Glossary — Pistizo

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Terms are grouped by subject

Related words are easier to learn together, so these definitions are arranged by subject. Use your browser’s find command, or the site search, to jump to a single word.

Some terms carry a tradition’s judgment inside them. Where that is true, the entry names whose usage it is describing.

Naming the faith

Words for belief and its statements

Gospel: “Good news.” The announcement that God has acted in Jesus Christ, through his life, death, resurrection, and reign, to reconcile and renew the world. Written with a capital G, Gospel usually names one of the four books that tell his story.
Doctrine: A teaching, or an organised account of what Christians believe. Doctrine also guides worship, the reading of Scripture, and how communities live.
Theology: Disciplined reflection on God and on everything else in relation to God. Its branches have technical names: Christology (Christ), pneumatology (the Spirit), soteriology (salvation), ecclesiology (the church), eschatology (last things).
Creed: A concise public statement of shared belief, often recited in worship or used at baptism. The Apostles’ and Nicene creeds are the most widely used.
Confession: A longer statement identifying the teaching of a particular church or family of churches, for example the Augsburg Confession (Lutheran) or Westminster Confession (Reformed).
Catechism: A teaching text, often in question-and-answer form, used to instruct people in Christian belief and practice.
Orthodox / orthodoxy: With a small o, teaching judged correct by a given church. Capitalised, it names the Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox communions. Context decides which is meant.
Catholic / catholic: With a small c, “universal”: the sense used in the creeds, which many Protestants recite. Capitalised, it usually means the Catholic Church in communion with the bishop of Rome, including the Eastern Catholic churches.
Heresy: A teaching formally judged incompatible with the faith by a church or communion. Pistizo reserves the word for formal judgments and asks who judged, when, and why.
Apologist: A writer who defends Christian belief in public argument. From the Greek apologia, a reasoned defence; it carries no sense of apologising.

God, Christ, and Spirit

The central confessions

Trinity: The teaching that the one God eternally exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: three distinct persons, each fully divine, not three gods and not three modes of one person.
Incarnation: That the eternal Son of God truly became human in Jesus, without ceasing to be divine. The classical confession is one person with a complete divine nature and a complete human nature.
Christ / Messiah: Not a surname. Both words mean “anointed one”: Messiah from Hebrew, Christ from Greek. To call Jesus the Christ is to confess who he is.
Atonement: The reconciling significance of Jesus’ death. The New Testament uses several images, among them sacrifice, victory, ransom, justification, and reconciliation, and traditions weigh them differently.
Resurrection: God raising Jesus to a transformed bodily life after his death; and, in Christian hope, the future raising of the dead. Not merely the survival of a soul, and not the persistence of his influence.
Ascension: That the risen Christ was taken up to reign with the Father. He reigns now and intercedes for his people.
Theotokos: Greek, “God-bearer,” a title for Mary affirmed at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Its original point was about Christ: the one she bore is truly God, not a human being later joined to God.
Filioque: Latin, “and the Son.” A phrase Western churches added to the Nicene Creed, so that the Spirit is said to proceed from the Father and the Son. It appears at the Third Council of Toledo (589) and was adopted at Rome in 1014. Eastern churches object on theological grounds, holding that the Father is the sole source of the Spirit within the Trinity, and also because it was added without an ecumenical council.
Pentecost: The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Jesus’ followers described in Acts 2, understood as empowering the church’s public witness. The name is Greek for “fiftieth”, the name for the Jewish Feast of Weeks (Shavuot), on which the event took place.
Providence: God’s continuing care for creation after it is made: preserving it, working within its history, and directing it towards its intended good.

