clear contrast between Platonism, from which he derived transcendentalism, and positivism, of which he considered Protagoras the founder. Laas in reality was a disciple of Hume. Throughout his philosophy he endeavours to connect metaphysics with ethics and the theory of education.
His chief educational works were Der deutsche Aufsatz in den obern Gymnasialklassen (1868; 3rd ed., part i., 1898, part ii, 1894), and Der deutsche Unterricht auf höhern Lehranstalten (1872; 2nd ed. 1886). He contributed largely to the Vierteljahrsschr. f. wiss. Philos. (1880–1882); the Litterarischer Nachlass, a posthumous collection, was published at Vienna (1887). See Hanisch, Der Positivismus von Ernst Laas (1902); Gjurits, Die Erkenntnistheorie des Ernst Laas (1903); Falckenberg, Hist. of Mod. Philos. (Eng. trans., 1895).
LA BADIE, JEAN DE (1610–1674), French divine, founder of
the school known as the Labadists, was born at Bourg, not far
from Bordeaux, on the 13th of February 1610, being the son of
Jean Charles de la Badie, governor of Guienne. He was sent
to the Jesuit school at Bordeaux, and when fifteen entered the
Jesuit college there. In 1626 he began to study philosophy
and theology. He was led to hold somewhat extreme views
about the efficacy of prayer and the direct influence of the Holy
Spirit upon believers, and adopted Augustinian views about
grace, free will and predestination, which brought him into
collision with his order. He therefore separated from the
Jesuits, and then became a preacher to the people, carrying on
this work in Bordeaux, Paris and Amiens. At Amiens in 1640
he was appointed a canon and teacher of theology. The hostility
of Cardinal Mazarin, however, forced him to retire to the Carmelite
hermitage at Graville. A study of Calvin’s Institutes
showed him that he had more in common with the Reformed
than with the Roman Catholic Church, and after various
adventures he joined the Reformed Church of France and
became professor of theology at Montauban in 1650. His reasons
for doing so he published in the same year in his Déclaration
de Jean de la Badie. His accession to the ranks of the Protestants
was deemed a great triumph; no such man since Calvin
himself, it was said, had left the Roman Catholic Church.
He was called to the pastorate of the church at Orange on the
Rhone in 1657, and at once became noted for his severity of
discipline. He set his face zealously against dancing, card-playing
and worldly entertainments. The unsettled state of
the country, recently annexed to France, compelled him to leave
Orange, and in 1659 he became a pastor in Geneva. He then
accepted a call to the French church in London, but after
various wanderings settled at Middelburg, where he was pastor
to the French-speaking congregation at a Walloon church.
His peculiar opinions were by this time (1666) well known, and
he and his congregation found themselves in conflict with the
ecclesiastical authorities. The result was that la Badie and his
followers established a separate church in a neighbouring town.
In 1669 he moved to Amsterdam. He had enthusiastic disciples,
Pierre Yvon (1646–1707) at Montauban, Pierre Dulignon
(d. 1679), François Menuret (d. 1670), Theodor Untereyk (d. 1693),
F. Spanheim (1632–1701), and, more important than
any, Anna Maria v. Schürman (1607–1678), whose book Eucleria
is perhaps the best exposition of the tenets of her master. At
the head of his separatist congregation, la Badie developed his
views for a reformation of the Reformed Churches: the church
is a communion of holy people who have been born again from
sin; baptism is the sign and seal of this regeneration, and is
to be administered only to believers; the Holy Spirit guides
the regenerate into all truth, and the church possesses throughout
all time those gifts of prophecy which it had in the ancient days;
the community at Jerusalem is the continual type of every
Christian congregation, therefore there should be a community
of goods, the disciples should live together, eat together, dance
together; marriage is a holy ordinance between two believers,
and the children of the regenerate are born without original
sin, marriage with an unregenerate person is not binding.
They did not observe the Sabbath, because—so they said—their
life was a continual Sabbath. The life and separatism of the
community brought them into frequent collision with their
neighbours and with the magistrates, and in 1670 they accepted
the invitation of the princess Elizabeth, abbess of Herford in
Westphalia, to take up their abode within her territories, and
settled in Herford to the number of about fifty. Not finding the
rest they expected they migrated to Bremen in 1672, and
afterwards to Altona, where they were dispersed on the death
of the leaders. Small communities also existed in the Rhineland,
and a missionary settlement was established in New York.
