Study Guide: Group 8

Here is the latest Study Guide! I have not provided English translations, since those are easy enough to find by consulting versions of the Bible in English. Instead, I have tried to call attention to the various grammatical features of the verses, along with interesting vocabulary items, the importance of a specific Biblical context, etc.

You will find more Study Guides at the Vulgate Verses wiki.

These verses contain first, second and third declension nouns:

81. This phrase has been used to label a particular genre of Christian art in which Jesus, scourged and crowned with thorns, is presented by Pilate to the crowd, as he proclaims, "Ecce, homo." You can read more at wikipedia.

82. See Verse #81. These are the words spoken by Pilate when he releases Jesus a second time to the crowd after interviewing him privately.

83. These are the words which Jesus speaks to his mother Mary from the cross. He speaks in reference to his beloved disciple, and then he says to that disciple, Ecce, mater tua.

84. The word panis could be nominative singular or genitive singular; the forms are identical. So too the word vitae could be genitive singular, dative singular or nominative plural. From the combination of the two words, you can conclude that it is panis, "the bread" (nominative singular) vitae, "of life" (genitive singular).

85. For the Latin word caritas, see the note to Verse #70.

86. If an adjective is used as the predicate of a sentence, it must agree in gender and number with its noun. If one noun is used as the predicate of another noun, they do not have to agree in gender, as you can see here: Deus (masculine) lux (feminine) est. There is nothing grammatically disconcerting about having the subject of a sentence be a noun of one gender, and the predicate be a noun of a different gender.

87. This verse is from the apocryphal book of II Esdras. Be careful with the division into subject, Deus, and predicate, dux vester.

88. The verb is implied: Deus (est) salvator meus.

89. The noun intemptator is not standard Latin. Instead, it is a word invented here to express the idea of someone who do not (in-, a negative prefix) put people to the test (temptare, "to try, put to the test"). The Latin is translating the Greek equivalent, "a-peirastos."

90. The verbs are implied: Dominus (est) iudex noster, (Dominus est) legifer noster.

91. This verse is from the apocryphal additions to the book of Esther. The word solus here modifies the subject of the verb es, "(you) alone are our king."

92. Although the English word "conversation" ultimately derives from the Latin word conversatio, the Latin word has the broader meaning of our "way of life, keeping company with, association." The Greek word being translated here is "politeuma," which means "community."

93. The verb is implied: merces vestra (est) multa. The English word "mercy" is derived from this same Latin word, merces (it is also the origin of the French "merci").

94. Compare the slightly different version of this same statement in Verse #93.

95. This is the question that Isaac asks his father Abraham as they are on their way to make a sacrifice. The word holocaustum is borrowed directly from Greek, where it means the sacrificial offering that is burnt (caust-) whole (holo-). The English word "holocaust" used in reference to the Nazi genocide of the Jews dates to 1957 (the word used in Hebrew to refer to the genocide, "shoah," means something quite different: "catastrophe").