Salvation

How Christians describe being saved

Grace: God’s freely given favour and transforming action, which cannot be earned by moral performance. Nearly every dispute in this section concerns how grace and human response fit together.
Sin: More than isolated rule-breaking; a damaged orientation of trust, desire, and relationship that produces personal and social evil. Traditions differ over how it is inherited.
Faith: Trust in God, which includes, but goes beyond, agreeing that certain statements are true. Traditions differ over how faith relates to baptism, works, and assurance.
Repentance: A turning away from sin towards God, with a changed mind and a changed direction. It is more than an emotion.
Justification: Being set right with God. Protestant traditions distinguish it from sanctification but say the two are never separated. Catholic teaching (Council of Trent, Session 6, ch. 7) holds that justification itself includes the sanctification and renewal of the inner person; Orthodox accounts place it within the healing of the whole person (see Theosis).
Sanctification: Being made holy: formed over time into Christlike character and life.
Theosis: “Deification.” The Orthodox emphasis that salvation means participating in God’s own life, being healed and transformed as well as pardoned. The Fathers could say the saved become “gods by grace”; what they denied is that anyone comes to share God’s essence. The idea is also found in Catholic, Anglican, and Wesleyan thought.
Election: God’s choosing of a people, and of individuals, for salvation and service. How election relates to human freedom is one of the longest-running Christian disagreements.
Covenant: A binding relationship established by God with a people, carrying promises and obligations. Examples include Noah, Abraham, Israel at Sinai, David, and the “new covenant” Christians associate with Jesus.
Gentile: Anyone who is not Jewish. Whether Gentiles had to adopt Jewish practice to belong to the church was the first great controversy of Christian history.

The Bible

Its parts, its languages, its study

Testament: Here it means covenant. The Old Testament contains the Hebrew Scriptures Christians share with Judaism, written mostly in Hebrew, and in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles further books as well (see Deuterocanonical); the New Testament is the twenty-seven Christian writings about Jesus and the early church, written in Greek.
Canon: The collection of books a community receives as Scripture. From a word for a measuring rule. Christian traditions do not all use an identical collection.
Deuterocanonical: A Catholic term, also used by Orthodox writers, for Old Testament books received as canonical but historically distinguished from the rest: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1–2 Maccabees, and additions to Esther and Daniel. Orthodox Bibles add 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh, and Psalm 151.
Apocrypha: A variable term, often used by Protestants for those same books when printed between the Testaments but not treated as canonical. The two words are not neutral synonyms; use the one the community being described uses.
Torah / Pentateuch: The first five books, Genesis to Deuteronomy. Torah is the Hebrew name, often translated “law” but closer to “instruction”; Pentateuch is the Greek-derived term.
Tanakh: The Jewish name for the Hebrew Scriptures, an acronym of its three parts: Torah (Law), Nevi’im (Prophets), Ketuvim (Writings).
Epistle: A letter. Most of the New Testament after Acts consists of letters to churches or individuals. Pauline means relating to Paul.
Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which share much material and can be set side by side. John tells the story differently.
Parable: A short comparison or story used to provoke thought, characteristic of Jesus’ teaching. Some parables have allegorical features (the sower, the wicked tenants), but most make one or two points, and not every detail stands for something.
Apocalyptic: A kind of writing using vision, symbol, and cosmic imagery to interpret present crisis and future hope, as in Daniel and Revelation. Its symbols are meant to be read as symbols.
Exegesis: Drawing out what a text says in its own literary and historical setting, as distinct from reading one’s assumptions into it.
Septuagint (LXX): The family of ancient Greek translations of the Jewish Scriptures, widely used by Greek-speaking Jews and early Christians.
Vulgate: The influential Latin Bible associated especially with Jerome’s translations and revisions.
Masoretic Text: The carefully transmitted Hebrew text preserved by medieval Jewish scribes called Masoretes, with vowels, accents, and scribal notes. It stands behind modern Hebrew editions.
Manuscript: A handwritten copy. Because books were copied by hand before printing, scholars compare surviving manuscripts to establish the most likely original wording.
Textual variant: Any difference between manuscript readings. Most are spelling or word order; a minority affect translation, and responsible Bibles footnote those.

