Evangelical counsels
chastity, poverty (perfect charity) and obedience
In Christianity, the three evangelical counsels, or counsels of perfection, are poverty, chastity, and obedience. As stated by Jesus Christ in the canonical gospels, they are counsels for those who desire to become "perfect" (τελειος, teleios).
The Catholic Church interprets this to mean that they are not binding upon all, and hence not necessary conditions to attain eternal life (heaven), but that they are "acts of supererogation", "over and above" the minimum stipulated in the biblical commandments. Catholics and Lutherans who have made a public profession to order their lives by the evangelical counsels, and confirmed this by public vows before their competent church authority (the act of religious commitment known as a profession), are recognised as members of the consecrated life.
Consecrated life
New Testament context
A young man in the Christian gospels asked what he should do to obtain eternal life, and Jesus told him to "keep the commandments", but when the young man pressed further, Christ told him: "If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor". It is from this passage that the term "counsel of perfection" comes. Again in the Gospels, Jesus speaks of "eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven", and added "He that can receive it, let him receive it". St. Paul presses home the duty incumbent on all Christians of keeping free from all sins of the flesh, and of fulfilling the obligations of the married state, if they have taken those obligations upon themselves, but also gives his "counsel" in favor of the unmarried state and of perfect chastity (celibacy), on the ground that it is thus more possible to serve God with an undivided allegiance.
In Christian tradition
There are early forms of religious vows in the monastic traditions.
“Evangelical counsels” enters the record as chastity, poverty (perfect charity) and obedience. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Evangelical, counsels and chastity can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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