The Pater Noster: A Trajectory through Time - Part I

This is not the first time I've written on this subject, and you might wish to consult a previous blog post, A Listing of the Synoptica Series and Other Related Posts in this Blog (Revised) June 14 2020, for further background information. In particular, Earlier Forms of the Pater Noster, posted on May 30 2019, might be helpful.

In this article I intend to show the development of the Pater Noster ("Our Father," or "The Lord's Prayer") through time.

This beloved and ancient prayer has survived in three editions: that of Matthew, that of Luke, and that of the Didache. Somehow, the canonical (Greek) text grew out of this development, and that is what we want to shed light on.

So far as I can tell, the oldest version is that in Luke. According to my Layered Matthew Hypothesis, that is because Luke used an older edition of Matthew's gospel (Matthew IIa) for the material that he got from Matthew. Here is Luke's version (Lk. 11:2-4), according to modern scholarship:

Father,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come

Give us each day
our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive
everyone who is indebted to us;
and lead us not into temptation.

I happen to believe that the original of this prayer was taught in Aramaic, and such a version has survived in the Sinaitic Palimpsest. I'll show it first in Hebrew letters, easier for me to write than Estrangelo (classical Syriac script):

אבא נתקדש שמך ותאתא מלכותך ׃ 2

והב לן לחמא אמינא דכליום ׃ 3

ושבך לנ חטהין ואף אנחנן שבקין אנחנן לכל דחיב לן ולא תעלן לנסיונא ׃ 4

 This sounds something like:

abba netqaddash sh'mak watite malkutak

wahab lan lahma amyna d'kulyum.

wash'buq lan n'tahayn 'ap ennahnan sh'baqn l'kul d'hayyabin lan w'la ta'lan l'nesyuna.

But we should not suppose that this minimalist, Lukan version was widely known or available to all. It did survive in the Vulgate:

Pater sanctificetur nomen tuum
adveniat regnum tuum
panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis cotidie
et dimitte nobis peccata nostra
siquidem et ipsi dimittimus omni debenti nobis
et ne nos inducas in temptationem.

This was fine for Latin-speaking Christians in the West, but in the East, Luke's shorter version was replaced just a hundred years later (in Syr-c, the Curetonian Syriac). The replacement text was full of material intended to harmonize it with Matthew's longer text. The replacement text became canonical in the new Greek translation, as also in the Syriac Peshitta. We inherited the longer text in Luke (although it was more Matthaean than Lukan) in the (Byzantine) Textus Receptus, the Received Text, and from there it went into, for example, the King James Version. All this served to obscure the textual history of the Pater Noster.

(to be continued)

Copyright © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.

Do You Mind?

Do you mind if I piss light across the earth?
May I sing the songs of birds until their echo
returns from another direction?
Do I have your leave to make allies
of the planet and its speechless creatures?
Do you mind if I make myself at home
where I've lived for thousands of years?
I, of course, shall do the same for you.

Cela vous dérange si je fais pisser la lumière sur la terre?
Puis-je chanter les chants des oiseaux jusqu'à leur écho
revient d'une autre direction?
Ai-je votre permission de faire des alliés
de la planète et de ses créatures sans voix?
Ça vous dérange si je me fais à la maison
où je vis depuis des milliers d'années?
Bien entendu, je ferai de même pour vous.

¿Te importa si orino luz sobre la tierra?
¿Puedo cantar las canciones de los pájaros hasta su eco
regresa desde otra dirección?
¿Tengo tu permiso para hacer aliados
del planeta y sus criaturas sin palabras?
¿Te importa si me hago en casa
donde he vivido por miles de años?
Yo, por supuesto, haré lo mismo para ti.

Você se importa se eu mijo luz em toda a terra?
Posso cantar os cantos dos pássaros até seu eco
retorna de outra direção?
Tenho sua permissão para fazer aliados
do planeta e suas criaturas sem palavras?
Você se importa se eu me sentir em casa
onde eu moro há milhares de anos?
Eu, é claro, farei o mesmo por você.

Text and image Copyright © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.

Synoptica XXXI - The Beatitudes per Codex Bezae ("D")

So far there has been an elephant in the room, about which we have not spoken. If those early Christians (whether of Antioch or some other place) translated Matthew's gospel from Hebrew into an Old Latin version and an Old Syriac version, they must have also produced an Old Greek version. Indeed they did, and its best surviving representative is Codex Bezae Cantabrigensis, usually represented as "D." It is a fifth-century manuscript on vellum, but it certainly represents a text type that is far older, apparently approximately coeval with "k" and "Syr-s," with both of which it has many commonalities. Codex Bezae has all four Gospels and Acts, in both Greek and Latin, but the Latin, which is of the Old Latin type, is not a translation of the Greek, and is of far less interest than the Greek. All three manuscripts, "k," "D," and "Syr-s," are representatives of the "Western" or "Syro-Latin" type of text.

