REVIEW OF Q MATERIAL IN MATTHEW, LUKE, AND MARK

The accompanying tables of contents of Q material in Matthew, Luke, and Mark are prepared to facilitate comparison between the evangelists as to the amount and character of their Q material. They will help to determine whether QMt and QLk have enough in common, and of such a sort, as to entitle them still to be regarded as recensions of the same original. They will also help us toward a determination of the original order of Q. The division into sections is a somewhat arbitrary one, but has been made as nearly equal in Matthew and Luke as possible. Title and number are given to each section in each Gospel, to make the comparative study of contents and order more easy. Some slight differences may occasionally be detected between the assignments as they are made here, and as they were made in the examinations of the double and single traditions. These will be chiefly due to the necessity of taking the material here in sections instead of in detached verses and will not affect the results heretofore obtained.

CONSIDERATIONS FAVORING ANALYSIS OF Q INTO QMt AND QLk

In the subjoined tables of Q material in Matthew and in Luke the duplicated material is starred. The sections which are identical (or in a few cases not absolutely but practically so), or in which the deviations are so slight as easily to be ascribed to the editorial work of Matthew or Luke, are marked Q. The sections unduplicated, or duplicated but with deviations too great to be assigned to Matthew or Luke working upon a similarly worded text, are marked QMt or QLk.

TABLE IV
Contents of Q Material in Matthew

* The asterisk indicates Q material in Matthew duplicated in Luke.

TABLE V
Contents of Q Material in Luke

* The asterisk indicates Q material in Luke duplicated in Matthew.

As to the generally homogeneous character of the sections marked Q, there will be no dispute. Since these are restricted to the passages showing the very closest parallelism, there can be no question about the propriety of assigning them to Q. The only question will be as to the assignment of any unduplicated material to any form of Q, and the assignment of the duplicated but not closely paralleled sections to QMt and QLk instead of simply to Q. Reasons have been given[127] for such assignments in each case. But a few sections may be taken as again illustrating the advantages of the QMt-QLk hypothesis.

PASSAGES CLOSELY SIMILAR, YET WITH DIVERGENCES TOO GREAT TO BE ACCOUNTED FOR UPON THE HYPOTHESIS OF AN UNDIFFERENTIATED Q

Sections 42 in Matthew and 16 in Luke contain the saying about the house on the rock and the sand (with and without foundations). These sections are universally ascribed to Q, both from their general similarity and from their position in each Gospel as the conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount (Plain). But the wording is very dissimilar. Only those words are alike which must necessarily be so if two men were using the same subject as an illustration; and this is true, not only of the wording, but of the thought. Those who assign the passage simply to Q are compelled to suppose that, Matthew representing the original text, Luke has observed that the correct antithesis is not between a house built on a rock and a house built on the sand, but between one built with a foundation and one built without one. So he says nothing about the soil, whether rock or sand, but says that in one case the man built upon the surface, and that in the other he digged deep and laid a good foundation. The amount of re-working, reinterpreting, and re-writing thus required of Luke is wholly unjustified by any treatment he has accorded to any of the sayings of Jesus in Mark. It is presumable that he exercised his editorial function on his recension of Q as he did upon the sayings-material in Mark. But it is much more natural to suppose that the story that lay before him in his source lay before him in a form considerably different from that which it had in Matthew’s source. The assumption of the two recensions therefore has the advantage of preserving the section for Q, without the disadvantage of ascribing to Luke a wholly unwarrantable amount of re-working.

Sections 4-11 in Matthew and 4-6 in Luke contain their different versions of the beatitudes. Those who assign indiscriminately to Q all the verses contained in these sections have to assume that Luke omitted five of the beatitudes. No reason can be assigned for his doing so, and it is wholly improbable that he would have deliberately mutilated a passage so liturgically complete and impressive. The five omitted beatitudes are additions to the teachings of Jesus, manufactured on the basis of Old Testament exemplars. But if anything stood in Q, these five beatitudes stood there, only not in Luke’s recension, but in Matthew’s.

