Sources of the Synoptic Gospels Part 26

as between Mark and Q on the one side and Luke on the other, but between Mark and Q on the one side and Matthew on the other no such contrast appears. Mark and Q are here no nearer to each other, or very little, than either of them is to Matthew.

The particle te is never found in Q.[135] It occurs five times in Mt and seven times in Lk, and but once in Mk. ?? in temporal clauses seems to be absent; it is also absent from Matthew, while Luke uses it nineteen times and Mark but once. Clauses with ????a?, frequent in Matthew and Luke, are absent from Q; they also occur in Mark; but their absence from Q may be due simply to Q's lack of historical matter. ?a?? and s?? are absent; the first is used about evenly by Mark and Matthew, and more frequently by Luke; the second, three times by Matthew, five times by Mark, and twenty-four times by Luke.

CONCLUSION AS TO MARK'S DEPENDENCE UPON Q

These facts do not all point in the same direction. They seem sometimes to indicate a linguistic affinity between Q and Mark, but this affinity usually extends to Matthew also. What seems to be proved by them is that Mark and Q and Matthew all stand nearer to the Semitic than does Luke. But this is only the obverse of the statement that Luke is the best Grecist.

It throws no light upon the literary relation of Mark and Q. Such literary relation, in fact, cannot in the strict sense be "proved." It can only be rendered probable, tho perhaps extremely probable, by the unlikelihood that Mark and Q should have fifty verses in common without any literary relations.h.i.+p. Such relations.h.i.+p being a.s.sumed, the dependence is on the side of Mark.

CHAPTER VII

THE ORIGINAL ORDER OF Q

The following tables are intended to throw light upon the probable original order of Q. They will also facilitate comparison of the Q material in the two tables of contents given on pp. 222-25. The section numbers at the left are those in the tables for Matthew and Luke respectively on those pages. Table VII gives the sections in the order in which they come in Matthew, with the numbers of the corresponding sections as they occur in Luke; Table VIII, the sections as they come in Luke, with numbers of corresponding sections in Matthew. Unduplicated sections are not listed.

Since Matthew shows everywhere a tendency to group his material into discourses, it is _a priori_ probable that the original order of the Q material is to be sought in Luke and not in Matthew. Given this tendency to combine, reasons are obvious for Matthew's combining, in his Sermon on the Mount, much matter that Luke has scattered thru his Gospel. But if the Q material originally stood in such continuous discourses, no motive can be a.s.signed for Luke's breaking up these discourses and scattering their material thru so many chapters. The a.s.sumption that Matthew has combined, in his Sermon on the Mount, material which originally was separated as it still is in Luke, is corroborated by an a.n.a.lysis of that Sermon, which shows it to be anything but a unity. Much of the material which Matthew has combined into this Sermon has no duplicate in Luke. There is no means of telling where in Matthew's Q this unduplicated material stood. But the fact that the duplicated matter has been brot forward by Matthew from later chapters in Luke would give the presumption that such of the unduplicated material as has no necessary unity where it stands also stood in QMt, not at the beginning where it now is, but later; and this is also what we should expect.

TABLE VII

------------ MT | LK ------|----- Sec. | Sec.

------------ 1 = 1 2 = 2 3 = 3 4 = 4 7 = 5 11 = 6 12 = 73 13 = 20 14 = 75 17 = 61 20 = 76 22 = 8 23 = 8 26 = 39 27 = 78 29 = 53 30 = 46 31 = 73 32 = 51 33 = 9 34 = 12 36 = 40 37 = 7 36 = 64 40 = 13 41 = 15 42 = 16 44 = 17 45 = 66 46 = 25 47 = 27 48 = 23 50 = 23 52 = 29 53 = 30 54 = 24 54 = 31 55 = 32 55 = 28 56 = 50 57 = 11 58 = 48 58 = 21 59 = 59 60 = 70 60 = 84 61 = 34 62 = 18 63 = 19 63 = 74 64 = 33 65 = 36 68 = 41 68 = 49 69 = 14 70 = 43 71 = 45 72 = 44 73 = 42 74 = 22 75 = 37 76 = 62 77 = 63 82 = 10 83 = 79 84 = 77 86 = 89 86 = 38 91 = 47 92 = 47 93 = 67 94 = 81 95 = 86 96 = 82 97 = 92 98 = 55 99 = 56 -----------

TABLE VIII

------------ LK | MT ------|----- Sec. | Sec.

