The remaining section of Mark, the warning against the scribes (xii. 38ff.), is best considered in conjunction with the treatment of the same theme in the Q stratum. Luke preserves both as separate incidents (xi. 37ff. and xx. 45ff.) while Matthew (xxiii. 1 ff.) conflates the two, adding other matter from other parts of the same stratum with a good deal that is peculiar to himself. It has been suggested that Mark has preserved only a fragment of a larger denunciation (so Rawlinson ad loc.), but it is not easy to see why a Christian writer should give only a selection on such a theme. On the other hand the growing hostility between the Church and the synagogue after the crucifixion would naturally lead to the multiplication of accusations of this kind; the tendency would be increased by the opposition of Jewish Christians of the popular type to the attempts of Christian Pharisees to persuade them to observe the Law in the Pharisaic sense. The only evidence for supposing that Mark is drawing on a larger collection of denunciations would appear to be the close verbal resemblance between Mark xii. 38 f. and Luke xi. 43. But there is no reason why the saying (which seems to be part of the earliest form of the denunciation) should not have been preserved in a very similar form in two different traditions; it is of course possible that Luke xi. 43 has been influenced by the Marcan form of the saying.