arose as a combination of two letters, though we know that symbol to have been often used as a contraction of the Greek letters Ρ and Χ (our R and CH), there is no proof that it arose as a combination of two Greek letters; and the symbol may have arisen as a combination of the Roman letters P and X.
It should therefore be pointed out that in the inscriptions which have come down to us from the Gaulish Christians of the sixth, seventh, and
eighth centuries after Christ, the symbols
and
are continually used as contractions of the Latin word PAX, Peace. For though the fact that the Monogram was often so interpreted by Christians centuries A.C. can by no means be considered evidence that it was thus that it first arose as a Pagan symbol centuries B.C., such a possibility should be kept before us.
But did the so-called Monogram of Christ first come into being as a combination of two letters; Greek, Roman, or otherwise?
Even this is not certain, for this pre-Christian symbol may originally have been a cross, as a symbol of Life and of the Sun-God, plus the Greek letter Ρ as the initial character of the word "Rome" in what may be called the court language of the time.
Such an explanation would more or less account for the variations