Glossary
Plain-English meanings of terms used across the site.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Church fathers / patristic | Christian writers of roughly the first 750 years whose writings shaped doctrine (e.g. Irenaeus, Augustine, John Chrysostom). “Patristic” means “relating to the fathers”. |
| Council | A gathering of bishops that settled a disputed question, e.g. Orange (529) or Nicaea II (787). |
| Post-750 | Teaching after John of Damascus (d. c. 750), used here to judge how later traditions developed. |
| Verdict | The study’s answer to one research question, with a confidence level. |
| Closeness score | 0–4 rating of how near a tradition’s later teaching is to a verdict; see scoring. |
| Justification | Being put right with God. |
| Forensic / declarative | Justification as a legal declaration (“declared righteous”). |
| Transformative | Justification as actually being made righteous inwardly. |
| Imputation | Christ’s righteousness counted (“reckoned”) to the believer. |
| δικαιόω (dikaioō) | Greek verb “to justify, declare or make righteous”. |
| λογίζομαι (logizomai) | Greek verb “to reckon, count, credit”. |
| Grace | God’s free, undeserved help and favour. |
| Pelagianism / Semi-Pelagianism | The view that humans can begin to turn to God without prior grace; rejected at Carthage (418) and Orange (529). |
| Predestination / election | God’s choosing of those who will be saved. “Double decree” adds God’s choosing others for damnation. |
| Perseverance | Continuing in faith to the end. |
| Regeneration | New birth by the Holy Spirit. |
| Immersion | Baptism by putting the person under the water (threefold: once for each Person of the Trinity). |
| Real presence | Christ truly present in the Eucharist’s bread and wine. |
| Transubstantiation | The later Catholic definition of how the bread and wine change (their “substance”). |
| Propitiatory sacrifice | A sacrifice offered to turn away God’s anger for sin. |
| Recapitulation | Irenaeus’s teaching that Christ re-lives humanity’s story rightly as the new Adam. |
| Christus Victor / ransom | The atonement as Christ’s victory over sin, death and the devil. |
| Substitution / satisfaction | Christ dying in our place; “satisfaction” means meeting what justice or honour requires. |
| Original sin | What all people inherit from Adam’s fall (mortality, corruption, and in the Western view guilt). |
| ἐφ᾽ ᾧ (eph’ hō), in quo | The phrase in Romans 5:12: Greek “because (all sinned)”, Latin “in whom (all sinned)”. |
| Concupiscence | The inner inclination to sin that remains after baptism. |
| Federal headship | Presbyterian teaching that Adam acted as legal representative of humanity. |
| Relics | Bodily remains or belongings of saints, honoured by Christians. |
| τιμή / προσκύνησις / λατρεία | Greek for honour, veneration (bowing), and worship due to God alone. |
| Icon / iconoclasm | Sacred image / the movement to destroy or forbid images. |
| Nicaea II (787) | The council that approved the veneration of icons. |
| Intermediate state | The condition of souls between death and the final resurrection. |
| Purgatory | Later Catholic doctrine of purification after death for the saved. |
| Apokatastasis / restoration | The hope that all will finally be restored to God. |
| Annihilation | The view that the wicked cease to exist. |
| Trent | Catholic council (1545–1563) answering the Reformation. |
| Book of Concord / Augsburg Confession | Lutheran confessional documents (1530–1580). |
| Westminster Confession (WCF) | Presbyterian confession of 1646. |
| Confession of Dositheus | Orthodox statement of 1672. |
| ANF / NPNF | Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, the standard English translations. |
| LSB | Legacy Standard Bible, the English translation quoted here. |