Christian

VIEW:47 DATA:01-04-2020

CHRISTIAN.—This name, from very early times the distinctive title of the followers of Jesus Christ, occurs only thrice in NT (Act_11:26; Act_26:28, 1Pe_4:16).
1. Time and place of origin.—Our only information on this point comes from Act_11:26. It was in Antioch, and in connexion with the mission of Barnabas and Saul to that city, that the name arose. It has sometimes been suggested that the infrequent use of ‘Christian’ in the NT points to a considerably later origin, and that the author of Acts had no better reason for assigning it to so early a date than the fact that the founding of the first Gentile church appeared to him to be an appropriate occasion for its coming into use. But apart from St. Luke’s well-established claim, as the historian of Christ and early Christianity, to have ‘traced the course of all things accurately from the first,’ his own non-employment of the word as a general designation for the disciples of Christ suggests that he had no reason other than a genuine historical one for referring to the origin of the name at all.
2. Authors of the name.—(1) It is exceedingly unlikely that it was originally adopted by the Christians themselves. As the NT shows, they were in the habit of using other designations—‘the disciples’ (Act_11:26 and passim), ‘the brethren’ Act_9:30, Rom_16:14 and constantly), ‘the elect’ (Rom_8:33, Col_3:12), ‘the saints’ (Act_9:13, Rom_12:13), ‘believers’ (Act_5:14, 1Ti_4:12), ‘the Way’ (Act_9:2; Act_19:9). But in NT times we never find them calling themselves Christians. In Act_26:28 it is king Agrippa who employs the name. And though in 1Pe_4:16 it comes from the pen of an Apostle, the context shows that he is using it as a term of accusation on the lips of the Church’s enemies.
(2) It cannot have been applied to the followers of Jesus by the Jews. The Jews believed in ‘the Christ,’ i.e. ‘the Anointed One,’ the Messiah; and they ardently looked for Him to come. But it was their passionate contention that Jesus of Nazareth was not the Christ. To call His followers Christians was the last thing they would have thought of doing. They referred to them contemptuously as ‘this sect’ (Act_28:22; cf. Act_24:5; cf. Act_24:14), and when contempt passed into hatred they called them ‘Nazarenes’ (Act_24:5, cf. Joh_1:46). It is true that Agrippa, a Jewish king, makes use of the name; but this was nearly 20 years after, and when, in that Roman world with which he lived in close relations, it had become the recognized designation of the new faith.
(3) Almost certainly the name owed its origin to the non-Christian Gentiles of Antioch. As these Antiochenes saw Barnabas and Saul standing day by day in the market-place or at the corners of the streets, and proclaiming that the Christ had come and that Jesus was the Christ, they caught up the word without understanding it, and bestowed the name of ‘Christians’ on these preachers and their followers. Probably it was given, not as a mere nickname, but as a term of convenience. Yet doubtless it carried with it a suggestion of contempt, and so may be compared to such titles as ‘Puritan’ and ‘Methodist’ originally applied by those who stood outside of the spiritual movements which the names were meant to characterize.
3. The spread of the name.—Originating in this casual way, the name took deep root in the soil of human speech, and the three passages of the NT in which it occurs show how widely it had spread within the course of a single generation. In Act_26:28 we find it on the lips of a Jewish ruler, speaking in Cæsarea before an audience of Roman officials and within 20 years after it was first used in Antioch. A few years later St. Peter writes to ‘the elect who are sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia’ (1Pe_1:1); and, without suggesting that ‘Christian’ was a name which the Church had yet adopted as its own, he assumes that it was perfectly familiar to the ‘elect’ themselves over a vast region of the Dispersion; and further implies that by this time, the time probably of Nero’s persecution (a.d. 64), to be called a Christian was equivalent to being liable to suffer persecution for the sake of Christ (1Pe_4:16). It was later still that St. Luke wrote the Book of Acts; and when he says that the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch (Act_11:26), he evidently means that this was a name by which they were now commonly known, though his own usage does not suggest that they had even yet assumed it themselves.
