The Anointed One: Messiah & Christos

“Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm off an anointed king.” - Shakespeare, Richard II

The act of anointing: the deliberate smearing of oil upon a being or object to mark it as holy, to transmit divine substance, to set apart.

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The Ancient Act: Mashach and Chriō

Mashach (מָשַׁח) — Hebrew, triliteral root M-SH-CH. Strong's defines it as a primitive root: "to rub with oil, i.e. to anoint; by implication, to consecrate; also to paint." The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon traces its most primitive sense to the Arabic cognate meaning "to wipe or stroke with the hand."

Mashach literally means to smear or spread a liquid — but by far most commonly, to spread oil upon something.

Chriō (χρίω) — Greek, Strong's #5548: "to contact, to smear, to rub" — often meaning to anoint with oil, or to signify being set apart, given an officially designated office or function.

The two words — Hebrew mashach, Greek chriō — are cognate in function if not in etymology. Both reduce to the same gesture: a hand, rubbing an oily substance onto a body or object. From the earliest Semitic cultures, there was a distinct and consistent distinction between suk — applying oil for cosmetic or ordinary purposes — and mashach — applying oil for sacred purposes. Robertson Smith's foundational analysis in Religion of the Semites argues that the origin of sacred anointing lies in the ancient custom of smearing sacrificial fat upon the altar-stone (matstsebhah).

Sacrificial fat on the altar → fat as divine substance → oil as refined fat-equivalent → pouring oil = pouring divine life-substance → the anointed one receives that life-substance into his body.

One of the most remarkable facts about mashiach hides in Isaiah 21:5 — a battlefield scene.

The practice of anointing a shield predates the anointing of all other objects. The "smearing" — mashiach — of the shield renewed the leather covering on a wooden shield, keeping it supple and unbreakable under impact. A victorious soldier was then elevated on his shield by his comrades after a battle or upon his selection as a new king.

The shield is anointed before battle so the leather does not crack under the sword. The anointed shield absorbs the blow without shattering. Then: the victorious warrior is raised on the shield itself. Lifted up by his comrades. The shield that did not break becomes a throne. The man who stood in the center of the battle, unbroken, is elevated on the instrument of his protection and set apart as leader.

Anointing Across the Ancient World

Egypt: The Oil of Divinity

An excerpt from the Pyramid Texts, written around 2400 BCE:

"The oil is poured on your head. It runs down your body. You become divine."

Egyptian temple inscriptions document the wrH tp ("anoint the head") ritual in detail. In the purification rites of god or the deceased, anointing was never omitted. The anointing of the forehead was standard practice. In the Opening-of-the-Mouth ritual — one of the most sacred rites in Egyptian religion — a transfiguration of the deceased was effected through anointing of the forehead. These sacred oils had been prepared in the temple laboratories under the directions of the god Thoth. The spells of Thoth consecrated the sacred oils used in all religious rituals.

Reliefs at the Temple of Hathor at Dendera show priestesses anointing the pharaoh in ritual. In the great myth, Isis anoints the dismembered Osiris — and the sacred oil becomes the medium of resurrection. The chrism precedes the raising. The body is anointed first, then life returns. This sequence survives intact into the Christian Passion: the women come to the tomb with myrrh and spices to anoint the body of Yeshua — and instead of death, they find resurrection.

Sumer: The Anointing of the Descending Goddess

Inanna, who stood at the center of Sumerian spirituality, was described as being bathed in oil before her descent to the underworld. In the Hymn to Inanna by the priestess Enheduanna, circa 2300 BCE — among the earliest written religious texts in human history:

"You bathe in sweet oil. You adorn your body with the noble dress of ladyship… Like the moon you shine."

The anointing with oil is preparation for the initiatory descent — for the stripping, the death, and the resurrection that constitutes the mystery.

Canaan: Before Israel

The Tel El-Amarna Letters — Egyptian diplomatic correspondence from circa 1350 BCE — include Letter No. 37, which documents the anointing of a Canaanite king. The custom of anointing kingship was older than the Hebrews — it predates Israel in Canaan itself.

