05 April 2008
Why Do We Need Deacons?
To help correct stupid blunders. Deacon Muehlenbruch points out - quite correctly - that the Sunday, named after the Introit, is Misericordia Domini - with no s at the end of the first Latin word. He's got it to rights - I looked in the old Latin Missal, checked the Magdeburg Book, and everywhere we have Misericordia. God bless you, Reverend Deacon, for keeping us honest. And, um, YES, LSB perpetuates the "s." Live and learn!
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11 comments:
Now I am confused, because the German Wikipedia has the following:
"Misericordias Domini ist im evangelischen Kirchenjahr der zweite Sonntag nach Ostern. Der Name kommt von der Antiphon: Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo. (Psalm 89,2), was auf deutsch heißt: Ich will singen von der Gnade des Herrn ewiglich."
Is there any trace that anyone can find of this 'alternate' introit? It accounts well for the erroneous 's'.
+cmf
The Saxon Agenda of early Missouri also has the "s." Magdeburg and the Roman Missal, however, do not.
This is confusing. Could it be that the German rendering keeps the "s" while the Latin is without? Then to complicate things more there has been more than one type of Latin in liturgical use through the centuries. Could this be a difference between Old Latin and the Vulgate? I do not have the answer and admit that at least for one more year, since the bulletins are already printed, we have retained the tradition of "s." Thanks for mentioning this and thanks to the Deacon for catching this. Looking forward to finding out what becomes of this.
In "The Christian Year" by Rev. E.T.Horn, III, on page 142 he writes: "For some unknown reason, the title for this Sunday in most Lutheran service books reads Misericordias Domini, an unknown Latin form...the only explanation seems to be that the title may have been a medieval colloquialism of German origin. Possibly only the first word "Misericordia" was used and the word "Sonntag" was added. In the course of time, and by elision, the "S" of Sonntag may have been subjoined to Misericordia."
Karl
Karl's quoted theory of Horn makes a lot of sense.
Misericordias means nothing in Latin. The passage from the Introit in Latin is misericordia. Late Latin, after its continued formal use alongside vernaculars for everyday use, did have such corruptions, which among the Germans even included pronouncing Latin as if it were German.
My favourite example is from the custom of prefacing the Scripture readings with "at that time". We always said "in illo tempore", translating word for word, however, in Latin you don't use "in" -- the construction called the ablative of time already contains it, so "illo tempore" already means "at that time".
Indeed, my Latin is so poor that I am going to need to do something about it if it's ever going to be any use to me. Yet I can tell that the "s" in question is present in Psalm 88:2 (Vul) "misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo in generationem et generationem adnuntiabo veritatem tuam in ore meo"
This is stated by de.wikipedia.org to be the source of the Introit for "Misericordias Domini". Can anyone trace other usages of Ps 88:2/89:1 that might have some bearing on this confusion, because if Ps 88:2 Vulgate is the source of the introit, there is no error.
I get ten hits in Bibleworks for the offensive, accusative "misericordias".
I admit it's an error in our tradition. Is it an error in all traditions?
+cmf
Psalm 88 is not the source of the Introit. It's from Psalm 32:5-6 with verse 1 as the psalm verse. (Vulgate numbering.)
The Latin reads:
Misericordia Domini plena est terra.
Verbo Domini caeli firmati sunt.
So it would be an error in any tradition.
However, I did check Psalm 88 and it reads as you say, misericordias and all!
So the mystery continues! The usage is NOT found in the Psalm source for the Introit, but IS in other Psalms.
It's enough to turn one to the revisionist three-year Vatican II For Lutherans lectionary, or back to WELS where Christian Worship did away with Introits altogether! (Just kidding fellas, I'm more likely to join the praise band and sing Shine, Jesus, Shine than do either of those, though to me all three are equally revisionist anti-tradition.)
It would be interesting to see how the usage began. So far, I still vote for Karl's suggestion.
Bless us and save us, Mrs O'Davis.
As a recovering academic, I'll cite my sources, though it get real close to a "slip".
I have the Clementine Vulgate, Fifth Edition (Madrid, 1977).
Actually, in checking Magdeburg more closely it has BOTH. The name of the Sunday is: Dominca II. Post Pascha, Sive Misericordias Domini.
But the big type across the page title has it without the S and the Introit it also without the S (it occurs on Tuesday of that week - a true oddity of the Magdeburg Book that is consistently followed).
past elder, et. al. - I do not have access to the Magdeburg Book, so I can only speculate about an "alternate' introit for this Sunday. The one that we use was appointed by the Council of Trent. I am sure that it had been used somewhere long before that.
It is no surprise to me that among the Germans Latin was pronounced as if it were German. I have been singing with a German choir for 25 years. I always thought it odd that, when we sing in Latin, we are told "we are a German choir, so we will sing German Latin." Now I know the rhyme, even though I do not understand the reason.
For me, the bottom line is this: To be consistent, we should name the Sundays after the Introits that our liturgical book assign to them. Over analysis is an interesting pass time; but it often misses the point.
I don't have the Magdeburg Book either. Closest I can come is the Magdalena Books (this, in case we have become too academic here, is a joke!).
"German" Latin is no problem. One hardly hears it anymore except in some older recordings. At least it's a form of the language as actually used, unlike the "Ciceronian" Latin scholarly reconstruction. I used to joke with my graduate Latin review class in a secular university that at least when we all got to heaven I wouldn't be the one with an accent!
And I agree, we should just name the Sundays after the Introits, or else just chuck it and throw in with the 1960s Peter, Paul and Mary three year revisionist calendar. (Another joke: I flatter myself that Nietzsche, the only philosopher worth reading, would have liked that one.)
Then again, that's what brought up the whole question: how did Misericordia Domini in the text get to be Misericordias Domini in the name? But, better to have it with a mistake in the name than toss it for some bogus, er, novus ordo parody masquerading as traditional and/or historic.
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