Chapter IV. The discourses of Jesus in Ur-Luke

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Chapter IV. The Discourses of Jesus in Ur-Luke.

After we have gained insight into the original form, the dogmatic tendency, and the pragmatic design of our Gospel, it will be possible to answer the question of the credibility of its contents with greater certainty than has hitherto been the case. On this point too, the method to be applied will be comparison with Matthew, which, since the Gospel of Mark lacks independence and that of John offers almost no points of contact at all, is the only rival of our Gospel. Yet we restrict ourselves, as has been said, to an investigation of the coherence and the credibility of the discourses, partly because these have hitherto for the most part been neglected, partly because the interpolations in the discourses were bound to make the judgment upon them more difficult and to distort it. By contrast, we can the more readily pass over the assessment of purely historical situations in the Gospel, as these have not been altered by interpolations, and have found their full treatment in the writings on the life of Jesus.

In the synoptic comparison of the two Gospels it strikes the eye that, while Matthew in several cases transmits extended discourses of Jesus, in Luke the content of the same is distributed among different places and different occasions. It is indeed also the case with Matthew that he transmits smaller groups of discourse, partly with a definite occasion and partly without one. And so one has from the outset no ground for harboring distrust of the original character of the longer discourses, as though they had proceeded from a literary manner of the evangelist. Nevertheless, the observation that a sufficient coherence of thought does not prevail in them throughout was bound to call forth the view that the composition of the discourses

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derives rather from the writer, and to encourage the prejudice which Schleiermacher in particular entertained, as though the historical notices with which Luke introduced discourses of Jesus that correspond to individual parts of those great Matthean ones rested entirely on eyewitness testimony. Among these introductory formulas, however, there are some which one sees plainly to derive rather only from the evangelist’s reflection upon the content of the discourses introduced by them. This is the case with Luke 18:9: εἶπε δὲ καὶ πρός τινας τοὺς πεποιθότας ἐφ᾿ ἑαυτοῖς, ὅτι εἰσὶ δίκαιοι καὶ ἐξουθενοῦντας τοὺς λοιποὺς, τὴν παραβολὴν ταύτην [And he spoke also to some who trusted in themselves that they are righteous and who despised the rest, this parable], whereupon follows the parable of the Samaritan and the tax collector, of whom precisely the former represents such a person as those to whom, according to the superscription, the parable is supposed to have been directed. If one compares that formula with the superscription in Luke 18:1 (ἔλεγε δὲ καὶ παραβολὴν αὐτοῖς πρὸς τὸ δεῖν πάντοτε προςεύχεσθαι καὶ μὴ ἐκκακεῖν [And he also told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart]), which of course derives from the evangelist without any doubt, the difference, that the formula first mentioned contains a historical situation, cannot, given the similarity that in both an indication of the content of what follows is present, be given any particular weight. Rather, that formula too, which is in itself too indefinite to be able to be rooted in the tradition, will have to be set down to the evangelist’s account. Likewise the formula in Luke 15:1 (ἦσαν δὲ ἐγγίζοντες αὐτῷ πάντες οἱ τελῶναι καὶ οἱ ἁμαρτωλοὶ, ἀκούειν αὐτοῦ [And all the tax collectors and the sinners were drawing near to him, to hear him]), which in its exaggeration, and in the indefiniteness bound up with that exaggeration, has no claim to historical value, has evidently been called forth only by the following sentence: καὶ διεγόγγυζον οἱ φαρισαῖοι καὶ οἱ γραμματεῖς, λέγοντες· ὅτι οὗτος ἁμαρτωλοὺς προςδέχεται καὶ συνεσθίει αὐτοῖς [And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling, saying: This man receives sinners and eats with them]. But for this formula too, which at Luke 5:30 is properly motivated, there is here no ground; rather, it is placed in front only because the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin which now follow contain the same thought with which Jesus otherwise repels that charge (οὐκ ἐλήλυθα καλέσαι δικαίους ἀλλὰ ἁμαρτωλοὺς εἰς μετάνοιαν [I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance]. Luke 5:32). Likewise the formula is: συνεπορεύοντο

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δὲ αὐτῷ οχλοι πολλοὶ, καὶ στραφεὶς εἶπε πρὸς αὐτούς [And many crowds were going along with him, and he turned and said to them] (Luke 14:25), only a projection of the following discourse of Jesus, which begins with the words εἴ τις ἔρχεται πρός με [if anyone comes to me]. For that notice is too general and indefinite, and seems to have been called forth only by the fact that the beginning of Jesus’s words must refer to something like a πορεύεσθαι [going]. But we shall probably not be mistaken if we find still other formulas suspect as well, formulas which contain more definite and more characteristic situations, despite their historical appearance, as reflections of the evangelist upon the occasions of discourses of Jesus. To these belong Luke 7:21: ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ ὥρᾳ ἐθεράπευσε πολλοὺς ἀπὸ νόσων καὶ μαστίγων καὶ πνευμάτων πονηρῶν καὶ τυφλοῖς πολλοῖς ἐχαρίσατο τὸ βλέπειν [In that very hour he healed many of diseases and torments and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight], as a factual presupposition for the following words of Jesus to the disciples of John. This notice betrays, by its incidental insertion, that it derives only from the evangelist, who was anxiously concerned for the truthfulness of Jesus’s words.¹ Further, Luke 17:11: καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ πορεύεσθαι αὐτὸν εἰς Ἱερουσαλήμ, καὶ αὐτὸς διήρχετο διὰ μέσου Σαμαρείας καὶ Γαλιλαίας [And it came to pass, as he was going to Jerusalem, that he himself was passing through the midst of Samaria and Galilee], in explanation of the narrative of the ten lepers, among whom there was a Samaritan;² Luke 11:1: καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ προςευχόμενον, ὡς ἐπαύσατο, εἶπέ τις τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ πρὸς αὐτὸν· κύριε, δίδαξον ἡμᾶς προςεύχεσθαι καθὼς καὶ Ἰωάννης ἐδίδαξε τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ [And it came to pass, while he was praying in a certain place, when he stopped, that one of his disciples said to him: Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples], as an introduction to the model prayer;³ Luke 11:37, 38: ἐν δὲ τῷ λαλῆσαι ἠρώτα αὐτὸν φαρισαῖός τις, ὅπως ἀριστήσῃ παρ᾿ αὐτῷ, εἰςελθών δὲ ἀνέπεσεν· ὁ δὲ φαρισαῖος ἰδὼν ἐθαύμασεν ὅτι οὐ πρῶτον ἐβαπτίσθη πρὸ τοῦ ἀρίστου [And while he was speaking, a certain Pharisee asked him to dine with him; and he went in and reclined. And the Pharisee, seeing it, was amazed that he had not first washed before the meal], to which is joined the discourse of rebuke against the Pharisees, in which, right at the beginning, of their exactness in keeping the vessels for meals clean account is taken.

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⁴ Luke 14:1: καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ ἐλθεῖν αὐτὸν εἰς οἶκόν τινος τῶν ἀρχόντων τῶν φαρισαίων σαββάτῳ φαγεῖν ἄρτον [And it came to pass, when he went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees on a Sabbath to eat bread], whereupon a Sabbath healing and discourses about the modesty to be observed at the meal follow;⁵ Luke 21:5: καί τινων λεγόντων περὶ τοῦ ἱεροῦ, ὅτι λίθοις καλοῖς καὶ ἀναθήμασι κεκόσμηται [And as some were speaking of the temple, that it has been adorned with beautiful stones and votive offerings], whereby Jesus’s eschatological discourse is called forth. The definiteness of the remark of the τινές [certain people] is offset by this very designation. The list of these passages could still be increased by a few, yet these do not have so plainly the character of those just indicated, of which some may probably also be assessed differently from the way it has been done by us. But such a difference of judgment on individual points will not overturn the result, that the evangelist’s introductory formulas do not of themselves suffice to prove the more correct placement of the discourses in Luke as against Matthew. For the characterization of the evangelist, by contrast, this manner of introducing the discourses is to be held fast as an essential point, to which there attaches besides the way in which he mediates transitions of the discourse by intervening questions of the hearers. Such questions occur in Luke 11:27, 45; 12:41; 14:15; 17,

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5, 37; whereas in other cases the taking up of a new thought occurs only, say, through an ἔλεγε δὲ [and he said] or something similar (Luke 11:9; 21:10, 29; 6:27, 39). If, then, the author has in general the habit of marking off sections of thought in the discourses, and otherwise too does not scruple to feign individual introductory questions, we shall, in the cases where both appear combined, be unable to avoid perceiving his hand. We cannot, therefore, as was done by Schleiermacher and Sieffert,⁶ ground upon the more vivid introduction of the discourses in Luke the prejudice that his account of the discourses deserves the preference over Matthew. Rather, only by comparing their internal coherence with the purpose which is to be presupposed therein, and by taking into account the party tendencies of the evangelist that may come into play, and the circumstances of the time at which his writing originated, will one be able to arrive at a reasonably secure judgment.

The Sermon on the Mount in Luke (Luke 6:20–49) is declared by the preponderant number of critics to be an extract in relation to the Sermon on the Mount transmitted by Matthew, and this even by those who are of the opinion that Matthew has worked into one another, within it, many elements of discourse that were originally not connected. Only by a few critics, such as Sieffert and Schneckenburger, has the original character of the Lukan redaction, as against the Matthean, been presupposed rather than proved, in order from that point to demonstrate the inauthenticity of the latter; and the same thing has been asserted by Wilke,⁷ but only on insufficient grounds, since he has overlooked various traces of the lacking coherence in the Lukan Sermon on the Mount. The question now is, by what it is to be decided that the Lukan redaction is only an extract of the Matthean. This cannot refer to all the statements which Luke

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has not transmitted in relation to Matthew. For by this the absolute authenticity of the Matthean Sermon on the Mount would be presupposed, which, however, is rendered doubtful by the fact that a continuous coherence is missed in it, and it must rather be maintained that from Matthew 6:19 on the individual thoughts are no longer connected,⁸ and that a quantity of individual sayings which are ranked into the Matthean Sermon on the Mount stand in Luke at other places. For that Jesus spoke the same sayings on different occasions, and that the different evangelists have accordingly preserved the same sayings at other places, is not to be assumed, since we have seen how slight is the value of those occasions of the discourses which Luke transmits, from which it follows that the tradition from which both nevertheless drew has preserved precisely only the discourses of Jesus, and not the knowledge of their occasions. For however probable it is in itself that Jesus applied the same saying more often, it is nevertheless natural that the saying has been preserved in the tradition only as a saying, without a mark of its repetition having remained for us together with the preservation of the various occasions. Only when the same evangelist transmits such repetitions can we place confidence in them; but in order to ground the assumption of repetitions of the same saying by Jesus upon the different reports of two evangelists, the harmonistic treatment of the Gospels would have to have more right than it actually has. Further, however, the testimony against the authenticity of the Matthean Sermon on the Mount which proceeds from the lack of coherence attaching to it is not to be set aside by one’s also explaining it as only an extract of the actual discourse of Jesus, and therefore holding it permissible, where coherence is lacking, to supply intermediate links.⁹ For it is improbable that a collection of sayings and teachings so diverse, as such,

