Sources of the Synoptic Gospels Part 22

THE PARABLE OF THE DINNER AND THE INVITED GUESTS

(Lk xiv, 15-24)

This parable is generally regarded as parallel to Mt xxii, 1-10, and the two are a.s.signed to Q. But while the two evangelists are evidently relating the same parable, there is so little verbal resemblance as to give no proof of a common literary source. Upon the a.s.sumption of such a source, the violence done to it by Matthew or Luke or both in its transcription is quite beyond belief. If the parable in either Gospel is a.s.signed to Q, the one in the other should be otherwise a.s.signed. It seems better to ascribe both of them to special sources. The two versions are about as unlike as they could well be, and still be versions of the same parable.

CONDITIONS OF DISCIPLESHIP

(Lk xiv, 28-35)

Here are four detached sayings, the first two similar in meaning. Vs. 28 sounds like a genuine logion, with vss. 29 and 30 added as an explanatory comment. The same may be said, respectively, of vss. 31 and 32. Vs. 33, tho beginning with ??t??, does not seem to fit in this place. Vs. 34_a_ is from Mark (ix, 50) or influenced by it. Considering the connections, it is probably best to a.s.sign the pa.s.sage to QLk, with improvements by Luke.

THE LOST SHEEP

(Lk xv, 1-7)

Mr. Streeter suggests that Luke may have elaborated this parable out of the saying in Mt xviii, 12-13. Johannes Weiss, as indicated in his _Synoptische Tafeln zu den drei alteren Evangelien_, seems also to consider that while the parable as a whole is drawn from one of Luke's peculiar sources, there is a literary connection between vss. 4-7 and Matthew's saying. Considering the connection of the parable with the two that immediately follow, it seems better to a.s.sign all three to a common Lucan source.

THE LOST COIN AND THE PRODIGAL SON

(Lk xv, 8-32)

These parables may be a.s.signed without comment to one of Luke's special sources.

THE UNJUST STEWARD

(Lk xvi, 1-12)

The composite character of this parable has been a.s.serted by various writers. Schmiedel[115] suggests that vss. 10-12 have been added by a later hand. If the parable stops with vs. 9, the meaning of it apparently is that one should give mammon away; the two following verses seem merely to inculcate honesty in business matters. Indeed, perhaps the parable should be considered as ending with vs. 7, and vs. 8 as probably an editorial comment upon it. In the latter case, the ? ?????? of vs. 8 refers to Jesus. This supposition requires the further one that the writer of vs. 9 has forgotten that vs. 8 is indirect discourse attributed to Jesus. Vs. 13 is from Q and is duplicated in Mt vi, 24. But there is no new Q material here.

A CRITICISM OF THE PHARISEES

(Lk xvi, 14-15)

The verses which immediately follow these are from Q. Streeter[116]

inclines to a.s.sign vss. 14-15 to the same source. But if vss. 16-18 be omitted here and placed in some other connection, vss. 14-15 const.i.tute an excellent introduction to the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus which follows in vss. 19-31. In favor of Mr. Streeter's a.s.signment is the fact that Q was apparently a collection of sayings neither topically nor otherwise arranged, and that the four sayings in vss. 15-18 are thus detached, Matthew having taken the three in vss. 16-18 and "worked them into appropriate contexts." Of vss. 14 and 15 about all that can be said is that the latter sounds like Q. Considering Matthew's fondness for everything that reflects upon the Pharisees, it seems likely that if vs.

15 stood in any form of Q it was in Luke's recension only.

THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS

(Lk xvi, 19-31)

This parable seems to show something of the same composite character as is found in that of the Unjust Steward, the first part having to do with rich and poor and the second part with believing and unbelieving. There is no Q material in it.

"UNPROFITABLE SERVANTS" AND THE HEALING OF THE TEN LEPERS

(Lk xvii, 7-10; xvii, 11-19)

The former of these two sections might conceivably have stood in Luke's recension of Q; the latter not in any recension. It is better to a.s.sign them both to a special source.

