THE LORD’S PRAYER

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30947, 31 December 1965, Page 4

THE LORD’S PRAYER

The Lord’s Prayer. By Ernst Lohmeyer. Collins. 299 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. Translated by John Bowden.

Professor Ernst Lohmeyer was professor of the New Testament in the University of Breslau from 1920 to 1936. For political reasons he was sent to Griefswald as rector of the University there. In 1946 he disappeared the night before the re-opening of the University after the war. Nothing is known of his fate. It is presumed that his life was ended somewhere in Russia in September 1946. A recognised New Testament scholar, Professor Lohmeyer has many books to his credit. The volume under review appeared in Germany in 1952. This is the first of his books to be translated (1965) into English. It would hardly seem possible there was a need for a further book on The Lord’s Prayer. The prayer is in such common use that its acceptance is not in any way doubted. That it was given to the first disciples by Jesus would seem to be sufficient for scholars, saints and the millions of ordinary Christians the world over. But its, basis is challenging, its effect tremendous and much more can be discerned in it than popular acceptance is aware of.

The traditional prayers of the Jewish religion were widely known and used In the day of Jesus (eighteen of the beautiful benedictions of the ancient religion of the Jews are translated in this book). It might seem that a new prayer was not needed. Jesus thought otherwise. The Lord’s Prayer is an entirely new’ prayer and its intention is clear to anyone who uses it: it is a prayer that brings the oersons who prays closer to God than the earliest prayers common to the people of that far-away day. The Lord’s Prayer is a community prayer. It opens with “Our Father”—thus giving the keynote to all the seven petitions of the prayer. Although said by millions daily it is a prayer for the community and nothing in Christian worship so transcends doctrinal differences as does this simple, moving address to God the Father.

Professor Lohmeyer introduces a truth not generally known when he says “Who art in Heaven” is a reference not only to heaven as a place beyond human sight but more so to the fact that heaven is in us. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” To say, “Thy will be done” refers to self-surrender: “Our Daily Bread” is not the bread of the Church’s sacrament, it is the earthly bread, the bread of the poor and the needy. This sustenance for which we crave is at the heart of the Lord’s Prayer. In our day, those who have are expected,

and find it a privilege, to remember those, who have not. In a world of plenty the Lord’s Prayer points with no uncertain gesture to the millions who go to bed at night hungry. “Forgive us our debts;” there are several interpretations of this petition: “As we forgive our debtors” is St. Matthew’s version (6; 12). The modern use of the word trespass is hardly true to the original, while “debt” seems a cold word with . financial overtures that could not ever be associated with the Prayer. The “debtors” in Matthew’s version means “those who wrong us” and this naturally leads to the root meaning of “debts” which is “sins.” The use of “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us,” would be more effective than the modern “trespass” which is so frequently gabbled. “Lead us not into Temptation” should be rendered “may we not yield to temptation,” “but deliver us from evil.” The most ancient inter-

pretation says, “Deliver us from the evil one.” Probably this could, with advantage, be used in our time; it makes evil somehow definite instead of a vague description of a mental concept. The Prayer ends with the doxology “For Thine is the Kingdom,” etc., and this is a glad acknowledgement of God’s greatness and goodness. It is said, or sung, by the congregation as it worships. As the language of Jesus was Aramaic, the following translation by Charles Cutley Torrey is perhaps the nearest to the original we have; “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. May Thy kingdom come; may Thy will be done, as in Heaven, so also on earth. Our daily bread give us this day. And forgive us our sins, even as we forgive those who sin against us. And let us not yield to temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Professor Lohmeyer’s book will surely become a standard exposition, in English, of the Prayer which is so familiar a possession of Christianity.