Re: Grace, Theotokos (was: Ave Maria)

On Fri, 30 Jun 2000 06:26:53 +0100, Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
wrote:


>XAPIC, genL XAPITOC  (kharis, kharitos) = grace (= 'free & underserved
>favor, gift, help [that God gives us to respond to his call to be
partakers
>of the diven nature & of eternal life]) - the theological meaning is much
>developed in the writings of St Paul.
>
>But the word translated into Latin as 'gratia plena' is:
>KEXAPIT‡MENH   (kekharitwmenh [w = omega; h = eta])
>
>Catholics and, it clearly from the prayers quoted so far, Orthodox take
the
>stem in this participle, i.e. -XAPIT- to have the technical 'theological'
>sense of 'kharis' = grace. So the traditional translation "full of grace"
>(thus confirming the belief in Mary's sinlessness).
>
>Protestant translators have generally taken -XARIT- here in it's common,
>everyday "pre-theological: Greek meaning of 'favor', 'thanks', and
>translate the participle as 'highly favored' or some similar phrase.
The problem is that _kharis_ has an alternative translation into
Church Slavonic (and Russian): _milost'_. Occurring in the Church
usage, too, and closer to the more common meaning ('favor, grace').

It'll require a whole investigation to find out what corresponds in
Greek to the opposition _blagodat'_ :: _milost'_ in Church Slavonic.
I feel these two words to be too different.

<...>
>But there *is*.  The Latin strict Latin equivalent, so to speak, is
'Deipara'.
>Admittedly that hardly occurs in any liturgy, prayers etc.  But 'Dei
>Genetrix' is common enough, and if that is not an equivalent of
'Theotokos'
>it's difficult to see what is!
...so I almost guessed right about _Deigenetrix_ , which would be
the exact parallel to _Bogoroditsa_ (which in turn is a calque of
_Theotokos_).


Basilius