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.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
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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
Crossley, Hugh T.
(111 words)
[German Version] (1850, King City, Ontario – May 2, 1934, Toronto, Ontario), Canadian Methodist minister. Crossley formed one half of what was probably – in terms of converts made – the most successful Canadian evangelistic team ever. Together with J. Hunter, Crossley conducted meetings in smaller communities throughout the USA and Canada. Altogether, Crossley ¶ led 400 revival campaigns over the course of his 26-year career. As a result of his preaching, over 200,000 people, including Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, professed a conversion to Christ. Kevin B.Ke…
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Religion Past and Present
Cross, Orders and Congregations of the Holy
(1,136 words)
[German Version] I. Orders of Men – II. Orders of Women
I. Orders of Men
1. Generally speaking, the terms Cruciferi, Crocigeri, and Cruciati refer to members of hospital orders (Hospitallers) and various other orders of knights (Knights, Orders of) whose clothing is adorned with the sign of the cross. More specifically, they are applied to the members of numerous congregations of canons regular that originated in the period of the Crusades, such as the Canons Regular of the…
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Religion Past and Present
Crossroads
(414 words)
[German Version] The construction, extension, and maintenance of roadway networks correlate with the emergence of settlements, towns, and cities (Town and city) and are among the early achievements of advanced civilizations. In ancient Greece, a dense and easily usable network of roads linked city states separated by impassable mountains. Crossroads were often marked by herms intended both to protect against the risks of travel and to serve as landmarks. The …
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Religion Past and Present
Crotus Rubeanus
(210 words)
[German Version] (Johann Jäger; 1480, Dornheim near Arnstadt, Thüringen – c. 1545, Halberstadt), German humanist. He enrolled at the University of Erfurt in 1498, where he joined the circle of humanists around Mutianus Rufus, and lived in the same students' hostel as Luther. He became the mentor of U. v. Hutten around 1503, and earned his M.A. in 1507. He was the principal author of the first section of the
Epistolae obscurorum virorum , which was written in Fulda in 1515. In 1517, he completed his Dr. theol. in Bologna, where he became a…
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Religion Past and Present
Crowther, Samuel Ajayi
(565 words)
[German Version] (c. 1806, Osogun, Nigeria – Dec 31, 1891, Lagos, Nigeria), the first black African bishop in modern times. Enslaved in 1821 at the age of about 15, he was on board a Brazilian brig for export when it was captured by the British anti-slavery squadron off the coast of Lagos. He arrived in Freetown in 1822, where he was educated by Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries. In 1841 he accompanied the British Niger Expedition and became known thro…
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Religion Past and Present
Cruciger
(268 words)
[German Version]
1. Caspar (the Elder; Jan 1, 1504, Leipzig – Nov 16, 1548, Wittenberg) studied in Leipzig (1513–1523) and Wittenberg, and became preacher and schoolmaster in Magdeburg in 1525. Returning to Wittenberg in 1528, he earned his doctorate in 1533. As professor of theology and collaborator of Luther (Bible revision, printing of sermons, edition of Luther's works) and Melanchthon (Disputations, Religious; Augsburg Interim), he ¶ sparked off a dispute over justification in 1536, when he called for repentance
and good deeds. He played a part in the reformation of L…
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Religion Past and Present
Crüger, Johann
(414 words)
[German Version] (Apr 9, 1598, Groß Breesen near Guben – Feb 23, 1662, Berlin) was the most important Protestant creator of song melodies. The history of the hymnal is also indebted to him for essential impulses. After studying theology and music in Wittenberg, he was cantor at the Nikolai Church in Berlin from 1622 until his death. In addition to writings on music theory (
Synopsis musica 1630, 21654), there are a considerable number of compositions (including settings of the Magnificat for two choirs and soloist parts accompanied by general bass:
Meditationum musicarum Paradisus sec…
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Religion Past and Present
Crusades
(4,060 words)
[German Version] I. History – II. Literature – III. From the Muslim Perspective – IV. Effects on the Jews
I. History
