Religious Jargon
By SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON FYFE
THERE has been discussion lately in the Spectator and elsewhere about translations of the Bible into modern English. It set me wondering what is the purpose of these translations. The opinions expressed, especially in pri- vate conversation, seemed to me 'vague and unsatisfactory. Clearly such versions cannot be, nor do I think they are ever meant by the translators to be, a substitute for the Authorised Version. But a modern translation can be of very real value as a crib—a wholly legitimate crib, if that is not a contradiction in terms—just like the Greek Testament.
No one reads the Greek Testament for its style, or values it for any beauty of rhythm or phrase. My sixth-form master at school, a Cambridge prizeman in classics, sometimes had to take " Sunday Lesson " in the headmaster's absence. He never failed to warn us not to mar our Greek proses with any taint of Pauline idiom. He was certainly right. But how helpful is the Greek Testament as a " key ' ! It unlocked a lot of doors for me. From it I learnt for the first time that repen- tance meant, not just being sorry for my sins (I always was sorry afterwards), but a clean change of mind and heart—a far tougher proposition; that salvation denotes a state of spiritual health rather than a free pass into heaven; and that the remission of sins is not being let off punishment but the freedom of a slave released from chains. In dozens of passages the Greek words reveal in the lovely, familiar phrases of the Bible a fuller and a truer meaning. A modern transla- tion may do the same service.
Later in life I had to " take for Scripture " a group of sixth- form boys, gathered for that period from every " side " of the school. Their subjects ranged from classics and history to agriculture and engineering. The classicists had the Greek Testament to open blind windows. I supplied the others with Moffatt. No one, however tone-deaf to literature, could read Moffatt for pleasure. But as a crib he served for them the same purpose as did the Greek Testament for the classicists, show- ing them the real and often surprising meaning of passages which hitherto had been, although they had never realised, it, meaningless or misunderstood. A twelve-year-old American once said to me, " What I don't like about Shakespeare is the words: I don't understand them." With the Authorised Ver- sion of the Bible the trouble is different; it is just because we do like the words so much that we so often fail to understand them.
I believe Monsignor Knox's translation is authorised to be read in Roman Catholic churches. Alone of all modern versions it is fit to be ,read aloud. When I hear from Anglican lecterns a Lesson read which the congregation quite certainly misunderstand or do not understand at all, I wish we could have been given Knox instead. But what a loss that would be ! Couldn't we have Knox first and afterwards the grand phrases illuminated by new meaning ? Even so, I should still retain my grievance against the com- pilers of the " Proper Lessons to be read at morning and evening prayer on the Sundays and other Holy Days through- out the year." Many of these chapters are altogether unsuit- able for public recitation, and not even Ronald Knox's magic could make others intelligible. I sometimes feel there must be a secret and sacred Order of Chapterites, whose members, if they find, say, in a chapter of a minor prophet one verse full of beauty and enlightenment, are bound by solemn oaths to read the whole chapter, although the rest of it may be unintelligible or at any rate unhelpful. And yet Lessons are for edification, not incantation. To read aloud in church what is unintelligible to the congregation—and sometimes, apparently, to the reader—seems to me a foolish and rather blasphemous performance. Songs without words can be enjoyed and understood; words without meaning are surely an abomination in the sight of the Lord.
If the Lessons are for edification, the rest of the Prayer Book services are for worship. In that field a critic must walk with circumspection. Worship is a mystery unconfined within the four walls of reason. The worshipper may genuinely lift up his heart in words he cannot understand. But the liturgy of all Protestant Churches throughout our Common- wealth is grounded in reasonable understanding. Their congre- gations are not, in the Greek °sense, " enthusiastic," and their worship suffers in genuineness from the use of terms that are unintelligible or misunderstood—technical terms like " wrath " and "redemption," "grace" and "glory" (that tawdry tinsel !). The clergy may in private interpret them theologically; in the pew they may be—they usually are—interpreted (if at all) in a sense irreconcilable with Christianity. Instruction from the pulpit might mend that, but what a lot is left in psalms and canticles and hymns that has for the great majority of the congregation no meaning at all—mere magicdI incantation. • It is true that to the ears and hearts of us elderly church- goers the familiar words are like old moss-covered buildings, uninhabitable yet of invaluable beauty. But of the young in these days only a few are in childhood conditioned to church-going. In later youth, uninitiate and ill-instructed, they may look round for enlightenment and comfort, and go to church on a Sunday morning at eleven on the principle of trying anything once. They would find—or so, at any rate, it would seem to them— that Mattins consists mainly in muttering phrases, some of them simple and beautiful, some inexplicable and some that sound strangely allergic to a " King of Love " ; and they would hear their elders rather dismally chanting verses that must deeply touch the memory and patriotism of a Jew but stir no emotion in a Briton of this century. Is that unjustifiable parody ? If not, it explains much which clergy and church-going laity deplore. The time has come, not to lay temerarious and unsympathetic hands on our liturgy but reverently to bring it up to date and reveal the face of Christianity in a vocabulary, appropriate to living experience.
Once 'upon a time a vicar, who chanted the Psalms tune fully, and with vigour, was startled by the realisation that he was saying some things that were unchristian, some that were (through mistranslation) meaningless and some that for him and his congregation were altogether inappropriate. Like everyone else who has even a perfunctory acquaintance with the Psalms, he valued the comfort and inspiration, lively through centuries, of that immortal poetry. Must they be scrapped ? Or could they, so to speak, be cleansed of these impurities ? He thought they could, and found to his delight that a thoughtful process of excision, with the occasional insertion or omission of a copula, produced an anthology, purged of offence without any loss of beauty. He determined to publish his version, and supply copies for the use of hii congregation. But he died too soon.
It might have shocked the old-timers. But I doubt if they, would have stayed away. And it might have opened the doors of his church to a trickle of new-comers. He had courage and persistence; he might have gone on to remove more of the stumbling blocks around his fifteenth-century porch. In time who knows ?—the trickle might have become a flood.
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