There is complete agreement between the BCP and the KJV with regard to the use of pronouns for the Deity. God is always addressed in the second person singular. Further, the BCP, like the KJV, when offering translations of ancient texts from Hebrew, Greek or Latin, faithfully follows a literal approach, so that where there is a second singular in the original there is “thou/thee” in the translation.

However, some of the content of the BCP and of the related book of ordination services represents rites or parts of rites which were either new compositions or a revision of a medieval compositions. In three places in this new material we find that contemporary (i.e., mid-sixteenth century) English usage is followed when addressing human beings. Here to the surprise of those who are unfamiliar with the development of modern English, a single human being is addressed as “ye/you” rather than “thou/thee”. The reason for this apparent novelty is that good manners and general convention required the use of “you” if one was seeking to be polite to either a man or a woman.

1. The Catechism

The Catechism begins with three questions which the modern reader will tend to assume are addressed to more than one young person. This is because “you/your” is used.

What is your name?

Who gave you this name?

What did your Godfathers and Godmothers then [at Baptism] for you?

However, when we think about it we see that if addressed to more than one, it should be “What are your names?” and so on.

Immediately after these three questions, which use “you,” the questions and directions on the Apostles’ Creed all use “Thou.” For example:

Rehearse the articles of thy belief.

What dost thou chiefly learn in these articles of thy belief?

Then, perhaps surprisingly to the modern reader, before the section on the Ten Commandments the Catechism reverts to the use of “you.”

You said that your Godfathers and Godmothers did promise for you that ye should keep God’s commandments. Tell me how many there be.

Then immediately after the stating of the Commandments by the candidate the questions revert to the use of “thou.” For example:

What dost thou chiefly learn by these commandments?

And from this point onwards there is only the use of the “thee/thou” by the Catechist as he addresses the candidate.

How do we explain this? It would appear that the use of “thee, thou, thy” points to a relation of intimacy, here an intimacy with the Gospel, the Church and with God the Father through Jesus Christ because of baptism and faith in the candidate.

At the same time, it would appear that the use of “you, ye, your” points to an indirect relation via Godparents, a mediated relation. All the questions using “you” presuppose the mediation of the Godparents and all the questions using “thou, thee, thy, thine” presuppose a personal appropriation of the Faith by the candidate and thus an intimacy with the Lord.

2. The Churching of Women

The rubrics of the service of thanksgiving after childbirth assume that it is offered to God for one woman at a time. The priest does not assume familiarity with the woman and address her as “thou/thee” but addresses her politely saying, “Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his goodness to give you safe deliverance and hath preserved you in the great danger of childbirth: You shall therefore give hearty thanks unto God…”

3. The Ordinal – the Consecration of a Bishop

The use of the second person singular in The Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests and Deacons [ = The Ordinal] is most interesting, opening a large window upon mid-sixteenth century English.

In all Three Services, God is addressed as “Thou/Thee” and there are no exceptions to this rule. God is never the “You-God”.

Further, in each of the Three Services, the candidate is ordained with words that also use the second person singular – e.g., “take thou authority” & “committed unto thee” & “be thou a faithful” & “thou stir up”.

However, in the last of the Three Services, involving the Bishop, the Archbishop delivers to him a Bible after he has been ordained and, as he delivers it, addresses him. In the first part of this brief address the Archbishop uses the words “thyself” “thou” and “thee”. Then, perhaps surprisingly, in the second half the Archbishop switches to “ye” and “you”: “Be so merciful, that ye be not too remiss; so minister discipline, that you forget not mercy…” With each set of pronouns, he is addressing the one and the same person.

There is another surprising thing in the Service for the Ordaining & Consecrating a Bishop. It is this. In each of the eight questions put to the Bishop-elect as well in the introduction and final statement of the questioning, the Archbishop addresses him as “you” and “ye”. “Are you persuaded…?” “Will you maintain…?” and so on.

Now in the parallel questions addressed to the candidates within the other Two Services there is also the use of “you”; but, in these it is clearly assumed that several men are being ordained together and thus the “you” is the second person plural form.

So we see that there is the use of “you” as second person singular in a large part of the Service for Bishops and that in one particular paragraph (the address as the Bible is delivered) the new Bishop is first addressed as “thou/thee” and then as “you/ye”.

What are we to make of this?

At that time “you/ye/your” was a polite form (hence “your majesty”). Since a bishop belonged to the Lords spiritual, he was addressed as an Earl, Duke, Lord & King – “ye/you/your”. However, in divine worship before God he is the equal of all the baptized and so he is addressed as “thou/thee/thine/thy”.

It will be agreed that more honour is due to Almighty God than to a catechumen, a newly delivered woman, or even than to a bishop of the Established Church, yet from what we have just seen, the last three can on occasion be addressed in the Prayer Book by the polite second person plural, but the first (God) never. The more we look into the matter the less surprising it should be.

This sixteenth-century practice was not itself new. The fourteenth-century English lyrics always address God as Thou, Thee; but you was always demanded for polite address. What was already the normal differentiation of address to God became in the sixteenth-century a much more prominent feature of the common language, because of the Englishing of the liturgy. The second singular to God remained a special, but normal, style of language until the mid twentieth century. The cultural revolution of the 1960s, without regard either to the ordinary language or to its traditions, reversed what had been common speech for six hundred years.

Whether the post-revolution practice of addressing God as “You” counts as common speech is an open question. Changes made to the common language for reasons of ideology or political correctness do not always stick, and it remains to be seen whether this one can endure.

(See further NEITHER ARCHAIC NOR OBSOLETE. The Language of Common Prayer and Public Worship, by P. Toon & L.R. Tarsitano, The Prayer Book Society of the USA – 1-800-727-1928 - and Edgeways Books of the UK ISBN 0907839754)

The Rev’d Dr. Peter Toon September 21, 2004