The ship emblem we see represents St. Jude. Jude may have been the brother of Jesus or the son or brother of James the Great. He was also known as Thaddeus, a name change so he would not be confused with the villain, Judas Iscariot.                                               

Jude preached the gospel in Judea, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Libya according to various sources. He may or not have authored the Epistle of Jude. His iconography is the ship because his travels were nautical, over both the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Tradition says in 65 CE he was martyred (decapitated) in Beirut, in Syria, or in Armenia, together with Simon the Zealot (see panel with the fish). Jude’s body was brought from Beirut to Rome, where he was buried in a crypt in St. Peter’s Basilica, although another tradition holds that his remains in Armenia.

Jude is known as the patron saint of lost causes. The theory goes that Jude was not venerated because of name confusion with Judas Iscariot. To make up for this, he would help anywho supplicated him, no matter how desperate the cause. Perhaps as an extension of this, Jude is the eponym of St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Tennessee and patron saint of the Chicago Police Department.

Dickerman Hollister, Jr., MD