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to be called a Christian was equivalent to being liable to suffer persecution for the sake of Christ (4'6). It was later still that St. Luke wrote the Book of Acts; and when he says that the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch (Ac ll^e), he evidently means that this was a name by which they were now commonly known, though his own usage does not suggest that they had even yet assumed it themselves.

Outside of the NT we find Tacitus and Suetonius testifying that the designation Christian (or ' Chrestian') was populariy used in Rome at the time of the Neronian persecution; while from Pliny, early in the 2nd cent., we learn that by his day it was employed in Roman courts of law. ' Are you a Christian? ' was the ques-tion he was himself accustomed to put to persons brought before him on a charge of being followers of Christ. By the time of Polycarp's martyrdom (soon after the middle of the 2nd cent.), the term of accusation and cross-examination has become one of joyful pro-fession. 'I am a Christian' was Polycarp's repeated answer to those who urged him to recant. It was natural that those who were called ' to suffer as Chris-tians ' should come to glory in the name that brought the call and the opportunity to confess Christ. And so a name given by the outside world in a casual fashion was adopted by the Church as a title of glory and pride.

4. The meaning attached to the name . — The original meaning was simply 'a follower of Christ.' The Anti-ochenes did not know who this Christ was of whom the preachers spoke; so little did they know that they mistook for a proper name what was really a designation of Jesus. But, taking it to be His personal name, they called Christ's disciples 'Christians,' just as Pompey's followers had been called ' Pompeians,' or the adherents of Herod's dynasty ' Herodians.' No doubt they used the word with a touch of good-humoured contempt — the Christians were the followers of somebody or other called Christ. It is contempt again, but of an intenser kind, that seems to be conveyed by Agrippa's words to St. Paul, ' With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a ChristianI' (Ac 26^8). In 1 Peter a darker shadow has fallen upon the name. Nero has made it criminal to be a Christian, and the word is now one not of scorn merely, but of hatred and fear. The State ranks a Christian with murderers and thieves and other malefactors (cf. 1 P 4" with v.'s). On its adop-tion by the Church, deeper meanings began to be read into it. It testified to the dignity of the Church's Lord — 'the Anointed One,' the rightful King of that Kingdom which hath no end. It proclaimed the privileges that belonged to Christians themselves; for they too were anointed with the oil of God to be a holy generation, a royal priesthood. Moreover, in Greek the word christos ('anointed') suggested the more familiar word chresios ('gracious'). The Christians were often misnamed 'Chrestians' from an idea that the founder of their religion was 'one Chrestos.' And this heathen blunder conveyed a happy and beautiful suggestion. It is possible that St. Peter himself Is playing on the word 'Christ' when he writes (1 P 2»), 'If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious (chrestos). ' And by and by we find TertuUian reminding the enemies of the Church that the very name ' Chres-tians,' which they gave to Christ's people in error, is one that speaks of sweetness and benignity.

5. The historical significance of the name.— (1) It marked the distinct emergence of Christianity from Judaism, and the recognition of its right to a separate place among the religions of the world. Hitherto, to outsiders, Christianity had been only a Jewish sect (cf. the words of GaUio, Ac 18»- 's), nor had the first Apostles themselves dreamt of breaking away from synagogue and Temple. But the Antiochenes saw that Christ's disciples must be distinguished from the Jews and put into a category of their own. They understood, however dimly, that a new religion had sprung up on

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the earth, and by giving its followers this new name, they helped to quicken in the mind of the Church it-self the consciousness of a separate existence. (2) It marked the fact, not heretofore realized, that Christi-anity was a religion for the Gentiles. Probably it was because the missionaries to Antioch not only preached Christ, but preached Him 'unto the Greeks also' (Ac 11^°), that the inhabitants discerned in these men the heralds of a new faith. It was not the way of Jewish Rabbis to proffer Judaism to Greeks in the market-place. Christianity appeared in Antioch as a universal religion, making no distinction between Jew and Gentile. (3) It is not without significance that it was ' first in Antioch ' that the Christians received this name. It shows how the Church's centre of gravity was shifting. Up to this time Christians as well as Jews looked to Jerusalem in everything as the mother of them all. But Jerusalem was not fitted to be the chief city of a universal faith. Paul saw this clearly — helped to it without doubt by his experiences at this very time. And so Antioch became the headquarters of his mis-sionary labours, and through him the headquarters of aggressive Christianity in the early Apostolic age (ISM- 14™'- 15's- ™- ™- 18^). It served as a step-ping-stone for that movement, inevitable from the day when Christianity was first preached unto the Gentiles, which by and by made Rome, the metropolis of the world, the mother-city also of the universal Church. (4) The name marked the fact that Christianity was not the religion of a book or a dogma, an idea or an institution, but a faith that centred in a Person. The men of Antioch were mistaken when they supposed that Christ was a personal name, but they made no mistake in thinking that He whose name they took to be Christos was the foundation-stone of this new faith. By calling the disciples Christians they became unconscious prophets of the truth that Christianity, whether regarded from the side of historical revelation or of personal experience, is ah summed up in the Person of Jesus Christ. J. C. Lambert.

CHRISTIANITY —When the name 'Christian' (see preceding art.) had come to be the specific designation of a follower of Jesus Christ, it was inevitable that the word 'Christianity' should sooner or later be used to denote the faith which Christians profess. The word does not occur in the NT, however, and first makes its appearance in the letters of Ignatius early in the 2nd century. But for 1800 years it has been the regular term for the religion which claims Jesus Christ as its founder, and recognizes in His Person and work the sum and substance of its beliefs.

Christianity presents itself to us under two aspects — objective and subjective, past and present, world- historical and personal. It is a great fact of universal history, but also a truth of personal experience. It is a revelation given from above, but. also an appropriation effected from within. We must think of it therefore (1) as it was historically revealed to the world; (2) as it is realized in the life of the individual.

I. Christianity as a Historical Revelation, — In deal-ing with this part of the subject two opposite mistakes must be avoided. (1) First the mistake of those who confound history with dogma, principles with institu-tions, and read back into Christianity as a Divine revelation the later creeds and rites and orders of the Church. It was inevitable that the Christian religion in the course of its history should clothe itself in outward forms, but it is not to be identified with the forms it has assumed. In dealing with the subject, we are limited, of course, by the plan of this work, to the Biblical material. But apart from that, the view taken in the present article is that, in seeking to discover Christianity in its essential nature, we must accept the NT as our authority and norm, inasmuch as there alone we find the historical record of the life and self-witness of Jesus Christ, and

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