Posted on 10/25/2006 5:35:19 PM PDT by Frank Sheed
Great news CATEGORY: SESSIUNCULUM Fr. John Zuhlsdorf @ 11:00 am
Folks, I received very good news today. Three sources confirmed something for me of great importance and a matter of consolation. At the moment, it is best not to publish it or talk too much about it, until it is brought to light by the proper authority.
Nevertheless, I would kindly ask readers of WDTPRS in print and in this blog general to say in advance a prayer of thanksgiving to God. Whenever we have petitions, it is good to add a prayer of thanks together with the petition.
So, I ask you kindly to say a prayer of thanks for something in particular, even if you dont know yet what it is. I am really not trying to be cageywith this. Sometimes people who run blogs or write article rush to publicize soemthing before its times and, in doing so, create unnecessary complications. Just say a prayer of praise to God, for this and other blessings in your lives.
We praise Thee, O God: we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship Thee: the Father everlasting.
To Thee all Angels cry aloud: the heavens and all the powers therein. To Thee Cherubin and Seraphin: continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy: Lord God of Sabaoth; Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty: of Thy glory.
The glorious company of the Apostles: praise Thee. The goodly fellowship of the Prophets: praise Thee. The noble army of Martyrs: praise Thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world: doth acknowledge Thee; The Father: of an infinite majesty; Thine honourable, true: and only Son; Also the Holy Ghost: the Comforter.
Thou art the King of glory: O Christ. Thou art the everlasting Son: of the Father.
When thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man Thou didst not abhor the Virgins womb.
When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death: Thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God: in the glory of the Father.
We believe that Thou shalt come: to be our Judge.
We therefore pray Thee, help Thy servants: whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints: in glory everlasting.
O Lord, save Thy people: and bless Thine heritage. Govern them: and lift them up for ever.
Day by day: we magnify Thee; And we worship Thy Name: ever world without end.
Vouchsafe, O Lord: to keep us this day without sin. O Lord, have mercy upon us: have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let Thy mercy lighten upon us: as our trust is in Thee. O Lord, in Thee have I trusted: let me never be confounded.
Praying now.
Who knows, this may have something to do with the SSPX?? We really don't know.
Good to hear from you! is what my mother wanted me to tell you. For my part, I am very glad to see you here and send you my very best wishes. Prayers for you and your family! God bless!
YES!!!!
Not Cranmer's translation but Miles Coverdale. It is Miles Coverdale's translation of the Roman Canon in the Anglican Use Divine Worship Book -- isn't that right, Theophane?
:)
That's a very good point. I'd never thought of that before.
I remember her saying that when we pray to God for something we should always thank Him together with the petition.
Someone earlier seems to have thought that Thomas Cranmer translated the whole Bible, unless I misread the statement. He did not, of course, but translated the Psalms for the vernacular Book of Common Prayer, the third edition of which, 1559, was the "Elizabethan" B.C.P. which Shakespeare heard read from in Holy Trinity Church, as Richmond Noble knew. Scriptural readings except Psalms would be from the Bishops' Bible and Psalms always from the BCP in Cranmer's translation.- Shaksper, Global Electronic Shakespeare Conference
I guess it depends on how much revision took place under Cranmer's supervision. He was in charge of the BCP; perhaps he was the editor and Coverdale the primary author. The BCP was compiled from various sources, including Coverdale's Bible, but a good part of it was written and/or revised by Cranmer.
Actually I was told that the Roman Canon translation used in Rite I of the Book of Divine Worship came from an Old Catholic translation, with the Novus Ordo consecration formula substituted for the original. Apparently this translation was known in Rome and Rome then sent it to the Pastoral Provision office saying something like "use this one". I was led to believe that this was done on its own motion by Rome rather than at the request of the US side, which makes it even more remarkable, given that the year was 1987 or thereabouts.
All of the above is, however, subject to correction by someone (Father Parker certainly) who would actually have been there at the creation (or had a direct line to that person). My source is a very good one but perhaps a little bit secondary in nature.
I had not known that you were a priest. Are you still active?
