Temptations of our Lord Jesus Christ

Contents Preface Introduction Chapter One Literary and historical reliability of the gospel accounts of the temptation of Jesus Christ in the desert by the devil. § 1. Literary reliability of the Gospel testimonies about the temptation of Jesus Christ in the desert. § 2. Analysis of rationalistic hypotheses. § 3. Historical authenticity of the Gospel narratives. Chapter two. On the inner reality of the sinless temptations of the Lord Jesus Christ: the relationship of temptation to sinlessness. § 1. On the sinlessness of the temptations of the Lord Jesus Christ according to their origin. § 2. On the sinlessness of the temptations of Jesus Christ according to their outcome: posse et non posse peccare. Chapter three. About the meaning and moral and fundamental meaning of the temptations of the Lord Jesus Christ in the desert and about their relation to the redemptive feat of earthly life and public ministry of Christ. § 1. On the significance and meaning of the temptations of the Lord Jesus Christ in the desert. § 2. About the temptations of the Lord Jesus Christ during His public ministry. This work, “The Temptations of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” is the second, newly revised, edition of the book “The Temptations of the God-Man, as a single redemptive feat of the entire earthly life of Christ, in connection with the history of pre-Christian religions and the Christian Church. Moscow, 1892.” In this revision of his work, the author was primarily guided by the rule of Socrates Scholasticus “to leave what requires a special composition” (H. E. III, 23). Hence the reduction of the work and the corresponding change in title. But the material remaining in this reduction has also been reworked. – Although the idea of ​​labor has remained unchanged, but (such a significant) change in its details evokes in the author a deep awareness of the fragility of his work and makes him say with a special sense of humility the well-known quod potui... Our study aims to explain the temptation of Jesus Christ in the desert from the devil. In general, to explain a phenomenon or event means to trace its origin and find out its meaning. When applied to the subject of our study, the question of the origin of the event under study falls into two parts. – Every study must be based on some data. In our case, the data is the gospel story about the temptation of Jesus Christ in the desert, or the temptation of Christ, as one of the events of the gospel story. The reality of the event is hidden in the authenticity of the story. Therefore, the question of the origin of the temptation of Christ in the desert is, first of all, a question of the origin of the gospel story, in other words, about the literary and historical reliability of the gospel narrative. But the event of temptation, according to the very concept of temptation, cannot be only an objective, or external-historical phenomenon, without a corresponding internal reality: temptation, as an objective event without internal reality, has no meaning: Such reality is already presupposed by the historical objectivity of the event. This inner reality of the temptations of Christ also requires an explanation in terms of its origin: where did the temptations of Jesus Christ come from? what caused them? what was their strength based on? The significance of these questions rests on the sinlessness of Jesus Christ and they embrace the question of the relationship of Christ's temptation to His sinlessness. – This outlines two parts, or chapters, of the study. The significance of the temptations of Jesus Christ will form the subject of the third part, or chapter. The meaning of any event is determined by its causal relationship to other events. But temptation is a phenomenon from the realm of free-rational life and, as such, it necessarily includes semantic, ideological, otherwise didactic content, so that it can have not only an externally causal relationship with other events, but also an internally ideological one, as the meaning of those phenomena in which it manifests itself. In this regard, the temptation of Christ in the desert must be placed in connection with the subsequent events of His earthly life. So the third part of our study should explain the meaning of the temptations of Jesus Christ in the desert, indicate their moral, fundamental and didactic meaning and their relationship to other events in the earthly life of Christ. These three chapters can be called - the first critical-exegetical, the second - theological and the third - evangelical-historical and didactic. The literature of our subject, quite extensive and varied, is composed of works of critical-exegetical, dogmatic, or generally theological, and evangelical-historical. Special monographs usually belong to one or the other or the third group. It is easy to see that the division of manuals in general is quite consistent with the division of the study into three chapters. According to custom, for which the reasons have already been indicated more than once, we consider it necessary to first name the sources and aids that we used in compiling our work. The only source for our topic is the New Testament, which we had in the Tischendorf edition: Novum Testamentum graece - recensuit. Const. Tischendorf. Editio octava, 1872, Lipsiae. – As reading aids we had the Biblisch-theologisches Wörterbuch der neutest. Gracität von H. Cremer, sechste Auflage, Gotha 1889, – Lexicon graeco-latinum in libros novi Testamenti auctore C. L W. Grimm. Editio tertia. Lipsiae 1888. Among the manuals, first of all, patristic and other ancient commentaries should be named - Origen in Lucam, Opera Paris. 1740, t. 3, – St. Ilaria in Matthaeum, Op. Paris. 1605, – St. Ambrose Meg. in Lucam, op. Basileae 1567, t. 4, St. Athanasius of Alexandria on Ev. from Matthew, excerpts from conversations, Creation. Moscow, 1854, part 4, – St. John Chrysostom about in Matthaeum hom. XIII; op. Paris, t. 7, 1827, pyc. lane Conversations on Ev. from Matthew, Moscow 1843, - bl. Jerome in Matthaeum, Op. Coloniae agrip. 1616.t. 5, – St. Gregory Dvoeslov Conversations on the Gospels, p. lane St. Petersburg. 1860, book. 1, conversation XVI, translated back in the Sunday Reading year XVII, No. 45, - Theophylact of Bulgaria in quatuor evang., Paris. 1631; p. lane Evangelist or interpretation of St. Gospel, Kazan 1855, – Euphemia Zigab. in quatuor evang., Lipsiae 1792, - in addition, St. Cypriana de jejuni ο et tentantionibus Christi, Op. Bremae, 1690, – bl. Augustine on the City of God, book. IX, ch. 20–22: about the temptation of Jesus Christ from the devil and the difference between the knowledge of angels and the knowledge of demons, trans. on Sunday Thu; Year XV, No. 42; – Ave. Isidore Pelusiot, some letters of an exegetical nature, Creation. Moscow, part 1, 1859, pp. 54 and 55, part 3, 1860, p. 80, – St. Kirill Alexander. about the incarnation of the Lord Maji scriptorum Veterum nova collectio, t: VIII; Romae. 1833, – Christ. Thurs. 1847, part III, chapters 12, 13, 14, – Incerti auctoris comment, imperf. in Matthaeum, op. Ioannis Chrysostomi ed. Bern, de Montfaucon, t. 6. - The latest and most recent exegetical works - Catena in Lucam and B. Cordelio, Antverpiae 1628, - Joh. Lightfooti Horae haebraicae et talmudicae in 4 evang. Lips. 1684, – I. P. Migne, Scripturae sacrae cursus completus, tomus vigesimus – primus, Paris 1841: Maldonatus – Duhamel – Comment, in Matthaeum, tomus – vigesimus – secundus, Paris, 1852: Cajetanus – Erasmus in Marcum et Lucas Brugensis – Iansenius – in Lucam, – Cornelii a Lapide Commentarii in script, sacr. t. VIII: in quatuor evang. Lugduni 1839, – Biblischer Commentar von H. Olshausen, 1 Band: die drei ersten Evangelien bis zur Leidensgeschichte enthaltend, 3 Auft. Königsberg 1837, – Paulus Exeg. Handbuch ü. drei erst. Evang. Heidelb. 1830, – Lange, Theolog. – homiletisches Bibelwerk: des N. T – es 1 Theil – das Ev. nach Math, von Lange, 3 Aufl. 1868, – 3 Theil – nach Lucas von I. I. von Oosterzee, 3 Aufl. 1867, – Baumgarten – Crusius, Komm. ü. Ev. Mark. u. L. Jena 1845, – H. A. W. Meyer: Kr. – ex. Handb. ü. Ev. Mat. 3 Aufl., – idem 8 Aufl. bearbeitet von B. Weiss. 1890, Kr. – ex Handb. ü. Ev. des Mark, und Lucas, 7 Aufl, bearb. von B. Weiss. 1885, – Keil, Comm. ü. d. Ev. d. Math. Leipz. 1877, – Hoelemann, Beden d. Satan Leipz. 1875, – Henry and Scott A comm. upon the holy Bible from Matthew to Acts, – Barnes, Notes on the Gospels of M. a. Mar., – Cursus scripturae sacrae auctoribus B. Cornely, I. Knabenbauer, Fr. de Hummelauer: Comm. in. Matt, auctor I. Knabenbauer, pars I, Paris. 1892, – P. Schanz: Comm. ü. d. EV. des h. Marcus, Freib. 1881, – Comm. ü. d. Ev. d. .b, Lucas Tübing, 1883, – Archim. (Bishop) Michael Explanatory Gospel. Book 1 – from Matthew, Moscow 1870, – book. 2 – from Mar. and Luk., Moscow 1871, - D. Bogolepov, Study Guide to Reading the Gospels, vol. I, 1875. – Theological Works: Katholische Dogmatik von H. Klee, Mainz, 1861, – Théologie dogmatique par Gousset, t. 2, ed. 10, Paris 1866, – Hase, Gnosis od. ev. Glaubenslehre, t. I, Leipz. 1827, – Schleiermacher, d. Christliche Glaube B. 2, 2 Aufl. Berlin. 1831, – Ebrard, Christliche Dogmatik, 2 Band., Königsb. 1852, – Ullmann, uber die Sündlosigkeit Iesu, 3 Aufl. Hamburg, 1836, – Hofmann, d. Schriftbeweis, 2 Aufl. Nördlingen, 1857 – 1859, – Schaff, d. Person Iesu Christi, Gotha 1865, – Philippi, Kirchliche Glaubenslehre, IV, 1, (2 Aufl. Stuttg. 1868), – Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 2 Theil, Erlangen 1857, – Dorner, System d. Christl. Glaubenslehre, 2, 1, Berlin, 1880, – Martensen, die christliche Dogmatik, deutsche Ausg. Berlin, 1856, – Goss., d. Dogma von Christi Person und Werk, etc., Basel, 1887, – Frank, System d. Christi. Wahrheit, 2 H. Erlangen 1880, – A. B. Bruce, the Humiliation of Christ, etc. 3 edition, Edinb. 1889, – C. Gore, the Incarnation of the Son of God, London 1893, – I. L. Yanysheva. Right Christ. teaching on morality, 1887, – Thoughts on the face of Jesus Christ from the lectures of Rev. John of Smolensk, Christ. Thurs. 1876, part 2. – Works on Gospel history – Ebrard, Wissenschaftliche Kritik der evang. Geschichte, 3 Aufl. Francf. 1868, – Strauss, d. Leben Iesu, 1 Band, 4 Aufl. Tubing, 1840, – Paulus, Leben Iesu, Heidelb. 1828, 1 Th. 1 Abth., – Ammon, Geschichte d. Lebens Iesu, 1, Leipz. 1842, – Kuhn, d. Leben Iesu, I, Mainz 1838, – Renan, Vie de Iesus, Paris 1863, – Ab. Goette, Refutation of the life of J. Christ Renan, S. - Peter. 1864, – Tholuck, Glaubwürdigkeit d. ev. Geschichte etc., Hamb. 1837, – Hase, d. Leben Iesu, 5 Aufl. Leipz. 1865, – Natürliche Geschichte des grossen Propheten von Nazareth, – Weiss, d. Leben Iesu, B. 1, 2 Aufl. Berlin 1884, – Keim, Geschichte Iesu von Nazara, I, Zürich, 1867, – Grimm, Geschichte d. off. Thätigkeit Iesu, B. 1, 1878, – Neander, das Loben Iesu Christi, 4 Aufl. Hamb. 1845, - Archpriest A.V. Gorsky History of the Gospel and the Apostolic Church, M. 1883, - Farrara Life of I. Christ, translated by Lopukhin, part 1, S. - Peter. 1885, – Pressance, Life of Jesus Christ, part 2, trans. S. – Peter. 1883, – Dido Jesus Christ, translated. and ed. editorial staff "Russian Pal." vol. I, S. – Peter. 1891, – K. Geikie, The Life and Teachings of Christ, trans. priest Fiveysky, vol. I, M. 1893, prot. P. Matveevsky Evang. story about God the Word etc. S. – Peter. 1890. Special books, brochures and articles – Nebe, d. Versuchung d. Herrn eine äussere Thatsache, Wetzlar 1857,. – Hünefeld, Die Yersuchungsgeschichte nach ihren geschichtlichen Grundlagen untersucht, Berlin 1880, – Barrett, the Temptation of Christ, London, 1884, – Arch. Theodore, On Orthodoxy in relation to modernity, S. - Petersburg. 1860, art. 5 about the temptation of the Lord, - in the magazines of St. And. Kr. 1829, 1831, 1832, – The Expositor 1890 (Peyton, the hebrew problem of the period), – Iahrbucher f. d. Theologie, 1878, – Orthodox. Review 1887, Trench coat of the Temptation of the Lord in the desert, reprint. Barsov in the Collection of articles on history. Reading the Four Gospels, vol. I, Simb. 1890, - other articles and notes in Russian books and magazines are collected (Paul the Arch. of Kishinev, On the Temptation of I. Christ in the Wilderness by the Devil 246–251) and are listed on p. 269 in M. Barsov ibid. Other works and articles not named here, both patristic and ancient, and the newest, will be named in their place, in footnotes. Chapter One Literary and historical reliability of the gospel stories about the temptation of Jesus Christ in the desert by the devil. 1. The temptation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the desert by the devil is told by the first three evangelists, the so-called weather forecasters - Matt. 4:1–11; Mk. 1:12–13 and Luke. 4:1–13. In general, the consistent narrative of the evangelists, of whom one was among the twelve, and the other two among the seventy disciples of Christ, for believers has the meaning of an authoritative inspired testimony that is not subject to doubt and constitutes a solid foundation of truth. For a Christian believer, only one question is possible: does the story really belong to the evangelists, whose writings are accepted by the church? This question is resolved for faith again by the authority of the church, and for the mind of the believer by criticism of the Gospel text, which shows that the tale of temptation is found in the most ancient Gospel copies with modifications, almost imperceptible, in comparison with the transmission of other parts of the Gospel text in them. But the situation is different with a rationalistic approach to the Gospel text. While the believer in his soul carries a stronghold on which the reliability of the Gospel story itself is strengthened for him, the rationalist in the text looks for (external) grounds (ratio) on which his mind could recognize as reliable what is conveyed by the evangelists. Such grounds must be of two kinds: literary and historical. The rationalist poses two questions: 1) do the written evidence that represents the first datum in relation to the temptations of Christ 1 deserve credibility? 2) even with a positive answer to the previous question, is what is conveyed in the Gospel testimonies historically reliable? Answering negatively to both questions, rationalist criticism, for its part, offers possible explanations of the Gospel story - explanations of how the Gospel story could have arisen. This attitude of rationalist criticism to the Gospel text not only evokes the defense of the literary probability and historical reliability of the Gospel stories on the part of the Orthodox theologian, but also outlines three points of defense, the order of which, from the Orthodox point of view, is determined as follows: 1) the probability of the Gospel evidence; 2) analysis of rationalistic hypotheses and 3) historical reliability of the Gospel narratives. § 1. Literary reliability of the Gospel testimonies about the temptation of Jesus Christ in the desert. 2. While for a believer the gospel stories have the meaning of authoritative evidence, rationalists give this evidence a conditional character and seek the basis for their own literary probability. Just as judges, when questioning witnesses, before actually believing them, look to see if there are any omissions, internal contradictions, ambiguities, etc. in their testimony; so the rationalists, having arbitrarily arrogated to themselves the rights of judge in relation to the Gospel evidence, apply critical questions to them. So, first of all, they point out that the Evangelist John does not mention one word about the temptation of I. Christ in the desert. How to explain his silence? Does it not speak against the testimony of the first three gospels? - Origen explained this omission from the Evangelist John, in contrast to the first three evangelists, by the fact that temptation relates to the area of ​​​​the human life of Christ, and not to theology in the narrow sense of the word, that, in other words, Christ was tempted not as God, but as a man (manifestum non Deum, sed hominem fuisse tentatum); Meanwhile, the Evangelist John, unlike the first gospels, which depict Christ according to His humanity, speaks in his gospel about God the Word; therefore, the story of temptation, corresponding to the purpose of the first three gospels, found a place in them, but was omitted by John the Theologian (quia Deus tentari non potest, de quo ei erat sermo, ideo tentari ilium a diabolo non introducit) 2. In later times, this thought of Origen is expressed more sharply and even rudely. John, according to Baur, omits the story of the baptism and temptation of Jesus Christ as contradicting his sublime and, as Keim puts it, unique view of the personality of Jesus Christ 3 . But the silence of the Evangelist John can be explained on other grounds. He wrote his gospel later than the Synoptics, having the main task of supplementing them: he kept silent about the history of temptation, as already conveyed by the earlier evangelists. But does not the Gospel of John deny the story of the weather forecasters about the temptation of Christ in the desert by the fact that its chronology, apparently, does not give room for the forty-day sojourn of Jesus Christ in the desert 4? While according to the weather forecasters (Matthew 4:1; Mark 1:12; Luke 4:1) temptation followed immediately after baptism, according to the Gospel of John, following baptism apparently there could not have been a forty-day stay of Christ in the desert. The fact is that the Gospel of John, following the prologue, which sets out the sublime teaching about the Logos, begins with the testimony of John the Baptist about Christ and His response to the ambassadors of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin (John 1:15–28). The next day after this answer, John sees Jesus coming to him, and says: Behold, the Lamb of God, about whom I said... I did not know Him; but for this reason he came to baptize in water, so that He would be revealed to Israel (29-31), etc. Then the Evangelist John indicates day by day the chronology of almost the entire week, the last days of which Christ spends already in Galilee (vv. 35, 43; II, 1). The Evangelist speaks about Christ’s new stay in Judea in III:22: after this Jesus came with His disciples to the land of Judea, and lived there with them and baptized. If in I, 29: John sees Jesus coming to him, an indication is given, as some exegetes think, for the baptism of Jesus Christ, then after him Christ could not retire into the desert. In order to reconcile the evangelists on the issue of the forty-day fast of Christ, one can, however, attribute this fast to the time of Christ’s later stay in Judea (John 3:22); but in this case one will have to contradict the direct instructions of the weather forecasters that temptation followed immediately after baptism. - However, all these apparent difficulties arise only if In. 1:29 see a reference to the baptism of Christ. But nothing obliges you to do this. On the contrary, on the next day of this verse, John the Baptist already said: I did not know Him, but for this reason I came to baptize in water, so that He would be revealed to Israel. I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove and remaining on Him (John 1:31–32), etc. Therefore, another day v. 29 presupposes baptism already accomplished. Moreover: John the Baptist said to the ambassadors of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin: there stands among you Someone whom you do not know (v. 26) and whom he himself obviously knew. But he could recognize Jesus Christ at baptism (cf. vv. 33–34). Consequently, these words of John the Baptist presuppose that baptism has already taken place. Thus, the baptism of Jesus Christ must be placed in the Gospel of John before I, 19, and, perhaps, the last time of Jesus Christ’s stay in the desert coincided with the day when those sent from Jerusalem appeared before John: the next day (v. 29) John sees the Lord Jesus coming to him, having already completed His feat in the desert 5. 3. But the first three evangelists are not all similar in conveying the story of the temptation of Christ in the desert. Evangelist Mark conveys the story of temptation in such a compressed form that he does not even mention the three moments of temptation, speaking only in general about the temptation of Jesus Christ by Satan. Those scholars of the negative trend, who attribute the history of temptation to an origin and gradual development through complications with the inventions of Christian society, point to the transmission of the Evangelist Mark as the earliest and therefore denying by its brevity all the additional points conveyed in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Such is Renan, He considers the Gospel story about the temptation of Jesus Christ to be a legend and would be ready “to see a myth in it, because he found similar legends in the Vendas and Lyalitavistara; but the short and condensed story of the Evangelist Mark, which obviously represents the original edition, suggests a real fact, which only later served as a theme for legendary developments” 6. – Against this view of the origin and development of the story about temptation, as formed through gradual complications with fiction, and in the story of the Evangelist Mark an early edition is seen, one should note the implausibility of the idea that first the skeleton of the story about temptation, as given by the Evangelist Mark, developed, and then the soul and body of this story - in its more complete form in other evangelists, whereas for popular imagination it is more natural to start with pictorial details, with visual particulars, and only then move on to more or less abstract generalizations. The story of the Evangelist Mark, by its very condensation, already presupposes a more definite and complete edition of the history of temptation - at least the Gospel of Matthew presupposes - and should be considered as a reduction caused by the goals of the evangelist 7. 4. The complete editions of the history of temptation among the evangelists Matthew and Luke differ from each other in the order of the second and third temptations. According to the Gospel of Matthew, the second was the temptation on the wing of the church and the third was the temptation on the mountain; In Evangelist Luke, on the contrary, the temptation on the mountain is placed second and the temptation on the wing of the church third. The question of how such a difference could have arisen is often preferred to another question: which of the two orders should be considered more plausible? When solving this last question, one can start from different principles and give opposite answers to each of them. Thus, the principle of plausibility of one order or another is put forth by the consideration that the temptations of Satan, following one after the other, should be as valid as possible, that subsequent temptations should have priority over the previous ones 8 . But applying this principle, some consider the third temptation according to the Gospel of Matthew more decisive, in which the devil “dares to clearly persuade Christ to become his slave” 9 ; others, on the contrary, in favor of the Gospel of Luke point out that the temptation of spiritual wickedness, the third according to the Gospel of Luke, is extreme and subtle 10. Based on another principle, again some say that the connection between individual temptations established by the Evangelist Matthew through τότε and πάλιν points to his story as the original edition 11; others consider this basis to be insufficient and take the chronological particles of Matthew’s gospel in the sense of a vague indication of the continuation of the action, so that each of them points not to a second in order, but only to a different temptation 12, and, on the contrary, they recall the deliberate intention of the Evangelist Luke to carefully examine and describe events in order (I, 3), which the Evangelist Luke, in contrast to Matthew, always fulfills 13. Further, in favor of the gospel, Luke points to the naturalness of the path from the desert to the mountain and then to the church 14 and to the plausibility of the intention to make Jerusalem, the last point of temptation, the starting point for the journey through Galilee 15; on the contrary, others, considering such considerations too external 16, refer to the naturalness of the conclusion of history with such, the third temptation according to the Gospel of Matthew, to which the Savior responded: get away from Me, Satan (Matthew 4:10) 17. If we apply different principles to one and the other order of temptations, then we will have an answer to the actual question about the origin of the difference. Summarizing everything that has been said about both the succession of temptations, we can agree with the words of Arch. Theodore, who claims that the order of temptations in the Evangelist Luke is actually clearer and more complete than in Matthew, although in terms of the meaning of temptation the order of Matthew’s story is more natural and more expedient 18. In any case, this difference between the evangelists is insignificant (ist unwesentlich), as the rationalists themselves admit. 5. What seems more important to negative rationalistic criticism is the deviation of the evangelists Mark and Luke from Matthew, that according to the gospel of Matthew, the devil approached Jesus only after Jesus was finally hungry, and according to the gospels of Mark and Luke, Jesus was tempted by Satan, as if, for forty days: according to Mark, Jesus was in the desert for forty days tempted by Satan, according to Luke: for forty days he was tempted by Satan devil 19. Some exegetes indeed see in Mark and Luke an indication of the forty-day temptations of Jesus Christ, but in order to eliminate the contradiction that arises between the evangelists in this case, they distinguish these forty-day temptations from the later three, definitely indicated in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. So already Origen, distinguishing the forty-day temptations from the three temptations known in the Gospel, believed that the reason for the unknown of the first (forty-day) temptations was that they could be majora erant, quam ut literis crederentur 20. In the same way, distinguishing between these and other temptations, Euthymius Zigaben thought that for forty days the devil tempted Jesus Christ in sleep, laziness, fear, etc., and then seeing him hungry προσβάλλει κτλ 21 . Likewise, Lightfoot distinguished the forty-day invisible temptations from the devil, from his visible appearance 22 . In accordance with this distinction, it must be admitted that the Evangelist Mark speaks only about the forty-day temptations, the Evangelist Matthew only about the last three temptations, the Evangelist Luke about both. But other exegetes do not accept such a difference, believing that the evangelists Mark and Luke do not talk about the forty-day duration of temptations, and that the apparent contradiction is generated only by incorrect reading. The Evangelist Mark (Mark 1:13) says: υπό του σατανά, and in Luke (Luke 4:1–2): καί ήγετο έν τφ πνευματι έν τή έρήμω (according to other readings εις τήν έρημον ) ημέρας τεσσεράκοντα πειραζόμενος υπό του διαβόλου . In the speech of the Evangelist Mark, the words τεσς ημ, together with εν τη έρήμω, refer to ήν, and this is ήν, following the indication of what happened under the influence of St. The spirit of the movement of Christ into the desert (έκβάλλει εις τήν έρημον, καί ήν) and starting a new sentence, has the independent meaning of a long, after reaching the goal of the movement, stay in the desert: was, was, stayed - and due to such an independent and, moreover, broad meaning, it has neither exclusive nor even direct relations in πειραζόμενος and cannot be connected with this word in conjugatio penphrastica; on the contrary, to this ήν, as a word with an independent meaning and therefore with special emphasis (and was in the desert - and really was in the desert for forty days), is added as a side indication - as an indication of the circumstances accompanying the stay in the desert - πειραζόμενος υπό τοϋ σατανά. In other words: ήν has two meanings: was and abided, and combined with πειραζόμενος in the first meaning it does not exhaust the second meaning, i.e. ήν πειραζόμενος in the meaning was tempted, although it falls on the time of stay, it does not extend to the entire time of stay, but has the meaning of a side indication: (was in the desert), and or at that time (without indicating a specific point in time) was tempted. A similar relation of the independent ήν to the explanatory complement, so that ήν comes first, and then the particip follows separately. imperf. (and πειραζόμενος – particip. imperf. Win. Gr. § 45, 1), see the same evangelist III, 1; IV, 38; V, 11; X, 32; XIV, 4, XV, 7, 40. κτλ. In all these cases there is one comma separating είναι from partic. imperf, sets the correct meaning; on the contrary, the direct connection of είναι with partic. would either weaken the meaning, or directly produce nonsense; in particular, in I, 13 after τεος, ημ, a comma should be placed, as is done in the Russian Synodal translation: and He was there in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. – In the same way, in the Evangelist Luke, the words ημέρας τεσσεράκοντα should be separated from the following πειραζόμενος by a comma and, on the contrary, with the preceding ήγετο εν τή έρήμω put in the closest connection: ducebatur et erat in deserto 40 dies, and the reading εις την έρημον introduces only this difference: ducebatur in desertum et in deserto erat 40 dies, so that the Evangelist Luke in this case combines both instructions of Mark: ( Even more briefly, Luke’s words should be translated as follows: he was led by the Spirit (in the Spirit) into the desert for 40 days, and He was tempted. 23. – This is how contradictions are reconciled, which theologians of the rationalist school call nicht unerhebliche! 6. If rationalist scientists are not content with such explanations, then this mainly depends on the fact that for the apparent difference between the stories of the evangelists they come up with reasons, the responsibility for which should fall entirely on themselves. So Keim believes that the forty-day stay of Jesus Christ in the desert according to the story of the Evangelist Matthew (who puts forty days in direct connection with fasting and even adds forty nights - νηστεύσας ημέρας τεσσεράκοντα και The evangelists Mark ( ημέρας without mention of fasting) and Luke compares these forty days with the forty years of Jewish wandering in the desert. And since Luke, like Matthew, speaks of the fast of Jesus Christ during these forty days, which, according to Keim, is natural only in Matthew’s story (modeled on the forty days of Moses’ fast), then Keim sees confusion in the evangelists’ story, obvious contradictions, and artificial alterations 24 . But if for Keim there are such contradictions in the gospel stories, then this can only mean one thing that his preconceived ideas do not fit the simple, artless stories of the evangelists. 7. As for other minor differences between the evangelists, they are rather necessary in the gospel stories and testify to their artlessness than speak against their probability. Thus, the Evangelist Matthew designates the fast of Christ with the word νηστεύσας and to the number of days adds the number of nights και τεσσεράκοντα νύκτας, and the Evangelist Luke, omitting the latter, uses the expression ούκ εφαγεν όυδέν. Instead of εΐς την αγίαν πολιν of the Gospel of Matthew, the Evangelist Luke expresses: εις Ιερουσαλήμ. The Evangelist Matthew cites in the first answer of Jesus Christ the words άλλ ’ επί παντί ρήματι έκπορευομένω διά στόματος θεού, which are omitted from Evangelist Luke; then he speaks of the high mountain εις όρος υψηλόν λίαν and of the ministry of angels καί ιδού άγγελοι προσήλθον και διηκόνουν αυτω, which we do not find in Luke. But in the latter we find expressions that are absent in Matthew’s story: εν στιγμή χρόνου, – ότι εμοι παραδέδοται καί ω εάν θελω δίδωμι αυτήν 25, – άχρι, καιρού. Evangelist Mark, in addition to not mentioning a word about the three moments of temptation, more strongly designates the action of the Spirit on Jesus Christ (έκβάλλεΐ instead of άνήχθη Matt. and ήγετο Luke), does not talk about fasting, but instead points a second time to the desert ήν εν τή ερήμω, and has a superfluous expression against Matthew and Luke: και ήν μετά των θηρίων. § 2. Analysis of rationalistic hypotheses. 8. The Gospel story of the temptations of Jesus Christ in the desert from the devil is a given that serves as the starting point in the question of the temptations of the Lord. What explains the origin of this gospel story? The most natural assumption must be that everything contained in this story was an actual event in the life of Jesus Christ, which He conveyed to His disciples. But in this story there is a very strong element of the miraculous, inconvenient for our natural mind... In such cases - when there is no reason to suspect the integrity and probability of the evidence, and yet what is being testified for some reason seems unreliable - they resort to explanations that should show that this or that story could have appeared in addition to the historical event it supposed: the witnesses could have been misled, the historian did not understand something, etc. This is a rationalistic explanation in the special sense of the word in relation to gospel history and in general to the area of ​​religious life and popular beliefs. It can be said that all modern criticism of gospel history has this explanation as its goal. And for the story of the temptations of Jesus Christ in the desert, many explanations have been invented, each of which is based on one or another assumption, hypothesis. How to deal with such explanations? To test them by the letter of the Gospel text, to point out their disagreement with canonical evidence, would mean taking a different point of view than the one that gave rise to these explanations - it would mean taking such a high position that shots should fly over the enemy without hitting him. No, in this struggle between faith and reason there is a common ground that everyone has the right to occupy if they can. This soil is the clarity of the Gospel story. If negative criticism really explains a story or a legend, then it is right and invulnerable - at least reason is on its side. But the fact of the matter is that it cannot give an explanation in which history would become understandable, clear and reasonable. The clarity of explanation is the most important, if not the only, touchstone for any rationalistic hypothesis. The Gospel story presupposes an event with a miraculous character that is inconceivable to our minds; but does it become clearer with the explanations to which rationalism resorts? Let us consider the main rationalistic hypotheses in this regard. All their diversity can be summarized under the following types: 1) myth hypothesis; 2) parable hypothesis; 3) naturalistic vision hypothesis; 4) the hypothesis of the internal influence of the devil; 5) hypothesis of psychological struggle; 6) a hypothesis of generalization in the history of temptation of various events from the life of Christ; 7) the hypothesis of temptation from man and 8) the mechanical combination of several hypotheses in Lange 26. 