“And lead us not into temptation” by Fr. Thomas for Texas Catholic.
In the last decade, the liturgical versions of the Our Father have been changed in both French and Italian to soften the apparent harshness of this petition. The French translation is now “Ne nous laisse pas entrer en tentation,” “Do not let us enter into temptation,” and the Italian runs “Non abbandonarci alla tentazione,” “Do not abandon us to temptation.”
Many bishops leading the charge for change, including Pope Francis, wanted to avoid the implication that God actively forces us into perilous situations that could easily lead to sin. The crafters of the new translations attempt to mitigate that implication; they also try to harmonize the Our Father petition with the line in James 1:13 that God “does not tempt [‘peirazei’] anyone.”
There is a real difficulty here, both on theological and translation planes, with which Christians have wrestled for centuries; but I think the translators took aim at the wrong word.
“Lead us not” is as literal as one can get for the Greek “mē eisenegkēs.” The most vexing word, I think, is actually “peirasmos.” “Temptation” is indeed an accurate translation for that noun; “trial” and “test” would also be fair options. And therein lies the difficulty.
My college roommate Lionel Yaceczko, now a classics professor at Benedictine College, knows Greek far better than I do. He wrote an article on this very topic. Rather than plagiarize his work, I will allow him to speak on the matter.
“To the ancient Greek and Roman mind,” Yaceczko writes, “there is no distinction [between ‘tempting’ and ‘testing’], since there is no desire for the object of testing to fail the test, but merely to reveal the truth about the object.” But “for the modern Anglophone, there is a difference between a ‘test’ and a ‘temptation.’ After all, as a teacher, I do not tell my students that I am going to give them a ‘temptation’ to prove their knowledge of Greek and Latin.”
The good doctor implies that “trial” or “test” could be more proper, in English at least, than “temptation.” He then reviews examples in the New Testament where God allows individuals to be tested so as to prove, or refine, their faith. At the Last Supper, the apostles are soon to be “sifted like wheat” by Satan, and Jesus tells Peter directly, “I have prayed that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers” (Lk 22:31-32). Jesus asks Philip where bread may be bought for the multitudes; John the Evangelist notes, “He said this to test him [‘peirazōn’], because he himself knew what he was going to do” (Jn 6:6).
The greatest instance, though, is this: “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tested [‘peirasthēnai’] by the devil” (Mt 4:1). The devil is called “the tempter,” “ho peirazōn,” in 4:3, and Jesus rebukes him with the phrase, “You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test [‘ekpeiraseis’]” (Mt 4:7). The desert trial and victory of Jesus foreshadow the supreme agony of the Passion. He desires that his victory over all testing become the template by which we persevere triumphantly in our own struggles: “Because he himself suffered when he was tested [‘peirastheis’], he is able to help those who are being tested [‘peirazomenois’]” (Heb 2:18).
God does not tempt us in the fated sense of dooming us to failure. He does indeed, in his inscrutable wisdom, allow us to be tested; yet, as St. Paul notes, “God is faithful and will not let you be tried [‘peirasthēnai’] beyond your strength; but with the trial [‘peirasmō’] he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor 10:13).
What exactly, then, are we to say? Lead us not, we must pray, into a trial that we think we face alone; into a testing that exceeds our ability to remain faithful; into the interior void where we think we are deprived of grace because of our wretchedness; into the fearful despair that we are too inclined to sin to hope for any other outcome than defeat.
My friend Yaceczko articulates well the encouragement that we are to find amid our trials, great and small; I happily give him the last word of exhortation:
“If we can accept that it happened to Jesus, then surely we need not lose our peace if we humbly ask to be spared a difficult testing. After all, the same God that brings us to the test has prayed that our faith will not fail. May he make in us a soul of gold to be revealed in his time.”