The ay-men pronunciation is a product of the Great Vowel Shift (i.e., it dates from the 15th century); it is associated with Irish Protestantism and with conservative evangelical denominations generally. It is also the pronunciation typically used in gospel music.[7]
Amen is a word of Biblical Hebrew origin.[8] It appears many times in the Hebrew Bible as a confirmatory response, especially following blessings.[9] The basic triconsonantal root --, from which the word is derived, is common to a number of languages in the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages, including biblical Aramaic. Meanings of the root in Hebrew include to be firm or confirmed, to be reliable or dependable, to be faithful, to have faith, to believe. The word was imported into Greek from the Judaism of the early Church.[3][10] From Greek, amen entered other European languages. According to a standard dictionary etymology of the English word, amen passed from Greek into Late Latin, and thence into English.[11]
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From Hebrew, the word was later adopted into the Arabic religious vocabulary and leveled to the Arabic root [citation needed], which is of similar meanings to the Hebrew. The interjection occurs in the Christian and Islamic lexicons, most commonly in prayer, as well as secularly, albeit less commonly, so as to signify complete affirmation or deference. In religious texts, it occurs in Arabic translations of the Bible and after reciting the traditionally first chapter of the Quran, which is formally akin to religious supplications.
Popular among some theosophists,[12] proponents of Afrocentric theories of history,[13] and adherents of esoteric Christianity[14] is the conjecture that amen is a derivative of the name of the Egyptian god Amun (which is sometimes also spelled Amen). Some adherents of Eastern religions believe that amen shares roots with the Hindu Sanskrit word Aum.[15][16][17][18] Such external etymologies are not included in standard etymological reference works. The Hebrew word, as noted above, starts with aleph, while the Egyptian name begins with a yodh.[19]
Although amen, in Judaism, is commonly used as a response to a blessing, it also is often used by Hebrew speakers as an affirmation of other forms of declaration (including outside of religious context).
Jewish rabbinical law requires an individual to say amen in a variety of contexts.[28][29][30] With the rise of the synagogue during the Second Temple period, amen became a common response, especially to benedictions. It is recited communally to affirm a blessing made by the prayer reader. It is also mandated as a response during the kaddish doxology. The congregation is sometimes prompted to answer "amen" by the terms ve-'imru (Hebrew: ) = "and [now] say (pl.)," or, ve-nomar () = "and we will say." Contemporary usage reflects ancient practice: As early as the 4th century BCE, Jews assembled in the Temple responded "amen" at the close of a doxology or other prayer uttered by a priest. This Jewish liturgical use of amen was adopted by the Christians.[23] But Jewish law also requires individuals to answer amen whenever they hear a blessing recited, even in a non-liturgical setting.
The use of "amen" has been generally adopted in Christian worship as a concluding word[33] for prayers and hymns and an expression of strong agreement.[23] The liturgical use of the word in apostolic times is attested (1 Corinthians 14:16[26]), and Justin Martyr (c. 150) describes the congregation as responding "amen" to the benediction after the celebration of the Eucharist.[3][33] Its introduction into the baptismal formula (in the Eastern Orthodox Church it is pronounced after the name of each person of the Trinity) was probably later.[34][33]
In some Christian churches, the "amen corner" or "amen section" is any subset of the congregation likely to call out "Amen!" in response to points in a preacher's sermon.[36] Metaphorically, the term can refer to any group of heartfelt traditionalists or supporters of an authority figure. The term has also been used as a place name, and as a title for musical and literary works; see Amen Corner.
The word Amen is one of a small number of Hebrew words which have been imported unchanged into the liturgy of the Church, propter sanctiorem as St. Augustine expresses it, in virtue of an exceptionally sacred example. "So frequent was this Hebrew in the mouth of Our Saviour", observes the Catechism of the Council of Trent, "that it pleased the Holy Ghost to have it perpetuated in the Church of God". In point of fact St. Matthew attributes it to Our Lord twenty-eight times, and St. John in its doubled form twenty-six times. As regards the etymology, Amen is a derivative from the Hebrew verb aman "to strengthen" or "Confirm".
I. In the Holy Scripture it appears almost invariably as an adverb, and its primary use is to indicate that the speaker adopts for his own what has already been said by another. Thus in Jeremiah 28:6, the prophet represents himself as answering to Hananias's prophecy of happier days; "Amen, the Lord perform the words which thou hast prophesied". And in the imprecations of Deuteronomy 27:14 sqq. we read, for example: "Cursed be he that honoureth not his father and mother, and all the people shall say Amen". From this, some liturgical use of the word appears to have developed long before the coming of Jesus Christ. Thus we may compare 1 Chronicles 16:36, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from eternity; and let the people say Amen and a hymn to God", with Psalm 105:48, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel from everlasting: and let all the people say: so be it" (cf. also Nehemiah 8:6), these last words in the Septuagint being represented by genoito, genoito, and in the Vulgate, which follows the Septuagint by fiat, fiat; but the Massoretic text gives "Amen, Alleluia". Talmudic tradition tells us that Amen was not said in the Temple, but only in the synagogues (cf. Edersheim, The Temple, p. 127), but by this we probably ought to understand not that the saying Amen was forbidden in the Temple, but only that the response of the congregation, being delayed until the end for fear of interrupting the exceptional solemnity of the rite, demanded a more extensive and impressive formula than a simple Amen. The familiarity of the usage of saying Amen at the end of all prayers, even before the Christian era, is evidenced by Tobit 9:12.
