THE ANALYSIS OF Q

Q ORIGINALLY AN ARAMAIC DOCUMENT, USED IN GREEK TRANSLATIONS BY MATTHEW AND LUKE

The starting-point of a further determination of the content of Q is the fact that Matthew and Luke seem to have taken their duplicate matter from a Greek document, but that this Greek document was a translation from the Aramaic. If Matthew and Luke had been independently translating from an Aramaic document, they could not have hit so generally upon the same order of words, especially where many other arrangements would have done as well (and occasionally better), nor would they have agreed in the translation of an Aramaic word by the same unusual Greek word, as notably in the ?p???s??? of the Lord’s Prayer. The Q they used was a Greek document.

But Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Greek; and if Q is Palestinian, and as early as 60-65 or 70, it would be strange for it to have been written in any language except that which Jesus spoke. Mark had an Aramaic tradition; and tho he probably wrote in Greek he preserved many Aramaic words and expressions; Q as found in Matthew and Luke has no Aramaic words; this seems to be explicable only upon the supposition that though the original of it was in Aramaic, Matthew and Luke knew it only in its Greek form.

The hypothesis of an Aramaic original for Q is rendered practically certain by some of the variations that occur between Matthew’s and Luke’s versions of it. The clearest illustration of this is found in the speech against the Pharisees. Matthew reads, ?a????s?? p??t?? t? ??t?? t?? p?t?????. Luke reads, p??? t? ????ta d?te ??e??s????. One of these Greek clauses would be as difficult to derive from the other, or both of them from the same Greek original, as would be the English translation of the words. The meaning of Luke’s is far from clear. In an Aramaic original, however, Matthew’s verb might have read ???, while Luke’s might have read ???. A mere stroke of the pen, if the saying originally stood in Aramaic, explains a variation which cannot be explained at all if the saying was originally in Greek. This statement, however, will apply only if the Aramaic was written and not merely spoken; for the two letters so alike in appearance are not particularly similar in sound.

Tho the above is the simplest and clearest instance, others of the same sort are not wanting. In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, “So persecuted they the prophets which were before you”; while in the corresponding passage in Luke’s Sermon on the Plain he says, “In the same manner their fathers treated the prophets.” Matthew’s phrase (v. 12), t??? p?? ???, and Luke’s (vi, 23), ?? pat??e? a?t??, are equivalents, respectively, of the Hebrew or Aramaic phrases for “your ancestors” and “their ancestors.” But whereas the two Greek phrases look nothing alike and could not be mistaken for one another, the difference in the Aramaic again reduces itself to the difference in one letter between the endings ?? and ??. For Matthew’s saying (x, 12), ?sp?sas?e a?t?? (t?? ????a?) Luke reads (x, 5), ???ete· e????? t? ???? t??t?. Here Luke preserves the wording of the Aramaic greeting, “Peace be unto you,” while Matthew says, “Greet the house.” The form which Luke gives of the greeting is that which is used in Yiddish at the present time—???????????, “Peace to you,” equivalent to our “good morning.” That this is what underlay the tradition in Matthew is indicated by the fact that he goes on to say, “If the house is worthy, your peace shall abide upon it; but if it is unworthy, your peace shall return to you.”

The very peculiar Greek used by both Matthew and Luke in the saying about excommunication (e?p?s?? p?? p?????? ?a?’ ??? in Mt v, 11, and ?????s?? t? ???a ??? ?? p?????? in Lk vi, 22) seems to go back to the one Aramaic phrase for giving one a bad name. In the speech against the Pharisees Matthew (xxiii, 25) says, “Ye cleanse the outside of the cup and dish but inwardly they [the cup and platter] are full of greed and baseness.” Luke makes much better sense by reading (xi, 39), “Ye cleanse the outside of cup and platter, but inwardly ye are full of greed,” etc. If it be assumed that the present tense of the verb “to cleanse” was represented in Aramaic by the participle (which would be the usual construction), and that the second person pronoun stood with it in the first clause but was not repeated in the second (as would also be natural in the Aramaic), Matthew’s change of the verb in the second clause, from the second person to the third, and his consequent use of “cup and dish” as the subject of it, are easily explained; since the participle carries in itself no distinction between second and third person, and the plural form would fit equally the “ye” and the “they.” Instances such as these (I owe them all to Wellhausen)[91] seem to prove conclusively (JÜlicher says “beyond a doubt”) that, not merely an Aramaic oral tradition, but an Aramaic document lies behind the Greek Q used by Matthew and Luke.

METHODS OF MATTHEW AND LUKE IN THEIR USE OF Q

Upon the hypothesis that Matthew and Luke used essentially the same text of Q, an elaborate treatment of their respective use of that document is called for to show which of them, in instances where they differ, is to be charged with the alterations, and to assign the reasons for those alterations. Two scholars, Harnack in his Sayings of Jesus and Wernle in his Synoptische Frage, have made such an analysis, with the thoroness characteristic of them. The writer has studied these analyses carefully, and upon the basis of them and of such study of the texts as they suggested, made his own analysis. But upon the hypothesis of Q as originally an Aramaic document, used by Matthew and Luke in Greek translations going back to different Aramaic texts, such an analysis becomes superfluous, because superseded by the analysis of Q into the two recensions, QMt and QLk.

THE ANALYSIS OF Q INTO QMt AND QLk

If Q was originally an Aramaic document, used by Matthew and Luke in Greek translations going back to different copies of the Aramaic original, it is fair to assume that these two translations would have had different histories. Q would always be growing, by the aid of oral tradition; and if Q was written before Mark, there was ample time, say twenty-five years at least, before it was used by Matthew and Luke, for the two recensions, circulating in different communities and perhaps originally shaped to suit the needs of different readers, to acquire many dissimilar features. Not only would the same saying in many instances become changed to meet the varying need, or to adapt itself to what was considered a better tradition, but many things would be included in either recension which were not included in the other. Matthew will thus have had a recension of Q which we may designate by the sign QMt, and Luke one which we may call QLk.

The following pages represent an attempt to determine the content of Q, as that is represented in both Matthew and Luke.[92] Of the sections of Matthew and Luke examined, some are marked QMt, some QLk, and some merely Q. By this it is not meant that Matthew and Luke each had a document Q, and besides this a document QMt or QLk, and that they took now from one and now from the other. But where the wording of Matthew and Luke is identical, or so closely similar that the variations can be easily explained as changes made by Matthew or Luke, the material is assigned simply to Q. But where the variations are too great, much greater for example than any changes that have been made by Matthew and Luke or by either one of them where they are taking their logian material from Mark, the material is assigned to QMt and QLk. Reasons for the assignment to QMt or to QLk instead of to simple Q are given in each case seeming to require them. The sum of all passages assigned to any form of Q will constitute the total content of Q, so far as it is contained in both Matthew and Luke. This total content will be somewhat larger than the content that could be assigned to Q without the hypothesis of QMt and QLk, since by this hypothesis many sections will be sufficiently alike to be assigned to Q (QMt and QLk) which otherwise would have to be ascribed to different sources.[93]