EXCURSUS TO THE BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE TITLES XPIΣTOΣ AND XPHΣTOΣ AND XPEIΣTOΣ
Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2023 4:52 am
By I R M Boid
The evidence of forms of words derived from Chrēstós or Chreistós in mss. of
the NT is not mentioned in standard handbooks or the most commonly used critical
editions. The data in the Nag Hammadi texts are always hidden away in the critical
apparatus of a few editions, with false translation. All translations of the Gospel of
Philip in all languages transcribe the Coptic forms of Chrestians and Christians
correctly in the critical apparatus while using the same translation, Christians, always
without letting on. Chrestians occurs four or five times in this book, but Christians
occurs twice. Proper scholarly practice would be to print what is written in the
manuscript and is clearly not a mistake. There are numerous other forms treated as the
word “Christian”. The Coptic equivalent of the form Chrēstós itself is attested. See the
complete survey by Martijn Linssen, Jesus the Chrest --- Nomina Sacra in the Nag
Hammadi Library, [Thomas Miscellaneous, Part V], 2022, on the Academia website.
The form Chrēstós quoted by Pagan authors is always dismissed as a mistake, with
nary a mention of the Christian attestation, or the Nag Hammadi attestation. It is never
mentioned that the title Christós is never ever written out in full anywhere in any ms.
of the NT, and the vowel is often not put in. Here is a gem found by Martijn Linssen.
In ch. 4 of Justin’s First Apology the sole extant manuscript has Christianói in
sentence 5, but the argument assumes not only the appropriateness, but also the
correctness, of the term Chrēstianói. Notice that unlike Tertullian later on, Justin
never says the wrong name is being used. Tertullian copies a long argument taken
from Justin saying that persecution of Christians without any criminal charges is
happening because of the name, saying this is senseless. Justin niftily skates over the
question of whether there could be some other reason by distracting the reader by
saying any individual Christian that commits a crime ought to be prosecuted.
Tertullian takes Justin’s whole argument including the deliberate distraction over
while flatly contradicting him over what the name ought to be. (To the Nations Book I
ch. 3 end. Any edition will do). He writes in Latin, but makes it clear that he regards
the forms Christianói and Chrēstianói as different words. He says he knows Pagans
always use the second, but says Christians don’t. The official change of name must
have been very recent. He glosses over the obvious question of how it is that all
Pagans could get the name wrong, while saying the name Chrestiani is appropriate
even if wrong. From these two passages a time period can be established for the
official change of name. (Imposing it took longer, as can be seen from mss. of the NT.
Remember there was still a three-way phonemic difference between and [ɛ:] and
[i:] for a few more centuries, so changes by scribes can’t explain evidence of the titles
Chrēstós [xrɛ:stɔs] and Chreistós [xri:stɔs]). I think it can be narrowed down a bit
further. The first chapters of the First Apology can be dated very early, when Justin
was still living in Neapolis. The Dialogue, with its length and complexity, and with
the internal contradictions in ch. 120 showing use of material from different stages of
his missionary work that were proven above in Part II, would have been written when
he was mature. What is remarkable is that in the Dialogue Justin does not say Jesus
has been made an anointed king. This argument is stronger than it might seem, since a
mention of an anointed king would have been expected to have come up in ch. 52 and
ch. 120, where the argument is that Jesus was the king from the tribe of Judah
promised in the Torah. It follows that the official change of name came after Justin’s
unsurprising execution in 165. The official change of name can be explained as a sign
of rejection of a form of doctrine using the term Chrēstós or its near-synonym
271
Chreistós. The policy of using the power of the state against the Samaritan form of the
religion of Israel is first expressed by Justin, but he must have represented a powerful
movement or faction. Rejecting Jewish Christianity and Samaritan Christianity would
be consistent with this. The ending of the persecutions in the reign of Commodus
when Severus became emperor in 193 A.D. would fit a need to be seen to be different
to Jewish Christians and Samaritan Christians, with a different official designation.
