. DOMÍNGUEZ, eds., Diccionario histórico de la Compañía de Jesús (4 vols.; Rome and Madrid, 2001) ∙ J. W. PADBERG, ed., The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms (St. Louis, 1996) ∙ L. POLGÁR, Bibliographie sur l’histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus, 1901–1980 (3 vols. in 6; Rome, 1981–90) ∙ P. VALLIN, “Jésuites,” DSp 958–1065.
JOHN W. PADBERG, S.J.
Jesus

1. Sources
2. Origins
3. Jesus’ Life
3.1. Public Ministry
3.2. Passion
4. Jesus’ Mission
4.1. Preaching
4.2. Deeds
5. Messianic Self-Understanding
6. Message in the Church
1. Sources

The sources for an account of Jesus, both secular and Christian, are complex.
1.1. Ancient histories contain no direct references. The so-called testimonium Flavianum (Josephus Ant. 18.63–64) refers to Jesus as “a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man.… He was the Messiah.” This passage, however, seems at least to have undergone Christian revision. In his account of the execution of → James, Josephus (Ant. 20.200) identifies James as the brother of Jesus, “the so-called Christ.”
Suetonius (ca. 69-after 122) takes us back furthest. Then comes Tacitus (ca. 55–ca. 120). According to them, during the 40s in → Rome there were disturbances in the → synagogue regarding “Chrestus” (i.e., Christ; Suet. Claud. 25.4), and the fire of Rome led to a → persecution of Christians in A.D. 64 (Tac. Ann. 15.44; see also Suet. Nero 16.2). Whether Nero (54–68) knew that Christians derived their name from the Christ who had been executed under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberias, or whether it was Tacitus who noted this information, we cannot tell.
Most of the rabbinic testimonies are worthless, being polemical and legendary. → Judaism largely avoided any direct naming of Jesus because he was deemed a heretic by the rabbis.
1.2. The earliest Christian sources are Paul’s letters (→ Paul). They contain confessional formulas and statements (Rom. 1:3; 1 Cor. 11:23–25; 15:3–5) that presuppose wider knowledge.
The most important sources are the Gospels (→ Gospel 1). Most scholars think that the Gospels rely in part on older traditional materials, both oral and written. Matthew and Luke seem to share a common sayings tradition. Mark also seems to have had before him a → passion story, though it is arguable where it begins and ends. Mark also seems to have been the first to offer a connected account (ca. A.D. 70). Matthew and Luke followed the same outline; John took an independent course and used material that came from a different stream or streams of tradition.
The depiction in the Gospels is not strictly historical but is much influenced by available traditions. The original tradition seems to have circulated in Aramaic among Jewish members of the Jesus movement in Palestine. In the NT, though, traditions about Jesus appear, except for isolated words, only in Greek. The authors passed down only the material that seemed important to them, and even then only in a form shaped by their own interests. Belief in the identity of the earthly Jesus and the risen Lord promoted further development of the tradition, but the Evangelists still aimed to give a historical account.
The history of Jesus can be deduced only through a critical analysis of the form and content of the individual pieces of tradition. But it is misleading to suggest, as some scholars have, that genuine Jesus material is to be found only in traditions that are distinct from first-century Jewish notions and from later Christian ideas. This so-called criterion of dissimilarity is unreliable (→ Jesus Seminar 3). Stated negatively, the primary concern for the historian is to determine whether a given tradition is unsuitable. Stated positively, the historian’s aim is to demonstrate the coherence of traditions judged on other grounds to be authentic. Although the details of such an analysis are often uncertain, it can still yield positive results. What cannot be changed is the fact that our picture of Jesus is necessarily shaped by the choice of certain traditions.
2. Origins

