(Mt vi, 9-13; Lk xi, 2-4)
This is one of the sections that point most clearly to different recensions of Q in the hands of Matthew and Luke. It is improbable that any collection of the sayings of Jesus should have lacked this prayer. It is equally improbable that Luke could have had it before him in the more elaborated form of Matthew, and have abridged it to suit himself. Matthew’s more elaborate form, on the other hand, does not sound like the deliberate alteration of any one author, but like the accumulated liturgical usage of the Christian community. Luke’s introduction to the prayer is certainly not his own invention, and is so appropriate that it is hard to believe that Matthew found it in connection with the prayer in his source and deliberately omitted it. Luke’s form seems decidedly more primary. The use in both Gospels of the strange word ἐπιούσιον seems to carry the two traditions back to one original; but the variations are certainly greater than can be accounted for by the literary habits of Matthew and Luke, working upon the same original. In other words, that original had passed thru a different history before it reached our two evangelists. The section is assigned to QMt and QLk.
A SAYING ABOUT TREASURES
(Mt vi, 19-21; Lk xii, 33-34)
The verbal similarity is not close. Except for the proximity of other Q material, the section might be assigned to two entirely different sources. There is, especially, a quite different turn given to the saying in Luke, from that which it has in Matthew, by the introduction of the words “Sell your goods and give alms.” In spite of Luke’s interest in alms-giving, as disclosed in the Book of Acts, it is hard to credit him with such a re-wording of his text without some help from his source. But the last twelve words in the section are identical in the two Gospels, except that Luke uses the plural form of the pronoun where Matthew uses the singular. Largely on account of these last twelve words the section is assigned to QMt and QLk.
A SAYING ABOUT THE EYE
(Mt vi, 22-23; Lk xi, 34-35)
Of forty-four words in Matthew and forty in Luke, thirty-two are identical. The divergences in the use of conjunctions (ὅταν for ἐὰν, e.g.) and the improvement by condensation of the last sentence are such changes as might be easily ascribed to Luke. The section may, with reasonable assurance, be assigned merely to Q.
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