RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Cornelius a Lapide Corpus Doctrine
Bibliography: The text is given in Gee and Hardy, Documents, pp. 594-600. Titles of many pamphlets called forth by the act are given in the British Museum Catalogue, England, part 1, 66-68.
CORPORATIONS. See Religious Corporations.
CORPUS CATHOLICORUM: The organization of delegates from the Roman Catholic states of the Holy Roman Empire, tacitly made in opposition to that of the Corpus Evangelicorum (q.v.). Though its formation as a definite body with a corresponding purpose is expressly asserted in the report of the Evangelical delegates in 1720, the name " Corpus Catholicorum " is never used in the Reformation period and hardly ever in the seventeenth century. This is explained by the fact that papal recognition could never be secured for it, since the recognition of a special corporation with rights and privileges would have easily led to a limitation of the papal autocracy in Germany. None the less, the body existed in fact, needing formal sanction the less because the emperor, as the protector of their Church, and the imperial councilors would naturally forward their interest. As, too, they denied the right of the Protestants to form a simOar corporation, they were precluded from making open claim to such recognition. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) took cognizance of the existence of the two bodies, without mentioning the names of either. Apart from formal organization, a union of the Roman Catholic states took place earlier than of the Protestant, as their joint action at the Nuremberg Diet and the formation of the league at Regensburg (1524) shows. Jointly, again, they met the Protestants at the Diet of Speyer (1529), and concluded a peace with them at Nuremberg in 1532; and their organization appears plainly in the Holy League of 1538. The deliberations of the Corpus Catholicorum, after its action became systematized and permanent, were usually held in a monastery of the town in which the diet was sitting, sometimes m the quarters of the delegate from Mainz, which naturally, from its precedence in the empire, took the headship of the body. The dissolution of the empire itself, and of the Corpus Evangelicorum with it, in 1806, put an end tacitly to the Corpus Catholicorum as well. (E. Friedberg.)
CORPUS CHRISTI, cer'pus cris'ti (" the Body of Christ"): A festival of the Roman Catholic Church m honor of the Eucharist, celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. As early as Augustine's time it was usual to celebrate the institution of the Holy Communion on the fifth day of the last week m Lent. In 1246 Bishop Robert of Liege, prompted by the visions of a nun (Juliana of MonttorneiUo), inaugurated a new festival in honor of the sacrament, in a pastoral letter intended for his own diocese. The forms of its observance were quite simple: divine service, lections, antiphonal chants were the essential elements of the ceremony. Shortly afterward Pantaleon, archdeacon of Liege, became Pope Urban IV and gave the festival its ecumenical character (see Bolsena, Miracle or). His bull of 1264 appoints the fifth day after the octave of Pentecost as the festival's calendar place, III.-18
and indicates for its proper object that it shaU brin»^ Christ near in his real presence. The sumptuous exposition, together with the indulgence accorded by the pope to the participants in the festival was designed, no doubt, to extend the same; and not less instrumental in this regard was the friendly attitude of the great schoolman Thomas Aquinas But in this second phase also, the festival continued within modest boundaries.
The real turning-point in the development of this festival came in the time of John XXII. (1316-34), who instituted the accompanying procession; there now took place the public exposition of the host in the monstrance. After the Council of Constance (1414-18) the popes took occasion by the amplification of indulgences to stimulate the zeal of the faithful stOl further. The Bplendid exhibition became more sumptuous, even kings and princes began to take part in the processions, and in this way there soon came about a striking mixture of ecclesiastical parade and worldly splendor. After the fifteenth century Corpus Christi plays also came into vogue, being popular presentations of sacred history. Hermann Hering.
Bibliography: J. C. W Augusti, Denkwiirdigkeiten, iii. 304 sqq., Leipsic, 1820; A. J. Binterim, Denkwiirdigkeiten, V. 1, pp. 275 sqq., Mainz, 1829; A. Butler, The Moveable Feasts, Fasts . . of the Catholic Church, Dublin, 1839; Bendel, in TQS, xxxiv (1852), 244 sqq. On the plays: W. Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren Dramas, i. 162 sqq., Halle, 1893. From the Protestant standpoint: P. Tschackert, Evangelische Polemik, pp. 81-82, 257, Gotha, 1885; C. H. H. Wright and C. Neil, A Protestant Dictionary, pp. 145-146, London, 1904.
CORPUS DOCTRIN.ffi;, dec'tri-ni or -ne.
Origin of the Term (§1). Corpus Misnicum and Its Rivals (§ 2). Lutheran Tentative Corpora (§3). Formula and Liber Concordise (§ 4).
The name "Corpus Doctrinse " was applied in the sixteenth century to collections of doctrinal statements composed as authorized expressions of a certain type of faith, or the belief of an individual church. The Augsburg Confession early became a standard of belief for the local Lutheran churches, and the Apology, as a commentary on it, ranked with it; appeal was likewise made to the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian creeds, known as symbola.
Melanchthon, however, designated the
I. Origin whole body of writings in which the of the pure faith of the Gospel is expressed Term. corpus doctrincc, and (especially after 1550) insisted strongly on the necessity of having such a recognized norm. The internal controversies of Protestantism became so threatening that a common basis for agreement was sought in 1558 in the compendium known as the Frankfort Recess (q.v.), and again, on the failure of this to find universal acceptance, at the meeting at Naumburg in Jan., 1561 (see Naumburg Convention), but equally without success.
The so-called Corpus doctrina Philippicum or Misnicum met with great success amon^ the bodies which ipelined to the Philippist party. It was put out by Vogelin, the learned Leipsic publisher, as a private venture, first in German and then in Latin, in 1561. Besides the three creeds, it consisted of all
Corpus DoctrinsB Corrodi