Religion Past and Present
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Subject: Religious Studies
Edited by: Hans Dieter Betz, Don S. Browning†, Bernd Janowski and Eberhard Jüngel
Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.
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Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
Cohen, Hermann
(509 words)
[German Version] (Jul 4, 1842, Coswig – Apr 4, 1918, Berlin). The philosopher and Jewish theologian Hermann Cohen was one of the intellectual leaders of liberal Judaism (III) and a cofounder of the neo-Kantian “Marburger Schule” (“Marburg school of thought”). His book on metaphysics,
Logik der reinen Erkenntnis (1902), constructs a strict metaphysics that rejects sensory data as the starting point for the process of scientific philosophy. His
Ethik des reinen Willens (1904) posits the “pure will” as the criterion of what is ethical; it does not focus on know…
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Religion Past and Present
Coherence
(1,778 words)
[German Version] I. Philosophy of Religion – II. Fundamental Theology – III. Ethics
I. Philosophy of Religion Coherence is essentially a syntactic relation that exists between various propositions, but not between propositions and reality. This relation is typically defined as an absence of contradictions between various propositions. More appropriate, however, is another definition of coherence as the logically and conceptually consistent integrability of certain propositions into a more comprehensive system of propositions. In a
coherence theory of truth, truth is u…
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Religion Past and Present
Coillard, François
(212 words)
[German Version] (Jul 17, 1834, Asnières-lès-Bourges, France – May 27, 1904, Lealui, Zambia), French Reformed pioneer missionary in Southern Africa. Alumnus of the evangelical School of Missions in Paris, he was ordained in 1857 and sent to Lesotho, where he married Christina Mackintosh (1829–1891), daughter of a Scottish minister, in 1861. He wrote hymns, poems, tales, and translations in Sotho for use in schools. His ideal, however, was pioneering evangelizatio…
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Religion Past and Present
Coimbra
(283 words)
[German Version] A town and bishopric in Portugal. In the 8th century the town (Roman Conimbriga, today Condeixa) was transferred to the site of Aeminium, modern Coimbra. It belonged to the province of Emerita Augusta (Merida) and became the seat of a bishopric at the end of the 6th century. Conquered by the Moors in 715/716, Coimbra was finally retaken by Ferdinand I of Castile and Leon in 1054. The first bishop after the Reconquista was Paterno. When Portugal …
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Religion Past and Present
Coincidentia oppositorum
(9 words)
[German Version] Nicholas of Cusa
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Religion Past and Present
Coke, Thomas
(159 words)
[German Version] (Sep 28, 1747, Brecon, Wales – May 3, 1814, Indian Ocean) earned a B.A. (1768) and a doctorate in civil law at Oxford. Ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1772, he was turned out of his parish for Methodist sympathies (Methodists) in 1776. He was promoted to be one of J. Wesley's advisers. Wesley set him apart as superintendent of Methodism in America. In the same year, after the first of 18 voyages across the Atlantic, Coke ordained F.…
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Religion Past and Present
Cola di Rienzo
(295 words)
[German Version] (1313, Rome – Oct 8, 1354, Rome). The son of an innkeeper, Cola went to Avignon as a notary with a Roman delegation (1343/1344), whereupon Clement VI appointed him to a communal government office. Cola showed the Romans his enthusiasm for the ancient greatness of their city by explaining the extant relics to them. On the Feast of Pentecost (May 20) in 1347, he stirred a popular rebellion against the baronial nobility of the city and had the righ…
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Religion Past and Present
Colenso, John William
(216 words)
[German Version] (Jan 24, 1814, St. Austell, Cornwall – Jun 20, 1883, Bishopstown, Natal), Anglican missionary and bishop of Natal from 1853. Colenso studied at Cambridge and promoted higher biblical criticism in the English-speaking world, giving a series of sermons and commentaries on Romans and the Pentateuch between 1858 and 1879. Bishop Robert Gray of Cape Town called a synod in 1863 which deposed Colenso, who had refused to attend the synod or resign his of…
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Religion Past and Present