9 . This hypothesis is accepted by Strauss, De Wette, Gfrörer, Meyer and Usteri 27 . What is a Christian myth? Strauss, the most prominent defender of this hypothesis, gives the following definition: we call a gospel myth such a story directly or indirectly related to Jesus, which should be considered not as an echo of some fact, but as a reflection, or sediment, of one or another idea of ​​His early followers 28 . Strauss reduces the essential content of the myth about the temptation of Christ in the desert to the ideas of Jews and Christians of the first times that the Messiah, as the highest of all righteous people, as a representative of the people of God, should be tempted like the outstanding righteous people of ancient Jewish history (Abraham, David, Job) and like the people of God themselves (mainly during his wanderings in the desert) 29. According to Bruno Bauer, the idea that constitutes the essential content of the myth of temptation must be sought in the consciousness of Christian society - of a relatively later time - when it experienced symptoms of fear at the thought of the possibility of the destruction of the Christian principle, which, through faith in miracles and passionate anticipation of the last day, threatened to disrupt the natural and historical course of things: Christian society transferred the experienced internal fact of its life into the history of the life of Jesus Christ and clothed it in the form of tempting Him from the devil 30. – Usteri understands myth as a poetic work, the content of which is some religious or philosophical idea, therefore, something eternal and prehistoric, an idea clothed in a historical form; Thus, the necessary elements of myth - poetry, history, philosophy in their totality provide a truth that can only be internally ideal, not based on any external historical reality. The deep truth of the story of the temptations of Christ in the desert lies in the idea of ​​the absolute opposition of Christ and Satan, their absolute incompatibility, so that although Satan would like to tempt the Lord and resist Him, the Lord does not allow the devil to be tempted, does not allow him to have anything in himself. This idea is expressed in historical form as the temptation of Christ by Satan, who wanted to persuade the Lord to evil, when Christ - according to legend - before the beginning of his public ministry, like his prototypes, Moses and Elijah, prepared himself with fasting and prayer. – According to Meyer, the myth arose aus der antidiabolischen Messiasidee between Christians from Jews. The original, undeveloped form of the myth is represented by the story of the evangelist Mark 31. The analysis of the theory of myth is greatly facilitated for us by the fact that recently we have not encountered the application of the hypothesis of myth to the entire gospel history. Thus, Usteri considers it necessary, in explaining the story of the temptation of Christ by myth, to point out that the event suggested by this story refers to the early period of the life of Jesus Christ before His entry into public ministry. – But even if we agree that the period of the life of Jesus Christ before the beginning of His public ministry can be called “dark,” then His temptation in the desert took place in His life after baptism, and these two facts - baptism and temptation constitute the beginning of His public ministry. The life of Jesus Christ during this period was so well known to His disciples that they indicate a very precise chronology of it, often even indicating individual days; They place the fact of the temptation of Jesus Christ in close connection with His baptism and subsequent life. Thus, Usteri, if he wanted to be more consistent, either would have to attribute the temptation of Jesus Christ to the “dark” period of His life, contrary to the evidence of the Gospel history, or he would have to allow the myth to be applied to the period of the open ministry of Jesus Christ. The inconsistency of the mythological explanation of the history of the temptation of Jesus Christ in general is exposed by the fact that its defenders cannot point to a starting point for the development of such a myth that could have a truly explanatory significance. They point to Old Testament prototypes. But the idea developed on the basis of such precedents could be expressed, due to its generality and uncertainty, in the story in general about the temptation of Christ by the devil; Meanwhile, in the gospel story we see three moments of it, which do not represent only a meaningless variation of the general theme, random accessories, on the contrary, each of them has a deep ideological content, without which the general thought about temptation would be only an empty form. But this content is not covered by the general idea with which they want to explain the origin of the “myth.” In fact, what indication can we find of these three moments in the stories of the temptation of our first parents, Abraham, David, Job, and the Jewish people in general during their wanderings in the desert? What indication does the story of Moses' forty days on the mountain provide us with these three profound points? Strauss himself admits that there was nothing like the third temptation of Christ in the temptations of the Jewish people 32 . So, the idea of ​​myth, no matter how the rationalists understand it, does not cover the content of this myth. But it does not find a correspondence in its form and is not expressed in it. After all, they do not say that the story of temptation is a simple invention of fantasy, but point to a myth. Myth differs from a simple image of fantasy in that in it the truth (idea) finds its full expression in the historical form in which it is expressed. The idea of ​​the history of temptation, according to Usteri, is the idea of ​​the absolute opposition of Christ and Satan - the idea according to which the devil strives to tempt Christ, but the Lord does not allow him to do this, because the state of temptation contradicts the holiness of the Savior. Is it possible to see the expression of this idea in the story of the temptation of Christ? Isn't she saying something completely different? Doesn't it rather express the idea that Christ was really tempted by the devil, although he did not commit sin? The idea of ​​absolute enmity between God and Satan should be expressed in a different form. A myth built on this idea, of course, would present the devil as attacking Christ, acting hostilely against Him, with the goal of destroying Him, while the Gospel story speaks of temptation: the devil is ready to give Christ all the kingdoms of the world for one worship of himself. If the story of the temptation of Jesus Christ were a myth expressing absolute enmity between the Lord and the devil, then it would be more natural for popular imagination to put God himself in the place of Jesus Christ and create a story on the theme of the temptation of God by the devil in the form of a war between them, since God and the devil are really absolutely opposite even in the sense that God is not tempted. - Then, how could Christian society, if it were convinced of the absolute inability of Christ, create and tolerate the myth of His temptation? After all, both the fact of temptation and the myth on this topic equally contradict, according to the theory of myth, the belief in the absolute inability of Christ. Finally, those who resort to the hypothesis of myth do not recognize the historical authenticity of the Gospel story because it is incomprehensible to them due to its supernatural element. But does it become clearer to them when they recognize it as a myth? Indeed, for the evangelists (the authors of the myth, as mythologists put it) this story of temptation was understandable because they spoke of the devil as a real being, and of Christ as the truly tempted one. What is the meaning of this story if mythologists see in it an expression of the “deep” idea of ​​the absolute inability of the Lord to be tempted and if they do not admit the objective existence of the tempter? Does this explanation really make it any more reasonable for them? In particular, it should be noted against Strauss that some coincidence of events from the life of Jesus Christ with the facts of Old Testament history cannot serve as a basis for objecting to the historical reliability of the Gospel stories. In this case, we can refer to the well-known pages of Tolyuk’s book 33, who very successfully revealed in general the possibility of an unintentional coincidence of the facts of history (calcul des probabilités) 34 and, more particularly, the naturalness of such coincidences of the events of the Gospel history with the facts of the Old Testament and pagan history in view of the fact that Christ is the light of truth and the hope of the tongues. – The groundlessness of the opinion according to which the original version of the story of temptation is recognized in the story of the Evangelist Mark has already been shown. – As for Bruno Bauer, the fact that, in his opinion, served as the historical beginning of the idea expressed in the myth of the temptation of Jesus Christ, is a pure invention of his own imagination: history does not know such symptoms of fear for the stability of the “Christian principle”, which were once experienced by Christian society 35 . This understanding of the history of temptation originates with Schleiermacher, who had a significant influence on the direction of all later German theology, and is shared by Schweitzer, Black, Baumgarten-Crusius and Usteri. At the beginning of his teaching ministry, says Usteri, who developed this explanation more than others, 36 the Savior gave his disciples three instructions: a) not to abuse the miraculous power and, in particular, not to perform miracles to satisfy personal needs, b) not to dare to do anything just for the sake of vanity and in the hope of divine help, and c) not to justify the end of the means, and not to enter into an alliance with evil in any good way. Jesus Christ taught us to look at everything contrary to these requirements as satanic temptations. The devil, who, according to the Gospel story, tempts Jesus Christ, is nothing more than the unclean and sensual ideas of the Jews about the Messiah and His kingdom, with which the Savior Himself did not fight in the depths of His soul, but which were not alien to His disciples. Jesus Christ gave these instructions to his disciples in the form of a parable. How was such a parable later accepted as history? According to Usteri, this question is not difficult to answer. The difference between this and other parables of the Savior was that in the content of this parable Christ presented Himself as the protagonist. Meanwhile, this parable was offered in historical form. Therefore, it could be accepted as actual history, especially since the popular concept of the devil was associated with the idea that the Messiah, at the beginning of his public ministry, had to endure a test from him. However, Usteri finds it impossible that any apostle or, in general, a direct listener of Christ would accept His parable as a real story and convey it in the form in which it is now found in the Gospel story - he finds it impossible not because the disciples could not not understand Christ, and not because, in case of their misunderstanding, Christ should correct their mistake - the disciples could be mistaken, and for Christ it was indifferent whether they understood the parable allegorically or historically, only would have understood His main idea - but because the historical understanding of temptation is placed, according to the Gospel story, in close connection with the incorrect explanation of the baptism of Jesus Christ, that then the Holy Spirit descended on Him, and this incorrect explanation of the fact of baptism only gradually developed in tradition. The largest and most significant drawback of the parable hypothesis is that it puts thought in the place of a real event and, moreover, one that, above all others, testifies to the truly human character of the earthly life of Christ: thus, striving for an ostensibly natural explanation of one event, this hypothesis loses the truly natural understanding of the entire earthly life of Christ. In this regard, it is curious that Schleiermacher was a defender of such sinlessness of Jesus Christ, which excludes any struggle, because “he can no longer be exemplary in whom even slight traces of struggle were discovered” 37. Therefore, just as, on the one hand, it is clear why Schleiermacher could not accept the story of temptation as an actual fact, so, on the other hand, for anyone who values ​​​​the interests of theology and faith, the groundlessness of the explanation proposed by Schleiermacher is obvious. Not to mention the so-called historical point of view, for both theology and faith, the true human character of the earthly life of Christ, which is mainly manifested in the fight against temptations, is of great importance and, so to speak, dear. But the temptation of Jesus Christ in the desert was the beginning of such a struggle, which determined its strength and meaning. To deny the reality of Christ’s temptations in the desert means, to one degree or another, not to recognize Christ as having come in the flesh. And is it possible that Christ offered such a parable to his disciples, and is it possible that the apostles, in the historical story about the temptation of Christ, conveyed the moralizing parable offered to them by the Savior? Of course, it is possible that Christ gave moral teachings similar (in content) to his disciples; but why would He clothe a simple lesson in such an allegorical form? We have no examples of such a parable; In none of his parables known to us does Jesus Christ speak about his internal states; In not a single lesson that He gave to the apostles does He reveal Himself as an active person. Why did He make an exception for the supposed parable? Defenders of the hypothesis under consideration, wishing to explain history apart from the actual event, must answer this question, otherwise their possibility remains unmotivated and hangs in the air. And the answer to this question cannot in any case be in favor of the hypothesis under consideration. Even if we assume that Jesus Christ made Himself the character in the parable, then it either did not make much sense and was an accident, or it had some significance. Faith in the unconditional authority of the one Teacher does not allow us to think that the form of parable He allowed, even though it misled the disciples, had no meaning. If this form had meaning, then it could only be in the reality corresponding to the story. In general, it should be noted that in the parables of Jesus Christ, the characters are always attributed thoughts and actions that are completely characteristic of them. Therefore, if Christ portrayed Himself in a parable as being tempted, then such a parable would point to a real fact from His life. Further, the story conveyed from Christ to the apostles could not be a parable, and because in the gospel history both Christ and the devil are obviously shown not as sensory images of abstract ideas, but as real beings - and the devil is as much as Christ. – At the heart of the Gospel story one cannot see a moralizing parable because the entire content of the story relates specifically to the person of Jesus Christ, but there is no relation to the apostles in it. If Christ had offered the disciples the story of His temptation as a moralizing parable, then He would have indicated to them the relevance of this parable to them. But since in the Gospel story the temptation of Jesus Christ is presented as a historical event from His life without any intentional relation to the apostles, they obviously understood the story in a historical sense from the very beginning. – But maybe the apostles did not understand their Teacher, and He had neither the time nor the goal to dispel their errors? This couldn't be possible. It is true that the apostles only gradually clarified their concepts about the face of Jesus Christ, but the clarification of these concepts was the main concern of their Teacher. Usteri says that it was enough if they understood the main idea of ​​​​the parable - this was the purpose of Christ’s moral teaching. But having understood the parable in a historical sense, in the sense of the actual temptation of Christ by the devil, the apostles, together with the understanding of the main idea of ​​the parable, would have received incorrect concepts about the face of Jesus Christ from the point of view of the hypothesis being analyzed, not to mention the false belief in the existence of the devil - understanding the main idea would have been repaid with an error in the concepts about the face of the Son of God, Who is the cornerstone of all Christianity. Christ would not have allowed such error among his disciples. – That is why Usteri is forced to place the reworking of the parable in history to the time of the later apostles. But what does he gain by this? After all, if it had already been proven that Christ spoke a parable that the disciples could not transform into history, then Usteri’s assumption would be justified. But all that has been proven (and he almost agrees with this) is that the disciples could not convey the parable in the form of a story. The conclusion that follows rather is that they heard not a parable, but a story. This conclusion should be considered undeniable, if we keep in mind that from the very beginning the apostles understood the story of Christ in a historical sense, that, in other words, the story of temptation originates from the apostles - Matthew, one of the twelve, Mark and Luke from among the 70 disciples of Jesus Christ 38. 11. This hypothesis was created by Pavlus 39. His stay on the Jordan and his contact with John the Baptist, he writes, confirmed in Christ everything that He had previously thought about His messianic calling, and caused in His soul a final decision for the messianic ministry. In solitude, to which He often resorted in other cases of His life, He reflected on the true ways of His ministry. Meanwhile, after intense stress, His delicate organism falls into deep fatigue. When this fatigue gradually passed and consciousness was almost returning to Him, He involuntarily recalled both previous thoughts and former fatigue, and it seemed to Him that His fatigue was generated by a long stay in the desert and fasting, similar to the fast of Moses and Elijah. But this was just the beginning of a half-asleep vision, a play of fantasy not subject to the control of self-awareness and reflection. It seemed to him... everything that is described in the gospel story of temptation. Neither God nor the devil were responsible for this vision of Jesus; everything was from His own spirit, or animation, inspiration, i.e. His vision was natural. Like Pavlus, a certain Meyer 40 speaks of the dream of Jesus Christ as the only historical fact underlying the story of temptation - a morning dream after a sound, healthy sleep. To his regret, this author, as proof of his opinion, can only refer to the example of the English poet Pope, who once mistook a dream for reality, and to cite the words of Homer και γάρ τ ’ όναρ έπ ’ Διός έστιν and Horace post mediam noctem visus, cum somnia vera. But Pavlus, unlike this Meyer, wants to be thorough in his opinion. He pays special attention to the collection of evidence in favor of the fact that by the Gospel expression “Spirit” or “in the Spirit” one must mean the own spirit of Jesus Christ, that the evangelists themselves understand His ecstatic state by the temptation of Christ. Pavlus also solves the question of the motives for which Christ conveyed his vision to his disciples: fidelity to the messianic calling, even during sleep, spoke strongly in favor of the moral character of Christ and made the dream worthy of being passed on for teaching to the disciples. According to one critic of this hypothesis, only those who do not think about introducing into the history of the life of Jesus Christ a mental state for which there are absolutely no analogies from His real life can resort to explaining the history of temptation with the hypothesis of vision. And for what purposes? Least of all to explain the fact, but out of a desire to reconcile his favorite anti-evangelical tendencies with the gospel. Lange rightly reproaches Pavlus for Mangel an theologischer Anschauung. And indeed, in the Gospel story about the temptation of Jesus Christ, πνεύμα cannot be understood as Jesus’ own spirit: to denote an ecstatic state, this word would be used without a member, but with the addition of either αυτου (πνεύμα αυτου), or γενόμενος, εγενόμην (as in Apoc. 1:10 έγενόμην εν πνευματι), and in the Gospel it stands with a member - in Matt. υπο τού πνευματος (Matt. 4:1), in Luke εν τω πνευματι (Luke 4:1) and in Mark. το πνεύμα (Mark 1:12), and the Evangelist Luke expressively notes Ιησους δε πληρης πνεύματος αγιον – Το πνεύμα in the Word God's invariably means the Holy Spirit. “Tell me,” writes St. Athanasius, - will you find anywhere in the divine scripture that the Holy Spirit is called simply spirit - so that with the word Spirit there would not be a member and it would be said simply πνεύμα, and not το πνεύμα... And if in the gospels about the Savior, according to humanity, for the sake of the flesh He assumed upon Himself, the evangelists say: Jesus, filled Spirit, returned from the Jordan (Luke 4:1) and: then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness (Matthew 4:1), then these sayings denote the Holy Spirit. For Luke previously said: when all the people were baptized, and Jesus, having been baptized, prayed: the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form, like a dove (Luke 3:21–22); and from this it was clear that the word Spirit means the Holy Spirit” 41. And according to the meaning of our faith in the God-manhood of Christ Jesus, Paulus’s interpretation must be rejected as completely unthinkable. In the words of Trench: “Christ had no visions; according to the essence of His divine nature He could not have them. There was never a door open in heaven (Apoc. 4:1) for Him, before Whom the heavenly world was always open and clearly visible (John 5:19–20). He could not be at one time or another in the spirit (Apoc. 1:10), who was always in the Spirit; why there were no spiritual admirations for Him.” - Then, if by the Gospel Spirit or in the Spirit we mean the ecstatic state of Christ and all temptation is explained by a vision, then it is impossible to indicate the boundaries where the imaginary dream or vision begins and ends. Evangelist Luke not only prefaces the story of temptation with the remark: Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness (Luke 4:1), but also, having finished the story of temptation, immediately continues: and Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit (τού πνεύματος) to Galilee (Luke 4:14). But Paulus himself would have called the assertion that Jesus returned to Galilee in a dream and in a vision absurd. - Next. The state of vision, when fantasy, this θεία μανία, dominates all the forces of the spirit, does not leave behind a clear memory; Meanwhile, it is not the picturesqueness of the situation, but the depth of meaning that is expressed in the Gospel story about the temptation of Christ. – The Gospel story itself, even on its outer side, does not give any right to consider the temptation of Christ a vision. What, in fact, is ecstatic about those geographical areas to which temptation is confined? A desert, a wing of a church, a mountain - testifies to external reality. The expressions of the evangelists - take, lead, deliver - indicate the departure of external actions, the actual movement of Christ. Evangelists look at the temptation of Christ in the desert as a real fact, but in other cases they know how to distinguish an event from a vision. – Finally, as for the moral meaning of the vision, it is double-edged: it is true that victory over temptation, even in a dream, testifies to moral fortitude; but this same vision or dream would testify to the presence in the soul of Christ Himself of tempting, satanic thoughts, especially since a dream is a reflection of the waking state of the soul. 42 12. Various modifications of this hypothesis depend on the fact that some of its defenders explain only the external side of temptation by the influence of the devil and therefore speak of a vision produced in the soul of Jesus Christ by the devil, others turn to the influence of the devil to explain the actual internal struggle of Christ, others embrace both. Even in ancient times, Origen understood the kingdoms of the world, which Christ contemplated on the mountain, in the mystical sense of the spiritual kingdom of the devil, his internal power over people; the contemplation of the kingdoms of the world consisted in the fact that the devil showed Christ the countless crowds of people who were under his power - ostendit eu diabolus innumerabiles hominum multitudines, quae suo tenebantur imperio 43. Tales similar to the Gospel story of the third temptation, historia, in the words of Origen, non recipiat, spiritualalis autem teneat intellectus 44. In a similar way, Cyprian found it inconvenient to accept the movement of Christ from the desert to the church in the sense of an externally actual movement, because it would be indecent for the Son of God to sit on the shoulders of the devil or allow him to carry Himself: Christ, in his opinion, was elevated both to the desert and to the church by His spirit. However, the first temptation was really confined to the desert; but the local setting of other temptations was deceptively produced by the devil in the fantasy of Christ, and His transfer must be understood by analogy with the way in which Ezekiel was caught up in the spirit from the river Chebar to Jerusalem 45 . - A little later, Theodore of Mopsuestia wrote against Julian: is it surprising if, according to the Gospel, the devil took Christ to a very high mountain (and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world), although there was no such high mountain in the desert? The very expression in a moment of time clearly shows that the devil produced a vision of the mountain (φαντασίαν ορους) and thus made it possible for man to contemplate the universe 46. In modern times, predominantly German theologians of the so-called intermediate direction in Protestantism turn to the internal influence of the devil to explain temptation itself as a mental phenomenon, guided by the desire, on the one hand, to understand the internal reality of the temptations of Christ, without violating the concept of His sinlessness, which requires an external cause of temptation, and, on the other hand, to eliminate the external side of temptation as invalid. Temptation was only an internal fact in the life of Christ, but at the same time tempting thoughts came from outside - their immediate source was the devil, although he remained external to Christ as the cause of His temptations, but influenced Him directly and internally 47 . Olshausen explains not only the psychological essence of temptation, but also its external environment, by the internal influence of the devil. He accepts the temptation of Jesus Christ as a real fact, but, denying the external appearance of the devil, he recognizes the temptation as purely internal and attributes it entirely to the realm of the spirit. The temptation was that the soul of Jesus Christ was exposed 48 to the full influence of the kingdom of darkness. – About the conduction (ηγαγεν) of Jesus to Jerusalem, he notes that it was in the spirit (έν πνευματι, Rev. 17:3). About the contemplation of the kingdoms, he says that it especially forces us to understand the temptations of Jesus Christ as only an internal fact. Physically such contemplation is impossible; it is necessary to assume an ecstatic state. The mountain from which Christ contemplated the kingdoms served for Him as the height of His spirit, on which the consciousness was given to Him that He could reign over the world. – So Barrett recognizes temptation as a purely subjective phenomenon in the area of ​​the soul of Jesus Christ (purely subjective to the mind of Christ), although it was objective in origin, it did not arise in the soul of Christ, but was a suggestion of the devil. The second and third temptations can only be understood in a subjective sense. The Gospel story that the devil took Jesus and placed Him... Barrett finds similar: Ezek. 37:1, 40:1; Apoc. 17:1–3 49 . The inconsistency of the hypothesis under consideration is proven very easily. As for the psychological reality of temptation, within the meaning of this hypothesis it is paid for by the sinlessness of Jesus Christ. The heated criticism that this hypothesis caused in its time in its application to the psychological side of temptation rightly pointed out, especially in the person of Heaven, that the internal, direct (i.e., without any mediation, as a condition for the free perception of external influence) and therefore unconscious (on the part of Jesus Christ) influence of Satan on Him is extremely contrary to the sinlessness of Jesus Christ. – Equally obvious is the explanation on this hypothesis of the external side of Christ’s temptations: it is absolutely impossible to attribute to the devil the power to create in the soul of Christ all sorts of images at will, just as God sometimes does with this or that person 50 . It should be noted that the defenders of the hypothesis, pointing out the above analogies, seem to completely overlook the fact that the hand of the Lord was on Ezekiel, and the Lord brought him out in the spirit, that he was brought into the land of Israel in visions of God (Ezekiel 37:1, 40:1-2), that one of the angels led John in the spirit into the wilderness (Apoc. 17:1, 3), and Jesus Christ was raised up by the Spirit or in the Spirit only into the desert, but from the desert on the wing of the church and from there on the mountain the devil took Him and placed Him 51. 13. Defenders of the hypothesis of the internal influence of the devil rightly insist on the idea that the temptations of Jesus Christ were objective in origin 52 . But at the same time, analysis of this hypothesis shows that the devil could not influence Christ directly. But if so, if, on the one hand, it is necessary to recognize the external cause of the temptations of Jesus Christ as an internal fact, and if, on the other hand, such a cause cannot be recognized not only by the external appearance of the devil (which is understandable even not for rationalism), but also by its direct impact on the soul of Christ, if the external situation of the temptations of Christ is rejected not only in the sense of reality (which for rationalism is beyond any hesitation), but also in the sense of a vision, even if produced the devil; then, obviously, one should look for external means for the influence of the devil or the external expression of his tempting thoughts. This is what the psychological struggle hypothesis does. She recognizes the temptation of Christ as an internal fact of His life, the external side of temptation assimilates an allegorical character, and sees the objective cause of temptation in external expressions or external carriers of the tempting spirit. The meaning of this explanation, psychological and allegorical, can, according to Kluge, be expressed as follows. The temptation of Christ is only a fact of His inner life and the entire external environment of temptation, as the Gospel story conveys about it, is nothing more than a symbolic, tributary picture; but temptation is a fact of the free and conscious life of Jesus Christ, so that tempting proposals, coming from the outside, did not unconsciously penetrate, as if pouring into His soul, but were presented to Him in a sensual form and therefore were perceived consciously. The devil appeared bodily to Christ, not in the literal sense of these words, but in the fact that in the lives of people Christ observed the actions and manifestations of evil or the devil in tactile, visual forms 53 . There are many defenders of this explanation. Most often, by the external form of manifestation of the devil in the lives of people, as the objective reason for the temptations of Christ, they mean the false messianic idea of ​​the Jewish people. So Neander. He sees in the history of temptation not only an ideal, but at the same time a historical truth, expressed, however, symbolically. Historically, it is quite certain that Jesus Christ, during the transition from private life to public activity, contemplating the future course of His life, suffered a temptation in which the main principles of His ministry were expressed, radically opposed to the usual understanding of the messianic idea among the Jewish people. The temptations of Jesus Christ could not have originated in Himself, in the depths of His soul. The reason for them must be sought in the fact that a person, even if completely pure in soul, but called to influence the people of his time, in the Power of Spiritual Connection with his contemporaries, necessarily encounters the dominant trends and ideas, and must vigilantly monitor himself and endure a constantly renewed struggle in order to protect himself from their influence. In the time of Jesus Christ, such a popular idea was the worldly understanding of the kingdom of God. True, there was nothing in Christ himself that could open access to popular ideas into His soul. But from the outside this worldly direction, which from the very beginning threatened the development of the kingdom of God, had to approach Him; and He could understand the idea of ​​His messianic ministry in no other way than by contrasting it with another possible course of action, to which He had no inclination in Himself, but which was to appear to Him over time in the various demands of the national spirit. But since Christ Himself taught that the founder of the worldly spirit is Satan, then His struggle with the national spirit should be considered from this point of view, as a struggle with the devil, as a temptation from the devil. If temptation could not arise for Christ from the depths of His own spirit, then it could only appear to Him as a temptation from the devil. – According to Neander, Christ conveyed this kind of temptation to his disciples in a symbolic story 54 . The hypothesis of psychological struggle is shared by Ullman. According to him, the temptations of Jesus Christ were generated by false ideas about the messianic ministry, as the Jewish people understood it, and arose at a time when Jesus Christ was aware of these ideas - when He, preparing for the messianic service, thought about what His contemporaries expected from Him as the Messiah. Such a temptation passed for Him without sin, firstly, because a tempting thought appeared in His soul from outside: the false messianic idea was a fact for Him, and the thought of a fact cannot tarnish the holiness of God; secondly, because a tempting thought becomes evil when it has an exciting and decisive effect on the feelings and will, and Christ repelled tempting thoughts without any slowness, without any hesitation, so that the temptation lasted only a moment 55. – Keim defends the same hypothesis. He diligently looks for temptations in history einen guten geschichtlichen Kern 56. He finds this historical grain in the psychological struggle of Christ before the beginning of His public ministry - in the struggle with those questions and doubts that naturally should have arisen in His soul at that time. This internal struggle in the soul of Jesus Christ intensified durch die lebendige Vergegenwärtigung des feindlichen Reichsherrn, ja durch einen persönlichen Ringkampf mit ihm. At the very least, Christ Himself was convinced that He had a struggle with the devil who was personally present. – Apparently, little is missing to ensure that Keim’s stated view approaches the literal understanding of the Gospel story. But the extreme passion for idealism, which prevents Keim from paying due attention to historical facts, and the negative attitude towards the truth of the God-manhood of Christ force him to completely transfer this Ringkampf mit dem Satan inside the spiritual life of Christ, and in the third edition of his history of Jesus (p. 140) Keim already clearly and simply speaks of the temptation of Jesus Christ as einen inneren Kampf. 57 Some scientists, adhering to the hypothesis of psychological struggle, but at the same time wanting to explain the external side of temptation, believe that the struggle took place in the realm of fantasy. These are Eichorn, Weisse, etc. The psychological struggle hypothesis must be recognized as more serious and sound than the others discussed above. But the very fact that it is shared by theologians who do not belong to the same camp forces us to treat it with great caution. If Neander and Ullmann had not signed their names to this hypothesis, then criticism would have the right to say that it contradicts the concept of the sinlessness of Christ. Keim's view, which transfers satanic thoughts into the soul of Christ, is not at all reconciled with the Gospel teaching about the holiness of the Savior. But while Keim sacrifices His sinlessness in favor of the reality of the temptations of Jesus Christ, Ullman, on the contrary, sacrifices the reality of temptations in favor of sinlessness. The thought of a false messianic idea, as a fact, could not have the power and meaning of temptation for Christ, as well as for God. Over time, Ullman himself realized that a theoretical choice between the true messianic idea and a false understanding of it would not yet be a temptation; For this, it was necessary that the false messianic idea had something truly seductive and captivating; on this basis, he recognized the necessity of the presence of the devil during the temptations of Christ 58 . – Against Eichorn, it is enough to note that fantasy cannot be the area of ​​​​real and reasonable struggle. - However, all these objections have no force against Neander - in view of the fact that he points out, along with the popular concept of the kingdom of God, as the objective cause of the temptations of Christ, the weakness of human nature as the (sinless) subjective basis for the reality of temptation 59. But, apart from the fact that the hypothesis as presented by Neander not only makes room for the participation of the devil in the temptations of Christ, but also almost acknowledges it, what does the approval that the hypothesis as presented by Neander deserves mean? It means that the psychological side of the issue in Neander’s explanation is well developed, and it goes without saying that this “good” explanation coincides with the literal, otherwise, Orthodox understanding of the Gospel history. In fact, recognizing the history of Christ’s temptations not only on the internal side, but also on the objective and even external side of temptation as a real event, does it prevent one from seeing the power of temptation in the collision of the true idea of ​​the messianic ministry of Christ with the false expectations of the people and basing this power on the weaknesses of Christ’s human nature? Of course not! On the other hand, in the hypothesis of psychological struggle, this well-processed aspect of the matter does not constitute not only its entire essence, but even its characteristic half. The integral appearance of the hypothesis is expressed not only in the recognition of the psychological reality of the temptations of Christ in the desert, but also in the denial of their external environment and even the participation of the devil in them. By expressing approval of one part of the explanation, 60 the critic thereby does not yet take responsibility for the entire hypothesis. The inconsistency of this hypothesis on its negative side is striking. This explanation recognizes that in the form of the story of temptation, Christ conveyed to the disciples a real fact from his inner life, that He himself considered His temptation to be a struggle with the devil, and at the same time, the explanation believes that the devil and the external environment of temptation are presented in history as an allegory: to say this means to offer the reader a choice whether to believe the testimony of Jesus Christ, or the negative opinion of German scientists. This is even naive for scientists. Moreover, the defenders of this hypothesis do not give any reasons 61 why they reinterpret the story into an allegory, and no motives why Christ could clothe his story in symbolic form. Meanwhile, it is very difficult and even impossible to indicate the purpose for which Christ could have resorted to such an allegorical form of story, which would equally have brought more harm than good, both in the case if the disciples understood it, and in the case if they did not understand it, because in the first case they would have seen that their Teacher has impure thoughts, which he attributes to Satan, and, of course, they would have suspected His holiness and sincerity, and in the second they would have been convinced would be, - false, according to the hypothesis, - that there is a devil 62. However, the defenders of the hypothesis under consideration, whether in its best presentations, like Neander, or out of necessity, like Ullman, themselves admit or almost admit the participation of the devil in the temptations of Christ. But to admit the devil’s participation in temptations and at the same time deny their external environment is an internal contradiction or, at least, inconsistency. The local situation of temptations in the desert is not recognized as valid, usually, not because the desert, the wing of the church, the mountain represent something unreliable, but because the local change of temptations is closely connected with the participation of the devil: the devil takes Him to the holy city, you place Him on the wing of the church, the devil takes Him to a very high mountain. Therefore, the opposite must also be true: with the recognition of the participation of the devil, it is necessary to recognize the external environment of temptation. Against the hypothesis of psychological struggle, it should finally be noted that it cannot clarify the individual nature of temptation in the wilderness itself, because Christ’s reflection on the people’s false ideas about the Messiah and even temptation on this side, and even more so any otherwise understood psychological struggle, could have taken place at any time during His public ministry, not confined exclusively to any one moment. 