Note: I began this piece in the fall, hoping to finish it before Christmas. Alas, I could not. I just couldn't stay interested in it. For some reason I remembered it last week and pulled it out. What can I say? My muse knows no seasons.

This is a facsimile of a section of the Codex Bezae, an important New Testament manuscript that dates to the 5th or 6th century. It was created using a font that approximates the original style. Photographs of Codex Bezae are not permitted.

Bezae was written on pages of vellum. Being a codex, it was bound like the books of our day, between two covers with writing on both sides of the pages. The manuscript contains the Gospels, Acts, and a small piece of 3rd John. It is the only extant Greek version of the Western family of New Testament texts, so its value to scholars is immeasurable. It has resided in the University of Cambridge library since 1581.

No one knows who created this manuscript, though it is thought to have been done in France, for it was guarded for centuries in a monastic library there. But the man who actually lettered its pages is lost to history. Whoever he was, he would have seen his craft as a sacred calling. Writing was an exotic way to spend your time in those days; few people had the materials or the ability to do it, nor would they have understood why it was important. Many monks gave their lives to the painstaking task of copying the text of the Bible. Their method of writing would best be described as calligraphy. Speed was unimportant. The style of the lettering was as much a part of the art of writing as capturing the content. Hunched over an angled writing desk, using a quill dipped in ink, the man who created Codex Bezae slowly copied the words of the text, one stroke at a time, day after day, until it was finished.

Centuries later, it's easy to lump the scribes of the ancient world into a group - “Those guys who copied the Bible.” It’s easy to forget that this task was an important part of history for centuries, and many entire lives were given to it. The man who created the Codex Bezae got up every morning, stretched, prayed, ate breakfast, and went to work at the scriptorium. At the end of the day he would wring his tired hand and perhaps talk with his fellow monks as they walked to dinner or prayers. Over his lifetime he would have finished numerous manuscripts, though it is doubtful that any others still exist.

Parchment was valuable in those days. Very valuable. An animal had to be killed just to make a few pages of it. Imagine wanting to write something and having to make such careful and costly arrangements. The scribes were, therefore, very frugal. The development of the codex form with writing on both sides of the parchment was a major breakthrough in conservation. Sometimes they would scrape the words off a piece of vellum or parchment and use it again. To get as many words as they could in the space they had, they wrote with no punctuation or spaces between the letters, though in my observation they seemed to have been very extravagant with their margins. Because of this, ancient manuscripts are almost illegible for junior greek scholars like me. But if you knew the language well enough, YOUWOULDBEABLETOREADITWITHNOTROUBLE.

There was another method they had of conserving space. Very common words developed abbreviations that are now called nomina sacra, which is Latin for “sacred names.” Customarily, scribes would use a few letters of the word as an abbreviation. A theta and a sigma was an abbreviation for Theos, or God. An iota, an eta, and a sigma was a common abbreviation for Iesous, or Jesus. Christ, or Xristos, was often shortened to a chi or a chi and a sigma. Sometimes a line was drawn above abbreviated words.

The scribe who made the Codex Bezae used abbreviations at the top of this section. Kat Math is short for “kata Mathaion,” which means “according to Matthew.” I must say that dropping the final alpha from kata doesn’t seem like a very helpful abbreviation, but that’s the way they did it.

This selection is also from Bezae. It can be literally translated, “Questioned them, the Jesus, saying...” Notice the line above the letters that appear to be IHC. In reality that is iota, eta, and a final sigma. That abbreviation is for the name of Jesus. You still see the IHS abbreviation everywhere, particularly in high church settings. In a humorous, modern twist to the story, many people can’t figure out what IHS means. Some say, “I think it means “In His Service.” Others say, “I think it means Jesus, but I don’t know how the letters fit.” Upon hearing this, people nod gravely and allow that it must mean Jesus, leaving the details behind the symbol to be yet another great mystery of the Church.

For centuries nomina sacra were common and used by the scribes who were carefully preserving the scriptures. Most of these fell out of use over the years as paper became cheap, though I still use a theta for God and a chi for Christ in my sermon notes. Perhaps subconsciously I want to claim a spiritual connection to the scribes of old. While I do not have to copy out the scriptures, I am a member of a sacred order of persons dedicated to the preservation of these writings by means our own love, devotion, and faithful proclamation.

And that brings us nicely to Xmas. Yes, that same Xmas you have seen emblazoned upon dime store windows in brush script:

And now you know the whole story. It is not an X that is meant to cross the word Christ out of Christmas, indicating the death of a cherished holiday and the beginning of a pagan resurgence that will doubtless mark the end of capitalism, freedom, and the American way. It is a Chi (Greek = X), the ancient symbol for Christ. Somehow it has survived all these years, hearkening back to a time when even the spelling of Christ’s name was an extravagant gesture.

In truth, you’d have a hard time finding Christ in our modern Christmas if you were of a mind to remove him. We Christians have a quieter holiday vigil of candles and a careful waiting for the birth of Jesus. We celebrate our Advent alongside the cultural Christmas holiday with its Coca-Cola Santa, decorated evergreens, yule log, egg nog, and numerous other pagan symbols that have survived from an earlier solstice celebration, though we find more meaning in the former than the latter.

Whenever I see the word Xmas, my mind travels back in time, and I see a monk hunched over his desk. His breath is still visible in the cold morning air of the scriptorium. He blows on his hands, dips his quill in ink, and begins to work. His tongue appears at the corner of his lips as he concentrates on the downstroke of a chi and thinks of his beloved savior.

If you love calligraphy, you will understand why the survival of the ancient nomina sacra is a mysterious and beautiful thing. If you have seen a quill dipped into a well of quality ink, black as the center of a galaxy, and heard that inimitable scratching of pen on paper, you will understand. If you have ever blown gently across fine paper, waiting for the ink of your words to dry and reflecting further upon them, you will understand.

You will understand why I long to put the X back in Xmas.

rlp

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