The translation ܐ ܡܫܝܚ in the Peshitta does not have to reflect Christós, and even if
it did by then, it did not mean a king to the authors of the gospels or Paul or the
framers of the Nicene Creed. Now for the attestations of the other two titles. A few
occurrences of forms of derivations from Chrēstós or Chreistós in the New Testament
are not abbreviated: Codex Sinaiticus Chrēstianói singular or plural at Acts XI:26;
XXVI:28; I Peter IV:16; Codex Vaticanus Chreistianói singular or plural at all three
places; Codex Bezae Chreistianoi at the first place; Codex Vaticanus Antichréistos
singular or plural at I John II:18; II:22; IV:3 (uncertain); II John I:7. The vowel of
Chreistianói and Antichréistos is certainly meant to be [i:] in the spelling of this
period: the length is phonemic and the spelling could not be a mistake. A big minority
of minuscules have chrēs, but no-one tells you that. (Remember Christós is never
written out in full in any ms. whether uncial or minuscule). In line with this, the form
Chrēstós quoted by Pagan authors is always dismissed by church historians as a
mistake. It is dishonestly used as evidence that Roman authorities did not know much
about Christianity, and then come bad guesses about how they regarded it. All the
examples from manuscripts of the NT and the Nag Hammadi writings just quoted
show a policy of suppression of data for the sake of ideology, a collective breach of
scientific method. Policy is dictated by academics with jobs in universities requiring
them not to say the wrong thing and offend the administrators or other academics or
the vocal general public. This is not imagination. Think of the attacks by academics
on Morton Smith, sinking to the depths of mentioning in writing that he was bald
(yes, really) and making sny written suggestions about his sexuality, and his heartfelt
expression of thankfulness that he had tenure in the foreword to his best-known
publication. Then there is the well known story of the university in the USA that
appointed Bertrand Russell to an academic position and then broke the contract when
members of the management board heard he had written a little book called “Why I
am not a Christian”. I mention Bertrand Russell to show how behaviour has been
consistent over time. This kind of danger now takes a new form, less blatant but more
harmful. A lot of the policy-makers in any country behind publications touching on
the NT barely marginally, or often even Judaism which is treated as a tool for the
study of Christiaity, are ordained Christian clergy, and the rest are nearly all Christian.
This includes people doing peer review. The policy of hiding information can be seen
in all translations and studies of the Nag Hammadi texts by academics, Christians to a
man, and often ordained. But putting that aside, you have to wonder whether they
understand their own religion. Paul saw that deriving the christological predicates
from a unique king of Israel would be a fallacy, and never tried. When he talks about
the exalted status of Christ, the word “king” does not come up, even where the
concept of a heavenly ruler is used. Such a derivation had been tried out in the
composition of Matthew and Luke, but neither of these gospels builds on it. John’s
gospel cleverly thoroughly rejects it without actually mentioning it. Mark’s gospel
leaves it out. The verse from Genesis about rulers from Judah used by Justin is not
used in the NT. He still does not make any connection with the title Christós. The title
Christós is not used to mean “king” in the Nicene Creed. Not even the later term
Christós Pantokrátōr was devised this way. Christianity has always had the difficulty
272
of how to use the authority of what it calls the Old Testament while contradicting the
religion of Israel. The argument that Christós translates the Hebrew word משיח and
this word is sometimes applied to a king in what is called the Old Testament starts
much later than the NT. It was not known before Jerome. It is unthinkingly assumed
these days that the NT uses the argument. I have heard it said by Christian clergy,
without knowing what to quote. This argument can be heard constantly from Christian
missionaries to Jews and is their favourite first approach. One of the two main
conversionary organisations calls itself Messianic Judaism, with the assumption that
the title is self-evidently accurate. None of these set-ups understand either Judaism or
Christianity. The title of Handel’s oratorio shows deep ignorance of both, but most
