The Gloria in Excelsis (Part 5)

Lost in Translation #103

Like the Credo, the Gloria in excelsis has a Trinitarian structure, proceeding from the Father to the Son to the Holy Spirit. The Creed is primarily a doctrinal statement intended to define orthodox belief and reject the infection of heresy, where everything, as we will see later, hangs on the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet; only secondarily does it become a hymn of praise and thanksgiving, put to music and sung with joy (as in the Mass).

The Greater Doxology or Gloria in excelsis, on the other hand, is primarily a rhapsodic love poem; when it affirms dogma, it does so in the spirit of an Old Testament psalm that is unafraid to step on the toes of logic for the sake of the dance.

God the Father and God the Holy Spirit

As we have seen earlier, the portions dedicated to the Father focus mostly on His glory. The Holy Spirit is also given a brief but sufficient acknowledgement of His glory in the final verse. Saint Basil the Great, who is on our mind as we pray this hymn, has a memorable description of the “Spirit-fighters” who deny the glory of the Paraclete. They are, as we might put it today, devotees of fast-fashion who foolishly latch on to the latest fads:

Those who are steadfast prefer the august ways of old to novelty, and those who keep the tradition authentic to the Fathers, whether in the country or the city, use this expression [“with whom”]. They are the ones who have had enough of customs, who disparage the old ways as out of date, and who have taken on the attitude of revolutionaries. They are like worldly persons who esteem constant variation in clothing over common dress. [1]

God the Son

Beginning in the tenth verse of the Greater Doxology, our attention turns to the Person of Jesus Christ. The invocations affirm Him, contra the Arian heretics, as the only-begotten Son of God; as the Lamb of God who, according to St. John the Baptist, takes away the sins of the world; and as the Messiah who, upon His Ascension, sits in glory at the right hand of the Father.

But our rational sensibilities may bristle at the concluding praises of the God-man.

Quoniam tu solus Sanctus.

Tu solus Dóminus.

Tu solus Altíssimus, Jesu Christe.

Cum Sancto Spíritu In gloria Dei Patris. Amen.

Which I and many others translate as:

For Thou alone art the Holy One,

Thou alone art the Lord,

Thou alone art the Most High, Jesus Christ,

with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

If Jesus Christ alone is the Holy One (Sanctus), and if He alone is the Lord (Dominus), then:

1. Why do we also call the Paraclete “Holy” only three verses later?
2. Why do we also call the Mother of God and all the Saints holy? And why does the Creed list “holy” as one of the four marks of the true Church?
3. Finally, why in the same Creed do we also call the Holy Spirit “Lord”? And why would addressing God the Father as “Lord” not raise an eyebrow?

One way to think about these issues is to appreciate the difference between logic and grammar. The early Church was tasked not only with articulating her core beliefs (a task that often involved the use of logic, that is, clear thinking) but with forging a grammar of assent, a shared manner of thinking and talking about the divine mysteries. In this Christian grammar, it is customary to associate the title “Lord” with Jesus Christ as a way of reinforcing His social reign over us and our fealty to Him.

To say “Jesus is Lord,” then, is not to deny the lordship of the Father and Holy Spirit but to deny the absolute lordship of all the throngs of earthly lords. St. Thomas Aquinas' Prayer before Holy Communion has an interesting choice of words when it refers to the Lamb of God not as the Lord of lords (Dominus dominorum) but as the Dominus dominantium, the Lord over those who lord it over others.

And to say “Jesus is Lord” is to affirm that Jesus is our Lord, that we pledge our loyalty to and take our orders from Him above all others. Significantly, when Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus in the garden with a kiss, he said, “Hail, Rabbi!” (Mt 26,49) The traitor could acknowledge Jesus as a teacher, but he could not bring himself to call Him his Lord and Master. Saint Peter, by contrast, affirms not only Jesus' Lordship but also proclaims another title that we find in the Greater Doxology. After the Bread of Life discourse, Simon bar Jonah addresses Jesus as Lord and concludes: “Thou art the Holy One of God.” (Jn 6,70)[2]

Like Tu solus Dominus, “Thou alone art the Holy One” (Tu solus Sanctus) is a product of Christian grammar, and like Tu solus Dominus, it is meant to contrast the Son of God with the human race rather than contrast the Son of God with the other two Divine Persons. As Blessed Columba Marmion, OSB explains:

To say that Jesus Christ is alone holy is not to say that the Father and the Paraclete are not holy, nor is it to say that the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints are not holy. It is to say that, in the economy of salvation, Jesus Christ is the efficient cause of all grace and all holiness in His creatures. His reflections are worth quoting in full: All the holiness He [the Father] has destined for each soul, God has placed in Christ, and it is of Hos fullness that we all must receive the graces which will make us holy. Christus factus est nobis sapientia a Deo, et justitia, et sanctificatio et redemptio. If Christ possesses all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and holiness, it is that we may share in them. He came that we might have divine life in us and might have it in abundance: Veni ut vitam haberent et abundantiam haberent. By His passion and death, He re-opened the source of divine life to all, but never forget that this source is in Him and not outside Him and that it is from Him it flows into us: grace, the principle of supernatural life, only comes through Him. [3]

“Never forget,” this holy sage reminds us, “that this source [of holiness] is in Him and not outside Him and that it is from Him it flows into us: grace, the principle of supernatural life, only comes through Him.” In Christ’s unique holiness, we are made holy.

Performance and Deprecation

The Gloria in excelsis during Mass is not simply said or sung but performed: the meanings to which the words point are so profound and metanoic that they promote (in the traditional rite, but not as much in the new) a bodily response. Such a reaction is in itself incarnational: after the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us, the flesh can’t help but by moved by certain phrases that remind it of its redemption.