14. This is Huenefeld's hypothesis. About the history of temptation in the desert, he expresses that it represents in miniature the entire history of the moral life of Christ - it is a concentrated image of everything that constituted His moral work. Then, with reference to Nitzsch, he defines the content of Christ’s temptations as a free choice between an outwardly glorious life and a humiliated life, and sees in the free humiliation of Christ the moral feat of His life. However, Huenefeld does not recognize that the meaning of the temptations of Christ, as expressed in the gospel story of the temptations in the desert, was conveyed to the disciples by Jesus Christ Himself, but, in his opinion, this meaning was later derived by Christians on the basis of several events from His life, the first of which, corresponding to the first temptation in the gospel story, is confined to the time immediately after baptism, the second, identified with the second temptation in the gospel Luke, is indicated in the circumstance described in Matt. 16:22, 28, and finally, the third, also identified with the third temptation according to the Gospel of Luke, is supposed to take place in the last days of Christ’s life. - Delving into the gospel narratives of the weather forecasters about the temptation of Jesus Christ in the desert, Huenefeld finds that the earliest of them the narrative of Mark reports a real fact - the departure of Christ after baptism into the desert (and only), although already in the gospel of Mark this fact is mixed with the fictions of the early Christians, however, quite plausible. This fact is the historical grain of the story of temptation. It is also transmitted almost literally with the Gospel of Mark by the Evangelist Luke, although in the latter’s Gospel this fact is significantly supplemented by the inventions of Jewish Christians. However, the Evangelist Luke combined (individual) historical facts from the life of Christ in the story of temptation, with the only deviation from history that these facts actually took place at various moments in the life of Christ, and in the Gospel of Luke they are not only combined together, but also clothed in symbolic form. But while the Evangelist Luke deliberately retreated from history, in the Gospel of Matthew it is no longer possible to make such a distinction between reality and fiction. – Where is the reason that prompted Christians to combine individual historical facts from the life of Christ into one story, which was then - not even later than in the Gospel of Matthew - accepted as reality? This reason must be sought, according to Huenefeld, in the cryptological views of the early Jewish Christians. Initially, following the ascension of Christ, Christians (from the Jews) based their faith in Christ solely on His sending down of the Holy Spirit and on His resurrection, i.e., on what constituted His triumph - which in one way or another constituted His glory. In accordance with such a one-sided attitude towards the earthly feat of Christ, Christians paid little attention to all those facts from the earthly life of Christ that spoke of His human humiliation. That is why the story of the temptation of Christ in the desert was of little interest to Christians, as eloquently evidenced by the dry transmission of this story by the Evangelist Mark (although fiction already found a place in his transmission). When pointing to this kind of facts and especially to the death of Christ, Christians (in contrast) referred to the coming glorious (second) coming of Christ - and this expectation of the second coming of Christ was very strong among them. But as the unrealizability of this expectation weakened the one-sided view of Christ, Christians not only ceased to ignore the facts from the life of Christ that testify to His humiliation, but also began to seek explanations for the necessity of this humiliation, and their former one-sided views and expectation of the glorious appearance of Christ, in contrast to the humiliated actual earthly life of Christ, turned out to be sinful views, sinful expectation and demand, so that the humiliation of the actual earthly life of Christ was not only consistent with the divine will, but also represented, in the newly formed opinion of Christians, the feat of His victory over similar contemporary expectations and demands. This last conclusion is expressed by Christians in the history of the temptations of Christ, in which three (according to the sacred meaning of this number) facts from the life of Christ (which actually corresponded to this conclusion) are combined into one and presented in a symbolic shell revealing the essential meaning of the moral feat of Christ 63. Hünefeld himself admits to the arbitrariness of his explanation (p. 76). Therefore, without going into details, we will point out the most important shortcomings of the explanation he proposed. Its outstanding inconsistency with historical reality is that it attributes the expression of the meaning of Christ’s feat not to Christ himself, but to Jewish Christians. But, not to mention the fact that it thereby takes away too much from Christ and assimilates too much to Jewish Christians, it is impossible to assume that Jewish Christians themselves invented this meaning. The apocryphal literature of early Christian times testifies that its creators, Christian-Judaists, were in complete solidarity with their predecessors, the Jews contemporary to Christ, who demanded from Him a miracle and generally an outwardly majestic phenomenon: these apocrypha fill the history of Christ’s life with miracles, often funny and whimsical. According to the direction of these apocrypha, Christ’s answer to the first and second temptations could have been put into the mouth of the devil, who wanted to divert Christ from the miracle so expected by the Jews. Likewise, regarding the third temptation of Christ, it should be noted that according to the apocrypha 64 it was considered a pious deed to deceive the devil and the death of Christ itself was considered such a deception. In short, writes Paulus, the reasons that guided Christ in his actions and responses during the three temptations are so sublimely pure that hardly any other narrative of our gospels is so contrary to the views of the authors of apocryphal Christian literature, Jewish Christians 65 . Hünefeld's hypothesis rests on many assumptions, the imaginary foundations of which lie outside the area of ​​​​the gospel story about temptation and which, in contact with this area, turn out to be extremely arbitrary. So he considers Mark’s story to be original, points to the agreement of Mark and Luke, calls Luke’s story reliable and gives him great preference in this regard over Matthew. But all these statements have behind them preconceived views on the relationship of the Gospels in general to each other. In relation to the gospel story of temptation, there is absolutely no reason to consider Mark’s story as original and more plausible than the stories of other evangelists; and the indication of the closeness of Luke's story to the story of Mark and its preference over the Gospel of Matthew turns out to be directly incomprehensible. The devil, the forty-day fast, and the ministry of angels are mentioned in Mark in the same way as in other weather forecasters; The difference between Matthew and Luke, with the exception of the order of the last temptations, can safely be called microscopic. It is even more biased that the author does not distinguish the apocryphal from the canonical areas, even expressing about the canonical gospels that in them there was a place that was of interest to Christians, in more detail or more concisely depending on the magnitude of interest, etc. 15. Schuster, Meller, Basedow, Rosenmuller, Venturini, Hardt and others understand the gospel devil as a Jewish priest, or a Pharisee, or generally sent from the Sanhedrin, and under the condition of this replacement they are ready to literally understand the entire gospel story of the temptation in the desert. A priest, or a Pharisee, or a member of the Sanhedrin, either on his own impulse, or sent from others, comes to Christ in order to make sure whether He is the Messiah and whether He really has supernatural powers and, if it turns out that He is the Messiah, to win Him over to the side of the priests and encourage Him to liberate the Jewish people from under the Roman yoke as quickly as possible. Such is the historical basis of the Gospel story. – The author of Natürliche Geschichte des grossen Propheten von Nasareth puts a lot of work into depicting the Gospel story of temptation as naturally as possible: he enters into a study of the political and everyday situation of the Jewish people, enters into the psychology of the party of priests and depicts in detail the thoughts of the Pharisee who tempted Christ. The description of the meetings of Jesus Christ with the Pharisee, first in the desert, then on the wing of the church and, finally, on the mountain, is presented picturesquely. But the stronger this desire to understand the Gospel story “as naturally as possible” manifests itself, the more obvious is the main lie of the explanation being analyzed. When reading it, no matter how picturesquely the internal state of the Pharisee-tempter, his thoughts and intentions are depicted, you involuntarily and irresistibly feel the sharp discrepancy between these thoughts and intentions and the answer of Christ. This answer depicts the beginning of all activity, the whole meaning of His humiliation, and in the questions of the Pharisee - only cunning, curiosity, the desire to find out and deceive: the question does not correspond to the answer, the reason for action! – In general, due to its arbitrariness, this explanation of the Gospel history, as one of its critics notes, is nothing more or less than a luftiger Roman, and can only be accepted by those who absolutely do not want to know historical criticism and hope to construct history with the help of their imagination alone 66. – When could this test of Jesus Christ be a Pharisee or a priest? Before and at the beginning of Christ’s public ministry, it could not have happened, since at that time Christ was not yet surrounded by such fame that rumors about Him could reach the Sanhedrin and arouse the attention of its members. And if this test had taken place after Christ began to teach, then it would undoubtedly have been known to the disciples of Christ, whom He already gathered around Him at the beginning of His public ministry, and could not have been remade by them into such a historical story as we now have in the Gospel and which so does not correspond to the imaginary test of Christ sent from the Sanhedrin. - Then, it must be considered unnatural that a messenger from the Sanhedrin, first wanting to know whether Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, demanded a miracle from Him, and then, not having received satisfaction of his curiosity, himself offered Him his services and promised Him world dominion: how could he promise what he did not possess? And what kind of worship is this? Even if by this we mean the simple consent of Jesus Christ to further the goals of the people’s rulers, then Christ’s answer would have a different meaning: in any case, it would expose the boasting of the Pharisee. 16. This theologian, firstly, together with Ullmann, recognizes in the history of temptation an internal fact, but historically connected with the external phenomena that caused it; secondly, together with Hardt, he assumes a historical moment (which is only indicated in the history of temptation) as the external completion of the event, and thirdly, together with Schleiermacher, he sees a symbolic, or tributary, form in the external side of the history of temptation. Lange finds it quite natural that Jesus Christ, after baptism, experienced sympathetic interaction with the popular ideas of his time. It is also natural that the impact of popular ideas on Jesus Christ was for Him a temptation from Satan. However, this temptation was not an abstract psychological phenomenon: priests and scribes, as exponents of popular expectations, served as instruments of satanic temptations. So temptation was teuflisch motivirt und verursacht und menschlich vermittelt - Satan was hiding behind the man who tempted him. Christ conveyed such and such a temptation to His disciples, giving the story a symbolic form. It is easy to see that some of the objections made individually against those hypotheses that are collectively adopted by him are valid against Lange. - In addition, the fact that the evangelists themselves, from the later temptations of Christ by the scribes and Pharisees and even from the event of Matt. 16:22–23, when Christ said to man: get away from me, Satan, they distinguish temptations in the desert as temptations actually from the devil, showing the arbitrariness of the equation of those and other temptations. – In general, Lange’s view, despite the insignificance of the negation contained in it, is built on arbitrary provisions for which it is difficult to indicate any grounds. Indeed, he recognizes temptation not only as an internal fact, but also as an external event; however, he considers the external side of temptation, as it is conveyed in the Gospel, to be an allegory and comes up with a different setting for temptation: the scribe’s embassy, ​​etc. Nevertheless, he has reasonable motives to resort to this invention, that he recognizes the presence of the devil during temptations and only wants to hide him behind the Pharisee - without any need... § 3. Historical authenticity of the Gospel narratives. 17. Every rationalistic view of the history of temptation contains, as its negative assumption, a criticism of the gospel story, and this criticism always comes down to a greater or lesser denial of the objective side of temptation because of its miraculous nature. Therefore, we, for our part, cannot limit ourselves to showing the unfoundedness of rationalistic explanations, which only indirectly confirm the reality of the temptations of Christ as an objective event, but must establish the quo modo of this reality. At the same time, our main goal will be to show that the gospel stories with every word point to the temptation in the desert as a real historical fact from the life of Jesus Christ. Και ευθυς το πνεύμα αυτον εκβάλλει εις τήν έρημον. - Mk. 1:12, – πειρασθηναι υπο του διάβολου. - Matt. 4:1. – και ηγετο εν τω πνευματι. - OK. 4:I. 18. All three evangelists, telling about the temptation in the desert, unanimously place the temptation of Christ in an inextricable connection with His baptism in the Jordan by John, when the Holy Spirit apparently descended on Him and He was called the Son of God; The evangelists depict the very departure into the desert as taking place under the influence of the Holy Spirit. How should we understand this influence of the Holy Spirit on Christ and what was the connection between temptation and baptism? When answering this question, the expressions άνηχθη and ευθύς εκβάλλει are subject to special attention: does not the first signify the ecstatic state of Jesus Christ, as Ammon thinks, who understands the word άνηχθη in the sense of sursum raptum est and compares it with 2 Cor. 12:2 and Apoc. 1:10 ? Does not the second speak of a violent divine impulse (ein göttlicher Impuls – mit einer Art von Gewalt-de Wette), unfavorable for the historical understanding of the history of temptation, which acted in the removal of Christ into the desert, so that this removal, according to one exeget, was carried out against the will of Christ (widerwillig), according to the meaning of the word εκβάλλει in Matt. 7:22, 8:31, 9:34, 10:8, etc.? – The verb άνάγω 67 in Matthew’s account of the temptation has a geographical meaning: it indicates a higher desert in comparison with the low coast. The desert into which Jesus Christ was elevated after baptism is, according to legend, the so-called Quarantania, lying to the north-west. from Jericho. The desert of Judea, in which John preached, was a plain lying to the west of the Jordan, and to the east of it was a more elevated country, also deserted and even more secluded. Jesus Christ, leaving John, goes into this higher and more secluded region. The path from the low coast to the higher desert is designated by the Evangelist Matthew with the verb άνηχθη - erected. Therefore, the Evangelist Luke, after a certain remark that Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, then uses the expression ήγετο without adding the particle άνω. Yes, and according to the letter of the expression ap. Paul's άρπαγεντα – εως τρίτοϋ ουρανου and the Apocalypse έγενόμην εν πνευματι are not homogeneous with the Gospel άνηχθη. But while άνήχθη has a geographical meaning, the expression of the Evangelist Mark εύθΰς εκβάλλει is actually used about the action of the Holy Spirit on Jesus Christ. The power of this expression - immediately, immediately thrown out or expelled - is determined not by the philological meaning and use of words 68, but by the nature of the action of the Holy Spirit. Delving into this latter, we, without weakening the power of expression, will find that the action of the Spirit of God on Jesus Christ could not be violent, could not darken His consciousness, suppress freedom and reason and violate the laws of His human life. The action of the Spirit of God on Christ Jesus did not occur outside of His consciousness and freedom. At that time, the Spirit of God descended on Jesus, and a voice from heaven testified: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, so that the action of the Spirit of God coincided with the action in Christ of His divinely-filial self-consciousness. Therefore, Origen is deeply right when, clarifying the need for the participation of the Holy Spirit in the removal of Jesus Christ into the desert, he refers to Rom. 8:14: All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God, and adds: ipse antem supra omnes proprie Filius Dei erat. – The attitude of the Holy Spirit to the free will of Christ Jesus can be explained by a closer analogy from the life of St. ap. Paul, who in a conversation with the Ephesian elders spoke about himself: here I am, at the attraction of the Spirit (more precisely, bound or bound by the Spirit - δεδεμένος τω πνεύματι), I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will meet me there. Only the Holy Spirit testifies in all cities, saying that bonds and tribulations await Me (Acts 20:22–23). What is bound by the Spirit? - asks Metropolitan. M. Filaret. – Is it really true that the Spirit draws one to Jerusalem to suffer, like a prisoner to prison? - No. For when people devoted to the apostle asked him not to go to Jerusalem, he answered: I not only want to be a prisoner, but I am ready to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. The apostle was a free slave. Just as Paul was bound and led by the Spirit, so Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness after baptism 69 . Moreover, one cannot understand the action of the Holy Spirit on Jesus Christ as violent, because Jesus Christ was taken into the desert for a predetermined purpose - πειρασδήναι 70 ύπο τού διαβόλου. In connection with this predetermined goal, it is necessary to understand ευθύς εκβάλλει. The necessity of some 71 temptations is determined by the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit communicated to a person - it depends on the abundance of grace given to him. Some people incorrectly think 72 that temptations approach a person mainly, if not exclusively, when he is far from divine grace and plunges into the lower spheres of life. They are led astray from the good path, and not from the evil one; fall from a height downwards, and not back; It is the good who are tempted, not the evil. Whoever thinks that he is standing, be careful not to fall, writes Ap. Paul (1 Cor. 10:12). As you are filled with grace, as you improve, temptations multiply and intensify. “For now,” writes St. Isaac the Syrian, while you are still on the way to the city of the kingdom, let the following be a sign of your approach to the city of God; strong temptations confront you; and the more you approach and succeed, the more the temptations that lie ahead of you multiply... According to the greatness of grace, to the same extent God brings the soul into the sorrow of temptations" 73... So it is for Jesus Christ by baptism, in which He was filled with the Holy Spirit (Ιησούς πλήρης πνεύματος αγίου ύπεστρεψεν άπο τού ᾿Ιορδάνου), temptation was prepared - just as He was prepared for temptation 74. “Then,” writes St. John Chrysostom about the connection between temptation and baptism, established in the Gospel of Matthew through this particle (τότε), “then, that is, after the descent of the Holy Spirit, after the voice that descended from above and announced: this is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And the evil spirit would not have approached Jesus, if not saw Him at the highest level of honor.” The evangelists deliberately highlight the connection between the temptations of Jesus Christ and the abundance of the gifts of the Holy Spirit poured out on Him at baptism. Evangelist Luke, who placed the genealogy of Jesus Christ between the story of baptism and temptation, begins the story of temptation with a reminder of baptism: Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan. In Matthew and Mark, τότε άνηχθη and εύθυς εκβάλλει are directly adjacent to the stories of baptism. And in this connection, in which baptism and temptation are placed in the Gospels, in this very expression ευθύς έχβάλλει lies irrefutable evidence of the historical authenticity of the Gospel narratives. This necessity of temptation is not violence or physical necessity, but coincides with the highest freedom. The Holy Spirit acts in this case not by external compulsion, but by the fullness of grace, which a person recognizes in himself. The Holy Spirit testified to the Apostle Paul that bonds and sorrows awaited him; St. Isaac the Syrian speaks of the need not for “worldly temptations,” but for temptations from sorrows. The necessity of such temptations coincides with the freedom with which a person bears his weaknesses and sufferings - for Jesus Christ it coincided with that love for man, by which He suffered humiliation for the sake of man’s salvation. For us, suffering is inevitable; for Christ they were a free feat, therefore He was raised up to temptation by the Holy Spirit 75 . Και νηατευσας ή μέρας τεσσερακοντα και τεσσερακοντά νύκτας, ύστερον επεινασιν. - Matt. 4:2, και ην μετά των θηρίων. - Mk. 1:13; και ούκ εφαγεν ουδεν εν ταιημεραις εκείναις. - OK. 4:2. 19. In the desert, Jesus Christ fasted for forty days and forty nights and did not eat anything during these days, and after them he became hungry. The fast of Jesus Christ, designated by the Evangelist Matthew by the word νηστέυσας, must be understood in an unconditional sense, in accordance with the Jewish worldview. Quite unreasonably, some understand the fast of Christ in the sense of a lack of only ordinary means of food in the desert and on the model of the asceticism of John the Baptist. Unconditional abstinence from food, as understood by the fast of Jesus Christ by the majority of authoritative exegetes, is indicated by the addition of the evangelist and forty nights 76, also his remark in the end was hungry, and finally the direct instruction of the Evangelist Luke ούκ εφαγεν ούδέν 77. This instruction from the Evangelist Luke refutes all the speculations of Kuhn, 78 who, apparently, wants to prove that the Greek lexicon has no words at all to express unconditional fasting. The definition of fasting time by the number of forty days must also be taken in a literal sense and there is no reason to reinterpret this number in the sense of indicating an indefinitely long time, or to understand it as a round number in the general sense of many days. – Jesus Christ fasted for forty days. But why exactly forty, and not more and no less? Let's answer this question in Trench's words. Moses fasted for forty days (Deut. 9:9) and Elijah (1 Sam. 19:8). Christ, the head of the New Testament, did not lag behind in any way those who were the main representatives of the Old Testament, its laws and prophets (Matthew 22:40, 11:13). But at the same time, His forty-day fast is not a consequence of their fasts, which lasted the same amount of time; rather, their and his fasts lasted such a number of days due to the meaning that is everywhere attributed to this number forty in the Holy Scriptures. Looking closely, we notice that it is always a number in it, meaning punishment, lamentation, confession of sin or punishment for it (Gen. 7:4, 12; Num. 14:33, 32:13; Ps. 96:10; Deut. 25:3; 2 Cor. 11:24; Ezek. 19:11, etc.). Was the forty-day period of fasting solely the work of the divine power of Christ 79? Of course, the exceptional properties of Christ's sinless human nature must be taken into account; but it is more natural to think that the duration of His fast was a consequence of the internal tension of His human powers. “Partly a consequence of the previous state, partly as a preparation for the new field into which he was entering, it was that Jesus, upon retiring into his solitude, completely forgot about food. Entirely occupied with His internal state, He did not leave any attention to the external” 80. The holy fathers express themselves in this same sense 81 when they say that Christ did not want to exceed the measure of the ancient ascetics, so that His incarnation would not seem illusory, that, being hungry, He yielded to nature. Evangelist Mark adds a new feature to the description of the desert life of Christ given by other evangelists: and he was with the beasts. Did he want to indicate the severity of the desert, or to depict the greatness of Christ, like the first parents in paradise, harmlessly surrounded by beasts 82; in any case, this feature very strongly signifies Christ’s stay in the desert as a real fact. Και προσελθων (άυτω) ό πειράζων – Matt. 4:3. 20. When Christ was hungry, the devil approached Him with temptations. – Olshausen rightly notes that one or another understanding of the Gospel story about the temptation of Christ is determined by everyone’s attitude to the dogma about the devil and about evil spirits in general. The personal appearance of Satan serves as a stumbling block for rationalist scientists. Their various explanations of the history of temptation are invented mainly for the purpose of eliminating such a personal appearance of Satan. – But although the recognition or denial of the existence of the devil serve as opposing principles from which one or another understanding of the history of temptation comes, when explaining this history it is inappropriate to enter into a fundamental discussion about the existence of the devil. A negative attitude towards the doctrine of the devil in one place or another of scripture cannot be justified and is usually not justified by a fundamental denial of the existence of the devil and only him; but for such a negative attitude in each particular case, private reasons are necessary. And conversely, with a literal interpretation of particular passages of scripture, which testify to the existence and actions of the devil, it is not enough to refer to the general teaching of scripture and the beliefs of the church, and therefore there is no need to reveal this generally known and undoubted teaching for believers - and only for believers: it is necessary to show the validity of the literal understanding of this particular passage, to explain the manner of actions of the evil spirit in this particular case. In applying the church teaching about the devil to the history of temptation, we must show the way the devil acted when he tempted Jesus Christ. Negative criticism, even in those cases where it gives the history of temptation decisive importance in the general question of the existence of the devil, is directed precisely at these actions of the devil during temptation. First of all, how did the devil appear to Christ: visible or invisible? Scientists of the rationalistic and negative tendencies usually think that the Gospel text presupposes the external appearance of the devil, and this circumstance serves for them as one of the main grounds for objecting either to the literal understanding of the Gospel story, or even to the very doctrine of the existence of the devil. “The sensual appearance of the devil in the mask of a man, his air travel, his imperial power over the whole world, then the visible appearance and ministry of angels - all these are features of rough faith, not characteristic of the noble and gentle faith of Olshausen, Lange, Blok, Ullmann and Keim 83. “In what form did the devil appear?” – asks Gaze 84 . - Those who believe that this was an undisguised appearance forget that Jesus should have, if the devil had appeared to Him in an undisguised form, rejected his first offer, which under other conditions would have been much tempting, just for the sake of the ugly appearance of the tempter. On the contrary, if the devil had appeared in a humanoid and graceful form, then the third temptation would have been impossible on his part, because he could not, having appeared in the form of a man, hope for faith in himself that he could give all the kingdoms of the world.” – Indeed, according to some defenders of the literal understanding of the Gospel text, the devil appeared to Christ visibly and, most likely, in the form of a man 85 . But the text of the Gospel stories says nothing about the appearance in which the devil appeared to Christ. Likewise, the Evangelist John, reporting that Satan entered (είσήλθεν) into Judas (John 13:27), does not say anything about the outward appearance of Satan’s entry into the heart of Judas (cf. v. 2: the devil put it into the heart of Judas to betray Jesus). Christ Himself, explaining to the disciples the parable of the sower and saying: but those who fell along the way are the ones who listen, to whom the devil then comes (ερχεται ό διάβολος) and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they do not believe and are saved (Luke 8:12; Matt. 13:19), says nothing about the external appearance of the devil. – The Gospel expression προσελθών, apparently, only indicates that the tempter with his temptations approached Christ from the outside, indicates the objectivity of their origin, and not the appearance of the tempter 86 . True, the gospel narratives about the temptation of Christ convey that the devil takes Jesus to the holy city and places him on the wing of the church - he takes Him to a very high mountain. But even these words depict only the externally objective actions of the devil in relation to Christ, but not the appearance of the devil. Then negative criticism finds grounds for objecting to the reliability of the gospel story of temptation - and further against the teaching about the existence of the devil in general - in the nature of the anthropomorphic action of the devil, which is supposedly affirmed by the gospel story. Gaze, pointing out that the devil throughout the New Testament appears personally only in the history of temptation, and paying special attention to this phenomenon, as one or another understanding of which should be decisive in the question of the personal existence of the devil, asks: what purpose did the devil have in this appearance to Christ? Since, continues Gaze, he could not hope to seduce God, it is usually argued that he did not know the face of Jesus, but his attention was drawn by the events of baptism and now in the desert he wanted to know for sure who this Jesus of Nazareth was. But Gaze finds such a trick in his answer impossible to reconcile with the usual ideas about the satanic kingdom: one would have to assume, according to him, that it makes bad use of the services of the secret police on earth if it did not immediately receive accurate information about the events at the birth of Jesus 87 and so on. – Indeed, some defenders of the literal meaning of the Gospel story understand the participation of the devil in the temptations of Christ in an extremely anthropomorphic way, so that one or another motive on the part of the devil is indicated as the objective reason for the temptations of Jesus Christ. This motive is usually considered to be the curiosity of the devil, his desire to reliably know who Jesus of Nazareth was. In this case, exegetes are usually based on the form of address if You are the Son of God, with which the first two sentences of the devil begin: the form of address expresses, in their opinion, doubt stemming from ignorance 88 . In later times, this opinion, which was held by ancient exegetes 89, is expressed in such a crude form that the devil is assumed to have theological and scientific curiosity. Thus, according to one Jesuit 90, the devil wanted to find out through temptation whether Jesus is the Son of God by nature, the very Word of God, or only by adoption - an Christus esset filius Dei naturalis ipsumque Patris Verbum, an vero dumtaxat adoptivus per gratiam 91. To satisfy his curiosity, the devil came up with the idea of ​​offering Christ to turn stones into bread, realizing that only the Son of God could do this. But does the Gospel narrative itself really give grounds to imagine the presence of the devil during the temptations of Jesus Christ in such an anthropomorphic way that one can talk about his motives for temptation, etc.? Upon careful examination of the case, this question should be answered in the negative. First of all, regarding the words: εί υιός εΐ του Θεού, it should be noted that they, however, express doubt, but this is not doubt of ignorance. On the contrary, the words of the devil presuppose, first of all, the reality of the outwardly confirmed (at baptism) sonship of Christ Jesus and at the same time the confidence that an outwardly glorious life, and not a humiliated one, should correspond to the divine dignity, and only then they express doubt about the reality of the sonship of Jesus, who is in the helpless position of a deserted life. This is doubt in the sense of the suffering of faith, although not wavering, but thirsting for confirmation - doubt that can arise in the heart or be perceived by the heart of the most tempted person. The temptations of the devil tended to cause doubt in the soul of Jesus Christ 92. The attack of temptation was an attack of such doubt and, of course, it was determined not by arbitrariness, not by the motives of the devil, but by the conditions of Christ’s own life. – And in general, it is unreasonable to raise the question of the motives that guided the devil in tempting Christ: it is the literal understanding of the gospel story that does not allow us to explain the reality of Christ’s temptations by any motives of the devil. Indeed. After all, Christ’s victory over temptations from the devil undoubtedly had great significance in His redemptive feat. But if temptations from the devil were determined by his arbitrariness or freedom; in this case, the meaning of Christ’s victory would completely depend on the arbitrariness of the devil, and if the devil had not begun with temptations, there would have been no victory 93 . And not only that. Since the significance of Christ’s victory was, first of all, that it was a victory over the devil, and the devil, by his intelligent nature, could not help but foreknow such an outcome of his struggle with the Son of God, it would be in his direct interests not to enter into this struggle. – And besides the meaning of victory, Jesus Christ was led by the Spirit into the desert directly to be tempted by the devil. But how could this be if the attack of temptation from the devil was directly determined by his personal arbitrariness? After all, then it could have happened that the Holy Spirit would have led Jesus into the desert for temptation, but the temptation would not have taken place, because the devil would not have appeared. Consequently, if the Holy Spirit led Jesus Christ into the desert for temptation from the devil, then in the attack of temptation from the devil one must assume something necessary, free on the part of Christ, but not free on the part of the devil. – Finally, in the temptations of Christ from the devil, everyone recognizes the depth of meaning, systematicity and completeness 94 of content - all in strict accordance with the divine dignity of Jesus Christ: doesn’t all this irrefutably prove that “the devil does not invent temptations of his own accord,” but that his temptations are conditioned by man’s own nature 95 . What made the temptations of Jesus Christ free on His part and unfree on the part of the devil? The weaknesses of human nature and the suffering of Jesus Christ. The temptations of Christ from the devil must be considered in inextricable connection with these weaknesses and sufferings; Apart from them, it is impossible to understand either the objective reality of Christ’s temptations or their meaning. “With his hunger, according to St. Basil the Great, the Lord makes it convenient for the enemy to approach Him. In terms of the height of his deity, He would have been unapproachable to the enemy, if through hunger He had not descended to human weakness” 96 ; “I became hungry, according to St. John Chrysostom, thus giving the devil an opportunity to approach Him” 97. Thus, on the one hand, the height of the divine dignity and the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, on the other, humiliation, weaknesses and suffering constituted the conditions for the temptations of Jesus Christ. Finally, they object to the objective, although not external, and reasonable, although not anthropomorphically represented, participation of the devil in temptations. They say that the devil could influence the soul of Jesus Christ either directly, unconsciously on the part of Jesus Christ, or in such a way that Jesus Christ consciously perceived the tempting offers of the devil as coming from outside and precisely from the devil. But the direct influence of the devil does not correspond to general concepts about the possible relationship of the devil to Christ, is not consistent with His divine dignity and sinlessness, and, finally, weakens the significance of temptations, since it deprives them of consciousness. If Christ was aware of the presence of the devil, the reality of temptations is inexplicable, because the mere consciousness that the offers came from the devil should have destroyed their tempting power. Indeed, usually the temptations of Jesus Christ are understood in such a way that Christ’s conscious perception of temptations as diabolical would make them invalid, and therefore for exegetes it remains to speak either about the direct influence of the devil on the soul of Jesus Christ, or about his external disguised appearance. This understanding is that temptations from the devil were the instillation of evil thoughts, as if under the influence of moral impurity, or sinful poison. Such an action of the devil could be performed either outside the consciousness of the person being tempted, or through deception through a disguised appearance. In this regard, the opinion of Corn is characteristic. and Lapide, who, without even mentioning the conscious perception of temptations, rejects the direct influence of the devil directly in favor of his external appearance - on the basis that the invisible influence of the devil consists in irritating lust, in arousing fantasy and thoughts contrary to the spirit, and such an action of the devil can only manifest itself in the sinful descendants of Adam 98. On the contrary, those who do not allow the disguised appearance of the devil go straight to his direct influence, like Olshausen 99. This limitation of temptations from the devil to a narrow moral area constitutes a misunderstanding that lies at the basis of all misunderstandings on the question of the action of the devil in the temptations of Christ. Due to the impossibility of either its direct action or its disguised appearance, some scientists move on to denying any participation of the devil in temptations. But is this understanding of temptation correct? The very calling of the tempter Jesus Christ the devil indicates a different area of ​​his actions. Διάβολος – calumniator, obtrectator, delator: the devil slanderes. To whom and to whom? either against man to God, challenging God to test human faith (as if arousing in Him distrust of man), or against God to man, causing in man disbelief in the love of God. As a slanderer of man, the devil appeared, according to the testimony of the Old Testament, before God in order to induce Him to test the God-fearing Job. The Lord said to Satan: Have you paid your attention to My servant Job? For there is no one like him on earth: a blameless man, etc. And Satan answered the Lord and said: Does Job fear God for nothing? (Job 1:8–9), etc. Man’s sins give the devil a means to be our accuser before God, and therefore he is about κατηγωρ (Apoc. 12:10). But the devil not only slanders people before God, but also God to people, according to the just saying of John Chrysostom: γάρ τον άνθρωπον προς τον θεόν διέβαλε πάλιν τον θεόν πρός άνθρωπον 100. The devil slanderes God to a person when, pointing out to him his weaknesses and sufferings, he causes in him disbelief in his sonship with God, in God’s love for him. Temptations from the devil are temptations for faith. As such a tempter, the devil approached Christ. He slandered God before the first people, saying: on the day on which you eat, your eyes will be opened, wanting to show that they were deceived and not the least favored. So during the temptations of Christ, he understood the same thing and said: You are called Son in vain and deceitfully, and if not so, then show divine power as proof 101. If so, then it is easy to see that in order to tempt Christ, the devil had no need to either secretly influence Him or trick Him into thinking; on the contrary, for slander he had to appear undisguised: the very presence of the devil-slanderer gave rise to temptation for Christ. Jesus Christ endured similar temptations when He hung on the cross and when those passing by mocked Him, slandered Him and, nodding their heads, said: if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. Such a temptation for faith is generated not by the excitement of passions and not by the instillation of evil thoughts, not by deception, but by the unbelief of another; To generate such a temptation, one attack (προσελθών) by an unbeliever is sufficient. And the devil was for Christ a representative of worldly unbelief. – What made the temptations of the devil real for Christ were the weaknesses of human nature and suffering, more specifically, the suffering of desert life. This understanding of the temptations of Jesus Christ should pacify all the scrupulous doubts of rationalistic criticism. τοτε παραλ αμβάνει αυτυον o διάβολος ( εις την αγίαν πόλιν ) και εστησεν αυτόν ( επι το πτερύγιον του ιεροϋ ) – πάλιν παραλαμβάνει αυτόν ο διάβολος (είς ορος υψηλον λίαν) Matt. 4:5, 8; (ηγαγεν – άναγαγών Luke 4:5, 9). 