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
Contextual Theology
(850 words)
[German Version] I. Systematic Theology – II. Missiology
I. Systematic Theology “Contextual theology” denotes that form of theological work, with a primarily inductive approach, for which the deliberate inclusion of the cultural and religious environment as the starting point and goal of theological reflection is constitutive. Unlike a local theology, i.e. a theology defined simply by its cultural setting, contextual theology takes its cultural determination
self-reflexively into account, claiming particular relevance while at the same time maintaini…
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Religion Past and Present
Contingency
(1,312 words)
[German Version] I. Chance vs. Contingency – II. Accident vs. Essence – III. Chance vs. Order – IV. Paradigms of Chance
I. Chance vs. Contingency Chance (Contingency/Chance) and contingency are among the theologically significant constructs of conceptual history. The word
contingency derives from Lat.
contingere (translating συμβαίνειν/
symbainein or ¶ ένδέχεσϑαι/
endechesthai, first used by Marius Victorinus);
chance derives through Old French from Lat.
cadere, “fall/befall” and
accident from
accidere/accidentia, with the German loan-translation
Zufall first used…
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Religion Past and Present
Contingency and Necessity
(535 words)
[German Version] What is contingent could have been otherwise; what is necessary could not have been otherwise. These simple definitions are the starting point for discussions about the religious significance of chance, but their appropriate application is still a matter of vigorous debate. In fact both terms often have quite different meanings in different contexts. In logic, necessary propositions are propositions that cannot be false, while contingent propositions are possible (i.e. they are not self-contradictory) but not necessary…
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Religion Past and Present
Contingency/Chance
(2,299 words)
[German Version] I. Natural Sciences – II. Religious Studies – III. Philosophy – IV. Systematic Theology
I. Natural Sciences The concept of contingency/chance occurs in various contexts and meanings in the natural sciences. In the simplest case, contingency denotes an event, a process or a property, the finality of which exists without an immediately discernible or determinable cause. Although we inaccurately assert that something happened by chance, the latter really implies the lack …
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Religion Past and Present
Continuing Education
(9 words)
[German Version] Education of adults
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Religion Past and Present
Contraception
(383 words)
[German Version] Protestant ethics approves of a responsible and well-considered planning of pregnancy and family (Family planning). In an attempt to avoid negative connotations, it has become customary to speak of “birth control” rather than contraception. As a hormonal contraceptive preventing the fertilization of the ovum and thus pregnancy, the “pill” is one of the methods for birth control. Methods that block the nidation of an already fertilized ovum and provoke an early abortion are to be ¶ distinguished from the pill. The intra-uterine device, for instance,…
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Religion Past and Present
Contract
(1,461 words)
[German Version] I. Law – II. Religious Studies – III. Sociology and Social Ethics
I. Law Potential for development is of the essence of human personality. The legal instruments that promote this development include the contract, understood as a bilateral or multilateral agreement governing a legal relationship, entered into by the parties. Mutual assent (
consensus ad idem) of the parties to a contract has been constitutive since the beginning in both the ancient world and Judeo-Christian culture. Matt 20:1–16, for example, takes it …
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Religion Past and Present
Contradiction, Logical
(281 words)
[German Version] A necessarily false set of statements contains a logical contradiction (Antinomy). Logical calculuses and theories should generally be free of contradiction (consistent) since, according to traditional logic all kinds of arbitrary conclusions can proceed from a falsehood (
ex falso quodlibet). Aristotle (
Metaph. Γ 1005 b 17–34) formulated the “principle of contradiction (to be excluded)” (which can be interpreted logically, psychologically and ontologically in his thinking) as a fundamental principle of …
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Religion Past and Present
Contrafactum,
(108 words)
[German Version] from medieval Latin
contrafacere, “imitate,” vocal music in which the original text is replaced by new lyrics. Before 1450, contrafactum could refer to a secular song for which new lyrics had been written or to a new liturgical text in place of an older plainchant. After 1450, contrafactum was used for a piece of sacred music that originally had a secular text; for example, the song “O Welt, ich muss dich lassen” (“O world, I must leave you”) is a contrafactum of H. Isaac's popular tenor song “Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen.” Jane Flynn Bibliography R. Strohm,
The Rise of Eur…
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Religion Past and Present
Control
(284 words)
[German Version] The concept of control was developed in sociology and social psychology, especially in the thematic context of deviant behavior. Social control is the generic term for those mechanisms by means of which a social unit (e.g. a group, a social environment, or a society) ¶ attempts to get its members to follow approved forms of behavior in order to achieve conformity. However, one should distinguish between external and internal control. External control produces obedience to certain norms by applying extern…
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Religion Past and Present
Controversial Theology
(1,053 words)
[German Version] is a branch of theology that judges differences between various Christian Churches from a polemical and argumentative point of view rather than analyzing them from a historically critical perspective. The “controversy” involved relates both to the object and the method of this discipline. Theological positions are discussed when they become significant in disturbing or dividing the church community, and not so much as contributions to an open scholarly debate.