The ancient tradition begins with the → baptism of Jesus by → John the Baptist (see also Acts 1:22; 10:37–38; 13:23–25; John 1:29–34). Although the traditions about the birth and infancy in Matthew and Luke do not supply information that rigorous analysis would find historical, they nonetheless do provide information about Jesus’ origin and early life. He was brought up in Nazareth of Galilee (Mark 1:9; 6:3; John 1:45; 7:41–42), apparently in a family conscious of Jewish tradition (he and his brothers had biblical names, Mark 6:3). → David was allegedly his ancestor (Rom. 1:3; Eusebius Hist. eccl. 3.19–20). The year of his birth is not known for certain. He was about 30 years old when he began his ministry (Luke 3:23). His father was a carpenter, and he may have been one as well (Mark 6:3; Matt. 13:55).
Jesus’ geographic and social background possibly gave him a certain breadth of outlook, but it was of no particular importance. He may have come under Pharisaic influence (→ Pharisees). The style of his preaching and disputing gives evidence of some theological training. He may have mastered Hebrew but usually spoke Aramaic. It is difficult to determine the extent to which he was literate. He left no written remains, but the Gospels portray him as very adroit in his appropriation of the Hebrew Bible.
Jesus was baptized by John. Jesus may have regarded his baptism as the sign and place of his calling, though in a way that we cannot determine in detail. It was undoubtedly of decisive importance, since the whole Christian tradition understood it as the beginning of his public ministry.
Jesus’ message was closely akin to that of the Baptist. Its core was the urgent proximity of the → kingdom of God and an ensuing call for repentance (Mark 1:14–15 and par.). Along the lines of early Jewish → eschatology, his message took up that of the prophets. The Baptist had made this connection clear with his manner of life (Mark 1:6; Matt. 11:18). Judgment was accordingly John’s predominant theme, though with individual application in distinction from the → Prophets. In this regard, as also in lifestyle, Jesus differed fundamentally from the Baptist. At least some of his disciples may have been former disciples of John (John 1:35–40). The kinship with John was obvious to outsiders (Mark 2:18; 6:14–16), and Jesus himself bore witness to it (Matt. 11:18–19; Mark 11:29–30; also Matt. 21:32).
Jesus clearly regarded John as a prophet. How John regarded Jesus is harder to tell. The fact that a Baptist community existed alongside the church for a time (e.g., Acts 19:1–7) might suggest that John did not fully acknowledge him. The question of Jesus’ mission obviously occupied John in prison (Matt. 11:2–6 and par.). The public emergence of Jesus and John’s imprisonment were close together in time (Mark 6:17, 14, 16). Mark 1:14 sees the relation in terms of salvation history, whereas John 3:22–30 stresses the function of John as an eyewitness.
3. Jesus’ Life
3.1. Public Ministry

Galilee was the center of Jesus’ ministry, → Jerusalem the place of the crucifixion. Mark focuses on the ministry in Galilee and surrounding areas to the north and east, the only mention of Jerusalem being in relation to Jesus’ trip to celebrate → Passover and his ensuing passion there. The → Synoptic gospels give the impression that Jesus’ ministry lasted only a year.
The fourth gospel, however, depicts Jesus’ ministry taking place both in Jerusalem and in Galilee, which must have lasted two to four years, according to the feasts mentioned. Galilee around Lake Gennesaret and Capernaum was doubtless the center of his work, and his disciples were Galileans (Mark 14:70; John 7:52; Acts 1:11). Yet a longer ministry is far more likely, and the rich Jerusalem traditions in John could hardly fit into the shorter span suggested by Mark. Dovetailing the accounts into a detailed itinerary, however, is hardly possible, nor is the portrayal of any inner development.
3.2. Passion

Although the passion is the best-attested part of the story, considerable problems remain. A question arises whether the Friday crucifixion was on the 14th of Nisan (John) or the 15th (Synoptics). The account in John is probably secondary and has probably been influenced by John’s understanding of Jesus as the true Passover Lamb (John 1:29; 19:36). The exact year is also debatable, but A.D. 30 or 31 is likely. The total ministry of Jesus was the ground of the complaint. This situation complicated prosecution by the Romans, but Jewish circles sharply opposed him. The tetrarch of Galilee, → Herod Antipas, was disturbed by his ministry (Mark 6:14–16; Luke 13:31).
At first the Pharisees were not opponents, and the Gospels’ portrayal of them as such contains a fair amount of (anachronistic) inaccuracy (see Luke 7:36; 13:31a). The Pharisees were linked to Jesus by concentration on a life under God’s eschatological will embracing all → Israel. Conflict arose over definition of this will. For the Pharisees it meant → sanctification in terms of the → Torah (→ Law); for Jesus it meant trust and devotion (to the fulfillment of Scripture).
The messianic claim of Jesus was the main thing that separated him from the Jewish groups of his day. This claim inevitably challenged those who were responsible for the Torah, and it could also have unsettled the Romans. The entry into Jerusalem had a marked impact, and the cleansing of the temple might well have been the decisive factor. The opportunity came with the offer of Judas to locate and identify Jesus. If it was desired to eliminate him as a deceiver of the people, crucifixion on a feast day was very appropriate. Jewish leaders handed him over to Pilate, who condemned and executed him. Whether there was a formal hearing before the Sanhedrin or, more likely, only a kind of preliminary investigation is not wholly clear. An important point for the Jewish authorities was the saying about the destroying and eschatological rebuilding of the temple (Mark 14:58; John 2:19; Acts 6:14).
As the inscription on the → cross shows (Mark 15:26; John 19:19), Pilate executed Jesus as a political rebel, indicating Roman concerns for violent upheaval and revolt. No doubt Pilate did not take Jesus seriously theologically, but he was more than willing to meet the demands of the Jewish leaders. Not surprisingly, he did not hunt down the followers of Jesus. As expected, they had left Jesus in the lurch (Mark 14:50), many of them returning disillusioned to Galilee (see Deut. 21:23; 17:13 [t. Sanh. 11:7]).
Nevertheless, a following quickly reassembled, convinced by Christophanies that Jesus had risen from the dead and received the life of the coming kingdom of God (→ Resurrection). This experience led to a new understanding of his end and ministry, and it was in this light that the story was remembered and transmitted.
4. Jesus’ Mission
4.1. Preaching

