Our Father

Our Father
Name	Our Father
Other names	Lord's Prayer
Type	Christian prayer
Language	Koine Greek, Latin, English, Aramaic
Attributed to	Jesus of Nazareth

Our Father The Lord's Prayer is a central Christian prayer attributed to Jesus of Nazareth and transmitted in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. It functions in Christian liturgy across traditions such as the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, and Lutheranism and appears in denominations including Methodism, Baptist, Reformed tradition, and Pentecostalism. The prayer has been the focus of theological commentary by figures like Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, and John Calvin, and has inspired musical settings by Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Arvo Pärt.

Introduction

The Lord's Prayer appears in two canonical Gospels: a fuller form in Gospel of Matthew (Sermon on the Mount) and a shorter form in Gospel of Luke (disciples' request). Early Christian writers such as Papias of Hierapolis, Irenaeus, Origen of Alexandria, and Tertullian discuss its usage; it is preserved in early manuscripts like Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Alexandrinus. Councils and liturgical books—Council of Nicaea, Didache, Roman Missal, and Book of Common Prayer—have shaped its public recitation, while biblical translations including the Vulgate, King James Version, and New Revised Standard Version have influenced its textual reception.

Text and Versions

Main textual witnesses include the Matthean and Lukan forms in Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, with critical editions in the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece. Early Latin translations in the Vulgate and later vernaculars—Old English via Caedmon and Middle English via Wycliffe—produced variants that appear in editions such as the Geneva Bible and the King James Version. Liturgical variants include the Catholic Pater Noster in the Tridentine Mass and contemporary forms in the Roman Missal (1970); Eastern usages are found in the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom and Basil of Caesarea. Scholarly editions reference patristic citations in collections like Patrologia Latina and Patrologia Graeca.

Historical Origins and Development

Scholars analyze sources including oral tradition, the Q source hypothesis, and Jewish prayer parallels such as the Shema Yisrael and the Amidah. Second Temple context and contemporaries like Pharisees and Essenes inform historical-critical reconstructions found in works by Rudolf Bultmann, F.C. Bauer, E.P. Sanders, and N.T. Wright. Textual criticism draws on papyri such as Papyrus 75 and manuscript families like Byzantine text-type and Alexandrian text-type. The development of doxologies and the petition structure has been traced through patristic exegesis by Cyril of Alexandria, Jerome, and Athanasius of Alexandria.

Liturgical and Devotional Use

The prayer functions in sacramental rites across the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, Anglican Communion, and Lutheranism—appearing in rites such as the Mass, the Divine Liturgy, and the Holy Communion. Monastic traditions in Benedict of Nursia's Rule, Cistercian practice, and Eastern monasticism frame its daily recitation. The prayer features in pastoral manuals like the Roman Ritual and devotional compilations including The Imitation of Christ and The Philokalia. Protestant devotional literature—works by John Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer—addresses its personal and communal uses.

Variations Across Christian Traditions

Textual and liturgical differences appear between the Vulgate-based Latin West and the Greek East, and among liturgical families such as the Gallican rite, Mozarabic rite, and Ambrosian Rite. Protestant Reformers including Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli proposed vernacular renderings and catechetical explanations in documents like Luther's Small Catechism and the Heidelberg Catechism. Debates over phrasing (for example, the inclusion of the doxology "for thine is the kingdom") were addressed at synods and in translations by King James I's translators and modern committees such as the United Bible Societies and the Ecumenical Patriarchate's liturgical commissions.

Cultural and Musical Influence

The Lord's Prayer has inspired art, literature, and music across centuries: paintings by Sandro Botticelli and Rembrandt van Rijn, poetic references by John Milton and William Blake, and novelistic uses in works by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy. Composers from Palestrina and Josquin des Prez to Thomas Tallis, George Frideric Handel, Gabriel Fauré, Gustav Mahler, and Ralph Vaughan Williams created settings; modern musicians such as Leonard Bernstein, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Duke Ellington adapted its text. The prayer appears in film and popular culture—works by Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa, and Stanley Kubrick—and in civic contexts including memorial services like those after World War I and World War II events. The Lord's Prayer continues to be a subject of theological, musical, and artistic engagement in institutions such as Oxford University, Cambridge University, the Vatican, and seminaries of Harvard Divinity School and Princeton Theological Seminary.

Category:Christian prayers