Trust-but verify... :O)
Actually I do believe you're correct about its rare usage. There is a very detailed answer at Blue Letter Bible using Thayer's Lexicon. I would post the explanation here but I'm unable to due to the various Greek and Hebrew fonts.
In essence, Thayer's Lexicon states that Origin testifies that the word was rarely used in ordinary speech. Thayer also insinuates that Jerome used a poor term when he translated it as "supersubstantial bread". The derived word that Jerome, Origin and other early church fathers used was "ousias". (Forgive me if I've miswrote this as my Greek is rusty.) "Ousias", according to Thayer, is generally used in philosophical language and was rarely used. The term meant "to substain life".
Others argued this word was the poorly translated. They believe that "epiusios" should have been derived from another word "epeivai" and means the bread suffices. They compare this to Proverbs 30:8. This explanation was a bit technical for me but suffice it to say there are objections to this translation as well.
Thayer believe others have rightfully translated this against other words too lengthy to post here but I would refer you to the above definition. I am also too rusty on Greek to adequately translate it (I'd probably would interpose a "u" for a "n" and we'll be the next 100 posts arguing about my error.) However the term means "food sufficing from one day to the next".
While Thayer believes there is sufficent historical and grammatical evidence to interpret it this way, he rightfully points to the rest of Matthew to put this in context. Our Lord Jesus, once done reciting the Lord's Prayer, pointedly remind the disciples that they should not be anxious about tomorrow (what they should eat or drink) but instead concentrate on today. God will take care of our needs. He reiterates "give us this day our daily bread".
As you pointed out, not all the fathers bought into the interpretation of 'supersubstantial' bread. The historical evidence shows that the word probably was translated poorly. Finally, the context of the rest of Matthew 6 appears to support the argument that this was simply talking about daily substanance. Given all this evidence I continue to believe this was a mistranslation and some of the fathers were wrong on their interpretation (perhaps through no fault of their own).
Besides, if you want to interpret this as the Eucharist is to be administered daily then perhaps the Church should use Pez dispensers. ;O)
" Besides, if you want to interpret this as the Eucharist is to be administered daily then perhaps the Church should use Pez dispensers. ;O)"
Oh, I don't know, Harley. Your favorite Father Blessed Augustine wrote this in 412:
"To Proba, a Devoted Handmaid of God, Bishop Augustin, a Servant of Christ and of Christ’s Servants, Sends Greeting in the Name of the Lord of Lords.
'When we say: “Give us this day our daily bread,” the word “this day” signifies for the present time, in which we ask either for that competency of temporal blessings which I have spoken of before (“bread” being used to designate the whole of those blessings, because of its constituting so important a part of them), or the sacrament of believers, which is in this present time necessary, but necessary in order to obtain the felicity not of the present time, but of eternity.'"
I agree here, that the natural context is well carried through with "daily - today". But do not forget that "ousia" is "substance" theologically even if in pedestrian usage it also means "sustenance".
I don't think it is an accident and that the secondary, eucharistic meaning was intended by the evangelists.
"Actually I do believe you're correct about its rare usage."
Well, of course I am! :-) One of the reasons that I popped in on this discussion is that when I was memorizing the Lord's Prayer in Greek, years ago, I looked up all of the words in my Thayer's, and was interested to learn at that time of the uniqueness of the word, and I went on a bit of a tear at the time looking into this.
The fact that there are no quotations in the very thorough Liddel-Scott Lexicon, and that the word appears nowhere in the LXX of the NT (according to the exhaustive Hatch-Redpath concordance) means that it was drawn neither from classical Greek nor Hellenic-Jewish usage.
I didn't bring in the Thayer entry because it leans heavily on the questionable practice of speculating about what the Semitic word being translated into Greek was. We don't know if Christ spoke Greek as well as Aramaic/Hebrew, but we do know what language the NT is handed down to us in.
It is interesting that while there is one Greek word in both passages, St. Jerome translated it in two different ways in SS. Matthew and Luke, in light of St. Irenaeus's assertion that St. Matthew was written originally in Hebrew/Aramaic, while St. Luke was written in Greek. It is also interesting that St. Jerome makes reference to a Hebrew Gospel where the expression is the equivalent of "quod dicitur crastinus." I hadn't remembered that tidbit.
I think that we can agree that the word is an obscure one -- and thus the patristic commentaries become of great importance, since these are Greek-speakers living much closer to the time. St. John Chrysostom's exposition can leave little doubt that there could not have been a "plain meaning" plainer than the daily/sufficient meaning, nor could a Eucharistic reference be the primary plain reading, or even one of the plain meanings.
Secondary meanings and implications are dependent on theology. It is hardly unknown for Protestants to read their own preferred spiritual meanings into that particular word -- a well-known Reformed daily devotional book is called "Daily Bread." This reflects one of the meanings that St. Augustine saw in the phrase, since he says that it also refers to the word of God as our daily bread (of course, this has a double meaning in some of St. Augustine's passages, since Christ is the Word of God -- but in other passages, it is clear that he is talking about the Scriptures and other spiritual writings.)
For those of us who believe that when we approach the chalice we are receiving the Body of Christ and tasting the "fountain of immortality," it should hardly be surprising that we, along with St. Augustine, would inevitably see a reference to the "bread of life." It would be difficult *not* to see this as a deeper, layered meaning.
To refer to a Pez dispenser is, to put it mildly, irreverent. While it is not Eastern parish practice to have daily communion, since the full cycle of services culminating in the Divine Liturgy is a major undertaking that can be done on a daily basis only in monastic and very large cathedral settings, we would always consider this to be the ideal. Early writings indicate that the consecrated elements were at one time brought home from church and consumed daily, although this practice came to an end out of a concern that due reverence could not be assured, especially after the rapid growth of the Church in the 3rd and 4th centuries.
In the West, with its simpler liturgical structure, daily reception of communion has never been a particularly unreasonable attainment for a pious layman. While I am hardly fond of the concept of the 15 minute Mass, even these are far more reverent than your "Pez dispenser" comment might imply -- even taking hyperbole into consideration.
While the expositions of the Fathers in general support the daily/sufficient meaning as the primary one, one cannot deny that it takes a fair amount of etymological gymnastics to come to that meaning from the word itself (as the Thayer reference you post a link to shows.)
You would have to be asserting by "mistranslation," that the Apostles themselves mistranslated Christ's Aramaic word, and I have a real problem with that. And the word's very uniqueness and obscurity, when there were very plain words meaning "daily" or "necessary" that could have been chosen, militates against your assertion that there *cannot* be deeper references -- just as the patristic commentaries militate against any assertion that the Eucharist is what is plainly and primarily being referred to.