I. Although the term controversial theology did not become common until the 20th century, …
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Religion Past and Present
Conventuals
(331 words)
[German Version]
1. Those who belong to a convent (Lat.
conventus), i.e. all the full members of a religious community at a specific location.
2. In the context of a particular monastic way of life, and especially among the mendicant orders, “conventuals” refers to that group or tendency within the order which continues to follow the “old observance” (usually in a previously mitigated form) in the midst of internal disputes over the proper observance of the rule, and which accordingly …
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Religion Past and Present
Conversation
(660 words)
[German Version] is an everyday, specifically human phenomenon: two or more people exchange linguistic symbols that not only accompany their actions, but establish an independent thought world, the scene discussed, that differs from the situation of the conversation, the discussion scene; as such, it is suitable for the treatment and portrayal of religion. In contrast to the unilateral monopoly of discussion, the speech (Rhetoric) and the spoken ritual that fixes…
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Religion Past and Present
Conversion
(6,787 words)
[German Version] I. History of Religions – II. Greco-Roman Antiquity – III. Bible – IV. Church History – V. Systematic Theology – VI. Practical Theology – VII. Missiology – VIII. Judaism – IX. Islam
I. History of Religions “Conversion” denotes the religiously interpreted process of total reorientation in which individuals or groups reinterpret their past lives, turn their backs on them, and reestablish and reshape their future lives in a new network of social relationships. The phenomenon was initially …
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Religion Past and Present
Conversos (Anusim)
(820 words)
[German Version] The epithet
Marranos, meaning “swine,” was applied to Jews who were forcibly con¶ verted to Christianity in Spain after the 1391 riots. The church and state officially rejected the appellation and preferred: “New Christian,”
confeso (meaning convert). The anti-Jewish propaganda (Anti-Semitism/Anti-Judaism) in Andalusia was followed by riots, in which entire Jewish communities – around 600,000 Jews – were forced to the baptismal font. Only a few Jewish communities were protected by royalty and nobilit…
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Religion Past and Present
Converts, Instruction of
(396 words)
[German Version] This is the education that accompanies conversion. Conversion constitutes a change of religion or denomination. The unbaptized are prepared for their conversion by means of baptismal instruction or the catechumenate, previously baptized converts through discussions. In theory, the instruction of converts may be applied to both procedures, though it usually designates the accompaniment of the already baptized in distinction to baptismal instruction. The …
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Religion Past and Present
Convictions
(990 words)
[German Version] As a basic notion of fundamental ethics, “conviction(s)” (Ger.