21. Approaching Christ, the tempter said: if you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. Here everything points to history: the temptation in external connection refers to the famine that came after the forty-day fast, and to the desert in which Christ was - contains a direct reference to the stones of the desert, especially according to the transmission of the Evangelist Luke: command this stone to become bread. For the second temptation, the devil takes Jesus Christ to the holy city and places Him on the wing of the church, and for the third he again takes Him to a very high mountain. “How,” asks Gaze, did Jesus and the tempter ascend the wing of the church and the mountain? If He crossed, according to the general (?) view, which seems to be favored (?) by the story of the Evangelist Matthew, like the aerial journey of Faust on a mantle, then is such an aerial journey through satanic spells befitting the dignity of the Son of God? To assume, as is possible from the story of the Evangelist Luke, that both pilgrims walked the earth on foot is possible only if the devil appears decent, because it would be a bad recommendation for the Messiah, and for the later reproach of His relations with the evil spirit, it would be a sufficient pretext if He visited the holy city in such respectable company" 102 . Indeed, the explanations of the Gospel story with which Gaze and others justify their negative attitude towards it are not uncommon. Cyprian also believed that, according to the literal meaning of the Gospel narrative, which he understood allegorically, Jesus Christ was transported from the desert to Jerusalem, sitting on the shoulders of the devil, or was even transported by him 103. Jerome, however, considered this air travel of Jesus Christ to be as consistent with the text as it was completely plausible. His thoughts were repeated and repeated - Gregory the Great, unknown author op. imp. in Mat., Thomas Aquinas, Cornelius a Lapide, Knabenbauer, 104 and others. In general, this opinion is, in the literal sense of the word, Latin. At the same time, the author of op. imp.-i and Thomas Aquinas see the deliberate intention of the devil in having everyone see Christ in his community and consider Him for this community with the devil to be a simple magician. However, Christ, according to them, outwitted the devil and, without his knowledge, became and remained invisible throughout the journey. – But isn’t it more consistent with the word of God to think that Christ walked on his own feet, as Euthymius Zig believed? 105, and the devil accompanied Him invisibly? If the devil accompanied Christ invisibly, then the journey of Christ, on His feet, in community with the devil could not be funny and for Jesus Christ there was no need to hide Himself from human eyes. To present the journey of Christ as natural without the mediation of satanic spells, the words παραλαμβάνει and εστησεν, contrary to the opinion of Knabenbauer and others, do not interfere at all. Παραλαμβάνω – assumo, mecum sumo, mihi adjuncto, conc. with additional τινά, socium, comitem, - does not necessarily mean external capture, physical influence 106. The use of the word confirms this idea. When Christ, at Caesarea Philippi, predicted to the disciples about His suffering, Peter reproached Him and thereby gave Him a temptation, which earned Peter the name of Satan: έπιτιμάν αυτφ κτλ ., according to the river. trans.: and having called Him away, Peter began, etc. (Matthew 16:22). It is quite clear that Peter did not grab Christ and did not drag Him after him, but Christ, who was called, followed Peter. Then this word was used about the Lord Himself in relation to the disciples with whom He ascended the Mount of Transfiguration: Jesus took (παραλαμβάνει) Peter, James and John his brother, and led (αναφέρει) them to a high mountain (εις όρος υψηλόν) alone (Matthew 17:1; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28), or in relation to all the disciples whom He, going up to Jerusalem, called away (παρέλαβε) on the way (Matthew 20:17; Mark 10:32; Luke 18:31; cf. Matt. 26:37; Luke 9:10). Wed. also Num. 23:14: and (Balaam) took him (Balak) to the place of the guards, to the top of Mount Pisgah; Mk. 4:36: They (the disciples) sent the people away, and took Him with them, as He was in the boat; V, 40; Matt. 12:45 and Luke. 11:26: then the (unclean spirit) goes and takes with him seven other spirits more evil than himself, Acts. 15:39. – One of the English exegetes rightly says 107: the word takes should not be understood to mean that the devil carries Jesus through the air or forces Him to walk against his will, or generally makes some kind of miraculous movement. It does not appear anywhere that Satan would have the power to do anything like this. The devil accompanied Jesus, but did not do violence to Him. – The word put 108 should be understood similarly. The strange interpretations mentioned above may have an imaginary basis in the incorrect opinion that the wing of the church was pointed. But according to the story of Eusebius (according to Hegesippus), Jacob the Righteous was placed on the same wing (H. E. 2, 25: έστησαν - τον Ἰάκωβον έπι το πτερύγιον τού ναού - and the verb used is the same as in the Gospel story). Consequently, in the gospel story of temptation there is absolutely no zauberhafte Wechsel der Situation 109. Το πτερΰγιον του ίεροϋ – Matt. 4:5; OK. 6:9. 22. The devil takes Christ to the holy city and places Him on the wing of the church. Eastern inhabitants, says Folney (Reise nach Syrien, B. II, s. 304) Jerusalem is never called anything other than el-Kods, holy, and sometimes they also add esch-Scherif, noble. This name el-Kods seems to have been assigned in ancient times to all places which, like Jerusalem, had a twofold distinction: firstly, they lay on hills, and secondly, they had churches, or were sacred places 110. The holy city named by the Evangelist Matthew is directly called Jerusalem by the Evangelist Luke. But it is difficult to form a clear idea of ​​what should be understood by πτερύγιον τού ιερού. Πτερύγιον decrease. from πτέρυξ, corresponds to the Hebrew כנף and means 1) ala, pinna, pinnula, – 2) quaevis extremitas in acutum desinens. Under πτερύγιον τού ιερού Matt. 4:5; OK. 4:9 some mean the top of the church (τού ναού, as in Evsev. H. E. 2, 23), others - the top of the portico or porch of Solomon, which was in the east of the church (στοά Σολομώνος - στοά ανατολική), others - the top of the royal portico, or gallery (ή βασιλική στοά), which was so high, according to Josephus Antt. XV, 11, 5 διοπτεύοι, σκοτοδινιαν, ούκ έξικνουμένης τής οψεως εις άμετρον τον βυθον. Assuming that Jesus Christ was placed over that deep valley that Josephus speaks of, by πτερύγιον τού ιερού, of course, we must mean 111 battlements of the southern royal porch. And the assumption that Christ was placed on the wing of the church above the (indicated) deep valley is adopted out of the desire to explain the tempting power of the devil’s offer precisely by the danger of the situation. This desire is especially evident in Grimm. Believing with confidence that by the wing of the church one must understand in any case a place of outstanding height on the church roof, which could not be climbed naturally and from which one could only get off by throwing himself auf gut Glück, Grimm continues: lifted there against his will by the violence of Satan, physically tired and filled with a natural desire to get rid of the close and unbearable presence of the enemy of God, Jesus was so helpless and hopeless situation, that the devil’s offer - to throw himself down in trust in God - was truly a severe temptation 112. But to try to explain the power of temptation from the physical hopelessness of the situation means to refuse a reasonable understanding of this power. To explain the power of temptation, there is no need to assume that Jesus Christ was placed on the most dangerous place on the church roof and to look for where such a dangerous place was. It is enough to assume that this was a fairly high place, from which, although it would be possible to get off naturally, it would be possible to throw yourself without touching the stone with your foot only with the help of supernatural force. And first of all, there is no need to assume that Jesus Christ was placed on the highest part of the church roof itself, i.e. on the roof of the church itself (ναός), which, moreover, was covered with nails as protection from birds; on the other hand, there is no need to present the matter in such a way that Christ was placed over the abyss, firstly, because, according to Hegesippus, the Pharisees and scribes placed Jacob the righteous on the wing of the church and then, when they threw him down, he did not die (καταβληθείς ούκ άπέθανεν), so that he was already finished off, and, secondly, because, according to the meaning of the temptation, its object was the solemn and miraculous, with the help of supernatural power, the appearance of Christ from above in front of the doors of the church - in view of the people, but for the obviousness of this supernatural appearance, a decent height was enough and there was no need for an abyss: the people could not stand on this side. Therefore, by πτερύγιον του ιερού it is natural to mean the roof of one of the church’s outbuildings and, moreover, not the outer edge of the roof (for example, towards the Valley of Jehoshaphat), but the inner one towards some courtyard of the church or towards the entrance to the church itself. – Heleman wants to weaken the similarity of the position of Jacob, as Eusebius reports about him, with the position of Christ by pointing out that Eusebius used the expression πτερύγιον του ναού, whereas in the Gospel story there is the expression πτερύγιον τού ιερού. But if in this place we distinguish between ό ναός and το ιερόν 113, then we should recognize Jacob’s position as more dangerous, since the church itself was higher than its outbuildings 114. ( Παραλαμβάνει αυτόν ό διάβολος εις ) όρος υψηλόν λίαν και δείκνυσιν αύτω πάσας τας βασιλείας του κόσμου και την δόξαν αυτών – Matt. 4:8; άναγαγών αυτόν εδειξεν αυτω πάσας τάς βασιλείας της οίκουμένης εν στιγμή χρόνου - Luke. 4:5. 23. For the third temptation, the devil takes Jesus Christ to a very high mountain and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. “On the entire globe,” says de Wette, it is impossible to find such a high mountain from which one could see all the kingdoms of the world. In fact, writes Hoeleman, even the highest mountain on earth is not so high that from it one can see all the kingdoms of the world, and even in an instant. There can be no question about such grief, according to Meyer, given the miraculously magical nature of the environment of temptation. For the sake of this character, rationalist exegetes are inclined to accept the situation of the third temptation more than anything else in the entire history of temptation allegorically. – However, if the showing of the kingdoms were magical, as the rationalists assume in the text, then there would be no reason to turn to the mountain. The very mention of a high mountain strongly indicates natural contemplation. If contemplation from the mountain of the universe was natural, then it is necessary to simplify the understanding of the Gospel text by limiting the concepts of κόσμος - οικουμένη. We find an attempt to limit these concepts in Lightfoot. He means by the Gospel κόσμος οικουμένη Rome with its power (Roman Empire) and splendor: 1) because the Roman state is called by both church and secular writers πάσα οικουμένη, - 2) because by the time the heyday of the Roman state, all others faded, and no country outside the Roman Empire had state glory; 3) because Rome is the seat of Satan according to Apoc. 13:2 And it was to him that the dragon gave his strength and great authority; 4) it was the brilliance and power of the Roman Caesars and their power over the whole world that the devil promised to Christ Jesus. – The first of the presented points in any case shows that it is possible (and indeed there are reasonable grounds) to limit the Gospel concepts κόσμος - οίκουμένη. But it is more natural to understand by οικουμένη in the gospel history not Rome, but Palestine. It is true that for the Romans the Roman Empire was orbis terrarum (translated into Greek - πάσα οικουμένη, as in St. Luke. 2:1); but among the Greeks οικουμένη is the land inhabited by the Greeks, as opposed to the barbarians; likewise in the Old Testament γη, Heb. אָﬧﬠ is used only about Palestine, Lk. 4:25 εγένετο λιμός μέγας έπί πασαν τήν γην An example of showing Palestine from the high mountain of Deut. 34:1-4: And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead as far as Dan itself, and all (the land of) Naphtali, and (all) the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, even as far as the western sea itself, and the noon country and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city palm trees, to Zoar. And the Lord said to him, etc. Understanding this, Philo writes: έδειξα τοίς όφθαλμοισου κτλ. (de, migratione Abrahami, ed. Paris, pp. 394–5). – If by οικουμένη in the gospel story we mean Palestine, then by kingdoms we should mean the kingdoms of Palestine. Judea was divided by the Romans into three parts, which were called kingdoms; and the sons of Herod, who owned these parts, were also called kings. – The expression κόσμος, – which should be understood not in the modern sense of the word world, but in view of its correspondence to the word οικουμένη in the sense of a part of the world (instead of the whole), i.e. Palestine (an example of such a use of the word Rom. 4:13) - in connection with the expression all kingdoms can also indicate the worldly prosperity of the land to which these kingdoms belonged, and in this sense it could also well have been used only about Palestine alone 115. The expression εν στιγμή χρόνου, contrary to the opinion of those who understand it in the sense of instantaneous contemplation and see in it an indication of the miraculous work of the devil, and in accordance with the context should be understood in the sense of simultaneous vision of all the kingdoms of the world, as opposed to sequential (and prolonged) consideration 116. The tempting power of viewing the world did not consist in the effect of the external splendor and wealth of earthly kingdoms on the external feelings of the beholder, nor in the seduction through the effect on external senses of the visible beauty and fortress of cities, the luxury of dwellings and the richness of their furnishings. The power of the third temptation was created by the idea of ​​that worldly, as opposed to the divine, glory of earthly kingdoms, the beginning and ruler of which was the devil (αρχων του κόσμου), who ruled in the hearts of people. The external display of the kingdoms was only a means to evoke in the soul of Jesus Christ this difficult idea, which, having met in His consciousness with the idea of ​​His messianic ministry, should have acquired a tempting power equal to the power with which He loved all people who perished under the power of the evil spirit. – Later, at the end of the earthly life of Jesus Christ, when He one day left the church, the disciples approached Him to show Him the buildings of the church. All the church buildings occupied a vast space and it took a long time to survey them. But the idea that the desire of the disciples and the quick glance cast at the buildings aroused in the soul of Jesus Christ did not require a careful examination of the beauty and grandeur of the buildings: Jesus said to them: Do you see all this? Truly I say to you, not one stone will be left here upon another, everything will be destroyed (Matthew 24:1–2). Likewise, contemplation of the kingdoms of the world was a means of evoking a certain idea of ​​​​the power of the evil spirit - therefore it did not have to be consistent and attentive. Of course, according to the nature of the idea or feeling which is to be aroused by the contemplation, the height of the point is required; but consistency and attentiveness of examination is appropriate only where the very examination of the object provides food for the mind or feeling 117. In the same way, when a conqueror or emperor contemplates from a high mountain the entire land under his control, again a general view from a fairly high eminence, dominating a fairly vast area of ​​the earth, is enough to evoke feelings and ideas pleasing to the proud conqueror or emperor 118 . What kind of mountain was it from which the devil showed Jesus Christ the kingdoms of the world? It is impossible to point with confidence to any specific mountain as being very high in the Gospel. They point to Tabor, Zion, the Mount of Olives or the sharp peak of Mount Quarantaniä, legend calls the latter 119. Let us give a description of it made by a Russian theologian who visited Palestine. “If,” writes A. Olesnitsky 120, “from your observation point (i.e., from the terrace of Riley Tower, a village near the supposed location of Jericho) you turn to the west, before you will be a harsh, almost vertical mountain, sacred according to Christian memories, since the Lord Jesus spent 40 days of solitude and fasting on it before entering into the work of His public ministry. It is called forty days - jebel Korontol. This is the same mountain at the foot of which lay the first Jericho, destroyed by Joshua. Since at the time of Jesus Christ the first Jericho lay in ruins, and the second Jericho was further south, this explains the possibility of choosing this mountain for solitude. Climbing the mountain is extremely difficult, and completely impossible for those unaccustomed to mountains. It is not for nothing that Catholic guidebooks offer pilgrims a plenary indulgence for this shoot. However, the place of the Savior’s forty-day solitude is considered not to be the peak itself (which could have been the place of the third temptation), but one of the caves, of which there are many on the sides of the mountain, namely the cave closest to the peak, which was later expanded and turned into a Christian church, according to legend, by Queen Helena. – Together with Christians, the Mohammedans also worship the forty-day mountain. We allow ourselves to cite the legend of Palestinian Muslims relating to this mountain about the fast of the Savior, obviously adapted from the gospel story. The great prophet Isha, the legend says, concluded a contract with his disciples in this place in order to spend the fast of the holy month of Ramadan prescribed by the Koran here, far from worldly entertainments. Since the forty-day west from the cave of the mountain is closed by the Jewish mountains, as a result of which it was impossible to observe the setting of the sun here - the time when the Mohammedans break their fast - Isha made a figure of a bird out of clay, blew on it, and the bird flapped its heavy wings and flew away into one of the dark caves of the mountain. This is the kofash bird, a bat that hides during the day and appears only when the sun sets. Every evening, when the muezzins in the cities announced the end of fasting to the faithful, a bird flew out of the cave and circled around Jesus, who then stood up with his disciples to pray. Meanwhile, the sky opened and a silver table entered the cave, on which lay a large fried fish, five loaves of bread, salt, olives, pomegranates, dates and fresh salad - products of the heavenly gardens. The prophet sat down at the table and the angels served him.” Τότε άφιησιν αυτον ο διάβολος , και ιδού άγγελου προσήλθον και διηκόνουν αύτω – Matt. 4:11 ; και συντελεσας πα and τα πειρασμόν ο διάβολος απεστη απ᾿ αύτου αχρι καιρόν . Και υπεστρεψεν ο Ἰησούς εν τη δυνάμει του πνεύματος εις την Γαλιλαιαν – Luke. 4:13–14; και οι άγγελοι δύηκόνουν αυτω – Mk. 1:13. 24. When Jesus Christ answered him at the third proposal of the devil: get away from me, Satan; Then the devil left Him, and behold, the angels came and served Him. – Only after the devil’s third proposal does the Lord call him by name and remove him from Himself. Does this mean that Christ only now recognized the devil? And if He recognized him before, then why didn’t He remove him from Himself after the first temptation 121? These scrupulous questions of rationalists are answered by understanding the temptations of Jesus Christ as a free act of love for man on the part of Jesus Christ and as unfree actions on the part of the devil. “The devil has departed,” this means that he has ended all temptation, as the Evangelist Luke notes. The devil, according to the same evangelist Luke, left the Lord Jesus for a time, i.e. 1) until the next convenient opportunity for temptation and 2) until a certain time of (new) temptation 122; According to the first meaning of the word, temptations, once beginning in the desert, were repeated throughout the entire period of Christ’s public ministry, and according to the second, a certain time before which the devil departed is usually indicated by exegetes in the Gethsemane struggle as the predominant temptation after the temptations in the desert. In any case, just as the initial then indicates the connection of the story of temptation in the desert with the previous one, so the finite before time points to the connection of this story with the subsequent time of the life of Christ. When the devil departed from the Lord Jesus, the angels came to Him and served Him. What the ministry of the angels consisted of is difficult to formulate an exact concept of. But one cannot help but pay attention to the fact that while the evangelists Matthew and Mark speak about the ministry of angels, the evangelist Luke speaks about the strength of spirit with which the Lord Jesus emerged from temptation. And this gives reason to assume that the ministry of angels was not something external and accidental, but was in connection with the own internal state of Jesus Christ as a winner, and was caused by the laws of victory. – St. Isaac the Syrian, who so deeply comprehended the truth that “in accordance with the greatness of grace, God leads the soul into the sorrow of temptation,” - at the same time he knew that the grace of the Holy Spirit is acquired by a person through victory in temptation, that this victory gives a person a feeling of grace. Is the temptation first, and then the gift? he asks 123, or is it the gift first, and then the temptation? Answer. Temptation does not come if the soul does not secretly accept greatness beyond its measure, and the Spirit of grace it previously received. This is evidenced by the temptations of the Lord himself, and likewise by the temptations of the apostles, who were not allowed to enter into temptation until they received the Comforter. He who partakes of good things is fit to endure temptations; because his sorrow comes after his good. This is how it pleased the good God to do with everyone. And although this is indeed so, that is, grace before temptation; however, the feeling of temptation, for testing freedom, certainly preceded the feeling of grace. For grace in no one ever precedes the trial of temptation. Grace accelerates in the mind, but slows down in sensation,” and so on. In this sense, the ministry of angels does not constitute an exclusive consequence of Christ’s victory over temptations, but has a universal character. Take courage, writes 124 St. Isidore Pelusiot, and after the struggle the angels will serve you, crowning you as a winner, for such is the reward for one who courageously accomplishes a real feat. And in this final respect the gospel story is eminently reliable. Chapter two. On the inner reality of the sinless temptations of the Lord Jesus Christ: the relationship of temptation to sinlessness. 25. The temptations of Jesus Christ in the desert constitute a historical fact. But temptation, by its very concept, cannot only be an objective phenomenon, but must have internal reality. Temptation, as an external phenomenon, without a corresponding internal reality, has no meaning. And, of course, the Gospel evidence that the tempter approached Christ in the desert receives full meaning only on the condition that the devil’s offers were a real temptation for Jesus Christ. The inner reality of His temptations cannot be doubted. – What was this reality? The Apostle Paul calls Jesus Christ αρχιερέα, πεπειρασμένον κατά πάντα καθ ’ όμοιότιτα χωρίς αμαρτίας , - the high priest, who, like us, was tempted in all things, except sin, - more precisely, according to the Slavic translation: tempted in all sorts of ways, except sin (Heb. IV, 15). Complete similarity to our temptations (κατά πάντα καθ᾿ ομοιότητα) and sinlessness (χωρίς άμαρτίας) constitute, according to the apostle, two boundaries that embrace the area of ​​the temptations of Jesus Christ according to their inner reality. Guided by these instructions, ap. Paul, theological science must determine the internal character of the temptations of Jesus Christ as sinless, but in every way similar to ours. The question of the inner reality of the temptations of the Lord Jesus is not an easy theological question. The temptations of Christ should be similar to ours in every way. This similarity, according to the teaching of the same Apostle Paul, has deep significance in the work of the redemptive ministry of Christ. Having Himself endured temptation, He can help those who are tempted (Heb. II: 18). We have, the apostle writes enthusiastically, not a high priest who cannot sympathize with us in our weaknesses, but who, like us, has been tempted in all things, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb. IV: 15:16). – But our temptations are sinful. Most of them arise entirely from our sinful inclinations, nesting with their roots in our sinful heart; finally, every temptation, although it would not end in a sinful act, although it would come from the outside, inevitably encounters sinful dispositions in us 125. Christ was sinless. The very similarity of His temptations to ours has all its significance inseparably from the fact that He was tempted without sin. Therefore, does not the similarity of Christ’s temptations to ours contradict His sinlessness? Doesn’t His sinlessness destroy the reality of His temptations? More specifically, the question of the relationship between the sinlessness of Christ and the reality of His temptations falls into two sections, in accordance with the fact that χωρίς αμαρτίας means 1) the sinlessness of temptations by their origin and 2) the sinlessness of temptations by the unconditional victory of Christ, by their result. § 1. On the sinlessness of the temptations of the Lord Jesus Christ according to their origin. 26. How could the temptations of Jesus Christ be sinless in origin? In other words: what kind of temptations are these, sinless in their origin and yet similar to our sinful temptations? – It is easy to see that this question comes down to defining such a criterion for the validity of temptations, under which our temptations could become sinless, while remaining valid - they could be temptations of the Sinless One, however, retaining all their power. – For this purpose, it is necessary to consider various types of temptations as they apply to the Lord Jesus Christ. A sign of a false criterion for the reality of temptations is that, when applied to the temptations of Christ, the similarity of His temptations to ours is paid for by His sinlessness, and sinlessness is paid for by the reality of temptations. The usual criterion for the reality of temptations—the attraction to sin, or the seduction of evil—turns out to be false. If the strength of temptation were measured by the degree of attraction to sin, or the ability to be seduced by evil, then in this case the real temptations would be temptations of lust. Therefore, Christ Jesus, in order to be like men in every way, had to be tempted by lust. On the contrary, if there were no lust in Him, His temptations could not be valid. Taking the deception of evil as the criterion for the reality of human temptations, we must either assimilate to Christ lust in contradiction with the concept of His sinlessness, or deny, together with lust, the reality of His temptations. With this criterion, sinlessness and temptation are values ​​that exclude each other, so that the growth of one is necessarily accompanied by the diminishment of the other, and therefore the boundaries of the temptations of the Lord Jesus indicated by the Apostle Paul could no longer serve as reliable beacons in resolving the question of the internal reality of the temptations of Jesus Christ. All experiments in resolving the issue, built on this criterion, necessarily violate one of the two concepts, sinlessness and temptation, in favor of the other; they all fall into two groups so that some, for the sake of the likeness of Christ to people, sacrifice His sinlessness, assimilating to Him passion or lust, which they consider a necessary condition for the reality of temptations, the real struggle against sin, while others, for the sake of the sinlessness of Jesus Christ, forget His likeness to us, denying the reality of temptations along with lust, which for them exhausts the area of ​​human temptations. 27. In ancient times, Theodore of Mopsuestia and the Pelagian Julian taught about the temptations of the Lord Jesus through lust. – True to the direction of the Antiochian school, Theodore of Mopsuestia spoke intensely about the similarity of the human nature of Christ to the nature of all people. The man is Jesus, in his words; differed from people of the same nature as Him, except by the grace given to Him, but the grace given does not change the nature 126. Therefore, among the essential properties of the nature of Jesus Christ, Theodore of Mopsuestia included changeability and temptation and assimilated to Him the convention of moral development with the inevitability of moral struggle. Vigorously challenging the opinion of Apollinaris, according to which the place of the human mind in Christ was occupied by deity, the Antiochian teacher wrote that in Him there was a truly human soul, involved in human sensitivity and changeability, that He fought mainly against mental illnesses, struggled with spiritual passions, through the soul killed sin in the flesh and curbed carnal lusts. If He had divinity instead of mind, then we, according to Theodore, would not have any benefit from what He accomplished; His exploits would have been for the sake of some kind of vanity 127. On the contrary, His answer to Peter (Matt. XIV, 23) suggests that the words of the apostle actually had a tempting effect on the soul of Jesus Christ - He seemed to answer like this: get away from Me, Satan; you are a temptation to me; do not offend My soul and do not disturb it·, convincing Me to avoid this kind of death, as worthy of reproach 128 - The changeability and temptation of the human nature of Christ were included, according to the teaching of Theodore of Mopsuestia, in the plan of His redemptive ministry. The final purpose of the saving work of Christ Jesus was to bring human nature from a state of temptation and changeability to a state of impassibility and intemptability. For this, He had to affirm His sinlessness in a state of temptation, overcome the variability of nature in Himself, and through this create in Himself the true image of man 129. He had to face temptations in order to appear sinless to Him not in freedom from temptations, but in victory over temptations 130. In a similar way, the Pelagian Julian taught about the temptations of Jesus Christ, 131. Based on the position of Pelagian anthropology that the struggle in man between body and spirit and all lust are as natural and non-sinful as the weakness of bodily and spiritual forces and death itself 132, Julian even assimilated lust 133 to Christ and attributed to it real significance for the moral development of Christ, as a model of moral perfection. If He, according to Julian’s thought, had not submitted to all the conditions of human life, had not accepted human nature in its entirety, then He could not have taught us how to fulfill the law 134. What would be commendable in the fact that Jesus despised sensual temptations if He was immune to them according to the happy structure of nature itself? What merit could there be for patience if the painful heaviness from wounds and blows could not reach the soul, due to the inaction of the senses? The heresy of Apollinaris makes the perfections of Christ fade and takes away praise from Him, as not deserved, but related to nature - it seems to laugh at the ministry of Christ, depriving it of the shine of truth 135. In the eighth century the views of Theodore Mops. The temptations of Jesus Christ were repeated by the Adoptians, who taught that Christ Jesus, as a man, in all respects our brother, was adopted by God, just as every Christian is adopted by him, that He, by His very birth, from a human mother, had the nature of the old man, and was subject to the law of sin and the curse for sin - death. In our century, the doctrine of the likeness of Christ to people before accepting lust has ardent defenders in the person of the German theologian Gottfried Mencken and the English Edward Irving. According to the thoughts of both, Christ Jesus had to become like us most of all in the respect in which we most need to change: in Him there had to be a conflict between the flesh and the spirit, since we suffer from the lusts of the flesh; He had to accept our corrupted nature in order to regenerate it in Himself through real spiritual struggle; He had to overcome the temptations of lust by the power of faith alone, without any other help than that which every pious person can receive from God. He had to, according to Mencken, take on a mortal body, or flesh - a body for which, at least, sin, suffering and death were possible, and the latter was even necessary. If He had not taken on such a body, He would not have been like the descendants of Adam, since sinfulness and mortality are essential to the latter. In such and such a sinful and mortal body, Christ accomplished a redemptive feat, on the one hand, manifesting holy life in it, on the other, offering Himself sinless to God in death on the cross, as a sacrifice for sin. According to Irving, Christ took on flesh, in which were united the infirmities, sin and guilt of all flesh; He suffered death as a destiny inevitable for His “fallen” nature, although He personally was a sinless man; He suffered the highest degree of the wrath to which sinful flesh and blood were subject 136). 28. That direction of theological thought, according to which the Lord Jesus, in order to be completely like people, had to be involved in sinfulness itself, was disputed in ancient times by Bl. Augustine, who expressed his opposite view in the fight against Julian. – According to bl. Augustine, the exceptional sinlessness of “man assumed as the Son of God” belonged to Him not by the merits of free activity, but by the peculiarity and exclusivity of His birth and nature. He was the incarnate Son of God and was born of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit. While He was on earth through the infirmity of the flesh, He was in heaven through the participation of the flesh in the divine essence 137 . Christ Jesus was also a heavenly man in the flesh, secundum carnem homo coelestis 138. To equate the flesh of Christ with the flesh of other people who necessarily participated through natural birth in the sin of Adam 139 would be blasphemy. He came not in the flesh of sin, but in the likeness of the flesh of sin, while the flesh of all the descendants of Adam is the flesh of sin 140. Lust, discord between spirit and body, disturbances of the flesh - these products of sin were alien to the Savior. In such an exceptional character of the sinlessness of Christ, in the fact that it was inherent in Him by birth itself, Blessed. Augustine saw the essential meaning of His redemptive ministry. In order to free man from sin, Christ had to be sinless according to humanity in the sense of the impossibility of sinful desire, qui malum non protest velle. If He had taken upon Himself sinful flesh and endured the power of the devil, then He could not have healed man of lust and freed him from the power of the devil: hoc quod non est bonum Christus in natura si haberet, non sanaret in nostra 141. Anyone who has an evil lust, refusing to satisfy it, fulfills what is prescribed by the law: post concupiscentias tuas non eas, but cannot fulfill what is said in the law: non concupisces, 142. Christ had to fulfill the whole law perfectly, so that he could not desire anything impermissible; therefore, He could not perceive the internal discord that entered human nature through the crime of Adam 143. Even more than that: lust generated by the sin of our ancestors, although it would not find sympathy in a person and would not lead him to sinful action, is in itself already evil and even sin. 144 Because of this, the perfect holiness that was required of the Savior did not consist in victory over sins, won in human struggle with them, but in complete non-involvement in all kinds of sinful impurity. Such perfect holiness, which is easy to see, could not be in Christ the merit of a person freed from passions 145, but could only be a work of God’s grace (medicina coelitus venit 146), granted to Him by birth 147. To Julian’s heated objections that in this case Christ was not like His brothers, that He could not be a model of moral perfection and not give commandments to imitate Him, bl. Augustine replied that Christ’s non-involvement in sin cannot serve as an obstacle to the imitation of Him by people who are called to imitate God the Father Himself, who was never human 148 . In order to be an example of a perfect life, Christ Jesus not only did not need to take on human sin and passions, fight them and overcome them in Himself, but there was even a need for complete non-involvement of passions. The most moral perfection of a person is bl. Augustine believed not in victory over passions, but in freedom from them. And if purity and perfection, he thought, consisted in victory, then tanto quisque erit in virtute laudabilior, quanto fuerit in carne libidinosior, and Christ, as the highest in virtue of all people, would have to be the most passionate libidinosissimus in the flesh 149. But if the struggle with lust was not part of the moral task of Christ Jesus, then what were His temptations? Bl. Augustine, rejecting the idea of ​​Christ being tempted by lust, however, in lust, or in seduction, he himself saw the only way in which the devil can approach a person as a tempter. Therefore, the denial of lust in Christ was for him at the same time a denial of the reality of temptations. According to the Christology of Bl. Augustine, the temptations of Jesus Christ not only had no significance either for His moral perfection or for His redemptive ministry, but were even impossible for Him. The devil, as a tempter, could not approach Christ: his proposals could not be tempting for Christ. The devil could only attack Christ as the chief of death: the mortal in Christ is what made any contact between the devil and the Savior possible. The Redeemer's victory over death was His only victory over the devil 150. In a similar way, St. Gregory the Dvoeslov saw the difference between Christ’s temptations and ours in the fact that our temptations remained completely external to Him. We, he writes, fall into temptation for the most part in such a way that we enjoy sin, or agree to it, because, born of sinful flesh, we carry within ourselves the reason that we must withstand the struggle. But God, incarnate in the womb of the Virgin, came into the world without sin and therefore did not have any struggle in Himself. Therefore He could be tempted by external temptation; but the pleasure of sin did not kill His soul and therefore every devilish temptation from the outside did not penetrate inside His soul 151. The views of Blessed Augustine were adopted by Catholic theology, which teaches that the human holiness of Christ was a manifestation of His divine holiness, that because of this He was removed from the action of sinful lust, freely controlled the movements of His soul, always in agreement with the will of the Heavenly Father, and that therefore the Gospel narratives about the temptation of Jesus Christ from the devil must be understood in the sense of a purely external temptation 152. – What is characteristic of this teaching is that the area of ​​temptation is limited to the action of lust: with the denial of lust, the reality of temptation is lost. Based on the same views on the power of human temptation, the famous Protestant theologian Schleiermacher 153 denied any struggle in Christ. He considered it impossible that in a person in whom any kind of internal struggle had ever taken place, the traces of this struggle could be completely destroyed, so that the one in whom even slight traces of such a struggle would be found would be exemplary. Schleiermacher wants to explain the reality of temptations by the sinless receptivity of human nature to the opposites of pleasant and unpleasant. In Christ, according to him, a change of pleasure and displeasure could take place, as sinless, but without causing struggle, therefore not as determinations of the will, but in the sense of a consequence of decisions of the will, independent of feelings of pleasure or displeasure. Pleasure and displeasure are not accompanied by a struggle, but are a simple consequence of the free determinations of the will up to the point at which they have the character of a simple sensation or feeling and from which they begin to turn into lust or disgust. According to Schleiermacher, temptation consists of the approach of lust or disgust 154. But it is obvious that a phenomenon that begins with pleasure and ends with lust remains sinless only until the moment it becomes a struggle or temptation; it can only give sinful temptation. A comparison of Augustine's Christology with its opposing views on the sinlessness of Jesus Christ is very instructive. This Christology in its critical part directed against Julian is firmly founded and in some respects undeniable to the point of obviousness. There could be no lust in Christ 155 and He could not be tempted by it. But the positive part of Augustine’s Christology turns out to be completely defenseless against Julian’s objections: the likeness of Christ to people and the reality of His temptations in it, as well as in the Catholic systems and in the teachings of Schleiermacher, are lost from sight. If the seduction of evil were the main force of temptation and lust was its main form, then Christ, in order to be like people, would have to be tempted by lust. Such a relationship between two opposing views on the sinlessness and temptationability of Jesus Christ, more than anything else, proves the unsuitability of the equally accepted criterion for the reality of human temptations. 