Sources of the Coverdale PsalterIt is not probable that the Psalms were ever sung in Hebrew in the Christian Church, although they were doubtless so used in the Temple to the last. Our Lord and His Apostles sanctioned their use in the Vernacular by frequently quoting them from the Septuagint Version; and it is from that Version they are principally quoted even in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The instinct of the Church which has always made it cling to the Septuagint Psalms for use in Divine Service may, therefore, be regarded as growing out of its most primitive usages; and, in some degree, out of our Blessed Lords own example.
But although a Greek Psalter was thus ready to hand for the Church to use in its services at their first institution, a Latin version was almost equally necessary for that large portion of the western world, in which the Septuagint Psalms would have been almost as unintelligible as the Hebrew. How soon, or by whom, this Latin translation of the Psalter was made, is not on record. Probably it was made at the same time that other portions of Holy Scripture were translated; although it seems almost impossible but that it should have preceded the writing down of the Gospels in Greek, since otherwise the Psalmody of Divine Worship would have been unintelligible to large numbers of Latin Christians.
Portions of such a primitive Latin version of the Holy Scriptures, and more especially the Psalms, are still extant in the works of the Latin fathers who preceded St. Jerome, and in ancient Psalters. The Psalms were so generally used in private as well as for Divine Worship, that St. Augustine says every one who knew a little of Greek as well as Latin was accustomed to dabble in the work of translation. But there appears to have been one principal and recognized Latin Version of the whole Bible, of very early date, which was called the Italic version by St. Augustine; and to which St. Jerome gave the name of the Vulgate, a name afterwards applied to his own translation. Of this ancient Vulgate, or old Italic, the Psalter is still extant (although, perhaps, with some corrections of a later date), and it was used in Divine Service long after the rest of the translation had been superseded by the labours of St. Jerome.
St. Jerome left three versions of the Psalter, which have acquired the names of the Roman, the Gallican, and the Hebrew. The latter was so called, because it was translated directly from the original; but it has never been used in Divine Service, and has rarely appeared in volumes of the Holy Scriptures and need not, therefore, be further mentioned here. The Roman Psalter of St. Jerome is simply the old Italic sparingly corrected by him, at the request of St. Damasus, during his residence at Rome about A.D. 383. This version was used in the churches of the city of Rome down to the sixteenth century, and is even still used in the church of the Vatican and in St. Marks at Venice; but it was never extensively used in Divine Service; and where it is found in Psalters meant for use in Divine Service, the older version is mostly written in a parallel column or interlineated, showing the hold which it retained upon the affections of the Church. The Gallican version of St. Jerome has, on the other hand, been the Psalter of the whole Western Church for many centuries, although it was a long time before it entirely superseded the ancient Italic, or Vetus Vulgata.
It was translated from Origens edition of the Septuagint by St. Jerome while he was living at Bethlehem, A.D. 389, and was introduced into Germany and Gaul either by St. Gregory of Tours in the end of the sixth century, or by the English Apostle of Germany, St. Boniface, in the early part of the eighth century. From France it was brought over to England, and eventually superseded the older Italic version in Divine Service throughout the Church of England on the revision of its offices by St. Osmund in the twelfth century. The same version (slightly altered at the last revision of the Vulgate) is in use throughout the Latin Church, both in Divine Service and in complete volumes of the Holy Bible.
Our English Psalter grew out of this long used Psalterium Davidicum ad usum Ecclesiae Sarisburiensis, that is, out of the Gallican version of St. Jerome. It was frequently translated into Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval English; and the fifty-two Psalms of the Prymer were of course so translated and revised at the various periods at which the Prymer was re-edited. The translations made from the Vulgate by William de Schorham and Richard Rolle, the hermit of Hampole, early in the fourteenth century, as also that of the Wickliffe Bible of A.D. 1388 are well known: and these versions (in common with other books of Scripture) formed the basis of subsequent translations. Thus, when it was found necessary to restrain the growth of private English versions of the Bible, and to issue one standard and authorized edition, which was in 1540, the edition so issued was a gradual growth, springing originally from the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome, and corrected (after his example) by comparison with the Septuagint Version and the Hebrew original.
