ORLAPUBS P. R56: LITURGICAL ENGLISH

LITURGICAL ENGLISH
© 1998 by Orchid Land Publications
[updated 9-29-00; Preface added 0080422; initial table added to
twice in May, 2008]

The worst failings of translators and writings made by Eastern writers who use the distorted conceptual apparatus of Western paradigms—consisting of premises that we call dogmas [not: doctrines!], its noûs or "mindset" is dominated by the King James Version of the Bible. Since words get their import and impact from the premises of a given paradigm, serious doctrinal obfuscations ensue from the practices just mentioned. The reason why Orthodoxy has no tenet of original sin is clear if the Greek is properly understood. The history of LOGOS and so on is known to--and ignored by--ideological translators.

The main points are the following:

1. To begin with, consider the simple distinction of a dogma or premise from a doctrine of teaching whose import stems from the dogma that the doctrine gives substance to.

2. Next come translations that do despite to the known import of words like LOGOS in the opening verses of John's Gospel. Greek had nine or ten words for "word," but lógos was NOT one--except in the sense of "message" (cf. English "Give them the word!"). The ancient Greeks held that the LOGOS ("reason, rationality" when not personalized) is the formative Source of the order of the cosmos, the Framer of created reality.

The next categories offer even worse confusions; they are interrelated. Underlying them is the concept of energy that was so fashionable in the Apostle Paul's day that he used the concept 26 times. (The LXX uses the noun and the verb seven times each.)

3. Greek took an energetic or causative verb and made nouns by adding feminine -sis or neuter -ma to the stem. The former creates a noun indicating an energization rather like English nouns ending in -ization. (In fact, -sis is added to -ize verbs in Greek as well as another category of causative verbs.) The RESULT of the energization is represented by adding -ma (mat- before a vowel in a declensional ending)--historically the same as English -ment and English mind). Gen. 1:26 says that the first human was created according to the Icon (Likeness) of God and, as already observed, according to the (energetic) Assimilation. II Peter 1:4 refers to the Divinization (of nature, a matter of energies—not to Deification, a matter of essence—when the Apostle speaks of partaking of the divine Nature, something that reverses what the first humans lost—the Assimilation to God—and which created a condition of ‘amartía.

4. The Likeness belongs to human essence, what all members of the human species possess; it cannot be lost. It is otherwise with human nature, which for a speaker of Hellenistic Greek consisted of the energies through which an essence relates to other beings. So the Assimilation refers to the uncreated Energies of the divine Nature mentioned—as being salvation) in II Pet. 1:4, i.e. as restoring what the first humans lost). Connecting these dots is not on in a Western paradigm.

5. John the Baptist said that Christ came to take away the hamartia of the world, not the "sins" ('hamartēmata) of worshipers. Hamartia is a profane state of alienation and estrangement caused by the sinning of the first humans; it is an ontic concept, which is to say a state or condition. Hamártēma is a deontic (in logic, a will-based or moral) violation of an injunction. (Connecting II Pet. 1:4 with the deprivation of human nature of the uncreated Energies of Grace is not obvious in Western Christianity.)

6. It is worshipers/religion/HOLINESS in the East vs. believers/rules of moral- ity/RIGHTEOUSNESS in the West. The contrary of holiness is profaning a taboo; cf. the taboo according to which Moses had to remove his sandals on the holy ground where the burning bush was discovered. The contrary of righteousness is sin. Protestant believers have little concept of taboo, it would seem, because they confuse holiness with righteousness: They do not worship by returning to the Creator a perfect specimen of Creation as (sacrificial) WORSHIP. (Human--oriented sermons are, curiously, called "worship" by some!)

