Home | Synopsis | diagram – the synoptic sources | Luke’s disuse of Mark | the composite document (Q + L) | the reconstruction of Proto-Luke | authorship & tendency | additional note | list of MSS | (pages 199-222)
Hawkins showed that in the great Central Section of Luke, ix.51-xviii.14,
and also in the section vi.20-viii.3,
which he called respectively the GREAT and
the LESSER INTERPOLATIONS,
Luke deserts
Mark.
The material in these blocks is derived either from Q or
from a source peculiar to Luke, which may be styled L.
The section xix.1-27 is a third block of similar character.
Once, however, we grasp the full implication of the fact that Q as well as Mark contained an account of John's Preaching,
the Baptism and the Temptation, it becomes evident that the section Lk.iii.1-iv.30
constitutes yet another example of Luke's DISUSE of
Mark.
Again, Luke's account of the Resurrection Appearances is wholly, his
account of the Passion mainly, derived from a non-Marcan source.
But, if
the Gospel began and ended with non-Marcan material, is not "interpolation" the
wrong word to use of the other non-Marcan passages mentioned above?
The distribution
of Marcan and non-Marcan sections suggests rather the hypothesis that the
non-Marcan material formed the framework into which extracts from Mark were "interpolated" by
the editor of the Gospel.
Our hypothesis implies that the editor of the Gospel found Q, not in its original form, but embodied in a much larger
document (Q + L), which was in fact a complete
Gospel, somewhat longer than Mark.
Summary statement of facts, which tell
in favour of this hypothesis.
It would appear that, though Luke valued Mark
highly, he regarded the document Q + L as
his primary authority;
when this and Mark contained alternative versions
of the same incident or saying, he usually preferred that of Q
+ L.
This document Q + L may be styled "Proto-Luke."
Certain passages in Luke, besides the five considerable sections discussed
above, were probably derived from Proto-Luke.
Some of these can be identified
with practical certainty, others are more doubtful.
The existence of Proto-Luke a scientific hypothesis which, up to a point,
is capable of verification;
its authorship a matter of conjecture.
The "tendency" of Proto-Luke seems to be identical with that of
the author of the third Gospel and of the Acts, and that whether we consider
the first or the second part of the Acts.
This suggests the view that Luke
himself may have been the person who originally combined Q and L,
and then, at some subsequent date, produced an enlarged edition of his earlier
work by incorporating large extracts from Mark and prefixing an account of
the Infancy.
Whatever view be held as to authorship, Proto-Luke appears to be a document independent of Mark and approximately of the same date—a conclusion of considerable moment to the historian.
[The main argument of this chapter appeared in an article in the Hibbert Journal for October 1921, certain extracts from which (with the kind permission of the Editor) are reprinted here along with much fresh material.]
IN the study of the Synoptic Problem, next in importance to the fundamental
discovery of the use of Mark by Matthew and Luke, I would place the conclusion
that Q and Mark overlapped.
This conclusion,
we have seen, is in no way dependent on the exact content we give to the
symbol Q.
The essential fact stands that
the source (or sources) of the non-Marcan material common to Matthew and
Luke—
whatever its (or their) exact nature or extent, or in whatever form
or forms it lay before them respectively—
contained certain items which also
appear in Mark but in a different version.
Closely related to this is a further conclusion, partly anticipated by previous
writers, but most completely demonstrated by Sir John Hawkins, in an essay
in the Oxford Studies, "Three Limitations to St. Luke's Use of
St. Mark's Gospel."
Sir John there pointed out that, whereas over a
large part of his Gospel Luke is clearly reproducing the story of Mark, not
only in substance and in order, but with the closest verbal agreements,
there are two large tracts, viz. Lk.vi.20 - viii.3 and Lk.ix.51-xviii.14,
in which he makes no use of Mark at all, or, at most, derives from him a
few odd verses.
He further shows that in yet another great tract of the Gospel,
the section beginning with the Last Supper (Lk.x.14) and ending with the
discovery of the Empty Tomb (Lk.xxiv.12), the relation of the Lucan to the
Marcan story in regard to substance, order, and verbal parallelism is entirely
different from that in the other sections where Luke appears to be using
Mark.
I propose in this chapter to take up the investigation at the point at which Sir John laid it down, and I hope to establish a conclusion which may not only advance one step further the solution of the interesting critical problem of the literary relations of the first three Gospels, but which has also, if I mistake not, an important bearing on the question of the historical evidence for the Life of Christ.
In the Passion narrative Luke recounts several important incidents not mentioned
at all by Mark;
but there are, on the reckoning of Sir J. Hawkins, some 123
verses of Luke which in substance have a parallel in Mark.
But whereas elsewhere
in the Gospel where such parallelism exists 53% of Luke's words are found
in Mark, in this section the percentage falls to 27.
And since in some 20
out of the 123 verses in question the resemblance of Luke to Mark, both in
the structure of sentences and in verbal similarities, is very close, the
average for the remainder is much less than this 27%.
Besides this there
are no less than twelve variations in the order in which incidents are recorded
by Mark and Luke.
Lastly, whereas the additions which Matthew makes to Mark
are clearly detachable from the context, those made by Luke are not;
they
are woven into the structure of the narrative [Cf. Oxford
Studies, pp. 78-80.] in such a way that they cannot be removed
without reducing the story to confusion.