Gesinnung) is one of the key concepts of a specific theory of morality (Morality and immorality). It denotes the enduring and persevering quality of an emotional or volitional urge to attain an envisaged good (cf. Rom 8:5; Phil 2:5; 3:19) – in other words, the intentionality (Intention/Intentionality) that inspires a person or community of persons. The more precise definition of its content a…
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Religion Past and Present
Convocations of Canterbury and York
(291 words)
[German Version] These are provincial assemblies of the Church of England, each of which is divided into an upper house (bishops) and a lower house (representatives of the clergy). There are no lay members. The convocations grew out of ancient assemblies and met regularly from about 1250 onwards. They acted as legislative bodies, and produced a number of important canons, which continue to influence church life today. From 1536 to 1966 the convocations convened a…
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Religion Past and Present
Conzelmann, Hans
(177 words)
[German Version] (Oct 27, 1915, Tailfingen, Württemberg – June 20, 1989, Göttingen) was a Protestant scholar in New Testament studies and a disciple of R. Bultmann. He was appointed professor in Zürich (1954), then in Göttingen (1960), where he became a member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences in 1966. In his publications on the Lucan corpus, Conzelmann introduced the redaction-critical perspective into Protestant research by plausibly demonstrating that Luke is to b…
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Religion Past and Present
Coolhaes, Caspar Janszoon
(214 words)
[German Version] (Jan 24, 1534, Cologne - Jan 15, 1615, Amsterdam). As a Reformed preacher and former Carthusian (1560 conversion to Protestantism), Coolhaes served in several German and Dutch congregations. Appointed at Leiden in 1574, he gave the opening lecture of the Academy in 1574 and assisted with lectures for a few months. In the conflict between the magistracy of Leiden and the Reformed Church Council concerning authority to fill the offices of preacher, …
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Religion Past and Present
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
(197 words)
[German Version] (Canada). The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation originated in 1932 as a loose association of labor parties and farmers' protest movements. While its program of 1933, the so-called Regina Manifest, called for the abolition of capitalism, its radical outlook was tempered by the fact that its organization was primarily built out of groups strongly influenced by British “Fabian” socialism (a union of British intellectuals who sought to realize soc…
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Religion Past and Present
Coordination Theory
(180 words)
[German Version] viewed the relationship between church and state as an equal partnership between two sovereign powers (Violence: IV). It is rooted in corresponding teachings on the relationship between empire and papacy, and was invoked by Roman Catholic doctrine in the 19th century as an argument against the modern state's claim to sovereignty (in its configuration as secular supremacy). After 1945, if only temporarily, it once again attained a h…
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Religion Past and Present
Coornhert, Dirck Volckertszoon
(222 words)
[German Version] (1522, Amsterdam – Oct 29, 1590, Gouda). The military conflict between Spain and the rebellious Netherlands marked the troubled course of his life. Coornhert was a humanist autodidact; he practiced various professions and was a fervent publicist. From 1560 to 1588, with interruptions, he was a notary in Haarlem, and from 1564 to 1567, an annuitant of the city council. He carried out some important assignments for William of Orange. In 1572, Coorn…
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Religion Past and Present
Copacabana,
(209 words)
[German Version] city in Bolivia (department of La Paz, diocese of El Alto) lying 4,000 m above the sea level and located on the shore of the sacred Titicaca Lake; the population numbers c. 13,000. As the cradle of Aymará and Inca culture, Copacabana is characterized by a large number of archaeological sites, including the astronomical observatory Horca del Inca. The Spanish conquerors established a political and religious center in order to curtail the influence of the native religious cult of
Pachamama, which they generally regarded as superstition, but which the In…
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Religion Past and Present
