Mk xii, 3 (Mt xxi, 35; Lk xx, 10): Matthew's account here is quite different from Mark's (which is followed much more closely by Luke). According to Mark, only one servant was sent, whom the vineyard-keepers "caught and beat and sent away empty." According to Matthew several servants were sent; the vineyard-keepers caught them, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. This form of the story indicates the times of persecution in which it was worked over by Matthew--when more than one man had suffered more than one kind of indignity. Luke sticks close to the story of Mark, and merely omits the λαβόντες which Matthew retains. Perhaps Luke had reflected that the servant had to be caught if he was to be beaten, and so regarded the item as superfluous. It does happen to come before the items that Luke retains, but there is no reason to suppose Luke would have had any greater antipathy to omitting it if it had stood last or if Matthew had also omitted it. It is not only hard to detect any influence of Matthew upon Luke here, but much harder to see, if Luke were copying Matthew, why he should not have preferred his several servants to Mark's one. Later in the same story, Luke again omits Mark's λαβόντες where Matthew retains it (Mk xii, 8), tho here both Matthew and Luke change the order of the incidents in the verse, probably to make them conform more exactly to the experience of Jesus. The omission of the participle by Luke and its inclusion by Matthew is most simply explained by Luke's greater interest in stylistic improvement. The instance seems to be barren for Mr. Smith's purpose.