Forty eight years ago I was in seventh grade, just about five years after the Second Vatican Council had approved the idea of translating the Latin Prayers of the Roman Catholic Mass from Latin to English.
The first guidelines for this new endeavor were published in January under the title Comme le prevoit. Later that year, the now six year old International Commission on English in the Liturgy undertook an ecumenical outreach in the hope that some of the translations might be developed in concert with those churches which also used these same ancient texts in their worship.
ICET
Thus was born the International Consultation on English Texts, which over the next six years produced common texts for use in each of their denominations under the title Prayers We Have in Common. Those prayers consisted of the
Apostles' Creed
Nicene Cree
Athanasian Creed
Lord's Prayer
In 1975 the translations of the Creeds was incorporated into the new Roman Missal proposed by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, approved by the Roman Catholic Conferences of English-speaking Bishops and confirmed by the Holy See.
ELLC
ICET was succeeded by the English Language Liturgical Consultation (ELLC) in 1985, the American section of which was comprised of the Consultation on Common Texts. The new organization, formed here in Boston during a meeting of Societas Liturgica was given “a more clearly defined membership and even broader goals for ecumenical-liturgical collaboration.” National or regional representatives were drawn from the Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed (Presbyterian), Roman Catholic, and United/Uniting traditions, while at a later date Orthodox and other Eastern Churches, as well as representatives of the Free Churches began to take part in CCT meetings.
In 1990 ELLC produced an updated and expanded edition of common texts under the title Praying Together. This revised collection of texts included
The Lord’s Prayer
Kyrie Eleison
Gloria in Excelsis
The Nicene Creed
The Apostles' Creed
Sursum Corda
Sanctus and Benedictus
Agnus Dei
Gloria Patri
Te Deum Laudamus
Benedictus
Magnificat
Nunc Dimitis
Magnificat
By the late-1990s many of the prayer texts had been adopted by the various denominational bodies involved in their composition. However, an ELLC survey published in 2001 reported widespread modification of almost all of the texts by most denominations. Let’s look at three of the most popular texts by way of example: The Gloria in Excelsis, the Nicene Creed and the Sanctus and Benedictus.
Gloria in Excelsis
The ELLC survey reported widespread dissatisfaction with particular words in the translation, although it had been widely adopted. But most notably there was difficulty with the systematic avoidance of masculine pronouns referring to God.
Here was an important indication of a growing disagreement among the churches in regard to masculine prenominal references to God.
Some maintained that the predominantly masculine references to God in the scriptures (at least numerically predominant) should be taken as a mandate (so to speak) for masculine images of God in our prayer texts.
On the other hand, many saw masculine prenominal references as growing from a sinfully patriarchal view of God and authority which it was the responsibility of those seeking justice to dismantle.
More intense expressions of the conservative point of view saw in the inclusivists a tendency to strip personhood from the heart of trinitarian Doctrine and an attempt to censor or at very least critique the scriptural writers with an evolving gender-inclusive ideology.
More intensive expressions of the more liberal point of view resulted in formulations for Baptismal formulae invoking God as ““Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier,” as well as the avoidance of the use of masculine prenominal references as universal collectives.
This brief sketch of the emerging debates of inclusive language in liturgical texts is not designed to adequately describe the subject, so much as to mark one of the significant sources of contention which still exist among the Churches in the translation of liturgical texts.
Nicene Creed
The Nicene Creed, as one might expect, has been modified by various denominations along doctrinal lines. The Evangelicals in the Church of England, for example, modified references to Mary, while multiple denominations approached the translation of consubstantial in creative ways, an irony if there ever was one since the very word consubstantialis and homoousious before it were “invented words” for a fairly indescribable concept. As the ELLC survey concluded:
“It is beyond the scope of this report to suggest any resolution. For the time being we should accept that the difficulty will be dealt with by “local” amendments…The importance of the Nicene Creed is seen in the weight of comment its attracts. However, it alone led respondents to offer complete texts as alternative models.”
Sanctus and Benedictus
And finally, the Sanctus and Benedictus. Here, too, there were major points of diversion from the ELLC text, some revolving around the Christological nuance of “Blessed is he.”
