Early Christian Symbols:
Romans Spies and Christians Activity
Instructions
1. Starter: Review persecution of Christians. Ask the students why they think it was necessary to
have secret symbols. (Christians were being persecuted – from the time of Nero in 64 AD until
Constantine’s Edict of Milan 313AD - 250 years.
2. Set up Activity:
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Explain that the students will be finding out the secret symbols of Christianity, so that they
can recognise who can/ can’t be trusted.
Explain that you will give each group of 5/6 students information about the same Christian
symbol. Tell them to write it up in the table they receive.
Tell the students that they have 10 mins to find out what the other secret symbols of
Christianity are, by meeting up and exchanging information with other Christians. Students
then mill around completing their table from other students.
!!!Complication!!!: Choose Roman spies: explain that there are some Roman spies in the
class. (choose them by asking class to close eyes, and tap 3 or 4 students on the head). If
they find out all the symbols before the rest of the class do, everyone is arrested.
3. Writing Summing Activity: Which symbol would they choose for their own house/ to identify
themselves to other Christians and explain if it is a good way of keeping their religion safe from
Romans.
4. Synthesis: Students design their own secret symbol and explain it to the class.
m.rumian/ History of the Church/ may 2009
Symbol
MEANING
DESCRIPTION
Why the Romans
didn’t suspect it
Fish
The letters stand
A fish, sometimes for the phrase:
Iesus Kristos Theou Hios Soter
with the greek
word for “fish”
written inside.
Each letter stands
for something..
IHS
The letters stand
for the phrase:
Iesus Hominem Salvator
Alpha and Omega
The first and
last letter of
the Greek
alphabet
(alpha and
omega)
Greek Cross
Shepherd
Passover Lamb
This symbol
represents
This symbol
represents
The Romans just
thought this was a
bit of art ,showing
a countryside scene.
This symbol
represents
m.rumian/ History of the Church/ may 2009
Shepherd:
a shepherd carrying a sheep on his shoulders.
This symbolises Jesus the Good Shepherd, who cares for us,
his sheep, and leads us safely to our home in heaven with
nothing to fear .
This was a popular image of the countryside in
wouldn’t have aroused suspicion.
Roman art, so it
Alpha and Omega,
These are the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet.
This is a way of saying that Jesus (like God) is the
First and the Last, the Beginning and the End of all
things. To the Romans, it just looked like 2 letters
of the alphabet – not very interesting.
The Fish.
The word for “fish” in Greek is I.
(ICHTHUS)
Each of these letters stands for Jesus Christ, God’s
Son, is Saviour. This was the first statement of what
Christians believed about Jesus - that Jesus is God’s son, and our
Saviour from sin and death).
If a person wanted to identify himself as a Christian, he would draw
the fish on the ground. To the Romans, this just looked like a
fish, who wouldn’t know what the letters stood for. All they could
see was a fish, with the word for “fish” written inside – not very
interesting. Just an innocent doodle.
IHS
-
This stands for the Roman letters Iesus
Hominem Salvator - which means “Jesus is the Saviour of
mankind”.
Romans thought this symbol represented one of their own Roman gods,
Bacchus, so they didn’t mind seeing it.
m.rumian/ History of the Church/ may 2009
The Greek cross.
The cross as we know it wasn’t used in early Christian
times: – it was too fresh in everybody’s mind as an
instrument of torture . Also, it would have been a
very obvious give-away of who was a Christian. (who else would be
obsessed about drawing instruments of torture, except followers of
the man who was crucified?)
So instead, Christians use the Greek cross – it was shaped like a
letter in the Greek alphabet - “Chi” - not very interesting to
the Romans if they saw it around.
The Passover Lamb
The Passover lamb is the lamb the Jews sacrificed on
Passover night when they were slaves in Egypt. They put
the lamb’s blood on their doorposts, and it spared them
from the 10th plague – the death of the firstborn.
Passover night was also the night that Pharaoh allowed
the Jews to leave the slavery of Egypt.
Jesus is represented as the Passover lamb, because he was also
sacrificed, shedding his blood so that our sins would be forgiven
and we would be spared from death.
Unlike the Jews, who only had
their lives on earth spared for a bit longer, the blood of Christ
gives us eternal life, with him, forever.
The whole symbol represents the resurrection of Christ and his
victory over sin and death.
For the Romans: just another bit of art from the countryside. Who
cares about the banner.
m.rumian/ History of the Church/ may 2009