Outside of the NT we find Tacitus and Suetonius testifying that the designation Christian (or ‘Chrestian’) was popularly used in Rome at the time of the Neronian persecution; while from Pliny, early in the 2nd cent., we learn that by his day it was employed in Roman courts of law. ‘Are you a Christian?’ was the question he was himself accustomed to put to persons brought before him on a charge of being followers of Christ. By the time of Polycarp’s martyrdom (soon after the middle of the 2nd cent.), the term of accusation and cross-examination has become one of joyful profession. ‘I am a Christian’ was Polycarp’s repeated answer to those who urged him to recant. It was natural that those who were called ‘to suffer as Christians’ should come to glory in the name that brought the call and the opportunity to confess Christ. And so a name given by the outside world in a casual fashion was adopted by the Church as a title of glory and pride.
4. The meaning attached to the name.—The original meaning was simply ‘a follower of Christ.’ The Antiochenes did not know who this Christ was of whom the preachers spoke; so little did they know that they mistook for a proper name what was really a designation of Jesus. But, taking it to be His personal name, they called Christ’s disciples ‘Christians,’ just as Pompey’s followers had been called ‘Pompeians,’ or the adherents of Herod’s dynasty ‘Herodians.’ No doubt they used the word with a touch of good-humoured contempt—the Christians were the followers of somebody or other called Christ. It is contempt again, but of an intenser kind, that seems to be conveyed by Agrippa’s words to St. Paul, ‘With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian!’ (Act_26:28). In 1Peter a darker shadow has fallen upon the name. Nero has made it criminal to be a Christian, and the word is now one not of scorn merely, but of hatred and fear. The State ranks a Christian with murderers and thieves and other malefactors (cf. 1Pe_4:14 with 1Pe_4:15). On its adoption by the Church, deeper meanings began to be read into it. It testified to the dignity of the Church’s Lord—‘the Anointed One,’ the rightful King of that Kingdom which hath no end. It proclaimed the privileges that belonged to Christians themselves; for they too were anointed with the oil of God to be a holy generation, a royal priesthood. Moreover, in Greek the word christos (‘anointed’) suggested the more familiar word chrestos (‘gracious’). The Christians were often misnamed ‘Chrestians’ from an idea that the founder of their religion was ‘one Chrestos.’ And this heathen blunder conveyed a happy and beautiful suggestion. It is possible that St. Peter himself is playing on the word ‘Christ’ when he writes (1Pe_2:3), ‘If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious (chrestos).’ And by and by we find Tertullian reminding the enemies of the Church that the very name ‘Chrestians,’ which they gave to Christ’s people in error, is one that speaks of sweetness and benignity.
5. The historical significance of the name.—(1) It marked the distinct emergence of Christianity from Judaism, and the recognition of its right to a separate place among the religions of the world. Hitherto, to outsiders, Christianity had been only a Jewish sect (cf. the words of Gallio, Act_18:14-15), nor had the first Apostles themselves dreamt of breaking away from synagogue and Temple. But the Antiochenes saw that Christ’s disciples must be distinguished from the Jews and put into a category of their own. They understood, however dimly, that a new religion had sprung up on the earth, and by giving its followers this new name, they helped to quicken in the mind of the Church itself the consciousness of a separate existence. (2) It marked the fact, not heretofore realized, that Christianity was a religion for the Gentiles. Probably it was because the missionaries to Antioch not only preached Christ, but preached Him ‘unto the Greeks also’ (Act_11:20), that the inhabitants discerned in these men the heralds of a new faith. It was not the way of Jewish Rabbis to proffer Judaism to Greeks in the market-place. Christianity appeared in Antioch as a universal religion, making no distinction between Jew and Gentile. (3) It is not without significance that it was ‘first in Antioch’ that the Christians received this name. It shows how the Church’s centre of gravity was shifting. Up to this time Christians as well as Jews looked to Jerusalem in everything as the mother of them all. But Jerusalem was not fitted to be the chief city of a universal faith. Paul saw this clearly—helped to it without doubt by his experiences at this very time. And so Antioch became the headquarters of his missionary labours, and through him the headquarters of aggressive Christianity in the early Apostolic age (Act_13:1 ff., Act_14:26 f., Act_15:1 ff., Act_15:22 f., Act_15:35 ff., Act_18:22 ff.). It served as a stepping-stone for that movement, inevitable from the day when Christianity was first preached unto the Gentiles, which by and by made Rome, the metropolis of the world, the mother-city also of the universal Church. (4) The name marked the fact that Christianity was not the religion of a book or a dogma, an idea or an institution, but a faith that centred in a Person. The men of Antioch were mistaken when they supposed that Christ was a personal name, but they made no mistake in thinking that He whose name they took to be Christos was the foundation-stone of this new faith. By calling the disciples Christians they became unconscious prophets of the truth that Christianity, whether regarded from the side of historical revelation or of personal experience, is all summed up in the Person of Jesus Christ.
