Jack Chick & IHS

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Revelation13_16

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Hi CA,

So those who might be following my investigation might like to know that I went to my first Anglo-Catholic mass today.

Unfortunately, I noticed many homosexuals in the church - and they were taking communion - and at the end they did the Angelus.

What? Why?

If you’re going to ask Mary for intercession, just become a Catholic already!

I figured out that the reason they aren’t Catholics is probably because half of them are raised Anglican, and old habits die hard, the other half are gay and Rome shuns them.

Anyway, the people were nice but in the bookshop they sold books about Kabbalah. (in the “house of God”?)

Afterwards when I left, I kind of knew Anglo-Catholicism wouldn’t be for me.

I want to take Mass everyday and in my city of Sydney, the only places you can take it is at an Anglo-Catholic parish or a Catholic parish.

Disullusioned and still on my quest to find the true church, I wandered to St. Juliens Catholic Church - I planned to go to Catholic Mass and suss it out the next week.

Then I thought I’d check out St. Mary’s Catholic cathedral, just for the fun of it.

I headed over to St. Mary’s - my it was big - nay huge.

I noticed a schoolgirl on the steps handing out something - was there a wedding?

No, it was a 2pm Mass for a Catholic School - what luck, I’m going to witness my first Catholic mass, hooray.

To my suprise, St. Mary’s was filled with pictures of Jesus, and only two statues of Mary were present, great.

I didn’t take communion (naturally) and I weighed up whether I should recieve a blessing or not (nearly in tears) and decided to stay in my seat.

Here’s why I couldn’t even recieve a wafer waved blessing:

My problem.is as a fundamental Protestant, I used to read Jack Chick tracts when I was younger. (entertaining but apparently Chick has some spurious claims - though not all)

Chick claims IHS stands for “Isis, Horus, seb” Egyptian sun gods, and that the sun on the eucharist wafers is sun worship.

There’s also apparently secular evidence that IHS was Bacchus in the Roman empire.

Look, I don’t want to feel this way but I can’t take any communion with IHS on it until I find conclusive proof that IHS is historic and holy.

So I appeal to you CA, as one who is edging closer to Catholicism (who’d have thought?) to help me bunk this Chick myth.

Convince me Chick is wrong and that IHS is all good.

Love,
Rev
 
Well, for one thing, not all communion hosts have IHS on them, and the smaller ones distributed to the faithful rarely have any markings at all. Usually the large ones typically are embossed with the PX (chi-rho) symbol instead.

Second, IHS are not Latin letters, they are Greek (that’s why some have IHC instead; the sigma used to look like the C used in Latin writing). They stand for the first three letters of Jesus’ name in Greek (Iesous; IHCYC): iota-eta-sigma. It’s known as a monogram.

(And of course, all Catholics know that Isis, Horus and Seb were Goa’uld, not gods). 😃
Revelation13_16 said:
Hi CA,

So those who might be following my investigation might like to know that I went to my first Anglo-Catholic mass today.

Unfortunately, I noticed many homosexuals in the church - and they were taking communion - and at the end they did the Angelus.

What? Why?

If you’re going to ask Mary for intercession, just become a Catholic already!

I figured out that the reason they aren’t Catholics is probably because half of them are raised Anglican, and old habits die hard, the other half are gay and Rome shuns them.

Anyway, the people were nice but in the bookshop they sold books about Kabbalah. (in the “house of God”?)

Afterwards when I left, I kind of knew Anglo-Catholicism wouldn’t be for me.

I want to take Mass everyday and in my city of Sydney, the only places you can take it is at an Anglo-Catholic parish or a Catholic parish.

Disullusioned and still on my quest to find the true church, I wandered to St. Juliens Catholic Church - I planned to go to Catholic Mass and suss it out the next week.

Then I thought I’d check out St. Mary’s Catholic cathedral, just for the fun of it.

I headed over to St. Mary’s - my it was big - nay huge.

I noticed a schoolgirl on the steps handing out something - was there a wedding?

No, it was a 2pm Mass for a Catholic School - what luck, I’m going to witness my first Catholic mass, hooray.

To my suprise, St. Mary’s was filled with pictures of Jesus, and only two statues of Mary were present, great.

I didn’t take communion (naturally) and I weighed up whether I should recieve a blessing or not (nearly in tears) and decided to stay in my seat.