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should have been preserved in the tradition; and the assumption of an early recording, which Tholuck calls in to his aid,¹⁰ contains, as a pure hypothesis, rather the admission of the impossibility of that view. And besides, the manner of Matthew, acknowledged by Tholuck on other points as well, of assembling all sorts of things, must also furnish a standard for the assessment of the Sermon on the Mount. If, then, Luke’s report is not already full of lacunae on the ground that it is shorter than Matthew’s, its epitomizing character can be recognized only from whatever lack of coherence there may be, and from the fact that some things which Matthew has, and Luke does not, contradict Luke’s dogmatic tendency. Now the evangelist is supposed to make that lack of coherence noticeable himself, by indicating lacunae at two places (ἀλλὰ ὑμῖν λέγω [But I say to you], v. 27; and εἶπε δὲ παραβολὴν αὐτοῖς [And he told them a parable], v. 39).¹¹ The former formula can indeed not be supposed to serve to inculcate the duty of love toward enemies, in contrast to what precedes, for shortly beforehand the case is in fact set, ὅταν καλῶς ὑμᾶς εἴπωσιν πάντες οἱ ἄνθρωποι [when all men speak well of you] (v. 26), in which, however, the subject is not, as De Wette seems to assume, the suffering of Christians. Rather, the formula sets the ὑμεῖς ἀκούοντες [you who are listening] over against the ὑμεῖς [you] who in the beatitudes are feigned as the persons addressed, among whom, therefore, none of the hearers is directly to be understood. Although, then, there lies no grammatical obstacle in the connection of verse 27, one nevertheless misses a thought which mediated between the opening of the discourse and the teachings that follow. In Matthew we have at this place Jesus’s declaration that he is not minded to teach disregard of the Mosaic law, but that he intends to preserve it and to complete it, since the Pharisaic observance of the law does not correspond at all to its purpose, whereupon it is shown at once, in a series of Mosaic laws, how, instead of

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their letter and of the rabbinic interpretation, their spiritual, deeper form is to hold good (Matthew 5:20–48; 6:16–18). “That this section, in the order and completeness in which we read it in Matthew, is lacking in the Sermon on the Mount of Luke is a decided sign that this latter has lacunae. For in the same section the fundamental thought not only of the discourse as Matthew has it is stated, but the scattered utterances about love of enemies, readiness to reconcile, and beneficence which Luke gives also find their definite sense and their point of unity only in the contrast between Jesus’s spiritual interpretation of Scripture and the carnal interpretation of the teachers of that time.”¹² Since, then, this section of Matthew is necessary in the context, as is further evident from the fact that Luke brings forward almost nothing at all of its content at other places,¹³ it is to be assumed that Luke intentionally omitted the section, which must surely have been known to him. What induced him to this was now his dogmatic view, that the law and the prophets have reached their end with John (Luke 16:16), and that Jesus is therefore to be regarded as the one who came not for the preservation, but for the abolition, of the law. If, then, he did not want to contradict his principle outright, he could not take up into his writing passages such as Matthew 5:17, 18 and the whole subsequent completion of the law grounded upon them. He therefore retained only the sayings which, in Matthew too, at the

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close of the whole deduction about the law, represent the spirit of the new economy in the most paradoxical and therefore the most striking way: namely, the commandment of self-denial in relation to enemies, to the needy, and to the guilty. The order, which is not perfect, in which these statements (vv. 27–38) are presented — since in verse 35 the thought of verse 27 returns, and verse 31 would stand better after verse 37 — is indeed to be laid to the writer’s charge. Without prejudice to the fidelity which is to be required of him, he could have lent a more exact sequence of thought to the statements transmitted to him in disorder. But the imperfect order proves at the same time that the order which the presentation in Matthew has derives in some measure from the author himself, since one will not be permitted to credit the tradition with such exactness. In the following section of the Sermon on the Mount in Luke (vv. 39–49) there is now, apart from the peroratio [peroration] (vv. 47–49) which agrees with Matthew 7:24–27, in the judgment of impartial interpreters, only confusion and false reminiscences. That in v. 40 the proverb is used in a sense other than at Matthew 10:24, where it is supposed to explain the persecutions that await the disciples, can indeed ground no charge; but it must strike one that vv. 41, 42, and then vv. 43–45, and lastly v. 46, stand quite disconnectedly beside one another. This observation must ground the worst prejudice against the skill of the writer, and at the same time also awaken distrust of the historical value of what he transmits. Here, however, a much more favorable view of the matter can be brought about by a slight conjecture. For if one exchanges the position of vv. 39, 40 with that of vv. 41, 42, not only does the censure of speck-judging, of hypocritical judging, attach itself, as an appropriate expansion, to the prohibition of judging in general — as the two are indeed also placed together at Matthew 7:1–5 — but the parable in vv. 39, 40 also gains its appropriate place. One cannot do otherwise than understand the Pharisees by the blind man, whose mention in this form cannot be striking here,

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because in the part of the Sermon on the Mount which Luke passes over in silence an open polemic has been conducted against their false righteousness. The sense of the comparison in our passage is then, briefly, this: that their teaching plunges them themselves and their disciples into ruin; and for this sentence a quite fitting proof would lie in the sentence next to be attached: οὐ γὰρ ἐστι δένδρον καλὸν ποιοῦν καρπὸν σαπρόν etc. (v. 43) [for there is no good tree producing bad fruit].¹⁴ If the connection of that parable, in the position proposed, is thus secured in the forward direction, then in relation to what, according to our conjecture, precedes — namely the warning against mote-judging — there is also a not unsuitable connection of thought. For that kind of petty, hypocritical judging did indeed take place among the Pharisees and the teachers of the law; and since they practiced it precisely as teachers and leaders of the people, the transition is easy to charging them with blindness in respect of this business. Now, the sentence τί δέ με καλεῖτε κύριε, κύριε· καὶ οὐ ποιεῖτε ἃ λέγω (v. 46) [Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?] does, to be sure, still stand fairly disconnected. For even though here too it follows upon the same thoughts as in Matthew (7:16–21), its form is nevertheless too stiff to permit a precise attachment to what precedes. From this, however, in comparison with Matthew, it follows only once more that the author of our Gospel has been less concerned than the former

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with rounding off the form. For the conclusion, in which those are presented who hear Jesus, and therefore acknowledge him, but at the same time also do as he commands, stands in an evident adversative relation to v. 46. Therefore, even if one must give up finding for this sentence a fitting logical connection with what precedes, the comparison with the Matthean parallel nevertheless proves its original character in this connection. The connection of the Sermon on the Mount accordingly takes this shape: upon the positive and negative presentation of the highest duty, self-denial, there follows a polemic against the Pharisees as blind guides, and to this, by the mediation of the case in which only an outward obedience would be rendered to Jesus, an emphatic commendation of true inward obedience attaches itself. In order to ground the conjecture by whose help we have gained this, on the whole, satisfactory overall view, I should not wish to resort to a subjective pragmatism [Translator’s note: Pragmatismus here is nineteenth-century causal and purposive historical narration, not philosophical pragmatism], to the effect that an oversight of the copyist is to blame for the transposition, or that the author first forgot vv. 41, 42 and then supplied them afterward. Rather, the disorder in the sequence of thoughts may in this case, just as in the middle section of the discourse, have arisen in the tradition and been propagated there, and the writer may have shrunk from violating and altering the hallowed form in any way. After all this, the application of that conception of an “extract” to the Lukan Sermon on the Mount is to be modified to this effect: that all references to the Mosaic law have been excluded, thus in particular Matthew 5:17–6:8, and further 6:16–18, although they must have been spoken by Jesus. The remaining elements of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, however, which cohere only loosely, and against which Luke could entertain no dogmatic prejudice, because he adduces almost all of them at other places, will have been foreign to the original connection of the Sermon on the Mount, and have been woven into it only by the writer.

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There remains only the consideration of the beatitudes which introduce the discourse. Their presentation in Matthew and in Luke is distinguished by this: that the former has eight beatitudes, whereas the latter has only four of them, beside which he places four precisely corresponding woes; and further, that the former has blessedness promised only to those who distinguish themselves by spiritual and moral quality, while in Luke the same blessedness is made dependent on the apparently morally indifferent conditions of poverty, of hunger, of pain, and of the endurance of hatred. The question is which redaction is to be held the more original. First, the woes in Luke are subject to the suspicion of inauthenticity, since they are modeled on the beatitudes with so painful an exactness that it has not unjustly been charged against the fourth of them (οὐαὶ, ὅταν καλῶς ὑμᾶς εἴπωσι πάντες οἱ ἄνθρωποι. κατὰ ταὐτὰ γὰρ ἐποίουν τοῖς ψευδοπροφήταις οἱ πατέρες αὐτῶν [Woe, when all men speak well of you. For according to the same things their fathers acted toward the false prophets], v. 26) that it presupposes something thoroughly incorrect,¹⁵ the next consequence of which was that all four sentences were declared to be an accretion of the evangelist.¹⁶ Since, however, in the remaining parts of the discourse we have missed an intervention of the writer rather than noticed one, it is probably more likely here too that the vitality of the tradition added the woes,¹⁷ whose original character is decidedly suspect through their absence in Matthew. The divergence in the beatitudes between Luke and Matthew, then, will also not be derivable from a false conception on the part of the former, who, as De Wette

