The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (500 page)

Capital punishment
.

This was the penalty for serious offences in the ancient world, summarized in the biblical injunction, ‘Life for life’ (Exodus 21. 23; cf.
Genesis
9. 6).
Christianity inherited the biblical injunctions, and lived in a world where executions were practised: hence the acceptance in Romans 13. 1–7 that such executions may be instruments of God's wrath. However, Christianity derived itself far more from the demand of Jesus to forgive enemies and not to pursue vengeance. Christians have therefore been divided over the permissibility of capital punishment. Muslim attitudes are controlled by the verse in the
Qur’
n
, ‘Do not take the life which All
h has made sacred except for justice’ (6. 151). In practice, capital punishment is required for
murtadd
(apostasy which has been followed by an attack on Islam),
zin
’
(adultery), and unjust murder (see
QI
).

 
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Capital sins
:

see
DEADLY SINS
.

 
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Cappadocian Fathers
.

Three 4th-cent. Christian theologians,
Basil
of Caesarea, his brother
Gregory of Nyssa
, and
Gregory of Nazianzus
. They were all born in Cappadocia (now in modern Turkey). They were engaged in opposing
Arianism
after the Council of
Nicaea
, and were influential in its defeat at the Council of
Constantinople
in 381. More than this, the Council also canonized their doctrine of the
Trinity
which defended the deity of the Holy Spirit alongside the Father and Son as three persons in one substance.

 
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(1420–96).
Turkish
rabbi
. He served as rabbi of Constantinople during the Muslim conquest of the city in 1453 and was much respected by Sultan Mehmet II.

 
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