------------ 1 = 1 2 = 2 3 = 3 4 = 4 5 = 7 6 = 11 7a = 37 8 = 22 8 = 23 9 = 33 10 = 82 11 = 57 12 = 34 13 = 40 14 = 69 15 = 41 16 = 42 17 = 44 18 = 62 19 = 63 20 = 13 21 = 58 22 = 74 23 = 48 24 = 54 25 = 46 27 = 47 28 = 55 29 = 52 30 = 53 31 = 54 32 = 55 33 = 64 34 = 61 36 = 65 37 = 75 38 = 86 39 = 26 40 = 36 41 = 68 42 = 73 43 = 70 44 = 72 45 = 71 46 = 30 47 = 91 47 = 92 48 = 58 49 = 68 50 = 56 51 = 32 53 = 29 55 = 98 56 = 99 59 = 59 61 = 17 62 = 76 63 = 77 64 = 38 66 = 45 67 = 93 70 = 60 73 = 12 73a = 31 74 = 63 75 = 14 76 = 20 77 = 84 78 = 27 79 = 82 81 = 94 82 = 96 84 = 60 85 = 17 86 = 15 89 = 86 -----------

Taking the hint that Luke's order probably represents the original order of the Q material, we find this supposition confirmed by the present arrangement. In spite of Matthew's transpositions, the sections in Luke and Matthew, as grouped in Table IX, still stand in the same _relative_ order.

TABLE IX

Lk Mt

1 = 1 The preaching of the Baptist 2 = 2 The messianic announcement of the Baptist 3 = 3 The temptation 4 = 4 Blessed are the poor 5 = 7 Blessed are ye that hunger 6 = 11 Blessed are ye when men hate you 8 = 23 Love your enemies

13 = 40 Tree known by its fruits 15 = 41 Why call ye me "Lord, Lord"?

16 = 42 House on rock and sand (with and without foundation) 17 = 44 The centurion's servant healed

18 = 62 Question of John the Baptist, and Jesus' answer 19 = 63 Jesus' testimony to John

25 = 46 Two men who would follow Jesus 27 = 47 The harvest is great, the laborers are few

29 = 52 Instructions to disciples as to what to take on journey 30 = 53 Conduct on the way; greet the house 31 = 54 Whoever receives you, receives you not 32 = 55 More tolerable for Sodom

47 = 91 Woes upon the Pharisees 47 = 92 Ye shut up the kingdom of heaven (take away the key of knowledge)

55 = 98 The watching servant 56 = 99 The true and false servants

62 = 76 Parable of the Mustard Seed 63 = 77 Parable of the Yeast

81 = 94 The day of the Son of man 82 = 96 The days of Noah

Each of these groups--one of seven sections, two of four, and six of two sections each--probably stood, within itself, in the same order as that in which we now find it in Matthew and Luke.

The sections grouped in Table X have suffered such slight transpositions as to make it probable that each of the groups const.i.tuted a continuous pa.s.sage, probably in the order preserved by Luke.

