(Mt vii, 3-5; Lk vii, 41-42)
The verbal agreement is very close. Out of sixty-four words in Matthew and sixty-nine in Luke fifty-six are identical, except for deviation in mode or number. The greater condensation seems characteristic of Matthew. The changes do not seem too great to be ascribed to the two evangelists working on the same source, Q.
ABOUT SEEKING AND FINDING
(Mt vii, 7-11; Lk xi, 9-13)
The agreement is close, except where Luke in his vs. 12 adds the item of the egg and the scorpion which has no parallel in Matthew. In spite of the addition of this verse in Luke, out of eighty words in his version and seventy-three in Matthew’s sixty-two are still identical. Luke’s substitution of “holy spirit” for Matthew’s indefinite “good things” is characterized by Schmiedel as a “deliberate divergence.” The same phrase would hardly describe the addition of vs. 12. According to the principle here followed, it might seem natural to assign this verse, and so the whole context, to Luke’s recension of Q. But in the whole section, aside from this verse, there are so few deviations, and these so easily accounted for on the part either of Matthew or Luke, that the writer inclines to assign the section simply to Q. Luke’s vs. 12 would then be regarded as a gloss, or an addition of Luke from some source of his own, perhaps oral. Between this disposal of the matter and the assignment of the entire section to QMt and QLk there is not much to choose.
THE GOLDEN RULE
(Mt vii, 12; Lk vi, 31)
The last clause of Matthew may be his own addition, or perhaps a formula common among the Christians. It may have been a gloss, or may have been found by Matthew in his recension of Q. At all events, it is not like Matthew to have added it himself; his tendency toward condensation is too well known. Except for this addition the section is sufficiently alike in the two Gospels to admit its assignment simply to Q.
THE NARROW GATE
(Mt vii, 13-14; Lk xiii, 23-24)