Farris translates Latin text of Fr. Helias

James Farris talks about the process and research that went into translating Fr. Helias' manuscript from Latin to English.
James Farris talks about the process and research that went into translating Fr. Helias' manuscript from Latin to English.

For 18 months, local Latin professor James Farris scrutinized a 150-year-old, old-world script and analyzed the impeccable grammar of Fr. Ferdinand Helias.

For the local linguist, translating the 95-page memoirs spanning two decades of the Jesuit Missionary to Mid-Missouri has been a highlight.

"I was happy to be the first person to hear his words in my mind," Farris said.

Before being handed this project from a former priest in the Diocese of Jefferson City, Farris said he knew little about Helias beyond the fact he is the local Catholic high school namesake and was a Jesuit priest.

After his translation work, for which he used a magnifying glass, Farris visited the many sites mentioned by Helias in his ministerial travels.

"It was nice to go there and know he was there," Farris said. "It was like walking through the Roman Forum and feeling the presence of the Romans there."

The Latin professor has taught at Westminster College for the last six years. Before that, he was full time, then part time, at Jefferson City High School.

As a teacher, Farris finds offering Latin as an elective helps students with their English skills and provides a greater insight to history.

As a scholar, "I'm half German and half Irish, but I think I'm Italian at heart."

Graduating from Owensville High School, Farris said he was lucky to earn a B in his first Latin classes. In college, he discovered a knack for the language. And after a Danforth scholarship let him study abroad in Rome, "I knew this was all I ever wanted to do," Farris said.

Now, he enjoys hearing when his former students have surpassed his experiences, like the one who will be on Jeopardy! Friday or another who is part of a first-time analysis of Roman artifacts at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

"I always love to see my students do better than I did," Farris said.

However, the Helias translation has been a good benchmark in his career.

"How often do language teachers get to see something never translated before?" Farris asked. "It was unbelievable."

His work, combined with Louis Bertrand's translation of Helias' personal memoirs written in French, provides a glimpse into the Belgian aristocrat-turned frontier missionary.

"He had a good sense of humor," Farris said. "You might look at the only picture taken of him and say he looked stern and rigid. From what I've read, I know he had a sense of humor."

The Latin translation shares his work-related challenges, successes and persecutions. In perfect Latin, Helias shared his thoughts on aging and even a little poetry.

"He wanted a record of his involvement that documented he did what he was supposed to do," Farris said.

The two works are by far not the first of Helias' writings to be translated. However, they do add a new layer to understanding the critical figure in the early history of Catholicism in Mid-Missouri.

Born Ferdinand Benoit Marie Guislain Helias d'Huddeghem in 1796 to a noble Flemish family in Ghent, Belgium, Helias was ordained a priest in 1824 in Switzerland. He immigrated to the United States in 1833 and arrived at St. Louis University in 1835.

Helias celebrated his first Mass in Westphalia in 1838 and established his headquarters by 1842 in Taos, where he died in 1874.

With Farris' Latin translation and Bertrand's French translation edited and copyrighted, they are now ready for public access, Farris said. The translations have been submitted to the Jesuits of St. Louis University and Notre Dame University. Also, locally, copies have been shared with the Historic City of Jefferson.