From this first authorized edition of the English Bible our Prayer Book Psalms are taken, as is stated in a note which follows the Preface to the Prayer Book, respecting the Order in which the Psalter is appointed to be read. The paragraph referred to is as follows: Note, That the Psalter followeth the Division of the Hebrews, and the Translation of the Great English Bible, set forth and used in the time of King Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth. The only change made since 1540 has been the numbering of the verses, which was first done in the Latin Prayer Book of 1572, and then in the English of 1620.
Thus the English Psalter, which we now use in Divine Service, may be said to speak the continuous and enduring language of the Church, after the example of our Lord and His Apostles when they spoke truths out of Holy Scripture not in the original Hebrew language, but in the venerable Greek version of the Septuagint. And the peculiar manner in which the English Psalter has grown out of the Psalters of ancient days, may entitle us to say, without extravagance or irreverence, that it represents, by a sort of Catholic condensation into one modern tongue, the three ecclesiastical languages in which the Psalter has chiefly been used, the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin of the Cross; and that it thus represents also the original and the continuous Inspiration by which God the Holy Spirit guides the Church into all truth.
From The Annotated Book of Common Prayer: Being an Historical, Ritual, and Theological Commentary on the Devotional System of the Church of England. Edited by the Reverend John Henry Blunt, D.D. (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1903).
Sources of the Coverdale PsalterIt is not probable that the Psalms were ever sung in Hebrew in the Christian Church, although they were doubtless so used in the Temple to the last. Our Lord and His Apostles sanctioned their use in the Vernacular by frequently quoting them from the Septuagint Version; and it is from that Version they are principally quoted even in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The instinct of the Church which has always made it cling to the Septuagint Psalms for use in Divine Service may, therefore, be regarded as growing out of its most primitive usages; and, in some degree, out of our Blessed Lords own example.
But although a Greek Psalter was thus ready to hand for the Church to use in its services at their first institution, a Latin version was almost equally necessary for that large portion of the western world, in which the Septuagint Psalms would have been almost as unintelligible as the Hebrew. How soon, or by whom, this Latin translation of the Psalter was made, is not on record. Probably it was made at the same time that other portions of Holy Scripture were translated; although it seems almost impossible but that it should have preceded the writing down of the Gospels in Greek, since otherwise the Psalmody of Divine Worship would have been unintelligible to large numbers of Latin Christians.
Portions of such a primitive Latin version of the Holy Scriptures, and more especially the Psalms, are still extant in the works of the Latin fathers who preceded St. Jerome, and in ancient Psalters. The Psalms were so generally used in private as well as for Divine Worship, that St. Augustine says every one who knew a little of Greek as well as Latin was accustomed to dabble in the work of translation. But there appears to have been one principal and recognized Latin Version of the whole Bible, of very early date, which was called the Italic version by St. Augustine; and to which St. Jerome gave the name of the Vulgate, a name afterwards applied to his own translation. Of this ancient Vulgate, or old Italic, the Psalter is still extant (although, perhaps, with some corrections of a later date), and it was used in Divine Service long after the rest of the translation had been superseded by the labours of St. Jerome.
St. Jerome left three versions of the Psalter, which have acquired the names of the Roman, the Gallican, and the Hebrew. The latter was so called, because it was translated directly from the original; but it has never been used in Divine Service, and has rarely appeared in volumes of the Holy Scriptures and need not, therefore, be further mentioned here. The Roman Psalter of St. Jerome is simply the old Italic sparingly corrected by him, at the request of St. Damasus, during his residence at Rome about A.D. 383. This version was used in the churches of the city of Rome down to the sixteenth century, and is even still used in the church of the Vatican and in St. Marks at Venice; but it was never extensively used in Divine Service; and where it is found in Psalters meant for use in Divine Service, the older version is mostly written in a parallel column or interlineated, showing the hold which it retained upon the affections of the Church. The Gallican version of St. Jerome has, on the other hand, been the Psalter of the whole Western Church for many centuries, although it was a long time before it entirely superseded the ancient Italic, or Vetus Vulgata.
