What Did Chrestos Mean to the Christians Who Used This Title

[Secret Alias]

It can't just have meant 'nice guy.' All attempts to explain the title generically seem to roll together with the amusement of Justin when he says that people call them 'Chrestianoi' because "we are accused of being Christians, and to hate what is excellent is unjust." (Χριστιανοὶ γὰρ εἶναι κατηγορούμεθα· τὸ δὲ χρηστὸν μισεῖ
σθαι οὐ δίκαιον - 1 Apology 4). The identification of the followers of Jesus as 'Chrestoi' or 'Chrestianoi' was certainly early. It must have something to do with the 'good god' (and thus Marcionism). But what is the exact point of contact with Judaism?

[Secret Alias]

I guess I should have rephrased the question (as I have already noted elsewhere that Philo uses the term). What's the likely Hebrew equivalent of Chrestos in this context? Is there one?

[Secret Alias]

Psalm 34:8 makes clear it would be tov (ט֣וֹב). Is there any evidence for the pre-existence of a 'good god' (טָֽבְאַֽל) in Hebrew?

[Clive]

Import from Babylon? Ahura Mazda?

Ahura Mazda (/əˌhʊrəˌmæzdə/;[1]) (also known as Ohrmazd, Ahuramazda, Hourmazd, Hormazd, and Hurmuz, Lord or simply as spirit) is the Avestan name for the higher, uncreated spirit of Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism, the old Iranian religion predating Islam. Ahura Mazda is described as the highest spirit of worship in Zoroastrianism, along with being the first and most frequently invoked spirit in the Yasna. The literal meaning of the word Ahura is light and Mazda is wisdom. Zoroastrianism revolves around three basic tenets - Good Thoughts, Good Words and Good Deeds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahura_Mazda

[Ben C. Smith]

I guess I should have rephrased the question (as I have already noted elsewhere that Philo uses the term). What's the likely Hebrew equivalent of Chrestos in this context? Is there one?

Well, it often translates tōv in the LXX. Not sure that helps here, though.

Ben.

[Ben C. Smith]

Posts crossed.

[Stuart]

You should maybe read Margaret Barker's The Great Angel, A Study of Israel's Second God.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Angel-I ... 0664253954.

[Peter Kirby]

It can't just have meant 'nice guy.'

This is likely just common knowledge, but Plato had something to say about 'the good.'

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... Rep.+6.509
http://www.scandalon.co.uk/philosophy/plato_good.htm
http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/platform.htm
http://www.friesian.com/good.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_of_the_Good
https://www.academia.edu/1082782/The_Si ... ept_of_God

The Good, for Plato, is the highest form, the ultimate principle, from which even other forms must take their being.

(The documented series of named Gnostic 'Aeons' corresponding to general concepts can be seen as an elaboration of this idea.)

There seems to be a tradition that Plato spoke about more to his disciples than was put forth in his books. Whether or not this is true, "the Good" was a favorite object of speculation for philosophers in the tradition of Plato.

Note, however, that Plato's "the Good" was ἀγαθός, not χρηστός.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... s&la=greek
http://biblehub.com/greek/18.htm

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... s&la=greek
http://biblehub.com/greek/5543.htm

The meaning of χρηστός was less lofty and could be translated as "useful" (kind, excellent for a purpose) rather than simply "good" (virtuous).

[Clive]

"useful" (kind, excellent for a purpose)

demiurge?

Demiurge, Greek Dēmiourgos (“public worker”), plural Demiourgoi, in philosophy, a subordinate god who fashions and arranges the physical world to make it conform to a rational and eternal ideal. Plato adapted the term, which in ancient Greece had originally been the ordinary word for “craftsman,” or “artisan” (broadly interpreted to include not only manual workers but also heralds, soothsayers, and physicians), and which in the 5th century bc had come to designate certain magistrates or elected officials.

Plato used the term in the dialog Timaeus, an exposition of cosmology in which the Demiurge is the agent who takes the preexisting materials of chaos, arranges them according to the models of eternal forms, and produces all the physical things of the world, including human bodies. The Demiurge is sometimes thought of as the Platonic personification of active reason. The term was later adopted by some of the Gnostics, who, in their dualistic worldview, saw the Demiurge as one of the forces of evil, who was responsible for the creation of the despised material world and was wholly alien to the supreme God of goodness.

http://www.britannica.com/topic/Demiurge

[Peter Kirby]

It can't just have meant 'nice guy.'

This is likely just common knowledge, but Plato had something to say about 'the good.'

