INRI — Catholic Arena

IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDÆORVM

"Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews"

In our parish, we are trying to pray the Rosary every day during October. A couple of us are new to this parish and one is a young man taking RCIA, in the hopes of becoming Catholic soon.

It is our honour to help him learn the Rosary. One day he asked about the meaning of INRI at the top of the large Crucifix behind the altar. I knew this was the acronym referring to “The King of the Jews,” but to my shame, I had forgotten the exact words! [An acronym is the abbreviation using the first letter of each word.]

History

Apparently, for the Romans it was customary to set up over the heads of those sentenced to crucifixion a label indicating the crime for which they suffered and the name of the sufferer.

The Bible

“Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, “Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews.” Now many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that he said, ‘I am the King of the Jews.’” Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.” [John 19:19-23]

*Acronyms for "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" in 3 languages, Ellwangen Abbey, Germany*

Latin for the Roman Church

Few crucifixes now show all three inscriptions. In the Roman Catholic Church we typically see the Latin inscription INRI, the abbreviation for Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum, or "Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews."

(Using traditional Latin script which uses “I” instead of the English “J”, and “V” instead of “U” and is written in capitals so INRI is IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDÆORVM, or Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum.)

Greek Orthodox

Apparently, in the Orthodox churches, they usually put ΙΝΒΙ on the crucifix, representing the Greek: Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζωραῖος ὁ βασιλεύς τῶν Ἰουδαίων or Iēsoûs ho Nazōraîos ho basileús tôn Ioudaíōn.

Hebrew: The Tetragrammaton

In Hebrew, the words “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” translates to ישוע הנצרתי ומלך היהודים. Shortening these four words into an acronym, we get יהוה (YHWH), the holiest name of the Lord in Scripture. [The Tetragrammaton.] This abbreviation is from paleo-Hebrew.

Learning to read Hebrew must be very difficult for English speakers. It is written right to left and Hebrew script is an abjad, so that the letters in the name are normally consonants, usually expanded as Yahweh in English.

Modern Rabbinical law forbids Jews to pronounce Yahweh. In prayers it is replaced by the word אֲדֹנָי Adonai or “My Lords” or in discussion by HaShem 'The Name'.

(I am not sure what the abbreviation on the crucifix in Ellwangen Abbey shows.)

The Inscription

Obviously, we do not know exactly what was written above Jesus: possibly the Hebrew version was in Aramaic-Hebrew or it may have been pure Aramaic.

Christ would have spoken Aramaic, but the language died out about ~200 A.D.