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48-529: One of the oldest Christograms is the Chi-Rho (☧). It consists of the superimposed Greek letters chi (Χ) and rho (Ρ) , which are the first two letters of the Greek χριστός , 'Christ'. It was displayed on the labarum military standard used by Constantine I in 312 AD. The IX monogram ( [REDACTED] ) is a similar form, using the initials of the name Ἰησοῦς (ὁ) Χριστός , 'Jesus (the) Christ', as

96-804: A Neo-Latin term for the Chi Rho monogram. Because the chrismon was used as a kind of "invocation" at the beginning of documents of the Merovingian period , the term also came to be used of the " cross-signatures " in early medieval charters. Chrismon in this context may refer to the Merovingian period abbreviation I. C. N. for in Christi nomine , later (in the Carolingian period ) also I. C. for in Christo , and still later (in

144-412: A circular form, connecting them with themselves and each other at the point opposite to their original meeting-point; and, comprehending them in a uniform revolution upon the same axis, he made the one the outer and the other the inner circle. The two great circles of the heavens, the equator and the ecliptic, which, by intersecting each other form a sort of recumbent chi and about which the whole dome of

192-640: A deep well for this function from the earliest times (c. 3,000 years ago) and called it astudan (literally, "the place for the bones"). There are many rituals and regulations in the Zoroastrian faith concerning the astudans . During the Second Temple period , Jewish burial customs were varied, differing based on class and belief. For the wealthy, one option available included primary burials in burial caves, followed by secondary burials in ossuaries. These bone boxes were placed in smaller niches of

240-668: A description of the labarum , the military standard which incorporated the Chi-Rho sign, used by Emperor Constantine in his later wars against Licinius. An early visual representation of the connection between the Crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection, seen in the 4th century sarcophagus of Domitilla in Rome, the use of a wreath around the Chi-Rho symbolizes the victory of the Resurrection over death. After Constantine,

288-470: A medieval monastery in Ghazali, Sudan , whose right foot bore a tattoo from medieval Nubia , a region that covered parts of modern-day Egypt and Sudan, depicting a Chi Rho and an Alpha Omega . The person, most likely male, lived sometime between 667 and 774. Chi-Rho The Chi Rho ( ☧ , English pronunciation / ˈ k aɪ ˈ r oʊ / ; also known as chrismon ) is one of the earliest forms of

336-480: A separate ossuary made out of wood or metal. The use of ossuaries is also found among the laity in the Greek Orthodox Church . The departed will be buried for one to three years and then, often on the anniversary of death, the family will gather with the parish priest and celebrate a parastas (memorial service), after which the remains are disinterred, washed with wine, perfumed, and placed in

384-558: A staurogram ( [REDACTED] ), a similar Christian symbol. That very day Constantine's army fought the forces of Maxentius and won the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312), outside Rome . Eusebius of Caesarea (died in 339) gave two different accounts of the events. In his church history, written shortly after the battle, when Eusebius had not yet had contact with Constantine, he does not mention any dream or vision, but compares

432-667: A whole, did not persist among Jews past the Second Temple period nor appear to exist widely among Jews outside the Land of Israel . There are, of course, exceptions to every trend: after the destruction of the Second Temple , poor imitations of ossuaries made of clay were created in Galilee ; the last stone ossuaries are found in the Beth She'arim necropolis and date from the late third century CE; and at least one ossuary dating from

480-532: Is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary ("os" is "bone" in Latin ). The greatly reduced space taken up by an ossuary means that it is possible to store the remains of many more people in a single tomb than possible in coffins . The practice is sometimes known as grave recycling . In Persia , the Zoroastrians used

