It is commonly said by scholars that Mass was said only in Greek, not Latin, in Rome in the early centuries. I am inclined to think that this will turn out to be one of those fads that dominate the academy for a while but pass away when the prestige of their initiators has faded from people’s minds.
Fr Uwe Michael Lang, in his useful book ‘The Voice of the Church at Prayer’ summarises the reasons for believing that Greek and not Latin was used for the Mass in those early days.
1. St Paul wrote to the Romans in Greek and the earliest known literary productions of the Roman Church (the Letter of Pope Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the writings of Justin Martyr) are in Greek. Therefore Greek was the ‘prevailing language’ of the Roman Church.
2. In the first two centuries there were several popes with Greek names, and Christian tomb inscriptions were written in Greek.
3. Victorinus, writing in Latin in Rome about 360, quotes some Greek words from a Eucharistic prayer.
4. ‘Ambrosiaster’, who was ‘perhaps a Roman presbyter’ writing about the same time says that some Latin-speakers prefer to chant in Greek, even without understanding the language, and that some Latins prefer the Creed in Greek.
And that seems to be it. It’s pretty weak. Suspiciously so, in fact. Are we not dealing here with an academic fad or fashion supported mainly by an aversion to Romanitas?
To look at the arguments in turn:-
1. All these examples show is that there were Greek speakers in the Church of Rome in the early centuries, but no one doubts that anyway. They hardly show that Greek was the prevailing language; but even if they did, they wouldn’t show that Latin was never used for the Mass. To come to the individual examples, if St Paul wrote to the Romans in Greek, that was perhaps because of the people sufficiently educated to be able to follow his epistle, a large number would have known that language, and because he wanted to quote throughout from the Greek version of the Old Testament, which had a much higher authority than any Latin version, if any Latin one existed. St Justin Martyr was from the Eastern half of the empire and only an immigrant in Rome, so it’s hardly surprising that he wrote in Greek. St Clement’s letter was written to the Corinthians, so naturally it was in Greek. 1st century Greeks were not, I think, in the habit of reading Latin. The origins of the Shepherd of Hermas are mysterious, but whoever wrote it, and whenever it was written, all it proves is that its author knew Greek!
2. Again, all this shows is that Greek was an influence in Rome in the early centuries. Some popes had Greek names because lots of people had Greek names, even in Rome. They didn’t necessarily all speak Greek as their first language, any more than a man with a Polish name born in England today to a second-generation Polish father and an English mother necessarily speaks Polish. Even if they did speak Greek as their first language, they would also have spoken Latin fluently, so what is proved about the liturgical language? Not all epitaphs are in Greek in the catacombs; the two languages are mixed together, sometimes in the same inscription.
3. As Fr Lang points out, Victorinus quotes the same part of the Eucharistic Prayer in Latin as well, elsewhere in the same work. In any case, it corresponds to part of a Syrian rite, not to any rite that is known to have been used in Rome. Yet the argument from Victorinus is often presented as the proof that Greek was the only liturgical language in Rome even into the second half of the 4th century!
4. The fact that Ambrosiaster talks of some people liking to sing Greek only shows that there was Greek in the Roman rite in his day. But so there is in our day: Kyrie eleison, hagios ho theos, hagios ischyros, hagios athanatos. Why might there not have been a Latin Mass with some Greek used, especially for those parts that were shared by the non-Roman rites?
No doubt plenty of Greek was spoken at dinner-parties in first century Rome. But the language of Rome was, well, Latin. It was the language of the ordinary people, but also that of the Senate. St Peter was not unaware Rome was to be the chief see of the empire of Christ on earth. Why would he and his successors have avoided the use of the Roman and imperial tongue; that language which, no less than Greek and Hebrew, had already proclaimed on the first Good Friday that God was reigning from the wood?
Laodicea 
February 24, 2014 at 2:03 am
I think you will need to find some more convincing evidence for a Latin liturgy in the early centuries.
February 24, 2014 at 1:41 pm
The question, I think, is on which side the burden of proof lies. If Latin was the principal language of Rome, is the presumption not in favour of its liturgical use?
