11

I'm puzzled by the following text referring to St. Anthony of Egypt (second reading here), written by St. Athanasius in the 4th century:

Sex autem nondum exáctis ménsibus a paréntum éxitu, cum de more ad Domínicum procéderet,

The page translate it as "Not six months after his parents’ death, as he was on his way to church for his usual visit"

Similarly, we have:

egréssus quamprímum ex Domínico

Corresponding to "Immediately he left the church"

And then we read:

Rursus in Domínicum ingréssus

Which is translated as "The next time he went to church".

So, judging by declensions, there seems to be a word "Dominicus" meaning church. Yet, cannot find reference to this meaning in online Latin dictionaries. The expression is not widely used elsewhere, it seems.

Is this very idiomatic and context-dependent? Or is there in fact such meaning more broadly speaking?

luchonacho
  • 12,354
  • 5
  • 34
  • 100
  • 2
    Perhaps helpful: in the original Greek, "ad Dominicum" is "εἰς τὸ Κυριακόν." – brianpck Jan 19 '22 at 15:07
  • 2
    @brianpck by the original you mean Athanasius' (PG) text? Right. So in Ancient Greek it did mean church. In other word, the "problem" is the literal translation (and not idiomatic) from Ancient Greek to Latin. Or perhaps a brave Latinist who wanted to introduce the idiom to Latin, without success. The English one corrected the translation. – luchonacho Jan 19 '22 at 16:31
  • 3
    I'll post an answer later, but it makes sense in Latin, too. Dominicum would be roughly "something pertaining to dominus,' but in the neuter it often is tied to places. In English, it would be like saying, "house of the Lord." Not the normal word for 'church', but it's not a leap, either. – cmw Jan 19 '22 at 20:24
  • @luchonacho Yep, I was talking about Athanasius's text. The parallel translation in the PG also uses "Dominicum." I thought it would be helpful, but I wasn't suggesting the Latin term was incorrect or unidiomatic! – brianpck Jan 19 '22 at 22:06
  • Here is an entry for it in a few Latin dictionaries including L&S and DMLBS: https://logeion.uchicago.edu/dominicus. It seems to not mean church exactly, but "belonging to lord," "Lord's Day" (aka Sunday) when with dies, and "divine." – Vtex Feb 22 '22 at 23:48

1 Answers1

3

Quoniam "Dominicus" interdum ad "diem" refert (dies Domini), fortasse attinet ad missam istius diei, quem Romani diem Solis appellabant. Attamen mirum est, quod masculini generis est, nam dies est Dominica /Domenica, missa quoque, cena, quam Lewis and Short dictionarium memorat, item...

Angela
  • 41
  • 2
  • 1
    At neque 'in diem ingredī' potest neque 'ex missā ēgredī' - quae praetereā utraque fēminīnī generis sunt. Hīc manufestē aedēs significantur, quod et interpretātiō anglica probat, et praesertim ipsum illud Graecum 'το Κυριακόν' unde Latīnē versum est. – Unbrutal_Russian Apr 24 '22 at 12:31
  • @Unbrutal_Russian "missa" is definitely used in Christian Latin as an event occurring in a place, which one could enter or exit. From the Concilia Galliae: "Ut populus ante benedictionem sacerdotis de missa non egrediatur". From the Vita S. Gregorii: "[eum] de Missa nondum finita violentis manibus abstraxerunt" – Kingshorsey Apr 24 '22 at 20:47
  • @Unbrutal_Russian though, rereading your comment, I think you meant only that such an expression (ex missa egredi) is impossible here, not in general. So, disregard my previous comment, I suppose. – Kingshorsey Apr 24 '22 at 23:55
  • 2
    @Kingshorsey The crucial difference here is that ex 'out of' is used with the space-as-container metaphor while dē 'down/away from' doesn't conceive of the Mass as a space at all, but as you say, an event. Thus you can drag someone away from a Mass, but hardly out of it. It's true that Dominicum is used both of the place and of the service - I'm using the choice of preposition as a means to decide which it is. – Unbrutal_Russian Apr 25 '22 at 15:37