Novice or Neophyte, one newly converted (literally newly planted), not yet matured in Christian experience (). The word continued to be in use in the early church; but it gradually acquired a meaning somewhat different from that which it bore under the Apostles, when 'newly converted' and 'newly baptized' described, in fact, the same condition, the converted being at once baptized. For when, in subsequent years, the church felt it prudent to put converts under a course of instruction before admitting them to baptism and the full privileges of Christian brotherhood, the term Novices was sometimes applied to them, although more usually distinguished by the general term of Catechumens.