THE CONCLUSION OF THE STORY OF THE CENTURION'S SERVANT
Harnack thinks this verse of Matthew's and the corresponding verse in Luke (Lk vii, 10) were not in Q, tho the rest of the story was. But the deviation here is no greater than it is in the earlier part of the story, in the item of the messengers. Matthew has separated this conclusion of the story from the body of it by his insertion of Jesus' saying, "Many shall come from the east and west," which Luke gives in another context (Lk xiii, 28-29). Luke's conclusion evidently belongs with his version of the story, for it contains the reference to the messengers who do not appear in Matthew's version. Some manuscripts give the conclusion to the story in Matthew in words almost identical with Luke's. If this deviation in manuscripts suggests that the verse in Matthew may be a gloss, this suggestion may be held to be strengthened by the assumption that if Matthew himself had inserted this concluding verse he would hardly have cut it off from the rest of the story by the saying "Many shall come," etc. Chiefly on the ground of the alternative reading in [Hebrew], and the ease with which a gloss would be suggested to a scribe who had the Lucan narrative also before him, the writer inclines to the opinion that the verse is a later addition.
There is a duplicate of this quotation in Mt xii, 7. In each instance Matthew has inserted the quotation into a Marcan narrative. Considering the fact of this insertion in each case, and the absence of a duplicate in Luke, the verses may be ascribed to Matthew, perhaps upon the basis of an oral tradition.
There is a strong similarity between this story and the story of the healing of two blind men near Jericho (Mt xx, 29-34). In the latter case Matthew substitutes the two men for Bartimaeus in the story of Mark and Luke. The source is apparently a special one, perhaps an oral tradition influenced by Mk x, 46-52.
Vs. 34 is a doublet of Mt xii, 24; the latter is from Mk iii, 22, where Mark also appears to be following Q. Perhaps ix, 27-34, has been inserted at just this place, in order to warrant the statement of Jesus to John the Baptist that "the blind see and the deaf hear." It is hardly necessary to assign it to a special literary source.