Jesus fish
When two Christians met, one would draw the first line, and the other would complete the fish with the second line, letting both know that they could trust one another in their shared faith. In a time when it was at least socially unacceptable to follow Jesus and at worst an invitation for the Romans to abuse, Christians used the ichthys as a secret symbol. The simple drawing of the ichthys was made up of two curved lines that met to form the shape of a fish. The whole acronym stood for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.” The ichthys was an acronym in Greek, with each letter representing a word. So what was the earliest central symbol of the Christian faith? It turns out it was the ichthys, the “Jesus fish” that we can see on so many car magnets and bumper stickers today. The physical symbol of the cross didn’t begin to become prevalent in Christian art and symbolism until a century later.
For the first few decades after Easter, the cross was too brutal a reminder of Jesus’ death, and it was still primarily associated with the execution of criminals.
If someone asks a Christian what faith is all about, she can simply point to the cross.īut wait…What if I told you that the cross was not originally the central Christian symbol? In fact, it wasn’t. We can all agree on the central symbol of Christian faith, right? It is, of course, the cross, reminding us of Jesus’ substitutionary atonement for the sins of humankind.