DID MARK ALSO USE Q?

In the introduction to his Beginnings of Gospel History, Bacon remarks that the “dependence of Mark upon Q can be demonstrated.” Wellhausen says that “independence [between Mark and Q] is not to be thot of.” Streeter, in Oxford Studies, has made the most recent and thoro study of the relation of Mark and Q, and some of his results have already been utilized and acknowledged. Even Dr. Sanday, in the introduction to Oxford Studies, confesses himself an unwilling convert to the theory that Mark was acquainted with, and made some use of, Q. Wellhausen alone, so far as I know, maintains the apparently untenable position that Q is later than Mark, and that where the two overlap, Q has used Mark instead of Mark using Q. His acceptance of this position is partially explained by the fact that he makes no distinction between the original Q and the recensions of it in the hands of Matthew and Luke; he also allows to Q much material (e.g., the conversation between John and Jesus at the baptism) which other scholars, without the hypothesis of QMt and QLk, ascribe to the hand of Matthew or Luke. Harnack and Wernle maintain the priority of Q to Mark. Wernle concedes some small use of Q by Mark, and Harnack thinks Mark was at least “acquainted with” Q.

The discrimination between QMt and QLk and the original Q makes unnecessary a good deal of the work that has heretofore been done toward determining the primary and secondary traits in Mark and Q respectively. Assuming that Mark used either the original Q, or as near to the original of that document as we can yet get, the recensions used by Matthew and Luke would be perhaps thirty, certainly twenty, years later than that used by Mark. In the fifty or more verses of Mark that appear to have stood also in Q, there is nothing that can be shown to be later than the year 70 (the date generally assigned to Mark). There is nothing to suggest that the author had witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem, or the events immediately leading up to it. The presence of the same material in Mark and Q is demonstrated by the agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark, or by the deviations of the one or the other of them from the Marcan form of a saying, in such way as not to admit of explanation except by the assumption of two sources (Mark and Q) in the hands of Matthew and Luke. In other words, if Mark did use Q, but if he used the same text of it as was used by Matthew and Luke, and if the three followed Q with equal faithfulness, in all such instances Q would fail to appear, since both Matthew and Luke would appear to be following only Mark. It is therefore where there are deviations of either Matthew or Luke from Mark in sections where the other follows Mark closely, or where there are agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark in sayings-material, that the presence of Q behind Mark can be detected.

Upon the hypothesis of Q without QMt or QLk, the argument by which the use of Q by Mark, as against the use of Mark by Q, was proven, consisted of picking out the primary and secondary traits in Mark and Q respectively, and of showing that the primary traits were in Q and the secondary in Mark. But this was very difficult to do, so long as, e.g., the Peter incidents peculiar to Matthew, or the conversation during the baptism, were attributed to Q. For these were indisputably secondary. If the priority of Mark was to be maintained, all such traits had to be removed from Q and assigned to the evangelist or to some special source.

Upon the theory now advocated by the writer, these secondary traits are practically all assigned, not to the original Q, but to QMt or QLk.[132] But if Mark used any form of Q, it was not QMt or QLk, but some much simpler, more primary, and doubtless less extended, form. The presence of secondary traits in QMt and QLk therefore does nothing toward proving the secondary character of Q in its original form, or in such an early form as would have been used by Mark. Since nothing can be found in Q which is either demonstrably or probably later than the date of Mark, the assumption that Mark used Q may be permitted to stand; and with the removal of the secondary traits to the recensions, it does not require the minute analysis which earlier hypotheses made necessary, since there are no longer any indications militating against Mark’s use of Q. What now remains therefore is to determine as nearly as possible what material stood in Mark and Q.

WHAT MATERIAL DID MARK TAKE FROM Q?

In the attempt to determine what material Mark has taken from Q, an effort will also be made to decide whether Matthew and Luke took the same material directly from Q, or indirectly from Q thru Mark. The verses which one or both of them appear to have taken directly from Q (tho these verses stand also in Mark) will be added to the number of verses already attributed to Q (or QMt and QLk). We shall thus have before us the largest possible sum-total of Q material. The tables of contents already made out for the Q material, as it now stands in Matthew and Luke respectively,[133] will throw further light upon the propriety or impropriety of regarding QMt and QLk as recensions of one original document. The same tables will serve to indicate the probable order of Q, and the investigation now following will then be used to determine what acquaintance, if any, Mark had with Q, and what use, if any, he made of that document.