The preaching of Jesus was shaped by the nearness of the kingdom of God, a notion that makes the present a time of urgent decision (→ Apocalypticism 3.2). Mark 1:15, although secondary, offers a good summary of the message. In the kingdom of God it is God himself who acts.
Jesus preferred to describe God’s reality in → parables. In this way he made God immediately perceptible without making him an object. Judaism expounded the Torah in parables; Jesus set forth God himself in parables (Mark 1:22). The God whom Jesus proclaimed is the God who wills our → salvation. He is like the man who invites people to a feast (Matt. 22:1–14), the father who joyfully welcomes back the son who has gone astray (Luke 15:11–32), and the master who pays full wages to all who work for him (Matt. 20:1–16). He is the God who will as surely complete his work as leaven will leaven the whole lump (Matt. 13:33 and par.), as the tiny seed will produce a great plant (Matt. 13:31–32 and par.), and as the seed will bear fruit (Mark 4:26–29). We must accept the invitation, or the divine offer, and return to God. The kingdom of God is → life (Mark 9:43–45), to which Jesus calls us.
The God who through Jesus will bring salvation to the world in the last time demands unconditional commitment. This God of whom Jesus spoke is the God of Israel, who through → Moses made his will authoritatively known. Jesus summoned people to do God’s will totally (Matt. 5:17, an essentially authentic passage). As Jesus intended them, the antitheses of the → Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:21–48) do not annul the law but give the law its true function. In the teaching of Jesus, people must be ready for unconditional commitment to God, which includes love of one’s → neighbor. The climax of the Torah is the twofold commandment of → love (Mark 12:28–34). A test of personal salvation is the giving or withholding of compassion (Matt. 25:31–46).
Unconditional dedication to God leads to unconditional salvation, for salvation is the sole will of God. In keeping with one strand in the Hebrew prophets, Jesus set the cult below commitment to God and neighbor (see Matt. 5:23–24; Luke 10:30–37; Matt. 9:13; 12:7). He promised salvation especially to “tax gatherers and sinners.” This schematic phrase denotes those who by choice or due to circumstances were outside the religiosocial community in Judaism and hence had no → hope of salvation. God would accept them, as he would accept followers of the Torah who did not base their life on legal observance but on God’s turning to the world (→ Kerygma).
4.2. Deeds

The work of Jesus consisted of acts as well as preaching. As the word expounds the act, so the act is the basis of the word. The promise of salvation corresponds to the fellowship that Jesus depicted by common meals. In this elementary gesture he turned especially to those not integrated into society in the usual way.
His → miracles in particular gave striking expression to his saving action. There can be no doubt that he did things that those around him regarded as miracles, even though individual accounts may be secondary (see Mark 3:22; Matt. 11:4–5; 12:28). The reply to the question of the Baptist in Matt. 11:3–6 shows the intended purpose of miracles: in them Jesus was fulfilling prophetic promises of the final age of salvation. Those who had been excluded from the religious or social community on physical grounds were made whole and reintegrated into the life of the people. He enacted what he proclaimed. He accepted outcasts. Some of the saving acts of Jesus took place on the → Sabbath, perhaps for the sake of demonstration.
Jesus expressed the purpose and significance of his mission by other symbolic acts as well. From among his followers he chose the → Twelve as representatives of the restored Israel, the end-time people of God (see Matt. 19:28). He also sent them out as his messengers to prepare the land of Israel symbolically for the coming of the end (Mark 6:7–13; Matt. 10:5–15).
Finally, he invaded the → temple precincts in a public act. He banished commercial dealings from the → sanctuary and thus achieved proleptically the eschatological purity of the place of worship. (Other interpreters have understood the act as his symbolically destroying the temple to make way for a new, eschatological temple made by God.)
5. Messianic Self-Understanding

The work of Jesus reflects a special sense of mission. As in the case of the Baptist, the prophetic elements in Jesus’ ministry are unmistakable. But in the antitheses and in the relating of the parables to his own work there emerges a self-understanding that must be called messianic (→ Messianism).
According to the Gospels the term he most used was “Son of Man” (→ Christological Titles 2). This term occurs in all layers of the Jesus tradition, but in the NT it is restricted almost exclusively to his own sayings and is not used in early confessions. Scholars have long debated whether the Son of Man sayings go back to Jesus or are the product of early Christian reflection or at least development of the sayings tradition. But many of them probably do reflect his messianic self-understanding. The saying about confessing or denying Jesus and the corresponding action of the Son of Man at his coming (Mark 8:38; Luke 12:8–9) presuppose functional identity between Jesus and the Son of Man. Jesus evidently expected exaltation as Son of Man and believed that even in his public ministry he represented the coming Son of Man. Being God’s representative in the world, he would be so in the coming world as well. This understanding explains the juxtaposition in the Gospels of statements attributed to Jesus that stress the urgently imminent future of salvation and those that emphasize its presence in his present work (e.g., Luke 11:20).
Many sayings relate the Son of Man to → suffering (Mark 9:31; Luke 17:24–25; see also John 3:14; 12:34). The Son of Man title also plays a role in the passion narratives (Mark 14:21, 62). Jesus possibly expected to be exalted as the Son of Man through suffering. He almost certainly had to reckon with the prospect of his own suffering and → death. This possibility became more of a certainty in his last days and hours (see already Luke 13:31–33). For this reason he linked the distributed bread and cup to his approaching death. He understood the elements to represent the life that he was about to offer up for many (→ Eucharist 2). In keeping is the saying that the Son of Man will give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Jesus regarded his approaching death as a final offering for a world that would not respond to the urgent summons of God made through him.
6. Message in the Church

