Old SymbolsWhere every symbol began

Plate 1 Two intersecting arcs forming the outline of a fish

Ichthys

A fish drawn with two curved lines, one of the earliest Christian symbols. Its Greek name, ΙΧΘΥΣ, spells out “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour”.

Christian symbols

Meaning

The Greek word for fish, ichthys, works as an acrostic: its letters begin the words Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour”. The Catholic Encyclopedia holds that this acrostic, more than the Gospel stories of fish, made the sign popular, and calls the word “a brief profession of faith in the divinity of Christ”. The Catacombs of St Callixtus in Rome, whose walls carry some of the earliest examples, describe the fish as “a motto and a compendium of the Christian faith”.

Origin and history

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the fish was painted as a symbol in the catacomb of St Callixtus in the first decades of the second century. Tertullian, in his treatise on baptism, called Christians “little fishes” who “after the example of our ΙΧΘΥΣ Jesus Christ, are born in water”. Detroit Catholic’s Sean M. Wright notes that Christians used the fish to identify themselves to each other, and that it also recalled the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes.

The Jesus fish on cars

In modern times the fish has come back as a bumper sticker and a badge on car boots, its body left empty or filled with “Jesus” or “ICTUS”, as the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance describe it. It drew a secular reply: a fish with little legs and “DARWIN” inside, which set off what they call “fish wars”. Elesha Coffman, writing in Christianity Today, ties the bumper-sticker fish to a story told of the early Church: a Christian meeting a stranger would draw one arc of the fish in the dirt, and a stranger who drew the other arc was a believer too.

See also

Chi-Rho, Skull and crossbones, Latin cross, Orthodox cross, Jerusalem cross, Celtic cross.

Sources

  1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford University Press
  2. Symbolism of the Fish, The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907–1912), via New Advent
  3. The Catacombs of Saint Callixtus: Christian symbols, Catacombs of St Callixtus, Rome
  4. On Baptism, Tertullian; Ante-Nicene Fathers, via New Advent, Chapter 1
  5. Ancient symbols of the Most Holy Trinity, Sean M. Wright, 12 February 2025, Detroit Catholic, Archdiocese of Detroit
  6. Christian Symbols: The Fish, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, via the Internet Archive
  7. What is the origin of the Christian fish symbol?, Elesha Coffman, Christianity Today, via the Internet Archive

Last reviewed September 26, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research

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