The Mystery Word - Part Two

Its Possible Meanings and the History of the Debate

In the previous article, we began our examination of the mystery of epiousios, (ἐπιούσιον), the adjective mistranslated as “daily” in the “our daily bread” phrase of the Lord’s Prayer. Specifically, we looked at the word’s prefix, epi (ἐπὶ), meaning “on,” “over” and “upon,” and its root word, ousia (οὐσίας), meaning “one’s substance,” “property,” and “essence,” from the participle of the verb meaning “to be”  or “to exist,” “being” or “existing,”

Just a few weeks ago, my local pastor happily preached a sermon about the importance of “daily” in the Lord’s prayer, how it meant we should pray daily, blissfully ignorant of anything interesting about the word, taking a fascinating concept, making it as dull as dishwater, his sermon inspiring these articles.

Possible Meanings

Given the wide variety of ideas for both the prefix and root word, a number of interpretations is possible, but “daily” is not one of them. The Greek word for “day” is hemera (ἡμέρα), a common word. The adverb form, "for this day,” is semeron (σήμερον). If Jesus meant for people to hear “daily,” he would have used one of these two words.

One thing we know for certain is the Jesus expected people to understand his meaning from the prefix and root. Because the whole word was not in common use, there could be no subtle colloquial meaning, like the difference in the meaning of “over” in “overworked” and “worked over.” The meaning of this invented word must be on it surface.

To get a feel for the possibilities of the prefix, I started my investigation by looking at all the Greek words that Jesus used beginning with epi. This uncovered something interesting: all such Greek words are verbs, no nouns, no adverbs, no other adjectives. This makes sense because “on,” “over,” and “upon,” indicate the action of a verb. This means that the sense of the word comes from its root verb, “being” and “existing.” However, none of these verbs beginning with epi are very common for Jesus, appearing around an average of four times. (Note: Another Greek prefix, arch, from archon, meaning “ruler, is used to indicate “over” in the sense of being superior, that is, having power over others.)

So, what are the common literal meanings of epi? The word Jesus most commonly used (9 times) is epistrepho, meaning “turn around” or, literally, “turn over.” Next, is epithymeo (5 times) meaning “lust after” or, literally, “lust over.” Also used five times is epiballo, meaning “put” or, literally, “toss upon.” A number of verbs are used four times: epiginosko, meaning “recognize,” or literally, “know upon, ” epididōmi, “give freely” or, literally, “give over,” and epitithemi, meaning “lay,” or “place upon.” So the general sense is either “over” or “upon.” Notice, in all these verbs, the prefix meaning follows that of the verb root, even though the prefix comes first.

Using this information, that the root is verbal and the prefix means “over” or “upon,” we are left with only a few possible meanings, “being over,” “being upon,” “existing over,” and “existing upon.” Which of these could be used to describe a loaf of bread? To me, the obvious answer is “existing upon,” bread being food, what we literally exist upon. Since the adjective follows a definite article, the phrase is literally, “this loaf, the one existing upon.”

Jesus loves to play with words, so why make up this word? Where is the fun in it?

For me, that question is answered by one of Jesus’s first phrases in the Gospels, his first quote of the Old Testament in Matthew 4:4, which translated literally is: "Not upon a loaf alone is he going to thrive, the human, but upon every saying being poured out from the mouth of God." The “this loaf” is from the same Greek as we see in the Lord’s Prayer, ton arton. The Greek word translated in two occurrences as "upon?” You guessed it, epi. According to Jesus’s teaching, both bread and the sayings of the Divine are what we exist upon.

Early Understanding

So where did “daily” come from in our English translation?

The first scholar to comment on this word in the written record was Origen, an early Christian scholar in Alexandria writing in the late second and early third centuries. He described epiousios as a new word, one Jesus invented. He defined it as meaning "necessary for existence", in other words, “existing upon.”

The idea of "daily" goes back to Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 240), who wrote the original Latin version of the Bible, Vetus Latina, He translated the Greek epiousios into the Latin, quotidianum, which means "daily" in the sense of "ordinary", "common", "unremarkable", and "usual,” his idea being that anything necessary for existence is common. This concept was part of a debate about holiness, which divided things into what is common and what is sacred.

A couple of centuries later, St. Jerome, wrote the Latin Vulgate translation from the Greek. He translated this word epiousios into the Latin supersubstantialem, which was a new word in Latin meaning “existing beyond.” This view was supported by other fourth-century Christian writers, most notably, Augustine, who was probably the most influential of early church philosophers. This view put the asked-for bread more in the realm of the sacred, emphasizing “the sayings of God” part of Jesus’s equation more than the physical bread.

This idea was countered by another fourth-century interpretation of epiousios as "for the future," from Cyril of Alexandria. This view came from linking epiousios with another Greek word epienai which means "the coming upon," a word Jesus never used. Its root is the homonym for “to be” discussed in the previous article, meaning “to go” or “to come.” Again this interpretation was never used in the Gospels because it would wreak havoc on the other 614 verses of Jesus’s using the Greek word, eimi, consistently translated as “to be” not “to go” or “to come.” However, this “for the future” idea lead away from the more sacred view towards the more common view of bread, “daily.”

Cyril’s view was rejected by Jerome, but for linguistic reasons. The root, einai, is the present infinite form of the Greek verb "to be" or “to go,” related to ousia, which is the participle form “being” and “coming," usually used in adjectives. There is also the problem that the word epinai is also the infinitive form of two other Greek verbs, making it a problematic translation.

In the Vulgate, Jerome used the Latin supersubstantialem, which is translated into “supersubstantial” or "superessential" in English, but we have to be careful because "super" has taken on the meaning of "superior" that the Latin word for "over" has but the Greek word epi doesn't (see note on arch above). This is especially true in our modern use because of ideas like "Superman." Our idea of "super" no longer means physically “upon” as the Latin and Greek words primarily do.

Of course, these ideas have been debated and commented on ever since by Biblical scholars.

So, how did we get stuck with “daily?” The answer is historical. Luther sought to make his German translation of the Bible less mystical. So he went with Cyril’s view, rendering “the coming upon” as “daily” in German. The King James Version Protestant translators simply followed his example.

Conclusion

As Paul Harvey used to say, and now you know the rest of the story.

The fact that there has been no pushback against this “daily” translation means something important. It means that people today, unlike those in the centuries after Jesus, are basically indifferent to discussing what Jesus actually meant. We are too wise for that, having it all figured out. The church today is an establishment, happily repeating, without much thought, the ideas with which they are most comfortable.

As Eric Hoffer wrote: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”