The Mosaic Formula: The Sacred Oil

Exodus 30:22–25 gives the exact formula God instructs Moses to prepare for the shemen hamishchah — the holy anointing oil:

• Pure myrrh (mor deror) — 500 shekels (about 6 kg)
• Sweet cinnamon (kinnamon besem) — 250 shekels (about 3 kg)
• Aromatic cane (keneh bosem) — 250 shekels (about 3 kg)
• Cassia (kiddah) — 500 shekels (about 6 kg)
• Olive oil (shemen zayit) — one hin (about 6 liters)

This oil was originally used exclusively for the priests and the Tabernacle articles, but its use was later extended to kings (1 Samuel 10:1). It was forbidden to be used on an outsider or upon the body of any common person, and the Israelites were forbidden to duplicate any like it for themselves.

A number of religious traditions — including rabbinical Judaism, the Armenian Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Coptic Church, and others — maintain traditions of continuity with the original oil prepared by Moses.

Myrrh — death, preservation, resurrection. Myrrh appears at birth (the Magi bring it) and at death (the women at the tomb carry it). Myrrh brackets the entire life of the Anointed. At one time more expensive than gold, much-loved for its healing and spiritual benefits. Alabaster jars of it were found in Egyptian tombs, still aromatic after thousands of years. It is the oil of death and resurrection both — bitter, dark, preserving, fragrant across centuries.

Cinnamon — warmth, the solar principle.

Aromatic cane (kaneh bosem) — some scholars identify this with cannabis, producing psychoactive transdermal effects. The oil may alter consciousness by absorption through the skin.

Cassia — purification, astringency, the piercing quality of divine discernment.

Olive oil — the solar fruit, liquid sunlight, the medium that carries all others.

The anointing oil is a complete initiatory formula. Applied to the body, it delivers a specific constellation of spiritual influence through multiple pathways simultaneously: sensory, chemical, symbolic, pneumatic.

The Hebrew word for oil is shemen. The place Gethsemane derives from the Hebrew Gath Shemen — "the place of the olive press," located near the base of the Mount of Olives. Yeshua sweats blood in Gethsemane — in the Garden of the Olive Press. The Anointed One is himself being pressed. The oil is being extracted by suffering. The Garden is the first station of the Passion precisely because it is where oil comes from. The Christos is wrung out like the olive.

Why Oil?

Oil penetrates. It does not sit on the surface. It enters the skin. It goes in. The divine anointing is not a label affixed from outside — it is a substance that enters the being. Transformation from within.

Oil illuminates. The lamp burns oil. Before electricity, sacred light — the menorah, the sanctuary lamp, the perpetual fire — was olive oil burning. The anointed one is not merely consecrated; he becomes a lampadephoros, a light-bearer. The oil in the body is the same substance as the oil in the lamp. The human being, anointed, is a lamp.

Oil preserves. It is anti-bacterial. It delays decay. The body anointed with oil does not decompose as quickly. In Egypt, the embalming oils preserved the body for eternity. The anointed one is set apart from the ordinary corruption of flesh — marked for a different destiny than dust.

Oil flows. It cannot be contained to one spot. Pour it on the crown and it covers everything. The anointing grace is not compartmentalized — it flows into every part of the being and sanctifies the whole.

Oil is pressed from the bruised. The olive does not yield its oil without crushing. The gath shemen — the olive press — requires pressure, weight, force. The highest substance comes from the fruit under maximum pressure.

Oil softens what is rigid. The shield rubbed with oil does not crack under the sword. The joint anointed with oil moves freely. The anointing removes the brittleness — the hardness of heart, the inflexibility of ego — and makes the vessel supple enough to be used.

Why the Head?

The crown of the head — qodqod in Hebrew, the topmost point — is the specific target of the anointing. Oil poured on the head runs downward over the face, into the beard. As Psalm 133 describes: the oil of Aaron's anointing runs down "to the collar of his robes," covering the whole person.

The head is the seat of the mind, the neshamah. It is the topmost point of the body, closest to the heavens. It is the point of the fontanelle — the brahmarandhra in Sanskrit, the crown chakra — where, in many traditions, the soul enters and exits the body. It is the anatomical location of the pineal body — the conarium that Descartes called the seat of the soul, that Schwaller de Lubicz associated with the uraeus cobra on the Egyptian pharaoh's crown.

