CRITICAL NOTES
THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS—GENERAL REMARKS
There is only one way of understanding the narrative, viz. as the history of a real occurrence, of an actual temptation of our Lord by the devil as a person. Such a history it is clearly the intention of the Evangelist to give; and the only difficulty which this interpretation has, peculiar to itself, is that it presupposes two things, which are also presupposed throughout the rest of Scripture: the possibility of the supernatural, and the personality of the tempter. If either of these is denied, the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith must necessarily fall with them. To deny the supernatural is to deny what is asserted in every page of the Gospels; and to deny the personality of the tempter is virtually to assert that the temptation was suggested from within, not from without, an assertion incompatible with the perfect sinlessness of Christ, and with all the edifice of Christian truth, of which that sinlessness is the foundation (Mansel).
The account can have come from no other than Jesus Himself.—The words of the Evangelist describe an actual scene—not a dream. The devil really came to Jesus, but in what form is not stated. These were not isolated temptations in the life of Jesus (cf. Luke 22:28), but they are typical temptations. They cover the same ground as “the lust of the flesh,” etc. (1 John 2:16) in which St. John sums up the evil of the world (Carr).
The temptation remains equally real, whether we conceive that the tempter appeared in bodily form and actually carried the body of our Lord from place to place, or whether we suppose that, during it all, Christ sat silent and apparently alone in the wilderness (Maclaren).
The possibility of temptation in the experience of a sinless being.—May not an appeal be made to our own experience? Do we not all know what it is to be “tempted without sin,” without sin, that is, in reference to the particular thing to which we are tempted? Are there not desires in our nature, not only thoroughly innocent, but a necessary part of our humanity, which, nevertheless, give occasion to temptation? But on its being recognised that to follow the impulse, however natural, would lead to wrong-doing, the temptation is instantly repelled and integrity perfectly preserved. In such case there is temptation, conflict, victory, all without sin. Surely then what is possible to us on occasion, was also possible to our Lord on all occasions, all through His pure and spotless life. His taking our nature, indeed, involved not only the possibility, but the necessity of temptation (J. Monro Gibson).
Matthew 4:1. Then.—After the baptism and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus. “Straightway” (Mark 1:12, R.V.). “The consciousness of His Messiahship … then required to be confirmed through an inner conflict” (Wendt). Wilderness.—Locality not known. Tradition has fixed on a high ridge called Quarantania (from the forty days) in the neighbourhood of Jericho. “An almost perpendicular wall of rock twelve or fifteen hundred feet above the plain” (Robinson). Tempted.—To tempt is, literally, to stretch out, to try the strength of. But generally used in a bad sense, meaning to entice, solicit, or provoke to sin. The devil, διάβολος =a slanderer, a traducer. “The devil” is always used in the Bible to signify an evil spirit, never to personify the evil in man or in the world (Abbott).
Matthew 4:2. Forty days and forty nights.—“Forty,” a sacred and representative number. Used in Scripture in connection with the facts of temptation or retribution (Farrar). Does not follow thence that it is not to be taken exactly (Olshausen). May, however, be used in a general way for a long time. The fast, moreover, may not have been an absolute abstinence from food, though this would be less of an impossibility in the East than under the conditions of western life, food, and habits (Tuck). The fast was naturally sustained. It was a time of profound and absorbed meditation on His mission, and all it involved; our Lord was, as we should say, “carried away,” so as to be wholly indifferent to material things (ibid).
Matthew 4:4; Matthew 4:7; Matthew 4:10. It is written.—The words of all the three answers to the tempter come from two Chapter s of Deuteronomy, one of which supplied one of the passages (Matthew 6:4-9) for the phylacteries or frontlets worn by devout Jews. The fact is every way suggestive. A prominence was thus given to that portion of the book, which made it an essential part of the education of every Israelite. The words which our Lord now uses had, we must believe, been familiar to Him from His childhood, and He had read their meaning rightly (Plumptre).