Here’s why I couldn’t even recieve a wafer waved blessing:

My problem.is as a fundamental Protestant, I used to read Jack Chick tracts when I was younger. (entertaining but apparently Chick has some spurious claims - though not all)

Chick claims IHS stands for “Isis, Horus, seb” Egyptian sun gods, and that the sun on the eucharist wafers is sun worship.

There’s also apparently secular evidence that IHS was Bacchus in the Roman empire.

Look, I don’t want to feel this way but I can’t take any communion with IHS on it until I find conclusive proof that IHS is historic and holy.

So I appeal to you CA, as one who is edging closer to Catholicism (who’d have thought?) to help me bunk this Chick myth.

Convince me Chick is wrong and that IHS is all good.

Love,
Rev
Click to expand...
 
Hey Rev! 👋

God bless you in your search for the truth.
I pray that the Holy Spirit will keep guiding you along.

Okay, so you read that trash by JTC…he’s full of garbage.

It’s probably from his tract “Men in Black”, right?
http://www.catholic.com/images/Image34.gif
Well you’ll be pleased to read this then.
Another of Chick’s attempts to link the Eucharist with paganism is found in his frequent depictions of the host imprinted with the letters IHS. He tells the reader that this stands for a trio of Egyptian gods (who were *not *a trinity, incidentally). Chick’s claim is nonsense. The letters aren’t English at all, but Greek. In fact, they are the first three letters of Jesus’ name in Greek: iota-eta-sigma (capital eta**Jesus throughout Church history.
Click to expand...
Code: 
                Though you wouldn’t know it from Chick, few Catholics have ever *seen* a host imprinted with these letters. Most hosts either have nothing on them or a cross design. What design, if any, is imprinted on a host is up to the maker. There is no Church regulation on this, and few makers have used the IHS design. Yet Chick would lead one to believe that it is omnipresent in Catholic churches. in Greek looks like the English H). This has been a common abbreviation for
Click to expand...
The Nightmare World Of Jack T. Chick. (LINK)

I really suggest that you go have a good long study of that report. It’s WAY long, but it’s also WAY thorough and will pretty much refute all his propaganda.

You’ll find that he is either severely ignorant of a lot of things…or he’s an outright liar.
Pax tecum my friend.

P.S. (Next time…go get that blessing. And sign up for RCIA. 🙂 )
 
Revelation13_16 said:
Hi CA,

So those who might be following my investigation might like to know that I went to my first Anglo-Catholic mass today.

Unfortunately, I noticed many homosexuals in the church - and they were taking communion - and at the end they did the Angelus.

What? Why?

If you’re going to ask Mary for intercession, just become a Catholic already!

I figured out that the reason they aren’t Catholics is probably because half of them are raised Anglican, and old habits die hard, the other half are gay and Rome shuns them.

Anyway, the people were nice but in the bookshop they sold books about Kabbalah. (in the “house of God”?)

Afterwards when I left, I kind of knew Anglo-Catholicism wouldn’t be for me.

I want to take Mass everyday and in my city of Sydney, the only places you can take it is at an Anglo-Catholic parish or a Catholic parish.

Disullusioned and still on my quest to find the true church, I wandered to St. Juliens Catholic Church - I planned to go to Catholic Mass and suss it out the next week.

Then I thought I’d check out St. Mary’s Catholic cathedral, just for the fun of it.

I headed over to St. Mary’s - my it was big - nay huge.

I noticed a schoolgirl on the steps handing out something - was there a wedding?

No, it was a 2pm Mass for a Catholic School - what luck, I’m going to witness my first Catholic mass, hooray.

To my suprise, St. Mary’s was filled with pictures of Jesus, and only two statues of Mary were present, great.

I didn’t take communion (naturally) and I weighed up whether I should recieve a blessing or not (nearly in tears) and decided to stay in my seat.

Here’s why I couldn’t even recieve a wafer waved blessing:

My problem.is as a fundamental Protestant, I used to read Jack Chick tracts when I was younger. (entertaining but apparently Chick has some spurious claims - though not all)

Chick claims IHS stands for “Isis, Horus, seb” Egyptian sun gods, and that the sun on the eucharist wafers is sun worship.

There’s also apparently secular evidence that IHS was Bacchus in the Roman empire.

Look, I don’t want to feel this way but I can’t take any communion with IHS on it until I find conclusive proof that IHS is historic and holy.

So I appeal to you CA, as one who is edging closer to Catholicism (who’d have thought?) to help me bunk this Chick myth.

Convince me Chick is wrong and that IHS is all good.