TABLE X

Lk Mt 21 = 58 Things hidden and revealed 23 = 48 The mission of the twelve 24 = 54 Whoever shall not receive you 25 = 46 Two men who would follow Jesus 27 = 47 The harvest is great, the laborers are few 28 = 55 I send you forth as lambs among wolves 29 = 52 Instructions as to what to take on journey 30 = 53 Greet the house 31 = 54 Whoever receives you 32 = 55 More tolerable for Sodom 33 = 63 Woes upon Galilean cities 34 = 61 He that receiveth you receiveth me 36 = 65 Wise and prudent; all things are given unto me of my Father

41 = 68 The Beelzebul controversy 42 = 73 About backsliding, "empty, swept and garnished"

43 = 70 The sign of Jonah 44 = 72 Queen of the South 45 = 71 The men of Nineveh 49 = 68 Blasphemy against the Son of man

48 = 58 Fearless confession; be not afraid of them 50 = 56 Take no thot what ye shall answer

51 = 32 About care 53 = 29 About treasures, not on the earth

81 = 94 The day of the Son of man 82 = 96 The days of Noah 85 = 97 The one taken, the other left 86 = 95 Where the body is, there the eagles will be gathered

There is one other item, which I owe to Mr. Streeter,[136] that strongly supports the a.s.sumption that Luke has preserved the Q material in its most nearly original form. That is, that Luke allows himself much less liberty in the rearrangement of Mark's order than does Matthew. The best single testimony to his faithfulness to Mark's order is seen in the fact that where he makes his great omission from Mk (Mk vi, 45-viii, 26), beginning at that point his great interpolation (Lk ix, 51-xviii, 14), he does not, after returning to Mark, go back and pick up any single item that he has omitted. Detached sayings, some brief, and some, like the Beelzebul controversy, of considerable length, which he places in a different connection from that in which Mark gives them, can uniformly be shown to have stood in Q as well as in Mark,[137] and Luke follows Q's order with Q's wording. In the earlier part of his narrative, Luke does permit himself some little freedom in deviating from Mark's order; notably in the imprisonment of John the Baptist, the call of the first disciples, and the rejection at Nazareth (in each case, apparently, at the expense of some anachronism). Except for these instances his transpositions of Marcan material are slight, and usually amount rather to its rearrangement within a single section than to a genuine change of order in the structure. An exception to this rule is his pa.s.sion narrative, where his use of Mark is greatly influenced by his special source.

Q was apparently a collection of sayings, without chronological framework or data of any sort. But to the sayings of Jesus there was prefixed a slight account of the preaching of John the Baptist. This will not seem strange when it is remembered that Q was a Palestinian doc.u.ment, and that the cult of John the Baptist long survived the origin of Christianity.

What is not so easy to explain is Q's apparent inclusion of one narrative, the story of the centurion's servant. It also contained an account of the sending out of the twelve, but apparently no reference to the pa.s.sion. The absence of narratives, or of any chronological hints, would make its rearrangement easy; perhaps it suffered some derangement at the hands of those who added the sections peculiar to Matthew's and Luke's recensions (as it did at the hands of Matthew himself), and who are responsible for some of the deviations between the two. As Mr. Streeter suggests, if Mark were lost, we could not, from Matthew and Luke, be sure either of Mark's content or his order. No more can we of Q. About all that can be said is that the strong probability is that Luke more nearly than Matthew reproduces that order.

CHAPTER VIII

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The positions reached in this study may be gathered up in a few brief statements:

1. Matthew and Luke depend for the structure of their Gospels, and for practically all of their narrative material, upon Mark.

2. In the order of Marcan material, Matthew and Luke have made such changes as were desirable from the use to which they wished to put this matter. Matthew has made fewer omissions, Luke fewer transpositions.

3. The changes which Matthew and Luke have made in the substance or wording of the Marcan material, including their omissions from it, may be accounted for by a desire to produce a better literary form, to avoid statements that offended the growing sentiment of the church, and to adapt their own narrative to their own public. Some changes must go unaccounted for.

4. The hypothesis of a more primitive form of Mark in the hands of Matthew and Luke is not demanded by the facts. Matthew and Luke used substantially our Mark.

5. Matthew and Luke also used a doc.u.ment Q, whose content, within limits, is well agreed upon.