From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri Oct 08 1999 - 09:17:51 EDT
At 7:34 PM -0700 10/7/99, Steve Puluka wrote:
>
> [omitted]
>
>About ten years ago I received as a gift from our Metropolitan Steven a copy
>of a wonderfull book by the Very Rev. Basil Shereghy "The Divine Liturgy of
>St. John Chrysostom" from the Byzantine Seminary press 1971. I read and
>marked up this book and have used it for classes on Liturgics over the
>years.
>
>Revisited this worn text what to my surprise to I find on page 175.
>
> [omitted, as there was never any question about the sense of EK TWN SWN]
>
>Similarly, the second part of the sentence is often misinterpreted. "In
>behalf of all and for all" does not refer to the people, as many liturgists
>interpret. If it would refer to the people, then the Greek word PANTA would
>be grammatically incorrect. In that case it would read PANTAS. The
>expression "in behalf of all and for all" refers to all the benefits of
>Christ given to us as the price of our Redemption previously enumerated in
>the Anamnesis. A verbal translation would read "because of this and for
>everything." The whole phrase, therefore, could be paraphrased in the
>following way:
>
>We offer to You, O God, Your gifts in recognition for everything
>accomplished by Christ for our salvation and in gratitude for all that.
This is actually very helpful; it makes clear that Rev. Basil Shereghy did
indeed (in my opinion, at any rate) accurately understand what KATA PANTA
KAI DIA PANTA can mean and should mean in the liturgical text. He makes
abundantly clear that there's no way to understand either PANTA as
referring to persons, so that the phrasing "por todos" in a couple of the
Spanish versions cited by Felipe Flores-Morelos in his recent compilation
of such versions is clearly wrong and "por todo" in the sense of "for every
single thing" would accurately convent the sense of DIA PANTA.
Consequently, in terms of the more conventional expressions to convey the
sense of KATA with accusative, we may say that KATA PANTA in the liturgical
sentence should be "with respect to all (things = everything)" while in
terms of the more conventional expressions to convey the sense of DIA with
accusative, we may say that DIA PANTA in the liturgical sentence should be
"on account of all things" or "because of all things."
My reservation regarding the statement cited by Steve regards the phrasing
"in behalf of all" in the 'official' English version to convey KATA PANTA.
I think that "in behalf of all" is misleading because "in behalf of" or "on
behalf of" in English is normally used in phrases where the object of "of"
is a person or group of persons FOR WHOSE SAKE some action is performed. I
think that's where the confusion entered into the vernacular versions of
this phrase: because "in behalf of" suggests an action performed on behalf
of persons, the translation "we offer in behalf of all" does suggest that
the offering is made for the sake of persons rather than with respect to
acts performed by Christ. It seems to me that it is at least possible that
this is the source of the confusion about the phrasing which brought the
matter to the attention of B-Greek in the first place.
There's also the confirmation here of what Ben Crick and others had
previously suggested, that the phrasing "we offer from your own" does
indeed derive from the offertory prayer in 1 Chronicles 29:14 in the
phrasing of the LXX.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
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