So now I would like to show a translation of the Beatitudes as they exist on the Greek side of Codex Bezae ("D"):


Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peaceful, for they shall be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for justice's sake, for theirs shall be the kingdom of the heavens.

Blessed are you when they persecute and insult you and say all evil against you for justice's sake.

Rejoice and be glad for your abundant reward in heaven, for thus did they persecute the prophets who were before you.


And now, following the example of the table in my Synoptica XXX article, I would like to represent these Beatitudes of "D" diagrammatically, for easy comparison:


Bezae ("D")

poor in spirit
meek
mourn
hunger&thirst
merciful
pure/heart
peaceful
persecuted
you persecuted
rejoice-they-pr-b4u


As we can see, the order of "meek" and "weep/mourn" is inverted, as it also was in the Old Latin, represented here by "k," and as it still is in the Vulgate. But the innovation "mourn," of Syr-s, instead of the "weep" of all earlier versions (the "wait" of Shem-Tob is a scribal error due to the similarity of two Hebrew words, "wait" and "weep") has been accepted. We see also "peaceful," which is correct, instead of the "Syr-s" innovation "peacemakers."

We see, then that Codex Bezae, "D," is a mixed text, showing influences of both the Old Latin and the Old Syriac textual types. This Old Greek version, though, was not the model for the Canonical Greek texts. That model and translation source was the Old Syriac version, here represented by "Syr-s," as shown in Synoptica XXX.

While the Old Syriac and the Canonical Greek are extremely similar in the Beatitudes, there is a lot of diversity between the two textual types overall. This may have been due to a last round of revision that was afforded by the new translation. Such late revisions would then explain the suppression of the Old Latin and Old Syriac texts, to the extent that only two examples of the latter, one of which is a palimpsest, have survived.

Faced with a confusing diversity of readings, it is easy to see why the authorities of the institutional Church would have wanted to make a fresh start, Since the Church in the East has always maintained that their Syriac, being (except for dialectal differences) the language that Jesus would have spoken, is the most authentic, the Old Syriac would have been an obvious basis for the new translation into Greek. Since the new Greek version was not the same as the previous versions, the old had to be suppressed. This suppression was aided by the Vulgate, to replace the Old Latin, and the Peshitta, to replace the Old Syriac. All previous textual development was thus obscured.

Eventually the claim that the Gospels were originally written in Greek, and that the canonical Greek textual tradition is the oldest and original one, became universal. That any scholar accepts that claim today is absolutely stupefying.

Text Copyright © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.

Synoptica XXX - Even More on the Beatitudes

In this article I would like to further explore the growth of the list of Beatitudes and, if possible, shed some light on the relationships among the Hebrew, Old Latin, Old Syriac, and Canonical Greek textual traditions.

In the last article of this series I listed the Beatitudes as they appear in canonical Luke, in Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew, in the oldest Old Latin ("k," Codex Bobiensis), and in canonical, Greek Matthew. What was missing from those lists was the oldest Old Syriac (Syr-s, the Sinaitic Palimpsest). I would now like to add the list of Beatitudes that appears in Syr-s:


Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst for justice: for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful: for upon them shall be mercies.

Blessed are those who are pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you and persecute you, and when they shall say against you what is evil, for my own names' sake.

But rejoice ye and be glad in that day: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted their fathers the prophets.


We now have a lot to consider, so I would like to show it diagrammatically, as follows:


Luke                     Shem-Tob                 "k"                            "Syr-s"                  Canonical (Grk.) Mt.

poor                     wait (weep)               poor/spirit                  poor/spirit            poor/spirit
hunger                 innocent/heart           meek                          mourn                  mourn
weep                   pursue peace              weeping                     meek                    meek
hate you              persecuted                 hunger&thirst            hunger&thirst       hunger&thirst
rejoice-fath.-pr.   persecute you            merciful                     merciful               merciful
                            rejoice-proph.           clean/heart                  pure/heart            pure/heart
                                                              peaceful                     peacemakers        peacemakers
                                                              persecution                persecuted            persecuted
                                                              you persecuted          hate&persec you   persecute you
                                                              rejoice-broth-pr-b4u  rejoice-fath-pr      rejoice-men-pr-b4u


I don't know about you, dear reader, but I find the above table extremely interesting.