The limitations of all historical writing affect the literary depiction of Jesus in the Gospels as well. This depiction seeks to understand him, but understanding is itself a historical process that links those who understand to the one they understand (→ Hermeneutics). The → primitive Christian community necessarily related its faith in the risen Lord to Jesus, who thereby became identified as the risen Lord. Christians today also understand Jesus only within their own historical horizons.
The name “Jesus Christ” proclaims the significance of Jesus for faith. God’s action in Christ is set forth in the history of Jesus. The history of Jesus is essentially grasped when it is seen as God’s action in Christ. The question of the continuity between Jesus and the developing → church arises in this regard. It exists when the church knows that in the historical development of its faith and life, it is being shaped by the → God who has definitively revealed himself in the Christ-history of Jesus (→ Christology 1). Jesus understood himself as God’s last and authoritative messenger. He put not merely his word but his person, including his end, in this service. Accordingly, the messenger had to become the message.
→ Agrapha; Discipleship; Golden Rule; Incarnation; New Testament Era, History of; Parousia; Peter; Q; Sadducees; Scribes; Zealots

Bibliography: D. ALLISON, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis, 1998) ∙ M. BORG, Jesus: A New Vision (San Francisco, 1987) ∙ G. BORNKAMM, Jesus of Nazareth (Minneapolis, 1995; orig. pub., 1956) ∙ R. E. BROWN, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (New York, 1993); idem, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave. A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels (New York, 1994) ∙ R. BULTMANN, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (rev. ed.; New York, 1976); idem, Jesus and the Word (New York, 1989; orig. pub., 1926); idem, Theology of the NT (2 vols.; New York, 1951–55) ∙ B. CHILTON and C. A. EVANS, eds., Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the Current State of Research (Leiden, 1994) ∙ J. D. CROSSAN, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco, 1992) ∙ G. W. DAWES, ed., The Historical Jesus Quest: Landmarks in the Search for the Jesus of History (Louisville, Ky., 2000) ∙ M. DIBELIUS, Jesus (Philadelphia, 1949; orig. pub., 1939) ∙ B. D. EHRMAN, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (New York, 1999) ∙ P. FREDRIKSEN, From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the NT Images of Jesus (New Haven, 1988); eadem, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews (New York, 1999) ∙ J. P. MEIER, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (3 vols.; New York, 1991–2001) ∙ N. PERRIN, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (New York, 1967) ∙ E. P. SANDERS, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London, 1993); idem, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia, 1985) ∙ A. SCHWEITZER, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede (New York, 1968; orig. pub., 1906) ∙ G. VERMES, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospel (London, 1973) ∙ N. T. WRIGHT, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis, 1996).
TRAUGOTT HOLTZ
Jesus People

1. Origins
2. Characteristics
3. Growth and Decline
4. Implications
1. Origins

The Jesus People were theologically conservative → youth in the United States who emerged as a group distinct from the hippie → counterculture during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Initially the product of attempts by a few evangelical pastors and youth workers to evangelize hippies, the movement spread and began to attract a following among church youth. After a period of intense media publicity, the movement’s style and jargon were widely adopted by evangelical young people across the nation, who used the Jesus People as a basis to create a parallel evangelical version of the larger youth culture.
The beginnings of the Jesus People movement can be traced to the San Francisco Bay area, where in 1965 a group of young bohemian converts began to gather within John MacDonald’s First Baptist Church in Mill Valley, California. As thousands of seekers and troubled youth descended upon San Francisco during 1967’s “Summer of Love,” the Mill Valley group persuaded MacDonald of the physical and spiritual needs of the growing hippie population. MacDonald in turn appealed to several Bay Area Baptist leaders, who provided funds for the group to establish the Living Room Coffeehouse in the middle of the Haight-Ashbury district. At about the same time Kent Philpott, a young seminarian at the Southern Baptist’s Golden Gate Seminary, opened the Soul Inn Coffeehouse in the basement of the Lincoln Park Baptist Church to feed and shelter hippie youth. Together, the two establishments made contact with thousands of young people before they closed in late 1968.
While San Francisco was the home of the movement’s first stirrings, its early stronghold was farther to the south in and around the Los Angeles area. There, on the Sunset Strip, the His Place of Southern Baptist youth worker Arthur Blessitt achieved considerable success working with drug addicts and runaways (→ Substance Abuse). Meanwhile Don Williams, First Presbyterian of Hollywood’s youth pastor, had begun the Salt Company Coffeehouse, which attracted high school age youth interested in the counterculture. Most successful of all was Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, where Pastor Chuck Smith led his small congregation in reaching out to the local hippie population. Smith oversaw the establishment of a string of communal houses and allowed folk and mild rock music styles into the churches’ worship services and Bible studies; by 1969 the church was bursting at the seams. While these most successful examples of the nascent movement had direct ties to the evangelical mainstream (→ Evangelical Movement), other very visible groups that emerged in the Los Angeles area, such as Moses David Berg’s radically separatist Teens for Christ (later, the → Children of God) and Tony and Susan Alamo’s ultrafundamentalist Alamo Foundation, represented a cultic, authoritarian underside of the Jesus People (→ Fundamentalism).
By 1969 and 1970 the movement was in evidence outside southern California. The Christian World Liberation Front (CWLF) had been established in the radical hotbed of Berkeley. The Shiloh network of communes maintained a number of communal houses and farms in and around Portland, Oregon. In Washington State Linda Meissner’s Jesus People Army had established a number of communal houses and coffeehouses throughout the state, as well as a branch in Vancouver, British Columbia. Elsewhere, Jesus People communes, coffeehouses, and fellowships sprang up in a number of places across North America, including Kansas City, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Toronto, Buffalo, rural upstate New York, Norfolk, and Atlanta.
2. Characteristics

