in roman times, christianity was regarded as a cult with dangerously monotheistic principles.  romans officially worshipped the spirit of their city and certain historical emperors as minor gods in their pantheon, and these christ-lovers were in-your-face about opting out, staying away from or even protesting public festivals of worship.  when domestic terrorism broke out – the great fire of 64, which economically devastated the city and really did not do good things for the stability of the empire – attention turned to this aggressive segregationist cult and, guided by a savvy emperor desperately in need of some good pr, romans started singling out and executing christians, throwing them to lions for public sport.

not a good time to publicly declare yourself a follower, but a very good time to have the support of your community. christians needed a way to identify each other covertly, and they already had a pretty clever method: use a common word, imbued with additional meaning by making it into an acronym.  the word: ΙΧΘΥΣ (ichthys, the greek word for fish), which they declared an anagram of Ἰησοῦς Χριστóς Θεοῦ Yἱός Σωτήρ – jesus christ, god’s son, savior.  when the romans came after them, they elaborated the motif into something even simpler – two curves, crossing to make the outline of a fish.

now, of course, it’s plastered onto bumpers across the heartland.  growing up in the middle west, i often found that the jesus fish was used to ostracise non-christians and to market the inclusion that membership in a church entailed.  that the symbol originated as the secret mark of an anarchic group trying to hide in plain sight, used to mark safe havens, casts the fish’s present commercialism in sharp relief.