2. Physical injuries committed upon a free Israelite were to be avenged by retaliation npon the author (Exod. xxi, 23 sq. ; Lev. xxiv, 19 sq.). See Daxa*
GE8.
8. Of foreign corporal inflictions we may here enu- merate the following : (1.) Partial dichotomy, or the cutting off of the nose and ears, also of the hands or one of them, which species of punishment was often practised among the later Jews, but chiefly in tumult- uous times (Josephus, Life, 30, 34, 35). A similar maiming of the toes occurs among the Canaanitish in- cidents (Judg. i, 7). In Egypt such mutilations were sanctioned by law; and it was usually the member through which the offence had been committed that was cut off (Diod. Sic. i, 78) ; the adulteress must ex- piate her crime by the loss of the nose (so as to spoil her countenance), a penalty to which Ezek. xxiii, 25, Is usually referred, a passage, however, that rather re- lates to Babylonian usage. (On the Persian custom, see Xenophon, Anab. i, 9, 18 ; Curtius, v, 5, 6 ; vii, 5, 40. An allusion to dichotomy occurs in the Behistun inscription; see Rawlinson's explanation, p. 9, 17.) On captives in war such disfigurations were and still are (Russegger, Reise, ii, 138) most recklessly perpe- trated. (2.) Blinding (^3:^) was a Chaldaean (Jer. Iii, 11 ; 2 Kings xxv, 7) and ancient Persian punishment (Herodotus, vii, 18). See Etk. It still prevails in Persia with regard to princes, who are sometimes thu^ deprived of all prospect to the snccession ; vision is not entirely obliterated by the process employed in such cases (Chardin, v, 243 ; RosenmQller, Morgenl. iii,
CORPORATION
622 CORPUS JURIS CANONICI
250 sq. ; a diffsrent treatment is mentioned bj Proco- pius, in Phot. Cod, 68, p. 82). The extinction of the ejres (D^a'^^TK 1)?3), a practice frequent in Persia (Ctesias, Pert. 6), is named in Jndg. xvi, 21, as a piece of Philistine barbarity; in 1 Sam. xi, 12, the same atrocity appears to have obtained with the Ammonites. — Winer, ii, 14. See Punishment.
Corporation, Ecclesiastical (Corpus Eccle- siasticum), an association for ecclesiastical purposes sanctioned by the state and recognised as a civil per- son (corpus). Among the nsoal rights of corporations are those to acquire property, to contract obligations and debts, to sue and be sued. Their legal status may be regulated either by general laws applying to all corporations of a certain class, or by special laws given for the benefit of one corporation only. — Wetzer n. Welte, Kirchen-Lex. ii, 881.
Coipse (n^;i9i, geviyah\ Keh. ill, 8, a carcase, as rendered in Judg. xiv, 8, 9, elsewhere "body ;" "lai, pt'geTy 2 Kings xix, 85 ; Isa. xxxvii, 6, a ** carcate'* or "body" [usually dead], as elsewhere rendered; m-teifia, Mark vi, 29, a dead " body" or " carcase," as elsewhere rendered), the dead body of a human being. See Carcase.
Corpus Catholio6nim (pody of ih» CatAoUcs), formerly the collective name of the Roman Catholic states of Germany, as contradistinguished from the Corpus EoangeUconim (q. v.) of the Protestant states. It was not until after the treaty of Westphalia, where- in the pope had, by settling, so to say, the rights of both pi^es, officiidly recognised their existence, that the expression Corpus CathoUcorum came into general use. Yet the confederation had existed before the Corpus EpangeUcorwn, as is proved by the harmonious action of the Roman Catholic states at the Diet of Nu- remberg and the decisions of the Confederation of Rat- isbon (1524). The elector of Mayence was the Presi- dent of the Corpus Caiholioorum^ which generally held its proceedings in a convent of that city in which the diet happened to meet. The abolition of the German Empire in 1806 led to the extinction of the Corpus EvangeUcoTum^ and, as a consequence, of that of the Corpus CathoKcorwn, — See Faber, Europdische Stctais- Canizley^ who, in vol. liii, p. 287, gives a comjilete list of the states constituting the Corpus CathoUcorum ; Moser, Teutsches StaatS'Becht, etc ; and Corpus Evait-
OELICORUM.
Corpus Christi (body o/Christ), a festival histi- tuted in the Roman Church in honor of the consecrated host and of transubstantiation. It owes its origin to a nun of Li^ge named Juliana. In 1280, while look- ing at the full moon, she said she saw a gap in its orb, and, by a revelation from heaven, learned that the moon represented the Christian Church, and the gap the want of a certain festival— that of the adoration of the body of Christ in the consecrated host — which she was to begin to celebrate, and to announce to the world. Further, in 1264, while a priest at Bolsena, who did not believe in transubstantiation, was going through the ceremony of benediction, it is said drops of blood fell on his surplice, and, when he endeavored to conceal them in the folds of his garment, they formed bloody images of the host ! A bloody surplice is still said to be showb at Civita Yecchia. Urban lY pub- lished in the same year a bull, in which he appointed the Thursday of the week after Pentecost for the cele- bration of the Feast of Corpus Christi throughout Chris- tendom, and promised absolution for a period of from forty to one hundred days to the penitent who took part in it. It was afterwards neglected, but was re- established by Clement Y, and since that time the fes- tival has been observed as one of the most important in the Romish Church. Splendid processions form a part of it. The children belonging to the choir with iUgs, and the priests with lighted tapers, move throu|^