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... Rep.+6.509
http://www.scandalon.co.uk/philosophy/plato_good.htm
http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/platform.htm
http://www.friesian.com/good.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_of_the_Good
https://www.academia.edu/1082782/The_Si ... ept_of_God

The Good, for Plato, is the highest form, the ultimate principle, from which even other forms must take their being.

(The documented series of named Gnostic 'Aeons' corresponding to general concepts can be seen as an elaboration of this idea.)

There seems to be a tradition that Plato spoke about more to his disciples than was put forth in his books. Whether or not this is true, "the Good" was a favorite object of speculation for philosophers in the tradition of Plato.

Note, however, that Plato's "the Good" was ἀγαθός, not χρηστός.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... s&la=greek
http://biblehub.com/greek/18.htm

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... s&la=greek
http://biblehub.com/greek/5543.htm

The meaning of χρηστός was less lofty and could be translated as "useful" (kind, excellent for a purpose) rather than simply "good" (virtuous).

It occurred to me to check the actual language ascribed to the Marcionites.

Apparently, this had also occurred to you already, for your name shows up in the search results.

http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com/2012/ ... r-why.html

the Father whom Clement says the Marcionites calls τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ θεοῦ.

For if any one, following Marcion, should dare to say that the Creator saved the man that believed on him, even before the advent of the Lord, (the election being saved with their own proper salvation); the power of the good Being (τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ δύναμις) will be eclipsed; inasmuch as late only, and subsequent to the Creator spoken of by them in words of good omen, it made the attempt to save, and by instruction, and in imitation of him. But if, being such, the good Being save, according to them; neither is it his own that he saves, nor is it with the consent of him who formed the creation that he essays salvation, but by force or fraud. And how can he any more be good, acting thus, and being posterior? But if the locality is different, and the dwelling-place of the Omnipotent is remote from the dwelling-place of the good God; yet the will of him who saves, having been the first to begin, is not inferior to that of the good God. (τῆς τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ θεοῦ μονῆς, ἀλλ' ἡ τοῦ σῴζοντος βούλησις οὐκ ἀπολείπεται τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἥ γε προκατάρξασα) [Strom 5.1]

As noted I went through the whole of Adamantius's Dialogues and nowhere in the text does the term χρηστὸς let alone ὁ χρηστὸς θεός appear in the text. This couldn't have been what distinguished the Marcionites from 'orthodoxy' in this part of the world (whatever that was). The terminology τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ θεοῦ appears here a number of times as well as other anti-Marcionite texts. The Deir Ali inscription makes clear that Jesus was ὁ χρηστὸς θεός and τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ θεοῦ must have been a title of his Father. As such it is terribly significant that we see Megethius the Marcionite explains the concept of τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ θεοῦ in the Dialogues

Pretty, the English translator of the Dialogues notes in the footnotes to this reference that "in this passage, and in two others (p. 80, "The Good God saves those who believe in Him"; and p. 104, "The Good God is the Father of those who believe"), the ideas of Megethius and Marcus on saving raith are brought to view." I think there can be no doubt that 'the Good God' (= τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ θεοῦ) is the Father and Jesus ὁ χρηστὸς θεός. The term τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ θεοῦ also shows up as a Manichaean terminology too.

The "Refutation of All Heresies" attributed to Hippolytus proceeds to talk about Marcion in similar terms (book 7 ch. 17, or 7.29.1.1).

But Marcion, a native of Pontus, far more frantic than these (heretics), omitting the majority of the tenets of the greater number (of speculators), (and) advancing into a doctrine still more unabashed, supposed (the existence of) two originating causes of the universe, alleging one of them to be a certain good (principle), but the other an evil one.
Μαρκίων δὲ ὁ Ποντικός, πολὺ τούτων <ὢν> μανικώτερος, τὰ πολλὰ τῶν πλειόνων <γραφῶν> παραπεμψάμενος, ἐπὶ τὸ ἀναιδέστερον ὁρμήσας δύο ἀρχὰς τοῦ παντὸς ὑπέθετο, ἀγαθὸν <θεόν> τινα λέγων καὶ τὸν ἕτερον πονηρόν.

The likelihood that the appellation of the highest, true God as "the good God" (hO AGAQOS QEOS) is completely unrelated to Platonism seems low.

That does still leave the question of why the other term ("Chrestos") might appear at all. The beginning of wisdom may be to collect these references. Do we have any that aren't possibly just corruptions of "Christos"?

If so (hypothetically), might it be related to the descriptions of this "Chrestos" as obedient, taking the form of a slave or servant? (cf. the Philippians hymn)