The poetic structure of the prayer
At the end of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord offers us the words of His own prayer, which everyone knows: "Our Father which art in heaven!". It is very important to compare the words of this prayer in the Gospel of Matthew with the words of the same prayer in the Gospel of Luke. However, if we use the Synodal translation for this we shall not manage it, because there the text of the Gospel of Matthew has been carried over in full into the Gospel of Luke. It is better, therefore, to take another translation, for example the one edited by Bishop Cassian (Bezobrazov), and to compare the two texts of this prayer by it.
So, what shall we see? "Our Father which art in heaven!" — in the Gospel of Matthew (Matt. 6:9, KJV), and only the single word "Father!" in the Gospel of Luke. "Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come" — in both cases. And further on, only in Matthew: "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven". In the same way the last verse in Luke begins with the words "And lead us not into temptation", and only Matthew has the continuation: "But deliver us from evil".
What, then, do we get? The prayer in the Gospel of Matthew consists of five couplets. This is a shapely poetic structure, in which the second half of the verse always unfolds the content of the first, and that helps it to be remembered better, because verse is always taken in more easily than prose.
"Father!"
"Father!" — Jesus exclaims at the very beginning of the prayer. From the Gospel of John we know that the Jews "sought the more to kill him" because "he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God" (John 5:18, KJV). This remark ought to puzzle an attentive reader: why did they want to kill Jesus for this, if in many other places of Scripture the prophets repeatedly call God Father?
For example, Jeremiah says: "Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth?" (Jer. 3:4, KJV). Or in Deuteronomy: "Is not he thy father that hath bought thee? Hath he not made thee, and established thee?" (Deut. 32:6, KJV). Or in the prophet Isaiah: "But now, O LORD, thou art our father… and we all are the work of thy hand" (Is. 64:8, KJV).
What is the matter here? It turns out that in the prayer "Our Father" Jesus does not call God Father at all. He calls Him by the word Abba, with which small children address their fathers. It is for this that they want to kill Him — because He addresses God without trembling, using this strange, incomprehensible word, fitting only at home, in intimate conversation, in the mouth of a small child.
To this day in Arab countries children addressing their father say jaba, abba — children, but not grown-up sons, in whose mouths such an address sounds absurd. The word abba, which lies at the very heart of that relationship with God to which Jesus calls us, is fitting in the mouth of a child sitting on his father's knee, but by no means in the mouth of an adult. It is for this that they want to kill Him! This is the new note that Jesus brings into our dialogue with God! Become a child, address God as a child addresses his father — and then you will understand what Christianity is, and what that prayer is which Christ teaches us.
And what do the words "which art in heaven" mean? They are nothing other than God. Simply God. Consequently the address to God at the beginning of the prayer "Our Father" in the Gospel of Matthew is repeated twice, as "O God, O God!". Exactly as in the psalm: "O God, my God, attend to me: why hast thou forsaken me?" (Ps. 21:2, Brenton's English Septuagint).
"Hallowed be thy name…"
"Hallowed be thy name…". At first sight this phrase hardly lends itself to being retold. And yet its sense too must be entered into as seriously as possible. The passive voice is used in Scripture, as a rule, in one case — when God is meant, so that His name should not be taken in vain. For instance, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy". Who will show them mercy? The Lord. "Blessed are they that sorrow, for they shall be comforted". Comforted by whom? By God. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God". Who shall call them sons of God? God Himself. "Judge not, that ye be not judged; for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged" — and God Himself will judge you.
Analogous examples can be brought from the Old Testament, especially from the proverbs. Everywhere the passive voice is used, what is meant is that the action is performed by God Himself. This means that in modern language, instead of "Hallowed be thy name", one ought to say "Hallow thy name".
This is already clearer, because in the book of the prophet Ezekiel there is such a passage: "And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD… when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes" (Ezek. 36:23, KJV). Two parallel structures can be singled out from this verse, two parallel lines duplicating one another: "I will sanctify my name" and "I will manifest my holiness". In different words they say one and the same thing.
In the Gospel of John Jesus exclaims several times: "I have manifested thy name…" (John 17:6, 26, KJV), that is, "I have made thy name known", or: "Father, glorify thy name…" (John 12:28, KJV). So to hallow the name of God is the same as to reveal it. When we address the Lord: "Hallow thy name", it means that we are asking: "Reveal thy name", "Show thy name to men".
The name of God is the one thing into which our idea of God fits. Through the name God shows and reveals Himself to men. The name of God is, in essence, God Himself.
