Like Mt., Lk. substitutes aorists for imperfects, e.g. in Mk 132 42 518.17 67 1218 1473. But Mt. is much more consistent than Lk. in this change. Like Mt., Lk. omits ἤρξατο, αντο, from Mk 517. 20 684 831 ΙΟ28. 32. 47 135 1469; but Lk. has this construction 27 times. Like Mt., Lk. sometimes avoids Mk.'s redundant phrases Clauses bracketed in the following are omitted by Lk.: Μκ 182 [ὀψίας δὲ γενομένης]. 142 [καὶ ἐκαθερίσθη]. 215 [ἦσαν γὰρ πολλοί]. 216 ἴδοντες ὅτι ἐσθίει μετὰ τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν καὶ τελωνῶν]. 225 [χρείαν ἔσχεν]. 1214 [δῶμεν ἢ μὴ δῶμεν]. Lk. sometimes agrees with Mt. in the substitution of one word for another, generally a common word for a rare one, e.g.: Με το σχιζομένους; Mt. Lk. Ανεώχθησαν, ἀνεῳχθῆναι. 113 ἐκβάλλει ; Μt. ἀνήχθη; Lk. ἤγετο. 211 κράβαττον ; Mt. κλίνην ; Lk. κλινίδιον. 154 ἐνείλησεν ; Mt. Lk. ἐνετύλιξεν. Lk. agrees with Mt. in nearly all the changes mentioned on pp. xxxi ff. with reference to the person of the Lord, omitting either the words in question or the whole paragraph. Exceptions are that Lk. retains the questions in Mk 50 80 and 141, and τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν in rol8. He omits the entire incident of the cursing of the fig tree which Mt. has modified, and avoids the direct statement of disobedience to Christ's command in 145, which Mt. omitted. In the following changes of the same kind he has not the support of Mt. Mk 188 ἐξῆλθον; Lk. ἀπεστάλην, to make it clear that the coming forth from God is intended. Lk. omits the agony in the garden, Mk 1433-34 (Lk 2248-44, which is not in Mk., is omitted by ABRT S1); the mockery by the soldiers, Mk 1516-204; the spitting, Mk 146; the feeling of desertion by God, Mk 153; the rebuke of Christ by St. Peter, Mk 832, Lk. also agrees with Mt. in some of the changes with reference to the disciples. Mk 418 Lk. omits. 440 οὔπω ἔχετε πίστιν. Lk. ποῦ ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν. 652 Lk. omits the whole section. 817 Lk. omits the whole section. 910 Lk. omits the whole section. 982 Lk. adds a clause to explain that the ignorance of the disciples was due to the fact that the matter was hidden from them (by God?); cf. Lk 1834 2416. 1024 Lk. omits. 1032 Lk. omits. 1035-45 Lk. omits the whole section. 1440 Lk. omits the paragraph. In the following changes of the same kind Lk. has not the support of Mt. : 833 the rebuke of St. Peter. Lk. omits the paragraph. (1) Of these changes many of the more important might well be due to independent revision of Mk. by Mt. and Lk., especially those relating to Christ and His Apostles. It is evident that contemplation of the life of the Lord, and reflection upon His Person and work, and all that it meant for human life; and the deepening reverence that springs spontaneously from the life of meditation upon His words, and from spiritual communion with Him, and from worship of God in His name, was gradually leading Christian writers partly to refine and purify, partly to make careful choice of the language in which they described His life. In connection with His Sacred Person the choicest words only must be used, choicest not for splendour or beauty of sound or of suggestion, but as conveying in the simplest and most direct way the greatest amount of truth about Him with the least admixture of wrong emphasis. In this respect the Synoptic Gospels present in miniature the same process that afterwards took place on a larger scale in the history of the creeds. Already the Gospel writers found themselves committed to the task of describing the life of One whom they knew to have been a truly human Person, whom yet they believed to have been an incarnation of the Eternal. This task, in which it could never be possible to attain more than a relative amount of success, was increased by the fact that the books to be written were intended not for Christians with years of Christian thought and instruction to soften apparent inconsistencies, nor for men trained in the art of so softening the intellectual paradoxes of life as to escape from mental paralysis, but for the average member of the Christian congregation, simple-minded and matter-of-fact, to whom the narrative of the Lord's life with its double-sidedness would repeatedly suggest hard questions, until use and custom blunted their edge. How could the Lord, if He was divine, ask for information? How could He wish or will things that did not happen? How could it be said that He could not do this or that? Did God really forsake Him in the garden? Could it be that He had prayed a prayer which was unfulfilled? Was it possible that S. Peter had rebuked Him? Why was He baptized if baptism implied repentance and forgiveness of sin? The first and third Gospels prove themselves to be later than the second by the consideration which they show for the simpleminded reader in questions like this, and it is quite possible that Mt. and Lk. may often have agreed in a quite independent revision of Mk. in these respects. A good many of the verbal agreements, e.g. the grammatical changes, such as the substitution of aorists for historic presents, or the correction of an awkward turn of phrase in Mk., might also be due to independent