The conclusion to which these facts
point, Sir John himself hesitates to draw.
It is that Luke is in the main
reproducing an account of the Passion parallel to, but independent of, Mark,
and enriching it with occasional insertions from Mark.
But various other
authorities have drawn the conclusion.
The most elaborate attempt to work
it out in detail is perhaps that of the American scholar, Mr. A. M. Perry.
[A.
M. Perry, The Sources of Luke's Passion Narrative (University of Chicago),
1920.
As long ago as 1891 P. Feine, Eine vorkanonische Ueberlieferung
des Lukas, elaborated a theory that implied something of the sort.]
The section Lk.vi.20-viii.3 contains
the Sermon on the Plain,
the Centurion's Servant,
the Widow of Nain,
John's Message,
the Anointing,
the parable in the house of the Pharisee,
and a brief mention of a preaching tour with the names of the ministering
women.
Clearly Luke is not indebted to Mark for any of this; on the contrary,
it is fairly clear that the reason why in the account of the last week at
Jerusalem he omits the Anointing at Bethany recorded by Mark is that he has
previously related this somewhat different story of an Anointing in Galilee.
The section Lk.ix.51-xviii.14 is the centre and core of the Third Gospel.
It occupies 25 out of the 80 pages of Luke in the Greek Testament before
me, and it contains most of the parables and narrative peculiar to Luke
as well as about half of the material in Luke, which can plausibly be assigned
to Q.
It is often spoken of as "The Peraean section."
This
is a misnomer. Mark represents our Lord's last journey to Jerusalem as
having been through Peraea on the east of Jordan, but there is absolutely
no hint of this in Luke.
On the contrary, the way in which allusions to
Samaria and Samaritans are introduced in this section suggests that he
conceived of the journey as being through Samaria.
[Of
course the most direct route from Galilee to Jerusalem would be through
Samaria.
The roundabout route on the east of Jordan was preferred by Galilean
pilgrims on account of the religious hostility of the Samaritans.
If, as
the Fourth Gospel represents, our Lord visited Jerusalem more than once.
He may, at different times, have used both routes.]
But the geographical
notices are of the vaguest.
Some scholars have spoken of this section of
the Gospel as "the travel document."
This is, from the critical
standpoint, an even more dangerously misleading title, as it implies that
this section once existed as a separate document.
The only safe name by
which one can call it is the CENTRAL SECTION —
a title that states a fact but begs no questions.
Sir John Hawkins shows that in this Central Section Luke makes no use, or
practically no use, of Mark.
It includes versions of the Beelzebub Controversy
and the parable of the Mustard Seed, but these are from Q.
It includes the Great Commandment in a version which has some few points
of agreement with Matthew against Mark and may therefore be from Q,
but which is at any rate strikingly different from Mark's—
in particular in
placing the Great Commandment itself in the mouth of the scribe and not of
our Lord.
It includes also seven short sayings, which form "doublets" with
sayings found elsewhere in Luke in contexts derived from Mark.
[For
details and full discussion cf. Oxford Studies, pp. 35-41.]
In at least five of these the version of the saying found in the context
of Luke derived from Mark is very much closer to the Marcan form than is
the version found in Luke's Central Section.
An author may always think one
or two particular sayings so important as to be worth repeating, but where
such repetition occurs several times the
"doublets" are presumptive evidence of the use of parallel sources.
There are also nine sayings of one verse each having a general resemblance
to sayings also found in Mark and in Matthew.
In several of these the versions
in Matthew and Luke agree together against Mark in a way which suggests that
Luke's version is really derived from Q;
in all there are notable divergences between the Lucan
and Marcan versions.
The conclusion to be drawn from these facts is that,
while there is no reason to believe that Luke would have religiously avoided
introducing an odd saying or a word or two from Mark in his Central Section,
yet as a matter of fact he has done so, if at all, to an extent that is practically
negligible.
Sir John named the two sections (Lk.vi.20-viii.3 and ix.51-xviii.14), in
regard to which he proved Luke's "disuse of Mark," respectively THE
LESSER INTERPOLATION and THE GREAT INTERPOLATION.
Each of them, as we have seen, contains material, which, as it occurs also
in Matthew, we may assign to Q, mixed up with material peculiar to Luke.
This latter
material it will be convenient to speak of as L.
But there is a third section (Lk.xix.1-27), differing from these only in
the matter of length, to which by parity of nomenclature there might be given
the name "the third interpolation." It contains the story of Zacchaeus,
which is L, and the parable of the Pounds.
Harnack and others,
from the close resemblance of this last to Matthew's parable of the Talents,
are inclined to assign this parable to Q.
In that case THE THIRD INTERPOLATION
is also a mixture of Q and L material,
though that is not a point to which much significance attaches.
But, and here I come to a point fundamental to my argument, there is yet
another considerable section in Luke (Lk.iii.1-iv.30), compiled like these
out of Q and L material.
It comprises an account of John's Preaching, the Baptism, the Genealogy,
the Temptation, and the Rejection at Nazareth.
In this section, just as in
the "great interpolation," there are indeed a few points of contact
with Mark; but closer examination makes it evident that the majority of these
passages are not likely to have been actually derived from Mark.
For it is
certain that Q, as well as Mark, had an account
of John's Preaching, the Baptism and the Temptation (cf. p. 186 ff.), and
that Luke is in the main reproducing that of Q;
also it is clear that Luke's account of the Rejection
of Nazareth is quite different from Mark's.