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
(422 words)
[German Version] (Oct 21, 1772, Ottery St. Mary, Devon – Jul 25, 1834, Highgate, London), English poet and theologian. A founder member of the English Romantic movement (Romanticism), he exerted great influence on English religious philosophy, literary criticism and theology. Coleridge was the son of an Anglican vicar and received a broad education in London and Cambridge, including ancient Greek literature and philosophy. His circumstances at Cambridge were very…
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Religion Past and Present
Cole, Thomas
(164 words)
[German Version] (Feb 1, 1801, Boldon-le-Moors – Feb 11, 1848, Catskill, NY) is considered a pioneer of American landscape painting and the founder of the Hudson River School. Influenced by English Pietism, and especially by J. Bunyan, his thematic series of paintings entitled “The course of the Empire” (1833–1836) portrayed the history of humanity as a sort of pilgrimage from primal state to downfall. Inspired by C. Lorrain, Cole sought to make the spiritual quality of…
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Religion Past and Present
Colet, John
(244 words)
[German Version] (1467 [?], London – Sep 16, 1519, London) was the son of an influential clothier, who studied at Cambridge (from 1481; M.A. 1488) and Oxford (from 1490; D.D. 1504). From 1492 to 1496, he travelled to Italy and France to pursue his studies; it is uncertain whether his preoccupation with Neoplatonism and Marsilio Ficino began during this period. In 1498, he was ordained to the priesthood, and he was made dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, London…
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Religion Past and Present
Coligny, Gaspard de
(255 words)
[German Version] (Seigneur de Châtillon; Feb 16, 1519, Châtillon-sur-Loing – Aug 24, 1572, Paris) was admiral of France from 1552 onward, and governor of Picardy from 1555. A Calvinist sympathizer, he was captured by the Spanish at the battle of St. Quentin (1557) and held captive in the Netherlands. The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (Apr 3, 1559) enabled him to resume his diplomatic functions. By speaking out in defense of his persecuted co-religionists during the a…
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Religion Past and Present
Collatio
(323 words)
[German Version] The Latin term
collatio is used in a variety of senses such as “bringing together,” “gathering,” “bestowing” (thus in Corpus Iuris Canonici, canon 147, for ¶ the conferment of an office), “comparing” (e.g. of a copy with the original). Rhetorics and philosophy employ the term for an amplifying figure of thought that compares two things on account of their similarity until it arrives at a complete comparison on the basis on a metaphorical
tertium. In the context of church Latin, John Cassian's
Collationes patrum (425–429) played a formative role: it contains 24 e…
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Religion Past and Present
Collections
(1,076 words)
[German Version] I. Bible – II. Church History and Canon Law
I. Bible The Old Testament mentions a great variety of contributions and offerings to the sanctuary (e.g. Exod 25:2–7; 2 Kgs 12:4–16; 1 Chr 29:1–19). The Psalms in particular show that temple offerings could be included in the trilogy of praise, thanksgiving, and profession of faith – not just in the sense of an act of devotion, but also in the formal legal sense. This became a means of transcending the concrete…
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Religion Past and Present
Collect Prayer
(195 words)
[German Version] A collect is a prayer that concludes a section of a rite (e.g. an entrance rite). However, the word can also designate the prayer at the end of a liturgical unit, for instance the collect at the end of the litany. The standard collect form consists of three sections: an invocation to God (with predication), a petition, and a mediation (“through Christ our Lord”) closing with a Trinitarian doxology (III) and the Amen (II). The root of the word “collect” is the Latin verb
colligere, meaning “to collect.” The Latin nouns
collecta and
collectio finally came to be used for the…
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Religion Past and Present
College of Bishops
(10 words)
[German Version] Bishops, College of
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Religion Past and Present
Colleges and Universities, Christian
(783 words)
[German Version] I. Europe – II. North America
