in no way compromises the genuineness of these sayings of Jesus.  The treatment of Luke ix. 51 to xviii. 14 is much simplified by this consideration.  To Luke’s industry (i. 1-4) we owe the preservation of some events and very many teachings which no other evangelist has recorded.  Some of this new material (for instance, vii. 11-17, 36-50) he has assigned a place in the midst of Mark’s narrative.  Most of it, however, he has gathered together in what seems to be a sort of appendix, which he has inserted between the close of the ministry in Galilee and the final arrival in Judea.  For many of the teachings it is now impossible to assign a time or place.  That this is so will cause no surprise or difficulty if we remember that in the earliest days the report of what Jesus said and did circulated in the form of oral tradition only.  It was the knowledge that first-hand witnesses were passing away that led to the writing of the gospels.  During the period of oral tradition many teachings of the Lord were doubtless kept clearly and accurately in memory after the historic situations which led to their first utterance were quite forgotten.

43.  This fact helps to explain another perplexity in our gospel narratives.  A comparison of the two accounts of the cure of the centurion’s servant reveals differences of detail most perplexing, if we ask for minute agreement in records of the same events.  When we see that of two accounts evidently reporting the same incident, one can say that the centurion himself sought Jesus and asked the cure of his servant (Matt. viii. 5, 8), while the other makes him declare himself unworthy to come in person to the Lord (Luke vii. 7), the question arises whether other accounts, similar in the main but differing in detail, should not be identified as independent records of one event.  Were there two cleansings of the temple (John ii. 13-22; Mark xi. 15-19), two miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke v. 4-11; John xxi. 5-8), two rejections at Nazareth (Mark vi. 1-6; Luke iv. 16-30), two parables of the Leaven, of the Mustard Seed (Matt. xiii. 31-33; Luke xiii. 18-21), and of the Lost Sheep (Matt, xviii. 12-14; Luke xv. 4-7)?  Such similar records are often called doublets, and the question of identity or distinctness can be answered only after a special study of each case.  It is important to notice that a given teaching, particularly if it took the form of an illustration, would naturally be used by Jesus on many different occasions.  When, on the other hand, we find two accounts of specific doings of Jesus similar in detail it is needful to recognize that definite historic situations do not so often repeat themselves as do occasions for similar or identical teachings.