Why not "Agne Dei"?

Question

Here's a sentence from the Catholic Mass:

Agnus Dei,
qui tollis peccata mundi,
miserere nobis.

Why not agne? Shouldn't agnus be in the vocative? Note tollis and miserere in the second person.

Similarly:

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth,
pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.

Why not Sancte, sancte, sancte Domine Deus Sabaoth? Note tua.

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Earlier, in the Gloria, it says:

Domine Deus, Rex coelestis,
Deus Pater omnipotens,
Domine Fili unigenite Jesu Christe,
Domine Deus, Agnus Dei,
Filius Patris.

So, there are definitely vocatives in the Mass—five in a row in the third line. But notice Agnus and Filius in apposition with Domine—in apposition with Fili, even!

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Is it time to send out an errata sheet for all those missals?

Answer 1

I compared the Latin Gloria with the Greek Doxa: Greek language has much more vocative forms than Latin. In the Doxa series of vocatives alternate with series of nominatives, mostly with the article "'o" (absent in Latin); like: "kyrie 'o theos, 'o amnos tou theou, 'o yios tou patros" (Latin "Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris"). Nominative serves not only subjects, but also predicates, with omitted words "tu es" or "qui es". So I would translate "O Lord, thou art God, thou art the Lamb of God, thou art the Son of God". Similar alternation higher up "kyrie basileu, epouranie, thee patêr pantokratôr" (Latin "Domine (Deus) rex caelestis, Deus pater omnipotens"). "Thee" is vocative; "patêr pantokratôr" with etas and omegas = nominative, while vocative "pater pantokrator" would have epsilon and omikron. My translation: "O Lord King in heaven, o God, thou art Father All-ruler". The prayer and song "Agnus Dei" seems copied from the Gloria; I could translate it: "Thou who art Lamb of God, who carrieth away the sins of the world, have pity on us". "Sanctus" is different: this nominative shows a predicate adjective (with omitted "est"): "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord..."; likewise further on "Benedictus (est) qui venit...". There; that sums up my analysis. Carlo VAN GESTEL.

Answer 2

I found the question very interesting, and got me researching against my will.

Most of the texts of the Mass —and specifically these— come from antiquity, a time when Latin was still alive. Had there been grammatical errors, twenty centuries would suffice to find and correct them. So it may be a little far-fetched to put a mistake as the default hypothesis.

The examples you cite seem to have two different explanations:

1. The Agnus Dei is somehow controversial, not in that it is a mistake, but I've found a number of educated guesses that may be seen as complementary or even contradictory. This forum gathers a few of them. Anyway, it has been accepted in liturgy as it is. Maybe this is a good question for [Christianity.SE]! Some of the explanations are:

   1. Agnus Dei as a whole is seen as a title or as a compound not to be declinable. Being a title makes a lot of theological sense, FTR. [Edit: title attributed to Jesus, just as the previous vocatives are directed toward Him. John the Baptists first called Him so, as he was to be the matter of a sacrifice —just as lambs were— to God]
   2. Agnus would be an accepted irregular vocative of agnus in Ecclesiastical Latin. (Comparable to the number IIII in clocks? This doesn't convince me a lot, but I cite it since it is sourced.)
   3. It is a nominative. (I find this one very interesting.) Quoting a participant in the forum:

      Specifically, it's a nominative used in apposition with the understood subject of the imperative miserere. Although the vocative is more common, it's not unclassical to have the nominative instead, as in Livy (i.24): audi tu, populus Albanus ("hear thou, people of Alba"). See Allen and Greenough 340a.

2. The Sanctus is a mosaic from three different sources (two of them from both the Old and New Testament,) not intended to form a grammatical unit.

   Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. (Is 6,3)
   Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua. (a different source)
   Hosanna in excelsis. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Hosanna in excelsis. (Mc 11, 9-10)

   Translations use third person in the first and last pieces, and second person for the middle one, (although it is very common for people to mistakenly change it to third person, trying to form a unit artificially, because it just sounds better!)

3. The Gloria is also a mosaic in the sense that the two initial verses are a quote from the Gospel of St. Luke. As for the nominatives you cite, they can find a similar explanation to 1. I don't think they can be seen as copulative predicates, since there is a predicate to this sentence —miserere nobis—. The whole sentence being:

   Domine Fili unigenite, Jesu Christe, Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis; qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram.

Update: as noted in this outstanding answer by Kingshorsey, an explanation to Agnus Dei —at least in the Gloria— could come from Deus. In his words, there is no (textually secure) attested vocative form of deus. (...) When a vocative became necessary for Christian Latin, they employed the nominative form (...). This was considered a nominative used in place of a vocative, not as a vocative form. Thus, the adjective meus was used for agreement. Note that in the Gloria, Deus breaks the chain of vocatives, and nominatives follow. One could imagine (though it would need to be proven) that this led to a more permanent change in the way of syntactically treating Agnus Dei when referred to Deus Filius (i.e., Jesus).

Answer 3

Jungmann in his magisterial work on the Roman Mass suggests that this is in keeping with a grammatical rule in many languages: from a feeling of reverence, religious terms are apt to be handled as indeclinable.In a footnote he notes the vocative "Deus" (Mass of the Roman Rite, vol. 2 pg. 338).

Answer 4

I can't help but wonder whether there is an assumed "es" ("you are") in these phrases. Finite forms of "esse" are often severely abbreviated or even omitted in Latin.

"[You are] the holy, holy, holy Lord, God Sabaoth", etc.

Answer 5

I am a Jewish convert to Christianity. I practiced Orthodox Judaism for 18 years. Hebrew blessings have this same grammatical peculiarity. Most Hebrew blessings start off:

"Blessed art Thou O Lord our God King of the universe who ...

With the who portion of the blessing reverting to the third person while the first part of the blessing is in the second person. This was done deliberately by the Talmudic rabbis who created these blessings and who were completely knowledgeable about Hebrew grammar.

There are Jewish commentaries to explain this apparent grammatical inconsistency: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/god-in-jewish-prayer

What seems interesting to me is that while the Hebrew blessing starts off in the second person and concludes in the third, the Agnus Dei moves in the opposite direction from 3rd person to 2nd. This might reflect the Catholic idea that Jesus as the incarnation of the invisible Creator God makes God more personal approachable and accessible.

About this original question:

"Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth,
pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua."

The tua appears to be a mistranslation of the Hebrew text:

קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ ה' צְבָאוֹת מְלֹא כָל הָאָרֶץ כְּבוֹדוֹ
Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh Adonai Tz'vaot M'lo Khol Ha'aretz K'vodo
"Holy, Holy, Holy, The Lord of Hosts, The entire world is filled with His Glory."
Isaiah 6:3

Also I wonder if using the nominative instead of the vocative may be the Latin equivalent to using a formal you rather than the informal in German: Sie instead of Du?