Its plan and composition

[p. 456]

The relation of the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew is usually determined in this way: Luke presents the gospel history according to the same ground plan, but the beautiful unity of the whole which it has in Matthew Luke has spoiled by distortion and displacement of the Sermon on the Mount, by the too early position of Matthew 12:1–14 (Luke 6:1–11), and so on; in particular, the insertion 9:51–18:14 tears apart the main joint of the whole.¹ In the passage 9:51f. there does indeed lie the chief turning point of the two diverging directions. If, however, one thinks one can explain this chief difference only from the use of a source of his own, this is a conclusion whose incorrectness comes to light very clearly precisely from that passage. If the tendency of the Gospel in general is expressed anywhere, it has been expressed, as has already been shown, in the connection of that passage; and the task can therefore only be, from the standpoint of that passage, to look at Luke’s divergent arrangement with a view to how far it may perhaps be explained from an interest connected with that tendency.

Matthew, as he seems in general to have set out to group the various elements of the gospel history as far as possible according to the kinship of the content, and to concentrate the particular in certain chief points, had, as is clearly to be seen, above all the intention of setting the Sermon on the Mount entirely in the foreground of the public activity of Jesus. Not only does he let nothing especially significant precede it, in that he mentions this earlier material in substance only summarily (cf. especially 4:23–25); he also gives it a basis as broad as possible, since here, as is without doubt to be assumed, he has united with the chief discourse, into a greater mass, various discourses and sayings of Jesus whose occasion and time were different. One sees that he wants, in one total view, to gather everything that can serve to give a conception, as definite and distinctive as it is grand and rich in content, of the messianic determination of Jesus, as this must be thought from his standpoint. Since the Sermon on the Mount, so understood, has its center in everything that Matthew has Jesus express in it about his affirmative relation to the law, it is already explained from this why it could not have the same significance for Luke. It is certainly nothing more characteristic of Luke than that he has passed over in complete silence the so weighty passage on the law which contains the key of the Sermon on the Mount and which expresses the principle of the new religious

[p. 457]

economy, but he has not contented himself with this alone. From this chief point he has even gone on, in contrast to Matthew, to give it, instead of the so distinguished passage which it has in Matthew, an entirely different one, no longer to set it off in the same way by its surroundings, and to distribute a great part of its content over other points: not, say, in order to correct Matthew historically, insofar as he has put together things that did not originally belong together, but, since the Sermon on the Mount in Luke can on the whole be taken only as an excerpt from the one in Matthew, out of dogmatic interest. It is indeed as if he had wanted to indicate this contrast with Matthew outwardly as well, by certain subsidiary features. If in Matthew 5:1 Jesus goes up onto the mountain (ἀνέβη εἰς τὸ ὄρος), in Luke 6:17, by contrast, he comes down from the mountain (καταβὰς μετ’ αὐτῶν); and while in Matthew he sits down (καθίσαντος αὐτοῦ) and so speaks seated on a height, in Luke he stands and speaks standing on a level place (ἔστη ἐπὶ τόπου πεδινοῦ). However one may take this outward circumstance, that the Sermon on the Mount in Luke, if not turned into a valley sermon (as the Saxon Anonymous¹ calls it), has yet become a field sermon, in any case one can see in the whole treatment of the Sermon on the Mount in Luke, over against the form which it has in Matthew, only a degradation.

In order to push the Sermon on the Mount back out of the foreground in which it stands in Matthew, Luke has given more fully what Matthew, hurrying on immediately to the Sermon on the Mount, narrates only briefly, and has moved forward several things which in Matthew follow only later. In order in no way to weaken the impression which the Sermon on the Mount is to make, Matthew has reported, before it, nothing about sayings and deeds of Jesus that could lay claim to the reader’s attention in a higher degree. It is otherwise with Luke. He has Jesus appear at once in Capernaum and Nazareth, as teacher and wonder-worker, in a very significant way. Even the choosing of the three most distinguished disciples of Jesus, Peter, James, and John, which must after all have had a special interest for Matthew, is narrated by Luke more fully than by Matthew. Should one wish to urge this as a proof against the presupposition of a special tendency in Luke, one has only to see how Luke himself has taken care to set against any such

[p. 458]

proof a counterweight. The calling of those three disciples is one of the chief moments that mark Jesus’ first appearance. Luke here attaches himself to Matthew, and since he has no cause to be as sparing of words here as Matthew is, he narrates it with everything that the Gospel tradition offered him, but also with the reservation that he will set a significant counterweight over against the favorable opinion of those three disciples to which their calling, even according to his Gospel history, might entitle one. The same section, devoted by preference to the Twelve (4–9:50), which begins with the calling of those three, contains a scene that concerns precisely these men, whose intentional character lies so clearly in the open that one could not deny it. Matthew too, 9:18f., narrates the raising of the daughter of Jairus, but Luke departs from Matthew’s narration very significantly in this, that he first has Peter, and then the three disciples, involved in it in a way of their own. It cannot be regarded as proof of a mind very familiar with the greatness of Jesus, or even only more deeply penetrated by reverence for him, that Peter, when Jesus, on the way into the house of Jairus, was touched in the press of the people by a woman and asked who had touched him, contradicted Jesus, in his own name and that of the rest, with the words: Ἐπιστάτα, οἱ ὄχλοι συνέχουσί σε καὶ ἀποθλίβουσι, καὶ λέγεις, τίς ὁ ἁψάμενός μου; whereupon Jesus replies disapprovingly that someone had touched him, that he knew it, since a power had gone out from him. Still more striking is what happened in the house of Jairus. Jesus let no one enter except Peter, John, and James, and the father and the mother of the girl. All were weeping and lamenting the girl. When Jesus said, Do not weep, she is not dead but sleeps, they laughed at him, because they knew, that is, wanted to know better than Jesus, that she was dead. But he himself drove them all out, 8:51f. Who are those who laugh at Jesus here, and who are driven out by him? Plainly the three disciples named are also among them, who accordingly, although they had already been for a longer time in the closer connection with Jesus, here gave only a fresh proof of their spiritual incapacity.

