LIEUT.-COL. G. MACKINLAY, ON SOME LUCAN PROBLEMS. 207 



Instead of regarding Luke as omitting, a good deal may be said 

 for thinking of Mark's sections as an " Insertion " on his part into the 

 general Synoptic tradition, with help from the so-called Matthaean 

 source — for Matthew does seem to be the ultimate authority for 

 most of the discourses and some incidents. 



The KeA\ J. Vernon Bartlet, M.A., D.D. (another of the 

 authors in Studies in the Synoptic Problem) writes : You claim for 

 your theory that it illustrates Luke's skill in using his sources, viz., 

 that he uses them in such a way as to " draw decided attention " to 

 a definite meaning for the so-called "great Omission," viz. (p. 201, 

 top), " to give emphatic attention " to the coming death of the Lord 

 " as the great theme " of his Gospel. I object that he failed to 

 secure this end, since it has escaped observation from all his readers 

 until your own notice was, by critical study, directed to it. This is 

 an objection, not to there being three such sources used by Luke, 

 and only detected by a scholar in the twentieth century, but to the 

 " skilful " use to which you assume he put them in directing attention 

 to his " definite meaning " — for his use of them, in particular, the so- 

 called " great Omission " — though in vain until recently ! Surely 

 these are different things. The " skilful " use was intended to be 

 perceived from the first and all along ; and was not, so far as the 

 " definite meaning " for the so-called "Great Omission " goes. 



The Rev. F. H. Woods, M.A., writes that he thinks the most 

 probable explanation of " the great Omission " by St. Luke was his 

 wish to avoid the duplication of incidents which resemble each other. 

 He continues, " I should be inclined to agree so far with Colonel 

 Mackinlay as to admit that one, perhaps the chief, reason why 

 St. Luke did not wish to duplicate was to allow space for all that he 

 wished to write concerning our Lord's Death and Resurrection. I 

 further agree with him also in thinking that we are right in making 

 a break at the end of chapter x, and that the teaching that follows 

 belongs to an earlier period. But his main theory appears to me 

 unproven. It rests mainly on three grounds, no one of which 

 appears sufficiently established." 



These grounds are briefly summarized as follows : — 



{a) It is improbable that there should be such a " strange literary 

 procedure " as the splitting up of the Matthaean Sermon on the 

 Mount into two parts by Luke, part in chapter v ff., and part in 

 chapter xi ff. In support of this objection he refers to the fact 



