The Gloria Patri prayer, commonly known in English as the Glory Be, dates back to the patristic times of the Church. It is the Christian adaptation of the Jewish Sh’ma (“Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One”) and the Baruch shem (“Blessed is/be the name of the glory/honor of His kingdom forever and ever”) doxology prayers. I would not be surprised if the Gloria Patria went all the way back to apostolic times. Indeed, there are elements of it within the letters of St. Paul.
There
are two versions of English translations.
First the older, more common translation:
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
The
more recently translated version which has been installed as the preferred translation
in Liturgy of the Hours books:
Glory to the Father, and
to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
There is some confusion between Catholics as to which version to use. I’m going to offer my opinion as to why I think the newer translation is more accurate.
There are three distinctions between the two versions: (1) the opening “Glory be” versus simply “Glory to;” (2) “shall be” versus “will be” in the last line; and (3) the “world without end” ending versus simply “forever” ending. Let’s first start with some of the history.
It
would be fantastic to find the original formulation of the prayer, which probably
was in Aramaic, but I don’t have access to that if it exists at all. The contemporary adaptation in Aramaic seems
to be a back translation to the Aramaic, so I can’t quite trust the existing
Aramaic as being the original. The
oldest I can trust is the Greek Orthodox version which translates into
Glory to the Father, and
to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
Both now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
There are two elements to the composition: a statement in regards to the Trinity and that statement extending for eternity.
First, I think, one must decide whether the prayer intends a declaration of a static statement as in Ps 41:14 (“Blessed be the Lord…”) or as in the Divine Praises (“Blessed be God, Blessed be His Holy Name…”) or intends an action, and I would call that action an act of bestowing—“to give something as an honour or present” (Cambridge Dictionary)—glory (that is, praise and honor) to the Trinity. Is the “glory” a static declaration or is it an act of bestowing? For me, the notion of an action onto the Trinity seems to me to be implied in the earliest form of the prayer.
Next, “unto ages of ages” is the English translation of the Greek which is a poetic way of saying never ending. “Now and always” situates the action in the present “now,” but “always” must be looking back toward the eternity from the past since the next phrase covers the eternity going forward.
At
some point—probably not very long after the original composition—the prayer was
translated into Latin, whether it came from the original Aramaic (if Aramaic
was first) or the Greek is not known.
Here is that Latin translation.
Gloria Patri, et Filio,
et Spiritui Sancto,
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum.
You can see the same elements in the Latin: Glory bestowed onto the Trinity, from now to eternity backwards and forever forward. The Latin re-orders it in temporal sequence (beginning, now, future) but adds an interesting coda, “et in sæcula sæculorum.” “Sæcula sæculorum” is the Latin way of saying “onto ages and ages,” which provides a neat closing cadence to the prayer.
The English “Glory Be” translation from the Latin dates to at least the 16th century. The oldest known publication comes from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer dating back to 1549. I could not identify whether the translation was first absorbed by the Anglicans from Catholic sources or if at some point Catholics appropriated a Protestant translation. But it is interesting to note that the oldest known documentation of the English “Glory be” translation is from a Protestant prayer book.
The newer “Glory to” version was translated by the English Language Liturgical Consultation (ELLC), an ecumenical group established in the 1960s to address common translations of liturgical and prayer texts into English. In 1971 it translated the Gloria Patri to a revised version. In 1973 the new translation was adopted as the version for the Liturgy of the Hours.
So with that historical and syntactical context, let’s compare the two English translations.
What does the “be” add in the “Glory be to the Father?” Glory be to the Father instead of Glory to the Father? There are two reasons I can see the translator might have intended.
First he could have meant the sentence be in the subjunctive mood. The subjunctive mood articulates a wish, hope or hypothetical situation. Hope or hypothetical would not apply here but certainly the translator might have thought the prayer expressed a wish for the Trinity to have glory. It would be articulating, “May glory be in the Father, son, and Holy Spirit.” If this is what he meant, I think it would not be an exact translation. I don’t see the subjunctive mood in the Latin or Greek origins. He would have added this to the English.
The second possibility is that the translator wanted to emphasize the existence of glory in the Trinity, the static expression I alluded to above. Here he would be saying, “Glory exists in the Father.” But he doesn’t use the preposition “in,” he uses the preposition “to.” Glory be to the Father… If the translator wanted to emphasize glory’s existence in God then he would have to switch prepositions to “in the Father.” Frankly I don’t know what the “be” adds.