Upon 5:1–11 there follow, up to the Sermon on the Mount and the choosing of the Twelve that precedes it, narrations which, if not verbally identical, are yet, according to their historical content, altogether parallel with the Gospel history of Matthew: Luke 5:12–14 (Matthew 8:1–4);

[p. 459]

5:17–25 (Matthew 9:1–8); 5:27–32 (Matthew 9:9–13); 5:33–38 (Matthew 9:14–17);¹ Luke 6:1–5 (Matthew 12:1–8); 6:6–11 (Matthew 12:9–14). Luke here attaches himself so closely to Matthew, even if the connection of the individual parts is a different one, that in order to explain his arrangement one can in substance only ask why he has passed over individual pieces in Matthew. Thus he has now skipped the healing of the centurion’s son in Capernaum, which in Matthew 8:5 follows the healing of the leper, because this narration, with regard to Jesus’ judgment on the faith of Israel, without doubt seemed to him better suited to a later place. Matthew 8:14–17 is missing, since it is probably already anticipated at Luke 4:38. Since the three pieces that follow in Matthew, 18–22, 23–27, 28–34, are indeed missing in Luke in this connection, but are later supplied by him, 9:57f., 8:22f., 8:28f., this too can have happened only because they seemed to him to stand more suitably later. In the same connection as in Matthew (9:1–17) there now follows in Luke 5:17–38, in which section it must be especially striking that the tax collector called Matthew in the Gospel of Matthew is called Levi by Luke, a difference which, like the transformation of the Sermon on the Mount into a valley sermon, can equally well be held for very intentional or for merely accidental. The raising of the dead that follows in Matthew 9:18 Luke likewise has, only first at 8:40f., but here with the differences, already noted, that concern the three disciples; and precisely these peculiar features, arisen wholly out of the tendency of the Gospel, which have been joined to the narration, give

[p. 460]

also the explanation of why Luke has moved them from the earlier place in Matthew to this later one. For if in this narration his aim was to let those three disciples appear in so unfavorable a light, the reproach made against them on this occasion fell far more heavily upon them if they had already lived for a longer time in the most intimate intercourse with Jesus, had had the proofs of his messianic determination before their eyes, and had even already seen a raising of the dead, than if, as would have been the case had Luke inserted that narration already in chapter 5, they had still had far less opportunity to form their mind for the right understanding of the words and works of Jesus. Since the section that follows further in Matthew 9:27–34 is too insignificant, and its content too closely related to other similar narrations, for its absence in Luke to be surprising; since, further, the verses Matthew 9:35–38 only make the transition to the history of the sending out of the twelve disciples, but this itself, as also the discourse of Jesus referring to John the Baptist, Matthew chapter 11, could in any case not find its place in Luke before the Sermon on the Mount: so, if he wanted to let anything at all precede the Sermon on the Mount, the next thing for him lay only in the twelfth chapter of Matthew. He therefore reaches over already now into the content of this chapter, by inserting here the narration of the two Sabbath acts of Jesus, Matthew 12:1–14, at 6:1–11, only with the difference that he reserved the saying of Jesus, Matthew 12:11, for a later place, 14:5.

Only now does the Sermon on the Mount itself follow in Luke, 6:20f., after he has still set before it the choosing of the twelve apostles, 6:12f. In Matthew this is nowhere expressly mentioned; at 10:1 he speaks only of their sending out. Not without ground, however, does Luke, even according to Matthew himself, presuppose that the calling of the twelve apostles must have preceded the Sermon on the Mount. If the Sermon on the Mount has the great significance of a messianic inaugural discourse, which it is supposed to have in Matthew, it must also have a closer reference to the twelve apostles, as the chief organs for carrying out the messianic plan of Jesus; it had at the same time to be an instructional discourse for the apostles, in order to orient them about their calling and their whole position in the world. In Matthew this significance of the Sermon on the Mount is indicated by his having, while the multitude that follows him gathers before him, his real disciples, to whom the three previously named belong, whose calling seems to Matthew to count also for the

[p. 461]

rest, step closer to Jesus and form a narrower circle about him (5:1), from which it explains itself of its own accord how so much in the content of the Sermon on the Mount could have a more special reference to the disciples standing nearest to Jesus. If, however, Luke, although he expressly has the twelve apostles called by Jesus immediately before the Sermon on the Mount, has taken up into the content of it, as he gives it, nothing of all that which in Matthew seems as though it must have such a more special reference, this can have happened only in the same interest in which he has also withdrawn from the Sermon on the Mount, in the form which it has in Matthew, the sayings of Jesus that form its real center. It is plain to see that, in Luke’s conception, it is to serve as a special support for the authority of the twelve apostles as little as for that of the law. After the discourse has thus had its real core cut out, and the central significance which it has in Matthew has thereby already been almost entirely taken from it, what remains presents itself as an abridgment that compresses, so far as possible, the discourse in the form which it has in Matthew, and modifies individual points here and there, in which the author seems to have had the intention of giving here only so much as is necessary in order not entirely to take from the discourse the significance which it had in the Gospel tradition, but of reserving everything else for another place. The discourse is opened, as in Matthew, by beatitudes, which Luke could most readily retain, since they correspond entirely to the basic view otherwise expressed in his Gospel; only he has not merely reduced the eight beatitudes to four, but has also, already in the wording of them, and still more in the woes set over against the beatitudes, expressed the contrast of poverty and riches, of the αἰὼν οὗτος and the αἰὼν μέλλων, in a harsher manner. Where now in Matthew the discourse, after the address to the disciples as the salt of the earth and the light of the world (verses 13–16), passes over to its real theme (verse 17), the assurance of Jesus that he has come not to abolish, but to fulfill, the law and the prophets (insofar as a stricter observance of the law is demanded by him than by the scribes and Pharisees, and it is shown, in a series of Mosaic commandments, how, instead of holding to the mere letter, one must penetrate into the spirit of the law, 17–48), all this is missing in Luke. That it is missing is, as Strauss remarks, a decided sign that the Sermon on the Mount in Luke has gaps, since in the missing section the

