It’s the language that carries civilisation with it. It’s the factor that has played a crucial role in the development of Western civilisation and the spreading of the teaching of the Church. Until recently, it still forms the point of departure for doctors and pharmacists, lawyers and historians. In reality, it is there for everyone who has an inkling as to our civilisational legacy. November 10 marks the tenth anniversary of the ‘Latina Lingua’ encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, in which he attempted to support the cause of Latin in the Liturgy as in the wider cultural world. On the strength of this, the Pontifical Academy for Latin was established.

Latin has had a key place in our world for two thousand years. “Western societies, right up to the 18th century shaped themselves according to the rhythms of Latin prose. Up to that time, Latin was the language of knowledge, politics, political ideas but above all, philosophy and theology. Isaac Newton wrote in this language,” according to Doctor Rafał Toczko, a classical philologist from the University of Toruń. He adds that Latin was widely known in Poland. For centuries it was the form of thought and the language of conversation and correspondence. He quotes from Daniel Defoe’s ‘The Complete English Gentleman.’ The author of Robinson Crusoe wrote that ‘Poland is an interesting country, it is possible to travel its length and breadth and speak with anyone, since all speak Latin.’

“Latin was not just an element but the medium of Western civilisation. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the high water mark of Latin development, it was the only international language. It facilitated the discovery of the world even in the United Stated where it was the first language of education,” says Doctor Katarzyna Ochman ,a classical philologist at Wrocław University and the president of the Polish Philological Association.


The Vulgate and the Liturgy

Dr Ochman states that to understand the legacy of Latin, we have to compare the number of texts created by Roman literature and Latin “from the third century BC, the start of literary output, to the fifth century AD, after the fall of Rome. This is a period of 800 years.” Comparison between the first and those in Latin, that arose from the fall of Rome to today, is a period of 1,600 years.

In the former period, we can see around 100 volumes by non-Christian authors. These were published in pre-Christian periods and after the birth of Christ, but a period in which Christians were not yet writing in Latin. There are around 400 volumes by Christian authors, making 500 in total. From the fifth century to today, around five million.

“I conducted a thought experiment. If an individual tried each day, to read but even to scan one volume, it would take them 14,000 years. The whole world is in these texts,” Dr Ochman describes. “Up to now only the first 100 volumes, the classical Roman texts could have been read. It’s only in the next 20 to 30 years that researchers could reach for the remaining 400 volumes form the Roman Empire,” she adds.

Latin played a hugely important role in the life of the Roman church. Marek Jurek, former speaker of the Polish parliament and now a columnist says “It is not the only language of the Church. The traditional church liturgy used several including Aramaic, Greek, and Old Slavonic. But it was Latin that was the language of the pope in Rome which is the heart of the Church. It is the language of the whole congregation. It reminds us that the Church is the ‘Populus Dei’ the people of the nation of God.” He alluded to the ‘Latina Lingua’, the care that Benedict XVI took over the Latin language and arising from the consciousness of the fact that the foundation of religious life must be the fulfilment of the fourth commandment, the filial duty towards the past of the Church and its legacy for our civilisation and culture.

Tomasz Rowiński, historian and columnist for ‘Christianitas’ quarterly, states the role of Latin in the life of the Church is a source. “The Gospels and Holy scripture to be sure, were not written in Latin, but its Latin translation. This is the Vulgate and to this day serves as the source material, through which we can understand the revelation of God.” He adds “The most important theological texts were written in Latin, from the Creed, to the liturgical texts. Latin also serves as the basis for the reformed material that arose from the Vatican Council. Latin crated and creates the specific theological culture of Christianity.”

Did Saint Peter learn Latin?

Marek Jurek points out that Latin for the Poles had a significant role. Thanks to it, simple people living on the far eastern borderlands, on lands where Latin culture mixed with that of Byzantium, Catholicism with Orthodoxy, they could see themselves as heirs of Roman civilisation. Even if they were unconscious of this fact they participated in it. They now suffer as a result of a commonplace homeliness.

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  Latin was not the language of the Church from the start of its history. The first was Greek. “But Christ spoke to his disciples in Aramaic. Maybe even the Gospel according to Saint Matthew was first written in Aramaic. But this version has not survived. In the Greek translation there are many Aramaic and Hebrew turns of phrase,”, states Dr Katarzyna Ochman.

She continues that Christ and Pilate probably spoke in Greek to each other. The disciples of Christ after crossing the border of Judea and Galilee, exclusively spoke in Greek “I’m curious if Saint Peter, when he came to Rome leant Latin. He didn’t have, to as Greek was commonly used and known. Latin was the mother tongue of Romans and a literary language. This was the moment when the Church stared to use Latin in the same way as Greek. In the eastern Roman empire, Greek was used, in the western half, Latin,” she adds.

In time. Latin became a lingua franca. Why did it become the language of the Church she wondered? “ Because this was Christ’s will,” she says. “Christ said ‘Go forth and teach all nations’”. She continues “If Christ appeared in Poland today, we would be preaching the Gospel in Polish. But since we have to preach it worldwide we need to use a universal language, and today this means in English.”

She notes that the fall of the Roman empire did not mean the fall of Latin, despite the destruction of state structures which guaranteed this happening and so emerged from the shadows without trouble.

“The barbarians who through generations leading up to the age of Charlemagne, conquered Rome, destroyed its structures but they adopted its language. Charlemagne, who re-ordered western Europe could use his native language, Frankish. But he chose not to do this, since Latin was the literary language. The Church was equally pragmatic. It attempted to carry the word internationally,” Ochman states.

