‘Jesus H. Christ’ is an expletive that people often utter in surprise, disappointment, disgust, or astonishment. But where does the ‘H’ come from?
Dr Daniel McClellan, an honorary fellow at the University of Birmingham has finally revealed the back story of Jesus’ supposed ‘middle name’.
In a TikTok video, Dr McClellan explains that contrary to popular belief, the ‘H’ doesn’t stand for anything at all.
Instead, this letter has its origin in an ancient Greek symbol called a ‘Christogram’.
According to the expert, the nickname emerged from a long-forgotten joke about Jesus’ initials.
Dr McClellan says: ‘The most widely accepted theory is that it derives from a specific Christogram.
‘A Christogram is a one, two, or three letter abbreviation that is used as a symbol to represent the name Jesus, the titled Christ, or the name Jesus Christ.’
However, over hundreds of years, one of these symbols became warped through translation to leave the supposed initials JHC.
In a TikTok, Bible expert Dr Daniel McClellan reveals the origins of the ‘H’ in Jesus H. Christ
In the early history of the church, Christians started to create symbols which abbreviated Jesus’ name.
For example, one you might use without even knowing it is the abbreviation of Christmas to ‘X-mas’.
Dr McClellan says: ‘The X represents the Greek letter ‘Χ’ or ‘Chi’ which is the first letter in the title Christ: Χρίστος (Christos).’
Likewise, in the Roman Catholic faith, you might see a symbol which looks like an ‘X’ with a tall ‘P’ emerging from it.
This symbol is a combination of the ancient Greek letters ‘Chi’ and ‘Rho’, which give the first two letters of ‘Christ’ in Greek.
According to Christian beliefs, this was the very symbol which the emperor Constantine saw in a vision before converting the Roman Empire to Christianity.
While the story of Constantine’s sudden conversion has been made more dramatic over time, the so-called ‘Chi-Rho’ Christogram soon became his personal symbol.
The Chi-Rho has since been found everywhere from coins and Roman milestones in Britain to a 1300-year-old tattoo in Sudan.
During the early history of the Church, Christians began creating symbols called Christograms which combined the first letters of Jesus’ name or the title Christ. For example, the ‘Chi-Rho’ symbol combines the first two letters of Christ in Greek to make one symbol (pictured)
The Chi-Rho was adopted as the personal symbol of Roman emperor Constantine and has been found everywhere from Roman milestones in Britain to 1300-year-old tattoos in Sudan (pictured)
‘Another Christogram used the first three letters of Jesus in Greek: Iota, eta, sigma,’ says Dr McClellan.
‘And very quickly that began to be used in Latin transliteration which looks like “IHS”. But there’s another way to write the “S” called the “lunate sigma” which looks an awful lot like a C.
‘So, the first three letters of Jesus’ name transliterated into Latin could look like “IHC”.’
While it might seem odd that the name ‘Jesus’ would be spelt with an ‘I’, this is because the letter ‘J’ had not yet been invented.
Before the 16th century, written texts didn’t distinguish between the letters ‘i’ and ‘j’ even though they were pronounced differently.
It is believed that the first person to make this distinction was an Italian grammarian called Gian Giorgio Trissino in 1524.
However, after the letter ‘J’ became common in the 17th century, the IHC Christogram began to be written as ‘JHC’.
Dr McClellan says: ‘These still represent just the first three letters of the name Jesus spelt in Greek, transliterated into Latin.
Later, Christians made a Christogram using the first letters of ‘Jesus’ in Greek: Iota, eta, sigma. When these were transliterated into Latin, it became ‘IHS’ as pictured here on the Church of Gesu, in Rome
Dr McClellan says that the ‘i’ became a ‘j’ in the 16th century to create a Christogram which looked like ‘JHC’. People then joked that this stood for Jesus H. Christ
‘But it kind of looks like his initials: “J” for Jesus, “C” for Christ, and then the “H” must be his middle initial.
‘And so, as a joke, people started saying “Jesus H. Christ”.’
In reality, most biblical experts say that ‘Jesus’ wasn’t even Jesus’ real name.
Jesus lived in a part of the world where Aramaic, a language which originated in Syria, and so would not have used a Greek name.
One of the earliest versions of Jesus’ name is the Hebrew name ‘Yeshua’, which is the equivalent of the modern English name Joshua.
However, when the New Testament was written in Greek the Hebrew name was translated into an approximation of Iesus.
By the time the Greek versions of the New Testaments began to be translated into English, that mistake stuck and ‘Iesus’ became ‘Jesus’.
Meanwhile, ‘Christ’ isn’t a name at all, but a title meaning ‘Messiah’ or ‘God’s anointed one’.
