Lord's Prayer

THE LORD’S PRAYER : M. M. NINAN
Twentieth Century New Testament which has ‘Give us today the bread that we shall need’,
E.V. Rieu who has, ‘Give us the bread of life today’.
The second line goes back to the Vulgate, and is therefore of very great importance because the
Vulgate is the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. When in the fifth century Jerome produced the
Vulgate by a revision of the Old Latin translation he did not keep the phrase quotidiammz panem; he
introduced a much more difiicult phrase, super-substantialem panem, super-substantial bread, which
must mean bread of more than human, more than physical, more than material, more than earthly
substance.
This very naturally got into the Roman Catholic translations such as the Rheims. Equally naturally, this
was the translation of Wycliffe, because Wycliffe was largely dependent on the Vulgate. He has, ‘Give
us this day our bread over other substance’.
Ronald Knox in his modern Roman Catholic translation put into the text the standard translation, ‘Give
us this day our daily bread’; but he has a footnote saying that here the word in the Latin is super
substantialis, which, he rightly says, has sometimes been taken as a direct reference to the Holy
Eucharist.
Here then is the situation. Upon investigation the simple word produces a crop of complications. Why
should this be so?
The reason for the doubt is this. The Greek word in question is Qiourias; and the fact is that there is no
other occurrence of it in the whole of Greek literature. This is the sole occurrence of the word; it may
well have been coined by the man who wrote Matthew’s Gospel; and therefore there is no parallel
whatsoever which might help us to define its meaning..... The trouble lies in this.
The word epiourio: is a compound word.
The first part of it is the preposition epi, which can mean for, towards, upon. The second part of the
word is ousios.
This is a participial form. Now there are two very common Greek verbs einai, to be, and ienai, to come
or to go (the i is pronounced separately, ee-en-ai). The feminine present participle of einai is ousa, and
the feminine present participle of ienai is iousa. There is only an iota of a difference. The question
therefore is whether the preposition epi has been combined with the participle of the verb to be, and
whether therefore epiousios has something to do with being, or, whether it has been combined with the
participle of the verb to come, and whether therefore epiousios has something to do with that which is
coming. The interpretations of epiousios therefore oscillate between the ideas of being and coming.
(1) If we take it that epiousios has to do with being, then we will get three main ideas.
First, the prayer may mean bread for our physical being, bread to keep us in being, to keep us alive,
bread for our day to day needs.
Second, the prayer may mean bread for our essential being, for our spiritual being. This then will be a
prayer for the ‘super-substantial’ bread, the bread that is real, essential, spiritual bread for our spiritual
nourishment and growth.
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