J. C. Lambert.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

The name first given at Antioch to Christ's followers. In the New Testament it only occurs in 1Pe_4:16; Act_11:26; Act_26:27-28. Their name among themselves was "brethren," "disciples," "those of the way" (Act_6:1; Act_6:3; Act_9:2), "saints" (Rom_1:7). The Jews, since they denied that Jesus is the Christ, would never originate the name "Christians," but called them "Nazarenes" (Act_24:5). The Gentiles confounded them with the Jews, and thought them to be a Jewish sect. But a new epoch arose in the church's development when, at Antioch, idolatrous Gentiles (not merely Jewish proselytes from the Gentiles, as the eunuch, a circumcised proselyte, and Cornelius, an uncircumcised proselyte of the gate) were converted.
Then the Gentiles needed a new name to designate people who were Jews, neither by birth nor religion. And the people of Antioch were famous for their readiness in giving names: Partisans of Christ, Christiani, as Caesariani, partisans of Caesar; a Latin name, as Antioch had become a Latin city. But the name was divinely ordered (as chreematizoo always expresses, Act_11:26), as the new name to mark the new era, namely, that of the church's gospel missions to the Gentiles. The rarity of its use in the New Testament marks its early date, when as yet it was a name of reproach and hardly much recognized among the disciples. So in our age "Methodist," a term originally given in reproach, has gradually come to be adopted by Wesley's disciples themselves. Blunt well says: "if the Acts were a fiction, is it possible that this unobtrusive evidence of the progress of a name would have been found in it?"
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

Christian. The disciples, we are told, Act_11:26, were first called Christians at Antioch, on the Orontes, somewhere about A.D. 43. They were known to each other as, and were among themselves called, brethren, Act_15:1; 15:23; 1Co_7:12, disciples, Act_9:26; Act_11:29, believers, Act_5:14, saints, Rom_8:27; Rom_15:25.
