The accounts in Mt 5! 81, Lk 612-17, which describe the setting of the Sermon, both make mention of the mountain, but are not in agreement concerning it. Matthew locates the entire scene upon the mountain; Jesus and His disciples ascend it, apparently by His deliberate choice, to speak and to hear the Sermon ; when it is finished they descend. According to the Third Gospel, Jesus goes up the mountain to spend the night in solitary prayer (cf, Lk 928, Jn 63-15) ; when it is day He calls His disciples to Him, and appoints the Twelve; afterwards He comes down from the mountain to the multitude which had gathered on a level place below, where He heals many, and later delivers the discourse. The well-meant harmonistic efforts expended upon these passages do not seem convincing. But the discrepancy is neither sufficient to remove the datum of a mountain in connexion with the discourse, nor, in face of strong evidence for their identity, to force the conclusion that the reports of Matthew and Luke represent two separate and distinct discourses with different settings.
* This is the almost unanimous opinion of scholars: Tatian (Diatessaron), Origen, Jerome, Chrysostom, Euthymius, Theo- phylact, Luther, Calvin, Maldonatus, Meyer, Bengel, Neander, Schleiermacher, Stier, Ewald, Wieseler, Keim, Keil, Késtlin, Robinson, Ellicott, Schneckenburger, Hilgenfeld, Edersheim, Godet, Tholuck, Tischendorf, Achelis, Andrews, Beyschlag, Broadus, Farrar, Feine, Schanz, Sanday, Steinmeyer, Sieffert, de Wette, Wendt, H. Weiss, B. Weiss, Bruce, Burton, Heinrici, H. Holtzmann, Ibbeken, Jtilicher, Kibel, Noésgen, Wernle, Bacon, and many others. The theory of two separate discourses was advocated for apologetic purposes by Augustine, and, following him, by St. Gregory and certain minor Rom. Cath. writers, as, recently, Azibert (Revue Biblique, 1894). A few modern Protestant writers also have taken this view, as Greswell, Lange, Plumptre, and, most recently, Plummer (Comm. on Luke [1896], p. 177). : ‘
The arrangement of the material in Tatian’s Diatessaron (see Hill, Earliest Life of Christ, being the Diatessaron of Tatian [1894], pp. 73-84), which combines the Matthew and Luke accounts, is thus: Mt 51a Lk 618b-17 [Mk 314.15] Mt 52=Lk 620a Mt 53-10 Lk 62% Mt 511b.12 Lk 624272 Mt 51416 [Mk 422.23] Mt 517-250 [Lik 1258b] Mt 5250-42 Lk 630b.31 Mt 543-46a Lk 632b-36 Mt 547.48 Mt 61-8 [Lk 111b. 20] Mt 69b-18 [Lk 1232. 33a] Mt 619-23 [Lk 1135. 36] Mt 62427 [Lik 1226] Mt 628b-31 [Lik 1229>] Mt 682-34 Mt 71= Lk 637 Lk 688 [Mk 424b. 25) Lk 639-42 Mt 76 [Lk 115-13] Mt 712-16a Lk 644 Mt 717.18 Lk 645 Mt 719-23 Lk 647. 48a Mt 725-81,
4 SERMON ON THE MOUNT
The relation of the contents of the two accounts can be shown in a table :—
Mt 5% =Lki6* Mt 72? Sik 697282 546 = 62 73-5 = 641. 42 Rll.12 — G22 23 pe 631 39.40.42 29. 80 716. 17 — G35: 44 A448 G27. 28, 92-36 Ts = 646 61-34 has no parallel in Lik 620-49 724-27 — 647-49
L
Matthew’s account has 107 verses, Luke’s account 29. Of Luke’s 29 verses, 234 find a parallel in the Matthzean account, where they are arranged as 26 verses. There is no parallel in Mt 5-7 for Lk 624-26. 38a. 39. 40. 45 * Of Matthew's remaining 81 verses, 34 find a parallel in Luke outside of ch. 6 (in chs. 11-14. 16) + as follows : {—
Mt 53 =Lk 14% % Mt 62: = Lk 1154 55 = 118 (816) 64 = 16” 5s = 1617 625-33 — 1222-81 525. 26 — 1.258. 59 qr {19-18 532 1638 718. 14 1374 6928 = 112-4 73 = 1327 619-21 — 1.938. 84
This leaves 47 verses of the Matthzan discourse
which have no parallel in the Third Gospel: Mt Be 7-10. 14. 16, 17, 19-24, 27-31. 39-88. 41, 43 G1-8. 14-18. 94 176,15. 18-20.22,
That is, four-ninths of the Sermon in Matthew is peculiar to that Gospel.§
These phenomena of the comparative contents of the two accounts of the Sermon present a complex and difficult problem, and compel one to investigate the history of this discourse from the time of its utterance until it took its present two- fold form in our First and Third Gospels.
Another important feature of these two reports of the Sermon, and one which must be investigated in conjunction with the problem of content, is the remarkable variation in wording—in the literary expression of the same ideas. Sometimes this variation is slight, as in : ||—
* But there are parallels for two or three of these passages elsewhere in Matthew, thus: Lk 639=Mt 1514», Lk 64=Mt 1235 ; and with Lk 6402 compare Mt.1024 (Jn 1316 1520a),
+ These chapters belong to the somewhat clearly marked middle third of Luke’s Gospel (1025-1834), which consists mainly of discourse material. It is commonly known as the ‘ Perzan section,’ because its position in this book is between the final departure of Jesus from Galilee (Lk 951-1020) and His public entrance into Jerusalem (Lk 1835-1946), During this period Jesus perhaps spent some days or weeks in Perea (Mt 191= Mk 101, Lk 1321, Jn 1040), and some of the material in Lk 10-18 may belong to that period, as 121-12. 35-09 131-9. 22-30. 31-35 1720-37 1818, But the main contents of these chapters (Lk 111-36 1218-34 {310-21 14, 15, 16, 171-10 189-34) quite surely belong to the Galilean ministry, because (1) this is indicated by various allusions in the chapters themselves, ¢.g. 1179-32 (cf. Mt 1239-42), 1310. 17. 18-21 (cf, Mt 1381. 32), 1425-35 ; (2) the subject of most of this teaching is more suitable to that period ; (8) it is altogether unlikely that Jesus would have left so large and so important a portion of His general teaching till the last weeks of Hisministry. Luke had for these chapters (10-18) a special source, probably a document of some extent, which contained most valuable teaching ; but the settings of the teaching had been largely lost, and he therefore