The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (563 page)

 
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Confessor
.

1
In the early church, a person who suffered for ‘confessing’ (i.e. maintaining) the faith but not to the point of
martyrdom
. After the time of persecutions, the term was extended to apply to those whose lives were manifestly holy (as Edward the Confessor, declared to be so in 1161).
2
A Christian priest who hears (private)
confessions
and administers the sacrament of
penance
.

 
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Confirmation
.

The Christian rite in which the
Holy Spirit
is conveyed in a renewed or fuller way to those who have already undergone
baptism
, derived from John 14. 15–21, and Acts 2. 37 f., which suggests a division between the two. In the Middle Ages it came to be counted as one of the seven
sacraments
.

 
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Confucian Classics
.

A canonical collection of works whose prestige in traditional China was comparable to that of Greek and Roman classics in the W., and whose authority was as unassailable as that of biblical scripture.
Three of them predate
Confucius
: the
Shih
(Song Lyrics), the
Shu
(Historical Documents of Archaic Times), and the
I
or
Yi
(Change). The
Ch'un Ch'iu
(Springs and Autumns) is supposed to be from the brush of the Master himself. Texts on ritually correct behaviour are collectively called
Li Chi
(Ritual Scriptures). A canon of ritual music (
Yüeh Ching
) is said to have been lost before the 3rd cent. BCE, but its contents can be surmised from other, surviving texts. All these works were supposed to have been edited by Confucius, or have him as their figure of authority; hence the term, Confucian Classics.
The corpus of Confucian Classics varied over the course of time. The Five Scriptures taught in the state college of the Han dynasty (from 136 BCE–220 CE) were
Shih
,
Shu
,
Yi
,
Ch'un Ch'iu
, and
Li
(at first the
Yi Li
, or Ceremonials and Rituals, and later the
Li Chi
, or
Records of Rituals
). To these there were then added the
Lun Yü
or
Analects
, and the
Hsiao
Ching
, or
Scripture of Filiality
, to make up Seven Scriptures. In the T’ang period (618–907) the Canon comprised Nine Scriptures, including
Shih
,
Shu
,
Yi
, the Three Ritual Collections (
Yi Li
,
Li Chi
, and
Chou Li
or
Chou Kuan
, an idealized description of governmental institutions in early Chou times, ?1111–256 BCE), and the Three Exegeses, meaning the
Ch'un Ch'iu
with its ancient exegeses (
chuan
) named for their putative authors:
Kungyang Chuan
,
Ku-liang Chuan
,
Tso Chuan
. The final version of the Confucian Classics was the
Thirteen Scriptures with Notes and Commentaries
, which appeared at the very end of the 12th cent. In addition to all of the above enumerated texts, it included the book of the philosopher Meng (
Meng Tzu
, or
Mencius
) and the earliest dictionary, called
Er Ya
.
The neo-Confucian philosophers of the Sung dynasty (960–1279) identified a corpus within this corpus which they called the
Four Books
, or Books of the Four Philosophers (
Ssu Shu
): the
Analects
,
Mencius
,
Ta Hsüeh
(
Great Learning
), and
Chung Yung
(
Doctrine of the Mean
), the latter two being small texts extracted from
Li Chi
.

 
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(Chin. equivalent,
ju-chia
,
ju-chiao
,
kung chiao
: School of Scholars or of
Confucius
). The school and teaching of Confucius, which formed the mainstream in Chinese philosophy during most of the past 2,000 years. While Confucius' teachings are best found in the
Analects
, Confucianism regards as its special texts the Confucian Classics, for which see above. Confucian philosophy became dominant in Han China (206 BCE–220 CE) only after much uncertainty, and by losing some of its doctrinal purity and integrity. Confucianism became eclectic, accepting many elements from Legalism. In Chinese terms, Confucianism is a religion (
chiao
, literally, ‘doctrine’) as well as a philosophy (
chia
, literally, ‘a school of transmission’). But it is different from those W. religions which emphasize revealed doctrines and belief in God. While Confucius appears to have believed in a supreme deity, he preferred to teach a doctrine of humanism open to the transcendent. (For developments, see
NEO-CONFUCIANISM
).

 
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