Although the combination of counterculture and evangelical religion that produced the Jesus People was utterly unexpected, the two subcultures manifested a number of affinities. First, the exuberant style of Pentecostal worship (→ Pentecostal Churches) was attractive to hippies, who tended to be interested in the mystical (→ Mysticism) and who valued spontaneity and emotional openness. Second, the black and white churches of the South were the musical roots of the rock music that played such a central role within the counterculture. Third, the evangelical emphasis on the end times—particularly as characterized in this period by the popularity of books like Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth (1970)—mirrored hippie perceptions of the → apocalyptic direction of modern America. Fourth, evangelicalism’s traditional associations with rural America, its primitivist tendencies, and its outsider status fitted nicely with countercultural sensibilities and nostalgia for simpler times. Finally, evangelical views about → sin and the need for → salvation seemed convincing as dreams of a hippie utopia unraveled amid evidence of the physical, psychological, and social pathologies of permissive sex and drug use.
Because of the unorganized nature of the overall movement, local circumstances and personalities played important roles in shaping the nature and direction of various Jesus People groups. Nonetheless, there was a general pervading ethos that characterized the larger movement. True to their countercultural roots, beards for men, long hair for both sexes, and hippie fashions were the defining couture of the Jesus People. Their → worship services were emotional and often characterized by the display of the Pentecostal gifts of the Spirit (→ Charisma 1). Most of the movement maintained a general distrust of the religious establishment, which could mean anything from a disapproval of “cold” nonevangelical congregations to viewing all established churches with disdain (as was the case with the Children of God). They venerated the Bible, devoting hours to reading, memorizing, and “rapping” about its meaning. For the most part the Jesus People were very literalistic in their understanding of the Scriptures (→ Exegesis, Biblical), which fed their penchant for the apocalyptic. This factor also contributed to a vital emphasis on → evangelism.
While the Jesus People commune was perhaps the purest distillation of the movement, its predominant institution was the coffeehouse, which served as gathering place, evangelistic center, and communication point for groups in different locales. One of the strongest factors binding together the sprawling movement was its adaptive use of popular culture. Jewelry, posters, buttons, and bumper stickers emblazoned with slogans and symbols provided a visible means of self-identification. Underground “Jesus papers” such as the Hollywood Free Paper and the CWLF’s Right On! enjoyed regional and, at times, national circulation within the movement. Most important, however, was “Jesus music,” a hybrid of folk, pop, country, gospel, and rock styles that served as an omnipresent vehicle for worship, evangelism, and entertainment. Through exposure on the coffeehouse circuit and through a growing number of regional “Jesus festivals,” a market arose for recordings by popular Jesus music singers and bands.
3. Growth and Decline

