RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Kohler Kol Nidre
Murten. In 1507 he became rector of the schools in Freiburg. In the same year he went to Italy as field-chaplain with Swiss mercenaries in the service of Emperor Maximilian. In 1509 he left Freiburg and went to Bern as cathedral preacher. He was a stern moralist and arraigned the people for their vices. With less success he attacked the demoralizing mercenary traffic, and because of these attacks was forced to leave Bern in 1512 and again retired to a Carthusian monastery, this time at Nuremberg. He preached the Reformation in Nuremberg, but was persecuted in 1522 and fled. On the recommendation of Luther, apparently, he received the post of preacher from Count George II. of Wertheim. Here he was active in the reform of the church service, but inclined toward the doctrinal conceptions of Zwingli with whom he soon afterward came in personal contact at Zurich. On this account in 1525 he lost the confidence of his protector and returned to Nuremberg, where the Reformation in the mean time had achieved its full victory. Kolb was suspected, however, of sympathizing with the teachings of sectaries like Denk and Miinzer, who at that time were active in Nuremberg, and although cleared of this suspicion, he applied in 1526 to Zwingli for a position, and in the following year became the assistant of Berthold Haller in Bern. With Haller he took the most prominent part in the great disputation of 1528 which achieved the victory of the Gospel in Bern (see Bern, Disputation of). Kolb's Wertheimer Ratschlag (1524) gives his views; and some of his letters are in the Luther and the Zwingli correspondence. (E. BLOSCHf.)
Bibliography: L. Eissenloffel, Franz Kolb, Zell, n. d.;
S. Fischer, Reformation und Disputation in Bern, Bern,
1828.
KOLDE, THEODOR (FRIEDRICH HERMANN) : German Lutheran; b. at Friedland (26 m. s.e. of Konigsberg), Upper Silesia, May, 6 1850. He studied in Breslau (1869-70) and Leipsic (1871-72; Ph. D., Halle, 1874; lie. theol., Marburg, 1876), and in 1876 became privat-docent for church history in Marburg, where he was appointed associate professor in 1879. Since 1881 he has been full professor of church history at Erlangen. He has written: Der Kanzler Briick und seine Bedeutung fur die Entwicklung der Reformation (Gotha, 1874); Luthers SteUung zu Konzil und Kirche bis zum Wormser Reichstag (Gutersloh, 1876); Die deutsche Augustiner-Congregation und Johann von Staupitz (Gotha, 1879) ; Friedrich der Weise und die Anfdnge der Reformation (Erlangen, 1881); Analecta Lutherana (Gotha, 1883) ; Luther und der Reichstag zu Worms (Halle, 1883); Martin Luther, eine Biographie (2 vols., Gotha, 1884-93) ; Die Heilsarmee nach eigener Anschauung und nach ihren Schriften (Erlangen, 1885); Der Methodismus und seine Bekdmpfung (1886); Beitrdge zur Reformationsgeschichte (Leipsic, 1888); Die Loci communes Philipp Melanchthons (1890); Luthers Selbstmord: eine Geschichtsluge P Majunkes beleuchtet (1890); Ueber Grenzen des historischen Erkennens (1890); Die kirchlichen Briiderschaften und das religiose Leben im modernen Katholizismus (Erlangen, 1895); Andreas Althamer der Humanist und Reformator (1896); Die Ausburger Confession lateinisch und deutsch kurz erldutert
(Gotha, 1896); Das religiose Leben in Erfurt beim Ausgange des Mittelalters (Halle, 1898) ; Dr. Johann Teuschbein und der erste Reformationsversuch in Rothenburg ob der Tauber (Leipsic, 1901); Edward Irving (1903); Das bayerische Religionsedikt vom 10. Jan. 1808 (Erlangen, 1903); Der Staatsgedanke der Reformation und die romische Kirche (Leipsic, 1903); P. Denifle, seine Beschimpfung Luthers und der evangelischen Kirche (1904); Der Katholizismus und das zwanzigste Jahrhundert (1905); Die Anfdnge einer katholischen Gemeinde in Erlangen (Erlangen, 1906); Die dlteste Redaktion der Augsburger Konfession mit Melanchthons Einleitung (Gutersloh, 1906) ; and Historische Einleitung in die symbolischen Bucher der Evangleisch-lutherischen Kirche (1907). He has also edited the Beitrdge zur bayerischen Kirchengeschichte (Erlangen since 1895).
KOL NIDRE, kelni'dre ("All vows"): The name given to the evening service taking place in the synagogue before the beginning of the Day of Atonement, derived from the opening words. The service is opened by the formula Kol nidre which runs as follows: "All vows, renunciations, bans, konams and [other] cognomens [with which vows may be designated] and kinase and oaths, which we vow and swear and ban and bind upon our souls, from this day of atonement until the [next] day of atonement which shall come for our welfare — we repent them all; they shall be solved, remitted, abolished, be void and null, without power and without validity. May our vows be no vows, and our oaths be no oaths." Then cantor and congregations recite together Num. xv. 26. The cantor closes with an offering of thanks in that God has kept alive his praying people.
This ceremony has caused many accusations against the Jews, especially one concerning the untrustworthiness of an oath by a Jew. It is to be noted, however, that in this formula there is no allusion to oaths sworn to others, but only to obligations which one imposes upon himself. Because the Oriental, through his emotional temperament, is easily moved to make unconsidered vows, the Talmudists declared vows unmeritorious and even sinful, and some vows were declared initially invalid; others could be solved if repentance was expressed. Besides that, a general absolution of future vows was allowed by a solemn declaration on New Year's Day. In post-Talmudic times this usage was changed so that the declaration was to be made on the first evening of the day of atonement by the whole congregation and with reference to the past, not to the future.
Kol nidre is first mentioned in the time of the Geonim (589-1034 a.d.) It was only slowly that the formula was recognized and expanded. Even in the twelfth century and later it was rejected by men like Jehuda Hadassi (c. 1148); Isaac ben Sheshet of Saragossa (d. c. 1406); Jacob Landau (flourished c. 1480 in Italy) in a collection of ritualistic decrees called Agur; and Mordecai ben Abraham Jaffe (d. Mar. 7, 1612), rabbi in Poland and in Prague. Kol nidre was abolished in Mecklenburg-Schwerin in May, 1844, in Hanover at the end of the sixties, and still later in Magdeburg. There was substituted
Komander Korea