La formation du mot
'chretien' marque ainsi la date precise ou l'Eglise de Jesus se separa
du judaisme.... Le christianisme est completement detache du sein de sa
mere; la vraie pensee de Jesus a triomphe de l'indecision de ses
premiers disciples; l'Eglise de Jerusalem est depassee; l'Arameen, la
langue de Jesus, est inconnue a une partie de son ecole; le
christianisme parle grec; il est lance definitivement dans le grand
tourbillon du monde grec et romain; d'ou il ne sortira plus.] It is a
small matter, yet not without its own significance, that the invention
of this name is laid by St. Luke,--for so, I think, we may confidently
say,--to the credit of the Antiochenes. Now the idle, frivolous, and
witty inhabitants of the Syrian capital were noted in all antiquity for
the invention of nicknames; it was a manufacture for which their city
was famous. And thus it was exactly the place where beforehand we might
have expected that such a title, being a nickname or little better in
their mouths who devised it should first come into being.
This one example is sufficient to show that new words will often repay
any amount of attention which we may bestow upon them, and upon the
conditions under which they were born. I proceed to consider the causes
which suggest or necessitate their birth, the periods when a language
is most fruitful in them, the sources from which they usually proceed,
with some other interesting phenomena about them.
And first of the causes which give them birth.
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