LandonWillis

Category: Latin

  • Who Was Tertullian?

    Tertullian was a Roman Christian who wrote some of our earliest works in defense of the Christian faith.

    Unfortunately, we know very little about his life, and many of his writings have been lost.

    To start out, he was probably born sometime around 150 AD (I’ve seen several sources disagreeing with each other, but most say somewhere in the range of 145-155). He was born in the city of Carthage in Roman North Africa as Quintis Septimus Florens Tertullianus. His father was apparently a centurion in the local legion.

    Now, that much is pretty solidly agreed upon. Scholars then disagree heavily about the next several decades of his life. You see, Tertullian grew up as a pagan. He doesn’t convert to Christianity until around the age of 40.

    So, what did he do for the first 40 years of his life?

    Well, there are two options. Option A) We don’t know. Option B) He went to school in Rome and then served as a lawyer for many years.

    There are plenty of arguments on both sides using historical accounts and analyzing Tertullian’s word choice. But, overall, some people think Tertullian was a lawyer. Some people don’t.

    Alright, well when Tertullian was about 40 he converted to Christianity. Why? Surprise, surprise, we don’t know!

    One of the most popular theories though is that Tertullian was awe-stricken when he saw Christians boldly facing death in the arenas when they were executed for their faith. This led him to learning more about Christianity and eventually converting.

    From what I can tell, the main evidence for this theory is that Tertullian would later write about how “Christians are made, not born” and how a radical act of conversion is important to Christianity. When you combine this with Tertullian’s praise of Christian martyrs, you get the theory above about how Tertullian himself became a Christian.

    Now, the most important stuff we do know about Tertullian come from after age 40. His writings. Several of his works are lost. But, 31 still remain.

    Tertullian wrote in defense of the Christian faith and against many heresies of his day. If you want to quote an ancient, sarcastic Christian author, then Tertullian is your guy. His writings contain plenty of irony, sarcasm, and plays on words.

    One of the most important facts about Tertullian is the language he wrote in. He was the first Christian that we know of to write extensive works in Latin. Because of this, he is commonly called “the father of Latin Christianity”.

    Later in his Christian life, he apparently became a “Montanist”. We don’t know much about the Montanists (shocker), but they were at best a new branch of Christianity and at worst an outright heresy. Either way, Tertullian apparently supported them. And a few scholars (but not many) think he may have formally left the mainstream church.

    Throughout his writings he also coined several terms (or he was just the first person to write them down). One famous example is “trinity”. In defense of his views about the oneness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he used the Latin word trinitas to describe his viewpoint.

    Several of the words he introduced are just translations of Greek words into Latin, like “idolatry” (idololatria), “pentecostal” (pentecostalis), “Gehenna” (Gehenna), “patriarch” (patriarcha), “Pentateuch” (Pentateuchus), and “alphabet” (alphabetum).

    But, a couple seem to be unique to Latin, like “trinity” (trinitas), and interestingly “pagan” (paganus). That word, paganus, was Latin for “rural” or “a civilian”. Tertullian used this word to compare the “civilians” of the world with the “soldiers of Christ”. So, thanks to Tertullian, we now describe unbelievers as pagans.

    Ultimately, Tertullian died at a nice, old age. Or, at least that’s what the Latin scholar Jerome tells us. Some modern scholars guess that he was actually martyred, which would be a fitting end to a man who praised martyrs to the hilt.

    Overall, we don’t know too much about Tertullian. But we do know that he grew up as a pagan (a word that he later created) in the late 2nd Century. He might or might not have been a lawyer. Then, he converted to Christianity and staunchly defended the faith. He then either died at an old age or didn’t. Still, as the father of Latin Christianity, he greatly impacted the early church with his writings.

  • Casting (And Sprinkling) Aspersions

    Aspersion is a fun word in English.

    It comes from the Latin word Spargere, which means “to scatter” or “to sprinkle”. Its most common definition is to insult or doubt somebody, as if you were “scattering” insults on them.

