Note 32 — Chapter VI · THE DISCOURSES OF JESUS IN THE THREE FIRST GOSPELS.1

At vi. 19, the thread of strict connexion is broken, according to the admission of Paulus, and so far all expositors are bound to agree with him. But his position, that notwithstanding the admitted lack of coherence in the succeeding collection of sentences, Jesus spoke them consecutively, is not equally tenable; on the contrary, our more recent critics have all the probabilities on their side when they suppose, that in this latter half of the Sermon on the Mount Matthew has incorporated a variety of sayings uttered by Jesus on different occasions. First stands the apothegm on earthly and heavenly treasures (19–21), which Luke, with more apparent correctness, inserts in a discourse of Jesus, the entire drift of which is to warn his adherents against earthly cares (xii. 33 f.). It is otherwise with the next sentence, on the eye being the light of the body. Luke annexes this to the apothegm already mentioned on the light that is to be exhibited; now as the light λύχνος, placed on a candlestick, denotes something quite distinct from what is intended by the comparison of the eye to a light, λύχνος, the only reason for combining the two apothegms lies in the bare word λύχνος: a rule of association which belongs properly to the dictionary, and which, beyond it, is worse than none. Then follows, also without any apparent connexion, the apothegm on the two masters, appended by Luke to the parable of the steward, with which it happens to have the word Mammon, μαμωνᾶς, in common. Next comes, in Matthew v. 25–34, a dissuasion from earthly solicitude, on the ground that natural objects flourish and are sustained without anxiety on their part; in Luke, this doctrine is consistently united with the parable (found only in the third gospel) of the man who, in the midst of amassing earthly treasures, is summoned away by death (xii. 22 ff.).32 The warning not to be blind to our own faults while we are sharp-sighted and severe towards those of others (vii. 1–5), would, if we rejected the passage from v. 19, of chap, vi. to the end, form a suitable continuation to the previous admonition against Pharisaic sanctimoniousness (vi. 16–18), and might, therefore, have belonged to the original body of the discourse.33 This is the more probable because Luke has the same warning in his Sermon on the Mount (37 f., 41 f.), where it happens to assort very well with the preceding exhortation to mercifulness; but at v. 39 and 40, and part of 38, it is interrupted by subjects altogether irrelevant. The text, With what measure ye mete, etc., is very inappropriately interposed by Mark (iv. 24), in a passage similar in kind to one of Luke’s intermediate miscellanies. V. 6, in Matthew, is equally destitute of connexion and parallel; but the succeeding assurances and arguments as to the efficacy of prayer (v. 7–11), are found in Luke xi. 9, very fitly associated with another parable peculiar to that Evangelist: that of the friend awaked at midnight The apothegm, What ye would that men should do unto you, etc., is quite isolated in Matthew; in Luke, it has only an imperfect connexion.34 The following passage (v. 13 f.) on the strait gate στενὴ πύλη is introduced in Luke (xiii. 23) by the question addressed to Jesus: Are there few that be saved? εἰ ὀλίγοι οἱ σωζόμενοι; which seems likely enough to have been conceived by one who knew that Jesus had uttered such a saying as the above, but was at a loss for an occasion that might prompt the idea; moreover, the image is far less completely carried out in Luke than in Matthew, and is blended with parabolical elements.35 The apothegm on the tree being known by its fruits (v. 16–20), appears in Luke (vi. 43 ff.), and even in Matthew, farther on (xii. 33 ff.), to have a general application, but in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, it has a special relation to the false prophets; in Luke, it is in the last degree misplaced. The denunciation of those who say to Jesus, Lord, Lord, but who, on account of their evil deeds will be rejected by him at the day of judgment (21–23), decidedly presupposes the Messiahship of Jesus, and cannot therefore, have well belonged to so early a period as that of the Sermon on the Mount; hence it is more appropriately placed by Luke (xiii. 25 ff.). The peroration of the discourse is, as we have mentioned, common to both Evangelists.