Moreover, it is a fact that nothing is related about conspicuous successes in the first period. The successes first begin with the mission of the Twelve. Jesus celebrates the great moment of their return with words of enthusiasm (Mt 11:25-27). Are we to suppose now that in the sequel the Pharisees triumphed over him completely and the people deserted him? Of such a retrogression of his cause the texts, however, record nothing. The discussion about ceremonial purification (Mt 7:1-23) does not furnish what was expected [pg 067] of it. Jesus had already at an earlier time come into much hotter conflict with the theologians of the capital (Mk 3:22-30). In the question about the laws of purification it was not he that was worsted. Jesus’ defeat has been inferred from the fact that the “flight” to the north followed this scene (Mk 7:24 ff[.]). But the accounts do not in the least represent this departure as a flight, nor do they account for this journey to the north as a result of the previous controversy; rather it is _we_ who interpolate a fictitious causal connection in the chronological sequence of the narrative. If Jesus immediately before this was supported by the popular favour and now leaves the region, we have a fact before us which stands unexplained in the texts. That it was a flight is an unprovable conjecture. No importance need be attached to the fact that subsequently Jesus again appears on two occasions surrounded by a multitude (Mk 8:1-9: feeding of the 4000; and Mk 8:34 ff[.]: the scenes before and after the Transfiguration). This fact might perhaps be attributed to a literary reconstruction of the respective accounts,—as may be considered established, for example, in the case of the _doublette_ of the feeding of the multitude. [pg 068] Decisive, however, is the reception which the Passover caravan accorded to Jesus as he overtook it at Jericho. This ovation was not accorded to the man who had lost ground before the Pharisees in his own country and among his own people and at last had been forced to flee, but to the celebrated prophet emerging from his retirement. If this Galilean populace supported him now by their acclaim and enabled him to terrorise the magistrates in the capital for several days—for his purification of the Temple was nothing else but that—and to expose the scribes with his dry irony, is it possible that they did it for the man who a few weeks before had to yield to these theologians in his own land?