3. The Jesus Fish
Officially known as vesica pises, the Jesus Fish has a long history attached to it. Today, the Ichthys, as it is sometimes called, is primarily associated with the Christian faith, and you can occasionally find one either on someone’s porch or as a bumper sticker. The symbol is oftentimes accompanied by the ancient Greek letters IXOYE which stand for Ichthys, or Fish. The letters are an acrostic which represents “Jesus Christ, God’s son, savior” and early Christians used it as a way to symbolize their faith in a time when the religion was still an underground organization. But the symbol itself is much older and had another, totally different meaning, even to the early Christians themselves.
In previous religions, the glyph was associated with the goddess Venus and stood for fertility since it kinda resembles a lady’s private parts. Some early representations of Jesus show him as an infant within a vesica pisces, which in this context is known as the mandorla, meaning “shaped like an almond.” And the mandorla was said to represent the “doorway” between the heavens and the material world. In architecture, Gothic-style arches are based on the mandorla as a representation of passage between the two worlds. The symbol is created by intersecting two circles, which again signify the connection between the worlds. By adding a third circle, we get the triquetra, or three interlocking vesica pisces, which symbolizes the Holy Trinity. By adding a few more circles we get the before mentioned Seed of Life.
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