Following the tradition of the sacred Scriptures, Jesus cites the story of the occasion upon which the heaven gave forth the very opposite of beneficent water:

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In the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.

Following that usage of his people which originated in the desire to avoid the pronunciation of the divine name, Jesus now and then places "heaven" where Jehovah or God would be more precise. Thus he represents the prodigal son as resolving to say, and later as saying:

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Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight.

Similarly, the exact meaning and the more direct antithesis would be secured were "God" substituted for "heaven" in the following:

DOCUMENT MK 11:30

The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or from men? answer me.

No doubt the choice of "heaven" as the substitute for the sacred Х name by the Jews had its basis in some conception by which God was given a localization in the upper regions. Probably out of this conception grew the custom of prayer with the face turned upward, an established attitude to which Jesus gives passing recognition when he says of the publican:

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But the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast.

When there is set over against these numerous and varied uses of "heaven," as the complement to the earth in a universal whole, those passages which employ the term in another sense, the sense of supramundane with a meaning other than simply above the earth, the sparseness of the latter references is made manifest and striking. Among them are one or two which represent heaven as the abidingplace of angels:

DOCUMENT MK 12:25

For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as angels in heaven.

DOCUMENT MK 13:32

But of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

Of an altogether exceptional content is the suggestion conveyed by the word in one of the phrases which Matthew records as a part of the prayer which Jesus taught his disciples:

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Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.

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Such a request is based on the conception that within heaven there are resident volitional beings living under the dominance of the will of God as Lord. The sayings which speak of "angels in heaven" provide the mind with a certain definite body of willing subjects of God in the supramundane world. But it may hardly be held that, even with the union of ideas thus effected by the conjunction of these three passages of exceptional content, there emerges any committal of Jesus to an elaborate and articulated other-world view.

When, however, one passes from the mention of subjects or servants in that "heaven" where the will of God is done to those references which relate to him whose will is there supreme, these are so frequent that there can be apparently no mistaking the intention of Jesus to make "heaven" the essential center of God's influence. The mode of designation for God most frequently upon the lips of Jesus is "Father," and this is united with the phrase "which is in heaven" in the combinations "your Father which is in heaven," "my Father which is in heaven," "our Father which is in heaven." The Synoptic Gospels contain fifteen instances of such locating of God in "heaven" by Jesus. Moreover, the related word "heavenly (oúpávios)” is employed by Jesus seven times, always in the phrase "heavenly Father." To the support of the view that Jesus thought of God as the Father in "heaven," twenty-two passages may, therefore, be brought forward.

Upon an examination of these twenty-two passages, one is immediately impressed by the fact that with two exceptions they are recorded only in the Matthaean gospel. This suggests the inquiry whether this form of phrasing may not be another of those characteristic modes of thought which have been stamped upon the Gospel of Matthew by that circle which formed the medium of transmission for this particular line of tradition. Obviously, such an inquiry must make, as its first stage of investigation, an exhibit of these Matthaean sayings in parallelism with those of like general content from the other Synoptists.

I Consideration ought to be given also to the fact that the petition, "Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth," is not reported by the Lukan P §13 as an original part of the prayer.

2 Passages which use "Father in heaven" are Matt. 5:16, 45; 6:1, 9; 7:11, 21; 10:32, 33; 12:50; 16:17; 18:10, 14, 19; MK 11:25; Luke 11:13. Those which contain "heavenly Father" are Matt. 5:48; 6:14, 26, 32; 15:13; 18:35; 23:9.

By the above eleven1 passages from Matthew, there are cited all instances of the occurrence of "heaven" or "heavenly" used with Father, in that gospel, for which there are any parallels in the other Synoptics, that is, any possibility of test by comparison. It may be seen, also, that the only two instances of such usage outside of Matthew, namely, document MK 11:25 and Lukan P§15, are brought under view above because they form parallels to Matthaean passages. 1 Two instances under Matthaean P $20.

