PATER NOSTER. – Prayer taught by Jesus to the Apostles, hence called the Oratio Dominicalis. It is the preeminent prayer of the Christian, the model and type of all others.
The text is preserved in the two versions of Mt 6:9–13 and Lc 11:2–4. The text of Matthew has been adopted by the Church since apostolic times (cf. Didachē 8, which adds the note “for thine is the power and the glory forever,” a clause also found in some Gospel manuscripts). Amen is the “seal” (St. Jerome), which entered the Vulgate from liturgical usage. The Lucan version is shorter: it begins with the simple invocation “Father,” omits the third petition (“Thy will be done…”) and the last (“deliver us from evil”), which is a complement to the preceding one. The Matthean version, being the fuller one and, in the judgment of critics, the one closest to a Semitic original, substantially reproduces the ipsissima verba of Jesus. The Evangelist has inserted it into the Sermon on the Mount. Luke, on the other hand, has better preserved the historical context (after the episode at Bethany), prefacing the incident that occasioned the teaching: “And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, that when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples’” (Lk 11:1).
The prayer begins with an elevation: “Our Father, who art in heaven.” St. Augustine emphasizes its social and fraternal note: “it is a fraternal prayer: it does not say ‘My Father,’ but… embracing all in one prayer” (Ep. 130). Above all, the filial confidence and the profound sense of divine paternity that dominates and absorbs all creaturely relations with the Creator in Christian religion is highlighted. This is followed by the body of the prayer, divided into two parts: the first comprises three invocations or aspirations that have as their object 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 invoke: 1) that “hallowed be thy name,” i.e., blessed, revered, esteemed everywhere as holy; that God be known and loved by all as the Supreme Good and the source of every perfection; 2) that “thy kingdom come,” that the sovereignty of His power be established and spread everywhere, in the obedience of minds and wills and in His love, through the wide diffusion of divine grace, and that this kingdom unite men in truth, justice, and peace; 3) that “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” – a condition and measure of the expansion of the kingdom – that the just and holy will of the Father be fulfilled on earth by men with the same promptness and perfection with which it is carried out in heaven by the angelic spirits, the faithful executors of the divine wills (Ps 102:20). In this triple progressive invocation is the recognition of God’s triple prerogative in relation to the creature: most loving and beneficent Father, glorious and universal King, supreme and absolute Lord; and at the same time, the commitment to cooperate in the realization of such noble ends.
Of the three invocations, the second is the deepest and most mysterious (A. Vitti, in Biblica 23 [1942], pp. 204–205). Its interpretation depends on the meaning attributed to the “Kingdom of God” (q.v.), a complex notion whose single reality presents itself under multiple aspects, which essentially reduce to three: individual or ascetical-mystical (the triumph of divine grace in the soul and life of the Christian), ecclesiological or missionary-social (the spread of the knowledge of God and the 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 full interpretation is that which does not exclude but unifies the multiple particular aspects in a unitary spiritual vision: “that God may be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).
2nd Part. – This is followed by the petitions arising from human weakness and indigence.
First is the petition to the Father for the nourishment of life, bread: but in bread, the staple of human nourishment, are included all material needs of every kind, everything pertaining to bodily life; by reflection, the petition may extend to spiritual life, which also requires its own nourishment. It is “for today” (“give us this day”) and is meant to be a perpetual acknowledgment of God’s providence and supreme dominion over human life, as well as of the creature’s absolute dependence upon Him. “Our daily bread” (Greek ἐπιούσιον) is an epithet that does not recur elsewhere in Holy Scripture, nor is it ever used in classical literature, but only in the Hellenistic koine (recently, some examples have been found in popular texts). Its meaning is debated (F. Zorell, Lexicon graecum N. T., 2nd ed., Paris 1931, cols. 489–491), as is evident from the different rendering of the same word in the Vulgate: *supersubstantialem* (Mt 6:11) and *quotidianum* (Lc 11:3). The various interpretations collected since antiquity reduce to two: a) the first understands ἐπιούσιον as a synonym of ἐπιούσιον, from the participle ἐπιούσιον (understood as “for the morrow”), meaning the bread “for the day,” or “for the coming day”; thus, more or less, with Athanasius, Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, many ancient and modern commentators, and several versions (*quotidianum* in the Old Latin; “of the morrow” or “of the future” in the Gospel of the Hebrews; “perpetual” in the Syriac Curetonian-Sinaitic, Gothic, and Armenian; “of each day” in Ethiopic); b) the second interpretation derives the epithet from the substantive ἐπιούσιον (subsistence, substance), i.e., indispensable for subsistence, hence “necessary”; thus Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Julian, Theophylact, Euthymius, and many modern Catholic and non-Catholic scholars, with the Peshitta. This interpretation seems the most plausible, especially since the notion of daily-ness is already expressed in the adverb σήμερον “today” (Lk 11:3, καθ’ ἡμέραν “for each day”): an epithet of the same sense would be a tautology. The Latin *supersubstantialem* has led some to think of supernatural bread, hence the Eucharistic bread (thus, after St. Irenaeus, many ascetical writers); but such a meaning in the context can only be secondary.
“Forgive us our debts” – we implore the merciful Father to grant us forgiveness of our sins (so Lk 11:4), a formidable debt that cannot be satisfied unless the Lord Himself remits II. But to obtain God’s remission, there is an indispensable condition (cf. Mt 6:14–15, the concluding admonition of the prayer): the reciprocal remission of debts, i.e., of offenses, fraternal forgiveness. Nothing could be more natural and obligatory in a petition of such importance than the protestation of this generous forgiveness that 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: and if man fails in this, the effect of the prayer is null (St. Augustine). Here is expressed the formal commitment of man in the face of the great commandment of charity toward neighbor.
