Mark's crudities of language and style, his frequent latinisms, his explanation to his readers (almost contemptuously exaggerated) of Jewish purifications and distinctions of meats (vii. 3 f.), presupposition of the Roman form of divorce (x. 12), explanation in Roman money of the value of the (Greek and Oriental) "mite" (_lepton_), are well-known confirmations of the tradition of the writing's place of origin. But these are superficial characteristics. More important for us to note is the fundamental conception of what constitutes "the gospel," and the writer's attitude on questions of the relation of Jew and Gentile and the authority of the apostles and kindred of the Lord. The most striking characteristic of Mark is that it aims to present the gospel _about_ Jesus, and is relatively indifferent to the gospel _of_ Jesus. Had the writer conceived his task after the manner of a Matthew there is little doubt that he could have compiled catechetic discourses of Jesus like the Sermon on the Mount or the discourse on prayer of Luke xi. 1-13. The fact that he disregards such records of Jesus' ethical and religious instruction does not mean that he (tacitly) refers his readers to the Matthæan Precepts, or similar compilations, to supplement his own deficiencies. It means a different, more Pauline, conception of what "the gospel" is. Mark conceives its primary element to be attachment to the _person_ of Jesus, and has already gone far toward obliterating the primitive distinction between a Jesus whose earthly career had been "in great humility," and the glorified Son of God. The earthly Jesus is still, it is true, only a man endowed with the Spirit of Adoption. But he is so completely "in" the Spirit, and so fully endowed with it, as almost to assume the Greek figure of a demi-god treading the earth incognito. No wonder this Gospel became the favourite of the Adoptionists and Doketists.