sharrock

I've read that the term 'christian' is derived thus...

Theophilus explains the meaning of the name "Christian" as signifying that "we are anointed with the oil of God."

How much weight is there behind this viewpoint ?

Clivedurdle

http://www.gallowglass.org/jadwiga/S...ropereview.htm

Norman Davies discusses the various very early xian groups around the med. It would be more logical instead of positing a big bang founder to posit various groups with various rituals, evolved from annointing rituals that for various political reasons got melded into a one true church and all the other became heresies, when the reality is various religious ideas that coalesced vaguely - patterns and similarities were found between groups that really had only very vague stuff in common. The story of Jesus Christ then becomes an evolution, an invention, to create some order and that is where the power of the idea comes from - the religion had a "logical" theology imposed on it - I am right in saying theology is one of the main distinguishing marks of xianity in comparison with other religions? Constantine may have done this but I wonder if it is probably later with Ambrose- someone created an emperor christ to reflect the unity of the empire.

The traditional jesusdidit history is too tidy to be real!

Tigers!

The Bible itself in Acts 11:25-27 notes that followers of Christ were first called Christians at Antioch.
Depending on your belief in the accuracy of Acts this could be as early as about 45-50AD.

Doug Shaver

If you mean derivation in the etymological sense, there is not much controversy about that. The English word Christ] is a transliteration of a Greek word that meant the same thing as a Hebrew word that was translated into English as Messiah. That Hebrew word meant annointed one. It was commonly applied to the kings of Judah and Israel because they were ritually annointed with oil upon ascending to the throne. The annointing was part of something like an inauguration ceremony.

If your question is how it came to be applied to members of a certain first-century religious sect, then things get a lot more uncertain.

Ender_Wiggin

"and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch." Acts 11:26

Christos in the greek means "annointed one" or "messiah", or "The Christ" when used as a proper name. They annointed with oil perhaps that is what you are refering to. "Followers of the annointed one" would seem to fit. The greek in 11:26 is Christianous "the christian"

spin

The word "christian" is an interesting word because it is made up of a Greek part, christos, and a Latin part, the suffix -ian-, "(people) of".

christos itself is a translation of the Hebrew idea "anointed" M$YX from a verb M$X "to smear/wipe with oil". However, when the Greek verb is converted to a noun, it conventionally should mean something different, the thing which is wiped or smeared, the oil or ointment. This means that christos has taken on a new meaning which would not be normally understood by a Greek speaker until taught it. Uses of the term therefore in early classical texts without explanation should be seen as suspect. Readers would not have understood the new meaning and would have been confused because of the normal meaning of the term.

The most interesting feature though is that it is formed from a Greek word with a Latin suffix, meaning that the word has been borrowed into Latin and from there the form "christian" is created. The Antioch story for its introduction in Acts is highly suspect. There needs to have been a Latin speaking community in which the term was formed. That was not Antioch.

Mark, a text which tradition places as having been written in Rome does feature many Latin indicators, including terms explained with Latin meanings, structures that make sense better in Latin than in Greek, numerous Latin terms directly found in the Greek, problems with Palestinian geography and a distinction which only makes sense in a Roman environment, "Syro-Phoenician", instead of simply "Phoenician", the former term only necessary to distinguish from Lybo-Phoenician, such as someone from Carthage.

Mark is important also because it features another term "Herodians", again a term formed from a foreign word, the name "Herod", and the same Latin suffix,"-ian-". One example of "Herodian" has survived into Matt, but it has been omitted in Luke, obviously obscure to the writer.

The term "christian" with that same Latin suffix may easily have been formed in Rome.


spin

Ender_Wiggin

The text is Greek, the combination is the english translation, but that being said, Latin in the area? They were under the Roman Empire. Latin was everywhere. The fact that it was indeed a new word is not suprising that the greek and latin culture would be combined. Luke who wrote Acts was highly educated and his greek is the most literate of the NT documents.

It is a Greek word found elsewhere in the NT: Acts 11:26, 26:28, 1 Peter 4:16

I dont know how to put greek font in here but its: Xristianouv.

spin

Note: xristos as the base form with the Latin -ian- as the gentilic suffix provides xristianos.

The gentilic endings in Greek were -ai-, eg bostraios, a person from Bostra, and -hn-, eg antioxhnos, a person from Antioch. There are other gentilics in Greek, but -ian- is not one.

Latin scarcely had any representation in the east. Caches of texts from in Judea were almost never in Latin. The cohorts and legions in east were usually not Latin speakers, so who do you think spoke Latin? Why did all educated Romans tend to learn Greek?

You may borrow words from another language but you usually apply your own suffixes. "Beauty" came into English from Norman French, but "beautiful" is an English creation. "Israel" came into English from Hebrew, but "Israelite" is certainly not Hebrew, which is Y$R)LY.

Love it or hate it, "christian" was formed in a Latin speaking community.


spin

Ben C Smith

Wait. I thought you had said on another thread that east and west were not what mattered; what was important was a connection of some kind with the Latin west. (We had discussed the Ασπουργιανοι, Ηρωδιανοι, Σιμωνιανοι, and the Καρποκρατιανοι, at least some of which are eastern groups, but all of which arguably did have or could have had some connection to the Latin west).

Ben.

spin

What we'd decided I thought is that you were using terms that had been transliterated into Greek, eg Aspourgianoi probably from Romans who were in support of the Roman client Polemon; Herodians from the Roman written Mark and the other two from religious movements established after christianity was in flower thus cannot be used to show the linguistic mores of Greek speakers, for we don't have a trajectory through Greek. While the religious groups were eastern, we have no examples of what they were called in their own cities.

And yes, it was the Latin connection which was essential. The words weren't formed in a Greek speaking community which had rich resources for forming such ideas from their own morphology.

The reason why Josephus could write his Antiquities in Greek for Romans is because educated Romans also spoke Greek, giving them the ability to communicate in the Hellenistic world. And beside the small Roman administration necessary in provinces and remembering that the grunt of the legions weren't Roman, who else could speak Latin?


spin