    We typically use the word “cast” before it in a sentence. For example, I could say “after eating, he cast aspersions on the restaurant’s cleanliness”.

    However, there’s also another use of the word.

    Remember how Spargere in Latin could also mean “to sprinkle”? Well, in English the original meaning of the word “aspersion” was “a baptism by sprinkling water”. So, if you hear about some Christians who had a priest sprinkle water on their newborn, that’s called an aspersion.

    This meaning is directly related to the other original meaning for “aspersion” in English: the sprinkling of Christ’s blood. Since baptism references Christ’s death and resurrection, it makes sense that we would use a similar word to describe it.

  • Why Is It Called The ‘Passion’ Of Christ?

    Around Easter time, you’ve probably heard people talk a whole lot about the “Passion of Christ”. Obviously they’re talking about His torture, crucifixion, and death.

    But, why do we call it His “passion”?

    Well, our earliest records show that the word “passion” entered the English language around the year 1200. During this time, the only meaning of the word had to do with Jesus’ crucifixion.

    It comes from the Latin word passio, which itself is another form of the Latin verb pati, meaning “to suffer” or “to endure”. So, the passion of Christ is literally “the suffering of Christ”.

    That Latin word, pati, is also where we get the word “patience”. If you are being patient, then you are literally “suffering” or “enduring through” something. You can also think of patients in a doctor’s office. A patient is someone who is suffering from some sort of illness or injury.

    The confusion for modern English speakers comes from the fact that the word passion took on a new meaning around the year 1400. At that time, it started to more commonly mean “an intense emotion”. Think of how you might describe someone as “passionate”. This is from a connection to the Greek word pathos, which also meant “suffering”, but took on a second meaning of “emotion”.

    And since the French language comes mostly from Latin, it gives us many of our words which come from Latin. So, before William the Conqueror of France invaded England in 1066, “English” was still mainly a Germanic language. Because of this, Old English had a similar word to “passion” back before William the Conqueror’s invasion: þolian.

    That Old English word gives us the rarely used modern English word “Thole”.

    Thole means the same thing as passion: suffering.

    So, the next time you hear about “the passion of Christ”, you can know that it really just means “the suffering of Christ”. Or, if you want to use a very rare word, you can start talking about “the thole of Christ”.

  • Selah

    In Psalm 3:2, we read:

    2 Many are saying of my soul,
    “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah

    We’re interested specifically in that last word, Selah.

    It appears 71 times in the Book of Psalms, and 3 times in the Book of Habbakuk in a song-like section. So, the only times it appears in the Bible are in connection with songs.

    Plus, of the 39 psalms in the Book of Psalms that are written “for the music director”, 31 of them contain the word Selah at least once. Many take this to mean that it was a word associated with musical instruction, rather than part of a sentence.

    Well, what does the word mean?

    That’s the fun part. We don’t really know. Selah has been a very complex and confusing word among scholars for thousands of years.

    We know it’s a Hebrew word, but that’s about where the agreement ends. The meaning of this word was lost so long ago that we have records of Christian and Jewish scholars in the first few centuries giving different definitions.

    But, there are a number of pretty good guesses as to what it probably means. So, let’s dive in.

    1. Calah, To Measure

    Plenty of scholars connect the word Selah with the Hebrew word Calah, which means “to hang” or “to measure”. (The meaning of “to hang” would be like how an ancient merchant would “hang” something on a scale to measure its weight).

    This theory goes that if the term Selah has a meaning related to “measure”, then it is used as a way to tell the reader to carefully measure/weigh/consider what was just said.

    It would basically mean something along the lines of “Hey, pay attention to what you just read; it’s really important”.

    The Amplified Bible translates it as “pause, and calmly think of that”.

    2. Salal, To Lift Up

    One of the most common theories I’ve read was that Selah is related to the Hebrew word Salal, which means “to lift up” or “to praise”.

    The main idea with this theory is that Selah is acting as an instruction either to the people to “lift up” their voices and sing loudly/shout or as an instruction to the musicians to play louder, maybe by smashing cymbals at that moment or blowing trumpets.

