Laudator Temporis Acti

From the Wikipedia article on The Omen movie (1976):

An original score for the film was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, for which he received the only Oscar of his long career. The score features a strong choral segment, with a foreboding Latin chant. The refrain to the chant is, "Sanguis bebimus, corpus edimus" (Latin, "We drink the blood, we eat the flesh"), interspersed with cries of "Ave Satani!" (Latin, "Hail, Satan!").

I don't know if those really are the words to the Latin chant in the movie. But if they are, half of the words are incorrect. Sanguis is nominative and cannot be the object of "we drink". It should be accusative sanguinem instead. There is no Latin verb bebo, from which bebimus would come. Read bibimus. Because ave is imperative singular, we need the vocative singular of Satanas to go with it, which is Satana, not Satani (see the Vulgate of Matthew 16.23).

Lionel Johnson (1867-1902) wrote a Latin hymn to Satan and dedicated it to Jorge Santayana. Whether he wrote it before or after his conversion to Catholicism, I don't know. I don't find it on the World Wide Web, so here it is:

Ecce! Princeps infernorum,
Rex veneficus amorum
Vilium et mortiferorum,
   Ecce! regnat Lucifer:
Animis qui dominatur,
Quibus coelum spoliatur;
Qui malignus bona fatur,
  Cor corrumpens suaviter.

Fructus profert; inest cinis:
Profert flores plenos spinis:
Vitae eius mors est finis:
  Crux est eius requies.
Qualis illic apparebit
Cruciatus, et manebit!
Quantas ista quot habebit
  Mors amaritudines!

Iuventutis quam formosa
Floret inter rosas rosa!
Venit autem vitiosa
  Species infamiae:
Veniunt crudeles visus,
Voces simulati risus;
Et inutilis fit nisus
  Flebilis laetitae.

Quanto vitium splendescit,
Tanto anima nigrescit;
Tanto tandem cor marcescit,
  Per peccata dulcia.
Gaudens mundi Princeps mali
Utitur veneno tali,
Voluptate Avernali;
  0 mellita vitia!

Gaudet Princeps huius mundi
Videns animam confundi;
Cordis amat moribundi
  Aspectare proelium.
Vana tentat, vana quaerens,
Cor anhelum, frustra moerens;
Angit animae inhaerens
  Flamma cor miserrimum.

Gaudet Rector tenebrarum
Immolare cor amarum;
Satiare furiarum
  Rex sorores avidas.
Vae! non stabit in aeternum
Regnum, ait Rex, infernum:
Sed, dum veniat Supernum,
  Dabo vobis victimas.

Sorry, no translation -- this sort of thing gives me the creeps.

A remake of the movie The Omen is scheduled for release on June 6, 2006 (6/6/6), which gives me an excuse to link to my essay on The Number of the Beast, where you will learn that 666 really refers to former Minnesota governor and professional wrestler J. Ventura.

Fr. Gerard Deighan writes:

Were you aware that 666 is the sum of the numbers from 1 to 36, and that 36 is, of course, the square of 6? Hence 666 is an essentially 'sixy' number. And since 6 is the number of imperfection, falling one short of 7, 666 is a cumulatively imperfect, and therefore evil, number.

Max Nelson writes:

It seems often overlooked that Irenaeus suggested that 666 stood for the names Evanthas, Lateinos, or Teitan (Adv. haer. 5.30.3; see also Hipp., Antichr. 50). The problem, I think, with most modern interpretations is that they do not work from principles of Greek numerology. For more on the standard interpretation of 666 as Nero (of which I remain highly sceptical), see W. C. Watt. "666." Semiotica 77 (1989) 369-392. Note that Jesus's name in Greek (Ἰησοῦς) is equivalent to 888 (as seen in the riddle in Syb. Orac. 1.395-399).

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Related post: Latin in Buffy and Angel.