Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/824

Rh 800 from the east and the west,” &c. uttered by Jesus as a comment upon the marvellous faith of the centurion. In Luke they follow a parable peculiar to himself. The clause “ there shall be weeping and gnas-hing of teeth" (which, except in this instance, is peculiar to Matthew) is transferred from the end to the beginning; and there are other variations, seem- ingly purposed. The agreement is far from t'crbatim. (27) .at. xxiii. 37-39; Lu. xiii. 34, 35. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” Sic. This is a conspicuous instance of the manner in which Luke has sometimes deviated from the true chronological order. He represents these words to have been uttered in Galilee, 'hen the Pharisees warn Jesus to flee from fear of Herod. But Matthew represents them as having been uttered in Jerusalem, and in the temple. The reason for Luke's transposition is possibly contained in the last words, “Ye shall not see Me till the time come when ye shall sa, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." Now these very words, “ Blessed is He," 810., were uttered by the crowd welcoming Jesus on His entrance into Jerusalem (xix. 39). Luke therefore, regarding the words of Jesus, “Ye shall not see Me,” as a prediction necessarily preceding its fulﬁlment, is bound to place these words before the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem But all internal evidence is on the side of llatthew’s order, and against Luke's. The agreement is very nearly verbatim, but Luke. (whose arrangement does not require the word) dispenses with the “henceforth " of Matthew. (28) Mat. xxii. 1-14; Lu. xiv. 15--2-I. The parable of the wed- ding feast. These parables differ entirely in language, and some- what in thought. In Matthew those who are first invited slay the messengers, and are slain by the king; and, among those who are subsequently invited, one is rejected for being without a wedding garment. In Luke the guests are simply discourteous, and the host merely invites others (the poor and the maimed, and then the wanderers in the streets) in the place of the first. Matthew's parable is therefore political, Luke's social. Note, however, that; in the parable of the pounds (Mat. talents, xxv.), Luke intro- duces (xix. 27) the missing political element, whereas Matthew there omits it. Clearly no common document nor even detailed tradition originated these parables. They are rather (as also are the parables of the talents and the pounds) of the nature of sermons or stories based upon short “words of the Lord” as texts. It is obvious that Matthew lays special stress upon the exclusion of tlie unﬁt intruder, Luke upon the inclusion of all the world. (29) Mat. x. 37-39; Lu. xiv. 26, 27. “He that loveth father and mother more than Me," &e. In Matthew these words are addressed by Jesus to the twelve in Galilee; in Luke to the multi- tude following Ilim during llis journey to Jerusalem. Here Luke seems to have preserved the older (because more difficult) form of the tradition: “'hosoever luzlclla, not ' (Mareion altered /.ua’ei into Ka'raAei1re1) “his father, . . . . yea, his own life also,” &c. It seems more probable that this was the original form than that Luke intensiﬁed the form by any alteration of his ow11. There is icarcely any agreement of language between Matthew and Luke ere. (30) Mat. xviii. 12-14; Lu. xv. 4-7. “What man having an hundred sheep,” &c. The thought is the same, but there is scarcely any similarity of language; and even the conclusion characteristically differs, Matthew having “it is not the will of your Fallu.-r in heaven that one of these little ones should perish ;" GOSPELS In Matthew these words are ' [srNor"r1cAL. of the Lord as texts for discourses. The saying is introduced by Matthew in the midst of the discourse against the Pharisees ; but it is made by Luke the conclusion and moral of the parable of the publican and the Pharisee, and of the discourse on choosing the lower room. (35) Mat. xxv. 14-30; Ln. xix. 1-28. The parable of the talents or pounds. There is no similarity of language, except in the dialogue between the idle servant and the master. Luke, after his manner, inserts a question from the bystanders (“And they said to him, Lord, he hath ten pounds”); and Luke here, as Matthew above (28), introduces a political clement, making the master a king, and narrating a royal vengeance. In‘ the consideration of the passages quoted above, one fact strikes us at once, that the Lord's Prayer is not m-balim the same in Matthew and Luke. If this is not identical, it might be thought that we cannot expect any words of the Lord to be identical. And indeed, as a matter not cf hypothesis but of fact, those words which have most strongly appealed to men’s hearts, and have been most frequently on their lips, from the earliest times of the church ; those say- ings which have given the tone to Christian life, which have encouraged martyrs, and stimulated waverers, such as (17), “Fear not them which kill the body ; ” (18), “ Whosoever shall confess,” &c.; (29), “ He that loveth father or mother I more than Me,” &c.