For many pop-culture Christians, the "fish" decal on the back car
bumper, or attached to a key chain or door is a symbol of their
religion, and a feel-good statement about Jesus Christ. Early Christians
used the fish as a recognition sign of their religion. It is also
identified as the "Ichthus," an acronym from the Greek, "Iesous Christos
Theou Uios Soter," or "Jesus Christ the Son of God, Saviour." Oxford
English Dictionary (C.E.) defines "Ichthyic" as "of, pertaining to, or
characteristic of fishes; the fish world in all its orders."

But contemporary Jesus worshippers might be surprised, even outraged, to
learn that one of their preeminent religious symbols antedated the
Christian religion, and has its roots in pagan fertility awareness and
sexuality. Barbara G. Walker writes in "The Woman's Dictionary of
Symbols and Sacred Objects," that the acronym pertaining to Jesus Christ
was a "rationale invented after the fact... Christians simply copied
this pagan symbol along with many others." Ichthys was the offspring son
of the ancient Sea goddess Atargatis, and was known in various mythic
systems as Tirgata, Aphrodite, Pelagia or Delphine. The word also meant
"womb" and "dolphin" in some tongues, and representations of this
appeared in the depiction of mermaids. The fish also a central element
in other stories, including the Goddess of Ephesus (who has a fish
amulet covering her genital region), as well as the tale of the fish
that swallowed the penis of Osiris, and was also considered a symbol of
the vulva of Isis.

Along with being a generative and reproductive spirit in mythology, the
fish also has been identified in certain cultures with reincarnation and
the life force. Sir James George Frazer noted in his work, "Adonis,
Attis, Osiris: Studies in the History of Oriental Religion" (Part Four
of his larger work, "The Golden Bough") that among one group in India,
the fish was believed to house a deceased soul, and that as part of a
fertility ritual specific fish is eaten in the belief that it will be
reincarnated in a newborn child.

Well before Christianity, the fish symbol was known as "the Great
Mother," a pointed oval sign, the "vesica piscis" or Vessel of the Fish.
"Fish" and "womb" were synonymous terms in ancient Greek,"delphos." Its
link to fertility, birth, feminine sexuality and the natural force of
women was acknowledged also by the Celts, as well as pagan cultures
throughout northern Europe. Eleanor Gaddon traces a "Cult of the Fish
Mother" as far back as the hunting and fishing people of the Danube
River Basin in the sixth millennium B.C.E. Over fifty shrines have been
found throughout the region which depict a fishlike deity, a female
creature who "incorporates aspects of an egg, a fish and a woman which
could have been a primeval creator or a mythical ancestress..." The
"Great Goddess" was portrayed elsewhere with pendulous breasts,
accentuated buttocks and a conspicuous vaginal orifice, the upright
"vesica piscis" which Christians later adopted and rotated 90-degrees to
serve as their symbol.



Along with the fish used as a code sign for early Christian communities,
the ichthys also found its way into the ritual and decor of church
rites. One case in point is the church mitre worn by prelates. Where did
this originate? Dr. Thomas Inman discussed this phenomenon in his two
volume opus, "Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names," (1869). He
included a representation of a sculpture from Mesopotamia, observing "It
is the impression of an ancient gem, and represents a man clothed with a
fish, the head being the mitre; priests thus clothed, often bearing in
their hand the mystic bag..."

"In almost every instance," added Inman, "it will be recognized that the
fish's head is represented as of the same form as the modern bishop's
mitre." The fish also appears in another sacred iconograph, the Avatars
of Vishnu, where the deity "is represented as emerging from the mouth of
a fish, and being a fish himself; the legend being that he was to be the
Saviour of the world in a deluge which was to follow..."

From its focus of worshipping a god-man born of a virgin to the
selection of holidays and symbols, Christianity appropriated the
metaphors of earlier pagan religions, grafting them into its own account
of the creation and beyond. Few Jesus worshippers are aware of this.
Even fewer know that when they flaunt the "Ichthus" or Ichthys on a
tee-shirt, car bumper or even the door of a state legislative office as
a representation which originated in Christianity, they are in fact,
displaying a more ancient symbol indicative of female anatomy and
reproductive potency -- the very sign of the Great Mother.

Jesus said, "Put down your nets and come with me. I will make you
fishers of men." Of course I am paraphrasing rather than quoting as I
don't have a bible open and anyway he did not speak English.

If you go back almost every symbol has been used by one religion or
another and since most ancient religions are centered around fertility .
. . it comes as not suprise.

It come as a suprise to me.

For they have adorned the halls of the one with the symbols of the many.

And when those desecreated places are brought down to dust by the host
of the unholy some will turn to these symbols and ask why has god
forsaken us and those with eyes that see will raise them up and ask
'forgive us lord for we have desecreated your house'