The name "Christian," which, in the only other cases where it appears in the New Testament, Act_26:28; 1Pe_4:16, is used contemptuously, could not have been applied by the early disciples to themselves, but was imposed upon them by the Gentile world. There is no reason to suppose that the name "Christian" of itself was intended as a term of scurrility or abuse, though it would naturally be used with contempt.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

a follower of the religion of Christ. It is probable that the name Christian, like that of Nazarenes and Galileans, was given to the disciples of our Lord in reproach or contempt. What confirms this opinion is, that the people of Antioch in Syria, Act_11:26, where they were first called Christians, are observed by Zosimus, Procopius, and Zonaras, to have been remarkable for their scurrilous jesting. Some have indeed thought that this name was given by the disciples to themselves; others, that it was imposed on them by divine authority; in either of which cases surely we should have met with it in the subsequent history of the Acts, and in the Apostolic Epistles, all of which were written some years after; whereas it is found in but two more places in the New Testament, Act_26:28, where a Jew is the speaker, and in 1Pe_4:16, where reference appears to be made to the name as imposed upon them by their enemies. The word used, Act_11:26, signifies simply to be called or named, and when Doddridge and a few others take it to imply a divine appointment, they disregard the usus loquendi [established acceptation of the term] which gives no support to that opinion. The words of Tacitus, when speaking of the Christians persecuted by Nero, are remarkable, “vulgus Christianos appellabat,” “the vulgar called them Christians.” Epiphanius says, that they were called Jesseans, either from Jesse, the father of David, or, which is much more probable, from the name of Jesus, whose disciples they were. They were denominated Christians, A.D. 42 or 43; and though the name was first given reproachfully, they gloried in it, as expressing their adherence to Christ, and they soon generally assumed it.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

The citizens of Antioch in Syria were the first people to give the name ‘Christian’ to believers in Jesus Christ (Act_11:26). The language spoken in Antioch was Greek, and therefore the believers in that town spoke of Jesus not by the Hebrew word ‘Messiah’, but by the equivalent Greek word ‘Christ’. (Both words meant ‘the anointed one’; see MESSIAH.)
To people who were neither Jews nor believers, ‘the anointed one’ (‘Christ’) had no significance. To them the word seemed to be merely the name of a person, and the followers of that person they called ‘Christ’s people’, or ‘Christians’. Originally non-believers used the name ‘Christian’ as a nickname, possibly in mockery (Act_26:28). But it proved to be a suitable name, for it showed that the Christian religion was centred on Christ. Under some of the later Roman Emperors, believers in Jesus were persecuted merely for being Christians (1Pe_4:16).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.

kris?chan, kris?ti-an (Χριστιανός, Christianós):
1. Historicity of Acts 11:26
2. Of Pagan Origin
3. The Christian Attitude to the Name
4. Was ?Christian? the Original Form?
5. The Christians and the Empire
6. Social Standing of the Early Christians
7. Christian Self-Designations
Literature
1. Historicity of Act_11:26
The word Christian occurs only three times in the New Testament (Act_11:26; Act_26:28; and 1Pe_4:16). The first passage, Act_11:26, gives the origin of the term, ?The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.? The older generation of critical scholars disputed the historicity of this statement. It was argued that, had the term originated so early, it must have been found far more frequently in the records of early Christianity; sometimes also that the termination -ianus points to a Latin origin. But there is general agreement now that these objections are groundless. The historicity of the Lukan account is upheld not only by Harnack, but by the more radical Knopf in Die Schriften des New Testament, edited by Johannes Weiss. In early imperial times, the adjectival termination -ianos was widely diffused throughout the whole empire. Originally applied to the slaves belonging to the great households, it had passed into regular use to denote the adherents of an individual or a party. A Christian is Thus simply an adherent of Christ. The name belongs, as Ramsay says, to the popular slang, as indeed sect and party names generally do. It is only after a considerable interval, and very often under protest, that such names are accepted as self-designations.
2. Of Pagan Origin
The name, then, did not originate with the Christians themselves. Nor would the Jews have applied it to the followers of Jesus, whose claim to be the Christ they opposed so passionately. They spoke of the Christians as ?the sect of the Nazarenes? (Act_24:5); perhaps also as ?Galileans,? a term which the emperor Julian attempted later vainly to revive. The word must have been coined by the heathen population of Antioch, as the church emerged from the synagogue, and a Christianity predominantly Gentile took its place among the religions of the world.
3. The Christian Attitude to the Name
Perhaps the earliest occurrence of Christian as a self-designation is in Didache Act_12:4. In the Apologists and Ignatius on the other hand the word is in regular use. 1 Pet simply takes it over from the anti-Christian judicial procedure of the law courts, without in any way implying that the Christians used it among themselves. There is every probability, however, that it was the danger which Thus began at an early date to attach to the name which commended it to the Christians themselves as a title of honor . Deissmann (Licht vom Osten, 286) suggests that Christian means slave of Christ, as Caesarian means slave of Caesar. But the word can scarcely have had that fullness of meaning till the Christians themselves had come to be proud of it.
