Why Latin & not Greek

[Jbrady]

Under Victor, Latin replaced Greek as the official language of the Roman church, and Victor himself wrote in Latin.

That’s a clear error. Victor died some two hundred years before Latin would overtake Greek. The author of the article probably mixed up Victor with Damasus.

 

[Vico]

Vico:

Under Victor, Latin replaced Greek as the official language of the Roman church, and Victor himself wrote in Latin.

That’s a clear error. Victor died some two hundred years before Latin would overtake Greek. The author of the article probably mixed up Victor with Damasus.

Pope Saint Victor I was from the Roman Province of Africa probably in Leptis Magna or Tripolitania.

Catholic Encyclopedia states for Pope Saint Victor I (189-198 or 199), date of birth unknown:

“Jerome calls Pope Victor the first Latin writer in the Church (Chronicon, ad an. Abr. 2209)”

Kirsch, J.P. (1912). Pope St. Victor I. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15408a.htm

Also from Catholic Encylopedia:

In Africa, Greek was the chosen language of the clerics, to begin with, but Latin was the more familiar speech for the majority of the faithful, and it must have soon taken the lead in the Church, since Tertullian, who wrote some of his earlier works in Greek, ended by employing Latin only. And in this use he had been preceded by Pope Victor, who was also an African, and who, as St. Jerome assures, was the earliest Christian writer in the Latin language.

Dégert, A. (1910). Ecclesiastical Latin. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09019a.htm

 

[dochawk]

Those are limited to liturgical use. The official language of record of all of the Eastern Catholic particular churches is Latin.

That would be news to mine, whose liturgical language is English . . . and it would also be a flagrant violation on the Unions of Brest and Uzrod . . .

 

[Jbrady]

That would be news to mine, whose liturgical language is English . . . and it would also be a flagrant violation on the Unions of Brest and Uzrod . .

Read what I wrote. I wrote that in the Eastern Catholic particular churches, Syriac and Slavonic are only used for liturgical purposes. Their official language of record, though, is indeed Latin.

 

[Evan]

Latin has not gone completely out of favor. I did study at the city high school and State University in the 70s.

The last major work in Latin. In math (My field) was by Peano in 1889. The last article was in 2006 by Schechtman, “Definitio nova algebroidis verticiani” New definition of a vertex algebroid.

Of course, in biology, every new species is defined with a Latin name AND description.

 

[otjm]

And I was studying both Latin and Greek in the 1960’s. I don’t deny in the least that Latin is used; how many biologists could translate even two sentences of text given to them at random? \

Not too many.

Somewhere in the 1990’s - 2000’s there was a move among some circles of education to bring Latin back and there is going to be a small minority of high school students who may study it; most likely the classics (Virgil, Cicero) and it may be part of a curriculum of Catholic high schools, but I would be willing to bet that even among them it will be an elective among Spanish, German and possible Chinese.

Latin must not be dead, as no one has succeeded in keeping it in its grave; like many a movie it continues to roam the earth!

Even in the mid 1960’s when I was in high school, Latin was an elective depending on what track one was in.

But esteem and awe? It was one of several choices one had; in one of the high schools, there were two tracks; Classic and Science. Classic required 4 years of Latin taught by the Sweet method and 2 years of Homeric Greek with some koinae in the last semester. Science track allowed Spanish or German instead of Latin.

 

[dochawk]

Read what I wrote. I

Their official language of record, though, is indeed Latin.

I’ve heard that claimed here before, but never anywhere else, and never with any reference to a basis for that conclusion.

It would be odd indeed for a church to have an “official language” that none of it’s heirarchs read, write, or speak . . . while there may be some communications with Rome in latin, that wouldn’t make it the “language of record” for that church, any more than sending a letter in slavonic would make it official for rome . . .

 

[Jbrady]

It would be odd indeed for a church to have an “official language” that none of it’s heirarchs read, write, or speak . . . while there may be some communications with Rome in latin, that wouldn’t make it the “language of record” for that church, any more than sending a letter in slavonic would make it official for rome . . .

You’re mixing up two different concepts here. What you are talking about is called a “working language”. The Church does not currently have an official working language, though Italian is widely used for the purpose. Other languages are also used, especially French, German, Spanish, and, increasingly, English at the international level, and various local languages at the local level.

Until Vatican II, though, the official working language was, at least on paper, Latin. That is why the sessions of the Council were held in Latin, in spite of the fact that by that time, few of the participants were able to speak or write Latin, and most were not even able to understand spoken Latin or even read Latin, at least to the degree necessary to follow the proceedings. At the end of each session, the proceedings were translated into modern languages that the participants could understand. If they had a response, they wrote it in their language, and it was then translated into Latin so that it could be read at the next session.

This proved to be so cumbersome that Latin ended up being discarded afterward as an official working language, even symbolically, for the very reason you wrote.

Nowadays, synods are conducted in “working groups” divided by language, with Italian speaking bishops working in one group, and French, German, Spanish and English speaking bishops working in their own groups. For general sessions, the documents are translated into (generally) Italian.

However, a “language of record” is something different. At the end of the synod, all of the final documents must be translated into Latin, and that translation is the authoritative version. Any disputes must be settled using only the Latin version, not the original documents it was translated from. The official Italian version is not the original version that was translated into Latin, but a back translation from the official Latin version. The same with the official translations into other languages.

This also holds true for synods in the Eastern Catholic particular churches. Their proceedings must be translated into Latin, and that is the only authoritative version.

Same with Canon Law. The Canon Law of 1983 was originally hashed out in modern languages, formulated in Italian, and then translated into Latin. If there is a dispute about a particular clause, then recourse must be made SOLELY to the official Latin version, and never to either the original Italian version, or to the official translation from Latin into other languages. This also applies to all of the Eastern Catholic particular churches, whose official Canon Law is written in Latin.

That’s what a “language of record” is.

 

[Jbrady]

(Cont.)

Now, a curious story. When Pope Emeitus Benedict resigned, he wanted to do so in Latin. His own Latin skills were not up to writing it on his own, so he entrusted the task to the official Vatican Latinists. He knew that when he read it to the assembled cardinals and bishops, few would be able to figure out exactly what he was saying, wouldn’t be able to respond. It turned out that most of the people who could understand what he was saying were the journalists present, many of whom had learned Latin so they could cover Church affairs in depth, or had a Classical background which gave them an advantage in their job. So Pope Benedict’s little plan sort of backfired, and he was peppered with questions, to his chagrin.

 

[dochawk]

I see nothing here to support the notion of any formal, let alone official, role for latin in any EC church.

You are talking entirely about the latin church here, and the synods/councils it hosted. Save for,

This also holds true for synods in the Eastern Catholic particular churches. Their proceedings must be translated into Latin, and that is the only authoritative version.

again, some time of source is needed for this claim. (and if it is true, it is still a flagrant violation of Brest, etc.)

 

[Shakuhachi]

anyone else have a love/hate relationship with both of these languages. It seems with work and family I just don’t have the time to gain proficiency.