I. Europe In many European countries there are non-state church universities and colleges which provide research, doctrine, degree studies and professional qualifications. In the main these are faculties of theology; in line with its broad cultural standing, however, the Catholic Church also maintains some 25 universities in Italy, France, Spain, Poland, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Ireland and the Netherlands. In Hungary there is…
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Religion Past and Present
Colleges and Universities, Jewish
(485 words)
[German Version] The tradition of Jewish colleges (Yeshivah) goes back to ancient times and derives from the study of written and oral teachings. Medieval Hebrew designations for academic degrees come astonishingly close to the Latin ones:
chawer/magister, moreh/doctor. Groups cultivating religious traditions developed around the Yeshivot, as for example those belonging to Ashkenazi Judaism (II) in Speyer, Worms, and Mainz. Around 1800, governments began to consider how to improve the educational level of Jews and attempted to modernize the Jewish…
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Religion Past and Present
Collegialism
(491 words)
[German Version] Following episcopalism (I) and territorialism, collegialism was the latest of the three 17th- and 18th century theories on the origin and legitimation of vesting ecclesiastical authority of prince in the Protestant territories of the German Empire. The early collegialists (C.M. Pfaff, L. v. Mosheim) were concerned to limit the comprehensive claim to the prince's authority over religious matters as an aspect of public order asserted …
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Religion Past and Present
Collegiality
(365 words)
[German Version] It was Cyprian of Carthage who first used the term
collegium for the collective episcopate (
Ep. 68, c. 254/255). The expression recalls the college of the Twelve in the New Testament and establishes communion among the bishops as leaders of their particular churches, thus guaranteeing the unity of the universal church (Church unity). Bishops were to be consecrated (Bishop, Consecration of) by at least three bishops as representatives of the
collegium. With the development of papal primacy, the notion of collegiality receded into the backgroun…
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Religion Past and Present
Collegiate Chapter
(556 words)
[German Version] In 755/756, early medieval communities of clerics were given their first structural guidelines in the rule of Bishop Chrodegang of Metz, who used the apostolic lifestyles as prototypes of choir office and community life. The
Institutio canonicorum promulgated in 816 at Aachen by Louis I, the Pious established the distinction between monastic communities and canonical communities. Collegiate chapters consisted of secular clerics who had often only taken the minor vows (Consecration/Ordination/Dedication: I) and who initially lived a communal life (
vita …
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Religion Past and Present
Collegium Urbanum de Propaganda Fide
(201 words)
[German Version] The Collegium Urbanum was founded by Urban VIII with the papal bull “Immortalis Dei” on Aug 1, 1627, with the purpose of training priests to disseminate the Catholic faith around the world. The initial means were provided by the Spanish prelate Juan Bautista Vives (1545–1632), who gave the Ferratini palace on the Piazza di Spagna to the Congregation (Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith) as a gift to the seminary in 1626. He bequeathed h…
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Religion Past and Present
Collenbusch, Samuel
(313 words)
[German Version] (Sep 1, 1724 Barmen-Wichlinghausen – Sep 1, 1803 Barmen) studied medicine in Duisburg and Strasbourg from 1745, and practiced medicine in Duisburg after 1754, where he also ran a refinery, and, from 1783, in Barmen and Schwelm. He received the Dr. med. in 1789. Coming to faith in the home of his Lutheran parents and under the influence of pastor Peter Wülfing (died1757), in 1760 he became acquainted with F.C. Oetinger's theosophy and J.A.Bengel's…
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Religion Past and Present
Collins, Anthony
(154 words)
[German Version] (Jun 21, 1676, Heston, Middlesex – Dec 13, 1729, London) was highly regarded by J. Locke as a prominent English Free thinker. His works evoked considerable hostility and in some cases numerous replies since they challenged the ratio¶ nal status of orthodox belief.
An Essay concerning the Use of Reason (1707) rejects the distinction between matters above reason and those that are contrary to reason.
A Discourse of Freethinking (1713) asserts that free enquiry is the right path to discern the truth and attacks clerical claims to authority.
