Meaning of "in saecula saeculorum"?
  • AngelaRAngelaR
    Posts: 319
    Is there a decent translation of "in saecula saeculorum" which is a little more literal than "world without end" but which still makes sense? And does anyone know the background on the use of this phrase as a part of the Gloria Patri?
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,413
    There is the Orthodox locution, 'unto ages of ages', which is somewhat more literal. There is also a quite nice variant in use at St Meinrad's Archabbey and elsewhere, but I cannot recall it verbatim at the moment.
  • priorstf
    Posts: 460
    "unto ages of ages" sounds as good as it's going to get. Saeculum is a word with numerous meanings relative to time so i.s.s. is a colloquialism. Perhaps "billions and billions of years" or "months of Sundays" would convey the idea, but MJO's reference to the Orthodox is far more eloquent ... and accurate!
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    "unto ages of ages" is what the Orthodox church says. The Latin is, literally, "into ages of ages," so, there you have it. One letter difference.
  • Carl DCarl D
    Posts: 992
    I notice that Spanish and French seem to translate it as "century after century." And I've wondered why we don't use the perfectly serviceable phrase, "forever and ever."
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,477
    I just ran across this thread from last year...
    Is it going to be anything like "ages of ages" under the new rules of Authenticam-ness?
  • francis
    Posts: 10,816
    Well, for the newchurch its pronounced "newage of newage" (lol)
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,092
    What's "newchurch"?

    "Unto ages of ages" is an elegantly apt translation.
  • Marc Cerisier
    Posts: 536
    We use the St. Meinrad variant:

    Glory to the Father and the Son,
    and the Holy Spirit,
    as always before,
    so now and evermore.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    good question, Mr. Wood! I would imagine that such an ingrained prayer as the Glory Be would remain untouched, but I have no idea. Does anybody here know?
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,413
    I really like the St Meinrad rendering of sicut erat. It has a beautifully poetic weight. But Glory without the 'be' always sounds terse, disrespectful and ungracious to me. It's missing something - a worshipful pace and cadence.
  • Maureen
    Posts: 678
    In the new OF translation, "per saecula saeculorum" is translated "forever and ever". "In saecula saeculorum" is a little trickier to use.

    The trick is not to imply that time, or space, is going to be lasting forever, or that God began when space-time did. And really, an "age of ages" isn't supposed to mean forever. It just means a really really really really really long time, which for these purposes is a convenient idiom to refer to things like "for as long as ever time lasts" and "eternally in eternity, outside time and space".

    "World without end" is actually the Old English "werold", which meant "this human generation, this age" and came to mean "human existence" and "world" thanks to Latin "saeculum". It's a great word that comes up a lot in glosses. "On weoruld a weoruld".
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen E_A_Fulhorst
  • Blasius
    Posts: 1
    "Unto ages of ages" or "in ages of ages" sounds like ages wrapped within ages which is both poetic and has the feeling of eternity - a quality missing from "forever and ever" which seems to me to be limited to the time line instead of all of the ages of the time line contained within all the ages - both temporal and timeless. Eternity after all is the set that contains all time. Forever on the time line and the eternal moment of the timeline: "In saecula saeculorum" contains theological insight.
  • aldrich
    Posts: 230
    Our lead cantor disapproves of the use of "forever and ever." That is why in my own translations, I use "ages of ages," with the correct preposition corresponding to the Latin. So for the Gloria Patri, my translation goes:

    Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, so may it be now, and always, and in the ages of ages. Amen.

    P.S. The Spanish translation is actually in the plural "los siglos de los siglos," which is actually the literal translation of "saecula saeculorum." The Latin "saeculum" is the etymological origin of the Spanish "siglo." It just eventually developed in meaning until sometime "siglo" became quantified as a period of 100 years.
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,192
    Let's see, distilling from the above and elsewhere:

    The phrase in Greek is "εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων" which would be "aiōnes of aiōnes" (think "eons of eons" or "ages of ages"). The Vulgate translates "aiōnes" as "saecula," and hence we get "in saecula saeculorum." The original meanings of the Greek "aiōn" and of the Roman "saeculum" both equated to the potential maximum human lifespan of approximately a 100 years. The pluralized "aiōn" or "saeculum (or "age") thus becomes "(multiple) ages of (multiple) ages," which apparently was a way of expressing a Semitic idiom for "forever." Maureen is correct that "world without end" expresses the same concept, especially when one takes into account the derivation of "world" from the Anglo-Saxon "weoruld" which means "world (inclusive of all temporal things)," "life, temporal or worldly life" or "lifetime, century." The translators of the KJV knew what they were doing.


    Side note:

    The phrase "century of centuries" is literally "ten thousand years" which itself has meaning in East Asian languages and is used to refer to the wish for long life for the Emporer. This is often rendered as "long live" in English or "many long years" in Slavic languages. Tangentially (or not?), one of the well-worn stanzas of "Amazing Grace" – or "Jerusalem, My Happy Home" from which it was borrowed – begins "When we've been there ten thousand years."


  • ScottKChicago
    Posts: 349
    I believe the Saint Meinrad version is meant to work better with the Saint Meinrad tones and the Grail psalter, and to me it sounds as though it might also have been influenced by a German version (Saint Meinrad Archabbey was founded by Swiss monks). Probably something like:

    Ehre sei dem Vater, und dem Sohn(e),
    und dem Heiligen Geist(e),
    Wie im Anfang, so auch jetzt und allezeit
    und in Ewigkeit. Amen.
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