Su»P**^o?J* '^'^''^^ THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
Bibliography: D. Bouix, De capitulis, Paris, 1852; P. Schneider, Die bischoflichen Domkapilel, Maiaz, 1855; idem. Die Entwickelung der bischoflichen Domkapiicl bis zum vierzehnUn Jahrhunderte, Wurzburg, 1882; G. A. HuUer, Die juristische Personlichkeiten der Domkapilel in Deutschland, Bamberg, 1860; G. Finazzi, Dei capituli cathedrali, Lucca, 1863; P. Hinschius, Kirchenrechl der Katholiken und Protestanten, ii. 49-161, Berlin, 1871; A. L. Richter, Lehrbuch des katholischen und evangelischen Kirchenrechts, 8th ed. by W. Kahl, pp. 440 sqq., 528, Leipsic, 1877-S6; W. F. Hook, Church Dictionary, s.vv. Chapter and Dean, London, 1887; E. Hatch, Growth of Church Institutions, ib. 1887; idem, Organisation of Early Christian Churches, ib. 1888; E. Friedberg, Lehrbuch des katholischen und protestantischen Kirchenrechts, p. 164, Leipsic, 1895; H. D. M. Spence, The White Robe of Churches, London, 1900; H. Schaefer, Pfarrkirche und Stift, Stuttgart, 1903; A. Werminghofi, Kirchenverfassung Deutschlands im Mittelalter, Hanover, 1905.
CHAPTER AND VERSE DIVISION IN THE BIBLE. See Bible Text, III.
CHAPTER-COURTS (Chorgerichte): The name applied, in the canton of Bern after the Reformation, to the tribunals having charge of matrimonial causes and the execution of church discipline. As early as 1470, the town council of Bern had seriously attempted to take in hand the moral condition of the inhabitants, neglected by the Church. In the same spirit, the Reformation here was rather one of practise than of doctrine. Thus, after the issue of the first reforming decree, it was naturally one of the concerns of the Bernese authorities to replace the suppressed episcopal courts by a new tribunal which should represent the civil government but regard questions coming before it from a religious standpoint. On May 29, 1528, the new court began its work. It was composed of six members — two from the greater and two from the lesser coimcil, with two preachers. It met in the building belonging to the old chapter, whence it probably took its name. In September it set forth principles to govern matrimonial causes, and in November the other matters coming under its jurisdiction. These were offenses against the law of God which could not be punished as violations of express civil statutes — such things as drunkenness, incontinence, usury, atheism, superstition, witchcraft, blasphemy, and gambling, which latter was strictly forbidden as imworthy of Christian people. An appeal had been intended to lie to the council, but this was abrogated in Jan., 1529. In March of this year the first formal regulations were put forth, evidently based on those adopted at Zurich in 1525. The pimishments prescribed consisted of deprivation of honors and offices, imprisonment, banishment— not often money fines, which became more usual later. The strictness of the judges caused no little murmuring at first, and the " Great Synod " of Jan., 1532, was obliged to promise that greater mildness should be shown. The attendance of the preachers was even for a time partially dispensed with, but in 1536 they were recalled, since so many questions came up in which their judgment, as expositors of God's word, was needed. In the same year Bern conquered Vaud and the other Savoyard lands to the southwest, and pro- CLcJed to introduce the Reformation on its own principles. The ministers of Vaud, especially Viret and Beza, wished to set up a system of strict
church discipline on the Geneva model; but this did not agree with the Bernese view of the unity of the State, including the Church within itself, so that ultimately chapter-courts were set up in each church district of the conquered territory. The ministers, under Calvin's influence, stood out obstinately for strictly ecclesiastical discipline, with excommunication for its principal weapon. Things finally came to an open breach, and the banishment of a number of the clergy. All this attracted greater attention to the system of chapter-courts; and greater severity than ever was shown against wanton dress, fortune-telling, gambling, and immoral dances and songs. The rules of the chaptercourts were enforced in the old local tribunals, which were gradually abolished (1561) in the interest of administrative unity; the same thing happened (1566) in certain cities, such as Brugg and Zofingen, where the magistrates had for a time dealt with matrimonial causes and general morality.
Viret and his friends had, however, been right in a way. The chapter-courts were, after all, of the nature of civil government and police. As such, they had done a good deal for external morality and order; but they could do little for the promotion of vital piety; their connection with the Church was loose and external. The duty of examining and licensing candidates for church offices, which had been originally given to them, fell to another body very soon; the clergy managed their own discipline in their own assemblies; and in the end the chapter-courts had nothing but questions of marriage and paternity and an external police des mcBurs. After 1704 appeals were granted to the town council or the Two Hundred; and in 1708 the number was changed to eight secular judges with two clerical assessors. They had now a formal code of their own, with purely secular penalties, which was revised or enlarged at need. They continued to exist (except in the period of the Helvetic Republic, 1798-1803) until the revision of the constitution in 1831. By the law of 1874 most of the duties of the chapter-courts were given to the " church-councils," which now regulate questions of morality in so far as the modern State permits. (E. BLoscHf.)
Bibliography: C. B. Hundeshagen, Die Konflikte in der Bern. Landeskirche, in C. Trechsel, Beitrage, Bern, 1841- 1842; Frickeit, Die Kirchengebrauche in iSern, Aarau, 1846; Von Stxirler, in Archiv des historischen Vereins von Bern, 1862; E. Egli, Actensammlung zur Geschichte der Ziircher Reformation, Zurich, 1879.
