Let’s continue
looking into the textual contest at the end of Matthew 6:13: the basic question is, are the words “For
yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever, Amen” – ὅτι σοῦ
ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία καὶ ἡ δύναμις καὶ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας ἀμήν – part of the
original text, or not?
As we saw in Part 1, over 98% of the Greek manuscripts that have this verse include these words (including Codex W) – but it is not included in the important manuscripts Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Bezae, the fifth-century uncial fragment 0171, and the fragmentary palimpsest Codex Z (Dublinensis, 035). It is not supported by the core representatives of family-1, but it is included in family-13. The Gothic version and the Armenian version (and others) have it, but most representatives of the Old Latin version, as well as the two most ancient copies of the Middle Egyptian version, do not have it. The early patristic writers Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian (in Treatise 4), Ambrose, and Cyril of Alexandria (in Catechetical Lecture XXIII) comment on the Lord’s Prayer but do not mention this reading, and several others (Hilary of Poitiers, Caesarius, Gregory of Nyssa) do not mention it when they use this verse – but it was quoted by John Chrysostom (c. 400), and it was quoted in Apostolic Constitutions (380), and it appears to have been utilized by the author of the Didache – an exceptionally early composition (early 100s).
Matthew 6:13b in Codex L. |
As we saw in Part 1, over 98% of the Greek manuscripts that have this verse include these words (including Codex W) – but it is not included in the important manuscripts Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Bezae, the fifth-century uncial fragment 0171, and the fragmentary palimpsest Codex Z (Dublinensis, 035). It is not supported by the core representatives of family-1, but it is included in family-13. The Gothic version and the Armenian version (and others) have it, but most representatives of the Old Latin version, as well as the two most ancient copies of the Middle Egyptian version, do not have it. The early patristic writers Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian (in Treatise 4), Ambrose, and Cyril of Alexandria (in Catechetical Lecture XXIII) comment on the Lord’s Prayer but do not mention this reading, and several others (Hilary of Poitiers, Caesarius, Gregory of Nyssa) do not mention it when they use this verse – but it was quoted by John Chrysostom (c. 400), and it was quoted in Apostolic Constitutions (380), and it appears to have been utilized by the author of the Didache – an exceptionally early composition (early 100s).
The unknown author
of the Latin composition Opus
Imperfectum in Matthaeum (early 400s) also quoted Matthew 16:13b, in
Homily 14, in a way which shows that he read it in his text of Matthew. This reference is interesting, not only
because it gives additional Latin support to the reading, but because it
augments the theological range of the support for the reading; while Chrysostom
was thoroughly orthodox, the author of Opus
Imperfectum was not.
With all that in
mind, we now turn to some evidence which is not featured in the usual textual
apparatuses: amulets. The Lord’s Prayer was ubiquitously used in
church-services, but it was also applied to a different purpose in some parts
of the Roman Empire : when Christians made small amulets containing
snippets of Scripture, one of the most-used passages in such items – after the
beginnings of each of the Gospels – was the Lord’s Prayer.
Let’s
take a look at some of these amulets and the text(s) they contain.
● Papyrus Ct.YBR
4600, housed at Yale
University , was made
sometime in the 500s-700s. It consists
of a single sheet of papyrus, blank on the reverse side. It contains Matthew 6:9b-13, but is torn down
the middle; as a result about half of the text is not extant. In verse 13, it appears that the word “Lord” was added after “Lead us not into temptation.” After “But
deliver us from evil,” the doxology does not appear, but rather than come
to a close, the text continues with one more line, which says, “To our Lord.” It seems debatable whether “To our Lord” should be regarded as a
closing-title, or as a phrase introducing some non-extant continuation.
●
Papyrus
Oxyrhynchus LX 4010 is assigned to the 300s. It is a liturgical prayer, and instead of
beginning with “Our Father” it has an introductory portion (which cannot be
confident deciphered due to extensive damage, but which seems to address God as
the All-powerful Master and God of all comfort). In v. 12, this witness reads ωσπερ instead of
ως. It does not have the doxology after “but deliver us from evil.” After “our
debtors” and “into temptation,”
the remainders of two lines have been obliterated. It appears that after writing, “but deliver us from evil,” the writer
repeated the words “deliver us.” It is possible that more text followed on
another page.
● Á3 (Talisman
3), also known as BGU 3.954, was excavated at Herakleopolis Magna,
Egypt , and is assigned to
the 500s. It contains – or contained –
an apotropaic prayer (i.e., a prayer for protection and health), and it begins
by addressing God as the All-powerful Master. (It is similar in this respect to
P. Oxy. LX 4010.) An individual named
Silvanus prays for protection from demons, and from illness, and then
introduces “the Gospel-prayer” –
Matthew 6:9b-13. The word “Lord” was added after “Lead us not into temptation.” After that, the document is damaged but
enough has survived to show that it contained a doxology that included the
words “the glory forever.” This is followed by snippets from John 1:1
and Matthew 1:1 and a final petition for health.