The rubrics of the 1962 Missale Romanum call for a physical reaction to four parts of the Gloria in excelsis:

1. The priest, at the beginning of the hymn, lifts his eyes to Heaven (who dwells in excelsis) and bows at the mention of God (the Father);
2. He and others bow during the verse Adoramus te, We adore Thee. Ad-orem literally means “to the mouth.” In pagan Rome passersby would kiss their hand and then touch the statue of a god or goddess. Christians repurposed the custom as an act of affection for images of Christ and His beloved Saints, for holy relics, etc. The principle of continuity is the theme of affection: calling someone “affectionate” usually implies that he or she is physically demonstrative in expressing love. During the Gloria, the bow at Adoramus te signifies both affection and supplication and thereby demonstrates and accentuates the meaning of the verse.
3. Two verses later, we bow at “We give Thee thanks.” Here my mind drifts not to ancient Rome but to cultures where the giver bows when he gives a gift to the recipient. We bow to Our Lord when we give our “thanks” to Him here and at other parts of the Mass.
4. The name of Jesus Christ appears twice in the hymn, and each time we hear it, we bow. At the name of Jesus, Saint Paul writes, every knee should bow. (Phil 2,10) The Roman Rite adapts this directive by bowing the head at the name of Jesus and saving the bow of the knee (genuflection) for references to or instances of the Incarnation.[4]
5. Finally, we bow at the verse Suscipe deprecationem nostram, or “Receive our prayer.” We are again giving God something, and so we make the appropriate gesture for giving. But “prayer” does not quite capture the meaning of the Latin deprecatio. A prayer can be a communication of joy, contrition, petition, complaint, etc. A deprecation is more specific: as its root words suggest (de and precor), it is “a praying away” or “a warding off or averting by prayer.”[5] Hence, when we have a deprecatio, there is an anxiety, worry, or evil that is weighing on our minds which we wish to cast off. One way to think about the bow during the Suscipe deprecationem nostram is that it begins as a symbol of this oppression but is quickly transformed into a gesture of trusting supplication, a sort of “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.” And we can imagine the answer to our prayer symbolized by our rising from the bow, relieved from our burden and standing tall.

Notes

[1] St Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit 7.36.

[2] Oddly, the Vulgate and Douay Rheims translate Hagios tou Theou as Christus Filius Dei, "Christ, the Son of God."

[3] Blessed Columba Marmion, Christ the Life of the Soul, trans. Nun of Tyburn Convent (Angelico Press, 2012), 75-76.

[4] See genuflecting during the Creed, the Last Gospel, the Angelus, and genuflecting while passing the Blessed Sacrament.

[5] "Deprecatio," Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary; see Sr. Mary Pierre Ellebracht, Remarks on the Vocabulary of the Ancient Orations in the Missale Romanum (Nijmegen: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1963), 115.

Glorying in God’s Glory: The Gloria in Excelsis (Part 4)

C.S. Lewis

Lost in Translation #102

The Gloria in excelsis, on which we have been meditating (here, here, and here), is sometimes contrasted with the Te Deum, since every time the former is said or sung at Mass the latter is said or sung in the Divine Office. But one difference between the two hymns is that the much shorter Greater Doxology places a greater emphasis on divine glory than its longer cousin. Whereas the Te Deum mentions glory twice (once in reference to God and once in reference to ourselves), the Gloria in excelsis uses “glory” or “glorify” four times:

1. Gloria in excelsis Deo (Glory to God in the highest)
2. Glorificámus te (We glorify Thee)
3. Gratias ágimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam (We thank Thee on account of Thy great glory)
4. Tu solus Altíssimus, Jesu Christe, cum Sancto Spíritu in gloria Dei Patris (Thou alone, O Jesus Christ, art most high, with the Holy Ghost in the glory of God the Father)

Let us look at each in turn.

“Glory to God in the Highest”

As we noted earlier, Gloria in excelsis Deo can either mean that all glory belongs to God or that all glory should go to God. Either way, the divine has a special purchase on glory. In the Old Testament, the “glory of the LORD” (kavod YHWH) was a palpable presence in places such as Mount Sinai, the Tabernacle, and the Temple. It could also be terrifying, as when the glory of the Lord appeared as a burning fire atop Mount Sinai. The Hebrew noun kavod is derived from the word for “weight” and is etymologically related to “armament.” Kavod has genuine heft, worth, and value, which is why it naturally elicits praise. But as the sight of the Lord’s glory on Mount Sinai attests, it is also associated with brightness or light. In liturgical Latin (especially the Roman orations), kavod in general is translated as gloria while the luminous aspect of glory is translated as claritas. [1] Centuries earlier, the authors of the Septuagint chose to translate kavod as doxa (appearance or opinion) rather than the other alternative, kleos (fame, reputation), possibly because kleos was too closely associated with the peacocking exploits of Homeric heroes like Achilles and Odysseus. The choice helped shape the important concept of orthodoxy, which means both right belief and, as we are about to see, right worship (the right giving of glory to God).

Kavod YHWH on Mount Sinai

“We Glorify Thee”

According to the Gloria in excelsis, we glorify God. And yet if all glory is already His, how is it possible for us to give Him any more? On the other hand, the human glorification of God lies at the very heart of the Mass, for as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, “The end of divine worship is that man may give glory to God and submit to Him in mind and body.” [2] Moreover, in addition to describing divine glory, the Bible speaks of Israel, do-gooders, and even the sun, the moon, the stars, and a woman’s head of hair as possessing some glory. [3]

For St. Basil the Great, “glory is nothing other than the recounting of the wonders that belong” to someone or something. [4] Creatures do this naturally and without words; sunlight, for example, is “the glory of the sun.” [5] Rational creatures, on the other hand, glorify God by choice. The only way that humans glorify the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is by “expounding their wonders as best we can.” [6] And yet paradoxically, there is a way in which even this “exposition” is a gift from God, a participation in or sharing of divine glory. “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord,” St. Paul writes. “For not he who commendeth himself is approved, but he whom God commendeth.” [7]

“We thank Thee on Account of Thy Great Glory”

St. Paul’s statement may also shed light on the next verse of the Angelic Hymn. I find it rather curious that of all the things for which to thank God, His “great glory” is singled out, as opposed to His creating us, blessing us, or redeeming us.