A Philosophical Inqui…
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Religion Past and Present
Colloredo, Hieronymus Graf von
(307 words)
[German Version] (May 31, 1732, Vienna – May 20, 1812,
ibid.) was the last prince-archbishop of Salzburg. His family (his father, and later his brother, were imperial vice-chancellors) secured his accession to ecclesiastical positions from early on: cathedral canon in Salzburg in 1747, auditor of the Rota in Rome in 1759, bishop of Gurk by appointment of Maria Theresia in 1761. In the latter function, his administration was marked by reform-Catholic tendencies. Elected a…
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Religion Past and Present
Cologne
(1,945 words)
[German Version] I. Archaeology – II. City and Diocese – III. University
I. Archaeology Evidence that Cologne was a particularly flourishing city in the 2nd and early 3rd centuries includes remains of the city wall, aqueduct, sewers, and praetorium, mosaic floors and mural paintings from private houses, several tombs, and a great variety of small artworks. Famous is the 3rd-century Dionysus Mosaic in the Römisch- Germanisches Museum, still to be seen
in situ in the ceremonial room of a large house within the city walls. There is evidence of Christianity in…
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Religion Past and Present
Cologne Cathedral
(766 words)
[German Version] Holding the right to crown German kings, the archdiocesan cathedral church of St. Peter and St. Mary was, together with Mainz, the most important metropolitan see of the Holy Roman Empire. The monumental buildings erected from the 6th century onward (structures I–II) met high standards. These standards were raised even further with the new building begun in 1248. Though the latter was not completed during the Middle Ages, it remains the most impo…
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Religion Past and Present
Cologne Church Dispute/Cologne Troubles
(11 words)
[German Version] Prussian Church Dispute
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Religion Past and Present
Cologne Declaration
(249 words)
[German Version] The Cologne Declaration was drawn up by an initiator group in Cologne on Jan 5, 1989 and subsequently signed by more than 200 professors of theology in the German-speaking realm; it sparked off fierce and still ongoing controversies within the Catholic Church. Taking up on the dispute caused by the appointment of the new archbishop of Cologne, the declaration expresses disapproval of an ecclesiastical centralism that ignores local situations and …
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Religion Past and Present
Colombia
(1,478 words)
[German Version] The Republic of Colombia, in northwestern South America, gained its independence in 1810/1819, and was named after Christopher Columbus by S. Bolivar. The previous Spanish colony of New Grenada had received the status of a viceroyalty in the 18th century. Its population in 2003 was 44 million. The capital, Santafé de Bogotá, has a population of 6,500,000; other urban centers include Medellín (3,900,000), Cali (3,600,000), and Barranquilla (2,000,000). The ethnic composition of its population is 64% mestizo, 20% Afro-Colombian, 15% Caucasian, and 1% Indian. At the…
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Religion Past and Present
Colonialism and Mission
(4,130 words)
[German Version] I. History – II. Missiology
I. History
1. Preliminary remarks As never before in its history, Christianity has become a “world religion.” Since the middle of the 1980s, the majority of the Christian population of the world no longer lives in the northern, but in the southern hemisphere. This development is the consequence of significant demographic shifts and of the differing growth dynamics of the churches of the North and the South. At the same time, most…
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Religion Past and Present
Colonialism/Neocolonialism
(934 words)
[German Version] I. Forms of Domination and Their Justification – II. The Career of European Colonialism
I. Forms of Domination and Their Justification Colonialism is a form of domination in which peoples are subjected to foreign rule and denied the right of self-determination. Colonies already existed in the ancient world – for example those of the Phoenicians and Greeks around the Mediterranean. It would be wrong to speak of colonialism in this context; the same is true of the modern colonial …
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Religion Past and Present
Colonna, Vittoria
(185 words)
