Gospel, the same style of language and expression generally prevails, and therefore that our book is an original work, independent of written sources on the whole, and proceeding from a single pen. For when the same expressions are everywhere found, when a long row of words which only recur in the Gospel and Acts, or comparatively only very seldom in other works of the New Testament, appear equally in all parts, when certain forme of words, peculiarities of word-order, construction and phraseology, indeed even whole sentences, recur in the different sections, a compilation out of documents by different earlier writers can no longer be thought of, and it is 'beyond doubt, that we have to consider our writing as the work of a single author, who has impressed upon it the stamp of a distinct literary style' (Zeller, Theol. Jahrb..1851, p. 107). The use of written sources is certainly not directly excluded by this, and probably the linguistic peculiarities, of which some of course exist in isolated sections of our work, may be referred to this. But as these peculiarities consist chiefly of [------], which may rather be ascribed to the richness of the author's vocabulary than to his talent for compilation, and in comparison with the great majority of points of agreement almost disappear, we must from the first be prepossessed against the theory that our author made use of written sources, and only allow ourselves to be moved to such a conclusion by further distinct phenomena in the various parts of our book, especially as the prologue of the Gospel, so often quoted for the purpose, does not at all support it. But in any case, as has already been remarked, _the_ opinion that, in the Acts of the Apostles, the several parts are strung together almost without {177} alteration, is quite irreconcilable with the result of our linguistic examination. Zeller rightly says:--'Were the author so dependent a compiler, the traces of such a proceeding must necessarily become apparent in a thorough dissimilarity of language and expression. And this dissimilarity would be all the greater if his sources, as in that case we could scarcely help admitting, belonged to widely separated spheres as regards language and mode of thought. On the other hand, it would be altogether inexplicable that, in all parts of the work, the same favourite expressions, the same turns, the same peculiarities of vocabulary and syntax should meet us. This phenomenon only becomes conceivable when we suppose that the contents of our work were brought into their present form by one and the same person, and that the work as it lies before us was not merely _compiled_ by some one, but was also _composed_ by him.'"(1)