7. A Mystery (the adjective is mysteric, not mysterious or mystical) is a marriage of something material (e.g. the human body—especially the resurrected body, which IS salvation in conservative Christianity—with the uncreated Energies of Grace. Marriage is a Mystery, according to St. Paul; the Body and Blood of Christ is the greatest of all Mysteries by far; it is the Mystery that IS the greatest Worship.. The Orthodox accept as Mysteries includes many of those things that Latins call "sacramentals," e.g. holy icons, which are physically (sacramentally) kissed. But mysteries or sacraments are called “ordinances” by the more law-based Protestants (whose doctrine of justification or salvation is called forensic (juridical) by them.

8. We read or hear of humans attaining to eternal life. Not even the Angels do this. The most a created being can attain to is everlasting life. While "everlasting" is timeful, "eternal" is timeless--outside of temporality.

The Mysteric Body of Christ consists of individuals who share the uncreated Energies of His divine Life, i.e. Grace. Having the same Life (zōē, not bios) is being a member of Christ.

There is no need here to supplement the discussion with a discussion of Greek enérgeia (in Aristotle’s sense) and modern energy, which is a capacity for work; it is not “work,” as so many translators obvious suppose!

FURTHER TO COMMON WESTERN AND EASTERN VIEWS
OF HOLINESS AND ITS RELATION TO BIOETHICS

There are views (apparently common) among some Western Christians that holiness and righteousness are much the same; it would seem that some bioethicists (a subject for which this writer claims no competence) who uphold the distinction between holiness and righteousness make the distinctions in terms of divine law and human law. This is at enormous various from Orthodoxy. For Eastern Christians, ethics is on the human dimension−−not the divine dimension−−with the crucial exception that Grace (divine ontic Energy) from the divine dimension is crucial to differentiating religious ethics and sin from human righteousness and sin. The only way that law enters into salvation is that there is a connection between holiness, grace, or divine Energy, on the one hand, and divinely approved moral laws to promote human nature--itself an ontic notion. This ontic notion is what is absent in the contrast between arbitrary divine law and human laws, whether the latter are viewed as deontically arbitrary or befitting ontic nature. Since both Roman Catholics and Protestants deviate radically from the Greek-language tradition in rejecting the idea that Grace (sanctifying Grace in Papal Catholicism) is energetic (Latin activa), and since the Latins reject the idea that sanctifying Grace is uncreated while Protestants reject the idea that Grace is basically more than a deontic intention on the part of God, the ancient view goes for lost. The effects of this on deontic bioethics--note that natural law is not zoöethics!--constitutes an enormous gap. Neither side has a problem with considering a purely intellectual, non-religious ethics, though the grounds are different. Orthodoxy has not problem with the ability of a finite human mind to reach certain truths (not ultimate truth) about finite reality.