Love,
Rev
Click to expand...
Rev, I know many serious protestant ministers and apologists (and even some that tend to be a little “anti-catholic”, such as James White) that have absolutely NO respect for Chick because of how UNTRUSTWORTHY he is with his claims. I don’t know his intentions, but if they are good, he must believe that deliberately lying and inventing or especulating on things is allowed in this case to “save catholics from Hell” (i.e., the ends justify the means), but I tell you Scriptures are clear who is behind lies (John 8:44).

IHS are the first three letter of Jesus’ NAME in Greek, as some brother have already told you here, and that’s about it. (Some people in the past have wrongly thought it meant “Iesus Hominum Salvator” “Jesus, saviour of men”, but this is not correct)

Many blessings,

E.C.
 
Something else, it must be clear that IHS IS a very ANCIENT christian symbol.

Regards,

E.C.
 
👋 Just your “Friendly Neighborhood Methodist” here…

I just have read this thread, & want to say, that if this is any help at all: I grew up in the Free Methodist Church. Our church (& many other FM churches I have visited) had a communion table with “IHS” carved on it…because it is an abbrevaiation of Jesus’ name. (They still have that same table! I saw it the last time I visited the church of my childhood!!)
Now if arguably the most theologically conservative body of the tradition of Methodism has that…Then maybe these :yup: good folks here at CA know a:thumbsup: little more than:whacky: Jack Chick.

HTH!!!

God bless all here.
 
Zooey,

That is because, as I said, IHS is very ancient Christian symbol.

blessings,

E.C.
 
Rev, you’re on my stomping ground! I live near the CBD and frequently head either to the Cathedral or sometimes to St Peter Julian’s for mass, depending on my schedule. You’ll find St Peter Julian’s very different from the Cathedral, which shows the broadness of Catholic practice and faith. St Peter J’s is not nearly as much to my taste, though.

There are two others in the area I’d also suggest, if you REALLY want to do the rounds:
  1. St Benedicts in Broadway (Abercrombie Street, a block or two away from the shopping centre) - personally I love it, the priest there is an excellent homilist, and the Masses are very reverent and rubrical IMHO.
  2. St Patricks up near Circular Quay - stunning church, six Masses a day on weekdays with at least half an hour’s confession before each one.
If you want a TLM (Latin) Mass, the place to go is Maternal Heart of Mary at Lewisham. Haven’t gone there myself, so I can’t tell you much about it.
 
Ἰησοῦς = Ihsous = Jesus
(“I-e-s-o-u-s”)

∴

IHSous = JESus
 
You want to know that Chick is wrong? Look up Egyptian mythology on any non-fundamentalist website, or look it up in a secular textbook. Guess what you will find? There are more than three gods, so there is not “Egyptian trinity.” Why not the “higher” gods, like Ra (Amun-Ra) or Osiris? The only answer is that they do not fit in the IHS story Chick tells. This single fact ought to shed enough light of truth on his integrity, or at least his scholarship.
 
Revelation13_16 said:
Hi CA,

So those who might be following my investigation might like to know that I went to my first Anglo-Catholic mass today.

Unfortunately, I noticed many homosexuals in the church - and they were taking communion - and at the end they did the Angelus.

Rev
Click to expand...
you will never find a church home where you can be happy and welcome if your attitude is to enter every church you see and immediately judge the spiritual condition (and sexual orientation) of every person present.

your searching at this time should be to hear the gospel, the message of Christ (not Jack Chick or any other self-appointed dictator) and learn what it means to take up your cross and live as a disciple of Jesus, learn his love and mercy and his infinite gift to us.

go into a Catholic church, never mind looking at the statues and judging those in the pews, listen to the gospel, proclaimed not only at the readings, but in every word of every prayer in the Mass. open your heart to the message.
 
Please, don’t believe Chick and whenever in doubt just ask us (like you did now - thank you for that). I don’t understand how anyone in their right mind could honestly think that a person who claims that for example Catholic Church invented Islam, that Vatican stores names of all protestants in a super computer etc. is a reliable source of information.

Revelation, I think you’re on the right track. I encourage to not give up and continue in your search for the Truth. Remember that Jesus is ONE and so are his teachings and ultimately the Truth.
 
Revelation 13:16,

I see you’ve already gotten several replies. If I may suggest something that sounds a bit way out, do you approve of the practice of wearing wedding rings? Do you think Jack Chick would?

Wearing wedding rings is a pagan practice that was imported into the Catholic Church. People who wear wedding rings now are not practicing paganism, they are simply following a Christianized tradition.