1. Concept The Middle Ages did not develop a clear term for the crusades. The word itself is only documented at a late point. What research calls the crusades in the narrower sense of the word are the crusades which were begun at the end of the 11th century by Latin Christendom to reconquer or defend Jerusalem and the Holy Land. The conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 by the Christ…
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Religion Past and Present
Crusius, Christian August
(183 words)
[German Version] (Jan 10, 1715, Leuna – Oct 18, 1775, Leipzig) was appointed adjunct professor of philosophy in Leipzig in 1744 and professor of theology at the same university in 1750. As a philosopher, Crusius gave anti-Wolffianism (C. Wolff) its definitive form. By distinguishing between epistemic or ideal causes and real causes, he was able to contest the ontological proof of the existence of God, as well as Leibniz-Wolffian determinism and the notion of a preestablished harmony (G.W. Leibniz). As a theologian, ¶ Crusius was inspired by J. Cocceius and J.A. Bengel …
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Religion Past and Present
Cruz, Juana Inés de la
(179 words)
[German Version] (Sor Juana; Dec 2, 1648/1651?, San Miguel Nepantla, Mexico – Apr 17, 1695, Mexico City), OSH. The Creole Juana Ramírez de Asbaje, born out of wedlock, rose, thanks to her outstanding intelligence, to become a lady at court. She had a close friendship with the viceroy Maria Luisa Manrique de Lara, who had Cruz's works published in Spain beginning in 1689. From 1669, the encyclopedically educated autodidact was able to give life to her extraordinar…
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Religion Past and Present
Crypto-Calvinists
(352 words)
[German Version] is the name that was once given to those persons who originated from or were active in the areas dominated by the Lutheran confession and who, according to the judgment of confessionally Lutheran theologians of the late 16th century, advocated doctrinal views or practical approaches that were intented to undermine the status of the Lutheran denomination by secretly bringing it closer to Reformed or Calvinist positions. In scholarly publications, …
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Religion Past and Present
Cuba
(1,016 words)
[German Version] is the largest, most westerly and most thickly populated island in the Caribbean. Cuba's location between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean gives the island strategic advantages. The republic encompasses 114,524 km2 with a population of 1,051,000. 70% of the total population are white, 17% are of mixed race, 12% black, and 1% Asiatic. Religious affiliation is difficult to ascertain: 39.6% are Catholics, 1.4% are Protestants (Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Pentecostals), 48.7% b…
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Religion Past and Present
Cuius regio, eius religio
(231 words)
[German Version] (“whose region, his religion”) is the slogan-like abbreviation of the state-church system in the old Empire characterized by the
ius reformandi for territorial princes created in the Religious Peace of Augsburg (1555). According to this, rulers are justified in determining the confession in their territories, although they were restricted to the Roman Catholic or the Augsburg Confession. In addition, there were a number of special regulations, for imperial cit¶ ies, for example. Those not of the regional confession were granted the right to emigrate (
Ius emigrand…
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Religion Past and Present
Cullmann, Oscar
(341 words)
[German Version] (Feb 25, 1902, Strasbourg – Jan 16, 1999, Chamonix) was professor of New Testament studies and Early Church history and an ecumenicist. After studying and teaching in Strasbourg, Cullmann became professor of New Testament studies there in 1930. From 1938 to 1972, he held the chair of NT studies and Early Church history at Basel. In addition, he held professorships in Strasbourg (1945–1948) and Paris (1948–1968). In 1972, he was elected a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques. After beginning as a literary critic with works on the pse…
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Religion Past and Present
Cult Authors
(489 words)
[German Version]
I. The term cult authors refers to a group of authors who collected and explicated the primary documents of the cults of the Greeks and Romans (rituals, calendars, cultic laws, priestly regulations, protocols, etc.). The group, which cannot be easily differentiated from local historians, periegetes, antiquarians, and theologians, includes about 100 authors (5th cent. bce to the end of the 4th cent. ce). Their themes and titles are: a.
On Days (Gk
perí hēmerón),
On Months, On Feasts; b.
