The first sentence of the “Life” of St Botolph reads as follows:
Omnipotentis Dei benignitas, compatiens errori humani generis, quod ab antiquo serpente caelitus concessa denudatum gloria, ignorantiae damnatur tenebris; divitias misericordiae suae in eius restauratione exhibere voluit, ut ad gloriam lucis de qua caecum aberraverat, rediret per lumen quod ei ineffabili gratia administravit.
I.e.
The benevolence of almighty God – compassionate towards the error of the human race, which, having been stripped by the ancient serpent of the glory granted to it by heaven, is condemned to the darkness of ignorance – wished to display the riches of His mercy in the restoration of it, so that (the human race) might return to the glory of the light from which it had blindly strayed, through the Light which He bestowed upon it, by His ineffable grace.
I’ve been staring at that, and wondering how to turn that into English without departing too far from the original.
Suggestions anyone?
What are you taking as the antecedent of “quod”? I am assuming it is neuter.
…genus humanum, of course. I apologize for being dumb. How about considering “God” instead of “benignitas” as the subject, and going from there? Breaking it down into simpler sentences for the contemporary English ear, but keeping the order of ideas: error, stripping, darkness; restoration, return, light.
How about:
Because the kindness of almighty God felt compassion for the human race which–having been stripped of the glory granted it by heaven by the ancient serpent–is condemned to the shadows of ignorance for its error, he wished to show forth the riches of his mercy in its restoration. For thus [the human race] might return to the light from which it had wandered when blind by means of the light which he administered to it through his ineffable grace.
This utilizes the fuller meaning latent in the participles, breaks the purpose clause out and makes it its own sentence; it also takes the “error” from the first clause and relocates it to the clause about condemnation. I thought this legitimate because it seems clear that God feels compassion for the human race, not the error of the human race.
Almighty God is compassionate towards the error of the human race, which is condemned to the darkness of ignorance, having been stripped of our God-given glory by the ancient serpent. God’s benevolence wished to display the riches of his mercy in the restoration of that glory so that we might return to the glory from which we had blindly strayed. God does this though the light which he has bestowed on us, and by his ineffable grace.
The expression “compatiens errori” caught my eye too, because as William says it is odd that God’s kindness should feel compassion for the error instead of for the human race, that is, for the sin rather than the sinner.
But I think there’s no need to relocate the dative if you take ‘error’ in its original sense of “wandering, roaming; going astray,” regarded not as the fault itself but as the unfortunate state that was the consequence of the fault. Latham s.v. compati 2.d has useful examples of the verb governing a dative “of misfortune suffered.” So the human race, having been condemned to the shadows of ignorance, now wanders aimlessly, and the kindness of God feels compassion for its straying and wishes to restore it [the race] to the light.
I’m not really sure how I landed here, but it gave me a reason to play around in Latin for a few minutes, so thank you! Could “compatiens errori” mean something like “really put up with the error…” with the compound verb taking a dative object? It’s not about feeling compassionate for the error, but about putting up with it patiently. I think that balances out with the rest of the sentence a bit better.
“The benevolence of almighty God – graciously suffering the error of the human race, which…”
(This from Anne Kim, which mysteriously ended up under the wrong post:)
You know I can’t resist a good Latin puzzle. That doesn’t improve my skill, though. Still, here’s what I’d lean towards. Given my rudimentary Latin, there are likely some mistakes mixed in with my translation choices:
Almighty God’s kindness — compassionate for the faults of the human race, which from ancient times by the serpent was stripped of the glory granted from heaven, in ignorance condemned to darkness — desired to demonstrate the richness of his mercy in their restoration, so that the glory of the light from which they had blindly strayed might be restored through the light of his ineffable grace.
I apologise for the lack of response. For some reason I received no notifications at all from the blog.
It’s really tempting to use mdash’s. But the overuse of these by AI is also something to factor in.
This might contain a few options:
Pitying the error of the human race, who after the ancient serpent stripped them of the glory once celestially bestowed are now condemned to the darkness of ignorance, the kindness of Almighty God willed to show forth in their restoration the riches of His mercy, so that by the light that He with ineffable grace has dispensed to them they might return to the glory of the light from which they had wandered off blind.
At first I went a more literal route, having “race” be “it” and having “It” (“Kindness”) possess the mercy and do the dispensing. That’s aurally incomprehensible. For “error,” I first had “wandering” and still like it, but now with the race being a “who” there’s a risk that “wandering” could be taken as a plural participle.
I still like various points of your (Pearse’s) version better than mine. Perhaps omit your last comma, to show that “by grace” can’t directly modify “return.”
Reading through the comments, I like North’s “Because… felt compassion…” and keeping tenebris plural. Fitzgerald’s sentence-splitting strategy felicitously turns the first two nouns into subjects of separate sentences, with the second noun’s delay being compensated by the already similar meaning of “compassionate.” I assumed that having errori rather than generi was a figure of speech until reading Diego’s comment; now I’m undecided. Per Kevin’s comment, it’s attractive to try combining pity with forbearance. Kim’s “compassionate for the faults” does this in a way, and “granted from heaven” has a nice ring. The m-dashes feel tasteful to me: the constituent that they delimit with graphic strength is led by a term thematically no less strong (“compassionate”), besides being weighty by length.
Appreciate the thoughts. It’s a heck of a problem.