Again, many pagan religions practiced baptism. Does this make us pagan when we are baptized? Not at all.

It is the same thing with this IHS thing–if in fact Jack Chick is right, which is highly unlikely. Just because the same initials can be applied to some pagan names does not make the three letters pagan.
  • Liberian
 
I never understood the IHS stands for Isis, Horus, etc. The Egyptians didn’t have a Latin alphabet, so how did they end up using Latin letters for their supposed offering?
 
Revelation13_16 said:
…

Here’s why I couldn’t even recieve a wafer waved blessing:

My problem.is as a fundamental Protestant, I used to read Jack Chick tracts when I was younger. (entertaining but apparently Chick has some spurious claims - though not all)

Chick claims IHS stands for “Isis, Horus, seb” Egyptian sun gods, and that the sun on the eucharist wafers is sun worship.

There’s also apparently secular evidence that IHS was Bacchus in the Roman empire…
Click to expand...

What is that evidence ?​

The IHS idea comes from a book written 140 years by a minister of the Free Church of Scotland, which Chick has done much to popularise. The leading idea of it is, that Catholicism was a superficial Christianisation of what the author claimed to be the religion of Babylon & Assyria in 2181 BC or so. It’s cleverly written, but simply not accurate.

Anyway:

For the argument to work, these things are assumed:
  1. The custom of stamping the Eucharistic breads must be known at Rome at the same time as Isis and the others were worshipped there. As the Temple of Isis at Philae in Egypt was closed in 532, the use of wafer-stamping needs to be earlier. If IHS-stamps were not used in the West before then, the argument fails. I don’t know when bread-stamping began, or where.
that they were stamping them with IHS in particular - a lamb or a Cross or something else won’t support his argument.

that Isis, Horus, & Seb were worshipped at Rome; specifically, as a Trinity. All three need to be popular at Rome, because he is complaining about Rome’s bishop in particular. His argument is no good if it condemns Egyptian or Greek bishops - it’s the bishop of Rome who is in his sights, not them. These pagans need not be speakers of Egyptian - but they do need to worship those three gods. Because that is what the author & his copiers (such as Chick) have claimed. (Coptic - the final stage of the Egyptian language - came into use abt. 600 BC; hieroglyph-cutting was still alive in 100 AD.)

that Isis, and Horus, and “Seb” (“Keb” to the Greeks) were grouped as a triad; & be the only “Egyptian Trinity”. There are many groups of Egyptian gods, in twos, threes, fours & so on; there was nothing special about divine triads.

that the Church was prepared to conciliate the worshippers of these gods. The worship of these deities needs to be present at Rome, and, enough of a challenge to the Church for the ambiguity described to be thought necessary. The public worship of Isis was forbidden in 394, three years after the Serapeum at Alexandria had been defiled by a Christian mob.

that the Church in Rome was prepared to tolerate heliolatry. Some Christians in the fifth century saluted the sun before entering for Mass - we know this because Leo the Great rebukes them in a sermon for doing so. Gelasius I’s letter rebuking the Christian senator Andromachus for wanting to revive the Saturnalia in 494 is the source for that episode. IOW, the evidence for how the bishops of Rome acted is against the theory.

that the names of the deities must be correct. As “Geb” has been the correct reading for “Seb” for about 80 years, the argument breaks down. S and G are represented by two bird-hieroglyphics, which are very alike to look at (Much as D & R in Hebrew are very alike in the squared letters now used.) If Sarapis rather than Geb had been named, the argument would have been stronger. But Geb was needed for reasons described in the book, which do not fit Sarapis. Sarapis was very popular, not least in Rome - as were Isis and Horus. “Seb” is the wrong name, so the whole idea of an ambiguous use of the letters IHS falls to the ground. Isis & Horus were worshipped in Rome - but not Geb. There is no god Seb anyway.

that names of gods indicated by the first letter alone. This is assumed but needs to be shown.

[continue…]
 
…continued]

The passage Chick popularises is this:

In regard to the Pagan character of the “unbloody sacrifice” of the mass, we have seen not little already. But there is something yet to be considered, in which the working of the mystery of iniquity will still further appear. There are letters on the wafer that are worth reading. These letters are I. H. S. What mean these mystical letters? To a Christian these letters are represented as signifying, “Iesus Hominum Salvator,” “Jesus the Saviour of men.” But let a Roman worshipper of Isis (for in the age of the emperors there were innumerable worshippers of Isis in Rome) cast his eyes upon them, and how will he read them? He will read them, of course, according to his own well known system of idolatry: “Isis, Horus, Seb,” that is, “The Mother, the Child, and the Father of the gods,”–in other words, “The Egyptian Trinity.”

