Word of the Day: Apotropaic

            Word of the Day:  Apotropaic (adjective):  designed to turn away evil.

            In the days of the Roman Empire, it was not unusual for pagans to create little charms, marketed with the claim that the people who wore them would be protected from disease.  Sometimes these charms had brief inscriptions, asking one of the Greek or Roman deities for their protection.  And sometimes, such inscriptions were written on papyrus or parchment and folded and/or rolled up into a wearable form, such as a bead, necklace, or bracelet.

            Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, there is one, 11Q11 (produced in about A.D. 50), that features several charm-inscriptions, and a loosely adapted form of Psalm 91.  This scroll might have been a master-copy used by someone making apotropaic amulets. 

            The inspired author of Psalm 91 begins with an expression of confidence in the Lord’s protection, relying on God’s help in the face of danger:  “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”  I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.”

            In the verses that follow, we see an appeal for divine protection:  “Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly pestilence,” and “No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling.”
            It is no wonder that hundreds of years later, many early Christians found comfort in this psalm.  At Duke University’s Special Collections Library, there is a papyrus (P. Duk. Inv. 778) that has the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) on one side, and Psalm 91 on the other side.   (I offered an analysis of the text of Matthew 6:9-20 in 2015 in this post.)  At the Israel Museum, there is a small amulet (see the “Words of Salvation” in this post) that contains just a snippet from the beginning of Psalm 91.  The Walters Art Gallery, in Baltimore, has a metal armband with an inscription based on Psalm 91:1.

            Other Scripture-passages that were used in amulets and apotropaic inscriptions included Romans 8:31b – “If God is for us, who can be against us?” – and the opening verses of the Gospels.  Why the opening verses?  Perhaps there was a superstition that if an inscription just had the first part of each Gospel, that would be enough to invest the whole inscribed object with protective power.  Whatever the reasoning was, excerpts from the opening verses of one or more Gospel have been preserved in several ancient amulets, and on the walls of a crypt in Dongola in Sudan (excavated in 2009).              

            This may raise a theological question:  are such amulets and inscriptions a good thing, or a bad thing?  If danger approaches, and then retreats, will a person wearing an amulet give thanks to God, or will he say, “Whew; it’s a good thing I was wearing that amulet!”?  Will owning a plaque of Psalm 91:1 or Romans 8:31 protect you from COVID-19?  Can such an object become an idol if a believer thinks he is especially protected from harm because of it?

            My answer has two parts:  first, fellow believers facing the danger of COVID-19 should find comfort and confidence in God’s promises.  I encourage you to keep God’s promises and commandments in view, like Deuteronomy 6:9 says:  tie them to your hands and write them on the doorposts of your house.  Visible reminders of God’s promises are a blessing.

            Second, remember that when the devil tempted Jesus, the devil quoted Psalm 91 – and we ought to take that as a lesson that even good things (such as Scripture itself) can be misused for a destructive purpose.  Jesus’ answer to the devil’s temptation was to refuse to put Himself at risk when it was not the Father’s will.  Instead, He answered, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”  God’s promises were not given as a license for anyone to do things against the Father’s will, and it is not the Father’s will for us to engage in activities that involve taking needless risks – actions that are simply irresponsible, unwise, and reckless.  Our God, who gave promises to His people, works through His people to fulfill many of His promises.  When we act responsibly, patiently, soberly, and in obedience to God, we are God’s co-workers doing our part to fulfill His purposes and plans. 

            God does not want His people to imagine that a virus is greater than Him.  Nor does God want His people, if they face a temptation to needlessly put themselves in harm’s way, to say, “Fine, Satan, I’ll jump off the temple; Geronimo!”  We ought to use wisdom and caution – which, in the present situation, for most of us means staying at least six feet away from other people, avoiding crowds, and frequently, thoroughly washing our hands.  

            And when danger has passed, give no thanks to amulets and inscriptions that human hands have made.  Give thanks to God for the gifts He has given – greatest of which is eternal life through His Son, who gives us peace that, unlike viruses, will not pass away. 

            For more information about New Testament materials in amulet-form, see this research by Deniz Sever and this article by Joseph Sanzo.  

Readers are invited to double-check the data in this post.  And wash your hands!

Matthew 6:13 - How Does the Lord's Prayer End? (Part 2)

          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? 

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.)

         

Matthew 6:13b in 892.

In the late 1800s, Dean Burgon, conscious of this liturgical custom, proposed that it is so ancient that it accounts for the rival reading in Matthew 6:13.  Several pages of Causes of Corruption are devoted to the exploration of this variant-unit.  Burgon pointed out that if the doxology was added to the text of Matthew after previously existing as a liturgical formula, then instead of seeing, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen,” we would see, “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” – which, although it is what we see in the Anaphora of Basil and the Liturgy of Saint James,  is not what we see, except in two manuscripts (157 and 1253).  The idea that Matthew 6:13b was based on a liturgical formula, Burgon argued, is just the opposite of what ought to be concluded:  instead, a variety of liturgical formulas are based on Matthew 6:13b. 

          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.

