SERMON ON THE MOUNT
As repiotc.os means ‘ beyond what is necessary, so emovovov means ‘exactly what is necessary.’ “This _ is the conception of supply which we find ‘in Pr 308 ‘Feed me with the food that is needful for me.’ There are similar Targumic and Talmudic expres- sions. ‘The wording of the petition as given by Matthew is a specific request for a single occasion, understanding that the Prayer will be repeated as frequently as need arises, presumably each day ;* while Luke’s wording presents a general request for a constant supply: it would seem clear that the Matthzean form is of greater authenticity.
The fifth petition + concerns the present pou ens status of the man in relation to God. The wor- shipper is to measure himself against the Divine ideal of the highest, fullest self-development, and of complete love and service to God and one’s fellow-men. He is to observe how far he has failed to meet the obligations placed upon him by God, and why he has failed to meet them. When a man has made this inventory of his physical, moral, and spiritual status, with a sincere repent- ance for all his transgressions and shortcomings, and with a supreme purpose to achieve the Divine ideal for men, he is ready to ask God’s forgiveness in the words of this petition. Holding that God’s
spiritual meaning also stood Tertullian, Cyprian, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Ambrose, and Jerome; and in modern times Delitzsch, Olshausen, Stier, M‘Clellan. (4) That the exiodciov has a temporal signification referring merely to the day of the prayer. So the RV, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ and this is the wording in common use in Christendom to-day, made so by the popular translations of the Bible. It is re- dundant in expression, and its only merit is simplicity; for it lacks the profound meaning which inheres in the éxioicioy as interpreted in the text above. Lately this view has been again defended by Nestle (ZNZ'W, 1900, pp. 250-252; Encycl. Bibi. iii, 2819f.) on the basis of the reading NyDN (=continual), which is found in Syr cur at Mt 611 and Lk 113, and in Syr sin at Lk 11%, the Matthzan section being wanting; also in the Syriac Acts of Thomas (ed. Wright, p. 313), This PON is said to be the regular Syriac word for the translation of the Heb. 72H; and Nestle has learned that a Jewish translation of the First Gospel into Hebrew, made in the 16th cent., rendered the éxiciciov by 1DR. He supposes, therefore, that the Greek txiodc1ov in the Lord’s Prayer represents an original VDRT OD, and says that the translation ‘our daily bread’ is the best English translation of the Greek text. The difficulty with this interpretation is twofold: (a) it gives a purely tautological rendering, which is unlikely to have been original; (6) it altogether fails to account for the presence in the Greek text of this strange word éxiici0v, which seems to have been created to express an intricate thought for which no current Greek word was suitable; but if the thought was so simple as ‘continual’ or ‘daily,’ there were several common expressions at hand to use (e.g. the 70 za? juzpov of Lk 113 1947), and the LXX had already employed such (cf. Ex 513 165, Nu 416, Ps 6720, Dn 15, 1 Mac 657 815); while the early Syriac reading may well be nothing more than a simplification of a difficult expression whose exact meaning had not been clearly conveyed by the éxsobc1ov, and which in the circle of the translator was no longer understood. Chase, Lord’s Prayer in the Early Church (1891), pp. 44-53, holds that the original form of the petition was, ‘Give us our (or, the) bread of the day,’ and suggests that the newly coined word éxiciciov was later interpolated to meet liturgical exigencies in connexion with the use of the Lord’s Prayer in the evening. With this reading the Prayer could be used in the morning, and would ask bread for that same day; or it could be used at night, and would ask bread for the morrow; however, the cfuepov so replaced did not in fact disappear, but remained in the text asa confusing redundancy. Chase’s view is accepted by v. d. Goltz, Das Gebet in der ditesten Christenheit (1901), p. 49f.
*B. Weiss, op. cit. p. 136, holds that the cfuepov in the Matthew form of the petition is a subsequent addition, bearing witness to the fact that the Prayer was assigned to daily use in the early Christian liturgy. That the Prayer was used daily, or oftener, in the earlier part of the 2nd cent., is established by the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (viii. 3), and other witnesses ; but it does not follow that the cjuerov of Mt 6U is merely a product of that practice. There is no inherent reason why Jesus should not Himself have given the corresponding Aramaic word in this connexion. The Prayer was given to the disciples for regular use, because they wished some set form of prayer to recite in the common liturgical manner of the Jews (cf. Lk 111). The ‘day’ was a natural and convenient period of time (cf. Mt 684) for the repetition of the Prayer. Why should not Jesus have arranged the wording on that basis? pay ae