PATER NOSTER. – Prayer taught by Jesus to the Apostles, and therefore called Oratio dominicalis. It is the Christian’s prayer par excellence, the model and archetype of every other prayer.
The formula is handed down in the twofold version of Mt. 6:9–13 and Lk. 11:2–4. The text of Matthew was adopted by the Church from apostolic times (cf. Didache, 8, which adds the well-known doxology, also incorporated into some Gospel manuscripts: “for yours is the power and the glory forever”). Amen is the “seal” (St. Jerome), which entered the Vulgate from liturgical usage. Luke’s version is shorter: it begins with the simple invocation, “Father”; the third petition (“your will be done”...) is absent, as is the last (“deliver us from evil”), which is a complement to the preceding one. Matthew’s version, being the more complete and, in the judgment of critics, the closer to a Semitic original, reproduces in substance the actual formula of Jesus. The Evangelist inserted it into the Sermon on the Mount. Luke, however, has better preserved the historical circumstance (after the episode at Bethany), prefacing it with the episode that occasioned the teaching: “And it came to pass, while he was praying in a certain place, that when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him: ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’”
The prayer begins with an elevation: “Our Father, who art in heaven.” St. Augustine highlights its social and fraternal character: “oratio fraterna est: non dicit, Pater meus, sed... omnes videlicet una oratione complectens” (Ep., 130). Above all, emphasis is placed on the tone of filial confidence in the profound sense of divine fatherhood, which in the Christian religion governs and absorbs all the creature’s relations with the Creator. The body of the prayer follows, divided into two parts: the first comprises three invocations or aspirations whose object is the glory of God
himself; the second, in four petitions, sets forth the temporal and spiritual needs of the creature.
1st part. – The first three invocations reflect, in fine symmetry, the sentiments of filial love toward the heavenly Father. They ask: 1) that “his name be hallowed,” that is, blessed, venerated, and esteemed everywhere as holy; that God be known and loved by all as the Supreme Good and the source of all perfection; 2) that “his kingdom come,” that the sovereignty of his power be established and extended everywhere, through the homage of minds and wills, and that of his love, through the broad diffusion of divine Grace, and that this kingdom unite human beings in truth, justice, and peace; 3) that “his will be fulfilled”—the condition and measure of the kingdom’s expansion—“on earth as it is in heaven”; that the Father’s just and holy will be fulfilled on earth by human beings with the same promptness and perfection with which it is carried out in heaven by the angelic spirits, the faithful executors of the divine commands (Ps. 102:20). In the threefold progressive invocation there is recognition of God’s threefold prerogative in relation to the creature: most loving and beneficent Father, glorious and universal King, supreme and absolute Lord; and at the same time there is a commitment to cooperate in the realization of such noble purposes.
Of the three invocations, the deepest and most mysterious is the second (A. Vitti, in Biblica, 23 [1942], p. 204 ff.). Its interpretation depends on the meaning attributed to the “Kingdom of God” (v. Regno di Dio), a complex notion whose single reality appears under many aspects, essentially reducible to three: individual or ascetic-mystical (the triumph of divine Grace in the soul and life of the Christian), ecclesiological or also missionary-social (the diffusion of knowledge of God and observance of his law in the world, the triumph and exaltation of the Kingdom of God on earth, the Church), and eschatological (the final manifestation of God’s glory in the triumph of his justice and the glorification of the elect). The complete interpretation is that which neither excludes nor separates the various particular aspects, but unifies them in a single spiritual vision: ut sit Deus omnia in omnibus (I Cor. 15:28).
2nd part. – The petitions arising from human weakness and indigence follow.
