Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (734 page)

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Authors: George Eliot

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* If something really experienced by Jesus is supposed as the germ of the parable, this opinion is virtually the same as the preceding. •(• J. E. C. Sehmidt, in seiner Bibliothek, 1, 1, S. CO f. Schleiermacher, ilber den Lukas, S. 51 f. Usteri, ulier den Taufer Johannes, die Taufe und Versuchung Cfaristi, in den theolog. Studien, 2, 3, S. 456 ff. j: K.
Ch. L. Schmidt, exeg. Bcitragc, 1, S. 339. § Hasert, Bumerkungen uber die Ansichten
THE LIFE OF JESUS.
 
still less himself, for the reciter of a parable ia pre-eminently present to his auditors; and hence he cannot have delivered the history of the temptation, of which he is the subject, to his disciples as a parable. To assume that the history had originally another subject, for whom oral tradition substituted Jesus, is inadmissible, because the narrative, even as a parable, has no definite significance unless
the Messiah be its subject.*
 
If such a parable concerning himself or any other person, could.
 
not have been delivered by Jesus, yet it is possible tliat it was made by some other individual concerning Jesus; and this is tlie view taken by Thelle, who has recently explained the history of the temptation as a parabolic’admonition, directed by some partisan of Jesus against the main features of the worldly messianic liope, with the purpose of establisliing the spiritual and moral view of the new economy, f Here is tlie transition to tlie mythical point of view, which the above theologian shuns, partly because tlie narrative is not sufficiently picturesque (though it is so in a high degree); partly because it is too pure (though lie tlius imputes false ideas to the primitive Christians); and partly because tlie formation of the mythus was too near tlie time of Jesus (an objection wliicli must be equally valid against tlie early misconstruction of the parable).
 
If it can be shown, on tlie contrary, tliat tlie narrative in question is formed less out, of instructive thoughts and tlicir poetical clotliing, as is the case with a parable, than out of Old Testament passages and types, we shall not hesitate to designate it a mythus.
 
§ 56. THE IIISTOEY OF THE TEMPTATION AS A MYTHUS.
 
SATAN, the evil being and enemy of mankind, borrowed from the Persian religion, was by the Jews, whose exclusiveness limited all that was good and truly human to the Israelitish people, viewed as the special adversary of their nation, and hence as tlie lord. of the heathen states with whom they were in hostility.} The interests of the Jewish people being centred in the Messiah, it followed that Satan was emphatically his adversary; and thus throughout tlie New Testament we find the idea of Jesus as the Messiah associated with that of Satan as the enemy of his person and cause. Christ liaving appeared to destroy the works of the devil (1 John iii. 8), tlie latter seizes every opportunity of sowing tares among the good seed (Matt.
xiii. 39), and not only aims, though unsuccessfully, at obtaining tlie mastery over Jesus himself (John xiv. 30), but continually assails the faithful (Eph. vi. 11; 1 Pet. 5. 8). As these attacks of tlie devil on the pious are nothing else than attempts to get them into
* Hasert, ut sup. S. 76. •)• Zur Biographic Jesu, § 23. f See Zechar. iii. 1, where Satan resists the liiyh priest standing before the angel of the Lord ; farther Vajikra rabba, f. cli. Cm Bcrthulilt, Cluistol. Jud. p. 183), where, according to Rabbi Jochanan, Jehovah
- - - . -•’--1 /\00\.
 
TEMPTATION OF JESUS. 269
 
his power, that is, to entice them to sin; and as this can only be done by tlie indirect suggestion or immediate insinuation of evil, seductive thoughts, Satan had the appellation of 6 iTeipci^uv, the. tempter.
In the prologue to tlie book of Job, lie seeks to seduce tlie pious man from God, by the instrumentality of a succession of plagues and misfortunes : while the ensnaring counsel wliicli tin’ serpent gave to the woman was early considered an immediate diabolical suggestion.
(Wisdom ii. 24; John viii. 44; Rev. xii. 9.)
 
