Thoughts on Xmas

Before anyone gets all up in arms over the "Xmas" in the title of this post, here is a little background for you:

The "X" comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός, translated as "Christ" and the New Testament was originally written in Greek - the symbol below is the labarum used since 312 A.D. (starting with the Emperor Constantine) to represent Christ ans uses the first two letters of His name in Greek Chi (X) and Rho (P)

This symbol can also be found on the walls in the catacombs in Rome. The Vatican uses a version to this day wherein the X is the crossed keys to the kingdom of heaven as given to St. Peter and the Pope's "hat" (miter) sits atop where the Rho is here. 

Okay, so that said Xmas is an abbreviation of Christmas that does NOT cross the Christ out of Christmas. Actually you aren't supposed to say "X - mas" you really should speak the word properly as Christmas.

Europeans having been using this abbreviation since the 16th Century AND in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries A.D. when it was illegal to worship Christ the Chi (X) was commonly used as a symbol for the crucifixion - by turning the cross on its side to the X early Christians could evoke the name of Christ (with the Chi) and the crucifixion at the same time. Another symbol often used was the Ichthys, the fish symbol. 

The Greek language played a large part in the early Christian church. The New Testament was first written in Greek as Greek was the scholarly language of the day. It was only later translated into Latin as Rome being the seat of the Church and Latin the language of the Roman Empire. The terms Alpha and Omega are Greek and those characters of the Greek alphabet are the first and last characters (the beginning and end). St. Paul (born Saul) grew up in Tarsus (in what is now Southern Turkey) which was a Greek-speaking community. Many of his travels took him through Greece and the gentiles he spoken to were by and large Greek-speaking people. His letter to the Thessalonians was written in Greek and is the oldest book in the New Testament. 

So the use of the Chi (X) is perfectly natural and not at all intended as a means of crossing Christ out of Christmas. 

Thus endeth the lesson.