Gueranger says this: ‘quant a la liturgie particuliere de l’Eglise de Rome…le seul bon sens nous apprend que cet apotre n’a pu habiter Rome durant de si longues annees, sans s’occuper d’un objet si important, sans etablir, dans la langue latine, et pour le service de cette Eglise qu’il faisait par son libre choix mere et maitresse de toutes les autres, une forme qui, eu egard aux variantes que necessitait la difference des moeurs, du genie et des habitudes, valut au moins celles qu’il avait etablies et pratiquees, a Antioche, dans le Ponte et la Galatie’.
{‘with regard to the particular liturgy of the Church of Rome, simple common sense tells us that this apostle [St Peter] couldn’t have spent so many years at Rome without attending to so important a matter, or without establishing a form of liturgy in the Latin language which would serve this Church which he had freely decided to make the mother and mistress of all the others. This liturgical form would have had as least as much importance as that which he had established and followed in Antioch, in Pontus and in Galatia’} (Institutions Liturgiques, vol.1 , 29-30).
February 24, 2014 at 2:33 pm
This does not get us any further on – ‘le seul bon sens’ is not the same as authentic documentary evidence. There is absolutely no reason to think that S Peter even spoke Latin. Koine Greek was the lingua franca of the Mediterranean world, carried largely by trade, and would be understood to a greater or lesser extent by nearly everybody in the city of Rome, especially among the lower orders, many of whom would not necessarily be native Latin speakers. Classical Greek was an integral part of educated life, many 1st century noble Romans preferring to converse in Greek than in Latin. Indeed Suetonius says that others reported Julius Caesar as saying to Brutus, “Kai su, teknon?” (‘And you, son?’ in Gk) not, “Et tu, Brute”, which comes from Shakespeare.
Textual evidence of Latin in the liturgy is relatively late. A tentative earliest date for the use of Latin would be the pontificate of Victor I at the end of the 2nd century, though this is speculation. But there is not a shred of evidence for a Latin liturgy from Apostolic or even Post-apostolic times.
February 24, 2014 at 5:46 pm
I agree of course that direct textual evidence for Latin in the 1st century Roman liturgy is lacking. But then isn’t direct textual evidence for the use of Greek also lacking? Pope Innocent I, writing about AD 400 says that “it is evident that in all Italy, in Gaul, in Spain, in Africa and Sicily and in the islands nearby, none of the churches has instituted anything but what the venerable apostle Peter and the priests who succeeded him have established.” This implies that the Roman canon – which was in good part complete, and arguably almost entirely complete, by 400 – must have grown up organically from the days of St Peter. But in that case, if only Greek was being used for the first 150-350 years, it seems surprising that no texts of the canon are ever found quoted by anyone in Greek, either during this period or later; that the Greek canon has vanished apparently without a trace. Are there any contemporary references, or anything in the Liber Pontificalis, about a translation of the canon from Greek to Latin?
February 25, 2014 at 2:38 pm
The more interesting question, to me, is what did St Peter do when he celebrated Mass?
Obviously the form of the Mass evolved over time, and I would be fascinated to know what the Mass was like in the early centuries of the Church. It might even cast some light on present debates regarding the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form, helping us to discern what is truly essential and what, be it good or less good, is potentially mutable or inessential.
February 25, 2014 at 4:11 pm
But surely that is equivalent to the radical Protestant desire to ‘get behind the Fathers’ and to dispense with the authoritative forms handed to us by the Fathers of the Church in favour of some imagined reconstruction of apostolic purity (forever prey to changes in academic fashion). This approach, condemned by Pius XII in Mediator Dei, is already excluded by Trent’s Canons on the Sacraments in General, Canon 13. “If anyone says that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, accustomed to be used in the administration of the sacraments, may be despised or omitted by the ministers without sin and at their pleasure, or may be changed by any pastor of the churches to other new ones, let him be anathema.” It is the rejection of this dogma which led to the innovations of the sixties and mass apostasy which followed. As Ratzinger puts it “we abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries and replaced it, as in a manufacturing process, with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product”.
February 26, 2014 at 12:46 pm
I agree there would be a similarity to the Protestant attitude if the purpose were to say something like “let’s strip back the Mass to what it was in 65AD”. But that is not my suggestion.
My thinking is that whenever innovations or changes to the Mass are proposed (and even the “organic, living process of growth and development” of the Mass over the centuries necessarily involved innovations and changes – and “organic” is, in any case, a somewhat subjective term), one way, although not the only one, to assess their merits is to consider whether they conflict with any of what might be called the “irreducible core” of the Mass – which is presumably what the Mass consisted of in the first century of the Church. This is not to say that later developments are anything other than good, and certainly not to suggest they may be “despised, omitted or changed” by ministers at their pleasure.
