We have been studying the “Our Father” in the Syriac language, which is probably as close as we will ever come to the very words Our Lord used.
We have seen that even the first words, Aboun d.baš.ma.yō, are replete with meaning. When we pray to our Father, and we implore Him to forgive us, and not to lead us, we are praying not only for ourselves but for all children of our Father in heaven; we who are made in His image and likeness. In revealing to us the mystery of God the Father, Our Lord was also indicating the mystery of His own position as the Son, for He had taught them that no one could come to the Father unless they came through Himself, the Son (John 14:6); and “No one knows the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him.” This is related to the critical roles of the Son in incarnating God on earth, and the Holy Spirit in uniting us now with Christ, continuing His work in the world.
Chief among the legacies of Christ to us is His institution of the Sacrament of Communion. In the Syriac Aboun d.baš.ma.yō, we pray:
hab.lan laH.mō d.soun.qō.nan yaw.mō.nō
Give us (that) bread which is necessary, today
or Give us today our supernatural bread
The Syriac clearly does not mean “give us this day our daily bread.” If it did, the Greek word epiousios which is often translated as “daily” would be superfluous. It must represent an attempt to put into Greek something which had been said in Aramaic, but could not be well put into Greek. Had Our Lord actually intended to say “give us this day our daily bread” there would have been many ways of saying it in ordinary Greek. It makes no sense for Ss Luke and Matthew to use a new and difficult word for a perfectly plain concept.
But St Jerome knew that the word could have meant “supersubstantial,” or was we might say, “supernatural” bread. Thus the Vulgate Bible for Matthew 6:11 actually reads panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodie. The word supersubstantialem sounds like what it means in English: “supersubstantial.”
The word ousios does have meaning of “being,” and the preposition epi can mean “over” or “above” when used in compound words, as it does in the word epibluō, “to gush over,” whereas bluzō alone means “to gush forth.” Perhaps even more telling is the word epiphanēs, which means “splendid, glorious, remarkable.” The phainō root simply means to be evident, but making a noun with the epi- prefix gives it a sense not just of being evident, but of being of a higher, more glorious level.
While I am satisfied that St Jerome’s translation “supersubstantial” is correct, there is one other possibility, which I find quite interesting, and that is that the Syriac word sounqōnan, is an error for the word souqnōyō, which means “breathable,” from the verb swq “to breathe.” As we have begun to see, the Christian contemplative tradition recognises that there is a certain spiritual nourishment in the air: after all, the words for “spirit” and “breath” are effectively the same in Greek, Latin, and all Semitic languages known to me. I would speculate, then, that just as the Syriac word nešmō and ruHō mean both “breathing” and “soul,” or “spirit,” the root suq may have been used to indicate “spiritual” food.
This would better accord with the entire logic of the Aboun d.baš.ma.yō: which is only concerned with spiritual matters: God the Father, the kingdom of heaven, the Will of God, and the forgiveness of sins. That is, the translation “supernatural” or “supersubstantial” is better and probably more accurate than either “daily” or “necessary” as there is not a single other request in this prayer for a material good: not even for a long life, for health, or for children. Absolutely everything else in it seeks a spiritual good. And so, the bread which is intended here is fairly certainly, I would suggest, the spiritual bread of the Eucharist and the other graces of God. After all, we read in chapter 6 of the Gospel of St John: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. … And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (27 and 51)”
So the Syriac tradition understood that the word epiousios did not mean “daily.” That is the critical point. The meaning “necessary” is acceptable, for both our physical and our supernatural foods are necessary for us, but St Jerome’s translation turns a good prayer into one which reminds us that every single day of our lives we need the grace of God, the higher food to nourish our souls.
The next interesting aspect of the Aboun d.baš.ma.yo is the verses:
waš.buq lan Haw.bayn waH.tō.Hayn
ay.ka.nō dōff H.nan šba.qan l.Ha.yō.bayn
And forgive us our debts and our trespasses
As we have forgiven our debtors.
The Syriac has two words, for debts and for trespasses, whereas the Greek of St Matthew has only one, opheilēmata which has the primary meaning of “debt” but can also include “sins,” as being something for which we have to make ourselves right again with God. St Luke’s Gospel (11:4) has amartias, sins. Syriac uses two words to ensure that the both concepts are prominent: sin and debt. In this context, a debt is a wrong which is nonetheless not a sin.
In the Maronite Divine Liturgy we often pray for the forgiveness of all our sins, whether intentional or otherwise; and people often ask how one can sin without intention? It is a fair question, and as we are seeing now, the concept of “sin” in the Syriac tradition is wider than the purely legal definition. The concern of the Syriac tradition is not only with intentional actions and omissions which offend God, but with our actual state of being. A person who is becoming more spiritual, more oriented to God, will be concerned for those things which they have neglected, of those situations where by a lack of thought or feeling, unfortunate things occur which would not have had we been vigilant. This is another aspect of the contemplative virtue of “watchfulness.” In Syriac, this is za.hee.rō beK, “watchful over thyself.” We have seen that an angel or ma.la.Kō was also known in Syriac as an 3ee.rō, a “watchful one.”
We could say that an contemplative person should be even more practically effective in the world precisely because he is a contemplative.