www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy WHY THE SILENCE?

The doctrinal error that results from this omission of the word "men" from the Creed stems from the resulting context. The word "men" in this place in the Nicene Creed confessed the fact that Christ came down from heaven to die and atone for the sins of all people, that is, the whole world, since Christ is indeed the "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Hence the omission of the word "men" results in a Calvinistic error, namely, the doctrine of a "limited atonement." Calvinists believe that Christ only died to save those who would end up believing (the predestined for salvation). The proposed revision of the Creed opens the way for this because the removal of "men" makes the context revert back to those who say "I believe" or "We believe." Hence "who for us and our salvation" would be defined as, "who for us who believe and for our salvation" rather than all mankind. The consequences of tinkering with the Creed as with poor Bible translations, and in tinkering around with the liturgy are grave indeed. The Creed may indeed need to be translated again from time to time, but not to change its meaning from the original text or to make concessions to liberal theological ideologies. Such playing around goes against pastors' ordination vows, church constitutions, and the teaching of Scripture, since we do subscribe to these confessions without condition ("quia" and not "quatenus").

But assume now this advice is taken and we agree that the Creed should be simply translated rather than revised, what if we end up with something like, "who for us human beings" or something similar to that? One could argue that it is a translation of "anthropous". Wouldn't it be a good translation that is more "gender inclusive"?

A Creed conditioned by the concerns of modern feminism is anachronistic and very likely an ecumenical fad. We need to think about our language in terms of Genesis 1-2. Adam was created first and then Eve. She was made from the rib of Adam. She is described by Adam as "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." It is therefore biblical and expressive of the teaching of Genesis to use the term "men" and "mankind" as expressive our creation as male and female in the image of God. To say "mankind" in many ways is to recall that we are "Adam-kind". Consider this portion of Romans 5 in this regard:

He Did Become Man
A decade or so ago there appeared a new translation of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom largely produced by the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Seminary in Massachusetts. It was a dreadful piece of work from every perspective.

As one looks over the names of those credited with the effort, it is not difficult to see why this should be so; it contains scarcely a single person who had any business serving on a translation committee. Indeed, I have heard a couple of those folks speak in public, and their everyday English is not better than barely adequate. Even among those few translators who do speak English comfortably as a native tongue, there is no evidence of developed skills in the more refined rhetorical complexities of the language. So it is not surprising that the Holy Cross translation, now in use for more than a decade in the Greek archdiocese, is positively abysmal, nor is it marvelous that some priests would prefer to stick with the original Greek. Personally, I would.

One could wish, moreover, that mere linguistic ineptitude were the translation’s only shortcoming. The major complaint to be raised is not simply its style, but rather its clear, if still inchoate, adherence to “politically correct” usage. Traditionally, you see, Eastern Orthodox Christians, along with all other bodies that use the Nicene Creed, have proclaimed that in the Incarnation the eternal Son of God “for us men and for our salvation . . . became man.” In the Holy Cross version, however, the word men was dropped from that creedal statement, out of an unwarranted respect for the feelings of those unhappy with the word men being used for human beings.

That was, I submit, a step in the wrong direction. At the very least, it showed some very shallow thinking within the faculty of Holy Cross Seminary and a lamentable inattention to dogma within the Orthodox hierarchy. We are talking here about an actual change in the Nicene Creed, and Orthodox bishops are supposed to be sensitive on that subject. Oh, where was Saint Mark of Ephesus this time around?

Evidently unchallenged, that initial aberration took the next logical step a couple of years ago with yet another translation, a “trial version” submitted to the Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA). Invariably copying the crudeness of the Holy Cross version, this one ingressed even further in the direction of political correctness by altering the Creed’s affirmation that the Son of God “was made man” to “became human.” The identical change was made in several other places where the Divine Liturgy speaks of the Incarnation.

Fortunately for the Orthodox Church, however, this time the translators overplayed their hand, for there was spontaneous outrage from both clergy and congregations as soon as the new version became known. Several bishops spoke openly against it, and others, apparently a large number, privately expressed a resolve to kill the thing. Except for a few complaints that I was being too harsh, my detailed criticism in The Christian Activist, with a circulation of 65,000, has so far gone unanswered. The SCOBA project now seems to be dead, a circumstance at which the righteous may rejoice.

Much as I truly wish someone would, I am not overly surprised that no champion has yet come forward, in an Orthodox publication, to defend “became human” as a proper translation. To substitute the feeble adjective human for the powerful noun man represents a major break with the sense of the Creed. The Greek active aorist participle enanthropesanta is a Christian term, unique and specifically crafted to describe the Incarnation. Its faithful translation requires not only a resolve to avoid the faintest influence from any non-Christian ideology, but also the strictest possible adherence to the older, traditional translation of the Creed.

The Latin, for example, broke the Greek word down into its components and arrived at homo factus est. It did not employ the adjective humanus, but the noun homo, “man.” In fidelity to that rendering, the traditional English translations followed suit.

“Human” is a static, descriptive word, while the active participle enanthropesanta is not a description but an identifying deed. Truth to tell, there were early heresies that would have been satisfied to describe Christ as “human” without saying that he “became man.”

The intention of the Nicene Creed is to do much more than describe Christ. It affirms the single and singular divine act by which God’s Word became a specific, individual member of the human race—that God‘s eternal Son is now man—that he has forever entered human history as the defining participant in its destiny.

As one looks over the names of those credited with the effort, it is not difficult to see why this should be so; it contains scarcely a single person who had any business serving on a translation committee. Indeed, I have heard a couple of those folks speak in public, and their everyday English is not better than barely adequate. Even among those few translators who do speak English comfortably as a native tongue, there is no evidence of developed skills in the more refined rhetorical complexities of the language. So it is not surprising that the Holy Cross translation, now in use for more than a decade in the Greek archdiocese, is positively abysmal, nor is it marvelous that some priests would prefer to stick with the original Greek. Personally, I would.

So why, once the translations have been put in this rough form--poor English--do the translators not look for people with a background in writing Standard English, people without the bias of feminist language, to bring the final product up to the elegance that liturgical translations ought to have?

Or is that too easy?

BOB

Or is that too easy?