Acts 11:26

A whole year. Unlike preceding instances, here the length of time is given with exactness. Saul had preached at Damascus and at Jerusalem with his life in his hands, so to speak. With the church at Antioch he found a degree of quiet and a wide scope of opportunity suited to his earnestness.

With the church. Or, “in the church.” Not in the church building — buildings were not in the possession of the church until the 3d century — but in the congregations. Those interested met with the believers and were incorporated into the body of the church as rapidly as they fully accepted the gospel message.

Taught much people. See on vs. 21, 24.

Were called Christians. Rather, “received the name of Christians.” The Roman emperor Julian, called the Apostate (a.d. 361-363), noted that the tendency to invent nicknames as a form of satire characterized the population of Antioch in his time. The same tendency doubtless prevailed at the time of the first appearance of Christianity. The first syllable of the word Christian is from the Greek Christos, “Christ,” while the ending is essentially Latin, and comparable to such words as Pompeiani, the followers of Pompey, and other party names. Similarly in the Gospels appears an analogous term, Herodians (Herodianai; Matt. 22:16), which apparently reflects Roman association. Possibly also, the name was given in ridicule to Christians by the heathen, somewhat as the term Lutherani was used derisively 15 centuries later by the enemies of Luther’s followers.

Apparently the disciples of Christ did not give the name to themselves; and since the use of it would imply that those who bore it were followers of the Messiah, the Christ, it is certain that it would not be given to them by the Jews. The reason for the new term is apparent. When these new Gentile converts joined the church at Antioch, none of the former names would embrace the entire cosmopolitan body. They were no longer all Nazarenes or Galileans or Greek Jews, and in the eyes of the people of Antioch they must have seemed a strange mixture. Therefore, the hybrid term “Christians,” a Greek word with a Latin termination, would seem to fit them. At a later time, what had been at first a taunt became a name in which to glory: “If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed” (1 Peter 4:16).

Tradition, however, ascribes the origin of the name to Euodius, the first bishop of Antioch. Ignatius, the successor of Euodius as leader of the church there, used it frequently.