Epiousios ( επιούσιος ) is a unique Greek word used in the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer, as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 6:11) and the Gospel of Luke (Luke 11:3).

Τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον^[1]

"Give us today our daily bread,"^[2]

Matthew 6:11

However, the word is not found anywhere else in the original scriptures of the Bible, nor, moreover, anywhere else in all of Classical Greek literature. The Greek term otherwise used throughout the New Testament for "daily" is kath hemeran (καθ' ἡμέραν, "according to the day").^[3]

Epiousios was rendered as cotidianum ("daily") in the Vetus Latina and revised to supersubstantialem in the Vulgate, albeit only in Matthew's version.

From the New American Bible Revised Edition:

"Give us today our daily bread: the rare Greek word epiousios, here daily, occurs in the New Testament only here and in ⇒ Luke 11:3. A single occurrence of the word outside of these texts and of literature dependent on them has been claimed, but the claim is highly doubtful. The word may mean daily or future (other meanings have also been proposed). The latter would conform better to the eschatological [Note: this means 'of or relating to or dealing with or regarding the ultimate destiny of mankind and the world'] tone of the whole prayer. So understood, the petition would be for a speedy coming of the kingdom (today), which is often portrayed in both the Old Testament and the New under the image of a feast (⇒ Isaiah 25:6; ⇒ Matthew 8:11; ⇒ 22:1-10; ⇒ Luke 13:29; ⇒ 14:15-24)."^[4]

In typical, modern-day English, the word is nevertheless most often translated as "Give us this day our daily bread."

However, the related, plural implications of Epiousios —its meaning containing the concepts of both daily and future —are evidently harmonic with several concepts of dualism within the purview of quantum mechanics, and specifically, Planck time.

Translation and interpretation[link]

Jerome's Latin Vulgate translates "panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodie".

Apart from the literal interpretation as a prayer for sustenance, the phrase has been given a variety of spiritual or metaphorical interpretations. The translation of supersubstantial bread^[5] has also been associated with the eucharist, e.g. by the Council of Trent (1551).^[6]

Chrysostom (Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Homily XIX) commented on the phrase:

What is “daily bread”? That for one day. For because He had said thus, “Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven,” but was discoursing to men encompassed with flesh, and subject to the necessities of nature, and incapable of the same impassibility with the angels:—while He enjoins the commands to be practised by us also, even as they perform them; He condescends likewise, in what follows, to the infirmity of our nature. Thus, “perfection of conduct,” saith He, “I require as great, not however freedom from passions; no, for the tyranny of nature permits it not: for it requires necessary food.” But mark, I pray thee, how even in things that are bodily, that which is spiritual abounds. For it is neither for riches, nor for delicate living, nor for costly raiment, nor for any other such thing, but for bread only, that He hath commanded us to make our prayer. And for “daily bread,” so as not to “take thought for the morrow.” Because of this He added, “daily bread,” that is, bread for one day.^[7]

A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature,^[8] edited by Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, Danker, University of Chicago Press, the standard lexicon for NT Greek, while noting historical interpretations and modern opinions, concludes that Origen was probably correct that the term was coined by the evangelists^[9] It lists four possible translations: 1. deriving from Epi and Ousia: necessary for existence, in agreement with Origen, Chrysostom, Jerome and others; 2. one loaf of bread is the daily requirement; 3. for the following day; 4. deriving from epienai: bread for the future.

Status as hapax legomenon[link]

The word's use was long thought to be restricted to the two versions of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew and Luke. This would have made it a hapax legomenon (a Greek phrase meaning 'a word used only once') - a word used only in Christian circles and lacking meaning outside of a eucharistic context.

It was only in the twentieth century that a single additional use of the word seemed to be discovered. The document in which it was found is a 5th century CE shopping list, identified as Sammelbuch 5224,20.^[10][11] The word epiousios is written next to the names of several grocery items. This seems to indicate that it was used in the sense of "enough for today", "enough for tomorrow", or "necessary". However, the papyrus containing the shopping list went missing for many years, until it was discovered in 1998 at the Yale Beinecke Library.^[12] The original transcriber, A. H. Sayce, was apparently known as a poor transcriber, and re-examination of the papyrus found "elaiou" (oil) but not epiousi.... So there seems indeed to be no other occurrence of the word in Greek literature.

See also[link]

• Ousia

References[link]

• M. Nijman and K. A. Worp. "ΕΠΙΟΥΣΙΟΣ in a documentary papyrus?". Novum Testamentum XLI (1999) 3 (July), p. 231-234.
• B.M. Metzger, "How Many Times Does ΕΠΙΟΥΣΙΟΣ Occur outside The Lord's Prayer?" ExpTimes 69 (1957–58) 52-54.