For my own part, I do not believe that the changes to the Mass in the 1960s and 1970s are responsible for the mass apostasy (although I do agree that there have been widespread abuses which can only have exacerbated the problems). But that is a separate, although very important, question which I would be happy to discuss…!
February 26, 2014 at 12:59 pm
The apostles left Jerusalem in many directions and died in far distant places. It does not seem likely to me that such an irreducible core as you imagine ever existed. There is of course a basic matter, form and intention but the Mass should never be reduced to these. The canon from Trent does not simple condemn the despising and omission of the rites by ministers at pleasure but also their transformation into other new rites by any pastor of the churches. This seems to be clearly what happened in the sixties and seventies. Indeed, despite the fact that Paul VI clearly abrogated the Roman Rite spoken of by Trent when he suppressed the 1962 Missal:
“We wish that these Our decrees and prescriptions may be firm and effective now and in the future, notwithstanding, to the extent necessary, the apostolic constitutions and ordinances issued by Our predecessors, and other prescriptions, even those deserving particular mention and derogation.”
(and the vast majority of the text of the 1970 Missal is new), Benedict XVI repeatedly asserted that the 1962 Missal was “never abrogated”. It seems the only explanation for this is that Paul VI acted ultra vires when he tried to abrogate it precisely because of the dogma defined by Trent. St Pius V warned that anyone who attempted such an abrogation would “incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul”. That, it seems, is what we are living under.
February 26, 2014 at 1:08 pm
Fascinating stuff. But can a Supreme Pontiff bind his successors, such that the latter is then acting ultra vires?
Clearly a Pope cannot define an absurdity, e.g. that the Resurrection never happened, but can a Pope vary something that isn’t dogma? Given that the form of the Mass has, as discussed, developed over time, presumably the Church is entitled to develop it further? (I make no comment for present purposes on whether such development would be desirable or not.)
February 26, 2014 at 1:21 pm
I am not suggesting that St Pius V bound his successors but that the apostolic rites (like the writings of the Fathers) contain the deposit of faith and so have an authority which the Pope cannot suppress. St Pius V was just issuing the definitive edition of the rite to which Trent referred. Just as the Clemetine Vulgate is the definitive edition of the ‘Old Latin Vulgate’ Trent defined to be the canon of Scripture. In both cases Trent was not issuing a disciplinary canon but a dogmatic one. Thus no Pope can validly issue a disciplinary canon against the dogma of Trent. This is what Paul VI tried (perhaps inadvertently) and failed to do.
February 26, 2014 at 1:23 pm
Can we move to the bottom of the page to continue discussion?
February 25, 2014 at 7:36 pm
I agree that I have never read in Justin or anywhere else that ‘then the bishop prays in Greek’. It might have been more likely that he would note that some part of the liturgy was spoken in Latin if it had been. What is frustrating is the great dearth of evidence from the 2nd and 3rd centuries – it is as though we have nothing between extempore prayer within an already fairly settled framework in the earliest records and what is clearly a pretty fixed Latin liturgy by the end of the 4th century.
It is a noted phenomenon that extempore prayer very quickly settles down into a regular pattern (the ‘long prayer’ in Baptist worship being a case in point). This, I would imagine, happened among the Apostles themselves. When the celebrant of the Eucharist was always the Apostle/Bishop, a familiar pattern of words would emerge before ever being written down. I imagine the veneration with which the actual eye-witnesses of the Incarnate Lord were held would incline their successors to keep to words and phrases hallowed by the Apostles’ own use. Thus, though of course this is only my speculation, when the liturgy emerged from the obscurity of nearly two hundred years, there would have been no disjunction, despite the change in language, between what Justin Martyr would have heard the bishop say and what is very recognisably the Roman Canon.
February 26, 2014 at 12:25 pm
I remember having lively debate with Aelianus while at university as to whether Latin or Greek was the commonly spoken language in the Roman Empire. A assured me that it was Greek. Not determinative of which language was used for Mass, of course!
But what about the period immediately after the Ascension and Pentecost? Surely the language used by the Apostles wasn’t Latin? Indeed, is it even known what form the Mass took in those days? It would be fascinating to know.
