Jerome’s Split Decision
Two Latin Choices
Jerome did not translate epiousios (ἐπιούσιος) one way. In Matthew, the Vulgate reads supersubstantialem. In Luke, it reads quotidianum, or daily.1
The difference is not small. Supersubstantialem pulls the petition upward, toward the Bread of Life and Eucharist. Quotidianum pulls it outward, toward ordinary provision.
Public Prayer
The Latin liturgical text of the Lord’s Prayer kept the daily reading: panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie.2
That choice made sense pastorally. People already prayed for daily bread, and liturgy tends to preserve familiar words.
The Catholic tradition did not forget the higher reading. The Catechism still gives several senses, including a Eucharistic one.3
Still, the public sound of the prayer in the West became daily bread. That is the historical fact this chapter needs.
The Reformers carried the same surface forward. Luther’s catechism made daily bread a name for all bodily needs, including food, home, work, peace, and health.4
This wider meaning strengthened the reflex. Bread became not only one food, but a shorthand for material life.
Related sections: The Reading That Lost; The Impossible Word.
Footnotes
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Jerome’s Vulgate renders Matthew 6:11 as panem nostrum supersubstantialem and Luke 11:3 as panem nostrum quotidianum. ↩
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Missale Romanum, Ordo Missae, the Pater Noster. The Latin prayer uses quotidianum. ↩
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Catechism of the Catholic Church 2837 treats the petition in temporal, qualitative, and Eucharistic senses. ↩
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Martin Luther, Small Catechism, Fourth Petition, explains daily bread as everything needed for bodily life. ↩