Matthew 4:5. Then.—The order of the second and third temptations is inverted in the narrative as given by St. Luke; but the latter does not, like St. Matthew, use words implying chronological sequence. St. Matthew’s appears to be the true chronological order:
1. From the use of the word then in Matthew 4:5; Matthew 11:2. From the nature of the temptations rising in degree to the last (Mansel). A pinnacle.—The (R.V.). A certain well-known projection. Whether this refer to the highest summit of the temple, which bristled with golden spikes (Jos., B. J., V. Matthew 4:6); or whether it refer to another peak, on Herod’s royal portico, overhanging the ravine of Kedron, at the valley of Hinnom, an immense tower built on the very edge of this precipice, from the top of which dizzy height, Josephus says one could not look to the bottom (Ant., XV. xi. 5)—is not certain, but the latter is probably meant (Brown).
Matthew 4:7. Tempt.—To tempt God is to put Him to the proof—to demand evidence of His power and of His will to fulfil His promises, instead of waiting patiently and trusting in Him (Mansel).
Matthew 4:8. An exceeding high mountain.—This some regard as proof that all that passed in the temptation was in the region of which the spirit, and not the senses, takes cognisance. No “specular mountain” (Milton) in the whole earth commands a survey of “all the kingdoms of the world,” etc. (Plumptre). It is enough that the thought and the temptation of earthly despotism and glory were present to the mind of Jesus (Carr). World.—See John 12:31; John 14:30; Ephesians 6:12 (R. V.).
Matthew 4:10. Worship.— Deuteronomy 6:13. A free and easy translation of the original Hebrew, but true to the spirit (Morison).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 4:1-11
Open War.—After Jesus has been set apart for, He here sets forth for, His work. In doing so He finds at once that it is a work of conflict and strife. And that of strife, too, in all respects of the most serious kind. With the great adversary! In the wilderness! By God’s own appointment! And in such a way as to touch, also, the very springs of His life! (Matthew 4:1). Is it to be much wondered at, that, in preparing for it, He seems to forget everything else; even, it would appear, for nearly six weeks of fasting, His own bodily wants (Matthew 4:2, “afterward,” and cf. 1 Kings 19:8; also, in a measure, Acts 10:9-16; 2 Corinthians 12:3). From the first we see that to Him the work before Him was more than His “necessary food!” (cf. John 4:32). The actual encounter in this primary conflict consists of three principal parts. There is:—
I. A temptation to doubt.—Great is the craft, in every way, with which this first “assault” is both conceived and “delivered.” It is suited exactly to the Saviour’s condition. To one just beginning to be conscious of the pangs of extreme hunger (Matthew 4:2), how great a temptation is any prospect of food! It is suited exactly to the Saviour’s character. There is no offering here of what would be sought after by the self-indulgent and sinful; nothing costly; nothing stimulating; nothing far-fetched. All that is spoken of is such “loaves” as were similar in appearance to the rounded “stones” of the desert (Matthew 4:3, R.V., marg.). More than this would have rather repelled than tempted the nature attacked. It is suited exactly, once more, to the Saviour’s claims and position. Only a little before He had been proclaimed as God’s Son in a peculiar degree (Matthew 3:17). If He really was such, why should He be allowed to suffer as He was doing? The Son of God without bread? Why should He allow it Himself? Why not “command these stones” to supply Him with “bread”? The answer to this subtlety—to all this subtlety—is equally simple and perfect. It comes, in effect, to this: “Although in truth the Son of God, I am here as a man; and ‘man’ has been appointed and also been taught to live in entire dependence on God” (Matthew 4:4). In other words, “This ‘temptation to doubt’ is to Me the more ground for belief.”
II. A temptation to presumption.—One avenue of evil is closed. The act of closing it opens another. How great, here also, the subtlety shown! How skilfully the previous reply of the Saviour is turned into a fresh means of attack! “Dost Thou depend upon God? Then depend on Him to the full. See, here is His house! Here its loftiest point! Are not His angels about Thee? Are they not charged to preserve Thee? To preserve Thee in all Thy ways? To preserve even Thy feet from coming in contact with the idle stones in Thy path? Show Thy faith then in this promise—Thy faith in their care—Thy faith in Thy rights—by casting Thyself down from this height” (Matthew 4:5-6). One ray of truth, as before, clears away all this mist of deceit. God’s promises must be fulfilled in the way that God wills. It is forbidden to man—it is forbidden to any man—thus to put His truth to the test. For to do so would be, in effect, to cast doubt on that truth. This is “written” of old. “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Matthew 4:7; Deuteronomy 6:16).
