As we have found it necessary to distinguish between the original composition by Mark, to whom in the main the work appears to be due, and some enlargement and alteration which it subsequently underwent whereby it reached its present form, these stages must be borne in mind in considering dates that may be assigned in connexion with this Gospel.
After he came out of the coma, he underwent a year or so of therapy.
During the Persian and Greek periods the doctrine of angels underwent a great development, partly, at any rate, under foreign influences.
The cella of the temple of Heracles underwent considerable modifications in Roman times, and the discovery in it of a statue of Asclepius seems to show that the cult of this deity superseded the original one.
This conception of the Sabbath, however, necessarily underwent an important modification when the local sanctuaries were abolished under the "Deuteronomic" reform, and those sacrificial rites and feasts which in Hosea's time formed the essence of every act of religion were limited to the central altar, which most men could visit only at rare intervals.
