[The following portion is from Harvard text critic Dr. Edward F. Hills’,
CHAPTER SIX - of The King James Version Defended]
3. The Conclusion Of The Lord's Prayer (Matt. 6:13b)
Modern English versions are "rich in omissions," (to borrow a phrase from Rendel Harris). (23) Time and again the reader searches in them for a familiar verse only to find that it has been banished to the footnotes. And one of the most familiar of the verses to be so treated is Matt. 6:13b, the doxology with which the Lord's Prayer concludes.
(a) External Evidence in Favor of Matt. 6:13b For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever, Amen (Matt. 6:13b). This conclusion of the Lord's Prayer is found in almost all the Greek New Testament manuscripts (according to Legg, (24) in all but ten), including W (4th or 5th century) and Sigma and Phi (both 6th century). It is also found in the
Apostolic Constitutions, (25) a 4th century document, and receives further support from Chrysostom (345- 407) (26) who comments on it and quotes it frequently, and from Isidore of Pelusiurn (370 - 440), (27) who quotes it. But, in spite of this indisputable testimony in its favor, it is universally rejected by modern critics. Is this unanimous disapproval in accord with the evidence?
(b) Is the Conclusion of the Lord's Prayer a Jewish Formula?
Matt. 6: 13b is usually regarded as a Jewish prayer-formula that the early Christians took up and used to provide a more fitting termination for the Lord's Prayer, which originally, it is said, ended abruptly with
but deliver us from evil. According to W. Michaelis (1948), for example, "It (Matt. 6:13b) is obviously modeled after Jewish prayer-formulas, cf. 1 Chron 29:11." (28)
This seems, however a most improbable way to account for the conclusion of the Lord's Prayer. For if the early Christians had felt the need of something which would provide a smoother ending to this familiar prayer, would they deliberately have selected for that purpose a Jewish prayer-formula in which the name of Jesus does not appear? Even a slight study of the New Testament reveals the difficulty of this hypothesis, for if there was one thing in which the early Christians were united it was in their emphasis on the name of Jesus. Converts were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38); miracles were performed in this name (Acts 4:10); by this name alone was salvation possible (Acts 4:12); early Christians were known as those who "called upon this name" (Acts 9:21). Paul received his apostleship "for the sake of His name" (Rom. 1:5), and John wrote his Gospel in order that the readers "might have life through His name" (John 20:31). Is it probable then, (is it at all possible) that these primitive Christians, who on all other occasions were ever mindful of their Saviour's name, should have forgotten it so strangely when selecting a conclusion for a prayer which they regarded as having fallen from His lips? Can it be that they deliberately decided to end the Lord's Prayer with a Jewish formula which makes no mention of Christ?
It is a fact, however, that the Lord's Prayer concludes with a doxology in which the name of Christ is not mentioned. Can this surprising fact be explained? Not, we repeat, on the supposition that this conclusion is spurious. For if the early Christians had invented this doxology or had adopted it from contemporary non-Christian usage, they would surely have included in it or inserted into it their Saviour's name. There is therefore only one explanation of the absence of that adorable name from the concluding doxology of the Lord's Prayer, and this is that this doxology is not spurious but a genuine saying of Christ, uttered before He had revealed unto His disciples His deity and so containing no mention of Himself. At the time He gave this model prayer He deemed it sufficient to direct the praises of His followers toward the Father, knowing that as they grew in their comprehension of the mysteries of their faith their enlightened minds would prompt them so to adore Him also. And the similarity of this doxology to 1 Chron. 29:11 is quite understandable. Might not the words which David used in praise of God be fittingly adapted to the same purpose by One who knew Himself to be the messianic Son of David?
(c) The Testimony of the Ancient Versions and of the Didache
The concluding doxology of the Lord's Prayer is not without considerable testimony in its favor of a very ancient sort. It is found in three Syriac versions, the Peshitta, the Harclean, and the Palestinian. Whether the doxology occurred in the Sinaitic Syriac also is not certain, for the last part of the Lord's Prayer is missing from this manuscript. It is found, however, in the Curetonian manuscript, the other representative of the Old Syriac in the following form,
Because Thine is the kingdom and the glory, for ever and ever, Amen. The Sahidic also has the doxology of the Lord's Prayer, and so do some manuscripts of the slightly younger Bohairic. In the Sahidic it runs like this,
Because Thine is the power and the glory, unto the ages, Amen. And in the Old Latin manuscript k (which is generally thought to contain the version in its oldest form) the Lord's Prayer ends thus,
Because to Thee is the power for ever and ever. And the doxology is also found in its customary form in four other Old Latin manuscripts.
Thus the doxology of the Lord's Prayer occurs in five manuscripts of the Old Latin (including the best one), in the Sahidic, and in all the extant Syriac versions. Normally the agreement of three such groups of ancient witnesses from three separate regions would be regarded as an indication of the genuineness of the reading on which they thus agreed. Hort ( 1881 ), (29) however, endeavored to escape the force of this evidence by suggesting that the doxologies found (1) in k, (2) in the Sahidic version, (3) in the Syriac versions and the vast majority of the Greek manuscripts were three independent developments which had no connection with each other. But by this suggestion Hort multiplied three-fold the difficulty mentioned above. If it is difficult to believe that the early Christians chose for their most familiar prayer a conclusion which made no mention of Christ it is thrice as difficult to believe that they did this three times independently in three separate regions. Surely it is easier to suppose that these three doxologies are all derived from an original doxology uttered by Christ and that the variations in wording are due to the liturgical use of the Lord's Prayer, which will be described presently.
