ASK FATHER: Why do the TLM Gospels switch between “Ierusalem” and “Ierosolyma”? Wherein Fr. Z drills and then rants. – UPDATED

UPDATE 15 Dec:

Follow up question below.

From a priest reader…

QUAERITUR:

Why do the TLM Gospels switch between “Ierusalem” and “Ierosolyma” as in today’s “Ierosolymis” when referring to Jerusalem?

Father has been observant!  Good question.

Indeed, this week the Gospel from John reads

“In illo tempore: Misérunt Iudaei ab Ierosólymis sacerdótes et levítas ad Ioánnem, ut interrogárent eum … At that time, the Jews sent to John from Jerusalem priests and Levites to ask him, …”.

The Neo-Vulgate on the Vatican website has “ab Hierosolymis” in John 1.  That “h” reflects the Greek rough breathing mark on the initial iota:  ἐξ Ἱεροσολύμων.   More on that below.

The two forms enter Latin through different routes: Ierusalem comes primarily from Hebrew, usually mediated through Aramaic. It functions in Latin as a foreign, indeclinable proper noun, much like Bethlehem or Nazareth.

The Vulgate preserves both forms because Jerome did not impose a single Latinized solution where the source languages differed.   Jerome recognized the difference in his ep. 57 to Pammachius about interpretation of Scripture, he wrote:

“Hierusalem et Ierosolyma non unum nomen est, sed duo. Illud Hebraicum est, hoc Graecum; et saepe secundum proprietatem sensuum Scriptura utitur alterutro. … Ierusalem and Ierosolyma are not one name, but two. The former is Hebrew, the latter Greek; and Scripture often uses one or the other according to the proper character of the meaning.”

Ierosolyma comes through Greek, already adapted to Greek morphology. When it enters Latin, it behaves as a declinable plural noun (neuter plural in form, often treated as feminine).

Ierusalem is indeclinable and static. It tends to appear in contexts where the city is treated as a theological or symbolic locus, rather than as an object acted upon.

Ierosolyma declines (Ierosolymam, Ierosolymis, etc.) and therefore is used more smoothly in narrative movement: going up to, coming down from, being sent out of, or destroyed. This is why Gospel pericopes involving travel, procession, judgment, or historical action frequently favor Ierosolyma.

The distinction is not a rigid one, mind you.  However, there is enough of a distinction that early commentators and medieval writers noted it.

Venerable Bede (+735) wrote in his Commentary on Luke 9:51:

“Non frustra Lucas Ierosolymam dicit, non Ierusalem: terrenam civitatem significat, quae Dominum occisura erat; non illam pacis visionem quae in caelis est. … Not without reason does Luke say Ierosolyma and not Ierusalem: he signifies the earthly city which was about to kill the Lord, not that vision of peace which is in heaven.”

The medieval Glossa Ordinaria (12th c. in PL 113-114) which uses the Vulgate says:

“Ierusalem interpretatur visio pacis; Ierosolyma vero frequenter ponitur pro civitate carnali... Ierusalem is interpreted as ‘vision of peace’; Ierosolyma is often used for the carnal city.”

Forms of Ierosolyma occur in all four Gospels in the Vulgate tradition, not just in one, and they do so with a fairly consistent narrative profile.

In Matthew, Ierosolyma appears frequently in passages describing movement to and from the city or its historical actions, for example: “Tunc abiit Iesus in Ierosolymam” (cf. Matt 20:17), and in judgment contexts: “Ierusalem, Ierusalem, quae occidis prophetas…” where the vocative form is used rhetorically (Matt 23:37).

In Mark, the form is likewise common in travel narratives and Passion contexts, especially in the long ascent to the city: “Erant autem in via ascendentes Ierosolymam” (Mark 10:32). Here the declinable form fits the narrative needs of the Gospel.

In Luke, Ierosolyma is especially prominent, reflecting Luke’s strong geographical and theological emphasis on the journey to Jerusalem and its role in salvation history (Luke 9:51 ff.). Luke uses both forms overall, but Ierosolyma dominates the travel and rejection motifs.

