5. For it is a mistake to speak as if “graphic, detailed description” _invariably_ characterise the second Gospel. S. Mark is quite as remarkable for his practice of occasionally exhibiting a considerable transaction in a highly abridged form. The opening of his Gospel is singularly concise, and altogether _sudden_. His account of John’s preaching (i. 1-8) is the shortest of all. Very concise is his account of our SAVIOUR’S Baptism (ver. 9-11). The brevity of his description of our LORD’S Temptation is even extraordinary (ver. 12, 13.)—I pass on; premising that I shall have occasion to remind the reader by-and-by of certain peculiarities in these same Twelve Verses, which seem to have been hitherto generally overlooked. II. Nothing more true, therefore, than Dr. Tregelles’ admission “that arguments on _style_ are often very fallacious, and that _by themselves_ they prove very little. But” (he proceeds) “when there does exist external evidence; and when internal proofs as to style, manner, verbal expression, and connection, are in accordance with such independent grounds of forming a judgment; then, these internal considerations possess very great weight.” I have already shewn that there exists _no_ such external evidence as Dr. Tregelles supposes. And in the absence of it, I am bold to assert that since nothing in the “Style” or the “Phraseology” of these verses ever aroused suspicion in times past, we have rather to be _on our guard_ against suffering our judgment to be warped by arguments drawn from such precarious considerations now. As for determining from such data the authorship of an isolated passage; asserting or denying its genuineness for no other reason but because it contains certain words and expressions which do or do not occur elsewhere in the Gospel of which it forms part;—let me again declare plainly that the proceeding is in the highest degree uncritical. We are not competent judges of what words an Evangelist was likely on any given occasion to employ. We have no positive knowledge of the circumstances under which any part of any one of the four Gospels was written; nor the influences which determined an Evangelist’s choice of certain expressions in preference to others. We are learners,—we _can_ be only learners here. But having said all this, I proceed (as already declared) without reluctance or misgiving to investigate the several charges which have been brought against this section of the Gospel; charges derived from its PHRASEOLOGY; and which will be found to be nothing else but repeated assertions that a certain Word or Phrase,—(there are about twenty-four such words and phrases in all,(254))—“occurs nowhere in the Gospel of Mark;” with probably the alarming asseveration that it is “abhorrent to Mark’s manner.” ... The result of the inquiry which follows will perhaps be not exactly what is commonly imagined.