CHARACTER : The composite of definite moral and personal traits which serves to distinguish an individual and to mark the type to which he belongs. Morality is essentially a matter of will, and thus of free agency. The will is, therefore, closely associated with character; but it exists, in the true sense of the word, only in so far as it is free and accepts the new modification voluntarily, instead of possessing it by nature, or being constrained to it by external influences. The criterion of character, in Kantian phrase, is " not what nature makes of man, but what man makes of himself." Character must, therefore, differ essentially from the original disposition of man. The different forces and im-
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA o&^J^f^fJi'^ Division
pulses of the mental life form the basis, means, and material for will and character, but in themselves they are only anteethical. They may, furthermore, be devoted either to lofty or to low ethical ends. Such a naturalistic basis can not be allowed to condition the principle of decision for or against the will of God, nor can it be permitted to control the moral demand and aims. In terms of Christian ethics the fundamental requirements for a noble character are that, as divine revelation demands and renders possible, it should obtain a heart established with grace through faith (Heb. xiii. 9), that it be strengthened with might by the Spirit and become rooted and grounded in self-denying love (Eph. iii. 16 sqq.), that it come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (Eph. iv. 13; I Cor. xvi. 13), and that it be ready to perform faithfully every duty which its special ability and position in the world requires. The natural dispositions, however, retain their importance for the weal or wo of character, and influences of the temperament may facilitate or aggravate the change for good or bad. On this account the will must influence nature lest it should destroy the formation of character and check the fulfilment of certain individual duties, so that the natural man must accordingly become subject to righteous will. Even where it is impossible to overcome certain natural dispositions, character must at least oppose them, and assert its authority by discipline. On the other hand, the natural elements of psychic life should be allowed a certain influence on the will, in case their tendency is good. Additional influences and factors arise from external conditions and social positions, so that cht^racter may be defined, with Scharling, " as the impress of the will on the basis of natural individuality." Thus arises an endless variety and diversity of characters, owing partly to moral and immoral free will, partly to varjdng temperaments, and partly to the manifold relations between the will, natural disposition, and personal experience. True ethical goodness of the character, however, always lies in that will which resigns itself to the moral principles, subjects the natural man to them, and at the same time endeavors to become fit for the tasks assigned to it individually, ever striving to become better adapted to its endowment and position. Christian ethics must naturally be directed from the very first toward developing and strengthening the character. Success here implies not only a mature discretion and msight into the basal principles of morality, but also a thorough understanding of one's own temperament and of mankind and the world.
(J. KoSTLINf.)
CHARIOT. See War.
CHARISMATA, ca-ris'ma-ta: The term used by theologians to designate the remarkable signs of the divine favor and power which accompanied the work of the primitive Church, beginning with the gift of tongues on the day of Pentecost. Ihe belief in such signs exists to-day among large numbers of Protestants as well as in the Roman Catholic Church, with the differ-
ence that the latter sees in the miracles of the saints the continuation of these miraculous powers, while on the evangelical side they are supposed to have- ceased at the latest with the first three centuries, either through the fault of the Church or by God's design. The question of the continuance of the charismata is in many modern treatises connected with that of the continuance of miracles, the writers regarding the gift of supernatural power to effect supernatural operations as a fulfilment of Mark xvi. 17, 18. Baur, on the other hand, saw in the charismata only the gifts and dispositions which the individual converts brought to Christianity, transformed by the working of the Spirit into the various forms of Christian consciousness and life. This view, which excludes any giving of power to work miracles, as well as any new divine gift or divine reenforcement of natural gifts, is demonstrably not (as Baur claims) Pauline, but can not here be controverted at length. The word charisma itself does not tell anything as to the nature of the gifts. Except in one passage of Philo and in I Pet. iv. 10, it is only found in Paul's use of it, though probably not formed by him. In most of the places where he employs it, it denotes an extraordinary evidence of God's favor; in II Cor. i. 11, his own deliverance from death; in Rom. i. 11 a gift of the Holy Spirit, such as comfort or illumination. In other places it refers to special gifts bestowed upon the Christian (I Tim. iv. 14; II Tim. i. 6) as signs and tokens of the grace received by belief in the message of redemption (I Cor. i. 6, 7), which render him capable of a particular kind of action, in order to render some special service to the whole body (I Cor. xii. 4 sqq.). The place, therefore, that each member has in the community he has by virtue of a charisma, which he is to administer to his brethren (I Pet. iv. 10). Natural powers as such are useless to the life of the body of Christ; what it needs must, like itself, be spiritual. Charismata, then, may be defined as powers and capacities necessary for the edification of the Church, bestowed by the Holy Spirit upon its members, in virtue of which they are enabled to employ their natural faculties in the service of the Church, or are endowed with new abilities for this purpose. According to I Cor. xii. 18; Rom. xii. 5-8; Eph. iv. 11, the charismata form the basis of the offices in the Church. There can be no office without a charisma; but not all charismata are applicable to the exercise of an office. Those which correspond to permanent and invariable needs of the Church form the basis of offices, the others do not. To the latter class belong those of a miraculous or extraordinary character, like those which are peculiar to the apostles or to the apostolic period. Since the number of the charismata must correspond to the needs of the Church, it follows that the fists in I Cor. xii., Eph. iv., and Rom. xii. can not be taken as exhaustive. (H. CEEMERf.)