National Catholic Reporter

NCR has obtained a copy of the draft translation of the Order of Mass that is now awaiting comments from English-speaking bishops.

I already noted one important point two weeks ago, which is that in the words spoken by the priest over the chalice, the Latin phrase pro multis is rendered “for all” rather than “for many,” as some traditionalists have long insisted. An earlier draft of the ICEL translation, also obtained by NCR, had adopted the formula “for the many,” but the bishops opted to return to “for all” in their mid-January meeting.

Footnote 14 in the current draft comments on this choice:

“The translation of pro multis as ‘for all’ has been retained in the proposed text as a rendering of the original biblical text, even though it does not appear to be a literal translation. An equivalent translation of pro multis is offered in the Eucharistic words of institution in Spanish (por todos los hombres), Italian (per tutti), German (für Alle), and Portuguese (por todos homens). A rationale for this translation is given in Notitiae, Volume VI (1970), pp. 39-40, 138-40, which states: ‘…secundum exegetas verbum aramaicum, quod lingua latina versum est , significationem habet : multitudo pro qua Christus mortuus est, sine ulla limitatione est, quod idem valet ac dicere: Christus pro omnibus mortuus est …’ And: ‘… in adprobatione data huic vernaculari variationi in textu liturgico nihil minus rectum irrepsit, quod correctionem seu emendationem expostulet.”

(The Latin translates as: “According to Aramaic scholars, the word which has been translated into Latin as pro multis has the meaning pro omnibus: the complex of peoples for whom Christ died is without any limitation, which is the same as saying: ‘Christ died for all.’ In the approval given to this vernacular variation in the liturgical text, nothing has come out which would demand a correction or a change.”)

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My comment: Looking at gospel translations at peshittata.org, it looks like there is no word that means "for many", rather, as in English, there is a word for "many" and another word for "for the sake of". The scholarship of these unnamed "Aramaic scholars" appears doubtful. First of all, a two word phrase is not a single word. Secondly, it seems unlikely that "for many" has to mean "for many without limitation". Surely a Jewish farmer who said he had "many chickens" would not have been understood by his listeners to be claiming that he had infinitely many chickens. Thirdly, even infinitely many does not necessarily mean all. Even numbers (2 4 6 8...) can be counted "without limitation", but that does not mean that saying "even numbers" is the same as saying "all numbers".