February 26, 2014 at 12:48 pm
Yes, that is still my understanding of the situation as it was in the first century AD (south of the alps anyway). It seems very likely to me that the masses, especially those who would have made up the early church, spoke Greek in Rome. This would explain the language of Mark’s Gospel and the letter to the Romans, the Shepherd of Hermas etc. At that time it seems likely that almost all Christian liturgy would have been in Greek. It seems reasonable to assume there was also Aramaic liturgy in the Holy Land. The emerging NT would have been in Greek and also the LXX. There therefore there would have been little incentive to translate the liturgy into Latin. After 117 the empire stopped expanding and the transalpine provinces were more and more Latinised it would seem likely to me that this would shift the weight of immigration into Rome towards the western provinces instead of the eastern territories. This would explain the shift of the liturgy into Latin. This is also the period from which the oldest surviving Latin ecclesiastical writings derive. There is no reliable evidence of the form the Mass to took in the Apostolic or immediately post apostolic age. The nearest you will find is a description from St Justin Martyr which is quoted in the catechism at 1345. For any fuller account of the various liturgies one must wait until the third or fourth centuries. As I said above I think this is providential. We are supposed to receive the fullness of tradition in its various forms from the Apostles through the fathers not invent the Mass for ourselves based on our reconstruction of an ‘apostolic liturgy’. The church has seven rites: Roman, Byzantine, Alexandrian, Maronite, Syrian, Armenian and Chaldean. If one wishes to understand the apostolic tradition one should familiarise oneself with (by studying and participating in) these.
February 26, 2014 at 1:25 pm
(continued from above)
OK. Working on from that, given what St Pius V decreed, what further development of the form of the Mass (if any) would be possible? And why is it possible to abrogate, say, the Sarum Rite but not the Tridentine Rite?
February 26, 2014 at 1:32 pm
Well it seems clear the addition of saints days is envisaged as a normal part of the Rite (and presumably other devotional feasts such as the Sacred Heart or Christ the King). I can’t seem any case for other changes. The Sarum is just a usage of the Roman Rite not a rite in itself and it is not at all clear that it was abrogated anyway. The ‘Tridentine Rite’ is a bit of a misnomer. It is the Roman usage of the Roman Rite.
February 26, 2014 at 1:38 pm
But does this mean, therefore, that the development (organic or otherwise) of the Roman Rite stopped permanently at the time of St Pius V?
February 26, 2014 at 2:18 pm
There are no more Fathers of the Church or book of Scripture either. At a certain point elements on the Church’s life reach their full maturity and become fixed. Just as a man at some point reaches his full height but life still changes him in other ways. As I mentioned, the sanctoral cycle (from the nature of the case) carries on developing. The form Trent/St Pius V canonised was much older than them it is just that the liturgy was threatened by innovation in the sixteenth century and so that was when it was fixed (in an eighth/thirteenth century form).
February 26, 2014 at 2:26 pm
Sure – it makes sense that things reach the full point of their development and become fixed. I guess what still hasn’t been explained to me is why, in the case of the Mass, that point should be the form it took at the time of Council.
Secondary question, given that we do have what we now call the Ordinary Form of the Mass, does that not mean either (a) the edict of Trent/St Pius V was not prohibitive as you indicate, or (b) the Ordinary Form is illicit/invalid?
February 26, 2014 at 6:05 pm
As I mentioned above the Roman Rite was not canonised in the form it took at the time of the council but in an older form. The innovations that had occurred between that time and 1570 were eliminated. As St Pius V said the missal was “restored … to the original form and rite of the holy Fathers”. This is the essential point. As the Council defined in its decree on the Scriptures that the Scriptures cannot be interpreted contrary to the unanimous reading of the Fathers and the canon of scripture is that of the ‘old Latin Vulgate’ so the Missal was canonised in the form in which it stood at the end of the patristic age (the beginning of the Carolingian era). At that moment there existed various usages and so St Pius V canonised one of these but permitted all the others which could in 1570 be proved to have been in continuous use for two hundred years. The Fathers are authoritative because they are formally identical with those non-scriptural writers whose works constitute evidence of the deposit of faith. The liturgy of Catholics is part of this deposit it should be received from the fathers not invented subsequently. Just as the Vulgate is the canon received from the Fathers so the Missal of 1570 is the Roman Rite received from the Fathers. The Byzantine and other rites have not been canonised in the same way but in the various reunions the Holy See has promised never to alter the Byzantine Rite something which it could not do if Divine Law permitted this because (as you implied) a Pope cannot bind his successors in merely disciplinary matters. As the Catechism §78 says:
This living transmission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition, since it is distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely connected to it. Through Tradition, “the Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes.” “The sayings of the holy Fathers are a witness to the life-giving presence of this Tradition, showing how its riches are poured out in the practice and life of the Church, in her belief and her prayer.”
