What’s the deal with all the Latin?
What do Julius Caesar, the Popes, Francis Bacon, Galileo, President Thomas Jefferson, St. Jerome, JK Rowling, Friedrich Nietzsche and Mark Zuckerberg all have in common?
…They all studied Latin at some point in their lives, the majority to quite an advanced level. Whether it’s the Latinate spells of the fictional Harry Potter series, or the debates on the Early American Constitution, or something as famous as Caesar’s last agonized words”Et tu, Brute”, few things have endured as a language of science, culture and the arts quite like Latin.
Here at Scutum et Lorica, a lot of what we discuss will involve at least some reference to Latin or Greek because, well, oftentimes people who spoke those tongues first thought of most of the things worth talking about. To adjust the famous aphorism of Alfred North Whitehead, much of the Western philosophical (not to mention legal or scientific) tradition consists of a series of footnotes written in Latin.
When Copernicus began to theorize that the Sun was in fact the center of the solar system, he did so in Latin. When Cato the Elder argued for the destruction of Carthage in the Roman Senate, it was in Latin. When St. Jerome decided to translate the Jewish Scriptures into a language for Western Christendom, he did so in Latin. Thus all three men conceivably could have had a conversation, despite being divided drastically by culture and time.
Latin in many ways has infiltrated all her successor languages, and most especially in specialized fields where, quite honestly, it is easier to use the Latin word than an alternative. Thus, people speak of having an “Alibi” rather than “a compelling argument that someone could not have been an accessory to a crime, since they were elsewhere.” (Alibi means “in another place”) Surgeons and ER Nurses say “stat” from statim when they need something urgently like a surgical instrument (Statim means “right away” or “at once”). Examples could be multiplied ad nauseam (literally, so much, it makes you sick to hear it)!
Why can’t we just “get past it?”
In a religious context, the question of language is front and center. How important it is to notice that, when a religion claims to have a revelation from God, it is usually localized into a time, place and culture: for instance, the Jews with Hebrew, and Muslims with Classical Arabic. While there may be translations of these texts, special honor is typically accorded to the tongue in which they were communicated, because there is an instinct that this is unadulterated and true to what God wished to convey.
The situation with Christianity is a bit more complex, both because of its roots in ‘traditional’ Palestinian Judaism, as well as the Hellenized Judaism of the Mediterranean Littoral, where Greek was the common tongue of the educated. Therefore, while there is considerable debate as to what languages Christ himself spoke and at what times, Early Christians communicated the Gospel, or ευαγγελιον (Good News) in the languages of their time. Predominately, this was in Greek, Latin and Syriac (a derivation of Aramaic).
At the same time, while the Gospel itself was communicated all across the world in various languages, Liturgical Useages, then as now, tend to be ‘conservative’. That is, they refer back to the mother tongue(s) that communicated the faith and her ancient lexicon of prayer, thought and life. It is in this sense that the oft-quoted dictum of Prosper of Aquitaine, “ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi” or, “Let the rule/law of prayer stand as the rule/law of belief” takes a dual meaning: it is not just the form of words which matters, but also the language in which they are conveyed.
How does this impact me personally?
Perhaps a story I once heard from a friend will help illustrate this. I have a Priest friend who prays the Psalms every day in Latin in a form of prayer we call the Divine Office, as we have done for over a thousand years. Once in an airplane he was asked by a non-Catholic Christian what he was praying. He responded that he was praying the Scriptures in Latin. To his surprise, the man sitting with him did not seem to find that strange. He related that as a Charismatic Christian (someone for whom the mystical gifts of the Holy Spirit have a prominent role in worship and spirituality), he understood completely why he would pray in a sacred tongue different from the one he spoke regularly. He said that he often prayed in tongues, and to him, it was important that God give him a language with which to bless him, in which he had never cursed another man.
There is something very insightful, even powerful, in that comment.
Language is a key which opens the door to the native thought of the one speaking. Changing the language often involves some degree of corruption. The Italians have often said Traduttore, Traditore: all translators are in fact traitors. We may usually render a language relatively accurately, but there are certain concepts which are so laden with meaning that it is almost impossible to convey in a foreign context. Anyone who knows a word like saudade in Portuguese, or Tao in Mandarin, or Jus in Latin, Ennui in French, or Λογος in Greek, know just how difficult that can be.
Connected to others, connected to God
Being bilingual or multilingual, or even having a working knowledge of a language, can be a powerful tool to connect with people. It shows a willingness to enter into their culture and way of life, to embrace a part of who they are. Even simple words of courtesy like “Please” or “Thank you” go a long way. If taking the time to learn a special language can connect us to people, why should we think it is different with respect to people in the past, or even more so, to God?
One may say that God understands all tongues. Certainly Saint Paul even spoke of “tongues human and angelic” (1 Corinthians 13:1). It is impossible to grasp every language, and every nuance of language. Yet we all know by experience that nothing is quite as “unique” or as “authentic” as a cultural experience in a tongue which lifts us out of our ordinary and day-to-day world into that of another. The same may be said of prayer.
We at Scutum et Lorica will enthusiastically and steadfastly praise and utilize the Latin tongue where applicable, mindful of the tremendous heritage with which that tongue puts us into contact, and also with many of our greatest ancestors, who thought, felt and prayed in ways so profound, that to let them speak in their own form of words is to hear them speak most clearly.