revision. But no doubt this explanation will not account for all the agreements between Mt. and Lk. taken in their entirety, and we must look for other more comprehensive or supplementary explanations. (2) The theory that Mt. and Lk. had in addition to Mk. a second source, containing parallel matter to almost the whole of Mk., is very unsatisfactory. Here and there it seems to promise a solution. But the attempt to make it explain all the agreements in question ends in the reconstruction of a lost Gospel, almost identical with our S. Mark, save for the points of agreement between Mt. and Lk. which are in question. Is it in the least likely that there should have existed a second Gospel so similar to that of S. Mark? And granting this, is it probable that two later writers would have independently turned from S. Mark to pick out words and phrases from this Mark's "double"? See, further, Abbott, Corrections of Mark, 319. Here and there, however, the principle which underlies this explanation will be of service. Mt. and Lk., e.g., agree, against Mk., in certain words of the parable of the Mustard Seed. It is possible that Mt. turned here from Mk. to the Logia (see p. lvi), whilst Lk.'s account of the parable, which does not stand in his Gospel in the place where Mk 430-32 should occur, but later, was taken from some source where it occurred in a form like that of the Logia. This would account for agreements between Mt. and Lk. Along these lines, that the agreements in question are sometimes due to the fact that Mt. and Lk. independently agree in re-editing Mk., and they are sometimes due to the fact that Mt. and Lk. sometimes substitute for Mk. a second tradition which they drew immediately from different sources, much may be explained. But three other factors must probably be taken into account. (3) Some of the agreements in question are probably due to the fact that the copy of Mk. used by Mt. and Lk. had already undergone textual correction from the original form of the Gospel. That is to say, the text of Mk. used by Mt. and Lk. may be called a recension of the original Mk., whilst the text of Mark as we have it is another recension. E.g. Mk 141 has onλayxviodeis, but Mt. and Lk. both omit the word. It is quite possible that their copy of Mk. had opylobes, which is read by Daff2. The omission of Mt. and Lk. would then be parallel to other changes made by them in Mk.'s text. In Mk 118 the majority of MSS. have corpwσav, but D S1 curss. have the imperf. σrpovvvov, which has the advantage of being in Mk.'s style and is probably original. Now Mt. probably read the imperfect in Mk. He alters it in accordance with his custom into the aorist in 218, but he shows his knowledge of it by repeating the verb in the imperfect. And Lk. also read the imperfect in Mk. (4) Some of the agreements in question are probably due to the fact that the texts of the second and third Gospels have been assimilated. E.g. Mt. in 2285-40 and Lk in 1025-27 have a narrative similar to Mk 1228-4, in which they have several agreements against Mk. One of the most important of these is the word voμukós, by which they describe the questioner. But vouкós is omitted from Mt. by 1. S1 Arm. Orig., and may be due to assimilation to Lk. In Mt 2144 the majority of MSS. have a verse which is not found in the section in Mk., but which is also inserted in the corresponding section in Lk. But in Mt. the verse is omitted by D 33 abeff1.2 S1, and may be due to assimilation to Lk. ; or, as suggested in the commentary, it may be a gloss which came into the first Gospel, and was incorporated into the third by the same or by a later copyist. If we could recover the text of our two Gospels as they left the hands of the Evangelists, it is quite possible that the number of their agreements would be largely diminished. (5) Lastly, amongst his many sources (Lk 11) Lk. may have seen and read Mt., though his use of it is so slight that he cannot have had it constantly before him. This can nowhere be proved, but would obviously explain many agreements, both in matter parallel to Mk. and in non-Marcan material. I am inclined to believe that Lk 1714 is due to abbreviation of Mt 186-21 (see notes), and the agreement of Mt. and Lk. in substituting everúλugev for the éveiλnorer of Mk 1546 seems to me to be most naturally explained by the theory that Lk. had read Mt. and was here influenced by reminiscence of his language. Of course, if a reasonable case could be made out for Lk.'s dependence upon Mt. in any one case, then a large number of agreements between the two Gospels would be at once more easily explained by this fact than by any other theory. B. MATTER COMMON TO MATTHEW AND LUKE ALONE. Mt 37-12 = Lk 37-17. See note on Mt 37-12. Probably not borrowed from a common written source. 42-11 = - Lk 42-13. See note on Mt 42. Probably not borrowed from a common written source. 724-27 These parallels suggest that Mt. and Lk. had before them different recensions of the Sermon on the Mount. It will be seen that Mt. has in close connection sayings which in Lk. appear in different contexts. There is also a good deal of divergence in language. The former fact makes it unlikely that these sayings were 1 Cf. Mk 950. |