¹ This summary follows, in part, the wording of B. H. Streeter, The Four Gospels, p. 151.

² I use this phrase without prejudice.

³ ἀποτάσσεσθαι Mark 1, Luke 2, Acts 2, Paul 1.

⁴ “Had we not the far more detailed, if puzzling, notes of place and time given by Mark, we should be totally unable to make out the course of events in order from the meagre indications furnished by Luke.” Burkitt in Beginnings of Christianity, ed. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake, I i 2, p. 487.

⁵ But cf. his παραβολὴν παρέθηκεν with Mark's ἐν τίνι … παραβολῇ θῶμεν;

⁶ It should be observed that Luke xi 14–16, immediately preceding the above passage, is compared by Huck with Matthew xii 22–24, which in its turn precedes the Matthaean Beelzebub Controversy. But the real Matthaean parallel to Luke xi 14–16 is Matthew ix 32–34. Assuming “Q”, then either Matthew or Luke has appended the Beelzebub Controversy to the wrong member of a pair of doublets.

⁷ But Luke viii 19–21, though not in the same context as its Marcan parallel, is fitted in between two other Marcan passages, and is practically disregarded by Streeter, who fails to note its agreements with Matthew against Mark, and is thus able to treat Matthew's parallel as unconflated Mark.

⁸ Cf. ii Kings iv 29.

⁹ The Origin of the Synoptic Gospels, p. 102.

¹⁰ Chapman, Rev. Bénédictine, 1912. Orchard, Biblica, Jan., 1938.

¹¹ A New Testament ἄπαξ εἰρημένον. LXX has στιγμή of time, but Luke's addition of χρόνου links his phrase directly with cultured Hellenistic usage. The phrase goes back, apparently, at least to Demetrius of Phalerum, and the use of στιγμή for a moment of time derives from Simonides or earlier. The Latin ‘punctum temporis’ (Terence and classical) is probably a translation. The Greek phrase turns up again in a quotation by Plutarch. It is a typical Lucan ‘elegance.’

¹² Cf. e.g. Syriacisms in St. Luke, Connolly, Dom H., Journal of Theological Studies, Oct. 1936, pp. 374 ff. See also Lagrange ad hunc locum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹³ An enumeration from a Galilaean standpoint. Luke's at vi 17 is from a worldwide viewpoint.

¹⁴ That the influence of St. Paul's Epistles cannot be ruled out of court for Luke seems to follow from a comparison of Luke xxi 34–36 with 1 Thessalonians v 3 f. As 1 Thessalonians is, in all probability, from the year 51 or 52 it must be Luke who is borrowing here.

¹⁵ On the other hand, ‘Father’ in vi 36 is justified, in the author's mind, by ‘ye shall be sons’ in the previous verse. That is how St. Luke's mind works.

¹⁶ It should decide the issue against the reading μηδένα in verse 35.

¹⁷ Note ἀπολάβωσιν, verse 34, Luke's normal word, not ἀπέχωσιν.

¹⁸ It is perhaps worth noticing that he omits ‘the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak’ in the account of the Agony. He seems to use πνεῦμα of the Holy Spirit and of discamate spirits including men's ‘ghosts.’

¹⁹ Luke ix 61 f. gives a similar trio corresponding to a Matthaean pair.

²⁰ Full underlining indicates connection with Matthew vii, dotted underlining with Matthew xii.

²¹ A full discussion of the Matthaean doublets would be a lengthy matter. Generally speaking, they show the author repeating himself, not copying two sources or even, necessarily, reproducing teaching given on two different occasions by Christ. Thus xix 9 is an ambiguous abridgment of v 32, xxiv 9–14 appears to show the influence of x 17–23 (note the intrusion of δέ in xxiv 13, in the midst of a καὶ … καὶ … passage). It is probable that xii 33 is similarly a shortened reproduction of vii 16–20; note that in ch. vii the tree is ‘good’ or ‘corrupt,’ the fruit is ‘fair’ or ‘bad’; this nuance is missed in ch. xii, which also lacks the ‘Semitic inclusio’ of the earlier passage.

²² Matthew's παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας has, of course, been questioned; but I do not think he would deliberately falsify his source to introduce a relaxing qualification such as this would be if it had been thus subsequently added. The dropping of the clause in Mark and Luke is, of course, intelligible enough. For it sounds ‘scandalous,’ though what in Matthew it perhaps meant was: ‘To drive away your wife is to expose her to a probable occasion of adultery. If she has been unfaithful to you you are justified in permitting this risk. But if you do so without such cause you “make her commit adultery” and are partly to blame for her fall.’

²³ Matthew viii 9 ‘my slave (δοῦλος)’ does not refer to this sick servant, but to any one of the slaves of the centurion.

²⁴ It would be a case, not merely of selecting material of special Palestinian interest, but of impregnating a whole un-Jewish sermon with the atmosphere of Palestine.

²⁵ Luke xvi 17, dropping ‘one iota,’ is probably secondary to Matthew v 18.

²⁶ It may be urged: ‘So, then, you admit that some-one has conflated sources to build up single incidents or pieces of teaching; why not, then, Matthew in the five crucial instances?’ To this we reply: (1) Yes; every reasonable attempt to solve the Synoptic Problem involves admitting such conflation somewhere. (2) But the sort of conflating Matthew is supposed to have done in the Five Instances is senseless; nor could it have produced the literary finish and contextual coherence of the Matthaean passages in question. (3) We can feel the hand of the compiler of sources at work in the composition of Luke; and see the Preface to the Gospel. (4) Comparison with Mark shows conflation of the kind alleged, in Luke's treatment of the Marcan Transfiguration story, and perhaps in the question on the First Commandment; and the variation between παῖς and δοῦλος shows it in the episode of the Centurion's Servant. Thus we may legitimately suppose it to have occurred elsewhere also in Luke. (5) On the other hand, compilation of sources has yet to be proved in Matthew; certainly it has left no trace in the obscuration of outlines in that Gospel. (6) But the real test comes in ‘trying out’ the two contending hypotheses in the Gospels studied side by side; and its result is convincing.

²⁷ Roughly speaking, the thought of this is from Mark xiii 33–37; the language is largely from Matthew xxiv 46.

²⁸ Luke's uneasy paraphrase of Mark xiii 14–16 at Luke xxi 21 f. suggests that he had already written xvii 31 with its utilization of Mark xiii 15 f. or its Matthaean parallel.

²⁹ Doubt has been thrown on this by Clark, Professor A. C., in his edition of Acts. I may refer to Downside Review, July, 1933, pp. 536 f., where I have indicated the lines on which I should answer him.Google Scholar

³⁰ Syriacisms in St. Luke, by Dom Hugh Connolly, J. T. S., 1936.