On Sacrifices (Gk
perí thysión),
On Mysteries, On Dedications, On Purification…
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Religion Past and Present
Cult-Historical School
(561 words)
[German Version] It is not really appropriate to speak of the cult-historical school as a single historical entity; at best, one can refer to various research milieus or working groups, which have translated leading motifs of the cult-historical method into practice on a broad basis and which have, thus, stamped scholarship in general. The closest to a clearly defined “school” are – apart from the Cambridge Ritualists of the early 20th century – those initiative…
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Religion Past and Present
Cultic Objects in Palestine
(545 words)
[German Version] (Bronze Age to Late Antiquity). Power-radiating objects, such as scepters or ceremonial weapons, or implements needed to perform cultic procedures, such as libations and incense offerings, but in which there is no inherent magical power, can be designated cultic objects. As such, they have been attested in Palestine since pre-historic times and found use in the official and the private cult, were made of the most varied materials, and mostly preserved …
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Religion Past and Present
Cult Sites (in Palestine)
(502 words)
[German Version] In addition to the temple in Palestine and northern Arabia, there were open-air sanctuaries, demarcated sites whose inventory regularly included an
asherah , a holy tree, and a
massebah, a holy stone, at least since the late Neolithic era. As its Old Testament designation,
asherah, indicates, the tree represents the goddess, while the
massebah was considered the locus of the presence of the god (thus Beth-El, Bethyl [Bethel]; cf. Gen 28:18–19a).
Masseboth/bethyls could be left in their natural state, decorated with reliefs, sculpted geometrica…
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Religion Past and Present
Cultural Anthropology/Social Anthropology
(811 words)
[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Natural Sciences
I. Religious Studies Ethnology in the German-speaking realm corresponds roughly to cultural anthropology in the USA and social anthropology in the British realm of influence. Different disciplinary classification in the three scientific regions has led to specific configurations. Common to all is the object of investigation: human culture and comparison of (as an ideal, all) individual cultures. The Ame…
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Religion Past and Present
Cultural Catholicism
(451 words)
[German Version] Formed in chronological proximity to cultural Protestantism, cultural Catholicism first occurred in 1910 in progressive Reform Catholicism as a polemical term for the group centered around the journal
Hochland (Highland) and its editor K. Muth, which was moderate in terms of church policy, and for the “reconcilication of the (Roman Catholic) church and modern culture” in view of Catholic “inferiority” desired by H. Schell and A. Ehrhard and also popularized in the series “Kultur und …
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Religion Past and Present
Cultural Criticism
(568 words)
[German Version] Though the earliest beginnings of faith and knowledge already permit the perception, in retrospect, of an element of cultural criticism, J.-J. Rousseau was the first to bring the phenomenon to life. The 18th century underwent a previously unknown assessment of “civilization” and its claims that were thenceforth considered objects of human production and control. The major themes of Rousseau's cultural criticism: The
alienation of society and the
suppression of individuality extend the Enlightenment instrument of criticism to the process of …
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Religion Past and Present
Cultural Elites and the Church
(773 words)
[German Version] In a broad sense, the educational dilemma of the church is the consequence of the modern tension between religion and science, first apparent in the 18th century. In 1799 F.D.E. Schleiermacher defended religion from its cultured despisers, who had enthusiastically adopted aesthetic and moral forms of self-assurance while educating the general populace in a religion to which they themselves were “totally indifferent” (Schleiermacher, 32). As the middle class grew during the 19th century, this ¶ tendency led to education in a cultural religion indep…
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Religion Past and Present
Cultural Evolution
(389 words)
[German Version] is gaining in significance in the description of culture. It not a matter of social Darwinism (Darwinism: IV) nor of a simple transfer of the principles of biological evolution, neither analogy nor parallelism, but structural isomorphy, which depicts relations of various levels to one another. One can speak of a general theory of evolution as a positive heuristic for physical, biological and social processes. A plausible model must describe the s…
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Religion Past and Present
Cultural History
(434 words)
[German Version] The composite term cultural history can be first identified in the second half of the 18th century (Johann Christoph Adelung; Hermann Dietrich Hegewisch; Karl Ludwig Heinrich Pölitz). Authors of historical works appropriated the term in order to refer programmatically to the expansion of the subject of history beyond court and church concerns to the scopes of experience of middle class life (such as commerce, transportation, education, etc.). As …
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Religion Past and Present
Cultural Protestantism
(913 words)
[German Version] Despite intensive historical research, the origins of the term cultural Protestantism have been identified only in broad outline. Originally it was not a self-designation but a polemical term used by others, reflecting the florescence of cultural semantics (Culture: II) in the late 19th and early 20th century. In all European societies, the widespread sense of a crisis of modernity, the cultural pessimism rife among the bourgeoisie, and the relat…
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Religion Past and Present
Cultural Revolution
(456 words)
[German Version]
I. The term cultural revolution originated in Soviet Marxist-Leninist terminology of the 1920s. It refers to the effort to expand the effects of the October Revolution (Russia; Communism) beyond the political and economic realms and to extend them to cultural politics as a “Third Front.” In this respect, the emergence of the term marks a demarcation from the classical understanding of K. Marx and F. Engels according to which cultural developments …
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Religion Past and Present
Cultural Studies
(795 words)
[German Version] The term cultural studies (Ger.
