* It is not to be said that the artistic literary structure of the Prayer is unworthy of Jesus, and must therefore be attributed to the Evangelist. On the contrary, Jesus designedly presented much of His teaching in metre and rhythm (see above, ii. 1). His marvellous literary power was exercised not for art’s sake, but to make art serve the highest well-being of men; for ideal thought cannot fulfil its whole mission until it is ideally expressed. On the logical relation of the petitions, see Plummer, art. Lorp’s PRAYER in vol. iii.
+ Tholuck, Bergrede5, p. 350 [Eng. tr. p. 328], notes that there are three elements which make up the address clause of the Prayer, and three elements which make up the doxology that came to be used at its close.
+ For the national sense cf. Dt 181 85 326, Ps 68° 8926 10313, Is 12 96 6316 648, Jer 34.19, Hos 111, Mal 16 210; for the individual sense, Wis 216 143, Sir 231-4, To 134, 3 Mac 62-8. :
§ In the Gospel of Matthew the term ‘Father’ is frequent, and is generally accompanied by either ‘my’ or ‘your’ (‘thy’) in about equal proportion, The term occurs rarely in the Gospel of Mark. In the Gospel of Luke, also, there are relatively few instances of it. But the Fourth Gospel has it abundantly in the discourse sections, often with ‘my,’ but in the main only with the article, ‘the Father.’ A comparison of the occurrence of the term in parallel Synoptic passages raises the question as to how much confidence is to be placed upon the precise attri- butive reported in connexion with the title, or upon the occur- rence of the title itself: thus in the group Mt 2699=Mk 1436= Lk 2242 we find ‘O my Father,’ ‘Abba, Father’ (the Aramaic word with its translation), and ‘Father,’ respectively ; in Mt 54 =Lk 635, Mt 1029=Lk 126, Mt 1033=Lk 129, the First Gospel has ‘Father,’ while the Third Gospel has ‘Most High’ and ‘God’; in Mt 1250=Mk 335=Lk 821 the First Gospel has ‘my Father which is in heaven,’ while the Second and Third Gospels have simply ‘God’; in Mt 2023=Mk 1040 the Second Gospel strikingly lacks the words ‘of my Father.’ It seems probable that Jesus constantly used the title ‘Father,’ as the First and Fourth Gospels record ; but that it had been largely suppressed or altered in the sources of the Second and Third Gospels, again for the reason that it was a characteristically Jewish
designation.
SERMON ON THE MOUNT 35
to be made like unto his brethren’ (He 21). The second attributive to the Idrep in the clause of address, ‘who art in heaven,’ is a truly OT and Jewish phrase, which Jesus quite surely adopted and employed.* It expresses the transcendent position and character of God. In the pre-scientific age it was natural to assign God to a particular locality ; the distant sky above the heads of men was logically chosen. But this local conception gradually retired before a growing sense of God’s tamed nature and omnipresence. With Jesus the phrase was a useful one (and we still find it so) to denote the separateness of God from men, His supermundane attributes, His absolute power and authority, His infinite character and qualities. Since the phrase meant these important things to the Jewish people of His day, and it was desirable that they should be in the mind of him who would pray to God, Jesus might well attach these words to His title of address in His model Prayer.
The first petition (dyuacOjrw 7d dvoud cov) ex- presses the devout wish of the worshipper in view of what, according to the address of the Prayer, he conceives God to be, namely, that God may be fully recognized, honoured, and revered by all. The English word ‘hallow’ is no longer in common use; it meant to ‘treat as holy,’ to revere. Thus it was a proper translation of dydgew (Lat. sanctificare), which, together with dogdfev, was employed in the LXX to render the Hebrew forms wpa and wap.§ Calvin, Kamphausen, and some others have understood that ‘the name’ in this petition was to be taken in the sense of the Third Commandment, which forbade the misuse of, and disrespect to, the title of God (so also Mt 5**-*7), This interpretation is true as far as it goes, but it is too restricted for so comprehensive a prayer as this. Rather, ‘the name’ is to be understood here in the Oriental sense, as a periphrasis for the Person Himself, as though it were said, ‘May God receive due reverence.’ ‘lo the Hebrew ‘the name’ stood for what the individual was who bore the name. God’s name designated Him as He had made Himself known to men.|| Therefore the
etition prays that God may be perfectly acknow- edged by all men, so that all that He is and does may receive due honour, and that men ma commit themselves to Him as their Father (cf. Ro 144, Eph 34-9),
The second petition (€@drw 7 Bacihela cov) {] ex-
* This is shown by the frequent occurrence of the phrase in the First Gospel, e.g. Mt 516.45. 48 G1. 14. 26.32 711.21 1932.33 1250 1518 1617 1810. 14. 19. 35 939; cf. also Mk 1125. 26, Lk 1118; its almost total absence from the Second and Third Gospels is another feature of the universalization of this material. For Jewish usage see ’Abéth v. 30; Sétd ix. 15; Yomd viii. 9; and Dalman, Wor'te Jesu, i. 150-159, 299-306. Wendt, Lehre Jesu, i. 62f., can hardly be right in holding that this phrase is an addition in the Matthew passages, not to be attributed to Jesus.