Recovering Words

Fr Z:  Unless you recover the words, you can’t recover the concepts.

When you change the words, you change the concepts.

The liberal progressivist liturgical terrorist reformers were successful in changing our way of speaking about our sacred liturgical worship.

For example, they made us – and no one asked them to do this, by the way – give up talking about “sacrifice”. And when we lost “sacrifice”, we therefore lost a clear understanding of “priesthood”. No “sacrifice”, no “priest”. Today, “minister” dominates. We are losing or have, in some places, lost the words “worship” and “adoration”. Now we talk about “celebration”. We “gather”. We still “pray”. But do we? Really? To whom or what?

“Sin”?  It is to laugh. “Hell”?  What’s that?

“Worship” and “adoration” had to go, of course. They smack too much of Tantum ergo, and all that stuff. You can see why the now aging-hippies tried to do away with those words. In seminary, after all, the same generation of Richard McBrien types incessantly crammed down our throats “Jesus said ‘Take and eat’, not ‘sit and look’!”

“Altar” is now associated more with protestant “altar calls”. Catholics, talk about “table”. Altars are connected with “sacrifice”. Thus, the concept of altar had to go. “Tables” are us!

It is not, I think, that they were trying to find new ways to express old and fundamentally Catholic concepts to a new generation in modern terms. They were trying to destroy the old and fundamentally Catholic concepts for a new generation.

We must recover our terms.

Unless you recover the words, you can’t recover the concepts.

 

‘Evangelical’ or ‘evangelical’? To Capitalize or Not?

Interesting, given that I opted for the capitalisation of the word just yesterday.

Matthew Schmitz writes over at First Things.

Evangelical writer Daniel Silliman tackles a problem familiar to this editor: Is it “Evangelical” or “evangelical,” majuscule or miniscule, capitalized or not? The problem encompasses other terms like “deist,” “atheist,” and “charismatic.”

In the chart above, Silliman shows how preferences have swung dramatically through the sixteen- and seventeen-hundreds. Nor, as he points out, do things get any clearer in the twentieth century.

:

Silliman concludes, “I don’t know how much can really be drawn from these graphs. Maybe there are some social facts to be cited as explaining one style or the other at one time or another. The bigger picture, I suspect, is that we just fuddle along. Which I take some peace in.”

That sounds right. We here at First Things capitalize “Evangelical,” not least because it so often appears alongside Catholic and we want a kind of visual parity, and also because they should not have the word to themselves. Catholics and Orthodox also can be evangelical, as we have long insisted.

Anyway, do read all of Silliman’s post (and browse the rest of his blog) here.

Liturgical Language Poll

It’s over at the Anglo-Catholic.

Lately there has been a lot of debate here on The Anglo-Catholic with regard to the type of liturgical language that should prevail in the Ordinariates. There is a great deal of passion on all sides and a number of people have suggested polling our readers on this issue. So we’ll start with a basic question.

What type of liturgical language would you like to see used in the Ordinariates?

Take part if will over there.

 

Traditional Anglican Liturgical English

Is Contemporary English a fit language for the worship of God? asks Vincent Uher.

English as spoken today is the language of politicians, newsreaders, radio hosts, newspapers, advertisers … it is a language of lies for the telling of lies.  Is it possible to write liturgical prayers in contemporary English or some form mid-way between contemporary and Tudor?  Yes.  But it requires both the greatest care and a clear understanding that it is a missionary concern and not a matter of formation of the standard sacred liturgical rite…

Read on here.

Sacred English. It just sounds much more respectful.

 

Blogs… And Spelling Errors

HT

 

Why Study Latin and Greek?

Studying Greece and Rome both reveals the basis of Western culture, while providing the study of a culture’s internal coherence.

Read on here.

 

 

Want to Learn Latin?

 

You can get four introductory lessons and two regular lessons here. If you decide to purchase the additional lessons, you can use the coupon code BTWLATIN to get a 15% discount. The code is good for one week from today.

Descriptions below of the free material:

These four introductory lessons provide background and tools for learning Latin. They are intended to be watched before starting  Visual Latin and are different from the normal teaching lessons. 

The 2 free regular lessons are Lessons 1 & 2 of Visual Latin. Test them out with your children to see if they like them. We think they will.

