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<\/a>Cross at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Yakima<\/p><\/div>\n
…and this reminded me of something else which I came to understand through studying Greek that I had meant to share…<\/p>\n
The altar cross with “IC XC” lettering<\/p><\/div>\n As in my previous post<\/a>, if you don’t know the answer to this, you are certainly not alone…<\/p>\n Like the “IHS”<\/a>, the “IC XC”<\/span> is a Christogram, a monogram of Jesus’ name. As we saw last time<\/a>, “Jesus Christ”, when it is translated into\u00a0Greek, looks like this:<\/p>\n \u0399\u0397\u03a3\u039f\u03a5\u03a3 \u03a7\u03a1\u0399\u03a3\u03a4\u039f\u03a3<\/span><\/p>\n If we take the first and last letters of\u00a0\u0399<\/span>\u0397\u03a3\u039f\u03a5\u03a3 <\/span><\/span>(“Jesus”) and \u03a7<\/span>\u03a1\u0399\u03a3\u03a4\u039f\u03a3 <\/span><\/span>(“Christ”) we are left with:<\/p>\n \u0399\u03a3 \u03a7\u03a3<\/span><\/p>\n The sigma character (“\u03a3”<\/span>) was often represented using a lunate sigma<\/a> which looks like a “C”, thereby giving us:<\/p>\n IC XC<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, a line (“titlo”) is often placed over each pair of letters to indicate that it is an abbreviated sacred name. So there we go! “IC XC” <\/span>is yet another shorthand for writing “Jesus Christ” in Greek.<\/p>\n
\nOkay Catholics, what does the lettering “IC XC”<\/span> at the top of the cross mean?<\/p>\n<\/a>IC now what it means…<\/h2>\n