In the more ancient Hebrew theology, the idea was current that temptation (“isl, LXX. TTEipd^eiv) was an act of God himself, who thus put liis favourites, as Abraham (Gen. xxii. 1), and tlie people of Israel (Exod. xvi. 4, and elsewhere), to the test, or in just anger even instigated men to pernicious deeds. But as soon as the idea of Satan was formed, the office of temptation was transferred to him, and withdrawn from God, with wliose absolute goodness it began to be viewed as incompatible (James i. 13). Hence it is Satan, who by his importunity obtains the divine permission to put Job to the severest trial through suffering; lience David’s culpable project of numbering the people, which in the second book of Samuel was traced to the anger of God, is in the later chronicles (1 Chron. xxii.
1) put directly to the account of tlie devil; and even tlie well-meant temptation with which, according to Genesis, God visited Abraham, in requiring from him tlie sacrifice of his son, was in tlie opinion of the later Jews, undertaken by God at the instigation of Satan.*
Nor was this enough-scenes were imagined in which the devil personally encountered Abraham on his way to tlie place of sacrifice, and in which lie tempted tlie. people of Israel during the absence of Moses.f
If tlie most eminent men of piety in Hebrew antiquity were thus tempted, in the earlier view, by God, in the later one, by Satan, what was more natural than to suppose tliat the Messiah, the Head of all the righteous, the representative and champion of God’s people, would be the primary object of tlie assaults of Satan ?{ And we find this actually recorded as a rabbinical opinioii,§ in tlie material mode
* See the passages quoted by Fabricius in Cod. pseudepigr. V. T. p. 395., from Gemara Sanhedrin.
 
-|- Tlie same, p. 396. As Abraham went out to sacrifice his son in obedience to Jehovah, antevertit eum Sntanas in via, et tali colloquio cum ipso haUto aproposito avertere eum ccmatvs est, etc.. Schemoth, K, 41 (ap. Wetstcin in loc. Matth.): Cum.
Moses in allum adscenderef, dix-lt Israeli: post dies XL hora sexta redibo.
Cum autem XL
lilt dies elapsi essenf, venit Satanas, et turbavit mundum, dixitque: vbi est Moses, magister cester? mortuus est.
It is worthy of remark that here also the temptation takes place after the lapse of 40 days. -S, Thus Fritzsche, in Matt. p. 173. His very title is striking, V- l°’t : Quod in- vulgar! Judaorum opinions erat,fore, ut Satanas saliitaribus Messim consuns omni mode, sed sine ejfectu, iamen, nocere studeret, id ipsum Jesu ^{essiw accidif. Nnm quuin is ad exemplum illustrium majorum quadraginta dierum in dcserto loco egisset jejunium, Satanas earn comenit, protervisque afque impiis - - consiliis ad impietatem deducere frust.ra conatus est. ^ Schottgcn, horse, ii. 538, adduces from Fin; Flagellum Judasorum, I”. 3», a passage of Pesikta; Ait Satan: Domine, permitte me tentare Messiam et ejus gw.eratwiwm.t Cui inguit Dens: Won hitberes ullam adversus eum poiesialem.
 
Satanas
(irym ait:
 
Sine me, quia potestatem kabeo. Respondit Dens: S’i in’ hoc dilttius persevr-raozs, Satan, potius (fe) de munde, perdam quam aliqvam animam pvneraftftnis Messifs perdi
THE LIFE OF JESUS.
 
of representation of the later Judaism, under the form of a Irodily
appearance and a personal dialogue.
 
If a place were demanded where Satan miglit probably undertake such a temptation of the Messiah, tlie wilderness would present itself from more tlian one quarter. Not only had it been from Azazel (Lev. xvi. 8-10), and Asmodeus (Tobit viii. 3), to the demons ejected by Jesus (Matt. xii. 43), the fearful dwelling-place of tlie infernal powers : it was also tlie scene of temptation for tlie people of Israel, th&t filius Dei cullectivus* Added to this, it was tlie habit of Jesus to retire to solitary places for still meditation and prayer (Matt. xiv. 13; Mark i. 35; Luke vi. 12; John vi. 15); to which after Ills consecration to the messianic office he would feel more than usually disposed. It is hence possible that, as some theologians!
have supposed, a residence of Jesus in tlie wilderness after his baptism (though not one of precisely forty days’ duration) served as the historical foundation of our narrative; but even without this connecting thread, botli the already noticed clioice of place and that of time are to be explained by tlie consideration, that it seemed consonant witli tlie destiny of tlie Messiali tliat, like a second Hercules, lie should undergo sucli a trial on his entrance into mature age and
tlie messianic office.
 
