1. The continuation of the previous line of thought is ap- parent from the allusion to the fate of God's messengers (with Mt 23 34-37 = Lk 1149-51 I334f. cf. Mt 1239ff=Lk 1129ff-), to the vain plea of the Spirit [Wisdom] (with Mt 2337-39 = Lk 1334f. cf. Mt 1238 42 = Lk 11&-32), and to the house left desolate (with Mt 2338f- = Lkl335 cf. Mt 1243-'i5 = Lk llS'i-se). Many considerations, on the other hand, make it probable that Mt 2334-39 ( = Lk ii49-5l 1334f), if not more, is really drawn from some lost 'Wisdom' writing, (a) The sending of ' prophets and wise men and scribes ' (h.akhamim and 0pMriin) is something which cannot be as- cribed to Jesus (Mt.) but only to the Divine Spirit (Wisdom). (6) The adoption of the figure of Ps 367 9i4, jg 315, Dt 3211 ig appropriate only to the Divine Spirit, which broods over Jeru- salem ; it is actually so applied in 2 Es 130. It will appear to many inappropriate if made an utterance of Jesus person- ally. The same may be said in less degree of the threat of the forsaking of the house (cf. Jer 127 22^. Josephus pre- serves a kindred legend of voices in the Temple saying, ' Let us remove hence,' BJ vi. v. 3). (c) The whole context Mt 2334-39 reappears in paraphrase in 2 Es 1-8-37^ which, though late and Christianized, preserves the material in the form of an utterance of ' the Lord Almighty.' (d) Mt 2335 contains, as some think, an anachronistic reference to the murder of Zechariah the son of Baruch, shortly before the siege of Jerusalem (Jos. BJ iv. v. 4). This consideration, however, may be disregarded, as the refer- ence may also be explained as a confusion of Zechariah the son of Jehoiada (2 Ch 24-0-22) vvith the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah (Zee li).
2. Lk 71-83 presents a context interconnected by the thought fundamental to the saying Mt 1116-19 — the Friend of publicans and sinners — the narrative-material with the exception of 7110 = Mt 85-10- 13 being peculiar to Luke. The discourse and narrative- material have the same bearing, and the former includes the nucleus of the ' wisdom ' sayings of Mt 11.
It thus appears that in the two groups of dis- course-material principally represented in Mt 11 and 12 and Lk 7 and 11 we have inextricably intermingled (1) sayings of Jesus wherein His own gracious mission was set over against the harsher warning of the Baptist as the message of the Divine Wisdom ; and (2) extracts in defence of His beneficent works, from the actual Wisdom litera- ture, these extracts having been embodied along with His words of denunciation of the scribes, either by Himself or in the subsequent development of Evangelic tradition. To draw the line with pre- cision between authentic utterances of Jesus, and material subsequently adapted from the Wisdom literature because pronounced by ' the wisdom of God ' (Mt 1128-30 9) surpasses the powers of criticism ; but the endeavour is the more needless because the really significant fact is that Jesus' actual teach- ing, at least in the form given it by the source here employed in common by Mt. and Lk., was so closely allied to the ideas of tliis Wisdom literature as to permit of intermingling at an extremely early date. A later example of tlie process of adapta- tion is furnished by the Oxyrhynchus papyrus which puts in the mouth of Je.sus the characteristic Wisdom utterance : ' I stood in tlie midst of the world, and in the flesh was I seen of them (cf. Bar 3^**), and 1 found all men drunken, and none found I athirst among tliem, and my soul grieveth over
the sons of men because they are blind in their heart' {Oxyrh. Log. III.).
3. Other elements of discourse-material from the Third Gospel and Acts may be clearly traced to a source of the same W^isdom type, if not the same composition, (a) In particular, the wisdom of Solomon, especially as exhibited in the hedonistic Epicureanism of Ecclesiastes, is pointedly con- trasted with a higher wisdom in the great discourse on the true riches of Lk 12'^"**, part of which is taken up in Mt e^^-^ The polemic against Ec 2 in 12'^"-i becomes tenfold more pointed as the dis- course proceeds to compare the beauty of the lilies and the provision of the ravens ' which have neither store-chamber nor barn ' (cf. v.^^) with 'Solomon in all his glory' (cf. Ec P^-is 2i-25). The subject of the discourse (' wherein life con- sists,' vv.i** 2-^-) is as distinctive of Hebrew Wis- dom literature as the form and phraseology.
(6) To the same original context must be reckoned the greater part of Lk 16, the material of which is peculiar to Luke. The ' wisdom ' of the unrighteous steward in the use of ' the mammon of unrighteousness ' is a subject manifestly in close relation to the use of riches commended in 12'^-^^, the affinity extending even to the phraseology (with 169 ' riches that fail ' cf. 1233 < treasure that faileth not'). The combination of the two, there- fore, in Mt 619-3"', a propos of the heavenly recom- pense (Mt 61- *• 1^), probably reflects a real con- nexion of Lk 12'3-3* with 16113 in the source.