Once these facts are grasped,
we must ask whether the "disuse of the Marcan source," which was
demonstrated by Hawkins in regard to the "interpolations," may
not be a principle which is equally applicable to the section iii.1-iv.30.
The number of verses in this section of Luke which contain anything at all
closely resembling Mark are very few (Lk.iii.3-4; iii.16, 21-22; iv.1-2).
The first is the most striking; for Luke agrees with Mark against Matthew
(who therefore probably here represents Q)
in reading
the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins (Lk.iii.3)
instead of
repent ye,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Mt.iii.2).
Mark's phrase (which occurs also in Acts ii.38) may well in this case have
seemed to Luke an improvement on that of Q.
On the other hand, the application to John the Baptist (Lk.iii.4) of the
prophecy in Isaiah,
The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
was probably a piece of primitive Christian apologetic antecedent to all
written documents, and therefore probably stood in Q as
well as in Mark.
The probability is slightly enhanced by the fact that Matthew
and Luke concur in giving this quotation alone, without that from Malachi,
which Mark prefixes.
If the other passages (Lk.iii.16, 21-22, iv.1-2) are examined two things will be found.
The saying
he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire
is the only one in Luke where it is likely that Mark influences him.
In this case it is possible that the contrast, as the saying stood in Q,
was between baptism by water and by fire.
In Mark it is between baptism by
water and by the Spirit.
If so, it would appear that neither Matthew nor
Luke liked to dispense with either expression, and conflated the two versions.
The conflation is such an obvious one that it would be quite likely they
should both make it independently.
It is remarkable that, whereas Mk.i.14
says that Jesus after the Temptation went into Galilee, Matthew and Luke
agree in mentioning that He went first of all to Nazareth (Mt.iv.13, Lk.iv.16).
Still more remarkable, they both agree in using the form Nazara—
which occurs
nowhere else in the New Testament.
It would look as if Q,
which clearly had a word or two of narrative introduction to John's Preaching
and the Temptation, had a brief notice of the change of scene in which the
name Nazara occurred.
This would also explain why in the Lucan version the
story of the Rejection at Nazareth is inserted in this context—
or rather
it would justify the insertion, placing as the opening incident of the ministry
a story which the author evidently regards as symbolising in little the whole
course of Israel's rejection of Christ and His religion.
We infer, then,
that Lk.iv.14-15, which has hardly any points of verbal agreement with Mark,
except in the unavoidable proper names Jesus and Galilee, was derived from Q,
not Mark.
Lastly, it is hardly likely that Luke would have ignored Mk.i.6 (camel's hair, locusts and wild honey), and i.13b,
and the angels ministered unto him,
if he had been following Mark as his principal source.
Accordingly, we conclude that the indebtedness of Luke to Mark in the section
iii.1-iv.30 is so small that, for practical purposes, the section may fairly
be classed with the three previously mentioned as an example of Luke's "disuse" of
Mark.
Connect this with another observation.
The account of the Resurrection Appearances, which forms the conclusion of
Luke’s Gospel, must have come from a non-Marcan source.
It cannot have
been taken from the lost ending of Mark, for it only records Appearances
in Jerusalem, instead of the Appearance in Galilee which Mark's original
conclusion evidently recorded.
Also it is led up to by an account of the
Last Supper and Passion, which, as we have seen, differs so considerably
from the Marcan in substance and in the relative order of events, and which
resembles Mark so much less than usual in its actual wording, that it looks
as if it were derived in the main from an independent source.
At once there leaps to the mind the suggestion, surely "interpolation" was
quite the wrong title to give to any of these non-Marcan blocks.
Taken all
together they are much larger in extent than the sections derived from Mark.
From them comes the beginning, and from them also comes the end, of the Gospel.
Suppose, then, they stood all together in a single document—
this would form
something very like a complete Gospel, opening with the Preaching of John
and ending with the Resurrection Appearances.
But, if so, it is not the non-Marcan
sections, it is those derived from Mark, which should be styled the “interpolations.”
We are on the verge of a conclusion of the first importance.
At least we
are compelled to test the hypothesis that the non-Marcan sections represent
a single document, and to Luke this was the framework into which he inserted,
at convenient places, extracts from Mark.
If so, there is an essential difference
in the way in which the authors of the First and of the Third Gospels use
Mark.
To Matthew, Mark is the primary source and provides the framework into
which matter from other sources is inserted.
To Luke the non-Marcan source
is the more primary authority.
To it he prefixes chaps, i. and ii. as an
introduction, and into the framework which it provides he fits materials
derived from Mark.
The hypothesis I propose in no way conflicts with the generally accepted
view that Matthew and Luke are ultimately dependent not only on Mark but
on Q—meaning by Q a
single written source.
Most, if not all, of the agreements of Matthew and
Luke, where Mark is absent, are, I think, to be referred to Q;
but I desire to interpolate a stage between Q and
the editor of the Third Gospel.
I conceive that what this editor had before
him was, not Q in its original form—
which,
I hold, included hardly any narrative and no account of the Passion—
but Q+L, that is, Q embodied
in a larger document, a kind of GOSPEL in fact,
which I will call PROTO-LUKE.
This Proto-Luke would
have been slightly longer than Mark, and about one-third of its total contents
consisted of materials derived from Q.