According to tradition, Luke himself belonged to Antioch. In Act_11:27, Act_11:28 Codex Bezae (D) reads ?There was much rejoicing, and when we had assembled, there stood up,? etc. In view of the greater authority now so frequently accorded to the so-called Western text, we cannot summarily dispose of such a reading as an interpolation. If the historian was not only an Antiochene, but a member of the original Gentile Christian church, we have the explanation alike of his interest in the origin of the name Chris tian, and of the detailed precision of his information.
4. Was ?Christian? the Original Form?
In all three New Testament passages the uncorrected Codex Sinaiticus reads ?Chrestian.? We know from many sources that this variant was widely current in the 2nd century. Blass in his edition of Acts not only consistently reads ?Chrestian,? but conjectures that ?Chrestian? is the correct reading in Tacitus (Annals, xv.44), the earliest extra-Biblical testimony to the word. The Tacitus manuscript has since been published in facsimile. This has shown, according to Harnack (Mission and Expansion, English translation), I, 413, 414), that ?Chrestian? actually was the original reading, though the name ?Christ? is correctly given. Harnack accordingly thinks that the Latin historian intended to correct the popular appellation of circa 64 ad, in the light of his own more accurate knowledge. ?The common people used to call them 'Chrestians,' but the real name of their founder was Christ.? Be this as it may, a confusion between ?Christos? (Χριστος, Christos) and the familiar Greek slave name ?Chrestos? (χρεστος, chrestos is more intelligible at an early date than later, when Christianity was better known. There must have been a strong tendency to conform the earlier witnesses to the later, familiar, and etymologically correct, usage. It is all the more remarkable, therefore, that the original scribe of Codex Sinaiticus retains ?Chrestian.? On the whole it seems probable that this designation, though bestowed in error, was the original one.
5. The Christians and the Empire
The fuller discussion of this subject more appropriately falls under the articles dealing with the relation of the church and empire. Suffice it here to say that Paul apparently hoped that by his acquittal the legal position of Christianity as a religio licita would be established throughout the empire, and that 1 Peter belongs to a time when the mere profession of Christianity was a crime in the eyes of the state, but that in all probability this was a new position of affairs.
6. Social Standing of the Early Christians
That early Christianity was essentially a movement among the lower non-literary classes has been rightly emphasized - above all by Deissmann. This is a circumstance of the utmost importance for the correct understanding of the early history of our faith, though probably Deissmann in some degree exaggerates and misplaces the significance. Is it correct to say, for example, that ?primitive Christianity was relatively indifferent to politics, not as Christianity, but as a movement of the humbler folks, whose lot on the whole had certainly been lightened by the Empire? (Licht vom Osten, 254)? Very probably however the difficulties of the Pauline Gentile mission were appreciably increased by the fact that he touched a lower social stratum than that of the original Jewish Christianity of Palestine. No class more resents being associated in any way with the ?submerged masses? than the self-respecting peasant or artisan, who seems to have formed the backbone of the Palestine church. The apostle had consequently to fight against social, no less than racial and religious, prejudices.
7. Christian Self-Designations
The Christians originally called themselves ?Disciples,? a term afterward restricted to personal hearers of the Lord, and regarded as a title of high distinction. The ordinary self-designations of the apostolic age are ?believers? (Act_5:14; 1Ti_4:12), ?saints? (Act_9:13, Act_9:12, Act_9:41; Rom_1:7), ?brethren? (Act_6:3; Act_10:23, etc.), ?the elect? (Col_3:12; 2Ti_2:10), ?the church of God? (Act_20:28 margin), ?servants (slaves) to God? (Rom_6:22; 1Pe_2:16). The apostolic authors refer to themselves as ?servants (slaves) of Christ Jesus? (Phi_1:1). Other expressions are occasionally met with, of which perhaps the most significant is: Those ?that call upon the name of the Lord? (Act_9:14; Rom_10:12, Rom_10:13; 1Co_1:2). Compare Pliny's report to Trajan (Epistles, X, 97): ?They affirmed that ... they had been wont to assemble and address a hymn to Christ as to a god.?
