CHRIST|ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ|ANOINTED ONE|משיח|MESSIAH 2. The Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One

Did you know? The word “Messiah” in its Hebrew form is only used twice in the Gospels, both in St John:

He first found his brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which means Christ). (Jn 1:41). Εὑρήκαμεν τὸν Μεσσίαν , ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Χριστός We have found the Messiah which is translated Christ/Anointed One.

The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things." (Jn 4:25).

Οἶδα ὅτι Μεσσίας ἔρχεται, ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστός; I know that Messiah is coming who is called Christ/Anointed One.

Hebrew Ma-sha-ch to smear, to anoint. Ma-shi-ach Anointed, one who is anointed.

Greek Aleipho I anoint Chrió I anoint Christus anointed one

In the Old Testament, we see various anointings, of people and things. There can be several anointed ones, or even Anointed Ones. “The Lord’s Anointed” has been both Saul and David. But Solomon is anointed by a priest and a prophet. We know priests are anointed; we also see prophets are anointed. An anointed one could be a priest, a king, or a prophet. The Anointed One would be all three at once. How do we get from a number of “anointed ones” to The Messiah?

The Book of Daniel is the first to call the future figure who will bring in the restoration of Messiah/Christ/Anointed One:

While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy hill of my God; while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. He came and he said to me, "O Daniel, I have now come out to give you wisdom and understanding. At the beginning of your supplications a word went forth, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly beloved; therefore consider the word and understand the vision. Seventy weeks of years are decreed concerning your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty- two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war; desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week; and for half of the week he shall cause sacrifice and offering to cease; and upon the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator." Daniel 9:20-27

Between the Testaments

The Book of Daniel is set in the 6th Century BC, but may have come together in its final form only as late as the 160s BC, when the Greek rulers of threatened to destroy traditional Temple worship in Jerusalem. These are the ones against whom the rebelled, establishing a dynasty (the Hasmoneans) which would rule until Herod came to power in 37BC (Herod was supported by the Romans, who were fighting the Parthians. The Parthians supported [more or less] the Hasmoneans. When the Romans won, they installed Herod as king).

A little earlier than the Maccabean rebellion, a group of settled near the Dead Sea. They became known to history as the Essenes, and gave rise to the collection of texts known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Most of what we know about the Essenes comes from later sources (Pliny the Elder, d. 79AD, Josephus, d. 100AD). But there is the content of the writings, too: this is spread over several centuries, and the fact that some things were collected by them, while others were composed by them.

Present historical analysis suggests that the texts fall into three groups: c.40% are copies of texts from the Hebrew Scriptures. c. 30% are texts from the Second Temple Period which ultimately were not canonized in the Hebrew Bible, like the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Tobit, the Wisdom of Sirach, Psalms 152–155, etc. Note that Tobit and Sirach are in the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles (part of what is called the Deuterocanon, second-rule, of biblical books, many of which were composed in Aramaic or Greek rather than Hebrew), and Enoch and Jubilees (plus Tobit and Sirach) are in the Ethiopian Orthodox Biblical canon. Psalm 152-155 are in some ancient Syriac bible texts. c. 30% are manuscripts of previously unknown documents that shed light on the rules and beliefs of a particular group or groups within greater Judaism.

From many messiahs to One Messiah

The title [of Messiah] is applied to an expected future "anointed" leader only in Dan 9:25 and in non- biblical writings from Qumran. Early Judaism had a variety of different expectations as to what kind of a leader this "Messiah" would be: royal (a king like David, to lead the nation politically and militarily), priestly (a high priest or religious leader to reform the temple worship), prophetic (a prophet like Moses or Elijah or others, to call the people to moral and spiritual reform), or some combination of these. -Felix Just, SJ catholic-resources.org

A good example of a group which separated itself from society at large and defined itself against the are the Essenes, or perhaps you might say, the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Dead Sea community, whom most scholars regard as Essenes. Here is a group of people who left Jerusalem, went to live in the wilderness, to live by themselves, totally isolated from other Jews, from the rest of the community, and as their Scrolls reveal, saw themselves as the new sacred community, waiting for the time, when ... they imagine that the Temple would be reconstituted and reconstructed and rebuilt.... and a new and better priestly group would take over the Temple in Jerusalem. Prof Shaye Cohen

The idea that the coming kingdom is always to be accompanied by a Messianic figure is not entirely accurate for Judaism in this period. We hear of some groups, for example, who expect the coming change, but never mention a Messiah, or a Messianic figure at all, either as a deliverer figure, or as some sort of heavenly agent. So some forms of Judaism in this period don't ever talk about a Messiah. At Qumran, on the other hand, among the Dead Sea Scrolls, we hear not of just one Messiah, but at least two Messiahs. Some of their writings talk about a Messiah of David that is a kind of kingly figure who will come to lead the war. But there's also a Messiah of Aaron, a priestly figure, who will come to restore the Temple at Jerusalem to its proper purity and worship of God. In addition to these two major Messianic figures, we also hear of a prophet figure. Prof L Michael White https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/portrait/essenes.html

…By the New Testament A transliteration of the Hebrew MESSIAS is used only in John 1:41 & 4:25. Elsewhere, the NT always uses the Greek translation CHRISTOS ("Christ"), although the NRSV more loosely translates it as "Messiah" 68 times. In the NT, the title refers only to Jesus, fairly often in the Gospels (7 Mk; 16 Mt; 12 Lk; 19 Jn) and very frequently in Paul's letters (382 times). Paul uses "Christ Jesus," "Jesus Christ," or even "Christ" alone, as if it were a proper name. In Luke 4:18, Jesus quotes the scripture: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor..." Christians later used the Chi-Rho symbol (first two letters of "Christ" in Greek) as a monogram for Jesus. Felix Just

Summary Over the period from Ancient Israel through Greek and into Roman rule, we can see the development of the figure who combines the characteristics of prophet, priest, and king. He calls the people back to God; he offers true worship to God; he rules over the People of God, called and consecrated as such. Sometimes, as in some of the Qumran texts, different aspects of that are exercised by different people, but there still seems to be an idea of a particular (perfect?) prophet, priest, or king. We can also see that, by the time of the New Testament, Christ – Christos, Anointed One, Messiah, applies to one person only. This title or name is repeatedly given to Jesus, and there is no sense that he is one among several such. His anointing, ultimately, comes not from human hands, but from God.

Next Week 3. The Messiah, Born of the Virgin Mary We look at how these various prophecies come to be understood as pointing to a particular set of events: birth to a virgin; the other features (healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, making the lame walk) which come to be seen as Messianic.