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The Lord's Prayer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

Ernst Von Dobschütz
Affiliation:
University of Halle

Extract

The Lord's Prayer has of late received renewed study, and fresh material has been brought together for determining its form and meaning. The problems have not been fully solved, but the discussion has reached a point at which a general survey of its present state and results is interesting and profitable.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1914

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References

1 Cf. Hoennicke, G., “Neuere Forschungen zum Vaterunser,” Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift, xvii, 1906; and the articles “Lord's Prayer” in Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible, and in the Encyclopaedia Biblica.Google Scholar

2 These, however, have an Amen at the end of the prayer.

3 This paragraph is lacking in the Ethiopic version discovered by E. von der Goltz, Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie, 1906.

4 Mittheilungen des kaiserl. deutschen archaeologischen Institute, Athenische Abtheilung, xxv, 1900, pp. 313–324. A Coptic amulet was published by U. Wilcken in 1902.

5 This, however, is attested only by one Greek manuscript (U in Max Bonnet's edition, Acta apostolorum apocrypha, ii, 2, p. 250) and by the Syriac (ed. Wright, p 279; Burkitt, Evangelion da-Mepharreshe, ii, pp. 105 f., 268 f.).

6 Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie, 1904, pp. 195 ff.

7 Die älteste Form des Vaterunsers, Monatsschrift für Gottesdienst und Kirchliche Kunst, 1904, pp. 333–345.

8 Die ursprüngliche Gestalt des Vaterunsers,” in Christliche Welt, 1904, pp. 218 ff.Google Scholar

9 It is not the place here to enter upon the Synoptic problem. I am convinced that not all the materials common to Matthew and Luke are taken from Q; for example, with Matt. 11 12–14 compare Luke 16 16 and with Luke 7 29, 30, compare Matt. 21 32. Only where the wording or the order is identical is it probable that Q is used.

10 Non tam petentium quam adorantium (Wetstein).

11 We ask, ‘What is your name?’ or ‘How are you called?’ The Semite asks, ‘How is your name called?’ Gen. 32 28.

12 Cf. Gen. 21 23 (LXX), 48 16, the law relating to marrying a brother's wife in order to keep up his name; Deut. 25 6–10, Ruth 4 5 ff., 2 Sam. 14 7, 18 18. The persistence, not being personal, is bound to the name; therefore to drop the name (from inscriptions, etc.) is to destroy existence; Deut. 9 14, 29 20, Josh. 7 9.

13 So in Matt. 5 5, ‘they shall inherit the earth’ (better, ‘the land’) is equivalent to ‘theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’

14 Observe that the same group of verbs which we found connected with ‘kingdom’ is used in combination with ‘life’; ‘enter,’ Mark 9 43, 45, Matt. 18 8, 9, 19 17; ‘inherit,’ Mark 10 17, Matt. 19 29, Luke 10 25, 18 18.

15 See the discussion of individual and collective salvation in my book, The Eschatology of the Gospels, London, 1910.

16 This passage, however, seems to be modelled after the Lord's Prayer; there is nothing similar in Mark 14 36, 39, Matt. 26 39. Luke 22 42 again comes nearer to the Lord's Prayer, but is not identical with the third petition, as is Matt. 26 42. Submission to God's irresistible will is implied in Acts 21 14.

17 ‘To do the will of God’ is the common phrase in Judaism as well as in the gospels, cf. Mark 3 35, Matt. 7 21 (Luke 11 28), John 7 17, 9 31, Acts 13 22; in Rom. 2 18 ‘will’ stands for the totality of the Law. It is remarkable that the Old Syriac, which usually translates ‘do the will,’ here gives the plural, ‘thy wills (wishes) be (done).’

18 It is maintained already by Origen, the Arian author of the Opus imperf. in Matt., and the Catechismus Romanus; it has been supported recently by Nestle, in Zeitschrift für Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, vi, p. 190.

In Luke a few Latin manuscripts have the third petition without this addition. This reading was supported by Laehmann.

19 Cf. my paper on Doublets and Triplets, in Neutestamentliche Studien Georg Heinrici zu seinem 70 Geburtstage dargebracht, Leipzig, 1914, pp. 92–100.

20 It has been discussed recently by A. Debrunner, Glotta, iv, 1912, pp. 249–253, and A. Deissmann, Neutestamentliche Studien Georg Heinrici dargebracht, 1914, pp. 115–119. The former proposes to take the adjective, or what the grammarians call hypostatic, form for ἐπὶ τὴν οῦσαν (scil. ἠμέραν) ‘for the day just being,’ whereas the latter still maintains the derivation from ἡ ἐπιοῦσα (scil. ἡμέρα) ‘the next day.’

21 Cf. F. H. Chase, The Lord's Prayer in the Early Church (Texts and Studies, i, 3), 1891, pp. 42–53.

22 Compare Luke 11 13 with Matt. 7 11.

23 Eduard von der Goltz, Das Gebet in der ältesten Christenheit, Leipzig, 1901, p. 51.

24 That is very appropriate which Isidore of Seville, De officiis ecclesiasticis, i. 15 3 f., says: that in the first three petitions aeterna poscuntur, and in the following four temporalia petuntur. It has no value to compare the Lord's Prayer with the Decalogue: twice three petitions corresponding to twice five commandments; the first part dealing with piety, the second with charity. Calvin, otherwise the best interpreter, is here misled by a bad tradition.

25 Alcuin is reported to have prayed daily: ‘O Lord, grant me to acknowledge my sins, to confess them sincerely, to make satisfaction for them justly; and so grant me forgiveness of my sins’; to which prayer Benedict of Aniane wished to add, ‘and after this make me blessed (grant me salvation).’ Was this addition necessary?

26 J. J. Wetstein: Tota haec oratio ex formalis hebraeorum coneinnata est. See the materials in E. von der Goltz, Das Gebet in der ältesten Christenheit, 1901, pp. 40–41, and G. Heinrici, Die Bergpredigt, 1905, pp. 66–67.

27 C. C. Torrey, “A Possible Metrical Original of the Lord's Prayer,” in Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, vol. xxviii, 1913, pp. 312–317, gives a retranslation of the Lukan form of the Lord's Prayer into Aramaic in “six perfectly metrical lines of seven syllables each,” which deserves careful consideration. Torrey's article, The Translations made from the Original Aramaic Gospels,” in Studies in the History of Religions presented to Toy, C. H., New York, 1912, pp. 269317, also contains discussion of some of the problems of the Lord's Prayer.Google Scholar