Perhaps the simplest criterion, and the one to be most safely applied, is that of vocabulary. Sir John Hawkins compiled a list[63] of forty-one words which he regards as characteristic of Mark. Do these words occur indiscriminately in M1, M2, and Ev, or are they confined some of them to M1, and some to M2, and some to Ev? Or is there sufficient difference in the frequency with which these words occur in the three strata to justify the assumption of three different authors, and especially that Ev was distinct from the writers of the two documents? If not, the division between earlier and later material in Mark may still stand, but it may have been one and the same writer who put the whole Gospel together out of these earlier and later materials. Characteristic of Mark[64] is the historic present. Hawkins finds one hundred and fifty-one examples of this use in Mark against seventy-eight in Matthew (twenty-one of these taken from Mark),[65] and four in Luke. Of these one hundred and fifty-one historic presents in Mark, forty-nine occur in passages assigned by Wendling to M1, sixty-nine in M2, and thirty-three in Ev. Of the peculiarly Marcan words, some prove nothing in this connection. Εὐαγγέλιον is used only by Ev (seven times); but since Wendling uses the presence of this word as a criterion of Ev's work in six out of the seven passages where it occurs, this adds nothing to the proof. Ἄλαλος is used once by M1, twice by M2, and not by Ev. But since Ev adds no story of a dumb man, he has no occasion to use the word. (He does add a story of a stammering man, where he uses the word, μογιλάλος.) Κλάσμα, used once by M2 and three times by Ev, signifies little; since the three uses in Ev occur in the same passage, and this passage is a copy of the passage in M2 (the feeding of the multitudes). Στάχυς occurs three times, all in M1, but this also signifies nothing, since no passage in which it could occur is assigned to M2 or Ev. Ἐκπορεύομαι is used twice each by M1 and M2, and seven times by Ev; but since five of these seven occurrences are in the same passage, they cannot establish any particular fondness for this word on the part of Ev as against the other two. Εἰσπορεύομαι looks a little more favorable for Wendling's hypothesis, since it is used once by M1, twice by M2, and five times, in separated passages, by Ev. Ἀκάθαρτος, found three times in M1, four in M2, and three in Ev; ἀπὸ μακρόθεν, three times in M2 and twice in Ev; διδαχὴ, used three times by M2 and twice by the redactor, and φέρω, five times used by M1, eight times by M2, and twice by Ev, do nothing toward establishing a distinct vocabulary for any one of the three. Only two words, διαστέλλομαι, used four times by the redactor in four different chapters, and not by M1 or M2; and ἐκθαμβοῦμαι, used only by M2, four times in three different chapters, point in the direction of distinct vocabularies. But the absence of the third of these