The hypothesis of a Proto-Luke was suggested in the first instance by the
observation that in the Third Gospel Marcan and non-Marcan materials are
distributed, as it were, in alternate stripes, and that both the beginning
and the end of the Gospel belong, not to the Marcan, but to the non-Marcan
strain.
It is fortified by a consideration of the comparative extent of the
material derived from the two sources.
If we leave out of account the story
of the Passion from the Last Supper onwards, since from this point it is
often difficult to be sure what comes from Mark and what from elsewhere,
we find that the non-Marcan material between iii.1 and x.14 amounts to at
least 671 verses, while the extracts from Mark total only 346, even if we
assign all doubtful cases to the Marcan source (Lk.x.14).
In the Passion
and Resurrection story the non-Marcan elements may be roughly estimated as
135 verses, those probably derived from Mark at perhaps not more than 30.
Luke iii.1 opens with an elaborate chronological statement:
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius,
when Pontius Pilate was ...
the word of the Lord came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.
This surely reads—
I owe the observation to a conversation with Sir J. Hawkins—
as
if it was originally written as the opening section of a book.
The impression
is strengthened by the curious position of the genealogy of our Lord (iii.23).
If the last editor of the Gospel had inserted this, we should have expected
to find it, like the genealogy in Matthew, somewhere in chaps, i. or ii.
in connection with the account of the Birth and Infancy.
If, however, it
was originally inserted in a book that only began with Lk.iii.1, its position
is explained;
for it occurs immediately after the first mention of the name
Jesus.
A further reason for supposing that Luke found the Q and the L elements in the non-Marcan sections already combined into a single written source is to be derived from a consideration of the way in which he deals with incidents or sayings in Mark, which he rejects in favour of other versions contained either in the Q or in the L elements of that source.
Of the most conspicuous of these,
two, the Beelzebub Controversy (Mk.iii.22 ff., cf. Lk.xi.14-23) and the
Mustard Seed (Mk.iv.30 ff., cf. Lk.i.18-19), must be assigned to Q;
two, the Rejection at Nazareth (Mk.vi.1 ff., cf. Lk.iv.16-30) and the Anointing
(Mk.xiv.3 ff., cf. Lk.vii.36 ff.), belong to L;
and one, the Great Commandment (Mk..28 ff., cf. Lk.x.25-28), may be from
either Q or L.
If we look up
these passages in Mark in a Synopsis of the Gospels and notice the incidents
which immediately precede and follow them, we shall see that Luke reproduces
everything else in the neighbourhood from Mark in the original order, but
that he simply omits Mark's account of these incidents.
The alternative versions
that he gives are always given in a completely different context—
presumably,
then, their context in the source from which he took them.
Of special significance
in this regard is the context in which he places the story of the Anointing.
Mark gives an Anointing at Bethany the day before the Last Supper;
Luke omits
this, but gives an Anointing by a woman that was a sinner in Galilee.
That
Luke, with his special interest in repentant sinners, should have preferred
the version he gives is quite explicable;
but his desertion of the Marcan
context is unintelligible if the version he substitutes was a floating tradition
attached to no particular occasion.
His proceeding is quite explicable if
the version substituted stood along with the other matter with which Luke
connects it in a written document which Luke on the whole preferred to Mark.
In the instances just quoted, the non-Marcan version is a fuller and more
interesting version.
But there are other cases where the contrary seems true.
If we compare the saying in Luke about Salt (Lk.xiv.34) with that in Mark
(ix.49-50);
or Mark's long discussion of Divorce (Mk.x.2-12) with the single
verse in Luke (Lk.xvi.18);
or the two versions of the saying contrasting
the Rulers of the Gentiles and the Son of Man (Mk.x.42-45, Lk.x.25-27), we
shall see that every time Mark's version is the more vigorous and interesting.
It would look, then, as if Luke's preference is for the non-Marcan source
as a whole, not merely for particular items in it on account of their intrinsic
merit.
Luke's preference of his non-Marcan source to Mark, so far at least as the Q element
in that source is concerned, may be further shown by a comparison with Matthew.
We have already seen that when Mark and Q overlap,
Matthew carefully conflates the two;
e.g. in the account of John the Baptist,
of the Temptation, and of the Beelzebub Controversy, he gives, not only
the Q account, but certain details which
occur only in Mark (Mt.iii.4 = Mk.i.6; Mt.iv.llb = Mk.i.13b; Mt..31 = Mk.iii.28).
Luke, on the other hand, appears either to discard the Marcan version altogether,
or to take over only a few words.
Again, when Q and
Mark overlap, Matthew is in sharp contrast to Luke in preferring the context
in which the saying occurs in Mark;
the Beelzebub Controversy and the Mustard
Seed may be instanced.
But perhaps the best illustration of the difference
in their method is the conflation by Matthew (x.1 ff.) of the Charge to the
Seventy (Lk.x.1-10) with Mark's Charge to the Twelve (Mk.vi.7 ff.), as contrasted
with Luke's presentation of the same material as two distinct episodes.
But a similar preference by Luke of the non-Marcan source may be detected
in regard to the L as well as the Q element in that source.
In the Passion story Luke not
only rearranges the Marcan order some twelve times, he also three times substitutes
the non-Marcan for the Marcan representation on important points of fact.