Christian clerics don’t see why. After the disputation at Barcelona, the Ramban said
privately to the king “Even if someone could prove Jesus was the Mashiach, I could
not be a Christian”. Actually, in the couple of connections of Jesus with David in
Matthew and Luke with the suggestion of kingship, the term is not used in the
argument. (The use of the term Messias in John IV:25 has no bearing. It was shown at
length in Part II of this book that it is part of a way of rejecting the concept of a
special king of the line of David). Incompatibility with what Paul or the Nicene Creed
say or don’t say has been skated over by reading Luke I:33 a new way, so that it has
changed from saying Jesus would be king of Israel to king of the universe, and instead
of him being a unique king with unique God-given qualities, being a supernatural or
divine power. Luke I:33 is now a new explanation of the present Greek text of Luke
I:35, with its invention of a pagan divine father for Jesus, with more information
constantly read into verse 33 than is actually written. This argument is only a couple
of centuries old. Handel’s oratorio without the words “over the house of Jacob” in its
interminable misquoting and misuse of “he shall reign for ever and ever” from Luke
I:33 is hard to avoid every Christmas, and promoted by all denominations with
acceptance of the accuracy of the quotation and insistence on the correctness of the
use of it. Anyway, this is all only said because the information is indirectly useful in
uncovering the history of Samaritan thought. סוף סוף . The question of whether the
Ebionites used the term Christós or Chrēstós or its near-synonym Chreistós or all
three is important, but there is no answer yet. The second two would have fitted their
main doctrine of the need for everyone and everything to gradually become how they
ought to be. There could have been a play on words by Greek-speaking members.
Such play on words by the Ebionites is made highly likely by the new policy of the
un-Israelite church. The Church decided to plump for Christós instead of Chrēstós and
Chreistós, or go from using all three to only using Christós. The old term Christós
meaning inspired was given a Pagan meaning, while making out nothing had ever
changed. The rewording of Luke I:35 marking the end of any resemblance of
Christianity to the religion of Israel, proven in section 4 of the Bibliography and on p.
68, was likely done at the same time, and so too the additions mentioned on p. 69, but
Church history for its own sake is not relevant to this book.
The evidence of forms of words derived from Chrēstós or Chreistós in mss. of
the NT is not mentioned in standard handbooks or the most commonly used critical
editions. The data in the Nag Hammadi texts are always hidden away in the critical
apparatus of a few editions, with false translation. All translations of the Gospel of
Philip in all languages transcribe the Coptic forms of Chrestians and Christians
correctly in the critical apparatus while using the same translation, Christians, always
without letting on. Chrestians occurs four or five times in this book, but Christians
occurs twice. Proper scholarly practice would be to print what is written in the
manuscript and is clearly not a mistake. There are numerous other forms treated as the
word “Christian”. The Coptic equivalent of the form Chrēstós itself is attested. See the
complete survey by Martijn Linssen, Jesus the Chrest --- Nomina Sacra in the Nag
Hammadi Library, [Thomas Miscellaneous, Part V], 2022, on the Academia website.
The form Chrēstós quoted by Pagan authors is always dismissed as a mistake, with
nary a mention of the Christian attestation, or the Nag Hammadi attestation. It is never
mentioned that the title Christós is never ever written out in full anywhere in any ms.
of the NT, and the vowel is often not put in. Here is a gem found by Martijn Linssen.
In ch. 4 of Justin’s First Apology the sole extant manuscript has Christianói in
sentence 5, but the argument assumes not only the appropriateness, but also the
correctness, of the term Chrēstianói. Notice that unlike Tertullian later on, Justin
never says the wrong name is being used. Tertullian copies a long argument taken
from Justin saying that persecution of Christians without any criminal charges is
happening because of the name, saying this is senseless. Justin niftily skates over the
question of whether there could be some other reason by distracting the reader by
saying any individual Christian that commits a crime ought to be prosecuted.