What does Moses say to God at the burning bush? The people will not believe me, they will ask what thy name is. And then God reveals His name to Moses: Yahweh — He Who Is, the One who is and who will be.
When we exclaim: "O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is thy name in all the earth!" (Ps 8:2, Brenton), we are saying by that very thing: how wonderful art Thou Thyself! "Let them praise the name of the Lord… Praise ye the Lord… old men with youths, let them praise the name of the Lord" (Ps 148, Brenton). One and the same thing is repeated several times in this psalm, but in different words. So the name of God is the same as God Himself. "I remembered thy name, O Lord, in the night" (Ps 118:55, Brenton), that is, I remembered Thee.
In other words: the prayer does not merely call — reveal thy name, but reveal Thyself, O Lord, enter in all Thy radiance, in all Thy holiness into our life. Show Thyself in Thy glory. That is what the words "Hallowed be thy name" mean.
Why is this said here so intricately, so much so that most of us do not understand what these words mean? Probably for the reason that the word of the Gospel is indeed like a seed. Like a seed in the ground, it falls into a man's heart, so as to grow warm there little by little, to be fed, to swell, then to put out a shoot and after some time to bring forth fruit. The words "Show Thyself to us" we should have taken in at once, understood quickly and not realised what they mean. But the difficult and incomprehensible "Hallowed be thy name" is sown in the heart and gradually germinates there.
The word of God is like a nut in its shell. The shell protects the kernel inside. The words "Hallowed be thy name", strange as it may seem, are also securely protected from distortion, as though by a shell, by the very unusualness of the form in which Jesus handed them to us. Experience shows that in the copying of a text it is precisely the clear, easy places that are distorted, while the incomprehensible words and expressions remain in their original form. A copyist memorises the clear places in whole phrases, which is how he may go wrong, whereas the incomprehensible ones he writes word by word and even letter by letter. Paradoxically, a text that is intricate and hard to understand in form is preserved better in copying than a simple and clear one.
"Thy kingdom come…"
"Thy kingdom come". We ask that the Kingdom which is already here, near, already attainable, should enter our life, enter us, enter the world in which we live. It is at hand, but it is like a treasure hidden in the ground. A man must ask in order to find it. This Kingdom is directed towards us, it is for us, it is prepared for us, but it cannot come if we ourselves do not want it. Our will, our personal choice, is needed. A man must strive actively towards the Kingdom. And so the Lord tells us: pray "Thy kingdom come…".
The petition "Thy kingdom come" is completed by the prayer "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" — this is that same feature of biblical poetry: the petition set out in the first part of the couplet is unfolded in the second. In this way the Kingdom of Heaven enters our life if the will of God is done here, on earth, as it is in heaven.
"Our daily bread…"
The expression "our daily bread" is likewise hidden from possible distortion inside a difficult and almost incomprehensible form.
"Day by day" we ask that bread be given us in the Gospel of Luke, "this day" — in the Gospel of Matthew. That is the difference between these two variants. The Gospel of Matthew is concentrated more on the present day, the Gospel of Luke — on life in general.
What does "daily" mean? In Russian, as in Greek (epiousios), this word is unclear. Is it simply bread for the present day, or is it that bread of which the book of the Proverbs of Solomon speaks: "Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, "Who is the LORD?" or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain" (Prov. 30:8–9, KJV). What is spoken of here is a middle way which leads neither to poverty nor to riches. Having grown rich, a man may forget God, and having grown poor, may take the path of theft; and so — give me what is needed, bread, but no more. Such is the first interpretation of the expression "daily bread".
But there is another interpretation as well: give me the bread I need, and a little more, in case someone should come, so that I may have something to give him — that is, "give us". This interpretation is no less apt. Moreover, it explains the presence of the prefix epi ("on-" or "over-") in the word epiousios.
There is a third interpretation as well: give me bread not only for today, but for tomorrow morning too.
Finally, it may be that what is spoken of here is not simply bread that is substantial, but bread super-substantial, standing above being. Then this is the Eucharistic Bread — the Body of Christ. And this interpretation is no less convincing.
During the proskomedia the priest, cutting out of the prosphora the portion which will then be consecrated and become the Body of Christ, distributes the trimmed edges to the parishioners after the service. These particles of the Lamb prosphora (the so-called antidoron), although they were not changed during the Eucharist, are also received by them as a holy thing. In essence, any piece of bread may be received as antidoron, for it is baked from the same grain and the same flour as the bread taken for the celebration of the mystery of the Eucharist. It was not out of stinginess and not from extreme poverty that rusks were dried in the villages, but precisely because it was held to be a sin if bread should be wasted. In any piece of bread a believer sees a reminder of the Last Supper, of that Bread which Jesus took in His hands and blessed.
