I said in the last chapter that in Latin word order is often varied for the sake of style. However, the Creed is not a good example of this since its structure is very straightforward, just a plain statement “I believe” followed by a series of doctrines, in a similar format, which we are required to believe as being necessary for salvation. It acquired this format because it originated as the profession of faith made by a candidate prior to his or her baptism at the Easter Vigil (which is why it starts off “I believe” and not “We believe”), and although it is now a standard part of the Mass in both the Old and the New Rites it was not in fact formally incorporated into the Roman Rite until the eleventh century, which is comparatively recent by liturgical standards.
What I want to consider in this chapter is the Preface which, by contrast to the Creed, has been part of the Mass since apostolic times, since it is actually the first part of the Eucharistic Prayer.
The word “Preface” is something of a misnomer because it has come to mean an introduction to a piece of writing of which it does not strictly form an integral part, rather like the overture to an opera. Our Preface is not this sort of thing at all. It is an integral, though variable, part of the Eucharistic Prayer, or Canon, itself. In the course of time, however, it became separated from the rest of the Prayer, particularly when the Sanctus was incorporated into the Prayer, probably around the year 500. The Sanctus, being a hymn, was given to the choir rather than to the priest to sing. So the Preface, being separated from the rest of the Prayer partly because of the intervention of the choir and partly because it remained variable after the rest of the Prayer became fixed, was increasingly regarded as merely the introduction to the Canon rather than part of the Canon itself. The result was that when the Canon came to be said silently rather than sung aloud, the Preface was excluded and has continued to be sung, or said, aloud by the celebrant down to the present day. It also had the interesting consequence that when the Protestant reformers in the sixteenth century were composing their new liturgies, which involved the elimination or truncation of the Canon to remove all reference to the sacrificial nature of the Mass, they kept the Preface and Sanctus, not realising that they were actually part of the Canon.
Unfortunately modern congregations have acquired the habit of remaining seated during the Preface in the Old Rite, as if it were part of the Offertory, which it is not. They should in fact either stand or kneel, from the “Dóminus vobíscum” onwards. In this respect, at least, the practice of standing during the Preface in the New Rite is an improvement on the old.
At one time there were a huge number of different Prefaces in the Roman Rite. The oldest known Roman Mass book, the Leonine Sacramentary, which reflects the Roman Rite as it existed before about the year 500, has about 270, and it must have had considerably more originally, since the masses for the whole of the period from January to the middle of April are missing from the only surviving manuscript of this book. But when St. Gregory the Great revised the rite around the year 600, he included only fourteen. Some have been added since, such as the Prefaces for the feasts of the Sacred Heart and of Christ the King, but even so the 1962 Roman Missal contains only about twenty. By contrast, there are around 80 in the new Missal of Paul VI, though only a few of them seem to be in regular use.
Here then is the Preface of the Holy Trinity, which is proper to the ordinary Sundays in the Old Rite, and for this reason is the one likely to be most familiar to the average massgoer. It first appears in the so-called “Old Gelasian” Sacramentary, which represents the Roman Rite as it was immediately before the Gregorian liturgical reform, as the Preface for the first Sunday after Pentecost, later to become Trinity Sunday, so, for at least 1,500 years, it has been the proper Preface for this day. I have divided it into 20 lines, numbered for reference purposes, and I have also marked most of the stress accents.
Even at a glance the symmetry between many of the lines in this Preface is obvious; compare lines 5 and 6, lines 7 and 8, lines 10 and 11, and lines 14, 15 and 16. But underlying this symmetry there is a more subtle rhythm. If you look at the stress accents of the last two or three words of each line, you will see that the endings of lines 2, 6, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 all have the same rhythmic pattern; and lines 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12 and 20 do so as well. In other words, 17 out of the 20 lines in the Preface end in one or other of only two rhythmic patterns. It is this, together with the resonance of its language, which gives this magnificent Preface its intensely poetic quality. Ideally it should always be sung to the distinctive plainsong tone, which Mozart is reputed to have said he would rather have composed than all his works put together. For it is surely not through science or philosophy, but through the music and poetry of the Sacred Liturgy, that the ordinary man can best approach the mystery of the Blessed Trinity.
There are other similarly beautiful Prefaces in the old missal; my own favourites are that for Christmas, which was composed by St. Gregory himself, and that for the Mass of the Dead, which surprisingly dates only from the early part of the twentieth century, though it is partly based on an old text. However, I now want to set out the Preface of the Blessed Trinity again, this time in the same word order as we would use in English, side by side with a literal translation. The change in word order destroys the poetry of course, and the translation is stylistically awful, but the idea is to enable you to work through the Preface and understand the meaning of each word in it. I have put in square brackets those words which we have to use in English to make the meaning clear, but which are not needed in Latin.
