It has only to be added that as regards the documentary problem, in this connection, Dr. Conybeare is equally distracted. It is far from certain that at this point Mark's "colt" is not a "rectification" of an original which Matthew accepted. The assumption--negatived by themselves--that Mark and Matthew as we have them are both primary forms, Matthew always following and elaborating Mark, is one of the loose hypotheses which such critics when it suits them take for certainties. But the question of priority of form does not affect the fundamental issue. One of the suggestions put by me which Dr. Conybeare has carefully withheld from his readers--if, indeed, he ever really sees what is before him--is that the item of the single ass or colt is probably a myth with another basis. "An ass tied" appears to have been an Egyptian symbol pointing to a solar date or a zodiacal or other myth, [91] and this symbol, which is found in the Song of Jacob, is the form put upon the Mark story by Justin Martyr. That the other symbol had a long Christian vogue is indicated first by the fact that there actually exists a Gnostic gem showing an ass suckling its foal, with the figure of the crab (Cancer) above, and the inscription D.N. IHV. XPS., DEI FILIUS = Dominus Noster Jesu (?) Christus, Son of God; [92] and, secondly, by the mention of the ass and foal in the third Sermon of St. Proclus (5th c.). [93] These details also Dr. Conybeare withholds from his readers, for the purposes of his polemic. That we are dealing with a conflict of symbolisms will probably be the inference of those who will face the facts. But Dr. Conybeare, who is here in good company, is quite satisfied that behind the Mark story of Jesus riding in a noisy procession on an unbroken colt we have unquestionable history. There must be no nonsense about two asses; but for him the story of the unbroken colt raises no difficulty. He further simplifies the problem by summarizing Mark as telling that "an insignificant triumphal demonstration is organized for him [Jesus] as he enters the sacred city on an ass"; [94] and by explaining that "there was no other way of entering Jerusalem unless you went on foot." [95] The "insignificant" is held to be sufficient to dispose of the problem of the Roman Governor's entire indifference to a Messianic movement. Thus functions the biographic method, in the hands of our academician.