[p. 462]

basic thought not only of the discourse as Matthew has it is stated, but the scattered utterances on love of enemies, readiness to be reconciled, and beneficence, which Luke gives, also find their definite sense and point of unity only in the contrast between the spiritual interpretation of Scripture by Jesus and the fleshly one of the teachers of that time; just as little, however, after everything so far, can there be any doubt that this gap in Luke is not an accidental one, but only an intentional and tendentious one. What follows in Luke after the woes, verses 27–39, is parallel with Matthew 5:38–48; only Luke, as if in order to remain consistent in this, that the Sermon on the Mount had no reference to the law, has stripped away everything antithetical, which gives the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew so definite a character and so fresh and natural a color, and has therefore made what in Matthew has the form of a reform of the law, in contrast to the Pharisaic interpretation of the law, into independent moral precepts, in several sentences expressing the same thought. Thus this section, in that verse 31 is also taken up from Matthew 7:12, and verse 37 from Matthew 7:1, and verse 38 from Matthew 7:2, and at verse 36 the concept of mercy was put in the place of perfection, has, for all the identity of the content, received a different appearance. Verses 39 and 40 are two parabolic sayings inserted, which in Matthew stand not in the Sermon on the Mount but at another place, 15:14 and 10:24. Verses 41 and 42, with the exception of the words αὐτὸς τὴν ἐν τῷ ὀφθ. — βλέπον, are word for word from Matthew 7:3f., and verses 43–45 attach themselves to Matthew 7:16–20 in such a way that Matthew 12:33–35 is also drawn in. Verse 46 is Matthew 7:21, and verses 47 to 49 are visibly modeled on the close of the discourse in Matthew 7:24–27. That the lack of connection in thought, from which the Sermon on the Mount in Luke suffers according to the unanimous judgment of the interpreters, is a very natural consequence of such a selective procedure, jumping from the one thing to the other, needs no further remark. Just as little, however, since Luke, even where he departs from Matthew, yet again and again attaches himself to him, and follows him from beginning to end, only with omissions whose ground lies clearly before one’s eyes precisely at the chief passage, can his dependence on Matthew be mistaken.

Between the Sermon on the Mount and the sending out of the Twelve, in the two chapters 7 and 8, there follows a series of sections which, with the exception of two narrations, that of the raising of the young man at Nain, 7:11–17,

[p. 463]

and that of the anointing of Jesus by a woman, 7:36–56, to which then the first verses of chapter 8, on Jesus’ traveling about in Galilee, are also still to be added, otherwise have their parallels in Matthew throughout.

Since Luke has already given, at 5:12–14, the healing of the leper, with which Matthew 9:5f. connects the healing of the centurion’s son in Capernaum, but at this place could not yet pass over to the narration connected with it in Matthew, because the censorious word which Jesus, in the praise bestowed on the faith of the Gentile centurion, spoke about the unbelief of Israel was at that place, where in Luke Jesus had not yet even delivered the Sermon on the Mount, plainly not yet as much in its place as at Matthew 8:5f., where this narration follows the Sermon on the Mount, he now, by having the centurion of Capernaum appear here, only takes up again the thread, earlier broken off, of the Gospel history of Matthew. The next thing that is then likewise taken from Matthew is the message of the Baptist to Jesus, and the discourse delivered by Jesus on this occasion about the Baptist. The content of chapters 8–11 in Matthew had already for the most part been exhausted by him; for that reason alone it lay near him to pass over to the piece concerning the Baptist, Matthew 11:2f., in which the kinship with the preceding narration of the centurion also seems to have guided him. As this narration had to have a special interest for him on account of the Jewish unbelief censured in it by Jesus, so the discourse of Jesus about the Baptist was at the same time a discourse of rebuke addressed to the people. This character it would of course have less if one were to assume that Luke 7:29–35 was missing in the so-called Marcionite Gospel. This assumption, however, is not well grounded, and, if one looks at the connection of the passage, not even probable, although to be sure the verses 29 and 30, which form the transition, are not entirely clear. Between the two sections parallel with Matthew stands the narration, peculiar to Luke, of the young man of Nain, which, since he has reserved for a later place the raising of the dead narrated by Matthew 9:18f., has evidently been inserted here for this reason, that the νεκροὶ ἐγείρονται in the following discourse of Jesus, 7:22, not be left without an actual instance. To the discourse about the Baptist there is further joined the narration, peculiar to Luke alone, of the anointing of Jesus by a woman, at a banquet held in the house of a Pharisee, 7:36–56. That Luke has given this piece its place precisely here can be explained only from

[p. 464]

its relation to the two chief narrations that precede. To the discourse about the Baptist the narration, consisting for the most part likewise of discourses of Jesus, attaches itself not unsuitably, since Jesus censures in the Pharisee, who took so great offense at his conduct toward the woman, the same lack of receptivity, and of an acceptance that enters into the purpose of his mission, as before in the people. But it likewise belongs, with the narration of the centurion in Capernaum, under the same point of view, since, in the whole manner in which the woman shows herself here, it sets before one’s eyes as distinguished an example of a disposition devoted to Jesus with unconditional trust as that narration does in the centurion of Capernaum, in the same contrast with the otherwise so usual conduct toward Jesus on the part of the people in general and of the Pharisees in particular. And as the centurion, already as a Gentile, over against Israel (7:9), had to have a special interest for the Pauline author of the Gospel, so in both it is faith that here comes forward in its full power and significance, and indeed, in the woman, altogether the faith, active through love, that conditions the forgiveness of sins, in the Pauline sense. That the narrations brought together by Luke in these two chapters are altogether supposed to present both things in themselves, both the recognition and acceptance which he found among individuals, and the unreceptiveness and rejection that preponderate among the majority, may also be seen from the parable of the sower, taken up already here from Matthew 13:1f. The parable shows so vividly that among so many there are always only a few who have the right sense for the words of Jesus; but the distinctive point is that the Pauline author will not let even the Twelve count as such as belong among these few elect. He seems intentionally to keep them always in view here (cf. 8:1), in order to demonstrate in them themselves everything that gives Jesus cause for dissatisfaction. If one compares the two presentations of the parable in Matthew and Luke, there is joined in Matthew 13:10 to the parable the question of the disciples, why Jesus speaks in parables. Jesus answers them: “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to those it is not given. For whoever has, to him it will be given, to the point of overflowing; but whoever does not have, from him will be taken even what he has. For this reason I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor understand.” If these words are not to have the sense which they cannot possibly have, the parabolic

