CHRIST
Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2013 8:05 pm
Here is today's AWOL Good Word:
• Christ •
Pronunciation: kraist • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun, proper
Meaning: The Western European epithet used in referring to Jesus of Nazareth, born in Bethlehem in the year 1 or thereabouts, a birth Christians throughout the world celebrate today.
Notes: Jesus Christ (Jesus, the Anointed) is believed by millions to be the Son of God, the Messiah predicted in the Old Testament. Millions of others believe him to be the prophet of God. Everyone agrees that Christ is the source of the Christian doctrine that has survived and is growing today. This name is the eponym of Christian, and its noun, Christianity, referring both to the doctrine preached by Christ and the collective body of all believers in that doctrine, as in world Christianity (or Christendom).
In Play: While Christians take Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the Qur'an accepts him as a prophet on a level with Moses. Jews do not accept Christ as the Messiah. So, Christians, Muslims, and Jews acknowledge the same God but differ as to the status attributed to Christ in their respective religions.
Word History: The history of the epithet Christ is itself a reflection of Jesus' humble origins. The original root from which Christ is derived was the humble PIE root *ghrei- "to rub". Contracted to *ghri- and suffixed with -s it became Germanic *gris- "frighten" which underlies grisly. Suffixed with -m, it gave us grime from Old Germanic *grim "smear." In Greek it emerges as khriein "to anoint," whose past participle, khristos "anointed" has been adopted in the West as the epithet for Jesus of Nazareth.