13: 5. In this view of the petition, not only does no contradiction arise with Matt. 6: 25, but the passage stands in the most perfect harmony with v. 34, where concern for the present day is permitted. Should it be objected that in verses 25 and 31 all concern about temporal things is forbidden, and that in v. 33 it is simply said that temporal things shall be added unto us, we may first appeal to v. 34, where the doxerov Tý ἀρκετὸν ἡμέρᾳ xaxia auτns shows that the preceding declarations are not to be taken quite in an absolute sense, and next we may urge the TOτov in v. 33 which shows that the kingdom of God is to be πρῶτον sought only before every thing else, not to the exclusion of all concern about temporal things. It is moreover by our interpretation only, that its just right is allowed to onusoQOV. This word, as we have already remarked, is not identical with the τό καθ ̓ ἡμέραν of Luke. If the ancient Latin Vulgate has here translated quotidianus, it was not because it so understood the meaning of onuspor; it certainly renders this word on the contrary, by hodie; neither was it, as many suppose, with reference to the passage in Luke, but it translates rather with reference to the sense, just as Chrys., Suidas, and others explain the word also by qnuegos, with reference to the sense. The translations of Beza and of Castellio: panis cibarius and victus alimentarius are therefore to be preferred, although we should rather choose the word sufficiens. The onusgov fully describes the disposition of mind proper for the suppliant, who permits his thoughts to descend only for a moment as Chrysostom rightly explains it: οὐκ εἰς πολύν ἔτων αρίθμον αἰτεῖν ἐκελεύσθημεν, ἀλλὰ τὸν ἄρτον σήμερον ἡμῖν ἀρκοῦντα μόνον, “ for who knows, he adds, "whether thou wilt be still alive on the morrow?" "This particular limitation of time," says Isidorus, "transports us to the summit of wisdom."

It only remains that we should notice the interpretations of those, who consider the petition as referring to spiritual bread. Before proceeding to this, however, we may add one more interpretation, which was first proposed by Steck in an essay in the Tempe Heb. (Tig. 1741) T. V. fasc. 4. then by Lambert Bos and Alberti; and which strikes out into an entirely new path. 'Ovola is taken in the usual signification, opes, peculium: novoos means that which constitutes a part of one's own property; believers have become the children of God, they pray therefore for the necessaries of this life, for that which now reverts to them as their property. Alberti compares Luke

15: 12.—πάτερ, δός μοι τὸ ἐπιβάλλον μέρος τῆς οὐσίας—an ingenious interpretation, to which, passing by other objections, we need only reply by asking, what authorizes us then to consider the goods of the body in particular as the property of the children of God? Are not these, on the contrary, the peculium of all men, on the simple ground of their being creatures; nay, according to c. 6: 26 even of the irrational creation? Is not directly the opposite view given in Luke 16: 11, 12, where the goods of the body are called rà aiλórgia, but those of the spirit, τὸ ὑμέτερον and τὸ ἀληθινόν? Alberti seems himself to have felt this difficulty, from the following remark: petunt, ut tamquam benignus paterfamilias hoc peculium filiis concedat et spiritu alibus bonis tamquam vero suo patrimonio adjiciat. Whence it would appear, that he balanced between his own interpretation and that of Calov mentioned above: id quod accedit, superadditur veris bonis; thus this interpretation would belong to the class which takes ovoia in the spiritual sense. The interpretation of Steck is still more peculiar: "that which is added to our patrimony," i. e. which we have earned by our labour; hence an admonition to personal exertion, with which he compares 2 Thess. 3: 12.