But wliat liad tlie Messiah to do in tlie wilderness ? That tlie Messiah, tlie second Saviour, should like his typical predecessor, Moses, on Mount Sinai, submit himself to the lioly discipline of fasting, was an idea tlie more inviting, because it furnished a suitable introduction to the nrst temptation wliicli presupposed extreme hunger.
 
The type of Moses and tliat of Elias (1 Kings xix. 8.), determined also the duration of tills fast in tlie wilderness, for they too liad lasted forty days ; moreover, tlie number forty was lield sacred in Hebrew antiquity.:}: Above all, tlie forty days of tlie temptation of Jesus seem, as Olshausen justly observes, a miniature image of tlie forty years’ trial in tlie wilderness, endured by tlie Israelitish people as a penal emblem of tlie forty days spent by tlie spies in the land of Canaan (Numb. xiv. 34).
 
For, that in the temptations of Jesus there was a special reference to tlie temptation of Israel in tlie wilderness, is shown by tlie circumstance that all the passages cited by Jesus in opposition to Satan are drawn from tlie recapitulatory description of tlie journeyings of tlie Israelites In Dcut. vi. and viii.
Tlie apostle Paul too, 1 Cor. x. 6, enumerates a series of particulars from tlie behaviour of tlie Israelites in tlie wilderness, with tlie consequent judgments of God, and warns Christians against similar
the devil, was not foreign to the circle of Jewish ideas. Although the author of the above quotation represents the demand of Satan to have been denied, others, so soon as the imagination was once excited, would be sure to allow its completion.
 
* Dent. viii. 2 (I,XX.) the pocple are thus addressed : p’r/cnSy/Ot) nuaav rriv fiSov, {jv syycyf (T£ Ki’pcof; 6 Geo^ aov rovro rsacapaKOvrbv ^ro
‘.’70 ; De Wette, Kritik der mos. Geselii te, S ‘.’Ai’i; the same in Daub’s and Crauzcr’s
TEMPTATION OF JESUS. 271
 
conduct, pronouncing, v. 6 and 11, the punishments inflicted on the ancients to be types for the admonition of the living, his cotemporaries, on whom the ends of the world were come; wherefore, lie adds, let Mm that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
 
It is not probable tliat tills was merely the private opinion of the apostle-it seems rather to have been a current notion tliat the liard trials of the people led by Moses, as well as of Moses individually, were types of tliose which awaited the followers of tlie Messiali in the catastrophe which lie was to usher in, and still more emphatically tlie Messiah himself, wlio here appears as the antitype of tlie people, gloriously overcoming all the temptations under which they liad fallen.
 
The Israelites were principally tempted by hunger during their wandering in tlie wilderness ;* lience the first temptation of tlie Messiali was determined beforehand. Tlie rabbins, too, among the various temptations of Abraham which tlicy recount, generally reckon hunger.t Tliat Satan, when prompting Jesus to seek relief from his hunger by an exertion of his own will instead of awaiting it in faith from God, should make use of tlie terms given in our Evangelists, cannot be matter of surprise if we consider, not only that the wilderness was stony, but that to produce a tiling from stones was a proverbial expression, denoting the supply of an object altogether wanting (Matt. iii. 9; Luke xix. 40.), and that stone and bread formed a common contrast (Matt. vii. 9). The reply of Jesus to tills suggestion is in tlie same train of ideas on wliicli tlie entire first act of temptation is constructed ; for lie quotes tlie lesson wliicli, according to Deuteronomy viii. 3, tlie people of Israel tardily learned from tlie temptation of hunger (a temptation, however, under which they were not resigned, but were provoked to murmur): namely, that man shall not live by bread alone, &c.

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