(Unfortunately, as Brice Jones explains
in his book New
Testament Texts on Greek Amulets from Late Antiquity, this witness was part
of the cargo that perished in 1899 when the ship transporting it from Egypt to Europe caught fire in the Hamburg harbor. Fortunately the document had been
meticulously described by researchers Ulrich Wilken and Charles Wessely.)
● Á6, also known
as Papyrus
Iandani I.16 is an Egyptian document from the 400s or 500s. It includes the text of the Lord’s Prayer, and
includes a doxology – “for yours is the
glory forever and ever.” It has
other material besides the Lord’s Prayer: it also features the opening lines of Matthew
1:1, part of Matthew 8:1 (or Luke 9:37), part of Luke 11:1-2, snippets from
Psalm 90, and more – all rather garbled, but as Brice
Jones has noted, Ernest Schäfer helpfully diagnosed the cause of the mix-up
and rearranged the text that the novice copyist was attempting to write.
●
Á13, also known as Papyrus
Duke inv. 778, made in the 500s, is a double-sided amulet; Psalm 91 (in
Greek) is on one side and the Lord’s Prayer is on the other side. A detailed description of this document can
be found in an
article in the 2004 Bulletin of the
American Society of Papyrologists by Csaba La’da and Amphilochios
Papathomas. (For a picture and
transcript, see
this link.) The words “Your will be done” and “as we forgive our debtors” are absent.
The word “Lord” appears after “Lead us not into temptation” (a feature
also seen in Á3).
After “Deliver us from evil,”
there is an expanded doxology: “Through the only-begotten” – at this
point there is a hole in the papyrus which might have contained the contracted word
“Son” – “for yours is the glory and the
power and the all-holy Spirit, now, always, and forever and ever. Amen.”
(“Amen” is written as ϘΘ, two Greek letters which have a numerical value
of 99, the same as the word ἀμήν (α = 1, μ = 40, η = 8, ν = 50). In the papyrus, the Θ is only minimally
extant.) This concluding phrase is
similar to the way in which Gregory of Nyssa concluded his catechetical lecture
on the Lord’s Prayer, and it also resembles a liturgical formula, which we will
consider soon.
Another witness
that should not be ignored is the Gnostic composition called the Prayer of the Apostle Paul. This text is written in Coptic on the flyleaf
of Nag
Hammadi Codex 1 (the Jung Codex), which is about as old as Codex Sinaiticus. Like the texts on apotropaic amulets, this
brief composition is a request for protection and health. It contains some phrases strongly reminiscent
of Saying 17 in the “Gospel of Thomas” (which, in turn, resembles First
Corinthians 2:9, which is mainly an adaptation of Isaiah 64:4) and Philippians
2:9. The Gnostic (probably Valentinian)
author concludes the prayer with, “For
yours is the power and the glory and the praise and the greatness, forever and
ever, Amen.”
The Prayer of the
Apostle Paul includes the request, “give healing for my body when I ask you through
the Evangelist,” and although this has been interpreted as a reference to Paul,
I suggest that “the Evangelist” means the same thing as “the Gospel-prayer” in Á3.
Isidore
of Pelusium (late 300s-450) also quoted the doxology, twice, in the course of
commenting on the Lord’s Prayer, in his Fourth
Book of Epistles, #14, To Eutonius
the Deacon (cf. Migne
PG Vol. 78, col. 1073 and 1076).
This is especially interesting since he resided in Alexandria before taking up monastic
responsibilities at Pelusium; one would expect him to have used instead a text that
agreed with the flagship manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text.
Other evidence
joins Isidore in confirming that the non-inclusion of Matthew 6:13b was not the only reading known in Egyptian
transmission-lines. Codex L and
minuscules 33 and 1241 are among the MSS that support inclusion. Minuscule 892,
widely considered the most Alexandrian of all Gospels-minuscules, also includes
the doxology.
When one considers
that Sahidic and Fayummic versions support “For
yours is the power and glory forever, Amen,” a case can be made that the
non-inclusion of the doxology is essentially a Western reading than has
Alexandrian support: The Alexandrian
witnesses À B and 0171 and Cyril have the shorter reading, as does the
Middle Egyptian version; however, that seems to be the extent of support for
non-inclusion among Alexandrian
witnesses. Meanwhile, among the Western
witnesses for non-inclusion are D, at least seven Old Latin copies, Tertullian,
Cyprian, Ambrose, the Vulgate, and Peter Chrysologus.
(It may be noted
that practically next door in 6:15, À is allied with mainly Western witnesses,
favoring another non-inclusion (the non-inclusion of τὰ παραπτώματα
αὐτῶν.)