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thinks, would have altered the sentences from a later standpoint,¹⁸ but we shall have to find this form too grounded in the tradition independent of the writer. The thought contained in them, that the poor in this world are for that reason to be compensated by blessedness in the other world, and that the rich, on account of the wealth enjoyed here, are to forfeit future blessedness in the divine kingdom, is by no means isolated in this passage. It repeats itself in the parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus, in the form that the rich man is to suffer torment in the hereafter because he has lived in prosperity in this life (Luke 16:25); further, though somewhat weakened, in the words of Jesus: πῶς δυςκόλως οἱ τὰ χρήματα ἔχοντες εἰςελεύσονται εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ (Luke 18:24) [How hardly shall those who have riches enter into the kingdom of God]. But the words which follow immediately upon this set the principle up again without restriction: εὐκοπώτερον γάρ ἐστι, κάμηλον διὰ τρυμαλιᾶς ῥαφίδος εἰςελθεῖν ἢ πλούσιον εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ εἰςελθεῖν (v. 25; cf. Matthew 19:23, 24) [For it is easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God]. In accordance with this principle, the duty of rather giving up one’s property and becoming poor is then especially inculcated (Matthew 19:21; Luke 11:41; 18:22). Strauss has therefore rightly compared with our passage the teaching of the Clementines,¹⁹ which set up the principle: ἡμεῖς οἱ ἑλόμενοι τὰ ἐσόμενα, ἃ κεκτήμεθα πλείονα — ἁμαρτίας κεκτήμεθα, διὰ τὸ δεῖν μηδὲν ἔχειν. — πᾶσι τὰ κτήματα ἁμαρτήματα· ἡ τούτων ὅπως ποτε στέρησις ἁμαρτιῶν ἐστιν διαίρεσις (Hom. 15.9) [We who have chosen the things to come, whatever more we possess — we possess sins, because one must possess nothing. — For all, possessions are sins; the deprivation of these, in whatever way, is a division of sins]. This conception, so striking, is not to be explained away out of the Gospels, and is not to be regarded merely as a favorite opinion of Luke, since it is found in Matthew as well (cf. Matthew 6:19 ff.). Naturally it is not to be understood as though, through the religious authorization of poverty and the rejection of wealth, moral worthiness or unworthiness were excluded; rather, poverty evidently counts only as an outward sign of piety, and wealth, by contrast, as a mark of godlessness. This immediate

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identification of poverty with piety and of wealth with moral ruin is rooted in the Jewish postulate of an absolute correspondence between fate and inner worth, but is distinguished from the original form of this belief, that it must go well here for the good, by the complete reversal of this relationship. This is connected with the break and the reversal of Hebrew consciousness, which had to transfer its hope from earth to heaven and therefore had to reverse outright the standard of moral worthiness, because the original theodicy would not come to fulfillment. But in this Jewish consciousness remained the same: that it nevertheless postulated that fate and merit must coincide, and that the former must furnish the standard for the latter. Only on earth was everything reversed; only in heaven was the true and right condition to be introduced, which the original hope had striven for on earth in vain. Therefore the pious are poor here, and are simply designated as the poor, but in truth they are the rich, who are really to become so in the hereafter; and the godless, who are rich here, will find in the hereafter the misery they have deserved. This view, so one-sided in its boldness and harshness, was of course bound to find its refutation in the experience of reality, in which piety is just as little always joined with poverty as well-being is with worthiness. Therefore the cautious and judicious Mark, in the parallel passage to Matthew 19:16 and Luke 18:18, has added the following to the saying πῶς δυσκόλως κ. τ. λ. [How hardly, and the rest]: οἱ δὲ μαθηταὶ ἐθαμβοῦντο ἐπὶ τοῖς λόγοις αὐτοῦ. ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς πάλιν ἀποκριθεὶς λέγει αὐτοῖς· τέκνα πῶς δύσκολόν ἐστι τοὺς πεποιθότας ἐπὶ τοῖς χρήμασιν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ εἰςελθεῖν (Mark 10:24) [And the disciples were amazed at his words. And Jesus, answering again, says to them: Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God]. That this is an addition of the evangelist will probably not need to be proved in addition; it is then, however, a testimony that a reinterpretation of that harsh conception set in at a later time. And so the Clementines too, despite that principle adduced above, do not venture to draw the conclusion that

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the poor as such deserve blessedness, but only the πιστοὶ πένητες [faithful poor] are declared worthy of it.²⁰ The Matthean beatitudes concerning the πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι [poor in spirit] and the πεινῶντες καὶ διψῶντες τὴν δικαιοσύνην (5:3, 6) [those who hunger and thirst for righteousness], in comparison with Luke 6:20, 21, now also bear the same character of reinterpretation. The two cases just adduced evidently point back to the harsh view as the original one, and this not only justifies us but also compels us to see in the Lukan form of the beatitudes the original and authentic one, which Matthew altered because the incongruence of poverty and piety forced itself upon him. Moreover the formula πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι, in that it does not even correspond to its purpose, bears the stamp of inauthenticity. The interpreters²¹ explain it, to be sure, as: those who feel themselves poor in spirit; but we must contest the right of this interpretation. It means: those who are poor; and in this case the addition τῷ πνεύματι is evidently absurd, since it denies the poor precisely that on the presupposition of which they are supposed to attain blessedness, namely spiritual goods. If, by contrast, one leaves τῷ πνεύματι out, as is the case in Luke, then by virtue of the reversal of all earthly relationships precisely those are understood by the poor who are rich in spiritual gifts and for that reason worthy of the enjoyment of blessedness in the hereafter. This explanation finds its application also in the words πτωχοὶ εὐαγγελίζονται [the poor have good news preached to them], which stand not only at Luke 7:22 but also at Matthew 11:5. For to explain these simple words, as Matthew 5:3 is explained, to mean those who feel themselves poor in spirit, is truly too great a detour. But if one finds oneself compelled to determine their sense as that of Luke 6:20, then the occurrence of this conception in Matthew as well counts at the same time as an external testimony against the authenticity of that addition τῷ πνεύματι. So, then, must

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the Matthean beatitudes appear in themselves as very valuable, but the historical correctness is on the side of the Lukan form. As the result of our discussion of the Lukan Sermon on the Mount, then, it emerges that in it the woes are probably not historical; that further, on account of the dogmatic tendency of the author, the sayings of Jesus about his relationship to the Mosaic law, and the new legislation connected with them, have been passed over in silence; but that the rest is so faithful an expression of the tradition that even the lack of order has been preserved by the original composer.

Before we proceed in the investigation of the discourses in Luke, we cast a further glance at the treatment which the anonymous writer, cited more than once, lets the Sermon on the Mount in Luke undergo.²² He presupposes without further ado Luke’s acquaintance with Matthew (which for us cannot yet be decided) and seeks for all the divergences of the Lukan Sermon on the Mount from Matthew a ground in the dogmatic tendency and the party tendency of the third evangelist. Rightly, therefore, he derives from this the passing over of the section on the law, although he grounds this judgment only by the presupposed acquaintance of Luke with Matthew, not from the content of the Lukan Sermon on the Mount itself. Further, however, he imagines that Luke composed the Gospel with the assistance of Paul himself, and that the latter continually wove in references to himself. Thus it says on p. 48: “Likewise, in the pronouncements of blessedness, meekness is not pronounced blessed by a man whose character has anything but germs of meekness, and who by his own confession easily becomes fire and flame (Romans 12:11; 2 Corinthians 11:29),²³ peaceableness not by the one whose element of life is conflict

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and whose favorite cry is στήκετε καὶ ἀντιστῆτε [stand, and withstand] (1 Corinthians 16:13; Galatians 5:1; Ephesians 6:13; 1 Thessalonians 3:8; 2 Thessalonians 2:15; Philippians 4:1); further, that the one who knows that nothing good dwells in him (Romans 7:18 —!—) cannot pronounce blessed those of a pure heart; — that finally the one for whom Christ is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17), and the Spirit is the chief contrast to the law as γράμμα [letter] (Romans 7:6), who for that reason also exhorts to be full of the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), will not have the poor in spirit pronounced blessed — all this is readily grasped by anyone who knows the teaching of Paul even only superficially, without further discussion.” For the rightness of this interpretation the author appeals to the relationship between Paul and the original apostles, which is in fact not very peaceable. The strong words of abuse from the Epistle to the Galatians and the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Galatians 2:13; 2 Corinthians 10:12–15; 11:13) are not, however, as the author thinks, directed against the original apostles, but against the Jewish party leaders in Corinth. At most, the expression ὑπερλίαν ἀπόστολοι [super-apostles] (2 Corinthians 11:5; 12:11) touches the former. For one is scarcely inclined to take seriously the interpretation of σκόλοψ τῇ σαρκί [a thorn in the flesh] and ἄγγελος σατᾶν [an angel of Satan] (12:7) as Peter, whereas the repeated reference of ὑπάρχων πανοῦργος [being crafty] (12:16)²⁴ to the same man lays down an only too clear testimony to the overwrought state of the author, in which he seeks in every word of Paul a blasphemy against his companions in the apostolate. If, then, the author assesses the relationship of Paul to the original apostles quite incorrectly, then further Paul’s share in the Gospel of Luke is not yet justified by the formula εὐαγγέλιόν μου [my gospel],²⁵ where so much testimony speaks for a later origin of the Gospels in general. That the citations by which the interpretation set out above is supposed to be supported all fail to fit, inspection itself teaches anyone; and so almost everywhere the most unnatural combinations are

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applied, in order to extract an anti-Petrine sense from the words. Thus the beatitudes and the woes are referred, the former to the ὄχλος μαθητῶν [crowd of disciples], the latter to the Twelve, whereas the expression ὑμῖν ἀκούουσιν [to you who hear] (Luke 6:27) proves that the address beforehand was feigned. Equally absurd is the interpretation of τυφλός [a blind man] as Peter (v. 39), by which the connection does not become clearer, as the author thinks. These examples will probably suffice to show how groundless, and at the same time how unfruitful, this kind of interpretation is. We may therefore well spare ourselves the task of entering further, in detail, into this writing.

The Baptist’s message to Jesus, and the discourse of the latter about John which attaches itself to it (Luke 7:18–28),²⁶ is coherent in itself and agrees for the most part word for word with Matthew’s account (chapter 11:2–11). The latter adds further (vv. 12–19) several other maxims about the Baptist, which, however, do not belong here, since they lack the proper inner connection, and seem to have been inserted here by Matthew only on account of the identity of the subject. There is absolutely no ground for doubting the authenticity and original character of Jesus’s discourse about the Baptist; the answer given to the messengers (v. 22; cf. Matthew v. 4), by contrast, is not entirely clear. For since the words τυφλοὶ ἀναβλέπουσι, χωλοὶ περιπατοῦσι, κωφοὶ ἀκούουσι, πτωχοὶ εὐαγγελίζονται [the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the poor have good news preached to them] are supposed to recall directly Isaiah 35:5 f.; 61:1, Schleiermacher²⁷ and De Wette²⁸ are inclined to understand the expressions as images of the restoration of the people of God. Since the words λεπροὶ καθαρίζονται, νεκροὶ ἐγείρονται [lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised] still remain over, Schleiermacher is bold enough to understand the latter likewise in a non-literal sense, and to explain the other sentence as an addition by the author, although he also holds it possible that Jesus first pointed to his outward activity and then also

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called attention to the inward effects already appearing; and De Wette agrees with him in recognizing these two possible cases. This disjunction, however, seems neither warranted nor necessary. Even if those sentences are borrowed from Isaiah and are applied in the original sense, they can designate only outward miracles, which were indeed supposed to be supporting marks, but not merely symbols, of the general and therefore also spiritual restoration. To such miracles Jesus could indeed, according to the report of the Gospels, rightly appeal; furthermore, however, he was not bound to restrict himself to the miracles listed in the Isaianic passage, and could therefore make those additions as well. If, then, one thinks oneself entitled to take offense at νεκροὶ ἐγείρονται [the dead are raised], which, however, can take place only in Matthew’s case, since Luke has shortly before narrated the raising of the young man at Nain, then the doubt must at the same time be directed against the authenticity of the whole answer, since the passage of Isaiah may just as well have given the impulse to the more precise elaboration of the answer in the tradition as it may have been applied by Jesus himself. But every secure standard for deciding this question is lacking, and we therefore let it rest.

