Messiah who in his lifetime has gone unrecognized or incognito. Since so much of Jesus’ behaviour and that of his disciples is incomprehensible and contradictory, if viewed historically, the majority of scholars would now follow Wrede in preferring to see the so-called ‘Messianic Secret’ as Mark’s way of representing Jesus to his readers as he was conceived to be in the light of subsequent post-Easter theological reflection. In modification of Wrede’s thesis, however, it is now generally agreed that