Re: Fiat Lux

Salvete Glottopoetae!

    I've been lurking here for a while, and the only thing that has been
able to get me to break my silence is Latin ;) I hope this post isn't
too disorganized or badly proofread, as you can only make one first
impression.

    Fio is indeed a strange verb. It's active in form, but is considered
the suppletive passive of facio. Additionally, it can mean a number of
things: "to be made, to happen, to become, to come into being." You will
note that most of these meanings perfectly translate the Greek word
gignomai, which is as Muke Tever pointed out the word that the
Septuagint uses in this passage. The Vulgate almost certainly chose fiat
instead of, say, "sit" or "esto" (forms of the verb "to be") because of
what the Septuagint uses.
    Note that the LXX uses the 3rd person imperative. Well, Latin does
have third person imperatives but it virtually never uses them except in
law codes and with the verb esse (the only famous example I can think of
here is "esto perpetua", "let it be perpetual", motto of one of the
states in the U.S.) Instead the Romans preferred to use the subjunctive,
and so this is what we have, FIAT LVX.
    This is, of course, the origin of the expression "by fiat." To do
something by fiat means you say it and thereby make it so, just as God
saying "Fiat lux" resulted in "...et lux erat.

> "Fiat" is 3d sing, pres. subjunctive of a very peculiar verb-- it has active
> conjugation, but passive meaning: 'to be made'.  (Likely the only such verb,
> unlike sequor, sequi 'to follow'-- passive conjugation, active meaning-- the
> more usual type of "deponent" verb. )  I suspect it was irregular in other
> ways, and may only have occured in 3d person, but perhaps Ray Brown will
> give us the details.  The only other well-known occurrence I can think of
> is:  "Poeta nascitur, non fit" 'a poet is born, not made'.(3d sing.,
> indicative)
>
The verb does occur in all persons. Another famous example, illustrating
this, is "Vae, Puto deus fio!", the last words of the Emperor Vespasian,
"Alas, I think I am becoming a god!"             [The oddity of this
sentence is not fio, but the lack of accusative-infinitive construction.
Perhaps the sense is more "Alas, I am (I think) becoming a god!"]

>
> I look forward to Ray's answer-- I never quite understood why this verb was
> needed.  What was the matter with the passive of facio, facere?  (On the
> basis of two exs., perhaps 'to be done, performed' vs. 'to be created'?
>
>
    It's just one of those linguistic oddities. Fio IS the passive of
facio, at least in common use. Facio almost never occurs with regular
passive forms, such as *facitur, instead you get fit. Note that the
regular forms usually DO occur in most compounds of facio.
    Another point: the subjunctive of esse "to be" is sit, not siat.
(Though "siet" does occur with optative force in Plautus)

    Sorry I have not mentioned any constructed languages so far, but
perhaps someday I will ;)

Justin "IVSTINVS" Mansfield, a.k.a. The Mad Latinist

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