GTh: Moving Mountains

A bit more about the saying “On Faith” (i.e. moving mountains/uprooting trees)



This saying is, at its core, triple-tradition material, for there is another Matthean version (Mt 21:21-22) that parallels a Markan version GMk (Mk 11:23-34).  It looks like there two versions: a Markan version, used by Matthew, and a Q version, used by Matthew and Marcion/Luke.  My guess is that Marcion/Luke assimilated these two into one saying, but let’s look at them all in more detail. 

First, the saying in general is drawn from logia 48 and 106.  The general motif is that through belief, one can move something immovable.  The presence of this general motif in all three synoptics means this is triple-tradition material created by Secret Mark, when he used GTh as a source for Jesus' sayings.  This confirms our decision in this post to move 106 to the triple-tradition list.

In the original version in GTh, this was accomplished by some sort of reconciliation--on the one hand, peace within "this one house" (logion 48); on the other, making "the two into one" (logion 106).  In the synoptics, it's accomplished somewhat more simplistically by "faith", a keyword found in all four versions (Mt 17:20/21:21, Mk 11:22, Lk 17:6).  This keyword points towards an original triple-tradition saying, suggesting again that Marcion/Luke was aware of both the Markan and the Q versions, but blended them together.

Again, GMt and GLk seem linked to a Q-version, since both describe the apostles' lack of faith (Mt 17:20=Lk 17:5-6), and also use the mustard seed motif.  The mustard seed was originally a triple-tradition motif, found earlier in Mt 13:31-32==Mk 4:30-32==Lk 13:18-19==GTh 20).  So we know there was a canonical Markan version, but also a Q-version…and the HSH can explain this: the original version was found in Secret Mark.  The Q author rewrote it his way, the canonical Markan author rewrote it his way.  (Whether this original version was closer to the canonical Markan version, and Q is a revision of it, or whether it was closer to the Q version, and the canonical Markan version of it is the revision, isn't important right now, though it's an interesting question).

Notice in GMk, the saying is a part of the fig tree incident--the second half of it, when Peter notices it's become withered.  Matthew rearranges the narrative order here slightly, combining the two halves of the incident into one.  Luke lacks this incident, but does have Lk 13:6-9, the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree.  So Matthew and Luke are both using canonical GMk here, but each in his/her own way.  Again, the HSH sheds some light about what’s going on:

The original version in Secret Mark was a single event (with unclear contents, but it was about a fig tree—it may have been the original parallel to GTh 40).  My bet is that it wasn’t associated with the Cleansing of the Temple at all.  Q kept this version, but canonical Mark turned it to an incident near Jerusalem, splitting it into two parts, and blending the saying about faith and moving mountains (again, taken from either GTh 48 or 106 or both) into this version.  The original version in Secret Mark was located elsewhere (maybe at the end of the healing of the epileptic boy, where we find it in GMt?), and this was also preserved in Q. 

That’s how Matthew ends up duplicating this saying about moving mountains: he uses both the more original version from Q, and the one in the canonical Markan version (i.e. in the fig tree incident).  Whereas, Marcion/Luke only uses the Q version of the saying, placing it in Lk 17:5-6 and blending it with another Q saying about uprooting plants.  Marcion/Luke also prefers the Q version of the fig tree, using it to write Lk 13:6-9, and leaving it out of the Jerusalem events altogether (because that’s probably the way it was in Q.)

One other thing about Marcion/Luke’s version, in Lk 17:5-6: it links the saying with a tree in the same way that Mark and Matthew do.  I suspect this is because Marcion/Luke was aware of the canonical Mark version, just like Matthew was.  He had the concepts of tree and mountain in mind, even though he ignored the Markan version of the fig tree incident, and that’s where he found the inspiration to blend the Q sayings about moving mountains and uprooting trees.  The sayings may both originate from Secret Mark’s use of GTh, but Marcion/Luke doesn’t know that; all he knows is Q.