The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 1 — Section 95

pnss out of the spiritual sphere, it was none Authorized Version eeems to prefer, but tho less r,•al, and the value of the victorv do!iver~nce from the power of some migltty waB none the leRR incalonlable and deciBive_;, enl bemg-. And In tbo&e days he did eat nothing. In thie state of ccstnsy, when tho Ver. 1.-A.nd J'e■ua being tall of the Holy body was completely subordinate to the Gho■t returned from .Jordan, and waa led Spirit, the ordinary bodily wants seem to by the Spirit into the wilderneBB; more hnrn been suBpended. There is no ilifficulty eoourately translated, in the Spirit. The in l\<'Ccpting this supposition, if tho siguill- question of the nature of the temptation has Cl\t1nn of the worde, " in the Spirit," nbove been diseu~e"d in the above note. The sug:::c~teil, be adopted. The whole trans- words," full of the lloly Ghost," anil "Wl\8 action belongs to the miraculous. We, who led by the Spirit.," lead DB irresistibly to receive as God's Word these Gospel nnrra- the conclusion that the Lord, <luring tbid tives, find no difficulty in recognizing Gocl'1 etrange solemn time-like Ezekiel, Daniel, power to suspend, whon he plenses, what Isaiah, and, later, Paul and John 1he be- men regard as fixed nnturol lo.we. We be- loved apostle-was especially un<ler the lieve, too, that on certnin occasions in the i.nll.uence of the Holy Spirit; that his eyes world's history it ho.a pleased him to put were open to see visions and sights not this power into operation. Hs atterward usually visible to mortal eye ; and that hie hungered. Although still in the Spirit, in ears were unlocked to hear voices not order to provide a field for the exorcise of audible to ordinary mortal ears. Tradition the peculiar typical temptation about to be has fixed upon a hill district bordering on dwelt upon, some of the bodily functions, the road which leads up from Jericho to which during the trance or the ecstasy had Jerusalem, as the scene of the temptation. been temporarily suspended, were o.llowed The hill itself, from being the supposed again to play their usunl part in the life, as 1pot where the Lord spent thede forty days, in the CW!e of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Paul. is named Quarant&uie.. The rocks in I.his and John. neighbourhood contain many caves. Ver. 8.-And the devil ■aid unto him, It 'Ver. 2.-:Being forty days tempted of the thou be the Son of God, oommand this stone devil For BOme rea11on unknown to us, the that it be made bread. It has been quaintly number forty seems to posseRR some mystio said of the tempter "that he had sped so significance. Moses was forty days alone successfully to his own mind by a tempta- with the Divine Presence on Horeb. Elijah tion about a matter of eating with the first fasted forty daJ·s in the wilderness before Adam, that he practised the old manner of the vision ILild the voice came to him. his trading with the second." These diaboli- Forty yeanr was the period, too, of the cal promptings have been spoken of already wandering• of the choseu people. The exist- in this Commentnry as " typical." They ence of B.D evil power has been a favourite represent, indeed, some of the principal BUbject of discussion in those schools of temptations to which different classes of men thought who more or less question the and women in all ages are snbject; the hard authoritative teaching of the canonical task of bread-winning, after o.ll, suggests very books of the two Testaments. Keim, quoted many of the evil thoughts end imaginings by Godet, well and fairly sums up the to which men are subject, though, perhaps, present 1t1Lte of opinion of the more mode- they suspeot it not. Weakened anil ex- rate and thoughtful schools of free-thought: hausted by long abstinence from food, the "We regard the question of an existence of temptation to supply his wants by this easy an evil power as altogether B.Il open question meaDli at once was great. Still, bail he for science." Those, however, who recog- consented to the tempter's suggestion, J csus nize the Gospel narratives as the faithful was aww-e that he would have broken the expression of Jesus Christ's teaching, must conditions of that human existence to which, BOOept tl.te repeated declarations of the in his deep love for ua fallen beings, he had Mll-Bter that an evil being of superhuman voluntarily consented and submitted him- power does exist, and has a great, though self. Should he, then, use hie miraculous a limi'8<1, influence over the thoughts and power for his own advantage? Then, re- workB of men. Whatever men may feel mtmbering his own late experience, the with regard to the famous cleuse in the long fast from all human food, and yet life Lord's Prayer, which the Reruers of the enduring through it all ; calling to mind Authorized Version render," deliver us from the miraculous supply of manno. in the old the evil one," they must agree at leaBt with desert days, the preservation of Elijah's life the conclusion of the Re,·ieers, that, in the throug!J a similar fast,-Jesus, all faint and Christian Churoh, a large majority of the wr.ary, exclnims in reply, "Man Bhall not ll.ncients understood the Ma.at...r's words in I,is live by bread alone." great pra;ver a.s asking deli verauce, not from Ver. 5.-And the devil, taking him up •· t>Vil " lD tLe 11,betract, 11,1 the Euglish into an high mountain, showed Wlto him all OR, tv.1-44.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. 87