29. Taking the deception of evil as the criterion for the reality of temptations, it is impossible to reconcile the sinlessness of Christ with the reality of His temptations, even with full and equal attention to both. Ullman provides an instructive example in this regard. This scientist dealt with the question of the sinlessness of Christ in general and in his relation to the temptations of Christ, more specifically, for a long time; his main work on this issue 156 Ueber die Sund losigkeit Iesu had several, with constant changes, editions during his lifetime and is deeply appreciated by many, many Western scientists of all directions. It can be said that Ullman's views are characteristic of all Protestant theology. – Ullman set the primary goal of his work to reconcile sinlessness with temptation, and for these very purposes he subjected his views to changes in particulars. – Bearing in mind the words of the Apostle Paul that Christ was tempted in everything except sin, Ullman 157 looks for the boundary, crossing which temptation becomes sin. In the origin of sin, he distinguishes the following points: 1) den Gedanken des Bösen, since evil is only imagined by the spirit, passes, so to speak, before his eyes; 2) die Lust des Bösen, since it has a stimulating effect on feeling and fantasy and 3) den Willen des Bösen, since it becomes an internal, and under favorable circumstances, an external effect. Der Gedanke des Bösen - not an evil thought, but a thought about something evil - is in itself indifferent to sinfulness, but it is evil if it arises in the soul of the person himself, because in this case it presupposes the perversion of judgment and moral principles, or if, having appeared from the outside, it meets a sympathetic disposition in the soul, because in this case it is established within the person and from the area of ​​thought spreads to other areas of the soul. The thought of evil in itself is not evil, just as sensuality in itself is not evil and cannot be the cause of evil. – Temptation, according to Ullman, is everything that acts on a free being in such a way that through this the latter’s life can take the path of moving away from God and be directed toward evil. To be in a state of temptation means to accept an impression by which one can determine oneself for evil. Temptation begins from the moment when evil, starting from some point in external or internal life, appears to a person in such a way that it can be directly perceived by him. When the approaching evil begins to make a real impression on the mood, when it becomes one way or another determining life, then - and only then - temptation becomes evil, then - and only then - the struggle begins and can begin. When evil is only thought of by some being as something external, then for him and in him it is not evil. False ideas about the messianic ministry, as the Jewish people understood it, were a temptation for Christ when He became aware of these ideas, when He, preparing for the messianic work, thought about what His contemporaries expected of Him. Such a temptation passed for Christ without sin, firstly, because a tempting thought appeared in the soul of Christ from the outside: the false messianic idea was a fact for Him, and the thought of a fact cannot tarnish the holiness of God; secondly, because a thought becomes evil when it has a stimulating and decisive effect on feeling and will, and Christ pushed away tempting thoughts without any slowness, without any hesitation, so that the temptation lasted only a moment. But if the thought of evil, as a fact, cannot, tarnish the holiness of God, Who even necessarily contemplates the entire sum of worldly evil (das Denken einer Thatsache, auch wenn sie bose ist, kann ja nicht sündhaft sein, – sonst wäre auch Gott nicht heilig, der die ganze Summe des Bösen überschaut) 158, but Who is not tempted by evil (James I, 13), then, obviously, it in itself does not yet constitute a temptation. It becomes a temptation from the moment from which the struggle begins, from which the approaching evil begins to make a real impression on the mood, but then the temptation itself becomes evil. The thought of evil cannot be a temptation to the Sinless One; it can be a temptation only for someone in whom it encounters a disposition to sin, in whom it encounters passion or lust. Consequently, if every temptation begins with the thought of evil, then Christ either had lust in Himself and then His temptations could be real, or, not having lust, He could not experience temptations at all. In the early articles and first editions of his work, Ullman, imperceptibly for himself, assimilated to Christ the ability to be deceived by passion. One of his few critics, Usteri 159, brought to the clear consciousness of Ullman that, from his point of view, it is necessary to recognize in Christ ιδια επιθυμια, as a condition for the reality of temptations. Then Ullman, eliminating from himself this thought about passion in Christ, gradually and mechanically correcting his view, came to expressions that do not admit the reality of Christ’s temptations. And he himself realized this. He realized that the thought of evil for someone who has no disposition towards evil cannot be a temptation, that a theoretical choice between a false and a true messianic idea would not yet be a temptation; For this, it was necessary that the false, messianic idea had something truly seductive and captivating 160. Ullman's description of the process of temptation is not erroneous, nor is it new. We meet it in many ascetics and moralists. So for example, St. Ephraim the Syrian distinguished the following moments in an attack of temptation: application - a simple reminder of the subject of temptation, friendship - acceptance of a thought and, as it were, an occupation with it and a joyful conversation with it, with passion - as a result of friendship, a developed skill towards a thought, struggle, permission, initiative, captivity 161. We find similar things in Thomas, Kempis 162, Nilus of Sorus and others. But ascetics and moralists talk about “passionate thoughts” that disturb us against our will 163, they talk about the action of passion 164. Temptation by passion or lust is one type of temptation: limiting it to the entire area of ​​temptation and constitutes an error, which makes itself felt in applying the question of temptation to the Lord Jesus. – Forcibly bringing the entire area of ​​temptation under one type of seduction by evil, Ullman necessarily comes to such ideas about the nature of evil, by which the concept of sin is relegated from the area of ​​free-rational life to the area of ​​the senses and is transformed into the concept of material infection. He represents evil as some kind of objective contagious matter: this or that fact in itself can be evil; evil can approach a person and make an impression on his mood; acting on a person’s thought, it can be thought of as something external, and only after a long stay in the mind, at least more than one moment, can it and even must infect and “stain” the whole person; it produces temptation, protruding from some internal or external point of life and directly touching a person and others. Ullman attaches great importance to the fact that the temptation of Christ lasted only a moment. This circumstance is given decisive importance in the question of the sinlessness of the temptations of Jesus Christ by many other Western theologians, for whom the solution to this question rarely passes without the expressions “die Halfte eines Augenblicks”, “momentane Verdunkelung des Bewusstseins”, etc. All this points to the unsuitability of the established view of evil as a material infection, and of sin as an infection: all this cries out against view of the seduction of evil as the only criterion for the reality of temptation. 30. So lust - whether in the sense of sensual lust, or spiritual passions, including here those into which the noblest needs of human nature develop - cannot be considered the subjective basis of temptations when applied to Jesus Christ. Along with lust, another equally universal subjective cause of temptation is the weaknesses of our nature. If passion could not be the subjective basis for the temptations of Jesus Christ, then could not the infirmities of nature serve as such a basis? The latter is recognized by the English theologian Bruce and the German Hess and Frank. Just as it is certain that, according to the meaning of church teaching, lust could not be inherent in the human nature of Jesus Christ, just as decisively the word of God and the patristic teaching assimilate our natural weaknesses to Him. To what extent were these latter characteristic of Him? What kind of infirmities did He suffer? According to the clear and definite expression of church teaching by St. John of Damascus, the Lord Jesus took upon Himself natural and blameless infirmities, or passions, τά φυσικά και αδιάβλητα πάθη. "We confess, he writes, that Christ took on all the natural and immaculate passions of man. For He took on the whole man and everything that belongs to man, except sin. For this is not natural and not all in us by the Creator, but derivatively occurs in our free will as a result of the devil’s sowing and does not dominate us by force. Natural and immaculate passions are not in our power, but entered into human life due to conviction resulting from a crime, such as hunger, thirst, fatigue, labor, tears, decay, evasion of death, fear, death throes, from which sweat, drops of blood 165 and so on occur. The infirmities of nature, or natural passions, give rise to numerous and difficult temptations for us; the same temptations could arise from them for Jesus Christ. Natural infirmities, Bruce writes, are a sufficient basis for temptation. He who is capable of experiencing hunger and thirst, pleasure and pain, hope and fear, joy and sorrow, is by his very nature subject to temptation, because he may be in such circumstances when he must make a choice between an unjust act and between the refusal to satisfy some innocent desire or need 166. However, one indication of natural and immaculate weaknesses does not yet resolve the question of the nature of the temptations of Jesus Christ, their strength and similarity to ours. The fact is that infirmities, serving as a subjective condition for a person’s temptation and in this respect corresponding to lust, as a parallel phenomenon with it, do not yet determine the criterion for the reality of temptations and do not constitute a parallel for the seduction of evil or evil desire, which was set forth as a criterion in the above teachings. To put it differently, natural infirmities admit of different applications to the question of the temptations of Jesus Christ, in accordance with the fact that they serve as the basis for various temptations, at least apparently. The temptation of desires, or the seduction of evil, and the temptation of faith can be associated with natural weaknesses: one, because of poverty, is inclined to theft or murder, seduced by wealth, and the other, for the sake of the suffering of poverty, from which he cannot free himself due to aversion to all kinds of unclean means, loses faith in people and even in Providence. – This point forms a crossroads at which the above-mentioned theologians diverge: Bruce sees in weaknesses the basis for the temptation of desires, and Frank and Hess date the temptation of faith to them. The first holds the same criterion for the reality of temptations - seduction by evil 167, the second strives to indicate a different one. The same seduction by evil can be based either on lust or on natural weakness. Every lust is based on some natural need; under certain conditions, every weakness can lead to sin with a force almost equal to the tension of lust. One is drawn to theft by passion, and the other by the need of poverty. The only difference is that lust itself is sinful, while infirmities are sinless. - If so, then cannot natural infirmities justify sinless temptations, or temptations of the Sinless One, completely the same in the sense of attraction to evil as our temptations of lust? The question, apparently, is only in the strength of these and other temptations. This is the question Bruce poses. The fact that the temptations of Jesus Christ were sinless did not make them narrow in range and slight in degree in comparison with our temptations. To explain this, the English theologian puts forward the position that the same temptation can arise for different moral reasons, so that the absence of any special reason for temptation 168 in this case does not guarantee completely against temptation 169 . Both the coward and the brave may equally be tempted to retreat from battle: one due to the weakness of his spirit and low attachment to life, the other due to the involuntary sensitivity of nature or noble concern for his family. – One may fall into the temptation to take the life of a neighbor out of anger or self-interest, and for another it may be a temptation to sacrifice his own son out of excessive love for God and, through faith, to show the excess of this love. This could have been Abraham's temptation. – The temptation to choose the inappropriate one from the two upcoming paths of life can be determined by opposing motives, in one case, ambition, and in the other, fear of the suffering that awaits a person on the better path. Such was the temptation of Christ to choose the worldly path of messiahship. But not only, according to Bruce, the same kind of temptation can be caused by morally opposite reasons, and even a temptation arising from a holy source can be incomparably stronger than that which arises from sinful lust 170. Thus, it is incomparably easier for a person of low morality to commit any kind of deception in trade than for a person of strong moral convictions, although external circumstances would be equally constraining for both. Sinful inclinations, which make a person more susceptible to falling into temptation, do not increase the severity of the temptation, but rather decrease it. It is known that it is the good who are tempted, not the evil. Temptation presupposes a struggle with evil and arises from the difficulties encountered during this struggle. From this point of view, Christ is similar to Christians, with whom He can sympathize with their weaknesses in two respects: in opposing evil and in enduring great difficulties along the way of this struggle 171 . If natural infirmities can really, under certain external conditions, serve as the basis for sinless temptations, but similar to ours in volume and strength, then in Bruce’s assumption and explanations one must see a complete solution to the question of the temptations of Jesus Christ. But delving deeper into these explanations, it is easy to see that they are not only extremely vague in thought, but also do not achieve their goal. Thus, while claiming that one and the same temptation can arise from morally different reasons, he does not, however, clarify whether he is (1) talking about a desire regardless of the moral mood and even irrelevant in moral terms, or means (2) such cases when one is pushed by external circumstances onto that evil path towards which another has a sinful attraction, or finally, he means (3) that one has an evil desire may be generated by bad motives, while in another the same desire may arise from good motives. Retreat from battle is completely morally irrelevant and can be, depending on the motives, either a shameful flight or a heroic deed. In this case, the state and action of the brave man cannot parallel the “temptation” of the coward: the latter does not experience a temptation similar to the “temptation” of the coward. In a similar way, one falls under the “temptation” to run away from studying science out of laziness, while another sacrifices science for the sake of useful practical activity: the latter does not pass through the temptation to evil. On the contrary, it may be tempting for a brave man to start a battle. So, according to the meaning of these examples, we either do not see parallel temptations, or we encounter temptations that are completely opposite in content. In the example of two merchants, one is driven by need to commit a dishonest act, to which the other has an internal disposition, however, with the same external need. In this (2) case, we again have two states distinct from one another, of which one can be called temptation, the other cannot. In order for both merchants to experience the same state, it is necessary to assume a common sinful disposition. The state of a person who desires someone else's property out of greed can only be similar to the state of a poor person when in this latter sin, taking the occasion from the commandment: “Thou shalt not covet,” produces a desire for someone else’s property; otherwise, every circumstance that increases poverty will increase the suffering of poverty, and will not cause or intensify sinful desire 172. In applying such examples to the question of temptations, one must in no way lose sight of sinfulness, which in one person already manifests itself in the form of a certain passion, and in another it lurks as the possibility of the same sinful disposition, and becomes reality under external circumstances. Only this sinfulness, common to both, equates the state of one who has a sinful disposition in a certain dishonest act with the state of a person prompted to do the same by external circumstances. Otherwise, the temptation of one will not correspond to temptation, but only to the suffering of another. But can’t infirmity in connection with external need cause a sinful desire when there is aversion to it or to the corresponding act on the part of the person himself (and the moral revulsion from iniquity that Bruce attributes to his honest merchant?) No, it can’t. No matter how great the weakness, no matter how strong the need, it can give rise to a sinful desire only in a sinful heart. The aversion that a person may have towards a sinful attraction says nothing against this. or action. The depravity of our soul goes deeper than the area illuminated by consciousness, and into this area feelings and desires that are obviously sinful can float out from the depths of the heart, although the conscious conscience feels aversion to them. A seductive picture or demonic vision can cause such heart movements in an ascetic that he will shudder. However, the root of these movements is in his own heart. Likewise, need or weakness in itself only generates suffering, and not a sinful desire, which it can produce only in combination with a sinful heart. Natural attraction, therefore, may far from cover the tempting desire: just as the thirst for knowledge does not cover the desire to dishonestly acquire money to buy books. Likewise, in the temptations of Jesus Christ, the feeling of hunger did not cover the desire to miraculously turn stones into bread. – Of course, a different attitude towards sinful attraction is possible: in one, it does not meet any opposition either from moral convictions or from any calculations, it then takes possession of the heart and carries it away, like a calm river carries away a branch thrown into it; another meets the sinful attraction of his heart with a clear awareness of the difficulties in satisfying it and its inconsistency with the tasks that he has set for himself, or with a dull awareness of its illegality; finally, in the third, it encounters a living disgust for it, as for uncleanness, similar to what we have for reptiles. All these states in some respects differ from each other, and the power of sinful attraction is, indeed, better known in the struggle against it and especially in aversion to it; but the struggle with it out of the consciousness of its illegitimacy does not leave the realm of lust, since this consciousness comes as something extraneous to the attraction of the heart, and the struggle with it with an aversion to it constitutes another type of temptation, the meaning of which does not coincide with the direction of the sinful attraction. The sinful attractions of a depraved person and his struggle with them for some reason are another matter, and the dirty trick of the flesh, which was given to the Apostle Paul so that he would not be exalted with excessive gifts, is another matter. – Finally, in the example of murders - one out of passion and the other out of love for God, the position seems to be illustrated that the same desire for evil can be generated by both passion and good motives. Indeed, can’t good motives lead to evil desires? Couldn't a poor man steal other people's money in order to light a candle in front of an icon? This is possible, but in such cases the good quality of the motives is subject to strong doubt: these are good, from an objective point of view, motives, but in a bad heart. It is necessary to strictly distinguish this admixture from the objectively good motives of one’s own heartfelt impurity. Therefore, these cases belong to the field of casuistry and help little in resolving the issue of the essential content of temptations. – However, it is possible to assume the unconditional goodness of the motive or even the direct command of God, but in this case the motive has nothing to do with an evil desire and even rather reconciles itself with the absence of an evil desire, suggesting a different kind of struggle. This struggle between the command of God and the aversion to what is commanded, or at least the natural opposition to what is required, is a temptation to faith. Such was the temptation of Abraham, according to the Bible: at a time when he was especially disposed to believe in the love of God (cf: after these incidents, Gen. XXII, 1), God, tempting Abraham, commanded him to offer his beloved son as a burnt offering. This command of God, meeting in Abraham not only with a natural aversion to murder, but also with a special love for his only son, was a temptation for Abraham's faith in God's love for him 173. So, natural infirmities cannot serve as a subjective basis for the same kind of temptations to desire evil as our temptations to lust, but sinless ones. In the area of ​​seduction by evil, which presupposes a sinful disposition, lust has the advantage of strength over the attraction of natural weakness or need; If we measure the strength and even the volume of temptation by the strength and variety of sinful inclinations, then natural weaknesses, in any connection with external circumstances, cannot give an idea of ​​​​the temptations of lust: evil is attractive and seductive for passion, and not for natural need or weakness. In order for the latter to pass into the seduction of evil, it must be combined with a sinful heart, a sinful disposition must be added to it. But when applied to Jesus Christ, we can only talk about such temptations by weakness, which presuppose an unconditional aversion to evil - about temptations for faith 174. Thus we move on to the views of Hess and Frank. 31. Pointing out in weaknesses the subjective condition of the temptations of Jesus Christ and the basis for their qualitative and quantitative similarity to our temptations 175, Hess associates weaknesses not with temptations in the sense of being seduced by evil, but with temptations of faith. He not only indignantly rejects Irving's teaching that the human nature of Jesus Christ was characterized by lust, the stimulation of which served as a temptation for Him, and the opinion of Godet, according to which the temptations of Christ were based on the instinctive attractions of natural life, but he eliminates the very principle of the seduction of evil as applied to the temptations of Jesus Christ as the only criterion for the validity of temptations. On the contrary, he proceeds from the consideration that even among people there are those who have a natural aversion to evil, and all the more so in Christ there could not only be no lust, but no attraction to evil, that evil, even from the outside, could not act on Him by deception 176 . In his opinion, the tempting meaning of the weaknesses of Christ’s human nature was received in connection with the freedom of His love for God and man and with the feat of His faith 177: these were temptations of faith. If Christ was not tempted by sinful desires, but His temptations coincided with the feat of His faith, then, obviously, the strength of His temptations was determined not by sinful desires, but by suffering and limitation. Hess defines the reality of the temptations of Jesus Christ in this way. With all their diversity, he says, they differed from ours in that Christ was not deceived by evil, but was tempted only in that in which he suffered (Heb. II, 18). The path of temptations coincided for Christ with the feat of self-abasement and self-restraint: renunciation of freedom, glory, property, enduring shame, bodily suffering and death - such was the area of ​​His temptations. In accordance with this, Christ’s victory over temptations consisted in the fact that suffering did not call Him to words similar to the words of Jeremiah (Jer. XV:18, XX:14) 178. Likewise, Frank, attributing the temptations of Jesus Christ not to lust, but to the weaknesses common to sinful humanity, points out their strength in suffering. In human struggle, in prayer and supplication to the Father, and also in the way He was heard and delivered from the fear of death that approached Him (Heb. V, 7), Jesus overcame temptation in suffering and suffering in temptation, submitting in every possible way to the will of the Father, learning from suffering obedience (Leidensgehorsam) 179. Indeed, aversion to evil must be recognized as one of the most characteristic features of the temptations of the Lord Jesus, requiring a corresponding principle of reality and strength of temptations. The Lord, according to St. John of Damascus, by nature had an aversion to evil - φυσικώς ειχεν τήν προς το κακόν άλλοτρίωσιν 180. Therefore He could not be subject to the temptation of desires: He was accessible only to the temptations of faith. In accordance with this criterion of the reality of temptations, which could have the same application both to the temptations of Jesus Christ and to our temptations, the limitation of the will must be recognized. 32. The likening of Christ to people in temptation in all respects has the meaning that Christ experienced 181 the power of human sin and therefore can sympathize with us in our weaknesses. Therefore, when studying the entire area of ​​human temptations, 182 the main task should be to indicate what the power of sin is based on and what, in particular, it has to do with our weaknesses. Sin affects a person with moral evil and bodily suffering. Through moral evil, sin seduces a person (έξηπάτησέ με Rom. VII, 11), captivates him with its sweetness: he, taking the occasion from the commandment, produces in a person every sinful desire or lust (πάσαν έπιθυμίαν VII, 8). This is how sin acts on a person because it lives in him (η οικουσα εν εμοι αμαρτία VII, 17), in his disordered nature (σαρξ) and feeds in him an unconscious love for moral evil. For a sinful person, moral evil - the very moral impurity - constitutes the sweetness that he desires: he lusts for evil - επιθυμητής κακών 1 Cor. X, 6 Wed. 2 Pet. II, 14. Having itself been born by sin (Rom. VII, 8), lust, having conceived, again gives birth to sin (ή επιθυμία συλλαβουσα τίκτει άμαρτίαν James 1:15), through which a person personally participates in hereditary sinfulness. – In this effect of sin on a person, it is necessary to distinguish two sides: internal - the action of a person’s own lust 183, which thirsts for its own satisfaction, goes for its object, and external - the influence on a person of external objects of lust that excite it. The effect of sin on a person, as temptation through one’s own lust, is described by St. Jacob: When tempted, no one should say: God is tempting me; because God is not tempted by evil and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But everyone is tempted, being carried away and deceived by his own lust (James I, 13.14). Jesus Christ Himself points to the external side of the same action of sin in the parable of the sower, according to which what was sown among thorns signifies the one who hears the word, but the care of this age and the deceitfulness of riches πλουτου) drowns the word and it becomes fruitless (Matt. XIII, 22; Luke VIII, 14). In any case, temptation on both sides manifests itself in the form of seduction (απάτη) by sin (απάτη τής αμαρτίας Heb. III, 13) or evil (αί επιθυμίαι τής άπατης Eph. IV, 22). The Apostle Paul calls temptation in this form actually human temptation (πειρασμός ανθρώπινος 1 Cor. X, 18) 184. Satan can act on a person through deception (1 Cor. VII, 5), but God does not tempt a person with evil or desires (James I, 13). This temptation should be called human because it has its entire basis in man himself, in his sinfulness. And external objects act on a person by seduction only because they meet passions in him. As a completely human thing, seduction is a temptation from sin and to sin; therefore it is in no way reconciled with sinlessness. 33. Seduction is one type of temptation. Another type of temptation is an attack, or a trial of sorrows (δοκιμή θλίφεως 2 Cor. VIII. 2), or the temptation of suffering (Matt. XIII. 21). – Any suffering, like limitation, humiliation, can be perceived either by feeling or by will. By feeling, suffering is felt as pain; for the will it exists as a limitation. The feeling responds to any suffering with physical necessity; For the will, suffering is possible with the highest development of human consciousness and predominantly religious, it is perceived by the will from the moment when it meets as a limitation with the highest aspirations of the spirit, when it is accepted by a person with a clear consciousness of his highest religious tasks, his divine filial dignity 185. By will, a person experiences suffering (and the power of sin based on suffering) more strongly than by feeling. Perceived by feeling, suffering causes a natural disturbance of nature and an unconscious murmur; as existing for the will, it serves as a temptation to faith. Suffering, or sorrow, gives rise to temptations for a person’s faith in the Heavenly Father and in his sonship with God: sorrow can shake this faith. Ap. Paul knew about this temptation to faith. When the Thessalonians suffered tribulations, he, fearing for their faith, although he predicted them in advance about suffering, sent Timothy to them... to confirm them and console them in the faith, so that no one would waver in tribulations... . He sent to find out about their faith, so that the tempter would not tempt them and the work of the apostle with them would not become in vain (1 Thess. III, 3-5). Jesus Christ himself pointed out in the parable of the sower the temptation from suffering as one of the ways in which sin takes possession of a person: what is sown, according to the meaning of the parable, on rocky places means one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, but does not have a root in himself and is fickle: when tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he is immediately tempted ( σκανδαλιζενται, Matt. XIII, 2, 21), - means those who believe for a time, but during temptation fall away (Luke VIII, 13). Christ pointed out to his disciples the times when they would be handed over to torment and when many would be offended (Matthew XXIV:9). In particular, it was revealed to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna through John the Theologian: do not be afraid of anything that you will have to endure. Behold, the devil will cast you from among you into prison to tempt you, and you will have tribulation... (Apoc. II, 10). What kind of sorrows and suffering can serve as a temptation for a person? These are, first of all, the suffering that the world deliberately causes to people not of this world, and those trials that are sent to people from God. The world loves its own and on those who live according to its reason, it acts with an easy and pleasant seduction: it serves their passions, indulges their lusts and, completely dragging them into the abyss of destruction, does not cease to flatter their pride. But the world does not like everything that is not its own and even hates, persecutes and persecutes. Christ Himself testified to the hatred of the world towards Him and His disciples. – The tests sent to people from God consist either in commandments that limit man, as the commandment was given to the first people, or in sacrifices that are required of man, as, for example, Abraham was tempted, or in suffering that befalls man, as for example. in Job's temptations. And the suffering inflicted on the righteous by the world, constituting a natural consequence of worldly hatred of everything holy, is at the same time determined by the will of God - for all who love Him. This is pleasing to God, according to the Apostle Peter, if someone, thinking about God, endures sorrows, suffering unjustly (1 Peter II, 19), etc. This is how they differ, according to St. Isaac the Syrian, sons of God from the rest, that they live in sorrows, and the world is proud of luxury and peace. For God did not wish that His beloved should rest while they were in the body, but rather He would that while they were in the world, they should remain in sorrow, in hardship, in labor, in poverty, in nakedness, in loneliness, need, illness, humiliation, in insults, in a weary body, 186 etc. 34. The seduction of evil and the trial of sorrows, or temptation from suffering, constitute two types of temptations, the differences of which should never be overlooked. St. speaks about these two types of temptations. Afanasy: According to him, some temptations concern the soul, others the body, and others surrounding the body. Temptations affecting the soul are called unclean thoughts, which give rise to sins and false teachings. Temptations related to the body are the cause of blows, torment, persecution, imprisonment and violent death. Temptations surrounding the body include damage to money and property, loss of children, loss of a wife 187 . St. Isaac the Syrian not only speaks about these two types of temptations, but, comparing them, shows that the temptations of sorrows constitute the highest type of temptations. While a person, in the temptation of desires, is carried away and deceived by his own lust, and the necessity of these temptations for him coincides with the inevitability of hereditary sin, temptations of another kind are necessary in the sense of duty, necessary by the will of God for human perfection. Do not refuse, he writes, from sorrows, because through them you enter into the knowledge of the truth; and do not be afraid of temptations, because through them you gain what is worthy. Pray not to fall into spiritual temptations, but prepare for bodily temptations with all your strength. For outside of them you cannot approach God; because divine peace is prepared among them. He who runs from temptations runs from virtue. I mean the temptation not of desires, but of sorrows 188. The positive meaning of temptation from suffering is based on the properties of human faith. Faith, according to the predominantly revealed teaching about it by the Apostle Paul, is inextricably linked in a person with humility; with awareness of his own weakness, and bold (μετά · παρρησίας) trust in God’s help. On this basis, the word of God praises the weaknesses of human nature, which the Apostle Paul boasted about (2 Cor. XII: 9), who taught that the power of God is made perfect in weakness (ibid.). All trials sent from God to man have precisely this goal—to evoke in a person an awareness of his own weakness and a bold hope in God’s help. The Apostle James writes, “Accept it with great joy, my brethren, when you fall into various temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, and patience must have its perfect effect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing (James I: 2-4). Rejoice, writes the Apostle Peter, having now been grieved a little by various temptations, so that your tested faith may be more precious than gold for the glory of Jesus Christ (1 Peter I, 6.7), cf. Rom. V, 3–5 189 . 