J. Weiss assigns this parable, with Lk xiv, 16-24, to Q. But upon the principle we have been following the parable is too long for Q. While it is evidently the same parable as that told in Lk xiv, 16-24, there is clearly no literary connection between Matthew and Luke here. Both Wellhausen and Wernle assign it to Q; Harnack and Hawkins to a special source. This instance brings up the question of what degree of literary similarity must be present in order to warrant the assumption of literary connection. No words are identical here except such as had to be to enable two men to tell the same story.
Matthew here conflates his Q material with his Marcan material. The matter is partially duplicated in Luke's chap. xi. The similarities and the differences between the Matthean and Lucan versions are precisely such features as have led to the hypothesis of the two recensions. The verses should be assigned to QMt.
THE PARABLES OF THE TEN VIRGINS, THE TALENTS, THE JUDGMENT
The first two of these parables J. Weiss assigns to Q; presumably on the ground that parallels for them are found in Luke's chaps. xii and xix. But if Q be extended to include so many such long parables as these, it loses entirely its character as a collection of "sayings." Moreover, the parallelism between Matthew's and Luke's versions of these two parables is extremely slight. The subject-matter is the same, but there is no indication of dependence upon a common written source. The parable of the Judgment is peculiar to Matthew. It seems better to assign all three of these parables to a special source.
This is an insertion of Matthew's in the story which he has taken from Mark. There is no indication of Q in it.
We have now gone over all the logian sections of Matthew unparalleled in either Mark or Luke. We have found some of these that ought, in our judgment, to be assigned to Matthew's recension of Q. This assignment cannot claim to be anything more than a suggestion; in many instances, however, it may reach a very high degree of probability; and we have tried to restrict it to such instances. By saying that a certain section should be assigned to a "special source," it is not meant that this is one and the same source for all sections so assigned; but only that these sections cannot be assigned either to Matthew or to his recension of Q. In a few instances I have ventured to suggest an oral rather than a written source. Further comments will be made upon this analysis when a similar study has been made of the sections peculiar to the Gospel of Luke.