It is precisely the linguistic test which we miss in the arguments of those who claim that Lk. i. 34 f. was not written by St. Luke. Usually it is thought enough to argue an incompatibility between this passage and its context, and straightway to assign the former to the pen of an unknown redactor. We may illustrate this method from the two articles in the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_ to which reference has been made. In the article on “Mary”, Schmiedel says (col. 2956): “It has to be pointed out that even in Lk. i only two verses—vv. 34 f.—contain the idea of the virgin birth clearly and effectively; and these disturb the connexion so manifestly that we are compelled to regard them as a later insertion”. The only argument of a linguistic character is the remark: “Note, further, that apart from i. 34 ἐπεί (‘since’) is not met with either in the third gospel or in Acts”. Usener writes (col. 3349): “To Joh. Hillmann (JPT. 17, 221 ff.) belongs the merit of having conclusively shown that the two verses in Lk. (i. 34 f.), the only verses in the Third Gospel in which the supernatural birth of Jesus of the Virgin Mary is stated, are incompatible with the entire representation of the rest of chaps, i and ii, and _thus must have been interpolated by a redactor_”.(49) It is theories of this kind that we have in view when we say (p. 47) that to state such a conclusion is to take two steps where there is ground for one only. The importance of the linguistic argument is manifest in such works as Sir John C. Hawkins’s _Horae Synopticae_ (2nd ed., 1909) and Dr. W. K. Hobart’s _Medical Language of St. Luke_ (1882). It has also received great emphasis in the books in which Harnack has sought to prove the Lukan authorship and early date of the Acts, viz. _Luke the Physician_, _The Acts of __ the Apostles_, and _The Date of the Acts and of the Synoptic Gospels_.