In John, although Ierusalem also appears, Ierosolyma is used repeatedly in contexts involving feasts, pilgrimages, and concrete actions within the city such as the example in today’s reading (Gaudete Sunday) and also “Ascendit Iesus Ierosolymam” (John 2:13; 5:1).

It is likely that, through the centuries, the constant auditory exposure to the forms through reading aloud (the common practice in ancient times for reasons of retention, etc.) and singing in liturgy embedded the different overtones of the forms in the readers/hears such that they virtually automatically took in the theological differences.   The Frankish commentator Amalarius of Metz in his Liber Officialis (PL 105.1145) opines:

“Non solum verba, sed etiam forma verborum intellectum movet audientis… Not only the words, but even the form of the words moves the understanding of the hearer.”

Directly to the question at the top: those who edited the 1570 edition of the Missale Romanum and subsequent editions did not take it on themselves to “flatten” the literary and theological registers of the Gospel as they had been received.  The Traditional Latin Mass preserves rather than innovates.  They kept this usage of different forms because it follows the Vulgate text as inherited, allowing each evangelist’s linguistic register to remain intact rather be inflicted with forced uniformity. Their mandate, articulated in the wake of Trent, was to restore and stabilize the Roman Rite iuxta veterem et probatam consuetudinem, not to subject the received texts to literary or theological “improvement” (aka tinkeritis).   As a result, they did not presume the right to harmonize or rationalize the internal features of the biblical text – or the Mass itself! – even where those features might strike a later age as inconsistent (or viz. the Mass, “later accretions to be removed” or “superfluous gestures” or “needless repetitions”).

However, the Neo-Vulgate (Nova Vulgata of 1979 (1986) in the main does not retain the different forms. Instead, following Hebrew and Greek texts and not the Clementine Vulgate, with exceptions it overwhelmingly standardizes the name to indeclinable Ierusalem.   As a result, the patristic and medieval exegetical distinction (earthly, divided Ierosolyma versus peaceful, theological Ierusalem) is no longer audible in the Latin text itself.  The Nova Vulgata treats Latin as a transparent vehicle for the critical Greek text, even at the cost of flattening distinctions that earlier generations regarded as meaningful. The distinction survives in patristic theology and medieval commentary, but no longer in the Latin biblical text itself as proclaimed in the modern Roman Rite.

Whatever theological distinctions remain must now be supplied entirely by commentary, not by the language of the Gospel proclamation.

The Neo-Vulgate makes irony redundant.  A project undertaken in the name of “fidelity to the sources” ends up showing less respect for the actual Latin Bible which the Church prayed, preached, and heard for centuries than did early editors working with far fewer modern “scientific” philological tools. Where the traditional Roman liturgy trusted the text it received, the Neo-Vulgate editors trusted their own corrective instincts. The result is a Bible that is cleaner and smoother … and theologically poorer.  Its like a cold, sterile exam table with a paper sheet over it.

I also have in mind some bishops these days who want – lovingly and pastorally – to force everyone to be in lockstep like mindless drones.  They empty the meaning of unity by imposing uniformity.  “Everyone must stand now… sit now… receive this way… in a conga line, cause, you know, processions and … and … pastoral reasons!”

Our forebears had a far better bead on unity.

QUAERITUR:

Now for a follow-up question: why is it plural? Ab hierosolymis ne discederent always makes me pause.

As to the plural… it might be along the lines of how Greeks thought of cities as complexes of elements rather than a single thing. For example Athens in Homeric Greek is singular Athene (Ἀθήνη) but later, as it grows and absorbs more entities, becomes plural Athenai (Ἀθῆναι ). So maybe the singular form, Ierusalem which is more theological and spiritual, unified in God’s shalom, is perceived as a whole and the secular place on the map you travel to or from or conquer is seen as a collective of different neighborhoods or even religious groups in contact with each other. New York City is several boroughs and many neighborhoods, is called New York City (singular) but NYC also stands (stood for) abstractions (such as freedom, a new beginning, financial power).  We can call NYC “The Five Boroughs” too, though that isn’t orthographically close.

Hence, sometime Jerusalem is felt as one thing and something as a collective of things.