THE MESSIANIC ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE BAPTIST

(Mk i, 7-8)

Matthew and Luke are close to Mark in their wording here, but agree against him in putting his verses in reverse order and in the addition of ?a? p???. They then each add a verse (Mt iii, 12; Lk iii, 17) which has already been assigned to Q. In each Gospel this verse develops the idea introduced by the ?a? p???. The order of Matthew and Luke is here necessarily, and apparently originally, different from that of Mark, since the relative clause which begins the additional matter of Matthew and Luke depends upon the order of sentences in these two Gospels and will not fit Mark’s arrangement. In spite therefore of the close agreement of Matthew’s vs. 11 and Luke’s vs. 16 with Mark, these verses must be assigned to Q. In other words, it is probable that here Matthew and Luke are depending directly upon Q, and not merely indirectly upon him thru Mark.

THE BAPTISM OF JESUS

(Mk i, 9-11)

This section is added to Q by many critics, on the ground of its position between the preaching of the Baptist and the temptation of Jesus, both related in Q. The agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark are not, however, frequent or important enough by themselves to suggest this assignment. On the other hand, the addition in Matthew of the conversation between Jesus and John points to a source in that respect different from that of either Mark or Luke. Matthew also represents the voice from heaven as directed to the crowd, and not to Jesus alone, as do Mark and Luke. In both these deviations Matthew has an apparently later tradition, and has preferred to follow his recension of Q. Either Luke’s recension here agreed substantially with Mark’s, or else Luke has followed Mark more closely than Q.

THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS

(Mk i, 12-13)

The very brief account in Mark is followed in Matthew and Luke by nine and eleven verses respectively, which have been already assigned to Q. The question here is whether Matthew and Luke followed Mark in the first two verses of their narratives, and after that forsook him for Q, or whether they followed Q thruout. Matthew and Luke agree in substituting d?????? for Mark’s sata???, in the omission of the clause “and was with the wild beasts,” and in placing the temptation in the period of hunger following the forty days’ fast. They apparently followed Q rather than Mark, but each introduced some changes out of deference to the latter. Mark’s account is similar enough to that of Matthew and Luke to be a brief extract from Q.

THE BEELZEBUL CONTROVERSY

(Mk iii, 20-29)

This Marcan section is duplicated in Mt xii, 24-32, and Lk xi, 15-23; xii, 10. Of these Matthean and Lucan accounts, Mt xii, 26-28, and Lk xi, 18-20, are practically identical, but not paralleled in Mark. In xii, 29, Matthew follows Mk iii, 27, almost word for word. At the same place Luke forsakes Mark and deviates widely, tho agreeing closely with Matthew in the three preceding verses. Matthew’s xii, 30, and Luke’s xi, 23, are again unparalleled in Mark, and are evidently from Q. Matthew’s vs. 31 again goes back to Mark’s vs. 28, but is influenced by his own Q material in the following verses. The derivation of Mark from Q in this passage is rendered doubly sure by the facts that the verses seriously interrupt the connection in Mark, and that the passage here consecutive in Matthew and Mark is separated in Luke. Matthew is a conflation of Mark and Q. Luke is apparently Q thruout. Matthew’s Marcan and Q material being mixed, it is impossible to tell whether Matthew’s Q was here identical with Luke’s or not. Out of this section there should be added to Q the passages Mt xii, 25, and Lk xi, 17, 21.

FIVE DETACHED SAYINGS

(Mk iv, 21-25)

Such detached sayings, unconnected with Mark’s narrative, create at once a presumption of their having been taken from Q. Luke has the first saying (about the lamp) in two places (viii, 16; xi, 33), indicating that he found it both in Mark and Q. He also has a duplicate for the second saying, while the fifth is repeated twice in both Matthew and Luke. Mk iv, 23, is the proverbial saying used twice in both Mark and Luke and three times in Matthew. There is thus only one of Mark’s sayings (iv, 24) which is not given twice by Matthew or Luke or both. An additional indication of the occurrence of these verses in Q, and Mark’s derivation of them from that source, is the fact that they are part of a section in Mark which seriously interrupts his narrative, interposing a private conversation of Jesus with his disciples between the teaching in the boat and the storm on the lake. The verses are also given by Matthew in four different chapters, and by Luke in two, and by both in different order from each other and from Mark. All five of these Marcan verses, therefore, and their parallels in Matthew and Luke, should be assigned to Q.

THE PARABLE OF THE MUSTARD SEED

(Mk iv, 30-32)

This parable has a strong resemblance to those already assigned to Q. Matthew’s connection is the same as Mark’s; Luke’s is different. Luke agrees with Mark in beginning with a question, tho he omits the second half of the double question in Mark. Matthew follows Mark, or is strongly influenced by him in Mt xiii, 32. Matthew and Luke agree against Mark in the words ?? ?a?? ?????p??. According to a suggestion of Wellhausen’s, ?a?e? e?? ??p?? and ?spe??e? ?? t? ???? may be translation variants. In the conclusion Matthew and Luke agree much more closely with each other than with Mark. Except for the influence of Mark at the beginning, Luke seems to be following Q, while Matthew’s parable is a conflation of Q and Mark. If Mark here rests upon Q, then Matthew is conflating a parable which Mark drew from Q with the same parable as he (Matthew) found it in his recension of Q. Complicated as this may seem, Mark’s parable is too closely similar to Luke’s to have had any but a Q origin. To Q in Luke should be added Lk xiii, 18-19; and to Q in Matthew, Mt xiii, 31-32.

