{"id":2180,"date":"2011-05-29T07:00:38","date_gmt":"2011-05-29T14:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=2180"},"modified":"2015-03-19T14:39:57","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T21:39:57","slug":"cracking-the-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2011\/05\/29\/cracking-the-code\/","title":{"rendered":"Cracking the code"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the things I really liked about “The Da Vinci Code” <\/em>(ridiculous ahistorial conspiracies aside)\u00a0was that it got people looking at art and architecture with greater attentiveness to symbolism. \u00a0Christianity has always used symbols very heavily to express the truths of the faith and its art developed rapidly\u00a0as a vehicle for this.<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago I explained the meaning of the “IC XC<\/a>” on icons, which is a short-hand for “Jesus Christ”, and earlier this week<\/a> I explained the meaning of the letters which commonly appear above pictures of His mother. Today I’d like to provide a quick follow-up to another aspect of “IC XC” which you sometimes find in eastern art…<\/p>\n

This is the painting on the front wall above the altar at Holy Angels:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How many “IC XC<\/span>“s do you see?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

You may only see one, but there are, in fact two. If you look closely at Christ’s right hand which is raised in blessing, you will see that the letters I, C and X are discernible:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Still don’t see it? \u00a0How about now?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At least Dan Brown got one thing right – symbolism is great \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the things I really liked about “The Da Vinci Code” (ridiculous ahistorial conspiracies aside)\u00a0was that it got people looking at art and architecture with greater attentiveness to symbolism. \u00a0Christianity has always used symbols very heavily to express the truths of the faith and its art developed rapidly\u00a0as a vehicle for this. A few weeks ago I explained the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2969,188,182,189],"class_list":["post-2180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","tag-featured","tag-ic-xc","tag-icons","tag-symbolism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2180"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56328,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2180\/revisions\/56328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}