       This note is mainly about liturgical English--not ritual English, which includes rubrics--directions for proceeding that should be written in ordinary clear English. If the goal of the rites is to be intelligible as well as to possess as much beauty as we can offer to our all-holy God, then our course will be clear. The importance of intelligible rites lies--according to the maxim: dýnamis deéseos, dýnamis písteos "rule of prayer [is] rule of belief/faith"--in its didactic function as well as in its latreutic function.  [SEE HERE.] The unseemliness of praying in cotidian English or (heaven forfend!) slang is so obvious to the Orthodox that we are left with two practical choices--a stately form of the English of our time and archaizing Elizabethan English.   For more on translating service books CLICK HERE. Besides false renderings of LOGOS (as though "rhêma, léxis), omoíosis (as though omoíoma), ktísis (as though ktísma), théosis (as though apothéosis), etc., there are expressions that in English are simply meaningless; e.g. "unto the ajuhhz uvv ajuhhz" for ("for ages and ages" or "both now and ever and throughout the ages. Ameen"; see below for this and the cursus) and absurdities like "Symbol of faith" for "Standard of belief." Another absurdity is translating ánthropos like anér "man." And what can be said of the "energy" words in Greek?
     Many Orthodox liturgical materials have tried to emulate the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century versions of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer--with varying success and varying degrees of good and bad influences from those sources. For specific mistranslations made in English by Orthodox writers, CLICK HERE; on mistranslating LOGOS as "Word," SEE HERE. The worst example is changing all pasts in -st to Thou didst VERB--leaving so many occurrences of didst as to make the prayer dizzy; see examples below. One unfortunate influence is the use of vocative "O"--not even used in Greek prayers, despite the Classical Greek origin of the expletive. This should be avoided in English.
     It should be incontestable that liturgical language should be dignified. Does that mean it should be archaic and even unintelligible? Hardly. One thinks of Orthodox prayer books in which every past verb--went, saw, said, desired, etc.--is changed to did go, did see, did say, did desire (it's hard to say thou desiredst!), etc.   The monotony and irksomeness of this is too obvious to require comment, even if there were no problem connected with the connotations of emphasis that an extra do (one not connected with negation or inverted word order) carries in contemporary English. Though archaizing English is often intelligible--and indeed stately--does that mean that contemporary (non-slang) English usage cannot be stately and dignified?    (If what is said is not intelligible, why not just be traditional and use the Slavic that few contemporary Russians comprehend or the Patristic Greek that modern Greeks do not understand or the Syriac that Arabic-speakers can guess at but not fully comprehend?) That is of course silly--as silly as the belief that Elizabethan subjunctives and modal uses sound better than today's English, properly phrased.
       The arguments alleged for a pæni-Elizabethan or quasi-Elizabethan form of English are (so far as they are known to this writer) linguistically, artistically, and practically without merit; such efforts often end up being mock-Elizabethan. Is vouchsafe really more "liturgical" than various modern-English usages? One could question that vouchsafe has any meaning for many moderns, not least those from Greek and other, even more-recent ethnic groups. Some expressions that are beyond the pale are found in otherwise respectable translations; e.g. "bowels of mercy" and "rightly divide the truth" [into how many pieces?], not to speak of "I am that I am" [for "I'm the One Who IS" or, less literally, "I am Who I am"]. It certainly adds no grace to the quality and tone of our rites. We might recall that one Greek Orthodox manual for great Holy Week has (in one lamentation) thou wast, thou was (never correct), and thou wert (correct only as a subjunctive--as in "O that thou wert as my brother" and "I would thou wert cold or hot") for contemporary you were. In another place, the manual already referred to uses wast where had been would be correct. We also find wouldst for wouldest.
     It is fair to assume that, till better arguments are forthcoming, insufficient reasons need not be re-rehearsed here. That leaves us with the choice of a stately form of today's English. If we think of the Psalter, the 1611 English offers a model for some word uses that can guide us today; but archaic syntax and obsolete word usages (verily for truly, etc.) are pointless.   Poetic talents are doubtless called for, along with a proper understanding of the original and transmitting languages of our rites.
      To clarify the point, let's consider (A) some mock-Elizabethan examples and (B) examples of a stately English rendering of the same passages that--whatever their human imperfections--can pass muster. We make English stately by avoiding colloquialisms and preferring stately terms like lamentation, inequities, etc. But verdant for green in Ps. 22 is a bit too stately; the simpler use of green pastures befits the message there. In what follows, no attempt has been made to go back to the original Greek to check the semantic accuracy of the renderings:

A) When Thou didst descend unto death, O Life Immortal, then didst Thou slay Hades with the lightning of Thy Divinity. And when Thou didst also raise the dead out of the nethermost depths, all the powers in the Heavens cried out: O Life-giver, Christ our God, glory be to Thee.

B) When You descended to the realm of the dead, Immortal Life, you slew the devil (or the Lord of the dead) with the fiery bolt of Your Godhead. And when You raised the dead from the pit, all of the heavenly Forces cried out: Giver of Life, Christ out God: May You be glorified!

The didst compounds in (A) are both unnecessary and overly ponderous and (to tell the truth) very cumbersome--not to say monotonous in their iteration; just as signally, they clash with the sense of did in current English. It is not a KJV usage.

