“Supplices te rogamus, omnipotens Deus: jube haec perferri per manus sancti Angeli tui in sublime altari tuum, in conspectu divinae majestatis tuae: ut quotquot ex hac altaris participatione sacrosanctum Filii tui Corpus et sanguinem sumpserimus, omni benedictione caelesti et gratia repleamur.”
Pardon the length, but my question is about sumpserimus- What can you tell me about it’s syntax? is it in perfect subjunctive or future perfect? Is it being used because “ut quotquot…” is a purpose clause? Thank you!
Hi there.
First of all, a small correction: in sublime altare [not altari] tuum. I would say it’s a future perfect. It has nothing to do with “ut”. “Ut” goes with “repleamur” (subjonctive: final clause).
Just my 2 cents.
tico, is it possible to distinguish the future perfect from the perfect subjunctive here?
I’m having trouble with that.
I found a long thread on this board from Jan. 15, 2006 “Perfect subjunctive or Future perfect” discussing this issue. Sorry, I don’t know how to link to the thread but you can easily search for it.
katalogon, I tried to search “Perfect subjunctive or Future perfect”: and I didn’t see the thread you’ve mentioned. You could look up perhaps how to hyperlink?
Thank you, that is a good thread. I found that the explanation from lauragibbs was helpful in understanding the similarities between the two forms. Yet following the line of adrianus, I would say that strictly speaking, my phrase:
“ut quotquot ex hac altaris participatione sacrosanctum Filii tui Corpus et sanguinem sumpserimus, omni benedictione caelesti et gratia repleamur.”
Would be described as future less vivid because it uses a perfect subjunctive with a present subjunctive. If the verb repleamur were indicative future replebimur, then the phrase would be future more vivid, and in that situation sumpserimus would be future perfect. No?
quotquot ex hac altaris participatione sacrosanctum Filii tui Corpus et sanguinem sumpserimus
as the subject of the final present passive subjunctive, repleāmur, which as tico states is coupled with ut.
I’ve seen this expression translated into English as, for example:
all of us who receive
as many of us as shall receive
I take quotquot to be an indefinite relative, and because it is indefinite, could it be that the speaker feels that there is no guarantee that there exists any person who will receive the most sacred Body and Blood; if so this gives me the feeling that sumpserimus might possibly be subjunctive.
Could this fall under the category, relative clause of characteristic?
If, however, the speaker does feel that there definitely exist people who will receive the most sacred Body and Blood, then it looks like sumpserimus would be future perfect.
I think it is unlikely to be perfect subjunctive. First, indefinite pronouns seldom take subjunctives; secondly, the “relative clause of characteristic” (generic subjunctive) to which ‘katalogon’ alludes tends to occur with negatives or phrases like sunt qui. Furthermore it is unlikely the Catholic Church would wish to stress the uncertainty of people ‘partaking of the altar’. For what it’s worth, none of the English translations gives anything resembling a perfect.
Future perfect makes sense here - a completed action in the future (‘as many of us as shall have partaken of the altar’), like future indicative conditions, and I suppose a purpose clause in the primary sequence has an element of futurity.