IOAN

Christianity brought with it a group of names including Peter, James, Andrew, Nathan, David, Philip, Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and a bunch of others beside the name JOHN. Why did JOHN seem to take first place among the women and men naming their children. First, John was a follower (disciple) of Jesus. Writing about himself in his own book called John, he describes himself as "...one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved." [Book of John 13:22] John also records that Jesus himself gave him the responsibility to care for his mother at the time of his death. John writes:

"When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, 'Woman, behold, your son!' Then He said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her into his own household" [Book of John 19:26-27]

Taken from The Ryrie Study Bible: New American Standard, Translation, Moody Press, Chicago, 1976.

This lays the foundation for the use of the name JOHN among those mother's of the Christain faith. It was this disciple that was considered the "closest" to Jesus. Not only that, but he was given the responsibility to care for the mother of Jesus, Mary. John also is credited with writing five books of the New Testiment, thus making him one of the leading figures of the first generation of Christians. Thus, a Christian mother would want to name at least one male child JOHN. She would also want to name at least one daughter MARY. Now remember that the language these names would have been written in was LATIN. The Latin alphabet did not include the letter "J". It had the letters (sounds) "O", and "A", and "H". Therefore, the name JOHN would have been written in the Latin as "IOAN". This begins the groundwork for our surname JONES as early as 300 AD.

The Name of JOHN

The "official" abandonment of persecution of Christians is dated 313 A.D. Thus it was before this date that Christianity was introduced to our little part of the world. Most likely it was during the reign of Diocletian (248 A.D.) when one of the earliest Christian writers records: "It was the nineteenth year of Diocletian's reign and the month Dystrus, called March by the Romans, and the festival of the Saviour's Passion was approaching, when an imperial decree was published everywhere, ordering the churches to be razed to the ground and the Scriptures destroyed by fire, and giving notice that those in places of honour would lose their places, and domestic staff, if they continued to profess Christianity, would be deprived of their liberty. Such was the first edict against us. Soon afterwards other decrees arrived in rapid succession, ordering that the presidents of the churches in every place should all be first committed to prison and the coerced by every possible means into offering sacrifice. Then it was that many rulers of the churches bore up heroically under horrible torments, and object lesson in endurance of fearful ordeals...each was subjected to a series of different tortures, one flogged unmercifully with the whip, another racked and scraped beyond endurance, so that the lives of some came to a most miserable end."

[taken from The History of The Church by Eusebius written around 325 A.D.]

It was this Christianity that brought with it the name of JOHN.

World's End

Rome had pretty much taken over the world by might, when another belief system was beginning that took over the "hearts and minds" of those living in the this Roman world. This small sect started in Jerusalem and began to attract attention from the Romans right from its very beginning. Early on, as Christianity spread, the authorities of Rome saw it as their duty to defend public order against these men and women who seemed to them traitors or irresponsible madmen. The real rub was that the Christian's refusal to accept the divinity of the emperor, and to sacrifice to him as a god. You can certainly imagine that "The Empire" was not very concerned with the details of the morals and faiths of its hundreds of component city-states, tribes, and nations. There were scores of gods and goddesses, innumerable spirits and demons, that filled the minds of the millions and millions under Roman rule. On the other hand, Christians were "monotheists" [only one god] and in fact they felt that an "Emperor" who pretended to be a god, was really a "devil". You can begin to see how this difference might generate a conflict, more and more as those who accepted this new belief increased in number, and spread throughout the Roman world. Early in this period, the imperial authorities did not consistently seek to "stamp out" the Christan religion. Persecutions were sporadic and came in several waves over three centuries. [ The persecutions were also subject to great local variations.] Each "wave" of persecution would force many of the Christian faith to the edges of the empire. The final edge was our families' little part of the world. Interestingly, there is a place called "World's End" located among a series of terraced limestone cliffs very near the ruins of Valle Crucis Abbey. The limestone ridge can be seen from "Horseshoe Pass" on A542 in the heart of our Jones families' land.