ABOUT THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM OF G.o.d

(Lk xvii, 20-21)

This little section certainly has a Q sound. If it stood in Matthew's recension, reasons may easily be given for his omission of it; he would not have understood the non-apocalyptic statement, "the kingdom of G.o.d is within [or among] you." But it cannot be proved, at least, that the section stood in Matthew's Q; therefore if it is a.s.signed to Q at all it would better be a.s.signed merely to Luke's recension.

Later than this in the Gospel of Luke there is nothing that needs to be examined for possible Q material. His single tradition from here on includes the parables of the Unjust Judge, and the Pharisee and the Publican in the Temple, the story of Zacchaeus, the lament over Jerusalem, the inst.i.tution of the Lord's Supper, and a few sections in the story of the trial, the death, and the resurrection appearances of Jesus. Of these only one, the lament over Jerusalem, bears any resemblance to the Q material in general. Professor Burkitt suggests, indeed, that xxii, 15-16, 24-32, and 35-38, may be remnants of Q's account of the pa.s.sion. We have seen no reason to suppose that there was such an account in Q. If there was, there are no signs by which it can be identified in this portion of Luke's narrative. It is better to a.s.sign all this material to a special source. The fact that Luke has no resurrection appearances in Galilee may perhaps be taken as confirmation of our hypothesis of a Jerusalem source in his hands.

MATTER PECULIAR TO MATTHEW OR TO LUKE

In the determination of Q material in the single traditions of Matthew and Luke on pp. 166-206, the writer has ventured occasionally to suggest a possible source for such material as is not a.s.signed to any form of Q.

In addition to the sayings-material considered on pp. 166-92, Matthew has in his single tradition the following narratives: the birth and infancy sections, chaps. i, ii; the temple tax, xvii, 24-27; the children in the temple, xxi, 14-16; the death of Judas, xxvii, 3-10; the wife of Pilate, and Pilate and the crowd, xxvii, 19, 24-25; miracles at the death of Jesus, xxvii, 51-53; the watch at the grave, xxvii, 62-66; xxviii, 11-15; the angel rolling away the stone, xxviii, 2-3; the appearances of Jesus to the women, xxviii, 9-10; to the disciples, xxviii, 16-20.

In addition to the sayings and parables of the single tradition of Luke, considered on pp. 193-206, that tradition contains the following narratives: the birth of John the Baptist, the birth and infancy of Jesus, with the ancestry, chaps. i, ii, iii, 1-38; the miraculous draft of fishes, v, 4-9; the raising of the widow's son, vii, 11-17; the ministering women, viii, 1-3; an event in a Samaritan village, ix, 51-56; the healing of the woman, xiii, 10-17;[117] the ten lepers, xvii, 11-19; Zacchaeus, xix, 2-10; the trial before Herod, xxiii, 6-12; the thief on the cross, xxiii, 39-43; the walk to Emmaus, xxiv, 13-35; the appearances of the risen Jesus, xxiv, 36-53.

Matthew's peculiar material is scattered thru his entire Gospel. He begins and ends with it. After he reaches the Pa.s.sion, his peculiar material becomes unusually abundant. In the twenty-three chapters between the infancy and the pa.s.sion, he has only seventeen insertions of peculiar material. In the three chapters that follow, he has nine. These latter are of a different sort. In the earlier part of his single tradition, sayings and parables predominate; here, except for the saying about the legion of angels, the peculiar material is all narrative.

Luke has likewise distributed his peculiar material thruout his gospel, and also begins and ends with it. But after his stories of the birth and childhood, he has, up to his chap. ix, five insertions of peculiar matter.

Four of these are incidents, one is a speech of John the Baptist. With ix, 51, begins his great interpolation. In the less than ten chapters covered by this he has grouped twenty-five sections of his peculiar material. This matter has a prevailing character of its own. There are four narratives in it, three of them being healings. The other twenty-one sections consist of sayings and parables. If we consider the relative length of the sayings, the narratives, and parables of this section, we shall see that the whole is practically a parable section. With the coming of Jesus to Jerusalem, this material stops. From here on Luke has two brief sayings and one longer one, five sections of narrative, and no parable, in his single tradition.

