(“Christ” means “anointed,” but this word did not even exist in Latin or Greek until late in the second century! “Chrest” (Chrestos in Greek and “Krestus” in Latin) means the “Good” one.)
A case where “Krestus” (Chrest) was intentionally altered into “Christ” and “Krestna” (Chrestians) intentionally altered into “Christians” in a manuscript dated about 115 CE:
[The following quotations are taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ]
Tacitus was a Roman statesman and historian. In 115 CE he wrote in the Annals:
“Nero blamed on a group that was hated for their abominations, the mass of Christians [in the earliest manuscript originally “Chrestians”] called, as he is also subjected to the most intense torture. Christ [‘Krestus’ i.e. “Chrest”], as the name came by, suffered the most severe penalty under Tiberius government for one of our prokuratorers hand, Pontius Pilate, and a very mischievous superstition, which thus temporarily halted, broke out again not only in Judea, which was the original source of the evil, but even in Rome ... Consequently arrested to begin with all who pleaded guilty. Based on their information, then sentenced a huge amount, less for having set fire to the city than the hatred of mankind.”
“The ‘e’ as originally written, of which there are still traces of the erased area, has been changed to an ‘i’ by the removal of the upper loop and the horizontal line, while the remaining part has been fixed, in my view, same ink and the same hand, to create an ‘i’. Another hand has added a mark on the message, and the same bound in the message with ‘s’ with a dash.” (Teresa Lodi, former director of the Laurentian Library where the manuscript kept, quoted in Harald Fuchs, Tacitus über die Christen, in Vigiliae Christianae, 1950, page 70, note 6.)
More Chrestians:
A Chrestian (not Christian, but Chrestian) named “Heras” writes to a certain “Apa Theon.”
One “Paithos” and his family Epitaph - “Chrestians”
The “Jesus Bowl” - “Chrestos”
Other Images:
✤ Colorbasus