A) As of old Thou didst raise the paralytic, O Lord, by Thy divine presence do Thou raise my soul, which is paralysed grievously by all manner of sins and unseemly deeds, that being saved I may cry out: O compassionate Christ, glory be to Thy power.

B) Just as You raised up the paralyzed man so long ago, Lord, through Your divine intervention also raise up my soul, miserably paralyzed by every kind of sin and misdeed; so that I, having been saved, may cry out: Merciful Christ, may Your Majesty be glorified!

Let's try some Psalms, of which only the (B) version will be provided. Archaic shall (whose sixteenth- and seventeenth-century uses were not what the grammar books would lead one to believe) should be avoided except in its modern connotation (when not interrogative) of strong determination. Here is Ps. 22/23, followed by Ps. 129/130:

The Lord nurtures me like a shepherd; I will not come short of what I need. 2. He feeds me in a green pasture and leads me beside calm waters. 3. He renews my soul and guides my way along the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. 4. Even though I should walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me: Your sheep crook and staff give me comfort. 5. You have prepared a table [or an Altar?] for me in the presence of those who make trouble for me; You have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is overflowing. Your loving-kindness and mercy will surely abide with me all of the days of my life; and my abode will be in the Lord's House forever.

From the depths I have cried out to You, Lord; Lord, hear my voice. 2. Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my prayers. 3. If You are to be severe in taking note of sins, Lord, who may endure it, Lord? 4. But with You, there is forgiveness; I have been longing for You, Lord, for the sake of Your name. 5. My soul has been pining for Your Logos. 6. My soul has hoped for the Lord more keenly than the night watch does for the dawn. 7. Let Israël hope in the Lord; for mercy resides with the Lord, and with Him there is Salvation in abundance. 8. And He will redeem Israël from all of its iniquities.

Here are some more Psalms, beginning with Psalm 90/91:

1. Whoever dwells within the security of the Most High will find refuge in the shelter of the Almighty. 2. He will say to the Lord, "You are my solace and my fortress, my GOD; I will place my hope in Him." 3. For He will deliver you from the snare of the hunters, from what is baneful. 4. He will defend you beneath His wings, and under His feathers you will find hope; His truth will enshroud you. 5. You are not to be afraid of any terror by night nor on account of the arrow winging its way in the daytime; 6. Nor of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the plague that ravages at noonday. 7. A thousand will fall beside you and ten thousand at your right hand; but it will not come near you. 8. Rather will you behold with your eyes and catch sight of the reward of the ungodly. 9. For You are my hope, Lord: You have set Your house of defence very high. 10. No evils will land on your doorstep, nor will any plague come near your dwelling. 11. For He will put His Angels in charge of you to keep you in all of your doings. 12. They will bear you in their hands, so that you will not hurt your foot against a rock. 13. You will tread on the asp and adder; the young lion and dragon you will trample under foot. 14. Because he has set his hope on Me, I will therefore shelter him; I will raise him up, because he has acknowledged My name. 15. He will call on Me, and I will give ear to him; indeed, I am with him in affliction: I will raise him up and bring him to honor. 16. I will fill him with length of days and show him My Salvation.

Psalm 133/134

1. Look now, praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord; 2. You who by night stand in the house of the Lord, even in the courts of our GOD’s House: 3. Lift up your hands in the Sanctuary and praise the Lord. 4. May the Lord Who created Heaven and earth give you a Blessing out of Zion.

