XXIV. Of speakyng in the congregation, in such a tongue as the people understandeth.
It is a thing playnely repugnaunt to the worde of God, and the custome of the primitive Churche, to have publique prayer in the Churche, or to minister the Sacramentes in a tongue not understanded of the people.[1]
by the Rev. Canon Giuseppe Gagliano
It is a testament to the influence of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion that their theological agenda occasionally seems redundant. After almost five hundred years, a number of these statements of faith have become so commonplace that they have lost the chutzpa with which they were initially penned and proliferated. Article XXIV is no exception. After all, who in our own age would protest the use of an understood language in services of worship? Yet, the simplicity of this Article belies its profound character.
The Roots of Article XXIV
In sum, Article XXIV proposes that public worship ought to take place in the vernacular language rather than a lingua franca. The vernacular is the common tongue of the people—one understood simply and effectively—whereas a lingua franca is a language adopted for its universality. A major difference between the two is that, in practical terms, a lingua franca is often used as a mediating language between non-native speakers. Before the English Reformation, the religious lingua franca was Latin, which was used not only in worship, but scholarship and Biblical translation. Latin was the language of Rome—not only its ancient empire but also the Catholic Church.
The Reformers of sixteenth Century England would be shocked to learn that English has become a prominent lingua franca of our own day. During their era of religious and cultural upheaval, the use of English in ecclesiastical settings was so rare that a consistent vocabulary was still being formed. For instance, Thomas More criticized William Tyndale’s New Testament translation as “mischcheyvous” because he went against the typical ecclesiastical translations in favour of more commonplace coinage. For instance, Tyndale used “senior” instead of “priest,” “love” instead of “charity,” and “favour” instead of “grace”.[2] One might argue that the upheaval, and later levelling, of English religiosity coincided with the fluctuation of the vernacular itself.
The transition from Latin to English was not simply a church matter either, but overlapped with national political concerns. The 1549 Act of Uniformity declared the English Book of Common Prayer as the sole text for use in public worship. The last Latin service in England was set for Whitsunday of that year. In Devon, a Latin mass was held the next day in protest by Cornish speakers, which incited the Prayer Book Rebellion in the southwest of England. The shift from the lingua franca to a vernacular was no joke, but a deeply contentious and even unpopular reform.
Politics aside, the preface to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer spells out Archbishop Cranmer’s and his compatriot’s spiritual concerns regarding language in the Church. The Reformers wrote that, while Saint Paul used a language spoken by the people,
[t]he service in this Churche of England (these many yeares) hath been read in Latin to the people, whiche they understoode not; so that they have heard with theyr eares onely; and their hartes, spirite, and minde, have not been edified thereby.[3]
In other words, the liturgy went in one ear and out the other, but did not nurture the people at their core—in heart, spirit, and mind. The Preface’s reference to the Apostle Paul parallels the statement of Article XXIV regarding the “Primitive Church”—the first congregations of faithful Christians.[4] If worshipping in the common tongue was sufficient for Jesus’ Apostles, it is certainly good enough for us.
A Surprising Legacy
The theological rationale behind Article XXIV has been an enduring legacy of the English Reformation in the Anglican Communion. While Anglican piety has fluctuated through various moods and flavours, the injunction to worship in a language understood by the people remains constant. Notably, even the most catholic traditions of Anglicanism maintain this Reformation practice. While surveying the development of Anglican missals from the 19th Century onward, one is struck by a consistent incorporation of the Sarum or Western Roman rites into English, or, with Latin written alongside English. Even the venerable Society of SS. Peter and Paul, which controversially advocated for Roman rites in the Church of England, declared their devotion to the vernacular five years before publishing The Anglican Missal (1921): “The goal we shall set before us will be, not a return to the Roman Mass in Latin, but the restoration of that magnificent English version of the Roman Mass which is contained in King Edward VI’s First Prayer Book.”[5] In harmony with the Thirty-Nine Articles’ theological desire for congregational comprehension, The Anglican Missal was published in versions for both clerics and laity in an attempt to aid liturgical understanding.[6] Even while the broad tent of Anglicanism encloses those who adore Latin and Rome, one would be hard pressed to find a regular Latin liturgy in a contemporary Anglican church.[7]
One of the ironies of Article XXIV, as mentioned, is that English itself has become a worldwide lingua franca. Yet, the influence of this Article is apparent in the global expression of Anglicanism beyond the English tongue. Anglican liturgy has been transposed into numerous cultures, and thus translated into a plethora of parlances. These range from widespread vernaculars like French, Thai, and Swahili to localized dialects such as Aoba, Bislama, Merelava, Maewo, Mota, Mwotlap, Raga, and Tikopia—distinct languages of Vanuatu.[8] People around the world share in this Reformed and Catholic expression of Christianity far beyond its original linguistic restructuring. In this sense, Article XXIV might be seen as a correlative of Article XXXIV (“On the traditions of the Church”), which advocates for a principle of subsidiarity with regards to local expressions of the faith rather than a monolithic, universalized system.
Understanding as a Virtue
At its heart, Article XXIV emphasizes the notion that a worshipper should understand what is being done, and what is being proclaimed by and to Almighty God. Again, this may seem like a moot point in our own day, but it is a radical shift from what came before. This Article is not simply practical, but underlies a particular theology of worship, which many of us take for granted.
All worship requires mediation between humanity and God, to greater or lesser degrees, and language is a prime means of that mediation. When a lingua franca is used, it involves the translation of intent into a particular linguistic form of mediation, which is then offered to the divine. The language takes what is common, translates it, and thus sanctifies it. To worship in a lingua franca, apart from understanding, may also imply that those particular word-forms are efficacious—that the sound, order, and cadence of a unique tongue has a precise effect on the worship of God. As the lingua franca is universal, this sanctification is accomplished apart from cultural or personal particularity.