Perhaps the reason is twofold. First, God’s glory is a triumph for us that fills us with joy. When my favorite team wins the championship, I give glory to them, but I also feel elevated and better off as a result. Indeed, insofar as I am a loyal fan, I share some of their glory, which is why I proudly festoon myself or my front yard or my pickup with their team colors and images of their mascots.

And I feel this way even if my team doesn’t know me from Adam: they don’t know that I scream at the TV when the ref makes a bad call; they don’t know that I defend their honor at sports bars; they don’t even know that I exist. But imagine—and this brings us to the second reason—if your favorite team not only knew of you, but loved you singularly, and that when they scored the winning point they looked for you in the stands and, when they found you, blew you a kiss and victoriously pumped a fist in the air. Such is the way that Christians feel about their God, for the Father gave the Son glory and the Son shared that glory with His adopted sons through the Holy Spirit. [8] When God approves of us, Saint Paul writes, He commends us; He compliments us, He congratulates us.

In a magnificent essay entitled “The Weight of Glory,” C.S. Lewis describes the promise of our glorification at the end of time as “almost incredible” because it implies that God actually likes us, that despite our sins He will not simply tolerate our presence but deliriously approve of us: 

The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.

Yes, we are certainly grateful for God’s great glory.

Or, at least we used to be. I wonder if there is a certain contemporary prejudice against the concept of glory; perhaps it strikes the modern ear as outdated or jingoistic or even fascist. This prejudice does not exist worldwide. In modern Hebrew, “Good fortune!” (Mazel Tov) is said in response to good events and “All the glory!” (Kol HaKavod) in response to good deeds. When a baby is born, Israelis say Mazel Tov; but when someone knits a baby an adorable pair of mittens, they say Kol HaKavod.

The original ICEL translation of the Mass seems to have had an allergy to glory. It omitted “we glorify Thee” altogether, and it deleted “great” from “on account of Thy great glory.” (It also inexplicably replaced “we give Thee thanks” with “we praise Thee.”) Fortunately, the 2011 translation corrected these errors. That said, the 1970 Missal mentions glory far less than does the historical Roman Mass: the Gloria in excelsis is not used so often, and all the Lesser Doxologies (the Gloria Patri) were removed.

“In the Glory of God the Father”

Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, we declare, are in the glory of God the Father. By making this confession the final verse, the Angelic hymn begins and ends with the glory of God the Father. It also tightly summarizes one of the great themes of the Gospel according to Saint John: the glorification that takes place within the Holy Trinity. Jesus Christ’s entire mission on earth is to glorify the Father by establishing a Church, and the Father in turn glorifies the Son. And it does not take much brainpower to conclude that the Holy Spirit glorifies both and is glorified by both.

St. Basil the Great

Or perhaps it does. St. Basil battled a group of heretics called the Pneumatomachians or “Spirit-fighters” who argued that glory should not be given to the Holy Spirit on the grounds that He was not a Divine Person. Basil easily refuted their argument by noting all the places in the Scriptures that creatures are given glory and then asking them:

While so many are being glorified, do you wish the Spirit alone to be without glory? “The dispensation of the Spirit,” Scripture says, “comes in glory.” How, then, is He unworthy of being glorified? According to the Psalmist, great is the glory of the just, but according to you, the glory of the Spirit is nothing. How, then, is there not an evident danger that from such words they bring inevitable sins from themselves? If the man who is saved by works of righteousness glorifies even those who fear the Lord, he would not defraud the Spirit of the glory that is owed to Him. [9]

The Gloria in excelsis is one of the ways that we do not defraud the Spirit of the glory that is owed Him.

Music

The Greater Doxology, then, exults in God’s great glory. But this theme is vulnerable to the musical setting that accompanies it. The right settings, such as the chants from the Liber Usualis or the works of many classical composers, reinforce and enhance the hymn’s meaning while other compositions, especially those of a more recent vintage, undermine or subvert it.

My argument is this. Whether it is the kavod YHWH that God alone possesses or the “weight of glory” that Christian disciples bear, glory is “heavy”—it may be a cause of joy, but it always has gravitas. Therefore, any music that lacks gravitas should not be used with a hymn about glory. Robert Cardinal Sarah has speculated that “the massive loss of enthusiasm for attendance at the Sunday Mass” can in part be attributed to celebrations that are “wholly cheerful in spirit.” [10] I am inclined to agree with His Eminence, but even if he is not right, we can still safely say that a musical setting for the Gloria that is wholly cheerful in spirit—e.g., it is cheesy or sentimental or perfect for an upbeat liturgical dance—is missing the point. Using sappy music to illuminate the LORD’s kavod is like having a Dixieland jazz band perform Puccini’s “Vincerò” with lots of comical glissandos from the slide trombone. Man can find a better way to glorify God.

Notes

[1] Sr. Mary Pierre Ellebracht, Remarks on the Vocabulary of the Ancient Orations in the Missale Romanum (Nijmegen: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1963), 24.

[2] Finis autem divini cultus est ut homo Deo det gloriam, et ei se subiiciat mente et corpore. ST II-II.93.respondeo.

[3] See Rom. 9, 4; Rom. 2, 10; 1 Cor. 15, 4; 1 Cor. 11, 7

[4] On the Holy Spirit, trans. Stephen Hildebrand (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), 23.54.

[5] On the Holy Spirit 18.46

[6] On the Holy Spirit 23.54.

[7] 2 Cor. 10, 17-18.

[8] See John 17, 22; 2 Cor. 3, 18.

[9] On the Holy Spirit 24.55.

[10] Foreword of Abbé Claude Barthe, Forest of Symbols: The Traditional Mass and Its Meaning, trans. David J. Critchley (Angelico Press, 2023), xv.

The Gloria in Excelsis (Part Three)

Thomas Cole, The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds, 1834

Lost in Translation #101

Last week we examined the opening words of the Gloria in excelsis, “Glory to God in the highest.” Today we examine the second verse, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. It is traditionally translated as "and on earth, peace to men of good will," a vastly superior rendering of the ICEL translation in use from 1972 to 2010: "and peace to His people on earth."

Men of Good Will?