He speaks of a mocking by Herod, not by the soldiers of Pilate;
he makes
the trial take place in the morning instead of at night;
and, most conspicuous
of all, makes Jerusalem rather than Galilee the scene of the Resurrection
Appearances.
It would look, then, as if Luke tends to prefer the non-Marcan to the Marcan
version, and this whether it be the longer or the shorter, and whether it
belongs to that element in the source which we can further analyse as being
ultimately derived from Q or from the element
which we call L.
But such a preference,
especially where it is a preference in regard to the order of events, is
much more explicable if Q and L were already combined
into a single document.
For the two in combination would make a book distinctly
longer than Mark, and would form a complete Gospel.
Such a work might well
seem to Luke a more important and valuable authority than Mark.
But this
would not be true of either Q or L in
separation.
The conclusion, then, that Q + L lay
before the author of the Third Gospel as a single document and that he regarded
this as his principal source appears to be inevitable.
This last argument has been impugned on the ground that, while we can observe
all cases where Luke has preferred his other source to Mark, we do not know,
since Luke's other source or sources are lost, that he may not as often have
discarded their version in favour of Mark's.
It is, I concede, quite possible
that in some cases Luke thought Mark's version superior, and therefore omitted
the non-Marcan version.
I am not concerned to prove that Luke thought meanly
of Mark as an authority—
had he done that he would not have incorporated
two-thirds of it—
nor yet that he always preferred the non-Marcan version.
My point is, firstly, that the frequency of his preference, and especially
the fact that it extends to matters of order, is explicable only if the non-Marcan
material formed a complete Gospel so considerable as to seem worthy not only
of being compared with, but even of being preferred to, Mark.
Secondly, for
the verifiable reason that Luke derives about twice as much from Proto-Luke
as he does from Mark, I beg leave to think that Luke regards this as his
principal source;
in which case it is probable that he would prefer it to
Mark more frequently than vice versa.
Collateral evidence that the Q and L material
had been combined before the editor of the Third Gospel used them can be
found in the use of the style ὁ κύριος, "the
Lord," instead of the simple name Jesus in narrative.
This usage is
not found at all in Matthew and Mark [In Mt.xxviii.6
it is found in the T.R.,
but is omitted by B א 33, Θ,
Syr. S., e.];
though it is found
twice in the spurious conclusion of Mark (xvi.19, 20).
It occurs 5 times
in John.
In Luke it occurs 14 times, or, if we accept the, probably here
correct, reading of the T.R. (om. B
L T) in x.31, 15 times.
But the striking fact is that while it never
appears in passages clearly derived by Luke from Mark, the 15 instances are
divided between sections derived from Q and
from L in numbers roughly proportionate to
the extent of matter derived from each of these sources.
Seven occurrences
are in material clearly from L (vii.13; x.39,
41; i.15; xviii.6; xix.8; x.31);
4 are connected with matter certainly from Q (vii.19;
x.1; xi.39; .42); 2 (xvii.5, 6) are connected with a saying, which may be
either L or Q.
The remaining 2 occur in one verse (x.61),
The Lord turned and looked upon Peter.
And Peter remembered the word of the Lord,
how he said unto him ...
The first half of the verse is peculiar to Luke, the second half may be
from Mark.
In that case it is the one exception to the rule that the phrase
does not occur where Luke is copying Mark, but it is one readily explained
by assimilation of the "Jesus" that stood in Mark to "the
Lord" in the previous sentence—
ancient taste rather avoided the practice,
dear to the modern reporter, of alluding to the same person in the same context
by two different names or descriptions.
A similar but no less significant phenomenon is the use of the title in
the Vocative in personal address to Jesus.
Κύριε, "Lord," though
common in Matthew (19 times), only occurs once in Mark, and that on the lips
of the Syrophenician.
Ἐπιστάτα is
peculiar to Luke.
Luke has κύριε 16
times;
14 of these are in the sections assigned to Proto-Luke, only 2 in
those derived from Mark.
And there is something notable about each of these
two exceptional cases. In the first (Lk.v.12) the addition of κύριε may
be suspected as a textual assimilation to Matthew, since it makes a minor
agreement of Matthew and Luke against Mark.
In the second (Lk.xviii.41) it
is substituted for
ῥαβουνεί,
a more impressive form of ῥαββεί,
which is only used once in Mark and once in John.
Luke, it may be noted,
avoids all Hebrew words; he never uses
ῥαββεί.
Of the 14 cases of κύριε in
non-Marcan passages, 8 are L, 6 are in the midst of, or in the (possibly editorial)
introductions to, Q sayings. That is to say,
this use of κύριε,
if not conspicuously characteristic of both elements of the sources of Proto-Luke,
must be due to a hand that combined them before they were further combined
with matter derived from Mark.
[I have to thank
Miss M. J. M'Nab of Edinburgh for kind assistance in collecting some further
statistics of linguistic usage.
The results obtained, though in general confirmatory
of the Proto-Luke hypothesis, were not sufficiently striking to be worth
quoting as evidence.
This, so far as it goes, favours the view maintained
below that Q and L were originally combined by the same editor as the one
who subsequently united Q + L with
Mark to form our present Gospel.]
Finally, the hypothesis that Proto-Luke was Luke's main source explains
why Luke omits so much more of the contents of Mark's Gospel than Matthew
does;
in particular—
if the view (cf. p. 176 ff.) that Luke used a mutilated
copy of Mark be rejected—
it would account for the so-called "great omission," Mk.vi.45-viii.26,
which linguistic statistics [Oxford Studies, pp.