The Didache (Teaching) of the Twelve Apostles, a work generally regarded as having been written in the first half of the 2nd century, also bears important witness to the doxology of the Lord's Prayer. This ancient document was not known until 1883, when Bryennios, a Greek Catholic bishop, published it from a copy which he had discovered at Constantinople in 1875. It is a manual of Church instruction in two parts, the first being a statement of Christian conduct to be taught to converts before baptism, and the second a series of directions for Christian worship. Here the following commandment is given concerning prayer.
And do not pray as the hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in His Gospel, pray thus: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, as in heaven so also upon earth; give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the power and the glory for ever. (30)
Here this early-2nd-century writer claims to have taken this model prayer from the Gospel (of Matthew). Is it not reasonable to believe that he took the whole prayer from Matthew, doxology and all? Who would ever have guessed that this ancient author took the preceding portions of the prayer from Matthew but the doxology from
contemporary ecclesiastical usage? Yet this is the strange hypothesis of Michaelis and others who have come to the Didache with their minds firmly made up beforehand to reject the doxology of the Lord's Prayer. In support of his view Michaelis appeals to the absence of the words
kingdom and
Amen from the Didache, but surely these minor verbal differences are not sufficient to justify his contention that the doxology of the Didache was not taken from Matthew. And perhaps it is permissible to point out once more that if the doxology had been taken from contemporary ecclesiastical usage it would have contained the name of Christ, because the other prayers in the Didache, which
were taken from contemporary ecclesiastical usage, all end with a reference to the Saviour.
(d) The Liturgical Use of the Lord's Prayer
But someone may ask why the doxology of the Lord's Prayer is absent from certain New Testament documents if it was actually a portion of the original Gospel of Matthew. An inspection of Legg's critical edition of this Gospel (1940) discloses that the doxology is omitted by
Aleph B D S and by six minuscule manuscripts. It is also omitted by all the manuscripts of the Vulgate and by nine manuscripts of the Old Latin. And certain Greek and Latin Fathers omit it in their expositions of the Lord's Prayer. Thus Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine make no mention of it. But these omissions find their explanation in the manner in which the Lord's Prayer was used in the worship services of the early Church.
From very early times the Lord's Prayer was used liturgically in the Church service. This fact is brought home to us by an inspection of C. A. Swainson's volume,
The Greek Liturgies (1884). (31) Here the learned author published the most ancient Greek liturgies from the oldest manuscripts available. In the 8th-century
Liturgy of St. Basil, after the worshiping people had repeated the body of the Lord's Prayer, the priest concluded it with these words,
for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory of the Father, and the people responded,
Amen. In two other 8th-century liturgies the wording is the same, except that the doxology repeated by the priest is merely,
for Thine is the kingdom. Later the doxologies which the priests were directed to pronounce became more and more elaborate. In the 11th-century
Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, after the people had repeated the Lord's Prayer down to the doxology, the priest was to conclude as follows:
for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, now and always, and for ever and ever.
Thus we see that from very earliest times in the worship services of the Church the conclusion of the Lord's Prayer was separated from the preceding portions of it. The body of the Prayer was repeated by the people, the conclusion by the priest. Moreover, due to this liturgical use, the conclusion of the Lord's Prayer was altered in various ways in the effort to make it more effective. This, no doubt, was the cause of the minor variations in the doxology which we find in the Didache, the Curetonian Syriac, and the Old Latin manuscript
k. And furthermore, a distinction soon grew up between the body of the Lord's Prayer and the conclusion of it, a distinction which was made more sharp by the occurrence of the Lord's Prayer in Luke (given by Christ for the second time, on a different occasion) without the concluding doxology. Because the doxology was always separated from the rest of the Lord's Prayer, it began to be regarded by some Christians as a man-made response and not part of the original prayer as it fell from the lips of Christ. Doubtless for this reason it is absent from the ten Greek manuscripts mentioned above and from most of the manuscripts of the Latin versions. And it may also be for this reason that some of the Fathers do not mention it when commenting on the Lord's Prayer.
NOTES (link)
Note 23 Used in regard to the Sinaitic Syriac,
Contemporary Review November, 1894.
Note 24
Evangelium Secundum Matthaeum, Oxford, 1940.
Note 25
Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum, F. X. Funk, Paderborn, 1905, vol. 1, pp. 213, 410.
Note 26 MPG, vol. 51 col. 48; vol. 57-58, cols. 282, 301.
Note 27 MPG, vol. 78 col. 1076.
Note 28
Prophezei, W. Michaelis, Zurich: Zwingli-Verlag, 1948, p. 331.
Note 29
N. T. In The Original Greek, vol. 2, Introduction and Appendix, p. 9. By Dr. Hort.
Note 30 LCL,
Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1, p. 320.
Note 31
The Greek Liturgies, London: 1884, pp. 85, 93, 97, 135, 167, 200, 308-309.