First of all, the Father is asked for nourishment for life, bread: but in bread, the basis of human sustenance, are included material needs of every kind, everything relating to bodily life; by extension, the petition may also apply to spiritual life, which likewise requires its nourishment. It is for each day (“give us this day”) and is intended to be a perpetual acknowledgment of God’s providence and his supreme dominion over human life, as well as of the creature’s absolute dependence on him. “Our daily bread” (Greek ἐπιούσιον): an epithet that occurs nowhere else in Sacred Scripture and is never used in classical literature, but only in the Hellenistic koinē language (some examples have recently been found in popular texts). Its meaning is disputed (F. Zorell, Lexicon graecum N. T., 2nd ed., Paris 1931, cols. 480–91), as is also shown by the differing translation of the same word in the Vulgate: supersubstantia(tm) (Mt. 6:11), and quotidianum (Lk. 11:3). The various interpretations gathered since antiquity reduce to these two senses: a) the first understands ἐπιούσιος as a synonym for ἐφήμερος (“daily”), from the participle ἐπιούσα (understood ἡμέρα) or ἐπιών (understood γρόνος), meaning the approaching or following day, or also the day that is beginning, hence bread “for the day”; this is more or less the interpretation of Athanasius, Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, many ancient and modern interpreters, and several versions (quotidianum, Old Latin; “of tomorrow” or “of the future,” Sahidic, Gospel of the Hebrews; “perpetual,” Curetonian-Sinaitic Syriac, Gothic, and Armenian; “of each day,” Ethiopic; b) the second interpretation derives the epithet from the noun ἐπι-ουσία (subsistence, substance), that is, indispensable for subsistence, hence “necessary”: this is the interpretation of Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome, Theophylact, Euthymius, and many recent Catholic and non-Catholic scholars, together with the Peshitta. This interpretation seems the most reliable, especially since the daily character is already expressed by the adverb σέμερον, “today” (Lk. 11:3 καθ' ἡμέραν, “for each day”): an epithet with the same meaning would be a tautology. The Latin term supersubstantialem has suggested the idea of supernatural bread, hence Eucharistic bread (thus, after St. Irenaeus, many ascetic writers): but such a meaning in the context can only be secondary.
“Forgive us our debts”: the merciful Father is entreated to grant us forgiveness of “our sins” (so Lk. 11:4), the terrible debt that cannot be satisfied unless the Lord himself remits II. But obtaining remission from God requires an indispensable condition (cf. Mt. 6:14–15, the concluding admonition of the prayer): the reciprocal remission of debts, that is, of offenses—the forgiveness of one’s brothers and sisters. Nothing could be more natural and dutiful, in a petition of such importance, than the declaration of this generous forgiveness, which Jesus requires to be sincere and explicit at the very moment of invoking divine forgiveness: “as we also forgive our debtors.” It is a kind of pact: “if a person fails in this, the prayer has no effect” (St. Augustine). Here is expressed the human being’s formal commitment with regard to the great commandment of charity toward one’s neighbor.
The last two petitions (in substance a single one, as Chrysostom observes) concern the future: recalling to God the dangers to which we are exposed, we ask to be delivered from them so as to attain the goal, which is holiness of life and the salvation of the soul. “Lead us not into temptation,” that is, into every occasion of sin to which man is exposed through innate frailty and various external causes. “Lead us not” is a crude Semitism which, having also entered the versions, must be correctly understood: “do not permit us to succumb to temptation,” falling into the fault to which temptation gives occasion; we do not ask to be exempt from temptation, but to emerge from it victorious (s. Agostino). “But deliver us from evil”: πονηρός (like the Latin malo) can be understood either as neuter (evil) or masculine (the evil one par excellence, Satan); the former meaning has prevailed, with evil understood in its full extent: physical and moral evil, and therefore also the author and instigator of every evil, the devil.
In this formula, profundity equals simplicity. S. Cipriano (De Orat. Dom.: PL 4, 535) echoes Tertullian, who defines it as “totus Evangelii breviarium” (De Oratione: PL 1, 1255); s. Tommaso calls it oratio perfectissima, because it comprises all the petitions of a good prayer (Sum. Theol., 2a-2ab, q. 83, 8-9). It has therefore always held a pre-eminent place in Christian practice and in the liturgy. The Didaché (8) enjoined that it be recited three times a day; s. Cipriano attests that it was (publica nobis et communis oratio) in his time or, as Tertullian says, oratio legitima et ordinaria.
In the ancient catechumenate there was a special rite called the traditio, or explanation, of the P., which took place on the feria 4a after the Fourth Sunday of Lent; and in Baptism, at the conclusion of the rite, the neophyte himself recited the P.; even today the P. is recited, together with the Creed, by the priest and the sponsor, or by the person being baptized if he is an adult. Mass (v.) of all rites it likewise has its place in the Canon, a practice that probably goes back to the apostolic age, according to the testimony of Gregorio Magno (Ep. IX ad Joh. Syrac.) and Girolamo (Adv. Pelag., III, 15). Similarly, in the Divine Office, in the Sacramentals, and in all sacred functions, the P. occupies the place of honor.
