Note (return) — Chapter III

2. As the Gentile Christians did not understand the significance of the idea that Jesus is the Christ (Messiah), the designation "χριστος" had either to be given up in their communities, or to subside into a mere name.236 But even where, through the Old Testament, one was reminded of the meaning of the word, and allowed a value to it, he was far from finding in the statement that Jesus is the Lord's anointed, a clear expression of the dignity peculiar to him. That dignity had therefore to be expressed by other means. Nevertheless the eschatological series of ideas connected the Gentile Christians very closely with the early Christian ideas of faith, and therefore also with the earliest ideas about Jesus. In the confession that God chose237 and prepared238 Jesus, that Jesus is the Angel239 and the servant of God,240 that he will judge the living and the dead,241 etc., expression is given to ideas about Jesus, in the Gentile Christian communities, which are borrowed from the thought that he is the Christ called of God and entrusted with an office.242 Besides, there was a very old designation handed down from the circle of the disciples, and specially intelligible to Gentile Christians, though not frequent and gradually disappearing, viz., "the Master."243