our Saviour. Theologians answer that whenever Jesus willed it, His Divinity withdrew into the higher part of His soul and there passed within the veil. There remained to Jesus His human soul, His fulness of faith and hope and love as a man, without the immediate communication of the infinite power of God. But His human nature is ever of one person with His divine nature, which is watchful of the struggles and makes sure of the triumph of the human nature. The pendulum swings to the right and the left, but is never out of control of the supereminent force of gravity: the movement guides the clock and the stability guarantees its regularity. Thus did Jesus merit the glory of resisting temptation, even though the presence of the Divine Word assured His triumph. Seeming to lose the form of God and to have only that of His humanity, yet His humanity was so well guarded by the divinity that it was absolutely incapable of sin. The difference between Him and us in temptation is thus very great. To Him temptation was an influence wholly external; it found not the least help in His heart. To us, it becomes at once interior, having a spy in our native weakness to aid it from within. Even when we remain innocent, temptation stirs the sediment, it finds some sinful memories to help it, some fleeting evil tendencies, and the waters which seemed but now clear as crystal become dark and troubled. In Jesus there was no evil memory or tendency, no sediment of evil possibility, no scars of former disgraceful wounds. Yet He is our model: "For we have not a high-priest who cannot have compassion on our infirmities: but one tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews iv. 15). He has a sympathetic knowledge of what it is to fall into temptation. As a physician studies not only in books but at the dissecting table and in hospitals, so did Jesus learn what sin is, and so He was tempted for our sakes. Satan addresses Jesus as Son of God, for he had heard the voice from heaven call Him so. But how did the demon understand that title? Did it mean only that Jesus was beloved like a son? Or did he suspect that He was the Word Incarnate, God as Jehovah is God? Now, many have thought that Satan had been cast out of heaven because he was too proud to accept and believe this very mystery of God-Man that Jesus is, when it was prophetically revealed to the angels; nor would he easily believe it now. No doubt, therefore, the evil one was mystified, and he will put this strange being to the test. Did he appear to Jesus in human form; or did he speak to Him from the air; or address Him spirit to spirit? In this we are not left wholly to conjecture, as the sacred narrative seems plainly to show us Satan in human or some other tangible or visible form. We may be certain, too, that it was by an actual and bodily movement that Jesus was carried to the Temple's topmost pinnacle, and afterwards to some high mountain whence the fiend could boast of his ownership of the entire pagan world. Yet, after all, the triple battle of Jesus was fought and won in the invisible but most real arena of spirit life. CHAPTER IV. THE TEMPTATION. Matt. iv. 1-11; Mark i. 12, 13; Luke iv. U 1-13. NTIL now, since the fall of Adam, Satanhe now felt it plainly-had never known so momentous a conflict. That great victory seemed to have given him his present plan of battle. Sensual indulgence, presumption on the divine goodness, lust of power: these were the sins of Adam. Can this new Adam be allured to commit the same? A wonder-worker-thought the devil-this Messias surely must be; I will help Him to spoil His mission by a vain show of miracles. Not by miracles of suffering and of love shall He rule men, but by those of pride and lordly majesty, of gluttony, presumption, ambition; and so He shall rule men under my supremacy. Jesus arms Himself with His Father's sword of resistance, the word of God. His enemy's assaults are thrown back instantly in his face. Not a moment's thought is given to them. Adam and Eve ruined everything by complacent dallying with the tempter; Jesus saves all by immediate rejection. As a plumbline in a mason's hand strikes against a bulge in a defective wall, so does the truth of God disclose a lie. Jesus has but one rule for heart and hand and tongue; it is God's law, whose words He sternly utters, yea, even with irony, against the demon. Fainting with hunger after forty days of fasting, He is addressed by Satan: "If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But He answered and said: It is written, not by bread alone doth man live, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God" (Deut. viii. 3). Al ways His enemies will look for a sign, wicked and adulterous as they are: as Satan their ringleader at this beginning of His struggle, so his chief lieutenants under the cross, who will shout: "If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross!" Our THE STRUGGLE IN THE DESERT. And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from the Jordan, and immediately the Spirit drove him out into the desert. And he was in the desert forty days and forty nights, and was tempted by Satan; and he was with beasts. And he ate nothing in those days; and when they were ended, he was hungry. And the tempter coming said to him; If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. Who answered and said: It is written, Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him up into the holy city, and set him upon the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him: If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written: That he hath given his angels charge over thee, and in their hands shall they bear thee up, lest perhaps thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said to him: It is written, again: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again the devil took him up into a very high mountain: and shewed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, in a moment of time, and he said to him: To thee will give all this power and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will I give them. If thou therefore wilt adore before me, all shall be thine. Then Jesus saith to him: Begone, Satan: for it is writ ten: The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve. And all the temptation being ended, the devil departed from him for a time; and behold angels came and ministered to him. sus Saviour refuses to separate Himself from our common human lot. The first word of His answer places Jeas a man among men, gladly content with God's will as His meat and drink. "Man liveth not by bread alone." Vainly did Satan call on the Son of God to use the divine power in the interests of sensual indulgence. Personal interest is not the aim of the Messias, and, at all events, Jehovah had fed Israel in the wilderness with bread from heaven. And does not any heroic soul forget to eat corporal food when fed by the word of God? Abandonment to the fatherly care of Divine Providence, total abandonment, is the characteristic trait of the true Son of God, whether it be Jesus the Only-Begotten, or any one of His brethren by adoption. Jesus is found impregnable on the side of sensual appetite, and of con fidence in His Father. Satan attempts another side, that of excessive confidence in God. For it often happens that one who knows that he is tenderly loved is vile enough to abuse his privilege by presumption. And as the desert was a fit place for temptation to self-indulgence, so the Holy City shall be the scene of a more spiritual trial. Instantly the demon wafts Jesus through the air and sets Him on a pinnacle of the Temple. Far below Him He sees the city teeming with a multitude of people. Satan whispers to Him, What a glorious thing to descend upon the wings of supporting angels-the entire city witnessing the miracle! This would prove to all Israel that Thou art their long expected Messias. And as Jesus had used Scripture in His defence, the tempter tried it himself in this second assault, and said to Him: "If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down, for it is written: He hath given His angels charge over Thee, and in their hands shall they bear Thee up, lest perhaps Thou dash Thy foot against a stone" (Psalm xc. 11, 12). It is noticeable that he suppresses a part of the text, which promises the angelic aid to those who abide in their proper place-"to keep thee in all thy ways"-faithful, that is, to the ordinary will of God, which compliance with this amazing proposal certainly would not be. "And he showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and th glory of them" (Matt. iv. 8). The temptation was that the Messias should make a dazzling exhibition of miraculous power, and so by one splendid stroke overthrow all unbelief, suffering no delay, not consenting to be a subject of tedious discussion. And why not? Is it not better to conquer all opposition by the miraculous use of the divine power? But Jesus reasoned otherwise. The miracle would be either a vainglorious display of power, or it would be a departure from the Father's will; in either case an act of presumption. To back it up |