Matthew's beatitude is in the third person, Luke's in the second. Matthew adds "in spirit." If the beatitude stood alone, the changes in it are not too great to be attributed to Matthew, and the "in spirit" is what might be expected. But taking it in close connection with much material that could not have stood alike in Matthew's source and in Luke's it is better to assign it to QMt and QLk.
The wording is not at all similar, [Greek: makarioi] being the only word in common. Yet the two beatitudes sound like two versions of the same one. [Greek: klaiô] is a Lucan word, used eleven times by Luke in his Gospel, against twice by Matthew and three times by Mark. [Greek: gelaô] is used twice in Luke's Gospel, and not elsewhere in the New Testament. Both of these occurrences are in Luke's "Sermon on the Level Place." These facts, with the context, indicate a source in Luke's hands partly like, and partly unlike, the source in Matthew's. The verse is therefore assigned to QMt and QLk.
Matthew's version is again in the third person and Luke's in the second. Luke understands the hunger to be literal. Matthew "spiritualizes" by adding [Greek: tên dikaiosynên]. Luke adds [Greek: nyn], to point the contrast between his beatitude and the corresponding woe, which Matthew does not have. In spite of these differences, out of ten words in Matthew's form and six in Luke's, five words are identical (except for a deviation in personal ending). Except for the context the verse might be assigned simply to Q; but it is better ascribed to QMt and QLk.
The verbal similarity is close only in a few places; notably in the [Greek: ho misthos hymôn polys en tois ouranois (tô ouranô)]. Out of thirty-five words in Matthew and fifty-one in Luke, only twelve are identical. Two considerations prevent the assignment of these verses to two totally different sources. The first is their contiguity to so much Q material. The second is the presence in them of two translation variants.[94] The second of these two verses, at least, therefore goes back to two different recensions or translations of one original Aramaic document--QMt and QLk.
This saying evidently stood in both Mark and Q. Luke follows Mark in [Greek: kalon oun to hala] and Q in the rest of his saying. Matthew's form of the saying, which makes it addressed to the disciples, "Ye are the salt of the earth," involves a much greater change than Matthew ever permits himself when he transcribes the words of Jesus which he finds in Mark. Luke, on the other hand, could scarcely have found the saying in his source with this application to the disciples, and have changed it to its much less pointed and personal form in his own Gospel. The only conclusion possible from a comparison of Matthew and Luke here is that this saying lay in different forms in their sources. But since it occurs in the midst of so much Q material, it is better to assign it to different recensions of Q than to some other unknown source.