Thus the word "daily", not fully understood, turns out to be astonishingly many-sided.
"Our debts…"
"And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors" — that is exactly how the text of this petition looks in the most ancient manuscripts of the fourth century. The verb "forgive" stands here in the past tense. This means that Jesus tells us that God will forgive our debts only if we have already forgiven those near us. "Forgive thy neighbor the hurt that he hath done unto thee," says Sirach, "so shall thy sins also be forgiven when thou prayest" (Sir. 28:2, KJV). In the biblical text the passive voice is used; the words "thy sins also be forgiven" indicate that it is God Himself who will forgive sins, and no one else.
In the Gospel of Luke the same thing is said differently, and the verb "forgive" stands in the present tense: "And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us".
Jesus does not ask that I be forgiven in general, because that is easy. He asks that each particular debtor of mine be forgiven. That is very hard, but it is necessary in order to become a Christian. From other places of Scripture it is clear that to forgive the one who is beside you is the foundation of the foundations of Christianity.
When a wise rabbi by the name of Hosea ben Yehuda was asked how many times one should forgive, he answered: "If a man has offended you once, he is forgiven; if he has offended a second time, he is forgiven; he is forgiven a third time as well; but the fourth time he is not forgiven." The Apostle Peter asked Jesus about the same thing: "How many times shall I forgive my brother who sins against me? till seven times?" Hosea ben Yehuda proposed forgiving three times. Peter names a number which to his mind is infinitely great — not merely twice as many as the learned rabbi proposed, but over and above that, plus one more time. And Christ answers: "I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven" (Matt. 18:22, KJV).
Of course, to forgive someone 490 times — we still have a great deal of growing to do before that! By these words Jesus shows us that the mercy of God has nothing in common with our kindness, which is no more than a parody of mercy. How can one not ponder this? This is a very important, central point for our faith.
After the words "Forgive thy neighbor the hurt that he hath done unto thee" Sirach says: "One man beareth hatred against another, and doth he seek pardon from the Lord? He showeth no mercy to a man, which is like himself: and doth he ask forgiveness of his own sins?" (Sir. 28:3–4, KJV). Probably it was in reflecting on these very words of Sirach that the holy Apostle John exclaimed: "If a man say, "I love God", and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" (1 John 4:20, KJV). Sirach compares malice to a fire and says that a spark, if you blow on it, will flare into a flame, but if you spit on it, it will go out. To spit on the spark of our malice, to quench malice in ourselves while it is still in the germ, not to let it flare up — that is the task of a believer.
"And lead us not into temptation…"
"Lead us not into temptation", it is said in the prayer "Our Father". On the other hand, in the Epistle of James it is written: "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him" (James 1:12, KJV). A man is tempted as silver is tried. This is spoken of constantly in the Old Testament. And suddenly — "lead us not into temptation". How are these words to be reconciled with what we know from other places of Holy Scripture, where it is said plainly that God tempts, that is, tries a man? Tatian, one of the ancient church writers, cites this logion of Jesus: he who has not been tempted cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. So how, then, are we to understand "and lead us not into temptation"?
Even the best translator sometimes makes a mistake. And the mistake of so brilliant and holy a translator as Blessed Jerome, whose work was for centuries looked upon as a model, is far more terrible than the mistake of an ordinary translator. This mistake consists in his having translated the word eisphero as "to lead in" (induco), whereas in reality it means "to cast in". Here one ought to say "cast us not, throw us not into temptation", "cast us not into the abyss of temptations that are beyond our strength".
It is in this sense that the word eisphero is used in the psalms, when what is spoken of is a whirlpool sucking a man in. Do not draw us into the belly of the whirlpool, but deliver us from evil (from the tempter). Save us from that evil which acts in the world and sucks us into the quagmire. This is the third difficult place in the prayer "Our Father", small in size, yet one that has proved so hard and so difficult to understand. That is why it must not merely be learned by heart. It must be warmed by the heart, it must grow up out of it. This prayer must be lived through — then we shall become Christians.
The prayer "Our Father" cannot but be difficult. Were it simple, we should have forgotten it quickly and easily, as the verses of mediocre poets are forgotten. The prayer "Our Father" still sounds today as piercingly as it sounded on that day when Jesus first offered it to people in the Sermon on the Mount, precisely because there is so much in it that is difficult. And when we live it through — and every Christian lives this prayer through — we become both theologians and real Christians.
