The Impossible Word
A Rare Term
The load-bearing word is epiousios (ἐπιούσιος). A load-bearing word is the term on which the argument depends.
The problem is simple. Epiousios (ἐπιούσιος) appears in the New Testament only in Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3. It does not appear in the Septuagint.
Origen noticed the problem in the third century. He wrote that the word seemed to have been coined by the evangelists.1
Translation Options
That leaves several possible readings. It may mean daily. It may mean necessary for existence. It may mean for the coming day. It may also carry a higher, sacramental sense.2
No single option is obvious. The safe claim is narrower. The word was difficult, and the Western tradition chose a practical reading.
Secondary scholarship matters here. Joachim Jeremias and Raymond Brown both treat the petition as more than a simple request for today’s loaf.3
That practical reading turned the petition toward the table. It did not erase deeper readings, but it made them harder for ordinary readers to hear.
This is why The Reading That Lost matters. The ancient evidence includes another path, where the bread is tomorrow’s bread or kingdom bread.
Related sections: Jerome’s Split Decision; The Most Recited Food Petition.
Footnotes
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Origen, De Oratione 27.7, says epiousios (ἐπιούσιος) appears to be a coined word. ↩
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BDAG, s.v. epiousios (ἐπιούσιος), surveys the main lexical options, including “necessary for existence” and “for the coming day.” ↩
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Secondary sources: Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus; Raymond Brown, “The Pater Noster as an Eschatological Prayer,” Theological Studies 22 (1961). ↩