The apologist Theophilus, in explaining why we are to be called Christians, said it is because of our being anointed by the “oil of God,” and this is meant to make us “sweet and serviceable”:
And about your laughing at me and calling me “Christian,” you know not what you are saying. First, because that which is anointed is sweet and serviceable, and far from contemptible. For what ship can be serviceable and seaworthy, unless it be first caulked [anointed]? Or what castle or house is beautiful and serviceable when it has not been anointed? And what man, when he enters into this life or into the gymnasium, is not anointed with oil? And what work has either ornament or beauty unless it be anointed and burnished? Then the air and all that is under heaven is in a certain sort anointed by light and spirit; and are you unwilling to be anointed with the oil of God? Wherefore we are called Christians on this account, because we are anointed with the oil of God.[3]
The sweetness of the anointing should be seen in the way it changes Christians, making them no longer warring in hatred against the world but rather seeking to render it, and all within it, loving service. Even those who see themselves as enemies of the Christians are to be loved. St. Cyprian of Carthage indicated it is by such love that Christians pray for their enemies and so become salt of the earth:
And it may be thus understood, beloved brethren, that since the Lord commands and admonishes us even to love our enemies, and to pray even for those who persecute us, we should ask, moreover, for those who are still earth, and have not yet begun to be heavenly, that even in respect of these God’s will should be done, which Christ accomplished in preserving and renewing humanity. For since the disciples are not now called by Him earth, but the salt of the earth, and the apostle designates the first man as being from the dust of the earth, but the second from heaven, we reasonably, who ought to be like God our Father, who makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and sends rain upon the just and the unjust, so pray and ask by the admonition of Christ as to make our prayer for the salvation of all men; that as in heaven— that is, in us by our faith— the will of God has been done, so that we might be of heaven; so also in earth — that is, in those who believe not — God’s will may be done, that they who as yet are by their first birth of earth, may, being born of water and of the Spirit, begin to be of heaven.[4]
![By Tikhon Filatiev [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://wp-media.patheos.com/blogs/sites/637/2016/09/Trinity_tikhon_filatiev.jpg)
When some people ask, why be Christian, why should we be a part of the Church, the answer is that so we can be made the salt of the earth. Those who seek the truth and love the good will find that being Christian is what allows the truth to be found and the good practiced.[5] It is not for some self-serving love, but for the love of God we join in with God and seek in that love what God desires, which is the salvation of the world. To be a Christian is to follow the path of love, for it is in and with such love that Christianity is rendered credible. It is in and with this love Christians are capable of representing Christ on earth, becoming co-workers with him in his mission to reconcile the created order to God’s eternal plan for creation.
As priests, Christians are to offer their very selves to God for the sake of the world. They are to take up the cross and deny themselves in imitation of Christ. This is what envelops them in justifying grace, and in such grace, righteousness is able to become incarnate in the world. As priests to God, they offer the only true sacrifice, which is not a burnt offering, but the mercy of love, as Minucius Felix proclaimed:
Shall I offer victims and sacrifices to the Lord, such as He has produced for my use, that I should throw back to Him His own gift? It is ungrateful when the victim fit for sacrifice is a good disposition, and a pure mind, and a sincere judgment. Therefore he who cultivates innocence supplicates God; he who cultivates justice makes offerings to God; he who abstains from fraudulent practices propitiates God; he who snatches man from danger slaughters the most acceptable victim. These are our sacrifices, these are our rites of God’s worship; thus, among us, he who is most just is he who is most religious.[6]
Christians are to do this not merely as individuals, by together with other Christians; as they share in the Spirit together, so that together they offer to God their holy souls for the sake of the world, as St. Clement of Alexandria understood:
Now breathing together (σύμπνοια) is properly said of the Church. For the sacrifice of the Church is the word breathing as incense from holy souls, the sacrifice and the whole mind being at the same time unveiled to God. Now the very ancient altar in Delos they celebrated as holy; which alone, being undefiled by slaughter and death, they say Pythagoras approached. And will they not believe us when we say that the righteous soul is the truly sacred altar, and that incense arising from it is holy prayer?[7]
Truly, then, as Christians seek to understand their place in the world, they must begin to look at it as priests who serve to reconcile the world to Christ through the worthy sacrifice of their very selves for the sake of the world. They are to guide the world as salt of the earth. They are not to seek after their own gain, but the gain of the world, lifting it up to God instead of seeking what they can get of the low earth for themselves. They are to love the world, hoping that through their service to God and the world, they can share with the rest of the world the bounty of God’s love for eternity. Christians must seek the best for the world, even if the world wars against them, for only in such love do they truly show themselves worthy of the name Christian.
[1] Mathetes, Epistle to Diognetus in ANF(1):27.
[2] When understood in this fashion, the teaching that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church therefore can be taken as indicative that the salvation of the world is achieved in and through the Catholic Church. That is, without the Catholic Church, there is to be no salvation given to the world.
[3] Theophilus, “To Autolycus” in ANF(2):92.
[4] St. Cyprian, “Treatise IV: On the Lord’s Prayer” in ANF(5):452.
[5] To be sure, there are many ways in which the Church does this. The grace which is brought into the world through the Church, in her priestly activities for the world, can have positive effects on those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Church. As the body does not have to know the directions of the soul to nonetheless be guided by it, so those in the world can be graced by the love of the Church and find themselves saved in and through the grace mediated through the Church.
[6] Minucius Felix, Octavius in ANF(4): 193.
[7] St. Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata in ANF(2):531.
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