Copenhagen, University of
(699 words)
[German Version] I. History – II. Theological Faculty
I. History For unknown reasons, the papal approbation of 1419 permitting the establishment of a university in Denmark produced no results; not until the bull of Sixtus IV did it prove possible to found the University of Copenhagen on the model of Cologne(III), an event which took place under King Christian I (Jun 1, 1479). The founding documents and statutes of the faculty of law have been preserved. Closed down dur…
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Religion Past and Present
Copernicus, Nicolaus
(341 words)
[German Version] (Dec 19, 1473, Torun – May 24, 1543, Frombork), Polish astronomer. Studied in Cracow (mathematics and painting), Bologna (astronomy), Padua (law and medicine), and Ferrara (canon law). Copernicus was secretary to the bishop of Warmia, Lukasz Watzenrode, and canon at the cathedral in Frombork. His project of a currency reform, which he proposed in his writing
Monetae cudendae ratio (1517, 1526), later became known as “Gresham's Law.” During the war between the knights of the Teutonic Order (Orders of Germany) and the Kingdom…
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Religion Past and Present
Coptic Monasteries
(541 words)
[German Version] The rise of Coptic monasteries coincides with the beginnings of Egyptian monasticism. At the start of the monastic movement there were two forms of monastic life. (1) The anchorites or hermits (Monasticism: III) retreated alone into the desert in search of solitude. Saint Anthony (died 356) represents this type. The anchorites began to flourish in the 4th century; hermitages and lauras arose along the Nile and in the interior of the land. …
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Religion Past and Present
Copts
(3,996 words)
[German Version] I. Coptic Orthodox Church – II. Coptic Alphabet, Language, Literature, and Art
I. Coptic Orthodox Church
1. History The Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt preserves the heritage of the Alexandrian Church (Alexandria: III) to this day. The Copts trace themselves back to an early stage of Egyptian history. The self-designation “Copt” resp. “Copts” or “Coptic” points to these origins, as it derives from the same stem as the Greek word Αίγυπτος/
Aígyptos. Coptic tradition ascribes the founding of its church to the Evangelist Mark. In Alexandria, w…
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Religion Past and Present
Corbie Abbey
(168 words)
[German Version] on the Somme (in the diocese of Amiens). Founded in 657/661 by the Merovingian Queen Balthild and assigned to Luxeuil Abbey. Kings and bishops favored it; it enjoyed its heyday (because of its scriptorium and library) under the Carolingians in the 9th century with such important abbots as Adalhard, Wala and Paschasius Radbertus. Monks in Corbie included the later missionaries Ansgar and Ratramnus (died 868) who authored theological …
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Religion Past and Present
Corbinian
(180 words)
[German Version] (before 700, near Melun – c. 728/730, Freising). The only source is Arbeo's v
ita of him. Initially a settler, Corbinian made two journeys to Rome (before 714 and 715/17), during which he was made priest and bishop. In 719/20, after previous contact with Theodo, duke of Bavaria, in Regensburg and establishing relations with the part-duke Grimoald in Freising, he founded a precursor of the monastery of Weihenstephan. When he opposed Grimoald's marriage to his sister-i…
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Religion Past and Present
Cordatus, Conrad
(217 words)
[German Version] (1480 or 1483, Leombach near Wels – Mar 25, 1546, while traveling near Spandau) began his studies in 1502 in Vienna, Rome and Ferrara (Lic. theol.). In Bohemia he came into contact with Hussites (J. Hus). In Hungary he supported the Reformation in his preaching, had to step down and came to Wittenberg in 1524. In 1525 he returned and was incarcerated in Esztergom (Gran). He managed to escape. Luther helped him to a teaching position in Liegnitz i…
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Religion Past and Present
Cordier, Leopold
(256 words)
[German Version] (Jul 14, 1887, Landau, Palatinate – Mar 1, 1939, Gießen). After studies in Halle, Berlin and Heidelberg Cordier gained his Dr. phil. and Lic. theol. From 1911 he was military chaplain in Karlsruhe, in 1914 parish minister in Eschelbronn (Baden), in 1917 in Frankfurt am Main, and in 1922 in Elberfeld. From 1925 he lectured in Bonn, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the faculty of theology in 1926. In the same year he was appointed ordi…
