Annotation XXXI

”Our supersubstantial bread,” etc. — Matthew 6:11

Whether the bread we ask for in the Lord's Prayer is corporeal.

Jerome, in the first book of [his] commentaries on Matthew, seems to disapprove those who think that by this petition a corporeal bread is to be asked for, in this manner: “What we have rendered as ‘supersubstantial,’ in the Greek is epiousion, which word the Seventy [LXX] very frequently render periousion. We considered, therefore, in the Hebrew; and wherever they expressed periousion, we found Segula — which Symmachus translated exaireton, that is, ‘chief’ or ‘excellent’ — although in a certain place he interpreted it as ‘peculiar’ [one’s own]. When, therefore, we ask that God grant us a ‘peculiar’ or ‘chief’ bread, we ask for him who says, ‘I am the living bread, who came down from heaven.’ In the Gospel called ‘According to the Hebrews,’ for ‘supersubstantial bread’ I found Machar, which is called ‘of tomorrow’; so that the sense is, ‘Give us today our tomorrow’s’ — that is, future — bread. We can also understand ‘supersubstantial’ bread otherwise — [as that] which is above all substances and surpasses all creatures.” Explaining this same thing more clearly, in [his] commentary on the second chapter of the Epistle to Titus, he says: “That which in the Gospel, according to the Latin translators, is written, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ is better [rendered] in the Greek, ‘Our bread epiousion’ — that is, ‘chief, excellent, peculiar’ — namely, him who, coming down from heaven, said, ‘I am the living bread, who came down from heaven.’ Far be it, indeed, that we — who are forbidden to think about tomorrow — should be commanded, in the Lord’s prayer, to ask about that bread which, after a little, is to be digested and cast out into the privy.”

Nor does John Cassian think otherwise, in the ninth Conference, where he determines that those gravely offend God who, in this petition as in the rest of the Lord’s Prayer, demand from God anything corporeal and temporal. His words run thus: “‘Give us this day our epiousion — that is, supersubstantial — bread’; which [word] another Evangelist called ‘daily,’ [and it] signifies the quality of its nobility and substance — namely, that it is above all substances, and that the sublimity of its magnificence and sanctification surpasses all creatures.” And after this, some things being interposed, as if he wished to give a reason for such an explanation, he added: “You see, then, what kind of form of prayer has been set before us by him who, [as] judge, is to be prayed to through it — in which no mention is contained of corporeal or temporal life. For the Founder of eternity wishes nothing perishable, nothing temporal, to be begged of him. And so whoever — the everlasting petitions here being passed over — shall have preferred to ask of him something transitory and perishable, will do the greatest injury to [God’s] magnificence and munificence, and will incur rather the offense than the propitiation of his Judge, by the [self-serving] ‘usefulness’ of his prayer.” This [says] Cassian.

John Chrysostom disagrees with this opinion, in homily 20 on Matthew, where he shows that this petition is to be understood corporeally, in these words: “What is ‘our epiousion’ — that is, ‘daily’ — bread? Because he had said, ‘Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth’ — but he was speaking to men surrounded by the frailty of the flesh, and subject meanwhile to the necessity of nature, not having the same impassibility which the angels enjoy. By [his] precept he commands [things] to be done by us as they are said to be fulfilled even by those [angels]; but he condescends to the frailty of [our] nature, as if he said: ‘The same diligence of conduct I demand of you; yet I do not require impassibility, for the very frailty of nature does not permit it, since it needs to be sustained by necessary food.’ But do you consider how even to carnal things very much of the spiritual is joined. For not for the sake of riches and delicacies, but only for daily bread, did he command prayer to be poured out — and for daily bread indeed, that we should not be anxious for the morrow.” Augustine too, in the letter to Proba, laid down that everything can be asked of God which may lawfully be desired; and temporal things, insofar as they conduce to virtue, may lawfully be desired — therefore also prayed for.

I should believe that Jerome and Cassian, in writing such things, wished to warn [us] not to ask for temporal and perishable things for their own sake, but only that through them we may preserve this body of ours in the service of the spirit as it aspires to eternal happiness.