What do we see here? First of all, there is the steady growth of the list of Beatitudes, from five to ten. In the first three columns, one of them is about those who weep/are weeping ("wait" in Shem-Tob is a scribal error for "weep," as I've shown before). "Mourn" in Syr-s is an innovation, based on a kind of reverse synecdoche by which "mourn" represents "weep." The canonical (Greek) textual tradition follows this innovation. We see that the order of "mourn/weep" and "meek" is inverted in the Old Latin textual tradition (here represented by "k"), an inversion that continued all the way into the Vulgate. But the order in canonical (Greek) Matthew is that of the Old Syriac (here represented by Syr-s). We also see the "those who pursue peace" in Shem-Tob's Hebrew (which we know to be correct because of catchword connections) is correctly translated in "k" as "pacifici," but suddenly becomes "peacemakers" in both Syr-s and canonical Matthew.

A word needs to be said here about the "Western" (Syro-Latin) textual tradition. As pointed out by Frederic Henry Chase, in his book THE SYRO-LATIN TEXT OF THE GOSPELS (1895), the Old Latin and Old Syriac textual traditions are closely inter-related, and should really be considered a single stream, one that is older than the Greek texts that eventually became canonical. He posits Antioch as their place of origin, noting that the young Christian community there would have included speakers of Syriac (Christian Aramaic), Latin, and Greek. Both of these textual streams were suppressed by the institutional Church in the fourth and fifth centuries, in favor of the Greek textual tradition, which they made canonical. The suppression was done so well that only about fifty examples of the Old Latin survived, and only TWO examples of the Old Syriac survived (both of which were discovered in the nineteenth century).

I mention the above because it is important to understand the "k" and "Syr-s" are OLDER than the Greek texts that eventually became canonical. In Latin-speaking countries, the older texts were replaced by the Vulgate; in Syriac-speaking countries, they were replaced by the Peshitta, sometimes called "the Vulgate of the East."

Returning to the table that I've included above, We see that the list of Beatitudes in canonical (Greek) Matthew is nearly identical to that in the Sinaitic Old Syriac (Syr-s), following its order and its innovations. I believe, therefore, that Matthew was first translated into Greek from Syriac (Christian Aramaic). Many have suspected that Greek Matthew had a Semitic substratum, probably Aramaic, and now we can see how that probably came about.

At the same time, it appears that Papias' statement that Matthew had collected the Logia (Sayings) of Jesus and written them down in the Hebrew language, and that the others had then translated them as best they could, was also correct.

Text Copyright © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.

Let Me Tell You Gently

Let me tell you gently:
when you know the truth,
you will be free.

Permettez-moi de vous dire doucement:
quand vous savez la vérité,
vous serez libre.

Déjame decirte gentilmente:
cuando sepas la verdad,
serás libre.

Deixe-me dizer-lhe gentilmente:
quando você conhece a verdade,
você estará livre.

Text and image Copyright © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.

Dear Poem Pirate

June 26 2020

Dear Poem Pirate,

We haven't met. I am the poet from whom you have already stolen more than 2,000 blog posts, including poems, other writings, and photographs--and are continuing to steal. I don't know your name, but I think of you as Mac Safari, in honor of your computer operating system and browser. Although you have endeavored to hide your activity, I see it. All of it.

I would like to compliment you on your excellent taste in writing and photography. I don't know what your intention is in harvesting my work, but I must warn you that what you are doing is unauthorized. Further, I would like to go on record as saying that I have not, as of this writing, authorized any collection or mass publication of my work.

Maybe we should talk about it, as I don't take piracy lightly. I can be reached any old time (exolinguist at gmail dot com).

Thanks in advance for having the courtesy to communicate with me about what you are doing and your intentions in doing it.


Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler, ꮨᏺꭽꮅ.

MISSA AUREA II - Fons Vitae, Calix Ignis

Fons Vitae,
Fons Lucis,
Benedic nobis in necessitatibus nostris
Cum semine sancte salutaris.

Calix Ignis,
Calix Lucis,
Dona nobis sapientiam tuam
Hac nocte solemnis.


Fountain of Life,
Fountain of Light,
Bless us at need
With thy saving seed.

Cup of Fire,
Cup of Light,
Grant us thy wisdom
This solemn night.


Fontaine de vie,
Fontaine de lumière,
Bénis-nous au besoin
Avec ta semence salvatrice.

Coupe de feu,
Coupe de lumière,
Accorde-nous ta sagesse
Cette nuit solennelle.


Fuente de vida,
Fuente de luz,
Bendícenos en necesidad
Con tu semilla salvadora.

Copa de fuego
Copa de luz
Concédenos tu sabiduría
Esta noche solemne.


Fonte da Vida,
Fonte de Luz,
Abençoe-nos na necessidade
Com tua semente salvadora.

Copo de Fogo,
Copo de Luz,
Conceda-nos a tua sabedoria
Esta noite solene.

Amen. Ainsi soit-il. Así sea.