As to whether Trent also renders the Novus Ordo illicit (it certainly does not render it invalid) I suppose one might claim that it really is a new rite that has nothing to do with the Roman Rite. So that it was sinful to create it and it should be abrogated but it is not illicit per se for the time being. It seems possible that it might also just be illicit. Either way it needs to be abolished and some sort of public penance done for its creation. When some bishops at Trent complained about Cardinal Pole listing all the sins of the hierarchy he rebuked them saying that God would never give the grace to reform the church until the abuses that had disfigured her visible form were frankly admitted.
February 26, 2014 at 7:31 pm
In reply to the question about how St Peter would have said Mass in Rome, abstracting from the question of the language, then as far as internal or external evidence goes he could have said the whole of the Roman canon with the exception of the 2 lists of saints (as they are later than him) and the end of the Hanc Igitur (which St Bede says comes from St Gregory). Such a suggestion sounds wild to the modern mind, but then the modern mind has been hugely influenced by evolutionary ideas since the end of the 19th century. C.S. Lewis once said that it is difficult for the people living in a given age to see on how many things they agree which would be considered quite groundless by people living in another age. I think the evolutionary idea, that complex things must always have come into being by a slow process from simple beginnings, is an example of that in our time.
February 26, 2014 at 7:40 pm
Aeliane, are there any contemporary statements to the effect that Greek had become not only a common language but actually the dominant language in the 1st century in Rome? If not, where does the idea come from? After all, in 1st century Rome, there is Tacitus writing his history, Quintillian and Pliny the elder teaching rhetoric, Seneca and Pliny the Younger writing their letters, all in Latin.
February 26, 2014 at 8:19 pm
I don’t know of any but the works I cited are written for ordinary people in Rome while the works you are citing are all written for the elite.
February 27, 2014 at 9:12 am
But if the Romanness of the Church is part of the deposit of faith, would it not be natural to make use of the Roman tongue from the beginning?
February 27, 2014 at 10:01 am
It is made use of from the beginning, it is nailed to the Cross, but I don’t think we can reason back from ecclesiastical romanitas to particular claims about the language of the Roman liturgy in the first century.
February 27, 2014 at 11:17 am
When we say that “Romanness”, or “Romanitas” is part of the deposit of faith, what do we mean? That the successor of Peter must always be found in Rome? That Latin is the language of the Church? Or something else?
Incidentally, last night I was reading about Ss Cyril and Methodius, and apparently there was great resistance to the use of Slavic languages in liturgy because only Latin, Greek and Hebrew were the languages nailed to the Cross. But the Slavic languages were ultimately permitted, and continue to be used to this day. Two questions follow: (a) How does that fit with Romanitas? (b) Could the reasoning apply to other geographical reasons as the Gospel is preached to the ends of the Earth e.g. could there be a Japanese Rite, in Japanese?
February 27, 2014 at 11:41 am
The Slav liturgies are not a rite. They are a usage of the Byzantine Rite. The use of the three sacred languages affixed to the Cross in the Liturgy is a matter of fittingness not an absolute requirement of Divine Law. The Tridentine definition precisely implies that ‘other new rites’ cannot be created because the existing rites cannot be omitted. The Catechism teaches that the manner of the Church’s prayer is passed down from the apostles as part of the deposit it is not therefore to be subjected to novelty. Each of the Church’s rites comes, through the fathers, from an Apostolic line (Peter, John, Mark, Peter, James Thomas, Jude). The Supreme Pontificate is by Divine Law a property of the See of Rome (Vatican I). It cannot, even by an Ecumenical Council, be transferred (Pius IX). The prophet Daniel is told by the Angel Gabriel that the people who will destroy Jerusalem and the Temple after the Messiah is ‘cut off’ will be the people of the Messiah. Christ tells the High Priests that after they have killed the son of the vineyard owner ‘the Kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits thereof’. The Messiah rules the nations with an iron sceptre the symbol of Roman dominion.
