mts (01/11/83)
You are right. The "X" is from the initial Greek letter of Christ's name(Xristos).
randals (01/14/83)
Regarding the acronym "Ichytos" and zifandel!barry's question...
According to what I remember, the word for "fish" in Greek just
happened to have the right letters to make a neat acronym for the
early Christian movement. I don't know Greek letters that well,
but the English translations of the five words that formed the
acronym were:
Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour
The symbol of the fish had a number of interesting uses back then.
Not only was Christ identified as the "Fisher of Men", but there
was a more practical use of the symbol. Since the Romans didn't
like this new-fangled religion thing that was cropping up, fellow
believers used the fish sign to identify themselves (like the bumper
stickers you see now-adays with the two-lined fish and the Greek
letters inside).
When two people would meet on the street, and one of them wanted
to know if the other was a Christian, he would draw one line of the
fish in the sand/dirt with a stick. If the other likewise replied,
then they began communicating. What an interesting sign/countersign!
There. That's all I can remember. I hope it helped.
Not afraid to tell a fishy story,
Randal L. Schwartz
Tektronix Microcomputer Development Products
Beaverton, Oregon, USA
UUCP: ...!{ucbvax or decvax}!teklabs!tekmdp!randals (ignore return address)
CSNET: tekmdp!randals @ tektronix
ARPA: tekmdp!randals.tektronix @ rand-relayrhm (01/16/83)
The relevant Greek words behind the Greek "ichthus" acronym are: iesos christos theou uios soter with the meaninng "Jesus Christ, son of God, saviour" as Randal Schwartz reported. It's a bit messier than that because Iesos is a Hellenized form of Joshua and Christ isn't exactly a name, it's an adjective meaning "anointed".