Tertullian takes Justin’s whole argument including the deliberate distraction over
while flatly contradicting him over what the name ought to be. (To the Nations Book I
ch. 3 end. Any edition will do). He writes in Latin, but makes it clear that he regards
the forms Christianói and Chrēstianói as different words. He says he knows Pagans
always use the second, but says Christians don’t. The official change of name must
have been very recent. He glosses over the obvious question of how it is that all
Pagans could get the name wrong, while saying the name Chrestiani is appropriate
even if wrong. From these two passages a time period can be established for the
official change of name. (Imposing it took longer, as can be seen from mss. of the NT.
Remember there was still a three-way phonemic difference between and [ɛ:] and
[i:] for a few more centuries, so changes by scribes can’t explain evidence of the titles
Chrēstós [xrɛ:stɔs] and Chreistós [xri:stɔs]). I think it can be narrowed down a bit
further. The first chapters of the First Apology can be dated very early, when Justin
was still living in Neapolis. The Dialogue, with its length and complexity, and with
the internal contradictions in ch. 120 showing use of material from different stages of
his missionary work that were proven above in Part II, would have been written when
he was mature. What is remarkable is that in the Dialogue Justin does not say Jesus
has been made an anointed king. This argument is stronger than it might seem, since a
mention of an anointed king would have been expected to have come up in ch. 52 and
ch. 120, where the argument is that Jesus was the king from the tribe of Judah
promised in the Torah. It follows that the official change of name came after Justin’s
unsurprising execution in 165. The official change of name can be explained as a sign
of rejection of a form of doctrine using the term Chrēstós or its near-synonym
271
Chreistós. The policy of using the power of the state against the Samaritan form of the
religion of Israel is first expressed by Justin, but he must have represented a powerful
movement or faction. Rejecting Jewish Christianity and Samaritan Christianity would
be consistent with this. The ending of the persecutions in the reign of Commodus
when Severus became emperor in 193 A.D. would fit a need to be seen to be different
to Jewish Christians and Samaritan Christians, with a different official designation.
The translation ܐ ܡܫܝܚ in the Peshitta does not have to reflect Christós, and even if
it did by then, it did not mean a king to the authors of the gospels or Paul or the
framers of the Nicene Creed. Now for the attestations of the other two titles. A few
occurrences of forms of derivations from Chrēstós or Chreistós in the New Testament
are not abbreviated: Codex Sinaiticus Chrēstianói singular or plural at Acts XI:26;
XXVI:28; I Peter IV:16; Codex Vaticanus Chreistianói singular or plural at all three
places; Codex Bezae Chreistianoi at the first place; Codex Vaticanus Antichréistos
singular or plural at I John II:18; II:22; IV:3 (uncertain); II John I:7. The vowel of
Chreistianói and Antichréistos is certainly meant to be [i:] in the spelling of this
period: the length is phonemic and the spelling could not be a mistake. A big minority
of minuscules have chrēs, but no-one tells you that. (Remember Christós is never
written out in full in any ms. whether uncial or minuscule). In line with this, the form
Chrēstós quoted by Pagan authors is always dismissed by church historians as a
mistake. It is dishonestly used as evidence that Roman authorities did not know much
about Christianity, and then come bad guesses about how they regarded it. All the
examples from manuscripts of the NT and the Nag Hammadi writings just quoted
show a policy of suppression of data for the sake of ideology, a collective breach of
scientific method. Policy is dictated by academics with jobs in universities requiring
them not to say the wrong thing and offend the administrators or other academics or
the vocal general public. This is not imagination. Think of the attacks by academics
on Morton Smith, sinking to the depths of mentioning in writing that he was bald
(yes, really) and making sny written suggestions about his sexuality, and his heartfelt
expression of thankfulness that he had tenure in the foreword to his best-known
publication. Then there is the well known story of the university in the USA that
appointed Bertrand Russell to an academic position and then broke the contract when
members of the management board heard he had written a little book called “Why I
am not a Christian”. I mention Bertrand Russell to show how behaviour has been
consistent over time. This kind of danger now takes a new form, less blatant but more
harmful. A lot of the policy-makers in any country behind publications touching on
the NT barely marginally, or often even Judaism which is treated as a tool for the
study of Christiaity, are ordained Christian clergy, and the rest are nearly all Christian.