February 27, 2014 at 3:22 pm
Does it then follow that it is possible to have a new “usage”? So, to take my earlier example, the “Japanese usage” of the Syro-Malabar Rite? If so, could it be in Japanese?
February 27, 2014 at 5:46 pm
There is nothing to prevent the translation of any rite into a modern language other than the fittingness of its being in a sacred language and the danger that the chant repertoire might be lost. The vernacular also seems paradoxically to reduce participation in the rite because familiarity breeds contempt. Mere translation does not really constitute a new usage though it might eventually cause one. I fear self-conscious development in liturgy probably leads to abuse just as self-conscious development in theology leads to heresy. Good development in both cases is more likely to arise from a resistance to novelty than an enthusiasm for it.
February 27, 2014 at 6:03 pm
That last point is well made, I think.
Regarding participation, how does one quantify or assess it? For example, if I am saying the Rosary during the celebration of the Extraordinary Form, am I participating to a greater or lesser extent then if I listen to the priest’s words and response verbally during the Ordinary Form?
February 27, 2014 at 6:46 pm
Participation for a lay person consists essentially in the inward acts of faith, hope, charity and devotion which he makes, directed towards the Action that is being performed in the sanctuary and particularly on the altar; the outward actions, whether of speaking, singing, saying vocal prayers quietly, moving beads etc are instruments for achieving the essential participation and have their value in a particular case only insofar as they promote that essential participation.
March 1, 2014 at 2:45 pm
Cornelius a Lapide agrees with the majority opinion that the Epistle to the Romans was originally written in Greek not in Latin. He adds that it is probable that it was translated into Latin by Tertius, who wrote it (Rom. 16:22), and whose name is Roman not Greek; or if not by him, by some other scribe whom St Paul kept with him.
July 13, 2014 at 9:52 am
Please excuse my poor writing skills and be patient with my rambling, I wish I had the command of language that you all have.
You are all under the impression that “Rome” means only the city of Old Rome, Italy and anything western, and not the empire, this is because of the “lie” that the invaders and later the masters of the western empire, the “german barbarians” have so thoroughly sold to Western history and thought. You ask why would they lie? Well, how else could they subjugate a proud and literate people that outnumbered them 8 to 1 and at the same time vilify the Romans of the Greek speaking Rome? As victors, they wrote their own history, full of lies and deceptions and stuffed it down the throats of their subjects the Romans, until they succumbed . It took a couple hundred years for the lies to take root in the Romans and a few hundred more for the rest of the west and to some extent to the rest of their modern conquests; that the Romans, were only in the city of Old Rome and in the west! You believe it right? Why?, what happened to all those millions of eastern Romans? Where did they go once the west was lost to the franks and all those other high born germans??? Oh please give me a break! it’s such an obvious and blatant lie that I can’t stand that intelligent people like you are arguing about something so obvious!
By the 10th century, these german barbarians even got rid of the Roman Archbishop and put a german one on the See of Old Rome and called him a Roman. Since then the so called Catholic church has become the latin church, and has been run by heretics, bringing innovation upon innovation, to the point that they have to create new heresies to cover the old ones, what a laughing stock we’ve become; we now believe in the letter of the Law like the pharisees, only our laws are written to serve our heretical masters needs.
If the foremost of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, walked into St. Peters today, they would turn and run like as if from fire. That’s how different and heretical this church has become. And, if the Lord meant Peter Himself, in the body and flesh instead of Peters belief/faith, as that, being the Stone(Petra) when He said “and on this Peter”… then Antiochs bishop is the supreme leader, OK?!
By the way, there were five(5) Roman Sees, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Old Rome(the city) and New Rome(Constantinople) byzantium is a german invention of the 19th or 20th century and latin rites and all those other rites are all later innovations, there are not and were no such things and names in the Church. The Church was and is one, and all other innovations are what the Apostles taught us… even if an angel of light comes and tells you different from what we have… ANATHEMA!