III. A temptation to treason.—The subtlety of this temptation seems to lie partly in the fact that it makes use of the two previous repulses for a further means of attack. Twice assaulted as the Son of God, the Saviour has answered as man. He shall now be tempted as man. Partly in the fact that it makes its appeal to that which has so often proved the ruin of the great ones of the earth. How often has ambition conquered those who have conquered nearly all else! Seeing, therefore, the marked greatness of Jesus, and convinced of it all the more—in all probability—from the very defeats under which he is smarting, the evil one now seems to have made up his mind to attack Christ on that side. He takes Him, accordingly, to the summit of an “exceeding high mountain,” and shows Him a sudden and far-reaching prospect of “all the kingdoms of the earth.” If He will only do homage to him, as their present possessor, all shall be His (Matthew 4:8-9). What a prospect! What easy conditions! Was there ever before so dazzling a prize to be had on such terms? Not for a moment, however, is it so regarded by the Man assaulted thereby. The other temptations had come in disguise as it were. This, on the contrary, is a naked incentive to treason. Unlike the other temptations, therefore, it meets at once with a direct and naked rebuke. “Get thee hence, thou adversary; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve”. (Matthew 4:10).
1. The issue of this great conflict is very instructive.—On the one hand, the evil one goes. On the other hand, a company of “angels” come in his place (Matthew 4:11). Why not before? Because they are not to share in Christ’s work. Why now? Because they sympathise with it. How often they are found to show this in the great crises of that work! His birth (supra chaps. 1 and 2). His agony in the garden (Luke 22:43). His resurrection (Matthew 28:2, etc.). His coming again (Matthew 25:31). Observe now, however, that they come to sustain Him in—not to take Him away from—that work. The devil has only “departed from Him for a season” (Luke 4:13). Other and greater conflicts have yet to come. Something as with Elijah in 1 Kings 19:5-8, these angels have come to prepare Him therefor.
2. The retrospect of this conflict is equally instructive.—See how momentous a thing in every way is the ministry of this Jesus. The Spirit of God directs it from the first. The whole humanity of Christ is absorbed in it from the first. The mightiest powers from below, with the subtlest of temptations and most resplendent of bribes, are set in action against it. The elect angels also—so far as they can—come to give it their aid. Everywhere it is watched—this blind earth alone excepted—with the deepest concern.
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Matthew 4:1-11. The victory of the King.—Every word of the first verses of this narrative is full of meaning. “Then” marks the immediate connection, not only in time but in causation, between the baptism and the temptation. “Of the Spirit”—then God does lead His Son into temptation. For us all, as for Christ, it is true that, though God does not tempt as wishing us to fall, He does so order our lives that they carry us into places where the metal of our religion is tried. “To be tempted”—then a pure, sinless, human nature is capable of temptation, and the King has to begin his career by a battle. “Of the devil”—then there is a dark kingdom of evil, and a personal head of it, the prince of darkness. He knows his rival, and yet he knows Him but partially. To a sinless nature no temptation can arise from within, but must be presented from without.
I. The first assault and repulse in the desert.—Ere Jesus enters on His work, the need which every soul appointed to high and hard tasks has felt, namely, the need for seclusion and communion with God in solitude, was felt by Him. So deep and rapt was the communion that, for forty days, spirit so mastered flesh that the need and desire for food were suspended. But when He touched earth again the pinch of hunger began.
1. The sphere of the temptation.—The physical nature. Hunger, in itself neutral, may, like all physical cravings, lead to sin. Satan had tried the same bait before on the first Adam. At the beginning of His course Jesus is tempted by the innocent desire to secure physical support; at its close He is tempted by the innocent desire to avoid physical pain. He overcomes both.
2. The act suggested.—Seems not only innocent, but in accordance with His dignity. The need is real, the remedy possible and easy; the result desirable as preserving valuable life and putting an end to an anomaly, and the objections apparently nil.
