I consider it more likely that Matthew intended it as a masculine,
however. The adjective is found four more times in Matthew. One of these is in
Matthew’s version of the parable of the sower, where he has replaced the
reference to “Satan” with “the evil one” (του πονηρος masculine nominative singular) (Matt
13:19 // Mark 4:15), which shows that he considers the two expressions to be
equivalent. In two of the other verses the adjective might also refer to the
devil. Thus when Jesus tells his disciples not to swear oaths, and explains, “Let
your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the
evil one” (5:37 NRSV). Here the reading of the NRSV seems reasonable. Jesus also
uses this adjective in explaining the parable of the weeds. He says, “the weeds
are the children of the evil one [του
πονηρου], and the enemy who sowed them is the
devil” (13:38-39 NRSV). It is likely that expression του πονηρου in
verse 38 refers to the devil who is explicitly mentioned in the following
verse.
We find a petition similar to the final petition in the
Lord’s Prayer in the High priestly prayer in John 17:15 (“I am not asking you
to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one”
NRSV); there too it is debated whether the adjective is to be taken as a
masculine or neuter. The same ambiguity is also found in 2 Thess 3:3. Parallels
with the wilderness narrative suggest that του πονηρου as
used in the Lord’s Prayer should be taken as masculine; just as the Holy Spirit
led Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by the devil, so too God could lead
people into situations where they are tested by the evil one.
Luke’s version of the
Lord’s Prayer is considerably shorter and does not include this final petition.
It is likely that Matthew incorporated the prayer in the form he knew it from
the liturgy (just as the baptismal formula in Matt 28:19 is probably of liturgical
origin). A very similar version of the Lord’s Prayer is found in Did. 8:2-3,
which has the same ambiguous expression (απο του
πονηρου, “from
evil” or “from the evil one”). Intriguingly, Didache introduces the prayer by
saying, “Nor should you pray like the hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in his
gospel, you should pray as follows . . .” (Did. 8:2a). I consider it likely
that Didache is referring to a written Gospel (see also Did. 11:3b, 15:3-4). It
is possible that Didache is referring to Matthew’s Gospel, as there are other
textual similarities between Didache and Matthew, such as in the eschatological
passages in Didache 16 and Matthew 24. On the other hand, Garrow, one of the
advocates of Matthean posteriority, has argued that Luke (6:27-36) and Matthew
(5:38-48) are both dependent on Did. 1:2-5a. Because the dating of the Didache
is very uncertain, and because there are so few manuscripts of the text, one
cannot make firm conclusions regarding the relationship between this text and
the Gospels. (Torsten Löfstedt, The Devil, Demons, Judas, and “the
Jews”: Opponents of Christ in the Gospels [Eugene, Oreg.: Pickwick
Publications, 2021], 212-13)
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