(Mt xi, 20)
This verse is quoted here chiefly because it furnishes so excellent an illustration of the nature of the introductory formulae found in Matthew and Luke in conjunction with their Q material. Sometimes, as in the case of the Lord’s Prayer, such an introduction is present in Luke and absent in Matthew. In the present instance Matthew alone has it. Yet few passages from Q disclose a closer verbal agreement with the corresponding passage in Luke than the passage to which this verse is an introduction. In all such instances as this the writer sees no difficulty in ascribing the introductions to the evangelist in whose pages they are found.
REASON ASSIGNED FOR THE PRONUNCIATION OF THE WOES
(Mt xi, 23b-24)
Following the woes, Matthew alone has this statement of the reasons for their being given. He has a doublet for vs. 24 in x, 15. As this latter is paralleled by Lk x, 12, it may in that context be assigned to Q; here it may be assigned either to Matthew or one of his early editors. There is at least no new Q material here.
“COME UNTO ME”
(Mt xi, 28-30)
It is impossible to suppose that this unusually fine utterance could have been in Luke’s copy of Q and could have been omitted by him. Yet of the five scholars quoted in Table II (pp. 110-11), Wellhausen alone attributes it to Q. The others all attribute the preceding section to Q, but stop at vs. 27, where the parallelism between Matthew and Luke breaks off. This is necessary, of course, upon the assumption that nothing should be attributed to Q except what is thus paralleled. But if anything stood in Matthew’s recension of Q that was not also in Luke’s, certainly these verses stood there. Weiss’s remarks concerning them indicate that he has no reason for assigning them, as he does, to a special source, except the fact that they do not appear in Luke. He says “Since these words are not in Luke we have no right to refer them to Q. This is not to say that they are the work of Matthew; they have been taken from another source, oral or written.”[108] It has been pointed out by Montefiore that these verses are largely made up of quotations. “The last bit of vs. 29 comes from Jer xi, 7, and the rest is an adapted echo of Sirach li, 23 seq.”[109] The parallel, however, as Montefiore also says, covers vss. 25-27 as well as those now under consideration. Loisy[110] argues that the words cannot safely be ascribed to Jesus, but adds, “It may be readily admitted that the evangelist found them in the collection of Logia.”
A SAYING ABOUT THE LAW
(Mt xii, 5-7)