3. The true nature of the act as dragged to light in Christ’s answer.—The bearing of the words quoted on Christ’s hunger is twofold.
(1) He will not use His miraculous power to provide food, for that would be to distrust God, and so to cast off His filial dependence.
(2) He will not separate Himself from His brethren, and provide for Himself by a way not open to them, for that would really be to reverse the very purpose of His incarnation and to defeat His whole work.
II. The second assault and repulse on the temple.—If Jesus was, in bodily reality, standing on the summit of the temple, the tempter, profoundly disbelieving the promise, may have thought that the leap would end his anxieties by the death of his rival. But, at any rate, he sought to lead His faith into wrong paths, and to incite to what was really sinful self-will under the guise of absolute trust. Our Lord’s answer strips off the disguise from the action which seemed so trustful. To cast Himself into dangers needlessly, and then to trust God (whom He had not consulted about going into them) to get Him out, was to “tempt” God. True faith is ever accompanied with true docility. He had come to do His Father’s will. The lessons for us are weighty. Faith may be perverted.
III. The final assault and repulse on the mountain.—Satan has no more to say about “the Son of God.” He has been foiled in both his assaults on Christ in that character. If He stood firm in filial trust and in filial submission, there was no more to be done. So the tempter tries new weapons, and seeks to pervert the desire for that dominion over the world which was a consequence of the Sonship. He has not been able to touch Him as Son; can he not spoil Him as King? They are rivals; can they not strike up a treaty? The hopeless folly of the proposal is typical of the absurdities which lie in all sin. Satan’s boast, like all his wiles, is a little truth and a great lie. His servants do often manage to climb into thrones and other high places. But the father of lies did not say that if he gives a kingdom to one of his servants he takes it from another. He did not say that his gifts are shams, and fade away when the daylight comes. He did not say that he and his are, after all, tools in God’s hands. The temptation was not only to fling away the ideal of His kingdom, but to reverse the means for its establishment. Neither temptation could originate within Christ’s heart, but both beset Him all His life. Christ’s last words are not only His final refusal of all the baits, but the ringing proclamation of war to the death, and that a war which will end in victory. The last temptation teaches us both the nature of Christ’s kingdom and the means of its establishment.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Christ tempted. (To young men.)—Christ here beginning the work of His life. His years in Nazareth were not wasted. He consecrated labour; made working man’s condition honourable.
I. Tempted through His body’s appetite.
1. Nothing wrong about hunger.—In itself nothing wrong in working a miracle to supply it. But to do it at the devil’s bidding was another matter. “If Thou be the Son of God,” q.d., “Does this look like it?” Reflection on God’s love and providential care.
2. Must only suggest to you an ordinary temptation of young men inseparable from their youth and vigorous constitution. Timothy cautioned by Paul: “Flee youthful lusts.” Eating and drinking right per se, but may lead into grosser sins. This other passion right, but leads into grosser and more debasing sins than any other. Remember, only to be satisfied, like Christ’s hunger, in accordance with the will of God; never at the devil’s bidding.
3. If to be of any use for God, keep tight hand on all body’s appetites, all natural cravings.
II. Satan would have Christ needlessly thrust Himself into danger, presuming on safety.—“Cast Thyself down; angels will see Thee safe.” So with young men.You will be safe on that race ground or in that music-hall.Your strength of character is safeguard enough. Or with young Christian men.You may dance.You can go to the theatre and come away unharmed.You are a Christian! You can take the good and leave the evil. No man is safe in self-sought danger. There is danger! Look at the company! Look at the entertainment, generally unworthy a sensible young man, always uncongenial to a godly man! How many young men there ruined by the experiment proposed to you! See who await you at your exit! As well may you expect to rub against a sweep or a miller or a tarred fence and show nothing, as to go to the actual theatre or racecourse and not be the worse. No man may then claim God’s protection. Keep out of danger. Err on safe side. “Descend amongst the crowd in the temple courts and they will more easily believe Thee, Son of God,” q.d., “Go into danger to do good.”