Consulting the original biblical text helps us gain a better understanding of who these men of good will are. Εὐδοκία or eudokia, which the Vulgate renders bona voluntas or “good will,” literally means “favorable thinking” or “being well-pleased.” When, for example, God the Father says of Jesus Christ, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” (Matt 3, 17) He uses the verb eudokeō. The message in Luke 2, 14, then, is that on earth there will be peace for the men with whom God is well pleased, the men of whom He thinks favorably. There is also a nice word play in the Greek that cannot be translated. The verse begins with “Glory (doxa) to God in the highest” and ends with “men of good will (eudokias), with doxa and eudokia being etymologically connected.

Perhaps because they were not familiar with the original Greek, several Latin commentators interpret “good will” as a reference to the men’s character rather than God’s favoritism towards them. St. Bede, reading the verse in its immediate Nativity context, concludes that men of good will are those who receive the newborn Jesus as the Christ. Thinking more generally, St. Augustine writes that men of good will possess a divine justice by which the devil has been conquered. Having a good will involves at least two things: “to will well, and to be able to do what one wills,” and “to be purged from vices”. [1] Augustine also combines this verse with Matthew 12, 50:

“Whoever has done the will of God (voluntas Dei), He is my brother and mother and sister.” And therefore, at least among those who do the will of God, the will of God is done: not because they cause God to will but because they do what He wants, that is, according to His will. [2]

In a sense, the misunderstanding does not matter. As the Venerable Bede notes, “there is no peace to the ungodly,” (Isa. 57, 20) but “much peace to them that love the name of God.” (Ps. 118, 165). God is well pleased with those who love Him, and insofar as they love Him, their wills are good. And to these men with whom God is well pleased He gives peace, even though, paradoxically, their ability to love Him, which makes God well pleased, is itself a gift of God. Just as God gives a peace that the world cannot give, (John 14, 27) He infuses us with a love that our wills cannot produce.

In 2018, the meaning of this verse came into dispute when the Italian bishops changed their older translation of the Greater Doxology from “pace in terra agli uomini di buona volontà – peace on earth to men of good will” to “pace in terra agli uomini, amati dal Signore – peace on earth to men, loved by the Lord.”

As our brief survey of the Greek suggests, the new translation is in some ways an improvement, since “loved by the Lord” captures the sense of the Lord being well pleased. But the translation is nevertheless misleading, for it gives the impression that all men are loved by the Lord and that all men are therefore to be given peace. It is true that the Lord loves all men, but it is not true that the Lord gives peace to all men: just ask the souls writhing in Hell. “There is no peace for the ungodly,” Isaiah reminds us. The sounder interpretation of the verse, then, is that peace will only go to some men, the men with whom God is well pleased. Writing for this journal, Gregory DiPippo concludes:

To speak of “men of good will” implies that there are men who are not of good will, one of the most basic facts about human existence, and one which the Church has for over half a century wasted enormous time and effort on denying. The new reading permits the insertion of a comma, turning the phrase “loved by the Lord” into a non-restrictive adjectival phrase, (“men, who are loved by the Lord”), in a way that cannot be done by translating the actual text.

Men of Good Will?

The second controversy surrounding this verse is the use of so-called gender inclusive language. The English translation of the 1965 Roman Missals translates hominibus bonae voluntatis as “men of good will” while the 1972 ICEL translation of the 1970 Missal veers off the reservation with "and peace to His people on earth." The 2011 English translation tries to restore order with a more literal “people of good will,” but it retains the so-called inclusive language.

Both the Greek anthropoi and the Latin homines designate human persons, male and female. Historically, the English equivalent for anthropos and homo is “man,” as in “mankind.” But since “man” can also refer to a male human being, twentieth-century feminists contended that the use of “man” for homo or anthropos is sexist, a denial of a woman’s full humanity.

Rev. Paul Mankowski, S.J.

Fr. Paul Mankowski, God rest his soul, wrote powerfully against any concession to the ideological manipulation of language, persuasively arguing that the distinction between gender-inclusive and gender-exclusive words makes no sense linguistically; he was joined in this opinion by such doyens of the English tongue as E. B. White, editor of Strunk and White’s famous Elements of Style. [3]

I agree with Fr. Mankowski, and his insights are especially prescient in an age where pronouns are now being divorced from reality and put in the service of an often capricious self-identification. I also maintain that “outdated” language in liturgy is good insofar as it contributes to its sacrality, such as the use of “deign” and “vouchsafe” or “Thou.”

On the other hand, if the point of translating is to make concepts intelligible in one’s own language, and if the majority of people in that language no longer think that this word means A but B, then liturgical translators are faced with a genuine dilemma. It is one thing to compromise theological meaning, as I believe the use of “brothers and sisters” for fratres does (more on this in a later essay); it is also problematic to violate the rules of grammar or of eloquent usage, as with the substitution of the numerically inaccurate “their” or the clunky “his/her” for the more proper pronoun “his.” But when neither orthodoxy nor grammar nor sonority is at stake but the basic meaning is, I wonder what the right path is.

That said, in the case of hominibus bonae voluntatis, I still tend to favor “men of good will” over “people of good will” because “people” can signify a single populace or group, but “men” keeps the focus on the chosen individuals with whom God is well-pleased. “Persons of good will” sounds too forced and abstract, and “men and women of good will” is, despite recent ideological disputes, still semantically redundant. Perhaps the best course of action would have been for our modern translators to have left well enough alone. Of course, ironically, in order to see the goodness of the older translation, one must approach it with a good will of one’s own, one in line with the Catholic wisdom tradition and a spirit of benevolent interpretation rather than with an ideologically-driven hermeneutics of suspicion.

Notes

[1] On the Trinity 13.13.17.

[2] On the Sermon on the Mount, II.6.21.