WITH MATTHEW’S Q BEFORE HIM, LUKE WOULD NOT HAVE OMITTED SO MUCH OF IT

Those who argue for Luke’s omission of so much Q material which (according to their assumption) stood before him, allege as a precedent his omission of so much Marcan material, especially of the continuous section Mk vi, 45-viii, 21. It is held by many students that the copy of Mark used by Luke did not contain this section.[128] The writer does not see the necessity for this assumption as there are obvious reasons for Luke’s omission of the section if it stood in his copy of Mark. It contains the doublet of the feeding of the four thousand. Luke avoids doublets as far as possible. It contains the story of the walking on the sea, a story similar in many respects to that of the storm at sea which Luke had already taken from Mark. The dispute about hand-washing and the things that defile would have no interest for Luke or his gentile readers. The story of the Canaanitish woman and her difficulties in securing help from Jesus, and the methods of healing the dumb man, would offend Luke’s non-Jewish sympathies and his artistic sense. The discussion about leaven he would omit because he had a partial parallel from another source. In this whole section which Luke omits from Mark there are very few sayings of Jesus, and those of a character not to please or interest Luke. The omission of such a section, or of anything else that Luke omits from Mark, offers no precedent for the omissions he is alleged to have made from Q.

In the preceding table of contents for Q material in Matthew (pp. 222-23), there are twenty-nine sections for which Luke has no parallel. Five of these, the omitted beatitudes, have already been discussed. Of the remaining twenty-four there are a few which, it may be admitted, Luke might not have cared to include, even if they were in his Q. Such are the sections on oaths, on fasting, on the blamelessness of the priests, and on the Pharisee instructed in the kingdom of God—all of a strongly Jewish character. To these may be added four other brief sections, all from Matthew’s discourse against the Pharisees; especially, the reference to phylacteries, which would have no meaning for Luke’s readers, and the injunction not to be called “Rabbi.” The saying, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs [heathen] nor cast your pearls before swine [unbelievers],” he would hardly have taken if it had stood in his source. But there are other sections which would particularly have delighted him, and which it is almost inconceivable that he should have read and omitted. Such are the sections on alms-giving (a favorite subject with Luke; see Lk xi, 41; xii, 33); on prayer (a subject which he mentions eighteen times against Matthew’s ten, outside of this passage); the three little parables of the Treasure Hid in the Field, the Pearls, and the Fish-Net, and the beautiful saying, so fitted to Luke’s universalistic purpose, “Come unto me.”

Much less can any reason be assigned for Matthew’s omission of the sixteen unduplicated sayings ascribed to QLk.[129] Matthew almost invariably shortens Mark’s narratives, and sometimes omits a narrative section, but practically never omits a saying of Jesus given in Mark. The case of the third would-be follower of Jesus, with the particularly fine saying, “No man having put his hand to the plow”; the little parables of the Man Building a Tower and the King Going to War; the sayings, “I came to cast fire upon the earth,” “I have a baptism to be baptized with,” “Fear not, little flock,” would attract Matthew as much as they did Luke, and with Matthew’s almost slavish adherence to Mark in all Mark’s sayings-material, no reason can be given for his omission of them.If it be asked why these unduplicated sections, which have been assigned to QMt and QLk, are not assigned simply to special and undetermined sources, the answer is that all these sections stand more or less closely connected with Q material, they are strongly similar to the other Q matter in form and idea, and equally different in form and feeling from the passages assigned to special sources. They consist, in both Matthew and Luke, of short parables of the undoubted Q type (cf. the Treasure Hid in the Field, the Pearls, the Fish-Net, the Unjust Judge) and of short sayings; whereas the special source or sources (whether of Matthew or Luke) consist of narratives (the opening chapters of both Gospels, the Peter-sections in Matthew, the death of Judas in Matthew, Jesus before Herod in Luke, the watch at the grave in Matthew, the Emmaus incident in Luke, and the peculiar matter of both Matthew and Luke in their accounts of the days in Jerusalem) and of story-parables like the Prodigal Son, the Lost Coin, the Good Samaritan, the Entrusted Money. These similarities in the material assigned to a special source or sources are not enough to prove the unity of that source for either Matthew or Luke, and are not so intended; but they are enough to distinguish the material so assigned from that assigned to QMt and QLk, and to establish the comparative homogeneity of this latter material in each case.