II. A second use of Amen most common in the New Testament, but not quite unknown in the Old, has no reference to the words of any other person, but is simply a form of affirmation or confirmation of the speaker's own thought, sometimes introducing it, sometimes following it. Its employment as an introductory formula seems to be peculiar to the speeches of Our Saviour recorded in the Gospels, and it is noteworthy that, while in the Synoptists one Amen is used, in St. John the word is invariably doubled. (Cf. the double Amen of conclusion in Numbers 5:22, etc.) In the Catholic (i.e. the Reims) translation of the Gospels, the Hebrew word is for the most part retained, but in the Protestant "Authorized Version" it is rendered by "Verily". When Amen is thus used by Our Lord to introduce a statement He seems especially to make a demand upon the faith of His hearers in His word or in His power; e.g. John 8:58, "Amen, Amen, I say unto you, before Abraham was made, I am". In other parts of the New Testament, especially in the Epistles of St. Paul, Amen usually concludes a prayer or a doxology, e.g. Romans 11:36, "To Him be glory for ever. Amen." We also find it sometimes attached to blessings, e.g. Romans 15:33, "Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen"; but this usage is much rarer, and in many apparent instances, e.g. all those appealed to by Abbot Cabrol, the Amen is really a later interpolation.
III. Lastly the common practice of concluding any discourse or chapter of a subject with a doxology ending in Amen seems to have led to a third distinctive use of the word in which it appears as nothing more than a formula of conclusion — finis. In the best Greek codices the book of Tobias ends in this way with Amen, and the Vulgate gives it at the end of St. Luke's Gospel. This seems to be the best explanation of Apocalypse 3:14: "These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness who is the beginning of the creation of God". The Amen who is also the beginning would thus suggest much the same idea as "I am Alpha and Omega" of Apocalypse 1:5, or "The first and the last" of Apocalypse 2:8.
The employment of Amen in the synagogues as the people's answer to a prayer said aloud by a representative must no doubt have been adopted in their own worship by the Christians of the Apostolic age. This at least is the only natural sense in which to interpret the use of the word in 1 Corinthians 14:16, "Else if thou shall bless with the spirit, how shall he that holdeth the place of the unlearned say Amen to thy blessing?" (pos erei to amen epi te se eucharistia) where to amen seems clearly to mean "the customary Amen". In the beginning. however, its use seems to have been limited to the congregation, who made answer to some public prayer, and it was not spoken by him who offered the prayer (see yon der Goltz, Das Gebet in der ltesten Christenheit, p. 160). It is perhaps one of the most reliable indications of the early data of the "Didache" or "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles", that, although several short liturgical formul are embodied in this document, the word Amen occurs but once, and then in company with the word maranatha, apparently as an ejaculation of the assembly. As regards these liturgical formul in the "Didache", which include the Our Father, we may, however, perhaps suppose that the Amen was not written because it was taken for granted that after the doxology those present would answer Amen as a matter of course. Again, in the apocryphal but early "Acta Johannis" (ed. Bonnet, c. xciv, p. 197) we find a series of short prayers spoken by the Saint to which the bystanders regularly answer Amen. But it cannot have been very long before the Amen was in many cases added by the utterer of the prayer. We have a noteworthy instance in the prayer of St. Polycarp at his martyrdom, A.D. 155, on which occasion we are expressly told in a contemporary document that the executioners waited until Polycarp completed his prayer, and "pronounced the word Amen", before they kindled the fire by which he perished. We may fairly infer from this that before the middle of the second century it had become a familiar practice for one who prayed alone to add Amen by way of conclusion. This usage seems to have developed even in public worship, and in the second half of the fourth century, in the earliest form of the liturgy which affords us any safe data, that of the Apostolic Constitutions, we find that in only three instances is it clearly indicated that Amen is to be said by the congregation (i.e. after the Trisagion, after the "Prayer of Intercession", and at the reception of Communion); in the eight remaining instances in which Amen occurs, it was said, so far as we can judge, by the bishop himself who offered the prayer. From the lately-discovered Prayer Book of Bishop Serapion, which can be ascribed with certainty to the middle of the fourth century, we should infer that, with certain exceptions as regards the anaphora of the liturgy, every prayer consistently ended in Amen. In many cases no doubt the word was nothing more than a mere formula to mark the conclusion, but the real meaning was never altogether lost sight of. Thus, though St. Augustine and Pseudo-Ambrose may not be quite exact when they interpret Amen as verum est (it is true), they are not very remote from the general sense; and in the Middle Ages, on the other band, the word is often rendered with perfect accuracy. Thus, in an early "Expositio Miss" published by Gerbert (Men. Lit. Alere, II, 276), we read: "Amen is a ratification by the people of what has been spoken, and it may be interpreted in our language as if they all said: May it so be done as the priest has prayed". 152ee80cbc
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