         Such an occurrence would have to happen extremely early – sometime in the 100s.  But this is completely feasible.  As evidence that liturgical formulas were in use in liturgies in the 100s, we may turn to Irenaeus’ work Against Heresies, Book One, chapter 3:  remarking on false teachers’ heresies about Aeons, he mentions that “We ourselves, when at the Eucharist, pronounce the words “to aeons of aeons”” – that is, the words “forever and ever.”  We see the same kind of expression in Á3, Á6, Á13, and the Gnostic “Prayer of the Apostle Paul.”

          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.

 

The Resurrection of T

            A hundred years ago, the list of evidence for textual variants in the standard critical edition of the Greek New Testament was more diverse than the lists in the current editions of the United Bible Societies and Nestle-Aland texts.  Instead of just listing significant uncials, minuscules, patristic references, and lectionaries, the textual apparatus developed by Ernst von Dobschütz also included evidence from ostraca (often spelled “ostraka” – this refers to pieces of pottery) and talismans (small Scriptural extracts that could be worn).  In 1933, however, this entire class of witnesses was eliminated from Kurt Aland’s list of textual witnesses.  Consequently they have been mostly ignored.  Léon Vaganay expressed the conventional wisdom of textual critics in the late 1900’s:  “The writings on these objects are more of a curiosity than directly useful for textual criticism.”

            This view of the ostraca and talismans is incorrect. 

            Peter Head recently emphasized the treatment (or, non-treatment) of these witnesses in an insightful essay,  Additional Greek Witnesses to the New Testament (Ostraca, Amulets, Inscriptions, and Other Sources), which forms chapter 16 of The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research:  Essays on the Status Quaestionis (Brill, 2012), on pages 429-460.  Head mentioned that the items which Dobschütz categorized as Ostraca 1-20 were re-categorized by C. R. Gregory as 0153.  0153 includes passages from all four Gospels, including an extensive presentation of Luke 22:40-71.  If this witness, to which various production-dates have been assigned (400’s?  500’s?  600’s?), had been written on papyrus, it would be relatively well-known, instead of being consigned to obscurity as a curiosity.  Head mentions other ostraca as well, citing a list published by C. E. Römer in 2008.  The texts written on these ostraca include small portions of Acts, Romans, Galatians, James, First John, and Jude. 

            Amulets (sometimes called talismans, but this seems to judge the intent of the wearer) were mentioned by Chrysostom in his Homily 72 on Matthew and by Augustine in On Christian Doctrine 2:20.  Some of these amulets were symbolic representations of the four Gospels, containing their incipits (that is, their opening verse or opening verses).  Others, produced to be worn to remind sick people of Scripture’s demonstrations of divine healing power (and perhaps to be used as healing-charms), include appropriate passages such as Matthew 4:23.  More than one amulet has Psalm 91 (i.e., Psalm 90 in the Septuagint’s enumeration) accompanied by the Lord’s Prayer. 

           A convenient list of amulets was provided by Theodore de Bruyn and Jitse Dijkstra in 2011 in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists (Vol. 48), on pages 163-216.  The list includes 24 items that contain material that is clearly derived from books of the New Testament.  Typically these items are assigned production-dates in the 400’s-600’s, but a few of them are significantly earlier; for example, P. Ant. (Papyrus Antinoopolis) 2.4, which contains text from Matthew 6:10-12, is from the late 200’s or early 300’s. 

P. Oxy. 5073 -
an invocation to the reader, plus text from Mark 1:1-2.

            P. Oxy. 5073 is another early witness categorized as an amulet.  Its existence was announced by Geoffrey Smith in 2009.  P. Oxy 5073 contains text from Mark 1:1-2 (without “Son of God,” and generally congruent to the text of Codex Θ), and if the assigned production-date to the 200’s is correct, it is currently the earliest extant manuscript of any text from the Gospel of Mark.

            Head also mentioned inscriptions, none of which are mentioned in the Nestle-Aland or UBS apparatuses.  The usefulness of such inscriptions may be illustrated anecdotally:  out of six inscriptions of Luke 2:14, five of them support the reading, “good will toward men,” opposing the reading adopted in the Nestle-Aland text.   

            As an example of the contribution that this class of evidence is capable of making, I draw your attention to P. Duk. Inv. 778, an amulet housed at Duke University’s collection of papyrus manuscripts in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.  This amulet, probably produced in the 500’s, was given special attention by Csaba A. La’da and Amphilochios Papathomas in the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists in 2004 (Vol. 41) on pages 93-113. 

            One side of the amulet contains the Greek text of Psalm 90, and the other side contains Matthew 6:9-13, with several textual variants.  As shown here in an artificially reinforced image, the passage from Matthew is clearly identifiable despite several clumsy errors by the copyist.  Its text includes the doxology (Matthew 6:13b), although it might be better to say that it includes a doxology in light of the deviations from the usual text:

Part of P. Duk. inv. 778 - with the text artificially reinforced
and with the words individually underlined.

