For vs. 7 there is no close Old Testament exemplar, tho Joel ii, 13, has been suggested. The suggestion is the more plausible since the same verse would also have served as an indirect source of the next beatitude in vs. 8. There is no reason for crediting Matthew with the manufacture of either of these beatitudes. Vs. 8 may be reminiscent of Ps xxiv, 4; li, 10; lxxiii, 1, as well as of the verse in Joel. “They shall see God” is probably used here in an eschatological sense. An expression combining the ideas and in part the wording of vss. 8 and 9 is found in Heb xii, 14: Εἰρήνην διώκετε ... οὗ χωρὶς οὐδεὶς ὄψεται τὸν κύριον. If this is not a reminiscence of these beatitudes in Matthew, it at least embodies a similar tradition. The δικαιοσύνης of vs. 10 is peculiar to Matthew among the Gospels. From its Judaistic coloring it is to be ascribed to Matthew’s Q rather than to the evangelist himself. If I Peter iii, 14, be allowed to be a direct reference to this beatitude, this will heighten the probability that all these beatitudes were added to Q before its use by Matthew. It is not impossible that Matthew found in Q only the beatitudes now standing in Luke, and that he added these others (also making correction in those now duplicated in Luke), not inventing these himself, but possibly taking them from an oral tradition, or from a separate written source. But this theory seems to the writer to be much more complicated and less probable than the one here advocated. It is quite out of the question that Luke should have found these six beatitudes in his Q and should have omitted them. Yet the beatitudes common to Matthew and Luke are by all scholars attributed to Q. Harnack is undoubtedly correct in saying, “The beatitudes certainly circulated in various recensions from the beginning.”[101] The process of alteration and accretion would begin long before the days of Matthew.
“YE ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD”
(Mt v, 14)
In the Johannine tradition this saying has become “I am the light of the world.” Like the saying, “Ye are the salt of the earth” (in Mt v, 13), it emphasizes, as against Luke’s version, the direct address of the beatitudes and the conjoined sayings to the disciples. It probably stood in Matthew’s Q.
“LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE”
(Mt v, 16)
The intervening vs. 15 is found in Luke. With that verse omitted, the connection between vss. 14 and 16 is improved. I Peter ii, 12, is a reminiscence, or almost a direct quotation, of vs. 16. Of vss. 13a, 14, and 16 it should be observed that, while they are unduplicated in Luke, they change the character of all the words in their context from the character which those words have, so far as they are duplicated, in Luke; for they make of them no longer general remarks, but words of extremely earnest exhortation addressed directly to the disciples. It is extremely unlikely that Matthew should have found the sayings in Q as mere general remarks, and should himself have given them this character of pointed exhortation by inserting the words, “Ye are the salt of the earth,” “Ye are the light of the world,” etc. But it is equally improbable that Luke should have found these pointed words in his recension of Q, and should by their omission have degraded the sayings to the rank of mere general observations. The best way to save these sayings for Q is by the hypothesis of the recensions.
VARIOUS SAYINGS FROM THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT