It should be remembered that the above are only samples from the whole body of evidence, which would take up a much larger space if exhibited in full.  The total result may be summarised thus.  Accepting the scheme of Marcion’s Gospel given some pages back, which is substantially that of ‘Supernatural Religion,’ Marcion will have omitted a total of 309 verses.  In those verses there are found 111 distinct peculiarities of St. Luke’s style, numbering in all 185 separate instances; there are also found 138 words peculiar to or specially characteristic of the third Evangelist, with 224 instances.  In other words, the verified peculiarities of St. Luke’s style and diction (and how marked many of these are will have been seen from the examples above) are found in the portions of the Gospel omitted by Marcion in a proportion averaging considerably more than one to each verse! [Endnote 229:1] Coming to detail, we find that in the principal omission—­ that of the first two chapters, containing 132 verses—­there are 47 distinct peculiarities of style, with 105 instances; and 82 characteristic words, with 144 instances.  In the 23 verses of chap. iii. omitted by Marcion (for the genealogy need not be reckoned), the instances are 18 and 14, making a total of 32.  In 18 verses omitted from chap. iv. the instances are 13 and 8 = 21.  In another longer passage—­the parable of the prodigal son—­the instances are 8 of the first class and 20 of the second.  In 20 verses omitted from chap. xix. the instances are 11 and 6; and in 11 verses omitted from chap. xx, 9 and 8.  Of all the isolated fragments that Marcion had ejected from his Gospel, there are only four—­iv. 24, xi. 49-51, xx. 37, 38, xxii. 28-30, nine verses in all—­in which no peculiarities have been noticed.  And yet even here the traces of authorship are not wanting.  It happens strangely enough that in a list of parallel passages given by Dr. Holtzmann to illustrate the affinities of thought between St. Luke and St. Paul, two of these very passages—­xi. 49 and xx. 38—­ occur.  I had intended to pursue the investigation through these resemblances, but it seems superfluous to carry it further.

It is difficult to see what appeal can be made against evidence such as this.  A certain allowance should indeed be made for possible errors of computation, and some of the points may have been wrongly entered, though care has been taken to put down nothing that was not verified by its preponderating presence in the Lucan writings, and especially by its presence in that portion of the Gospel which Marcion undoubtedly received.  But as a rule the method applies itself mechanically, and when every deduction has been made, there will still remain a mass of evidence that it does not seem too much to describe as overwhelming.