would have much to say to His offending disciples. Then nothing could be more fitting than that Jesus should at the close of His life deliver a final and full testimony against the spurious sanctity which He had often criticiged in a fragmentary way, and which was now at last to cause His death.
2. The main interest of the question now under consideration revolves around the “ Sermon on the Mount”. That a discourse of some length was delivered on the mountain Luke’s report proves. Luke, even in this case, breaks up much of Matthew’s connected matter into short separate utterances, but yet he agrees with Matthew in ascribing to Jesus something like an oration. Though much abbreviated, his report of the discourse is still a discourse. The only question is which of the two comes nearer the original in length and contents. Now, the feeling is a very natural one that Jesus could hardly have spoken so long a discourse as Matthew puts into His mouth at onetime, and to a popular audience. But two questions have to be asked here. Did Jesus address a popular audience ? Did He speak all at one time in the sense of a con- tinuous discourse of one hour or two hours’ length? I am strongly inclined to answer both questions in the negative. Jesus addressed Himself to disciples ; His discourse was teaching, not popular preaching—Didache, not Kerygma. And the time occupied in com- municating that teaching was probably a week rather than an hour. Matthew’s report, in chaps. v.-vii., in that case will have to be viewed as a summary of what the Great Teacher said to His dis- ciples in a leisurely way on sundry topics relating to the Kingdom of Heaven, during a season of retreat on the summit of the hills to the west of the Galilean Lake. Instead of calling it the Sermon on the Mount, we should more properly designate it the Teaching on the Hill.
3. The insertion of great masses of didactic matter into the framework of Mark’s narrative weakens our sense of the progress of the history in reading Matthew. The didactic interest over- shadowed the historical in the evangelist’s own mind, with the result that his story does not present the aspect of a life-drama steadily moving on, but rather that of a collection of discourses furnished with slight historical introductions. The “ Sermon on the Mount” comes upon us before we are prepared for it. To appreciate it fully we must realise that before it was spoken Jesus
1 For further remarks on this point vide Notes on the Sermon at the beginning and throughout.