That the words of the prayer have been understood in a spiritual sense can occasion no surprise when we consider how frequently the figurative language of scripture compares spiritual blessings with meat and drink, comp. John 6: 33-35. Heb. 6: 4, 5 ff. Indeed the more special reference to the Lord's supper was obviously suggested by John 6: 51, 53-55. The passage was early explained by Origen with allusion to John 6, as referring to the ἄρτος ἐξ ουρανοῦ κατάβας, which became converted into the ovoia of the spirit, as the corporeal bread into the ovoia of the body. The words are explained in like manner, as referring to spiritual food, by Tertullian, Cyprian, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Isidorus Pelusiota, Ambrosius, Augustin, Jerome, Beda, Mascinus Turinensis, Cassianus, Anselm, Eras

1 Compare the excellent exposition of Clem. Alex. Strom. IV. p. 605. to what extent the external goods of the Christian are to be called άiórgia, and how far again they may be his own.

2 Other passages of Scripture also, which speak of bodily nourishment, he explains as referring to spiritual food. Thus Ps. 65: 10, ἡτοίμασας τ. τροφὴν αὐτῶν, he understands of the τροφή πνευματική, which is prepared in Christ πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου. vid. Corder. catena in Ps. T. II. 270.

mus, Legerus, Bellarmin, Luther (in the two expositions of the Lord's prayer of 1518-otherwise in the catechisms), Zwingle,' Henr. Majus, Peter Zorn (vindiciæ pro perpetua veteris ecclesiae traditione de Christo pane intovoi in Opusc. sacr. I.), and in modern times by Pfannkuche and Olshausen.3 The passages which relate to this point are enumerated in Suicer, Observat. p. 248, and in the Thesaurus eccles. p. 1173, and still more completely in Pfeiffer's Thesaur. Theol. Philol. T. II. p. 120. We have comprehended all these expositions together, although there is again a difference of opinion among them in the particular mode of explaining the passage. Some of them, for instance, admit that in connexion with the reference to corporeal bread there is also an allusion to spiritual ;4 many understand by the spiritual bread only the doctrina Christi, the verbum Dei; many, the spiritual influence of Christ; many suppose the passage refers at the same time, and many that it refers exclusively to the Lord's supper. The reference to the spiritual food of Christ generally, and particularly to the Lord's supper, we find already in Tertullian, and Cyprian; whether it is also found in Cyrill of Jerusalem, has been considered doubtful, but in all probability this is the case (s. Touttée ad catech. 23. Mystag. 5). In his work upon the Sermon on the Mount, Augustin still

1 Zwingle says: In the Greek it is supersubstantial. For God truly nourishes and sustains our substance, and that too with true and substantial food. Yet we pray the Lord nevertheless in this petition for the necessaries of life. For bread with the Hebrews means every species of food. He who feeds the soul, how should he not also feed the body?

2 The rigid Lutherans shuddered at this as an heretical interpretation. To a citizen of Wittenberg, who expounded the fourth petition as referring to spiritual bread, the alternative was proposed either immediately to renounce this errour, or to leave the city. The Wittenberg Professor Wernsdorf appeared as the antagonist of Maius in Giessen, and of Zorn. Comp. Spener's theol. Bedenken. I. s. 144. and Walch Religionstreitigkeiten in der luth. Kirche. Th. V. 1167.

3 Ulfilas has: hlaif unsarana sinteinan, our ever-enduring bread— did he understand this of spiritual bread?

4 Thus the Greek glossators, who borrowed from their fathers the reference of the petition to corporeal nourishment, afterwards added the reference to the spiritual. Theophylact and Euthymius interpret it, in an additional clause, of the Lord's supper.

