New texts - some practical points.

[quaeritor]

[Edit - Sorry gone on to a new page - should have referred back to Presbyter's post - and now I can't quote it in an edit]

One can learn so mush on this forum! [sigh]

Would that I had the time to read it more.

Q

[Dom Perignon]

Did you mean to say 'much'?

[quaeritor]

Aaaaargh! - yes, Dom P. Put not your faith in spell checkers!

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[Dom Perignon]

It did make me smile though!

[quaeritor]

It did make me smile though!

Especially if you read it out loud with a catch in the voice - sounds quite tired and very emotional!

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[quaeritor]

And now to my "Gloria" question - sadly I don't have time to wait for Fr Jones's forthcoming article.

In fact there were originally to have been two questions. The first concerned the the second section addressed to God the Father and was about the comma (not full stop) between"...give you thanks for your great glory," and "Lord God, heavenly King . . ." I think this is clearly established now, so suffice it to say that I shall avoid with determination any setting which makes a great "section end" at that point, and a fresh start for the "mini litany" of "Lord God heavenly King . . " and "Lord Jesus Christ . . " and "Lord God Lamb of God . . . " (whilst acknowledging with some confusion that this would have ruled out all the plainsong settings and the entire "concert Mass" repertoire - and wasn't that the point where those on the sanctuary used to put on their hats and sit down to rest?)

My remaining question concerns the final section: "For you alone are the Holy One . . etc"

Is this addressed to the Second Person of the Trinity? - so "For you alone are . . . . the most high Jesus Christ!"[pause for breath, then an afterthought] " Oh - er - of course - with the Holy Spirit . .etc "

Or is it addressed to the whole Trinity? - "For you alone are . . the most high," [breath] Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit in the Glory of God the Father."

Or is it not in fact a "section" in itself (despite the full stop), but linked to what goes before " . . . have mercy on us because you alone are the Holy One . . . etc" What is the force of "For" in this context? - Is it just a poetic call for attention? ("For behold! darkness shall cover the earth") or is it in fact "because" as I have put above?

Come all ye linguists once again!

Expectantly

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[Calum Cille]

It's all adressed to the Son and the word quoniam (because) simply prefaces the reason why the Son is being petitioned for mercy. I wonder if this is why the Greek does not have the words Tu solus Altissimus (You are alone are the Most High). The Greek version also does not mention the Holy Spirit at all.

[quaeritor]

Nunc dimittis... - I was sitting up waiting for your post, CC - but not so fulsome as your epic on the Holy Holy. However if I understand you aright my first hypothesis is the correct one.

Is this addressed to the Second Person of the Trinity? - so "For you alone are . . . . the most high Jesus Christ!"[pause for breath, then an afterthought] " Oh - er - of course - with the Holy Spirit . .etc "

- and not so much an afterthought as an addendum.

- still doesn't explain the full stop between " . . have mercy on us" and "For you alone . . " though

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[Calum Cille]

Sorry to take so long! They put periods before the word 'for' in the prefaces too; I think semi-colons are going out of fashion.

http://www.icelweb.org/musicfolder/open ... mmings.pdf

[quaeritor]

You mean that infallibility which clearly extends to commas (vide comments on "Holy Holy Holy" passim) doesn't go as far as full stops? Where will this end?

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[Peter Jones]

And now to my "Gloria" question - sadly I don't have time to wait for Fr Jones's forthcoming article.

In the article I basically offer a precis of Jungmann's analysis of the Western text. Try a local library if you cannot wait. The Mass of the Roman rite.

The Greek version also does not mention the Holy Spirit at all.

This is correct but I do not go into this in the article as the topic is the new ICEL text.

[quaeritor]

Just revisiting this briefly (before a following post on a different item) -

It's all adressed to the Son and the word quoniam (because) simply prefaces the reason why the Son is being petitioned for mercy. I wonder if this is why the Greek does not have the words Tu solus Altissimus (You are alone are the Most High). The Greek version also does not mention the Holy Spirit at all.

In my setting (a revision) therre is no longer an emphatic "section end" after the final "Have mersy on us", and the Holy Spirit now finds himself in a tasteful musical parenthesis (or a tasteless-not-very-musical parenthesis depending on your standards).