Whether the source of Matthew's peculiar material was one or more than one, it suggests itself at once that the birth and infancy stories may have come from a place by themselves. They have, to a considerable extent, a vocabulary of their own. Const.i.tuting about one twenty-second of the total matter of Matthew's Gospel, they contain almost one-tenth of the occurrences of the characteristic words of that Gospel.[118] Even if the constantly recurring ?e???? of the genealogy be removed, the peculiar words occur with much more frequency in this birth and infancy section than in the rest of the Gospel. The force of this fact, however, is considerably weakened by the peculiar subject-matter of these chapters.

More decisive upon this matter is the general character of the birth and infancy sections, which is sharply distinguished from that of the body of the Gospel. This is not due to the presence of the marvelous in these early chapters, since that is found to some degree throughout, but to the presence of what may be more distinctly called the legendary element. In this characteristic it is like some of the material at the end of Matthew's Gospel. Let one compare the general character of the stories of the star and the magi, the slaughter of the innocents, and the flight into Egypt with the story of the opening of the graves and the awakening of the departed dead, and the angel rolling away the stone from the grave, and the question will suggest itself, whether Matthew may not have obtained all these stories from one source.

This suggestion might appear to be seconded by the fact that this material, which has such a striking family resemblance, is not scattered thru the body of Matthew's work, but occurs, part of it before he has reached his junction with Mark and Luke, and the rest of it after he has parted from them. He not only begins and ends alone, but he begins and ends with material of a remarkably similar character. This is not enough, of course, to prove the unity of Matthew's source for the first and last parts of his single tradition; but it is enough to suggest it.

As to the source of the rest of Matthew's peculiar material, we cannot get beyond guesswork. Some of it has an extremely genuine sound; for example, the sayings appended to the Sabbath discussion, "The priests break the sabbath in the temple and are blameless," etc. (xii, 5-6); the saying about the angels of the little ones (xviii, 10); the parable of the Fish-Net, preserving so well the eschatological features of the preaching of Jesus (xiii, 47-50); the parable of the Two Sons (xxi, 28-31). The incident of the temple tax (xvii, 24-27) seems to go back for its origin to a time when the temple was still in existence, and, when it is relieved of the item of the coin in the fish's mouth (which may easily be a later addition to the story), seems to bear traces of undoubted genuineness.

The parable of the Laborers who received every man a penny (Mt xx, 1-16) seems likewise to indicate a time considerably later than that of Jesus; a time, namely, when those who had long waited for the parousia were asking whether those who had come in at the eleventh hour were to receive the rewards of the coming kingdom exactly as those who had "borne the burden and the heat of the day." That it was in such a time as this that Matthew wrote his Gospel may suggest the hypothesis that he has here worked over some genuine saying of Jesus, or received such a saying as it had been worked over by the waiting community, to suit the need of the times.

In much the same manner the story of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (XXV, 1-13) seems to come from a period when the church was commonly spoken of as the bride of Christ, or when Christ was awaited as the coming bridegroom of the church; this is not necessarily later than the times of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, and so may be much earlier than Matthew, but is certainly later than the time of Jesus.

The saying about eunuchs who have made themselves such for the kingdom of heaven has a harsh sound in the mouth of Jesus; and we wonder whether the circ.u.mstances of the expectation of the kingdom warranted such a statement at the time Jesus is said to have made it. We cannot but notice also, as Wernle has remarked, that the saying seems to be displaced in Matthew, coming in with extreme inappropriateness between Jesus' insistence upon the sacredness of marriage and his blessing of the children. It may bespeak the period of developing asceticism within the church. If it is not to be a.s.signed to Jesus we cannot fix very closely the date of its origin.

On the whole, we must probably say that some parts of Matthew's tradition, outside of his infancy section and the stories of the wonders at the crucifixion, show indications of antiquity and genuineness, while others arouse our suspicions as to their coming from Jesus, or even from Matthew.

MATTER PECULIAR TO LUKE