not change thyself, He will condemn thee. Because then both good and bad receive this
bread from God, thinkest thou there is no other bread for which the children ask, of which
the Lord said in the Gospel, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to
dogs?”1986 Yes, surely there is. What then is that bread? and why is it called daily? Because
this is necessary as the other; for without it we cannot live; without bread we cannot live. It
is shamelessness to ask for wealth from God; it is no shamelessness to ask for daily bread.
That which ministereth to pride is one thing, that which ministereth to life another. Never-
theless, because this bread which may be seen and handled, is given both to the good and
bad; there is a daily bread, for which the children pray. That is the word of God, which is
dealt out to us day by day. Our bread is daily bread; and by it live not our bodies, but our
souls. It is necessary for us who are even now labourers in the vineyard,—it is our food, not
our hire. For he that hires the labourer into the vineyard owes him two things; food, that
he faint not, and his hire, wherewith he may rejoice. Our daily food then in this earth is the
word of God, which is dealt out always in the Churches: our hire after labour is called
eternal life. Again, if by this our daily bread thou understand what the faithful1987 receive,
what ye shall receive, when ye have been baptized, it is with good reason that we ask and
say, “Give us this day our daily bread;” that we may live in such sort, as that we be not sep-
arated from the Holy Altar.
11. “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”1988 Touching this petition
again we need no explanation, that it is for ourselves that we pray. For we beg that our debts
may be forgiven us. For debtors are we, not in money, but in sins. Thou art saying perchance
at this moment, And you too. We answer, Yes, we too. What, ye Holy Bishops, are ye debtors?
Yes, we are debtors too. What you! My Lord.1989 Be it far from thee, do not thyself this
wrong. I do myself no wrong, but I say the truth; we are debtors: “If we say we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”1990 We have been baptized, and yet are we
debtors. Not that anything then remained, which was not remitted to us in Baptism, but
because in our lives we are contracting ever what needs daily forgiveness. They who are
1986 Matt. xv. 26.
1987 St. Augustin throughout these Sermons, as we see in other parts of his works, speaks with great reserve
of the Holy Eucharist, as before those who were some of them unbaptized; fideles was the name of the baptized
(Serm. 113. 2),—“fidelibus dico eis quibus Christo Corpus erogamus dico;” and in this sense it seems to be used
in our Church Catechism: “The Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by
the faithful in the Lord’s Supper.” This reserve of the ancient Church in itself implies the high doctrine of the
Holy Eucharist; modern views have nothing to reserve.
1988 Matt. vi. 12.
1989 Domine.
1990 1 John i. 8.
590
On the Lord’s Prayer in St. Matthew’s Gospel, Chap. vi. 9, etc. to the …