The year 1971 marked a floodtide of publicity as the Jesus People were “discovered” by America’s leading periodicals and broadcast networks. Much of this coverage was undoubtedly triggered by the controversy that swirled around the November 1970 release of the British rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. Certainly, the cultural dissonance of the combination of hippie music and fashions with the “old-time religion” also played a role in its becoming a major story. Perhaps even more important, the Jesus People made for an upbeat, reassuring “youth angle” after several years of stories about rioting youth, draft dodgers, drug use, and the sexual revolution. Coverage in the secular press triggered an outpouring of interest in the religious press as well, particularly within evangelical circles, where the Jesus People were looked upon as evidence of the enduring cultural relevance of Christianity and as a harbinger of a coming national → revival.
With media exposure (→ Mass Media) the Jesus People movement exploded across North America during 1971 and 1972, fueled by a torrent of evangelical youth eager to identify with the movement. Existing groups like the Shiloh communities and the Children of God attracted numerous recruits, while hundreds of new communes, fellowships, and coffeehouses sprang up. Just as important, Jesus People themes, music, and jargon were incorporated into the existing youth programs of churches, high school-based groups like Campus Life, and successful youth evangelism programs such as the Spiritual Revolution Now campaigns among Southern Baptist young people in the southwestern United States (→ Youth Work).
The high-water mark of the Jesus People movement came in June 1972 with Campus Crusade for Christ’s EXPLO ’72 in Dallas, Texas. The weeklong event, which attracted 80,000 young people, was both a convincing demonstration of the Jesus movement’s strength and its absorption by mainstream evangelicalism. Following EXPLO, however, the secular press paid little attention to the movement, and by mid-1973 it had become old news in the religious press as well.
Despite this lack of publicity, the Jesus People movement held forth at the grassroots level well into the late 1970s. That it finally began to fade partly reflected the fact that its adherents were growing older and making life decisions that took them away from an active role in the movement. Probably an even more significant factor, however, was the changing direction of the youth culture. As the counterculture receded and new musical styles and the subcultures that surrounded them grew in popularity, the style of the hippie-based Jesus People was increasingly out of step with the times. The up-and-coming cohort of evangelical youth, attracted to new music, clothing, and hairstyles, sought new ways to relate to a rapidly fragmenting set of youth cultures.
4. Implications

Although the Jesus People movement lasted only about a decade, its influence upon the larger evangelical subculture was profound. Thousands of movement converts entered seminary or moved into positions in various evangelical parachurch ministries, and tens of thousands more blended into local congregational life and ministry. A number of parachurch organizations (e.g., Jews for Jesus), the multimillion-dollar contemporary Christian music industry, and some of America’s fastest-growing denominations of the late 20th century (including Calvary Chapel, Hope Church, and the → Vineyard) trace their roots directly back to the Jesus People. On a more general level, the informality of the Jesus movement’s music and worship altered the practices of nearly all evangelical churches. It also paved the way for the “seeker-friendly” phenomenon as embodied in congregations such as Willow Creek Community Church of South Barrington, Illinois.
Clearly, however, the most important result of the Jesus People movement was its direct impact upon the evangelical youth scene. The Jesus People served as a bridge back to the American mainstream for many of the countercultural youth who joined the movement during the 1960s and 1970s. For the evangelical youth caught up in its enthusiasm, it provided a way to negotiate the boundaries between family religious loyalties and their peer group. As such, the Jesus People persona provided a means by which youth could maintain their religious identity during adolescence. Overall, evangelicalism’s adaptation of the Jesus People movement was the culmination of a trend (traceable back to the Youth for Christ movement of the 1940s) that gradually accepted the validity of an evangelical equivalent to the larger, overarching youth culture.

Bibliography: D. DISABATINO, The Jesus People Movement: An Annotated Bibliography and General Resource (Westport, Conn., 1999) ∙ R. S. ELLWOOD, One Way: The Jesus People Movement and Its Meaning (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1973) ∙ R. M. ENROTH, E. E. ERICKSON, and C. B. PETERS, The Jesus People: Old-Time Religion in the Age of Aquarius (Grand Rapids, 1972) ∙ L. ESKRIDGE, “ ‘One Way’: Billy Graham, the Jesus Generation, and the Idea of an Evangelical Youth Culture,” CH 67 (1998) 83–106 ∙ G. D. KITTLER, The Jesus Kids and Their Leaders (New York, 1972) ∙ C. MCDANNELL, Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America (New Haven, 1996) esp. chap. 8, “Christian Retailing” ∙ D. E. MILLER, Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium (Berkeley, Calif., 1997) ∙ J. T. RICHARDSON, M. W. STEWART, and R. B. SIMMONDS, Organized Miracles: A Study of a Contemporary, Youth, Communal, Fundamentalist Organization (New Brunswick, N.J., 1979) ∙ C. SMITH, with H. STEVEN, The Reproducers: New Life for Thousands (Glendale, Calif., 1972).
LARRY ESKRIDGE
Jesus Seminar

1. Founding
2. Results
2.1. Jesus’ Sayings
2.2. Jesus’ Deeds
3. Evaluation
4. Significance

The Jesus Seminar is a consultation of historical scholars that meets regularly in America. They are best known for a project undertaken from 1985 to 1996, when they considered the historical authenticity of sayings and deeds attributed to → Jesus in all documents before A.D. 300. They published their findings in two major works, The Five Gospels (1993) and The Acts of Jesus (1998). The work was controversial in that it challenged or denied the historicity of many biblical traditions, and the ensuing scandal was heightened by the group’s facility at attracting attention in the popular realm. Through frequent interaction with print and television media (→ Mass Media), the Jesus Seminar brought the quest for the historical Jesus into the homes of average Americans, and its work was discussed in congregational and civic settings that bypassed the usual conventions of academia.
1. Founding