Psalm 102/103

1. Bless the Lord, my soul; and may all that is within me praise His holy name. 2. Bless the Lord, my soul; and do not fail to be mindful of all of His praises: 3. He forgives all of your sins, and heals your every weakness. 4. He saves your life from corruption and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness. 5. He satisfies your longings with good things, and your youth will be renewed like the youth of an eagle. 6. Performing acts of mercy, the Lord executes judgment on behalf of all who are oppressed with wrong. 7. He made His ways known to Moses; His wishes, to the children of Israël. 8. The Lord is gracious and merciful; He is patient and of great compassion. 9. He will not be chiding to the end; nor will He keep His wrath forever. 10. He has not dealt with us in proportion to our sins nor requited us according to our misdeeds. 11. For comparably with the vast distance of Heaven from the earth has the Lord magnified His mercy toward those who fear Him. 12. And look how far the East is from the West: thus far has He set our sins from us. 13. Just as a parent takes pity on one’s children: even so the Lord shows compassion on those who fear Him. 14. For He knows what we are made of: He has not forgotten that we are but dust. 15. The days of a human being are like grass; and like a wildflower will each come to bloom: 16. As soon as the wind blows over it, it is also no more; and its place recognizes it no longer. 17. But the merciful goodness of the Lord endures always and forever toward those who reverence Him; and His righteousness, to children’s children—18. Even to such as keep His Covenant and are mindful of observing His commandments. 19. The Lord has prepared His throne in Heaven, and His rule exercises dominion over all. 20. Bless the Lord, all of you Angels of His, able and strong, fulfilling His commandment and heeding the sound of His words: 21. Bless the Lord, all of His forces: you ministrants of His who carry out His will. 22. Speak good of the Lord, all of you works of His in every place of His dominion. Bless the Lord, my soul!

CLICK HERE FOR SOME LITURGICAL EXAMPLES

    It is fairly unsettling to see translators missing the chance to reflect the rhetoric that Greek writers have been so famous for.   An example comes from a French translation of St. Gregory Palamãs; I present a fairly close translation of the Greek, which comes from a dramatic passage (these words are followed by even more pronounced rhetoric) and then a translation of the French translation.
     The Greek says in my rhetorical rendering: "Do[n't] you see that even if someone were eager to work in opposition to sin, even if [someone were eager] to acquire virtue, even if [someone were eager] for the prize in the contest over virtue--or rather to find the security deposit of the prize of virtue-- the spiritual meaning--it would [still] be necessary to stimulate [or: galvanize] one's noûs ["spiritual discernment"] from within the body"?    Note that the word rendered "security deposit" (or "down-payment"?) is translated as "earnest" in 2 Cor. 1:22, 5:5 and Eph. 1:14; "prize" (or "trophy") is found in 1 Cor. 9:24 and Philp. 3:14.
     The French says in my literal rendering: "Do you see that if one desires to oppose oneself to sin, acquire virtue, find the recompense of the combat for virtue, or rather the intelligent meaning [sens]--security deposit--of that recompense, it is necessary to get the spirit to return within the body and within oneself?"

