Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/235

 io" s.n. SEPT. 3, low.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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stated in some of the smaller English diction aries, it is merely an abbreviation of the name Jesus in Greek, IH^, the second letter being the long e and not an h. The subse- quent confusion of the vowel with the aspirate was due to Latin scribes, who adopted, without Apparently understanding, the contraction otherwise they would have written it IES This naturally occurred some centuries before Loyola's time, the 'N.E.D.,' for instance, giving a quotation dated 600 A.D., in which the abbreviation is used, together with full details concerning the mistake. The true meaning of the three letters being thus lost, various ingenious. redditions have at different times been offered. It seems, however, that the founder of the Jesuits was not the author of the "Jesus Hominum Salvator" inter- pretation. At all events, Brewer credits St. Bernardino of Siena with its invention, though, with characteristic inaccuracy, the saint is mentioned as making the explanation in 1347, a third of a century before his birth. A quaint mystical elucidation is that by a Valencian troubadour, Vicent Ferradis, which is given by Sismondi as follows : Nom trihumfal queus presenta visible Del crucifix la bella circunstancia, En mig la h que nos letra legible L' intnens ja mort, tractat vilment y orrible. La title d'alt de divinal sustancia. La j y la s los ladres presenten A les dos parts per fer li companyia, Y pels costatz dos punts pue s'aposenten, Benoten clar los dos que 1' turment lenten Del redemptor, Johan y la Maria.

Here we have even the intermediate stops accounted for by the presence of St. John and the Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross, the I and the S representing the two thieves, one on either side. J. DORMER.

St. Bernard in of Siena, the Franciscan saint (1380 to 1444) after whom the pass between Spliigen and Bellinzona is named, was accustomed to preach, holding in his hand a gilded board on which were carved the above letters surrounded by rays and surmounted by a cross. This is his chief distinguishing emblem in paintings and sculptures. As St. Bernardin used them, the letters were an abbreviation of the holy n;ime in Greek, IH2OY2. St. Ignatius took St. Bernardin's emblem as the badge of his new society. Whether lie originated the interpretation " Jesus Hominum Salvator " or it was earlier, I do not know. Mrs. Jameson in her 'Legends of the Monastic Orders' gives two representations of St. Bernardin carrying the board or tablet above mentioned, taken from a painting by Lo Spagna and a bas-relief by Andrea della Robbia. In a

picture by II Moretto in the National Gallery the emblem borne by St. Bernardin is circular in form. I may add that the earliest exam pie of the monogram in question is said to be on a gold coin of the Emperor Basil I. (867-886). As to subsidiary points raised by Lucis :

(1) The badges of the monastic and mendi- cant Orders, of the Lateran and Borgo Canons, and of the Jesuits and the Oblates of St. Charles are delineated on pp. 137 to 139 of Tuker and Malleson's 'Handbook to Christian Ecclesiastical Rome,' pt. iii.

(2) Though God's glory in itself is absolutely perfect and cannot be increased, in its mani- festation in the world it is capable of the greater and less. It is in this sense that A.M.D.G. is to be understood.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

Perhaps I may be allowed to quote my note to Chaucer, ' Cant. Tales,' Group B, 1. 1793, which was first printed in 1874, or thirty years ago :

'Ie.su is written 'Ihu' in MSS. E., Hn., Cm. ; and 'ihc' in MSS. Cp., Pt., Ln. ; in both cases there is a stroke through the h. This is frequently printed Ihesu, but the retention of the h is unneces- sary. It is not really an h at all, but the Greek H, meaning long P. (t). So, also, in ' ihc,' the c is not the Latin c, but the Greek C, meaning S or s ; and ihc are the first three letters of the word IHCOYC

i^o-ov? = iesus. lesu, as well as Itxua, was used as a nominative, though really a genitive or voca- tive case. At a later period, ih* (still with a stroke through the h) was written for ihc as a contraction of i&nu. By an odd error, a new meaning was invented for these letters, and common belief treated them as the initials of three Latin words viz., lesus Hominum Salvator. But as the stroke through the h, or mark of contraction, still remained unaccounted for, it was turned into a cross ! Hence the common symbol I.H.S with the small cross in

the upper part of the middle letter Another

common contraction is A>c, where all the letters are Greek. The x is ch (\), the p is r (p\ and the c is 8 so that Xpc=Chrx, the contraction for n hri*tus, or Christ/

WALTER W. SKEAT.

The learning on the subject is to be found concisely stated in ' The History, Principles, and Practice of Symbolism in Christian Art,'

y F. E. Hulme, 1891, pp. 51-2.

STAPLETON MARTIN.

The Firs, Norton, Worcester.

One of the first bits of pseudo-ecclesiology mpressed upon me was that I.H.S. meant Fesus Hominum Salvator, and I.H.C. Jesus Jominum Consolator. These misstatements were happily among the earliest of ray un- earnings, and I am rather shocked to find that ven in the twentieth century enlightenment hould have to be sought of 'N. & Q.' As ar away as 1847, in 'A Hand-Book of Eng-