Another lie that we believe in the west, is that the Romans only spoke latin! Any one who looks at the history of Rome “the city” can see that all Romans spoke Greek from ancient times, let alone the Roman Empire that was basically the previous Greek Empire for hundreds of years, along with the Mediterranean which was again, basically Greek for a thousand years prior to the roman republic.
Not only did they speak the Greek language, they wrote in Greek, read in Greek, studied in Greek, sang in Greek, spoke to all the other non-Greek/Roman people who lived from Herakles Gates to India and from Russia to Ethiopia in Greek. The Greek language was such an integral part of ancient Rome that they probably dreamt in Greek. So, lets not be so proud that we dismiss the overabundant evidence, that, until at least the fourth century, when everyone of importance and anyone else with at least half a brain, left Old Rome for New Rome, taking with them anything and everything of worth to the very rich east, and, probably until the early fifth century, when the germans overran northern Italy and Old Rome, which by that time had been sacked twice and looked more like an abandoned backwater town rather than the glorious capital it was before the move, that, the liturgy was only in Greek and never in latin; everyone in the north, south, and east of the Balkans knows this including most people from modern Rome and to the south of it(north of todays Rome is mostly germans), along with the fact that the Romans and their Empire lived on for many many centuries after Old Rome was lost for good to the germans in the eighth/ninth century(?). Wow, they beat us Romans really bad, and they’re still at it, for the west is still run by the germanic tribes and their history that has been continuing their lie that the west was full of Romans, including themselves as chosen high-end Romans! And the east was full of Greeks, Because the easterners didn’t speak latin! And we believe this german malarkey? Why? Because we probably believe that to be german is to be high born that’s why!
So to be a barbarian race that has not done or discovered in the history of its existence one important thing other than to copy others steal and murder wholesale and brutally enforce themselves is something to be proud of and envy? WHY?
As for any discrepancies in Papal history with these germans, prior to late tenth early eleventh centuries… don’t forget that those barbarians were toddlers with immense power, and, the Roman Archbishops of Old Rome and the West, to protect themselves the Roman people and the Church, had to use every trick they could, even if it seemed Unorthodox! After, as mentioned above, the germans seized the thrown of the church and used the same trick against their western Roman subjects that the Archbishop used against them, The “Donation of Constantine”, an 8th-century forgery used to enhance the power of the Bishop so as to protect us from the german franks, and there you have it, the beginning of papal supremacy via the german popes, etc etc etc… to the point that the so called roman catholic church of today is unrecognizable! Shameful!
July 13, 2014 at 9:18 pm
Not sure I followed all that. Could you boil it down to a couple of sentences?
Also, could you give an example of a heresy that you think entered the Roman Church from the 10th Century on?
October 2, 2014 at 6:13 am
Great delivery. Solid arguments. Keep up the amazing effort.
September 15, 2015 at 5:10 pm
It is reasonable to suppose that Pope Victor was the first to introduce Latin into the Liturgy, because of the controversy this provoked.
It is also reasonable to suppose that mass would have been said in Greek in Rome from around 40 A.D. onwards because of the scattering of Christians after the early persecutions – as well as the fact that most of the Jews of the diaspora would have used the Septuagint – for instance there is no evidence of Philo of Alexandria ever using anything else.
When St Peter came to Rome, whether around 41, or after his leaving Jerusalem after James (the brother of John)’s martyrdom, and before he returned for the Jerusalem council, or around 55, Greek would have been in use.
As the head of a Galilean fishing group, one would expect him to have been able to speak colloquial Greek at least, and at the time of Jesus, and although the name Cephas occurs in both St John (in explaining the origin of his name) and in Galations, at the Jerusalem Council is referred to as Peter as well as Simeon, and throughout the rest of the New Testament he is called Peter.
One would expect that from acquaintance with Greeks speaking Christians in Jerusalem and from the time his travels began he would become accustomed to Greek as his most common mode of speech (on his travels, even in the Synagogues he would have met with Jews of the diaspora who were Greek speaking).
The question is how soon the Liturgy passed from the Hebrew and Aramaic into Greek.
July 6, 2016 at 11:37 pm
Of most importance- that I not honor Him with my lips while my heart is far from Him. That is to say- I can sin in any language.
October 19, 2017 at 8:49 am
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Did St Peter say Mass in Greek? | Laodicea
March 10, 2024 at 11:41 am
Septuagint and Gospels are originally in GREEK, so Tridentine Mass should to follow suit.