[Christopgr]

In modern Greek it's not a word we use a lot, but we do have a phrase where it's used exclusively and that is:

"He fights to earn the epiousios"

In that context epiousios means the bread of each day and by extension the absolutely necessary (commodities) for human living.

https://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/modern_greek/tools/l...

https://ikypros.com/53875/%CE%B7-%CE%B6%CF%89%CE%B7-%CE%BC%C...

[YeGoblynQueenne]

I'm pretty sure we took that from the New Testament though.

I'm an atheist but I know this prayer by heart. I must have heard it hundreds of times. Its sound is deeply ingrained in me, even if its meaning is vague when it comes to that one word (and others... "εισενέγκεις"? wut)

Besides, when I was a kid I thought the prayer is talking about a guy called Amin who's cunning ("ο πονηρός Αμήν"). I just learned the words by heart, I didn't now what they meant.

[heywherelogingo]

I'm pretty sure we took that from the New Testament though. Other way round I would expect.

[dustintrex]

But is that a reference to the Bible? "To earn (my/your) daily bread" is a set phrase in English and many other European languages (French pain quotidien etc) as well.

[cratermoon]

Hmm, Europe was dominated by Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church for centuries. I can't imagine why a memorable turn of a phrase attributed to the most important figure in the most important text of that religion would ever become a set phrase in those languages but not in the languages of countries where Christianity was never dominant. /s

You might be surprised how many of the common aphorisms you use every day come from the Bible. Ever gone the extra mile? Moved mountains at the eleventh hour to get to the root of the matter? Ah well, no rest for the wicked, it's like the blind leading the blind.

[Christopgr]

Unfortunately, I am not versed in linguistics, but I would suppose so, because its etymology [1] based on the words where it's derived from would mean "I am on something" in a literal or more metaphorical sense (could also be used as "I'm focused on something") and it's also widely used almost everyday in the "everyday's bread" way in our most common prayer (we used to sing that every morning at school) while also never being used in any other context except for my first post's phrase.

[1] https://el.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BC%94%CF%80%CE%B5%CE%B9%C...

[PeterisP]

Definitely, and that's not surprising - many set phrases have their etymology in the Bible, due to its historical role not only in religion but also in how language and literacy was being taught over the last two millenia; and the phenomenon of set phrases being shared among many European languages (especially those which are not directly related, e.g. romance and germanic and slavic) is very common specifically for biblical expressions.

[quickthrowman]

Yes, an enormous amount of western culture is derived from or influenced by Christianity and the Bible, due to the extremely long timeframe that it was integral to the culture (of Europe and the Middle East and Ethiopia). The other languages took the phrase from the Bible and translated it.

[zozbot234]

The article points out that this word is effectively a hapax legomenon in Ancient Greek. It only shows up in this NT context, and not elsewhere. We can speculate about what it means from the surrounding text-- it appears to modify "bread"; its morphology-- it decomposes nicely into "over" + "being, essence"; and its parallels in other sources, but we'll never be sure what it means. It might just as well be a prayer for being sustained in abundance, and this might even be expected since people in the time of Jesus thought that the end times were at hand, and with those the "world to come" where the righteous would be rewarded. But even that is speculation.

[defaulty]

I have heard this phrase (daily bread) compared to the story of God providing manna (something flaky, often compared to flour & bread) for food in Exodus 16. In that story, the Israelites were instructed to only collect the manna for each day. If they tried to keep some for the second day, it would become rotten. This meant they were reliant on God's provision each day.

In the same way, this prayer may be about provision of bread enough for today, of sufficient/satisfactory quantity, no more than we need (per Exodus), just what we need right now. You'd obviously then want to pray this each day, and rely on God's provision daily. So daily isn't a transliteral interpretation but more a descriptive one

[WriterGuy2021]

Bread has a special place in Christian symbolism because of the Eucharist. The bread of the Eucharist is called "the body of Christ." The ritual associates material nourishment and spiritual nourishment. Epiousios must be related to this idea...that our days are to be used to fuel our spiritual life. I don't think the word is used in the same secular sense as your case.

[dr_dshiv]

I agree.

Philo of Alexandria was the most influential Jewish-Greek theologian in the first century AD; it was he that originally introduced the idea that Logos is the son of the One god. (That, ostensibly, is how Apollos of Alexandria was able to preach accurately about the logos without knowing about Jesus, Acts 18:24-25)

In the Platonizing esoteric context of Philo, it seems straightforward to view epi-ousia as a kind of "soul" bread. That is, we should pray for the nourishment of our soul.

Soul, in the Platonizing context of Philo, is the noetic realm of mathematics and ideas—and typically placed above the material realm. The question of materialism vs epi-materialism is still a vibrant debate; Max Tegmark, Karl Popper and Roger Penrose for instance, advocate for the meaningful existence of non-material being. For instance, that the concept of a sphere exists universally, not merely through human conception.

Puts another spin on "soul food", too.

[bencollier49]

If you take the Bible at face value, then Jesus taught the Lord's Prayer before he gave the last supper (and long before it was ritualised later), so it doesn't quite follow.

[wutangson1]

This makes a lot of sense. The wiki article begs the question, why not the same etymological analysis for the prefix 'epi' for the Epiphany/Επιφανεια? Επι+φανεια = epi + appear. Of course, adding prefixes to established word changes each words meaning, but if epi were to mean super/supra, it would mean that for each word -and, it clearly does not of Epiphany.