At this time of year,
it is possible to hear that by writing
Xmas to abbreviate the word Christmas,
we are joining the secular world
and,
effectively,
taking Christ out of Christmas
as if we had put an X through His Holy Name.
But not so!
Such is not a traditional insight.
This is a false new notion
that threatens to take Christ out of Xmas
and fill us with fear of using the hallowed abbreviation.
This is then a good time to remember
that the use of the letter X
comes from the original Greek of the Gospel
and is one of the very ancient abbreviations in our language
that precisely means
Christ.
When we look at the picture of Our Mother of Perpetual Succour
we see that the letters above the Infant Jesus
are
IC XC
the abbreviation for
Jesus (IC) Christ (XC).
In the Greek of the Gospels,
the word Christ
Christos is written as Χριστός,
and the letter X
is just the first letter of his name.
Thus the icon writes the first and last letter of Χριστός
as
XC.
Not all did this.
Some abbreviated Christ to the first two Greek letters Xp.
The X in Xmas is the Greek letter equivalent to the English letters Ch;monks and priests have used it for centurieswhen writing the Holy Name of Christ.In English Xt is a common ecclesiastical abbreviation fo Christ.Seminarians with fast speaking professorsoften come to writingXt for Christ or even Xh for Church.
The most ancient way to abbreviate Christ's name was Xpwhich in English is the same as Xr (since the Greek for 'r' is written as 'p').That abbreviation -the XP- shown above to the right of Christ
comes from the catacombs.
The XP is also is often seen on sacred vestments;
it is the abbreviation and monogram for Christ. The Anglo Saxon Cronicle.
In our own language we find the Greek Xp
first rendered in English as Xr.
In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle written about 1100 we read
Christmas
abbreviated to
Xres mæsse.
About the same time that we have this abbreviation for Christmas,
we also have an example in the donation Inventory
written by Bishop Leofric
of England
(1046 - 1073)
who records the gift of a Saxon Gospel thus:
Englisc Xres-boc
English Christ-book
He also used the Xr abbreviation in Xres-boc for Christ-book.
(Illustrations of Anglo Saxon Poetry, John Conybeare, London, 1826, p. 199)
Xmas is an ancient abbreviation for Christmas.
Its use does not "take Christ out of Christmas".
Its use continues the ancient style of
uniting the Greek X of the Gospel to our English language,
as our forebears have done
for nearly a thousand years.
Let us keep Christ both in Xmas
and indeed in Christmas too.
