New Testament

Apocrypha

The Protestant term for writings about Jesus or the Christian message that many Protestant confessions do not include in the canon of Sacred Scripture.

Deuterocanonical

Books of the Old Testament that do not appear in the Hebrew Scripture but are accepted by the Church as part of the canon of Scripture.

indulgences

These were originally intended to encourage Christians to do good as penance for sins.

Council of Trent

An ecumenical council that served as the Catholic Church’s official response to the Protestant Reformation.

justification

An invitation towards conversion, involving the removal of sin and the gift of God’s sanctifying grace to renew holiness, and accomplished by Christ’s Paschal Mystery.

Predestination

The belief that each person’s fate after death is already determined by God and that no one can do anything to change it. Espoused by Protestant groups in Switzerland.

Printing Press

This invention promoted scholarship during the Renaissance, making knowledge widely available to people.

Renaissance

A term that means ‘rebirth’.

Saint Thomas More

This Chancellor of England was executed for following his conscience and refusing to contradict Church teaching about the primacy of the Pope.

Theocracy

A form of government in which God is understood to be head of the State, ruling by divine guidance granted to its clergy or other ruling officials.

humanism

A distinguishing characteristic of the Renaissance was ______, which sought to revive classical learning and promote achievements in scholarship, art, music, and architecture.

Indulgences

Because the Renaissance popes constantly needed money to fund their lavish buildings and arts projects, they sought new sources of revenue, including the sale of _____

Ninety-Five Theses

Seeking to preach reform of abuses in the Church, Martin Luther posted his _____ on the door of the Church in Wittenberg, in present-day Germany.

Salvation

Luther believed that _______ comes solely by divine grace (SOLA GRATIA), an unearned gift from God and is nor merited by the sinner.

Henry 8th (VIII)

Despite officially breaking with the Catholic Church to create the Church of England, ____ rejected Lutheran teaching and never considered himself a Protestant.

Calvinists

Like Lutherans, ______ believed in the supreme authority of Scripture alone, but they also denied Christ’s presence n the Eucharistic elements and preferred simple worship without elaborate ritual or ornamentation.

Deuterocanonical Books

Among its key decrees, the Council of Trent confirmed the inclusion of the ___________ in the canon of Scripture, previously rejected by Martin Luther.

Catholic Reformation

The Council of Trent inaugurated the _________, outlining reforms and clarifying points of doctrine.

Ignatius of Loyola

The Jesuit order was founded by ____________ a soldier who was seriously injured, began to study the lives of the saints, and realized that only a life lived for God held any meaning for him.

Discalced Carmelites

Saint Theresa of Avila founded the order of _______, which emphasized poverty, simplicity, contemplation, and prayer.

St. Catherine of Sienna

_____, one of the great medieval mystics and a Doctor of the Church, is credited with persuading Pope Gregory XI to return the Church’s headquarters from Avignon to Rome.

Greek Philosophers

The Crusaders brought back the works of __________, which influenced the Scholastics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, including Thomas Aquinas.

Black Death

For the Church. the _______ brought a drastic loss of clergy, and the scramble to replace them meant that sometimes men ill-prepared to be priests were ordained.

Turkish Muslim

At the end of the Crusades, Jerusalem was under _______ control.

Feudalism

______ was a system that evolved in Western Europe in the eighth and ninth centuries in which society was ordered around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service and protection.

Hermit

A ____ is a person who lives a solitary life in order to commit herself or himself more fully to prayer and, in some cases, to be completely free to perform service for others.

Spanish Inquisition

The ______ began in the 15th century and was authorized by Pope Sixtus IV, but was quickly taken over by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, who used it to stamp out any opposition to their leadership and establish conformity to Catholic orthodoxy.

Monstrance

A _____ is a vessel in which the consecrated Host is exposed for the adoration of the faithful.

Papal Inquisition

The _________ began in the 13th Century and had as its primary aim to root out heresies and to return the heretic to orthodox Catholicism.

Poor Clares

St. Clare of Assisi was responsible for creating a mendicant order of sisters affectionately known as the poor clares.

Mendicant

Members of the ________ religious orders involved themselves in the world, preaching and teaching and serving the poor, traveling from town to town, and relying on charity for their basic needs.

Scholasticism

___ was a method of learning that emphasized dialectical reasoning, in which two people with opposing viewpoints about a subject arrive at the truth by dialogue, with reasoned arguments.

St. Thomas Aquinas

___ was a Scholastic thinker and a member of the Dominican order who wrote Summa Theologica, seeking in part to provide proof of the existence of God and how we are to live in relationship with him.