THE “SECONDARY TRAITS” ARE IN QMt AND QLk, NOT IN Q

The distinction between Q and QMt and QLk is further justified by the consideration of secondary traits. QMt and QLk represent deviations from, or additions to, an original Q. Since these deviations and additions would go back to a very early time, and even when comparatively late might embody an early tradition, the presence of primary traits in QMt and QLk need not surprise us.[130] Since Q cannot be proved to be earlier than 60-65, it may also easily contain secondary traits. But since QMt and QLk are in general later than Q, and presumably represent a later tradition, we should naturally expect to find in them a larger number of secondary characteristics.

In the material assigned to Q in Tables IV and V[131] the writer believes that not many unmistakably secondary traits appear. The messianic announcement of the Baptist is certainly primary as compared with Mark predicting Jesus as the fire-judge, contrary to the facts of his life. The temptation in Q is also primary as compared with Mark, with the exception of the conversation between Jesus and John in Matthew, which is obviously secondary and belongs to QMt. Of the sayings, only a few have a secondary sound. Such are especially those connected with the instructions to the twelve, which seem to embody some of the experiences, or bespeak some of the needs, of the early Christian itinerant preachers: “The laborer is worthy of his hire [or his keep]”; “I send you forth as sheep among wolves”; “The disciple is not above his master”; “The law and the prophets prophesied until John”; perhaps also Matthew’s long beatitude, “Blessed are ye when men persecute you,” etc.

But by far the most of the secondary traits, and the most unmistakable of them, are found in the additions to and deviations from the Q tradition in QMt and QLk. Such are the additional beatitudes supplied by Matthew’s Q and made up of Old Testament quotations; the insertion into the temptation story, in QMt, of the protest of John the Baptist and the answer of Jesus; the warning against false prophets in Matthew; the speech about those who say “Lord, Lord”; the prediction of division among relatives (seemingly answering the condition in which the early church found itself); the many coming from the east and the west (written in the days of the expanding church); the sign of Jonah interpreted (in Matthew) as referring to the resurrection; the parable of the Fish-Net with its eschatological interpretation; the saying about the twelve apostles on twelve thrones; and the various sections interpolated, apparently from QMt and QLk, into Mark’s apocalypse.

Closer analysis of particular sections tends to corroborate this impression of secondary traits as coming not from Q but from the recensions. For example, the sayings about the light and the bushel and about the salt that had lost its savor appear to have stood in Q. But from his own recension of Q, Matthew prefixed to the saying what Luke did not find in his recension, “Ye are the light of the world,” “Ye are the salt of the earth,” two sayings which seem to reflect the exalted estimate of the apostles in the sub-apostolic age. The Lord’s Prayer probably stood in the original Q much as it is in Luke; Matthew’s amplifications, found in his source, have the liturgical and ecclesiastical coloring that betray the later time.

So, further, Luke’s parable of the Unjust Judge, with its generally Q sound, but with its pathetic question appended (from Luke’s recension), “Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find the faith on the earth?” bespeaks the times of persecution when the survival of the new faith looked problematical. Matthew’s “Cast not your pearls before swine,” “The Pharisee instructed in the kingdom of heaven,” “The scribes and Pharisees in Moses’ seat,” all from QMt, and Luke’s “Rejoice that your names are written in heaven,” his saying about discerning the signs of the time (of the parousia), his “kingdom cometh not with observation,” and his twice repeated injunction to watchfulness, all from QLk, certainly have a secondary sound. The presence of so many secondary traits in QMt and QLk does not prove that the passages so assigned might not be assigned to S or some other special or undefined source; but many if not all of them being passages ordinarily assigned simply to Q, the large number of secondary traits in them does tend to substantiate, in an unlooked-for manner, the assumption of the two recensions.