Why do Angels speak Latin?
By Dana G Smith
Part I-The rise of Latin
In the confines of time, Latin came about. It all started with two brothers named Romulus and Remus. In 753 BC, as the so called fictional story goes, Romulus killed his brother Remus. He then founded a city for criminals and crooks1 which was known as Rome. This is the start of the city the book of Revelation calls "the seven hills". The language of history with style, romance, and unchangeability amidst the 3,000 to 8,000 languages2 worldwide.
Whereas, over the millennium English and other languages developed and changed, Latin has remained. The world had seen it evolve into French, Spanish, and Italian. According to Robert Davies famous writer and graduate of Oxford3 who said " Latin was rubbed away until it degenerated into dreadful lingos like French and Spanish and Italian".
Although people had seen Latin evolve into other languages, it still had an ability to remain unchanged in various other houses. During the invasions of England in the 11th century by the Angles, Saxons, and the French, English was in a constant state of change. 4 This for the Catholic church then meant that the Latin they used would be the tool to keep . It made the Latin bible a dominant one to keep and use as well. Of course, there are those who say at this time, it was more to keep the uneducated masses from reading the bible and knowing the truth. From 600 AD onward few people outside of the monasteries could read or write. This provided the church with incredible leverage and power. From this we note that "absolute power, corrupts absolutely". This was the case during the many years of this period.
A Language of immense propensity for the religious, the occult, and the unseen. It has endured while other languages have died out. St Jerome in 382 AD translated the New Testament from Greek to Latin this was the mainstay for many in the ages to come. It became known as the Latin Vulgate (vulgur), for the common people of the day. It was within the monasteries that the Words of God was translated, transcribed, and kept as the Work of God, "Opus Dei" proceeded. Latin thus formed the main vein of communication in the church in those days. As the Bishop of Naples, Andrea Gemma, who has been the best known of the Roman Catholic church’s experts of exorcism said about his experiences "5If I speak Latin, the demon responds to me in Latin. He has a horror of that language." He goes on to say that "Perhaps the reason why Latin is powerful is because to use a language like that creates a sense of sacred time and space".
It is commonly known that there are three languages of the world in relation to the Lord God. It puts the stage up front for all to see. Now whether you agree that the "Bride of Christ" is the Catholic church, which I do not. The Bride of Christ is the Born Again believer who Trust in Jesus Christ (Yeshua HaMassiach) as Lord and Savior. Let me take a moment to tell you briefly this:6
The body of Christ is identified as those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their personal savior and have been given the Holy Spirit to indwell them. The scriptures are clear that since the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, all believers are placed into the body of Christ by the baptizing of the Holy Spirit. So all believers today are in the body of Christ as Ephesians 4 states.
The bride of Christ speaks of the same persons mentioned above but is really a looking ahead to the time when we will be united with Jesus our groom. The bride is to prepare for her wedding by keeping herself pure and focused on the groom. The New Jerusalem is compared to the bride because of it’s beauty but is never said to be the actual bride. The bride will be brought into the New Jerusalem by the groom as often is the case of the carrying over the threshold to their new abode. Here are some verses that help clarify the concepts discussed earlier:
1 Corinthians 12:27 – You are the body of Christ – speaking of the church and those who have been given spiritual gifts.
Ephesians 4:12 – The edifying of the body of Christ is the reason we are equipped to minister, earlier in the beginning of this chapter is the discussion on who is in the body – one faith one baptism.
Rev. 21:2 – The new Jerusalem is beautifully adorned as a bride because it will be the home of His bride.
Rev. 21:9 – The bride is said to be the Lamb’s wife.
Rev. 22:17 – The Spirit and the bride say to the bridegroom, "come."
John 3:29 – John the Baptist does not seem to be included as the bride.
Ephesians 5:25-28 – The discussion of husbands and wives. Jesus sets the example by how he loved the church and gave himself for it. Church must equal wife.
Revelation 19:7-9 – The marriage of the Lamb, the wife is dress in fine linen, clean and white which is the righteousness of the saints.
Now that we know, who, the Bride of Christ is. Let us ask about these three languages? The first of those languages is Hebrew. We find this in the Torah, where we get our Old Testament. The second is the Greek, where the New Testament writers put down what we read today as the Gospels and Epistles. The third is Latin. This language was made into the Latin Vulgate and remained a stable version through centuries of unrest and political upheaval. It was the language of monks, scholars, writers, philosophers, and monarchs. St Thomas Acquinas, St Jerome, and even Queen Elizabeth 1st spoke Latin fluently. Today, even Mel Gibsons the Passion was made in Aramaic and in Latin. From this we see the historicity and long-lasting endurance of the language known as Latin.
Bibliography
- Rice, http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words04/structure/latin.html
- http://www.ling.gu.se/projekt/sprakfrageladan/english/sprakfakta/eng-sprak-i-varlden.html
- http://www.amk.ca/davies/biog
- http://members.aol.com/johnprh/latinbible.html
- http://www.catholic-pages.com/forum/topic.asp?topic_id=6211
- http://www.gotquestions.org/bride-of-Christ.html