528-598: Is the ΙΗ monogram ( [REDACTED] ), using the first two letters of the name ΙΗΣΟΥΣ , 'JESUS' in uppercase. There were a very considerable number of variants of "Christograms" or monograms of Christ in use during the medieval period, with the boundary between specific monograms and mere scribal abbreviations somewhat fluid. The name Jesus , spelt ΙΗΣΟΥΣ in Greek capitals, has the abbreviations IHS (also written JHS, IHC , or ΙΗΣ ). The name Christus , spelt ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ , has XP (and inflectional variants such as IX, XPO, XPS, XPI, XPM ). In Eastern Christian tradition,

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576-654: Is the intersection of the Milky Way and the Zodiacal Light, a rare apparition important to pagan beliefs. He said that Christian bishops reframed this as a Christian symbol. The most commonly encountered Christogram in English-speaking countries in modern times is the Χ (or more accurately, Chi), representing the first letter of the word Christ , in such abbreviations as Xmas (for "Christmas") and Xian or Xtian (for "Christian"). An early form of

624-621: The Battle of Verdun during World War I . The Catacombs of Paris represents another famous ossuary. The catacombs beneath the Monastery of San Francisco in Lima , Peru also contain an ossuary. The skeletal remains of six million people lie, neatly arranged, in catacombs (also known as ossuaries or charnel houses) beneath the streets of Paris , France. The city has an estimated 300 kilometres (190 mi) of tunnels and pathways, of which 11,000 square metres (2.7 acres) are packed tightly with

672-523: The Book of Kells and Book of Lindisfarne . The "X" was regarded as the crux decussata , a symbol of the cross; this idea is found in the works of Isidore of Seville and other patristic and Early Medieval writers. The Book of Kells has a second Chi-Rho abbreviation on folio 124 in the account of the Crucifixion of Christ , and in some manuscripts the Chi-Rho occurs at the beginning of Matthew rather than mid-text at Matthew 1:18. In some other works like

720-502: The Carolingian Godescalc Evangelistary , "XPS" in sequential letters, representing "Christus" is given a prominent place. The Chi Rho symbol has two Unicode codepoints : Notes Bibliography Further reading Ossuaries An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space

768-598: The Christogram , formed by superimposing the first two (capital) letters— chi and rho ( ΧΡ )—of the Greek ΧΡ ΙΣΤΟΣ ( rom : Christos ) in such a way that the vertical stroke of the rho intersects the center of the chi. The Chi-Rho symbol was used by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306–337 AD) as part of a military standard ( vexillum ). Constantine's standard was known as

816-652: The Ichthys . After Francis Xavier landed in Kagoshima , Japan, in 1549, his missionary work grew and became widely distributed throughout Japan under the patronage of the daimyō . However, during the Edo period (1603–1867), Christians were persecuted and forced to hide. Because they were forbidden to openly reverence the images of Christ or Mary , it is believed that they transferred their worship to other carved images and marked them with secret symbols understood only by

864-585: The Labarum . Early symbols similar to the Chi Rho were the Staurogram ( [REDACTED] ) and the IX monogram ( [REDACTED] ). In pre-Christian times, the Chi-Rho symbol was also used to mark a particularly valuable or relevant passage in the margin of a page, abbreviating chrēston (good). Some coins of Ptolemy III Euergetes (r. 246–222 BC) were marked with a Chi-Rho. Although formed of Greek characters,

912-588: The Talpiot Tomb in 1980, several of which are reported to have names recorded in the New Testament . Geographically, ossuaries are almost exclusively associated with tombs in and around Jerusalem ; however, caches of contemporaneous ossuaries have been discovered in Jericho . There is ongoing scholarly disagreement as to the function and origin of ossuary burial. Some argue that this form of burial

960-685: The 17th century, "JHS" and "JHC" are equivalent to "IHS" and "IHC". "IHS" is sometimes interpreted as meaning ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΗΜΕΤΕΡΟΣ ΣΩΤΗΡ , Iēsous Hēmeteros Sōtēr , 'Jesus our Saviour' or in Latin Jesus Hominum (or Hierosolymae ) Salvator , ('Jesus, Saviour of men [or: of Jerusalem]' in Latin) or connected with In Hoc Signo . English-language interpretations of "IHS" have included "In His Service". Such interpretations are known as backformed acronyms . Used in Latin since

