So Mary is right and every Orthodox/Eastern Catholic translator is wrong?

"We did not translate precisely as the Orthodox did."

I hope you are not contending that because the new translation is not word for word the same as the current Melkite and Orthodox translations something different is intended.

"Accept me today as a partaker of your mystical supper, O Son of God, for I will not reveal your mystery to your enemies, nor will I give You a kiss as did Judas , but like the thief I profess you:
Remember me, O Lord, when you come in Your kingdom.
Remember me, O Master, when you come in Your kingdom.
Remember me, O Holy One, when you come in Your kingdom."
2006 Byzantine Catholic Translation

"Receive me now, O Son of God, as a participant in your Mystical Supper; for I will not betray you Mystery to your enemies, nor give you a kiss like Judas, but like the thief, I confess You; remember me, O Lord, in your kingdom." Melkite Liturgy

"Receive me today, Son of God, as a partaker of Your mystical Supper. I will not reveal Your mystery to Your adversaries. Nor will I give You a kiss as did Judas. But as the thief I confess to You: Lord, remember me in Your kingdom." GOA Holy Cross Press Translation.

"Of thy mystical supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant, for I will not speak of thy mystery to thine enemies, neither will I give thee a kiss as did Judas, but like the thief will I confess thee, remember me, O Lord, in thy kingdom." OCA and Antiochian Orthodox Liturgy


"And IF the Orthodox all do truly intend to reference the second coming, then those translators also neglected to pay attention to Christ's response."

They did not neglect it. Christ's response has no bearing on the thief's intention. The thief as a good (or not so good) Jew of his day would have had no expectation of an immediate reward in the afterlife. What he did expect was the Messiah to establish the Kingdom and asked to be remembered when Christ established it. Of course, we know the Kingdom was already present and yet also to come. This is the tension we live in and why we pray in the Anaphora: You brought us out of nonexistence into being, and raised us up again when we had fallen, and left nothing undone until you brought us to heaven and gave us your kingdom to come.

The Eastern Church has always viewed this text eschatologically. That Mary or the Latin Church disagrees matters not.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Mary is not a part of the Latin Church.

To say "Remember me in your Kingdom" leaves the intended meaning flexible, and the timing open, as it should be.

To say "Remember me when you come in your Kingdom" is a much less flexible translation and falls into the pit that has been pointed out here in this thread.

Christ's response has every bearing on our anamnesis.

The new order's translation remains a boggle.

Mary

This form is also supported by the Greek and Vulgate Recension Slavonic texts published by Rome. But this form is also an alteration of even the Byzantine Majority Text of scripture in that it has dropped the verb phrase "when you come." As such it already may convey a different sense: “remember me in your kingdom" versus "remember me when you come in your kingdom." Also, in the usages just noted the request is said only once.

The Ruthenian Recension form, however, repeats the petition three times, and the conjunction and verb are retained; thus, it seems, it is a direct quote from scripture. The additional words are jehda prijdeši (Levkulic "pew" book p 24; Služebnik, p 270 ), hotan elthēs in the Byzantine Majority Text and also the standard critical edition. The verb in Greek is subjunctive aorist active; I would love to know the mood-tense-voice of the Slavonic. I wonder if the use of the future in the former translation - "when you shall come" - is not an attempt to convey the sense of contingent but expected as done.



I'm sure Archimandrite Ephraim knows better; he's not telling the whole story. He seems to have gotten himself frazzled by the zealous publishing practices of nuovo Orthodox. I do hope that by merely invoking the double whammy of "Latin" and "Vulgate" together he is not implying that the reading is automatically suspect and discredited. The fact is that a good case can be made, objectively, for each version of the scripture, with a slight edge going to "into your kingdom."

