Matthew 6:13

Matthew 6:13 ponhrou/) {A}

The ascription at the close of the Lord’s Prayer occurs in several forms. In K L W D Q P ¦¹³ al it is the familiar triple strophic form, whereas the Sahidic and Fayyumic (like the form quoted in the Didache) lack h` basilei,a kai,, the Curetonian Syriac lacks h` du,namij kai,, and the Old Latin k reads simply “for thine is the power for ever and ever.” Some Greek manuscripts expand “for ever” into “for ever and ever,” and most of them add “amen.” Several late manuscripts (157 225 418) append a trinitarian ascription, “for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit for ever. Amen.” The same expansion occurs also at the close of the Lord’s Prayer in the liturgy that is traditionally ascribed to St. John Chrysostom.

The absence of any ascription in early and important representatives of the Alexandrian (a B), the Western (D and most of the Old Latin), and other (¦¹) types of text, as well as early patristic commentaries on the Lord’s Prayer (those of Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian), suggests that an ascription, usually in a threefold form, was composed (perhaps on the basis of 1 Chronicles 29:11-13) in order to adapt the Prayer for liturgical use in the early church. Still later scribes added “of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” ¹⁴

¹⁴ See Joël Delobel, “The Lord’s Prayer in the Textual Tradition,” The New Testament in Early Christianity, ed. by Jean-Marie Sevrin (Louvain, 1989), pp. 293—309.