[p. 465]

form is supposed intentionally to veil the sense of the teaching contained in the parable, they can be taken only thus: because there are those who with seeing eyes see nothing and with hearing ears hear nothing, the parabolic form serves to test the spiritual capacity and incapacity of those who are to be instructed. The disciples too did not know at once what the parable was to mean; an explanation of the parable had first to be given them; but that they asked at all, that they had the insight that what was set forth by Jesus was a parable, which was not to be taken literally, but meant something else, which had first to be asked after and searched out, thereby they gave the proof that they had a higher degree of spiritual capacity and receptivity than the others, who heard the parable without an inkling of the sense contained in it. The latter, then, are those who with seeing eyes see nothing, and with hearing ears hear nothing and understand nothing, but also those who, because they have nothing, lose even what they have, insofar as their lack of spiritual power of comprehension is the cause of the parable’s being, although it is given to them too, without any profit for them, lost for them. But whoever has so much spiritual capacity that he recognizes a parable as what it is, and is moved by it to ask after its sense, he also receives the right insight into the sense of the parable; he is initiated into the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. The parabolic form of the discourse thus serves to this end, that by it the two classes, the receptive and the unreceptive, separate from one another. While to the one the passage from Isaiah that expresses the lack of a spiritual consciousness is applied, the disciples, by contrast, are pronounced blessed, that their eyes see and their ears hear; and on the presupposition of such a sense, opened to the truth, the interpretation of the parable is now also given them by Jesus. Luke’s presentation departs from this in that he has the disciples ask not about the purpose of parabolic discourse in general, but at once about the sense of the parable narrated, and the answer given by Jesus can still more easily be misunderstood, as if parables were intentionally to veil the truth from those who are not destined to know the mysteries of the divine kingdom (cf. verse 10: τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς ἐν παραβολαῖς, ἵνα βλέποντες κ.); but the chief point is that Luke, although he too has Jesus say to the disciples, ὑμῖν δέδοται, γνῶναι τὰ μυστήρια τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ, still adds to the interpretation of the parable verses 16–18. A more definite connection is missed here,

[p. 466]

and one therefore appeals to this passage as evidence for the phenomenon which, it is said, repeats itself especially often in Luke, namely that in the interval between two independent discourses or narrations several isolated maxims have been thrown together. Thus, it is said, the maxim of the light that is not to be hidden has been inserted here on account of some inner kinship with the parable; then, because in this maxim the contrast between hiding and setting forth openly had occurred, the otherwise heterogeneous discourse of the becoming manifest of everything hidden occurred to the reporter, whereupon, without connection with this, but again in some relation to the parable, the saying, Whoever has, to him it will be given, was added.¹ These sentences would then indeed have come into a very accidental connection with one another. But the lack of connection is removed as soon as one refers them to the disciples and takes them as de Wette also rightly explains them: the disciples are to hear aright, so that they can let their light shine for others, for the gospel is, after all, destined to become manifest. Only one must not overlook, in this, the censorious sense in which the author of the Gospel has Jesus here direct these words to the disciples, when the same sentence by which, in Matthew, the incapable are distinguished from the disciples, as the spiritually capable, is here impressed upon the disciples themselves: ὃς ἂν μὴ ἔχῃ, καὶ ὃ δοκεῖ ἔχειν (this δοκεῖ ἔχειν too, in place of the ἔχει in Matthew, is significant) ἀρθήσεται ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ. The words of verse 16 point back to the Sermon on the Mount. While, however, in Matthew 5:14, for the distinction of the disciples, it is said that they, as the light of the world, are to let their light shine, they can, in the turn given them here, and in the whole connection of the passage, be taken only as an expression of dissatisfaction. It is as if the evangelist, with a view to the high predicate given to the disciples in the Sermon on the Mount, and to their being pronounced blessed in Matthew in consequence of the question they asked about the parable, had wanted to say: With this I have explained to you the meaning of the parable, since you, as those who know, which you are supposed to be, must understand the mysteries of the divine kingdom; but if you do not correspond better than hitherto to the purpose which I have had in choosing you, to kindle in you a light that shines for others, because the gospel cannot remain hidden, but must become manifest, then between you and those to whom the right receptivity for the mysteries of the divine kingdom

[p. 467]

is lacking, there is no great difference, and, notwithstanding the opinion which, as apostles called by me, you may have of yourselves, you are still not my true apostles. Plainly οὐδεὶς δὲ, and so on, verse 26, goes back to what was said in verse 10 of the apostles in their difference from the others, in order to hold before them what according to the idea they are supposed to be, and according to the idea must also be in reality, and thus also to remind them of what they were not yet. The three verses can therefore have only such an antithetical reference to the Twelve, and the correctness of this conception is all the less to be drawn into doubt, since we see the evangelist pursue the same tendency also in the immediately following little narration of the visit of Jesus’ mother and brothers, which in the original Gospel is still more closely attached to what precedes. As already from verses 16–18 the inference is to be drawn that the true disciples of Jesus are only those who hear aright, who understand his words aright, so the same thought is expressed in verses 19–21, only in another form, thus: the true kindred and members of Jesus’ household are οἱ τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ ἀκούοντες καὶ ποιοῦντες. If, now, the evangelist has already in what precedes held such an ἀκούειν before the Twelve only as the idea which they are first to realize in themselves, he here gives still more clearly to understand that for him the Twelve are not without further qualification οἱ τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ ἀκούοντες καὶ ποιοῦντες. This narration too, which in Matthew 12:46–50 stands before the parable of the sower, is taken over from the Gospel of Matthew; the words now missing in our Luke, at Matthew 12:48, τίς ἐστιν ἡ μήτηρ μου, καὶ τίνες εἰσὶν οἱ ἀδελφοί μου; stood originally in the text of the Gospel as well. The more closely, however, the one presentation thus conforms to the other, the more the difference that nevertheless takes place in it must strike one. In Matthew, immediately after those words, it says: καὶ ἐκτείνας τὴν χεῖρα αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ εἶπεν· ἰδοὺ ἡ μήτηρ μου καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοί μου. Ὅστις γὰρ ἂν ποιήσῃ τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πατρός μου ἐν οὐρανοῖς, αὐτός μου ἀδελφὸς καὶ ἀδελφὴ καὶ μήτηρ ἐστίν. In Luke, by contrast, Jesus replies to the report that his mother and his brothers had come and wanted to see him: τίς ἐστιν ἡ μήτηρ μου, καὶ τίνες εἰσὶν οἱ ἀδελφοί μου; μήτηρ μου καὶ ἀδελφοί μου, οὗτοί εἰσιν οἱ τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ ἀκούοντες καὶ ποιοῦντες. What is missing in Luke, then, is precisely that which in Matthew is so significant, that he declares his disciples, as those who do the will of his Father, also to be his true kindred.

