Description

INCLUDES Pendant and Snake chain necklace. MEASUREMENTS The necklace chain is offered in your choice of length from 16" to 50" (40cm to 127cm) These are just standard lengths offered - I can easily make any custom size in shorter or longer lengths of the chain for you by request. MATERIALS -The pendant is a Zinc Alloy casting. -The necklace chain is 304 Stainless steel. ABOUT the JHS Christogram of western Christianity. A Christogram (Latin Monogramma Christi) is a monogram or combination of letters that forms an abbreviation for the name of Jesus Christ, traditionally used as a religious symbol within the Christian Church. There were a very considerable number of variants of "Christograms" or monograms of Christ in use during the medieval period, with the boundary between specific monograms and mere scribal abbreviations somewhat fluid. The name Jesus in Greek capitals, has the abbreviations IHS (also written JHS or IHC), the name Christus has XP (and inflectional variants such as IX, XPO, XPS, XPI, XPO, XPM). In Eastern Christian tradition, the monogram (with Overline indicating scribal abbreviation) is used for both Greek and Cyrillic tradition. A Middle Latin term for abbreviations of the name of Christ is chrisimus. Similarly, Middle Latin crismon, chrismon refers to the Chi Rho monogram specifically. In the Latin-speaking Christianity of medieval Western Europe, and also among Catholics and many Protestants today, the most common Christogram became "JHS", "IHS" or "IHC", denoting the first three letters of the Greek name of Jesus. The Greek letter iota is represented by I, and the eta by H, while the Greek letter sigma is either in its lunate form, represented by C, or its final form, represented by S. Because the Latin-alphabet letters I and J were not systematically distinguished until the 17th century, "JHS" and "JHC" are equivalent to "IHS" and "IHC". "IHS" is sometimes interpreted as meaning Iesous Hemeteros Soter, "Jesus our Saviour", or in Latin "Jesus Hominum (or Hierosolymae) Salvator", ("Jesus, Saviour of men (or: of Jerusalem)]" in Latin) or connected with In Hoc Signo. Such interpretations are known as backformed acronyms. Used in Latin since the seventh century, the first use of IHS in an English document dates from the fourteenth century, in The vision of William concerning Piers Plowman. In the 15th century, Saint Bernardino of Siena popularized the use of the three letters on the background of a blazing sun to displace both popular pagan symbols and seals of political factions like the Guelphs and Ghibellines in public spaces (see Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus). The IHS monogram with the H surmounted by a cross above three nails and surrounded by a Sun is the emblem of the Jesuits, according to tradition introduced by Ignatius of Loyola in 1541. English-language interpretations of "IHS" have included "In His Service". In antiquity, the cross, i.e. the instrument of Christ's crucifixion (crux, stauros) was taken to be T-shaped, while the X-shape ("chiasmus") had different connotations. There has been a lot of scholarly speculation on the development of the Christian cross, the letter Chi used to abbreviate the name of Christ, and the various pre-Christian symbolism associated with the chiasmus interpreted in terms of "the mystery of the pre-existent Christ". In Plato's Timaeus, it is explained that the two bands which form the "world soul" (anima mundi) cross each other like the letter chi, possibly referring to the ecliptic crossing the celestial equator. Justin Martyr in the 2nd century makes explicit reference to Plato's image in Timaeus in terms of a prefiguration of the Holy Cross. and an early testimony may be the phrase in Didache, "sign of extension in heaven" (semeion epektaseos en ouranoi). An alternate explanation of the intersecting celestial symbol has been advanced by George Latura, claiming that Plato's visible god in Timaeus is in fact the intersection of the Milky Way and the Zodiacal Light, a rare apparition important to pagan beliefs that Christian bishops reinvented as a Christian symbol. The most commonly encountered Christogram in English-speaking countries in modern times is the (or more accurately, the Greek letter chi), representing the first letter of the word Christ, in such abbreviations as Xmas (for "Christmas") and Xian or Xtian (for "Christian").