[3] See “Voices of Wrath: When Words Become Weapons,” in Jesuit at Large: Essays and Reviews by Paul V. Mankowski, S.J., ed. George Weigel (Ignatius Press, 2021), 42-49. See also E. B. White, who rejected the idea of gender-neutral writing in the fourth and final edition of Elements of Style. “The use of he as a pronoun for nouns embracing both genders is a simple, practical convention rooted in the beginnings of the English language,” he wrote in 1979. “He has lost all suggestion of maleness in these circumstances.” After White’s death, however, the following line was added. “Currently, however, many writers find the use of the generic he or his to rename indefinite antecedents limiting or offensive.” The Wall Street Journal characterizes the posthumous insertion as “an assassin slipping a stiletto into someone's back." (David Gelernter, “Back to Basics, Please,” October 14, 2005, W.13)

The Gloria in excelsis (Part Two)

Govert Flinck, Angels Announcing the Birth of Christ to the Shepherds, 1639

Lost in Translation #100

The Gloria in excelsis was translated from Greek into Latin, possibly by St. Hilary of Poitiers (310 ca. - 367). We are happy to honor this attribution while also entertaining the likelihood of a later redactor.

The first verse of the Gloria is:

Gloria in excelsis Deo,

et in terra pax homínibus bonae voluntátis.

Which I translate as:

Glory to God in the highest places,

And on earth, peace to men of good will.

The verse is taken from Luke 2, 13-14, which according to the Vulgate is:

Et subito facta est cum angelo multitudo militiae caelestis laudantium Deum, et dicentium: Gloria in altissimis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.

Which the Douay-Rheims translates as:

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God, and saying: “Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.”

Word Order and Implied Verb

The first peculiarity is the syntax and the lack of an explicit verb in both the original Greek and in the Latin translation. As one of my teachers used to say, word order in Greek and Latin does not matter--until it does. There is a difference between saying that to God belongs the glory that is in the high places and saying that glory belongs to God, who is in the high places. Most interpretations favor the latter.

And because the verb “to be” in this verse is only implied, we do not know if the statement is in the indicative or subjunctive. Are we singing that all glory is God’s, or that all glory should be given to God? I believe that context supports the latter interpretation, but grammatically both are equally valid.

The Good Place, or the Good Places?

Another peculiarity in the original Greek is the diction. Why did the Evangelist use the plural rather than the singular for God’s location? The Greek ὑψίστοι (hypsistoi) appears in the Nativity narrative of Luke 2, 14, and in the Palm Sunday entrance into Jerusalem narratives of Matthew 21, 9, Mark 11, 10, and Luke 19, 38.

English translations usually have “Glory to God in the highest,” and they are not wrong, but the Greek (and Latin) are in the plural: “Glory to God in the highest places.” What is the difference? There may not be a logical but a psychological distinction. At least to my mind, the singular suggests a fixed place, and fixed places are more comprehensible and therefore more reassuring. Robert Browning seems to agree in his poem “Pippa’s Song”:

The year’s at the spring,

And day’s at the morn;

Morning’s at seven;

The hill-side’s dew-pearl’d;

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn;

God’s in His heaven—

All’s right with the world!

Robert Browning

“God’s in His heaven,” and “all’s right with the world.” For Browning, Heaven is a well-bounded place, a center of stability from which God regulates or at least sits atop the world. But the term “highest places” is more amorphous, and perhaps a little more unsettling. In this case, God does not come from a center of stability but from a mysterious, numinous realm—or realms—which are not easily circumscribed. God comes from God knows where; He is the Other who dwells in the nebulous regions of otherhood. We shall return to this topic when we examine the Credo.

High from Above or from Below?

As for the Latin translation, one may wonder about the choice of excelsis rather than altissimis for hypsistois. There is a Vetus Latina manuscript [1] that translates Luke 2, 14 as Gloria in excelsis Deo, and there may be one that translates the verse as Gloria in altissimis Deo. In any event, St. Jerome’s Gospels, which were published twenty years after St. Hilary passed away, has altissimis for hypsistois in Luke 2, 14 and in Matthew 21, 9 (the entrance into Jerusalem), while excelsis is the Vulgate word for the Jerusalem entrance in Mark 11, 10 and Luke 19, 38.

It should be borne in mind that St. Jerome did not translate the Gospels afresh from the original languages, but edited the prevailing Vetus Latina translations, which were uneven in quality and often had multiple variations for any given verse. He often kept divergent terms that he personally would have preferred to regularize. For example, in the Gospel texts that he inherited, “high priest” (ἀρχιερεὺς, archiereus) is rendered princeps sacerdotum in Matthew 26, 62 and Luke 22, 50, summus sacerdos in Mark 14, 53, and pontifex in John 11, 49. Whatever his personal druthers, Jerome let them be.

St Jerome presents the Gospels to Pope St Damasus I

Again logically, there is little difference between altissimi and excelsi, for both are in the plural and both signify height or loftiness. If we can ascribe any divine providence to the appearance of excelsis in the Great Doxology, it might be this. In classical Latin, altissimus literally designates altitude, height, or depth, while excelsus (ex-cello) is etymologically related to excellence. With excelsis, God is not far away in a distant galaxy but in an elevated position of outstanding superiority. It is true that altissimus can also mean noble or elevated, but the word also suggests being “seen from below upwards.” [2] Excelsus, on the other hand, can mean seeing from the perspective of what is above or at least seeing on the same level. The Angelic Hymn, then, begins with a bird’s eye—or rather, an Angel’s eye—viewpoint that looks at God’s glory not from below but from the heights. It thus forms a more striking contrast between the mysterious realms of God and the earth, where dwell the poor, well-intentioned humans that are the subject of the rest of the verse and to whom we will turn next week.

NoteS

[1] The Vetus Latina (also known as the Itala or Old Italic) is the collection of early Latin translations of the Bible, a collection that admitted of numerous manuscript variations. In A.D. 382, Pope Damasus I commissioned St. Jerome to revise the Vetus Latina Gospels.

[2] “Altus, a, um,” under “Alo,” A, Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879), p. 95, column B.

The Gloria in Excelsis (Part 1)

Gloria in excelsis (Italy, 16th century)

Lost in Translation #99

In January of this year, we began a new “Lost in Translation” series on the Ordinary of the Mass and got as far as the Kyrie. Today, we resume the series by examining the Gloria in excelsis. But before we turn to some of the hymn’s linguistic oddities, let us consider its development and use, which can shape our understanding of its meaning.