The parable of the sower, together with interpretation and application (Luke 8:4–21), forms a self-contained whole, whereas in Matthew 13 it appears only as a member of a larger collection of parables. The critics are agreed about the improbability of Matthew’s presentation, according to which Jesus narrates a multitude of parables one after another.²⁹ But whether Jesus nevertheless strung together several parables of the same kind, or contented himself with the narration of the one; further, whether the situation indicated by Matthew or that indicated by Luke is the

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correct one — on this no judgment is possible, since both the writerly purpose of collecting in Matthew, and that of rounding off in Luke, prevent the original state of the facts from being recognized. For that reason it is also fruitless to want to harmonize the position of Luke 8:19–21 with the parallel at Matthew 12:46–50 and to prefer one report to the other, as is done by Schleiermacher.³⁰ For the real parallel to Matthew 12:46 ff. is, as we shall show below, the scene with the woman who pronounces a beatitude, at Luke 11:27, 28. If, then, it is confirmed that in the appearance of Jesus’s relatives in Matthew, as also in the remark of the woman in Luke, the occasion for the same maxim is only differently clothed, then the doubt which one must on that account entertain about the historical value of those traits is sharpened still further by this, that at Luke 8:19–21 as well Jesus’s answer to his relatives (v. 21) stands in a precise relation to the result of the interpretation of the parable (v. 15).³¹ For if what shows itself in this is the intention of the writer [printed Schriftsteliers] (or the instinctive tact of the tradition) to adduce an application of that result, then one can no longer place firm trust in the historical correctness of that scene. And therefore it is a vain endeavor to want to grant the preference to the arrangement of this event in the one evangelist or the other. The narrative as well as the interpretation of the parable is essentially the same in both evangelists. Yet the expression in Luke is more choice, and his interpretation of the parable contains some Pauline allusions (ἵνα μὴ πιστεύσαντες σωθῶσιν [lest, having believed, they should be saved], v. 12; πρὸς καιρὸν πιστεύουσι [they believe for a time], v. 13; καρποφοροῦσιν ἐν ὑπομονῇ [they bear fruit in patience], v. 15). By this, however, the Lukan presentation does not yet acquire the sense which the anonymous writer finds in it, that, over against Matthew, it would commend righteousness by faith without the law.³² This

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thought lies entirely remote from both redactions; they both agree in this, that they present the right state of mind for the acceptance of the Gospel, without any other sense being produced by the Pauline formulas in Luke. The addition to the interpretation of the parable (vv. 16–18) has probably been brought into this context only by the reporter. The maxim of the necessity that everything become manifest (vv. 16, 17) could indeed probably be attached to that interpretation itself, as a final ground, by means of the reasoned summons to attend to the interpretation that had been given (v. 18),³³ yet the order in which the verses stand is not the best, since one would have to expect verse 18 before verse 16 in order to mediate the fairly general thought of these verses with the necessity of interpreting a parable.³⁴ Of the remaining parables which Matthew has assembled in chapter 13, Luke adduces two more at a later place (Luke 13:18–21; cf. Matthew 13:31–33). Here they stand outside all connection. For Schleiermacher’s attempt to connect them, despite the preceding concluding formula (v. 17), with the event in the synagogue,³⁵ must be regarded as entirely mistaken.

The instruction discourse of Jesus to the Twelve (Luke 9:3–5) is, in relation to its parallel in Matthew, very short and meager, even if one deducts the whole section of the latter in which the persecutions awaiting the disciples are spoken of, and even the prospect of the return of Christ is opened (Matthew 10:17–39), as an unhistorical interweaving by the evangelist,³⁶ since at that time there was as yet no occasion for such anxieties. For even if one disregards the fuller and more vivid presentation in Matthew of the outward measures which the disciples are to follow, one nevertheless misses with regret in Luke

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sayings such as Matthew 10:16, 17, 40–42, which press upon the disciples’ hearts the high importance and dignity of their calling. For on this point one is not to judge that Luke does not have these verses for the reason that they are not original, but only embellishments in Matthew; for they are not unknown to him himself; rather, he inserts them into Jesus’s discourse to the seventy disciples (chapter 10:1–12, 16).³⁷ Since they are now equally fitting in both places, one could nevertheless, on account of Matthew’s distinctiveness in assembling different discourses, assume that the distribution of the sayings, as Luke gives it, corresponds to the state of the facts, whereas Matthew, in that he passes over the sending of the Seventy, would have mixed the discourses addressed to them with those to the Twelve.³⁸ Yet what prevents granting this preference to Luke’s report is the doubt which one must entertain against the truth of the choosing and sending out of the Seventy. For even if the circumstance, that one otherwise has no definite proofs of the existence of this class of disciples,³⁹ does not by itself suffice to overthrow the historical value of Luke’s report,⁴⁰ the party tendency demonstrated above in the furnishing and grouping of this section, which is added to that, makes its historical credibility suspicious in the highest degree. In itself, to be sure, a definite tendency of the presentation does not exclude its historical character either. But besides that ground brought forward by Strauss there is added the further historical misgiving, whether Jesus, against whom nowhere in the Gospels a transgression of the Mosaic food laws is laid to his charge, will have grounded, by the direction uttered at Luke 10:8, ἐσθίετε τὰ παρατιθέμενα ὑμῖν [eat what is set before you], that same antinomian sentence of Paul (1 Corinthians 10:27), or whether not, since conversely

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this sentence in Luke seems rather to stand in dependence on Paul, the complete incompatibility of the tendency of this section with its historical credibility is thereby proved. For we must reject the expedient of giving up this trait, to be sure, but holding fast the choosing of the Seventy as fact. For if the Seventy must in any case count as apostles to the Gentiles, or as prototypes of them, then the evangelist evidently means, by that sentence, to characterize them quite distinctly as such. If, then, he has added it from his own resources, who vouches that the rest is authentic, which without it would lose its point, which lies in that sentence, and would then be fairly meaningless? One will not be permitted to balk at giving up the correctness of the story of the Seventy, even though it is not probable that it is an invention of the evangelist, but is probably a formation of the tradition in Pauline circles and in favor of the dignity and activity of the great apostle. For we are not entitled, from the circumstance noticed in the case of the Sermon on the Mount, that the evangelist intentionally passes over some things in silence, to infer at once that he has also intentionally invented some things, since in passing over things in silence, too, as we have seen, he is not consistent.

We have developed above the sense of Jesus’s discourse to the seventy who had returned.⁴¹ The individual parts of it are found in Matthew partly not at all, partly scattered at different passages (chapter 11:25–27; 13:16, 17). In particular the words which have so great a significance in Luke (πάντα μοι παρεδόθη κ. τ. λ. [all things have been delivered to me, and the rest]) stand in Matthew entirely without connection and significance. For the summons which attaches itself to this at Matthew 11:28, δεῦτε πρός με πάντες οἱ κοπιῶντες καὶ πεφορτισμένοι· κἀγὼ ἀναπαύσω ὑμᾶς [Come to me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest], does not find its ground, for instance, in that sentence, but in the following one: ὅτι πρᾶός εἰμι [for I am gentle]. One sees, then, that Matthew has

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not known how to use that saying, evidently because, with his image of the Jewish Messiah, who merits absolute power only through his death (Matthew 28:18; cf. Revelation 5:12), that confession of Jesus could not be united. That he nevertheless took it up is certainly a strong proof of the authenticity of this saying, in which Jesus’s consciousness of his divine sonship has been heightened to the highest conception. We might therefore be convinced that Luke has communicated this saying in its correct connection, if the circumstance that this discourse is attached to the story of the seventy apostles did not make it probable that here too the writer has had a hand in the matter. Nevertheless we may well assume as correct that verse 22 stands in a necessary connection with verse 18 (ἐθεώρουν τὸν σατανᾶν ὡς ἀστραπὴν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ πεσόντα [I was watching Satan fall like lightning from heaven]), since the two thoughts evidently condition one another.

If we have had to find suspicious the occasion stated by Luke for the imparting of the model prayer and of the discourse on prayer which follows upon it (chapter 11:1–13), it does not follow from this that we decide for the position of the prayer in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. Although one seeks in vain, in the context of the Sermon on the Mount itself, for a ground against the position of the prayer in it,⁴² and just as little is the objection tenable, that it would have been hard to retain the prayer,⁴³ the circumstance is nevertheless of importance, that in Luke it precisely does not stand in the Sermon on the Mount, but at another place, from which it follows that it was not transmitted to him in the context of the Sermon on the Mount, since he evidently had no cause to pass over it there. We must therefore give up wanting to know the occasion for the formation of that model prayer. Both

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reporters transmit it in a different form, inasmuch as, at least in Luke, the Pauline interest may have worked in such a way that the petition for the πνεῦμα [Spirit] stands out in particular (cf. v. 13).⁴⁴ The Matthean recension is preferred by De Wette⁴⁵ and Tholuck⁴⁶ for the reason that it still contains the words ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ [deliver us from the evil one]. But the first petition in Luke already expresses this thought as well, and it would be a sheer repetition first to implore the Spirit who is to cleanse us, and then also deliverance from the evil one. Nevertheless we by no means contest the original character of the Matthean recension, since the character of the first petition in Luke, whereby the petition for the coming of the divine kingdom is pushed into second place, seems to be connected with the fact that the Lukan Jesus means to open the divine kingdom expressly only at his return (Luke 17:20 ff.; 21:31). This conception, which we shall illuminate more closely, and which is connected with the fact that the evangelist also does not expect the return so soon (Luke 21:9, 24), seems, then, to have called forth the petition for the Spirit as the petition for the substitute for the redemption that is to be completed only with the later coming of the kingdom of God. The simple formula ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου [let your kingdom come], by contrast, suits in Matthew not only the original urgent expectation of the first Christians, but also the lifetime of Jesus himself, who came forward precisely with the message ἤγγικε ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν [the kingdom of heaven has drawn near] (Matthew 4:17). As, then, the prayer in Luke no longer meets us in its original form, and its introductory formula is evidently feigned, so too the following verses have had no original historical connection

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with it. The writer himself indicates this with the words καὶ εἶπε πρὸς αὐτοὺς [and he said to them] (v. 5), by which he attaches the following discourses, in which persistence in prayer is made a duty, and unconditional fulfillment is promised in return.

