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There is definitely a churchyness to the word amen.

This is largely appropriate, but there is an irony too.  I’ll get to that later.

The word amen first appeared in English more than eleven hundred years ago.  It was one of those words that came with church-Latin to England before the arrival of French; that makes it Old English.

The Latin word was taken from Greek and the Greek was taken from Hebrew.

Hebrew is not an Indo-European language.  It along with Arabic and a number of other languages fall into a category now called Afro-Asiatic languages.

The Hebrew, Greek, Latin path of the word amen fits well with the path of Christianity.

Back in Hebrew the roots of amen meant “to be firm.”  So that a statement of amen was intended to add weight to what had already been said by agreeing with it—much like today.

The document in which amen is first found as an English word is a very important manuscript.  The Lindisfarne Gospel is a showpiece now in the hands of the British Library.  It is beautiful but it holds meaning beyond the religious meaning it was originally intended to portray.

Sometime around the year 700 a fellow named Eadfrith began to work on producing this book.  He wrote it in Latin and decorated it with all manner of gorgeous pieces of art with vivid colors that still sparkle today.

Later in about 970, a guy named Aldred felt that the messages contained in this valuable book were so important that they should be understandable by not only scholars of Latin, but also English speakers.  And so, between the lines of Latin on the page are written an English translation.

Instead of translating the Latin word amen into the English word truly, as can be seen in some other old documents, in this case the English translator borrowed the Latin word right into English and thus made it an English word.

We will never know how many old manuscripts have been lost over the centuries but the fact that this particular one has survived underlines its value.  At every stage along its path to us its owners knew it was something special and so kept it safe; that literally includes keeping it safe from Viking attack.

That original artist though lived in interesting times and how those times are reflected in his work give the Lindisfarne Gospel added meaning.

In the year 664, only a few decades before Eadfrith sat down with pen in hand, there had been a big meeting now known as the Synod of Whitby.  At that meeting various factions of the various churches then operating in England had agreed on most of their differences.

Their differences were based on the fact that Christianity had first arrived with the Romans just before the fall of the Roman Empire, and then been reintroduced by St Augustine after the Anglo-Saxons had moved in.  The result was that there were Celtic believers with their traditions and Anglo-Saxon believers with their traditions plus Roman church influences and others.

Looking at the amazing graphics in the Lindisfarne Gospel you can see elements from all of these traditions blended so skillfully they all fit peacefully together.

Clearly this manuscript is valuable and it is value that is also at the heart of the etymological irony I mentioned earlier.

One of the stories about Jesus is how he lost his cool over the money changers in the temple.

The Semitic root of the word amen means “to be firm” but also happens to be the root of the word mammon.

Mammon in English holds a meaning of “wealth” or “possessions” but with a negative undertone.

The Semitic root of “firmness” expressed itself through mammon as something that could be believed in, something that held its worth.