Thus by a study of the above citations, the usage of the Synoptists will be covered, except for those instances where there is no other record than that of Matthew. Of the latter there are nine cases,' which will be considered subsequently. For the present, attention may be directed to those where the check may be made directly by another account.

It will be observed that, in the first seven of the above citations from Matthew, the reading with "heaven" or "heavenly" has no support in the synoptic parallel, the other gospel having instead simply "Father," or "God," or "Most High." It would involve too considerable a digression to determine the relative worth of these parallels in each case on other grounds than simply the inclusion or omission of the phrase under study. Judgment may be formed without extended discussion; it must suffice to record the significant fact of the difference in this respect. The first instance where the parallel to Matthew agrees in recording "which is in heaven" is that of gospel MT 6:14, 15=document MK 11:25, the only case of the occurrence of the phrase in Mark. And examination of the verse in its document MK context seems to indicate that it is largely inappropriate at that point, for the natural aim of Jesus on that occasion was simply to answer the interrogation of his disciples by emphasis upon faith and prayer as effective forces. Had Jesus then added the thought in document MK 11:25, he would thereby have passed from his subject; the remark about forgiveness would have proved a somewhat confusing conclusion to his inspiring teaching of that hour. The explanation of the inclusion here of MK 11:25 at some time in the history of document MK seems suggested naturally; the reference to prayer in MK 11:24 formed the one attracting point in document MK for any isolated, subsequently known sayings on that subject. In the absence of testimony from the evangelist Luke as to the content of the document MK at this point in the copy used by him, it cannot be known whether this verse had come into document MK before the time of the production of the Lukan exemplar. If one will regard MK 11:25 as a saying of Jesus which had an independent currency for a time, and was taken into document MK only after much oral transmission, it seems reasonable to explain its phrase 1 Matt. 5:16; 6:1; 15:13; 16:17; 18:10, 14, 19, 35; 23:9.

“which is in heaven" as the product of its repetition in circles which brought about the like addition to so many sayings in gospel MT.

There is some evidence in support of the conjecture that the appearance of this phrase "which is in heaven" in this single instance in document MK may be due to textual assimilation to the Gospel of Matthew. There is a mass of manuscript evidence which favors the inclusion in the Greek text of Mark 11:26, the parallel of gospel MT 6:15. This means that document MK 11:25 was taken by its early interpreters to be the parallel of gospel MT 6:14. In the addition of gospel MT 6:15 to document MK 11:25 there may have been further assimilation of the two gospels by the addition from gospel MT 6:14 to document MK 11:25 of the Matthaean phrase "which is in heaven." In that case, document MK 11:25, as received. by the evangelist Matthew and transferred by him to his collection of sayings on prayer, from all documents, in the Sermon on the Mount, did not contain the words, "which is in heaven," these being added at some time under Matthaean influence, that is, either by the evangelist or subsequently.

When one passes to a comparison of Matthaean P §20 above with Lukan P $20, it is found that the Lukan form records the conclusion of the sayings in phraseology different from that of the Matthaean. Elsewhere it has been suggested that of the two forms the Matthaean is the more original, the Lukan being one stage of an evolution by which the saying later took the cast now exhibited in document MK 8:38, and yet later the form shown in gospel MT 16:27.1 Among the forms in which the saying has come down, the Matthaean P §20 is, therefore, the oldest and most nearly original. On the basis of results reached above in other passages, shall the critical process be advanced yet another stage, and the conjecture made that, as spoken by Jesus, these sayings closed with the word "Father" of Matthaean P $20?

In the teaching recorded in the final passage above, document P§15, there is brought under review the only instance of the attachment of "heaven" or "heavenly" to "Father" in the gospel by Luke. This single Lukan case has likewise the distinctive feature of standing in a form in the Greek unlike any other in the Synoptics. phrases elsewhere than here are quite uniform in construction:

1 See pp. 79-81.

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