Using the vernacular, however, the mediation looks different. No translation is required, but the hopes, joys, fears, and praises of the people are expressed in an immediate way. The intentions behind the divine mysteries are not simply articulated through the mouth of a knowing priest, but by all present. The veil of the liturgical temple is ripped in two. And, as the vernacular varies from place to place, the worship of God inhabits a particular cultural expression.
Vernacular liturgy upholds the understanding of the congregation as essential to reverent worship. The intentions of the congregation need not be translated into a distinct form, but are intrinsically divine however they are translated. Understanding, therefore, becomes another way to worship God—another means of offering a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice. We do not simply carry out rites to the letter of the law, but our hearts are opened to the wider spirit of what we are doing. Or, as the 1549 Preface would put it, we listen not simply with our ears, but with our “hartes, spirite, and minde”.
The theological reasoning regarding understanding in worship extends beyond the Anglican churches and even—with historic irony—to the Church of Rome. In 1963, the Second Vatican Council released Sacrosanctum Concilium, a document that (despite its Latin title) advocated for the increasing use of worshippers’ “mother tongue” throughout the rites of Roman Catholic Church. Most interestingly, this document uses the same rationale as the 1549 Preface, claiming that there is more to worship than “the mere observation of the laws governing valid and licit celebration,” but that the faithful must “take part fully aware of what they are doing, actively engaged in the rite, and enriched by its effects.”[9] In other words, the liturgy must not simply be heard, but inwardly digested by all participants for their edification. One might imagine Archbishop Cranmer, while a serious man, slightly bemused and gingerly tipping his Canterbury cap in Rome’s direction.
The Limits of the Vernacular
Article XXIV brings up some curious points to consider regarding the vernacular in worship. It is one thing to worship in the language of the people, but at what point does the vernacular become too ordinary? In other words, it is one thing to use the formal tongue that the people speak; it is another thing to use that language for prayer in the same way that people speak it.
For example, in the Canadian context, Anglicans worship using either the Book of Common Prayer (1962) or the Book of Alternative Services (1985). The former is written in Elizabethan English, far from the way any Canadian would naturally speak. The latter is a more contemporized English, but still formalized. An advocate for the vernacular could argue that the Elizabethan style of the Book of Common Prayer counteracts Article XXIV because of its more archaic style. Overall, however, one ought to interpret this Article broadly. The difference between Elizabethan and contemporary English is minute compared to the gap between English and Latin. Even if the congregation’s understanding is incomplete, it is approximate, and can be improved without the need to learn another tongue. The more stylized forms of English also set aside a unique linguistic space for worship, just as a church is a distinctive place for prayer in relation to a house.
A more fervent proponent for the vernacular could argue that even the contemporary Book of Alternative Services is not sufficient to fulfill the intent of Article XXIV. After all, even while of a more contemporary diction, you would be hard pressed to find a Canadian who speaks in the format of a collect. If one were to take this Article to its most extreme limit, however, prayer books would need to be written with the slang and colloquialism of modern speech. This might even warrant a prayer book for each worshipping community—let alone each Vanuatuan island. This extreme approach is not only impractical and damaging to church catholicity, but does not reflect the Article’s intent. The Reformers were responding to what they considered a dead language with a living one. They simultaneously understood the value of language—even a stylized vernacular—in mediating accessible, ordered, and reverent worship.
As modern philosophers and theologians are apt to remind us, language is not simply a way for humans to describe the world, like projecting a flashlight onto a darkened object. Instead, language is reflexive; it shapes the way we understand what we are talking about. We shine it outwards, but it also shines back on us. The way we speak to God informs what we believe about God: lingua orandi, lingua credendi. If we are to worship God, who is both holy and imminent, Lord and Friend, beyond us and within us, then we ought to adopt language that is both universal and particular, mysterious and comprehensible, esoteric and exoteric. I humbly suggest that a formalized vernacular—as found in the sundry, revered prayer books of the Anglican churches—strikes a fine balance as we seek to praise the One who spoke the worlds into being.
The Rev’d Canon Giuseppe Gagliano is a Priest of the St. Francis Regional Ministry in the rural Eastern Towships of Quebec and Canon for Lay Ministries in the Anglican Diocese of Quebec.
[1] From the 1571 edition of the Thirty-Nine Articles. Oliver O’Donovan, On the Thirty-Nine Articles: Conversations with Tudor Christianty, 2nd ed. (London: SCM Press, 2011), 147.
[2] Brian Cummings, The Literary Culture of the Reformation: Grammar and Grace (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002), 192.
[3] The Book of Common Prayer (1549), http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1549/front_matter_1549.htm, (accessed 23 May 2019).
[4] The equivalent article in Cranmer’s Forty-Two Articles of 1553 echoes the Preface’s reference to “the whiche thing S. Paule didde forbidde”. O’Donovan, 147.
[5] Mark Dalby, Anglican Missals and their Canons: 1549, Interim Rite and Roman (Cambridge: Grove Books Limited, 1998), 22.
[6] Dalby, 23.
[7] While the author has heard of such Latin masses taking place, it would seem more akin to liturgical LARPing than a consistent expression of a congregation’s piety.
[8] See http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/world.htm for these sundry liturgies, and more.
[9] Paul VI, Sacrosanctum Concilium, 4 December, 1963, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/
ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html (accessed 23 May 2019).