[German Version] (1490, Marino – Feb 25, 1547, Rome), poet, born into the powerful noble Colonna family. In 1509 she married the Marchese di Pescara; her early poems glorify her husband as a heroic Christian warrior. The poems composed after his death in 1525 are dominated by the themes of contempt for the world, longing for heaven, and suffering (her own and that of Christ) as the way to salvation. A few ascetic works exemplify passion mysticism. Wherever she wa…
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Religion Past and Present
Colored Methodist Episcopal Church
(12 words)
[German Version] Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
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Religion Past and Present
Colors
(569 words)
[German Version] I. Comparative Religion – II. Liturgy
I. Comparative Religion Individual cultures perceive colors and assign religious values to them in very different ways. A distinction is often made between colors and “non-colors”: white and black represent non-life (death, transitions in general), and are therefore regarded as the colors of mourning, but also of weddings and feasts, and this not only in Europe. Red is often associated with blood, and accordingly also with…
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Religion Past and Present
Colossians
(1,113 words)
[German Version] I. Introductory Questions – II. Religio-historical Background – III. Theological Significance
I. Introductory Questions Colossians bears the characteristcs of a letter, as the framework shows (prescript 1:1–2, postscript 4:7–18). After a longer
exordium (1:3–23), which concludes with a
partitio announcing the themes to be discussed (1:21–23), the body of the letter takes up these themes in reverse order: A (1:24–2:5), Paul's struggles on behalf of the gospel; B (2:6–23), faithfulness to the gospel he has received; C (3:1–4:6), the holiness of the faithful. Th…
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Religion Past and Present
Colportage,
(209 words)
[German Version] from French
colportage (“peddling”), refers to a particular method of spreading the Bible and other religious texts through the sale of inexpensive Bibles from door to door by (mostly Protestant) colporteurs, often at great personal sacrifice. The first colportage societies were founded in Scotland (Edinburgh Tract Society, 1796) and England (Religious Tract ¶ Society, 1799; British and Foreign Bible Society, 1804), followed by Germany (i.a. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1804; Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1812; Wuppert…
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Religion Past and Present
Coltrane, John
(196 words)
[German Version] (Sep 23, 1926 Hamlet, NC – Jul 17, 1967 Huntington, NY). As a young man, Coltrane was already playing clarinet and saxophone in a band, and he went on to study music with enthusiasm, developing into a top saxophone player in the early free jazz style. After a period working with Miles Davies and Thelonius Monk, among others, in 1960 he formed his internationally famous quartett (LPs:
A Love Supreme, Blue Train; Successful hit: “My Favorite Things”). Coltrane kept faith with his Protestant origins all his life, although many of his music…
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Religion Past and Present
Columbanus (Saint)
(388 words)
[German Version] (
Columba; c. 543, Ireland – Nov 23, 615, or Nov 21, 616, Bobbio), abbot of Luxeuil and Bobbio. As a senior monk in the monastery of Bangor, Columbanus and 12 companions (St. Gall) undertook the
peregrinatio to Gaul, probably in 590/591, where he founded the monasteries of Luxeuil, Annegray, and Fontaine with the permission of King Childebert II. They experienced a great afflux of young Frankish noblemen and soon numbered more than 200 members. Columbanus came into conflict with the bishops of Burgundy…
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Religion Past and Present
Columba, Saint
(309 words)
[German Version] (c. 522 – Jul 9, 597 Iona), or Columcille, was an Irish (Ireland) saint, priest, monk, abbot, and founder of Iona. He was fostered by the priest Cruithnechán and studied as deacon in Leinster, later with the British bishop Uinniau. Columba may have openly prayed for his kindred's victory in a battle in 561, which could be related to his temporary excommunication by the Synod of Tailtiu. He left for northern Britain in 563, fulfilling the Irish ideal that glorified
peregrinatio to a foreign land as the pinnacle of ascetic ¶ renunciation. Columbanus benefited from …
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Religion Past and Present
Columbus, Christopher
(371 words)