35. Seduction and temptation constitute two types of actions of sin 190 on a person through evil and through suffering: through evil on sinners and through suffering on the righteous 191. Seduction by sinful sweetness is the most common type of temptation of a sinful person. But it does not yet express the full power of the action of sin through evil. This power is revealed more fully in the fight against evil, according to the law: action is equal to reaction. Seduction presupposes the will's sympathy with evil. The more fully seduction operates, the more complete is this sympathy, the less opposition, the less power evil manifests. On the contrary, the stronger the opposition, the more the power of evil manifests itself, the stronger the temptation. It is known that people devoted to passions and lusts experience almost no temptations as struggles, and sin, figuratively speaking, needs too little effort to master them; The severity of temptations, or suffering in temptations, is experienced rather by the righteous, that is, those who generally resist lusts and passions and, even more so, have an aversion to them. The fight against evil has different types: it can be either resistance to lust and passions, according to some calculations, according to the requirements of the moral law, or grief from passions with a real aversion to them. Seduction itself already contains struggle. But this struggle, according to the definition of St. Ephraim the Syrian, there is resistance of thought, tending either to the destruction of passion in thought, or to consent to a passionate thought, as the apostle says: the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit is contrary to the flesh; they oppose each other (Gal. V, 17) 192. This is a struggle in the field of human nature itself, a struggle between its various natural aspirations. Although the will takes part in it, it still acts as a natural principle, and not as a personally rational principle, controlling itself with self-consciousness, rising above nature and objectifying it. When fighting in the field of seduction, the will itself splits, partly deigning to desire, partly resisting it. And during this struggle there is sympathy for evil. This is a partial struggle. The complete struggle opens with the replacement of seduction by aversion to passions and lusts, as objectively given, for the conscious will of a person. Then evil affects a person with sorrows: these are sorrows from passions, in ascetic expression. Already human language in the very naming of passion indicates suffering. Passion always contains two sides - attraction and suffering. The latter, although it would not be recognized when passion is satisfied, always constitutes the negative basis of passion: unsatisfied passion is suffering. Fair enough, the saying: il n'est de vrais plaisirs, qúavec de vrais besoins. Therefore, in any struggle with lust, it manifests itself as suffering. While you surrender to lust, it acts as a pleasant seduction, but as soon as you resist it, it presses on the will with suffering. - Moreover, with the highest development of moral and religious consciousness, when a person objectifies his nature, opposing it to himself as an objectively given condition of his self-activity, every passion - the very attraction of passion - is completely suffering for him. So the Apostle Paul (2 Cor. XIII, 7), so that he would not become proud of his extraordinary gifts, was given a thorn in the flesh, the angel of Satan, to oppress him so that he would not become proud 193. The same apostle, contemplating in himself the confrontation between the flesh and the spirit common to every person, finding pleasure in the law of God according to the inner man, but seeing a different law in his members, exclaimed under the burden of the evil created for man by sin: poor man that I am! who will deliver me from this body of death (Rom. VII, 22–24)? The distinctive feature of this suffering is that it is perceived not so much by feeling as by free will, that it exists as a limitation of the will - and in this very capacity it is called in the language of ascetic writing grief from passions. The difference between this grief and the struggle with passion when seduced by it can be illustrated by an example. Anyone preparing to commit murder under the influence of passion may hesitate for a long time either from remorse, or from fear of punishment, or from natural sensitivity: this is a fight against seduction. The very reproaches of conscience indicate that a person is carried away by passion, which, due to the indicated obstacles, may weaken or be delayed, but does not change the nature of the seduction. A different thing is experienced by a person who sincerely loves his neighbor, wholly imbued with ideal altruistic aspirations, when he suddenly notices in himself an unexpected gloating at the sight of the misfortunes of another, which arises in him completely against his will! He will tremble before his nature, as if he had touched some reptile. Of course, bearing in mind this difference between sympathy for passion and aversion to it, the teacher. Mark the ascetic writes: arbitrary sinful thoughts will follow joy; sinful thoughts that arise against the intention will be followed by sadness 194. This sadness from passions gives a truer understanding of the power of evil over man. The power of evil over a person is especially recognized when striving for good out of love for him, when a person not only outwardly follows, but also enjoys the law of God, when he strives not only for good deeds, but also for inner purity. With such love for good, the power of evil, like grief from involuntary passion, is comprehended in all its depth. – And in general, passion brings sorrow to a person every time the fight against evil goes beyond the limits of seduction. In addition to the direct struggle with passion, as with seduction (in addition to resisting it), we also have to struggle with it in its various clashes with good aspirations, when it has the meaning of a negative (limiting) force. Thus, we recognize greed not only as a desire to acquire greater and greater wealth, but also as our weakness, which prevents us from helping our neighbor in the way we would like out of conscious love for him and beyond. In all these combinations, sorrows from passions also serve as a temptation for a person, but this is a temptation of faith that is different from seduction. The difference is that seduction leads a person to revel in evil as if it were sweetness; and in grief from passions, inclinations are a limitation for a person’s free will and cause in him a desire to transcend this limitation, either by satisfying passions in a way that would reflect the person’s self-will, otherwise by satisfying a natural need by illegal means, or by denying those natural needs to which passions are associated 195 . Hence Epicureanism with its prescriptions for the best use of the passions and Stoicism with its requirement to suppress the legitimate needs of nature; hence the sectarians in Christianity, either denying the natural law in the name of spiritual freedom, or disfiguring nature itself in order to limit its needs, hence, in our time, the opposing teachings of Nietzsche and Tolstoy 196 . – Sorrows from the passions are a temptation for faith because, when they overcome, sorrows from the passions first of all shake faith, and the temptation from them is overcome by faith in the possibility of the manifestation of divine dignity in all limitations. Temptations by sorrows from passions, as is clear, are not a common occurrence in our everyday life, because they imply aversion to moral impurity. But ascetic writing recognizes these temptations as a state quite characteristic of ascetics. In the 46th word of St. Isaac the Syrian “about true knowledge, about temptations,” etc., the variability of human nature, well known to ascetics, is noted: “in every rational nature there are changes without number, with every person changes occur hourly - and with those standing at the level of purity, like cooling with air, a fall always occurs, while there is no negligence or self-indulgence in them; on the contrary, even when They observe their rank, but falls happen to them, contrary to the intention of their own will.” What state is caused in an ascetic by the appearance of thoughts contrary to the intention of the will and, in general, “falls”? A state of struggle in which faith in God's Providence is tempted by the involuntary fall. Such a state can be resolved by despair in the possibility of moral perfection - despair, which, together with the desire for perfect dispassion, constitutes two extremes, while true salvation is accomplished by humble hope in God's help, faith, together with a humble consciousness of the measure of human nature. In view of this struggle, all ascetics are given the appropriate advice: "if chaste and modest thoughts are followed by an impulse, we will not grieve and despair, we will also not boast during the repose of grace, but during the time of joy we will begin to expect sorrow. The mind should accept painful attacks with joy, as natural and characteristic of us. Let us not give in to despair, like a person who expects something, even something perfect, for a feat and unchangeable peace, and at the same time does not allow exploits, and sorrows, and for the movement of anything contrary to occur in him, which the Lord our God did not find appropriate to give to this nature in this world” 197 etc. In ascetic writing we encounter a whole series of instructions about the fight against evil through humility and trust in God’s help, and not resistance to passions, as is the case in the fight against seduction; we encounter discussions about the great importance for a person of grief from passions, about a person’s impatience and ignorance of his limits as the reason for his falls. “When exposed to adversity, writes St. Abba, Dorotheus, we sin solely because of our impatience, because we do not want to endure less than a small sorrow, we do not want to suffer anything against our will... For this reason, adversity overthrows us and the more we try to get rid of them, the more they entangle us... Adversity then brings great benefit when it is endured patiently, without embarrassment. - If passion also disturbs us, then we should not be embarrassed below this... We do not succeed for the reason that we do not know our measure, we do not have patience in the affairs we begin, but we want to easily acquire virtue 198, etc. The nature of the fight against evil, when seduction is replaced by aversion to moral impurity, completely changes. In seduction, struggle is resistance to passions; with disgust, it arises in connection with objective natural attractions. The fight against seduction is aimed at moral perfection, moral action; the fight against sorrows from passions gives a positive result to humility and faith - a religious matter. To see all this difference, it is enough to read the following words of St. Isaac the Syrian. "Humility and without deeds makes many sins forgivable. On the contrary, without humility, deeds are useless, they even prepare a lot of bad things for us. Like salt is for any food, humility is for every virtue; it can break the strength of many sins. If we acquire it, it will make us sons of God, and without good deeds will present us to God; because without humility, all our deeds, all virtues and everything else are in vain." doing." Therefore, “give thanks, and in silence confess to God that you have received such a weak nature and capable of evasion... Keep in mind the poverty of your nature and the speed with which changes will follow in you 199, etc. It is easy to see from here that sorrows from passions have the same meaning for a person as temptation from external suffering: both serve as a test of faith. That is why the meanings of temptation and grief from the passions in patristic and ascetic writing are usually spoken of inseparably and in the same way. "Out of love,” writes St. Isaac the Syrian, which the saints showed towards God because they suffer for His name, “the heart of the saints acquires boldness to look at God with an unveiled face and ask Him with hope. Great is the power of bold prayer. Therefore, God allows His saints to be tempted by all sorrows, because through temptation they acquire wisdom.” - For only then (they recognize the weakness of nature and the help of Divine power) when God, having first withheld His power from assisting them, brings them into awareness of the weakness of nature, the difficulty of temptations, the cunning of the enemy, and how they are endowed with nature, and how they were protected by Divine power, how much God’s power elevated them, and how weak they are in the fight against any passion, if this power moves away from them, so that they acquire humility from all this, draw closer to God, begin to expect His help and remain in prayer. And where would they have taken all this if they had not acquired experience about many bad things, having fallen into this bad thing by God’s permission, as the Apostle says: so that I would not be exalted by the extraordinaryness of revelations, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, the angel of Satan, to depress me so that I would not become exalted (2 Cor. XII, 7)? But in temptations, repeatedly experiencing God’s help, a person acquires firm faith” 200. Due to this meaning, sorrow from passions, just like suffering from the world, is necessary for a person according to the divine will. The very passions and lusts are generated by sin, but for them to be sorrows for a person, this is the will of God. As identical in meaning with temptation from suffering, sorrows from passions are embraced with it in the same concept of temptations of faith, in other words, religious temptations. 36. In the temptations of faith by sorrows from passions, the latter, with the exception of their moral impurity, manifest themselves from the (involuntary) side in which they are φυσικά και αδιάβλητα πάθη. - To put it differently, these natural and immaculate infirmities, which also constitute a consequence of sin, but only completely objective for the will, that is, involuntary and existing only in the quality of limitation and suffering, so that they can be not only in sinful flesh, but also in the likeness of sinful flesh - and these infirmities can be quite the same temptations for faith. (Even on the basis of the God-established limitations of man, as it is given in creation itself or determined directly by the will of God in one case or another - for example, the commandment given to the first people - the same temptations of faith can arise 201. In fact, besides the fact that natural infirmities, firstly, consist in a genetic relation to passions, since every natural need can degenerate into a passion and every passion has a natural need at its core; in addition to the fact that, secondly, they form a subjective basis for external suffering and restrictions, since the latter is accessible only to those who are subject to natural infirmities - in addition to all this, natural and immaculate infirmities themselves serve as a limitation of the will and can give rise to suffering for faith. Attractions that give rise to sorrows from passions can equally arise from both vicious and natural passions. A person’s state of mind does not change depending on whether his philanthropic feeling is delayed by hereditary greed, an ignoble attachment to earthly life with its joys and pleasures, or by natural impotence, natural sensitivity and even temporary personal hunger. The highest aspirations of the human spirit meet in natural weaknesses and natural limitations the same obstacle as in vicious passions, despite the appendage of moral impurity that is exclusive to the latter, which does not strengthen this obstacle, but only gives it a certain coloring. Weakness of health can no less hinder charity than passionate affection in the family. The love of enlightenment is as often suppressed by poverty as by the inclination to profitable pursuits. Fear of torment and death itself make the path of a good life no less difficult than ambition. And for faith in the divinely filial dignity of one's neighbor, given the general sinfulness of the world, natural infirmities serve as the most powerful temptation. Christ himself calls faith in the sonship of the hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick (Matt. Ch. XXV), etc., a particularly difficult feat, which will form the basis for the division of people at the future judgment into sheep and goats. In general, in the field of religious temptations, the action of natural infirmities can be considered completely parallel to the action of vicious passions. True, usually natural passions in this respect are absorbed by vicious ones, just as pure silver is hidden in ore; but as soon as a person is freed from the admixture of moral impurity with natural weaknesses, he is brought to the consciousness of natural limitations by a wave of temptations of faith. So, according to the meaning of these temptations, as they manifest themselves in universal human history, as they determine the essential content of pagan religions, which is expressed either in the hope of destruction by the miraculous intervention of divine power of the very limitations of man, or in the violent suppression of the natural needs of human nature, the religious consciousness of man, through the shell of subjective impurity, reaches natural limitations, or the natural infirmities of nature. Thus, the religious consciousness of an individual person, if it rises in him in its intensity, above the general level of everyday interests, must go through the temptation of the natural limitations of nature. Can be considered a general rule. that the temptations of faith by the natural weaknesses of nature, inevitable for every person, at least in the form of suffering from vicious passions, at least to one degree or another and in strength, constitute in their undisguised purity the lot of God’s chosen ones. But the same in meaning, are the temptations that arise due to the attractions of sinful passions and the temptations that arise due to the attractions of natural and immaculate passions the same in strength? If we only understand the temptation of desires, then of course the temptation of sinful passions should be recognized as stronger than the temptation of natural attractions: the attraction of sinful passions is stronger than natural attraction. But in the temptations of faith, the strength of the temptation is not directly determined by the strength of the attraction about which it arises, but is created by the contradiction between a given limitation and the ideal that is presented to a person, or the dignity in which he recognizes himself. In the temptation of the first people, according to the biblical narrative, it is not the greed for the apple that constitutes the strength of temptation, but the (imaginary) contradiction that the tempter put in place between the love of God and the limitations He established (man’s commandment). But just as distance is determined not by one point, but by two, and as one approaches, it may not decrease as the other moves away; Likewise, the strength of the contradiction in question is determined not only by the degree of attraction - passionate or natural, but also by the character or height of the ideal. Therefore, even with a theoretical comparison, the strength of both temptations can be equal, but in reality the temptation of faith from natural passions, as implying increased intensity of religious consciousness or the high dignity of the tempted one, should even have an advantage in strength over the temptation of faith from vicious passions. 37. Thus, temptation has several types: seduction by evil, temptation from suffering, sorrow from vicious passions and sorrow from natural infirmities. Seduction is actually the temptation of a sinful person, which has its entire basis in sinfulness itself. The temptation from suffering is a temptation that is completely external (for the tempted one) in origin. Seduction and sorrows from the passions have this in common, that they equally relate to the sphere of action of moral evil on a person, but they differ from each other in the person’s attitude to this evil - infatuation in the first case and aversion in the second, - in the nature of the struggle - temptation by desire and temptation of faith - and by force, since the power of sin is manifested in sorrows from passions more fully than in seduction. Sorrows from infirmities and temptation from suffering are generalized in one concept of sinless temptations of faith, but differ from each other in that temptation is caused by suffering, from which a person turns away, while sorrows from infirmities arise due to natural inclinations that require their satisfaction. Sorrows from passions not only fit together with temptation and temptation from infirmities under the general concept of temptations of faith, but more often coincide with sorrows from infirmities, or natural passions, in that both arise due to inclinations; however, these two types of temptation differ from one another in that the attractions in one case are sinless, in the other they are vicious. As for the strength of these two types of temptations, theoretically they should be recognized as equal, but in fact, preference should be given to sorrows from immaculate passions. – Sorrows from natural passions have in common with seduction the fact that in them (as well as in sorrows from vicious passions) sin acts through attraction, but they differ from seduction, as from temptation by desire (in which the strength of temptation coincides with the strength of attraction), in that they (as well as sorrows from vicious passions) give rise to temptation for faith, and in that they (as well as sorrows from vicious passions) passions) give a more real experimental knowledge of the power of human sin, as it manifests itself through the attractions of nature; meanwhile, in contrast to both seduction and sorrows from vicious passions, sorrows from infirmities are sinless in origin 202. – How sorrows from infirmities give sinless, but real, experimental knowledge of the power of the action of sin on a person through attraction and even more real knowledge than that which is given by seduction; Likewise, temptation gives a sinless, but real, experimental knowledge of the power of the action of sin on a person through suffering 203. 38. If the Lord Jesus Christ had to become like us in temptations in everything (πεπειρασμενον κατα παντα καθ ’ όμοίοτητα) in order to experience experimentally the power of human sin, in order to be the author and perfecter of faith ( αρχηγός καί τελείωτής τής πίστεως Heb. XII, 2), in order to learn obedience through suffering (V, 8), in order to be a merciful and faithful high priest (II, 17), who could sympathize with us in our weaknesses ( δυνάμενος συμπαθήοαι ταΐς άσθενείαις ημών IV, 15); then, of course, His temptations were temptations of faith, or - which is also - a feat of obedience, and not deception. It is the temptations of faith that provide the deepest knowledge of the power of human sin: sorrow from passions - about the action of sin through natural attractions and temptation - through external suffering; further, these temptations of faith constitute the highest type of temptations necessary for a person not in the sense of the hereditary inevitability of evil, but in the sense of duty, according to the very concept of the essence of a person’s religious vocation, as his voluntary obedience to God, according to the very meaning of his faith 204. Christ, being like us in this respect in everything, was subject to temptations of faith in both forms: temptation from natural inclinations and temptation from external suffering. So, in the desert, the tempter approached Him after He was hungry, and through the Apostle Peter, who tried, due to the weakness of his faith, to turn Him away from suffering, Satan acted on Him with temptation (σκάνδαλον si έμοΰ Matt. XVI, 23). – So, we return to the usual division of the temptations of Jesus Christ into two types. For example, Ullman distinguishes in His individual temptations, firstly, those temptations when the tempter acted on Him with seduction in order to induce Him to evil, and, secondly, those when the tempter sought through fear to deviate Him from the path consistent with the divine will - at the same time, as a type of the first type of temptation, he points to the struggle in the desert, and as the most difficult of the latter - the Gethsemane struggle 205 . But it is easy to see the difference between this usual division and the one that is established among us. In our opinion, based on the testimony of the word of God and on the patristic teaching, those temptations of Christ that related to the attraction of nature acted on Him not through seduction, but through sorrows, and those temptations that arose from external suffering did not direct Him to evil, but were a feat of obedience, a temptation. Both are embraced in the same concept of temptations of faith. This difference in views on the temptations of Christ must be considered significant. But, like ours, the temptations of Christ were sinless. This limits the area of ​​temptations of faith as they apply to Christ. As a sinless one, the Lord Jesus Christ could be tempted by sorrows only from natural and immaculate passions (πάθη) 206, or infirmities; He was not accessible to vicious passions, the action of lust. He was tempted by sorrows from natural infirmities and temptation from external sufferings, but no more. 39. That the temptations of Jesus Christ so defined were sinless in origin is obvious: natural weaknesses and external sufferings, limitations by nature and humiliation in life, are just as consistent with the absolute sinlessness of man as they are undoubtedly and even strongly assimilated to Christ in the word of God and patristic writing. But was their inner reality similar to the power of human temptations? The Lord Jesus Christ was subject to those temptations, the strength of which is determined by the limitations of the will and the sufferings of faith and therefore depends not on the degree of attraction about which temptations arise, and not on the degree of external suffering, visible torment, but on the severity of the contradiction between this limitation and a person’s own dignity. The severity of this contradiction is created by the distance from the given limitations of nature and the given humiliation of life to the height of the ideal or dignity of man. In each descendant of Adam, this distance extends not so much into the height of the ideal, but into the depths of fall and moral impurity. In Christ Jesus, on the contrary, the strength of temptations was determined by the height of His divine dignity. A person with a poorly developed religious consciousness easily puts up with the most disgusting movements of his unclean heart. On the contrary, a holy person notices with excruciating pain the weakest manifestations of sin in his nature. Likewise, the strength of external suffering and humiliation for one is measured by the degree of physical pain, for another, the degree of moral humiliation, the degree of anger and disbelief by which the humiliation is caused. Under certain conditions, even natural infirmities, even anger and disbelief in themselves in inner dignity can constitute the strongest suffering for faith and a limitation for the will, and can give rise to a contradiction for religious consciousness. The proper area of ​​suffering for this contradiction is the religious life of man, his relationship to the Almighty, as a relationship to the Creator of creation, created in His image, and to people, as sons of God. Mostly these sufferings are the lot of the messengers and chosen ones of God. And the temptations of Jesus Christ must be considered as temptations of the Son of God and the Savior of the world. Outside of this connection of the temptations of Christ with His divine dignity and His saving ministry, their power, as well as their meaning, will remain incomprehensible. The words of the tempter: if You, the Son of God, serve as the main key to understanding the power and nature of the temptations of Christ. 40. Considering the temptations of Jesus Christ as temptations of faith, it is necessary to answer one question that is very important for this view. Temptations by seduction are fully explained, from the point of view of their origin, by the presence of lust. But the situation is different with the temptations of faith. Of course, the reality of natural weaknesses and external suffering coincides with the reality of the limitations of the will and suffering of faith, and the word of God testifies as much to the first reality in relation to Jesus Christ as to the second, when it depicts His redemptive ministry as a matter of self-abasement, renunciation of human will in the name of the divine, as a feat of divine fidelity perfected in suffering (Heb. III: 5-6, V: 7, 9, VIIi etc.); but the reality of the temptations of faith is not yet explained either by the presence of natural infirmities and external sufferings, or, in other words, by the presence of limitations or self-limitation of the will and sufferings of faith. Of course, the temptations of faith for their reality do not imply an inclination towards moral evil, but only disbelief in the divine dignity of man for the sake of his weaknesses and suffering and the desire to rise above the natural limitations of man; Of course, Jesus Christ was not even tempted by hunger to commit any shameful act, for example. theft and the like, but to satisfy a natural need in a miraculous way; but despite all this, the reality of His temptations is not yet explained by the presence of the natural weaknesses of His human nature, the suffering and humiliation of His public ministry. How can the limitation of the will and the suffering of faith turn into a temptation to violate God-established limitations? In a sinful person, this temptation is accomplished by the power of sin living in him; in Christ Jesus, the mystery of this temptation cannot be explained without the participation of an external tempting force. Therefore, the Gospel story about the tempter who approached Christ in the desert has a deep meaning. The reality of the temptations of Jesus Christ, in addition to weaknesses and suffering as a subjective basis, presupposes an external culprit. – However, the action of the tempter in the desert cannot be imagined abstractly from the conditions of Christ’s redemptive service to man, and in this regard, His temptations in the desert through the personal presence of the devil are not incomparable with temptations from people in the time of public service following the feat in the desert. And in the desert the devil came to Christ not in his, so to speak, existence independent of the world, but as the prince of this world (ο του κόσμου τούτου αρχων) and God. God of this age (ο Θεος του αιωνος τούτου), to whom is devoted; power over all the kingdoms of the world, as a representative of worldly unbelief and its malice towards everything holy, but destroyed. Generally speaking, the objective basis for the temptations of Jesus Christ was unbelief in Him and anger towards Him on the part of the world that He came to save. The great mystery of the condescension of Jesus Christ to become like people in temptation was that He took upon Himself the power of human sin and bore the hatred and unbelief of the world. In this saving significance of the temptations of Jesus Christ is given the final explanation of their inner reality, their greatest power. In the human nature of Jesus Christ, as it was given in His birth from the Holy Virgin, there was no complete basis for the inner reality of His temptations; they must be considered in connection with His redemptive ministry. How is it possible to transfer the weight of unbelief from one person to another - from all people to the one Jesus Christ? Without going into a detailed explanation of this issue, as it is unnecessary in this place, it should, however, in connection with the previous discussions, point out that suffering serves as a temptation not only for the Sufferer’s faith in his sonship with God, but also for the faith of other people in His sonship with God. It is difficult for us to see and recognize the divine dignity under the shell of natural weaknesses and external humiliation. So for people it was a great temptation to humiliate Jesus Christ (το σκανδαλον του σταυρού). People hated the Son of God, who appeared in the humiliated form of a suffering man, and did not believe in Him. Jesus Christ, in the mystery of love, took upon Himself this hatred and this unbelief and, in order to defeat them by the power of faith, which saves man, He endured real temptations from them. In the beautiful words of St. Maxim, the temptations of Jesus Christ from the devil were directed so that He would prefer the love of God over the inclination towards the world, so that He would transgress the commandment of love for one’s neighbor, so that He would inflame with hatred of the people who were plotting against Him. Christ overcame the temptations of love for those whom the devil stirred up against Him. In this amazing battle, Christ showed love instead of hatred and, with His goodness, defeated the father of evil 207. 41. In addition to the proposed 208 general foundations from the word of God and the patristic writings, the presented view of the temptations of Jesus Christ has a special basis in the words of the Apostle Paul: (Heb. II, 18). These words of the apostle can equally mean both that Christ suffered in temptations and that suffering served as a temptation for Him. The deep difference between the temptations of Jesus Christ and ours was, according to these words, that we are tempted not only in our nature, but also in our personal will, while Christ 209 was tempted only in his human nature, the tension of which did not have a decisive effect on His conscious decision, but was perceived by Him exclusively as suffering. From the realm of our temptations, Christ took upon Himself the actual burden of them for nature, and not the determination of the will. The struggle of Gethsemane, when He, with a strong cry and with tears, offered prayers and supplications to Him who was able to save Him from death (Heb. V, 7), when He grieved mortally, however, with unchanging words on his lips: however, not as I want, but as You want (Matthew XXVI, 38, 39, 42, 44), clearly shows the nature of His inner struggle. The temptations of Jesus Christ were not the deception of His will, but the suffering of His human nature. The tempting desire was actually natural and was perceived by His consciousness as arising involuntarily in nature, but was not assimilated by His conscious decision 210. And it was precisely the desire to transcend human limitations in the name of divine unconditionality. This idea finds decisive confirmation in the words of Bishop. John of Smolensk 211. According to him, "the point to which temptation could strike was the point of union in Jesus Christ of the Divinity with humanity. The humanity of Jesus Christ, coming to the consciousness of the divine nature within itself, began, as it were, to torture the divine powers on itself. Humanity felt hunger, but since it felt the presence of the Divinity in itself, it naturally came to the thought: if I am God, then what if I turn this stone into bread. In the same way other aspects of temptation are also explained. Jesus sees himself on the roof of the church and His humanity felt fear; but at the same time, it feels the Divinity within itself and thinks, even if I fall, I will not break, because I am God. Seeing the kingdoms of the world, the humanity of Jesus Christ naturally asked itself the question: if I am God, then why shouldn’t I become the king of these kingdoms 212? etc. § 2. On the sinlessness of the temptations of Jesus Christ according to their outcome: posse et non posse peccare. 42. Expression ap. Paul, apart from sin (χορίς αμαρτίας Heb. IV, 15), limiting the similarity of the temptations of Jesus Christ to ours, means not only that His temptations were sinless in origin, but also that He always and invariably emerged victorious from temptations. On what was this immutability of Christ’s victory based? Is it so important to understand this victory that it was inevitable, or was it a happy, at least well-founded, accident? Does the absolute sinlessness of Christ mean that He could not sin, or did He achieve victory with the possibility of a fall? This question is usually put in close connection with the question of the inner reality of the temptations of Christ. Temptation, they say, is possible only with freedom of choice between good and evil; victory is conceivable only with the possibility of fall. Therefore, is not such freedom and such possibility presupposed by the inner reality of the temptations of Jesus Christ? But on the other hand, He, as the incarnate Son of God, as the Savior of the world sent by the will of the Heavenly Father, had to be sinless: does not such inevitability of victory exclude the possibility of (sin and) temptation? Thus the question arises of posse et non posse peccare in relation to the person of Jesus Christ. That this question is very difficult is evident from the complete variety of its solutions. Some theologians attribute to Jesus Christ the possibility of sin, others deny His freedom of choice between good and evil, and others simultaneously assimilate to Him both the possibility and impossibility of sinning. 43. In ancient times, Theodore of Mopsuestia was an ardent defender of the human freedom of Jesus Christ, as the freedom to choose between good and evil. This teaching about the freedom of the human will of Christ constituted one of the links in the harmonious Christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia, according to which the union of the Logos with the man Jesus was recognized as gradual and deserved by the free virtue of man. Whether the Antiochian teacher actually attributed the possibility of the fall to Jesus, as consistency would require, this point remains unclear 213. – In this regard, the Pelagian Julian expressed himself more clearly. Emphasizing the (Pelagian) concept of freedom as applied both to each person and to the humanity of Jesus Christ, he strongly argued that freedom both in every person presupposes and in Christ presupposed the possibility of sin, that without this possibility there would be no freedom 214 . Opponent of Julian, bl. Augustine agreed with him that the impossibility of sinning belongs to God alone, qui peccare nec vult posse, nec potest velle, while holiness belongs to man not by nature, but by action; it is characteristic of him, given the opportunity not to sin, the possibility of sin posse peccare et non peccare 215. However, contrary to Julian bl. Augustine did not recognize Jesus Christ's freedom to choose between these possibilities. Along with the natural state of the human will, he accepted another, grace-filled, predetermined state. According to the action of grace and predestination, he teaches, for human nature, along with the possibility of not sinning, the impossibility of sinning is also available (posse non peccare et non posse peccare), just as, together with the possibility of immortality, the impossibility of death (posse non mori et non posse mori etc.) 216. Such is the freedom of the saints, saved by the grace of Christ. This was the same, according to Bl. Augustine, and the freedom of Christ. At the same time, he believed that predestination did not constrain the free will of Christ, that, on the contrary, Christ was the freer the further away the possibility of sin was from Him 217 . The ability to choose between good and evil, according to the teachings of Bl. Augustine, does not relate to the essence of free will. As proof, he pointed to the freedom of God. God cannot sin, but who would dare to say that God does not have free will? In God, Who cannot sin, there is the highest freedom of will 218. However, the human holiness of Christ differed from the holiness of God in such a way that the virtue of Christ was His merit. Although Christ had no lust in Himself, and even His blessed nature (in itself) could not have an inclination towards evil; but He had carnal feelings and therefore His nature, as having carnal feelings, could by an act of pure will make it prone to evil; He could have willed His nature to become inclined toward evil. And the fact that He did not want this, bless. Augustine points out His merit 219. 