Background

Also called the Angelic Hymn and the Greater Doxology (in contradistinction to the Lesser Doxology “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit…”), the Gloria in excelsis is one of the most recognizable features of the Mass of the Roman Rite even though it was not composed for the Mass or in Latin. One of our earliest versions of the hymn is from the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions, where it is recommended for use in the morning Office of Lauds. Here is a translation of the Greek:

Glory be to God in the highest, and upon earth peace, good will among men.

We praise You, we sing hymns to You, we bless You;

We glorify You, we worship You by Your great High Priest;

You who art the true God, who art the One Unbegotten, the only inaccessible Being:

For Your great glory, O Lord and heavenly King, O God the Father Almighty,

O Lord God, who takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer.

You who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy upon us, for You only art holy;

You only art the Christ, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. Amen. (VII.xlvii).

The Churches that use the Byzantine Rite or the Alexandrine Rite (e.g., the Coptic) continue to chant some version of this doxology in their morning Divine Office.

Changing Use

The Roman and Ambrosian Rites, on the other hand, incorporated the Gloria into the Mass. Beginning sometime in the sixth century, a bishop intoned the hymn during the Christmas Midnight Mass; later, the privilege was extended to Sunday and the feasts of the martyrs. A bishop was seen as the natural mouthpiece for the Angelic hymn for he was considered to be a messenger or “Angel of the Church.” (see Rev. 2, 1 - 3, 22) One vestige of this association is the rubric in place until 1960 that paired the Gloria with the Ite, missa est. If the Gloria was not said at Mass, then Benedicamus Domino would be said instead of the dismissal, for both were considered the purview of the bishop. Eventually, however, priests were given permission to say the Gloria. Beginning in the eleventh century, they could intone the hymn on Easter Sunday and later, other feasts.

Over time, the Gloria had more to do with the focus of the occasion than with the rank of the celebrant. Even though the Gloria contains petitions for mercy, the hymn’s content overall is more joyful than the Kyrie eleison which precedes it. For St. Thomas Aquinas, the Kyrie commemorates our present misery while the Gloria commemorates the heavenly glory towards which we strive. The Gloria thus fits naturally with feasts, since heavenly glory is a prominent theme during a feast, but it is out of place with “mournful liturgies, which pertain to a commemoration of our misery.” [1]

Consequently, in the 1962 Roman Missal the Gloria is also used for all feasts (first, second, and third class) and every day of the Church’s two most joyful seasons, Christmastide and Eastertide. During the “green” Times after Epiphany and Pentecost, the Gloria is used on Sundays but not on ferias. And during the “violet” seasons of Advent, Septuagesima, and Lent, the Gloria is not used at all. Adam Wood has rendered these rules into a clever poem:

If red or white, to sing it’s right.

(Excepting Palms or Friday night)

Pink, purple, black—you best cut back,

The rites a “glory” that day lack.

With green o’er rabbat, the usual habit

Is sing it only on the Sabbit.

And there are interesting exceptions. Prior to 1955, the Church could not bring herself to experience joy as her first reaction to mass infanticide. The feast of the Holy Innocents on December 28 was celebrated with violet vestments, the suppression of the Gloria, and a Tract instead of an Alleluia as the Church assumed the voice of Rachel and the mothers of Bethlehem, mourning and weeping over their children because they were no more. (see Matt 2,18) But once this grief had been expressed (and within the Christmas Octave no less), the Church could then rejoice in the heavenly glory that the Holy Innocents are enjoying by celebrating the same Mass on January 4 (the octave day of the feast) but with red vestments, the Gloria, and an Alleluia. This touching tradition was destroyed in two stages. When Pope Pius XII suppressed the Octave of the Holy Innocents in 1955, the “red Mass” on January 4 was dropped. And with the changes to the rubrics in 1960, the “red Mass” took the place of the “violet Mass” on December 28, which is the current configuration in the 1962 Missal.

The Massacre of the Innocents: Not a happy occasion

But with the death of a baptized person who has not reached the age of reason, the Church insists on joy from the start. When a baptized infant dies, a Votive Mass of the Angels is celebrated instead of a Requiem Mass, and the Gloria is used. It is as if the Church is inviting the child’s grieving family to picture their little loved one in Heaven singing the Gloria with the Angels. And it is an astonishing practice: the Church shows greater joy over the entrance of one infant into Heaven than she initially does over the same entrance of the Holy Innocents, who are canonized saints.

Votive Masses

Another peculiarity are the rules governing the use of the Gloria at Votive Masses. In the Tridentine Missal, if a pope or bishop ordered a Votive Mass to be said for a certain grave occasion (pro re gravi), the Gloria was to be used unless the color was violet. The Gloria also appears in Votive Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Saturday and the Votive Mass of a Saint on a day in which the Saint is named in the Martyrology or during his or her octave. And the Gloria is always said, as the Missal explicitly states, during a Votive Mass of the Angels.

As for a Nuptial Mass, which is a Votive Mass for the Bride and Groom, the Gloria was not said until the rubrics were changed in 1960, even though the liturgical color has long been white.[2] The official reason is that the Nuptial Mass is a private Votive Mass, and private Votive Masses do not have a Gloria. It also makes sense that even though a wedding is a celebration, it should also have a plaintive aspect (to which an omitted Gloria contributes) as a way of poignantly begging God for a successful, happy, and long marriage. Not inviting the Gloria to a wedding is therefore liturgically appropriate, so long as one does not go on to call weddings “mournful liturgies, which pertain to a commemoration of misery.” The bride might not like that.

Notes

[1] Summa Theologiae III.83.4, trans. mine.

The third part commemorates heavenly glory, which we are striving for after this present misery, by saying, "Glory to God in the highest." [The hymn] is sung during feasts, on which heavenly glory is commemorated, but it is omitted during mournful liturgies, which pertain to a commemoration of our misery.

Tertia autem pars commemorat caelestem gloriam, ad quam tendimus post praesentem miseriam, dicendo, gloria in excelsis Deo. Quae cantatur in festis, in quibus commemoratur caelestis gloria, intermittitur autem in officiis luctuosis, quae ad commemorationem miseriae pertinent.