    If it were a direction to the musicians, it would be similar to our modern musical instruction “fortissimo”, which is Italian for “very loud”.

    Either way, according to this theory, the musicians or the singers (whichever it was) would take a pause from singing or playing while the other one “lifted up” their noise and praise.

    This leads into the next theory.

    3. Salah/Shelah, To Pause

    A few people also say that the word Selah just comes outright from the Hebrew word meaning “pause”. (I found conflicting sources about what exactly that word was, either Salah or Shelah).

    Because of the actual spelling in Hebrew though, most scholars say that this etymology is unlikely. Still, it is similar to the first two theories because all three have the idea of pausing in some way.

    This theory is also backed up by the Ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. It translates Selah as Diapsalma (I’ve also seen the word called Daplasma in a couple articles). Diapsalma means, literally, “apart from the Psalm”. So, this at least lines up with the idea that Selah isn’t actually part of the writing itself. Some scholars use this to support the theory that it just means a pause.

    4. Section Break

    Another theory is just that Selah is a note letting you know that the topic is about to change. Most scholars don’t like this theory, especially because some Psalms end with the word Selah.

    Why would you say that the topic is about to change at the end of the song?

    Still, the theory tries to explain this away by saying that we only have fragments of some Psalms or that the Psalms were all meant to be read in order.

    5. Acronym

    This theory is that Selah is just an acronym of other Hebrew words.

    One Jewish tradition says that it stands for the phrase from Numbers 14:19 “Please forgive the sins of this people”.

    Most people don’t seem to like this theory too much either.

    6. Latin Semper, Always

    This theory is a touch complicated.

    When Jerome translated the Bible into Latin (called the Vulgate), he made one translation of each book, obviously…. except for the Book of Psalms.

    For Psalms, Jerome made three different translations, two from the Greek translation and one from the Ancient Hebrew.

    Plus, there are three different main versions of the Vulgate in existence today. And those versions are split between which of Jerome’s translations they use. Plus, the numbers of the Psalms don’t line up between English and Latin. For example, Psalm 3:2 is Psalm 3:3 in Latin, and Psalm 54:3 is Psalm 53:5 in Latin.

    So, all that to say, if you go looking for a Latin version of something in the Book of Psalms, be careful. It gets confusing and difficult really fast.

    Anyway, in Jerome’s translation from the Greek, he just uses the word Diapsalma, like in the Greek.

    But, in his translation from the Hebrew, he translates Selah as the Latin word Semper, which means “forever” or “always”.

    Aside from just Latin, several other ancient Jewish writings from the first few centuries after Christ say that the word Selah just means “forever”.

    Considering that all the other theories have to do with Selah being outside of the writing itself, this is a fun little theory. And since forever is such a versatile word, it could fit in place everywhere Selah appears.

    Conclusion

    In the end, Selah is a weird, confusing word. But, there are many scholars smarter than I who have studied this a whole bunch and have come up with the theories I listed above.

    I hope this helped you. Selah

  • What Does Prodigal Mean?

    In Luke 15:11-32, we read the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

    A man demands his inheritance from his father while still alive, then goes off and wastes all his money in a foreign land. Finally, he comes back home to his father to beg for forgiveness, and receives honor and love.

    But, why do we call this the story of the Prodigal Son? What does “prodigal” mean?

    Well, it means “wasteful” or “wastefully extravagant”.

    It comes from the Latin word prodigus, meaning “wasteful”. This, in turn, comes from the Latin verb prodigere, meaning “to use up” or “to get rid of”.

    So, this is the story of the “wasteful” son.

    We started calling the parable by this name back when Jerome (the man who compiled the Latin translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate back in the late 300s AD) decided to call it the parable of filius prodigus, “the wasteful son”.

    Since that’s the Latin word Jerome chose to use, some English speaking Christians eventually decided to call it the parable of “the Prodigal Son”.

  • What Are The Beatitudes?

