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-relay
rhm (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".