The oil poured on the crown of the head descends through the whole person. It is the divine, poured in from above, flowing through and sanctifying the entire being from the highest point downward. The oil is a visible model of how grace operates: it enters at the crown and covers everything it touches on its way down.

The uraeus — the cobra on the Egyptian pharaoh's crown — rises from the forehead exactly where the oil is applied. The fire-serpent at the brow that marks the awakened king.

The Three Mechanisms of Anointing

Among the Hebrews, it was believed not only that anointing effected a transference to the anointed one of something of the holiness and virtue of the deity, but also that it imparted something of the divine nature itself. Three distinct operative mechanisms are encoded in the Hebrew understanding:

Separation and Consecration

Qadash (to make holy) and mashach are used in tandem throughout Exodus and Leviticus. The anointing performs a boundary-change: the anointed person is no longer in the ordinary (chol) category but in the sacred (qodesh) category. A different kind of being now. The article or subject was brought into contact with the holiness of YHWH, and was made a vessel and instrument of the Spirit of God. In the case of inanimate objects, it imparted ceremonial sacredness; in the case of persons, it not only designated them to a sacred office but sealed to them the spiritual qualifications needed for its discharge.

The Descent of the Ruach

Samuel's anointing of David resulted in the Spirit of the Lord entering David's life with power. As 1 Samuel 16:13 records: "the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward." The oil is the visible side of an invisible event. The oil opens a channel. What flows down the channel is ruach — divine breath, divine power, divine presence. The oil does not contain the Spirit. The oil invites the Spirit and marks the point of entry.

The Covenant Sealing

The anointed one is not simply empowered — he is bound. The king becomes "YHWH's anointed" — mashiach YHWH. This is a covenantal title. It means this person is now under divine protection ("do not touch YHWH's anointed" — 1 Samuel 26:9), under divine authority, and under divine accountability. The oil marks ownership. This person belongs to God and to the people simultaneously. The anointed one occupies the position of mediator — belonging to God and belonging to the people. Standing between.

The Hebrew Mashiach: The Anointed King

Mashiach (מָשִׁיחַ) — transliterated into Greek as Messias, then translated as Christos. Literally: "anointed one." The Greek Septuagint renders all thirty-nine instances of the Hebrew mashiach as Khristós (Χριστός). The New Testament records the Greek transliteration Messias (Μεσσίας) twice in the Gospel of John.

In Arabic: al-Masīḥ (المسيح) — "the anointed," "the traveller," or "one who cures by caressing." Used by both Arab Christians and Muslims as a title of Yeshua.

In the Hebrew Bible, the term mashiach is applied broadly: to kings, priests, prophets, the altar and vessels of the Temple, unleavened bread, and even to a non-Jewish king — Cyrus the Great. The literal meaning simply refers to the ritual of consecrating someone or something by putting holy oil upon it.

But the term accrued eschatological weight. In Jewish expectation, it came to refer to a future king from the Davidic line — melekh ha-mashiach (מלך המשיח), the Anointed King — who would be anointed with holy oil, restore the Kingdom of Israel, rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, gather the dispersed tribes, usher in a Messianic Age of universal peace, and announce the world to come. In Judaism, the Messiah is not considered to be God or a pre-existent divine Son of God. He is a great political and spiritual leader descended from King David — hence Messiah ben David, "Messiah, son of David."

Maimonides codified this expectation:

"And if a king shall arise from among the House of David, studying Torah and occupied with commandments like his father David, according to the written and oral Torah, and he will impel all of Israel to follow it and to strengthen breaches in its observance, and will fight God's wars, this one is to be treated as if he were the anointed one. If he succeeded and built the Holy Temple in its proper place and gathered the dispersed ones of Israel together, this is indeed the anointed one for certain, and he will mend the entire world to worship the Lord together." - Maimonides, Mishneh Torah

A common rabbinic interpretation holds that there is a potential messiah in every generation. The Talmud tells of a rabbi who found the Messiah at the gates of Rome and asked, "When will you finally come?" He was told, "Today." The rabbi waited all day. The next day he returned, disappointed, and asked what happened. The Messiah replied: "Scripture says, 'Today, if you will but hearken to his voice.'"

