The year 2013 welcomes a major anniversary: 450 years of the Heidelberg Catechism. This Protestant confessional was written in Heidelberg in 1563 on behalf of Frederick III, Elector Palatine, and spread over the world when it was approved on the Synod of Dort in 1619. Since then, the Heidelberg Catechism has shaped the spiritual and political life and became a symbol of change and departure from the old in Europe, America, and Asia. To this day, the Heidelberg Catechism is one of the most influential catechisms of the Reformed Church and is in everyday use by more than 20 million people worldwide. The Palatinate Museum Heidelberg (KMH), State Palaces and Gardens Baden-Wurttemberg (SSG), the foundation Refo500, and the Johannes A Lasco Library (JALB) will celebrate the anniversary of the Heidelberg Catechism together with several events. The heart of the activities is a joint exhibition presented by KMH and SSG in two locations in Heidelberg, an exhibition at Palace Het Loo in Apeldoorn, as well as this companion to the exhibition that is realized by Refo500. In addition, the Johannes A Lasco Library supported this project with a conference in March 2011; the conference papers are also included. In this volume, well-known specialists in the field present how the Heidelberg Catechism spread and influenced culture, education, and ecclesiastical life. Together with over 700 photographs depicting objects in the exhibition, as well as illustrating the contributions, Power of Faith: 450 Years of the Heidelberg Catechism is an incomparable testament to the history of the Heidelberg Catechism, as well as its continued use today - a fitting tribute to this important anniversary.

Katalin Peter offers is a vigorous and stimulating reassessment of the history of the Protestant Reformation in Hungary. The Reformation has traditionally been explained in terms of theology, the corruption of the church, and the roles of princes. Katalin Peter shifts the context of study of the Reformation in Hungary to a bottom-up examination of the social dynamics of religious change, producing a lively narrative of the experiences and reactions of contemporary actors -- including rural town and village communities, local priests and landlords -- to evangelical ideas. Through a close reading of church visitation records, common men and women emerge on the pages of the book both as the agents of religious change and as the defenders of the old faith, while local priests, as Peter, had to adapt to lay demands. A comparative analysis of the position and actions of landlords as church patrons in all three parts of contemporary Hungary -- the kingdom under Habsburg rule, the Ottoman-vassal Principality of Transylvania, and Ottoman Hungary -- leads to the conclusion that patrons did not interfere in local religious change, since this change did not interfere with the distribution of power. In addition to this radically new narrative of the social dynamics of the early Reformation in Hungary, Peter engages in the long-standing debates concerning the roles of the Protestant Reformation in intellectual culture, and she illuminates the scopes and limits of the confessional cultures that emerged in its wake. The book brings together a coherent body of work that began to be published in the 1990s and until now has only been available in Hungarian.

Who was Jacob Latomus? What did he write in the series of lectures to which Luther penned an answer in 1521, an answer which is now so central to many interpretations of the great reformer? And how is the reading of that answer affected when it is preceded by an interpretation of what Latomus wrote? The study goes through the most important parts of Latomus' treatise against Luther (1521). The aim is to identify Latomus' theological convictions and thus to pin down who and what Luther was up against. The second and major part of the book is a reading of Luther's pamphlet against Latomus (1521). Parallels are drawn with Latomus' theology in order to facilitate as much as possible an appreciation of the differences between the two.The comparison between the two theologians shows that they speak completely different languages and that their viewpoints do not square at all. Basically their ways depart in their understanding of God's word and how it is communicated to man. This generates two ways of perceiving the matter of theology, and of speaking theologically -- and prevents mutual understanding. Latomus cannot understand Luther's view of the autonomy of God's word and the special character of proclamation, and hence a theology which is incompatible with natural reason. Even though he accepts a division between a natural and a supernatural rationality, and thus admits that natural reason has a limit, he grants the very same natural reason an important role in the ascent of cognition towards revelation. Everything else - such as Luther's theology - is a dehumanisation of the human being. Luther, on the other hand, regards Latomus' theology as a result of the impulse in sinful man towards ruling and controlling the word of God with his own inadequate natural abilities. In Luther's eyes that proclamation of Christ, which in the shape of a human being comes to man in contradiction of everything human, here disappears in the twinkling of an eye.

Vordenker der Moderne wie Thomas Hobbes, Baruch de Spinoza, James Harrington, Christian Thomasius und viele mehr griffen in ihren politischen Lehren oft auf das Modell des alten judischen Gemeinwesens zuruck. Entscheidend beeinflusste sie dabei ein Schrifttum (politia-judaica-Literatur), das in der zweiten Halfte des 16. Jahrhunderts entstand und Moses Gesetze als politisches Vorbild darstellte. Markus M. Totzeck legt die erste vollstandige Untersuchung zur Entstehung dieser Literatur vor. Die antiken ausserbiblischen Mose-Traditionen bilden den Hintergrund seiner Arbeit. Diese Traditionen waren in der Fruhen Neuzeit zum ersten Mal als Druckausgaben erschienen und hatten sich im Renaissance-Humanismus mit Konzeptionen einer uralten Theologie und Weisheit (prisca theologia bzw. prisca sapientia) des Mose verbunden. Totzeck stellt heraus, wie Debatten uber die politische Relevanz der mosaischen Gesetze spater in der Reformation zur Entstehung der politia-judaica-Literatur beitrugen. Die ersten Werke stammten aus der Feder humanistischer Gelehrter, die in erster Linie ausgebildete Juristen und Historiographen waren, zugleich aber auch einen mehrheitlich calvinistischen Hintergrund hatten. Die Nahe zwischen humanistischer Jurisprudenz und dem Calvinismus pragte die politia-judaica-Literatur in einer ersten Phase bis zu Petrus Cunaeus Werk De republica Hebraeorum libri III (1617). Die Verbreitung dieses Buchklassikers des 17. Jahrhunderts fuhrte den ursprunglichen Rechtsdiskurs in umfangreichere politische Diskussionen.

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Gotthelf's death, the editors began on an historical-critical edition of the author's non-literary works, representing the first stage in the eventual historical-critical edition of Gotthelf's entire oeuvre. The editors have engaged in extensive consultations with experienced editing experts and Gotthelf specialists on the objective of editing and commenting on Gotthelf's complete works in their historical and political context, and on potential avenues to be explored toward the realization of this endeavor. The articles assembled here indicate new approaches to Gotthelf, whose experiences as a committed clergyman, school reformer, journalist, and contributor to religious almanacs all found their way into his narratives.