RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Lud Luecke
evangelischen Landeshircken, 1880; W. Deiss, Geschichte der evangelisch-reformierten Gemeinde in Lubeck, Lubeck, 1866; E. Illigens, Geschichte der lubeckischen Kirche 1630- 1896, Paderborn, 1896; S. Carlebach, Geschichte der Juden in Lubeck, Lubeck, 1899.
LUEBECK, BISHOPRIC OF: An ancient episcopal see of northern Germany, established originally at Oldenburg by Otto I., probably in 968, and subject to the metropolitan jurisdiction of Hamburg. The first bishop, Egward, was consecrated by Archbishop Adaldag. His diocese included the whole of the Wendish territory, which was under Hamburg, or from the bay of Kiel southeast to near the southern boundary of the present Mecklenburg. The Wendish risings of 990 and 1018 destroyed the work here, and when it was revived by Archbishop Adalbert the diocese was restricted to eastern Holstein. It was not till the time of Vicelin (q.v.) that the work was established on a permanent basis, and in 1158 the see was transferred to Lubeck by his successor Gerold (1155-63). The bishopric never attained great importance, being overshadowed by the growing power of the city. (A. Hauck.)
The bishopric was made immediately subject to the empire under Conrad II. of Querfurt (1183-86). It had secular jurisdiction over a considerable territory; but the episcopal residence was usually at Eutin. The Reformation was first introduced under the influence of King Frederick I. of Denmark in 1524, and definitely established in 1530. It was not yet, however, possible to suppress or wholly to secularize the bishopric, so for a time bishops of Lutheran sympathies were elected. From 1586 the dignity was usually an appanage of the younger sons of the dukes of Holstein until 1706; and by the settlement of 1803 it was constituted a secular principality in favor of Peter Frederick William of Oldenburg and his heirs.
Bibliography: Sources are Vrkundenbuch des Bistums Lubeck, ed. W. Leverkus, Oldenburg, 1856; Adam, Gesta Hammenburgensis ecclesioe, ed. J. M. Lappenberg, in MGH, Script., vi (1846), 267-389; Helmold, Chronica Slavorum, ed. idem, ib. xxi (1869), 1-99; Arnold, Chronica Slavorum, ed. idem, ib. pp. 100-250; Annates Lubicemes, ed. idem, ib. xvi (1859), 411-429; iSeries episcoporum . . . Lubicensium, ib. xiii (1881), 347. Consult: Hauck, KD, vols, iii.-iv.; E. A. T. Laspeyres, Die Bekehrung N ord- Albingiens, Halle, 1864; G. Dehio, Geschichte des Erzbistums Hamburg-Bremen, 2 vols., Berlin, 1876; C. Eubel, Hierarchiacatholicamedii cevi, 2 vols., Munster, 1898-1901.
LUECKE, liik'e, GOTTFRIED CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH: German Lutheran theologian; b. at Egeln (16 m. s.w. of Magdeburg) Aug. 24, 1791; d. at Gottingen Feb. 14, 1855. He was educated at the cathedral school of Magdeburg and at the universities of Halle and Gottingen. In 1816 he went to Berlin, where the influence of Bunsen and Lachmann won him Schleiermacher's friendship and a position as licentiate and privat-docent in theology. He gladly took part in the "Evangelical union " which was sealed by the united communion service of Oct. 31, 1817. His publications in this period were Grundriss der neutettamentlichen Hermeneutik und ihrer Geschichte (Gdttingen, 1816); Ueber den neutestamentlichen Kanon des Eusebius (Berlin, 1817); a new edition of Melanchthon's
"Apology" (1818); and, in collaboration with De Wette, Synopsis evangeliorum (1818). In the autumn of 1818 he was called to the chair of theology in the new University of Bonn. Here for eight years he exercised a great and happy influence on the students, at the same time taking an active part in the reorganization of Evangelical church life in Rhenish Prussia. At Bonn he published his principal work, the Kommentar iiher die Schriften des Evangelisten Johannes (3 vols., 1820-25; Eng. transl. in part, Edinburgh, 1837). The first volume was hailed as a powerful support to positive theology, and was attacked with equal warmth by the rationalizing party under Paulus of Heidelberg. Toward the end of his stay at Bonn Liicke engaged in another controversy with Ferdinand Delbriick, who urged a return to the standards of the primitive regula fidei and the Apostles' Creed in place of the Scriptural basis of Protestant theology. With his colleagues Sack and Nitzsch, Liicke issued three open letters Ueber das Ansehen der heiligen Schrift und ihr Verhaltniss zur Glaubensregel in der protestantischen und in der alien Kirche (Bonn, 1827), of which the third and longest was all his own. He was also associated with Schleiermacher and De Wette in publishing the Theologische Zeitschrift from 1819 to 1822, and with Gieseler in the shortlived Zeitschrift fur gebildete Christen der evangelischen Kirche (1823); and in 1827, together with Nitzsch, Gieseler, Ulhnann and Umbreit, he established the still flourishing Theologische Studien und Kritiken to represent, in a favorite phrase of his, " the alliance of the free scientific spirit with the power of the specifically Christian spirit."
Meantime, in the autumn of 1827, he had migrated to Gottingen to succeed Staudlin, and there he spent the rest of his life, devoting himself rather to New-Testament exegesis and systematic theology instead of to church history which had been his special work at Bonn. In spite of the anxious days of the revolution of 1831 and the difficulties brought upon the university by the changes made in the constitution of Hanover in 1837 by King Ernest August, he declined calls to Kiel and Halle in 1838, to Jena in 1843, and to Leipsic in 1845. The government rewarded his constancy by the positions of councilor in the consistory at Hanover (1839) and of abbot of Bursfeld (1843). His later years were troubled by increasing theological isolation, as the younger men went off either to the radical camp of Baur and the Tubingen school, or to the strict Lutheran party of Harless, Kahnis, and Thomasius, with its center at Erlangen and Leipsic. Liicke and his friends attempted to hold a middle course between these two extremes, insisting in the spirit of Schleiermacher on the historical and permanent value of the Reformation confessions of faith, while avoiding any blind symbololatry and vindicating the clear and practical nature of theology.
Liicke's Gottingen period was also one of busy literary activity. He completed his earlier Johannine work by a Versuch einer vollstandigen Einleitung in die Offenbarung Johannis und die gesamte apokalyptische Litter atur (Bonn, 1832), besides issuing two revised editions of the commentary
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