Supersubstantial bread?

On reading too much into a Greek word

In Matthew 6:9-13, Christ taught His disciples to pray the Lord’s Prayer. In v.11, he says to pray “give us this day our daily bread” (according to NRSV). But over at twitter, someone made the claim that the best translation of the word should be ‘suprasubstantial bread.’ A variant of this translation can be found in the Douay-Rheims Bible, a Roman Catholic English translation of the Vulgate, where we find this translation (emphasis added): “Give us this day our supersubstantial bread” (Lt. Panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodie). A claim is made that this somehow denotes that the bread is special, that Christ is actually talking about the Eucharist and not our daily bread (used for sustenance). This, however, is a large stretch.

Matt 6:11 is not ‘really’ about the Eucharist. The Greek phrase is tòn àrton hēmōn tòn epioúsion dòs hēmĩn sēmeron.¹ The interpretation rests on a misunderstanding of the adjectives epioúsios (Greek) and supersubstantialis (Latin). The assumption is made that because the Greek word is derived from the noun ousía (‘being, existence’), and the Latin word is derived from the noun substantia (‘essence, substance’), that it must actually be about the Eucharist (because of the use of ‘being’ or ‘substance’). But again, that is a big stretch and it is reading later terminology back into the biblical text.

I agree that on some level this is a reference to the Eucharist, since it is talking about bread, which would be a spiritual reading of the text.² But neither the Latin supersubstantialis nor the Greek epioúsios is a reference to transubstantiation. According to BDAG, there is some doubt as to what epioúsios means, but the most probable possibilities are these, that it speaks og bread that is (1) “necessary for existence”; (2) “for the current day, for today”; (3) “for the following day”; or (4) “for the future.”³

I think that the first reading is the most natural one, following the fact that the Greek adjective is derived the preposition epí (‘at, over, to,’ etc.), as well as the noun ousía (‘being, existence’). The point is that it is bread needed to sustain your being, existence, or substance. I think Catholic Apologist Jimmy Akin said it best (but I cannot remember where and when), that supersubstantial has nothing directly to do with transubstantiation, other than in a spiritual sense, and that the best rendition if the word would be ‘life-sustaining.’ A good translation might, then, go something like this: “Give us this day our life-sustaining bread.”

That does not mean, however, that one cannot interpret ‘give us this day our daily bread’ in a spiritual way, referring to the Eucharist, in addition to a literal reading. But that is a spiritual reading of the text, a reading that should not trump the literal meaning. Christ literally told us to pray to God to uphold our whole life, which includes our daily sustenance. We should not read so much into this text that we lose the original meaning.

Notes:

1. For the Greek text, see Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th rev. ed., eds., Barbara and Kurt Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo M. Martini, and Bruce M. Metzger (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012).

2. That would be one of the senses of Scripture, which does not trump the literal reading.

3. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., revised and edited by Frederick William Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 376-377. The adjective is, as far as we know, not found in Greek before Matthew 6:11. So it is hard to interpret.