Ted Hoffman

Elsewhere on the net, the following debate is taking place. Who is right?

Roger Pearse

Neither.

Christus would be the correct transcription of XRISTOS. However in antiquity this confused pagans, used to the Chrestus form, as Tertullian bears witness in his Apologeticum -- they hate what they cannot even spell.

The second poster is referencing (silently, I suspect) G.R.S.Mead's book appearing online. As far as I know the manuscripts contain variable forms, probably for the same reason as above.

Lucretius

OR alternatively BOTH
To decide whether Chrestus is a possible "transliteration " of Christus or whether it really is the fairly common slave name of Chrestus would rely almost entirely on it's context.

Chrestus when it obviously refers to the Messiah could well be a a "transliteration", however if it occurs in some account of a slave or a former slave then it is more likely that it is, what it is .
Suetonius certainly uses the name "Chrestus" and his followers as a " trouble makers" and it is far from clear whether he means Jesus' followers or a real person alive in Suetonius' life time who was causing the trouble .

Roger Pearse

Slaves called Chrestus are often mentioned. It would be interesting to see specific mentions in ancient texts, I think.

DCHindley

A slave name and a mistransliteration do not exhaust the possibilities.

It is true that "Chrestus" is almost universally taken to be a proper name, per the Lewis & Short lexicon:

Chrestus
Chrestô masc abl sg
Chrestô masc dat sg

Lewis & Short offer the following possible referents:

I. A mutilated form for Christus, Lact. 4, 7, 5; hence, Chrestiani, instead of Christiani, was used by many; cf. Tert. Apol. 3 fin.--

II. A Jew at Rome under the emperor Claudius, Suet. Claud. 15 (sic?); v. the commentt. in h. l.--

III. A slave or freedman of Cicero, Cic. Fam. 2, 8, 1.

M. Tullius Cicero [b. 106 bce - d. ca. 43 bce], _Epistulae ad Familiares_ (ed. L. C. Purser) book 2, letter 8, section 1:

"tu me hoc tibi mandasse existimas, ut mihi gladiatorum compositiones, ut vadimonia dilata et Chresti compilationem mitteres et ea, quae nobis, cum Romae sumus, narrare nemo audeat?" (4.94)

English Translation: _M. Tullius Cicero: Letters_ (ed. Evelyn Shuckburgh) F[amiliares], book 2, letter 8:

"Do you suppose that I meant you to send me an account of gladiatorial matches, of postponements of trials, of robberies by Chrestus, and such things as, when I am at Rome, nobody ventures to retail to me?" (6.57)

However, IMHO, the grammatical form can also be a form of the not so common word Chreston:

chreston
chrestô neut abl sg
chrestô neut dat sg

Lewis & Short:

chreston, i, n., = [Greek:] chrhston (useful), a name by which the plant cichorium was sometimes called, Plin. 20, 8, 30, § 74.

cichorium or -on (cichoreum , _ast; Hor. C. 1, 31, 16), ii, n., = kichoria (usu. kichoriwn), chiccory, succory, or endive: Cichorium intybus, etc., Linn.; Plin. 20, 8, 30, § 74 sq.; 19, 8, 39, § 129.

Gaius Plinius Secundus, Natural History, XX.74:

"those who have anointed themselves with the juice of the whole plant, mixed with oil, become more popular and obtain their wishes more easily ... so great are its health-giving properties that some call it Chreston ..." (Allegro, John M, Sacred Mushroom & the Cross (or via: amazon.co.uk), page 51).

This suggests that "Chrestus" could mean:

1) A proper name derived from the Greek work "CRHSTON" meaning "useful," thus indicating a slave name, or a misunderstanding/deliberate misrepresentation that equated the Greek word CRISTOS (meant either as a title, presumably for Jesus, or as a technical term for Jewish messianism) with such a proper name.

2) A substance that Jews were using that "impulsed" them toward
disturbances. I agree with Allegro that this could easily be taken as a reference to some sort of (magical?) drug use by some Jews of Rome.

3) An alternative that I think plausible might be the use of a substance to enhance ones rhetorical effect, and thus be an indirect reference (by means of a pun) to messianic agitators.

DCH

G. Suetonius Tranquillus [b. ca. 75 ce - d. ca. 150 ce], _De Vita Caesarum_ (ed. Maximilian Ihm) life cl., chapter 25, section 4:

"Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit." (1.88)

English Translation: _Suetonius: The Twelve Caesars_ (tr. Robert Graves), Chapter 25:

"Because the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbances [ca. 49 ce] at the instigation of Chrestus(1), he expelled them from the city."

(1) i.e., apparently Christ (who had been crucified in the reign of Tiberius) (page 202) [but see below]

The expulsion was probably restricted to those Jews who were not there in an official capacity, and certainly not to people like Agrippa II, and were thus traders and laborers of Jewish ancestry.

Note: Lewis & Short is available at the Perseus site (www.perseus.org)

mountainman

Suetonius' reference may be a later interpolation, in the same
fashion as the interpolation into Josephus.

Something that may be relevant to this thread are the two variant
spellings of the "Christians for Christians [Greek] Inscriptions of Phrygia,
which are mentioned in this article.

1] The "Christians for Christians" formula

The author admits that the "Christians for Christians" formula is subject to change throughout the distribution of citations presented. There are two main variants, of the original Greek, identified in the spelling of the word "christian". These two main variants are shown in the following summary tabulations in the columns labelled XPIC- and XPHC-. It is not the purpose or the scope of this article to explore this fact further. Rather it is noted that there is no single and unambiguous greek wording, but multiple. It is also admitted that in some of the inscriptions (#2), the "Christians for Christians" is identified as ungramatical.

However, a far more serious issue is emergent from a number of these inscriptions, because it is freely admitted that certain (#2 and #30) of the "Christians for Christians" phrases look to have been added by a later hand. This raises all sorts of possibilities which do not auger well for the integrity of the remaining citations, especially considering note [4] below, that most of this class of greek inscriptions

Ben C Smith

For convenience, the Tertullianic passage is in Apologeticum 3.5-6:

Christianus vero, quantum interpretatio est, de unctione deducitur. sed et cum perperam Chrestianus pronuntiatur a vobis, nam nec nominis certa est notitia penes vos, de suavitate vel benignitate compositum est. oditur itaque in hominibus innocuis etiam nomen innocuum. at enim secta oditur in nomine utique sui auctoris.

Christian [as a word] indeed, as much as it is to be interpreted, is derived from [the word] anointing. And even when it is falsely pronounced Chrestian by you, for neither is there any certain notice taken of the name among you, it is made up of sweetness or benignity. Thus even an innocent name is hated among innocent men. But indeed the sect is hated in the name of its author.

Ben.

Roger Pearse

Thank you Ben -- most interesting, and full of data.

Roger Pearse

Your post inspired me to look in the OLD (with the dollar so devalued, buying one from Amazon.com is good value for us in the UK). Chrestus is not listed at all; the same refs are given for Christiani and Christus, and chreston.

Roger Pearse

Perhaps someone might look in a prosopography for Chrestus as a name?