PECCATA MUNDI

 

Lamb of God, mosaic in Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna

 

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,

miserere nobis

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,

miserere nobis

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi

dona nobis pacem

 

It’s a beautiful text in the liturgy, and the English version was, for 400+ years, “O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world”. As such, many loved it, for the world’s many sins have always needed removal through forgiveness. Then came the (19)Sixties, when everything was felt to need change, and suddenly the Lamb of God was taking away the “sin of the world”. Was, and is, that more, or less? And why the change?

            Well, said modern churchmen, it is based on John 1:29, where John the Baptist says “Behold the Lamb of God, ho airōn tèn hamartian tou kosmou” (who takes away the sin of the world). So we are just correcting the Latin. Of course, the Latin comes from the Vulgate, some manuscripts of which read peccatum (singular) and some peccata. And the liturgy, which adopted the Agnus Dei in the late 7^th century, took the peccata text.

            So the singular is the Gospel version, and thus “correct”. And it makes sense, because the Meshiach does deal with the Sin of the world, original sin, the worm in the apple of every human endeavour. 

            And yet there are those, I know, who feel a real sense of loss with the disappearance of the peccata. (It remains in Latin masses.) Because we are taught to examine our own consciences, not for Sin, but for sins; sins in their depressing plurality are what weighs us down; sins in their multitude are what we confront each Lent. And it is a constant comfort to hear, to be reminded, that they are what He takes away, they are what He forgives and, in His infinite mercy, forgets.

            So while I read St John’s Gospel with undiminished love for that wonderfully poetic text of salvation, I am happy still to recite in the Liturgy “Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi”, in the comforting assurance that even peccata smaller but knottier than the Sin of the World may not escape the notice of the Lamb.