It shows quite as little for Jewish prerogative and Jewish law. Jesus speaks in parables because to those "without" his preaching is to be intentionally a 'veiled' gospel (iv. 1-34). The Inheritance will be taken away from them and given to others (xii. 1-12). Priests and people together were guilty of the rejection and murder of Jesus (xv. 11-15, 29-32). Forgiveness of sins is offered by Jesus on his own authority in defiance of the scribes. Their exclusion of the publicans and sinners he disregards, proclaims abolition of their fasts, and holds their sabbath-keeping up to scorn (ii. 1--iii. 6). On the question of distinctions of meats his position is the most radical possible. The Jewish ceremonial is a "vain worship," mere "commandments of men." Defilement cannot be contracted by what "goes into a man." Jesus' saying about inward purity was not aimed at the mere 'hedge of the Law' (Matt. xv. 13), nor the mere matter of ablutions (Matt. xv. 20), but was intended to "make all meats clean" (vii. 1-23). Moses' law in some of its enactments does not represent the real divine will, but a human accommodation to human weakness (x. 2-9). Obedience to its highest code does not ensure eternal life (x. 19-21). The single law of love is "much more than all whole burnt offering and sacrifices" (xii. 28-34). When _all_ the references to Judaism, its Law, its institutions, and its prerogative, are of this character, when Jesus _always_ appears in radical opposition to the Law and its exponents (xii. 38-40; xiii. 1 f.), _never_ as their supporter in any degree, the evangelist comes near to making it too hard for us to believe that he really was of Jewish birth. On the other hand we cannot doubt the statement that he derives his anecdotes, however indirectly, from the preaching of Peter. The prologue (i. 1-13), indeed, makes no pretence of reporting the testimony of any witness, but acquaints the reader with the true nature of Jesus as "the Christ, the Son of God" by means of a mystical account of his baptism and endowment with the Spirit of Adoption, probably resting upon that document of Q, which we have distinguished from the Precepts. But the ensuing story of the ministry opens at the home of Peter in Capernaum, and continues more or less connected therewith in spite of interjected groups of anecdotes whose connection is not chronological but topical, such as ii. 1--iii. 6; iii. 22-30; iv. 1-34. It reaches its climax where Jesus at Cæsarea Philippi takes Peter into his confidence. Here again the mystical Revelation or Transfiguration vision (ix. 2-10) interrupts the connection, and shows its foreign derivation by the transcendental sense in which it interprets the person of Jesus. Certain features suggest its having been taken from the same source as the prologue (i. 1-13).