The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (573 page)

Counsels of perfection
.

Certain injunctions of Jesus taken in Christian tradition (in contrast to ‘commandments’) as a standard of perfection for only a few disciples (cf. Matthew 19. 21). They are specifically: poverty, the renunciation of property; chastity, abstinence from sexual relations; and obedience, the submission of the will in all things to a superior. These three form the basis for the monastic life.

 
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Counterculture
.

The mainly middle-class, Western youth culture of the 1960s which opposed the
rituals
, forms, structures, ideologies, calculating rationality, and leadership of the wider society. It was from among these casualties of the counterculture that a number of new religions of total commitment, such as the Unification Church (see
MOON, SUN MYUNG
) and Hare Krishna (see
INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY …
), gained many of their first converts in the West.

 
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Counter-Reformation
.

Movement of revival and reform in the
Roman Catholic Church
during the 16th and early 17th cents. The term was used in the 19th cent. to describe that Church's response to the
Reformation
and the rise of
Protestantism
, but this is too limiting a concept. The early leaders of the Counter-Reformation (such as Cisneros in Spain,
Pole
or Giberti in Italy), the revival of
religious
orders such as the
Augustinians
and the
Carmelites
, or the foundation of new orders such as the
Jesuits
, owed little or nothing to the reaction to Protestantism. However, the summoning of the
Council
of
Trent
was a consequence of the spread of
Lutheranism
, and much of the debate at Trent, especially that on the
sacraments
, took place in the light of positions adopted by the
Reformers
. Even though the Counter-Reformation may not have owed its origin to
Luther's
revolt, it had the effect of hardening the
schism
between the two branches of W. Christianity, and it was responsible, at least in part, for the century of religious wars which ended in 1648.

 
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Court Jews
.

Prominent Jews used by European rulers to administer estates and develop credit systems. The institution of the Court Jew emerged gradually in the 16th and 17th cents. Well-known examples include Joseph Bassevi of Prague, Samuel Oppenheimer of Vienna, and Leffmann Behrends of Hanover. Influential and
assimilated
, they played a prominent part in the development of the banking system of Europe.

 
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Judaism
In the Bible, covenants were established between individuals, between marriage partners and between God and
Israel
.
Circumcision
itself is frequently known as
berit
(covenant).
Christianity
The term ‘New Testament’
(Lat.,
testamentum
= ‘covenant’) underlines how early Christians saw themselves in a new covenant.
‘Covenant theology’, or ‘federal theology’
(Lat.
foedus
, ‘covenant’), was a particular development of the New Testament doctrine in
Calvinism
in the 16th–17th cents.
Islam
The
Qur’
n
speaks of a covenant made in pre-existence with all of humanity, (7. 171) with Adam (20. 115), with the
prophets
(3. 81), with the Children of Israel (5. 13, 2. 83, 3. 187), and with the
Christians
(5. 15). The actual terms of the covenants are not specified in detail, but imply the belief in, and worship and service of, the One God.

 
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