[2] But apparently, exceptions to this rule were made, as when the daughter of General William Tecumseh Sherman was married in 1874.

The Exilic Collect of Septuagesima Sunday

Evelyn de Morgan, By the Waters of Babylon, 1882-83

Lost in Translation #36

Pre-Lent or Septuagesima (the roughly seventieth day before Easter) begins tomorrow evening at First Vespers. This fascinating season, which lasts two and a half weeks, acts as a bridge between the jubilance of the Christmas cycle and the austerity of Lent. Violet vestments are worn and the Gloria and Alleluia are suppressed, but there is no mandatory fasting; indeed, the old custom of finishing off foods forbidden during Lent has led to the excesses of Carnival.

The propers for Septuagesima serve as a perfect primer on how to approach the Lent-Easter cycle. During Matins of this season, the Church contemplates the fall of Adam, that fateful act which, as we will hear during the Exultet on Holy Saturday, is a felix culpa that precipitates our redemption through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Collect for Septuagesima Sunday is likewise instructive:

Preces pópuli tui, quáesumus, Dómine, clementer exaudi: ut, qui juste pro peccátis nostris afflígimur, pro tui nóminis gloria misericórditer liberémur. Per Dóminum.

Which I translate as:

Graciously hear, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the prayers of Thy people: that we who are justly afflicted for our sins, may be mercifully delivered for the glory of Thy name. Through our Lord.

Just as Lent recalls the forty years that the Hebrews spent in the wilderness, Septuagesima recalls the seventy years of the Babylonian Exile, when the Chosen People were so homesick that they could not sing a song of Zion (see Ps. 136, 3-4). [1] Septuagesima and Lent are sober reminders of our status as wayfarers living east of Eden, “justly afflicted for our sins” in a valley of tears. [2]

But even though we are afflicted justly, we pray that God may “graciously hear” our prayers. The plea clementer exaudi, which occurs three times in the Roman orations, is somewhat difficult to translate. Audi means to hear and ex-audi means to hear clearly, to heed or grant, even to obey. Clementer is the adverbial form of clemens, from which derives clementia or clemency. In both Latin and English, clementia has a juridical ring to it, as when a judge shows clemency in sentencing; and one of the titles of the Roman Emperors was Clementia tua or “Your Grace.” Through this Collect we are essentially acknowledging that we are guilty but begging for clemency nonetheless.

Why would God the Supreme Judge show clemency to miserable sinners such as us? Because, the Collect states, it will give glory to His name. Perhaps it is the people who, delivered from their sins, will give God glory, or perhaps the act of clemency itself counts as a glorious act. Either way, the petitioner's hope is that God will be incentivized to action by the glory of His name. That hope, which is an echo of Psalm 78:9, [3] is present at every Mass in the Suscipiat, when the faithful pray that God will accept this Eucharistic sacrifice for the praise and glory of His name.

But in the Old Testament the glory of YHWH (Kebod Jahweh) is also an actual “physical phenomenon indicative of the divine presence” that appeared on Mount Sinai, in the Tabernacle, and in the Temple, and that often manifested itself as some form of brightness. [4] The Church's Easter prayers apply this brightness to the glory of the Resurrection, and so when the Septuagesima Collect prays for deliverance for the glory of God's name, it is already looking ahead to the Light at the end of the penitential tunnel into which we are now entering, giving us hope that our mortifications will meet with a happy result.

Notes

[1] The suppression of the word “Alleluia” during Septuagesima and Lent is an apt imitation of the Hebrews refusing to sing by the rivers of Babylon, for Alleluia is the song on the lips of the angels and saints in our true home of Heaven.

[2] This phrase is absent in the new Missal. Its closest counterpart may be found in one optional postcommunion prayer in the Votive Mass In Quacumque Necessitate: “Tribulatiónem nostram, quáesumus, Dómine, propitius réspice, et iram tuæ indignatiónis, quam pro peccátis nostris iuste merémur, per passiónem Filii tui, propitiátus avarte. Per Christum.”

[3] Adjuva nos, Deus, salutaris noster; et propter gloriam nominis tui, Domine, libera nos.

[4] Sr. Mary Pierre Ellebracht, Remarks on the Vocabulary of the Ancient Orations in the Missale Romanum (Dekker & Van de Vegt N.V.), 32-33.

An Allegorical Rationale for the Ministers Sitting During the Gloria and Credo

Seated clergy removing birettas at the Name of Jesus

In discussions of the classical Roman rite and the twentieth-century liturgical reform, one example that always comes up of “something that just had to change” in the Tridentine Mass — one among many things targeted as supposed flaws by reform-minded people — is the custom whereby the ministers (the priest at a Missa cantata, the priest, deacon, and subdeacon at a Missa solemnis) return to their seats for the duration of the sung Gloria and Credo after they have recited the text themselves at the altar.* The reform-minded protest against both the “duplication” of the text and the alleged oddity of everyone sitting during the singing of these parts of the Mass Ordinary. Shouldn’t the clergy sing the texts together with the people, and everyone remain standing?

In an earlier article at NLM, “Is It Fitting for the Priest to Recite All the Texts of the Mass?,” I defended an affirmative answer to that question on spiritual and liturgical grounds. I shall not rehash the same arguments here. Nor will I comment on practical reasons for sitting, such as lengthy pieces of polyphony, or giving older or infirm clergy a chance to rest. I also would not dispute that the monastic custom (at least, I have seen it most often at monasteries) of the ministers remaining standing during the entirety of the Gloria and Credo is fitting for the relatively short duration of chanted Ordinaries; I do not maintain that the ministers should always sit down. The rubrics allow them to remain at their places; sitting is a concession.

Rather, taking it for granted that there are theological reasons for duplicating and practical reasons for sitting, I would like to consider some theological connections that have occurred to me over the years as I have watched this custom and thought about it. The contemplative atmosphere of the classical Roman liturgy has nurtured in me a patient, open-minded, speculative disposition towards texts, music, and ceremonies. My habit of mind is now to ask, in accord with the allegorical method of our ancestors: “What meanings can I glean from the liturgy as it exists in front of me?,” rather than: “How ought it to be improved?”

