Gerhard Ries, LMU

Religion is one of the earliest expressions of human culture. There is much archaeological evidence of religious cults throughout the world long before literal tradition tells us about human forms of belief.

Religion throughout the ages was in most cases not only thought as a spiritual link between man and the unconceivable, but also served as a means of rule in human communities. Rulers in ancient times took in different ways advantage of religious emotions of their subjects to make them obey their commands. It was either the ideology of the king's divine origin or the divine mission of the ruler to govern his people. Religious cults in many ways promoted the exaltation of the ruler and gave his government a firm basis.

The goal of the lectures will be to show with examples of some selected states of ancient times, how religion was used to form government and society. The Ancient Near East and Ancient Egypt with its vast written evidence dating back to very early times are suitable items to discuss the problem, since in both cases religious ideas and ideas of state rule are very well documented. Ancient Antiquity (i.e. the Greek and Roman times) was chosen because here we find the first philosophical discussion on state rule. Moreover the culture of Ancient Antiquity is without any doubt one of the spiritual basises of the modern western world.

Early Christianity teaches us much about how a religion that in its very early days was esteemed to be an enemy of state rule became part of this rule and due to this changed a good deal of its nature.

As a contrast to these cultures that to some extent are historically connected one to the other, the Japanese experience will be examined to find out, whether basic structures of rule can be found also in a community that from its early days up to the 16th century had no contact to these cultures. Japan's ideology of the Tenno-regime was traditionally based on religion, which exempted the Japanese emperor from all human rules and deemed him to be of divine origin. This belief was by external force done away with only after the Second World War.

The lectures are meant to give the students an insight into an important element of state rule and make them think of how short the period of democratic thought is that tries to make a clear distinction between government and religion.

Biography
Graduated at the LMU Faculty of Law where he is now Professor of Law. Expert in Legal History of the Ancient World, in Private Law, Bulgarian Economic Law and Comparative Law. Before teaching at LMU he taught at the universities of Heidelberg and Freiburg (1979), Regensburg (1979-81), Hannover (1981/82), Munich (1982-94) and Erlangen (1994-97). Was visiting Professor at the University of Kyoto/Japan (1983-85), at the Meiji University of Tokyo (1998) and at the Seikei University/Tokyo (2000). Had lecturing commitments in various other Japanese universities and was Senior Teaching Fellow at the Centre for the Advanced Study of European and Comparative Law, University of Oxford (1999). Has been Resident Legal Advisor to the Council of Ministers of Bulgaria, managing the Legal consultance Program as part of the Technical Assistance loan of the Word Bank, appointed by Harvard University (Sofia, 1992-1994); Legal Consultant to the Ministry of Justice of Bulgaria, drafting a land registration law and amendments to the substantive law on immovable property, including mortgage law (1994-98), sponsored by the Ministry of Finance of the Federal Republic of Germany. Published articles on German-Japanese comparative law, on the law of privatization in Bulgaria. Edited a collection of Bulgarian laws concerning the economic sector.