Today is the feast of St. Job. The Roman Martyrology gives us this terse entry.
1. Commemoratio sancti Iob, admirandae patientiae viri in terra Hus.
I will let one of you do this! (Those of you who are very stong with Latin, how ’bout leaving it so someone else?)
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since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
Commemoration of St. Job, (the commemoration of) a man of admirable patience in the land of Hus.
Is there any way to see the Martyrology online? I found one, but it was the 1965 version.
I would substitute “suffering” instead of “patience” (the primary meaning of “pateri” is “to suffer”, I think). Therefore, I would say…
The Commemoration of St. Job, a man of admirable suffering in the land of Hus.
Of course, if I worked for the old ICEL………..
Though Whitaker’s does list “submission by prostitute” as a translation for “patientiae”…
If I could hear this pronounced it would be wonderful! Anyway you could set this up Father Z? :)
“The commemoration of holy Job, the man of Hus, whose patience ought to be admired.”
Is admirandae patientiae a passive periphrastic construction? I’m very rusty on my Latin but that just kind of jumped out at me. Would you give us some more to do? This is fun!
Ooo, passive periphrastic. Well done – I never would have thought of that!
Julie’s translation is accurate, but her question about the periphrastic needs an answer.
Admirandae is a gerundive (a verbal adjective). It is not a true periphrastic which would require a form of the verb sum, e.g. Carthago delenda est!
For the rest of the sentence I would suggest the following grammatical explanation.
Viri is in the genitive case in apposition to sancti Iob. Admirandae patientiae is a genitive of description depending on viri.
Admirandae is feminine because it modifies patientiae. See Cicero’s first oration against Catiline for an understanding of patientia (“patienceâ€), which can also be translated as “endurance” or “resignation”. Indeed Job was to be admired for his resignation to the will of God!
My translation would be: “A commemoration of Saint Job, a man of admirable resignation in the land of Hus.”
Though I agree with Aeneas that admirandae is not a future passive periphrastic, it is often the case that the verb “sum, esse” is omitted.However if it were future passive periphrastic then it would not be ending in “ae” (unless you took patientiae as plural nominative, then it would be “The Commemoration of Job, the sufferings of the man in the Land of Hus is to be admired ” which does not seem to make sense. It looks to be genitive rather.
The fact that viri is used indicates that “admirandae patientiae viri in terra Hus” is all just an appositive. Hence “The Commemoration of Job, a man of admirable suffering in the Land of Hus”
A very minor quibble — a matter of transliteration rather than translation. “Hus” is usually “Englished” as “Uz.” If I recall correctly, Uz was an Edomite tribe.
My 11-year-old translates it thus: “Commemoration of Saint Job, a man of admirable patience in the land of Hus.” She adds, “‘Viri’ is in the genitive because it’s in apposition to ‘Saint Job.'” I’m curious now to know if that’s right.
Never mind, having read the comments now I see she was right about the apposition thing. It may be too late for me to study Latin, but I’m glad to see she’s making progress.
Thanks, Aeneas, for the gracious elucidation! After puzzling on this awhile, I agree that “admirandae patientiae” is not a passive periphrastic, but the use of the gerundive is still not addressed when “admirandae” is translated as “admirable.” I would suggest that it should have a stronger translation: “the to-be-admired” patience of Job. I’m just guessing here of course, but I suspect Fr. Z is using this passage to exhort all of us to have the patience of Job in our current ecclesiastical trials and tribulations.
Julie’s understanding of admirandae as meaning “to be admired” is exactly the sense that the word conveys. I chose “admirable” only because it is better sounding English, though not as accurate as the Latin. Alas the shortcomings of translating from one language to another! Inevitably, something is lost.