    Jesus started His Sermon on the Mount by calling several different groups of people blessed. We typically call this section of His teaching “the beatitudes”.

    But why?

    Well, in Matthew 5:3-11, in our English translations, He starts every sentence with the word “blessed”. In the Latin translation of the New Testament (the Vulgate), the word used is beati.

    From this Latin word, beati, we get the word “beatitude”, which we use to talk about this short passage.

    Well, what does beati mean?

    “Blessed” is certainly a good translation in the context of this passage. But, the more common translation of the Latin word is “happy” or “fortunate”.

    In fact, when the word “beatitude” first entered the English language, it could just mean “supreme happiness”. However, it very quickly developed a purely religious context.

    From beatus (another form of the word beati), we also get the name “Beatrice”. Naming your daughter Beatrice would be like naming your son Felix (felix is another Latin word for “happy”).

    And, even though the Sermon on the Mount was originally written in Greek, it seems that the Greek word used, makarios, could similarly mean “happy” or “blessed”.

  • What Is A Gentile?

    The word “Gentile” comes from the Latin word Gentes, which means “nations or tribes”.

    This goes back to a common theme throughout the Old Testament. Many passages refer to non-Jews by simply calling them “the nations” (in Hebrew, the Goyim).

    One example is Isaiah 49:6:

    6 He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
    To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the protected ones of Israel;
    I will also make You a light of the nations
    So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

    That line “I will also make You a light of the nations” could also be translated “I will also make You a light to the nations”.

    So, “nations” is sometimes just a catch-all term for all non-Jews.

    When Jerome was translating the Bible into Latin in the late 300s AD, he chose to translate “nations” as Gentes in most places. Over the centuries, this developed into the English word “Gentile”. And you can even sometimes use it to refer to a non-Christian nowadays.

  • The Four Songs In Luke’s Gospel And Their Latin Names

    When reading through the first two chapters of Luke, you’ll notice four separate times when people (or angels) break into song.

    Each of these songs is typically known by its name in Latin. This is because the Catholic Church pretty much only used Latin translations of the Bible for a long time. And they’re the ones who included these songs as commonly sung hymns.

    Mary’s Magnificat

    Now, the first one, which you’re likely most familiar with, is Mary’s song: the Magnificat.

    Why is it called the Magnificat? Well, in the Vulgate (the Latin translation of the Bible prepared by Jerome in the late 300s AD) the first word of Mary’s song is Magnificat.

    In Latin, Magnificat means “it magnifies”. It comes from the words magnus, meaning “great” and facere, meaning “to make”.

    So, “to magnify” is literally “to make great”.

    Luke 1:46 reads:

    46 Et ait Maria: Magnificat anima mea Dominum 

    46 And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord

    Zechariah’s Benedictus

    Next, we see the song of Zechariah.

    The first word of his song in Latin is Benedictus.

    Benedictus means “blessed” and itself comes from two other Latin words, bene, meaning “well”, and dictus, meaning “said”. So, it literally means something like “spoken well of”. But we normally just translate it as “blessed”.

    His song begins in Luke 1:68:

    68 Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel, quia visitavit, et fecit redemptionem plebis suae

    68 “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,
    For He has visited and redeemed His people

    The Angels’ Gloria In Excelsis Deo

    When the angels are announcing the birth of the Savior to the shepherds, they make a quick statement/song that takes up all of one verse.

    In the Vulgate, this song starts with the phrase Gloria in altissimis Deo. As you can tell, that’s slightly different than the popular title of the song: Gloria In Excelsis Deo.

    So, why the difference?

    Well, it seems that there was a certain other Roman Christian who lived a few decades before Jerome compiled the Vulgate. This Christian (some speculate it was Hilary of Poitiers) decided to translate the Greek word hypsístois (meaning “highest”) as excelsis.

    And that’s a plenty good translation. Excelsis does mean “highest” in Latin. But, when Jerome translated the Greek texts a few decades later, he decided to translate it as the Latin word altissimis, which is another word for “highest”.

