Character level vs. Class level

[S_Grey]

Everyone's seen it before. Some have wondered about it, others have made personal judgement calls, and DM's have been downright sticklers about it.

My question is: When an entry for a class ability uses the phrase (For example BoED pg62) "...As the spell cast by a cleric of the fist's characterlevel" or "...deals 1 extra point of damage per class level," are these terms used interchangeably or do they mean different things? If so, please specify.

[Flickerdart]

Character level is a character's total level - a Wizard 15/Archmage 5 has a character level of 20. However, his class level for Wizard abilities is 15, and his class level for Archmage abilities is 5.

[Deaxsa]

as far as i understand, calss level means that particular class. character level means levels in any class. hit dice means all hit dice

[Karnith]

You may want to consult the glossary in the Player's Handbook. It defines class level as:
Class level
A character's level in a single class. Class features generally depend on class level rather than character level.
It also defines character level as:

Character Level
A character's total level. For a character with levels in only one class, class level and character level are the same thing.

Hence, in your examples, a Cleric 8/Fist of Raziel 1 would have a Magic Circle Against Evil effect functioning as though cast by a 9th level cleric (8 levels in Cleric plus 1 in Fist of Raziel). And when that character used his Smite Evil ability, he would only deal 1 extra point of damage with it (because he only has 1 level in Fist of Raziel).