Kulturwissenschaft) appeared as early as the late 18th century. It gained programmatic content, however, only around 1900 in the controversies concerning the independence of the humanities in relation to the natural sciences and concerning the normative integration of modern capitalist mass societies shaped by multiple crises. Since the “linguistic turn” and the “culturalist turn” in the 1980s, it has served the trans-d…
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Religion Past and Present
Cultural Theology
(391 words)
[German Version] The term cultural theology refers to the systematic-theological project of elaborating an interpretation of the religious dimension of cultural work and evaluating it against the background of firm theological decisions, or of appreciating and meeting the theological challenges given in a specific social and cultural situation. Thus, three assumptions are mentioned that form the basis of any project of cultural theology.
First, one must clarify what is to be understood by “culture,” what realm of phenomena this term describes, what “…
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Religion Past and Present
Culture
(7,222 words)
[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Church History – III. Philosophy – IV. Fundamental Theology – V. Ethics – VI. Culture, Art, and Religion – VII. Practical Theology
I. Religious Studies The word “culture” derives from Latin
cultura, “tilling of land”; since antiquity it has been used metaphorically for
cultura animi, “cultivation of the mind,” and for
status culturalis, the desirable refinement contrasting with the human
status naturalis. Since the Enlightenment, the word has taken on different meanings. In the European context, culture co…
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Religion Past and Present
Culture Hero
(646 words)
[German Version] Except in the monotheistic religions of revelation, in mythology throughout the world we encounter figures who are the first to introduce the cultural knowledge critical to human survival; they are not looked upon as wholly divine but rather as hybrids, since they are intermediate between gods and human beings. Often they are not only hermaphroditic, but ambiguous in all respects (Dualism: I). They are nomadic, protean, scheming, but also well-di…
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Religion Past and Present
Culture Research
(448 words)
[German Version] Although cultural research is able to look back on a long scholarly tradition, it has unmistakably gained in significance in the last 20 years. In the context of globalized and pluralistic societies, research on local cultures, but also cultures in a broader context, faces new challenges. Today, in this regard, cultural ¶ research itself is understood pluralistically: empirical, hermeneutic, semiotic, and ideological approaches have been developed. A common critique of certain restrictions on cultural research in the …
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Religion Past and Present
Culture State
(808 words)
[German Version] I. Law – II. Social Ethics
I. Law A culture state is a state that takes responsibility not only for the security and freedom of its citizens, but also their cultural concerns (Culture),
nota bene, for ¶ the sake of its own cultural conditions. Legally, the culture state expresses itself in part in determinations of the objectives of state (clearly in art. 3 I 1 of the 1946 Bavarian Constitution: “Bavaria is a legal, cultural and social state”), otherwise in the establishment of the state educat…
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Religion Past and Present
Cult/Worship
(8,783 words)
[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. History of Scholarship – III. Ancient Near East – IV. Old Testament and Early Judaism – V. New Testament – VI. Philosophy of Religion – VII. Christianity – VIII. Liturgical Practice – IX. Ethics
I. Religious Studies
1. Concept The word “cult” comes from Lat.
cultus. Cicero (
De senectute 56) uses the phrase
cultus deorum in the sense of “worship of the gods.” It invariably refers to acts of “care and tending”; in secular contexts the word denotes agrarian work (cf.