Jesus’s discourse about his expulsions of demons and the demand for a sign (Luke 11:14–36) agrees in general with Matthew 12:22–50. Yet the following divergences are found. Whereas Luke mentions the charge of satanic assistance, and the demand for a sign, immediately one after the other (vv. 15, 16), and has Jesus answer them one after the other, Matthew brings the latter forward only after the refutation of the charge (v. 38). The first part of the discourse is richer and more complete in Matthew than in Luke, who for his part attaches to that same part the discourse about the return of the demons, which in Matthew forms the close of the whole. Further, instead of the narrative of the rejection of Jesus’s relatives (Matthew vv. 46–50), Luke has that of the woman who pronounces a beatitude (vv. 27, 28); finally, instead of the discourse about the sign of Jonah (Matthew vv. 39–42), the sayings about the light (vv. 33–36).⁴⁷ As regards the arrangement, several voices have declared for the preference of Luke,⁴⁸ whereas De Wette’s objection,⁴⁹ that the demand for a sign is explained only by Jesus’s assertion that he works by the Holy Spirit, is not decisive, since it is quite conceivable that the distrust with which the expulsion of the demon filled the spectators expressed itself partly in the definite charge, partly in the tempting summons that Jesus should set his character beyond doubt by a heavenly miracle. But Matthew’s presentation too is entirely natural, in that it shows us the Pharisees in their incorrigible opposition to Jesus. In Luke

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they are indeed not Pharisees with whom Jesus has to do, and so from this side too one cannot bring the matter to a decision. Even if the ground which Strauss⁵⁰ adduces against Luke, that it is improbable that Jesus, after the defense concerning the expulsion of demons, would have returned to the far less significant demand for a sign, is not pressing enough, the connection in Luke is nevertheless rendered suspect, as Strauss likewise recalls, by the interruption in vv. 27, 28. In that Jesus, although he is thereby stirred to quite different thoughts, nevertheless returns to the demand for a sign which lies far back, the writer’s almost systematic arrangement appears clearly in this, as he sets two themes in front and has them treated one after the other. For the section about the return of the demons, too, is attached in Luke, in the interest of the systematic arrangement, on account of the apparent similarity of the subject, to the refutation of the charge of an alliance with Satan, although as a theoretical, calm discussion it has nothing at all to do directly with what precedes. We shall therefore have to prefer its position in Matthew, where it enters only after the close of the whole defense. Here it is altogether to be justified, since in any case it contains a polemical allusion to the incurable obduracy of the Pharisees, which, however, is truly intelligible only when it is not hidden under the defense, but steps forth beside it, set apart and independent. Matthew also maintains the advantage over Luke in this, that in v. 31 ff. he weaves in the warning against the sin against the Holy Spirit, which has its best occasion in the slander of Jesus that lies before us.⁵¹ Apart from the parts of our parallel sections which correspond exactly, there remain

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in each, further, two members, which seem to indicate a more significant difference between the evangelists. Namely, first, upon the discourse about the return of the demons there follows in Matthew (vv. 46–50) the visit of Jesus’s relatives and their rejection; in Luke (vv. 27, 28), the pronouncing of a beatitude upon the mother of Jesus by a woman, and the Lord’s declining answer. If, then, that story in Matthew attaches itself to what precedes only by simultaneity, the passage in Luke seems to presuppose an inner motive for its being placed at this point. Yet one seeks in vain, in the discourse about the demons, for an occasion for the enthusiastic exclamation about the mother of Jesus. This observation, in comparison with the advantage which we must assign to Matthew over Luke in the remaining points of the section before us as well, could induce us to reject Luke’s statement in vv. 27, 28 as against the Matthean one. But then the circumstance is hard to explain, whence those verses in Luke come, to which, precisely because they are unmotivated, one will not be able to assign the predicate of greater vividness and fidelity,⁵² to which is added the further fact that they join the cases of inserted questions and remarks of the hearers, which seem to be grounded more in the author’s manner of presentation than in reality. Yet in this case one cannot after all decide so simply for the correctness of the one report against the other, on account of the evident kinship between the two competing pieces. Both have, namely, one and the same point, the commendation of spiritual kinship with Jesus through obedience to the divine will revealed by him, over against bodily kinship. This is the content of Jesus’s answer, which in the reporters differs only according to the terminology usual to each:

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[Whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother....] [Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.]

From this it emerges that what is firm and certain in the passages is precisely only this point; the historical occasion, however, which is stated differently by the two reporters, is to be regarded only as the outward clothing of this thought. For the circumstance that the Matthean narrative occurs at Luke 8:19–21 will not be able to decide in favor of the correctness of the Matthean form either, since, as we have seen, there too the precise relation between the result of the parable and the thought of that little story makes the historical character of the latter suspect. But to what ground it is to be ascribed that, in both reports, though independent of one another, that maxim of spiritual kinship with Jesus, even if clothed in different ways, is set in connection with the same discourse about the demons, cannot be determined.⁵³ A similar divergence between the two evangelists, like this point, is offered by the answer to the demand for a sign. In Matthew, Jesus presents himself, by reference to the sign of Jonah, as a preacher of repentance, who intends to bring forth not outward miracles, but the inward wonders of regeneration (Matthew vv. 39–42).⁵⁴ In Luke, where the passage about Jonah is an interpolation, Jesus answers with the maxims about the light (vv. 33–36). The sense of these words, in which there is a progress from the significance of Jesus as a universal light to the exhortation that each should care for his inward light,⁵⁵ is now, however, not essentially different from that which Jesus in Matthew

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means to express by the reference to the example of Jonah. Both discourses are meant to make plain that Jesus intends no outward miraculous deeds, but an effect upon the inward life of men. The discourse in Matthew does, to be sure, distinguish itself by a characteristic form over against the somewhat unclear one in Luke; yet one cannot on that account doubt that the latter, too, will have been employed by Jesus, at the desire for a miracle, which was certainly often repeated, in order to explain the significance of his activity.

Since the introduction to the discourse against the Pharisees (Luke 11:37–54), as we have shown,⁵⁶ is evidently feigned by the evangelist, the question is what induced him to insert this discourse here. The ground for it lies, as is not to be mistaken, in this, that he had to motivate an escalation of the enmity between Jesus and the Pharisees, such as is expressed in v. 54. For this, a similar conflict, such as several had already occurred, was not sufficient; rather, a formal attack on Jesus’s part was required, in order to call forth in the opponents the thought of accusing him formally. The discourse before us shows us Jesus, moreover, in a different relationship of opposition to the Pharisees from the discourse in Matthew 23. The latter recognizes their right to issue new legal ordinances, because they sit on Moses’s seat (πάντα, ὅσα ἂν εἴπωσιν ὑμῖν τηρεῖν, τηρεῖτε καὶ ποιεῖτε [all things, whatever they tell you to observe, observe and do], v. 3). Jesus then expressly makes observance of their petty laws about the garden plants a duty (v. 23), and directs his polemic only against the hypocritical disregard and transgression of the highest commandments contained in the Mosaic law itself (vv. 3, 4, 23). It is otherwise in Luke. He lets the woe extend also to their supplementing of the law (οὐαὶ ὑμῖν .. ὅτι ἀποδεκατοῦτε κ. τ. λ. [woe to you .. because you tithe, and the rest], v. 42), not merely to their hypocrisy in the

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observation of the same. In the parallel in Matthew, however (v. 23), the οὐαὶ [woe] applies to the ὑπόκρισις [hypocrisy] of the Pharisees, who, in that they give the petty commandments, set aside the weightier legal duties. Their legislation itself, by contrast, is not touched in Matthew, but protected (ταῦτα ἔδει ποιῆσαι κἀκεῖνα μὴ ἀφιέναι [these things you ought to have done, and those you ought not to have left undone]). Which of the two relations are we now to hold the right one, since in itself neither has an advantage over the other? Did Jesus really recognize the Pharisees’ supplementary laws, or did he reject them? This dilemma is decided by Matthew 15:1 ff. In this passage the Pharisees charge Jesus that his disciples, by eating with unwashed hands, transgress the παράδοσις τῶν πρεσβυτέρων [tradition of the elders]. Jesus’s answer rejects them, in that he reminds them of the contradiction into which their παράδοσις [tradition] comes with the law itself, and afterward utters the principle that the worth of a man consists in his disposition, and not in the ceremonies observed by him. Since, now, the παράδοσις and the ordinances of the Pharisees in general concerned only ceremonial matters, this passage contains Jesus’s complete renunciation of approval of the Pharisaic ordinances, and agrees with Luke rather than with the anti-Pharisaic discourse in Matthew 23. If, then, we must reject the indications adduced above in this discourse as unhistorical, their origin is evidently to be explained only from the fairly friendly relationship in which the Christian community in Jerusalem must have stood for a considerable time with the stricter Pharisaic party. At least this is suggested by some indications in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 5:6 ff.; 28:6 ff.), and by the traditions about James the Just communicated by Hegesippus.⁵⁷ For the right conception of Jesus’s relationship to Pharisaism, then, we see Luke, through his Pauline standpoint, better equipped than Matthew, while by that same standpoint the

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affirmative relationship of Jesus to the Mosaic law was incomprehensible to him, and therefore also incredible.

The discourses in the twelfth chapter attach themselves, by means of a warning against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, immediately to the preceding discourse, in that it is presupposed that Jesus, merely stepping out of the Pharisee’s house, is at once surrounded by great masses of people (v. 1). That Jesus, amid this disturbing surrounding (ἐπισυναχθεισῶν τῶν μυριάδων τοῦ ὄχλου, ὥστε καταπατεῖν ἀλλήλους [when the myriads of the crowd had gathered together, so that they were trampling one another]), should have undertaken a long instruction of his disciples, is hardly conceivable, the more so as the warning against Pharisaic hypocrisy, with which the discourse begins, and which after what had gone before was well in place, is at once abandoned, and a transition is made to other subjects. These subjects, however, are so diverse that one seeks in vain for a unity of thought to which they might be subordinated. At once the composition of the first section (vv. 1–12, with the exception of the interpolation of vv. 6, 7) causes difficulty. For only up to v. 9 is an intelligible connection found. Jesus warns against hypocrisy, first because, as with everything, so also the hypocrite’s secret ulterior thought would come to light; second because fear of men, as a motive for hypocrisy, would have to yield to the fear of God, in which, as also in the recognition with God conditioned by it, there would lie abundant compensation for earthly suffering. To this there now attaches, at v. 10, the warning against the sin against the Holy Spirit, which had its place over against the Pharisees (Matthew 12:31), but for which the disciples had not after all given occasion. Since, now, v. 11 returns again to the thought that the disciples need have no fear of men (v. 4), not even in the case of a direct accusation, one sees that v. 10 has been inserted without connection, and indeed on the occasion of the possible case of the denial of Christ posited in v. 9. At the thought of this the writer remembered the

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still greater offense against the Holy Spirit, and inserted the warning against it.

