Luke 12:13,14

1 st. The Occasion: Luke 12:13-14.

A man in the crowd profits by a moment of silence to submit a matter to Jesus which lies heavily on his heart, and which probably brought him to the Lord's presence. According to the civil law of the Jews, the eldest brother received a double portion of the inheritance, burdened with the obligation of supporting his mother and unmarried sisters. As to the younger members, it would appear from the parable of the prodigal son that the single share of the property which accrued to them was sometimes paid in money. This man was perhaps one of those younger members, who was not satisfied with the sum allotted to him, or who, after having spent it, still claimed, under some pretext or other, a part of the patrimony. As on other similar occasions (the woman taken in adultery), Jesus absolutely refuses to go out of His purely spiritual domain, or to do anything which might give Him the appearance of wishing to put Himself in the place of the powers that be. The answer to the τίς, who? is this: neither God nor men.

The difference between the judge and the μεριστής, him who divides, is that the first decides the point of law, and the second sees the sentence executed.

The object of Jesus in this journey being to take advantage of all the providential circumstances which could not fail to arise, in order to instruct the people and His disciples, He immediately uses this to bring before the different classes of His hearers those solemn truths which are called forth in His mind by the unexpected event.

Holtzmann is obliged to acknowledge the reality of the fact mentioned in the introduction. He therefore alleges, that in this special case the common source of Matthew and Luke contained a historical preface, and that the latter has preserved it to us, such as it was. We accept for Luke the homage rendered in this case to his fidelity. But, 1 st. With what right can it be pretended that we have here something exceptional? 2 d. How can it be alleged that the occasion of the following discourse was expressly indicated in the Logia, and that, nevertheless, in the face of this precise datum, the author of the first Gospel allowed himself to distribute the discourse as follows: two fragments (Luke 12:22-31; Luke 12:33-34) in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:25-33; Matthew 6:19-21); another fragment (Luke 12:51-53) in the installation discourse to the Twelve (Matthew 10:34-36); finally, various passages in the great eschatological discourse (Matthew 24:25)? Weizsäcker feels the impossibility of such a procedure. According to him, Matthew has preserved to us the form of the discourse exactly as it appeared in the Logia. But what does Luke in his turn do? Drawing from those great discourses of the Logia the materials which suit him, he forms a new one, purely fanciful, at the head of which he sets as the origin a historical anecdote of his own invention! In what respect is this procedure better than that which Holtzmann ascribes to Matthew? Such are the psychological monstrosities in opposite directions to which men are reduced by the hypothesis of a common document.