agriculture). There are analogous words in other ancient languages…
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Religion Past and Present
Cumberland Presbyterian Church
(173 words)
[German Version] Organized on Feb 4, 1810 in Dickson, TN, by Finis Ewing, Samuel King and Samuel McAdow, who reconstituted the Presbytery of Cumberland, KY, which was dissolved by the Presbyterian Church (Presbyterians) in 1806. Influenced by revivalism (Revival/Revival movements), the denomination was concerned to provide preachers for the American frontier while also rejecting parts of the Westminster Confession, particularly the doctrine of God's eterna…
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Religion Past and Present
Cumont, Franz
(328 words)
[German Version] (Jan 3, 1868, Aalst – Aug 20, 1947, Woluwé-Saint-Pierre), Belgian archaeologist, philologist, and historian of religion. Cumont studied classical philology at the University of Ghent (Ph.D. in 1887), studying in further depth in Bonn, Berlin, Vienna, and Paris (1882–1892) under the guidance of H. Usener, T. Mommsen, Hermann Diels (1848–1922), and L. Duchesne. After a journey to Greece and Italy (1890–1891), he received a teaching po…
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Religion Past and Present
Cumulation
(242 words)
[German Version] (Lat.
cumulatio;
cumulare, “to accumulate”) occurs in Catholic canon law dealing with both penalties and offices. In canon penal law (Ecclesiastical penalties), the fundamental principle is to impose as many penalties as criminal offenses committed (
tot poenae quot delicta). In the event that the accumulation ¶ of all imposed individual penalties results in an excessive aggregate penalty, the judge may mitigate the penalty (cc. 1344, 1346
CIC/1983; cf. c. 2224
CIC/1917; c. 1409 §1, 30
CCEO). Cumulation applies in cases of repeated offense during a probat…
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Religion Past and Present
Cura religionis
(734 words)
[German Version] is a designation in Protestant theology and church law describing the responsibility of the secular authorities for guaranteeing the true confession and essence of the church. With
cura religionis the role of the church's secular arm that medieval canonical law attributed to the authorities is overcome, but it is also distinguished from the rule over the church exercised by regional rulers in the late Middle Ages. It went through a profound metamorphosis during the onset of the modern era. Luther and Melanchthon based the
cura religionis on their doctrine of the t…
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Religion Past and Present
Curcellaeus, Stephanus
(157 words)
[German Version] (Etienne de Courcelle; May 2, 1586, Geneva – May 20, 1659, Amsterdam) was, alongside S. Episcopius, J. Clericus and P. van Limborch, one of the most important representatives of 17th century Arminian theology (Arminians). He studied in Zürich, Basel, Heidelberg, and was pastor in Fontainebleau, Amiens and Vitry from 1614; he moved to Amsterdam, where he was professor of theology in the Arminian Seminary after 1643. His position, following J. Acon…
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Religion Past and Present
Cureus, Joachim
(155 words)
[German Version] (Oct 23, 1532, Kozuchów (Freystadt), Silesia, Poland – Jan 21, 1573, Glogów (Glogau), Silesia, Poland). After studying at Wittenberg from 1550 to 1554 and teaching in Freystadt, Cureus went to Padua and Bologna in 1557, where he received a medical degree (Dr. med.) in 1558. In 1559, he began working as a doctor in Glogau. He wrote medical, historical, and theological books, including the anonymous
Exegesis perspicua et ferme intégra controversiae de sacra coena, published posthumously (in 1574), in which he argued that the Melanchthon School dev…
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Religion Past and Present
Curione, Celio Secondo
(160 words)
[German Version] (1503, Cirie, Piemont – 1569) accepted Reformation ideas in the course of his study of literature and jurisprudence at the University of Turin. His critique of traditional religion brought him into increasing conflict with the church authorities. In 1536, he was called as professor to the University of Pavia, but was already dismissed three years later under ¶ pressure from the Inquisition. He moved to Venice, Ferrara and Lucca, and enjoyed a friendship with Peter Martyr Vermigli and H. Zanchius until he had to flee …
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Religion Past and Present
Custodia utriusque tabulae
(232 words)
[German Version] refers in Protestant theology and jurisprudence since Melanchthon to the obligation of Christian authorities to apply the Decalogue in the
externa disciplina, i.e. the secular power's external maintenance of the world in the service of its redemption through the spiritual power's proclamation of the gospel. Consequently, the maintenance of the first tablet takes priority among the governing duties of the
magistratus christianus, that is, care for the public dissemination of true evangelical doctrine, protection from blasphemous publi…
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Religion Past and Present