[p. 468]

Why, then, has Luke omitted this? For no other ground than only this, that the disciples of whom this is said in Matthew, and of whom alone it could also be understood in Luke, are the Twelve, to whom Luke would not grant such an identity with the mind and the person of Jesus.

Once one has oriented oneself thus far about the tendency of the original Gospel of Luke, the ease with which everything that belongs in the same connection subordinates itself to the same point of view, or the consistency with which the view that has been set up can be carried through, can be regarded only as an evident confirmation of it. This is the case with the three following narrations, which still belong to the same section. They too have their parallels in Matthew (8:23–27, 28–34, 9:18–26), and agree in their content with Matthew’s presentation so exactly that they can in any case be held only for a further execution of the same narrations; and yet what peculiar significance they have already through the connection in which they stand in Luke, and through the features taken up into them! They too depict how little, in the Jewish circle in which Jesus first worked, and even among the disciples immediately surrounding him, the capacity was present to understand and comprehend him, and in general to form a conception of him corresponding to his nature. They are three events in which Jesus showed himself in the whole greatness of his nature: when he stilled the storm on the lake (8:22–25), when he drove the demons out of the possessed Gadarene (26–39), and when he raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead (40–56). But what impression did these acts of wonder make? Their effect is only fear (φοβηθέντες ἐθαύμασαν, verse 25; ἐφοβήθησαν, verse 35; φόβῳ μεγάλῳ συνείχοντο, verse 37), consternation (ἐξέστησαν, verse 56), an uncanny feeling, at which those who are near him are not at ease, for which reason the Gadarenes asked him to depart from them. Even if among individuals, as with Jairus and the woman with the hemorrhage, proofs of faith and trust were not lacking, the reception which he found on the whole was a very unsatisfactory one. One cannot wonder at this, since Jesus here was still wholly within his Jewish sphere of activity. But that even his disciples knew so little how to grasp and understand him, had so little an inkling of his true nature (ἐθαύμασαν λέγοντες πρὸς ἀλλήλους, τίς ἄρα οὗτός ἐστιν, and so on, verse 25), that

[p. 469]

even the three most trusted among them conducted themselves toward him in a manner by which he saw himself moved to send them away from him (verses 53 and 54): this is the chief moment at whose emphasis the whole presentation of our evangelist aims. How else could he have let the three most distinguished among them, in a presentation so divergent from that of Matthew, appear in a situation which seems altogether designed to let an unfavorable light fall upon them? And in this so unfavorable light the coryphaei of the Twelve appear, and in them, therefore, all the Twelve, immediately before Jesus called them together in order to send them out, equipped with power over all demons, for the proclamation of the kingdom of God and for the healing of the sick (9:1f.). One can expect in advance with what success this could happen, and the evangelist has also given this to understand as clearly as was ever possible, without affronting the Twelve too directly, and without setting himself in too openly expressed a hostile opposition to them.¹

On the two sections that now follow, the sending out of the Twelve, and the counterpart, the sending out of the Seventy, the two sections into whose contrast one must above all place oneself in order to gain the chief point of view from which the Gospel history of Luke is altogether to be conceived, there is, since for that very reason they already had to be discussed earlier, nothing to add here, except that the same relation of our Gospel to that of Matthew which results from the investigation so far shows itself in them as well. Luke gives not only the same historical material as Matthew, but on the whole also keeps to the same order followed by Matthew; only he follows it eclectically, since the plan of his composition, as we have already come to know it, brought it about that he at first left lying much that could find its place with him only later, and for that very reason also again and again reached ahead. Thus, therefore, the sending out of the Twelve narrated in Matthew 10:1f. can follow here, 9:1f., only now, in which it shows itself more clearly than anywhere how much he sets aside for his purpose, in order at another

[p. 470]

place to make use of it. Since thus the rest of the content of chapter 10 falls away, chapter 11:1–19 and 12:1–14 have already been used, the further chief content of chapter 12 seemed to fit a later place better, the parable of the sower, Matthew 13:1–23, together with the little section 12:46–50, had likewise already been taken up, and the parable of the weeds and its explanation, together with some smaller parables, Matthew 13:24f., is missing in Luke altogether,¹ his narration now goes on, with the passing over of some smaller pieces placed elsewhere, by the same method, to Matthew chapter 14. Luke 9:7–17 is parallel with Matthew 14:1–21. A greater gap now enters, however, since Luke, skipping everything that stands in Matthew 14:22–16:12, passes at 9:18 at once over to Matthew 16:13f. Since in this gap pieces have dropped out which Luke not only passes over here, but has not taken up at all, one can rightly ask why, if until now he followed his predecessor so methodically, he here all at once let so much of him fall. These omissions, like the earlier ones with regard to the parables of Matthew chapter 13, cannot indeed be fully explained, but yet so far that they not only can ground no objection against the plan of his composition presupposed until now, but rather serve to confirm it. Least of all can the omission of the parables in Matthew chapter 13 be surprising, since it could not be his intention at all to take up the whole content of the Gospel of Matthew into his own. If his Gospel was to be one different from that of Matthew, he also had to pass over some things, which could happen most simply with parables. At the same time it seems not to have lain in his plan to equip the first chief part of his Gospel, up to 9:50, in which chiefly the wonder-working activity of Jesus was to be presented, with a richer didactic content (the parable of the sower too is, after all, taken up only with a definite tendency). The exposition of the didactic content was determined only for the second chief part of the Gospel; here, however, those parables could all the more readily be passed over, since Luke was in a position to replace them with others peculiar to him. But as for the

[p. 471]

