I
A. C. Deane: We have now to consider the second part of the Lord's Prayer: that which teaches us, having made petitions for God's glory, to add others about our human needs. Yet these sentences too must be unselfish; whatever we ask is not for our individual selves alone, but for all our fellow-men. Thus the prayer can never be inopportune. If there be any want made known by it which is not ours at the moment, we may be sure that it is felt acutely by myriads of others, and for them we intercede. And there is great comfort in the thought that we are encouraged by Jesus to speak thus to our Father; not merely to worship or to petition for the growth of His Kingdom, but to pray about our own human wants, and to be confident that He will answer. It seems a fact of vast significance, not to be ignored even in the most scientific discussion of prayer and its efficacy, that He Who knew both human nature and the mind of God beyond all other should have been thus explicit in His certainty about prayer and its wide scope.
In considering the second part of the Paternoster, let us follow the same general lines as before, concerning ourselves less with remoter applications of the word than with the words themselves, and trying to elicit their exact meaning. I am sure that the need of this is greater than most of us, naturally enough, imagine.
Thus we may suppose that the first of these latter petitions, which we know in the form "Give us this day our daily bread," is of a significance quite self-evident. Yet, in point of fact, there is no other sentence of the Paternoster the true force of which has been the theme of such prolonged debate among scholars. Its meaning depends upon the Greek word for which "daily" [epiousios] has been made to stand as the English equivalent. (This translation, as it happens, is really due to the Latin version of the Prayer, and not directly to the Greek.) But the original Greek word appears only in the Lord's Prayer - both in the Matthean and Lucan versions. It occurs nowhere else in the Greek Testament, and, as yet, has been found in no other Greek writing. Within years comparatively recent, our knowledge of the Greek New Testament has been increased vastly by the discovery among the papyri of many non-literary documents - such as private letters, notices, and bills - written in Greek of the same period. (The reader will find a "popular" and most fascinating account of this, and its bearing upon the New Testament, in Professor Milligan's volume, "Among the Papyri", Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd.). Thus we have been helped to be sure about the meaning of words that appear only a few times in the New Testament, and not at all, or with other shades of meaning, in earlier Greek. Thirty years ago (ca. 1900) there were about five hundred words which were supposed to belong to the special vocabulary of New Testament Greek, and were unknown outside it. Now thanks to the papyri, the number has been reduced to about fifty. Moreover, we have learnt that the kind of Greek used in the New Testament was not, as had been thought, an artificial idiom, but was the common speech of the time ["koine" Greek]. Many of the Jews were bilingual, like the modern Welsh, and spoke both Aramaic and Greek.
So far, however, this word, translated "daily," has not been discovered anywhere outside these two places in the New Testament - outside, that is, the two versions of the Lord's Prayer. Was it coined for the purpose, invented to render some special Aramaic word used by Jesus when He taught the Prayer? Or, again, was it used by Him on some occasion when He spoke the Prayer in Greek? This may be less likely, yet it is not impossible. The real point that concerns us, however, is to make ourselves as sure as we can of its actual meaning.
How is this to be done? Well, let us imagine that in reading an English book we came upon a word new to us - a word, moreover, we could not find in any dictionary. What we should do would be to ponder its possible derivations. There might be more than one. Let us invent a word, to make the point clear. Let us fancy that we met the word "resignment" - which does not, I think, exist. What, we should ask, is its meaning? Evidently something connected with "resigning." But then a further question must follow. Has it something to do with "resigning," "resignation," "giving up" - or is it connected with "re-signing," "adding another signature?" That is a rough analogy to the kind of inquiry scholars have had to pursue with regard to the adjective attached to "bread" in the Paternoster.
II
It would be needless to attempt even to summarize all the theories, but, in the main, two derivations have been thought possible. According to the former, the two words taken together would mean "bread for our being," "bread for our subsistence" and so "the bread we need." According to the other derivation they would mean "bread for the immediately coming time," "bread for the coming day," or, as we should put it in ordinary English, "bread for to-morrow." And it may be said, I think, that this latter interpretation is now supported by a majority - perhaps by a large majority - of modern scholars. Their decision is based, of course, on technical grounds, unsuitable for discussion here. But we shall see easily, I think, how welcome this decision is for reasons other than technical - how aptly it fits with the rest of our Lord's teaching, how greatly it enriches this sentence of the Lord's Prayer. Arranging the words as they stand in the original, the petition will be: "Our bread of to-morrow give us this day." Dr. Moffatt's rendering, in his version of St. Matthew 6:17 is "Give us to-day our bread for the morrow."
We will assume, then, this to be the true meaning. And before noticing in detail how real is the gain which it brings, let us remark that there is no corresponding loss; that the force of the petition as we have used it hitherto still remains. The main thought, doubtless, which the words "Give us this day our daily bread" held for us has been that we look to God for the things (in the Prayer-book phrase) "requisite and necessary as well for the body as the soul"; that our bodily needs are not forgotten by our Father, and that we have Christ's authority for praying about them. The new rendering leaves us still the welcome comfort of that truth. As much as ever our sense of dependence on God is emphasized. Yet the precise point of emphasis is changed. The old thought, though retained in its fullness, becomes subsidiary to the new. In its chief significance the prayer becomes one less for food than for peace of mind. The reason of our asking for the food is that we may be freed from anxiety. "Give us not accumulated wealth, not heaped-up stores for all the days to come - we do not ask for that - but give us sufficient simple provender in hand that our lives may not be marred by over-anxiety about the morrow. Give us to-day to-morrow's bread."
