Matt 5:42	Luke 6:30,34-35	Didache 1	Thom 95
		4e If anyone	1 "If you
			have money
	[see Luke 6:35c below]	would take	don't lend it
		from you
		what is yours,	at interest.
		do not refuse it	2 Instead
		even if you can.
42 "Give to those	30 "Give to everyone	5 Give to everyone	give to someone
who begs from you;	who begs from you	who asks of you	from whom
and don't turn away		and do not refuse.
those who want	35c "...and lend		[Thom 95:1 above]
to borrow from you."	expecting nothing		you won't get it
	in return."		back."
	34 "If you lend	For the Father's will
	to those from whom	is that we give to all
	you hope to gain,	from the gifts
	what merit is there	we have received.
	in that?
	Even sinners lend
	to sinners,
	in order to get
	as much in return."

Text retrieval

It takes some sleuthing to retrieve the set of sayings that followed the trio of case parodies in Q's sermon.  Matthew and Luke each give a pair of global commands for confrontations with people who demand part of one's possessions.  But their instructions diverge. Matt 5:42 urges a positive response to beggars and borrowers. The second situation in Luke 6:30, however, concerns theft rather than loans.  Thus, it is not immediately clear which text better represents Q at this point.

Parallels in non-canonical sources show that there were actually four patterns in which these sayings were recorded:

beggars/loans (Matthew)	beggars/robbers (Luke)
loans (Thomas)	robbers/beggars (Didache)

The Didache 1:4-5 reflects Luke's pair of commands, but in reverse order.  Thom 95, on the other hand, presents an isolated injunction about lending.

This is not all the evidence, however.  For the ethical summary of this section of Q's sermon in Luke 6:35 proves that Luke also knew a command about loans that he had not previously recorded:

a. Love your enemies (= Luke 6:27b//Matt 5:44b),
b. Do good (//Luke 6:27b)
c. Lend, expecting nothing in return.

Luke 6:35c resolves the problem of the original conclusion of Q's set of injunctions about giving.  For the emphasis on no repayment is the one constant shared by every version of this command except Matthew's:

Thom 95:	If you have money, don't lend it at interest. Rather,
	give it to someone from whom you won't get it back.
Did 1:5:	Give to everyone who begs from you
	and do not demand repayment.
Luke 6:30:	Give to everyone who begs from you,
	and when someone takes your things, don't ask for them back.

Ordinarily one does not expect to be repaid by beggars or robbers. Thus, the second stich in Q must have opposed collecting loans.

Hard demands

Taken literally a principle of giving to all who ask would leave one impoverished in a matter of days. There is nothing novel about giving to beggars. Any Jew might have issued such advice.  For many biblical passages made contributing to paupers a divine decree, for instance:

There will be no end to poverty in the land.
So I command you: Open your hand to your kinfolk,
to the poor and needy in the land.
    -- Deut 15:11 

But, as this Mosaic injunction shows, in ancient society beggars were everywhere. So it would be hard to respond to all requests, as demanded in Luke and the Didache.

The instruction not to collect loans likewise pushes traditional Judean standards of charity to the verge of impracticality.  Hebrew scripture expressly forbid charging interest on loans to paupers:

If you lend money to any poor neighbor among my people,
you shall not act as a creditor and demand interest from that person.
    -- Exod 22:24

But there was no rule against collecting the principle of a loan. Q's injunction against demanding repayment of debts is economically risky, to say the least.  For few borrowers volunteer to repay.  So, lenders who take this advice literally face almost certain loss.

Softer interpretations

The difficulty of living by such a high standard of unlimited generosity accounts for the many versions of this brief pair of commands. Wording was softened to make the advice more practical in several ways. Matthew did not mention either the goal of giving to every beggar or the prohibition against repayment.  Others interpreted this prohibition as applying to cases of robbery (Luke) or begging (Didache). Thomas prefaced it with the biblical principle opposing exorbitant interest. But the additional warnings to recipients in the Didache 1:5 is the clearest attempt by the later Christian community to bring a difficult saying on unlimited giving into line with everyday life:

a. Give to everyone who begs from you and do not demand repayment.
b. You see, <our> Father wants everybody to have his gifts.
c. Congratulations to the one who gives in accordance with the commandment!
d. That person is blameless. But the recipient should beware!
d'. Remember, if anyone accepts charity when in need that person is blameless.
d''. But if such a person is not in need,
that person will have to answer for what and why he or she accepted <it>.
He or she will be imprisoned and put to the test for every deed performed,
and will not get out until the last cent has been repaid.
f. Concerning this it is also said:
"Let your contributions sweat in the palms of your hands
until you know to whom you are giving."

Attribution

Give to beggars	%	Red	Pink	Grey	Black	WA	Print
Luke 6:30a Matt 5:42a Did 1:5a		67 67 50	10 10 21	23 23 18	0 0 11	81 81 70	red red pink
Lend without return
Matt 5:42b Luke 6:30b Luke 6:34 Luke 6:35c Thom 95:1-2 Did 1:4e		10 10 25 0 17 6	35 20 8 18 67 22	52 43 42 45 11 28	3 27 25 36 6 44	51 38 44 27 65 30	pink grey grey grey pink grey

Jesus is probably the source of the most extreme elements in this pair of injunctions:

• Give to everyone who begs and
• Do not ask recipients to repay.

This basic couplet was clearly widespread, although the sources offer divergent interpretations.

The Jesus Seminar agreed that a group of ordinary Christians was not apt to invent such impractical exaggerations of social values.  Jesus, on the other hand, typically turned common wisdom on its head as genuine sayings in Q's sermon have already amply demonstrated:

• congratulating paupers,
• advocating love of enemies,
• suggesting surprising reactions to oppressors.

Other Q sayings that will be examined later show that Jesus associated God’s reign with indifference to personal possessions. Accordingly, more than three quarters of the Fellows judged this Jesus saying to be essentially authentic. There were no black votes on Q's advice to give to beggars (Matthew and Luke). The Didache's wording was rated slightly lower by those who deemed it secondary.

The variety of ways in which the conclusion of this couplet was phrased, however, resulted in less certainty about its original form. The preponderance of gray votes on most versions shows that the majority of the Jesus Seminar thought this portion of the saying was based on Jesus' outlook even though it could not be proved that the wording was his. More than eighty percent of the Fellows, however, thought that Thomas' focus on giving to people without hope of repayment is close to what Jesus actually said.