Some saw this as a rather explicit Christological referent, while other, preferring “Blessed is the one,” thus providing the major source of variation. Those who defend “Blessed is he” see a direct Christological reference. Those who advocate “Blessed is the one” expressed “a referred Christology in which the congregation who come are the Body of Christ, ‘neither male nor female“. The Australian Lutheran Church preferred a stronger translation of Sabaoth, etc. etc.
So where do we go from here? The fabric of the attempt to reach a solid ecumenical corpus of prayers in common had, therefore, begun to fray by the turn of the millennium along the lines of doctrinal, linguistic and translation lines. All of which presaged the seismic shifts experienced by Roman Catholics in the move from dynamic to formal equivalence promulgated by the publication of the instruction Liturgiam authenticam in 2001, at the heart of this was this revolutionary paragraph:
25. So that the content of the original texts may be evident and comprehensible even to the faithful who lack any special intellectual formation, the translations should be characterized by a kind of language which is easily understandable, yet which at the same time preserves these texts’ dignity, beauty, and doctrinal precision. By means of words of praise and adoration that foster reverence and gratitude in the face of God’s majesty, his power, his mercy and his transcendent nature, the translations will respond to the hunger and thirst for the living God that is experienced by the people of our own time, while contributing also to the dignity and beauty of the liturgical celebration itself.A more ambitious presentation could unpack this paragraph by describing the transition from dynamic to formal equivalency and its consequent impact on precision, canonicity, proclaim-ability and whole raft of other issues. But this presentation limits itself to the ecumenical dimensions of liturgical texts.
So where does that leave us today in seeking common renderings of those ancient prayers which have the potential to remind us of our common roots, giving voice to a common lex orandi which would lead to a common lex credendi? For the weaving of such an intricate tapestry of belief and praise is our heart’s desire and an answer to the Lord’s own prayer of ut unum sint.
It leaves us, I would suggest, with several major challenges which it may well take another generation to unravel. But as long as we’re setting out challenges, let me add one more.
Rhetorical Style
It is one of the most puzzling of all the questions of translation faced by any denomination and has been the major point of conflict in the Roman Church’s struggles in rendering liturgical texts over the past twenty years, an enterprise to which I have given much of my professional life.
As a Church and as a society we are, as the linguists would say, shifting registers. All you need do is listen to the ways in which the genre of presidential addresses have changed in the past fifty years. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson sound entirely different from Presidents George W Bush and Trump.
For an extreme but illuminating example, take President Lincoln’s second inaugural address, in which he sought to use poetry to knit together a broken country:
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Compare that, if you will, to this excerpt from our most recent President’s inaugural address.
I will fight for you with every breath in my body. And I will never, ever let you down. America will start winning again, winning like never before. We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth, and we will bring back our dreams. We will build new roads and highways and bridges and airports and tunnels and railways all across our wonderful nation. We will get our people off of welfare and back to work rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor. We will follow two simple rules -- buy American and hire American.
Substance aside, the change in rhetorical tone bears similarities to the shift in tone from middle to modern English. The first is resonant with chiasmatic structure, soaring poetic visions and calls to arms. The second is characterized by the staccato rhythms of a teletype and the pithy headlines of the Tabloid.
And I present these examples not to stand in the long line of those who would beat up on our President, for he is what we, as a country, have chosen. But the fact is indisputable that, as a culture, we have effectively banished from the courtroom, the classroom and the political rostrum is the high rhetoric of even a few decades ago.
Let’s take a look at a a Christmas Collect, found in most Christian service books, by way of example.
The Latin original dates from the 9th century Gelasian Sacrmanetaries and has always been used for Masses during the night before Christmas:
Deus, qui hanc sacratissimam noctem
veri luminis fecisti illustratione clarescere,
da, quaesumus, ut, cuius in terra mysteria lucis agnovimus,
eius quoque gaudiis perfruamur in caelo.
Here’s the new precise translation, written like its Latin original, in pretty High Rhetorical style:
O God, who have made this most sacred night
radiant with the splendor of the true light,
grant, we pray,
that we, who have known the mysteries of his light on earth,
may also delight in his gladness in heaven.