     How do we translate Logos--"Reason, Rationale"? (That the Creator Son of God was a "Word" is nonsensical for us--and for Jews since Philo; incidentally, thing and word are the same lexical item in Classical Hebrew.) Why can't we domesticate Logos, Theotokos, mol(i)eben, paraclesis, igumen, trisagion, slava, akathist, icon (eikJn), etc. the way we have domesticated catharsis (English stresses Greek according to Latin rules and often uses "c" for Greek "k"--see below "y"), thesis, thema, epiclesis, sorites, hybris, eros, pleroma, anamnesis, anaphora, Theophany (with "y" for Greek -ia)--and many other terms, not to speak of many proper names?    If apotheosis can be englished, why can't the Orthodox concept theosis also be englished? (We should remember that Greek "ei" becomes English "i" and "ou" becomes "u" [while "y" remains "y"]; "oi" and "ai" often become, respectively, "æ" and "(", and then both are written "e" by some; "k" becomes "c"; "gg" become "ng"; "g" becomes "gh" or, before "e, i," "y"; etc.)
     Final -on (as in phenomenon and criterion) and -os should be written in place of -um and -us in Greek names; e.g. Byzantion, Athanasios, etc. One should not write "u" for "y"; Greek "ou" is English "(o)u." Note that in English, plurals in -a should be avoided except where already in use--as phenomena and criteria are (and are often misused as singulars; it is therefore better to write theotokions than theotokia. Greek "k" and "g" are preferred to "c" and "g" in English when followed by "i," "e," or "y," and letters that are often pronounced "y"--viz. "oi, ai, ei, ui," and eta. Otherwise, usage varies between "k" and (Latin) "c." I write "y" for Greek "g" before "i," "e," "y," and letters that are often pronounced "y"--viz. "oi, ai, ei, ui," and eta. Many transcribe eta as "i"--a transcription also in Church Slavic--but this can be confusing. Still, the difference between eta and epsilon needs to be kept--perhaps by consistently writing "e" with a long mark over it for eta. "H" was of course lost, except where combined in compounds with a preceding consonant as "ph, th, ch." Some decisions need to be made jointly; if beta is "v," etc., then ny plus tau should be "nd" and my plus pi should be "mb" (as in Charalambos). I personally write "v" for beta (vita), but shy away from "dh" for delta (for which "th" is quite out of order). I use "g" (not "gh") for gamma--but "y" when it is followed by an "i" vowel--viz. eta, iota, (h)ypsilon, "ei," "oi," and "yi" ("ui"). I do not write "e" for "ai," though it was pronounced as in English said.
     Names are difficult. Orthodox assume new Christian names at holy Baptism, Ordination (at higher levels), and tonsure (and higher levels of monasticism). Greek forms of Hebrew names justify writing -ias instead of -jah in Jeremias and Elias and instead of -iah in Isaias. Elias is complicated by Ilias and Slavic Ilya. One often writes Yezekiel for Western Ezekiel; for other names, see the names of the prophetic books in the LXX (Septuagint) Old Testament .
     Using more Greek-like usages give Orthodox statements a welcome uniqueness.   The mention of domestication above leads the discussion to an important point: With practice, we in time get used to word usages.   One brought up on the wording and rhythms of the (modified) 1611 Version of the Bible and/or The Book of Common Prayer may take awhile to get used to our current idiom; but once the acclimatization has taken place, there is no going back: All of the archaïsms sound out of place. Aside from the monotony of shall (often misused by writers since the seventeenth-century) and the clumsy effect of didst--hardly more seemly than Evangelical preachers' interpolating just in every other petition--some usages are simply not much more intelligible to many people than the original Greek or Slavic. Not least, those usages destroy the beauty of what is prayed.  Stateliness does not mean obscurity.
     One item of style may be mentioned: If you compare "death and corruption" with "death and decay," keeping in mind the moral tones of corruption and the fore-rhyming of death and decay, it should be evident that "death and decay" is the preferable wording. There is no doubt that inveigh against, implore, transgressions or wickednesses, contrition, statutes, etc. often sound more liturgical than criticize, beg, sins, sorrow, laws, etc. Such small matters should not be overlooked in passages that will be repeated many times--passages whose teachings will be engrained in the brains of those who repeat them.
     A final point will occur to many: What about gender-neutral usage--not for the Persons of the Godhead, of course, at least in Orthodox prayers, but for human beings? The fact is that the ancient words for "human being"--Greek ánthropos, Latin homo, Hebrew '~dam; cf. German Mensch--were sufficiently gender-neutral that "man" or "men" crucially misrepresents the original.   There is no more reason for making ánthropos masculine than to make alqtheia "truth, truthfulness" feminine in English--just because of ancient grammatical categories--grammatical categories lacking in English.   If we avoid offending the feminine half of the human race with this sort of accuracy, so much the better! But the Orthodox will of course not alter the masculine designations of the Persons of the all-holy Trinity--even though "Wisdom" (Sophía) was and is feminine in Greek, and even though "Spirit" (Pnevma) was (and is) neuter in Greek. The main desideratum is for commonsense to be married to reverence.
     Greek eis often gets misrendered as into where in is right in English; the best translation is often to, as in "Remember us, Lord, when you come to Your Kingdon." The Greek word should be ameen in English (cf. "ee" for Latin long "e" in creed); and something similar would be welcome to keep alleelouïa from being pronounced "allaylooya" in English.; cf. German Mensch--were sufficiently gender-neutral that "man" or "men" crucially misrepresents the original.   There is no more reason for making ánthropos masculine than to make alqtheia "truth, truthfulness" feminine in English--just because of ancient grammatical categories--grammatical categories lacking in English.   If we avoid offending the feminine half of the human race with this sort of accuracy, so much the better! But the Orthodox will of course not alter the masculine designations of the Persons of the all-holy Trinity--even though "Wisdom" (Sophía) was and is feminine in Greek, and even though "Spirit" (Pnevma) was (and is) neuter in Greek. The main desideratum is for commonsense to be married to reverence.
     Greek eis often gets misrendered as into where in is right in English; the best translation is often to, as in "Remember us, Lord, when you come to Your Kingdom." The Greek word should be ameen in English (cf. "ee" for Latin long "e" in creed); and something similar would be welcome to keep alleelouïa from being pronounced "allaylooya" in English.
      Note that "Bright Week" is definitely non-liturgical English. "Radiant Week" works; but the Greek is "Week of Renewal." That ugly and meaningless (and, in the Northern States, generally mispronounced) gibberish, "unto the ages of ages," found in prayer books should be banished to the outermost fringe of respectability. It literally means "for ages and ages" in English. But for those who wish to respect the cursus (an item of Mediaeval rhetoric that was respected, in its English form, in the CofE Book of Common Prayer), this would do better: "both now and ever and throughout the ages. Ameen."

