Sources of the Synoptic Gospels Part 20

(Mt xxv, 1-46)

The first two of these parables J. Weiss a.s.signs to Q; presumably on the ground that parallels for them are found in Luke's chaps. xii and xix.

But if Q be extended to include so many such long parables as these, it loses entirely its character as a collection of "sayings." Moreover, the parallelism between Matthew's and Luke's versions of these two parables is extremely slight. The subject-matter is the same, but there is no indication of dependence upon a common written source. The parable of the Judgment is peculiar to Matthew. It seems better to a.s.sign all three of these parables to a special source.

"TWELVE LEGIONS OF ANGELS"

(Mt xxvi, 52-54)

This is an insertion of Matthew's in the story which he has taken from Mark. There is no indication of Q in it.

We have now gone over all the logian sections of Matthew unparalleled in either Mark or Luke. We have found some of these that ought, in our judgment, to be a.s.signed to Matthew's recension of Q. This a.s.signment cannot claim to be anything more than a suggestion; in many instances, however, it may reach a very high degree of probability; and we have tried to restrict it to such instances. By saying that a certain section should be a.s.signed to a "special source," it is not meant that this is one and the same source for all sections so a.s.signed; but only that these sections cannot be a.s.signed either to Matthew or to his recension of Q. In a few instances I have ventured to suggest an oral rather than a written source.

Further comments will be made upon this a.n.a.lysis when a similar study has been made of the sections peculiar to the Gospel of Luke.

CHAPTER IV

Q IN THE SINGLE TRADITION OF LUKE (QLK)

The single tradition of Luke will now be examined with reference to possible Q material unparalleled in Matthew. Narrative material will not be considered. As Luke has omitted much more of Mark than Matthew has, and as he has a much larger amount of non-Marcan material which obviously bears no sign of having stood in any form of Q, it is natural to expect the additions to our total of Q matter to be much less in the single tradition of Luke than of Matthew.

THE PREACHING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

(Lk iii, 10-14)

This section in Luke follows immediately the description of John's preaching which Luke and Matthew have taken from Q. It is a natural supposition that it stood in Luke's Q, tho not in Matthew's, just as the discussion between Jesus and John at the baptism stood in Matthew's but not in Luke's. But there is one thing which indicates either that it did not so stand, or that it has been worked over by Luke in a manner peculiar to him. That is the presence of dialogue. If this dialogue appeared only in those sayings of Jesus that appear in Luke but not in Matthew, and that are of a character to have come from any form of Q, we should pick out this item as a characteristic of the recension used by Luke. But dialogue is also a characteristic of many of the Lucan parables which could not under any hypothesis be attributed to Q. In spite of its general resemblance to the Q matter just preceding, it seems best, therefore, to attribute this little section to some peculiar Lucan source.

THE INITIAL PREACHING OF JESUS IN NAZARETH

(Lk iv, 16-30)

This is a complete re-working of Marcan material. In his _Synoptische Tafeln zu den drei alteren Evangelien_, J. Weiss attributes it to a special source. This a.s.signment is correct, in the sense that there are sayings of Jesus in the section which Luke would certainly not manufacture, and which he must therefore have derived from some source. At all events there is no Q material in the pa.s.sage.

THE CALL OF PETER

(Lk v, 1-11)

The same is to be said of this section as has just been said of iv, 16-30.

It is a re-working of Mk i, 16-20. The latter part of vs. 10 has an especially genuine sound. ?????? occurs here only in the Gospels. The dialogue characteristic of Luke appears here also. With the possible exception of the latter half of vs. 10, nothing in the section could be attributed to any form of Q.

THE WOES

(Lk vi, 24-26)

We have here the alternatives of supposing that Luke invented these woes, that he found them in some altogether different source and inserted them here in the midst of his Q material, or that they stood, with the beat.i.tudes, in his recension of Q. Since the beat.i.tudes themselves, without the woes, show such difference as to preclude Matthew's and Luke's having drawn them from an identical source, but since they seem, if anything, to have stood in Q, it seems natural to a.s.sign these woes of Luke's, as we have a.s.signed the beat.i.tudes peculiar to Matthew, to the recension used by him. The sympathy shown in the Gospel of Luke for the poor has usually been referred to Luke himself. It may just as well have been a characteristic of one or more of his sources.

THE RECEPTION OF JOHN'S PREACHING

(Lk vii, 29-30)

These two verses are inserted in the midst of Jesus' testimony to John the Baptist. They have the sound of a purely editorial insertion. On the other hand, if they were found elsewhere by Luke, his insertion of them in this place is accounted for by his desire to explain Jesus' saying about John.

A possible hint of a source is found in the presence of d??a???. This verb is found in three other pa.s.sages that are peculiar to Luke and that are evidently not from QLk. If not from Luke himself, these verses are from some special source. But they are only what might be expected from Luke himself in the way of editorial comment.

THE SINNER IN SIMON'S HOUSE

(Lk vii, 36-50)

Tho this narrative has considerable resemblance to that in Mk xiv, 3-9, and Mt xxvi, 6-13, the different placing of the story, and the differences in the story itself, far outweighing the resemblances, seem to indicate a special source for it. There is no reason to attribute it, or any saying in it, to Q.

A WOULD-BE FOLLOWER OF JESUS

(Lk ix, 60_b_-63)

This may either be attributed to Luke (or to some later scribe) as an amplification of the incident just related by both Matthew and Luke from Q, or may be a.s.sumed to have stood in Luke's recension of Q. The two facts, that such amplification would be quite unlike Luke, as his literary habits are revealed to us in his treatment of Mark, and that the saying about the man who has put his hand to the plow has an extremely original and genuine sound, lead us to the latter alternative.

THE RETURN OF THE SEVENTY

(Lk x, 17-20)

Tho the existence and mission of a separate band of seventy disciples be attributed to Luke, he would certainly never have manufactured these sayings that are connected with their return. The sayings may indeed be ascribed to a special source; and are so ascribed by those who allow nothing to Q except the paralleled material. But these sayings are extremely primary in character, especially vss. 18 and 20; and they are similar to much Q material. If in Luke's recension of Q the mission of the disciples was a mission of seventy instead of twelve, Luke will be relieved of the burden of personal responsibility for the creation of this mission of the seventy; he has then merely conflated the account of the mission of the seventy which he found in his recension of Q with the mission of the twelve which he found in Mark. It must be admitted that such conflation is contrary to Luke's habit. The alternatives to this hypothesis are, either that he invented the mission of the seventy himself, or that he had before him three accounts of the sending out of disciples, one by Mark and one in Q, and a third in some unknown source.

This lends probability to the ascription of these sayings to QLk.

THE GREAT COMMANDMENT

(Lk x, 25-28)

Mark has a partial parallel to this section in Mk xii, 28-31, which Matthew takes from him (Mt xxii, 34-40). Luke's account is evidently not from Mark, however. Luke may have omitted the Marcan narrative because of this parallel of it in his own Gospel. The logian material in the section is of a primary character; the implication that one might inherit eternal life by merely keeping the commandments is not such as to have been later invented, and sounds particularly strange in Luke's Gospel. No source is more probable for it than QLk.

THE GOOD SAMARITAN

(Lk x, 29-37)

This parable is entirely too long to be ascribed to any form of Q. Its affinities with others of the long parables peculiar to Luke is such as to indicate for all of them a special source.