—all these, though identical as regards thought, and similar as regards words, are nevertheless not exactly similar in Matthew and Luke. The exactly similar passages are of a very different nature: they are for the I most part passages of a prophetic or historical rather than a doctrinal character with application to individuals. Some, (1), (2), (5), (6), describe the relations between John the Baptist and Christ; another, (8), calls clown woe on Chorazin; another, (9), in language that reminds us of the thoughts, though not of the words, of the Fourth Gospel, thanks God for revealing to babes what He has hidden from the wise and prudent; another, (27), pours forth lamentations over doomed Jerusalem. All these passages, dealing as it were on a large scale with the will of God, as it affects religions and nations rather than as it affects individuals, are better ﬁtted for reading in the services of the church than for being transmitted from mouth to mouth in the family from father to son, or from catechist to catechumen, for personal and individual guid- ance ; and consequently they seem more likely to have been , handed down in a book than by means of oral tradition. Luke having “there is joy in heaven over one sinner that re- _ penteth. ” The contrast between the negative (“ not the will ”) and the positive (“joy”), between the “non-perishing" and the “re- penting," is typical of the contrast between the whole of Matthew and the whole of Luke. (31) Mat. vi. 2-I ; Lu. xvi. 13. " No (servant) can serve two mas er ' c. t s,’ 8: Vith the exception of “servant ” added by Luke for definiteness, this saying is the same 1-e'rI2r¢tun in Matthew and I Luke. (32) Mat. xi. 12 and v. 18; Lu. xvi. 16, 17. “The law and the prophets were till John," &c., and “Not one tittlc shall pass from the law.” There seems little connexion in these sayings as they stand in Luke, and there is very little similarity of language bctvcen Matthew and Luke. (33) Mat. xxiv. 26-28, 37-41; Lu. xvii 23-27, 34--37. These are sr'attere«_l sayings on the second coming, likening it to the “days of loah” and to “lightning," and predicting the sever- an':e of those who are “at one mill” and “in one bed.” Luke, after his manner, intl'0dur'es a question, “Where, Lord?” to which the reply comes, “'heresocver the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." Matthew, on the other hand, introduces the sentence in the midst of the discourse, “So shall also the coming of the S011 of Man be, for whcresocvcr the bodv is," Sac. The agreement of language is not considerable, except in the last part. (34) Mat. xxiii. 12; Lu. xviii. 14, and xiv. ll. “ Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased,” Ste. This again furnishes The same conclusion applies to (21), “ But know this, that if the goodman,” &c. and to (22, “ Who then is the faithful and just steward,” &c.—both of which passages agree verbatim, and both of which appear to have an ecclesiastical rather than an individual reference, at all events in their primary application. In proportion as a rhetorical passage limits itself to individual application, it seems to h-ave been modiﬁed by oral tradition so as to deviate from exact agreement : compare in (3) the “ mote and the beam ;” also (12), “Ask, and it shall be given unto you ;” and (19), “Take no thought for the morrow.” The only exception perhaps to this rule is in the denunciation of the Pharisees (16). This passage, being of the historical type, ought (according to our rule) to be identical; but Luke differs ' from Matthew considerably. Possibly, in the earliest days ' the head of traditional doctrine. of the church, and especially in the synagogues of Pales- tine a few years after the death of Christ, the angry con- ﬂicts between the disciples of the Lord and the Pharisees may have frequently reproduced and modified by tradi- tional inﬂuences the original form of our Lord’s denuncia- tion; so that perhaps this's11bject comes naturally under It must also be remem- bercd that, as Luke approaches the later period of the work of Christ in Judzea, he deviates more and more both from Matthew and from Mark ; perhaps because there was a J udzean as well as a Galilean tradition of the life of a striking instance of the manner in which Luke utilizes words, Jesus, and Luke, in the latter part Of his history, depended