1008-415: The Chi-Rho became part of the official imperial insignia . Archaeologists have uncovered evidence demonstrating that the Chi-Rho was emblazoned on the helmets of some Late Roman soldiers. Coins and medallions minted during Emperor Constantine's reign also bore the Chi-Rho. By the year 350, the Chi-Rho began to be used on Christian sarcophagi and frescoes . The usurper Magnentius appears to have been

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1056-813: The Czech Republic; the Czermna Skull Chapel in Poland; and the Capela dos Ossos ("Chapel of Bones") in Évora , Portugal. The village of Wamba in the province of Valladolid , Spain, has an impressive ossuary of over a thousand skulls inside the local church, dating from between the 12th and 18th centuries. A more recent example is the Douaumont ossuary in France , which contains the remains of more than 130,000 French and German soldiers that fell at

1104-472: The Emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306–337), who made him tutor to his son Crispus , Constantine had dreamt of being ordered to put a "heavenly divine symbol" ( Latin : coeleste signum dei ) on the shields of his soldiers. The description of the actual symbol chosen by Emperor Constantine the next morning, as reported by Lactantius, is not very clear: it closely resembles a Tau-Rho or

1152-478: The H surmounted by a cross above three nails and surrounded by a Sun is the emblem of the Jesuits , according to tradition introduced by Ignatius of Loyola in 1541. IHS has been known to appear on gravestones, especially among Irish Catholics. In Eastern Christianity , the most widely used Christogram is a four-letter abbreviation, ΙϹ ΧϹ—a traditional abbreviation of the Greek words for 'Jesus Christ' (i.e.,

1200-506: The Roman emperor had been pondering the misfortunes that befell commanders who invoked the help of many different gods, and decided to seek divine aid in the forthcoming battle from the One God. At noon, Constantine saw a cross of light imposed over the sun . Attached to it, in Greek characters, was the saying "Εν τούτῳ Νίκα!" ("In this, conquer!"). Not only Constantine, but the whole army saw

1248-1023: The Second Temple period has been discovered in Alexandria . Many examples of ossuaries are found within Europe, including the Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini in Rome , Italy; the Martyrs of Otranto in south Italy; the Fontanelle cemetery and Purgatorio ad Arco in Naples , Italy; the San Bernardino alle Ossa in Milan , Italy; the Brno Ossuary and the Sedlec Ossuary in

1296-543: The best-known Jewish ossuaries of this period are: an ossuary inscribed 'Simon the Temple builder' in the collection of the Israel Museum ; one inscribed 'Yehohanan ben Hagkol' that contained an iron nail in a heel bone suggesting crucifixion ; another, (owned by André Lemaire ), inscribed ' James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus', the authenticity of which has been debated by scholars ; and ten ossuaries recovered from

1344-565: The bones of those re-interred from the city's overflowing cemeteries in the late 1700s. The use of ossuaries is a longstanding tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church . The remains of an Orthodox Christian are treated with special reverence, in conformity with the biblical teaching that the body of a believer is a "temple of the Holy Spirit", having been sanctified and transfigured by Baptism , Holy Communion and

1392-442: The burial caves, on the benches used for the desiccation of the corpse, or even on the floor. These ossuaries are almost exclusively made of limestone , roughly 40% of which are decorated with intricate geometrical patterns. Many ossuaries, plain or decorated, feature inscriptions identifying the deceased. These inscriptions are the chief scholarly source for identifying naming conventions in this region during this period. Among

1440-604: The defeat of Maxentius (drowned in the Tiber ) to that of the biblical pharaoh and credits Constantine's victory to divine protection. In a memoir of the Roman emperor that Eusebius wrote after Constantine's death ( On the Life of Constantine , c.  337 –339), a miraculous appearance is said to have come in Gaul long before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. In this later version,

