In the preceding table of contents for Q material in Matthew (pp. 222-23), there are twenty-nine sections for which Luke has no parallel. Five of these, the omitted beatitudes, have already been discussed. Of the remaining twenty-four there are a few which, it may be admitted, Luke might not have cared to include, even if they were in his Q. Such are the sections on oaths, on fasting, on the blamelessness of the priests, and on the Pharisee instructed in the kingdom of God—all of a strongly Jewish character. To these may be added four other brief sections, all from Matthew’s discourse against the Pharisees; especially, the reference to phylacteries, which would have no meaning for Luke’s readers, and the injunction not to be called “Rabbi.” The saying, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs [heathen] nor cast your pearls before swine [unbelievers],” he would hardly have taken if it had stood in his source. But there are other sections which would particularly have delighted him, and which it is almost inconceivable that he should have read and omitted. Such are the sections on alms-giving (a favorite subject with Luke; see Lk xi, 41; xii, 33); on prayer (a subject which he mentions eighteen times against Matthew’s ten, outside of this passage); the three little parables of the Treasure Hid in the Field, the Pearls, and the Fish-Net, and the beautiful saying, so fitted to Luke’s universalistic purpose, “Come unto me.”
Much less can any reason be assigned for Matthew’s omission of the sixteen unduplicated sayings ascribed to QLk.[129] Matthew almost invariably shortens Mark’s narratives, and sometimes omits a narrative section, but practically never omits a saying of Jesus given in Mark. The case of the third would-be follower of Jesus, with the particularly fine saying, “No man having put his hand to the plow”; the little parables of the Man Building a Tower and the King Going to War; the sayings, “I came to cast fire upon the earth,” “I have a baptism to be baptized with,” “Fear not, little flock,” would attract Matthew as much as they did Luke, and with Matthew’s almost slavish adherence to Mark in all Mark’s sayings-material, no reason can be given for his omission of them.
If it be asked why these unduplicated sections, which have been assigned to QMt and QLk, are not assigned simply to special and undetermined sources, the answer is that all these sections stand more or less closely connected with Q material, they are strongly similar to the other Q matter in form and idea, and equally different in form and feeling from the passages assigned to special sources. They consist, in both Matthew and Luke, of short parables of the undoubted Q type (cf. the Treasure Hid in the Field, the Pearls, the Fish-Net, the Unjust Judge) and of short sayings; whereas the special source or sources (whether of Matthew or Luke) consist of narratives (the opening chapters of both Gospels, the Peter-sections in Matthew, the death of Judas in Matthew, Jesus before Herod in Luke, the watch at the grave in Matthew, the Emmaus incident in Luke, and the peculiar matter of both Matthew and Luke in their accounts of the days in Jerusalem) and of story-parables like the Prodigal Son, the Lost Coin, the Good Samaritan, the Entrusted Money. These similarities in the material assigned to a special source or sources are not enough to prove the unity of that source for either Matthew or Luke, and are not so intended; but they are enough to distinguish the material so assigned from that assigned to QMt and QLk, and to establish the comparative homogeneity of this latter material in each case.
THE “SECONDARY TRAITS” ARE IN QMt AND QLk, NOT IN Q
The distinction between Q and QMt and QLk is further justified by the consideration of secondary traits. QMt and QLk represent deviations from, or additions to, an original Q. Since these deviations and additions would go back to a very early time, and even when comparatively late might embody an early tradition, the presence of primary traits in QMt and QLk need not surprise us.[130] Since Q cannot be proved to be earlier than 60-65, it may also easily contain secondary traits. But since QMt and QLk are in general later than Q, and presumably represent a later tradition, we should naturally expect to find in them a larger number of secondary characteristics.
In the material assigned to Q in Tables IV and V[131] the writer believes that not many unmistakably secondary traits appear. The messianic announcement of the Baptist is certainly primary as compared with Mark predicting Jesus as the fire-judge, contrary to the facts of his life. The temptation in Q is also primary as compared with Mark, with the exception of the conversation between Jesus and John in Matthew, which is obviously secondary and belongs to QMt. Of the sayings, only a few have a secondary sound. Such are especially those connected with the instructions to the twelve, which seem to embody some of the experiences, or bespeak some of the needs, of the early Christian itinerant preachers: “The laborer is worthy of his hire [or his keep]”; “I send you forth as sheep among wolves”; “The disciple is not above his master”; “The law and the prophets prophesied until John”; perhaps also Matthew’s long beatitude, “Blessed are ye when men persecute you,” etc.
But by far the most of the secondary traits, and the most unmistakable of them, are found in the additions to and deviations from the Q tradition in QMt and QLk. Such are the additional beatitudes supplied by Matthew’s Q and made up of Old Testament quotations; the insertion into the temptation story, in QMt, of the protest of John the Baptist and the answer of Jesus; the warning against false prophets in Matthew; the speech about those who say “Lord, Lord”; the prediction of division among relatives (seemingly answering the condition in which the early church found itself); the many coming from the east and the west (written in the days of the expanding church); the sign of Jonah interpreted (in Matthew) as referring to the resurrection; the parable of the Fish-Net with its eschatological interpretation; the saying about the twelve apostles on twelve thrones; and the various sections interpolated, apparently from QMt and QLk, into Mark’s apocalypse.
Closer analysis of particular sections tends to corroborate this impression of secondary traits as coming not from Q but from the recensions. For example, the sayings about the light and the bushel and about the salt that had lost its savor appear to have stood in Q. But from his own recension of Q, Matthew prefixed to the saying what Luke did not find in his recension, “Ye are the light of the world,” “Ye are the salt of the earth,” two sayings which seem to reflect the exalted estimate of the apostles in the sub-apostolic age. The Lord’s Prayer probably stood in the original Q much as it is in Luke; Matthew’s amplifications, found in his source, have the liturgical and ecclesiastical coloring that betray the later time.
So, further, Luke’s parable of the Unjust Judge, with its generally Q sound, but with its pathetic question appended (from Luke’s recension), “Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find the faith on the earth?” bespeaks the times of persecution when the survival of the new faith looked problematical. Matthew’s “Cast not your pearls before swine,” “The Pharisee instructed in the kingdom of heaven,” “The scribes and Pharisees in Moses’ seat,” all from QMt, and Luke’s “Rejoice that your names are written in heaven,” his saying about discerning the signs of the time (of the parousia), his “kingdom cometh not with observation,” and his twice repeated injunction to watchfulness, all from QLk, certainly have a secondary sound. The presence of so many secondary traits in QMt and QLk does not prove that the passages so assigned might not be assigned to S or some other special or undefined source; but many if not all of them being passages ordinarily assigned simply to Q, the large number of secondary traits in them does tend to substantiate, in an unlooked-for manner, the assumption of the two recensions.