44. Of the newest 220 theologians, Hess, Ebrard, Schaff Dorner 221 and others assimilate the possibility of sin to Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ, Hess writes, from his very birth stood above the possibility of sin, then He would not be like us, would not be a true man. Only through freedom can a person become good; kind by nature is the same as a triangular circle. Of course, a terrible abyss opens before our eyes if we only admit that the Son of God would sin once, just once. Then not only would our salvation not have been achieved, but also a revolution would have taken place in the inner life of the Holy Trinity. But with all this, if for the Messiah the possibility of falling in temptations was excluded in advance, then where is the true humanity of the Son of God, where is His likeness to us, whom He calls His brothers? How can He be a model for us? What right does He have to command us to be His followers? In this case, isn’t the essential meaning of the sacrifice He made to God for us destroyed? Only those who can truly resist God can truly surrender to Him 222. Likewise, Ebrard admits that Christ could violate obedience to the will of the Father and thereby become incapable of accomplishing human salvation 223. In his opinion, Christ's self-determination for good was always accomplished in the form of choice, and for Him at every moment there was a real possibility of sin; Only on this nature of Christ’s freedom was the possibility of His temptations based 224. According to Dorner, the initial union of deity and humanity, given in the birth of Jesus Christ, still contained the possibility of rupture and therefore it did not precede the free decision of the human will, did not act on it forcibly, on the contrary, it was itself accomplished by the power of moral work aimed at eliminating those false paths that were possible for the human will of Christ 225. Our Russian theologian Fr. Yanyshev writes that the possibility of not an imaginary, fictitious, but actually conscious temptation presupposes formal moral freedom, as the ability to do as much evil as good, although this formal freedom in the person of Christ was combined with ideal divine freedom 226 and so on. 45. But no less strongly, other theologians of our day defend the opposite view, according to which the absolute sinlessness of Jesus Christ excludes any possibility of sin. This is primarily the view of Catholic theologians, who exclude the possibility of sin from the concept of freedom and in whose opinion the human holiness of Christ was only a revelation of the divine holiness 227. But it is also shared by many Protestant theologians, mainly the so-called kenoticians 228). Thus, according to Hoffmann, the possibility of sin as applied to Christ can only be discussed in the sense that every person, having the nature that Christ had, could do nothing else but sin. But the incarnate Son of God could not deny Himself and could not become in contradiction with Himself 229. Frank calls the very idea of ​​the possibility of the Son of God falling away from Himself monstrous and blasphemous 230. Horus calls the idea of ​​the possibility of sin for Christ an abstract view: in beautiful words, full of deep feeling and living truth, he shows the fundamental discrepancy between this thought and the Gospel testimonies about the life of Jesus Christ 231 . Christ was sinless. True, He was subject to temptations—real temptations—but He overcame them. - and won not because he did not have a truly human ability to feel their power, but because this ability was controlled by His will, which invariably followed the guidance of the Holy Spirit. About the relationship of sinlessness to freedom, Gore writes that sinlessness not only does not contradict moral freedom, but in it and only in it is true freedom. Moral freedom does not consist in the indifferent ability to choose between good and evil, but in the unchanging dominance of the will, in the fulfillment of the rational law of our life. Christ could not sin, because sin is rebellion against God: He could have disobeyed the will of God if He had wanted, but 'it was impossible that He would have wanted this 232. 46. Finally, some theologians attribute to Christ both posse and non posse peccare. Thus, according to Martensen, the second Adam was characterized by the possibility of sin, but the inextricable union of the humanity of Christ with the deity meant that this possibility invariably served only as a dark background for the revelation of divine holiness 233. According to Thomasius, the sinlessness of Jesus Christ, as necessary not physically but morally, contained within itself the possibility of a fall; however, the latter was again morally impossible 234 . Philip writes that potuit non peccare applies to the first Adam, non potuit peccare to the second Adam, who is the Lord from heaven (1 Cor. xv, 47). However, the unchanging fulfillment of the divine will was not a physical necessity for Christ, but was a matter of free internal self-determination. The peculiar form of freedom of Christ corresponded to the relationship in which divinity and humanity were in Christ: the freedom of Christ excluded the possibility of a fall and came closest to the freedom of perfect spirits 235. In a similar way, Baret not only affirms with equal decisiveness the possibility for Christ of falling in temptation and the impossibility of sin for Him, but also believes that opposing views are easily reconciled. The impossibility of sinning could not be physical in Christ, but only moral, with the inclusion of our unconditional confidence in the victory of Christ: He could have succumbed to temptation if He had wanted, but we are sure that He would never have wanted. Likewise, the possibility of sin cannot mean our uncertainty, but it is a possibility with the opposite certainty: He could have succumbed to temptation if He had wished, but He would never have wished. So it was possible for Christ to sin and it was impossible: it would have been possible if He had wished, but it was impossible to wish 236. Agreeing to this combination of posse et non posse peccare as applied to Jesus Christ and referring the possibility of fall to humanity, and the immutability of victory; to the action of the Divine, Bruce reduces the question of posse et non posse peccare to the determination of the form in which the divine power was manifested in victory over temptations in proportion to the reality of the temptations. Bruce considers this “ultimate” form of participation of the Divine in victory over temptations to be the moral influence of the Holy Spirit, “the preservation of Christ from sin by the power of the Holy Spirit” 237. Posse et non posse peccare according to the wisdom of Orthodox dogmatics. 47. Orthodox dogmatics does not raise the question of the relationship between temptation and sinlessness in Christ. But according to its spirit, posse peccare and the possibility of choosing between good and evil certainly do not apply to Jesus Christ. In this regard, the words of St. are characteristic and unchangeable for Orthodox theology. John of Damascus, who considers it impossible to talk about opinion and choice in the Lord, because the Lord by nature had both a disposition towards the beautiful and an aversion to the evil 238. Orthodox dogmatics sees in the unmarried conception of Christ one of the foundations of His sinlessness and looks at His human holiness as a revelation of the divine 239. – But rejecting in Christ the possibility of choice between good and evil and sin, Orthodox theology recognizes the inner reality of the temptations of Jesus Christ and the freedom of His human will. In explaining this combination of the impossibility of sin, on the one hand, and freedom of will and the reality of temptations, on the other, it can be noted that both freedom of will and the reality of temptations do not coincide with the choice between good and evil. If temptation consisted only in the seduction of evil, then, of course, for the reality of temptation, a real choice between good and evil would be necessary. But temptation is possible with an aversion to evil, on the basis of weaknesses and suffering as a limitation of the will and suffering of faith, in the sense of the feat of obedience. Stated differently, an assumption may refer to an alternative of actions, each of which in itself may be sinless and pure. So the temptation of the first people related to their freedom to eat or not eat from the fruits of the forbidden tree. Eating the fruits in itself, of course, was not morally unclean, therefore the natural desire for the fruits of this tree was not sinful 240. Moreover, when applied to Christ Jesus, the abstract question of posse et non posse peccare loses all meaning. The fact is that the humiliation of Jesus Christ was an act of His freedom: all His sufferings and limitations, even natural passions and death itself were His free work 241. Our passions, according to St. John of Damascus, were in Christ both in accordance with nature and above nature. In accordance with nature, passions were aroused in Him when He allowed the flesh to experience what was natural to it; and above nature because in the Lord what was natural did not precede His will, for in Him nothing is contemplated as forced, but everything is voluntary. For desiring He hungered, desiring He thirsted, desiring He feared, desiring He died 242. Therefore, Christ not only voluntarily submitted to the will of God when it demanded from Him restrictions and suffering and even death (John X, 17.18), but He voluntarily submitted to the very conditions of human life and could always rise above them 243. He not only freely gave up His soul, but actually could have turned stones into bread, etc., to satisfy His hunger. Such was the attitude of Christ's freedom to the limitations and sufferings of life, as the basis of His temptations. So the temptations of Jesus Christ have a choice behind them, but it was not a choice between good and evil, but a choice between glory and humiliation. While explaining the meaning of temptations, this choice does not yet explain the power of temptations. However, free in their origin, restrictions and suffering were natural in their reality 244: the human nature of Christ lived, felt, desired and acted according to the general laws of human nature. The reality of the attractions and sufferings to which temptations related was natural. Therefore, in Christ there was possible a natural human desire, contrary to His free self-determination and contrary to the will of the Father 245. As contrary to the will of the Father, natural desire could not be assimilated by the free decision of Christ, He could not say otherwise than: not as I want, but as You want; but as natural, it did not lose its power because it was not assimilated by the free self-determination of Christ: in other words, the degree of limitation of the will and suffering of faith did not decrease from this. Thus the question of posse et non posse peccare boils down to this: could Christ consent to a natural desire, since it was contrary to the will of the Father? This question must be answered with an unconditional negative. But this denial does not extend to the power of the suffering of temptation, which ended in death and death on the cross. Is it really possible to doubt the severity of this obedience even to death only because Christ could not deviate from His initial decision, by which He determined Himself to humiliate human life? So we return again to the saying of Bl. Augustine: Christ could have departed from the will of the Father if He had wished, but He could not will it. Chapter three. About the meaning and moral and fundamental meaning of the temptations of the Lord Jesus Christ in the desert and about their relation to the redemptive feat of earthly life and public ministry of Christ. § 1. On the significance and meaning of the temptations of the Lord Jesus Christ in the desert. 48. The significance of each individual event in the life of Jesus Christ should be determined by its connection with other events and the general idea of ​​​​the public ministry of Christ. The temptation of Jesus Christ in the wilderness immediately followed His baptism, at the beginning of His public ministry. According to the most general concept of temptation, it should be understood primarily in the sense of self-testing, self-determination, or decision. Like self-determination at the beginning of social activity, temptation in the desert was the preparation of Jesus Christ for this activity. But the significance of temptation over any other type of preparation cannot be limited to the time of its continuation; it one way or another extends over the entire period of life at the beginning of which it takes place - throughout the entire period of activity for which temptation serves as preparation. “In the history of the temptation of Jesus Christ,” writes Archpriest A.V. Gorsky, “those main principles that guided Him in His ministry are expressed as once accepted forever, which are as important for His followers as for Himself” 246. The very fact that the temptations of Jesus Christ were not an accidental occurrence in His life, but were a reflection, or design, of all His redemptive activities, indicates the redemptive significance of the feat of struggle against temptations. An even more redemptive significance of the feat of struggle against temptations in the desert is revealed from the relationship of this event with the general idea of ​​​​the public service of Christ. "Jesus," writes A.V. Gorsky, "Who came into the world for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil, in order to free humanity from the dominion of evil brought into the world by the devil, at His very entry into the service of humanity had to experience a struggle with the culprit of all evil, the devil. He had to set an example with this experience to all his followers, point out weapons, inspire courage against our primordial enemy" 247 . In this general saving significance of temptations, it is necessary to distinguish, in particular, two sides. The empty temptation was, firstly, an exemplary feat of the struggle against the devil by the Author and Finisher of our faith (Heb. XII, 2), which gives the temptation in the desert the exceptional significance of a perfect example. “Jesus Christ,” says St. John Chrysostom, “fasted not because He needed fasting, but for our teaching 248; after forty days of fasting, He entered into the fight with the devil, setting an example for all of us, so that we too would arm ourselves with fasting and, strengthened by it, enter into the fight with the devil 249. “Through the temptation of Jesus Christ in the desert, according to St. Cyprian, “divine wisdom first of all wanted to instruct its disciples by example to present evidence that temptations are conquerable, so that human rationality could hear, see and feel how insurmountable it would be and what a conqueror of sin it would be if free will always retained its true freedom” 250. “The Lord of all suffers temptations from the devil in order, in the words of St. Ambrose of Milan, so that in Him we all learn to win” 251. “Our Christ, according to St. John of Damascus, was tempted and won, in order for us to prepare victory, to give our nature strength for victory over the enemy” 252, etc. - Secondly, from the point of view of the objective victory of Christ over the devil, which constituted a necessary condition and the most important aspect of the redemptive ministry of Christ, temptations in the desert are the beginning of that victory of Christ over the devil, which continued throughout His activity 253. This meaning of temptations in the desert indicates their connection with subsequent temptations of Christ's social life: having finished the temptation in the desert, the devil departed from Him for a time (Luke IV, 13). Ει υιος si του θεου (Matthew IV, 3, 6; Luke IV, 3.9). 49. The words that begin the first and second (according to Matthew) tempting offers of the devil: if you are the Son of God, indicate the event of baptism. Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God. Thus, he was predestined by an angel already at conception (Luke I, 31–35). But He was so named especially solemnly at baptism. When, having been baptized by John, He came out of the water, the heavens were opened to Him and He saw the Spirit of God, which descended and descended upon Him. And then a voice from heaven said: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ( 16. 17 ). “This was,” writes A.V. Gorsky about baptism with the accompanying descent of the Spirit and a voice from heaven, “this was the solemn initiation of Jesus into His worldwide ministry.” 254 “From this time,” writes Dido, “Jesus ceases to be the carpenter of Galilee; the veil that hid Him from the eyes of the people is removed, and Jesus becomes what He is, Christ the Son of God.” 255 The temptation in the desert is in direct connection with this event of baptism 256. “After baptism, in the words of Geikie, when Jesus was still at the Jordan, we can imagine Him intensely listening to the preaching of the Baptist and watching the agitated crowds of people, until the conviction formed in Him that the law could no longer be a conduit of salvation for a sin-stricken, repentant people. The gift of the Spirit and the heavenly voice could confirm this conviction... When Christ was set apart through such a high consecration as the anointed of God, the revival of the people and the reconciliation of earth with heaven were henceforth entrusted to Him... Even before His entry into open ministry as the Messiah, He had to reflect on the conditions of life of His people and desired, with all the love inherent in His divine nature, to heal them from their afflictions... The events at the Jordan were only heavenly approval of the intentions that had been ripening in His breast from the earliest years... In the revelations of the Jordanian baptism and in the sighs of the people crowding around John, He received the divine testimony of His messengership, the command that He should arise and gird himself for the great work of returning the world to God.” 257 50. It is worthy of note that in the appeal of the tempter, according to the Gospel story, Jesus is not called ό υιός του θεού, as He was called by a voice from heaven, but οίος του θεού. ' Ο υιός τού θεου is the exclusive, or par excellence ( κατ ’ εξοχήν ) Son of God, and υίος του θεου indicates many sons ( πολλοί υίοί ). In this circumstance, the saving significance of the temptations of Christ is revealed, as it is revealed in the letter to Heb. It was necessary, writes the Apostle Paul, that He, for whom are all things and from whom are all things, bringing many sons to glory, should make the Captain of their salvation through suffering. For both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from One; therefore, He is not ashamed to call them brothers... And since children share in flesh and blood, He also accepted them, in order by death to deprive the power of him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and to deliver those who from the fear of death were subject to slavery throughout their lives. For He does not receive angels, but He receives the seed of Abraham. Therefore, He had to become like his brothers in everything, in order to be merciful and a faithful high priest before God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For just as He Himself suffered, being tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted (Heb. II: 10-18). – What is the secret of the fact that God, the Heavenly Father, for Whom are all things and from Whom are all things, had to, in order to bring many sons to glory, that is, to bring people to the glory of the sons of God, to the glory of sonship with God, to divine sonship, to make the Leader of the salvation of people, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, through suffering and temptation? This is the mystery of the free obedience and self-abasement of the incarnate Only Begotten Son of God and His patience in suffering. God's paternal attitude towards man is based on divine condescension. God calls and reveals Himself as the Father of man not because man is worthy. This, by his nature or by his deeds, generally possessed external dignity, but because of the great love of God, condescending to the weakness of man and elevating him to internal, divine dignity. Thus, the latter does not find a correspondence in the external dignity of man; in other words, the divinely filial dignity is not manifested externally, but is revealed in the weakness of human nature and in the insignificance of human affairs. The weakness and insignificance of man not only do not hinder God’s condescension towards man, but serve as a condition for man’s inner, divinely filial dignity. God bestows upon man a more divine dignity because he is weak. This hidden work of divine condescension is noted by the psalmist. God praises Himself from the mouths of babes and sucklings. But compared with the greatness of heaven, man does not deserve to be remembered and visited by God. But God, having made him a little lower than the angels, crowned him with glory and honor (Ps. VIII). Thus, the Jewish people, in the Old Testament, were chosen by God’s people not for their greatness and power, not for their dignity and virtues, but were chosen by divine love at a time when they were weak and insignificant. You, it was said to the Jewish people, have been chosen by the Lord your God to be His own people from among all the nations that are on earth. It was not because you were more numerous than all the nations that the Lord accepted you and chose you; for you are the fewest in number of all nations; but because the Lord loves you (Deut. VII, 6–8). So in the New Testament, God was pleased to save believers through the foolishness of preaching. He has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; and has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the strong things; and the base things of the world, and the base things, and the base things he has chosen; to abolish the things that are (1 Cor. 1:21, 27–28). What is high among people is an abomination to God (Luke XVI, 15). The power of God is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. XII: 9). – What is needed for the weakness and insignificance of man to serve as an instrument for the manifestation of divine glory, so that they deserve the condescension of divine love? To do this, it is necessary for a person to endure the infirmities of nature and the suffering of life with love for God, with faith in His Fatherly Providence, with patience and hope, with renunciation of personal happiness and external perfection in the name of divine glory. Man's faith in his sonship with God, the consciousness of his insignificance and recognition of divine love, patience and self-denial serve as another condition for the condescension of divine love towards man, according to which God grants him the dignity of God. Weakness and suffering from nature, free faith from man - these are the foundations on which the divinely filial dignity of man is affirmed. He must recognize his insignificance and attribute all his dignity to God’s love for mankind. "Let us thank God," writes St. John Chrysostom, "for everything and let us be grateful to the One who has blessed us so much. This is the greatest sacrifice, this is the perfect offering, this will be for us a source of boldness before God, and this is how. " Whoever constantly keeps in mind and truly recognizes his insignificance, and on the other hand, thinks about the immeasurable and ineffable love of God, how He arranges the affairs of the nation, looking not at what we deserve, but at His grace: he humbles himself in soul, is contrite in heart, tames all pride and arrogance, learns to behave modestly, to despise the glory of this life, laughs at everything visible, thinks about future blessings, about immortal and endless life." 258. Regardless of his humiliation and suffering, renouncing earthly happiness and external perfection, loving God and God, he must believe in the love of God and in his sonship with God, he must think not about what is human (τα των αντρωπον), but about what is God’s (τα του θεου), fixing our gaze not on the visible, but on the invisible. If we suffer punishment, then God deals with us as with sons (Heb. XII, 7). It pleases God if someone, thinking about God, endures sorrows, suffering unjustly, writes another. apostle (1 Peter II, 19). But thinking in a human, earthly way (φρονείν τά των ανθρώπων), people consider the visible favor of God, their personal well-being and external perfection to be a necessary condition for their divine dignity. If God created us for His glory and chose us to be His sons, then we must have personal prosperity and external perfection. Otherwise, how will we know that God loves us like a father, that we are His children? And so, restrictions and suffering serve as a temptation for a person’s faith in his sonship with God. To someone who thinks earthly, it seems impossible that a man, the son of God, could suffer. Our minds are especially troubled by the suffering of the righteous. Here the righteous is humiliated, he is like a worm, and not a man, reproach among people, and contempt among the people. And everyone who sees him mocks him, saying with their lips, nodding their heads: he trusted in the Lord, let him deliver him; let him save if he pleases Him (Ps. XXI, 7-9; cf. Isa. LII, LIII). The chosen one of God himself is embarrassed by his suffering. For the sake of the glory of God, he considers it necessary to deliver himself from suffering; he does not find it possible for this glory to manifest itself in humiliation: will the dead rise and glorify You? or will Thy mercy be proclaimed in the grave, and Thy truth in a place of corruption? Is it possible that in darkness they will know Your wonders, and in the land of forgetfulness - Your righteousness (Ps. LXXXVII, 11-13)? His faith in the love of God and in his calling wavers from suffering: why, he says, is my illness so persistent and my wound so incurable that it rejects healing? will You really be for me like a deceptive source, unfaithful water (Jeremiah XV, 18)? – Such unbelief in the love of God, typically depicted by the prophet, is characteristic of all sinful humanity and even characterizes sinfulness itself. It is inextricably linked with a person’s self-loving attachment to the world and what is in the world - to the external and visible as opposed to the eternal and invisible. It is precisely this self-loving attachment of a person to the world that kills faith by the demand for visible evidence - personal happiness, external perfection; At the same time, it feeds in man fear for his earthly existence and therefore makes him a slave to the fear of mortals and those who have the power of death. Only then, according to the Apostle Paul, when we walk by faith and not by sight (διά πίστεως - ου διά είδους), we are content and desire to be at home with the Lord (2 Cor. V, 1.8); when we look at the things that are hated (τά βλεπόμενα), but at the things that are not seen (τά μή βλεπόμενα), then the momentary suffering of our outer man produces eternal glory in an immeasurable abundance: for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (IV, 16-18). Thus, God desires that man, through patience and faith in suffering and limitations, should demonstrate and assert his divinely filial dignity; on the contrary, a sinful person makes personal well-being and external perfection the condition of his love for God, and in the suffering of his life he finds justification for his unbelief and even enmity in God. What did God need to do to deliver those who, from the fear of death, were subject to slavery all their lives, to bring them to the glory of sonship with God? For this, He had to make the Leader of their salvation, the Son of God, through suffering: the Son of God had to become like people in everything. According to another letter of the same Apostle Paul, Christ Jesus, being in the image of God, made Himself of no reputation, took on the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of men, and becoming in appearance like a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even to death, even the death of the cross (Phil. II, 5-8). Although He is the Son, He learned obedience through suffering; and having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation for all who obeyed him (Heb. V, 8.9). The Son of God was born of a woman, and was subject to the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption as sons. God sends the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying: Father! (Gal. IV, 4–6). In these general images of the likeness of the Son of God to us, in order to bring many to the glory of sonship with God, there is hidden a double meaning of this likeness - objective and subjective. First of all, for manifestation Divine dignity in the conditions of human life, without regard to the mood of the people themselves, but on the objective side of the matter alone, the Son of God had to assimilate to Himself the conditions of human life and establish His own divine sonship in these conditions. Son of God, according to St. Athanasius, transfers our birth to Himself, so that we, united with the Word, which is from heaven, are raised from Him to heaven; He transfers other infirmities of the body to Himself, so that we, no longer as men, but as members of the Word, become partakers of eternal life 259. – The subjective side of the affirmation of the sonship of God of the Son of God consists in the assimilation by each person of this sonship of God, or the spirit of the Son of God (πνεύμα τού υίου τού θεού θεού Gal. IV, 6), by faith in the sonship of Christ, so that by faith Christ may dwell in our hearts ( Ephesians III, 17), so that all we were sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus ( πάντες ϋίοί θεού διά τής πίστεως έν Χριστω Ιησού Gal. III, 26) 260. But this faith of a person in the sonship of Christ Jesus must be together with his faith in his own sonship of God, in his own adoption of God. To arouse such saving faith, Christ had to become like his brothers in everything, so that a person, seeing in the face of Jesus Christ the humiliated and suffering Son of God, would see himself in Him - a man in the inner all-conquering greatness and dignity of the Son of God - so that he, seeing the Son of God himself subject to the conditions of his life, would also see how the conditions of his own life are sanctified by the inner, divine dignity. In order for a person to accept Him into himself by faith in the Son of God, for this it was necessary for the Son of God to become like people in everything; otherwise, a person’s faith in the sonship of Christ would exclude every person’s faith in the possibility of his own adoption of God. In order for a person who is confused and made an enemy of God and a slave of the devil by the suffering of his life to believe in God’s love for him, for this the Son of God had to appear in the conditions of human life, full of suffering. But the very thing for which the Son of God had to become like us in everything served as a source of temptation for Him. In order to generate in people faith in the love of God, the Son of God had to become like us in weaknesses and suffering. But the sinful world places external well-being and visible perfection as a condition for its faith in man’s sonship with God. Hence the question arose: will man believe in the sonship of God of the humiliated and suffering Son of God? Thus, Christ, with deep love for mankind, took upon Himself our temptations 261... The mystery of this real temptation of Christ Jesus must be understood in such a way that He was first of all tempted as the incarnate Only Begotten Son of God, with a clear consciousness of His sonship of God, as a witness of His love sent from God to earth: by condescension He entered the area of human temptations by the feat of His own temptation 262 in order to be a merciful and faithful high priest, in order to sympathize with us in our weaknesses, having experienced them experienced. But having accepted our weaknesses, He was tempted like us, as a man, according to the weakness of our nature. From here, as temptations of the Only Begotten Son of God, the temptations of Christ tended to ensure that He would isolate Himself from the society of people, to show His exclusive attitude towards God and people, but as temptations of man, they would tend to give rise to doubt in Him regarding His sonship with God. The tempting thing can be conveyed by a dilemma: either show your exceptional attitude towards God and people, or you are not the Son of God. "At His incarnation," Trench says well, "the Lord united His fate with the fate of the entire human race; the temptation consisted in the proposal that He would again separate Himself from people. To agree to this would mean destroying His entire work as an Intercessor and Mediator. If, with any stronger pressure on Him from the suffering and torment of the world, He had recourse to the power that was inherent in Him as the Son of God, and such thus excluded Himself from what is generally available to humanity; then where would there be a human companion, the conqueror of the world by his human faith, and not by his divine power, would all life by faith disappear? “263 ... But if sonship is not evidenced by anything exclusively characteristic of the Son of God, then in this case is it not subject to doubt? The needs common to all humanity, to which Christ himself was subjected, apparently, according to human reasoning, contradicted the heavenly voice, exposed it as deceptive and could give rise to the suffering of struggle for the infirmities of human nature 264. Είπε ι va λίθοι ουτοι άρτοι γένωνται (Matt. IV, 3; Luke IV, 3). 51. By defining the meaning of the words in this way if You are the Son of God, we thereby give reason to understand in a well-known way the meaning of hunger in the temptation of Jesus Christ and the power of the tempting sentence: tell these stones to become bread. – There is no doubt that the hunger of Jesus Christ must be understood in the sense of a natural desire, based on the laws of nature, the object of which, defined in one way or another, is outlined by temptation. St. Basil the Great writes: "I think that Satan himself cannot be the cause of sin in anyone; but sometimes using naturally occurring movements, and sometimes forbidden passions, through them he tries to lead those who are not awake above him into actions inherent in passions. He uses natural movements, as he tried to do to the Lord when he learned that He was hungry, saying: if you are the Son of God, say that the stones these became bread 265. However, one cannot think that the temptation of Jesus Christ was limited to greed as such, one cannot think that the power of the tempting offer was measured by the degree of the actual desire for food 266. "The temptation," rightly writes Pavel, Archbishop of Kazan, "did not consist in Jesus Christ satisfying the natural need of the body - for food. The satisfaction of this need, completely natural, irresistible, irresistibly demanding satisfaction, is a legal matter and therefore not sinful. The Lord Jesus, as a man, at the appointed times felt hunger and satisfied His hunger with food. He did not even shy away from food pleasant“ 267 ... While in the temptation of desires the sensual urge and every attraction of nature has the meaning of a force that directly determines the temptation, in a struggle of a different kind, which includes the temptation of Christ, the attractions of nature have the meaning of suffering or limitation, which, according to human reasoning, must be mechanically fought, or which must. to be eliminated from human life in the name of man's sonship with God 268. Moreover, the hunger of Christ had this latter significance because it served as the point at which our Savior participated in universal human suffering... "It would be completely erroneous, as Trench rightly noted, to recognize the personal direct hunger of Christ as what constituted everything, or even the main thing, the most powerful and difficult in this temptation. For someone standing, as He stood, at the center of humanity, this hunger was only, as it were, the key and interpreter of all that hunger, all that need, all those troubles that have ever been experienced by the children of Adam or will be experienced by them. The temptation for Christ was to stop hunger, poverty, want - all the painful labor of obtaining daily food from the earth by the sweat of the brow, leaving little or no time for higher mental or moral development, to be able to stop all this, to know that He had only to utter one word and it would all end - who can comprehend what this temptation was for Him who is all love for all people" 269? The temptation for Christ was to stop or destroy His hunger and that of all mankind: to stop the hunger meant, in other words, to satisfy a natural need in a miraculous way, through the divine power that Christ possessed. In this relation of hunger to the omnipotent divine power of Christ, it is necessary to see the most characteristic thing in the first temptation. What motivated the tempting offer to miraculously eliminate the suffering of hunger, and on what was its power based? On the character of human faith. According to the nature of human faith, Christ had to be free from the sufferings and restrictions of human life, so that the people whom He loved so much and whose salvation He so desired would believe in His sonship of God. The tempting offer was closely related to the messianic ministry of Christ: He was tempted, like the Messiah, by the question of the omnipotent power that He possessed - by the question of the application of this power to the goals of the messianic ministry 270. The question was created by the conditions that a sinful person sets for his faith; the importance of the question, in addition to the immediate goal of Christ's ministry - to generate faith in a person, was affirmed on the fact that the last goal of the ministry had contact with these conditions. What was proposed by the tempter, in some respects coincided with the ultimate goal of Christ’s ministry. About the times of the Messiah, it was predicted from ancient times that then the desert and the dry land would rejoice, and the uninhabited country would rejoice and bloom like a daffodil (Isa. XXXV, 1), that then, so to speak, the stones of the desert would become bread. And the events from the area of ​​which Christ borrowed the answer to the tempting offer of the devil, apparently, pointed to the same ultimate goal of the ministry of Christ Jesus. His answer; Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matt. IV, 4; Deut. VIII, 3) borrowed from the story of the forty-year wandering (or temptation) of Israel in the wilderness, as it is set out in Deuteronomy. During the forty-year wandering of the Jews in the desert, the Lord performed many miracles for them (Ps. LXXVII). Was there a shortage of water? He miraculously produced it from stone; if they wanted meat, He sent them birds; If there was a shortage of bread, He fed them with manna: He fed you, it was said to Israel, with manna, which you did not know and your fathers did not know, to show you that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothes have not worn out on you and your legs have not swelled for forty years. And know in your heart that the Lord your God teaches you as a man teaches his son (Deut. VIII, 3-5). The history of the forty-year wandering of the Jews in the desert taught them that for His son, what the Jewish people were collectively - filius Dei collectivus - and what every person should be, the Lord God works miracles and satisfies his needs with almighty power. So Christ could hope for the same miraculous satisfaction of His needs - and even more than any other person, Christ was not only the Son of God in the sense in which every person should be the Son of God, He was not only the representative of man before God the Father, but He was the Only Begotten Son of God, sent from Him to man, as a witness of God's love, He was the representative of God before men, the bearer of His powers. As the representative of God before people, He should, according to human reasoning and according to the visible meaning of the biblical narrative about the forty-year journey of the Jews, Himself possess divine omnipotence and be able to miraculously satisfy the needs of His nature: say (so that these stones become bread). And this use of divine omnipotent power was not only embraced by people’s faith in the Messiah itself, but was appropriated by each person. All of humanity, in the reality of its historical life, strives for the unauthorized satisfaction of the needs of nature: each person satisfies the needs of nature not as its legal, God-established requirements, out of obedience, but to obtain personal pleasure, visible glory and external perfection. Satisfaction of natural needs for the purpose of personal pleasure and apparent perfection is necessarily accompanied by the violent cessation of some needs, the unauthorized strengthening of others, is always achieved by illegal means and leads to a mechanical struggle with the limitations and suffering of life 271. Such satisfaction does not constitute humble obedience to the will of God, which laid down the laws of the world and the limits of life, but selfish and self-willed resistance to this will. – The last goal of human life, which coincides with the ultimate goal of the ministry of Jesus Christ - the fulfillment of the glory of God in general and the removal of the curse from the world in particular - is achieved by the fact that a person humbly and selflessly endures the limitations and sufferings of life. The consequence of human humility and submission should be the removal of the curse from the earth, the flourishing of the desert. The work of man is humble obedience to the will of God, and the work of God is the turning of stones into bread. To begin with the latter was the temptation for Christ Jesus. ' Ο δε άποκριθείς ειπεν γεραπται ουκ έπ άρτω μόνω ζήσεται ο ανθρωπος, άλλ ’ επι παντι ρηματι εκπορευομενω δια στόματος θεου (Matthew IV, 4; – Luke IV, 4). 