(Mt xxiv, 45-51; Lk xii, 42-46)
The connection of these sections with the one just considered is the same in both Gospels. The verbal agreement is equally striking. Out of one hundred and ten words in Matthew and one hundred and two in Luke, eighty-two are identical; twenty-six of these occur consecutively and with no deviation in order. The section may be assigned to Q.
RESULTS OF THE PRECEDING INVESTIGATION
This investigation yields about one hundred and ninety Q verses (in some instances only parts of verses) in Matthew, paralleled by about one hundred and eighty Q verses in Luke. The difference in the number of verses has no significance, being due chiefly to the verses not being similarly divided in the two Gospels. Of this total, ninety-eight in Matthew and ninety-four in Luke are ascribed simply to Q. This does not mean, as has been said before, that Matthew and Luke both had a document Q, and in addition Matthew had a document QMt and Luke another document QLk; but merely that Matthew and Luke had two recensions of Q, each of which had passed thru a history of its own, and had become in many ways differentiated from the other; and that in certain parts of each recension such differentiation had not occurred, so that these sections of the two recensions may still be referred to under the symbol Q. Of the two recensions, therefore, so far as these reappear in parallels in Matthew and Luke, about half in each differs so widely from the same half in the other that it is altogether unreasonable to attribute the difference to either or both of the evangelists.
If it be asked, why we should attempt to attribute to any form of Q this material which is too seriously dissimilar to have been drawn directly by the evangelists from an identical source—why we do not simply assign this to totally separate sources, and restrict Q to the sections which are practically identical in the two Gospels—the answer is: this material in the two gospels seems to betray not merely an oral but a literary affinity; it is of the same general character as that which is assigned directly to Q; and almost without exception, in one gospel or the other or in both, it is inextricably mingled with this.
Thruout this discussion the distinction between narrative material and sayings-material, and the difference in treatment accorded to these two kinds of material by Matthew and Luke, must be constantly borne in mind. The amount of literary divergence that may be fairly assigned to the initiative of Matthew or Luke in their use of a document of sayings is hard to define. But Sir John Hawkins is surely wrong when he says[100] that Matthew and Luke need not be expected to adhere more closely to Q than they do to Mark. For in the sayings of Jesus which they find in Mark, Matthew and Luke do generally adhere very closely. It is in the narrative portions of Mark that they permit themselves liberties. But there is little or no narrative in Q; the only certain instance of narrative being that of the healing of the centurion’s son; and in this instance it is significant that the deviations between Matthew and Luke are in the narrative and not in the logian portions. Speaking of each document as a whole, it should be clear that Q would be followed with very much greater fidelity than Mark by both Matthew and Luke.
Now the translation variants are proof positive of two Greek translations of the original Aramaic Q, these two translations having been made from two texts of the original which betray some divergences or corruptions. Tho these two Greek translations were thus made from two Aramaic copies, nevertheless in about half of the matter which Matthew and Luke agree in taking from these translations no substantial differences had crept in; but half, also, shows deviations too great to be ascribed to Matthew and Luke. If all the matter common to Matthew and Luke were identical, or nearly so, no need would arise for QMt and QLk. If it were all as dissimilar as half of it is, no place would be left for Q of any sort. The distinction between Matthew’s and Luke’s recensions of Q best accounts alike for the agreements and the divergences.
In the preceding examination the number of Q (including QMt and QLk) verses ascribed to Matthew and Luke respectively is substantially the same as the number ascribed to them by Harnack and Hawkins in Tables II and III (pp. 110-11 and 116-17). This agreement merely indicates that Harnack and Hawkins have confined their Q material pretty closely to the sections which show the greatest verbal agreement. The difference between the position reached in these pages and that reached by Harnack and Hawkins is that the present writer feels that those two scholars cannot be justified in ascribing such wide divergences to the literary activity of the evangelists themselves, and that they have hampered themselves by not taking advantage of the fact of the recensions, as guaranteed to us by the translation variants.