A Kabbalistic tradition distinguishes two messianic figures: Messiah ben Joseph, who will gather the children of Israel, lead them to Jerusalem, reestablish Temple worship, and ultimately fall in battle; and Messiah ben David, who will come after, raise Messiah ben Joseph from the dead, and establish the eternal Kingdom.

Though originally a fringe idea, belief in the eventual coming of a future messiah became a fundamental part of Judaism, and is one of Maimonides' Thirteen Principles of Faith. And yet — trying to predict the actual time when the messiah will come is an act that is frowned upon, thought to weaken the faith of the people. There is no specific time. Rather, it is said the messiah would come either when the world needs his coming the most, or deserves it the most.

The Three Offices of the Anointed

In the Hebrew tradition, three offices receive the sacred anointing: King, Priest, and Prophet. All three converge in the Christos.

Anointed King

The mashiach is first and foremost a king — a Davidic king anointed at coronation by the high priest. In 1 Samuel 16, Samuel anoints David, and the Spirit of the Lord rushes upon David at the moment of anointing. The anointing is the transmission of ruach, divine breath, divine power.

The eschatological Mashiach expected by Second Temple Judaism was a political-military-spiritual king: a Son of David who would restore the Kingdom and establish divine rule on earth.

The Anointed King — the True Sovereign, the Legitimate Ruler — the one through whom divine rule descends into history.

Anointed High Priest

In Exodus and Leviticus, Aaron and the Aaronic priesthood are anointed with the sacred oil. The priest stands between the human and divine, performs the atoning rites, enters the Holy of Holies.

The Letter to the Hebrews develops this fully: Christ as High Priest after the order of Melchizedek — a priesthood older than Aaron, not of Levi but of cosmic origin, unmediated, eternal. Melchizedek ("King of Righteousness," "King of Salem/Peace") appears without genealogy, without beginning or end of days — a prefiguration of the eternal Christic office.

The Anointed Priest — the Eternal Mediator, the one who performs the cosmic Atonement, who enters the supernal Holy of Holies.

Anointed Prophet

Prophets are also anointed by the Spirit. Elijah anoints Elisha. Isaiah 61:1:

"The Spirit of the Lord YHWH is upon me, because YHWH has anointed me to bring good news to the poor…"

The verse Yeshua reads in the Nazareth synagogue in Luke 4, and then declares: "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

The Anointed Prophet — the Voice of the Logos, the fulfillment of the entire prophetic stream.

Christos: The Greek Anointed One

Christos (Χριστός) — Greek past participle of chriō (χρίω), "to anoint," "to smear," "to rub with oil." Grammatically it means "the Anointed One."

Christiani — the earliest name for followers: "anointed ones," "those of the Anointing."

The practice of chrismation — baptism with oil — developed in the early church during the later second century as a symbol of Christ, rebirth, and inspiration. The earliest surviving account appears to be the letter written "To Autolycus" by Theophilus, bishop of Antioch. He calls the act "sweet and useful," punning on khristós (χριστóς, "anointed") and khrēstós (χρηστóς, "useful"), and declares: "Wherefore we are called Christians on this account, because we are anointed with the oil of God." And: "What person on entering into this life or being an athlete is not anointed with oil?"

The practice is also defended by Hippolytus in his Commentary on the Song of Songs and by Origen in his Commentary on Romans. Origen writes: "All of us may be baptized in those visible waters and in a visible anointing, in accordance with the form handed down to the churches."

In medieval and early modern Christianity, new churches and altars were anointed at their four corners during their dedication, as were tombs and certain ritual instruments. The European tradition of sacred coronation continued the ancient practice. As the jurisconsult Tancredus reported, the kings of Jerusalem, France, England, and Sicily held the ancient privilege of being crowned and anointed — and any who did so without this right were considered to act in abuse of the rite.