Church, worship, and order

Communities, offices, and practices

Church: The worldwide Christian community, a particular tradition, or a local congregation. Context shows which is meant. The building is the least important sense.
Tradition: Teaching and practice handed down within a community. Every church has one; the disagreement is over how much authority it carries and how it can be corrected.
Communion: Two senses. A family of churches joined by shared teaching, worship, and oversight; or the Lord’s Supper itself.
Denomination: An organised church body, especially within Protestant Christianity. It is not interchangeable with tradition (a broad stream) or communion.
Liturgy: The church’s public worship, especially where it follows a set order of prayers, readings, and responses. From a Greek word for public service or work.
Sacrament / ordinance: A practice commanded by Christ and carried out with a physical sign, such as water or bread and wine. Sacrament usually implies that God gives grace through the sign; ordinance, preferred by Baptists and many others, presents it as an act of obedience and remembrance. The choice of word is itself a confessional signal.
Baptism: Washing with water in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as Christian initiation. Traditions differ over baptising infants or only professing believers, and over immersion, pouring, or sprinkling.
Eucharist: The meal of bread and wine, also called Communion or the Lord’s Supper. The Mass (Catholic) and the Divine Liturgy (Orthodox and Eastern Catholic) are names for the whole service in which it is celebrated. From the Greek for thanksgiving. How Christ is present in it is a central historic disagreement.
Chrismation: Anointing with scented oil immediately after baptism in Orthodox and Eastern Catholic practice, conveying the gift of the Holy Spirit. Western confirmation is its counterpart.
Clergy and laity: Those ordained to ministry, and the whole body of Christians who are not. The line between them is drawn very differently across traditions.
Bishop, presbyter, deacon: The three historic orders of ministry. Presbyter (“elder”) is the root of both priest and presbyterian. A bishop oversees multiple congregations.
Episcopal: With a small e, governed by bishops, a description of church structure. Capitalised, it names particular churches, such as the Episcopal Church in the United States.
See: The area a bishop oversees, or the office itself, as in “the see of Rome.” From the Latin for seat.
Apostolic succession: The claim that ministry has been handed on in continuity from the apostles through the laying on of hands by bishops. Traditions differ over whether this is necessary and what it guarantees.
Magisterium: The teaching office of the Catholic Church, exercised by the bishops in communion with the pope.
Patriarch: The senior bishop of certain ancient or historically significant sees, including Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Moscow.
Autocephalous: “Self-headed.” An Orthodox church that governs itself and elects its own primate, while remaining in full communion with the others.
Council: A gathering of church leaders convened to settle questions of teaching, practice, or unity.
Ecumenical: Two senses. Of a council, one received as speaking for the whole church, though traditions differ on how many qualify. Of the modern ecumenical movement, concerned with unity between divided churches.
Schism: A break in communion between churches. It differs from heresy: a schism is a rupture of fellowship and need not involve a dispute about doctrine.
Anathema: A formal declaration excluding a teaching, and those holding it, from the church’s communion. The strongest censure a council issues.
Monasticism: Forms of Christian life under vows, in community or solitude, ordered around prayer and work. Monasteries were also centres of learning, copying, agriculture, and mission.
Indulgence: In Catholic teaching, the remission of temporal penalty for sin already forgiven. Abuses in its sale were an immediate trigger of the Reformation.

Reading history and dates

Conventions used across this site

AD and BC: AD abbreviates the Latin anno Domini, “in the year of the Lord”; BC means “before Christ.” Counting runs backwards before the traditional date of Jesus’ birth and forwards after it.
CE and BCE: “Common Era” and “Before the Common Era”: the same years as AD and BC, in wording not tied to a Christian claim. You will meet both systems in scholarship.
c.: Abbreviates circa, Latin for “around.” It signals a date scholars can only place approximately, as in c. AD 5 or c. 1100.
Apostolic age: The first Christian generation, roughly AD 30–100, while apostles and their immediate associates were still living.
Church fathers / patristic: Influential Christian writers of roughly the late first to eighth centuries, and the study of them. The traditional list under-represents women and non-Greek, non-Latin writers.
Martyr: From the Greek for witness. One killed for refusing to abandon the faith. The word took on this sense early, when witness often cost a life.

Using the vocabulary

These words are here so that you can read the sources yourself. Start with the gospel, then read the doctrine guide, which uses this vocabulary throughout.

Start with Jesus Read the doctrine guide

A working glossary