We are indebted to Fr. John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary for the definitions marked with an asterisk. The numbers after the definition correspond to the lesson in which the word appears above.
Abrahamic Covenant – Covenant formed by God with Abraham wherein God promises that Abraham will be given a great name, a great nation and be a great blessing to the nations (1.6).
Adamic Covenant – Covenant formed by God with Adam and Eve in their creation. Not explicit, but implicitly contained in the scriptures (1.3).
Babylonian Exile – The destruction of Jerusalem in the 6th century B.C. and the Jews’ banishment to Babylon for 70 years (1.8).
Concupiscence – Rebellion of man’s desires against reason, and the tendency of human nature to sin as a result of original sin (1.4).*
Covenant – Extension of kinship by oath (1.2).
Davidic Covenant – Covenant formed between God and King David, the last of the covenants before Christ who fulfills the covenant (1.8).
Divine Family – Human beings become children of God through the transformation of the Sacraments (1.2).
Divine Revelation – Disclosure by God of himself and his will to the human race (1.6).*
Exodus – The Israelites’ departure from Egypt as recounted in the Book of Exodus (1.7).
Idolatry – The worship of something other than God (1.7).
Image and Likeness – Scriptural phrase referring to how Adam and Eve were made as God’s children, His family (1.3).
Judges – The rulers of Israel after the death of Joshua to just before King David; also one of the books of the Old Testament (1.8).
Lust of the Eyes – Unwholesome curiosity and an inordinate love of this world’s goods. The first consists in an unreasonable desire to see, hear, and know what is harmful to one’s virtue, inconsistent with one’s state of life, or detrimental to higher duties. As a disordered love of money, it is the desire to acquire material possessions irrespective of the means employed, or merely to satisfy one’s ambitions, or to nurture one’s pride (1.4).*
Lust of the Flesh – The disordered love of sensual pleasure, to which fallen man is naturally prone. It is disordered when pleasure is sought for itself and apart from its divinely intended purpose: to facilitate the practice of virtue and satisfy one’s legitimate desires (1.4).*
Mosaic Covenant – The covenant formed by God with Moses consisting of the 10 Commandments and the 603 Levitical laws (1.7).
New Covenant – The covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ, promised by God in Jeremiah 31:31 (1.9). Also known as “Eucharistic Covenant “.
Noahic Covenant – Covenant formed by God with Noah whereby God promises that He will never again flood the earth (1.5).
Original Holiness/Original Justice – The state of Adam and Eve before they sinned. It was the simultaneous possession of sanctifying grace, with its right to enter heaven, and the preternatural gifts. Had Adam not sinned, original justice would have been transmitted to all his descendants. Jesus Christ, the new head of the human race, by his passion and death expiated human sin and regained what Adam had lost (1.3).*
Original Sin – Either the sin committed by Adam as the head of the human race, or the sin he passed onto his posterity with which every human being, with the certain exception of Christ and his Mother, is conceived and born (1.4).*
Passover – The Jewish feast celebrated annually as commanded by God to commemorate the deliverance of the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt. Its main feature was the sacrificial meal, ending with eating the paschal lamb, followed by the seven-day Feast of the Unleavened Bread (1.7).*
Preternatural Gifts – Favors granted by God above and beyond the powers or capacities of the nature that receives them but not beyond those of all created nature. Such gifts perfect nature but do not carry it beyond the limits of created nature. They include privileges such as bodily immortality. Adam and Eve possessed these gifts before the Fall (1.3).*
Pride of Life – The natural tendency to be selfish, which is partly the result of original sin but mainly the mysterious desire of human beings to do their own will even when this contradicts the will of God. It is an urge to self-worship and is at the root of all sin (1.4).*
Recapitulation – Repeating, summing up a topic or series of events (1.5).
Sabbath – The seventh day of the week, celebrated as a day of rest by the people of Israel, based on God’s day of rest after the creation of the world, in Genesis 1 (1.3).
Salvation History – God’s working in human history for the salvation of humanity, through people and events (1.6).
Three Promises to Abraham – God tells Abraham that he will have a:
- great nation – indication of many descendants
- great name – indication of royalty
- great blessing – through Abraham’s descendants the world will be blessed (1.6).
Types – A biblical person, thing, action, or event that foreshadows new truths, new actions, or new events. In the Old Testament, Melchizedech and Jonah are types of Jesus Christ. A likeness must exist between the type and the archetype, but the latter is always greater. Both are independent of each other (1.10).*
Typology – The study of Biblical types (1.10).