www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Question on the Inter-Eparchial Liturgical Commission

I agree with Mr. Thompson that many of the members of the IELC hold advanced degrees, that they are both competent and extremely knowledgeable.

My issue is not and never has been with the qualifications of the men involved in preparing the translation but with the principles they either chose or were given. If their goal was to prepare an accurate and complete translation of the official 1942 Sluzebnik (one free from abbreviations, reorganizations and agendas like exclusive �inclusive language�) they would have succeeded. Sadly for our Church, a path other than utter faithfulness was chosen.

Dear Professor Thompson,

I am not sure that the pastor in question is all wet in his observations. You've offered the credentials of the members but they do not seem to refute what was said about the areas of professional competency.

That being said, you and I both know that credentialing is not guarantor of success in anything including our professional lives where we have all the best training. [read "we" as "one has" etc.]

I think that what is shocking to many of us is the fact that there are competencies in evidence on the committees and still we do not have an historically faithful document, still we have inclusive language in the face of Rome's rejections of it, still we had or have loose spots in terms of lex orandi lex credendi, still we have further abbreviations and truncations of the liturgy, and music that may not be designed to do so, but which is stifling to congregational singing, and is still no more than an adaptation of that which we are said to be returning to, which is what we have already only differently.

That is what is stunning. Not that the committee members are provincial dolts, but that they are not really and still we have a reform that is lamentable.

Eli

I have thought about the term, "Son of Man" often lately. It is used very frequently and Jesus himself uses it. It obviously has very prophetic meaning from its use in the Old Testament.

Why, however, would "huios tou anthropou" be pc? I would argue that if "horizontal" language, langauge which identifies the natural order, can be changed - it certainly ought to be changed here. Certainly Jesus was not the Son of a man, but the son of a woman - the Theotokos. Or perhaps "man" really is like "anthropos."

In the United States we have a very important historical document which states:

I wonder what would happen if there were a proposal to substitute "of us" for "men" in that document? A truly "American" translation of an ancient Creed would want to borrow the capital from something really American -- The Declaration of Independence. But that's not pc either because after all, African Americans, Native Americans, and women were persecuted by the founders.

The Declaration like the term "men" is taboo in Amercian "culture." Why? Because it still keeps us connected with a higher law, the Divine Law. If you take the Declaration seriously, you know that Amercan law, in principle, forbids abortion and a whole lot more.

Man's participation in this higher law is the natural law. The natural law recognizes and respects the differences between men and women. While we can attempt to make nice distinctions between "horizontal" and "vertical" language, if you destroy the natural order, you will end up destroying the Divine as well:

"For this reason a man (anthropos) shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church;"

Ephesians, chapter 5.

I see it as no accident that those (here I speak of the modern pagans - those outside the Church) who want to transform our language, also want to transform our culture as well. I see it as no accident that on the heals of the radical feminist movement, we are now dealing with the issue of "gay" marriage which utterly rejects the natural order.

St. Paul cautions us to be wary of the world and the fashions of the day. He tells us in chapter 12 of Romans:

St. Paul's admonish certainly seems apropos.

I am told that the Greek word translated as "transformed" could also be translated as "transfigured." It is the Transfiguration which holds a special place in Eastern theology. It is our goal:


If we are all sons, we then are all adelphoi - brothers because we have been baptized into Christ.


Galatians. chap. 3.

Now if someone says what "horizontal" language we use is unimportant, then you have an argument with St. Paul.

The following, on the title "The Son of Man," is from newadvent:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14144a.htm

Here are a few of my own muddled thoughts:

If we take out men in the Creed as is proposed by most Catholic Bishops in the United States ["for us and for our salvation"], then it appears that when we say, "he became man," we have made his "maleness" the important point unless of course we are still working under the assumption that man means human being without regard to age or sex. But this is the assumption which we have agreed is in fact not the case, that's why "men" "were" removed. Since, however, he became man, not woman, then it is as clear as daylight that he came to save just us males.