The final two petitions (essentially one, as St. John Chrysostom observes) concern the future: recalling to God the dangers to which we are exposed, deliverance is invoked so that the end may be attained, 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 because of his prior weakness and various external causes. “Lead us not” is a harsh Semitism that, having entered even into translations, must be rightly understood: “do not permit us to succumb to temptation,” falling into the fault to which temptation incites; we do not ask to be exempt from temptation, but to emerge victorious (St. Augustine). “But deliver us from evil”: παντοῖος (like the Latin malo) can be understood as either neuter (evil) or masculine (the Evil One par excellence, Satan); the former meaning has prevailed, understanding evil in its fullest extent: physical evil and moral evil, and thus also the instigator of every evil, the devil.
In this formula, profundity equals simplicity. St. Cyprian (De Orat. Dom.: PL 4, 535) echoes Tertullian, who defines it as “totius Evangelii breviarium” (De Oratione: PL 1, 1255); St. Thomas calls it the most perfect prayer, because it sums up all the petitions of a good prayer (Sum. Theol., 2a-2ae, q. 83, a. 9). For this reason, it has always held a preeminent place in Christian practice and liturgy. The Didache (8) prescribed reciting it three times a day; St. Cyprian attests that it was the public and common prayer of his time, or, as Tertullian says, the legitimate and ordinary prayer.
In the ancient catechumenate, there was a special rite called the traditio or explanation of the Lord’s Prayer, which took place on the Wednesday after the Fourth Sunday of Lent; and at Baptism, at the end of the rite, the neophyte himself recited the Lord’s Prayer. Even today, the Lord’s Prayer is recited, along with the Creed, by the priest and the godparent, or by the baptized adult. In the Mass (v.) of all rites, it also has its place in the Canon, an usage that likely dates back to apostolic times, according to the testimony of Gregory the Great (Ep. IX ad 9h. Syrac.) and Jerome (Adv. Pelag., III, 15). Likewise, in the Divine Office, in the Sacramentals, and in all sacred functions, the Lord’s Prayer holds a place of honor.
The originality of the Lord’s Prayer has been contested in recent times by some 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... every phrase and every petition has been drawn from Jewish sources” (The Jewish sources of the Sermon of the Mount, London 1911, p. 163). And in addition to the apocryphal Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs (in which clear traces of Christian interpolation are evident), disconnected phrases from rabbis of the 3rd–4th centuries are cited, along with certain invocations from the well-known Jewish prayer Shemoneh Esreh (“...forgive us, our Father... deliver us for your name’s sake...”), and the Qaddish, a doxology used in synagogues (Aramaic text in A. Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, French trans. in Rev. biblique, 24 [1915], pp. 557ff.). In this 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 recall the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer (A. Harnack also discerned in these first three invocations a markedly Jewish tone, going so far as to expunge the last as interpolations from the original form of Jesus’ prayer). Overemphasizing the analogies, David De Sola (The old Jewish Aramaic prayer the Kaddish, Leipzig 1909) outrightly concludes for the literary dependence of the Lord’s Prayer on the Qaddish. But it must first be noted that the Qaddish is a cento, composed of pieces from various ages, as critics admit, and that the aforementioned vv. 1, 2, and 4 are certainly not earlier than the Christian era (one of the principal phrases first appears in R. Joseph, a tanna of the 2nd century). On the other hand, it is no wonder that in the vast sea of rabbinic writings, scattered and fragmentary terms and expressions analogous in some way to the formulas of the Lord’s Prayer are found here and there. It is certain, however, that nowhere are such sublime invocations gathered into a simple and concise prayer formula as in the Lord’s Prayer, in stark contrast to the prolixity of rabbinic formulas. Above all, the spirit is different, and thus the scope and meaning as well. The commentary and interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer must be sought in the Sermon on the Mount. Thoughts of such great moral elevation find no counterpart in the Shemoneh Esreh, the Qaddish, or other Jewish prayer formulas. Even the second petition, which has seemed to some “the most Jewish of all the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer,” proves, upon careful examination, to be perfectly in accord with Christ’s most original thought on 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. 5:3ff.). Moreover, for some petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, parallels with the Old Testament hold (for the Name of God: Lev. 22:32; Is. 29:23; Ez. 36:23; for the Kingdom: Ps. 21:29; 103:19; Obad. 21; Tob. 13:1, etc.), from which, mingled with much dross, the rare felicitous expressions of rabbinic texts also descend.
The place where the Lord’s Prayer was taught is indicated by a tradition dating back to the 9th century at a sanctuary near the summit of the Mount of Olives, where since the 4th century a great basilica, called Eleona, commemorated Jesus’ teachings to the Apostles (with special reference to the eschatological discourse delivered on this site: cf. Mt. 24:3). Although the Evangelist left the location (Lk. 11:1, “in a certain place”) and the voice of tradition is not very ancient (G. Perrella, I Luoghi Santi, Piacenza 1936, pp. 218–28), historical circumstance brings us very near to that location. Indeed, if the Lord’s Prayer was taught shortly after the episode at Bethany, which immediately precedes it (Lk. 10:38ff.), it is highly probable that this occurred near the same village, close to the summit of the Mount of Olives.