61 ff.] show clearly was an original part of Mark.
To Luke, Mark was
a supplementary source, from which, if pressed for space, he would refrain
from extracting material, which seemed to him of subordinate interest.
[Various
reasons why most of the matter in this section of Mark would be likely to
appeal to Luke as of inferior interest are suggested in Oxford studies,
pp. 67-74 and p. 223.]
Granted the existence of Proto-Luke—
a kind of half-way house between Collections
of Sayings, like Q, and the biographical
type of Gospel of which Mark was the originator—
it is probable that Luke
derived from it some other sections of his Gospel besides the four large
blocks iii.1-iv.30, vi.20-viii.3, ix.51-xviii.14, xix.1-27, and the greater
part of the Passion and Resurrection story.
We must almost certainly assign
to it the Call of Peter and the Sons of clearly non-Marcan Zebedee (v.1-11),
and also the list of the Apostles (vi.14-16), since the names given are not
quite the same as in Mark.
In that case the brief summary, Lk.iv.14-15, the
Rejection of Nazareth, the Call of the Three, the names of the Twelve, no
doubt with a word or two of connection, would have formed in Proto-Luke the
transition, a very natural and appropriate one, between the Temptation story
and the Sermon on the Plain.
Unless Luke has omitted something to make room
for Marcan material the account of the Galilean ministry in Proto-Luke must
have concluded with the residue of the "lesser interpolation," ending
Lk.viii.3.
The Central Section, though vague in its geographical setting,
seems, as already noted, to be conceived of as a slow progress towards Jerusalem,
apparently through Samaria.
The shorter passage (xix.1-27), dated at Jericho,
would follow on naturally [I think it possible xix.28 may have stood in Proto-Luke.].
A
little later, in a section otherwise derived from Mark, Luke inserts the
Lament over Jerusalem (xix.41-44).
But the mention of the Mount of Olives,
a note of place with other details not found in Mark, in Lk.xix.37-40 suggests
that Proto-Luke may have contained a version of the Triumphal Entry of which
these verses are a fragment.
The last four verses of the Apocalyptic discourse,
xxi.5-36, and possibly some others (e.g. 18) which do not occur in the parallel
in Mk.i., may be from this same source.
Some scholars have argued the influence of a source parallel to Mark in
some of the minor variants of Luke in other places where his narrative is
clearly, in the main, derived from Mark, as for instance in the additions
made in Luke's version of the Transfiguration, ix.28-30, and of the reply
to the Sadducees about the Resurrection, xx.34-38, or in details such as
the mention of Satan (x.3) or of the names Peter and John (x.8).
But additions
of this kind, as well as, at any rate, the majority of Luke's divergences
from Mk.i. in his Apocalyptic chap, xxi., are well within the limits of editorial
conjecture or inference from the context.
They are not enough to justify
the assertion that Proto-Luke contained a parallel version of these sections
of Mark, though it is not impossible that this was the case.
The disentanglement of the elements derived from Mark and from Proto-Luke
respectively in the section x.14 to the end of the Gospel is in points of
detail highly speculative.
Luke writes in a literary style, he is not a mere "scissors
and paste" compiler of sources.
Besides, two independent accounts of
a story of which the outstanding episodes are a farewell Supper, a Trial,
and a Crucifixion, could not but each contain certain sections in which precisely
the same incident was described, and where the words employed, "accuse," "scourge," "crucify," would
be determined as much by the necessary vocabulary of the subject matter as
by the taste of a writer.
But, if the general position that Luke preferred
Proto-Luke to Mark is correct, we are entitled to approach the question with
the preliminary assumption that everything after Lk.x.14 is derived from
Proto-Luke, except those verses which there are special reasons for assigning
to Mark on account of their close verbal resemblance to Mark and the possibility
of their being detached from the context without spoiling the general sense.
This assumption is fortified by the observation of the remarkable variations
in order between Mark and Luke, which suggest that Luke is in the main following
his non-Marcan source.
Hawkins [Oxford Studies, p. 77.] selects
the following passages as closest to Mark in the smaller structure of the
sentence as well as in actual wording: Lk.x.18, 22, 42, 46, 47, 52 f., 54b,
61, 71; Lk.xi. 22, 26, 34b, 44 f., 46, 52 f.; Lk.xxiv. 6a.
Others which may
possibly be derived from Mark are Lk.x.33-34a, 55 f., 59 f., 69: xi.3, 25,
33, 35, 38, 49, 51; also xxiv.6b, clearly an adaptation of Mk.xvi.7.
But
even of the passages in Hawkins' list two (Lk.x.61; xi.46) are conflated
with material from some other source.
But, taking Hawkins' list as representing
the minimum of what Luke derived from Mark, we note that it includes nearly
all the passages which deal with Peter's Denial and the incident of Simon
of Cyrene carrying the Cross.
I incline to think Luke's non-Marcan
source did not contain these incidents.
Its account of the actual Crucifixion,
and probably also of the Entombment, seems to have been quite brief—
possibly
little more than a bare statement of the facts—
so that from xi.33 to xxiv.10a
Luke reverses his ordinary procedure and makes Mark his main source.