1488-429: The device (or its separate parts) is frequently found serving as an abbreviation in Latin text, with endings added appropriate to a Latin noun, thus XPo , signifying Christo , "to Christ", the dative form of Christus , or χρ̅icola , signifying Christicola , "Christian", in the Latin lyrics of Sumer is icumen in . According to Lactantius , a Latin historian of North African origins saved from poverty by

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1536-641: The elite have more influence on ossuaries use and form during this period. An increase in wealth among the urban elite in Jerusalem and Jericho, coupled with a building boom that created a surplus of stonemasons, allowed for new kinds of burial to evolve. It has been observed that ossuaries follow philosophically with Greco-Roman ideas of individuality in death and physically with Hellenistic forms of chest burial; as such, ossuaries may be an elite imitation of imperial burial modes that did not violate Jewish cultural norms. The custom of secondary burial in ossuaries, on

1584-447: The first and last letters of each of the words Ι ΗϹΟΥ Ϲ Χ ΡΙϹΤΟ Ϲ , with the lunate sigma 'Ϲ' common in medieval Greek), and written with titlo (diacritic) denoting scribal abbreviation ( І︮С︯ Х︮С︯ ). On icons, this Christogram may be split: 'ΙϹ' on the left of the image and 'ΧϹ' on the right. It is sometimes rendered as 'ΙϹ ΧϹ ΝΙΚΑ' ( Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς νικᾷ ), meaning 'Jesus Christ Conquers'. 'ΙϹΧϹ' may also be seen inscribed on

1632-485: The first to use the Chi-Rho monogram flanked by Alpha and Omega , on the reverse of some coins minted in 353. In Roman Britannia , a tesselated mosaic pavement was uncovered at Hinton St. Mary , Dorset, in 1963. On stylistic grounds, it is dated to the 4th century; its central roundel represents a beardless male head and bust draped in a pallium in front of the Chi-Rho symbol, flanked by pomegranates , symbols of eternal life. Another Romano-British Chi-Rho, in fresco ,

1680-598: The high medieval period) just C. for Christus . St Cuthbert's coffin (late 7th century) has an exceptional realisation of the Christogram written in Anglo-Saxon runes , as ᛁᚻᛋ ᛉᛈᛋ, transliterated to the Latin alphabet as 'IHS XPS', with the chi rendered as the eolh rune (the old z or algiz rune) and the rho rendered as the p-rune . In the Latin -speaking Christianity of medieval Western Europe (and so among Catholics and many Protestants today),

1728-522: The initiates. Certain Japanese lanterns , notably the Kirishitan dōrō ( キリシタン灯籠 , 'Christian lanterns'), did bear the "Lhq" monogram , which, a quarter turned, was engraved on the shaft ( sao ), which was buried directly into the soil without basal platform ( kiso ). The 'Lhq' monogram corresponds to the distorted letters 'IHS'. In 2016 a 1,300-year-old corpse, was found in a cemetery near

1776-472: The life, so representing the moment of the Incarnation of Christ , was usually marked with a heavily decorated page, where the letters of the first word "Christi" are abbreviated and written in Greek as "XPI", and often almost submerged by decoration. Though the letters are written one after the other and the "X" and "P" not combined in a monogram, these are known as Chi-Rho pages. Famous examples are in

1824-538: The miracle. That night, Christ appeared to the Roman emperor in a dream and told him to make a replica of the sign he had seen in the sky, which would be a sure defence in battle. Eusebius wrote in the Vita that Constantine himself had told him this story "and confirmed it with oaths" late in life "when I was deemed worthy of his acquaintance and company." "Indeed", says Eusebius, "had anyone else told this story, it would not have been easy to accept it." Eusebius also left

