Sections 4-11 in Matthew and 4-6 in Luke contain their different versions of the beatitudes. Those who assign indiscriminately to Q all the verses contained in these sections have to assume that Luke omitted five of the beatitudes. No reason can be assigned for his doing so, and it is wholly improbable that he would have deliberately mutilated a passage so liturgically complete and impressive. The five omitted beatitudes are additions to the teachings of Jesus, manufactured on the basis of Old Testament exemplars. But if anything stood in Q, these five beatitudes stood there, only not in Luke's recension, but in Matthew's.
WITH MATTHEW'S Q BEFORE HIM, LUKE WOULD NOT HAVE OMITTED SO MUCH OF IT
Those who argue for Luke's omission of so much Q material which (according to their assumption) stood before him, allege as a precedent his omission of so much Marcan material, especially of the continuous section Mk vi, 45-viii, 21. It is held by many students that the copy of Mark used by Luke did not contain this section.[128] The writer does not see the necessity for this assumption as there are obvious reasons for Luke's omission of the section if it stood in his copy of Mark. It contains the doublet of the feeding of the four thousand. Luke avoids doublets as far as possible. It contains the story of the walking on the sea, a story similar in many respects to that of the storm at sea which Luke had already taken from Mark. The dispute about hand-washing and the things that defile would have no interest for Luke or his gentile readers. The story of the Canaanitish woman and her difficulties in securing help from Jesus, and the methods of healing the dumb man, would offend Luke's non-Jewish sympathies and his artistic sense. The discussion about leaven he would omit because he had a partial parallel from another source. In this whole section which Luke omits from Mark there are very few sayings of Jesus, and those of a character not to please or interest Luke. The omission of such a section, or of anything else that Luke omits from Mark, offers no precedent for the omissions he is alleged to have made from Q.
In the preceding table of contents for Q material in Matthew (pp. 222-23), there are twenty-nine sections for which Luke has no parallel. Five of these, the omitted beatitudes, have already been discussed. Of the remaining twenty-four there are a few which, it may be admitted, Luke might not have cared to include, even if they were in his Q. Such are the sections on oaths, on fasting, on the blamelessness of the priests, and on the Pharisee instructed in the kingdom of God--all of a strongly Jewish character. To these may be added four other brief sections, all from Matthew's discourse against the Pharisees; especially, the reference to phylacteries, which would have no meaning for Luke's readers, and the injunction not to be called "Rabbi." The saying, "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs [heathen] nor cast your pearls before swine [unbelievers]," he would hardly have taken if it had stood in his source. But there are other sections which would particularly have delighted him, and which it is almost inconceivable that he should have read and omitted. Such are the sections on alms-giving (a favorite subject with Luke; see Lk xi, 41; xii, 33); on prayer (a subject which he mentions eighteen times against Matthew's ten, outside of this passage); the three little parables of the Treasure Hid in the Field, the Pearls, and the Fish-Net, and the beautiful saying, so fitted to Luke's universalistic purpose, "Come unto me."