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Religion Past and Present
Córdoba, Pedro de
(427 words)
[German Version] (1482, Córdoba, Spain – May 4, 1521, Hispaniola), OP, entered the order of Dominicans around 1500, and in September 1510 arrived in Hispaniola as acting superior of the first Dominican community. Under his leadership, on Dec 21, 1511 A. de Montesinos gave an epoch-making sermon against the oppression of the native population, which is considered the “beginning of prophetic theology” in the New World; against the governor Diego Kolumbus Córdoba de…
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Religion Past and Present
Cordovero, Moses
(182 words)
[German Version] (1522, Zefad [Safed]? – 1570, Zefad), the greatest Kabbalist in Zefad before I. Luria. His family, whose origin was in Córdoba, was exiled from Spain in 1492. Cordovero was a disciple of ¶ Rabbi Joseph Karo and Shlomo Alkabetz. His main work, an extensive commentary on the
Zohar with the title
Or Yaqar (
Precious Light) was first published in the last decades (printed in Jerusalem, 1961ff., 22 vols.). His best known work is
Pardes Rimmonim (
A Garden of Pomegranates), a systematic presentation of Cordovero's interpretation of the classical Kabbalah. An…
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Religion Past and Present
Corinth
(402 words)
[German Version] The location at the large east-west connection of the Mediterranean Sea, where ships had to be drawn across a short stretch of land from one sea to the other (with the harbors Cenchrea and Lechaion), made Corinth a junction of cultural contact in antiquity. With its colonies, the city was a water bridge and a land bridge from east to west and north to south. It attracted merchants and artisans – along with their religions –, Egyptians, Carthaginians, Jews, and the tent-maker Paul`. As the center of opposition against the Romans, Corinth was destroyed in 146 bce, but it did n…
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Religion Past and Present
Corinthian Epistles
(3,040 words)
[German Version] I. Significance – II. Attestation – III. Composition History – IV. Historical and Literary Reconstruction of the Corinthian Correspondence – V. Theological Legacy
I. Significance The two letters of Paul in the biblical canon (Bible: III, 2.a; Paul) addressed to the “church of God that is in Corinth” (1 Cor 1:2; 2 Cor 1:1) and “all the saints ¶ throughout Achaia” (2 Cor 1:1) represent a collection of epistolary documents of inestimable importance for the history of primitive Christianity. As sources, they allow a …
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Religion Past and Present
Corinthians, Third
(7 words)
[German Version] Apocrypha/Pseudepigrapha
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Religion Past and Present
Corinth, Lovis
(331 words)
[German Version] (Jul 21, 1858, Tapiau, Eastern Prussia – Jul 17, 1925, Zandvoort, Holland), painter, studied art in Königsberg (1876–1880), in Munich (1880–1884), and in Paris (1884–1886). In 1887 he moved to Berlin, in 1891 to Munich, and in 1900 permanently to Berlin. He married Charlotte Behrend in 1903. He suffered a stroke in 1911 and spent the final years of his life from 1919 in Urfeld am Walchensee. In his early works he was a vital, sensual painter whos…
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Religion Past and Present
Corneille, Pierre
(515 words)
[German Version] (1606, Rouen – 1684, Paris), along with J. Racine and J.B. Molière one of the greatest authors of French classicism. He obtained the foundations of his Christian-humanistic worldview in a Jesuit college; after studying law and a brief period of activity as a lawyer, he turned to the theater in 1629. Of his more than 30 pieces, the tragedy
Le Cid (1637) set in the conflict between
amour and
honneur, the Roman dramas
Horace (1640), rooted in the tension between individual and state, and
Cinna (1640), and the martyr drama
Polyeucte martyr (1641/42) changed the history of t…
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Religion Past and Present
Cornelius
(152 words)
[German Version] (bishop of Rome 251–253). In the persecution under Decius, Bishop Fabian was martyred in 250. One year later (251), a majority chose Cornelius bishop. In his community, 46 presbyters were active, caring for 1500 widows and needy persons. Novatian led a minority community. In contrast to Novatian, Cornelius espoused a community practice that permitted Christians who had fallen away in the persecution to return after appropriate penitence. Bishop Cyprian of Carthage supported Cornelius; Cyprian's anthology of letters contains two letters of Cornelius (
