[dfxm12]

One Christmas homily, the priest told a story about how the candy cane was invented by persecuted Christians as a symbol for each other. The cane looked like a shepherd's staff, red for Jesus' blood, etc. If you look into the actual history of the candy cane though, none of this is true.

What I'm saying is that it didn't matter what the architect did. Someone, well after the fact, would have found a tenuous connection between their work and the Bible and claimed they were divinely inspired.

[mensetmanusman]

Not the candy cane, but the fish: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variations_of_the_ichthys_sy....

[082349872349872]

Might the fish have anything to do with precession of the equinoxes into Pisces? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38761574

[mmcdermott]

The fish was derived from a Greek acronym. The wikipedia link above mentions this as well. Is there any evidence for an astrological significance?

[baruz]

No, “fish” in Greek is ιχθυς, which was used as an acrostic for Iesous Christos Theou Huios Soter, Jesus Christ, Son of God, savior. I vaguely recall seeing somewhere that during the persecutions, one Christian would draw one line of the two-line symbol as a shibboleth for another to complete to show that they too were Christian.

[082349872349872]

As far as I can tell from a cursory search, our evidence for ιχθυς dates from II and later, which would indeed put it firmly in a "fisher of men" or "loaves and fishes" interpretation and not an astrological one. Thanks!