VERSION OF HIUI.K AND THEOLOGY OF WESTERN CHl/KCH. Vol 



the Christian to God, and so in the free joyous performance of 

 the Christian virtues; ■^api^\vd to the outpouring of x a P i(T f JLaTa ^ 

 special gifts of grace, on the Christian. Now gratia and the 

 allied words in Latin do not so much suggest this as the idea 

 of a free gift, "gratia gratis data," as distinguished from a 

 reward that may be claimed as matter of right; that is, it 

 corresponds to only a part of the idea of x<*P l< > instead of to the 

 whole. Consequently the doctrine of grace in the Western 

 ( 'lunch is partial, external, hard, compared with the Eastern; 

 atmosphere gives way to a series of acts. 



Similarly Lex means less than mVH, and Justitia than 



PTjrtS; Testamentum is only one half of Siadij/cr}* 



Again, /jLerdvoia signifies a change of mind, especially that 

 change of mind by which a man turns from evil to good, abhors 

 the sins which he has committed, and -resolves to enter upon a 

 new course of life. Lactantius thought that the best rendering of 

 this into Latin would have been resipiscentia (Inst, vi, 24)j- = 

 a recovering of oneself as from a fainting fit. The translation 

 poenitentia, however, only conveys part of the meaning of 

 fjLerdvota, the idea of sorrow for sin. Tertullian (c. Marc, ii, 24, 

 quoted by McNeile on Matthew iii, 2) noted the same thing : 

 " In Graeco sono poenitentiae nomen non ex delicti confessione 

 sed ex animi demutatione compositum est." 



In the Douay English translation of the Vulgate the meaning 

 of the word has been still further narrowed down by fxerdvoLa 

 being rendered almost always by " penance," and the verb 

 ixeravoeiv by " do penance."! 



Ut(TT€V6ii>§ is another case : it implies not merely belief as 

 "an assent to that which is credible, as credible " in Pearson's 

 well-known definition, but also a loyal devotion of the heart ; to 

 put one's trust in a person, to give oneself up to him and to follow 

 him absolutely. But credere in Latin suggests mainly the intel- 

 lectual side of this, the believing that a thing is true. " To 



* These and other cases of inadequate translation were pointed out in 

 a letter of the Rev. Canon Girdlestone to me, April 26th, 1916. 



t " Is enim quern facti suipoenitet, erroreni suum pristinum intelligit ; 

 ideque Graeci melius et significantius fierdvoiav dicunt, quam nos latine 

 possumus resipiscentiam dicere." " Resipiscant " is used as a translation 

 of dvavrjy^coaiv in the Vulgate of n Tim. ii, 26. 



! The exceptions are fxerdvoia = " repentance," Acts v, 31 ; xi, 18 ; 

 n Tim. ii, 25 ; Heb. xii, 17 ; ixeravoe^v = "to be penitent," Acts iii, 19 ; 

 = lt to repent," Mk. i, 15 ; Luke xvii, 4 ; Rev. ii, 21 (semel). 



§ Henslow, The Vulgate the Source of False Doctrines, p. 128. 



