EULOHMENOS hO ERCOMENOS EN ONOMATI KURIOU

Steve Puluka spuluka at hotmail.com
Thu Oct 21 13:45:06 EDT 1999


Dear Polychroni & b-greek,

My apologies for the lack of clarity in my earlier post.  Once again my 
effort to edit for brevity has gotten me into trouble.  I hope I can clarify 
my intent below.

Polychroni proposes to adjust the translation of LXX Psalm 117:26 (118:26) 
as noted below:

>The LXX text of the psalm, repeated in the NT is: EULOHMENOS hO ERCOMENOS 
>EN ONOMATI KURIOU Which I read as saying: Blessed [be] the Coming One in 
>the name of the Lord. Not meaning that the Coming One comes in the name of 
>the Lord, but that the Coming One is blessed [by us] in the name of the 
>Lord.

I pointed out the use of the Psalm in various aspects of the Liturgy of St. 
John Chrysostom.  Ben Crick pointed to similar uses in the Western 
liturgical cycle.  This Psalm is seen as refering to the coming of Christ in 
contrast with the original intent of the Pilgrams coming to Jerusalem.

>Polychroni writes
>Clearly then, it is God the Lord who comes to us, and not something present 
>only in His name. I may come in the name of King, but that doesn't make me 
>the King.

Christ is seen by the early Church as BOTH GOD AND MAN.  This verse is used 
to indicate that in these cases.  Jesus is coming in the name of the Lord 
and is the Lord.  Therefore, the text from the liturgy reads "Blessed is he 
who comes in the name of the Lord, God the Lord has revealed himself to us." 
  The second part being a comentary on the first.  In any case, the person 
coming is blessed because he is coming in the name of the Lord not because 
we are blessing him in that name.  While the reasoning for Jesus being 
blessed by this verse is circular in reasoning by the traditional 
translation, your translation would render this invocation senseless.  If we 
know that Jesus is Lord how could we as people possibly bless him in his own 
name, as your translation would have us do at this point.  Not to mention 
the fact that the lesser (we the people) cannot possibly bless the greater 
(Jesus as Lord).

None of this challenges directly your use of the grammer or your 
translation.  All I am pointing out is that to accept your translation is to 
reject what appears to be the understanding of this verse by the authors of 
the Divine Liturgy.  This is traditionally John Chrysostom but he very 
likely did not pen the entire service.  I do not rule out the possiblity 
that you are correct and they are not.  I am just pointing out that your 
translation is not compatible with early christian usage of the verse in 
question.

To me, these liturgical texts seem to indicate that the coming one is 
Blessed because he comes in the name of the Lord.

>Polychroni
>I don't know Old Slavonic (or any Slavic language) so I can't speak
>to it; but the present translator of the "Lives of the Saints" from Old 
>Slavonic to English tells me that the Old Slavonic sheds no light
>on the question.

I apologize again for the lack of clarity.  You propose to change the modern 
English translation of the Greek text.  I offered the Slavonic translation 
of the same text as another translators witness to the original.  The 
Slavonic translation of the Psalms is generally dated to the Ninth or Tenth 
Century and was most probably done by Greek speaking missionaries to the 
Bulgarian regions.  I suggest that their translation of this verse with the 
person being blessed because he comes in the name of the Lord is further 
evidence against you position, but not conclusive in and of itself.

>Polychroni
>These commemorations on Palm Sunday and Theophany seems to argue against 
>the point your making, per St. John Chrysostom's _Commentary
>on the Psalms_ (cf. ET, Vol II, Ps. 118), the point is that HE IS THE
>LORD, and not that he's someone coming in His name.

I do not have a copy of Chrysostom's commentary on the Psalms could you 
please supply a little more bibliographic information so I may find the 
volume in a library?  Thank you for the citation from the commentary on 
Matthew.  I should have been able to figure that out from your first post, 
I'm sorry. I look forward to reading the it this evening.

Thanks for the proposal I have had a great deal of fun poking around at this 
issue!

Steve Puluka
Adult Education Instructor
Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh


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