Scripture altar
A font altar is an altarpiece , which takes pictures artistically designed biblical and liturgical has texts.
Written altars appeared around 1550 in the areas of north-west Germany that were shaped by the Calvinist Reformation , initially by converting pre-Reformation pictorial altars, and later also as new works. A good 30 such works had been created by 1709, most of which have survived.
Theological background is the Calvinist understanding of the Ten Commandments , according to which the second commandment ( Ex 20.4 EU ) excludes pictorial representations in church rooms. In contrast, the older ecclesiastical tradition, after sometimes violent disputes ( Byzantine iconoclasm ), affirmed pictorial representations as a consequence of God's incarnation and developed a theology of icons . The ban on images was therefore left out in the catechism versions of the Decalogue. Martin Luther also followed this decision , but only gave the pictures a didactic and educational significance.
literature
- Dietrich Diederichs-Gottschalk : The Protestant written altars of the 16th and 17th centuries in north-west Germany , Schnell + Steiner GmbH publishing house, Regensburg 2005, ISBN 3-7954-1762-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Review by Thomas Buske on the monograph by Diederichs-Gottschalk (PDF; 72 kB), p. II.
- ↑ see also the more detailed description in the article Reformation Iconoclasm .