THE SENDING OUT OF THE TWELVE

(Mk vi, 7-11)

This passage is to be compared with Mt x, 1, 7-8, 9-16, and Lk ix, 1-5; x, 1, 3, 4-7, 9-12 (with considerable rearrangement of order in the verses). The Marcan material, as it reappears in both Matthew and Luke, is mixed with much other material from Q. Luke’s addition of a mission of seventy and his division of this Marcan material between that mission and the mission of the twelve add to the confusion. Matthew (x, 14) and Luke (ix, 5) agree in six words against Mark. In the verb ??t????ete, Matthew (x, 14) follows Mark against Luke. Matthew and Luke agree against Mark in saying ?te ??d?? instead of e? ? ??d??. In those parts of Matthew’s and Luke’s narratives that are not paralleled in Mark there is probably an oral tradition mingled with the Q material. Mark’s version might be considered an excerpt, rather than a copy, of Q. To Q in Matthew may be added Mt x, 1, 9, 10ab, 14; and to Q in Luke, Lk ix, 1, 3, 5; x, 4, 10.

A SIGN REFUSED

(Mk viii, 12)

On the ground of Matthew’s having doublets for this saying (Mt xii, 39; xvi, 4) and Luke a parallel to it (Lk xi, 29), it may without further consideration be assigned to Q. The agreement of Matthew and Luke, and the agreement of Matthew’s doublets, in adding “Except the sign of Jonah,” may be taken to indicate the difference here between Mark’s Q and the later recensions.

“WHOSOEVER WILL FOLLOW ME”

(Mk viii, 34-35)

Matthew has doublets for this saying in x, 38-39; xvi, 24-25; Luke in ix, 23-24; xiv, 27; xvii, 33. Matthew and Luke copy the Marcan version with unusual fidelity thru about forty words. They agree against him in saying e? t?? for Mark’s ?st??, in the substitution of a form (tho not the same form) of the verb ????a? for ???????e??, and in the employment of a subjunctive in place of an indicative of the verb ?p?????. Luke adds the phrase “day by day.” Considering the remarkably close verbal agreement as well as the agreement in order, there can be no doubt that Matthew in xvi, 24-25, and Luke in ix, 23-24, are following Mark; their agreements against him may be explained partly by a desire to correct his style, and partly by assimilation. The resemblances between the other member of the doublet in each case, and the saying as here reported in Mark (i.e., between Mt x, 38-39; Lk xiv, 27; xvii, 33, and Mk viii, 34-35), are sufficiently close to suggest, if not to prove, that Mark’s saying was derived by him from Q. Since these verses have already been assigned to Q in the examination of the double tradition, they yield no new Q material here.

“WHOEVER IS ASHAMED OF ME”

(Mk viii, 38)

Matthew has a parallel of this saying, and Luke has doublets for it (Mt x, 33; Lk ix, 26; xii, 9). The verse may be assigned to Q.

ABOUT OFFENSES

(Mk ix, 42-48)

Matthew here follows Mark rather closely, except that he adds “Woe to the world because of offenses,” and conflates Mark’s two sayings about the hand and the foot into one. Matthew has doublets for Mk ix, 43, 45-47, in Mt v, 29-30, and xviii, 8-9. Luke has avoided the doublet, but has a parallel to Mark’s verses in Lk xvii, 1-2. The section may be assigned to Mark and Q.

ABOUT SALT

(Mk ix, 49-50)

The little saying in vs. 49 is unduplicated in either of the other Gospels. If any source be suggested for it, nothing more likely than Q could be suggested. If the saying be assigned to Q, it will be the only Q saying in Mark not taken over by either Matthew or Luke. Luke agrees in xiv, 34, with Mark as against Matthew (v, 13), and with Matthew against Mark in ??a???, but shows the influence of Mark again in ??t???seta?. Either Mark follows Q very loosely, perhaps from memory, or Matthew and Luke have a different recension.

ABOUT DIVORCE

(Mk x, 11-12)

Matthew has doublets for this saying (Mt v, 32; xix, 9). In the latter occurrence of the saying in Matthew, the connection is the same as that of Mark’s. It is omitted in that instance by Luke, presumably because it is part of a controversy with the Pharisees. But doubt is thrown upon the presence of the saying in Q by the fact that it occurs twice in Mark also, and may have been taken from him by Matthew in both instances.