Also, is Archimandrite Ephraim saying that “‘in your Kingdom’” is, per se, “ a reference to the Second Coming of Christ in his kingly power” when used in “the Church’s Gospel and all the liturgical texts derived from it in both Greek and Slavonic”? Is the “Second Coming” meaning conveyed by the prayers above in which “when you come” is not included? Is the thief also aware of this “Second Coming” meaning? A standard and “ecumenically” respected scholarly grammatical analysis (Zerwick, Rome:1996, p 278), gives “in your kingdom” as a variant reading but is unclear as to whether a “coming” is understood by this phrase alone. According to Zerwick the Greek of “in your kingdom” really conveys the sense “(when you come) in your kingly power, as king (i.e. at the final resurrection)...”

So, why do the liturgical texts noted above not include the words “when you come” as found in the Scripture? What is the explanation for why the Ruthenian version differs by retaining these words and their three fold repetition in “Remember me...”? And since the Recension differs in this significant way, should its conformity in the remaining phrase be presumed?

Dn. Anthony

Dn. Anthony:

Your two posts are a good beginning of an analysis of the issues at hand and your questions help to narrow the issue. I don't think that it is an Orthodox/Latin thing but a matter of understanding the grammar and the theololgy behind it. (Whether Orthodox or Latin, the majority of people are in the Church for a show, a spectacle, a photo-op, a pretty ceremony and really do not care about these issues. It is good to read that there are a few others who care about this details.)

1)I couldn't figure out the tense of the greek verb. Thank you.

2) Could there be two different primary documents at the root of all of this?

Yes. I too would love to know the mood-tense-voice of the Slavonic.

As for the three fold repetition, I've explained in a previous post why I thought this was repeated. I think that it accurately reflects the tense of the verb and (well, read it).

These debates and reflections are great. Until now (with something like this forum) we have never had the ability to go into depth on some passage of the liturgy and its Biblical roots. Thank you for taking the time to respond.

Rufinus

Dear Rufinus,

This kind of assertion demeans us all. Particularly those of us who care about the details.

I care about the details precisely because I love all souls in Christ and hope to be able to love them as Christ loves them...unconditionally.

I believe I could say the same for Father Deacon Anthony.

Mary

I attended an OCA liturgy this morning, and while the above quote is correct, the opening line of the Beatitudes was different. While the RDL has

"Remember us O Lord, when you come in your kingdom."

the OCA has (quoting from memory here, so cut me a little slack)

"In your kingdom remember us O Lord, when you come into your kingdom."

Where the OCA translation parallels the RDL (following "when you come") it uses "into" just as did the NRDL (non-revised Divine Liturgy). I have not taken the time to look up what other jurisdictions do in the translation of the beatitudes, nor do I know what the Greek or Slavonic text might be at this point. I just found it interesting.

Dear Mary,

I didn't mean to demean anyone on the list; certainly not you or Father Deacon Anthony. You bring up such good questions and lead us down paths of investigation into the details of theology.

My comment about the people in general comes from a frustrating year trying to get parents to care about their faith. I should have left it out of my post. Forgive me.

By "it's not a Latin/Orthodox thing", I meant that these concerns are exactly as you but it: "We care about the details precisely because We love all souls in Christ and hope to be able to love them as Christ loves them...unconditionally." How beautiful. How difficult - to love unconditionally. This is precisely what I meant and your words convey it with greater elegance than my own.

Rufinus

Very well said. It is Christ who is the just man, and the saints (both male and female) become just by being incorporated into Him.

Not to worry, dear heart. I step in that quagmire frequently. It is indeed impossible to love unconditionally without great grace and the unrelenting will to fully accept the grace.

The grace is there, but so often this will is weak.

Fondly, in Christ,

Mary

According to my resource The Greek New Testament, Fourth Revised Edition, that is indeed the case. As indicated in the critical apparatus, each reading, which is witnessed by a number of text sources, is also witnessed by one of the two most ancient of the "Great Uncial Codices." Fr. Raymond Brown (of blessed memory) explains their significance:



The reading eis tēn basileian is found in B; the reading en tē basileia is found in S.

