Latin is the language of Christendom for over 1,500 years--it is valuable for someone who wants to understand the history of Christianity, to understand the Latin Vulgate and Old Latin Bible translations, the language known by Biblical writers from Mark, early writers in Christendom, influential medieval theologians from Anslem to Aquinas, reformers from Luther to Calvin, Puritans like John Owen, and Baptist writers like John Gill. Latin also helps one to understand untranslated Latin excerpts in commentaries like Keil & Delitzch, Latin excerpts in systematic theologies, and so on.
Interestingly, only approximately 0.01% of all extant Latin, though admittedly with substantial influence, is composed of classical Roman authors Approximately 80% of extant Latin writings composed by those who professed to be Christians, while the other 20% is scientific and various other treatises by non-Christian writers (Derek Cooper, Basics of Latin: A Grammar with Readings and Exercises from the Christian Tradition [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020], xvii).
So in light of the value of Latin, I have prayerfully decided to to learn the language at my own pace. So how is it going? I'm glad you asked. How am I going about it?
I first started with Latin 101: Learning a Classical Language by Hans-Friedrich Mueller, a course offered by "The Great Courses" organization. Having profited by numbers of classes offered by The Great Courses, I would use their class to learn classical Latin and then transition to the Latin of Christendom. The "Great Courses" class offers a textbook with exercises and also video lectures, and I wanted to have lectures with a real, knowledgable teacher. I also did not want to pay very much money, and I knew that The Great Courses regularly offers sales where their classes are listed at 70-85% off (you should never pay the full price, or even half price, for a Great Courses course; they list prices are fake to make you feel like you are getting an incredible deal at 70% off. The marketing technique is effective--but the real, 70% off price for their classes is actually reasonable for courses that are often of high quality.)
I got through the majority of the Great Courses class, completing all the exercises, with their textbook and a Latin dictionary (Simpson, D. P., Cassell’s Latin Dictionary: Latin-English & English-Latin, 5th ed. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing, 1968) However, as I kept plugging away, I started to get really bogged down in the exercises. I was looking up practically every word in the dictionary and taking an inordinately long amount of time to complete the exercises. I believe that the Great Courses class will probably work for some, but for me there just were not enough exercises to attain sufficient mastery of the material before going on to the next chapter. So after slogging through a majority of the book, with progress getting slower and slower, I started looking for alternatives.
I discovered the Familia Romana / Lingua Latina: Per Se Illustrata series, and have to this point been very impressed. I purchased a number of books so that I could have everything I needed to teach myself using that series, as well as a few other works that help as described below:
5.) Ørberg, Hans H., Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata: Teacher’s Materials. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 2005. Amazon Smile link
I also got a few others; click here for my page on learning Christian and classical Latin for more information.
There is a whole set of virtually unknown to the modern world writings you could try translating from. A few examples I know of, the Sermon given at the ancient church of Carthage denouncing Caecilian and the emerging "catholicism"-"unity" movement in around 317-320 AD. This is good material, it can be found in Patrologia Latina Vol 8 col 752-758.
ReplyDeleteA few others are letter CDXXXII of Evervini Steinfeldensis to Bernard in 1143, where he mentions his encounter with Manichaeans and Baptists who he caught debating and he describes the doctrines that both groups espoused before their executions. And how the latter used Ecclesiastes 11:3 to argue against purgatory. Also the description given by Peter of Cluny of the doctrine of Peter of Bruys in PL 189 col 728 onwards. I have only investigated part of this, it is an extremely long description but I found that he, Peter of Bruys, apparently used Mark 16:16 to argue against infant baptism sometime before 1146.
Philippe de Mornæi wrote a book in 1611 called Mysterium Iniquitatis, again all in Latin, (and for a long time placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum) in which it seems he provides the original source for the blasphemous quote of Leo X on the eve of the reformation, where according to his own secretary(?) he allegedly made the following statement "Quantum nobis nostrisque ea de Christo fabula profuerit, satis est omnibus saeculis notum." A scan of the page in question found here: https://i.imgur.com/kvOnUS6.png
If you are able to translate the footnotes of ecclesiastical historical textbooks like Mosheim or Gieseler you can also acquire another interesting bit of information. Apparently, John XXII claimed to be God or a god on earth in the year 1325, a claim which was not officially retracted for several hundred years and only quietly done. See Gieseler, Text-book of Ecclesiastical History, Vol 3, p 66 fn 3.
-- Zenzelinus, A.D. 1325, in his gloss to Extravag. Jo. XXII. Tit. XIV. C. 4, in fine says: Credere autem Dominum Deum nostrum Papam, conditorem dictae decretalis, sic non potuisse statuere, prout statuit, haereticum censeretur. So also in the Lyons editions of 1584 and 1606, and in the Paris editions of 1585, 1601 and 1612: in the later editions the Deum is left out.
The explanation for this is given as follows:
Augustini Triumphi, Qu. IX. Art. 1. Utrum Papae debeatur honor, qui debetur Christo secundum quod Deus? Videtur: -- quia honor debetur potestati, sed una est potestas Christi secundum quod Deus et Papae: quod probatur, quia potestas Christi secundum quod Deus est peccata dimittere juxta illud Marc ii. quos potest peccata dimittere nisi solus Deus? istud autem convenit Papae, quia quodcumque ligat vel solvit super terram, est ligatum vel solutum in caelis.
You mentioned Aquinas, that's another interesting source. He argued in Summa Theologica, Secunda Secundae, q. 89, art. 9, that the pope has the ability to dissolve all oaths, "[if] something better to do for the common good comes up." Supporting reference for this? Nothing other than Numbers 30:6. It's interesting because he argued this decades after the Albigensian crusade and the First Barons' War where the dissolving of allegiances to sovereigns was already pronounced. I have made some of my own short translations, but there is a lot more digging to do. Here's just one example: https://i.imgur.com/hoz7W7a.png
Thanks Andrew, all very interesting. I have a way to go before I would be at the level to capably translate, but, Lord willing, I will continue to work on it to get there. There certainly is a great deal of history opened up by learning Latin.
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