protology

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek πρωτολογίᾱ (prōtologíā). By surface analysis, proto- +‎ -logy.

Noun

protology (countable and uncountable, plural protologies)

1. (theology) The branch of theology pertaining to origins and first things.
   • 1975, Karl Rahner, Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi, →ISBN, page 320:

     And hence the progress of the history of salvation is the progress of protology in the progressive development of its starting-point.

   • 1995, Aloys Grillmeier, Theresia Hainthaler, Christ in Christian Tradition, →ISBN, page 226:

     The Chalcedonian defender of thoroughgoing aphtharsia, driven into a corner, now seeks refuge in protology, that is, in referring to the original condition of Adam in Paradise, with whom he compares Christ.

   • 2009, M. C. Steenberg, Of God and Man: Theology as Anthropology from Irenaeus to Athanasius, →ISBN:

     Our task, in what must necessarily be a longer section than those previous, will be first to explore the eschatological dimension of the protological image, then to show how these dual dimensions of protology and eschatology ground Irenaeus' focus on history and salvation as 'recapitulation'.

2. A text or oral history giving the origins of a people.
   • 1997, Jace Weaver, That the People Might Live, →ISBN:

     Or, alternatively, perhaps they are the first human beings as described in tribal protologies.

   • 2001, Jace Weaver, Other Words: American Indian Literature, Law, and Culture, →ISBN, page 165:

     Their fear, it is claimed, is that analysis of remains will "disprove" traditional tribal protologies, which often state that the tribe in question has been on its ancestral lands since creation.

   • 2009, Turid Karlsen Seim, Jorunn Økland, Metamorphoses: Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity, →ISBN:

     Once the first principle starts to unfold into something other than itself, difference inevitably becomes uncontrollable, and that is why Valentinian protologies typically describe long chains of generation where the successful mediation of unity and duality is constantly being deferred from one level of being to the next: once the monad becomes a dyad it will multiply itself into a tetrad, an ogdoad and a triakontad, and the continued unity of the whole depends on the precarious unity of each of its constituent aeons, they themselves being "syzygies", double beings consisting of a masculine and feminine component, one but at the same time two.

   • 2015, Chris L. de Wet, Preaching Bondage, →ISBN:

     Linking slavery to the Christian myth of origins and cosmogony is curious; origin myths and protologies describe not so much how things came into being, but why things are the way they are in the present, and they also insinuate how things ought to be.

3. An error for proctology.
   • 1914, The Wisconsin Medical Recorder - Volumes 16-18, page 283:

     The writer states that: (1) during the past decade protology has come to include diseases of the colon, and that the extension is beneficial inasmuch as it encourages and provides for a better diagnosis, and for a more thorough search after etiology.

   • 1941, The Illinois Psychiatric Journal - Volumes 1-2, page 27:

     Instruction in the principles and practices of protology and proctological problems of the institutionalized patient has been given to staff physicians, interns and others who are qualified and interested.

   • 1963, Scotland Ministry of Health, Report of the Joint Working Party on the medical staffing structure in the Hospital Service:

     In some specialties, however, no place was seen for assistants of this kind. These specialties were general medicine, general surgery (including urology and protology), obstetrics and gynaecology (practised together), cardiology, dermatology, otolaryngology, neurology, neuro-surgery, plastic surgery and thoracic surgery.

Related terms

• protologue (taxonomy)

Further reading

• James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928), “† Proto·logy.”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volumes VII (O–P), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 1510, column 2.

Anagrams

• tropology