COLLECT OF THE WEEK - 16
The Collect for the 15th Sunday after Trinity:
Custodi, Domine, quaesumus Ecclesiam tuam propitiatione perpetua: et quia
sine te labitur humana mortalitas, tuis semper auxiliis et abstrahatur a
noxiis, et ad salutaria dirigatur. Per . . .
BCP translation:
Keep, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy; and
because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy
help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our
salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Allow me to quote Goulburn at some length on this one:
'Our Reformers in 1549 altered the Epistle for the day. Previously it had
been formed by the last two verse of the fifth Chapter to the Galatians,
with the earlier half of the sixth Chapter. The Reformers took the latter
half of the sixth chapter . . . it must be confessed that it is not very
easy to discover the reasons [for the change]. The petition of the Collect
is founded upon the consideration of juman frailty; - "because the frailty
of man without thee cannot but fall." Now, in the earlier Epistle there
were two distinct notices of human frailty. This was the first of them;
"Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore
such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also
be tempted" . . . this beautiful passage of the older Epistle warned the
faithful to be merciful to others, as they desired in the Collect that their
Heavenly Father should be merciful to them, restoring in a spirit of
meekness . . . such as by human frailty are "overtaken in a fault." The
second reference to human frailty . . . is contained in the words of verse
nine; "And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall
reap, if we faint not." Weariness in well-doing . . . the fatigue involved
in mere watchfulness, as well as in the conflict with our spiritual foes -
this is one of the ways in which "the frailty of" our nature shows itself.'
Actually note that the Latin mentions, not "fragilitas" but "mortalitas",
mortality; human mortality falls without God. Of course the Fall,
according to Genesis, is the origin of mortality itself. Goulburn observes,
'The moral frailty of man is here called "human mortality" (or liability to
death) not without point and force. Pelagius denied altogether the
connexion between death and sin; Augustine and the orthodox, on the other
hand, recognised the intimate connexion between the two . . . Observe, too,
the express and strong anti-Pelagian assertion inwoven into the Collect, -
that "without God the frailty of man cannot but fall".' The Reformers, as
was their frequent practice, strengthened this anti-Pelagian sentiment:
"labitur", "falls" becomes "cannot but fall".
Custodi, "keep, guard" is common enough in the Bible as an appeal to God for
protection. Perhaps the most familiar instance is Ps. 16(17):8,
"A resistentibus dexterae tuae custodi me, ut pupillam oculi. Sub umbra
alarum tuarum protege me" - Keep me as the apple of your eye from those who
resist your right hand. Protect me under the shadow of your wings.
The opening petition is somewhat vaguely rendered by the BCP, as Goulburn
points out:
'The Latin is, "Custodi Ecclesiam tuam propitiatione tua," "Keep thy Church
with a perpetual propitiation," just as the true rendering of the publican's
prayer [in Luke 18] is, - not "God be merciful," but - "God be reconciled
(or propitiated) to me the sinner." The word "propitiation" implies a great
deal more than the word "mercy." Mercy is merely a sentiment in the mind,
independent of anything which may be done or suffered to procure the outflow
of it towards its object. "Propitiation," on the other hand, is not simply
mercy, but mercy shown through the acceptance of atonement; when God is
propitiated towards man, He is reconciled to him, notwithstanding his
iniquity, on the ground of what Christ did and suffered for him.'
The biblical example of the use of "propititiatio" is the First Letter of St
John, 2:1-2,
"Filioli mei, haec scribo vobis, ut non peccetis. Sed et si quis
peccaverit, advocatum habemus apud Patrem, Iesum Christum iustum: et ipse
est propitiatione pro peccatis nostris: non pro nostris autem tantum, sed
etiam pro totius mundi."
- Little children, I write this to you, so that you may not sin. But if
anyone should sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
just: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not only for ours, but
also for those of the whole world.
Notice that the reformers made a change in the end of the collect. A more
literal translation would be "Let it [the Church] be drawn away by your aids
[plural] from things harmful, and steered towards things salutary." Cranmer
changed "it" to "us". Goulburn approves of the change:
'Cranmer and his Committee changed the "it" into "us," - judiciously, it
appears to me; for how often it happens that we speak and think of the
Church as an abstraction, forgetting that we ourselves are the Church!'
Perhaps so; but I do not think that the Collector thought of the Church as
an abstraction. Rather, he had a much more concrete and corporate
understanding of the Church than the Reformers, whose tendency was often
to weaken the corporate notion of the the Church, replacing it with
something more personal and individualistic. "Ecclesia" in the first part of
the Collect was in 1549 rendered "Congregation" and only in 1662 changed
back to "Church". The Collector thought of the Church as something very
real and solid, rather like a ship, capable of being moved about on the
waves, which needed to be drawn away from (abstrahatur) the rocks, and
steered (dirigatur) towards the safe harbour. The translations "keep" and
"lead" are perhaps rather weak here.
The plural, "tuis . . . auxiliis" also suggests, not simply God's aid in the
absract, but (remembering that the plural of an abstract noun is to be
construed as concrete) real and concrete aids to salvation - perhaps the
sacraments.
Oriens.
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