To keep this brief, English versions of the cursus or final cadence have stresses on the syllables numbered from the end as follows:

planus (plain) FIFTH and SECOND syllable from the end; e.g. "hélp and defénd us."

tardus (slow) SIXTH and THIRD syllable from the end; e,g. "contínual gódliness."

velox (rapid) SEVENTH and SECOND; e.g. "Hélper Who is immórtal."

Even grosser is the multiplication of "didst" that is so off-putting in some prayer books. Like vocative "O" (ultimately from Greek but missing in Greek prayers), it is un-KJV-like. If one insists on using antique English (something I do not favor), one could at least use all of those unpronounceable "Thou holpest" ("e" pronounced only in the no longer extant subjunctive), "Thou deckest," "Thou trembledst," and "Thou tookest." And one might as well give a note (in singing) to all instances of "-ed." In the end, all of that is a lost cause, and modern English is more flexible and more noble than any past period of English--which is not to say that a modern Will Shakespeare or John Donne has been able to do with it what those worthies did with Elizabethan and Carolingian English.

Translators have a good deal to answer for. An example that is not stylistic but basic semantics is "All they only saw Him in prototypes" for "They all, etc." or "All of them, etc."--but not "All they saw was only, etc." More in focus here, however, is non-literalness--changes of plurals to singulars or vice-versa, of word orders, etc.--that is not necessary for the English idiom or does not contribute to the cadence or the sense, or the dignity of a passage. Contrast with "May He Who is Sovereign of the living and dead . . . " the solemn cadence of Hapgood's rendering (with He changed to "the One" and hath updated to "has": "May the One Who has dominion over the living and dead"--which is a more literal rendering. By mistranslating ei mè "unless" as "but . . . alone," the following Absolution in one manual fails to make any sense: " ." What precedes it would better be rendered as "My spiritual child, [who are] confessing to my humble self--one who, [being] of no account and sinful, is [literally "am"] powerless to remit sin on earth unless God does so" (the last two words are lacking in the Greek). What we read doesn't scan all that well, and the vocabulary is stilted; it also exhibits an ungrammatical "I" (being differently construed in Greek--with ego) for "me": "My spiritual child, what you have confessed to my humble person, I [sic!] who am lowly and a sinner have no earthly power to remit, but God alone." Notice the unnecessary rendering of "on earth" and "earthly."

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