Let us think of the people to whom first our Lord taught this prayer - the people amongst whom He lived and worked. A few of them were rich. A few were so poor as to be almost destitute. But the most of them were, as we should say, people of narrow means. So long as they could earn their wages they managed well enough. Only there was nothing to spare. They had no margin. The day's wage had to buy the day's food. If an unexpected guest arrived, there would be nothing in the cupboard; the host must try to borrow some provision from a neighbor. With people so circumstanced, one of the worst troubles, affecting their whole thought and making them less easily reached by any spiritual message, was this uncertainty about the necessaries of life, this so frequent worry about to-morrow's food. The Gospels show that our Lord found it a real obstacle to His mission. It engrossed the hearts of men, so that they were slow to receive His message. It precluded that serene tranquillity of mind which was His own, which He longed to impart to His followers. They were apt to be absorbed by the task of obtaining "the meat which perisheth" (John 6:27), by their material wants. Our Lord tried to combat this influence. He spoke about it explicitly, urging His listeners to master over-anxiety about the morrow, this worry over obtaining food and drink and clothes. But He gave them His sympathy too, for He Himself had known want, and had felt the downward pull of material needs. He understood how hard it was for them to heed spiritual teaching unless they could be liberated from this worry, by knowing that they had something in hand. So He encouraged them to pray for it, and to ask that God would remove their need for anxiety by letting them possess enough for the morrow. "Give us to-day," they were to pray, "to-morrow's bread."
III
If this be the true meaning of the sentence, is it not one we shall value highly? As the first of the petitions we are taught to make for ourselves, we ask to be made, not wealthy, but sure of the morrow, exempt from the mental troubles which militate fiercely against the life of the soul. And the presence of this clause in the Lord's Prayer shows that He sympathizes with us about this. He knows the evil influence of worry, on soul and body alike. Worry kills more people in this country each year than does influenza or any other plague.
Experience confirms, too, the understanding wisdom shown in the wording of the sentence. It is not so much the present difficulty that is so hard to bear as the less definite troubles about the future, the absence of a margin, the fears about to-morrow's bread. Probably this trial was never more common than in our own age, with its financial stringency and unsettled outlook. We find it in many walks of life. Here - to take instances almost at random - is a workingman; he has a job at the moment, but is afraid of being turned adrift to-morrow. Here is a journalist who has served his paper through long years. He has given it his best. But there are rumors of a changed proprietorship and many dismissals; his heart is sick with fear about to-morrow's bread. Here is a clerk, on an income which makes saving impossible. His employers talk of forced economies, through the decline of trade, and a reduced staff. What, he wonders, is to become then of his delicate wife and children? Or the writer with a dwindling market, or a minor actress near the end of a run, or the elderly governess, or the professional worker with increasing expenses and diminishing income. ... Were it an actually present trouble, of which they knew the worst, it would be easier to bear, in a sense, than this harassing uncertainty about the future. They live their lives bravely, they try to hope for the best; few of their friends and none of their acquaintances are allowed to guess that they are haunted by this specter of anxiety. Yet there are solitary moments in the dark of night when the burden seems almost greater than they can bear. Had they only, as we say, something to fall back upon, had they some little store in hand, their whole prospect would be transformed.
Or here (to take an instance of a quite different kind) is a statesman gravely concerned over perils which, in his judgment, the nation will have to face before long. Its resources are enough, perhaps, to meet immediate needs - but will they suffice for that morrow?
IV
I need not multiply examples. Do we not know, in some degree, these fears about our future, or about the futures of those we love? And, when it becomes acute, this anxiety preys not only upon physical but upon spiritual health. It becomes extraordinarily difficult for people to lift their thoughts to the highest things while they are obsessed by these haunting worries, and have nothing in hand. It is this that they crave - to have some security, to feel that, whatever to-morrow's need, they have provision for it safe in store. "Give us to-day," they ask, "to-morrow's bread!" It seems a thought to be treasured that when we use this sentence of the Lord's Prayer we are praying for all these people, the anxious and heavy laden; all the brave folk who carry on stoutly, yet at heart are dismayed by the fear of a breadless morrow - dismayed, likely enough, far less for themselves than for the sake of wife, or husband, or children. As we understood the words in the past, we prayed in this clause of the Paternoster for bodily needs alone. "Give us the bread we need to-day." As this other rendering interprets it, we pray for tranquillity of mind as well as for bodily food; in fact, our reason for asking that we may have the necessaries of bodily life in advance is that thereby we may secure peace of mind. And we ask for peace of mind because a disquieted mind wars against the life of the soul.
When we think again of the humble folk to whom first our Lord gave His Prayer, we can understand how readily they would welcome the use the sentence which prayed to-day for to-morrow's bread. The question had been asked, however, whether to take the petition in this sense be not discrepant with our Lords exhortation to "take no thought for the morrow" (Matt. 6:34). Yet the answer is simple. The command was not really to take no thought for the morrow, but as the Revised version rightly indicates, "be not anxious," "be not over anxious," "do not worry" about to-morrow. And then in the Lord's Prayer, He bids us pray for what will remove the cause of over-anxiety. Indeed, the best safeguard against it is to cast our cares upon God, to bring our wants for the morrow before Him in prayer.
And the prayer is heard. In ways past finding out, in ways past man's understanding, God does supply the needs of those who trust Him. Theirs (the history of a myriad disciples confirms the fact) is a tranquillity of mind which has grown out of experience. For each coming day God makes provision beforehand, until the last - and beyond the last. He will give us to-day, in this sense also, to-morrow's bread; will bestow now the strength we shall need when this day is done. To the life spent apart from God the evening comes chill and disconsolate: the shadows thicken as the end seems near. To the life with God also evening comes - yet it is no ending of life. Faith feels the night-wind, and knows it for the herald of fresh youth. Faith views the tranquil sundown, and sees in its last glow a promise of the leaping dawn.
by Anthony C. Deane, Canon of Worcester Cathedral, pre-1939.
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