Lesson A | Why Study Latin? – This first introductory lesson tells you what to say when people ask you why you’re studying a dead language. (Length: 11:08 min)

Lesson B | Latin Then & Now - Where did Latin come from anyway?  And what happened to it after the Romans disappeared? Furthermore, does it have a future? (Length: 8:07 min)

Lesson C | How to Learn a Language - This lesson gives you techniques, ideas and a few tricks for learning any new language (and especially Latin). (Length: 8:43 min)

Lesson D | Stuff You Should Know About Latin – Latin does some funny things. You’ll need to know what to watch for so you don’t slip and hurt yourself. (Length: 6:47 min)

HT

 

The F-word Becoming Vernacular in Australia

There is something very wrong when swear words are being considered normative. If anything it is indicative of moral depravity… Nuts or no nuts:

A snack maker in Australia has won approval to call its product “” after authorities accepted the f-word was part of the country’s vernacular.

The trademark regulator agreed to allow the name as long as the product is not marketed to children after the company’s lawyers argued that “—-” and “—-ing” were not offensive and were “now part of the universal discourse of the ordinary Australian”. The authority overturned a ruling last year that the name was an “obvious spoonerism” and was shameful and inappropriate.

The decision to allow the name came as little surprise in Australia, where the f-word is a common features of everyday parlance.

Australia’s dictionary of record, the Macquarie, has an entry for the f-word – and the word was accidentally dropped in a recent live speech by the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, who oversees the country’s broadcasting standards. It makes regular inadvertent appearances in live sports commentaries, which tends to prompt an embarrassed apology but occasionally goes unnoticed…

… bear in mind, the f-word has been gradually sneaking its way into all sorts of upstanding Australian institutions.”

What of the right that others have to protect themselves (and their children) from such vulgarities? Swearing is a sin. But then again, sin is not being widely recognised anymore, now is it?

Or perhaps this may be an Australian thing? For example, I for one know of a certain Australian churchman who walks around saying: ‘bl**dy’ this or ‘bl**dy’ that (which I understand to be an archaic swear word), and when pressed on his choice of words, simply responds: ‘I’m an Australian and that’s the bl**dy way we talk’.

Makes me shudder… And I’ll never get used to it.

Mercifully we still have the bleep out censors in use here.

 

Language in First Century Israel

Writes Dr Darrell Bock:

Last night I reread an essay I read years ago about the use of lnaguage in First Century Israel by Joseph Fitzmyer. It is entitled “The Languages of Palestine in the First Century A.D.” It was originally published in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly 32 (1970): 501-31.

In it he notes that the use of Latin was rare, although a Latin inscription naming Pontius Pilate as prefect found at Caesarea Maritima in 1961 is among the most famous archeological finds in that period. This is the one ancient find we have that names him.

Most importantly, Fitzmyer notes how widespread Greek was. Our oldest inscription is from 277 BC, observes that Esdras, 2 Maccabees, and additions to Esther and Daniel were composed in Greek. Josephus and Justus of Tiberius wrote in Greek, but Josephus needed some help of assistants to do it. Epigraphic materials come in a variety of forms: the prohibition of Gentiels to enter the Holy Place and the Theodotus inscription of a synagogue dedication being the most famous of these. Many ossuaries (burial boxes) show up with Greek inscriptions. Materials from Murabba’at and Wadi Habra also show use of Greek. He thinks it likely Jesus spoke Greek, fitting its “widespread” use in the region, including towns with use by farmers and tradesmen.

Aramaic was the most widely used language, and there was some evidence of usage of Hebrew. The presence of targums (Aramaic translations of Scripture) shows that Hebrew was not as widespread.

This means that there is a likelihood as well that the merchant disciples (fishermen, tex collectors, etc)  would likely have had some knowledge of Greek. The picture of these followers of Jesus as illiterate (as Bart Ehrman argues, for example)  is not so likely.

 

On Reading the Whole Bible

A note to Biblical academics:

I am always astonished to discover that there are some biblical academics who will admit that they have never actually read all of the Bible. Yet, it is often these very same academicians who harp on the absolute necessity of knowing the original languages. Don’t get me wrong. I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity to learn Hebrew and Greek. But for me and my house, if I had to choose between knowing the biblical languages or reading the whole counsel of Scripture in translation, the latter would be my choice hands down. Similarly, I am perplexed that there are some within the academy who have failed to read the entirety of the Scriptures and yet trumpet the importance of primary sources when it comes to biblical studies. Do they not realize that the Scriptures are the ultimate primary source? Can one really rightly claim to be a biblical scholar who has read all of the Gilgamesh Epic, Philo, or the Apostolic Fathers and yet have pages in their Bibles which have never passed in front of their eyes? I am stunned by those who can claim to keep up with their disciplines (e.g., NT, OT, the Prophets, Paul, etc.) because they read the most influential journals and the seminal monographs and yet cannot recall the last time that they have read some of the books of Scripture.

Ad fontes—back to the Bible.