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one's attention (e.g., from lower things to higher things), turning one's desires (e.g., to God), or decisively changing
the direction of one's life. It was also used by Christians as a technical term for joining the Church. One typically
converted to something (e.g., Christ, the Church, God, Wisdom, Virtue, etc.) by turning one's heart toward it.
corporeal: synonym for bodily (from Latin corpus, meaning body). Opposite of nonbodily or incorporeal.
corruption: in Augustine, a technical term meaning the decay, loss, or destruction of the natural good in something.
All evil is a form of corruption.
creature: a technical term in Christian theology meaning "something created by God," (hence "a part of Creation"),
in contrast to the Creator, who is God.
creed: a brief verbal formula designed as a summary of the Christian faith. See Nicene Creed.
cupidity: concupiscence. Augustine often pairs this term with charity for purposes of contrast. Charity and cupidity
are terms that nearly rhyme but name two forms of love that go in opposite directions.
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doctrine: from the Latin word for teaching, a Christian term for explicit and authoritative teachings of the Christian
faith (e.g., the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity).
Donatists: the African schismatics who separated themselves from the Catholic Church, regarding it as impure and
its baptism as invalid.
Economic Trinity: the Trinity as it operates in history in the economy of salvation. (Economic comes from a Greek
word meaning dispensation or plan originally a plan of household management. Hence the "economy of
salvation" is God's plan for managing and saving the whole world). See immanent Trinity.
election (from the Latin word for choice, related to the biblical concept of God's chosen people): a technical term in
Augustinian theology referring to God's eternal choice to give grace to some people (but not others). See Romans
11:5 (in the King James translation): "the election of grace."
enjoyment (Latin fruitio from the verb frui; sometimes translated fruition): a technical term in Augustine meaning
the form of love in which we cling to something with delight for its own sake. Contrast use, below.
embodiment: in Platonist philosophy, the event by which the soul is united to the body.
essence (Greek ousia, Latin substantia; often translated substance or being): whatever it is that makes something
the kind of thing it is. (Different philosophers, such as Platonists or Aristotelians, will have different concepts of
what this is i.e., they have different definitions of the term essence). Roughly, the term essence designates
something like human nature, while the term hypostasis (see below) designates a particular instance of human
nature.
Eucharist: the Christian ritual of the Body and Blood of Christ, represented by bread and wine.
Evil: anything that is not as it should be, a defect in being, or corruption of something's natural goodness; includes
not only sin (evil of will) but also ignorance and error (evil of mind), disease (evil of body), disorder (evil in the
universe) and death (evil of soul).
expressionism: the theory that outward signs (gestures, words, sacraments) get their significance by expressing
something that is within the soul.
Faith: in Augustine, this always means belief in Christ, in accordance with Catholic teaching. It comes before
Charity and leads to it.
Fall: a story about how evil came into the world through some defect of souls at the beginning of things. Platonism,
Manichaeanism, and Catholic Christianity all have stories about the Fall. Not to be confused with Original Sin,
which is a specifically Catholic doctrine.
Father: the First Person of the Christian Trinity.
grace: in Augustine, a gift of the Holy Spirit which inwardly heals the soul of its sin and weakness and helps it to
obey the command of God by infusing or "pouring" charity into it.
Greek: the language of most ancient classical philosophy (e.g., Plato and Aristotle) as well as of the New
Testament and most of the important works of Church Fathers before Augustine; the predominant language in the
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