4. How utterly insecure must be every approximation to such a method of judging about the Authorship of any twelve verses of Scripture which can be named, scarcely requires illustration. The attentive reader of S. Matthew’s Gospel is aware that a mode of expression which is _six times repeated_ in his viiith and ixth chapters is perhaps only once met with besides in his Gospel,—viz. in his xxist chapter.(248) The “style” of the 17th verse of his ist chapter may be thought unlike anything else in S. Matthew. S. Luke’s five opening verses are unique, both in respect of manner and of matter. S. John also in his five opening verses seems to me to have adopted a method which is not recognisable anywhere else in his writings; “rising strangely by degrees,” (as Bp. Pearson expresses it,(249)) “making the last word of the former sentence the first of that which followeth.”—“_He_ knoweth that he saith true,” is the language of the same Evangelist concerning himself in chap. xix. 35. But, “_we_ know that his testimony is true,” is his phrase in chap. xxi. 24. Twice, and twice only throughout his Gospel, (viz. in chap. xix. 35: xx. 31), is he observed to address his readers, and on both occasions in the same words: (“that _ye_ may believe.”) But what of all this? Is it to be supposed that S. Matthew, S. Luke, S. John are not the authors of those several places? From facts like these no inference whatever is to be drawn as to the genuineness or the spuriousness of a writing. It is quite to mistake the Critic’s vocation to imagine that he is qualified, or called upon, to pass any judgment of the sort. 5. I have not said all this, of course, as declining the proposed investigation. I approach it on the contrary right willingly, being confident that it can be attended by only one result. With what is true, endless are the harmonies which evolve themselves: from what is false, the true is equally certain to stand out divergent.(250) And we all desire nothing but the Truth. I. To begin then with the “STYLE AND MANNER” of S. Mark in this place. 1. We are assured that “instead of the _graphic, detailed_ description by which this Evangelist is distinguished, we meet with an abrupt, sententious manner, resembling that of brief notices extracted from larger accounts and loosely linked together.”(251) Surely if this be so, the only lawful inference would be that S. Mark, in this place, _has_ “extracted brief notices from larger accounts, and loosely linked them together:” and unless such a proceeding on the part of the Evangelist be judged incredible, it is hard to see what is the force of the adverse criticism, as directed against the _genuineness_ of the passage now under consideration.