I N RECENT years there has been a great deal written on the PaterNoster (henceforth PN). 1 Much of this literature has stressed the eschatological interpretation of the prayer as its more original meaning in the early Church. We wish to present here the case that can be made for such an interpretation.At the outset we should make clear that by "eschatological" we refer to the period of the last days, involving the return of Christ, the destruction of the forces of evil, and the definite establishment of God's rule. We are defining the limits of our use of the word because in a broader sense the whole Christian period can be called eschatological, since God's kingdom has already been partially established in this world through Jesus, who by His death and resurrection has won a victory over Satan. In this broader sense, the PN could be interpreted of the everyday aspirations and needs of the Christian and still be called eschatological. 2 What we hope to show, however, is that the petitions of the PN do not refer to daily circumstances but to the final times.Also, our interest is confined to the meaning that the PN had for the early Church (as witnessed, in particular, in Mt) after the resurrection of Jesus. What shades of meaning the prayer had when Jesus first spoke it before His death, 8 or what the disciples understood at that time, lies beyond the scope of our investigation. The most valuable work is that of ErnstLohmeyer, Das Vater-unser (2d ed. ; Göttingen, 1947). For a Catholic treatment, Josef Hensler, Das Vaterunser (NT Abhandlungen 4/5; 1914), is still the most complete, especially in textual problems, but it is dated in its interpretations. More recent works include: J. Alonso Díaz, "El problema literario del Padre Nuestro," Estudios bíblicos 18 (1959) 65-75; Heinrich Schürmann, Das Gebet des Herrn (Freiburg, 1958); H. Van den Bussche, Le Notre Pere (Brussels, I960); A. Hamman, La prière 1: Le Nouveau Testament (Tournai, 1959) Part 3 of chap. 1; J. Jeremías, "The Lord's Prayer in Modern Research," Expository Times 71 (1960) 141-46.1 Thus there is no distortion, but merely a broadening of scope, if, in the Christian use of the PN, the petitions which originally referred to the coming of the last days were soon adapted to daily life.
I T HAS BEEN my contention 1 that history will divide this century roughly into thirds as regards significant movement in the Catholic study of the Bible. The first period was dominated by the rejection of modern biblical criticism. The second period saw the introduction of biblical criticism by the order of Pope Pius XII and the gradual but reluctant acceptance ofthat criticism in and through Vatican Council II. The third period , in which we now live, involves the painful assimilation of the implications of biblical criticism for Catholic doctrine, theology, and practice. That assimilation is necessarily slow, even in academic areas. Biblical scholars themselves are continually developing insights in areas that affect theology; 2 and only now are we encountering a generation of Catholic theologians who were nurtured in their first studies on a critical approach to the Bible, rather than appropriating it late in life and having to unlearn some of their early formation. 3 One feature of this gradual assimilation is that, while we may develop a sophisticated theology, we continue to use basic terms shaped in a precriticai era without stopping to examine the meaning of those terms when rethought in a critical context. (Or even when those terms are rethought, often we do not reflect sufficiently on how they are understood by a noncritical audience for whom they may have a much simpler connotation.) Two lectures in a theological context this month (October 1980), the present Theological Studies Lecture and the Twenty-Fifth Annual Bellarmine Lecture in St. Louis (for Theology Digest), offer me There are areas that are only now being opened up (the different communities or churches of the first century, and their different outlooks on Christology, ecclesiology, eschatology, etc.) and there are areas that, in my judgment, have never really been studied (the different pneumatologies of the NT). 3 A biblical scholar must admire the industry of Schillebeeckx, who would take three years in middle age to do the exegetical reading that went into Jesus (New York: Seabury, 1979; see p. 36). But it is a commentary on Roman Catholic history in this century that such an endeavor had to be done in middle age and was not done in Schillebeeckx' theological training for the priesthood or even for the doctorate, as it would have been done in the case of a Protestant theologian like Pannenberg and Moltmann.
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