Literature
The most recent discussion of the names of Christian believers, including ?Christian,? is in Harnack's Mission and Expansion of Christianity, English translation (2nd edition, 1908), I, 399ff. See also EB, HDB, DCG, with the lit. there cited. On the social status of the early Christians, compare Orr's Neglected Factors in the Study of the Early Progress of Christianity; on the religious significance of the name, see CHRISTIANITY.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

Christian
(Χριστιανός), the name given to those who believe Jesus to be the Messiah (Act_11:26). Commentators and critics are not agreed whether the followers of Christ gave this appellation to themselves, or whether it was bestowed on them by others. Neither view appears to be wholly true or wholly false. Such titles do not usually originate in any arbitrary way, nor do they spring from a single party, but rather arise from a conventional assent to their appropriateness. It was, indeed, the interest of the Christians to have some name which might not, like the Jewish ones (Nazarenes or Galilaeans), imply reproach. And though the terms brethren, the faithful, elect, saints, believers, disciples, or the Church, might suffice among themselves, yet none of them were sufficiently definite for an appellation, and might perhaps be thought to savor of vanity. They would therefore be not disinclined to adopt one, especially for exoteric use. Yet the necessity was not so great as to stimulate them to do this very soon; whereas the people at large, in having to speak of this new sect, would soon need some distinctive appellation; and what so distinctive as one formed from the name of its founder? It is therefore most likely to have been suggested by the Gentile inhabitants of Antioch, and to have early come into general use by a sort of common consent. (See Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of St. Paul, 1 119.)
There is no reason to think with some that the name "Christians" was given in absolute derision. When used by Agrippa (Act_26:28), there is no proof that it was a term of reproach; had the intended derision, he might have employed the term Nazarene, which was in frequent use among the Jews, and has continued current in the East, wherever the Arabic language is spoken, to the present day. The early adoption of it by the Christians themselves, and the manner in which they employ it, are sufficient to dispel all idea of this nature (1Pe_4:16). The only reproach connected with the name would be the inevitable one arising from the profession of faith implied in it. Neither is the view of others more probable, that it was a name imposed by divine appointment. The term χρηματίζω (translated "called" in the passage first quoted), usually relied upon to sustain this view, has other significations than that of an oracular response, and is fairly capable of the meaning assigned to it in our version.
"This world-famous name (William of Tyre, 4:9) occurs but three times in the New Testament (Act_11:26; Act_26:28; 1Pe_4:16). In the first of these passages we are informed that it arose in the city of Antioch, during the year spent there in preaching by Paul and Barnabas, A.D. 34. Both Suidas (2:3930, a, ed. Gaisford) and Malalas (Chronograph. 10) say that the name was first used in the episcopate of Evodius at Antioch, who is said to have been appointed by the apostle Peter as his successor (Jerome, Chronic. p. 429). That Evodius actually invented the name (Malalas, 1. c.) is an assertion which may be disregarded as safely as the mediaeval fiction that it was adopted at a council held for the purpose.
