The Sign of the Fish

The early Christian Church was viciously persecuted. In Rome Christians were thrown into the arena with hungry lions while people watched form the grandstands. In Israel the man named Saul who later became a fantastic preacher for Jesus even took part in stoning innocent Christians. So The Christians came up with a secret sign that they could use to identify fellow believers. The Sign of the Fish.

In ancient Greek the word Ikhthus is the word for fish. (Sometimes spelled Ichthys) It has been used as an acrostic.

I is the first letter for Iēsous which is Jesus in Greek

Ch is the fist letter for Christos, which in Greek is “anointed one”.

Th is the first letter for Theou, which is God

Y is the first letter for the Greek word for son, yios.

S is the first letter for the Greek word for savior, sōtēr.

The first century Christians would use the symbol to mark the place where meetings were held and to identify fellow Christians. The sign of the fish has been found in first century catacombs in Rome. It is said that when strangers met one would casually draw an arch, one half of the fish, in the dust and if the other person was a Christian they would draw the other side of the fish symbol. If the other person was not a Christian they wouldn’t have known what was going on.

Early in Jesus’ ministry he called to Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, they were fishermen by trade and were sitting there mending their fish nets, Jesus told them to follow him and he would make them fishers of men. So they dropped their nets and went with Jesus. (See Matthew 4:18-20 and Mark 1:16-18.

Jesus used symbolism a lot in his teachings. He compared God to fishermen that would sort out the good fish and the bad fish at the end of the day. (Matthew 13:47-50) He used 5 loaves of bread and two fish to feed five thousand people (Mark 6). And one time when the disciples were out fishing all night and caught nothing Jesus told them to cast their nets to the other side of the boat. When they did they had so many fish in the nets that the nets began to break. (Luke 5)

Then there is also the symbolism of the greatest fish story, Jonah and the whale. Jonah was in the fish for 3 days and night just as Jesus was dead for three days and nights. Actually it wasn’t a whale; it was referred to as a great fish. On the third day Jonah was thrown up onto the beach. On the third day Jesus came back to life.

Now days the fish is still used as a symbol to indicate a Christian. It is often used on bumper stickers, business cards, and various other printed material and for jewelry.