narrations missing in Luke from Matthew 14:22 on, in the first, the one concerning Peter, the cause of the absence is to be sought precisely in this, that it refers so specifically to Peter. To be sure, Peter does not yet appear steadfast enough in faith here either, but what is narrated of him is in itself already a great personal distinction, which Luke may have had no special interest in mentioning in his Gospel as well. Besides, this incident, specifically concerning Peter, is so analogous to the adventure on the lake of all the disciples, already narrated by Luke at 8:22, that Luke could for that reason too consider a special mention of it superfluous. Less can the passing over of the section on the washing of hands by the Pharisees, 15:1–20, be explained by a more specific ground; yet Luke could believe that he had already given the quintessence of it by the saying he cites at 6:39, Matthew 15:14. All the more, however, does the omission of the section on the Canaanite woman, 15:21–28, then again explain itself of its own accord. For even if the woman was healed for the sake of her faith, the act itself, by which Jesus let his help come also to a non-Jew, was designated by him too expressly as a mere exception for this to have been able to be in Luke’s sense. Just as little could he take pleasure in a narration in which the Gentiles are called dogs, who have to content themselves with the crumbs that fall from their masters’ tables. That, finally, Luke has left unnoticed the two sections Matthew 15:29–39 and 16:1–4, in which at bottom only what is earlier repeats itself (cf. Matthew 14:14f.; 12:38), and the insignificant piece on the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, Matthew 26:5–12,¹ needs no further remark. If, accordingly, the method presupposed in our evangelist can be justified with regard to these omissions as well, we now see him from 9:18–50 attach himself again all the more closely to Matthew. Verses 18–27 are with Matthew 16:13–28 (only the verses 22 and 23, which concern Peter, have again been left out, however little they speak in Peter’s favor; but as if Luke did not love this particular and personal element at all, he continues at verse 23: ἔλεγε δὲ πρὸς πάντας); verses 28–36 with Matthew 17:1–13; verses 37–45 with Matthew 17:14–23; and verses 46–48 (with the passing over of the likewise

[p. 472]

narrative specifically concerning Peter, of the stater in the mouth of the fish) parallel with Matthew 18:1–4.

With 9:51f. we enter the second main part of the Gospel, or that sphere of it in which the peculiar principle of its composition develops still more clearly and more visibly with respect to its relation to the Gospel of Matthew as well. The author of our Gospel borrows his historical material almost entirely from the Gospel of Matthew; but since his task was to set a Pauline Gospel over against the Judaizing Gospel, he distributes and employs the given material differently. Yet this would by no means have given his Gospel history so thoroughgoing a different form if he had not introduced into the Gospel history, in the seventy disciples, an entirely new factor, through which he could first set himself in a definite opposition to Matthew. Thus it came about that not only were the Seventy set over against the Twelve, but also as much as possible was taken over into the second main part from those sections of the Gospel of Matthew which are parallel to the first main part of the Gospel of Luke, and as it were transplanted from the soil of Jewish Christianity into that of Pauline Christianity, and the second main part was altogether furnished with everything the author was in a position to contribute toward enriching the Gospel history. We see a telling proof of this at once, as has already been shown, both in the instruction discourse appointed for the Seventy and in the discourse with which Jesus received them on their return from their first sending out, chapter 10. How skillfully the author now knows, especially in the latter discourse, to turn to his purpose the passages he had earlier passed over, Matthew 11:25–27 and 13:16–17; and when, immediately afterward, setting out indeed from Matthew 22:35f. but at once taking a freer direction, he inserts two sections (10:30–37 and 38–42) which are among the finest of the pieces peculiar to the Gospel of Luke, we see from this at once his earnest endeavor to make this part of his Gospel the core and center of the Gospel history. In the same connection attention must be drawn especially to the way in which the author, sparing as he was in the first part of his Gospel in communicating the Sermon on the Mount, is now so visibly concerned in the second to make up what had then still been left aside, and, wherever occasion offers, to make use of the sayings contained in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. Of this

[p. 473]

chapter 11 at once supplies several instances. The model prayer, which Matthew 6:9–13 joins to the Sermon on the Mount, Luke inserts at 11:2–4, whereupon, after a short parable peculiar to Luke, the passage from Matthew 7–12 follows at verses 9–13 almost word for word. Further passages from the Sermon on the Mount are 11:33–36, cf. Matthew 5:15; 6:22–23; chapter 12:22–34, cf. Matthew 6:25–34 and 19–21; chapter 12:57–59, cf. Matthew 5:25–26; chapter 13:24–27, cf. Matthew 7:13–22;¹ chapter 14:34–35, cf. Matthew 5:13; chapter 16:13, cf. Matthew 6:24; chapter 16:18, cf. Matthew 5:32. If we take all these passages together with what Luke has already given in chapter 6 as a parallel to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, the essential content of the latter can be regarded as exhausted. The only passages Luke has passed over are those which contain a direct antithetical relation to Pharisaic interpretation of the law and hypocrisy. The polemic of these and similar passages (the anti-Pharisaic passage Matthew 15:1–20 is also missing in Luke), however much it bears in itself the genuinely historical character of Jesus’ activity, may no longer have had the same interest for the evangelist, already standing so far from the opposition to Pharisaic Judaism, as it had for the author of the Gospel of Matthew. He proceeds, accordingly, here too eclectically, however completely he seeks to exhaust the content of the Sermon on the Mount; and while Matthew seeks to bring as much as possible together at one point and to unite it into a whole, Luke has the opposite interest, of dissolving what Matthew has given in the unity of a whole and of distributing its various constituents over various points. In this way pieces of the Sermon on the Mount, now expanded, now compressed, modified in one way or another, and woven into another connection, came to stand here and there. Out of the Sermon on the Mount, in the form it has in Matthew, something formally different has come to be; materially it is entirely the same. And already the lack of connection in many passages in Luke into which sayings from the Sermon on the Mount have been inserted, as notably at 11:33f., the natural consequence of such a procedure, can give the proof of how little ground there is for the opinion that what Matthew put together for the purpose of his arrangement of the material Luke gives at the definite historical occasions on which it was spoken by Jesus. If one is, in itself, already not justified in this assumption, which rests only on this, that

[p. 474]

Matthew has evidently put together what originally did not belong together, then there can be still less question of it as soon as, through the closer investigation of the character of the Gospel of Luke, one has convinced oneself of the interest from which the whole plan of its composition has proceeded. One must therefore also not let oneself be misled by the historical remarks with which Luke introduces discourses of Jesus that correspond to individual parts of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, so as even to found upon them, as has been done by Schleiermacher, the advantage of eyewitness status for Luke over against Matthew. It does, to be sure, sound apparently very historical when he states, for example, the occasion on which Jesus gave the model prayer, as he does at 11:1: καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ προσευχόμενον, ὡς ἐπαύσατο, εἶπέ τις τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ πρὸς αὐτόν· κύριε, δίδαξον ἡμᾶς προσεύχεσθαι, καθὼς καὶ Ἰωάννης ἐδίδαξε τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ. How little such introductions may be taken as a genuinely historical notice is shown by comparison with other, similarly sounding formulas, of which one sees clearly enough that they come only from a reflection of the evangelist upon the content of the discourses of Jesus introduced by them. Cf. 11:37–38; 14:1; 15:1; 18:1, 9; 21:5.¹ All this, accordingly, cannot ground the slightest objection to the correctness of what has already emerged for us, from the comparison with the Gospel of Matthew, as what is peculiar to the method and composition of our Gospel. It is only the peculiar manner in which the evangelist has carried out in detail the plan drafted for the layout and shaping of his Gospel as a whole. Since we are thus in no way justified in the assumption that the differences of our Gospel from that of Matthew rest on a historical ground, we can, in its relation to the latter, in the way in which it works up for its purpose the historical material taken from it, only trace the tendency which underlies it altogether.