1872-493: The monogram of Christ, found in early Christian ossuaries in Palaestina , was formed by superimposing the first (capital) letters of the Greek words for Jesus and Christ , i.e. iota Ι and chi Χ , so that this monogram means "Jesus Christ". The Alpha and Omega symbols may at times accompany the Chi-Rho monogram. Since the 17th century, Chrismon ( chrismum ; also chrismos, chrismus ) has been used as

1920-488: The monogram ΙϹΧϹ (with Overline indicating scribal abbreviation) is used for Ἰησοῦς Χριστός in both Greek and Cyrillic tradition. A Middle Latin term for abbreviations of the name of Christ is chrisimus . Similarly, the Middle Latin crismon , chrismon refers to the Chi-Rho monogram specifically. In antiquity, the cross , i.e. the instrument of Christ's crucifixion ( crux , stauros ),

1968-556: The most common Christogram became "IHS" or "IHC", denoting the first three letters of the Greek name of Jesus, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ , iota - eta - sigma , or ΙΗΣ . The Greek letter iota is represented by 'I', and the eta by 'H', while the Greek letter sigma is either in its lunate form, represented by 'C', or its final form, represented by 'S'. Because the Latin-alphabet letters I and J were not systematically distinguished until

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2016-594: The participation in the mystical life of the Church. In Orthodox monasteries , when one of the brethren dies, his remains are buried (for details, see Christian burial ) for one to three years, and then disinterred, cleaned and gathered into the monastery's charnel house . If there is reason to believe that the departed is a saint , the remains may be placed in a reliquary ; otherwise the bones are usually mingled together (skulls together in one place, long bones in another, etc.). The remains of an abbot may be placed in

2064-608: The seventh century, the first use of IHS in an English document dates from the fourteenth century, in Piers Plowman . In the 15th century, Saint Bernardino of Siena popularized the use of the three letters on the background of a blazing sun to displace both popular pagan symbols and seals of political factions like the Guelphs and Ghibellines in public spaces (see Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus ). The IHS monogram with

2112-782: The starry heavens swings in a wondrous rhythm, became for the Christian eye a heavenly cross. Justin Martyr in the 2nd century makes explicit reference to Plato's image in Timaeus in terms of a prefiguration of the Holy Cross. An early statement may be the phrase in Didache , "sign of extension in heaven" ( sēmeion epektaseōs en ouranōi ). An alternative explanation of the intersecting celestial symbol has been advanced by George Latura, claiming that Plato's "visible god" in Timaeus

2160-400: The two bands which form the "world soul" ( anima mundi ) cross each other like the letter Chi, possibly referring to the ecliptic crossing the celestial equator : And thus the whole mixture out of which he cut these portions was all exhausted by him. This entire compound divided lengthways into two parts, which he joined to one another at the centre like the letter X, and bent them into

2208-625: Was born out of a theological shift in ideas about purity. Specifically, in the Mishnah and Talmud , Jewish sages from the period are depicted debating the methods and beliefs around ossuary burial. The perspectives they espouse are connected to the Pharisaic tradition; as such, it is speculated that ossuaries were developed by elite members of the Pharisaic religious school before spreading to other sects. Others argue that material conditions of

2256-556: Was found at the site of a villa at Lullingstone (illustrated). The symbol was also found on Late Roman Christian signet rings in Britain. In 2020, archaeologists discovered in Vindolanda in northern England a 5th-century chalice covered in religious iconography, including the Chi-Rho. In Insular Gospel books , the beginning of Matthew 1:18, at the end of his account of the genealogy of Christ and introducing his account of

2304-415: Was taken to be T-shaped , while the X -shape (" chiasmus ") had different connotations. There has been scholarly speculation on the development of the Christian cross, the letter Chi used to abbreviate the name of Christ , and the various pre-Christian symbolism associated with the chiasmus interpreted in terms of "the mystery of the pre-existent Christ ". In Plato 's Timaeus , it is explained that

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