“THE HARVEST IS GREAT”
(Mt ix, 37-38; Lk x, 2)
This saying occurs in Matthew’s sending out of the twelve and in Luke’s sending out of the seventy. Twenty-one consecutive words are identical except for the transposition of two words. It is assigned to Q.
“THE LABORER IS WORTHY OF HIS HIRE”
(Mt x, 10c; Lk x, 7b)
Mark and Q both contained accounts of the sending out of the disciples. This is one of the fragments preserved from Q by Matthew and Luke, but not found in Mark. It is identical except for the substitution of μισθοῦ for τροφῆς. The change may be attributed to Luke or his recension of Q; in this case the change is so slight as to be easily chargeable to Luke; it may bespeak a time later than that indicated by Matthew’s form—a time when the traveling preachers received not only their food but some slight wage. It stood in Q.
“GREET THE HOUSE”
(Mt x, 11-13; Lk x, 5-8)
This is one of the best illustrations of the advantages of the hypothesis of the two recensions of Q. Matthew says “greet the house.” Luke preserves the Aramaic form of that greeting, which was “Peace to this house.” But that this, and not Matthew’s indefinite form, was what stood in the original Q is shown by the fact that Matthew adds, “If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is unworthy, let your peace return to you.”[97] Luke has here the phrase “son of peace,” similar to the phrases elsewhere found in his Gospel, “sons of light,” “sons of consolation,” “sons of this generation,” “sons of the resurrection.” These phrases have an Aramaic sound which we should expect to encounter in almost any of the Gospels sooner than in Luke’s. He certainly never would have invented them. The translation variants stamp the section as belonging to QMt and QLk.
“MORE TOLERABLE FOR SODOM”