What was the reason for using Latin in the Church?

[Mugrat55]

Recently a person who disagrees with Catholicism told me that the reason the Church used Latin for the Mass was to hide worship and God’s Word from the people. I know I learned about this as a kid, but I cant seem to remember the refutation. Any help would be great!

 

[Bithynian]

How bizarre!

In the first four centuries of the Church, Greek was invariably the language of liturgy. Even in places such as Rome and Jerusalem where the majority of the population spoke Latin and Aramaic respectively, the language of the Church was Greek.

Over time, Latin came to replace Greek in Rome. Many things contributed to this, but the most important was that Greek became increasingly rarer in the West, both among clergy and the lay population (St Augustine is sometimes thought to only have had a basic fluency in Greek). This shift probably happened because the imperial seat gradually shifted eastward to Hellenophone areas (e.g. Constantinople).

Apart from that, Pope Damasus and Jerome were important in fixing Latin as the liturgical and ecclesiastical language of the West.

 

[TK421]

Recently a person who disagrees with Catholicism told me that the reason the Church used Latin for the Mass was to hide worship and God’s Word from the people. I know I learned about this as a kid, but I cant seem to remember the refutation. Any help would be great!

There’s nothing to refute. People can’t just make up things from their imagination or repeat something that came from their uncle’s imagination and then expect an explanation. A person needs to at least start off with some kind of source or reference to get the conversation started.

But, although there’s nothing to refute, some brief background could be helpful. The Church liturgy was usually in Greek, then it shifted to Latin as it became the more popular language in most of the Roman world. Latin was helpful in the Middle Ages to give the Church a certain degree of impartiality between the Spanish, French, English, Germans, Swedes, Italians, Poles, etc. Today, Latin is still the official language that can be incorporated in parts of the liturgy along with the vernacular language. Greek is also occasionally used for certain responses, but not as much as Latin. Some rites use other historical languages based on which groups of people they served.

Latin conveys the longevity and universality of the Church.

 

[ralfyman]

 

[JerryZ]

Well this is what you get when History is not taught in school. You get what you get.

Latin is the official language of the. Drum roll… "The Latin Church"
But in beginning it was not so, when the Church began in Jesus time the “lingua franca” was Greek. Lingua franca is a term that comes from Latin. It means the language used universally mainly for commerce and communicatios. Today it is English.

Ask your friend: why are Latin terms used by the US Courts today"
Here is a list of Legal Terminology in Latin:
a fortiori - With stronger
reasona priori - From the cause to the effect
ab initio - From the beginning
actiones in personam - Personal actions
ad curiam - Before a court; to court
ad damnum clause - To the damage, clause in a complaint stating monetary lossad faciendum - To do
ad hoc - For this purpose or occasion
ad litem - For this suit or litigation
ad valorem - According to the value
adversus - Against
alias dictus - An assumed name
alibi - In another place, elsewhere
aliunde - From another place, from without (as in evidence outside the document)
amicus curiae - “friend of the court” brief
animo - With intention, disposition, design or will
animus - Mind or intention
ante litem motam - before the suit or before litigation is filed
arguendo - In the course of an argument
assumpsit - He undertook or promised
bona fide - Good faith
capias - Take, arrest
captia - Persons, or heads
causa mortis - By reason of death
caveat emptor - “Let the buyer beware”
certiorari - “send the pleadings up”, indicating a discretionary review process
Cestui que trust - Beneficiaries of a trust
circa - In the area of, about or concerning
compos mentis - Of sound mind
consortium - The conjugal fellowship of husband and wife
contra - Against
coram nobis - Before us
corpus delicti - Body of the offense
cum testamento annexo - “With the will annexed”.

Latin is also used extensively by the Sciences, ask your friend is it because they want to hide things from us?
But I digress, when the first Pope moved to Rome and became her bishop. Greek was the business and government language. Rome was the seat of the Roman empire. The Romans did not impose their native language to the Empire, they accepted that most people already spoke Greek for commerce and they kept it that way. Romans were pragmatic people. Don’t fix what works kinda people.
The Bishop of Rome however had to preach to the “Vulgo” this is another Latin word, it means “the people”. Yes, Latin was the language used by all the people living in Rome and around the Roman area. So having mass in Greek would not do. Either the Church would need to teach all the people of Rome Greek OR adapt the liturgy so that they could participate in it.
Of course this did not take place overnight, it has been an ongoing affair since the beginning.
And today we have the same Liturgy is every conceivable language spoken on the planet.
One reticence in changing the Liturgy to any “new” language is the zeal the Church has for the meaning to be faithfully kept no matter which language it is officiated in. And that is a good thing.
Hope this helps.
Peace!

 

[Maximian]

Until living memory Latin was studied at most good schools and at every Catholic school. If the purpose was to hide something, why would Catholic schools promote the study of Latin.

As a side remark, I teach Latin free to anyone in my parish who wants to learn.

 

[JSRG]

Recently a person who disagrees with Catholicism told me that the reason the Church used Latin for the Mass was to hide worship and God’s Word from the people. I know I learned about this as a kid, but I cant seem to remember the refutation. Any help would be great!

The idea that the reason the Catholic Church started using Latin was to hide people is kind of silly when you consider the fact that Latin was the vernacular language for much of the world at the time.

Being more charitable, perhaps they are talking about the fact the Church kept doing it in Latin even after the vernacular ceased to be Latin, as all of the Latin-speaking areas started drifting apart linguistically, eventually giving rise to entirely new languages like Spanish and French. At that point, I believe it was simply because it had been done in Latin for so long they wanted to continue with the language and also to try to have more unity in the church.

 

[brown_bear]

The 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church is written in Latin, because Latin is a dead language - no one uses it for shopping anymore - and therefore the meaning of the words can no longer change, as happens in all living languages.

If I recklessly used certain (Italian) words that I used as a boy, I would be killed by people younger than me; this can never happen with Latin, so in 500 years the words of the Catechism in Latin will mean the same thing as now.

 

[Mugrat55]

Thank you, this helps

 

[TK421]

Also, any catechesis or preaching or sermons from history were done in the vernacular language of course. Latin was/is the liturgical language.

 

[brown_bear]

I too knew that St. Augustine did not like Greek.

He probably knew it, in the 4th / 5th century it was almost impossible for an educated person not to know.

Perhaps he was better off expressing himself in Latin, but I don’t know why.

Latin is synthetic and expressive, icastic, from this point of view I find it analogous to English, while paradoxically Italian has become a verbose language, at least in the use of many Italians.

I would like to dispel a myth: that Latin is easy for Italians and Greek difficult.

I have not studied Greek, but Latin yes, and I would never, ever know how to give a speech in Latin, and also understanding written Latin is a big problem; this thing is common among those who have studied it in high school.

Italians who have studied both Greek and Latin say that Greek is easier, I think they are referring to the fact that grammar is easier.

 

[fhansen]

It’s quite ironic that the person referred to in the OP was 180 degrees wrong since Latin was first used in the west only because it was the vernacular, the lingua franca, the common language for much of the area. And for good reason; why would anyone want to use a language that could not be understood?

And so it seems a bit odd now that some almost seem to worship this old language such that we would end up using it for a totally different reason than why it was first adopted-and end up back with a language that can’t be understood! Oh well.