The originality of the P. has in recent times been challenged by certain rationalists and numerous Jewish writers (J. J. Wetstein, E. Stapfer, J. Nork, A. Wünsche, H. Hamburger, J. Lightfoot, G. Friedländer, G. Klein, D. De Sola, C. G. Montefiore, etc.). Friedländer writes: “The Lord’s Prayer is entirely Jewish... all the phrases and all the petitions have been drawn from Jewish sources” (The Jewish sources of the Sermon of the Mount, London 1911, p. 163). In support of this, there are adduced, besides the apocryphal Testament dei XII Patriarchi (in which evident traces of Christian interpolation are found), disconnected sayings of rabbis of the third and fourth centuries, certain invocations from the well-known Jewish prayer Shemoneh Esreh (“...forgive us, our Father... deliver us for your name’s sake..., be king over us...”) and from the Qaddis, a doxology used in the synagogues (Aramaic text in A. Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, French translation in Rev. biblique, 24 [1915], p. 557 ff.). In the latter document (vv. 1, 2, 4) there are references to the holiness of God’s name, the establishment of his Kingdom, and the fulfillment of his will, which suggest the first three petitions of the P. (A. Harnack likewise discerned in these first three invocations a distinctly Jewish tone, going so far as to excise them, together with the last, as additions from the original form of Jesus’ prayer). Exaggerating the analogies, David De Sola (The old Jewish aramaic prayer the Kaddish, Leipzig 1909) concluded outright that the P. was literarily dependent on the Qaddis. It must be noted first of all, however, that the Qaddis is a cento, composed of pieces from different periods, as the critics admit, and that vv. 1, 2, and 4, cited above, certainly do not predate the Christian era (one of the principal phrases occurs for the first time in R. Joseph, a tannaita of the second century). On the other hand, it is hardly surprising that in the mare magnum of rabbinic writings, terms and expressions somewhat analogous to the formulas of the P. should be encountered here and there, scattered and fragmentary. It is certain, however, that nowhere are such sublime invocations found brought together in a prayer formula as simple and concise as the P., in sharp contrast with the prolixity of the rabbinic formulas. Above all, the spirit is different, and therefore so are the scope and meaning. The commentary and interpretation of the P. are to be sought in the Sermon on the Mount. Thoughts of such great moral elevation find no counterpart either in the Sémoneh 'eirèh or in the Qaddis or in other Jewish prayer formulas. The second petition too, which has appeared to some to be “the most Jewish of all the petitions of the P.,” proves, upon careful examination, to be perfectly consistent with Christ’s profoundly original conception of the nature of the messianic Kingdom: a spiritual and transcendent kingdom that is the inheritance of the poor, the meek, the peacemakers, and the merciful (Mt. 5, 3 ff.). Furthermore, for certain petitions of the P., parallels may be found in the Old Testament (for the Name of God: Lev. 22, 32; Is. 29, 23; Ez. 36, 23; for the Kingdom: Ps. 21, 29; 103, 19; Abd. 21; Tob. 13, 1, etc.), from which also descend, mixed with much dross, the rare felicitous expressions found in the rabbinic texts.
The place where the P. was taught is identified by a tradition dating back to the ninth century with a sanctuary near the summit of the Mount of Olives, where, since the fourth century, a great basilica called Eleona had commemorated Jesus’ teachings to the Apostles (with particular reference to the eschatological discourse delivered on this mountain: cf. Mt. 24, 3). Although the Evangelist left the place undetermined (Lc. 11, 1 “in a certain place”) and the tradition is not very ancient (G. Perrella, I Luoghi Santi, Piacenza 1936, pp. 218-28), the historical circumstances nevertheless bring us very near to that locality. Indeed, if the P. was taught shortly after the episode of Bethany, which immediately precedes it (Lc. 10, 38 ff.), it is highly probable that this took place in the vicinity of the same village, near the summit of the Mount of Olives.