Both possible intents of adding the “be” fail to replicate the original prayer. Perhaps the subjunctive mood comes close. Perhaps the translator is just trying to echo the Divine Praises. Nonetheless, one must admit the “Glory Be” articulation gives it a poetic emphasis, and I think is the reason why so many are reluctant to change. Glory Be has wormed into our lexicon that will just not let go.
Now let’s look at the “shall be” versus the “will be.” What is the grammatical difference between the two? The grammatical context is in the last clause: “it was, it is, and it will/shall be…” It will be or it shall be? I’ve gone to five different grammar websites, and they each have a different distinction. I think English Club makes the best argument. It points out there are two conjugations for the verb “will.”
First
conjugation: objective, simple statement of fact:
I shall be…
You will be…
He/she/it/they will be…
Second
conjugation: subjective, strong assertion, promise or command
I will be…
You shall be…
He/she/it/they shall be
It’s the complete opposite between the conjugations. So which conjugation does the clause intend? Frankly I have no idea. Is it an objective, simple statement of fact or is it a strong assertion? You can make the argument for both, and I don’t think it’s discernable what the original prayer intended. I would lean to an objective statement of fact, and so “will” I think is more accurate, but I can see someone else having a different opinion.
Finally, we come to the ending phrase “world without end.” First before we get to the translation, let’s take note that “world without end” is not a true statement both scientifically nor theologically. We know the world will scientifically come to an end one day when the sun flames out or the universe reverses expansion and collapses on itself or by some other cosmological theory. But it will all end, and certainly life will end on earth.
We also know that the world will end theologically. “The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare” (2 Peter 3:10). See also Matthew 24 and Revelation 22:13. So “world without end” is a discordant note on its face.
Now let’s look at the translation. It appears that the “and world without end” is an attempt to translate the Latin ending phrase, “et in sæcula sæculorum.” The Latin second half of the prayer praises God from the infinite past (in principio), the present (et nunc), and the future (et semper), and because the original prayer implied not just the future but an infinite future (unto the ages of ages) the Latin translator captured that by adding et in sæcula sæculorum.
So
the English translator of the Latin translates in sæcula sæculorum as
“world without end.” But is that what in
sæcula sæculorum means? That’s not
what I find. When I look up the meaning
of et in sæcula sæculorum I find “and forever and ever,” which
echoes the “unto ages of ages.” But the Gloria
Patri is not the only place where in sæcula sæculorum appears in
liturgy. We find it in the Mass in the
great doxology when the priest lifts the consecrated body and blood of
Christ. In Latin the rubrics call for
these words:
“Per ipsum et cum ipso et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti, in unitate Spritus Sancti, omnis honor et gloria, per omnia sæcula sæculorum.”
It
might be more familiar to you in English:
“Through Him, with Him and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever.”
So, sæcula sæculorum here is not translated “world without end.” At Mass we do not say “world without end” to close the doxology. It is properly translated as “for ever and ever.” It is incorrectly translated in the Glory Be.
Now
let’s look at a couple of translations from other languages and see if they
translate that last phrase to “world without end.” Here is the Gloria Patri in Italian:
Gloria al Padre e al Figlio e allo Spirito Santo.
Come era nel principio, ora e sempre, nei secoli dei secoli.
And in Spanish:
Gloria al Padre, Y al
Hijo, Y al Espíritu Santo,
Como era en el principio,
Ahora y siempre, Por los siglos de los siglos.
Amén.
Unlike the English, both the Italian nei secoli dei secoli and the Spanish Por los siglos de los siglos translates to forever and ever. [Notice too, both in Italian and in Spanish Gloria al… translates to “Glory to,” not “Glory be.”]
So we have seen that “world without end” phrase doesn’t make logical sense, isn’t the correct translation for sæcula sæculorum, and is not found in the translation of any other language. One can conclude that “world without end” is a mistranslation when the Gloria Patri was first translated into English.
To
conclude, it was probably within the English translator’s discretion to
translate “Glory be” instead of “Glory to,” within the translator’s discretion
to translate “shall be” rather than “will be,” though I think both are subtly
less precise, but incorrectly translated the ending phrase. Therefore I think the 1971 corrected
translation (Glory to…) should be the preferred English translation.
