The Origin of the Inscription
When Jesus was crucified, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate ordered a sign to be placed above the cross. In the Roman world, this sign was called a titulus and served to publicly indicate the crime for which a person was being executed.
It was not an ornament or a spiritual phrase. It was an accusation.
So that everyone could understand it, Pilate ordered the message to be written in three languages:
Hebrew (for the Jews)
Greek (the international language of the time)
Latin (the official language of the Roman Empire)
The Latin version is the one that has been recorded in history and in Christian iconography.
What does INRI mean?
The letters INRI come from the Latin phrase:
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