I have a question on a word in the Lord’s Prayer.
The word is αφήκαμεν. In French it is translated by the present tense, in English I have found sometimes the present and sometimes the past perfect tense.
I know in Greek αφήκαμεν is the perfect tense .
My question is : Is there a grammatical reason for the present tense translation ?
Translating by the past perfect tense makes more sense to me : in order to be forgiven by God, we must first have forgiven our offenders.
It’s actually aorist, not perfect. But still it’s a worthwhile question.
The liturgical text has ἀφίεμεν
Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς,
ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου,
ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου,
γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς.
τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον,
καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν, ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν.
καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν, ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.
Oh, excuse me (that κ…). So we pardoned (not have pardoned). A translation by a past tense is acurate to you ? I had read somewhere that there could be a reason to translate it by the present tense, but I don’t remember which and the past tense still makes more sense.
This is interesting. In every Bible I have it is αφήκαμεν, and no other form is given even as variant.
The note in Merk’s critical edition says that there are manuscripts with ἀφίεμεν.
Perhaps αφήκαμεν is to be understood as a gnomic aorist. Or perhaps—more likely, I think—it’s meant as perfect tense (properly αφείκαμεν). The poorly attested ἀφίεμεν is clearly an attempt to simplify the reading.
Some texts use the aorist tense ἀφήκαμεν, while others use the present tense ἀφίεμεν:
Thank you very much. So, meant as a perfect tense, or even as a gnoomic aorist, (generic fact, habitual truth, or habitual action), we can be supposed to pardon on a regular basis, in order to receive forgiveness. Can this be a right reading?
I would trace the idea that the perfect came first and the repeated aspect always came later. This is not a change for grammatical reasons in my view. The later church would surely want people to think that deliverance is an ongoing action. If people could be saved once and for all they would not longer need to come to church. Conjecture, of course.