Leaving out "men" but retaining the fact that he became "man" has, therefore, the opposite effect of what was intended by the removal of men, for what we mean is that he took on our human nature, which does not exist as some Platonic form but rather in man: male and female.

There you have it ladies, there is no salvation outside maleness!

Im,

To a certain degree, you are correct. Without "males" we would not have priests which would mean we would not have the Eucharist. The church can technically continue without men in the form of reader's services, but humanity itself will not last very long past that time making it a moot point. Of course, we could argue what would have happened had their been no men at the time Jesus came, but alternative universes needing saving was sufficiently dealt with by CS Lewis in the Chronicles of Narnia, and in that case we might as well argue that Jesus is a lion.

The reality is that Jesus did come into our time in the form of a man. The Bible and early Christianity have a number of extremely powerful women, from peasants to queens, which means he could have come as a woman had he so desired. He decided to come as a man, though, and to call men to continue in a specific ministry in his place. This does not negate the power and importance of women (look at the honor we are currently paying to the Theotokos), but gives women a different role. So, Im, you are right. Without the Son of Man who came to save men, there is no salvation for women, either.

Plus, aren't WO-men just a subset of men? An improved model number?

That is why I refer to my wife as my better half!

A few more thoughts why men ought not to be excluded from the Creed.

It seems to me that when we say Jesus Christ became or was made man, we mean two things: 1) that he became a human being and 2) that he became a male human being. It is this dual meaning that is important which would not be conveyed if we were to say eg, for us human beings he was made a human being. [I think Fr. Pertas recommends this on his website but knows that no one speaks that way]. But this possible translation would be incorrect for theological reasons.

As you point out, it is important that Jesus Christ was made a man (ie not a woman) and a man (ie not a lion). That he became a man in the first sense governs who can become a priest. It is also important in understanding the mystery of which matrimony is a symbol. St. Thomas Aquinas on commenting on the passage in Ephesians which I quoted in a previous post above states that the Son left God the Father, and his Mother the synagogue, and became incarnate to be united to His Bride the Church. It is important, therefore, that we acknowledge that Christ was made man in the first sense. But it is also important that he became a man in the second sense (ie not a lion). It is probably the case that the primary meaning of man actually is in the sense of "not a lion".

When "men," however, is removed from the Creed, it is logical to conclude that the only important thing is that Christ was a male --which of course will aggravate even more those who out of a sense of justice are demanding that the language be sanitized. This is in part due to the fact that they don't want to sanitize just the language. Language is a symbol which conveys ideas about things.

Note that saying Jesus Christ became a man is still on the "horizontal" level - but it is not being tinkered with. However wild the Da Vinci Code may have been, I don't think it suggested that Christ was anything but a man. The facts are the facts.

From this one may conclude that the male chauvinists would really get excited about this new change in the Creed for Americans (Roman and Byzantine alike). The nod to the feminst agenda, however, has only aggravated the problem.

When correctly translated, the Creed, ie, "for us "men" and for our salvation...he was made [or became] "man"," employs both meanings of "man". No one is excluded and the fact that Jesus Christ was made man (not a woman) is not ignored.

The moral of this story is that those who wrote ancient classical texts which have survived for generations were far more sophicated that modern men and we ought not just drop words from the original text and call them translations.

Which brings to mind the question here in the United States, "If we were to have the Divine Liturgy in the original Greek or Mass in Latin (just for the fun of it) would we just drop "anthropous" or "homines" from the text?

I think not! [Beware, if you are a Cartesian and say that you might disappear!]

Yes. This is truly lamentable and I believe it may point some of our most faithful, devout and active parishioners to Holy Orthodoxy.

To paraphrase another well known quip:

"The Liturgy is too important to leave to the liturgists."

As some have commented, some members of the liturgical commission might be too close, too invested in the work they came up with that they have come to the point of no return. This being so even if the spirit of the faithful is snubbed.

But for us Christians there is alway a point of return. Not to do so will harm the Church.