(c) _Similar groups of incidents._--Not only is there a common selection of facts, but detached events which happened at different times are sometimes grouped together in the same way in all of the Synoptic Gospels or in two of the three. Thus in all three we find together the cure of the paralytic, the call of Levi, and the question of fasting (Matt. ix. 1-17; Mark ii. 1-22; Luke v. 17-39); so also the plucking of the ears of corn and the cure of the withered hand--events separated by at least a week (Matt. xii. 1-21; Mark ii. 23-iii. 6; Luke vi. 1-11). Thus also the death of John the Baptist is introduced both in Matt. xiv. 3 and in Mark vi. 17 to explain the fear felt by Herod Antipas that he had risen from the dead. In fact, when a parallel passage is found in all three Synoptic Gospels, it is never immediately followed in _both_ Matt. and Luke by a whole separate incident which is not in Mark.[2] There is a general tendency in Matt. and Luke to narrate the same facts as Mark in the order of Mark. And therefore it is difficult to think that the original basis of the Synoptic Gospels, whether written or unwritten, did not coincide closely with Mark in the order of events. {18} (d) _Similarity of language._--The Synoptic Gospels often agree verbally. And this agreement is not merely found in the reports of the sayings of our Lord, but even in the narrative of events. It extends even to rare Greek words and phrases. The clauses are often remarkably similar. Sometimes quotations from the Old Testament are found in two or three Gospels with the same variations from the original. Matt. iii. 3, Mark i. 3, and Luke iii. 4 have the same quotation from Isa. xl. 3, in which they agree in every word, although at the end they depart in the same way from both the Hebrew and the Greek version of the Old Testament, for they put "His paths" instead of "the paths of our God." Another interesting instance is to be found in Matt. xxvi. 47, Mark xiv. 43, and Luke xxii. 47, where all three evangelists, apparently without any necessity, explain that Judas was one of the twelve. Again in Matt. xxiv. 15, 16, and Mark xiii. 14, we have the note or parenthesis "let him that readeth understand," which one evangelist seems to have copied from the other. The DIFFERENCES between the Synoptic Gospels may be observed in the following facts:--