We can take the opinion that Latin lost its significance from the Renaissance. This is a myth. “To the 18th century, Latin was the language of education. Every educated person knew it. Even in the 19th century when it was no longer the academic language of lecturing in schools, the high school pupil knew Latin better, and had more contact with it than a contemporary philology graduate,” she said.

The doctor’s oath

On the wave of 19th century nationalism that shaped nation-states, Latin started to fade. It was pushed into the shadows of national languages. These conditions worsened in the culture of the 1960s and 1970s. There were deep changes in Western civilisation and Latin was pushed out from the liturgy of the Church as a result,” Ochman says.

From the Polish perspective it may seem that we are observing the decline of Latin. In reality, the situation is not quite as bad as it looks. This means that even though the number of those learning Latin after the fall of communism has fallen drastically, in the West there is little shortage of those learning it.

“In Poland, Latin is a kind of fig leaf. For example it is used when taking the Hippocratic oath. But ninety nine percent of those who swear this do not understand what they are saying. Next to the Latin is the Polish translation. In the West, in top private schools, Latin is the foundation for a general education. The presence of Latin in the curriculum is a sign of the elite status of these establishments,” according to Rafał Toczko.

He adds that in some areas of western Europe, as a result of multiculturalism, Latin is losing its popularity and authority. In France for example, or in some German provinces. However much Latin is still taught in Bavarian, Austria, Belgian or Italian schools. “There are more people learning Latin in Munich than in the whole of Poland,” he stresses.

Tomasz Rowiński adds “In Western Europe, Latin is being taught more intensively than in Poland. In countries that are examples of modernism, England or Germany for example, it’s possible to obtain a teaching post without trouble. Pupils have access to Latin. But in Poland there’s a strange attitude as it if were obsolete and useless.” Professor Toczko is the head of the chief committee of the Polish Latin Olympiad. He doesn’t hide the fact that 15-20 years ago there were decidedly more participants. “In three regions, we had 150 participants alone. Today from these three areas if there are just ten, then we are happy,” he adds with a degree of chagrin.

Political decisions in 1981 did not help the teaching of Latin. It was systematically purged from the curriculum. This happened as Latin teachers retired or left their careers. It was an easy opportunity. Parents didn’t complain when the narrative became one of “Let’s catch up with the West” and believed that Latin was useless and in its place came a second foreign language, business or civic studies .

“Communism didn’t finish off Latin as well as the [post-communist] Third Republic did,” Toczko stresses. In 20 years’ time we could find ourselves in a situation where documents that deal with Polish history and are in Latin, we shall get translated by Germans or we shall translate from German.

Singing together

The lack of people who know Latin is now more evident than ever especially in the provinces. It can be seen in the digitalisation of library resources. There is a lack of experts who could analyse old records written in Latin. Libraries are forced to turn, sometimes in despair, to colleagues from universities.

Marek Jurek thinks that losing Latin missed the fourth commandment (honouring our ancestors) and the connection to our civilisation. “We live in an age of general education and the use of foreign languages. These are times when knowledge levels are rising. I always repeat just how great this would be if Catholics could recite the Gloria, Creed or the Agnus Dei as the [Second Vatican] council urged: Poles and Lithuanians in Vilnius Cathedral or Poles and Germans on Saint Anne’s Hill,” Jurek says with a bit of nostalgia.

So we can say that Latin is not on the decline. In some areas , interest is increasing. Recently, the Latin liturgy has been making a comeback. “The declaration of Benedict XVI and ‘Summorum Pontificum’ in 2007, an exhortation to spread the old Roman rite, made many participants in the rite to say half-jokingly that all they knew all those from the community in Poland. It was a narrow circle indeed. Those quips have no foundation today. More people congregate in more locations,” Rowiński states. “The participants in this rite use Latin. Polish Latin missals are popular. The source text is already known and because the language is not used , it can nonetheless be better understood. We talk all the time about it being a niche subject, but this is undoubtedly wider than 15 years ago,” he adds.

“We can see a systematic rise in traditional church communities, that use Latin in their liturgy. Someone who gets to know the Liturgy will recognise the Latin phrases, just as we recognise English. Thus it becomes understandable. It is not a spoken conversational language, but a sacral one that facilitates common prayer,” Jurek says.

Time machine

It’s possible to see a ray of hope in the teaching of Latin in Polish schools. But reversing the tendency of the last few decades will be a challenge. Ochman estimates that at the beginning of the 1990s, thirty percent of pupils learnt Latin in Poland. A few years ago, this was just two percent and currently zero, almost. The school programme of two hours per week for four years are used by only ten middle schools. These are taught as an additional subject.

Systemic limitations also militated against the most ambitious pupils. Only three extended subjects were offered at high school exam level. Ochman hopes that the situation will change because “there is some interesting work going on about Latin teaching and that it will be possible to learn it but not just as a separate topic.”

The President of the Polish Philological Association is convinced that Latin is worthwhile learning. “It’s a language that links the peoples of the West and not just geographically. Today, English connects the whole world; it’s a global language. But it links peoples only from the end of the twentieth century to the twenty first. English has changed over the ages. But Latin is constant. So it does not just connect myself with people from other continents who draw on a Latin civilisation. It connects me to everyone from the past 2,000 years. It’s a common culture in time, a time machine. If I write something in Latin, there is a chance that it will be understood in 500 or even a 1,000 years’ time , if our world still exists that is.”

–Łukasz Lubański

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and journalists

–Translated by Jan Darasz