An abbreviation of Jesus' name often found on church paraphenalia . The abbreviation is not "ihc" but the Greek capital letters iota, eta and sigma, which are the first two and the last letters of Iesous, 'Jesus' in Greek. The abbreviation is sometimes misread as Jesus Hominum Salvator, 'Jesus Savior of Men.'
The letter 'j' was developed from 'i' sometime in the 17th Cent to denote the consonantal sound dzh in English, y in German, and zh in French. Prior to this the 'i' was used to denote both the vowel and the consonant without distinction.
©ALBERITH