The following question (v. 13) introduces the section up to v. 30, which, in parabolic and in direct discourse, develops the indifference of earthly possession and of earthly cares of life. That the question which occasions this discourse is really to be held historical finds as yet no guarantee in the vividness of its depiction, since it enters in a situation which, however vividly it too is depicted (v. 1), nevertheless bears within itself the proof of its impossibility. Besides this, however, the question of the τις [someone] is in itself so indefinite, and yet so definite as the occasion of the following discourse, that it is without doubt to be reckoned among the introductory formulas originating from the evangelist. To the section named, vv. 31–40 (with the exception of the interpolation of vv. 33, 34) stand as a positive supplement, in that, after the rejection of earthly cares, the strained expectation of the kingdom of God is commended as the only worthy goal. With this section there coheres only outwardly, namely through a question of Peter (v. 41), a series of individual pieces of discourse. The examples of the treatment of the faithful servant and of the unfaithful servant do, to be sure, still refer to the expectation of the Lord’s coming that had been commended before; but this too is only an outward linkage, whereas verses 49–53, which make plain the division among men brought about by Jesus, are entirely independent. Equally unmotivated are the following sentences addressed to the ὄχλοι [crowds] (vv. 54–59). They contain two quite different thoughts, which are held together merely by the kinship of δοκιμάζειν [to examine] and κρίνειν [to judge] (vv. 56, 57). For what has attention to the signs of the time to do with the cautious readiness to be reconciled which is commended here? The address ὑποκριταί [hypocrites] (v. 56), too, surely does not suit the ὄχλοι! Comparison with Matthew 16:1–4 teaches, rather, that the discourse must originally have been addressed to Pharisees who demanded a sign, to whom

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alone the predicate ὑποκριταί [hypocrites] applies. If, now, it emerges indisputably from this analysis of the twelfth chapter that it is a compilation by the evangelist,⁵⁸ it is distinguished from the similar ones in Matthew by this, that it lacks the unity of theme under which the latter usually gathers the pieces of discourse. But from the fact that we cannot hold this collection of discourses in Luke to be historical, it by no means follows that the incorporation of the individual parts of it into the Sermon on the Mount, the instruction discourse, and the eschatological discourse in Matthew is more correct. We recognize from this, rather, that in the tradition only the discourses have been propagated with certainty, while the historical occasions were easily forgotten, as the comparison adduced above, of Luke 12:54 ff. with Matthew 16:1 ff., also teaches. This is just as natural as the circumstance that, as we have had to remark several times, the compiler feigned occasions for the individual discourses.

Similar individual discourses, like those which are assembled in the twelfth chapter, are found further in chapter 13:22–28 (with the alteration in the last verse, ὅταν ὄψησθε πάντας τοὺς δικαίους [when you see all the righteous]), containing a summons to accept salvation as quickly as possible, but also sincerely. The discourse appears here in rounded form, whereas in Matthew 7, in the Sermon on the Mount, it is broken into pieces; in which there might lie both an advantage of the Lukan report and again a testimony to the compilatory character of the Matthean Sermon on the Mount. Whether the introduction originates from the author, or may have been transmitted to him, I do not venture to decide, since in any case it cannot be explained how he comes here to the mention of the journey to Jerusalem. For because the similar passages, chapter 9:51 and 17:10, are to be explained by this, that they introduce events in Samaria, but otherwise, before chapter 18:35, the author’s intention to deliver a history of the journey to Jerusalem does not actually betray itself at all, then

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our passage alone is not sufficient to prove this. The only assumption that remains, by contrast, that he then owes this notice to the tradition, is again made doubtful by this, that the further introduction of Jesus’s discourse by the question of an undefined person, εἰ ὀλίγοι οἱ σωζόμενοι [if those who are saved are few] (v. 33), is entirely in the manner of our evangelist.

Further, the discourse of chapter 14:25–36 belongs here, a summons, motivated by two examples, to test oneself whether one is able to renounce everything in order to become a disciple of Jesus. That the introductory formula of this discourse too expresses only the author’s reflection upon the opening words of the discourse has already been recalled above; therefore De Wette’s objection⁵⁹ against the position of the words of vv. 34, 35, which in Matthew (5:13) are addressed to the nearest disciples, falls away. For they may well have been spoken in this connection too, and only the evangelist, with reference to the beginning of the discourse, may have falsely added his introductory formula.

Without any claim to connection with what precedes, the little discourse of chapter 17:1–6 presents itself. It contains two maxims, about the duty of giving no offense, and about readiness to be reconciled. The parallels to them are at Matthew 18:6, 7, 15, 21. One sees again that it was not known to the evangelist by what these sayings had been called forth, although the words μικρῶν τούτων [of these little ones] (v. 2) evidently presuppose an event such as the setting forth of a child as a pattern, narrated by Matthew 18. From this it does not follow, however, that Matthew’s report is the “source” for Luke,⁶⁰ but that, while the words, including those that are unintelligible, were preserved in the tradition, the occasion was lost. Just as little do vv. 3, 4 presuppose the parallel narrative in Matthew as their source, although the more detailed report, which was still possible for Matthew, does of course cast an illuminating light on our passage. Equally isolated

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stands the maxim of v. 6 about the power of faith (cf. Matthew 17:20; 21:21), whose introduction by the question πρόςθες ἡμῖν πίστιν [add faith to us] is evidently feigned only in the evangelist’s usual manner.

Jesus’s eschatological discourse (chapter 17:20–37) is again introduced by the question of a Pharisee, against which, given the writer’s known manner, we must be distrustful, especially since the following discourse takes no further account of the questioner’s character. The closest connection of thought also obtains between the short answer to that man and the discourse to the disciples. Wrongly does De Wette⁶¹ maintain that the two parts stand in contradiction with one another. This does, to be sure, appear so if one explains the sentence ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ ἐντὸς ὑμῶν ἐστιν [the kingdom of God is among you] (v. 21), as is done by De Wette, in a present sense. But since it emerges, from chapter 21:41 (ὅταν ἴδητε ταῦτα γινόμενα, ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτῶν γινώσκετε ὅτι ἐγγύς ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ [when you see these things happening, know of yourselves that the kingdom of God is near]), as also from the relationship which must be assumed between chapter 12:32 (εὐδόκησεν ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν δοῦναι ὑμῖν τὴν βασιλείαν [your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom]) and the following discourses about the expectation of the Lord’s coming (v. 35 ff.), that Luke has the coming of the kingdom of God, as spoken by Jesus, coincide with his second parousia,⁶² we are justified in understanding the passage chapter 17:21, which moreover is designated by ἰδού [behold] as a vision rather than as a doctrinal proposition, likewise as an event in the future: the kingdom of God will suddenly be in your midst. But then the close relation between this sentence and the words ὥσπερ ἡ ἀστραπὴ .... οὕτως ἔσται ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ αὐτοῦ [just as the lightning .... so will the Son of Man be in his day] (v. 24) shows itself plainly. For the Son of Man is the one who brings the divine kingdom in the parousia. This conception, which is to be sure counterbalanced by other passages, in which

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the kingdom of God already appears as present (chapter 11:20: ἄρα ἔφθασεν ἐφ᾽ ὑμᾶς ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ [so the kingdom of God has come upon you]; 10:9, 11: ἤγγικεν ἐφ᾽ ὑμᾶς ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ [the kingdom of God has drawn near to you]), has evidently arisen from a further theological development, which corresponds neither to the parallel passages and the rest of Matthew’s manner of conception (cf. Matthew 16:28; 24:33), nor, evidently, to the actual view of Christ. The appearance, that the author of our Gospel has nevertheless not impressed it upon all passages, joins the other cases in which we have demonstrated an inconsistency in the working through of the material according to theological tendencies and party tendencies. Yet in the eschatological passages we find that view throughout; and although we cannot declare this form original, it is nevertheless clear that v. 21 must be interpreted in that sense. Against the original character of our section in the seventeenth chapter, however, De Wette raises still further objections. He maintains in particular that vv. 26–30, in comparison with Matthew 24:36–39, stand here not only without a point of attachment, but also idle, since they neither are directed against the Pharisees nor ground an exhortation to watchfulness. The verses nevertheless have their sense. In Matthew the reminder of the dissolute, carefree manner of life of Noah’s contemporaries serves as an example of unfamiliarity with the time of the parousia (Matthew 24:36). For the close runs: καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωσαν, ἕως ἦλθεν ὁ κατακλυσμὸς καὶ ἦρεν ἅπαντας [and they did not know until the flood came and took them all away] (v. 39). In Luke, by contrast, this is not the point of comparison; rather, it lies in the words καὶ ἀπώλεσεν ἅπαντας [and he destroyed them all] (vv. 27, 29). There is no talk here at all of knowing or expecting the fate; therefore no exhortation to strained expectation can follow either. If, by contrast, the exhortation follows, that one should not withdraw from the inevitable fate, since it does overtake everyone for whom it is appointed, and spares the other, even if he were in the immediate vicinity of the former, then in this there is not, as De Wette thinks, a merely indirect use of what precedes, but it is the

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necessary presupposition of this exhortation. The whole section, v. 26 ff., thus stands in a good connection. The content of the whole discourse falls into the 3 points: that the parousia will set in suddenly; that it will be ruinous for many; and that no precaution will avert the appointed fate. The exhortation to watchfulness, which De Wette misses in this connection, Luke has already communicated earlier (chapter 12:35–40). These two trains of thought, to which, further, in connection with the latter, the exhortation to faithfulness in duty is added (vv. 41–46), Matthew has drawn together at 24:37–51, in that he uses the elements of the former, too, to ground the duty of watchfulness. This is acceptable insofar as, in the case of Noah’s contemporaries, their not knowing the fate is brought into prominence. The notice of the different fate of those nearest to one another (Matthew vv. 40, 41), by contrast, does not suit the connection at all. How, then, is this supposed to commend watchfulness, if one knows that fate will choose its victims wholly arbitrarily and, by human reckoning, accidentally? This consciousness can only work toward this, that one hold all watchfulness superfluous, and set blind indifference over against blind fate! This disorder is the best testimony that Matthew has compiled the section in question, while in Luke the original discourses are found; for Luke’s conception, mentioned by us, of the βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ [kingdom of God] is not found within chapter 17:22–37, and in chapter 12:32 only before the actual beginning of the exhortation to watchfulness. The proverb, too, which closes the discourse in chapter 17, ὅπου τὸ πτῶμα, ἐκεῖ συναχθήσονται οἱ ἀετοί [where the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered] (v. 37), is, if one, as is natural, sets aside the curious question which precedes it as an addition of the evangelist, not so enigmatic as De Wette thinks. If we follow his explanation — where the guilt is, there the punishment is — then this sentence, over against the arbitrariness just depicted in the perishing of individuals while others are preserved, appears as

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reconciling, in that it reminds one that that arbitrariness is only apparent, and is properly justice itself.

