Re: CHAT: Ave Maria

At 11:14 am -0400 30/6/00, Vasiliy Chernov wrote:
[....]
>>I think _blagodatnaja_ could be something like _eudotike_ in Greek,
>
>- most probably _kekharitomene_, as Ray suggested.
Most certainly, as that's what the Greek has in Luke 1:28
>
>>and _blagoslovennaja_ (which I translated as 'blessed') must be
>>something like _eulogoumene_.
>
>- actually, I find _eulogemene_ in my dictionary.
Yep - that's the word, the second & final Es are etas, the other two
epsilons.  The opening lines of both the Catholic 'Ave Maria' and the
prayer given by Irina and Vasily are clearly the angelic salutation in Luke
1:28 to which has been appended Elizabeth's greeting in Luke 1:42, namely:

GREEK NT(E = eta; O = omega):          LATIN VULGATE
khaire, kekharitOmeE,                  Ave, gratia plena,
ho Kyrios meta sou.                    Dominus tecum.
eulogEmenE sy en gynaixin,             Benedicta tu in mulieribus,
kai eulogEmenos ho karpos              et benedictus fructus
  tEs koilias sou.                       ventris tui.

Indeed, "benedicta tu in mulieribus" appears in both verse 28 and verse 42
in the Vulgate, and some, though not the best, Greek manuscripts have
"eulogEmenE sy en gynaixin" in both verses which suggests to me that at
least the first part of verse 42 was being added to verse 28 as an
invocation to Our Lady at a very early date.

The Latin Church added the name 'Maria' after 'Ave' while the Orthodox have
added 'virgin Mother of God' (presumably 'parthene Theotoke' in Greek) as
well Mary's name.  The Western Church have also added 'Jesus' to the end of
the second verse.  The main difference, of course, is what has been added
to the end.  As I've said, there were a variety of formulae used in western
Christendom in the 15th cent; I don't know how old the Orthodox form is -
possibly there was some variety there also before a particular formula
established itself.

It's interesting to discover that these are all basically variants of the
same prayer - an ancient devotion to Mary formed from the greetings of
Gabriel and of Elizabeth.

'khaire' BTW is the imperative of the verb 'to rejoice', but was also
commonly used in ancient & Hellenistic Greek to mean little more than
'Hello'.  The Vulgate translation 'Ave' takes the latter meaning, hence the
English "hail".  Irina & Vasily's version show that the more literal
'rejoice' is the Orthodox tradition.

It probably, in fact, was used by Luke with _both_ meanings  :)

This is one of those little problems faced by translators, like the
translation of the second word, kekharitOmenE; but whereas the difference
with the first word has little or no theological import, that of the second
word certainly does.

Ray.



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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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