This includes people doing peer review. The policy of hiding information can be seen
in all translations and studies of the Nag Hammadi texts by academics, Christians to a
man, and often ordained. But putting that aside, you have to wonder whether they
understand their own religion. Paul saw that deriving the christological predicates
from a unique king of Israel would be a fallacy, and never tried. When he talks about
the exalted status of Christ, the word “king” does not come up, even where the
concept of a heavenly ruler is used. Such a derivation had been tried out in the
composition of Matthew and Luke, but neither of these gospels builds on it. John’s
gospel cleverly thoroughly rejects it without actually mentioning it. Mark’s gospel
leaves it out. The verse from Genesis about rulers from Judah used by Justin is not
used in the NT. He still does not make any connection with the title Christós. The title
Christós is not used to mean “king” in the Nicene Creed. Not even the later term
Christós Pantokrátōr was devised this way. Christianity has always had the difficulty
272
of how to use the authority of what it calls the Old Testament while contradicting the
religion of Israel. The argument that Christós translates the Hebrew word משיח and
this word is sometimes applied to a king in what is called the Old Testament starts
much later than the NT. It was not known before Jerome. It is unthinkingly assumed
these days that the NT uses the argument. I have heard it said by Christian clergy,
without knowing what to quote. This argument can be heard constantly from Christian
missionaries to Jews and is their favourite first approach. One of the two main
conversionary organisations calls itself Messianic Judaism, with the assumption that
the title is self-evidently accurate. None of these set-ups understand either Judaism or
Christianity. The title of Handel’s oratorio shows deep ignorance of both, but most
Christian clerics don’t see why. After the disputation at Barcelona, the Ramban said
privately to the king “Even if someone could prove Jesus was the Mashiach, I could
not be a Christian”. Actually, in the couple of connections of Jesus with David in
Matthew and Luke with the suggestion of kingship, the term is not used in the
argument. (The use of the term Messias in John IV:25 has no bearing. It was shown at
length in Part II of this book that it is part of a way of rejecting the concept of a
special king of the line of David). Incompatibility with what Paul or the Nicene Creed
say or don’t say has been skated over by reading Luke I:33 a new way, so that it has
changed from saying Jesus would be king of Israel to king of the universe, and instead
of him being a unique king with unique God-given qualities, being a supernatural or
divine power. Luke I:33 is now a new explanation of the present Greek text of Luke
I:35, with its invention of a pagan divine father for Jesus, with more information
constantly read into verse 33 than is actually written. This argument is only a couple
of centuries old. Handel’s oratorio without the words “over the house of Jacob” in its
interminable misquoting and misuse of “he shall reign for ever and ever” from Luke
I:33 is hard to avoid every Christmas, and promoted by all denominations with
acceptance of the accuracy of the quotation and insistence on the correctness of the
use of it. Anyway, this is all only said because the information is indirectly useful in
uncovering the history of Samaritan thought. סוף סוף . The question of whether the
Ebionites used the term Christós or Chrēstós or its near-synonym Chreistós or all
three is important, but there is no answer yet. The second two would have fitted their
main doctrine of the need for everyone and everything to gradually become how they
ought to be. There could have been a play on words by Greek-speaking members.
Such play on words by the Ebionites is made highly likely by the new policy of the
un-Israelite church. The Church decided to plump for Christós instead of Chrēstós and
Chreistós, or go from using all three to only using Christós. The old term Christós
meaning inspired was given a Pagan meaning, while making out nothing had ever
changed. The rewording of Luke I:35 marking the end of any resemblance of
Christianity to the religion of Israel, proven in section 4 of the Bibliography and on p.
68, was likely done at the same time, and so too the additions mentioned on p. 69, but
Church history for its own sake is not relevant to this book.