Certainly, the striking similarity that these narratives present to the analogous legends of the _Vendidad_ (farg.
xix.) and of the _Lalitavistara_ (chap.xvii., xviii., xxi.) would lead us to regard them only as myths.

But the meagre and concise narrative of Mark, which evidently represents on this point the primitive compilation, leads us to suppose a real fact, which furnished later the theme of legendary developments.] It was probably in coming from the desert that Jesus learned of the arrest of John the Baptist.

He had no longer any reason to prolong his stay in a country which was partly strange to him.

Perhaps he feared also being involved in the severities exercised toward John, and did not wish to expose himself, at a time in which, seeing the little celebrity he had, his death could in no way serve the progress of his ideas.

He regained Galilee,[1] his true home, ripened by an important experience, and having, through contact with a great man, very different from himself, acquired a consciousness of his own originality.
[Footnote 1: Matt.iv.