Free Rice--Theological and Church Words II

One thing I pay particular attention to as I go through lists of words are those in subjects with which I have a deep acquaintance. Levels 51-55 did have many terms from the above-listed areas, even though the number of law terms, which could be rather extensive, is limited. They did have assumpsit, which is the common law contract and replevin, which has to do with taking back goods, but there were not too many others. Actually, assumpsit is a Latin word which means "he has taken upon himself," and is a promise or contract, founded upon consideration. An action in assumpsit is where a person seeks to recover damages for breach or non-performance of contract. They also had lagan, which is a term from law to define "goods or wreckage lying on the bed of the sea." An 1894 English statute had this: "In this Part of this Act..'wreck' includes jetsam, flotsam, lagan and derelict found in or on the shores of the sea or any tidal water." I wonder if there was a technical distinction among these four kinds of goods thrown overboard. One 1952 dictionary defined Lagan (or ligan) as "goods thrown overboard, but marked by a buoy in order to be found again." Oh, there is one more. The word frankalmoigne, which is often spelled without the final "e," has to do with a tenure of land in medieval Engliand which was held by the performance of some religious duty. It literally means "free alms," and is given to such people as bestow themselves on the service of God, for pure and perpetual alms. The givers of the tenure cannot demand any terrestrial service, so long as the lands remain in the hands of the feofee (which would also have been a good word...) Moving on....

Some Religious/Theological Terms

I wanted to note about 20 of these, only one of which I missed. They are: glossolalia (which wasn't actually defined as "speaking in tongues"), paten, patrology, hapax, ostracon (really is a word from archaeology, but I learned it first in my undergraduate religious studies days), ostiary, misericord (which I didn't know), logion, katabatic, maigre, quietism, antiphonal, cenobite, kenosis, koinonia, narthex, apse, kerygma, organum, demiurge and gehenna. So, where do we start? I really don't know, so let's begin with easy words. Kerygma is a Greek work meaning "proclamation" (i.e., of the Gospel), and kenosis is another Greek word, derived from Phil. 2, to describe Christ's "emptying" of himself for humankind. Thus, kenotic theology stresses this self-emptying act of Christ. Actually, one of the words in 51-55 was kenophobia, as I recall, which, if you just realize that keno means "empty," you immediately get right: "fear of emptiness." The word doesn't appear in the OED but is one of those words which probably originated in the last forty years with the explosion of psychology in our midst...They can cure you, or at least take your money from you, for treatements for any kinds of fears.

The demiurge is a figure from Platonic philosophy and Gnosticism, and is a sort of intermediary or inferior god. Gehenna is a biblical term for hell. Koinonia is a trivially easy term from the New Testament and means "fellowship." Something katabatic comes down. Well, the theological term is actually kataphatic/cataphatic, but let's leave the word right here now. An antiphonal reading is responsive or read alternately. The narthex of a church is the outside room, vestibule or entryway before heading into the nave or the sanctuary. An apse is the semi-circular recess of the church, especially at the end of the choir or nave. The paten is the shallow plate on which the host is laid during the Eucharist service. Often this paten took on a kind of sheen when it was exposed to the elements for a long time. This sheen is called a patina. Glossolalia is a familiar word for anyone who has studied the charismatic renewal movement--those folks speak in tongues and define what they are doing according to some biblical passages, like I Cor. 12. Patrology is the study of the writings of the "fathers" of the Church. Johannes Quasten's Patrology got me through a lot of tough sledding in seminary.

A cenobite is a member of a religious order living in community, whereas an anchorite (the OED calls such a person an anchoret) lives in solitude. The word hapax really has no necessary connection to religion, but I learned the word when I was studying the Greek NT many years ago. It is the Greek word for "once" and the usual phrase you learned was "hapax legomenon," a word occurring once in the NT or the author under consideration. An organum is a difficult word because it is easy to confuse it with organon, the medieval term to describe the collected logical treatises of Aristotle. Yet, an organum had to do with early medieval music. The OED has this to say:

"In music of the 9th to 13th centuries (and occas. in later music): the practice of polyphony, both improvised and written, in two, three, four, or five parts, and usually decorating an existing plainchant or other melody."

Thus, it is a Gregorian Chant. A logion is a saying, and is used in NT scholarship especially to describe a saying of Jesus. Maigre came into English in 1683 to denote those days in which abstinence from meat was ordered by the Church. Thus, one would have "maigre-days." It also became associated with a kind of soup that didn't contain meat or the juices of meat--and was appropriate, therefore, for "maigre-days."

Conclusion

We have three more words: quietism, ostiary and misericord. Let's just finish this one with quietism and turn to the others, and some classical terms, in the next essay. Quietism is a form of religious mysticism based on the teaching of the Spaniard Miguel de Molinos (ca. 1640-1697). The quintessential feature of this mysticism was the rejection of outward forms of religious devotion in favor of contemplation and even extinction of the will. But I am not getting into that now, even though the concept of extinction sounds interesting at times...

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