But I assume, CC, that when you say "it's all addressed to the Son" you are not meaning the whole Gloria from start to finish - ?

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[Calum Cille]

But I assume, CC, that when you say "it's all addressed to the Son" you are not meaning the whole Gloria from start to finish -

When I wrote that, I was only referring to what you called "the final section". However, it seems to me that the only sure section not addressed to the Son is "Lord God, heavenly King, o God almighty Father." Even the section "with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father" is still part of an address to the Son, eg, "you are - with the Holy Spirit in the glory of the God the Father - alone the Lord".

Textual context influences the meaning of the words "Glory to God in the highest" in the Gloria: the words indicate that the Son is ὁ καθήμενος (the seated) "at the right hand of the Father," which is surely "in the heights" so, given the context, the phrase "Glory to God in the highest" can be directed at all three persons of the Trinity. This is followed by, "we praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory," during which there is still no indication to the listener that the Father alone is being hymned. The division of persons is only picked up on by the listener when the listener hears the word, "Father," which forces a kind of re-evaluation of what has gone before.

In the Latin rite, that is. The Greek form of the Gloria at this point says the following.

Κύριε Βασιλεῦ, ἐπουράνιε Θεέ, Πάτερ παντοκράτορ, Κύριε Υἱὲ μονογενές, Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, καὶ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα.
O Lord King, o heavenly God, ο Father ruler of everything, o Lord only-begotten Son, ο Jesus Christ and o Holy Spirit.

In other words, we need not re-evaluate what has gone before: the God that we praise and bless and so forth is one God in three Persons all of Whom are praised as One in the preceding passage. Therefore, the Son is praised at all points except at the specific mention here "O Lord King, o heavenly God, o Father ruler of everything" and "o Holy Spirit."

The Greek Gloria can legitimately be considered to have a central division before the words "Lord God, Lamb of God ..." where a particular focus falls upon the Son. The Latin, lacking the reference to the Holy Spirit, can therefore be considered problematic, perhaps possessing a non-Trinitarian central division before "Lord Jesus Christ ..."

In my own praying of this text, I address the Father specifically only at "Lord God, heavenly King, O God almighty Father." As I've written elsewhere, the translation going out of use shifted the sequence of epithets addressed to the Father to earlier on in the text, contradicting many of the ancient musical settings which make a clear motivic pair out of the epithets to the Father and the epithets to the Son at that point in the text. By ignoring what the ancient music tells us, the afore-mentioned paraphrastic translation probably ignores (and certainly obscures the possibility of) an ancient sense of the text, one which might have involved beginning to address the Persons of the Trinity selectively only at that very point in the Gloria. While there is no doubt that the Father and the Son are the two Persons addressed in the Latin Gloria, quite how the Latin text divides and is apportioned into "addresses" to the Persons of the Trinity is debatable.

[quaeritor]

So - on to my Creed question.

Actually it's more of an assertion. After some decades exasperatedly listening to congregations professing to believe in a God who created nothing I had hoped for a better translation this time round. Let me explain:

For decades the line ". . . of all that is, seen and unseen" has been almost universally recited without observing the vital comma, in a tripping little triple rhythm: "ŏf | áll thăt ĭs | séen ănd ŭn- | séen". There is nothing that is "seen-AND-unseen" - try any search engine (all "widgets that are green and red" is a common enough error, and returns no hits.) It should obviously be "seen OR unseen". The comma just about makes it work (although it's still incorrect) if well emphasised - eg in four-in-a-bar: "_ ŏf ăll thăt | ís _ , sĕen ănd | únsĕen _ _". That makes the "seen and unseen" into a sort of phrase in apposition I suppose, although I'm not actually sure there is any such thing! The Latin is, I guess, OK because it literally means "of all visible things and invisible things" - it's just lazy translating again. It's a pity. therefore that the comma has now gone, but surely the new wording should be read - and sung - "of all things (pause) visible and invisible"?

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[quaeritor]

Thanks, CC, for your customary deep response - it makes my opening above ("So - on to my Creed question) seem rather dismissive. - You slipped yours in while I was toiling laboriously over all those unusual accents in my illustrations.

No slight intended.

Q