The foregoing petitions are regarded by Grotius, and him Achelis, as pia desideria, evyal, rather than itions proper—alryjpara, like the following three. The distinction is not gratuitous, but it is an exegetical refinement which may be disregarded. More important is it to note that the first group refers to the gon public interests of God and His kingdom, placed first here as in vi. 33, the second to personal needs, There is a corresponding difference in the mode of expression, the verbs being in the third person in Group I., objective, im- personal; in the second in Group Π., subjective, personal.
er. 11. Fourth petition. τὸν ted @v: whatever the adjective qualifying
ν may mean, it may be taken for anted that it is ordinary bread, food or the body, that is intended. All spiritualising mystical meanin of ἐπιούσιον are to be discarded. is is the one puzzling word in the prayer. It isa ἅπ -, not only in O. oe but in Greek literature, as known not only to us, but even to Origen, who (De Oratione, cap. xxvii.) states that it
πο---Ι2.
καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς] γῆς: 11. τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν ᾳ here in
,
1QBZA and some cursives omit της.
is not found in any of the Greeks, or used by private individuals, and that it seems to be a coinage (ἔοικε πεπλάσθαι) of the evangelists. It is certainly not likely to have proceeded from our Lord. This one word suffices to prove that, if not always, at least in uttering this prayer, Jesus spoke in Aramaean. He would not in such a connection use an obscure word, unfamiliar, and of doubt- ful meaning.. The problem is to account for the incoming of such a word into the Greek version of His doubtless simple, artless, and well-understood saying. The learned are divided as to the deriva- tion of the word, having of course nothing but conjecture to go on. Some derive it from ἐπὶ and οὐσία, or the parti- ciple of εἶναι; others from ἐπιέναι, or ἡ ἐπιοῦσα = the approaching day (jpépa understood), In the one case we get a qualitative sense—bread for subsistence, bread needed and sufficient (τὰ δέοντα καὶ αὐτάρκη. Prov. xxx. 8, Sept.); in the other, a temporal—bread of the coming day, panem quotidianum (Vulg., Lk., xi. 3), “daily bread’. Either party argues against the other on gram- matical grounds, ¢.g., that derived from οὐσία the word should be ἐπούσιος, and that derived from ἐπιοῦσα it should be ἐπιουσαῖος. In either case the dis- putants are ready with their answer. Another source of argument is suitable- ness of the sense. Opponents of the temporal sense say that to pray for to-morrow’s _ bread sins against the counsel, ‘‘ Take no thought for the morrow,” and that to pray, ‘ Give us to-day our bread of to-morrow,’ is absurd (ineptius, Suicer, Thesaurus, s.v. ἐπιούσιος). On the other side it is said: Granting that the sense ‘ sufficient” can be got from ἐπὶ, οὐσία, and granting its appropriateness, how comes it that a simpler, better-known word was not chosen to represent so plain a meaning ? Early tradition should have an important bearing on the question. Lightfoot, in the appendix on the words ἐπιούσιος and περιούσιος, in his work “ On a fresh Revision of the N. T.,” summarises the evidence to this effect: Most of the Greeks follow Origen, who favoured derivation from οὐσία. But Aramaic