  

  Πατηρ ημων ο εν της ουρανοις αγιασθητω

  το ονομα σου ελθατω η βασιλια ος εν

  [οu]ρανου και επι τ[ης γ]η[ς τω]ν αρτων ημ[ων]

  των εποιουσιων δος ημιν σημερον

  [κ]αι αφες ημειν τα οφηματα ημων μη ε

  νινκε ημας [ε]ις πιρασμον κε

[α]λλα ρησε ημας [απο του πονη]ρου δια

το μονογενη [?υιον?] οτι σου εστιν

η δοξα και τω [?κρατως?] και του παν

αγιου συ πνευματ[ος ν]ιν και αγιν

[κ]αι ει[ς τους εωνας των] εωνων Ϙ[Θ]

Notable variants include the following:

· The phrase “Your will be done” is missing.

· After “Lead us not into temptation,” the text has the contracted word “Lord.”

· After “deliver us from evil” (or, “deliver us from the evil one”), the amulet’s text continues with something to the effect of, “and through Your only begotten Son [?? – at this point the text is dubiously reconstructed due to damage to the manuscript], Yours is the glory and power [?? – at this point the text is dubiously reconstructed due to damage to the manuscript], and Your all-holy Spirit, now and forever [?? – at this point the text is dubiously reconstructed due to damage to the manuscript] and ever,” followed by a gematria-based symbol representing the word “Amen.”  Even with the (liturgically-based?) flourishes, this seems to constitute support for the inclusion of Matthew 6:13.

             The expansion in 6:13 may suggest that the person who produced this manuscript was familiar the liturgical formulas which are found in the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom.  The opening “Great Litany” of this liturgy closes with, “For to You belong all glory, honor, and worship, to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and forever.”       

             The text of Matthew 6:13b is often treated by commentators as if the non-inclusion of the doxology is a certainty.  It was definitely not in the Alexandrian Text represented by Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.  Nor does it appear in the commentaries on the Lord’s Prayer by Tertullian, Cyprian, and Origen.  Theodore of Mopsuestia, however, who worked in Syria in the late 300’s and early 400’s, included the doxology in his quotation of the Lord’s Prayer, although he did not offer much commentary on the phrase.  It is also included in the text of Matthew 6:13 in Codex W, the Gothic Version, and the Peshitta, besides hundreds of later Greek manuscripts.  Is it possible that the early commentators neglected the doxology because it is not in the Lord’s Prayer as presented in Luke 11:2-4?  Or, due to early liturgical separation of the doxology from the rest of the prayer – in which the congregation recited the main portion, but the priest delivered the doxology – could the doxology have been considered separate from the preceding verses, and accordingly did not receive the same attention from the early commentators?  Hmm.    

            Didache 8:2, which was composed no later than 120 and possibly was written in the 90’s, states:  

            “And do not pray as the hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in his Gospel, pray thus:  ‘Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.  Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done, as in heaven so also upon earth.  Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors.  And lead us not into trial, but deliver us from evil [or, the evil one].  For Thine is the power and the glory forever.”  

Reconstruction of the text on an ostracon
in the National Museum of Greece (No. 12227).
The portion in yellow is extant.

            Clearly the Lord’s Prayer presented in the Didache includes the doxology; it lacks a reference to the kingdom, but this is attributable to a simple scribal error.  (The Curetonian Syriac similarly includes the doxology, but lacks a reference to “the power.”)  One could assume that the relatively late witness to the text of this part of the Didache contains an interpolation; on the other hand one could argue that an interpolator would probably not omit part of the passage he intended to insert.  There is no compelling reason to believe that the text of the Didache has been corrupted at this point. 

           Another witness which is not listed in the UBS and Nestle-Aland apparatuses may be brought to bear on the question of the text of Matthew 6:13.  As Wieland Willker has noted, an ostracon at the National Museum of Greece in Athens – No. 12227 – displays text from Matthew 6:11-13.  In verse 12 it supports αφιομεν, agreeing with D, W and Θ instead of the Alexandrian αφηκαμεν and the Byzantine αφιεμεν.  After πονηρου, the ostracon does not have οτι σου εστιν, etc., but instead has –υριε (i.e., κυριε, “Lord,” when written) followed by a staurogram.  Thus, while it does not support the doxology, it does not quite support a complete stop at πονηρου either.

           Rudolf Knopf’s article (in German) about this ostracon is on pages 228-233 of the 1901 issue of Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde des Urchristentums, which is combined online as a single file with the 1900 issue; in the digital file, Knopf's article is on digital page-numbers 606-611.   

            

A modern-day token.

            Whatever conclusion one may reach regarding Matthew 6:13, the evidence from ostraca and amulets, especially some which have only recently come to light, shows that they can make meaningful text-critical contributions. 

          I submit that von Dobschütz’s talisman-category should be reintroduced into the apparatus of the Greek New Testament, slightly adjusted so as to include miscellaneous non-continuous-text witnesses including amulets and inscriptions.  Instead of “talisman,” which seems to imply a superstitious usage of the items involved, I recommend that the symbol T should be understood to represent “Token.”  A token should be defined as a non-continuous text produced as a souvenir, a healing-charm, an inscription, or in other miscellaneous formats.