used so constantly in Christian worship and piety that many battle lines must be crossed if an understanding of their meaning in first-century sources is to be attempted. Jesus Christ could never have been merely a proper name among early Christians, especially among Jewish Christians, for whom Jesus’ identity as Messiah was subject to such dispute, and those early believers would have found the later metaphysical debates about the “two natures of Christ” most perplexing. Similarly, Son of God was