What I do not understand is why people are willing to accept this:
Can. 1248 - §1. Praecepto de Missa participanda satisfacit qui Missae assistit ubicumque celebratur ritu catholico
vel ipso die festo vel -]vespere/-] diei praecedentis.
________________post meridiem
Why is it that someone can replace a word in canon law with a different word that has a different meaning other than the word actually used in the code???
I don’t think you’ve demonstrated this beyond all doubt.
Well, look at it this way:
In Latin, “vespere” refers to the time of the setting of the sun. The time when the lamps were lit because the daylight had ended.
In English, “noon” means the middle of the day; and in a modern context it means specifically 12:00 PM (and it’s that modern context to which the author refers).
Now, what I would like to know is: how does one take a word in Latin that means “the end of the day” and translate it to mean “the middle of the day?” Why would that be considered a legitimate translation or legitimate interpretation?
If the word “vespere” were sufficiently vague in Latin, I could understand how it might be seen differently by different people. But the simple fact is that the word itself pre-dates Christianity. It was one of the “markers” in the ancient Roman day. For most of Christian history (until the present day clock system was implemented) it was simply “sunset” because that was how most people lived their lives.
(It’s not that we don’t know what vespere means. It means the end of the daylight hours. The problem is not understanding the word, but applying that word in a context where we operate by a clock that is not affected by sunrise/sunset.)
At the same time, “noon” (meridiem) is also a specific time of day. It means (literally) the middle of the day; or the half-way point between sunrise and sunset.
**How can two entirely different times of day, in this case sunset and noon, possibly refer to the same time of day? **
The arguments that have been put forth in support of “vespere begins at noon” take these forms.
- A position that looks at the code in the vernacular and applies a slang usage of “evening” instead of the proper meaning of the word. (2 problems: 1 in the vernacular and 2 slang use).
- A position that says “the translator used…” (insert word in Spanish or Italian that somehow means afternoon, like tarde), therefore the code means what the translator says (and not what the code in Latin says).
- There is no #3.
And that, in itself, is an important point. There is nothing else to actually support the idea that “evening begins at noon.” There’s no precedent in the Church (in fact, the precedent is for 4:00 PM). There’s no explanation or reasoning beyond the extremely weak 2 points already made. There’s nothing from any source, ancient or modern, Christian or secular, to support the idea that the word “vespere” means “anytime after noon.” If it’s out there, I wish someone would share it.
Neither of these arguments convinces me.
Let’s look at it this way:
Suppose one were to take a text and translate it from English into Latin.
Let’s say that text in English says “from the time of noon onwards”
Let’s say that someone puts that into Latin and writes “vespere”
Would it not be necessarily true that we would be critical or skeptical of such a translation? Would we not say “no, noon shouldn’t be translated as vespere; instead noon should be translated as meridiem”? Why or why not?
