Recently in Translation Department Category

Our word "sacrament" comes from the Latin “sacramentum”. Sacramentum is an interesting word with a couple of meanings that are important to Catholics.

Sacramentum in Latin means “oath”. The sacramentum was sworn by the soldiers or Rome’s Legions to bind them to their duty. It was also used much as we use an oath today in court. Two litigants would swear the sacramentum when they deposited money prior to resolving a case in court.

Over time, the word sacramentum took on another meaning as well. It can also mean “mystery”. It was used in this sense by St. Paul in his letters. In his translation of the Vulgate Bible, St. Jerome used sacramentum where the original Greek uses μυστηÏ?ιον (mus-tay-ri-on). The mystery here is not the same as the genre of fiction we know today. We’re looking at St. Paul’s use of the word, not Dashiel Hammett’s use of it. This mystery far bigger. It is something that is beyond our human understanding, and reason alone will not suffice to grasp it in all its glory. We must have faith to grapple with this kind of mystery.

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that our English word "Sacrament" is an oath shrouded in mystery.

Keep this in mind as we explore the Sacraments in upcoming posts.

The importance of this word will come out in time, over several posts, but I want to introduce it now.

In Greek, it’s αναμνεσις. It appears in both the Old and New Testaments. It corresponds to the Hebrew “zikkaron” (no, I’m not going to try to figure out the Hebrew script for this one). Both anamnesis and zikkaron are words for which there is no modern English equivalent. In fact, according to Scott Hahn in Letter and Spirit, most modern languages cannot translate anamnesis into anything truly meaningful.

Most modern Bible translations use “remembrance,” “memorial,” “memory,” or “commemoration.” These words don’t convey the meaning of anamnesis sufficiently.

The problem is this – anamnesis appears at a particularly critical juncture of the Bible story. Luke 22:19 and 1 Corinthians 11:25 both use anamnesis at the institution of the Eucharist. “And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them saying, ‘This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”

“Do this in anamnesis of me.” What does this mean, with a word that we can’t translate completely into English?

Anamnesis is more than just “remembrance.” It’s an active memorial, not just a function of memory or imagination. It is, in fact, a re-living of the event being remembered. Whether it’s the deliverance from Egypt in Exodus, or the institution of the Eucharist in Matthew, Mark and Luke, this remembrance is intended take us back spiritually and sacramentally to the event being remembered. There is far, far more depth here than simply remembering an event in the past. You live it – body and soul – at that particular moment.

More on this in a later post.

In a day or two, I plan to kick off a Translation Department here at the Raft. Why have a whole file on translations?

One thing I’ve noticed over time - we use language in ways that are beneficial to our cause. This is especially true in religion. One side of an issue wants to prove their point, so they use a particular word in a particular way. The other side uses that same word in a slightly different way.

To a guy with a history degree, this really doesn’t work. There is only one truth. The search for that Truth is why we're here. If we foul the language with our 21st century, English-centric views, we run a very great danger of fouling the lessons of the Bible. Example…

Catholics believe that John 6 means that Christ is really present in the Eucharist. Many Protestants say that’s hogwash. The word “eat” means something to one group, and something else to another. How to resolve this? Simple. Go back to the Greek and see what the original author intended. To do that, we have to be able to translate the Greek.

There are many words in the Bible that don’t translate well into English. There were ideas in Aramaic that didn’t translate into Greek well. All this has to be factored into our search for the truth. So, as time passes, I’ll add translations of critical words and critical passages of Scripture. Hopefully, this will help.