Nomina Sacra

 Eighteenth Thursday after Pentecost

Thursday is prayer and worship day on the blog. Today I want to talk about what we would call some Christian symbols for holy names but what are more properly called nomina sacra, sacred names. They function as abbreviations.

I have talked before about the early Christians having invented the book; that is, they were the first to write literary texts on codex form, leaves folded over and sewn together with writing on both sides. Before this time the scroll was the standard form. Here are a couple of other interesting facts. All Christian writings appeared in codex form. There were no Christian scrolls. No early Christian writer tells us any reason for this change. It remains something of a mystery. The one obvious answer is that the codex is much easier to use. But why were there never any Christian scrolls at all?

Another little mystery is the nomina sacra. They are abbreviations for holy names. They appear in all our very earliest NT manuscripts and rarely are they not used. I'll just mention a few of the most common ones here. They don't appear on standard keyboards, so you may need to use a a little imagination to visualize some of them.

The most frequently misunderstood one today is IHS. I've heard various misunderstandings of this nominum sacrum. I won't repeat any of them here. Sometimes folks remember the mistaken one rather than the correct one. IHS are the Greek letters iota, eta, sigma. They are the first three letters in the name Iesous, which is Jesus. 

Another one virtually everyone is familiar with is XP--with the second letter superimposed over the first letter. This is one I can't duplicate on a keyboard. These are the Greek letters chi  and rho. They are the first two letters in the word Christos, Christ.

 

If you go to a Catholic Church you are likely to see (and if you go to a Greek Orthodox Church sure to see) this nominum sacrum: MP. No it's not Military Police (nor Member of Parliament). It's the Greek letters mu and rho which are the first and third letters of the name Maria, or Mary. There will be a horizontal line over the top of the M, which indicates that it is a nominum sacrum.

 

Last one for today: IC. These are the two Greek letters iota and sigma, the first and third letters in the name Iesous, Jesus. As with MP, there will be a horizontal line over the first letter, the I, to indicate that it is a nominum sacrum. 

 

Enough for now. I'll do another Thursday blog on other nomina sacra in the not too distant future.

Faithfully,

Xpictiav