THE FIRST WHO SHALL BE LAST

(Mk x, 31)

This saying is paralleled in Luke (xiii, 30) and has doublets in Matthew (xix, 30; xx, 16). It apparently stood in both Mark and Q.

TRUE GREATNESS

(Mk x, 43-44)

There are doublets for this saying in Mt xx, 26-27, and xxiii, 11, and in Lk xxii, 26; ix, 48. It probably stood in both Mark and Q, but this again cannot be proved, since Mark also has the saying twice (ix, 35).

ABOUT FAITH

(Mk xi, 23)

There is a parallel for this saying in Lk xvii, 6, and there are doublets for it in Mt xvii, 20, and xxi, 21. It stood in Mark and Q.

AGAINST THE PHARISEES

(Mk xii, 38-40)

This section is listed by Mr. Streeter as from Q, because it “looks like a reminiscence from a long denunciation in Q.” This is probably correct, but the doublets to establish it are lacking.

THE HOLY SPIRIT SPEAKING IN THE DISCIPLES

(Mk xiii, 11)

This saying is paralleled in Mt x, 19, and has doublets in Lk xii, 11-12, and xxi, 14-15.

OTHER MARCAN PASSAGES CONSIDERED, BUT REJECTED

In addition to the passages assigned to Q in the preceding investigation, several are suggested by Streeter and Wernle. Streeter suggests Mk xiii, 15-16; but the doublets in Luke are apparently taken in both instances from Mark. Streeter thinks that xiii, 28-32, “has a genuine sound”; but there is nothing more specific to prove its presence in Q. Streeter’s suggestion that Mk i, 2-3, is from Q seems unjustifiable. Vs. 3 is an Old Testament quotation which Matthew, Mark, and Luke all have in common. If it stood originally in Mark and is not to be regarded as a later addition, there is no occasion for the assumption of Q. Vs. 2 could hardly have stood in its present place when Matthew and Luke used Mark. It occurs in another connection in Matthew and Luke (Mt xi, 10; Lk vii, 27), and was probably copied from there into its present place by a later hand.

Wernle’s additions to the above Q material in Mark do not seem to be justified. Some of them, e.g., Mk xi, 14, rest upon making doublets (in this case Mt xxi, 19, and vii, 7-8) where the wording is not close enough to warrant them. Others rest upon the general character of the sayings. The latter is a tempting criterion, and in Matthew and Luke, who demonstrably make such extensive use of Q, it is more justifiable and has been used to some extent in the preceding analyses. But in Mark, where Q is so sparingly and loosely used, it cannot be safely employed aside from other indications, especially the occurrence of doublets.

The writer believes that the matter listed in the above tabulation is about all that can at present safely be assigned to Q in Mark. It yields us, as new Q material in Matthew, sixteen verses, and as new Q material in Luke, seventeen. This would bring the totals for Q material in Matthew and Luke up to two hundred and eighty-three in Matthew and to two hundred and fifty-five in Luke.[134] The number of verses in Mark which can be traced to Q are about fifty. All but sixteen of these verses in Matthew and all but seventeen in Luke had already been assigned to Q. Only one stands in Mark alone.

TABLE VI
Contents for Q Material in Mark

The above content being made out for the material common to Mark and Q, the use of Q by Mark may be permitted to rest upon its general probability, there being nothing to contradict it or to substantiate the opposite hypothesis. How closely Mark used Q, whether actually copying certain passages from him, or merely recalling what he had read or heard read from Q, cannot be determined, since what stood in the text of Q used by Mark is only an inference from what stood in the recensions used by Matthew and Luke.

DO THE VOCABULARY AND STYLE OF MARK AND Q, RESPECTIVELY, THROW ANY LIGHT UPON THEIR LITERARY RELATIONSHIP?

The inquiry might perhaps be carried a step farther by a comparison of the vocabularies of Mark and Q. Hawkins, between the first and second editions of his Horae Synopticae, made a second and more diligent search for linguistic peculiarities in Q, and declares himself unable to find any. Harnack, on the contrary, believes he finds some such.

Sentences in Q, according to Harnack, are generally connected by ?a?, d? being used but seldom. The same is true of Mark. But this only indicates the comparative nearness of both Mark and Q to the Semitic. The same may be said of the preponderance of simple verbs in distinction from compound in both Mark and Q. ??? is used twice as frequently as e?; Mark also appears to use the former thirty-six times and the latter but fifteen. This fact seems to have more significance by reason of the other, that Luke uses one word thirty-two and the other thirty-three times. Matthew, however, uses ??? exactly twice as often as e?. When we remember that all we have of Q is contained in Matthew and Luke, and only a small portion of it in Mark, these facts do seem to indicate a preference for ??? over e? 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 relationship. Such relationship being assumed, the dependence is on the side of Mark.