| Est vere dignum et iustum, |
[It] is truly worthy and just |
| aequum et salutare |
right and salutary |
| Nos agere gratias tibi |
[for] us [to] give thanks [to] you |
| semper et ubique |
always and everywhere |
| sancte Domine, omnipotens Pater, aeterne Deus |
holy Lord, almighty Father, eternal God |
| qui cum tuo unigenito Filio |
who with your only-begotten Son |
| et Sancto Spiritu |
and [the] Holy Spirit |
| es unus Deus |
are one God |
| es unus Dominus |
are one Lord |
| non in singularitate unius personae |
not in [the] singularity [of] one person |
| sed in Trinitate unius substantiae. |
but in [the] Trinity [of] one substance, |
| enim quod credimus de tua gloria |
for what [we] believe about your glory |
| Te revelante |
[as a result of] you revealing [it], |
| hoc de tuo Filio |
this [too] about your Son |
| hoc de Sancto Spiritu |
this [too] about [the] Holy Spirit |
| sentimus sine differentia discretionis |
[we] understand without [any] difference [of] discernment |
| Ut in confessione |
so [that] in [the] acknowledgement |
| Verae sempiternae-que Deitatis |
[of] [the] true and eternal Godhead |
| et proprietas in personis |
[the] separateness in persons |
| et unitas in essentia |
and [the] unity in essence |
| et aequalitas in maiestate adoretur |
and [the] equality in majesty [may be] adored |
| Quam Angeli atque Archangeli laudant |
which [the] Angels and Archangels praise |
| Cherubim et Seraphim quoque |
[the] Cherubim and Seraphim also |
| Qui non cessant clamare quotidie |
who [do] not cease [to] cry [out] every day |
| Dicentes una voce |
Proclaiming [with] one voice |
Two small points to note: the link word “et” can be used in Latin not only between two or more words which are to be joined, but also before the first of them; so we have “et in personis proprietas, et in essentia unitas, et in maiestate adoretur aequalitas”. It isn’t strictly necessary in this case, but it has been done purely for the sake of literary style. And secondly you will note that the word “enim”, meaning “for”, never comes first in a Latin sentence; this is an invariable rule which is never broken.
Once you have completed the exercise suggested above, you might like to try your skill at another magnificent Preface, that of St. Gregory for Christmas mentioned above. It is probably a little more difficult than the Preface of the Blessed Trinity, but it is a good deal shorter, and it will serve to illustrate one or two fresh points concerning the language. The first three lines are identical to those of the Preface of the Blessed Trinity, and the last five form a standard ending which is found in many prefaces.
A rough translation of lines 4 to 7 would go as follows:
Lines 4, 6 and 7 are relatively straightforward, bearing in mind that the verbs in lines 6 and 7 (cognóscimus and rapiámur) occur in their normal Latin position, namely at the end. Line 5 is the only one that requires some serious disentangling. The English word order would be “nova lux tuae claritátis infúlsit óculis nostrae mentis”. The Latin word order at first sight looks random but it is not. The verb (infúlsit) is naturally at the end. There are two genitives, “nostrae mentis” and “tuae claritátis”. The former is placed before the noun to which it relates. This is quite common and you will see that it also occurs in lines 4 (“Incarnáti Vérbi mystérium”) and 7 (“invisibílium amórem”). We do exactly the same thing in English with many of our genitives, except that we normally indicate their nature by an apostrophe (“the Nag’s Head”, “the widow’s mite” etc.), whereas Latin indicates it by changing the word ending. It wouldn’t be very elegant perhaps in English but we could at a pinch keep the Latin word order by translating “the Incarnate Word’s mystery” and “our mind’s eyes”. What makes it a bit difficult, however, is partly the Latin practice of sometimes putting the adjective after the noun (so we have “mentis nostrae” rather than “nostrae mentis”, though of course we occasionally do this too in English, as in “things invisible” or “life eternal”), but in particular of placing the entire phrase “mentis nostrae óculis” between the adjective (“nova”) and the noun which it qualifies (“lux”). This may be confusing to us but it is rigorously logical, because both the adjective “nova” and the phrase “mentis nostrae óculis” qualify “lux”. It is in other words both a light which is new and a light which is directed towards the eyes of our mind; it is, in the Latin word order, a “new towards-our-mind’s-eyes light”.
Lines 8 to 12 are not too difficult, because the word order is very similar to English, only the verbs “canimus” and “dicentes” occurring as usual at the end. “And therefore with Angels and Archangels, with Thrones and Dominations, and with the whole host of the heavenly army, we sing a hymn to thy glory, saying without end...”
Finally, the Preface for Easter, which is also very short (as Roman Rite prefaces tend to be; Gallican Rite prefaces can be enormous!). It is one of the oldest known prefaces in the Roman liturgy, being quoted in a letter of St. Paulinus of Nola who died in 431. It starts and finishes in a way which will already be familiar.
Keeping as far as possible to the Latin word order, a literal translation of lines 1 to 7 would be:
Truly worthy and just it is, right and salutary, to praise (praedicáre) you indeed, O Lord, at every time, but at this time (in hoc) especially (potíssimum) more gloriously, when our Paschal victim, Christ, is sacrificed (immolátus est). For he (ipse) is the true lamb who has taken away the sins of the world, who by dying (moriéndo) has destroyed our death, and by rising (resurgéndo) has restored [our] life.
There are two variations to this Preface; at the Easter Vigil “in hoc potíssimum” becomes “in hac potíssimum nocte” (especially on this night), and on Easter Sunday itself “in hac potíssimum die” (especially on this day).
Note particularly the two words “moriéndo” and “resurgéndo”. These are both what we call in English “verbal nouns”, in other words they are grammatically speaking nouns which are derived from verbs. In Latin they are known as “gerunds”, which means exactly the same thing. In English these verbal nouns end in “-ing” (e.g. “seeing is believing”), and in Latin you can recognise them easily because they all have the letters “nd” immediately before the variable ending. In the Easter preface they are ablatives (“by dying”, “by rising”). Both the nominative and the accusative case of gerunds end in “-um”, viz. “moriéndum” and “resurgéndum”, and they are always of neuter gender.
A well known phrase which includes two gerunds is “lex orándi, lex credéndi”, meaning literally “the law of praying is the law of believing” (note that Latin uses four words to express this idea, English nine!). Both the gerunds in this phrase are of course in the genitive case.
If you feel really bold you could now try your hand, with the help of the vocabulary, at translating some of the other prefaces. I suggest you start with the Lenten Preface, which is the shortest of all, and then go on to the Preface of the Holy Cross, which is longer but still very short, a beautiful Preface which manages, as so often in the Old Roman Rite, to express the most profound theological ideas about our redemption in a few perfectly balanced phrases.