And lead us not into temptation. Patrimonial English.

H/T Deborah Gyapong at Anglicanorum Coetibus Blog

Charlotte Allen at First Things has a sage contribution to the conversation regarding the line in the Pater Noster — et ne nos inducas in tentationem — that is lighting up the blogosphere.

Allen's article reads in part:

The problem, as Anthony Esolen has argued, is that “lead us not” is in fact a faithful translation. Nearly all manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate Bible—the fourth-century text that is baseline Scripture for the Latin-Rite Church—some dating to the very early Middle Ages, have either ne inducas nos or ne nos inducas for the words Jesus used with respect to temptation in both Matthew and Luke. Inducas is the second-person singular present active subjunctive form of inducere, a Latin verb that means, precisely, “to lead in.” Inducas is itself a literal translation of the Greek me eisenenkeis hemas eis peirasmon, found in the very oldest manuscripts of the New Testament (eisenenkeis is a second-person singular aorist—past-tense—subjunctive form of the verb eisphero, meaning “carry in,” while peirasmon means “trial” or “temptation”). And although we don’t have the precise Aramaic words that Jesus would have spoken, Esolen observes certain parallels in the phrase to the Hebrew psalmic poetry with which Jesus was familiar and in which God plays a causative role.

And lead us not into the temptation to practice dynamic equivalency.

The effort to change the perfectly accurate patrimonial English translation of the Sixth Petition of the Lord's Prayer, and lead us not into temptation, is a "solution" far worse than any supposed interpretative problem associated with the patrimonial translation. By paraphrasing the text, as some supporters of a "re-translation" (paraphrase) have regrettably suggested, the proposed paraphrase (and do not let us fall into temptation) mistranslates the original Greek and the perfectly accurate Latin translation upon which is based the perfectly accurate English translation.

One wonders what proponents of the paraphrase will do with the following passage from the Holy Gospel of St. Matthew 4:1.

Tunc Iesus ductus est in desertum ab Spiritu ut temptaretur a diabolo(.)

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.—RSVCE

Jesus was led by the Spirit into temptation, into a time of trial. What say ye now, O men of letters?

Pope Francis has reminded us that God tempts no one (Epistle of St. James 1:13-14—Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one; but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.). The Catechism provides a full treatment of the Sixth Petition of the Lord's Prayer: CCC 2846 - 2849.

Loose play with translations of Holy Scripture, such as the French have now entertained by their implementation of the new paraphrase ne nous laisse pas entrer en tentation, will undoubtedly be corrected under a future pope who, acknowledging the importance of preserving accuracy and thus continuity with the biblical Greek, will help learned French bishops and others who fall into the trap of dynamic equivalency to recover their senses and return to ne nous soumets pas à la tentation. In the mean time, pious men and women who pray the Rosary in French will likely continue to pray the Lord's Prayer using the traditional text that preserves the biblical understanding.