Sources of the Synoptic Gospels Part 17

(Mt v, 41)

This sounds like a secondary accretion. It adds little or nothing to the force of the injunction, and rather interrupts the connection between vss.

40 and 42. It may have been added by Matthew from some source of his own; but more probably stood in Matthew's Q.

ANOTHER OLD TESTAMENT COMMANDMENT

(Mt v, 43)

In this verse and the five others which quote the commandments, the word ?????? occurs; it is not used by Mark or Luke, and by Matthew is used only in these verses. So far as this may be said to throw any light upon the origin of these verses, it would indicate their presence in Matthew's recension of Q, rather than their invention or addition by Matthew.

ABOUT ALMS-GIVING

(Mt vi, 1-4)

Dr. Robinson, in his _Study of the Gospels_,[104] maintains, quite correctly, that Matthew's chap. vi breaks the connection in his Sermon on the Mount. If it is omitted, the connection is not only better, but is the same as that of Luke's in his Sermon on the Plain. He also considers that Mt vi, 7-15, breaks the connection between the verses that immediately precede and immediately follow them. He therefore concludes that Mt vi, 1-5, 16-18, at one time had a separate existence of its own. This is not impossible. The disarrangement by the insertion of chap. vi is indeed obvious. Bacon, in his _Sermon on the Mount_, and Votaw, in his article under the same t.i.tle in Hastings' _Dictionary of the Bible_, bring out the same composite character of the Sermon as Matthew has it. But much of this material which Matthew has inserted in his Sermon on the Mount is duplicated word for word in other connections in Luke, and so is uniformly accredited to Q. This creates a presumption that the rest of this interpolated material, especially where it is obviously h.o.m.ogeneous in character with the Q material generally, was taken by Matthew from his recension of Q. It is not contended that none of this material which Matthew has here inserted and which is nowhere duplicated in Luke was in Luke's recension; it is only contended that since Matthew's recension and Luke's recension are demonstrated to have been different from each other in certain pa.s.sages, it is fair to press the argument from this difference to its reasonable limit, and a.s.sume that much if not most of this logian matter peculiar to Matthew stood before him in his source. In the case of the verses now before us, however, it seems extremely improbable that Luke with his interest in alms-giving (see Lk xi, 41; xii, 33) should have found them in his source and have omitted them.

ABOUT PRAYER

(Mt vi, 5-8)

This sounds like a "midrash" on the Lord's Prayer. There are several Matthean words in the pa.s.sage. ??s??? is used ten times by Matthew as against once by Mark and thrice in Luke's Gospel. ?atta????? is found here only in the New Testament, and not in the Septuagint. ????????a is found here only in the New Testament. ??sa???? is an infrequent word in the New Testament, being used only in this pa.s.sage, in Luke's chap. i, once in Acts, and twice in the Epistles. ?p?d?d?? is used eighteen times by Matthew; seven of these uses are found in the section xviii, 25-34, and three in the unduplicated verses vi, 4, 6, 18. It is used once by Mark and eight times by Luke in his Gospel. These facts are hardly enough to establish any verdict as to the origin of the section now in question, tho they would rather look toward Matthew's derivation of it, with its corresponding sections vi, 1-4, and vi, 16-18, from some written source.

Such being the case, Matthew's recension of Q will certainly fit the requirements better than any other known doc.u.ment.

ABOUT FASTING

(Mt vi, 16-18)

If the Lord's Prayer, which Luke gives in another and better connection, be omitted from Matthew's chap. vi, we shall have here three consecutive sections which have very striking literary resemblances; they are the sections on alms-giving, on prayer, and on fasting. That these should have found no echo in the Gospel of Luke, if they stood in his source, is strange; especially considering his peculiar interest in alms-giving and prayer. As to the literary affinities among these three sections, the use of ?s???, four times, has been noted. The phrase ?p????s?? t?? ?s???

a?t?? occurs three times; the longer phrase ?? t? ???pt?, ?a? ? pat?? s??

? ??p?? ?? t? ???pt? ?p?d?se? s??, three times.[105] Quite without these recurrences of the same formulae, the form and sentiment of the three sections are so markedly the same as to suggest that they were originally consecutive, and that they have been taken from one written source. No more probable source can be suggested than QMt.

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE

(Mt vii, 6)

Schmiedel has suggested that this fragment may "indicate a time when the eucharist had been so long celebrated as materially to influence the general tradition of the doctrines of Jesus." A pa.s.sage somewhat similar in tone is that occurring in the story of the Canaanitish woman: "it is not proper to take the bread of the children and give it to the dogs."

Matthew takes this story from Mark; but, significantly, he has omitted one sentence of Mark's which tones down the Jewish particularism of the pa.s.sage, "let the children first be fed." He also inserts in that story the sentence, not in Mark, "I am not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," which corresponds somewhat closely with this statement concerning the command of Jesus to his disciples, also peculiar to Matthew, "Into the way of the nations do not go, and into a city of the Samaritans do not enter; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." It is only fair to admit that these instances, in which Matthew heightens, once by insertion and once by omission, the Jewish coloring in a story taken from Mark, tell against the theory generally advocated by the writer, that the Judaistic features of Matthew's Gospel are referable to his source, and the universalistic features to Matthew himself. But, on the other hand, this vs. 6 has no discernible connection in its present context, and no reason suggests itself for Matthew's insertion of it, except his desire to retain what was in his source. This source may have been a special one, perhaps even an oral one; but considering the Judaistic character of so many sayings attributed to Matthew's Q, that recension would also fit this saying.