III. “Just once worship me, the world shall be Thine!”—q.d. “All will be Thine, but at what a price! Here is a short and easy road to Thy kingdom.” To young men: “Will get on if only you give up these scruples and bow with the rest. Need only do it once. Just one simple act. Need not really in heart give up anything important.” “Only once” ruined our race; has ruined many a young man since. “Only once” carries the principle: “Cannot get on, to stand so stiffly by Sabbath and religious notions.” Then don’t get on. Be a beggar all your days, but a godly beggar. Be an “unsuccessful man” all your life; see others weighted with fewer scruples get before you in the race and grasp the prizes; but keep your God. Let their carriage wheels bespatter you as, for principle’s sake, you trudge painfully along; yet you are infinitely the gainers! Have none of the devil’s “short cuts” to advantage or prosperity.—H. J. Foster.
Christ’s temptation and the pastoral office.—I. That our ministry may be in harmony with the spirit of Christ, and so exert saving power, its first requisite is experience of our own personal liability to temptation.—This is a quite different experience from a merely general knowledge of our sinfulness. Nor does this liability to temptation lie merely, as people say, on the weak side which every man has. Christ had no weak side. It was His Sonship, His very might and strength, upon which His temptation fastened. And so it is on the strong side of every good Christian man that his chief danger lies, in that which is best and most vigorous in his nature, in his peculiar endowment and excellence, in the very thing which men are to regard as a good gift of God. Hence arises liability to temptation in the three forms of it seen in the temptation of Christ.
1. The temptation (Matthew 4:3) to turn natural or spiritual blessings selfishly to account for our own enjoyment and honour.
2. The temptation (Matthew 4:6) to stand out and shine before the crowd as a specially gifted man of God, or to attain quick and magnificent results.
3. The temptation (Matthew 4:9) to pay homage to the spirit of the age, and to make terms with powers and tendencies which are in the ascendant.
II. Victory is found in a spirit of which the positive elements are—
1. A self-renouncing love of God, which seeks life and strength, not in its own resources, but in the cleaving of the inner nature to the word of God.
2. A humble faith which has more desire to cleave to the definite commands of God than to usurp Divine and glorious promises.
3. Undaunted hope, which does not allow itself to be dazzled by the worldly splendour that strikes the eye, and by the power that rules in the world.—J. T. Beck, D.D.
The Saviour’s temptation.—I. The temptation of our Lord was the result of Divine appointment.—“Jesus was led up of the Spirit.” What the Divine purpose was we may gather from the manner in which His temptation, is in the Epistle to the Hebrews, connected with the exercise of His priestly functions.
1. It was meant to promote that perfection which was necessary to qualify Him for interposing effectually on our behalf both as victim and as priest.
2. The temptation also enabled Him to sympathise with us in our trials, and to help us when engaged in spiritual conflicts like His own. Through these combined effects of His temptation it is that we can “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may
(1) obtain mercy, and
(2) find grace to help us in every time of need.”
II. The scene of the temptation.—It is in the crowd and bustle of life, especially of wealth and fashion, that inducements to evil most abound. The solitude of the desert is freer from temptation, and, moreover, it is more favourable to its resistance, because of the opportunity it gives for quiet reflection and prayer. Therefore we cannot think of our Saviour being tempted in the wilderness without being impressed with the fact that there is no place in this world altogether free from temptation.
III. The time of the temptation is still more significant.—The voice has just testified, This is My beloved Son. What can the devil have to do with Him then? But it was when Moses was on his way down from the Mount, from holding close converse with God, that he gave way to anger and broke the tables of stone. It was just after the victory in Carmel that Elijah was found under the juniper tree. “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona,” was closely followed by “Get thee hence, Satan.” It is always on the eve of a specially bright and joyous experience that Satan needs most vigilant attention. Our foe is most malignant when our spiritual elevation is at its highest.—W. Landels, D.D.
Matthew 4:3. Reflections on Christ’s first temptation.—
1. No wonder men find themselves daily solicited by Satan unto sin; for Satan’s style from his continual practice is the tempter. It is his trade to tempt.
