ma_
comes the Fr. _creme_, and Eng. "cream"), a mixture of olive oil and
balm, used for anointing in the Roman Catholic church in baptism,
confirmation and ordination, and in the consecrating and blessing of
altars, chalices, baptismal water, &c. The consecration of the "chrism"
is performed by a bishop, and since the 5th century has taken place on
Maundy Thursday. In the Orthodox Church the chrism contains, besides
olive oil, many precious spices and perfumes, and is known as "muron" or
"myron." The word is sometimes used loosely for the unmixed olive oil
used in the sacrament of extreme unction. The "Chrisom" or "chrysom," a
variant of "chrism," lengthened through pronunciation, is a white cloth
with which the head of a newly baptized child was covered to prevent the
holy oil from being rubbed off. If the baby died within a month of its
baptism, it was shrouded in its chrisom; otherwise the cloth or its value
was given to the church as an offering by the mother at her churching.
Children dying within the month were called "chrisom-children" or
"chrisoms," and up to 1726 such entries occur in bills of mortality. The
word was also used generally for a very young and innocent child, thus
Shakespeare, _Henry V._, ii. 3, says of Falstaff: "A' made a finer end
and went away an it had been any Chrisom Child."

CHRIST (Gr. [Greek: Christos], Anointed), the official title given in
the New Testament to Jesus of Nazareth, equivalent to the Hebrew
_Messiah_. See JESUS CHRIST; MESSIAH; CHRISTIANITY.

CHRIST, WILHELM VON (1831-1906), German classical scholar, was born in
Geisenheim in Hesse-Nassau on the 2nd of August 1831. From 1854 till
1860 he taught in the Maximiliansgymnasium at Munich, and in 1861 was
appointed professor of classical philology in the university. His most
important works are his _Geschichte der griechischen Literatur_ (5th
ed., 1908 f.), a history of Greek literature down to the time of
Justinian, one of the best works on the subject; _Metrik der Griechen
und Roemer_ (1879); editions of Pindar (1887); of the _Poetica_ (1878)
and _Metaphysica_ (1895) of Aristotle; _Iliad_ (1884). His contributions
to the _Sitzungsberichte_ and _Abhandlungen_ of the Bavarian Academy of
Sciences are particularly valuable.

See O. Crusius, _Gedaechtnisrede_ (Munich, 1907).

CHRISTADELPHIANS ([Greek: Christou adelphoi], "brothers of Christ"),
sometimes also called Thomasites, a community founded in 1848 by Jo