212 



CHOYA 



familiar and forward, and exhibits in the highest 

 degree the curiosity, the pilfering disposition, and 

 the delight in brilliant or glittering objects which 

 also characterise others of the crow family. The 



Chough. 



name is sometimes extended to allied forms, such 

 as Pyrrhocorax alpinus ( Alpine Chough ). 



Clioya. See CHAY ROOT. 



Clirestomathy (Gr. chrestos, ' useful ;' mathein, 

 ' to know ' ) is a name for books of selections from 

 foreign languages, usually provided with glossary 

 and notes for the use of learners. See ANTHOLOGY. 



Chretien de Troyes, an old French poet of 

 whose life nothing more is known than that he lived 

 in the second half of the 12th century and was a 

 favourite poet at the court of Mary, daughter of 

 Louis VII. and wife in succession to the Counts of 

 Champagne and of Flanders. He worked up the 

 legends of the Round Table into numerous spirited 

 and yet refined poems in octosyllabic verse, which 

 had a wide literary influence, and were translated 

 by the German minnesingers, Wolfram von Eschen- 

 bach, Gottfried of Strasburg, and others. The 

 most important of these poems was Perceval le 

 Gallois, or Li Contes del Graal (containing 50,000 

 verses ) ; Li Romans dou Chevalier au Lyon ; Li 

 Contes d'Erec ; and Lancelot du Lac, or Le Chevalier 

 de la Charrete. A complete collection of his works 

 was begun by Wend. Fb'rster (vol. i. Halle, 1884). 

 See Paulin Paris, Les Romans de la Table-Ronde 

 (5 vols. 1868-77). 



Chrism ( Gr. chrisma, ' ointment ' ) is the name 

 given to the oil consecrated on Holy Thursday, in 

 the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches, by the 

 bishop, and used in baptism, confirmation, ordina- 

 tion, and extreme unction. There are two kinds 

 of chrism the one, a mixture of oil and balsam, is 

 u&ed in baptism, confirmation, and orders ; the other, 

 which is merely plain oil, is used in extreme unction. 



ChrisomCt the name of the white linen cloth 

 laid by the priest on the child in Roman Catholic 

 baptism, to signify its innocence. By olden usage it 

 was generally presented by the mother as an offering 

 to the church, but if the child died before the mother 

 was ' churched ' again, it was used as a shroud. 

 By a common abuse of words, chrisome came to mean 

 the child itself, being first applied in the old bills 

 of mortality to denote such children as died within 

 the month of birth. Mrs Quickly's use of the 

 phrase in her account of Falstaff's end will be 

 remembered. The following from Jeremy Taylor 

 (Holy Dying, i. 2) explains itself : ' Every morning 



CHRIST 



creeps out of a dark cloud, leaving behind it an 

 ignorance and silence deep as midnight, and undis- 

 cerned as are the phantasms that make a chrisome 

 child to smile. ' 



Christ (Gr. Christos) is the word used in the 

 New Testament and in the Septuagint as the 

 equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah (q.v. ). 

 Both words mean 'anointed.' When kings and 

 priests, and sometimes prophets, were set apart for 

 the discharge of their respective functions, it was 

 customary to anoint them with oil in the name of 

 the Lord (1 Sam. x. 1, xii. 3; Exod. xxix. 7, xxx. 

 23-33 ; 1 Kings xix. 16) ; hence the term. Oil was 

 used in the ceremony because it was regarded as 

 emblematical of the Holy Spirit and of salvation 

 (1 Sam. xvi. 13, x. 1, 9, 10; Isa. xi. 1, 2, Ixi. 1-3; 

 Acts x. 38). 



In a secondary sense the word is applied to per- 

 sons set apart by God for some special end, though 

 they were not literally anointed. Thus Cyrus, the 

 king of Persia, is spoken of as the Lord's anointed 

 ( Isa. xlv. 1 ), because he was Jehovah's chosen 

 instrument for setting free the captives in Babylon. 

 We find it used, in the plural, regarding the 



fatriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ( Ps. cv. 15 ). 

 b is also applied to the chosen people as a whole 

 (Hab. iii. 13, revised version). 



As applied to Jesus, the word is used in a two- 

 fold sense as an appellative, and as a proper 

 name. At first it was used in the former sense 

 with the article ' the Christ ' but at a later 

 period e.g. in the epistles of Paul, and in 1 Peter, 

 it is found to have passed over into a proper name. 

 When used as a title of office it manifestly looks 

 back to the Old Testament doctrine of the Messiah. 

 That doctrine may be briefly indicated by a refer- 

 ence to three passages. We find the Messiah re- 

 presented as the messenger of good tidings to men 

 = God's Prophet in Isa. Ixi. 1 ; as making expia- 

 tion for sin = God's consecrated Priest in Daniel, 

 ix. 24-27 ; and as the King of God's heritage in 

 Ps. ii. 2. When Jesus, therefore, claimed to be the 

 Messiah (cf. John, iv. 26), he undoubtedly meant 

 it to be understood that the Old Testament ideals 

 connected with the title were realised in him. 

 In his person, that is to say, the offices of prophet, 

 priest, and king were united and consummated. 

 That it was thus that his disciples understood his 

 claims is patent to every reader of the New Testa- 

 ment. So thoroughly filled were they with the 

 Messianic idea of his mission that, as we have seen, 

 the official title, ' the Christ, ' came to be largely used 

 by them, without the article, as his proper name. 



When Jesus came thus to be spoken of as Christ, 

 or Jesus Christ, it was but natural that his fol- 

 lowers should be called after him, Christians. 

 This name, Tertullian informs us (Apol. c. 3), was 

 often mispronounced Chrestiani by those who were 

 not conversant with Jewish ideas. They mani- 

 festly thought that it was derived from the Greek 

 Chrestos = good. The Christians, we are told, in- 

 stead of taking umbrage at this distortion of their 

 current name, gladly accepted it as implying an 

 admission on the part of the heathen of the moral 

 excellency both or their Master and of themselves. 

 For the Life of Christ, see JESUS. 



CHRISTOLOGY is that branch of theology which 

 treats of the Person of Christ. No attempt was 

 made in apostolic times to formulate a Christ- 

 ology; the early church contenting itself with 

 testifying to the true, yet sinless humanity, 

 the pre-existence, the divine Sonship, the resur- 

 rection, the exaltation, and the supreme authority 

 of its Founder. It was not till speculative minds 

 began to broach ideas inconsistent with this 

 accepted faith that a theological representation of 

 the church's views was found necessary. The sym- 

 bolic form in which the generally accepted doctrine 