Transubstantiation

___ is the Church’s doctrine that the substance of bread and wine is transformed in the Eucharist into the Real Presence of Jesus Christ through his Body and Blood.

Eucharistic Adoration

The practice of ____ refers to displaying and praying before the exposed Blessed Sacrament; the practice first became an established devotion in the medieval Church and continues to today.

St. Anselm of Canterbury

A prominent scholastic thinker, _____ promoted ‘faith seeking understanding’ and encouraged Christians to inquire into the truths of Scripture.

Peter Abelard

____ was a famous for explanations of Aristotle’s philosophy and perfected the technique of theological inquiry with a method in which the quaestio (question) led to interrogation (investigation), followed by disputatio (argument and final resolution).

Blessed John Duns Scotus

___ was a scholastic thinker who emphasized the importance of understanding scripture.

Lateran Council IV

___, convened by Pope Innocent III, enforced clerical celibacy and defined Transubstantiation in relation to the Eucharist.

Feast of Corpus Christi

The ____ celebrates the tradition and belief in the body and blood of Jesus Christ and His Real Presence in the Eucharist.

Western Monasticism

Founded by St. Anthony of Egypt/The Desert—who withdrew from society to live as a hermit. St. Brigid of Kildare and also St. Martin of Tours are associated with the development of Western Monasticism.

St. Benedict’s community at Monte Cassino.

The community was a compete, self-sustaining, economic unit. The monk’s way of life balanced prayer and work (Ora et Labora) and the community followed the ‘Rule of Benedict’, which emphasized moderation in all things. The monks took vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty.

Pope Gregory (Hildebrand)’ Papacy Reforms

1). Simony—The buying or selling of something spiritual, such as a grace, a Sacrament, or a relic.

2). The marriage of Preists (clerical celibacy)

3). Lay Investiture—the practice by which a high-ranking secular leader could appoint bishops of abbots and require their loyalty.

Simony

The buying or selling of something spiritual, such as a grace, a Sacrament, or a relic.

Lay Investiture

the practice by which a high-ranking secular leader could appoint bishops of abbots and require their loyalty.

Eastern Schism Causes

Disagreement over whether the Pope or the Patriarch of Constantinople had primacy over the Church, Disagreement over whether the Holy Spirit descended from Father and the Son (Fillioque) or from Father Through the Son, and a Papal legate’s excommunication of Patriarch Cerularius of Constantinople.

Starts of the First Crusade

Byzantine emperor asked Pope Urban II for protection against invading Turkish Muslims, the Turks besieged Jerusalem, destroyed the city’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and began to subjugate Christians in the Holy City. The Turks were preventing Christian pilgrims from visiting Jerusalem.

4th Crusade—Widened split between east and west

Crusaders pillaged Constantinople, vandalized sacred places and attacked the citizens.

Weakening of the Papacy

Pope Clement V’s decision to move the Church’s headquarters from Rome, Italy to Avignon, France.

The Black Death / Bubonic Plague

The Conciliar movement, which gave the Church councils (sometimes appointed by secular rulers) supremacy over the Popes.

Great Western Schism

A split within the Church that lasted from 1378 to 1417, when there were two or three claimants to the papacy at once.

Factors that led to Charlemagne being crowned as Holy Roman Emperor

Charlemagne defeated the Lombards, a Germanic tribe seeking to expand into Northern Italy.

Acts of the Apostles

Biblical accounts of the events and people responsible for shaping the early Christian Church can be found in the _____.

4 Stages of Development of New Testament

1) Life & Teaching of Jesus

2) Oral Tradition

3) Written Tradition

4) Canonization

Grace

____ is the free and undeserved gift of God’s loving and active presence in our lives, empowering us to respond to His call and to live as His sons and daughters.

Annointed One

The term ‘Messiah’ is a Hebrew word meaning _____ and is often used as a description of Jesus Christ.

Covenant

A ____ is a personal, solemn promise of faithful love that involves mutual commitments and creates sacred relationships.

Road to Damascus

On the ________, Saul encountered the Risen Christ and received his Apostolic call to become an Apostle to the Gentiles.

St. Paul the Apostle

____ underwent a conversion experience on the road to Damascus and became the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Apostolic Succession

The uninterrupted passing on of the preaching and authority of the Apostles directly to all bishops is known as _______.

Deposit of Faith

The _______ is the heritage of faith contained in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

St. Peter the Apostle

_______ was the first Pope and was the first to give witness to Jesus in speech to a large crowd at Pentecost.

Magisterium

The ______ is the name given to the living, teaching office of the Church and consists of all Bishops in communion with the Pope.

