Latin for Fun

In certain circles Latin is considered an ancient affliction like the measles, against which the wonders of progress have happily inoculated us. To be an anti-vaxxer in this regard is to set oneself up to be publicly shamed. How refreshing, then, to read a vintage essay by Joseph Epstein singing Latin’s praise. Epstein picked it up at 81, for the fun of it and because ‘I found not knowing Latin a deficiency, especially in a person of my rather extravagant intellectual and cultural pretensions’. His complex soon yielded to delight. Latin, he stresses, is a language of beauty, at once precise and subtle, gorgeously architectural. The study of Latin is a school in clear thinking, of which we’re in dire need. The Roman Catholic Church is heir to a vast intellectual and cultural heritage composed in Latin. To access it only in translation is to miss out on treasures. Who would doubt the necessity of learning German to savour and analyse Goethe? Vatican II confirmed the status of Latin as a living language. Among other things, it laid down that ‘the Latin language is to be retained by clerics in the divine office‘, for which purpose they must learn it well. Whatever happened to that conciliar counsel for renewal?

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