Reynolds Price (February 1, 1933 – January 20, 2011), born Edward Reynolds Price, was an American novelist, poet, dramatist, essayist and the James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Apart from English literature, Price had a lifelong interest in ancient languages and Biblical scholarship. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Life[link]

Price was born in Macon, North Carolina, and, after attending public schools of his native state, went to Duke University, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1955. Afterward, he went to Merton College, Oxford for three years as a Rhodes Scholar and wrote a book about life at Oxford, called The Source of Light. While at Oxford Price formed important friendships with the poets W.H Auden and Stephen Spender as well as the biographer Lord David Cecil which helped to spur his writing career on. After his return in 1958, he started teaching at Duke University, which he did 'til the end of his life. His first short stories were published in Duke's student literary periodical Archive. Eudora Welty also helped Price get his first couple of books published; she sent one of his early stories, "Michael Egerton" to her own publisher, but Price's first book was not a collection of stories; it was a novel entitled A Long and Happy Life. His other books include his memoir Clear Pictures, and his novels The Tongues of Angels, Blue Calhoun, Kate Vaiden, Roxanna Slade and The Great Circle. The Good Priest's Son, published in 2005, is an account of a 9/11 experience.

In 1984, Price was diagnosed with a malignant spinal tumor. It was treated with radiation therapy, which left him cancer-free but paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. Price employed one beginning writer a year, in a sort of private fellowship: in exchange for tending to his daily needs, the young poet or prose writer received room and board and time to write. He wrote about his experience as a cancer survivor in his memoir A Whole New Life: An Illness and a Healing.^[1]

Price died January 20, 2011, after suffering a heart attack five days earlier.

Career[link]

Price was a Southern writer. All his books are set in the South and more particularly in his native North Carolina. Price once replied when asked why he chose to remain in North Carolina: "It's the place about which I have perfect pitch." Price has cited Southern writer Eudora Welty as one of his early influences. He has also been noted for his sexually frank writing, and the ambiguous nature of his own sexuality; Price did not write publicly about being gay until his third memoir, Ardent Spirits: Leaving Home, Coming Back, published in 2009. He began teaching at Duke shortly after completing his Rhodes Scholarship in the late 1950s. For more than forty years Price taught a class on Milton, and his former students included the writers Josephine Humphreys and Anne Tyler, along with the actress Annabeth Gish.

Price is a favorite author of Bill Clinton, who invited him to dinner at the White House early in his first term. Price wrote the lyrics to two songs by James Taylor: "Copperline" and "New Hymn". Price received numerous literary honors, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, the William Faulkner Foundation Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his memoir Clear Pictures (1989). He was also a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Price's book, Feasting The Heart (2000), is a collection of controversial and personal essays, originally broadcast to great acclaim on National Public Radio's All Things Considered.

Books[link]

• A Long and Happy Life (1962)
• The Names and Faces of Heroes (1963)
• A Generous Man (1966)
• Love and Work (1968)
• Permanent Errors (1970)
• Things Themselves (1972)
• The Surface of Earth (1975) (part one of the A Great Circle trilogy of novels aka The Mayfield Trilogy)
• Early Dark (1977)
• A Palpable God (1978) (translations from the Old and New Testaments, with an essay on the origins and aims of narrative)
• The Source of Light (1981) (part two of the A Great Circle trilogy)
• Vital Provisions (poems, 1982)
• Mustian (1983)
• Private Contentment (a 1984 television play)
• Kate Vaiden (1986)
• The Laws of Ice (poems, 1986)
• A Common Room (1987)
• Good Hearts (1988)
• Clear Pictures (his 1989 memoir)
• The Tongues of Angels (1990)
• The Use of Fire (poems, 1990)
• New Music (a 1990 trilogy of plays)
• The Foreseeable Future (stories, 1991)
• Blue Calhoun (1992)
• Full Moon (a 1993 play)
• The Collected Stories (1993)
• A Whole New Life (1994 memoir describing his survival of spinal cancer that started in 1984 and left him a paraplegic)
• The Promise of Rest (1995) (part three of the A Great Circle trilogy)
• Three Gospels (1996) (contains Price's translations of the Gospels of Mark and John, with introductory essays)
• The Collected Poems (1997)
• Roxanna Slade (1998)
• Letter to a Man in the Fire: Does God Exist and Does He Care? (an epistolary essay, 1999)
• A Singular Family: Rosacoke and Her Kin (1999)
• Feasting the Heart (2000) (52 of the essays he regularly broadcast on National Public Radio's news program All Things Considered [1])
• Learning a Trade: A Craftsman's Notebooks, 1955-1997 (2000)
• A Perfect Friend (Price's first children's book, 2000)
• Noble Norfleet (2002)
• A Serious Way of Wondering: The Ethics of Jesus Imagined (2003)
• The Good Priest's Son (2005)
• Letter to a Godchild : Concerning Faith (2006)
• Ardent Spirits: Leaving Home, Coming Back (2009 memoir about his time at Oxford University and his first three years teaching at Duke University)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Frederick Busch (Winter 1991). "Reynolds Price, The Art of Fiction No. 127". The Paris Review. http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2129/the-art-of-fiction-no-127-reynolds-price. 
• Price's Duke University page
• New York Times reviews of Price's books
• Review of Price's Collected Poems
• StorySouth review of Price's Collected Stories
• 'Ralph' magazine review of Price's memoir
• Sensual in the South Edmund White on Price from The New York Review of Books
• Obituary of Reynolds Price by the Rhodes Trust
• Profile on PBS Religion and Ethics Newsweekly January 21, 2011
• Appreciation on Charlie Rose
• Interview on 2009 on Charlie Rose Show