Alpha and Omega
The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, used by Christians as a name for Christ: the beginning and the end of all things.
Meaning
In the first chapter of the Book of Revelation God calls himself the Alpha and the Omega, and in its last chapters Christ says the same of himself: he is before all things and at the end of all, their beginning and their end. Catholics meet the letters every Easter on the paschal candle, lit from the new fire at the Easter Vigil, which, as the Diocese of Harrisburg’s newspaper puts it, reminds them that Christ is the Alpha and the Omega and that all time belongs to him.
Origin and history
The idea is older than the Greek letters. Isaiah has God say “I am the first and the last”, and the Catholic Encyclopedia (1907) records that Jewish sages found meaning in emeth, “truth”, which begins with aleph and ends with tav, the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The pair is among the symbols in the Roman catacombs, where, as the Catacombs of St Callixtus explain it, it means that Christ is the beginning and the end of all things. In the early church it also became a monogram of Christ, written under the arms of a cross within a circle or triangle, and it appears on coins of the emperors Constans and Constantius. Sometimes the omega is set on the left and the alpha on the right, to show the beginning and the end joined in Christ.
See also
Chi-Rho, Skull and crossbones, Latin cross, Orthodox cross, Jerusalem cross, Celtic cross.
Sources
- Apocalypse (Revelation), chapter 1, The Holy Bible, Knox translation, via New Advent, Apocalypse 1:8
- Apocalypse (Revelation), chapter 22, The Holy Bible, Knox translation, via New Advent, Apocalypse 22:13
- Alpha and Omega, The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907–1912), via New Advent
- The Paschal Candle, The Catholic Witness, newspaper of the Diocese of Harrisburg
- The Catacombs of Saint Callixtus: Christian symbols, Catacombs of St Callixtus, Rome
Last reviewed September 24, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research