It’s not dissimilar to the rendering in the1979 Book of Common Prayer:
O God,
who hast caused this holy night to shine
with the illumination of the true Light:
Grant us, we beseech thee,
that as we have known the mystery of that Light upon earth,
so may we also perfectly enjoy him in heaven;
Compare the rhetorical style of those prayers to the 1970 ICEL Sacramentary:
Father
You make this holy night
radiant with the splendor of Jesus Christ our light.
We welcome Him as Lord, true light of the world.
Bring us to eternal joy in the kingdom of heaven
where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
or the 1985 Book of Alternative Services:
As a Church and as a society we are, as the linguists would say, shifting registers. All you need do is listen to the ways in which the genre of presidential addresses have changed in the past fifty years. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson sound entirely different from Presidents George W Bush and Trump.
For an extreme but illuminating example, take President Lincoln’s second inaugural address, in which he sought to use poetry to knit together a broken country:
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Compare that, if you will, to this excerpt from our most recent President’s inaugural address.
I will fight for you with every breath in my body. And I will never, ever let you down. America will start winning again, winning like never before. We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth, and we will bring back our dreams. We will build new roads and highways and bridges and airports and tunnels and railways all across our wonderful nation. We will get our people off of welfare and back to work rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor. We will follow two simple rules -- buy American and hire American.
Substance aside, the change in rhetorical tone bears similarities to the shift in tone from middle to modern English. The first is resonant with chiasmatic structure, soaring poetic visions and calls to arms. The second is characterized by the staccato rhythms of a teletype and the pithy headlines of the Tabloid.
And I present these examples not to stand in the long line of those who would beat up on our President, for he is what we, as a country, have chosen. But the fact is indisputable that, as a culture, we have effectively banished from the courtroom, the classroom and the political rostrum is the high rhetoric of even a few decades ago.
Let’s take a look at a a Christmas Collect, found in most Christian service books, by way of example.
The Latin original dates from the 9th century Gelasian Sacrmanetaries and has always been used for Masses during the night before Christmas:
Deus, qui hanc sacratissimam noctem
veri luminis fecisti illustratione clarescere,
da, quaesumus, ut, cuius in terra mysteria lucis agnovimus,
eius quoque gaudiis perfruamur in caelo.
Here’s the new precise translation, written like its Latin original, in pretty High Rhetorical style:
O God, who have made this most sacred night
radiant with the splendor of the true light,
grant, we pray,
that we, who have known the mysteries of his light on earth,
may also delight in his gladness in heaven.
It’s not dissimilar to the rendering in the1979 Book of Common Prayer:
O God,
who hast caused this holy night to shine
with the illumination of the true Light:
Grant us, we beseech thee,
that as we have known the mystery of that Light upon earth,
so may we also perfectly enjoy him in heaven;
Compare the rhetorical style of those prayers to the 1970 ICEL Sacramentary:
Father
You make this holy night
radiant with the splendor of Jesus Christ our light.
We welcome Him as Lord, true light of the world.
Bring us to eternal joy in the kingdom of heaven
where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
or the 1985 Book of Alternative Services:
Eternal God,
this holy night is radiant
with the brilliance of your one true light.
As we have known the revelation of that light on earth,
bring us to see the splendor of your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Or still more, these lines from the second form of the Christmas Litany in the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship:
God of grace and truth,
In Jesus Christ you came among us
As light shining in darkness.
We confess that we have not welcomed the light,
Or trusted good news to be good…
Forgive our doubt, and renew our hope,
So that we may receive the fullness of your grace,
and live in the truth of Christ the Lord.
Lots of good prayers, but written in two essentially different registers: maybe described as high Church and low Church, transcendent and imminent or uppity and low brow. But that tone, I would suggest, the choice of thick poetry or crisp prose, is one of the most important challenges before us.
For beyond the words, our denominational worship and identity is formed as much by the way we say the words as what those words are, by the way we approach the Godhead as what we say to him when we get there.
And maybe there’s a message in there somewhere: that, as the philosopher Rudolph Otto once reminded us: before the numinous all words ultimately fail and all we can really do is bow down very low.
