casionally gave him that title, which his successors retained.

**CHRISTIAN Religion**, that instituted by Jesus Christ. See Christianity.

**CHRISTIANITY**, the religion of Christians. The word is analogically derived, as other abstracts from their concretes, from the adjective Christian. This again is derived from the name Χριστός, Christos, from the word ἅγιον, I anoint. Christ is called the *anointed*, from a custom which extensively prevailed in antiquity, and was originally said to be of divine institution, of anointing persons in the sacerdotal or regal character, as a public signal of their consecration to their important offices, and as a testimony that heaven itself was the guarantee of that relation which then commenced between the persons thus consecrated and their subordinates.

The disciples of Jesus, after the death of their teacher, had for some time been called Nazarenes, from Nazareth in Galilee, where he dwelt; which afterwards became the designation of a particular sect. They, who adopted the principles and professed the religion which he taught, were first distinguished by the name of Christians at Antioch. That profession, and those doctrines, we now proceed to delineate with as much perspicuity as the limits of our plan will admit, yet with the conciseness which a work so mul