Gregory of NyssaP1- who prayed such prayers formulated a conclusion to
S. Matt 6:12 dipiepev K1 f13 311 syc? co? Cl.
In this scheme (2) and (3) are only dialectal variants.
Is the present tense original, and is tli£ Didache ver sion older than the Matthean at this point?14 Or does the aorist d<pr)Kapev reflect an Aramaic perfect—and if so, in what sense?15 with some characteristic deviations from the latter.9 It is hard to suppose that the Didache quotes directly from the text of Matthew's Gospel.10 The agreements would rest on a common liturgical tradition.
Excursus:TheText of the Lord's Prayer It is important that the Didache contains a formu lated doxology at the end of the prayer. Clearly, the form of the Our Father handed on by Q did not yet have such a doxology; it is lacking in the Lukan text and also in the original text of Matthew. Adolf
Schlatter and Joachim Jeremias have instructed us, however,16 that the Our Father was one of the prayers
"with the 'seal,' i.e., with a freely formulated conclu sion." This means that, from the beginning, the one who prayed such prayers formulated a conclusion to the last petition ex tempore. It is in the nature of things that over time "a fixed form of the doxology"17
We will trace the differences between the Didache and the Matthean text.11 The singular ev tw ovpava ("in heaven") in place of the plural in Matthew is essen tially meaningless.12 In the "fifth petition" we find
TTjjc dtpeiXpv ("debt") against Matthew's tol opeiXppara ("debts").13 The Didache's dipiepev ("we for give") is interesting. Cf.:
1. Matt 6:12 aippuapev S* B Z f1 pc vgst syP f; Gregory of NyssaP12. Matt 6:12 dipLopev D (L) W A 0 565 pc syc? co?
(thus also Luke 11:4) Bahr, "The Use of the Lord's Prayer in the Primitive Church," JBL 84 (1965) 154. Nevertheless, the agreements between Matthew and the Didache show that the paradigm of the Lord's Prayer was already more or less fixed in this sphere of tradi tion.
9 Cf. Ernst Lohmeyer, Das Vaterunser (5th ed.; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962) 7 (ET:
The Lord's Prayer [New York: Harper & Row, 1965] 15-16). Cf. also the synopsis in table 9. Schollgen,
"Church Order," 66: Did. 8.2 is tradition.
10 Thus Funk, Patres apostolici, 1.19; Hemmer, Doctrine, xcv; Schaff, Church Manual, 188; Massaux, Influence,
3.154-55. To the contrary: Koester, Synoptische Uberlieferung, 203-9; Audet, Didache, 171-73; Lohmeyer,
Vaterunser, 7 (ET: Lord's Prayer, 16); Giet, L'Enigme, 200; Rordorf and Tuilier, Doctrine, 86. Against Koester, most recently J. B. Bauer, "Aspekte des
Kanonproblems," Meqor Hajjim: Festschrift fur Georg Molin zum 75 Geburtstag (Graz: Akademische Druckund Verlagsanstalt, 1983) 30-31. The arguments presented by Koester, says Bauer, are not conclusive.
The Didache's aipiepev was also found in the Koine text of Matthew's Gospel and in the version in the Apostolic Constitutions-, the latter also has ei> rolq ovpavoiq and b<peiXr)paT<x (the last again, in my opinion, not persuasive, because it is reasonable to suppose that the Constitutor used his text of Matthew to make corrections). Bauer asserts:
"However the problem now stands, whether the Didachist knew the Gospel of Matthew or not, that he records the Matthean form can also be under stood in this way: He knew not only this longer ver sion but also the shorter text of the Our Father as it is found in Luke, and he wished, so to speak, to inculcate the longer version as canonical" (p. 31; with reference to J. B. Bligh). This can scarcely be the case. Wengst (Didache, 26-27) has now also asserted that this passage is a citation from Matthew's Gospel. The liturgy or a written source are not genuine alternatives (p. 26), and the devia tions from the traditional text of Matthew "do not weigh heavily" (p. 27).
11 These differences are noted in table 9 by the use of underlining in the text of the Didache.
12 Koester (Synoptische Uberlieferung 206) suggested that the singular in the Didache might even be origi nal. Gerhard Schneider, "Das Vaterunser des
Matthaus," in A Cause de TEvangile: Etudes sur les Synoptiques et les Actes offertes au P. Jacques Dupont,
O.S.B., a Voccasion de son 70e anniversaire (LD 123; Paris: Cerf, Publications de Saint-Andre, 1985) 63 n.
23: the singular is secondary. The Apostolic Constitutions has the plural ev tolq ovpavolq (proba bly corrected according to the familiar text of Matthew).
13 Koester (Synoptische Uberlieferung, 206) considered whether the didachistic or Matthean form is the older. Schneider ("Vaterunser," 63 n. 23) thinks this is probably a secondary accommodation. The Apostolic Constitutions again accommodated to Matthew with rd oipeiX-ppara.
14 Cf. the suggestions in Koester, Synoptische Uberliefe rung, 206-7. Differently Joachim Jeremias, Theology,
196 n. 2: dipiopev or d<pLepev are softenings ("so far as there is no question of Lucan influence").
15 Jeremias, Theology, 201: 'ld(pr)Kapev goes back to the Aramaic iebaqnan, which is meant as a perfectum coincidentiae and is therefore to be translated: 'as herewith we forgive our debtors.'"
16 Adolf Schlatter, Der Evangelist Matthaus (6th ed.; Stuttgart: Calwer, 1963) 217; Jeremias, Theology,
203. Cf. also Joachim Jeremias, "Abba," in idem, Abba, 170-71 (ET: The Prayers of Jesus [SBT 2.6;