Simplicissimus

Joseph Shaw on a new edition of the Latin Mass Society’s Latin Course Book

The Latin Mass Society’s teachyourself-Latin course book, Simplicissimus by Dr Carol Byrne, will be twenty years’ old next year. Although I am no great Latin scholar myself, I have been coordinating the revision of the text, with the help of innumerable Latinists, for a new edition out this year.

Simplicissimus is unique in drawing its examples, exercises, and passages for reading and translation from the ancient Missale Romanum. Thus, on page 3 the present infinitive is illustrated with two familiar phrases: signum videre, ‘to see a sign’, and audemus dicere, ‘we dare to say’: the first from the well-known Gospel passage in which Jesus refuses to perform miracles to order (Matthew 12:38), and the second from the Ordinary Prayers of the Mass, the words which introduce the Lord’s Prayer.

The advantages of this approach are many. The course wastes no time in unlocking the meaning of phrases we have all heard scores of times, and makes the maximum use of what we already know. Audemus dicere and the rest is translated in our hand-missals, but knowing the grammar, how it says what it says, means that we can fit it into our understanding of Latin in general, and apply this knowledge to other examples as we encounter them.

Furthermore, we are more likely to remember a grammatical point when it has been hooked up to a phrase we already know. For example, the word confiteor is a puzzle to students of Latin learning the present tense. No-one familiar with the Traditional Latin Mass will forget the explanation, however, that this it is one of a group of verbs called ‘Deponent’, which use the endings of the Passive Voice to mean active things: in this case, ‘I confess’. Simplicissimus is able to reinforce the point by reminding readers that the same phenomenon is at work whenever we hear the word deprecamur, ‘we beseech’, in liturgical prayers, and when St Timothy affirms testificor coram Deo : ‘I testify before God’ (1 Timothy 5:21).

Dr Byrne was able to make use of a prodigious knowledge of the Missal, including the Lectionary, and this was the key necessary condition for the creation of a course like this. She is able again and again to put her hand on examples of verbal forms and grammatical constructions taken from the Missal, to illustrate her points. What is the difference between questions introduced by nonne, and those introduced by numquid? Well, it’s the difference between Christ’s question to the leper, nonne decem mundati sunt? – ‘were not ten made clean?’ (Luke 17:17), and Pilate’s sarcastic question, numquid ego Iudaeus sum ? – ‘am I a Jew?’ (John 18:35). The first anticipates the answer ‘yes’, the second, ‘no’.

Can the future tense be used as a command? Yes: Diliges proximum tuum sicut teipsum : ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’ (Luke 10:27). Can the Imperative be used to make a humble request? Yes: Aufer a nobis, quaesumus, Domine, iniquitates nostras: ‘Take away from us our sins, we beseech Thee, O Lord.’ Can Gerunds be used in the Genitive, possessive, case? Yes: munus regendi, docendi, sanctificandi : ‘the gift of ruling, of teaching, of sanctifying’ (2 Timothy 1:7).

Some Latin purists will deprecate this way of proceeding, because the style, vocabulary, and to some extent the grammatical usage of the Missal and its Vulgate Lectionary is not as good, they say, as the Latin of the Augustan Age: of Virgil and Cicero. This reflects the Victorian belief that that the object of learning Latin was to acquire ‘good Latin style’, so that one could compose Latin verses stylistically indistinguishable from those of Horace. Christian Latin, however, is not ‘worse’ than Augustan Latin, just a little different, and most readers of Mass of Ages will find it more useful to know the word Salvator, Saviour, which was coined by Christians wishing to establish a term not tainted by pagan usage, than Julius Caesar’s military vocabulary.

For Catholics to know Latin, to a degree corresponding with their general education, is not an optional extra: the Church earnestly exhorts us to know it. I have written often that it is not necessary to know Latin in order to appreciate the Latin liturgy, and that is true, but each step one takes in learning Latin opens a little more the imagery, the cadences, the dignity, the joy, and the sorrow, of the ancient texts. Latin, Pope Benedict reminded us, is the language of the Church. It is the language we use to speak to each other, above all to Catholics of other generations.

If you’ve not yet taken time to do a short residential course, and / or to work through Simplicissimus, don’t put it off. You will find you know half the material already, and reading the Latin will be a source of spiritual consolation.

Offerimus praeclarae maiestati tuae de tuis donis ac datis hostiam puram, hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam, Panem sanctum vitae aeternae, et Calicem salutis perpetuae.