With much resemblance in meaning there is here very little similarity in wording. Luke’s saying is much briefer, and is introduced by a question addressed to Jesus. It sounds almost like an abstract of the saying as it stands in Matthew—if only a precedent could be shown for Luke’s making such an abstract. One can hardly speak with any assurance; but considering the difference of setting, the fact that in Luke the verses we are here considering are part of a considerably longer speech, and the slight verbal resemblances, it may be best to assign Matthew’s version to Q, and Luke’s to some source of his own, whether oral or written. If assignment to QMt and QLk is not impossible, it is certainly difficult.
THE TREE AND ITS FRUITS
(Mt vii, 16-18; Lk vi, 43-44)
For this saying Matthew has a doublet in xii, 33-35. Mt vii, 20, is also an exact reproduction of vii, 16, with the particle ἄραγε prefixed. If Matthew found this saying in two of his sources, it is impossible to say what the second of these was, for it apparently was not Mark. In Matthew’s second report of the same saying he has used the words “generation of vipers,” which he has in iii, 7, ascribed to John the Baptist. The fact that both speeches in which the phrase occurs have to do with trees, and the fact of the repetition, not only of the saying twice in Matthew, but of the same sentence twice in one report, may perhaps indicate that Matthew found the saying only in his version of Q, and is himself responsible for the repetition. Or the saying may have been recorded twice in Matthew’s version of Q, with the variations shown in Matthew’s two citations of it. Upon either hypothesis the form of Mt xii, 35, is much nearer to Lk vi, 45, than is Mt vii, 19-20, or vss. 16-18. The writer assigns the section to QMt and QLk.
WARNING AGAINST SELF-DECEPTION
(Mt vii, 21-23; Lk vi, 46; xiii, 26-27)
Of the first of these three verses in each Gospel, Harnack says it is “perhaps not derived from Q.” But the verse stands in substantially the same context in both Gospels—in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and the Sermon on the Level Place in Luke. In spite of the difference introduced thruout the verse by Matthew’s having it in the third person and Luke’s giving it in the second, a reminiscence of the same source may be found in the fact that κύριε is used by Matthew in the vocative, where a more strict construction would require the accusative. The last two verses of the section Matthew has combined with the first, whereas in Luke the context for them is quite different. Thru all three verses Luke seems to have the more primary form. Not only the second person of the verbs, and the direct address of Jesus to the crowd, but the words, “we have eaten and drunk in thy presence and thou hast taught in our streets” have an original sound, whereas Matthew’s form, “Many shall say to me in that day, Lord, we have preached in thy name and in thy name have cast out demons,” would seem rather to come from a time when many men had been preaching in the name of Jesus. Harnack says that the two sayings are “quite independent,” but that there is “a common source in the background.” This common source in the background might be the undifferentiated Q, and the immediate sources might be the two recensions of that document. The general character of the sayings, and the context, would encourage such an assignment. Since here as in many other places the version of Matthew seems to indicate adaptation to a later time, but since the Gospel of Matthew cannot be shown to be later than the Gospel of Luke, it seems fair to attribute the divergence between the two evangelists here to the different history thru which their two versions of their common source had passed before coming into their hands. The writer therefore assigns the section to QMt and QLk, tho not without admission that it might be as well to assign the section in one Gospel to Q and in the other to some entirely other source.
THE TWO HOUSES
(Mt vii, 24-27; Lk vi, 47-49)