The third word of the phrase is related to ‘factory’ from Latin and ‘poet’ from Greek. The general etymological meaning, and the specific meaning of this particular form and context in the creed, is to make, create, or construct.
Lexically, then, the phrase “begotten, not made” is correct, or nearly so.
Communicatively, however, the translation arguably fails, because ‘begotten’ has become archaic, so much so that it is nearly unintelligible to many twenty-first century readers. The word ‘begotten’ is an artifact from an earlier phase of linguistic use.
Can a better rendering be found?
Against the search for a better translation, some might argue that it is the job of believers to catechize one another, and so explain the word and the phrase in which it is found, and so pass on an understanding of the creed.
By that logic, however, everyone would still be worshipping in Hebrew.
So, what might a better translation be? To replace ‘begotten’ with ‘sire’ would achieve little, inasmuch as the latter word is as outmoded as the former.
The authors of the Book of Concord wrestled in a slightly different way with this problem. Both in a 1581 edition at Magdeburg, and in a 1582 edition with no location given on the title page, the phrase is rendered geboren, nicht geschaffen. This would be, roughly, “born, not created.”
Lexically, this translation, given in the Book of Concord, is plausible. There is a significant similarity between the semantic field of genitum and geboren, likewise for gennithénta.
The emphasis in the creed is that the Son is the product of the Father. Therefore, to say that the Son was “born” is perhaps a slight change of focus from the Father to Mary. It is, after all, the woman who bears a child.
But if using the word ‘born’ is not true to the original ideas behind the creed, then might it also be the case that the original Latin and Greek vocabulary were also not true to those ideas? Did the authors of the creed choose their words badly?
Yet inherent in the word ‘born’ is the idea of fatherhood. It is indeed a woman who bears a child, but a father is necessarily and indispensably involved in the process. So the Book of Concord’s use of ‘born’ points to the Father.
One of the topics at hand when the creed was composed was this: If the Son were ‘created’ or ‘made’ like a rock or an asteroid, then the Son would be part of creation and thus subordinate to the Creator; and if the Son were not equal to the Father, then He could not voluntarily surrender that equality when He moved into His state of humiliation. So it is necessary that the Son not be created.
Can it be asserted, then, that the Son’s equality with the Father is posited as powerfully by ‘born’ as by ‘begotten’? If the two options are equally suited to propounding this equality, then ‘born’ has the additional advantage of intelligibility.
No definitive case is here made for altering the liturgical use by dropping ‘begotten’ and replacing it with ‘born’ in the creed. While no such case is here made, the matter merits further investigation.
