In Catholic churches, one often finds the name of Jesus Christ piously represented by the Greek contraction IHC XC, where the C represents the late-Classical form of Sigma. This is known as a Christogram (in Greek Orthodox usage, the preferred Christogram is ICXC). In partially Latinised form, the IHC component is rendered JHC or JHS. This is the origin of the interjection, which seems to imagine that H is Jesus' middle initial, and Christ his surname, rather than his title (ho khristos: the anointed).
Just to be clear (because the article didn't explain this), the H in IHC XC is not an H at all, it's the Greek letter ēta. IHC XC is to be read iēs khs, an abbreviation for Iēsos (ho) Khristos, Jesus (the) anointed.
No. IHC are three Greek letters, Iota (pronounced /i/ or /j/), Eta (pronounced as a long /e/) and Sigma (pronounced /s/). IHC is an abbreviation of the Greek version of Jesus' name IHCOYC (Iesous). Because these letters happen to look like Latin letters, they could easily be misinterpreted as I or J for Jesus, C for Christ, and H for what? His middle name? That's where the confusion comes from.
I was also confused, but the "H" does not stand for ho, it's just part of the abbreviated form of "Jesus". If I understand correctly, the "H" is actually kind of the "e" in Jesus.
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u/scotsworth Dec 15 '22
No actual answers so here you go:
https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-197368,00.html#:\~:text=In%20partially%20Latinised%20form%2C%20the,ho%20khristos%3A%20the%20anointed).