2. It is possible that such as God loves may be troubled by Satan.
3. It is no wonder to find Satan calling in question the adoption or regeneration of any of God’s children, for he dare call in question the sonship of the Son of God, notwithstanding that within a few days before this, the Father and the Holy Spirit from heaven had borne witness to it.
4. Satan fits his temptations into men’s present case and condition.
5. In tempting, Satan pretends to be careful of helping the tempted party to a better condition. Here he seems desirous both to have bread provided for Christ in His need and also to see Him made manifest as the Son of God by such a miracle.
6. Satan’s temptations are more than one; a number linked together.—David Dickson.
Matthew 4:5-7. Our Lord’s second temptation.—
I. Our Lord was carried from the wilderness to the holy city.—Understand by this how all our circumstances in the world may be changed, and yet the tempter be with us still. Hundreds of men have gone out into the desert thinking that in that way they should escape temptation, but it has found them out. The spirit of evil has shown them that they do not escape from him by escaping from men. Then they have run back into the holy city; they have thought that they were exposed to danger because they were away from the ordinances of God. But there, too, they have found there was no security; it has only been a change from “Command these stones to be made bread,” into “Cast thyself down from hence.”
II. Consider what was the particular temptation of our Lord when He was brought into the holy city.—I have no doubt that when our Lord was reflecting on the iniquities of the holy city the devil suggested to Him the thought, “What avails it to be a Jew, to be a citizen of God’s city, a member of the holy nation, when holiness and purity and unity have utterly deserted it? If Thou be the Son of God set an example of throwing away these vain privileges.” Precisely this temptation is presented to all of us this day.
III. Understand next from this history of our Lord’s second temptation that we are not to plead love to our brethren as any excuse for going out of God’s way or doing work which He has not set us to do.—Our Lord was urged to cast Himself down from the temple that He might convince the Jews of their unbelief. He who urged Him to it wished Him in that very thing to commit an act of unbelief. Thousands of such acts have been committed by men who thought that they were honouring God and helping their brethren. They were doing neither. To be working together with God is our highest honour. When we are not doing this we cannot be working any good to ourselves or to any other man.—F. D. Maurice, M.A.
The perversion of holy things.—The holiest things may be perverted to become the most vile temptation.
1. A stay in the holy city.
2. The prospect from the pinnacle of the temple.
3. The promise contained in an inspired psalm.—J. P. Lange, D.D.
Matthew 4:8-9. The third temptation.—
I. The root of the third temptation lay in the thought that the kingdoms of the world were the devil’s kingdoms, and that it was he who could dispose of them.—If our Lord had believed this, if He had acknowledged this claim, He would have been falling down and worshipping the evil spirit, He would have been confessing him to be the Lord. But for all that He beheld the horrible vision of human misery and human crime; for all that He found men actually doing homage to the spirit of evil, actually serving him with their thoughts and words and deeds; in spite of all this, He believed and knew that these kingdoms were not the devil’s kingdoms, but God’s kingdoms. He knew that men’s sins began in this, consisted in this, that they thought and believed the devil to be their king, when God was their King.
II. It is hard to believe this, when there are so many things that seem to contradict it.—But believe it we must if we would be honest men. Holy men have been betrayed into sins which make one weep and blush when one reads the history of Christ’s church, because they have thought that falsehood and evil were the lords of the world, and that if they were to overcome the world they must do it by entering into some bargain or compromise with these masters of it. The devil was saying to them, “These are mine, and I give them to whomsoever I will.” They believed him. He asked this token of homage from them, and they paid it. The mischiefs that have followed from every such faithless act have been more than I can tell you, and though they are no warrant to us in condemning others, they are most terrible warnings to ourselves.—F. D. Maurice, M.A.
Matthew 4:11. Christ’s victory.—Let us endeavour to gather up the general instruction to be gained from the history of the temptation.
I. Christ has, by His example under temptation, taught us how to resist it.
II. His example shows us the proper use of God’s word.
III. The greatest lesson for the disciple of Jesus to learn from the temptation of his Master is one of encouragement.—When One is set before us as our ever-present Helper, who Himself has passed through the struggle; when we know that we are not alone in the bitterness of our spirits, and that in the darkest place in our course we shall find His footsteps; what a different matter does each Christian’s appointed conflict become—how full of sympathy, how full of promise, how full of Christ!—H. Alford, D.D.
