Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

290 Matthew V. 1.
Tlie Sermon on the Mount, in the form in which it is given us
by Matthew, cannot possibly have formed a whole when delivered
by Jesus.* For the connexion of its sentiments is such as to make
it appear extremely improbable that the Saviour should, in speaking,
have thus passed from one thought to another. It is only the purposes
of written composition, and the special objects of the Evan-
gelist, that could warrant such a combination. But a comparison
of Luke is decisive in favour of this opinion.f We do indeed find
in that Gospel (vi. 17, ff.) a discourse of Jesus, evidently very nearly
related to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, and at the be-
ginning and end apparently identical with it, but much shorter
than that in Matthew. If it should be said, Luke gives a selection
from the full discourse in Matthew, it is true, that in Luke there
are only two verses (vi, 39, 40) which Matthew has in a different
connexion (xv. 14 ; x, 24 ;) and as these are both conceived in a
proverbial form, they might have been repeatedly uttered. But
those parts, which Matthew only has in the Sermon on tlie Mount,
are found in Luke mostly in an entirely different connexion, and
that so definitely conceived, that we are compelled to regard them
as preserved by Luke in their original connexion.:!: Add to this that
Luke's Gospel exhibits an accuracy of historical combination, which
is wanting in that of Matthew. If, therefore, we wish to maintain
the unity of the Sermon on the Mount, we are driven to the
hypothesis, that those parts of it which stand in Luke in a different
and distinctly specified connexion (e. g., the Lord's Prayer, Luke xi.
1, ff., compared with Matth. vi. 7, ff.), were sjsoken hoice. But as
this hypothesis will scarcely find supporters now, there is no alternative
left but to adopt the opinion, that the unity of the Sermon
on the Mount proceeds not from the Saviour himself, but from Mat-
thew. Matthew attached parts of kindred discourses to one actually
delivered by Jesus on a specific occasion. The cu'cum stances, under
which Jesus spake, are exactly detailed by Luke. According to
been frequently the subject of special treatises; particularly by Pott (TTelmstadt, 1789;)
Ran (Erlangen, 1 805) ; Grosze (Gottingen, 1819) ; best of all, by Tlwludc (Hamburg, 1833.
The third edition appeared in 1845). Among the Fathers, Augustine has left a separate
work on the Sermon on the Mount.
* Against this view comp. my Kritik. der Ev. Gesch. § CD.— [E.
f Tholuck has decided that the discourse in Matthew is the original, Laying particular
stress on the circumstance, that our Lord might have repeated many things twice.
Granting this, however, the place of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew cannot but be pronounced
less appropriate than that which it occupies in Luke. That which Tholuck
(Clark's <strong>Biblical</strong> Cabinet, No. xx, p. 134) says—viz., that our Lord may have repeated
the prayer to one of his disciples, according to Luke xi. 1, is possible indeed, but not
probable.
X On the connexion of the single passages in Luke, which are parallel with pas-
Bages in the Sermon on the Mount, see the Commentary on Luke, from ix. 51, onward.