So: which reading accounts for the creation of
its rival? Though this question expresses a standard
text-critical canon – the paramount text-critical canon – it is in some
cases an oversimplification, because some readings created by copyists (especially
shorter readings) may arise due to factors that are not suggested by rival
readings.
In the case at
hand, it should be clear to everyone that the use of doxologies was very
widespread, not only in the writing of personal prayers, but also in prayers
offered in church-services. The amulets
provide examples of the former; the Didache provides examples of the
latter. It should also be clear that the
Lord’s Prayer was subject to adaptation – sometimes via expansion, and
sometimes via abridgement. (The prayer
in Matthew 6:9-13 was vulnerable to abridgement via harmonization to the prayer
in Luke 11:2-4, just as the prayer in Luke was vulnerable to expansion to the
prayer in Matthew 6.) Additional
examples of prayers with doxologies being offered in church-services are found
in the liturgies that have been handed down from antiquity. Let’s consider two examples.
● In what is known
as the
Liturgy of Saint James, after the priest recites embellished citations of
the first two clauses of Matthew 6:13, he is to say out loud, “For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever,”
and then the congregation is to reply with “Amen.”
● In what is known
as the Anaphora
of Saint Basil, the priest says, “For
Yours is the dominion, the kingdom, the power, and the glory of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever to the age of ages.” And further along in the service, the
recitation of the Lord’s Prayer occurs just before the breaking of the bread in
the communion-service: the congregation
is to recite the Lord’s Prayer up to the end of the phrase, “Deliver us from
evil,” and then the priest is to recite
the doxology, with an embellishment (or “embolism”), saying, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and
the glory, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and
to the ages of ages.”
(Additional liturgical examples of prayer-conclusions which ascribe glory to God in one way or another – such as “In the name of Your only-begotten Jesus Christ, through whom to You is the glory and the strength in the Holy Spirit to all the ages of the ages, Amen” and “Through Your only-begotten to Thee is the glory and the strength in Holy Spirit, now and to all the ages of the ages, Amen” – can be found in the Sacramentary of Sarapion of Thmuis, which is generally considered to have been produced in the mid-300s.)
(Additional liturgical examples of prayer-conclusions which ascribe glory to God in one way or another – such as “In the name of Your only-begotten Jesus Christ, through whom to You is the glory and the strength in the Holy Spirit to all the ages of the ages, Amen” and “Through Your only-begotten to Thee is the glory and the strength in Holy Spirit, now and to all the ages of the ages, Amen” – can be found in the Sacramentary of Sarapion of Thmuis, which is generally considered to have been produced in the mid-300s.)
Matthew 6:13b in 892. |
Burgon proceeded to
propose that the loss of Matthew 6:13b
was related to the custom of having the congregation recite the Lord’s Prayer
up to the end of “deliver us from evil,”
and then having the priest alone recite the doxology. An early copy with a mark beside it –
intended to mean that the doxology was not to be read aloud by the congregation
– could easily be misconstrued by a professional copyist to mean that the
doxology was not to be written by the scribe.
And thus the whole phrase failed to be perpetuated in a
transmission-line that branched out into the base-texts of the Old Latin
version(s), and the Alexandrian text-form represented by À B Mae, and
the text used by Origen.
Matthew 6:12-13 in Codex K. |
The words “and ever” in the liturgy are a natural expansion – but an
expansion of what? When we see, in the Didache, a description of the Lord’s
Prayer being used at a communion-service in the 100s, and when we see, from
Irenaeus, a reference to the phrase “forever
and ever” being used at the communion-service in the 100s, it seems
reasonable to conclude that Irenaeus is referring to an expansion of the same Matthean doxology described in the Didache.
Thus the table was
set, so to speak, in the 100s for a scribal mechanism that could cause the
accidental loss of Matthew 6:13b in
exemplars that were in the ancestry of both the Old Latin version, and a
significant segment of the Alexandrian text-stream, and a form of Matthew used
by Origen. This accounts for the absence
of the doxology in the quotations by Latin writers reading Old Latin copies
(such as Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustine), and for the absence of
the doxology in copies used by Origen.
CONCLUSION
Since the days of
Erasmus, it has been alleged that the doxology in Matthew 6:13 is an accretion
that slipped into the text from the liturgy.
In the 1700s, Bengel expressed this idea in his Gnomon (Vol. 1, pages 192-195), pointing out that the medieval
writer Euthymius, in the course of criticizing the Bogomils for not using the
doxology, claimed that it “the choral conclusion added by those who were the
divine illuminators and guides of the church.”
(Without closer study, I cannote tell if Euthymius really criticized the
Bogomils for avoiding a reading which he admitted was an accretion, or if Euthymius
meant nothing more than that Matthew 6:13b
was used as the framework for part of the liturgy by those to whom the
liturgies are attributed.) Bengel’s
research on the passage can be consulted in the text-critical appendix of his 1734
Η Καινη Διαθηκη and in his Apparatus Criticus.