[The
most thorough attempt I know to unravel Luke's sources is The Sources
of Luke's Passion Narrative, A. M. Perry (Chicago, 1920).]
In framing our mental picture of Proto-Luke as practically a Gospel, giving
a story parallel with Mark's, from the Preaching of John to the Passion and
Resurrection, we have noted numerous cases where the two writings give divergent
versions of what is clearly the same event, parable, or saying.
To complete
the picture we must add three cases which should probably be viewed, not
so much as different versions of the same incident, but as similar stories
told in order to bring out the same kind of moral.
Such are the two examples
of our Lord's "breaking the Sabbath" by works of healing (Lk.i.10-17,
xiv.1-6), to be compared to the two slightly different stories told for a
similar purpose by Mark (ii.23-iii.6) or by John (v.1-18);
and the command
to show themselves to the priest—
an illustration, in the contrary sense,
of our Lord's attitude to the Law—
in connection with two quite different
stories of Cleansing Lepers in Mark and in Luke (Mk.i.44, Lk.xvii.14);
or
the two occasions on which His claim to forgive sins is challenged (Lk.vii.48-49,
cf. Mk.ii.7 = Lk.v.21).
Lastly, may not the Mission of the Seventy (Lk.x.1
ff.) and the parable of the Barren Fig Tree (Lk.i.6-9) be parallel versions
of Mark's Mission of the Twelve and Cursing of the Fig Tree?
top
We proceed to ask the question, Can we in any way determine the date and authorship of Proto-Luke?
I think we can.
But before putting forward a suggestion on this point I must emphasise that
it is put forward only as a suggestion.
The existence of Proto-Luke is,
I claim, a scientific hypothesis which is, to a considerable extent, capable
of verification;
and since it was put forward in my article in the Hibbert
Journal, it has received the adhesion of not a few New Testament scholars.
But the suggestion I make as to its authorship is one that, from the nature
of the case, does not admit either of verification or refutation to anything
like the same extent.
I suggest that the author of Proto-Luke —
the person, I mean, who combined
together in one document Q and the bulk of
the material peculiar to the Third Gospel—
was no other than LUKE,
the companion of Paul.
And I suggest that this same Luke some years afterwards
expanded his own early work by prefixing the stories of the Infancy and by
inserting extracts from Mark—
no doubt at the same time making certain minor
alterations and additions.
For reasons summarised in the last chapter of
this volume, I hold that the author of the Third Gospel and the Acts was
Luke the companion of Paul, who kept the diary which forms the basis of the
so-called WE SECTIONS or TRAVEL DOCUMENT in
the latter part of Acts.
But if Luke wrote the Acts twenty years or so later
than the events with which it ends—
and I cannot personally accept an earlier
date—
there were at least two periods of literary activity in his life.
There
was the period when, while in attendance on Paul, he wrote the "travel document," and
a later period when, years after the Apostle's death, he embodied this early
sketch into a larger and maturer history. The suggestion I make is that what
is true of the Acts is also true of the Gospel.
Luke during the two years
he was at Caesarea in the company of Paul made good use of his opportunities
of collecting information and made copious notes.
[For
evidence that in certain respects Luke's account of the Trial of our Lord
is superior to Mark's, see H. Danby, J.T.S., Oct. 1919, p. 61 ft On
the Trial before Herod, cf. Oxford Studies, p. 229 ff.]
Later
on, probably not till after the death of Paul, a copy of Q came
his way, and on the basis of this and his own notes he composed Proto-Luke
as a Gospel for the use of the Church in the place where he was then living.
Still later a copy of Mark came his way, and he then produced the second
and enlarged edition of his Gospel that has come down to us.
The main reason for supposing the author of the Third Gospel and the Acts
to be the same person as the author of Proto-Luke is that the "tendency," that
is, the interest and point of view evinced in the selection of incidents,
the emphasis laid on them, and the general presentation of Christianity and
its history which we find in the two works, is exactly the same throughout.
The special tastes, sympathies, and characteristics of the author are equally
conspicuous in the parts of the Gospel derived from Proto-Luke, in those
which we must attribute to the editor of the whole, in the first part of
Acts, in the "we sections," and in the final editor of Acts.
Thus the author of the "we sections" tells us that he stayed two
years in Caesarea, which had once been the capital of the Herod dynasty;
a special knowledge of, and interest in, the Herods, is found both in Proto-Luke
and in the first part of Acts.
He stayed in the house of Philip, the evangelist
of Samaria; an interest in Samaria and Samaritans—
a notable feature of Proto-Luke—
appears
in the selection of materials (whoever made it) in the first part of Acts,
and in the final editor by whom, of course, the Preface to the Acts was written.
The desire to represent Christ as the Saviour of the world, accepted by
Gentiles but rejected by His own people, is the main theme of the Acts,—
witness
the Preface, the whole development of the history as related with special
emphasis on each stage in opening the Gospel to a wider field—
to a eunuch,
to Samaritans, to Cornelius a proselyte, to pagans—
and the fact that it ends
on the last words of Paul,
We go to the Gentiles,
they will hear.