The further content of our Gospel, from chapter 11:14 to the beginning of the passion narrative, shows the same dependence on the Gospel of Matthew, except that larger pieces peculiar to Luke are now inserted. Chapter 11:14–29 is taken, as to its main content, from Matthew 12:22–45, except that the passage dealing with the sin against the Holy Spirit

[p. 475]

which the Pauline author perhaps did not quite know how to bring into harmony with the Pauline doctrine of the forgiveness of sins, has been omitted, the demand for a sign is only briefly touched, and the blessing utterance of a woman, verse 27, has been taken up as an addition of his own. If this section is followed at once, after the clumsy insertion from the Sermon on the Mount, verses 33–36, by the anti-Pharisaic discourse of Jesus taken in the main from Matthew 23, this has evidently happened only because of the kinship of the content; and there can, as has been aptly shown by Strauss, and as is also acknowledged by de Wette, be no doubt that the historical probability is in favor of the later position of the discourse in Matthew. What follows, chapter 12, is in any case throughout a compilation from Matthew. Cf., for verses 1–12, Matthew 16:6–12 and 10:26–33, 19f.; for verses 22–34, Matthew 6:25–34 and 19–31; for verses 39–46, Matthew 24:43–51; for 49–53, Matthew 10:34–36; for 54–59, Matthew 16:2f.; 5:25f. Peculiar to Luke here are only verses 13–21, verses 35–38 (though alluding to Matthew 24:42 and the parable of the ten virgins), and verses 47 and 48. It is the same with chapter 13, which in the original Gospel did not have the beginning, verses 1–9, and the conclusion, verses 29–35. The Sabbath healing, verses 10–17, is a narrative peculiar to Luke; the rest, however, with the exception of the two verses 22 and 23, apparently inserted for the sake of historical progress, is from Matthew 13:31f. and 7:13f. Chapter 14, in the section verses 1–14, is, as in the related 11:37f., what Luke believed he had to take into his Gospel from the anti-Pharisaic discourses in Matthew, especially chapter 23, worked up more freely and, in a manner entirely his own (as at 11:37), cast into the form of a Pharisaic banquet. The parable of the banquet, verses 15–24, is parallel with Matthew 22:1–14, and differs from the form in which Matthew gives it only by the trait already noted, which betrays the Pauline tendency of our evangelist. What follows, verses 25–35, also contains, besides what is peculiar, verses 28–33, several sayings from Matthew (10:37f. and 5:13). With chapter 15, by contrast (although the parable of the prodigal son, which follows next, does not belong to the original Luke), we now enter that section of our Gospel in which its author has brought together a series of parables, in part very characteristic, which we owe to him alone (chapters 15–18:14). Chapter 17 also, which interrupts the series of these parables, gives, in

[p. 476]

the discourses and narratives it contains, for the most part material of his own. Only verses 1–4 have their parallel in Matthew 18:6f., 15, 21, and verse 5 in Matthew 17:20, cf. 21, and verses 26–30 in Matthew 24:37–39, verse 31 in Matthew 24:17, verse 33 in Matthew 10:39, and verse 34 in Matthew 24:40–41, verse 35 in Matthew 24:28. All the more, however, after such an expenditure from his own resources, does he turn back to his old source. Passing over the section on divorce and celibacy, Matthew 19:1–12, which, as it seems, has been left out of account as a piece belonging to the polemic against the Pharisees, chapter 18:15–17 follows from Matthew 19:13–15 and 18:3–6; verses 18–27 from Matthew 19:16–26; verses 28–30 from Matthew 19:27–30 (whereby, as at Luke 22:30, the Jewish image of sitting on twelve thrones and judging the twelve tribes of Israel is omitted). Passing over the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, the announcement of the death, which did not stand in the original Luke, and the request of the sons of Zebedee and of their mother, there is taken from Matthew chapter 20 only the narrative of the healing of the blind man at Jericho (Matthew 20:29–34), at 18:35–43. In the following chapter 19 there seems to be a more significant deviation. Not only does Luke here again insert a piece of his own in the narrative of Zacchaeus, 19:1–10 (only verse 10 is from Matthew 18:11; 15:24), but in the parable that then attaches itself, 11–27, he also reaches forward at once as far as chapter 25 of Matthew. Yet this very passage shows clearly how our evangelist, even where he deviates from Matthew, is still always guided by regard for his predecessor. Since in the original Luke the section on Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, Luke 19:29f., parallel to Matthew 21:1f., was missing, the parable inserted here from Matthew 25:14–30, but considerably modified, has been taken up only for this reason: in order to demonstrate by it, as has already been shown, in opposition to Matthew, the incompatibility of the entry scene with Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God. After Jesus, according to the presentation of our evangelist, has thus come to Jerusalem without that scene, he turns at once back to the place where he had left Matthew. 19:47 is parallel with Matthew 21:23, and the section that follows in Luke 20:1–8 is borrowed entirely from Matthew 21:23–27. To this there attaches itself, since the original Luke did not yet have the parable 20:9–18, parallel to Matthew 21:33–44, and the further parable, Matthew 22:1–14, had already found its place at Luke 14:15–24,

