1 ———— Jesus, the Messiah of Israel 1. Χρτοτός in Paul Paul, the earliest Christian author, whose oldest extant letter to the churches in Thessalonica was composed some twenty years after the crucifixion of Jesus, gives this same Jesus the name χριστός 270 times in his seven genuine letters; this is more than half of all occurrences in the New Testament. The compound name Ἰησοτός Χριστός, or its variation Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς, occurs 109 times. In all these cases Χριστός is used as a true name