Jean de la Badie died in February 1674.
La Badie’s works include La Prophétie (1668), Manuel de piété (1669), Protestation de bonne foi et saine doctrine (1670), Briève déclaration de nos sentiments touchant l’Église (1670). See H. van Berkum, De Labadie en de Labadisten (Sneek, 1851); Max Göbel (1811–1857), Gesch. d. christl. Lebens in der rheinisch-westphälischen Kirche (Coblenz, 3 vols., 1849–1860); Heinrich Heppe (1820–1879), Geschichte des Pietismus (Leiden, 1879); Albrecht Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus, vol. i. (Bonn, 1880); and especially Peter Yvon, Abrégé précis de la vie et de la conduite et des vrais sentiments de feu Mr de Labadie, and Anna Maria v. Schürman, Eucleria (Altona, 1673, 1678). Cf. the article in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie.
LABARUM, the sacred military standard of the early Christian
Roman emperors, first adopted by Constantine the Great after
his miraculous vision in 312, although, according to Gibbon,
he did not exhibit it to the army till 323. The name seems to
have been known before, and the banner was simply a Christianized
form of the Roman cavalry standard. Eusebius (Life
of Const. i. 31) describes the first labarum as consisting of a
long gilded spear, crossed at the top by a bar from which hung
a square purple cloth, richly jewelled. At the upper extremity
of the spear was a golden wreath encircling the sacred monogram,
formed of the first two letters of the name of Christ. In later
banners the monogram was sometimes embroidered on the cloth.
A special guard of fifty soldiers was appointed to protect the
sacred standard. The derivation of the word labarum is
disputed; it appears to be connected with the Basque labarva,
signifying standard. See Flag.
LABÉ, LOUISE CHARLIN PERRIN (c. 1525–1566), French
poet, called La Belle Cordière, was born at Lyons about 1525,
the daughter of a rich ropemaker, named Charley or Charlin.
At the siege of Perpignan she is said to have fought on horseback
in the ranks of the Dauphin, afterwards Henry II. Some
time before 1551 she married Ennemond Perrin, a ropemaker.
She formed a library and gathered round her a society which
included many of the learned ladies of Lyons,—Pernette du
Guillet, Claudine and Sibylle Scève and Clémence de Bourges,
and the poets Maurice Scève, Charles Fontaine, Pontus de
Tyard; and among the occasional visitors were Clément Marot
and his friend Melin de Saint-Gelais, with probably Bonaventure
des Périers and Rabelais. About 1550 the poet Olivier de Magny
passed through Lyons on his way to Italy in the suite of Jean
d’Avanson, the French envoy to the Holy See. As the friend
of Ronsard, “Prince of Poets,” he met with an enthusiastic
reception from Louise, who straightway fell in love with him.
There seems little doubt that her passion for Magny inspired
her eager, sincere verse, and the elegies probably express her
grief at his first absence. A second short visit to Lyons was
followed by a second longer absence. Magny’s influence is
shown more decisively in her Sonnets, which, printed in 1555,
quickly attained great popularity. During his second visit to
Italy Magny had apparently consoled himself, and Louise, despairing
of his return, encouraged another admirer, Claude Rubys,
when her lover returned unexpectedly. Louise dismissed
Rubys, but Magny’s jealousy found vent in an ode addressed
to the Sire Aymon (Ennemond), which ruined her reputation;
while Rubys, angry at his dismissal, avenged himself later in
his Histoire véritable de Lyons (1573). This scandal struck a
fatal blow at Louise’s position. Shortly afterwards her husband
died, and she returned to her country house at Parcieu, where
she died on the 25th of April 1566, leaving the greater part of
the fortune she was left to the poor. Her works include, besides
the Elegies and Sonnets mentioned, a prose Débat de folie et
d’amour (translated into English by, Robert Greene in 1608).
See editions of her Œuvres by P. Blanchemain (1875), and by C. Boy (2 vols., 1887). A sketch of Louise Labé and of the Lyonnese