THE FALSE PROPHETS

(Mt vii, 15)

The mention of "the" false prophets, as a cla.s.s to be avoided, has a late sound. It is not found elsewhere in the Gospels except in the "little apocalypse" and in Luke vi, 26. It is not necessarily as late as Matthew, and may fairly be a.s.signed to his recension of Q.

A SAYING ABOUT TREES

(Mt vii, 19)

In an earlier place this saying is attributed by both Matthew and Luke to John the Baptist. In that earlier connection it evidently was taken from Q. It probably did not occur twice in that doc.u.ment, but was inserted here by Matthew from memory, being suggested naturally by the context. It offers no new Q material.

"BY THEIR FRUITS"

(Mt vii, 20)

This verse is a repet.i.tion, with the particle ??a?e prefixed, of vs. 16.

Vs. 18 is also a repet.i.tion in the form of a declarative sentence of what is said in vs. 17 in the form of a question. The whole speech is considerably longer than the corresponding speech in Lk vi, 43-44. These repet.i.tions and duplications suggest a good deal of re-working; but not the sort of re-working that would be done by Matthew, whose tendency is to condense instead of to expand. Vs. 20 may be a gloss, tho I am not aware of any ma.n.u.script authority against it. There is no new Q material here.

AN OFT-REPEATED FORMULA

(Mt vii, 28_a_)

This formula must be considered, as it is also found in five other places in Matthew (xi, 1; xiii, 53; xix, 1; xxvi, 1). The first six words of the formula are precisely alike in all five instances, ?a? ????et? ?te ?t??ese? ? ??s???. In two instances these words are followed by the words t??? ?????? t??t???; in one instance by the words p??ta? t??? ??????

t??t???; in another instance by the words t?? pa?a???? ta?ta?. In these four instances the formula not only follows a group of sayings, but is followed by a narrative section; and so apparently marks the transition from one of Matthew's sources to another. In the fifth instance, however, the closing words of the formula are d?at?ss?? t??? d?de?a a??ta?? a?t??; and in this instance the formula does not mark a transition from Q to Mark, but is followed as it is preceded by Q material. It is generally argued that since the formula does not occur in either Mark or Luke, and since the construction ????et? ?te does not occur in Matthew outside of these five pa.s.sages, but is found twenty-two times in Luke, the formula was each time taken by Matthew from his source. This source must have been Matthew's recension of Q, since the formula is always found with Q material. Considering Matthew's tendency to repeat himself, all that need be affirmed is that in at least one of the five instances Matthew did find the formula in Q. It certainly could not have occurred five times, or even three or four times, in Luke's source, and have been each time omitted by him.

THE CONCLUSION OF THE STORY OF THE CENTURION'S SERVANT

(Mt viii, 13)

Harnack thinks this verse of Matthew's and the corresponding verse in Luke (Lk vii, 10) were not in Q, tho the rest of the story was. But the deviation here is no greater than it is in the earlier part of the story, in the item of the messengers. Matthew has separated this conclusion of the story from the body of it by his insertion of Jesus' saying, "Many shall come from the east and west," which Luke gives in another context (Lk xiii, 28-29). Luke's conclusion evidently belongs with his version of the story, for it contains the reference to the messengers who do not appear in Matthew's version. Some ma.n.u.scripts give the conclusion to the story in Matthew in words almost identical with Luke's. If this deviation in ma.n.u.scripts suggests that the verse in Matthew may be a gloss, this suggestion may be held to be strengthened by the a.s.sumption that if Matthew himself had inserted this concluding verse he would hardly have cut it off from the rest of the story by the saying "Many shall come,"

etc. Chiefly on the ground of the alternative reading in [Hebrew], and the ease with which a gloss would be suggested to a scribe who had the Lucan narrative also before him, the writer inclines to the opinion that the verse is a later addition.

"I WILL HAVE MERCY AND NOT SACRIFICE"

(Mt ix, 13)

There is a duplicate of this quotation in Mt xii, 7. In each instance Matthew has inserted the quotation into a Marcan narrative. Considering the fact of this insertion in each case, and the absence of a duplicate in Luke, the verses may be ascribed to Matthew, perhaps upon the basis of an oral tradition.

THE HEALING OF TWO BLIND MEN

(Mt ix, 27-31)

There is a strong similarity between this story and the story of the healing of two blind men near Jericho (Mt xx, 29-34). In the latter case Matthew subst.i.tutes the two men for Bartimaeus in the story of Mark and Luke. The source is apparently a special one, perhaps an oral tradition influenced by Mk x, 46-52.

THE HEALING OF A DUMB MAN