The anointing was particularly important among the Gnostics. The Gospel of Philip states with unmistakable clarity:

"The chrism is superior to baptism, for it is from the word 'chrism' that we have been called 'Christians,' certainly not because of the word 'baptism.' And it is from the 'chrism' that the 'Christ' has his name. For the Father anointed the Son, and the Son anointed the apostles, and the apostles anointed us. He who has been anointed possesses everything. He possesses the Resurrection, the Light, the Cross, the Holy Spirit. The Father gave him this in the bridal chamber; he merely accepted the gift. The Father was in the Son and the Son in the Father. This is the Kingdom of Heaven." — Gospel of Philip

In the Acts of Thomas, the anointing is the beginning of the baptismal ritual and essential to becoming a Christian — God knows his own children by his seal, and the seal is received through the oil.

Yeshua: The Embodied Christos

Yeshua of Nazareth was not anointed by the High Priest in accordance with the Exodus ceremony. He was considered to have been anointed by the Holy Spirit during his baptism — the heavens opening, the dove descending, the voice declaring sonship. A literal anointing also occurs when Mary of Bethany lavishly pours oil upon him. Performed out of affection, Yeshua himself declares it preparation for his burial. The anointing precedes the Passion.

Christianity developed from the identification of Yeshua with the Jewish prophecies of an Anointed One. His epithet "Christ" is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew title Mashiach. The Septuagint had already rendered every instance of mashiach as Christos.

In him, all three offices converge: King (of the Davidic line, acknowledged by the Magi, inscribed above the Cross), Priest (after the order of Melchizedek, performing the cosmic Atonement), and Prophet (the fulfillment of Isaiah 61, the Voice of the Logos made flesh).

In him, the ancient practice reaches its summit. The oil poured on David's head by Samuel, the sacred chrism mixed in the Temple laboratories, the fat smeared on the altar-stone in the oldest Semitic rites — all of it converges in a single life. The Anointed One is himself pressed like the olive in Gethsemane.

Because the expectancy had been built up through generation after generation, especially among the Essenes — when the angel announced unto Mary that she would conceive a son who would be the Messiah, and that his name would be Jeshua, meaning "The Lord is salvation" — she understood what this meant, and her words were: "Be it done unto me according to the will of our Heavenly Father."

"The new son, Christ, shall on the one hand be a chthonic man like Adam, mortal and capable of suffering, but on the other hand he shall not be, like Adam, a mere copy, but God himself, begotten by himself as the Father, and rejuvenating the Father as the Son. As God he has always been God, and as the son of Mary, who is plainly a copy of Sophia, he is the Logos (synonymous with Nous), who, like Sophia, is a master workman, as stated by the Gospel according to St. John."

• Carl Jung, Answer to Job

The Universal Christ

But the Christ is greater than any single personage — even the personage of Yeshua.

Christ, like Inanna, like Osiris, like Enki, descends into the underworld and stays there. In a sense, is destroyed by it. Then rises again — having overcome death, decay, chaos, entropy. Many ascended masters go into the earth to overcome those forces so they can rise again. That story is the story of all of us as humans. We have all descended to the underworld — earth. And we will all rise again.

The Gospel of Philip states that the Father anointed the Son, and the Son anointed the apostles, and the apostles anointed us. The anointing is a chain. It does not stop at one person. It flows downward — like oil from the crown of the head — until it reaches every part of the body.

In A Course in Miracles, "Christ" is redefined with precision: Christ is not the historical Jesus exclusively. It is the shared Identity of all the Sonship. Christ is what you are. Christ is what everyone is, beneath the ego. Jesus is the first to complete the Atonement, to remember fully, to identify wholly with Christ rather than with the ego. The Second Coming of Christ is the awakening of the Sonship to its true Identity. The Christ within is the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit's access point in the mind, the memory of God that the ego cannot touch.

"The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See it not outside yourself, but shining in the Heaven within, and accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come."

• A Course in Miracles, T-15.III.7

The word Christos points to a human being who has been penetrated by divine substance, transformed in nature by that penetration, separated from the ordinary category of being, made luminous, made supple, marked by descent-and-survival, consecrated for a specific function in the covenant between heaven and earth, and recognized as such by the community that receives the transmission.

