Steve Curtis
Puritan Board Senior
Without investing the necessary time to do the exhaustive study myself D), I was wondering if any PB classicists knew the answer offhand to this question: did Jerome ever use the vos form to refer to God? I know that the formal 2nd person form came into use around the 4th century, but don't know if it was employed in the Vulgate.
The reason behind the query: I know that Luther chose du rather than Sie as the pronoun of address to God in his translation. Did this represent a radical shift from the Vulgate (that is, a change from vos to du - formal to familiar)? Or was it, rather, a conscious decision on his part not to use the then-common formal pronoun, irrespective of the usage in the Latin?
The reason behind the query: I know that Luther chose du rather than Sie as the pronoun of address to God in his translation. Did this represent a radical shift from the Vulgate (that is, a change from vos to du - formal to familiar)? Or was it, rather, a conscious decision on his part not to use the then-common formal pronoun, irrespective of the usage in the Latin?