    In the end, the slightly older translation ended up sticking, so that’s why we still call this song Gloria In Excelsis Deo and not Gloria In Altissimis Deo.

    Luke 2:14 reads:

    14 Gloria in altissimis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.

    14 “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

    Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis

    Finally, when the baby Jesus is presented at the temple, a man named Simeon breaks into a song praising God.

    The Latin translation of his song starts with the words Nunc dimittis servum tuum, which literally means “now you dismiss your servant” or “now you send away your slave”.

    This song starts in Luke 2:29:

    29 Nunc dimittis servum tuum Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace

    29 “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace,
    According to Your word

    Conclusion

    So, we’ve got four famous songs in the first couple chapters of Luke’s Gospel. All four of them are commonly known by their Latin names: the Magnificat, the Benedictus, Gloria In Excelsis Deo, and Nunc Dimittis.

  • Word Of The Week No 10: Enamored

    Enamored is a very interesting English word.

    If you’re enamored with something, you love it. We get the word from the Latin word amare, which means “to love”.

    Language scholars like to argue over certain terms, but some people would call this the only deponent verb in the English language.

    A deponent verb is a verb that has no active meaning, only a passive one that acts as an active meaning.

    Imagine the word “eat”. I can say “I eat”, and that’s active. But, if I say “The steak was eaten”, that’s passive.

    But, “enamored” is unique. You can’t ever say “I enamor chicken”. But you can say “I’m enamored with chicken” (i.e. you love chicken).

  • Why Do Certain Numbers Mean Words In The Bible? Thanks To Gematria And Isopsephy.

    You’ve probably heard about some famous examples of numbers being used as codes in the Bible. Specifically, you’ve likely heard that the number 666 was probably a reference to the Emperor Nero.

    But why on earth do numbers mean words? And how does this “code” work?

    Well, a lot of people try to make it sound all complicated, but it’s actually pretty simple.

    In English, we obviously use a certain system of numbers (also called numerals): 1,2,3,4,etc.

    What you may not know is that these numbers (1,2,3,4,etc.) are Arabic numerals. A system of numbers that comes to us from Arabic.

    So, before we began using these Arabic numerals just a few centuries ago, what did we use?

    Well, think back to the Romans. They had a system of Roman numerals (ring a bell?). In this system, the Romans used numbers such as I,V,X,L,C,etc.

    As you can see, all of their numbers were just letters. The only way to tell whether something in writing was meant as letters or numbers was through context. If you saw V CANES, you could assume that the “V” represents “5”, so you could translate the phrase as “5 dogs”.

    This system of Roman numerals is very similar to what the Greeks and Hebrews did.

    Records are unclear, but it appears that the Greeks were the first to develop this system of counting (using their letters to represent numbers instead of spelling out the full name of the number).

    The Greeks called this “isopsephy”, which comes from isos, meaning “equal” and psephos, meaning “count”.

    Then, it appears that following Alexander the Great’s conquest of the east, the new Hellenistic (hellenistic just means Greek) Jews began to develop their own system of isopsephy.

    However, just to keep us a little bit confused, the Hebrews made sure to change the name of isopsephy to “gematria”. Gematria still comes from Greek, but specifically it derives from the word geometria, which is also where we get our word “geometry”. It’s basically just a word that had to do with math, so naming a number system after a math word makes sense.

    So, these systems of isopsephy (for Greek) and gematria (for Hebrew) were pretty much just the same sort of thing as Roman numerals.

    The only big difference is that for the Romans, only a few letters were used as numbers and the rest were always just letters. For Hebrew and Greek though, every letter had a numerical value to go along with it.

    Because of this, you could take any word in Hebrew or Greek, add up all the numbers/letters, and get a total value. This was done pretty commonly for different purposes. Again, the famous example of 666 alludes to Emperor Nero because if you add up the letters of his name in Greek, Neron Kaisar, you get 666.

    Overall, a lot of people like to make this stuff sound all confusing, but just remember, it’s pretty much the same as Roman numerals.