What Does that Word Mean? The Difficulty of English Theological Vocabulary

A fascinating look at theological language in English and the problems that can arise from the meanings of words in theology.

From Building Catholic Culture

By Jared Staudt, PhD

English is a very odd, though interesting, language. It has its roots in the Germanic family of languages, with very minor influences from Celtic and Norse languages, and experienced a major overhaul through the influence of French after the Norman conquest. After that, there was also a major word borrowing from Latin. This melting pot means that our theological vocabulary in the English language has two major sources: the Germanic and Latin families. There are other words that have also come down from the Greek usage of the early Church. That is a lot to juggle!

In other languages, theological words mean something on the surface, whereas in English our theological words are mostly technical jargon that have to be memorized in their special meaning. They are taught in religious instruction or sometimes even used regularly as a title but without the clear unpinning they once possessed. In a secular culture, these words are simply obscured and have lost all meaning. We are literally speaking our own language and many of us, as Catholics, do not know exactly what it means.

The liturgical seasons are a good example of this: Lent and Easter are both Germanic words related to spring. Lent referred to the longer days coming with “spring” and Easter refers to “dawn” (coming in the East), related to the spring equinox. Neither, of course, have a Christian connotation and referred rather to the rites of paganism. Compare these terms to their Latin equivalent: Quadragesima and Pacha, which mean “forty” and “Passover” and which would have clear meaning on the surface, pointing to the forty days of Lent and the new Passover of Christ’s Paschal mystery. Lent and Easter have no apparent meaning any longer in the English language other than the names for the liturgical seasons. In contrast, we still use the original Greek for Pentecost, meaning “fifty,” and Christmas is an English contract that does still bear its original meaning: Christ’s Mass. The feast of the Annunciation stems from the Latin annuntiationem, perhaps through the Anglo-French anunciacioun, meaning an “announcement.” Advent is another example from Latin, meaning “arrival.”Old English, Greek, more current English, and Latin, Anglo-French: this is the complexity of naming ecclesial things in the English language!

Although I can’t provide a definitive etymology of all major theological words–which is the scope of a book–it is interesting to reflect on at least some other significant words. For instance, names are very important, especially our Lord’s name: Jesus Christ. We tend to view “Christ” as a last name but Jesus’s actual last name is “of Nazareth,” indicating his hometown. “Christ” is Greek for the Messiah, the anointed one, and is a title, of course. The name Jesus, Joshua, means savior, and adding Christ to it shows that Jesus is the savior who is the true king. The devil and satan both mean “accuser,” from the Greek (diablos) and Hebrew (satan). Both point to an action, the role of accusing, but in English have become more of a personal name, whereas the devil’s personal name is Lucifer (see Isaiah 14:12). We can also look at the names of roles in the Church–Pope meaning “father” (papa), Bishop is “overseer” from the Greek episkopos, priest is “elder” from the Greek presbyteros (also there is also the influence of the Greek hieros, meaning priest, in how we understand the priesthood), and deacon meaning “helper” or “attendant,” from the Greek diakanos. Monk is from the Greek monachos, meaning “solitary.” The meaning of the names helps unlock the purpose of the role, which unfortunately is obscured in the English names.

Here are some more words with an English/Germanic origin: Heaven and hell are Germanic words, meaning “sky” and a “concealed place” respectively. Neither word points directly to their theological meaning. Sin comes from a Germanic root referring to a transgression, though literally deriving from an affirmation of guilt in sense of: this is, this is true, this is the one who is truly guilty. This differs the Greek and Hebrew meaning for sin, which is to miss the mark, derived from archery. We still use archaic words like hail and hallowed in our daily prayers, although they are now somewhat antiquated. Hail is a greeting, indicating something like “to be whole,” although we can translate it simply as “hello,” while hallow means “to make holy.”

Here are some more with a Greek origin: Cathedral stems from kathedra, the bishop’s chair, symbolizing his teaching authority, while the word Bible also comes biblos, meaning “book” or “scroll,” although it derived originally from a Phoenician port city, which imported Egyptian papyrus. Church also has a Greek origin, Kyriache, meaning “belonging to the Lord,” which points to the church building, versus the word for the Church as a whole in Greek and Latin: ecclesia, meaning a “gathering” or “assembly.” English does not have a distinction between the church building and the entire Church. Catechesis means “echo” in Greek, referring to an oral instruction that could be repeated back. Evangelization, although we received it in a Latinized from, comes from the Greek for a proclamation of the Good News.

And there are many theological terms with Latin origins, which should not surprise us since England is part of the Latin Church. Grace stems from the Latin gratia, indicating “favor,” related to the New Testament Greek word charis. Testament refers to a “will,” from the Latin testamentum, although it obscures its meaning of covenant, stemming from the Latin convenire, a “coming together” or “uniting.” Old and New Testament would probably be better translated as Old and New Covenant. Sacrament means a “holy thing,” although its equivalent in Greek, “mysterion,” refers to a hidden and mysterious thing. The word Mass comes from the Latin conclusion of the Mass, “ite missa est,” which is hard to translate, but is a dismissal, roughly: “Go, the [holy] things are sent.” Transubstantiation in English would be something like: “thing-changing-ness.” Concupiscence, although it has a technical meaning of our fallen desire, refers simply to a strong desire/lust in Latin. Conscience is literally “with knowledge” in Latin, implying a mutual knowing, which I think is crucial as it refers to a knowledge based on the moral principles that God has instilled within us.

This list could go on indefinitely, although I hope this short survey gives you a sense of the complexity and difficulty of theological vocabulary in English. It’s very interesting but we have to do a lot of catechesis so that these unfamiliar words become more familiar and laden with meaning. Otherwise they will remain simply on the surface and won’t take root in our consciousness and life.