As to whether the source of Luke’s single tradition was one or many the statement in his prologue predisposes us toward the latter supposition. The difference between the infancy sections and the rest of Luke’s peculiar material, as in the case of Matthew, is marked. Hawkins reckons one hundred and fifty-one words as characteristic of Luke. Of these, seventy-seven, or more than half, occur once or more in the first two chapters, while seventy-four of them are absent from these chapters. These first two chapters contain about one hundred and thirty-two verses, about one-ninth of the whole Gospel; yet one-half of the occurrences of Luke’s peculiar words are found here.
A strong Hebraic character is observable in Luke’s infancy sections, quite absent from his other peculiar material. In the twenty-one verses in i, 5-25, καὶ is used many times where Luke’s habit elsewhere would lead us to expect the substitution of δὲ. There are also many Hebraic phrases, such as πορευόμενοι ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ἐντολαῖς, προβεβηκότες ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις, μέγας ἐνώπιον κυρίου, and the construction ἐγένετο, thrice used, as the formula introducing a paragraph. Luke’s own hand may be seen in the introduction of δὲ three times. One of these is in connection with εἶπεν, which is probably Luke’s substitute for the historic present. The retention of so many Hebraistic and non-Lucan features probably justifies Jülicher’s suggestion of a special (Hebraistic, Aramaic) written source for these infancy sections. A written and not an oral source is also indicated in Luke’s table of ancestors,[119] especially in its awkward placing after the baptism. It is quite impossible that Luke is here drawing upon the same source as in his great interpolation. Even more decisive in this direction than the vocabulary is the general character of the material.
Sanday is “especially glad to see the stress that is laid [in certain other essays in the same volume] on the homogeneity of the peculiar matter of Luke.”[120] He does not expressly say that he includes here the infancy sections, or whether he refers merely to the great interpolation; in the absence of such a statement, it may be fair to assume the former. He adds, “I fully believe, myself, in its Jewish-Christian and Palestinian origin.” But when he adds further, “I can altogether go along with the view that St. Luke probably collected this material during his two years’ stay at Caesarea (Acts xxiv compared with xxi and xxvii, 1); I could even quite believe with Harnack, Mr. Streeter, and Dr. Bartlet that his chief informants were Philip the evangelist and his four daughters,” he is open to the suspicion of being too much influenced by a desire to trace the tradition back to a definite and authentic source, even where the data do not warrant it. There is certainly no justification for referring the infancy stories to Philip and his four daughters (and perhaps, as suggested above, Dr. Sanday does not mean to do this).
Dr. Sanday further agrees with Dr. Bartlet “that the information derived in this way probably lay before St. Luke in writing. The interval between his stay in Caesarea and the publication of his Gospel could hardly have been less than some fifteen years and I doubt if the freshness, precision, and individual touches which characterize St. Luke could well have been preserved otherwise than by writing.” If Dr. Sanday means that the writing was done by Luke during his stay in Caesarea, from oral tradition given him by Philip and his daughters, we are left with the assumption that Luke kept this written material of his own for fifteen years (probably a good deal longer) before he incorporated it in his Gospel. This would agree well with the theory that Luke, as the traveling companion of Paul, kept a diary of events, which he preserved for a still longer period, until he finally incorporated it in his Book of Acts. Both these assumptions are strange upon the face of them; and for those who do not accept the same authorship for the “we sections” and the rest of Acts (as the present writer does not), and who also think the Gospel of Luke was not written till considerably more than fifteen years from the time of Luke’s stay in Caesarea, and who do not identify the author of the Third Gospel with the traveling companion of Paul, Dr. Sanday’s statement will not appear conclusive.
Outside of Luke’s infancy sections (and the passion sections which will be considered in a succeeding paragraph) there is an apparent homogeneity in much of Luke’s single tradition. Luke and Matthew start out in their attempt to tell the gospel story, each on his own independent line. They come together at the point where Mark has begun his story. Except for a few insertions and transpositions they stay together and with Mark up to Lk ix, 51. Here Luke inserts something more than nine chapters before he gets back again to Matthew and Mark.
In these more than nine chapters there are some sections which Matthew has in the earlier part of his Gospel, and little which Mark has;[121] but in these nine chapters Luke inserts most of the material peculiar to himself, and by far the greater part of the nine chapters is made up exclusively of such material. From the end of Luke’s infancy section to his great interpolation there are about one hundred and fourteen verses of exclusively Lucan material, but in this interpolation there are about one hundred and seventy verses. The suggestion of these facts, to the effect that Luke is here employing a source distinct from that which he has used in his infancy section, and that he is for the most part employing one source and not several, may be further favored by the fact that when he comes back to the story told in Mark (and Matthew) he takes that up, not where he left it, at Mk vi, 41, but at viii, 27; as if he had found it inconvenient to make his peculiar source here work in with the common tradition.[122]
DID LUKE’S GREAT INTERPOLATION ORIGINALLY EXIST AS A SEPARATE DOCUMENTARY SOURCE?
The material of Luke’s “great interpolation,” after the comparatively small amount of matter common to Luke and Matthew is subtracted from it, has a decided homogeneity of its own. It consists of nine sayings, one incident (the occurrence in the Samaritan village) which might with almost equal propriety be reckoned as a saying, three healings, all of which have the appearance of being introduced, not for the sake of the cure, but of the appended saying, and thirteen parables.
These thirteen parables have not only a striking similarity among themselves, but an equally striking dissimilarity to those parables which Luke has in common with one or both of the other evangelists. Matthew’s parables are usually brief sayings, beginning with the phrase, “The kingdom of heaven is like,” etc. The parables peculiar to Luke (there are fourteen in all and thirteen of them occur in this section) are stories rather than parables in the strict sense. Some of them are introduced by the brief formula, “And he said unto them,” or “And he said to his disciples,” etc. Others are given a more definite setting, like the story of the Good Samaritan, which is introduced as an answer to the question “Who is my neighbor?” However introduced, they usually contain a more or less elaborated conclusion, easily distinguished from the parable proper. Thus in the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus asks the lawyer which of the three men he considers to have been neighbor to him who fell among the thieves. The lawyer makes his reply, and upon the basis of it Jesus dismisses him with a word of pointed advice. In the same manner the story of the Rich Fool is introduced as a rebuke to the man who asks Jesus to help him secure his portion of an estate, and closes with the reflection that whoever has the riches of this world but is not “rich toward God” is like this man. So the stories of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin are introduced with the statement that the Pharisees objected to Jesus’ eating with “sinners,” and close with the statement, “Likewise there is joy in the presence of the angels of God,”[123] etc.
At least one or two of these parables seem to be provided with more than one conclusion. The story of the Unjust Judge (xviii, 1-8) is introduced in vs. 1 as being spoken concerning the necessity of continued prayer. The story or parable itself then follows in vss. 2-5. Vss. 6-8a give the conclusion in the words of Jesus, beginning with the words, “And the Lord said.” Then Luke himself, in vs. 8b, adds, “But, when the Son of man cometh will he find the faith in the earth?”[124] The story of the Rich Man and Lazarus is introduced as a rebuke to the Pharisees (Lk xvi, 14-15), who loved riches and thot well of themselves. The parable as thus introduced and as answering to this purpose appropriately closes at vs. 25, where Abraham reminds the rich man that he had his good things and Lazarus his poverty upon the earth, but now their situations are reversed.[125] What follows in vss. 27-31, tho here given as a continuation of the same story, has nothing to do with the contrast between rich and poor, or with heartlessness and pity, but only with belief and unbelief.