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The Monogram of the Name of JesusIn the time of the very early Church (to 690 AD), if anyone wished to write out the name of Jesus Christ, it would have looked like the spelling below (written in Greek Letters)
 The Greek letters for Jesus are iota-eta-sigma-omnicron-upsilon-sigma. These Greek letters translate into the English letters as iota ("I") eta ("H") sigma ("S") omnicron ("O") upsilon ("U") and sigma ("S"), IHSOUS. Here sigma is rendered with it's Latin form "S". The Greek letter sigma can also be rendered with the letter ("C"), giving the translation as IHCOUC. Scribes in this time period were accustomed to indicating an abbreviation or a contraction by a tittle. Although there were various ways of indicating the omission of some letters, the most common way was by means of a bar over the resulting abbreviation. Therefore, abbreviations of the name of Jesus IH for Ihsous or "I H S" for IHsouS , or even IC for IhouC all would be written with a line or bar over the letters. The abbreviations for the name of Jesus, I H S and I H C and others appear side by side for several centuries until a letter was written by Amalarius (A.D. 827) to Archbishop Jonas asking whether the Name of Jesus should be written I H C or I H S. The Archbishop answered that it should be written with the Latin form of "S", thus "I H S " was to be used. In the parts of Europe where the influence of the Greeks was no felt, the Carolingian script went over into the Gothic and the monogram of Jesus was written
This form was generally used during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Also in this time period, it became customary to substitute the letters "y" or "j" for the letter i. It became quite common for the Italians to use the letter "y" to write: ymago, ydolatria, ytalia, ysrahel, yronia, ypocrises, and son on. For this reason you will sometimes see the monomgram written as "J H S" or "y h s" on some pictures or statues from this period of history. The monogram IC XC is more common among Eastern Christians. It is composed of the first and last letters of Jesus' Name in Greek (iota and sigma) with the first and last letters of Christos, the Greek word for Christ (chi and sigma, respectively). The sigmas are both rendered in "C" form, resulting in "IC XC". A Byzantine mosaic dated about the end of the thirteenth century bears the contraction IC XC. This monogram is commonly written on ikons of Christ near His halo to identify Him, and in the phrase "IC XC NIKA", meaning "Jesus Christ Conquers".
St. Bernardine of Siena and the Monogram of the Holy Name of JesusDuring his travels on foot through the various provinces of Italy, St. Bernardine persuaded the residents of the city states to take down the arms of their warring factions from the church and palace walls and to inscribe there, instead, the monogram of the most Holy Name of Jesus " I H S" He thus gave a new impulse and a tangible form to the devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. St. Bernadine frequently held a wooden board in front of him while preaching, with the sacred monogram "I H S" surrounded by rays of light painted on it. After these sermons he would expose the sacred name of Jesus for veneration and plead with the people to embrace as their way of life this heavenly name and all it signified. He appears to have introduced this custom at Volterra in 1424. The tablet used by St. Bernardine is still venerated today at the basilica of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli at Rome.
Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time
forth and for ever more!
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