Cum ergo exisset dicit Iesus...

It's time for Latin time, ladies and gents! I've been doing my Bible reading in Latin these days, because it makes me think harder about what I'm reading...and because, like St. Augustine, I like Latin better than Greek. I mean, I am Monica the Man, and St. Augustine is my boy. Better than both Latin or Greek, though, if I'm honest, I like English. Cry ad fontes all you want, but English is the fount from which I drink and have drunk, and however deeply I attempt immersion in the thought processes of another language (and I do), I will always be something of a translator at heart. Even a despoiler, bringing booty back to my native soil from victories abroad. Maybe that's one reason I like Chaucer so much..."le grand translateur" is what his contemporary Deschamps called him. But that's French, so heck with it, and it ain't time for another Chaucer rant, anyway. Now to business.

Today's Gospel reading was from St. John 13:31-35, which looks like this in Latin (you'll have to scroll down a bit). I noticed some stuff that I think is interesting and, yes, fun as well as an aid to understanding. Get outcher Bibles.

First off. In the beginning of this passage, the word clarificare shows up in various forms, which any English Bible translates as "to glorify." Nothing wrong with that. In Latin clarificare literally means "to make famous." It's interesting, though, because "glory" comes from another Latin word, which really means "fame" or "renown." It is only through a strange shift in etymology that the English "glory" is also associated with brightness, but I won't go into that. (In OE, this would be the word "wuldor," as in Caedmon's phrase "wuldor-faeder.") Clarificare, however, does betoken brightness and renown all on its own. It comes from the word clarare, which means "to make bright" which progressed to "make clear (specifically, to the mind)" or "famous," and it's where we get our word "clarify," though to use that word here wouldn't really do the job. There's this wonderful give-and-take of revelation here--from the Father to the Son, back to the Father, back to the Son, and so on. With revelation, as with glory, there is an indication of light, but when I think specifically of God's glory, I think of something that is basically independent of Man or any created being. God's glory is something that is, as God is, like the uncreated light, and we might be invited to have a vision of some part of that glory, or not. Revelation, however, indicates a hidden thing needing and receiving light. God is being made known to Man through Christ, the Son of Man, not simply stockpiling glory somewhere, for He has no such need. Specifically, He is being made known as betrayed--Judas has just left to sell Him out, and Jesus says, "Now is the Son of Man glorified (made known)..." Betrayed. Yet willing still to be known, as Jesus will show, when He suffers for it--for Man's betrayal and God's love.

Second thing. In the second part of this passage, you'll find the word diligere in various forms. English Bibles translate this as "to love." Fine word, love, fine word, and one which certainly fits here. I would only point out that it literally means "to choose apart" or "to distinguish by choosing" and hence, yes, to love. Jesus commands his disciples to choose constantly to love one another, pointing out that this is how people will know that they are His. The disciples know God through Christ, and those who do not know Him yet will know first that His disciples are indeed His disciples by their mutual love, and they make their choices from that...but they must make their choices from correct data, which Christians must provide. It's interesting to me that, gramatically, this command (mandatum) is not in the imperative mood, but the subjunctive. You didn't see that coming, did you? Ha! That's because it's grammar, baby! And grammar has effective natural camouflage. Subjunctive mood is a wily beast, and I know a grammar lesson is not the coolest. I'm going to explain it this way: imperative commands are Thou Shalt. Subjunctive ones are You Must. It's still a command, obviously, and no less binding in one mood than another. But, well, the mood is different. We might say "the delivery." Authoritative, yes. But man-to-man.

Chesterton pointed out that God, as Christians see Him, is brave. He gives the keys of the Kingdom to Peter; He gives responsibility of transmitting truth to the choice of a handful of men, one of which just left to betray Him, and another He knows will deny Him thrice. It's "brave" to create beings with wills. It's also patently nuts. But it's the kind of nuts that I can't help but laugh at with a kind of admiration, almost like one would laugh in the presence of someone with invincible innocence. I don't laugh at this moment in the Gospel, of course, because it's a somber (and tender, too) moment, but at the whole plan? Yeah. We are a spectacle of failure, friends. But it just doesn't seem to stop God from leading this rabble, and it turns out that, even in our betrayals, God is still made known. Cum ergo exisset dicit Iesus, "Nunc clarificatus est Filius hominis..." Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, one way or another. Glorificamus te.