The Jesus Seminar was founded by Robert W. Funk and officially sponsored by the Westar Institute, a California-based nonprofit educational foundation directed by Funk. The latter, a scholar of international renown and author of several books on the literary interpretation of the Gospels, was for a time executive director of the Society of Biblical Literature. John Dominic Crossan, also a widely published and highly regarded scholar, served as cochair of the seminar.
Membership was open to all persons with academic credentials and a willingness to suspend personal religious convictions in order to consider matters on the basis of historical evidence alone. The group met twice a year, with 30–40 scholars in attendance at each session. Over 200 persons were associated with the group at one point or another, with 74 signing the roster for The Five Gospels, and 79 for The Acts of Jesus.
2. Results
2.1. Jesus’ Sayings

In the first phase of its work, the seminar reviewed a database of sayings attributed to Jesus in various sources. After circulating papers and hearing arguments regarding the authenticity of each saying or group of sayings, members voted on the degree of authenticity they thought could be attributed to the material. Such votes were color-coded: red indicated a high likelihood of authenticity, black a low likelihood, with pink and gray showing relative degrees of moderate uncertainty. The results were tabulated in The Five Gospels, which printed the texts of the four canonical gospels and that of the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas (→ Nag Hammadi) with the words of Jesus printed in red, pink, gray, or black as indicated by weighted averages of the seminar’s voting. In the seminar’s findings, the Gospel of Mark contained only 1 red saying and 234 black ones. John contained no red sayings (and only 1 pink), with 134 black. Matthew and Luke, with 11 and 14 red sayings, respectively, fared only slightly better.
The results were thus overwhelmingly negative. Most of the sayings deemed authentic, furthermore, were generic moral or philosophical observations that were not particularly religious (e.g., Matt. 5:39–42; Mark 12:17; Luke 10:30–35). Most of the red and pink sayings are in fact ones believed to derive from the → Q source used by Matthew and Luke in composition of their gospels. Well-known Bible verses classified as black sayings include Jesus’ words regarding the salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13), bearing the cross (Mark 8:34), and being born again (John 3:3). All seven of Jesus’ words from the cross are regarded as inauthentic (Mark 15:34; Luke 23:34, 43, 46; John 19:26–30), as are most of his sayings about himself, including both his claim to be the Messiah (Mark 14:62) and his assertion about being “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). All sayings in which Jesus spoke of the end of the world or a final judgment are black. Monologues by Jesus to which there could have been no witnesses are considered to be counterfeit, as are all verses in which Jesus expresses foreknowledge of events after his death. By contrast, three sayings in the Gospel of Thomas were accorded red status, including two parables of Jesus not found in the canonical texts.
2.2. Jesus’ Deeds

The seminar next considered deeds attributed to Jesus, with similar results. Out of 176 reported events, the seminar selected only a handful that could be deemed probably or even possibly authentic. The seminar affirmed that Jesus was baptized by → John and became an itinerant teacher in Galilee, proclaiming the → kingdom of God and conducting a ministry that involved curing sick people and → exorcizing those who thought they were demon possessed. He also consorted with social outcasts, told parables, and inspired hostility in some who thought he was mad or an agent of Beelzebub. He was crucified during the prefecture of Pontius Pilate. The seminar soundly rejected, however, the historicity of Jesus’ birth to a virgin, the notion that he worked miracles other than possibly psychosomatic healings, and the claim that his body came back to life after he was put to death.
The portrait of Jesus that emerged from these studies was that of a secular folk hero who was not given to making theological statements about God. He styled himself not as a prophet but as a popular social critic, ridiculing what he considered to be the empty values of his society. Favorite targets of his wit were reliance on wealth, uncritical respect for blood relatives, and the pomposity of religion. He put forward no program of his own beyond what he regarded as commonsense observations about life. Thus, he encouraged communal sharing, radical compassion, and inclusive hospitality. Jesus described the kingdom of God as a present reality, visible in an egalitarian community life in which he called all people to participate.
Journalists found the image of scholars “blackballing Jesus” to be irresistible, and for over a decade the group’s findings were regularly reported in newspapers with sensationalist headlines (e.g., “Scholars Determine Jesus Did Not Teach the Lord’s Prayer”). Every major newsmagazine in America did at least one cover story on the Jesus Seminar during the 1990s, and members of the group were frequently featured on television programs. Funk himself argued for a “new reformation” in Christianity that would reject a “creedalism” built around nonhistorical supernatural events (esp. the virgin birth, miracles, and the resurrection). He encouraged Christians to practice the inclusivity and reciprocal forgiveness that Jesus favored, while rejecting most of the historic doctrines that churches have taught concerning Jesus.
3. Evaluation