More recently,
Bruce Metzger claimed that the evidence “suggests that an ascription, usually
in a threefold form, was composed (perhaps on the basis of 1 Chr 29.11-13) in
order to adapt the Prayer for liturgical use in the early church.” (Compare
Hort’s Notes on Select Readings on
this variant-unit.)
This is a
convenient explanation for defenders of the Alexandrian text, but the same
thought, in the minds of early scribes, would be an effective impetus for the
removal of the doxology from the text of Matthew. Picture a Christian in the second century
attending church-services in which the congregation recites the Lord’s Prayer
up to the end of “Deliver us from evil,”
and the priest (or elder) proceeds to recite the doxology. In the mind of some participants, the words
recited by the congregation – and only those words – were perceived as the
prayer; the doxology being regarded as a liturgical flourish. If such a participant were to proceed to
become a scribe, it would be very easy for him to conclude, when encountering
the doxology in Matthew 6:13 in an exemplar, that the scribe of his exemplar
had mistakenly included a liturgical flourish in the text – and all the more
easily considering that there is no such doxology in Luke 11.
Of course no one on
earth can demonstrate that this happened in the second century; yet the implication of this theory – that Mt. 6:13b is original – is supported not only by a vast proportion of manuscripts (over 98%),
but by the significantly earliest witness (the Didache),
and by widespread witnesses (Chrysostom, Isidore of Pelusium, Codex W,
L, Δ, 892, 1192, 2812, the Peshitta, the Gothic version, the Armenian version, the Opus Imperfectum, etc.). The non-inclusion of “For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever, Amen”
should be considered an early Western reading that was adopted in Egypt but which failed to gain wide acceptance in other Greek transmission-lines (not
unlike the non-inclusion of τὰ παραπτώματα αὐτῶν in Matthew 6:15).
Readers are encouraged to explore the embedded links for additional resources.
Readers are encouraged to explore the embedded links for additional resources.
7 comments:
Matthew 6 : Lord's Prayer : Doxology : Amulets : 4th 5th 6th Century with Doxology
(p. 119) 4th-5th Century : εἰς τ[οὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θ(εο)ῦ καὶ]
(p. 94) 5th-6th Century : ὅτ[ι σοῦ] ἐστοι ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺ αἰῶας τῶ[ν] αἰώνων
(p. 114) 6th Century : Σοῦ γάρ ἐστιν] ἡ δόξ[α εἰς] τοὺς αἰὼν[ας ] καὶ ἡ τῶν [. . .]
Title New Testament Texts on Greek Amulets from Late Antiquity
Volume 554 of The Library of New Testament Studies
Author Brice C. Jones
Edition illustrated
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016
>>books.google.com/books?id=inBYCwAAQBAJ&source=gbs_book_other_versions
Dissertation PDF:
>>spectrum.library.concordia.ca/979831/1/Jones_PhD_S2015
Blessed to read your newsletter.
Courage and Godspeed.
Brother James,
I had added something to your parenthetical note.
Koppa (qoppa) can be written a few different ways in the uppercase, so I had to look this up to see what the first Greek letter was.
I thought this information might be helpful for others.
Courage and Godspeed
NOTE: "Amen" is written as ϘΘ, two Greek letters (Koppa or qoppa Ϙ, ϙ & Theta Θ or ϴ, θ) which have a numerical value of 99, the same as the word ἀμήν (α = 1, μ = 40, η = 8, ν = 50.
>>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koppa_(letter)
>>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theta
Great information and commentary. Thanks.
Dear Brother Snapp,
I wanted to add to these hits.
I found the doxology also in an Arabic manuscript (with English translation).
Courage and Godspeed,
-mike
• Thus the Christ taught us to say, "Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done, as in Heaven, so in earth. Gives us sufficient bread day by day; forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive whoever trespasseth against us. Lead us not into trial, O Lord, but save us from the Devil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for evermore. Amen." (Gibson, An Arabic Version of the Acts of the Apostles and the Seven Catholic Epistles, 1899, p. 14 [f. 113a])
• Margaret Dunlop Gibson An Arabic Version of the Acts of the Apostles and the Seven Catholic Epistles, with a Treatise on the Triune Nature of God, Studia Sinaitica, 7 (London: C.J. Clay and Sons, 1899), 74-107 (Arabic), 2-36 (English).
What is the significance of the word "kingdom" being omitted in the Didache? It seems there are variant readings among those who use the doxology. If this doxology is original, should we not expect more uniformity? Or are such inaccurate quotations of Scripture to be expected in early church writings such as the Didache? How do we know which wording the doxology is original? Should "kingdom" be included or not?
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