The relationship between John and the Synoptics and the closely linked question of the historicity of an independent John-source have been the concern of contributors to this journal since its institution. In a recent article Ivor Buse has drawn attention to the ‘striking similarities’ between certain of the Marcan Passion Narratives and the account in John, basing his study on the conclusions reached by Dr Vincent Taylor in his commentary on St Marks Gospel. I should like to pursue this question further.

The question of the High Priest: ‘Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?’, and the answer of Jesus, mark the culmination of the trial of Jesus. At least this is how it has generally come to be regarded among Christians. This conception, however, is supported by the accounts of Mark and Matthew only. In John we have neither question nor answer. In Luke we have the question, but it is not asked by the High Priest himself; but by the chief priests and scribes (xxii. 6). Furthermore, in Luke the single question in Mark and Matthew: ‘Art thou the Christ, the Son of God?’ is divided into two questions: first, ‘Art thou the Christ?’, and then, ‘Art thou then the Son of God?’ Moreover, the crime of Jesus in Luke is not described as ‘blasphemy’.

In the previous article the factual meaning, and the direct implications of the parable of the Unjust Steward were discussed. It remains to attempt to place each part of the chapter in the assumed setting, to which the parable originally belonged, or belonged in the materials from which Luke has taken these passages. It was pointed out that the burden of proof lies upon him who asserts that the passages which appear in sequence are not united by a thread of teaching. As it happens, that thread is not difficult to reconstitute, and its reconstruction is the task of this article.

The early evidence for the martyrdom of Peter in Rome is extremely exiguous. Perhaps the most important passage is I Clement v. 4. Certainly none other until the end of the second century is equally explicit as to Peter's fate. Therefore it is of some interest that I Clem. v. 4 can itself be completely explained as exegesis of Acts iii-v and xii, especially of v. 17 and xii. 17.

Such metaphorical expressions as υióς εlρήvής (Luke x. 6) and (John xvii. 12) are usually explained by commentators as Hebraisms or translation-Greek, despite the caution given by A. Deissmann (Bible Studies, trans. Alexander Grieve, 2nd ed., Edinburgh, 1909, pp. 161–6) and MoultonMilligan (The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, London, 1952, p. 649), who suggested that the N.T. examples could readily be accounted for on ‘the theory of analogical formations’. In support they cite from the inscriptions such examples as υióς πóλεως, υiòς toū ńμoυ Deissmann also stated that his attention had been called ‘to the in the Tragedians, and filius fortunae in Horace’, p. 166. He does not cite the passages, but the Hecuba of Euripides contains an analogous expression. Hecuba cries out to Polyxena: , ‘O daughter of an untimely and lamentable fate’, 425. The correctness of Deissmann's observation is now further vindicated by Papyrus Bodmer IV (Bodmeriana Bibliotheca, 1958), which contains an almost complete text of Menander's Dyscolos. In this play a slave Pyrrhias had been sent by Sostratus to beg the hand of Cnemon's daughter. Pyrrhias receives a rather rough welcome and returns to his master shouting: ‘He is a madman, one possessed, a lunati’, 88, 89.