The anointing is the recognition that this has occurred. The oil is poured on the outside to mark what has already happened — or is now being catalyzed — on the inside. The high priest acting on behalf of the Tradition performs the outer anointing because it is witnessing an inner reality: the divine Spirit has come down into this person, it has anointed the sacred gates and centers on the body, it has penetrated every aspect of their being, and is now burning in this person as a living flame.

That is the Christos. That is what the word, in its full ancient depth, points to.

Every tradition that touches the word — Hebrew, Greek, Gnostic, alchemical, Kabbalistic — is pointing at the same condition. There is a state of the human being in which the divine has entered so completely that the ordinary boundary between homo and theos has been dissolved.

We read in books that these Holy individuals undertake various missions and have belonged to different eras, regions, religions, sects, secret societies, and esoteric orders; yet, there is a common and exact doctrine that is inherent within all of their works. As if there were a Cosmic plan, in all races and eras, to send these Enlightened Messengers to work for specific missions in regards to the Evolution of Humanity.

• Manly P. Hall

Within the Royal Art Opus

The Philosopher's Stone of alchemy is the Christos achieved in matter. The oil is the tincture that transmutes lead into gold. The Grail is the vessel that holds the chrism — the blood, the oil, the divine substance. The Temple is the body prepared to receive the anointing. The Crown is the completed anointing — the oil on the head, the sovereignty restored, Kether descended into Malkuth.

The deepest truth of the anointing is this: it was never meant for one person alone. The oil flows. It cannot be contained. It runs from the crown of the head to the collar of the robes and beyond — until every son and daughter of God remembers what they are. The Anointed One. The Christos.

The Meaning & Significance of Christ in ACIM

The name of Jesus is the name of one who was a man, but saw the face of Christ in all his brothers and remembered God. ²So he became identified with Christ, a man no longer, but at one with God. ³The man was an illusion, for he seemed to be a separate being, walking by himself, within a body that appeared to hold his self from Self, as all illusions do. ⁴Yet who can save unless he sees illusions and then identifies them as what they are? ⁵Jesus remains a savior because he saw the false without accepting it as true. ⁶And Christ needed his form that He might appear to men and save them from their own illusions. In his complete identification with the Christ—the perfect Son of God, His one creation and His happiness, forever like Himself and one with Him—Jesus became what all of you must be. ²He led the way for you to follow him. ³He leads you back to God, because he saw the road before him and he followed it. ⁴He made a clean distinction, still obscure to you, between the false and true. ⁵He offered you all a final demonstration that it is impossible to kill God’s Son, nor can his life in any way be changed by sin and evil, malice, fear, or death. ⁶And therefore all your sins have been forgiven you because they carried no effects at all, and so they were but dreams. ⁷Arise with him who showed you this, because you owe him this who shared your dreams that they might be dispelled—and shares them still, to be at one with you. Is he the Christ? ²Oh yes, along with you. ³His little life on earth was not enough to teach the mighty lesson that he learned for all of you. ⁴He will remain with you to lead you from the hell you made to God. ⁵And when you join your will with his, your sight will be his vision, for the eyes of Christ are shared. ⁶Walking with him is just as natural as walking with a brother whom you knew since you were born, for such indeed he is. ⁷Some bitter idols have been made of him who would be only brother to the world. ⁸Forgive him your illusions, and behold how dear a brother he would be to you. ⁹For he will set your mind at rest at last and carry it with you unto your God. Is he God’s only helper? ²No indeed. ³For Christ takes many forms with different names until their oneness can be recognized. ⁴But Jesus is for you the bearer of Christ’s single message of the love of God. ⁵You need no other. ⁶It is possible to read his words and benefit from them without accepting him into your life. ⁷Yet he would help you yet a little more if you will share your pains and joys with him, and leave them both to find the peace of God. Yet still it is his lesson most of all that he would have you learn, and it is this: “There is no death because the Son of God is like his Father. ²Nothing you can do can change eternal love. ³Forget your dreams of sin and guilt, and come with me instead to share the resurrection of God’s Son. ⁴And bring with you all those whom He has sent to you to care for, as I care for you.” - From the ACIM “Clarification of Terms”

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