Martyrdom

Witness to the saving message of Christ through the sacrifice of one’s own life is called _____. One factor leading to the written stage of development of the New Testament was the ____ of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Council of Jerusalem

The _____ primarily dealt with the issue of how to welcome Gentiles into the Church. They declared that Gentiles did not have to become Jewish first.

Pentecost

Considered the birthday of the Church, ____ is the day on which Jesus’ Apostles were filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit to begin the process of Evangelizing and ‘making disciples of all nations’.

Apostles

The term _____ means ‘one who is sent’ and frequently refers to those special witnesses of Jesus on whose ministry the early Church was built.

“Repent and be Baptized”

At Pentecost, Peter called the crowd of witnesses to ________ for the forgiveness of sins.

St. Paul the Apostle

_________ was a Pharisee, who prior to his conversion, persecuted Christians. He is responsible for ½ of the books in the New Testament.

New Covenant

The ________ is the law established by God in Jesus Christ to fulfill and perfect the Law of Moses (Mosaic Law).

Parousia

The second coming of Christ. Its delay brought about the written stage of development of the New Testament.

1st Letter to the Thessalonians

Dated 50 AD, St. Pauls ________ is the first example of Christian literature in the New Testament.

Letters/Epistles

The writing of _____ to early Christian communities was an important part if the oral tradition stage of development of the New Testament.

Nero

In the year 64 AD Emperor ____ began his systematic persecution of Christians by blaming them for starting a fire that consumed most of Rome.

Gnosticism

_____ was a heresy that threatened the early Church with its belief that Jesus, fully divine but not fully human, was the key to acquiring knowledge or wisdom sufficient to free believers from their physical bodies and the material world, and thereby exist in a purely spiritual manner.

Council of Constantinople

The _______ firmly taught and recognized the divinity of the Holy Spirit and his coequal relationship to God the Father and God the Son.

St. Augustine

A towering intellectual mind in the early Church ______ was most well known for writing his ‘Confessions’ and ‘City of God’.

Apologist

One who speaks or writes in defense of something or someone is known as an _____.

St. Ignatius of Antioch

______ was an early Christian apologist and bishop responsible for writing seven letters to Christians encouraging them to remain faithful to apostolic teachings.

Council of Nicaea

The ____ rejected the Arian heresy and taught that Jesus, fully divine, was consubstantial with God the Father.

College of Bishops

The assembly of bishops, headed by the Pope, that holds the teaching authority and responsibility in the Church is called _______.

St. Irenaeus

______ was an early apologist and bishop who defended the Church against the gnostic heresy through his theological writings, and who is responsible for promulgating the ‘Recapitulation Theory of Atonement’.

Edict of Milan

The _____, issued in 313 AD by Emperor Constantine, declared Christianity as a religion to be tolerated within the Roman Empire, thereby ending the period of persecution of Christians.

Arianism

Developed in the late 3rd century, ____ was a heresy that denied Christs full divinity, stating that Christ was a created being who was superior to humanity but inferior to God.

Doctor of the Church

_______ is a title officially bestowed by the Church on those saints who are highly esteemed for their theological writings, as well as their personal holiness.

Ecumenical Council

_____ is an official gathering of the Church’s bishops from around the world, convened by the Pope, or approved by him, to address pressing issues within the Church

Nestorian heresy

____ taught that Mary was not the Theotokos or "Mother of God”.

Council of Chalcedon + Council of Ephesus

Rejected the Nestorian heresy.

St. Ambrose

____ was the Bishop of Milan who, along with St. Monica, was instrumental in bringing about the conversion of St. Augustine.

Church Fathers

During the early centuries of the Church, the writings of the ________ extended the Tradition of the Apostles and are still important today for the Church’s teachings.

St. Jerome

Translated the Bible from its original Hebrew and Greek into Latin, forming the major part of the Vulgate.

St. Athanasius

Defended the Church against the heretical teaching of Arius.

St. John Chrysostom

Preached against the abuse of authority which earned him a nickname meaning ‘Golden Mouthed’

Pope St. Leo the Great

Promulgating the theory of the ‘Hypostatic Union’, or dual nature, of Jesus Christ.

St. Justin Martyr

_____ Authorized several apologetic works, such as “First Apology”, “Second Apology”, and “Dialogue with the Jew, Tryphon”. He also used his knowledge of classical Greek philosophy like Stoicism and Platonism to teach about the reasonableness of Christianity. He was martyred for not offering sacrifice to the Pagan gods.