Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/687

JESUS 657 On the other hand, the word Christ was not originally a name but a title. 1 In the Gospels we scarcely ever read of Christ, but always of "the Christ." 2 It was only after the resurrection that the title gradually passed into a name, and "Jesus Christ," or later still "Christ Jesus," becomes one designation. The Greek word means "anointed," and is a translation of the Hebrew " Messiah." The coming Deliverer for whom the Jews had yearned for so many centuries was spoken of as the " anointed one," with special reference to the prophecies of Isaiah (Ixi. 1) and Daniel (ix. 24-26), which again referred backward to the language of the Psalms (ii. 2, xx. 6, xlv. 7). The anointing of Jesus was the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon Him, not only throughout His life (Acts x. 33), but specially at His baptism (John i. 32). Unction was the recognized mode of consecrating any one to the offices of priest (Ex. xxix. 29 ; Lev. iv. 3) and king (1 Sam. x. 1, xxiv. 6); and prophets were supposed to be anointed by God s grace for the fulfilment of their task (Isa. Ixi. 1). The Messiah combined in His office the threefold dignity. He was a prophet to reveal (John vi. 14; Matt. xiii. 57; Luke xiii. 33, xxiv. 19), a king to reign and to judge (Luke xxiii. 2 ; Acts xvii. 7 ; 1 Cor. xv. 24; Rev. xv. 3), and a high priest to offer up the sacrifice of Himself (Heb. ii. 17 and passim). Since these, however, were distinctively Jewish concep tions, it was natural that they should be but little understood by the Gresks and Romans. The word " anointed " con veyed to thorn no sacred conceptions, and it was restampecl (surfrappe) by them into accordance with their own notions. They fancied that the real name of the founder of the new religion must be Chrestus or " excellent," 3 and they con stantly spoke of the Christians as " Chrestians." Suetonius says that the Jews were expelled from Rome by Claudius because they were raising seditions at the constant instiga tion of " Chrestus"; and he cared so little to inform himself on the subject that he made no distinction between Jews and Christians, and seems to have imagined that " Chrestus " was some leader of sedition then living at Rome. 4 On the other hand the Christians in no wise objected to the mistaken designation. " If you call us Christians," said Tertullian, " you bear witness to the name of our master ; if you call us Chrestians, you testify to the blamelessness of our lives." 5 II. The designation of " the Christ " given to Jesus shows that His followers saw in Him the long-promised Messiah of Judaism ; and the rapidity with which the title developed into a name proves the strength and permanence significance of the name see Ecclus. xlvi. 1, where it is said of Joshua that, " according to his name, he was made great for the saving of the elect of God." 1 " Non proprium nomen est, sed nuncupatio potestatis et regni," Lactant. , Div. Inst., iv. 7. 2 The only exceptions are Matt. i. 1, 18, Mark i. 1, John i. 17 (which are all in the headings and prefaces), and John xvii. 3, where we find "Jesus Christ." The only other passages in which the article is omitted before " Christ " in the Gospels are Mark ix. 41, Luke ii. 11, xxiii. 2, John ix. 22. Thus Matt. ii. 4 is "where the Christ should be born"; Matt. xi. 2 is "John hearing in prison the works of the Christ," i.e., Messianic works; and Matt. xxii. 42 is "what think ye of the Messiah ? " 3 There is a possible allusion to the similar sound of the two words in 1 Pet. ii. 3, on xp^frbs & Kupios. 4 The Romans did not fully learn to discriminate Jews from Christians, and to recognize the latter as members of an entirely dis tinct religion, until the savage attacks upon Christians by the Jewish false Messiah Barcochba, in the reign of Hadrian, 132 A.D. 5 Xpiffrtavol yap eiVai KaTr)yopovfj.fda, rb Se xP 7 )< rT "* / fufff iO Gai o> Stjcaio f, Just. Mart, ApoL, i. 4; AuriKa ol els Xpun^v TreTriffTfVK^Tfs XpT)<rToi Tt fla-l ical tyovTcu, Clem. Alex., Strom., ii. 4, 18. Chris- ttamis vero .... do unctione deducitur, sed et cum perperam Chresiianus pronunciatur a vobis (nam nee nomiuis certa est notitia penes vos) de suavitate et benignitate compositum est," Tert. , Adv. Gentes, ii., comp. Lactantius, Div. Inst., iv. 7, 5 ; Jerome on Gal. v. 22. of this conviction. And this much at least is conceded by all, that Jesus more than fulfilled the conditions for which the Jews had hoped in the Deliverer of whom so many prophets had spoken, and that He fulfilled them in a manner transcendently wider, deeper, and more permanent than even the prophets had fully foreseen. Even the most advanced sceptic cannot deny that by His life and teaching He has altered the entire current of human history, and raised the standard of human morality. He was, says Renan, " the individual who had made the species take the greatest step towards the divine." 6 But as His life was passed and His work accomplished, not in a corner, 7 but on the open stage and under the full light of a civilized epoch, it becomes a matter of great importance to estimate the value of the sources from which our knowledge of His life is derived. Those sources are (1) heathen, (2) Jewish, and (3) Christian. 1. The knowledge derivable from heathen sources, if much smaller than we could have desired, or a priori expected, is not smaller than is fully accounted for in the simple and unsophisticated narratives preserved for us by the evangelists and apostles. They show us that Christianity began from the most humble origin, and was regarded by the whole non-Christian world alike Jewish and pagan with unconcealed hatred, largely mingled with a contempt which ultimately passed into terror and exasperation. They faithfully record for us the obscure position, the extreme poverty, the persecuted lives, the unlearned train ing of the apostles, and the disdain to which they were on all sides subjected. The silence of contemporary Gentile and Jewish writers, which would be otherwise inexplicable, finds its undesigned explanation in the New Testament itself, which never attempts to conceal the contemptuous indignation of the Jewish aristocracy, and the lordly in difference of the higher Gentile authorities. Accordingly, from heathen writers we do not learn a single neiv fact respecting Jesus Christ, while yet all that they do tell us, even when expressed in language of calumny and abhorrence, proves the historical reality of the facts which the Gospels record. If it be true that Napoleon once asked Herder whether Jesus ever lived at all, such a passing phase of incredulity is so perfectly un reasonable that it has long been abandoned even by the most destructive critics. "Whether there ever existed any authentic census tables of Quirinius, or any official report of Pilate to the emperor Tiberius or not, 8 Tacitus tells us with perfect accuracy that the founder of Christianity had been put to death in the reign of Tiberius by the procu rator Pontius Pilate, and that his religion, which Tacitus calls a " deadly superstition," " though crushed for a time, burst forth again, not only throughout Juda?a, in which it sprung up, but even in Rome, the common reservoir for all the streams of wickedness and infamy." He further tells us that Nero diverted from himself the odium of the burning of Rome by charging the crime upon the Christians ; and, though he implies that their fate was not undeserved because of their universal misanthropy, he yet honestly admits that they were not guilty of this crime of incendi arism, on pretence of which they were subjected to the most awful forms of martyrdom. 9 It is clear that Tacitus, in common with all his contemporaries, confounded the Christians with the Jews, only regarding them as being Jews whose belief was more than usually abject. How little information could be expected from this eminent historian appears from the credulity with which he accepted 6 Vie de Jesus, p. 457. 7 Acts xxvi. 26. 8 A writing called "the Acts of Pilate" existed in the 2d century (Justin, ApoL , i. 35), and long continued to be used in heathen schools to warn boys against the belief of the Christians (Euseb., //. E., i. 9, ix. 5). 9 Tac., Ann., xv. 44. XIII. 83