It was translated from Origens edition of the Septuagint by St. Jerome while he was living at Bethlehem, A.D. 389, and was introduced into Germany and Gaul either by St. Gregory of Tours in the end of the sixth century, or by the English Apostle of Germany, St. Boniface, in the early part of the eighth century. From France it was brought over to England, and eventually superseded the older Italic version in Divine Service throughout the Church of England on the revision of its offices by St. Osmund in the twelfth century. The same version (slightly altered at the last revision of the Vulgate) is in use throughout the Latin Church, both in Divine Service and in complete volumes of the Holy Bible.
Our English Psalter grew out of this long used Psalterium Davidicum ad usum Ecclesiae Sarisburiensis, that is, out of the Gallican version of St. Jerome. It was frequently translated into Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval English; and the fifty-two Psalms of the Prymer were of course so translated and revised at the various periods at which the Prymer was re-edited. The translations made from the Vulgate by William de Schorham and Richard Rolle, the hermit of Hampole, early in the fourteenth century, as also that of the Wickliffe Bible of A.D. 1388 are well known: and these versions (in common with other books of Scripture) formed the basis of subsequent translations. Thus, when it was found necessary to restrain the growth of private English versions of the Bible, and to issue one standard and authorized edition, which was in 1540, the edition so issued was a gradual growth, springing originally from the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome, and corrected (after his example) by comparison with the Septuagint Version and the Hebrew original.
From this first authorized edition of the English Bible our Prayer Book Psalms are taken, as is stated in a note which follows the Preface to the Prayer Book, respecting the Order in which the Psalter is appointed to be read. The paragraph referred to is as follows: Note, That the Psalter followeth the Division of the Hebrews, and the Translation of the Great English Bible, set forth and used in the time of King Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth. The only change made since 1540 has been the numbering of the verses, which was first done in the Latin Prayer Book of 1572, and then in the English of 1620.
Thus the English Psalter, which we now use in Divine Service, may be said to speak the continuous and enduring language of the Church, after the example of our Lord and His Apostles when they spoke truths out of Holy Scripture not in the original Hebrew language, but in the venerable Greek version of the Septuagint. And the peculiar manner in which the English Psalter has grown out of the Psalters of ancient days, may entitle us to say, without extravagance or irreverence, that it represents, by a sort of Catholic condensation into one modern tongue, the three ecclesiastical languages in which the Psalter has chiefly been used, the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin of the Cross; and that it thus represents also the original and the continuous Inspiration by which God the Holy Spirit guides the Church into all truth.
From The Annotated Book of Common Prayer: Being an Historical, Ritual, and Theological Commentary on the Devotional System of the Church of England. Edited by the Reverend John Henry Blunt, D.D. (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1903).
Many apologies for the double post.
Short essay on the Anglican Divine Office and the Anglican Breviary.
Coverdale's PsalmsCoverdale's translation of the Psalms (based on Luther's version and the Latin Vulgate) have a particular importance in the history of the English Bible. This Psalter, as revised by Coverdale himself for the Great Bible, continued to be used in the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer up until the late twentieth century. For many Anglicans and Episcopalians the words of Coverdale's version are more familiar and beloved than any other translation of the Scriptures. Others are familiar with some of Coverdale's renderings through Handel's Messiah, which in several places uses the Prayer Book Psalter instead of the King James version. Below are the first 25 Psalms as they appeared in the Book of Common Prayer.
Found at this link: The Coverdale Psalter
Wouldn't Latin in place of Italian be sort of like using Olde English instead of contemporary?
The Anglican Service Book from Rosemont includes Coverdale's translation of the Roman Canon as an appendix. It is the same translation as in the Book of Divine Worship. (Took some digging...)
"And Bless Thine Inheritance" is how we always used to sing it at Evensong in my old piskie church.
I always liked "The earth is His and He made it, and His hands prepared the dry land." I don't know why but that was comforting to me.
Also, what they used to say during communion, at Gifts (heh. Offertory, I know) "Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all who truly turn unto Him 'Come unto me all ye who travail and are heavy laden and I will refresh ye.'"
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