Similarly the editor of Luke (or Proto-Luke) carries on some lines further the quotation from Isaiah which he found in Mark or Q in order to reach the words
all flesh shall see the salvation of God;
he traces the genealogy of Christ, not (like Matthew) to Abraham the father
of Israel, but to Adam the father of all men;
he records as the Master's
final commission (xxiv.47) the command to go to the Gentiles;
most significant
of all, he narrates, as if it were the first act of our Lord's ministry,
the Rejection of Nazareth (though he knew it was not the first, since he
alludes to previous miracles in Capernaum), because it seemed to him to sum
up the history of the Christian message—
the prophet has honour, but not in
his own country;
and just as Elijah and Elisha had been sent, not to the
widows or the lepers of Israel, but to her of Zarepta and to Naaman the Syrian,
so it had been with the Christ Himself.
Again, what to the historian is one of the weak points of Luke, his preferring
the more to the less miraculous of the two versions of a story laid before
him, is characteristic both of the editor and his sources.
Thus Luke or Proto-Luke
adds to the account of the descent at the Baptism of the Spirit as a dove
the words "in bodily form,"
ruling out the possibility of its being a vision.
Proto-Luke contains, and
Luke prefers to Mark's version of the Call of Peter, another that includes
a miraculous draught of fishes.
The last editor of Acts never seems to have
reflected that the story of speaking with other tongues at Pentecost might
have been only a magnified account of that ecstatic "speaking with tongues" which
was quite common in the early Church.
The author of the "we sections" sees
a resurrection in the recovery of Eutychus, even while he records Paul's
own remark to the effect that he was not dead, and apparently never asked
whether the serpent which clung to Paul at Malta was really poisonous, or,
if so, had actually bitten him.
Again, there is throughout the Lucan writing an atmosphere of extraordinary
tenderness, somehow made quite compatible with the sternest call to righteousness,
sacrifice, and effort—
an atmosphere which can be felt rather than demonstrated—
and finding expression in a unique sympathy for the poor, for women, for
sinners, and for all whom men despise.
But this attitude can be felt equally
in the Infancy stories, in Proto-Luke, and in the Acts;
it is also what determines
many of those omissions from Mark
[E.g. the Cursing of
the Fig Tree.
The Syrophenician Woman, with its reference to Gentiles as
dogs and the implication that the Lord hesitated to heal such, is in Luke's "great
omission."
On Luke's "tendency," see Oxford Studies,
p. 222 ff.]
which can only be due to the final editor of the Gospel.
Now, of course, it can be argued that this
"tendency" may be explained as that of a particular church or school
of thought rather than of an individual.
It may.
But for myself, I cannot
resist the impression that the "atmosphere" I have vainly tried
to recall has a subtle individuality, which reflects, not a Church tradition,
but a personality of a very exceptional kind.
Dr. Headlam [The Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ,
p. 20 f. (Murray, 1923).], in reference to my article in the Hibbert
Journal, demurs to the idea of two editions of the Gospel, but suggests
two stages in its composition before it was put into circulation.
I have
no particular objection to this modification of the Proto-Luke hypothesis.
It is extremely difficult to define what would have constituted "publication" in
an illicit society like the early Church.
If Proto-Luke was composed in
some provincial town, very few copies would get abroad.
But if after it
had been enlarged by the author a copy came to Rome and was approved by
that Church, this edition would very rapidly get known elsewhere.
All I
am concerned to argue is that Proto-Luke was, and was originally intended
as, a complete Gospel;
but it is quite likely that it was only meant for
what in modern phrase would be called "private circulation."
But whether the compiler of Proto-Luke was Luke or not, the historical importance
of the identification of a source of the Third Gospel entirely independent
of Mark is obvious.
All recent discussion of the historical evidence for
the Life of Christ has been based on the assumption that we have only two
primary authorities, Mark and Q;
and, since Q is
all but confined to discourse, Mark alone is left as a primary authority
for the Life.
If, however, the conclusions of this chapter are sound we must
recognise in Proto-Luke the existence of another authority comparable to
Mark.
It is true that Proto-Luke is of later date than Q,
but in all probability so is Mark.
The essential point is that Proto-Luke
is independent of Mark.
Where the two are parallel it would seem that Proto-Luke
is sometimes inferior in historical value (e.g. in the details of the Call
of Peter), sometimes superior (e.g. the addition of an account of the trial
before Herod).
Neither Mark nor Proto-Luke are infallible;
but as historical
authorities they should probably be regarded as on the whole of approximately
equal value.
But, if so, this means that far more weight will have to be
given by the historian in the future to the Third Gospel, and in particular
to those portions of it which are peculiar to itself.
Appended is a list of passages most probably assigned to Proto-Luke:
Lk.iii.1-iv.30; iv.14-15; v.1-11; vi.14-16; vi.20-viii.3; ix.51-xviii.14;
xix.1-27; xix.37-44; xxi.18, 34-36; x.14 to end of the Gospel, except for
the verses derived from Mark the identification of which is very problematical.
The following are probably from Mark:
x.18, 22, 42, 46 f., 52-62,1 71; xi.3, 22, 25 f., 33-34b, 38, 44-46, 52 f.;
xxiv.6.
The following may be derived from Mark, or represent Proto-Luke partially assimilated to the Marcan parallel: x.69; xi.35, 49, 51; xxiv.1-3, 9 f.
[But x.62 is probably not genuine, being an assimilation
to Matthew, om. Old Lat.
Similarly xxiv.6a, and the words ἀπὸ τοῦ
μνημείου xxiv.
9, are omitted by D Old Lat.
It is notable that all three omissions reduce the extent of Luke's debt to
Mark.]
top