"The name itself was only contemptuous in the mouths of those who regarded with contempt him from whom it was derived; and as it was a universal practice to name political, religious, or philosophical societies from the name of their founders (as Pythagoreans, Epicureans, Apollonii, Caesariani, Vitelliani, etc.), it was advantageous rather than otherwise for the Christians to adopt a title which was not necessarily offensive, and which bore witness to their love and worship of their master; a name intrinsically degrading — such as the witty Antiochenes, notorious in the ancient world for their propensity to bestow nicknames, might easily have discovered (Philost. Vit. Apol. 3:16; Zosim. 3:11; Ammon. Marcell. 22; Procop. Bell. Pers. 2:8) — would certainly have retarded the progress of the new religion; and as we see, even in modern times, that it is the tendency of rival sects to brand each other with derisive epithets, it is natural to suppose that the name 'Christians' resulted rather from philosophical indifference than from theological hatred. The Latinized form of the word — Greek in form, Latin in termination — is not indeed a conclusive proof that it emanated from the Romans, because such terminations had already been familiarized throughout the East by the Roman dominion; but it is precisely the kind of name which would have been bestowed by the haughty and disdainful spirit of victorious Rome, which is so often marked in early Christian history (Joh_18:31; Act_22:24; Act_25:19; Act_18:14). That the disciples should have been called from 'Christus,' a word implying the office, and not from 'Jesus,' the name of our blessed Lord, leads us to infer that the former word was most frequently on their lips, 'which harmonizes with the most important fact, that in the epistles he is usually called, not 'Jesus,' but 'Christ' (Lactant. Div. Instit. 4:7). In later times, when the features of the 'exitiabilis superstitio' were better known, because of its ever-widening progress (Tacit. Ann. 15:44), this indifferentism was superseded by a hatred against the name as intense as the Christian love for it, and for this reason the emperor Julian 'countenanced, and perhaps enjoined, the use of the less honorable appellation of Galilaeans' (Gibbon, 5:312, ed. Milman; Greg. Nazarene, Orat. 3:81). Yet, as Tertullian, in an interesting passage, points out, the name so detested was harmless in every sense, for it merely called them by the office of their master, and that office merely implied one set apart by solemn unction (Apolog. 3).
"It appears that, by a widely prevalent error, the Christians were generally called Chrestiani (Χρηστιανοί, Sueton. Nero, 16; Claud. 25) and their founder Chrestus (q. d. χρηστός, excellent), a mistake which is very easily accounted for (Lactant. Instit. Div. 4:7), and one which the Christians were the less inclined to regret, because it implied their true and ideal character (Clem. Alex. Stron. II, 4:18; Tert. Apol. 100:3). SEE CHRESTIANS. The explanation of the name Christian, as referring to the 'unction from the Holy One,' although supported by the authority of Theophilus Antiochenus (A.D. 170), 'who lived not long after the death of John' (ad Autolyc. 1:12), can only be regarded as an adaptation or an after-thought (see Jeremiah Taylor, Disc. of Confirm. § 3).
"The adoption of the name marks a very important epoch in the history of the Church; the period when it had emerged, even in the Gentile observation, from its Jewish environment, and had enrolled followers who continued Gentiles in every respect, and who differed widely from the Jewish proselytes. 'It expressed the memorable fact that a community consisting primarily of Jews, and directed exclusively by them, could not be denoted by that name, or by any name among them. To the disciples it signified that they were witnesses for a king, and a king whom all nations would be brought in due time to acknowledge' (Maurice. Eccl. Hist. p. 79). See Buddeus, De origine, dignitate et usu nominis Christians (Jen. 1711; also his Miscell. Sacr. 1:280 sq.); Wetstenii Nov. Test. in Acts 11; Zeller, Bibl. Wörterb. s.v. Christen, etc." (Kitto, s. v). To be denominated Christian was, in the estimation of the confessors and martyrs, their highest honor. This is illustrated in the narrative which Eusebius has copied from an ancient record, of one Sanctus of Vienna, who endured all the inhuman tortures which art could inflict. His tormentors hoped, by the continuance and severity of his pains, to extort from him some acknowledgment which might implicate him; but he withstood them with unflinching fortitude, neither disclosing to them his name, nor his native land, nor his condition in life, whether freeman or slave. To all their interrogatories he only replied, Christianus sum; affirming that his name, his country, and his kindred all were included in this. Of the same import was the deportment of the martyr Lucian, as related by Chrysostom. To every question he replied, "I am a Christian." "'Of What country are you?" "I am a Christian." "What is your occupation?" "I am a Christian." "Who are your parents?" "I am a Christian." — Bingham, Orig. Ecclesiastes bk. 1, ch. 1.

CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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