Character Catalog

A foundational discourse recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, containing the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer. It summarizes Jesus's ethical teaching on love, forgiveness, and justice.

Allegorical stories designed to convey moral and spiritual teaching (the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Sower). This innovative teaching method made a lasting impression on all who heard it.

The ethical heart of his teaching: to love God with one's whole being and to love one's neighbor as oneself. This principle profoundly shaped Western moral philosophy.

Jesus chose twelve disciples (the apostles) to form the core of his community, in symbolic reference to the twelve tribes of Israel. This structure gave rise to the Christian Church.

Although Jesus wrote nothing himself, his words and deeds were gathered into the gospels and epistles. This body of writings, translated into more than 3,000 languages, is the most widely distributed book in history.

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 'The time has come,' he said. 'The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!'

Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome.

He assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others. He accused them of having transgressed the law, and condemned them to be stoned to death.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.

They affirmed that the whole of their guilt or error was that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before sunrise and singing alternately a hymn to Christ as to a god.

A town in Judea where, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was born. As a city of David, it gave Jesus messianic legitimacy in the Jewish tradition.

A town in Galilee where Jesus grew up and lived until around the age of thirty. It was there that he was known as the son of the carpenter Joseph — a fact that scandalized his fellow townspeople.

The main setting of Jesus's ministry, where he recruited his first disciples — fishermen by trade — and performed many of the acts recorded in the Gospels. Lakeside villages such as Capernaum served as his bases.

The religious capital of Judaism, where Jesus traveled for major festivals and where he was arrested, tried, and crucified around 30 AD. The Temple stood at the heart of Jewish religious life.

The river where John the Baptist baptized crowds and where Jesus himself received baptism — an event all four Gospels identify as the founding moment of his public ministry.