[German Version] (1451, in or near Genoa – May 20, 1506, Valladolid) gained his first experiences in seafaring on trading voyages to England, Portugal, and West Africa. Sponsored, among others, by the “Catholic Monarchs” Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, he set sail from Palos, near Seville, on Aug 8, 1492. Trusting in recent insights concerning the spherical shape of the earth, he was attempting to find a westerly route to India and East Asia. On Oct …
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Religion Past and Present
Colwell, Ernest Cadman
(140 words)
[German Version] (Jan 19, 1901, Hallstead, PA – Sep 24, 1974, Deland, FL), New Testament scholar and university administrator; professor at the University of Chicago 1930–1951 (president 1945–1951), dean of faculties at Emory University, Atlanta, GA 1951–1957, president at the School of Theology at Claremont, CA, 1957–1968. Colwell collaborated with Harold R. Willoughby (1890–1962) on the critical edition of NT manuscripts (
The Four Gospels of Karahissar, 1936;
The Elizabeth Day McCormick Apocalypse, 1940). Colwell became known for his contributions to textu…
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Religion Past and Present
Comboni, Daniele
(297 words)
[German Version] (Mar 15, 1831, Limone, Italy – Oct 10, 1881, Khartoum, Sudan) stimulated missionary activity and founded an institute for the evangelization of Black Africa: the Comboni Missionaries. Ordained at Mazza's Institute in Verona in 1854, he spent his first years in Africa among the Dinka (Nuer and Dinka) in the Sudan (1857–1859). From 1862 to 1864 he campaigned in France, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria for the mission in Central Africa, and publish…
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Religion Past and Present
Comboni Missionaries,
(167 words)
[German Version] officially the “Sons of the Sacred Heart of Jesus” (FSCJ). Commonly referred to as the “Verona Fathers” in English-speaking countries, they are known as “Comboni missionaries” elsewhere. Founded by D. Comboni in 1867 as an institute of diocesan priests, it became a religious congregation in 1894, though not without conflicts and under pressure from Rome. Amid the tensions of World War I, the Austrian branch became autonomous, but was reincorporat…
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Religion Past and Present
Comenius, John Amos
(1,068 words)
[German Version] I. Life – II. Work – III. Influence (Jan Ámo Komenský; Mar 28, 1592, Nivnice, Moravia – Nov 15, 1670, Amsterdam).
I. Life After losing his parents at an early age, Comenius attended the grammar school of the Bohemian Brethren in Přerov (1608–1611). In 1618, after studying at the Reformed college in Herborn (1611–1613) and at Heidelberg (1613–1614; Reformed Colleges in Germany), he became warden of the Brethren congregation in Fulnek and headmaster of the local Brethren sch…
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Religion Past and Present
Comic Drama
(1,095 words)
[German Version] I. Antiquity – II. Middle Ages to the Present
I. Antiquity In the so-called Old Attic Comedy of the 5th century bce, as represented by the 11 extant comedies of Aristophanes (c. 450–385; the comedies produced in Sicily and Megara [so-called Megarian farces] are lost), the role of religion is a twofold one. First, dramas (Drama: I, 2) performed in the context of the festivals dedicated to Dionysus were considered to be spiritual offerings to the god and could therefore only be staged once (until 386 bce). Secondly, religion and cult were recurrent themes of…
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Religion Past and Present
Comisión de Estudios de Historia de la Iglesia Latinoamericana
(269 words)
[German Version] (CEHILA: Commission for the Study of Latin American Church History). The CEHILA was founded in 1973 in the Pastoral Institute of the CELAM (Latin American Conference of Bishops). Its first chairman was Enrique Dussel (until 1992). His successors were José Oscar Beozzo and, subsequently, Ana Maria Bidegain. The CEHILA planned and prepared a 10-volume history of the Latin American Church containing the first integrated account of the history of Chr…
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Religion Past and Present
Comisión Evangélica Latinoamericana de Educación Cristiana
(192 words)
[German Version] (CELADEC; Evangelical Latin American Commission for Christian Education). The CELADEC was created in 1962 for the purpose of providing Protestant churches in Latin America with educational resources. One of its main publications is the
Curso Nueva Vida en Cristo (“New Life in Christ Course”), the methodology of which is based on the realities of Latin American life. In the 1970s, CELADEC developed into the main center of popular education in Latin America. The institution underwent a major internal …
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Religion Past and Present