Messiah, "_Messias._" This word comes from the Hebrew, and is synonymous with the Greek word "Christ." Both are terms consecrated in religion, which are now no longer given to any but the anointed by eminence--the Sovereign Deliverer whom the ancient Jewish people expected, for whose coming they still sigh, and whom the Christians find in the person of Jesus the Son of Mary, whom they consider as the anointed of the Lord, the Messiah promised to humanity. The Greeks also use the word "_Elcimmeros_", meaning the same thing as "_Christos._" In the Old Testament we see that the word "Messiah," far from being peculiar to the Deliverer, for whose coming the people of Israel sighed, was not even so to the true and faithful servants of God, but that this name was often given to idolatrous kings and princes, who were, in the hands of the Eternal, the ministers of His vengeance, or instruments for executing the counsels of His wisdom. So the author of "Ecclesiasticus" says of Elisha: "_Qui ungis reges ad penitentiam;_" or, as it is rendered by the "Septuagint," "_ad vindictam_"--"You anoint kings to execute the vengeance of the Lord". Therefore He sent a prophet to anoint Jehu, king of Israel, and announced sacred unction to Hazael, king of Damascus and Syria; those two princes being the Messiahs of the Most High, to revenge the crimes and abominations of the house of Ahab. But in Isaiah, xlv., 1, the name of Messiah is expressly given to Cyrus: "Thus saith the Lord to Cyrus, His anointed, His Messiah, whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before him." etc. Ezekiel, in his Revelations, xxviii., 14, gives the name of Messiah to the king of Tyre, whom he also calls Cherubin, and speaks of him and his glory in terms full of an emphasis of which it is easier to feel the beauties than to catch the sense. "Son of man," says the Eternal to the prophet, "take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyre, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; thou sealest up the sun, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been the Lord's Garden of Eden"--or, according to other versions, "Thou wast all the Lord's delight"--"every precious stone was thy covering; the sardius, topaz, and the diamond; the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper; the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou wast a Cherubin, a Messiah, for protection, and I set thee up; thou hast been upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created till iniquity was found in thee."