Acts 11:19-26
Chapter 2 (If Not Christian, What?) of After Jesus: Before Christianity (Westar Institute, 2021)
Shakespeare has Romeo ask, ”What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet!” “Christian” is the name we know for the followers of Jesus. But in the first century, the followers didn’t call themselves by that name. Today we’re going to learn some things about the name and what significance it has for us.
When dictionaries were invented, Samuel Johnson (1755) defined Christian as “professor of the religion of Christ.” Today’s Oxford English Dictionary give almost the same definition: one who believes or professes the religion of Christ; an adherent of Christianity. Not much has changed over the years. It intrigues me that both definitions refer to the “religion of Christ” as Christianity. In reality, Jesus lived and died as a Jew and his religion was first century Judaism – which he fervently wanted to reform. It would be more accurate to say that Christianity is a religion based on the life and teachings of Christ.
We assume based on today’s scripture reading that the earliest followers of Jesus identified themselves by the word “Christian.” That’s hardly the case. Scholars tell us there are approximately 138,015 words in the New Testament. The name Jesus is found 1,002 times. The name Christian appears three times – twice in Acts and once in the First letter of Peter. That’s certainly not enough appearances for us to understand this as a common word.
We’ve talked about what “Christian” means in our time, but what did it mean in the first century?
The word in Greek, the language of the New Testament, is christianos. It’s made of two parts: christ and ianos. Christ means “anointed.” It’s a translation of the Hebrew word we know as “Messiah.” It’s used for all those who are acknowledged in an important role by being anointed with oil – having oil poured over their heads in an official ceremony. It refers to kings, prophets, and priests – all of whom are anointed for their roles in society. Ianos is a suffix given to people who follow or belong to a party associated with the first word. Christianos are people in the party of Christ. In the first century “Herodians” were members of the party of Herod. In our time “Republicans” are those who support the republic. “Americans” are those who claim allegiance to America.
“Christian” is used in the first century not by people who followed Jesus, but by those outside the group in reference to Jesus’ followers. It has a dangerous and derogatory implication. The followers of Christ are those who identify with a man executed as a revolutionary. He’s not seen as the founder of the one true religion, but as a challenger to the authority of the empire. These folks are potential revolutionaries. They follow a man they call “anointed” even though he wasn’t officially an anointed person. He wasn’t a king/ruler, a prophet, or a priest. By calling him “anointed” his followers are claiming authority for him that he doesn’t have. That’s a direct challenge to the authority of those who are anointed. It’s a challenge to the empire.
Consequently, we see the term used by governors when they ask their superiors how they should deal with the christianos in their towns. The governor Pliny told his supervisor that he was interrogating Christians and insisting that they repeat a prayer to the Roman gods and make a sacrifice to the statue of the emperor. We read that as a religious act when it was actually as political sign of allegiance to the emperor and the Empire. It’s allegiance to the “real” anointed ones rather than the upstart “anointed.” Pliny goes on to describe what he could learn about Christian practice in a tone of disbelief:
They declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately among themselves in honor of Christ as if to a god, and also to bind themselves by oath…to abstain from theft, robbery and adultery, to commit no breach of trust and not to deny a deposit when called upon to restore it. After this ceremony it had been their custom to disperse and reassemble later to take food of an ordinary, harmless kind… This made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave-women…I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to an extravagant length.
Pliny was writing early in the second century, using the word Christian which didn’t become common until at least 100 years later. It’s common usage was to refer to a group of Judaeans, followers of an executed radical whom they called “Christ” or “anointed one.” They were seen as potential troublemakers from a political and social viewpoint - one of many troublesome groups from Israel, all of whom objected to Roman rule. You can see that this bears almost no resemblance to the way we understand the word “Christian” so as we study the first century, we won’t use our word with its overtones because we’re looking for what came before our understanding.
So what did Jesus earliest followers call themselves? There were many groups by many different names. Some of these names have been lost to us. Others can be pried out of ancient writings with a little research. Scholars have identified 24 used in documents we now have. They include:
Jesus peoples
Followers of the Anointed
Disciples – which is most accurately translated as Student or Jesus’ students
Believers of the Anointed
Confidants of the Anointed
Friends of the Anointed
Sisters and Brothers of the Anointed
Chloe’s people (or the name of local leaders)
The Way
The Enslaved of God
The Perfect Day
The Migrants
The Children
Members
These names represent variations in how each local group thought of themselves and how they connected to other groups. There’s a rich variety, and in the next weeks we’re going to spend time with several options. It’s our mission to discover what it meant to be a student or follower of the one called “anointed.” We’re looking for the themes that connected these folks to Jesus and we’re looking for ways to rediscover what connects us to him as well.