Is this a sign my Sunday reading should include Tertullian?GakuseiDon wrote:Also, Tertullian in "Ad nationes":pakeha wrote:Curiously enough, I leaned recently that Theophilus of Antioch, one of our earlier Christian writers, claimed the word Christian had an entirely different meaning:And about your laughing at me and calling me Christian, you know not what you are saying. First, because that which is anointed is sweet and serviceable, and far from contemptible. For what ship can be serviceable and seaworthy, unless it be first anointed? Or what castle or house is beautiful and serviceable when it has not been anointed? And what man, when he enters into this life or into the gymnasium, is not anointed with oil? And what work has either ornament or beauty unless it be anointed and burnished? Then the air and all that is under heaven is in a certain sort anointed by light and spirit; and are you unwilling to be anointed with the oil of God? Wherefore we are called Christians on this account, because we are anointed with the oil of God. — Theophilus, To Autolycus, third book.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... ian06.html
- The name Christian, however, so far as its meaning goes, bears the sense of anointing. Even when by a faulty pronunciation you call us "Chrestians" (for you are not certain about even the sound of this noted name), you in fact lisp out the sense of pleasantness and goodness.
I think so.