Can the reader imagine that this double sense is accidental? Surely not. The very same spirit that converted the festival of the Pagan Oannes into the feast of the Christian Joannes, retaining at the same time all its ancient Paganism, has skilfully planned the initials I. H. S. to pay the semblance of a tribute to Christianity, while Paganism in reality has all the substance of the homage bestowed upon it…"

philologos.org/__eb-ttb/sect43.htm

A more plausible “Egyptian trinity” might be Amun, Ptah, & Atum - all of whom were kings of the gods & creator gods. But what was needed was a Father-figure, a Son-figure, & a Spirit/Mother-figure. Not all “trinities” are like that - something that those who quote this book to argue that the Blessed Trinity is a pagan idea, tend to overlook. (They never explain what they mean by “pagan”, either…) Geb was not even the very first of gods in Egypt:

http://www.touregypt.net/godsofegypt/ennead.htm

As for Oannes - the theory is that a Babylonian god called “Oannes” was deliberately confused by one of the Popes with St. John the Baptist, or “Joannes”. The sage Adapa is called “Umanna”, “expert” in a Babylonian text - the form “Oannes”, which is known from its occurrence in what remains of the text of the Babylonian priest Berossus - who wrote in Greek in about 280 BC - is explicable as a miscopying of a form such as “Omannes”. There was no god Oannes - O. is in fact a a sage, & therefore (by the time of Berossus) a culture-founding figure.

Back to Isis:

St.Cyril of Alexandria defiled her shrine at Menouthis when he installed the relics of the martyrs Cyrus and John there. In 391, his uncle & predecessor Theophilus destroyed the Serapeum. In 386, thanks to the efforts of St.Ambrose, the Altar of Victory was removed in Rome. In view of these incidents, & many others, why would the bishop of Rome be favourable to pre-Christian cults ?

The evidence is all the other way - there is even counter-evidence. When Liberius of Rome had been worn down by two years of captivity, he signed, in 357 - so many historians interpret the evidence - a creed which was orthodox in intention, but could be interpreted ambiguously to favour Arianism. This is why he is the first Roman bishop not to be honoured as a Saint.

The weakness of Liberius was followed by a split in the Church at Rome, which had not healed in 366, when his successor Damasus was elected. That episode is common knowledge - but the accusation about the IHS is not common knowledge: Church historians have plenty to say about the Church and how it faced its non-Christian environment, but this is never mentioned - except by (sorry to say this) ill-educated Fundamentalists, usually from the USA. The only evidence for the IHS story is that quoted above.

The baselessness of the IHS story, & of much more, is less obvious in Chick than in the book he quotes because Chick publishes comics - they need stories, not reasoning.

[ended]
 
Here’s Church Militant’s quote as it is meant to be (I think):
Another of Chick’s attempts to link the Eucharist with paganism is found in his frequent depictions of the host imprinted with the letters IHS. He tells the reader that this stands for a trio of Egyptian gods (who were not a trinity, incidentally). Chick’s claim is nonsense. The letters aren’t English at all, but Greek. In fact, they are the first three letters of Jesus’ name in Greek: iota-eta-sigma (capital eta in Greek looks like the English H). This has been a common abbreviation for Jesus throughout Church history.
Click to expand...
Though you wouldn’t know it from Chick, few Catholics have ever seen a host imprinted with these letters. Most hosts either have nothing on them or a cross design. What design, if any, is imprinted on a host is up to the maker. There is no Church regulation on this, and few makers have used the IHS design. Yet Chick would lead one to believe that it is omnipresent in Catholic churches.
Click to expand...
It got muddled up somehow. I think CM needs to work on his cut-n-paste skills 😛

Anyway Rev, I’d like to add one thing more, as a real side issue: noone takes Communion; we can only receive it. I’m sure this sounds picky, but I think it is a really important point.
 
Church_Militant said:
You’ll find that he (Jack Chich) is either severely ignorant of a lot of things…or he’s an outright liar.
Pax tecum my friend.
Click to expand...
I think the most charitable thing you can assume is that Chich started publishing this stuff out of ignorance, but knowing how many times he’s been corrected, he can only be called an outright liar.

To publish something that you know if false is lying. And however sincere he is in his attempts, the ends do not justify the means.
 
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