St. Timothy Letter Stamp

History

As we discussed in our post for St. Timothy, whose day the Church celebrates on January 24th, the letters written between St. Paul and St. Timothy are two of the most inspiring and informative epistles found within Scripture. First Timothy and Second Timothy, together with Paul’s letter to Titus, are even called the Pastoral Epistles, as they deal with questions of the Church and the various heresies that were common within the early Church.

While First Timothy deals with topics such as the teaching of true doctrine and the role of pastors, Second Timothy was written to Timothy shortly before Paul’s death around the late 60s AD. Imprisoned in Rome, Paul drafted his “last words” to his protégé, encouraging Timothy to persevere in the faith.

While we’ve written about the importance of letters within Christendom before on All the Household, the letters between Paul and Timothy are uniquely important to Christian history as they deal with issues of the Church that are still relevant to us today. They are worth reading insofar as they not only discuss the logistics that the early Church was dealing with at the time but also give us some insight into how to navigate the challenges that the Church still faces today.

In this vein, we’ve decided to share an activity with you today that you can use to commemorate St. Timothy and his day, to remember the relationship that he and Paul shared as well as the importance of their correspondence with one another.

Chi Rho Letter Stamp

One of the historic parts of ancient letter writing was the inclusion of monograms or stamps as part of the writer’s signature. The first monograms dated all the way back to Ancient Greece, even before Timothy’s time. They were usually used as a shorthand for a person’s name and were supposed to be a sign of verifiability, important when it would sometimes take months or years for letters to travel to their recipients.

Likewise, Christinaity took up the idea of monograms rather quickly, with the Chi Rho monogram becoming rooted within Christian culture as the sign of Jesus Christ. The first two Greek letters in Christ are Chi and Rho, which look like an “X” and “P” to us Westerners. When combined, these letters make a symbol representative of our Lord. Another well-known Christian monogram was the actual name of Jesus, which looks like IHS, and derived from the first three letters of Iesous, the Greek spelling of our Lord’s name.

Developed yet later on were various types of crosses, used in early Christianity as a religious symbol and also incorporated into letter writing as a Christian identifier of the letter signer. They were sometimes incorporated within an individual’s monogram itself, and its slight variations could also represent where the signer was from or the culture in which they were embedded. For example, the Greek Cross, also known as the crus immissa quadrata, would have been easily identifiable with its arms of equal length.

Making Your Own Potato Stamp

It is very simple to make monogram letter stamps and to use them in your correspondence as a unique identifier of yourself! Making a potato stamp out of half of a potato and then using a knife to carve out your shape, you can easily design your own letter monogram or utilize the Chi Rho, IHS, or Greek Cross as part of your stationery decoration.

Just be sure to carve your letters in the potato in reverse so they will transfer correctly! It can also be helpful to draw your shape with a marker before you start carving; that way you can get a clear idea of what it will look like. After marking, use a pen to cut through the potato to make an outline. Next, take a knife or spoon and carve out around the outline. Then, using an ink pad, paint, or dye, stamp your monogram or symbol onto your paper—perfect for a fancy (and historically accurate) addition to your letter writing and your remembrance of St. Timothy and his biblical correspondence!