I can honestly say that I had never pondered the mystery of the “session” or seatedness of the Son of God until I had seen ministers moving from the altar in a liturgically dignified manner and sitting down ceremonially at the High Mass and Solemn Mass. Until then, “sits [or is seated] at the right hand of the Father” had been no more than a line rattled off when reciting the Apostles’ Creed or the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. Yet it is a mystery important enough to receive many mentions in the New Testament (cf. Mk 16:19, Acts 7:55, Rom 8:34, Heb 1:3, Rev 3:21), and in liturgical texts. In the Gloria itself: Qui sedes at dexteram Patris, miserere nobis: “Thou who art seated at the right [hand] of the Father, have mercy on us.” In the Credo: Et ascendit in caelum, sedet ad dexteram Patris: “And He ascended into heaven, [and] is seated at the right [hand] of the Father.”

Moreover, in a church that had no pews in the nave, the sitting of the clergy would more obviously accentuate their special role in the liturgy. St. Thomas Aquinas quotes St. Gregory the Great (Hom. xxix in Evang.): “It is the judge’s place to sit, while to stand is the place of the combatant or helper” (Summa theologiae III, q. 58, a. 1, ad 3).

It is not exactly scripted in the rubrics when the ministers are to sit down, nor are they required to do so; they may remain standing the whole time, a posture that will always retain its resurrectional significance, as it does to this day in the Eastern tradition. Nevertheless, it was the Solemn High Mass that made the custom of being seated “click” for me.

At the "Et incarnatus est"

The ministers all kneel at the altar, as is appropriate, for the Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine: et homo factus est. Then they rise and return to the sedilia at the side of the sanctuary. The priest, who primarily represents Christ in the offering of the Mass, is seated. Around this time, the schola (and in some places the people too) are singing: passus et sepultus est — Christ, having suffered, was laid in the tomb. The Creed almost suggests this natural moment of rest as it mentions the lowest and humblest point of the Savior’s descent among us.

At the same time, the subdeacon remains standing while the deacon proceeds to the credence, receives the burse from the MC, and brings it to the altar to set forth the corporal. During this time the schola is usually singing Et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas, et ascendit in caelum. The reason we can turn from the Scriptural part of the service (the Mass of the Catechumens) to the Eucharistic sacrifice (the Mass of the Faithful) is that Christ is indeed risen from the dead, and death hath no more dominion over Him. He is able to renew His sacrifice among us sacramentally precisely because He is glorified. His rising on the third day was the great opening not only of the kingdom of heaven but of the sevenfold font of sacramental grace that brings us to heaven.

Deacon carrying the burse and corporal to the altar during the Credo

Call it accidental if you wish, but I find it very beautiful that as this Christological confession is sung, the principal minister occupies a seat as does Christ the Lord in heavenly glory, while the deacon, also bearing His image, prepares the altar for the “return” of the King, and the subdeacon stands at attention. The Creed then acknowledges the seating of Christ at the right hand of the Father, and His return in glory: sedet ad dexteram Patris: et iterum venturus est cum gloria. Around this time, the deacon returns to the side, and both he and the subdeacon take their seats. In this way, the various intertwined mysteries the Creed mentions at this point (around the resurrection, ascension, and session) are all somehow put on display, as if being acted out before our eyes.

Then, when the schola sings: Et vitam venturi saeculi, “[and I believe] in the life of the world to come,” all make the sign of the Cross, the ministers rise, and the people rise as well. This final strophe of the Creed has just mentioned the general resurrection of the dead and the life without end in heaven, when all the blessed will share the glory of the risen Lord. How appropriate that the “general rising” takes place right at this point in the Creed!

It is as if we are permitted to “act out,” in a sense, certain of the mysteries confessed, even as the priest during the Canon “acts out” some of Christ’s gestures, as Michael Fiedrowicz describes:

The traditional rubrics of the Roman Canon call for a “reenacting” of Christ’s actions through the celebrating priest. He not only reads aloud the words of institution, but copies Christ’s gestures as they are described: at the moment of the accepit panem/calicem he takes the offerings in his hands, which were anointed by the blessing (in sanctas et venerabiles manus suas), lifts his eyes (elevatis oculis), gratefully (gratias agens) bows his head, makes a sign of the Cross at the benedixit, and in a humble attitude completes the transubstantiation, with his arms touching the altar, once more emphasizing the union with Christ. (The Traditional Mass, p. 274)

Postscript

Years after the above “picture” was formed in my mind, I decided to consult William Durandus, whose Rationale Divinorum Officiorum had recently entered my library. Sure enough, he had beat me to the main point, once more demonstrating that “there is nothing new under the sun” (Eccles 1:9). Book IV, chapter 18 concerns “Of the Seating of the Bishop or the Priest and the Ministers,” of which the following lines are apropos (pp. 168–69 in the Thibodeau trans.):

He is seated in a prominent place, so that just as the vinedresser cares for his vineyard, he cares for his people; for the Lord, seated in the highest heavens, guards His city (cf. Ps 126:1)…. Sitting down after the prayer signifies the seating of Christ at the right hand of the Father after His Ascension, for the seat naturally goes to the victor. Thus, the seating of the priest designates the victory of Christ… The seating of the ministers signifies the seating of those to whom it is said: You shall also sit on the twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt 19:28): namely, those who now reign in heaven; those who labor in the choir signify those who are as yet pilgrims in this world… Some ministers sit with the bishop, through whom is understood that the members of Christ at last have repose in peace, about which the Apostle says: He seated us together in heaven, in Christ (Eph 2:6), or else those who judge the twelve tribes of Israel; others remain standing, through whom is understood those members of Christ who continue with the struggle in this world.

* NOTE: I have decided not to address here the question of the sitting of the clergy during the Kyrie, although the enterprising reader will find it pleasant to meditate on the allegorical interpretations that might be proffered.

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