Re: CHAT: Ave Maria

At 1:59 pm -0700 1/7/00, DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
>From: "Raymond Brown"
>
>> 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.
>
>> 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.
>
>Did a little checking of some of the Bibles I have on hand. My English one
>(Revised Standard Edition) has: "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with
>you!", and leaves it there, picking up the familiar interpretation at 1:42.
The King James Version has: "Hail, _thou that art_ highly favoured..."
(_thou that art_ is italicized to show that the translators added the words
because in the view they were needed in English, though they are not there
in the Greek).

But the Catholic Douai-Reims version (1609) has: "Hail, full of grace...."

While the choice of 'hail' or 'rejoice' for the opening word depends on the
predilection of the translator, the translation of the 2nd word is
influenced by the religious standpoint of the translator.

[snip]
>
>A question, Ray: You mentioned in a different thread on the Lord's prayer
>that the Vulgate slips in a "quis est" into "Pater noster in caelo" because
>Latin does not allow for prepositions to be used adverbially. Here, though,
>we have "Dominus tecum" (where all three of my Germanic examples above add a
>copula), and "[benedicta] tu in mulieribus". What's happening here? Is there
>a sort of ellipsis occurring here that is absent or different in the Lord's
>Prayer? What's the diff?
They are different.  In the Lord's Prayer "in heaven" (en tois ouranois) is
used attributively, i.e. as an adjectival phrase.  In Greek, if the noun is
definite, the definite article must be repeated before any attributive
adjective or adjectival phrase that follows the noun (if it comes before
the noun it is simply put between the def. article & the noun).  This is
what we find here, tho since the noun is vocative, there is no def. article
before the noun itself, e.g.:
 pater hEmOn ho  en tois ouranois
father of-us the in the  heavens

In English we can say: Our father in heaven

But Classical & late* Latin does not allow prep+noun phrases to be used
this way; they may be only adverbial, hence "pater noster _qui es_ in
caelis".

[*Medieval Latin tends often reflects the native language of its writer,
and almost any exception to any rule can be found :)  ]

The phrases 'meta sou' (with you) and 'en gynaixin' (among women) are used
adverbially in Greek, with the verb 'to be' "understood", as they say.
Indeed, the verb 'to be' is fairly regularly not expressed in the present
tense (as is the norm, e.g. in moden Russian), though it may be.  So there
is no use in the Greek of any definite article before them, thus:
ho Kyrios     meta sou
the Lord [is] with you

eulogEmenE sy         en gynaixin,
blessed    you [are] among women  = you are blessed among women

Though not so nearly so common as in Greek, the present of the verb 'to be'
is ommitted, especially in shorter sentences in "Silver Latin".  As no
trace of this comes over into any of the Romance languages, we can
reasonably infer that this was not a 'natural' feature of Latin but rather
a literary one done in imitation of Greek.
However that may be, the usage had become acceptable well before the
Vulgate Translation.  Thus we have:
Dominus [est] tecum
The Lord [is] with-you

Benedicta tu [es]   in mulieribus
blessed   you [are] among women

The phrases are used adverbially; it would not make sense to used them
adjectively: *the Lord who is with you"; *blessed are you who are among
women.

The verb 'to be' is also to be "understood" in the last sentence:
kai eulogEmenos      ho karpos  tEs koilias sou.
and blessed    [is]  the fruit of-the womb  of-you
 et benedictus [est] fructus    ventris    tui.

Hope this helps.

Ray.




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