Evaluation of the Jesus Seminar has often been emotional. Luke Timothy Johnson (Emory University), for example, attacks it in The Real Jesus. Howard Clark Kee (Boston University) called the group “an academic disgrace,” and Richard Hays (Duke University) accused the seminar of “reprehensible deception” for presenting conjectural ideas to the public as though they were assured results of scholarship. More pointed criticisms have focused on methods of research, the credibility of the group’s findings, and on how its results are to be interpreted.
A related critique, probably the single greatest objection to the seminar’s published work, is that it reports as historically inauthentic what is in fact only unverifiable: proving that there is no historical evidence to substantiate the claim that Jesus was born of a virgin, for example, is not equivalent to establishing that it did not happen (→ Historiography). The Jesus Seminar, in the mind of many observers, moves too quickly from the one claim to the other.
Methodologically, many critics charge that the seminar gave too much weight to the criterion of dissimilarity, which holds that reported items about Jesus are more likely to be authentic when they present him in ways that differ from what was commonplace for Palestinian Judaism, as well as from what became normative for early Christianity. When such a criterion is pushed too far, it can prejudice inclusion of data that would present Jesus as the necessary link between Palestinian Judaism and the → early church (→ Jewish Christians), predetermining a portrait of a generic figure who is not very Jewish and who has little in common with his followers.
In broader terms, the question has been raised whether individual traditions can legitimately be evaluated in piecemeal fashion apart from an overall hypothesis. The assumption implied by such a question is that the seminar members must have had some such vision (e.g., → secularization) that guided them in their deliberations and predetermined the results. Likewise, the group’s supposed neutrality has been challenged, insofar as “lack of commitment to a faith perspective” can be construed as constituting an → ideological orientation in its own right.
Some of the seminar’s findings were received—at least initially—as implausible. The Jesus Seminar maintains that Jesus had no recognizable → eschatological vision, and thus members generally take all material that presents him as speaking in → apocalyptic language about the future (e.g., the fate of Israel, the final judgment, or the imminent end of the age) to be inauthentic. Is this conclusion really credible, some ask, when both John the Baptist, Jesus’ mentor, and the apostolic community of his followers, including → Paul, clearly entertained notions along these lines?
Furthermore, some wonder, if Jesus was basically just a witty spouter of aphorisms who befriended peasants and reached out to the → marginalized, why would he have been regarded as dangerous? Unless he was thought to be some kind of prophet, even a → messiah, why would powerful authorities unite in seeking his execution? The seminar’s response to the latter point is to deny that there was any focused attempt to eliminate him. Contrary to the biblical accounts, Jesus was allegedly caught up in some cavalier pogrom of potential troublemakers. If perhaps he staged some kind of symbolic demonstration in the temple court during the Passover feast, he might have caught the attention of the Romans, who did not distinguish between social critics and political revolutionaries, and simply been executed without trial.
Such a construal of Jesus’ death, however, requires that the → passion narratives of the Gospels be regarded as almost totally fictive, which illustrates another hurdle the seminar has encountered in convincing people of their minimalist conclusions. At least the first three gospels were written within two decades of the deaths of people who knew Jesus well and who died as a result of their loyalty to him (→ Synoptics). Within such a short span of time, and given such intense commitment, is it really likely that those responsible for these gospels would have gotten so much so wrong so quickly?
Finally, even those who do accept the Jesus Seminar’s findings differ somewhat in their interpretation of the research. Marcus Borg, a prominent member of the seminar, has indicated that the large amount of “gray” material should not be deemed “probably inauthentic” but, rather, “inconclusive.” Often, says Borg, pink and black votes would cancel each other out, so that material deemed gray was that over which there had been sharp division.
4. Significance

Although it has had minimal impact in the rest of the world, the Jesus Seminar was enormously influential on late-20th-century NT scholarship in the United States. Several persons associated with the seminar have continued to be influential participants in Jesus studies, including Funk, Crossan, Borg, Kathleen Corley, Gerd Lüdemann, and Stephen J. Patterson. Other scholars—including Dale Allison and N. T. Wright—have articulated their views in conscious distinction to those of the Jesus Seminar, reflecting in a negative way the range and impact of the group’s work. By the turn of the 21st century the Jesus Seminar had become a force to be reckoned with in historical Jesus studies (at least in its homeland); whether building on its claims or discounting them, no Jesus scholar could afford to ignore them.
→ Liberal Theology; Literature, Biblical and Early Christian, 2; New Testament Era, History of; Sociohistorical Exegesis

Bibliography: M. J. BORG, Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (Valley Forge, Pa., 1994) ∙ R. W. FUNK, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium (San Francisco, 1996) ∙ R. W. FUNK, R. W. HOOVER, and the JESUS SEMINAR, eds., The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York, 1993) ∙ R. W. FUNK and the JESUS SEMINAR, eds., The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (San Francisco, 1998) ∙ L. T. JOHNSON, The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (San Francisco, 1996) ∙ R. J. MILLER, The Jesus Seminar and Its Critics (Sonoma, Calif., 1999) ∙ M. A. POWELL, Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee (Louisville, Ky., 1998) ∙ M. J. WILKINS and J. P. MORELAND, eds., Jesus under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus (Grand Rapids, 1995).
MARK ALLAN POWELL
Hofmeister, H., Eduard. (1999–2003). Freedom. In The encyclopedia of Christianity (Bd. 2–3, S. 354–33). Grand Rapids, MI; Leiden, Netherlands: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Brill.

Published: January 7, 2015, 13:57 | Comments Off on The Encyclopedia oif Christianity, Vol. 1-3; part IV, by Erzbischof Uwe AE. Rosenkranz
Category: Encyclopedia of Christianity

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