A judgment that is not so favorable is to be passed on the second eschatological discourse (chapter 21:5–36).⁶³ It does, to be sure, agree in general with Matthew 24 in material and arrangement; but already the weaving in of the conception, mentioned above, of the coming of the βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ [kingdom of God], which is still only impending (v. 31), is an arbitrary interference of the writer, who from his standpoint did not hold the present state of Christianity, which had come from Jesus’s first parousia, to be the kingdom of God itself. For the view prevailing in the first Gospel, that already the first parousia of Jesus had brought the kingdom of God, although the consummation is expected only from his return, is evidently the original one, established by Jesus’s discourses. A second interference, which experience probably occasioned, consists in the plain separation, in respect of time, of the parousia and the destruction of Jerusalem. Whereas Matthew (chapter 24:28, 29) joins the two closely together by an εὐθέως [immediately], Luke separates the two by the καιροὶ ἐθνῶν [times of the Gentiles], which will possess Jerusalem, and replaces that εὐθέως by a feeble καί [and] (vv. 24, 25). But by this he evidently violates the original form of Jesus’s discourse, which set the destruction of the capital and the return in a close connection. In favor of this speaks not only the expectation, which the whole apostolic age cherished, of the Savior’s near return, and which must have been grounded by discourses such as Matthew 16:28; 24:33; Luke 9:27, but also the theologoumenon [theological tenet] of the new Jerusalem (Galatians 4:25; Revelation 21:2) was not possible unless the consummation of the divine kingdom had been conceived by Jesus himself as bound up with the expectation of the fall of the old Jerusalem.⁶⁴ If, then, Luke nevertheless wants the two moments to be understood as separated by a long interval, then this is a

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high-handed change, which violates the historical facts, but evidently proceeded from the experience that Jerusalem perished without the Messiah having appeared. In this case the καιροὶ ἐθνῶν [times of the Gentiles] now came in as an auxiliary conception, which probably has its origin in Revelation 11:2. That Luke, further, in contradiction to Matthew (24:9), will have the persecutions of the disciples occur before the wars (πρὸ δὲ τούτων πάντων [but before all these things], v. 12) can possibly be explained from this, that the former had indeed actually taken place, but not the latter,⁶⁵ so that in this too there would lie a correction of Matthew. This correction would, to be sure, not be to the purpose, since the vain expectation of those wars, in comparison with the destruction of Jerusalem that had actually occurred, must rather have led to deleting those wars entirely. But consistency in the reworking of the material is, as we have so often remarked, not our writer’s concern. Therefore we cannot agree with Neander,⁶⁶ who, by the remark that the third evangelist, if he had written after the destruction of Jerusalem, would not have changed this discourse inconsistently, and would for that reason rather have undertaken no change at all, seeks to maintain the third evangelist’s credibility over against Matthew. If Neander further calls attention to v. 18, in which it is supposed to appear, after all, that the evangelist has not deleted what is unintelligible, this objection is disposed of by the fact that this verse is rather interpolated. The discourse in Luke is, then, of such a kind that by its agreement with the parallel section of the Matthean discourse it supports the credibility of that discourse, while the divergences of the Lukan discourse from it are to be charged only to the writer. The only question that can still arise is why the depiction of the last judgment (Matthew 25:31–46) is not to be read in Luke. But what Matthew works out dramatically in this section, Luke has already introduced in a different connection. He speaks in several

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places, partly of an ἀνάστασις δικαίων [resurrection of the righteous] (14:14), partly of the fact that those who are raised will be ἰσάγγελοι [equal to angels] (20:35). Even if this is not expressly set in connection with the parousia of Christ, there is nevertheless no doubt that the reward of the righteous coincides with this point of time, at which the βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ [kingdom of God] (21:31) or the αἰὼν μέλλων [age to come] (20:35) comes in. The punishment for the children of the world likewise comes in, as destruction for them, with the parousia, as the comparison of the parousia with the destruction that broke in upon the contemporaries of Noah and of Lot proves (Luke 17:27, 29, 30).⁶⁷ These conceptions correspond entirely to the result which the last judgment in Matthew shows. The standard of condemnation is, to be sure, a different one, and further, among those who are rewarded, the presupposition that they have been raised does not hold (Matthew 24:31; 25:31); yet in these very passages the last judgment is closely linked with the parousia, and this is the point of identity with Luke. The difference, however, which lies in Luke’s emphasizing of the resurrection, testifies again to the later standpoint on which he stands. For the failure to mention the resurrection in Matthew rests on the fact that the parousia is, after all, still to be experienced by Jesus’s contemporaries (Matthew 24:34), and in that respect this view is carried through consistently. In Luke we find again the unevenness of the treatment, in that he does, to be sure, still have the return promised to this generation (21:32), and yet at the same time, by expressly emphasizing the resurrection, makes it known that that generation has already died out. However much, then, the scene of the last judgment is in the spirit of the eschatological discourses of Matthew, it is nevertheless to be doubted whether the dramatic elaboration is completely historical.

In conclusion we cast a further glance at the parables in the original Luke. Among them are some whose sense is quite unmistakable, namely that of

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the two debtors (7:41 ff.), that of the merciful Samaritan (10:30), that of the man whom death surprises in the gathering of treasures (12:16 ff.), the two of the lost sheep and of the lost coin (15:4 ff.), as well as the two of the success of persistent prayer (11:5 ff.; 18:2 ff.), and finally that of the Pharisee and the tax collector (18:9 ff.). Even if the occasions which the evangelist states for several of them are not of especially high credibility, this does the parables themselves no harm. In their simplicity they evidently point back to Jesus. All these parables are peculiar to Luke. The parables of the banquet (14:16–24) and of the minas entrusted to the servants (19:11–27), by contrast, find their parallels at Matthew 22:2–13 and 25:14–30, in such a way that in Matthew the former, and in Luke the latter, is mixed with a parable of rebellious subjects.⁶⁸ That such a mixing cannot be original, Strauss has shown convincingly. For that reason, then, the form which the parable of the banquet has in Luke will be genuine. This is proved also by the way in which those invited last are designated. They fall into two classes: the poor and the crippled, who are brought from the streets of the city, and those who are fetched from the country roads, by which, evidently, the poor Jews, in contrast to the people of rank, are meant on the one hand, and the Gentiles on the other.⁶⁹ This conception is, without doubt, to be credited to Jesus. The parable in Matthew, by contrast, does not contain this fine distinction. In it, over against those originally invited, who in return mistreat and kill the servants of the host, there are set those in general who are fetched from the country roads, thus Gentiles in general over against the Jews. This alteration could come in only later, when one had given up making the Jews well disposed toward Christianity, although, as the

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added trait of the expulsion of the one not festively attired proves, the claim continued that the Gentiles would have to adopt Jewish custom. In the other parable (Luke 19:11 ff.), by contrast, as Strauss has shown, it is possible, by excision of verses 12, 14, 15, and 27, to reconstruct two independent parables. That they were mixed without fault on the part of the evangelist is probably to be assumed; yet one should not overlook that this parable is very tendentious in its context, although only one circumstance in it is suited to express this tendency. According to verse 11, it is supposed to have been narrated by Jesus in order to refute the opinion that the divine kingdom would appear at once in Jerusalem. For this, however, only the one trait in the whole parable serves: ἄνθρωπος εὐγενὴς ἐπορεύθη εἰς χώραν μακράν [a nobleman went into a far country], for of the further moments, the entrusting of the pounds to the servants and the reward and punishment that followed upon the return of the master, no application is made to the mission of the disciples and the promise of the final return for judgment, as is, after all, done by Matthew, who places the simple parable in the eschatological discourse. Since, further, this parable is evidently narrated only in order to exclude the story of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem,⁷⁰ which was offensive to the evangelist on account of its Jewish type, and since, besides, the determination of place and time in verse 11 is not quite intelligible in relation to what precedes, the significance and the sense which is ascribed to the parable in the context seems to rest on an arbitrary combination by the evangelist, rather than to be such that his presentation of the story of the entry into Jerusalem could deprive that story of its credibility. The latter is without doubt historical, and we shall have all the more reason to hold it to be so, since our evangelist has visibly exerted himself to deprive it of its credit,

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without, however, being qualified or entitled to do so by other, more correct facts.

