In principio
The Latin formulation in principio means "at the beginning" or "in the beginning".
origin
Hebrew Bible
The little phrase got its cultural-historical significance from the fact that the most common Latin translation of the Bible , the Vulgate , begins with it. The account of the creation of the world in Genesis 1 : 1 begins there as follows:
- In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram.
- "In the beginning God created heaven and earth - Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ ϑεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν".
The Hebrew (and thus common in Judaism ) name of the first book of the Bible Bereshit means "In the beginning", after the first word (so-called incipit ).
New Testament
The author of the Gospel of John took up this tradition and began his gospel with these very words. The rather literal translation of the Greek text of John 1,1 in the Vulgate reads:
- In principio erat verbum et verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat verbum.
- "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word - ᾽Εν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν ϑεόν, καὶ ϑεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος«.
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middle Ages
The author of the Gospel of John has been equated with the favorite disciple of Jesus since the early Church ( Irenaeus of Lyon ) , so that the fourth Gospel was given a certain priority in the Catholic tradition of the Middle Ages .
The John's prologue ( John 1: 1–14 VUL ) took a prominent position as the final gospel in the liturgy of Holy Mass and other sacraments ( baptism , marriage). This text was used as a “blessing pericope”. (The custom emerged in the 13th century, was prescribed by Pius V in the reform of the Roman Missal, and abolished in the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council.) It was also recommended that these pericopes be read when visiting sick people.
In the Catholic practice of the Middle Ages, popular piety and superstition were mixed :
- The first words of the Gospel of John were written on amulets. An example of this is the labeled lead tablet from the High Middle Ages (12th / 13th century) that was found in Elbeu . The custom of using “the Gospel” (that is, individual Gospel texts in miniature format) as an amulet is much older. This has already been attested from late antiquity and was approved by Augustine and John Chrysostom .
- The phrase in principio became an affirmation, incantation and even magic formula .
Therefore, for example, the Synod of Seligenstadt in 1028 forbade the laity to hear the In Principio erat verb ( John 1: 1–14 VUL ) several times a week.
Geoffrey Chaucer's (1343? –1400) Canterbury Tales give a picture of this linguistic practice , in which the words are used in several places in the manner described; the author ironically ironizes this practice when he puts it in the mouth of the (somewhat grandiose) cock Chanticleer in the animal fable of the nun priest's story (lines 3163-3164):
- For, al so siker as In principio
- Mulier est hominis confusio
- Because as sure as the in principio is
- that the woman confuses the man's soul .
That the vain rooster, who actually wants to pay his wife Pertelote a charming compliment, understands neither the second nor the first Latin quotation , is evident from the next two lines of verse (lines 3165-3166):
- Madame, the sentence of this latyn is,
- womman is mannes joye and al his blis.
- Madame, the meaning is the Latin piece
- the woman is the man's joy and all his happiness.
19th and 20th century literature
Goethe
The mythical content - and thus the taboo - of in principio is Goethe in the first part of his tragedy Faust (v 1224 ff) shall be:
"It is written:" In the beginning was the word! "
Here I stop! Who will help me further?
I can't possibly value the word so highly!
I have to translate it differently
when I am properly enlightened by the spirit. "
Based on the logos , Faust considers the translations “meaning” and “power” and decides on “in the beginning was deed ”.
Ernst Jandl
The spoken poem progressive rattle (1957) by the Austrian poet Ernst Jandl (1925-2000) uses the extensive familiarity of the first words of the Gospel of John - especially in the Catholic part of the German-speaking area - in a much more provocative way. Jandl continues the famous sentence in the sense that at the beginning there was the word, but after too many repetitions it ends in incomprehensible stammering.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Genesis 1.1 VUL
- ↑ Genesis 1.1 OT
- ↑ John 1,1 VUL
- ↑ Philipp Vielhauer : History of early Christian literature. Fourth printing. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin - New York 1985, ISBN 3-11-007763-9 , p. 456
- ↑ a b c Michael Theobald: The Incarnation of the Logos . Studies on the relationship of the Johannes prologue to the corpus of the gospel and to 1 Joh. In: New Testament Treatises, New Series . tape 20 . Aschendorff, Münster 1988, p. 175 .
- ↑ Caroline D. Eckhardt: Chaucer's General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. An Annotated Bibliography, 1900 to 1982 . University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1990, ISBN 0-8020-2592-7 , pp. 291 .
- ↑ The power of the word - a high medieval incantation tablet from Elbeu. In: Find of the month. State Museum for Prehistory Halle, January 2011, accessed on October 28, 2018 .
- ↑ Christoph Markschies: The ancient Christianity . Piety, ways of life, institutions. 2nd Edition. CH Beck, Munich 2012, p. 102-103 .
- ↑ Morton W. Bloomfield: The Magic of In Principio . In: Modern Language Notes . tape 70 , no. 8 , 1955, pp. 559-565 , JSTOR : 3040442 (English).
- ^ EGC Atchley: A Paper on the Usage of a Second Gospel at Mass. In: Transactions of the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society Vol. IV. (1900)
- ↑ cf. Ursula Reutner: Language and Taboo . Interpretations on French and Italian euphemisms. Walter de Gruyter, 2009, ISBN 978-3-484-97121-9 , p. 158 f .
- ↑ Ernst Jandl: the artificial tree (= Luchterhand collection 9). Hermann Luchterhand Verlag, 7th edition, Darmstadt and Neuwied 1980, ISBN 3-472-61009-3 , p. 109
- ↑ cf. Torsten Gellner: Why does ottos puke puke? In memoriam Ernst Jandl: Interpretations of his texts. November 21, 2016, accessed October 27, 2018 .