Complete Works of Saint Jerome, Vol. VII

If you deviate from the straight way a little, it does not matter whether you go to the right or to the left, once you have lost the true way.

(Verses 3, 4.) "But when you do alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret: and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites, who love to pray standing in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets, so that they may be seen by men." Not only alms, but whatever good work you do, the left hand must not know; for if it knows, the works of the right hand are immediately stained. "Amen I say to you, they have received their reward." Not God's reward, but their own. For they were praised by men, for whose sake they exercised their virtues.

(Verse 6.) "But you, when you pray, enter into your room: and having shut the door, pray to your Father in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." Understood simply, this instructs the listener to flee the vain glory of prayer. But it seems to me that this is more a command that we should pray to the Lord with the thought of the heart enclosed and lips compressed, which we read that Anna did in the volume of Kings: Only her lips were moving, he says (I Kings i, 13).

(Verses 7, 8.) "And when you pray, do not speak much, as the Gentiles do. For they think that they are heard in their much speaking. Do not therefore be like them." If a Gentile speaks much in prayer, then one who is a Christian should speak little. For God is not a listener to words, but to the heart (Wisdom i, 6).

(Verses 8, c.) "For your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Thus therefore you shall pray." A certain heresy arises in this place, and also a perverse dogma of the philosophers, saying: If God knows what we are to pray for, and before we ask, He knows what we lack, we speak in vain to One who already knows. To whom it must be briefly answered that we are not narrators, but suppliants. For it is one thing to narrate to someone who is ignorant, and another to ask One who knows. In the former, it is a statement; here, it is an act of obedience. There, we faithfully inform; here, we piteously entreat.

(Verse 9.) "Our Father, who art in heaven." By saying Father, they confess themselves to be children. "Hallowed be thy name." Not in You, but in us. For if because of sinners the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles (Romans ii, 24), conversely, because of the just, it is sanctified.

(Verse 10.) "Thy kingdom come." He either prays generally for the kingdom of the whole world, that the devil may cease to reign in the world, or that God may reign in each person, and sin may not reign in the mortal body of men (Romans vi, 12). At the same time, it must be noted that it is a sign of great boldness, and a pure conscience, to ask for the kingdom of God and not fear judgment. "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." That just as the angels serve You faultlessly in heaven, so may men serve You on earth. Let those who falsely claim that ruins occur daily in heaven blush at this sentence. For what does the likeness of heaven profit us, if there is sin even in heaven?

(Verses 11-13.) "Give us this day our supersubstantial bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil." What we have rendered as supersubstantial is found in the Greek as ἐπιούσιον (epiousios): which word the Seventy Interpreters very frequently translate as περιούσιον (periousion). We have therefore considered the Hebrew, and wherever they used περιούσιον, we have found SGOLIA (סגולה), which Symmachus translated as ἐξαίρετον, that is, preeminent or extraordinary, although in a certain place he interpreted it as peculiar. When, therefore, we ask that God grant us this peculiar or preeminent bread, we are asking for Him who says: I am the living bread who came down from heaven (John vi, 51). In the Gospel which is called according to the Hebrews, for supersubstantial bread, I found MAHAR (מחר), which is said to be of tomorrow; so that the sense is: Give us this day our bread of tomorrow, that is, of the future. We can understand supersubstantial bread in another way, as that which is above all substances and surpasses all creatures. Others think simply, according to the Apostle's word saying (I Timothy vi, 8): Having food and clothing, let us be content with these, that the saints only take care regarding present food.