There remain the two parables in the sixteenth chapter, that of the unjust steward and that of the rich man and the poor man, and the discourse by which they are linked. This cannot be the place to undertake a critical sifting of the multitude of interpretations which the former parable has received, all of which have failed for the reason that they wanted to draw every individual trait of the parable into the interpretation, whereas the impossibility of doing this in a satisfactory way must have suggested the inference that individual traits of the narrative are indifferent for the interpretation.⁷¹ Strauss has rightly brought this out, and thereby put an end to the torments to which the interpreters have subjected themselves and the parable. For since the parables of prayer (Luke 11:5 ff.; 18:2 ff.) are also of such a kind that in them God is represented both in a sluggish friend and in an unjust judge, and the interpretation must consequently abstract from these qualities, so also in the parable of the steward the circumstance is only a side matter, that the beneficence for which he is praised, and which his example is supposed to recommend, rests on a fraud.⁷² This recommendation of beneficence is entirely in the sense of the Lukan Jesus, if one compares Luke 18:22; 11:41. The difficulty which, as has been said, attaches to all the other interpretations is found also in the very specious interpretation which the anonymous writer gives the parable.⁷³ According to him, the unjust steward, who remits to the master’s debtors their debt, and for that reason is indeed slandered, yet by the master

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is praised and acknowledged — would be the apostle Paul, who, as the representative of the forgiveness of sins by grace, appears unjust, but is praiseworthy. That would be a fine sense in a Pauline Gospel! But in this interpretation too several traits are not done justice. For in the parable the reduction of the debts takes place out of the steward’s self-interest, and this motive cannot, after all, be presupposed in Paul. Further, however, the anonymous writer explains already the διασκορπίζειν (v. 1) [squandering] as the secret practice of the forgiveness of sins, with which the steward (Paul) afterward only comes forward publicly, after he has been slandered on that account. This, however, is not in the sense of the parable, since the cancellation of the debts is designated as a new kind of unfaithfulness, which the steward has not practiced hitherto. Thus this interpretation too does not solve the parable quite so simply and correctly, for which reason the one given by Strauss recommends itself as the only possible one. Naturally, verses 10–13 then no longer belong to the original connection, since the recommendation, contained in them, of faithfulness in what is small as in what is great contradicts precisely that trait of the parable on which, in it, the possibility of the beneficence that is enjoined rests. One will also have to grant that Strauss⁷⁴ is right in this, that the evangelist was led, by the thought of the μαμωνᾶς ἄδικος [unrighteous mammon], to attach these maxims here, just as he was led, by the mention of the case that one might deny Jesus (Luke 12:9), to attach to it the warning against the sin against the Holy Spirit (v. 10), which otherwise does not fit into the context; and further, in Luke 12:54–59, linked two discourses that do not belong together at all, through the wholly external kinship of the concepts κρίνειν [to judge] and δοκιμάζειν [to examine]. These examples therefore entitle us to excise, as not belonging here, not merely verse 13 in our passage, as is done by De Wette and Schneckenburger (Beiträge zur Einleitung ins N. T. [Contributions to the Introduction to the New Testament]), but also verses 10–12.

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Strauss has found an even greater lack of coherence in the following verses 14–18,⁷⁵ which, of course, on the present reading in verse 17, τοῦ νόμου [of the law], is not to be denied. Yet even if, through the original reading τῶν λόγων μου [of my words], an intelligible connection between verses 16–18 becomes possible, this maxim can still not be properly attached either forward or backward, and is in itself not free from suspicion against its original character. For to the murmuring of the Pharisees, which is called forth by the injury to their covetousness (v. 14), Jesus answers with the charge of hypocrisy, which as such does not yet, as De Wette thinks, include in itself the charge of covetousness. For that reason the saying is also not striking enough over against the motive, mentioned by the evangelist, of the Pharisees’ opposition. If this was called forth by covetousness, one expects from Jesus a definite rebuke of this vice, somewhat in the manner of Luke 21:47. Since this is not the case, it must therefore become doubtful whether the evangelist rightly mentions here an opposition of the Pharisees arising from greed for money, which would indeed be motivated by the preceding parable, but is not presupposed in Jesus’s answer. Since, however, in so many cases the formulas with which the evangelist introduces discourses are feigned by him, it is probably not to be doubted that the notice in verse 14 also comes only from him. Then, however, it shows itself quite clearly that the evangelist has here only collected a number of maxims which stand in no connection with one another, but are wholly indifferent to one another. For the proclamation of the end of the law (v. 16) has no relation at all to the hypocrisy of the Pharisees rebuked before; since one must, after all, properly hesitate to connect these two maxims with one another, as though the law, which, although abolished, would be observed by the Pharisees, itself the support of their hypocrisy and thus were βδέλυγμα ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ [an abomination before God].

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This, however, would be the only possible connection. Further, every connection between verses 18 and 19 is lacking, since an allegorical interpretation of the allusion to marriage and divorce⁷⁶ both fails to help in introducing the following parable and is positively false, because that saying about divorce is adduced as an example of the λόγοι κυρίου [words of the Lord], whose imperishability has just been asserted. But this connection too is hardly original. For even if there can be no doubt of the original character of the maxims in vv. 17 and 18 (cf. Matthew 24:35; 5:32), the latter is intelligible only in the context of the Matthean Sermon on the Mount, whereas it stands unfittingly here, insofar as either a proof of the assertion in verse 17 was necessary, or a specimen of those imperishable words of Jesus was superfluous. Finally, however, decided as the service is which the two verses 16 and 17 render to the antinomian tendency of the evangelist, it is nevertheless very much to be doubted whether Jesus uttered anything of the sort. For if he declared himself against the validity of the law as much on principle as he does here, then the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew is false, in which he asserts the imperishability of the law. Here there can be no doubt that the Matthean depiction is the correct one, for if Jesus had already, with such definiteness, declared on principle the end of the law, then the Jewish character of the original community, and the resistance which the Pauline abrogation of the law found with it, would not be explicable at all. There is the further point that verse 16 has evidently arisen only from the similar passage in Matthew 11:13: πάντες οἱ προφῆται καὶ ὁ νόμος ἕως Ἰωάννου προεφήτευσαν [all the prophets and the law prophesied until John], which latter stands entirely in accord with the absolute validity of the law as law. With those statements in Luke, the parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus stands in no closer connection. Rather, the sentence ἔχουσι Μωϋσέα καὶ τοὺς προφήτας, ἀκουσάτωσαν αὐτῶν [they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them] proves that

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here a more positive significance is nevertheless given to the law than in the statements above. That the parable, which is originally supposed to make vivid the contrast of the rich and the poor, has, through the addition of verses 27–31, received a turn toward the contrast of the Gentiles and the Jews, has been shown above.⁷⁷ Here it can only be remarked further that this recasting is hardly in the sense of Jesus. Of a complete exclusion of the Jews from the kingdom of heaven we have hitherto found no trace in the whole (original) Gospel, although, on account of his Pauline tendency, the author would certainly have taken up sayings of such content if they had been known to him. But the present case is the only one in which a discourse of this sense is put into Jesus’s mouth, which, however, already on external grounds, namely on account of its relationship to the original stock [Grundstamm] of the parable, is suspect in its original character. As a product of the tradition, it can therefore prove only that, at the time of the composition of the Gospel, maxims were in circulation which asserted the exclusion of the Jews from the divine kingdom. For that the addition does not come from the evangelist himself, we have as our guarantee its divergence from the thought of the sixteenth verse.

Our consideration of the discourses in the original Luke has, in the individual cases, led to results of different kinds, since we had to notice that the writer has partly contented himself with taking up unchanged the tradition transmitted to him, and has partly reworked it according to his party tendencies, or the circumstances of the time, or merely for the sake of the rounded form. The unevenness of this procedure is thus quite similar to his inconsistency in carrying through the dogmatic and pragmatic design of the writing [Translator’s note: pragmatisch and, below, Pragmatismus are nineteenth-century causal and purposive historical narration, not philosophical pragmatism], and is closely bound up with it. At the same time, however, we have also recognized that he has made his collection later than Matthew,

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in that many a divergence from him in conceptions and views, to which the living tradition is involuntarily subject, can be understood only from a later time. A second piece of evidence for this is that the knowledge of the occasions of many sayings of Jesus, which we still find in Matthew, has been lost in Luke (Luke 12:10; cf. Matthew 12:24, 31 ff.; Luke 12:54–56; cf. Matthew 16:1 ff.; Luke 17:1–6; cf. Matthew 18:6, 7, 15, 21; 17:18–20), so that we can rightly understand them only by comparison with Matthew; or that thoughts which belong together have been torn apart (Luke 9:46–48; 18:15–17; cf. Matthew 18:1–5). Are these relationships, however, of such a kind that one can, as is done by De Wette,⁷⁸ assume a conscious dependence of the evangelist, in his work, on Matthew? If from the passages of Luke which De Wette adduces as evidence of this assertion one subtracts those which belong to the interpolations, and which will come up for discussion further on, very few remain that belong to the original stock of the Gospel. First, namely, Luke 17:1–4, whose structure, as De Wette says, is supposed to be explicable only from Matthew, while he, as was remarked above, declares the report of Matthew, chapter 18:1 ff., in the commentary, outright to be the source of those maxims. If, however, our evangelist had known that Matthean text, it is rather incomprehensible that he tore those maxims out singly, and did not take up the well-connected presentation of Matthew. Rather, the form of those isolated maxims in Luke, as we have already remarked, is an evident mark of the independence of his reworking from his predecessor. The Lukan Sermon on the Mount as well, which De Wette calls a caricature of the one in Matthew, is rather to be regarded only as a pure result of the tradition, however little it is to be denied that the evangelist from the tradition also knew the section

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which in Matthew is the main thing, but which he passed over for known reasons. De Wette is indeed right when he regards the position of the discourse in Luke as the fruit of his arbitrary pragmatism; that he should have been dependent on Matthew, however, is not apparent. That from which the different position of the discourse in the two writings is to be derived is the pragmatism which each of the authors has laid at the foundation of his writing, without, to be sure, the preference of historical correctness being allowed, as we have shown,⁷⁹ to be assigned on that account to the one or to the other. Whether the divergence in Luke 21:12 from Matthew 24:8, namely the reversal of the temporal order between the general wars that precede the parousia and the persecutions of the disciples, is an intentional correction, is also not raised above all doubt. It has been remarked that the correction would be insufficient and inconsistent; and if such a thing could, to be sure, very well be credited to the evangelist, one need not, in that case, presuppose acquaintance with Matthew, but only with the tradition that continues to live on. Or perhaps there is not even a correction to be sought in this passage, but only a variation of the tradition, which the writer took up without intention. The hand that improves afterward, as De Wette says, can indeed be recognized in the insertion of Luke 7:21, namely, as most of the introductory formulas of discourses have arisen from the reflection of the writer; Luke 9:32, by contrast, is evidently a traditional amplification of the story of the transfiguration in relation to Matthew. It is the same with Luke 8:45 and 22:8 ff., since the increase of the miraculous is only a mark of later tradition, but in no case a sign of dependence on the report of Matthew, which differs on these points. What De Wette thus brings together — dependence on Matthew and lack of original character —

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rather mutually exclude one another, since dependence on the original report of Matthew would also guarantee to the third Gospel its original character. Equally mistaken, as this view is, is also that hypothesis of De Wette’s, that the evangelist cursorily used the Gospel of John,⁸⁰ for the passages which he adduces as proof, in which the presentation of Luke is supposed to betray an agreement with John or an echo of him, are too little distinctive to be able to arouse the suspicion of Luke’s dependence. The interpolations in the Gospel of Luke, too, are not of such a kind that they point to the Gospel of John as their source.⁸¹ It is therefore safest to drop this hypothesis, which also contributes nothing to the explanation of the distinctive features of the third Gospel. Its original stock [Grundstamm] is to be derived only from the tradition, since marks of source writings are not to be found, and the endeavor to discover them could take place only if one compared the prologue with the canonical Gospel in its present form, without taking the knowledge of the Marcionite Gospel as an aid.