Christ (title)

Since the Apostolic Age, the use of the definite article before the word Christ and its gradual development into a proper name show the Christians identified the bearer with the promised Messias of the Jews.

[18] In the Old Testament, anointing was a ceremonial ritual reserved to: In the Septuagint text of the deuterocanonical books, the term "Christ" (Χριστός, translit.

Christós) is found in 2 Maccabees 1:10[20][21] (referring to the anointed High Priest of Israel) and in the Book of Sirach 46:19,[22][23] in relation to Samuel, prophet and institutor of the kingdom under Saul.

At the time of Jesus, there was no single form of Second Temple Judaism, and there were significant political, social, and religious differences among the various Jewish groups.

The use of the definite article before the word "Christ" and its gradual development into a proper name show that the Christians identified Jesus with the promised messiah of the Jews who fulfilled all the messianic predictions in a fuller and a higher sense than had been given them by the rabbis.

', to which Jesus reportedly answered: Ὑμεῖς λέγετε ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι (Hymeis legete hoti ego eimi, "You [plural] say that I am".

"[16]: 509 Christology, literally "the understanding of Christ",[33] is the study of the nature (person) and work (role in salvation) of Jesus in Christianity.

From the second to the fifth centuries, the relation of the human and divine nature of Christ was a major focus of debates in the early church and at the first seven ecumenical councils.

The Council of Chalcedon in 451 issued a formulation of the hypostatic union of the two natures of Christ, one human and one divine, "united with neither confusion nor division".

The terms "Xpian" and "Xren" have been used for "Christian", "Xst" for "Christ's" "Xρofer" for (Saint) Christopher and Xmas, Xstmas, and Xtmas for Christmas.

[47][48] The December 1957 News and Views published by the Church League of America, a conservative organization founded in 1937,[49] attacked the use of "Xmas" in an article titled "X=The Unknown Quantity".

Gerald L. K. Smith picked up the statements later, in December 1966, saying that Xmas was a "blasphemous omission of the name of Christ" and that "'X' is referred to as being symbolical of the unknown quantity.

"[51] Roland Martin relates the use of "Xmas" to his growing concerns of increasing commercialization and secularization of what he says is one of Christianity's highest holy days.