Caption: The fourth-century sarcophagus of Crispina, displayed at the Vatican Museums in Rome, features the deceased holding a codex monogrammed with the
Chi-Rho symbol for Christ.
Roger will be remembered by many of his contemporaries when he became the first president of the
Chi-Rho Club, founded by Father Donald P.
Other subjects include the distribution of verse types in Old English poetry, by Geoffrey Russom (English, Brown U., Rhode Island) and the importance of the
chi-rho in insular and Anglo-Saxon manuscript decoration.
Hurtado examines manuscripts used by early Christians as artifacts that reveal aspects of early Christianity: the earliest texts of Old and New Testament; the preference for the codex over the scroll; the use of nomina sacra (abbreviations for sacred names); the staurogram (the
chi-rho as the earliest symbol of the cross), and the size of codices.
In 312 Constantine ordered his soldiers to paint the
Chi-Rho symbol of the Christian God on their shields before going into battle against a rival emperor.
In Christian tradition, the superimposed
Chi-Rho (Greek letters for the Ch & R sounds that begin the name, or, more precisely, title "Christ") flanked by alpha (first letter of the Greek alphabet) and omega (the last letter), that is the faith affirmation that Christ, as God, is "the beginning and the end," easily transpose from the Egyptian Ankh, the sign of life.
Early Christian terracotta lamps with Christian symbols including fish, lambs and
Chi-rho symbols will also be auctioned at Bonhams, Knightsbridge.Write to Anna at One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5AP or email her at a.day@sundaymirror.co.uk
And a terrible deficiency in the book - one of which Head is victim rather than perpetrator - is the poverty of the muddy, black-and-white illustrations of texts like the
chi-rho monogram from The Book of Kells and the St Mark carpet page from the Lindisfarne Gospels, illuminations whose colour and text-border linking Head describes so eloquently.
Hefyd cafwyd hyd i ddarn o botyn hefo'r symbol
Chi-Rho, sydd wedi ei ffurfio o'r ddwy lythyren gyntaf Groegaidd o enw Crist.
For whatever reason Constantine dreamed that if he put the Greek letters
chi-rho (XP) on his standards he would win his final battle for Rome.