Matthew 4:1-11. Temptation and sin.—If Satan be the father of our sins, our will is the mother, and sin is the cursed issue of both.—Bishop Hall.
Temptation and sin.—You can’t prevent the devil from shooting arrows of evil thoughts into your heart; but take care that you do not let such arrows stick fast and grow there. Do as an old man of past times has said: “I can’t prevent a bird from flying over my head, but I can prevent him from making a nest in my hair.”—Martin Luther.
Commonness of temptation.—The story of the temptation is peculiar, but it is not wholly unique. It is not without its parallel in human experience, not without its analogue in literature and history. The great heroes whom the world reveres have passed through similar experiences of test and trial. Thus, in the legends of the East, there is brought to us the story of the temptation of Buddha on that night when all the powers of evil gathered around about him to assail him by violence or to entice him by wiles.
Nor knoweth one,
Not even the wisest, how those fiends of hell
Battled that night to keep the truth from Buddh:
Sometimes with terrors of the tempest, blasts
Of demon-armies clouding all the wind
With thunder, and with blinding lightning flung
In jagged javelins of purple wrath
From splitting skies; sometimes with wiles and words
Fair-sounding, ’mid hushed leaves and softened airs
From shapes of witching beauty; wanton songs,
Whispers of love; sometimes with royal allures
Of proffered rule; sometimes with mocking doubts,
Making truth vain.
So, in the mythology of Greece, we have the story of the temptation of Hercules. Pleasure comes to him in wanton but bewitching form, and bids him follow her, and promises him the cup of pleasure and that he shall drink of it. She will strew his path with flowers all the way, and accompany him with song and dancing. Wisdom comes to him with sterner voice—with beauty, indeed, but with solemn and almost forbidding beauty—and calls him to combat and to battle that he may win manhood. So, in the later history of the church, is the strange, mystical—superstitious, if you will—story of the temptation of St. Anthony, with its wiles and its enticements, with its demons inviting to sin by smiles, and its demons tormenting with red-hot pincers. In human history we find the same or like record. We have like temptations in the lives of John Wesley, of Luther, of Xavier, of Loyola. Open the page of history where you will, and you can hardly find the story of any great, noble, prophetic soul that has not had its hour of battle with the powers of darkness, sometimes not turning out so well as with Buddha, or with Hercules, or with Jesus of Nazareth.—L. Abbott, D.D.
Temptation sometimes subtle.—A favourite amusement of the German students is duelling. The arrangements for a duel are made very secretly, lest they should come to the knowledge of the police. One morning I rose at five, went twelve miles by train, and then walked some distance to an old castle, to witness one of these duels. All the approaches to the place were watched. The fight took place in the old dining-hall of the ruin. The students who were to fight were two of the most famous duellists in Germany. They began, and fought about a dozen rounds. I observed that one of the two had only a single form of stroke—downwards upon the head; the other tried many different forms. The spectators wondered what the first could mean, as he had never been known to fight in that way before. Suddenly, at the thirteenth round, his eye flashed; and with a rapid movement he changed his stroke, and brought his sword upwards, cleaving the chin of his opponent, who fell senseless to the ground, with a wound that he would bear all his life. How did it happen? It was the sudden change of direction. Temptation veers about as suddenly and unexpectedly; and unless we watch we shall be taken off our guard.—Professor H. Drummond.
Matthew 4:9. Satan, a liar.—O, thou lying devil, how thou dost lie still! Thou that didst lie art the father of lies. Thou didst say to Napoleon the Great, “If thou wilt bow down before me and worship me, I will give thee the kingdoms of the earth and the glory thereof,” and thou didst give him St. Helena. And to Napoleon III., “Bow down to me and worship me, and I will give thee the kingdoms of the earth and the glory thereof,” and thou didst give him Chiselhurst. And to Aaron Burr, “Bow down to me, and I will give thee the Presidency and political power,” and thou didst give him exile and shame and disgrace.—L. Abbott, D.D.