[p. 477]

verses 20–26 immediately to Matthew 22:15–22, and verses 27–40 to Matthew 22:23–33. Likewise 20:41–44 is from Matthew 22:41–46, and 20:45–47 is parallel with Matthew 23:1–12. Entirely on the analogy of the passages compared so far, finally, after the short narrative, peculiar to Luke, of the widow and her mite, 21:1–4, the eschatological discourse 21:5–36 forms the close of the section before us, and it likewise can be held only for an imitation of the parallel discourse in Matthew chapter 24. The essential content is entirely the same, and the more striking deviations point us only to the peculiar standpoint of the later author. Attention is drawn especially to the fact that Luke, verses 12f., in contradiction to Matthew, places the persecutions of the Christians earlier, before the wars and devastations, verses 1–11, and it is inferred from this that at the time when he wrote, those (namely the persecutions of Acts 7 and 8, and the Neronian) had indeed already occurred, but these had not yet. How can one assert this, however, since, if Luke, as is after all assumed fairly generally, wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem, the wars and devastations meant here must already have occurred then as well? One ought here to attend more exactly to the interest the author had in not only bringing these persecutions forward with greater emphasis than has been done by Matthew, but also in expressly placing them in the time before the destruction of Jerusalem. He wants to claim quite especially for his apostle Paul what Jesus had predicted concerning their future persecutions, by no means only of the Twelve, but at least equally of the Seventy. Of him it held true before all others that he was delivered up εἰς συναγωγὰς καὶ φυλακάς (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:23) and led before βασιλεῖς καὶ ἡγεμόνας; and if, as is not without ground remarked, the ἀποβήσεται ὑμῖν εἰς μαρτύριον of verse 13, in comparison with Matthew 10:18 and 24:14, is an alteration made according to the view and the usage of the later time, who had a more decided claim to make to this glory of martyrdom than the apostle Paul? That, while Matthew as it were shrinks from uttering the βδέλυγμα ἐρημώσεως in plain words, Luke speaks so undisguisedly of the conquest and destruction of Jerusalem, likewise permits the inference of a Pauline writer already standing further from the event and viewing it with more indifferent eyes. He states it outright, after all, that the destruction of Jerusalem and the leading away of the Jews into captivity and their dispersion

[p. 478]

among all nations is a penal judgment upon the Jewish people (verse 23). Already the definiteness of the expressions in which all these events are spoken of shows that the author looks upon them as facts already wholly completed. In the same connection the noteworthy determination in verse 24 also comes into consideration: Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. This too is a trait by which, for all the identity of the matter, Luke’s presentation differs from that of Matthew, since the latter has at the same place rather its much-discussed εὐθέως. Whether or not one thinks, at those words, of the πλήρωμα τῶν ἐθνῶν (Romans 11:25), their sense is in any case that Jerusalem will stand for a definite period of longer duration under Gentile or Roman dominion; and it is accordingly to be seen clearly from them that the author of our Gospel lived in a time in which one was already compelled to separate the destruction of Jerusalem and the Parousia of Christ, and to hold them ever further apart, since in reality they did not stand in so immediate a connection as one would suppose from the eschatological discourse in Matthew. A longer span of time must already have elapsed since the destruction of Jerusalem without the expectation of the Parousia of Christ having been fulfilled. If, however, the failure of the Parousia of Christ to occur, already a fact even then, nevertheless does not keep the evangelist from having Jesus prophesy his Parousia with all definiteness for the next generation, verse 32, in entirely the same words that are found in the same discourse in Matthew (cf. also Luke 9:27 and Matthew 16:28), from what else can this be explained than from the dependence of our writer on the authority of a source which, according to the results of the investigation so far and in accordance with the verbal agreement with the parallel passage, can only have been our Gospel of Matthew?¹

[p. 479]

A relation of the two Gospels such as the one demonstrated so far cannot be explained merely from the presupposition that both have drawn independently of one another from the Gospel tradition, so that one could still be in doubt only as to on which side, in those cases in which the two differ from one another, the greater probability of the historical motivation is to be assumed, and, according to the nature of the circumstances, would have to grant the right now to the one, now to the other.¹ In the whole way in which the Gospel of Luke both attaches itself to the Gospel of Matthew and deviates from it, modifies what it has in common with it now in one way, now in another, and yet, forward and backward, always holds fast again to the same main thread, there is too much consistency and method, too great an agreement in the whole, both in formal and in material respect, for one not to be compelled to the assumption that the source to which this relation of kinship is to be traced back is none other than our Gospel of Matthew. When, therefore, Ritschl, with reference to de Wette, closes his investigation with the result (p. 276) that it is safest to let fall a hypothesis which also contributes nothing to the explanation of the peculiarities of the third Gospel, and that the basic stock of the latter is to be derived only from tradition, since marks of source writings are not to be found, I must contradict this assertion quite definitely. Already

[p. 480]

de Wette, from his standpoint, had grounds for explaining to himself the relation of the two Gospels in this way: “Very naturally the assumption presents itself that Luke took over his plan from Matthew, whose Gospel he had before his eyes, and this assumption is supported by several traces of dependence, or at any rate of a lack of originality, in the detail of the narrative or redaction in Luke; the Sermon on the Mount, Luke 6:20, is a distorted image of the one in Matthew, and the later position of it, reckoned an advantage to the third evangelist, together with the selection of the Twelve connected with that, is nothing but the fruit of his arbitrary pragmatism; as with that great connected discourse, so it is with the discourse Luke 17:1–4, whose structure is explicable only from Matthew 18:1f., 6f., 15f.; false echoes of Matthew 20:20f. are contained in the piece Luke 22:23–30, which is besides evidently wrongly placed, and so on.” All these and other points, then, receive yet an entirely different significance under the point of view under which they must be placed on the ground of the present investigation. It is simply impossible, in a Gospel that pursues so definite a tendency, to regard the Sermon on the Mount, in the form it has here, as only a pure result of tradition; and if, for all that, one cannot deny that the evangelist also knew from tradition the section which in Matthew is the main thing, but which he passed over for known reasons, it is only a matter of taking, in the further and more general significance that emerges from the deeper investigation of the layout and tendency of our Gospel, the same interest that determined him to omit so characteristic a section. What weight can objections then still have, such as the one made by Ritschl with reference to Luke 17:1–4? Had our evangelist known the text in Matthew, it would rather, so the objection runs, be incomprehensible that he tore those gnomes out so singly and did not take up Matthew’s well-connected presentation; the wording of those isolated gnomes in Luke is rather said to be an evident mark of the independence of his treatment from that of his predecessor. Here too it is nothing other than the same eclectic and, for that very reason, also epitomizing procedure which the evangelist follows elsewhere as well. Cf., for example, Luke 8:16–18; 11:33–36; 14:34–35; 16:18; 22:21–30.

On the last section, concerning the passion and resurrection narrative, only a few remarks may stand here. The relation in which the

[p. 481]

Gospel of Luke, in its report of the institution of the Supper, stands to the passage in the First Letter to the Corinthians in which the apostle likewise speaks of the institution of the Supper has always been found very noteworthy.