Ep. 49 and …
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Religion Past and Present
Cornelius
(187 words)
[German Version] In Acts 10:1–11:18 and 15:6–11, 14, the “God-fearing” centurion Cornelius (cf. 10:2, 4, 35) functions as a key figure in Acts for the divinely ordained transition of early Christian mission to non-Jewish target groups. A double revelation (Acts 10:3–6 and 9–16) leads Peter to preach in the house of Cornelius. The outpouring of the Spirit to the assembly, manifested in praise to God and speaking in tongues (Glossolalia), justifies on-the-sp…
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Religion Past and Present
Cornelius a Lapide
(165 words)
[German Version] (Cornelis Cornelissen van den Steen, SJ [from 1592]; Dec 8, 1567, Bocholt near Liège – Mar 12, 1637, Rome), exegete. He was professor in Leuven from 1598–1616, thereafter in the Collegium Romanum. He was an important interpreter of Scripture who commented on the entire Bible (except Job and Psalms), both in the sense of the multiple senses of Scripture as well as with a view to the literal meaning. He was influential on into the 20th century. Heribert Smolinsky Bibliography BCJ 4, 1893, 1511–1526 G. Boss,
Die Rechtfertigungslehre in den Bibelkommentären des …
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Religion Past and Present
Cornelius, Peter von
(181 words)
[German Version] (Sep 29, 1783, Düsseldorf – Mar 6, 1867, Berlin), from 1795 a student at the Academy in Düsseldorf, became known to a larger public through his illustrations for Goethe's
Faust (published 1816), which are regarded as the key work of Nazarene art. In Rome (after 1811), Cornelius, along with J.F. Overbeck, was one of the dominant figures in the Nazarene Lucas Brotherhood (Lukasbund). In Munich, where he was director of the Academy from 1824, on the commission of King Ludwig I he crea…
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Religion Past and Present
Cornutus, Lucius Annaeus
(172 words)
[German Version] (born in Leptis, North Africa) was active as a Stoic philosopher in Rome and was exiled under Nero between 63 and 65 ce. In addition to diverse scholarly commentaries, Cornutus authored an
Overview of the Greek Doctrine of the gods (᾽Επιδρομὴ τῶν κατὰ τὴν ῾Ελληνικὴν ϑεολογίαν παραδεδομἑνων/
epidromḗ t#o->;n katà tḗn Hellēnikn theologían paradedoménôn). As ¶ an aid to elementary instruction in philosophy, the
Overview offers a selection of the doctrines of the early philosophers. Cosmogony, important gods, their attributes and e…
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Religion Past and Present
Corona, Saint
(10 words)
[German Version] Victor and Corona, Saints
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Religion Past and Present
Coronation
(1,065 words)
[German Version] I. Crown – II. Coronation – III. Coronation Orders
I. Crown The c
rown (etym.: Gk κορώνη/
korṓnē, curved object, then Latin
corona, “wreath,” etc.) is, in the most common sense, a head adornment displaying the dignity of kings and queens, emperors and empresses (for the head covering of ecclesial potentates there is a specific vocabulary: primarily mitre, tiara; rarely: “papal tiara,” or such). Among insignia, the crown has long merited greatest attention f…
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Religion Past and Present
Coronati Quattuor
(186 words)
[German Version] (“Four Crowned”) is the customary designation since the 6th century for a group of martyrs of uncertain origin venerated in Rome. At the core, it includes the names Claudius, Nicostratus, Sempronianus (Symphorianus) and Castorius. The first three are already listed in the
Depositio episcoporum/martyrum . In the 4th century, they were probably venerated in the Roman catacomb Inter duos lauros (Santi Marcellino e Pietro); since the end of the 6th century there has been a Roman titular church with the patronage of the group. The
Passio (BHL 1836) from late 5th…
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Religion Past and Present
Corporate Culture
(307 words)
[German Version] Management and organizational theory understands corporate culture as a set of fundamental assumptions and values that belong to an organization. The corporate culture is the acquired knowledge of a corporation that unites its members affectively, guides their perception, and determines their behaviors by means of preferences (Schein, Bleicher). In the theory of transaction costs, corporate culture constitutes a component of the transactio…
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Religion Past and Present