Folia Theologica 17. (2006)
Uwe Michael Lang: Early Christian Latin as a Liturgical Language
EARLY CHRISTIAN LATIN AS A LITURGICAL LANGUAGE 135 cabulary in Christian Latin. Augustine has interesting observations on this in his De doctrina Christiana: Tn some cases, although they could be translated, the original form is preserved for the sake of its solemn authority (propter sanctiorem auctoritatem)', such as amen and alleluia. Other words 'are said to be incapable of being translated into another language. ... This is especially true of interjections, which signify emotion, rather than an element of clearly conceived meaning'; he gives the example osanna.2i 3. Sacred language uses rhetorical figures that are typical of oral style, such as parallelism and antithesis, rhythmic clausulae, rhyme, and alliteration.23 24 25 Mohrmann distinguishes between sacred languages of a 'primary' and a 'secondary' kind. 'Primary' sacred languages were formed as such from the beginning, for example, the language of the Greek oracles that was close to the Kunstprache of the Homeric 23 We also know that in the early Middle Ages, especially in the Merovingian period, command of Latin was sometimes so poor that even the most crucial sacramental formulas were no longer understood by the priests and basic mistakes were made. There are the well-documented mutilations of the formula of baptism, such as baptizo te in nomine Patri et Filiae. 24 Augustine, De doctrina Christiana 11,34-35 (xi,16): trans. Green (modifified), p. 73. 25 See MOHRMANN, ‘The Ever-Recurring Problem of Language in the Church’, pp. 151-152. The innate conservatism can even go to such an extent that the sacred language outlives the language from which it originated: liturgical Latin outlived common Latin. Moreover, a liturgical language can be introduced to peoples who have never spoken the common language from the outset. Thus, liturgical Latin came to the Irish, the Anglo-Saxons, and to several continental Germanic tribes. However, liturgical Latin was not brought to these people as an isolated linguistic phenomenon. At the same time, Latin was introduced as the language of higher civilisation, of the schools, and of ecclesiastical and government administration. Throughout the Middle Ages, Latin as the language of the sacred liturgy was supported by Latin as the second language of the cultural elite. The first real opposition to liturgical Latin coincided with the end of medieval Latin as a ‘living second language’, which was replaced by a truly ‘dead’ language, the Latin of the humanists. Mohrmann, ‘Sakralsprache und Umgangssprache’, Tome IV, pp. 161-174 (originally published in: Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft 10,2 (1968), pp. 344-354), p. 170, comments: ‘Die erste ernsthafte Opposition gegen das liturgische Latein fällt zusammen mit dem Verschwinden des Mittellateins und dem Eintritt des künstlichen, normativen und aristokratischen Humanistenlateins.’