The scholars (combined Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant representation) who prepared this critical edition of the scriptures give a grade to their choice of the preferred reading. They chose the eis reading with a grade of {B}. One might have expected a draw but the eis reading is also found in P75. Brown again explains:



Thus the most ancient known document also supports the reading having eis (into). This does not discredit the other usage; a judgment, however, is made on the information and sources available.

Dn. Anthony

1988 UGCC text:

Bishop Dimitri of the OCA, as I recall, made the point that both "in" and "into" are acceptable translations and both have historical precedent in English translations. Personally I prefer "into", as for me at least singing it in Tone 1 Kyivan as we normally do on Sundays (whether Divine Liturgy or Typika) it seems to meter a bit more evenly.

Dn. Anthony -

YES! BRILLIANT. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

What scholarly work. I thought that this might be the source of it.

I cannot tell you how happy this makes me! I suspected that this wasn't "simply" a theological interpretation issue.

May God love you and shower you with abundant blessings.

I shall light a candle and pray for you this weekend before the Divine Liturgy. Whoa!

Rufinus

Fr. Deacon Anthony,

But the Orthodox don't care what the Codex Vaticanus or Codex Sinaiticus say because they rely on the Byzantine Text whose oldest representative codex, at least as far as the Gospels, is the Codex Alexandrinus. If fidelity to Orthodox texts is the goal then we can or should only translate from and compare to the Septuagint Old Testament and Byzantine Text New Testament. And I certainly can't see the methods of Fr. Brown being approved of by the majority of Orthodox even if a few of their scholars do.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Fr. Deacon Lance,

Excellent. You and Fr. Deacon Anthony will share the candle.

Rufinus

Dear Rufinus,

Thank you for your words of appreciation – and the candle!, and happier still to be sharing it with a brother-deacon.

The ultimate question here still remains: What do we make of our received liturgical text, the Ruthenian Recension text of the prayer before Communion, and its development? With its inclusion of the words from scripture “when you come,” and its three-fold repetition, the Ruthenian Recension text exhibits a uniqueness among the cited examples of that prayer. How, why, when etc. did this come about?


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Dear Fr. Deacon Lance,

Thank you for your insights.



Some, apparently, even discount Alexandrinus.



Not even a mention of Vaticanus here. Is this a blind spot? Is the problem here parochialism? The critical method approach to a NT text, whatever its shortcomings, at least keeps us aware of the big picture, the other folks, fellow Christians who give their witness to, and preserve in their own way their ancient tradition of the Scriptural text. Is the witness of the entire Alexandrian text-type of the earliest scriptural documents simply “bogus”? Ironically, Codex Sinaiticus was found in the (Orthodox) Monastery of Saint Catherine by Constantin von Tischendorf who was there at the behest of (Orthodox) Tsar Alexander II who, upon obtaining the Codex and presumably realizing its significance, had it quickly published in facsimile form.



Does such a monolithic text exist?



Just to be clear, the writings of Fr. Brown that I quoted are a different work entirely from the critical edition of the NT, and I don’t believe Fr. Brown collaborated in the work on the critical edition either. Bringing the two together is my doing. I used Fr. Brown’s words because I thought they were an accurate, succinct description of the ancient texts. I don’t see how his “methods” (whatever the Orthodox may think of them) can pertain to the quoted facts which, I believe, he renders in an unbiased and accurate way.


Dn. Anthony


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* From Scriptures in the Orthodox Church: 2. Can You Tell Me Which Translation [of Scripture] The Eastern Orthodox Church Uses and Why? by His Eminence Metropolitan Isaiah of Proikonisou and Presiding Hierarch of the Greek Orthodox Diocese of Denver. Original article title: "Which English Translation Of The Bible Should I Use"? (Source: Greek Orthodox Diocese of Denver Bulletin: March 1995, Volume 3, Number 3., pp. 14-17).