rejects the reference to the Lord's supper; in the sermon1 on the Lord's prayer (Tom. V. Bened. p. 234.) he makes the panis quotidianus refer at the same time 1. to corporeal bread, 2. to the food by the word of Christ, 3. to that by the sacrament. That this reference to the Lord's supper should continually become more general, is easily conceivable. The fact is explained from the constantly increasing veneration of the sacrament; in consequence of which it also received appellations, which readily suggested the petition in the Lord's prayer: ὁ ἄρτος ἅγιος, ἄρτος ζωῆς, εὐλογηθείς, ἱερουργούμενος (ν. Casaubonus, Exercit. Anti-Baron. XVI. c. 39.) The uncommonness of the word inovoios, naturally favoured among the Orientals every mystical interpretation; but even this plain quotidianus of the Latin version, though properly it did not favour the reference of the petition to the Lord's supper, yet served to encourage that view, as the daily participation in this ordinance as a standing custom in the Western church down to the time of Augustin. And although in modern times the occidental interpreters of the catholic Church continue to balance between the reference to spiritual food generally, and the reference to the sacrament, yet the latter is the prevailing view, and is also exhibited as the first in the glossa ordinaria.o

We now proceed to examine the arguments in favour of, and against, this interpretation. In the first place, we must notice two modifications of the opinion: a number of the Greck fathers, for instance, derive the word from névai, and understand by it the ἄρτος τοῦ αἰῶνος μέλλοντος, that heavenly bread which is the portion of believers in the future life, comp. Luke 14: 15, but which may also be communicated to them even in the present world. Origen himself mentions this interpretation in speaking of the etymology of the word from ivat, and rejects it, yet without presenting his reasons. So too the translations of Upper and of Lower Egypt-from a predilection for the mystical-have crastinus and venturus (see the latter in the work of Cramer, Beiträge, etc. Th. III. p. 61.) Next, this view appears in the writings of Athanasius, Damascenus, Pseudo-Ambrosius and others, whose remarks may be found collect

1 He gives as his reason, that the Lord's prayer could not otherwise be offered in the evening.

2 Panis corpus Christi est, ut verbum Dei, vel ipse Deus, quo quotidie egemus.

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ed in Suicer and Pfeiffer. The word is understood in the same sense by Pfannkuche, who moreover takes particular notice of the fact, that in the cabbalistic use of language forms the antithesis to alov outos; Augustin also had understood hodie as referring to the present life (in hac temporali vita). Aside from the general reasons against such a construction of the petition, we may mention as a particular objection to it the intolerable antithesis, in which, in this case, onμepov would stand with the ἄρτος τοῦ ἐπιόντος χρόνου or αἰῶνος. Should we even concede, that o ❝oros ó μellov might, without further modification, signify the heavenly bread of the future world,—a sense in support of which, however, no example can be adduced from the usus loquendi of the sacred scriptures, yet by the bread of the future world it would here be necessary to understand that particular blessedness which is not to be enjoyed while we are in the present life. How then can it be given to us here and that too every day? Is it said, o doros o ulov is simply the power and spirit of Christ, in which the kingdom of God comes to us daily? We must deny that oros μellov can have this signification. The phrase in this case would stand, as in John, ἄρτος ἐκ τ. οὐρανοῦ, or as in Paul, 1 Cor. 10: 4, βρῶμα πνευμα

τίκον.

According to the other etymology, the word is compounded with ovoia, and the question arises, how the ai in this compound is to be understood. It is well known that Jerome first translated it supersubstantialis, in which he is followed by the German version of Emser.2 But it is evident that in this case the preposition no should have stood in the place of лi, just as we find the adjective negovios in the mystic, speculative sense in Dionysius Areopagita (s. e. q. de div. nomm. c. XI.

1 In consulting Jerome, the passage in his Coin. upon Titus 2: 12. ought not to be overlooked, where he speaks a great deal more at large respecting лiovσios and лegioioios than in the Com. on Matthew, adduces the passage John 6: 5, and mentions, moreover, that "some suppose it is the bread, which is, super omnes oioias." In the Com. on Matthew, he also remarks, that others prefer, "in accordance with Tim. 6: 8. to consider the passage as referring simply to bodily nourishment."

2 Emser: "das uberselbständige Brod." Luther also in the exposition of 1518 gives the three translations: uberwesentlich, auserwählt, Morgenbrote (panis crastinus) and would combine the sense of all the three.