52. To the tempting offer of the devil to turn stones into bread, Christ answered: it is written: Man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Deut. VIII, 3). Such an answer, of Christ, when mechanically compared with the narrative from which it is borrowed, seems at least incomprehensible. In fact, as for the Jewish people, the Lord fed them with manna to show that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. Christ, refusing the miraculous satisfaction of hunger, cites the same words that man does not live by bread alone. After all, only if the redemptive offer related to the satisfaction of hunger specifically with bread, Christ’s answer in its mechanical connection with the story of the temptation of Israel would have meaning - the meaning that not only can God feed a person with bread, but also with manna and other miraculous means. But such a meaning is completely inconsistent with either the content of the temptation or with Christ’s renunciation of any miraculous satisfaction of His hunger. How unworthy Christ would have been if the devil’s first tempting proposal had only been about satiation, just as much and even more unworthy would His victory over temptation be if it had consisted of renouncing only bread as one type of food. – To understand Christ’s answer, you need to delve into the inner meaning of the history of the forty-year wandering of the Jewish people. The Lord God led the Jewish people through the wilderness for forty years to humble them, to test them and to find out what was in their hearts, whether they would keep His commandments or not. The Lord humbled him, tormented him with hunger and then fed him with manna to show that man does not live by bread alone. From the fact that the clothes of the Jews did not wear out, they should have learned that God taught them as a man teaches his son (Deut. VIII, 2-5). This history of God's forty-year relationship with the Israelites was, on the one hand, the humiliation or pacification of the Israelites, and on the other, a confirmation of divine love for them. Both had conditional pedagogical application. The Lord led Israel through the desert, tormenting him with hunger and thirst, in order to humble him, in order to accustom him to that humility about which St. John Chrysostom. To generate such humility in a person, natural infirmities and universal human suffering are generally sufficient. But in order to humiliate a hard-hearted people, such as the Jewish people, God's Providence used deliberate means - a forty-year wandering, hunger, thirst, etc. Similarly, in order to testify to God's love for Israel, the Lord also used deliberate means - miraculous nutrition with manna, non-wearing of shoes, etc. But as God's chosenness of the Jews, for the confirmation of which the Lord used deliberate means, it did not constitute the final goal (it should have been serve as a preparation for the incarnation of the Only Begotten Son of God and for the adoption of God by all people); so the exceptional miraculous providence for man cannot be the universally normal attitude of God towards man. Humility and faith in one's chosenness by God, sonship with God, which were brought up in Israel by the history of his forty-year wandering and in every person bring up the natural limitations and suffering of life, in turn should become the beginning of free human activity, in the sense of the above words of St. John Chrysostom. Faith and humility must meet limitations and suffering and overcome them with their own strength - humble patience and hope, complete devotion to the will of God, so that then the desert really blossoms - not in the sense of externally communicated good, but according to the law of faith, in the sense that man himself no longer looks at the visible, but at the invisible. Man himself must introduce into external nature the forces that revive it. In the work of divine Providence, humiliation and miracles served as the beginning that led a person to faith as the immediate goal; in the matter of free human activity, the beginning belongs to faith, which must overcome suffering by devotion to the will of God in order to prepare the ground for the action of God's grace, which creates the divine dignity of man and liberates nature from the slavery of corruption. In this sense, the Apostle Paul writes that the creation awaits the revelation of the sons of God in the hope that it itself will be freed from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom. VIII, 19.21). – With such devotion to the will of God Christ responds to the tempting offer of the devil. He repeats the words: man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, refusing any miraculous satisfaction of the needs of His human nature, any arbitrary cessation of the limitations and sufferings of life for the sake of personal well-being or visible glory. Man lives not by bread alone - not by satisfying the demands of nature in the name of personal happiness and external perfection, not by a spontaneous struggle with natural limitations and suffering, but by every word of God - by complete devotion to the word - the will of God, by submissively and joyfully enduring the sufferings of life, with faith and hope, patience and humility. Such an answer prescribes humility and patience to each person, and in the mouth of Christ it points to His free humiliation to universal human conditions of life, from which He did not want to free Himself by the power of His omnipotence. Jesus Christ could have given an answer to the devil’s tempting offer that was exclusively characteristic of Him as the Only Begotten Son of God (κατ ’ εξοχήν); but He answers as a man - hides His deity and speaks according to human nature ( διαλέγεται φυσεως 272; by this He won the victory over temptation for all mankind and for the sake of all mankind. He could respond with divine omnipotence, but responds with human devotion to the will of God: He does not use divine omnipotence, because this would not benefit man, but (as a man) resorts to the help available to every person. for the struggle, a human instrument, He won for man - He gave us victory 273. By responding as a man, the Son of God thereby made it possible for man to respond to the tempter as the Son of God - he adopted man to God: and in this self-awareness he must draw strength to fight temptation. If Christ had revealed himself to the world in external greatness and mechanically, by the power of His omnipotence, had delivered man from suffering, He would have redeemed only human flesh and would not have been the founder of that kingdom of the spirit, which flesh and blood cannot inherit (1 Cor. XV, 50) and in which God will destroy food and belly (1 Cor. VI, 13). Having revealed himself in outer humiliation, He bestows upon man inner, divinely filial dignity. He calls man instead of visible perfection to the glory of God, which is available to him in humiliation, and instead of happiness to bliss, which is comprehended in suffering (Matt. V, 3-12). The apparent contradiction between God's love, which, apparently, must manifest itself in external goods, and human humiliation, which must be overcome by faith, is reconciled in the fact that God's glory, which constitutes the goal of human life, and the bliss inextricably associated with it do not deny the given limitations of life and its suffering, but are achieved by man precisely in these conditions, by the power of faith, which looks not at the visible, but at the invisible. Και λέγει ούτω: ει υιος ει του Θεοΰ, βάλε σεαυτόν κατω γέγραπται γάρ οτι τοΐς άγγέλοις αυτόυ εντελειπερί συυ ( του διαφνλάξαι σε) και επ and χειρων άρουσίν σε, μήποτε χροσχόψης προς λίθον τον πόδα σου (Matt. IV, 6; Luke IV, 9–11). 53. The second tempting proposal of the devil, on the wing of the church, was expressed in the words: if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written: He commands His angels for You, to keep You, and in their hands they will bear You up, lest You dash Your foot against a stone (Ps. 11:12). – This second temptation is in close connection with the first, as indicated by the repetition of the initial words: if you are the Son of God. This repetition shows that the second temptation constitutes actually a second attack of the same temptation, the other half of the same dilemma. It’s as if the tempter said this: if you are the Son of God, then do either one thing or the other. The splitting of temptation into two parts is fully consistent with the psychological reality of human temptation. The fact is that sin does not represent, from a psychological point of view, only one opposite of good, but forms two extremes, along the golden mean of which the path of good follows. For example, slavery to sensual passions undoubtedly constitutes one of the severe types of sin, or sinfulness, and the ancient Church with great indignation cast out from its midst people who gave full rein to sensual inclinations in the name of Christian freedom from external law. But with the same severity, the ancient Church cut off from itself persons who abstained under the guise of piety, but in reality by suggestion, from meat, wine, marriage, etc. The Church considered and considers equally sin both slavery to the passions and abstinence from natural needs - both in the name of personal happiness and external, self-satisfied, pharisaical perfection - both the unauthorized satisfaction of needs and their spontaneous suppression, or resistance nature, considering the ideal to be submissively and joyfully bearing natural limitations. Likewise, in the second temptation, Jesus Christ was offered another extreme, compared to the one He rejected. While in the first temptation Christ was challenged to distrust divine love, now the tempter is trying to draw Him into the sin of exalting faith. – Natural limitation remains in the second temptation as the natural basis of that desire, the object of which is proposed by the violation; it only appears in a different form in accordance with the meaning of this temptation. The tempter puts Christ in a position from which, it is true, a natural way out was possible, but difficult, involving great difficulty and caution, and in which, therefore, divine exceptional help would be appropriate in accordance with the words of the psalm: (the angels) will carry You in their hands, lest You dash Your foot against a stone. – Again, based on the natural limitations of human nature, and already bearing in mind Christ’s renunciation of the spontaneous cessation of this limitation, of the miraculous, by the power of his own omnipotence, satisfaction of natural needs in the name of personal happiness or visible glory, the tempter now proposes a different path in spontaneous relation to the natural limitations of human nature. He proposes, instead of the rejected spontaneous satisfaction of the needs of nature, the renunciation of even the natural, i.e., conditional satisfaction of these needs in accordance with the laws of human life. After all, the natural needs of nature or the conditions of a limited life are offensive to the pride of the human spirit, not only because they contain suffering (in limitation itself), but also because the needs presuppose satisfaction by conditional means, connecting the flights of the spirit, drawing attention to the petty, that the very laws of human limited life constrain the spirit. One of the possible ways for a person to free himself from natural limitations consists in a spontaneous mechanical struggle against it (in particular, through the use of omnipotence, as Jesus Christ could have done and as a sinful person wants to appropriate it to himself); Another way to the same goal, to freedom from the need to be continuously occupied with the conditional satisfaction of the needs of nature, is to provide this satisfaction to the will of God. The tempter offered this last path to Jesus Christ in the second temptation. Should not, the tempter suggested, God take upon Himself the care of the needs of a person so devoted to His will? Doesn’t a person, having completely surrendered himself to the will of God, have the right to count on the replacement of heavenly, natural, extremely conditional means for satisfying natural needs, for fulfilling the laws of human life in general? Doesn’t he have the right to wish that the angels would lift him up in their arms instead of him himself looking for some way out, probably difficult and dangerous, undoubtedly requiring attention and effort 274? It cannot be said that this tempting offer of the devil has no basis in the area of ​​historical reality. It is no less designed for the actual inclinations of the human heart than the first temptation. Human life is full of contradictions corresponding to the two extremes of the sinful path. On the one hand, it is determined by the mood that characterizes every worldly civilization, the exponent of which can be the views of Nietzsche: this is a mechanical struggle against natural limitations in the name of external perfection. But on the other hand, this mood in historical reality is combined with another direction of the human spirit, according to which man not only renounces the mechanical struggle with the limitations of nature and the suffering of life, but even renounces the normal development of the needs of nature, their natural satisfaction, even the instinctive resistance to all kinds of suffering. This is a mystical direction. Affected especially characteristically in Brahmanism and Buddhism and in all kinds of mystical societies, it has many carriers among members of worldly civilization. Even the same person, at one time or another, to a greater or lesser extent, in one way or another, is inclined one way or another. In general, a person of a mystical orientation wants to be only a passive instrument of divine omnipotence. This passivity is not the same as a person’s apathy towards his fate, and even more so it is not submission to Providence. A person of this direction, no less than a bearer of opposing views, dreams of happiness and visible perfection, of freedom from given conditions and the suffering of life. But only he hopes to achieve happiness and perfection through the direct action of Providence, through the exceptional help of angels, in a word, by a sign or miracle from heaven. This is a man who does not plow the land and prays for manna, neglects enlightenment and seeks the gift of understanding and languages, who, without taking precautions, invites himself into danger in the sole hope of God’s help. This is a person for whom the good and divine coincide with the miraculous and supernatural and are exhausted by the latter, who demands signs from heaven from every heavenly messenger. The more passive he is towards this earthly reality, the more he dreams of magical means of influencing God. Hence his attachment to talismans and amulets, hence his instinctive awe of any magician. In a similar way, the Jews demanded signs from heaven from Christ. He was supposed, according to the popular view, to appear in the glory of omnipotence and in the radiance of miracles. So in the Second Attack of the Tempter, the Lord Jesus was tempted as the Messiah. Moreover, what the tempter proposed again seemed to coincide with the ultimate goals of the messianic ministry. So the psalmist already said: He will command His angels concerning you, and they will bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone (Ps. 11:12). Christ Jesus Himself sent His disciples to preach worldwide when all power in heaven and on earth was given to Him (Matthew XXVI, 18). Encouraging the preachers in view of the sorrows that awaited them, He told them: when they lead you to betray you, do not worry in advance what to say to you, and do not think about it; but whatever will be given to you in that hour, then speak, for it is not you who will speak, but the Holy Spirit (Mark XIII, 11; Matt. X, 19; Luke XII:11, XXI:14). He said: these signs will accompany those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will take snakes (Mark XVI, 17–18), etc. (Matthew IV, 7; Luke IV, 12). 54. If Christ had agreed to the second proposal of the tempter, then, it is true, He would have satisfied the human thirst for the miraculous, the people would have willingly recognized Him as the Messiah; but the people's faith in Christ, based on a miracle, would exclude man's faith in his own sonship with God and would not be accompanied by the indwelling of the Son of God into our hearts. The people would believe in Christ, marveling at His miracles, but they would fear Him. Having agreed to the tempter’s proposal, Christ could have imparted to man the heavenly gifts of divine omnipotence, but these gifts, as externally received, could not have manifested themselves in man’s own life. The sinful mood underlying the second temptation of Christ is so destructive that man, treating the divine only as an external omnipotence that must be influenced by magical means, cannot accept this divine into himself as his own internal good: the unconditional is denied the conditional, the omnipotent destroys the limited. The Divine can be accessible to man not in the predicates of the unconditional and unlimited, but as a spiritual good: as such, it is available to him in the limitations and conditionality of his life, and even only in this limitation. Therefore, the divine, as the ideal of human life, not only does not require a mechanical struggle with natural limitations, or an external expansion of the boundaries of earthly existence, but does not put up with man’s passive attitude towards his earthly fate. Not living for personal happiness and external glory does not mean looking at the sorrows of earthly existence as an unusable shell, which the sooner you throw off, the better. Not living for personal happiness and visible glory does not mean relegating the same ideal of happiness and external perfection to a future afterlife, understood in the sense of a chronological continuation of the present, and generally expecting the fulfillment of this ideal from the direct intervention of divine omnipotence. Bliss and divine glory are not the same as happiness from God or external perfection in the future afterlife. And the happiness expected from God is still happiness, and the self-satisfied perfection attributed to the future life is still external: they deny the present life. On the contrary, bliss and glory are significant because the manifestation of divine life in man is that man serves as an instrument for the manifestation of this life in conditions of worldly limitation and worldly suffering. To affirm and manifest divine glory precisely in the conditions of natural limitation and suffering of life - this is the calling of man, and on this path it is of great importance. Bliss and glory do not deny the limitations of earthly life, but happiness and visible perfection; bliss and glory are available to man in suffering. To live for divine glory means to affirm and demonstrate inner divine dignity in the conditions of life here. True self-denial of a person does not deny these conditions, but consists of patiently enduring God-established conditions of life through faith in divine love, in the patience of the Lord. In the truth that the divine is accessible to man not as a predicate of the unconditional, which denies earthly limitations, but as an internal, spiritual good, patient bearing of the conditions of earthly life is also included. To say that a person should seek true divine good within himself means to say that this good is achieved by patiently enduring suffering. The immortal, divine, invisible does not constitute an afterlife continuation of the present mortal, corruptible, visible, and does not deny it, but is hidden in the world, like an idea in a symbol, and is combined with it, like the invisible with the visible. No matter how much a person walks towards the horizon, where apparently one can step from the earth to the sky, he will always be equally far from the sky. The path to it is through a person’s own spirit. – Accordingly, divine help, not as external and denying earthly limitations, but as mediated by a person’s own moral activity, is determined by his limitations. In this regard, the change with which the biblical saying is conveyed in the tempting sentence is very characteristic. The tempter quotes from the psalm the words: He will command his angels concerning you, but omits the following: they will guard you in all your ways (XC, 11). The psalm generally speaks of the righteous; according to the meaning of the psalm, angelic help is given to a person only when he follows his own paths, determined for him by God. Man should not deviate from the paths of earthly life. To wait for the cessation of natural limitations and suffering from the direct intervention of divine omnipotence means to tempt the Lord - to tempt, that is, to call Him to manifest external glory, to count on His external help, neglecting natural conditions and means and even asking for danger, and making the manifestation of omnipotence a condition of faith. This exaltation of faith is also unbelief. It is based on the same self-loving attachment of a person to his individual existence, the same disposition towards the external and visible, which prevents him from striving through the shell of the visible to the invisible, through the worldly to the divine. – The words: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,” with which Jesus Christ answered the tempter, are contained 275 in Deuteronomy. VI, 16: “Do not tempt,” the Jews were told, “the Lord your God, as you tempted Him at Massa.” Brought out of Egypt into the desert, the Jews had to face many hardships. They did not want to endure these hardships for the sake of the Lord: they were a stubborn and rebellious race, unsettled in heart and unfaithful to God in their spirit (Ps. LXXVII, 8). They did not believe in God and tempted Him. So they tempted Him when they lacked water (Ex. XVII, 2); They tempted the Lord, saying: Is the Lord among us or not (v. 7)? God gave them water. But they again tempted God in their hearts, demanding food for their souls (Ps. LXXVII, 18). And so they repeatedly tempted God (v. 41). If the Jews loved God and His invisible blessings, if they were not attached to the earthly and visible, then they would not ask: is God among us or not? they would not ask for physical evidence of His presence in their midst. Their question is; can God prepare a meal in the desert (Ps. LXXVII, 19)? expresses fear for life. They asked: can it? because they measured His power, omnipotence, before which man trembles. Christ calls a person to love in order to free him from fear: whoever loves God does not fear for his life. God does not deny by His omnipotence the limitations of human life, but as good in it He reveals His inner glory according to man’s faith. In order to make man a partaker of divine glory, Christ again responds to the tempter as a man, without separating Himself from the society of people 276. Και ειπεν αυτω ό διαβολος σ oi δώσω την εξουσίαν ταύτην απασαν καί την δόξα v αυτών , οτι έμοι παραδέδοται καί ω εαν θελω διδωμι αυτήν συ ουν Luk. IV, 6. 7; Matt. IV, 9. 55. Having shown Jesus Christ all the kingdoms of the universe, the Devil said to Him: I will give you power over all these kingdoms and their glory; for she is devoted to me, and I give her to whomever I want. So, if You worship me, then (all power will be Yours) everything will be Yours. What is the meaning of this third temptation and what is its strength? The third tempting offer of the devil, no matter how it is understood, in any case concerned the area of ​​​​Christ's relationship with people, and therefore should be considered as a parallel temptation (corresponding in another area) to the dilemma that made up the first two temptations. The most characteristic feature of a human being, according to St. Gregory the Theologian (in the word for Holy Pascha), “the mixture in him of mind and feeling, the combination of invisible and visible nature, the material body with divine life: man is one and the same, earthly and heavenly, temporary and immortal, visible and intelligible, occupies the middle between greatness and baseness, one and the same is spirit and flesh, - spirit for the sake of grace, flesh for the sake of exaltation, spirit, so that to abide and glorify the Benefactor, the flesh, in order to suffer and, suffering, remember and learn how much greatness he has received,” etc. Such a relationship in a person between the earthly and the heavenly forms the first area of his free moral activity. But in addition, a person’s moral activity is determined by his attitude towards other people. Society is essential for a person; publicity is as characteristic of him as the combination of the earthly and the heavenly in him. A person must fulfill his calling, whatever it may be, in a society of his own kind. In accordance with this, love for truth, goodness, beauty, in general for the highest good, coincides in a person with the desire that the truth recognized by him be recognized by everyone, so that the good he loves dominates the world, so that all people bow before his highest good. In general, the desire for good is inseparable from the desire for social unity. Society constitutes the second area of ​​moral activity. Both areas have their temptations. But just as a person’s relationships in the second region strictly correspond to his relationships in the first region and are determined by the same mood that is developed in him on the basis of the connection of the earthly with the heavenly, then the temptations of the second region correspond to the temptations of the first and even constitute their complement, as a different side of the same temptation. The temptations of the second area are adjacent to either victory or fall in the temptations of the first. This or that principle, derived from one temptation, requires its application to another area and causes corresponding temptations from this latter. So the victory of Jesus Christ over the first two temptations, in order to be a victory over all temptation (Luke IV, 13), caused a third temptation, corresponding to the victory achieved and directly adjacent to it. In the third temptation, the question was raised about the application of those principles, in the name of which the first tempting proposals were rejected, to the work of the messianic ministry, and it should primarily be called messianic before the first ones. Christ defeated the first two temptations by renouncing the manifestation of his own omnipotence and the use of exclusive heavenly help, from giving the world happiness and external perfection, from the revelation of signs from heaven. But in this case, for Him, precisely as for the Messiah, as for the Savior of the world, the question arose about the way, or means, of victory over the world (John XVI, 33: έγώ νενίκηκα τον κόσμον). The tempter, answering this question, offered the path of power and worldly glory. The devil’s proposal indicated power not in the sense of an imperial crown with courtly splendor, not in the sense of a state principle as it is applied for its own purposes, but in the sense of a well-known principle that determines the attitude of the sinful world to the rule of truth and goodness: in the temptation of the devil it was proposed to apply external power to the cause of religion, to the cause of human salvation. The ideal goal of human relationships is the unity of the human race. But one should distinguish between the unity of the world (or society) on the basis of the admiration of all for truth and goodness and unity on the basis of external power or coercion with the aim of giving dominance to truth or goodness. The meaning of the last unity is that man, due to his sinful attachment to the visible, values ​​only triumphant truth, goodness only in external greatness. Without comprehending the inner beauty of truth and the inner greatness of good, he cannot understand persecuted truth and humiliated good. Based on his attachment to personal happiness and visible perfection, he not only expects both as a reward for virtue, as a consequence of goodness, but also considers them signs of goodness and truth. He bows before visible splendor, presuming goodness in it; he recognizes the truth on the side where he sees strength. This is where the temptation arises (which has nothing to do with civic ambition) to use external power and worldly glory as a means of giving triumph to truth and goodness. Just as everything pure can become polluted in unclean hands, everything noble can be defiled in an unclean heart, so this temptation can sometimes coincide with an outburst of simple ambition; but mainly this is the temptation of noble people, the chosen ones and messengers of God, religious reformers. Shouldn't God's chosen one - without any fear of falling into the sin of ambition - first seize the power of the people, appear before the crowd in outward greatness, and then, by the power of power, implant goodness in the human heart? This is a question close to the heart of everyone who loves the truth, grieves for the oppressed good, and even more for those who do not comprehend the inner greatness of virtue. Likewise, the tempter pointed to worldly glory to Christ as a means to conquer all the kingdoms of the universe. This temptation was least of all designed to seduce Christ with power. Its strength lies in the actual mood of the world. Having rejected the first tempting offers, Jesus Christ refused to acquire the people's faith through the power of miraculous feeding of people and signs from heaven. But in this case, said the tempter, how can He attract this world to Himself? After all, all the kingdoms of the universe are in the power of the devil (due to the well-known mood of man, his attachment to the external, to the worldly); the world can submit only to the one who conquers it with external power, external splendor, including signs from heaven, the miraculous nutrition of the people - only to the one who adapts to the spirit of the world and through this worships the devil. – In the third temptation, the devil thus directly names himself, speaks of his power over the world and openly points to self-worship. This circumstance is explained not by the arbitrariness of the tempter, but by the meaning of temptation: it pointed to the real evil in which the world lies, and in this indication was its power. After all, the world really lies in evil, because a sinful person really bows before truth and goodness only when they appear in the clothes of external self-satisfaction, visible triumph, visible glory. For human reasoning, the most sound, there is no doubt that truth can take possession of such a world only through external violence. On the other hand, Christ, as the Savior, had to take possession of the world. "Nothing," in the words of Trench, "could be more just than that all the kingdoms of the world should belong to Christ, nothing could be more certain than that He, as the Messiah, should inherit them. And therefore, feeling and knowing that He is the rightful king of the nations, having power to bless them with every blessing as their king, having such prophecies about His kingdom and what that reign should be (Is. XXXII. 1-8; Ps. LXXI), He probably extremely desired, and according to the perfection of His nature, He should have desired, that the kingdoms of the world should belong to Him.” 278 Therefore, Christ, as the future king, had to react in one way or another to the evil spirit reigning in the world 279. It was in this necessity that the strength of the third temptation lay. Ο ᾿Ιησουειπεν αυτω γεγραπται προσκυνήσεις κύριον τον θεόν σου και αύτω μόνω λατρεύσεις (Luke IV, 8; Matt. IV, 10). 56. It is written, the Lord Jesus answered the devil: Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him alone (Deut. VI:13, X:20). Especially about these words it can be said that they are written on every line of Scripture. The Lord Jesus applies them to those circumstances of human life that, according to human reasoning, can most of all justify any deviation from them. The words given by the Lord are extremely clear and strong: they exclude any human reasoning that disagrees with divine reason, any arbitrary deviation from divine truth. A person must remember that bringing people to the Heavenly Father is the work of God Himself: although it is accomplished through man, it does not depend on his own strength. – A person should always worship only the Lord God and serve Him alone. Even if there were no danger of ambition, then in any case there cannot be only visible worship of the devil: it necessarily entails service to the devil. In fact, whoever, thinking humanly, considers external violence necessary in the name of truth and goodness, reveals disbelief in his own power of truth and goodness, disbelief in the invisible dignity of man, in the invisible good, and involuntarily assimilates the worldly understanding of good as external. Love for the spiritual, invisible good must coincide with the renunciation of spontaneous, based on human understanding, service to Him: the invisible good must be served in God's way. For the preaching of the Gospel one should not use human advantages, so that they do not overshadow the grace of God 280. Worship of the Lord God alone in the field of human relationships is expressed not in domination over a person, but in love for him, in serving him in the name of truth and goodness, out of faith in his inner, divine dignity. This faith is a great force that can truly incline a person to the free service of the truth, can awaken his own divine dignity, call to life the best inclinations of his heart, and prepare from his soul an abode for the Son of God. It is by this faith in the inner dignity of man, hidden in his outer humiliation, under the shell of moral filth, that Christ Jesus conquered all temptations in general, and especially the third; with it He reconciled the contradiction from which this temptation arose. This peace, as it can be acquired by external force, is not needed for the kingdom of God; but people who are under the power of the devil can be drawn to the Father by another force - the power of faith; with this latter the world can be conquered. Christ was the Author and Finisher of this power (Heb. xii. 2). My kingdom, He said to the representative of worldly power, is not of this world: if My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would fight for Me, so that I would not be betrayed to the Jews; but now my kingdom is not from here. Pilate said to him: So are you a king? Jesus answered: You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I came into the world, to testify to the truth; everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice (John XVIII, 36.37). He has overcome the world (John. XVI, 33), but precisely because He did not come to be served, but to serve and give His soul as a ransom for many (Matthew XX, 28). He conquered the world by faith in his own power of the truth of man's sonship with God, by faith in the inner free-reasonable life of the Son of God in the hearts of men. The true unity of human society can only consist of the love of God and the free assimilation of it by all people. The same love that should unite a person with God, unite all people with each other; the same faith in the inner dignity of man should determine the mutual relations of people. He who wants to be first must be a slave (Matt. XX, 27). Any external forceful aid in establishing the truth exposes disbelief in its own power, disbelief in God and distrust of man, and therefore leads to the worship of an evil spirit. § 2. About the temptations of the Lord Jesus Christ during His public ministry. Και συντελέσας πάντα πειρασμόν ό διάβολος άπέστη απ᾿ αυτου αχρι καιρου (Luke IV. 13). 57. The victory of Jesus Christ over temptations in the desert determined the moral principles that guided Him in His redemptive ministry. These principles of the redemptive ministry of the Lord Jesus are embraced by the concept of His voluntary humiliation and humility, revealed by the Apostle Paul: Christ Jesus, being in the image of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking on the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of men - and becoming in appearance like a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even to death, even death on the cross (Phil. II, 6–8). On the other hand, the temptations of Christ in the wilderness were a type of those temptations that arose for Him during His atoning ministry. From this point of view, the entire social activity of Christ can be considered. Just as the entire ministry of Christ was a continuous feat of His voluntary humility and obedience even to death, so it was also a continuous feat of His struggle with temptations. The feat of Christ's struggle with temptations during his public ministry coincided with the feat of His voluntary humility and obedience. Every moment of voluntary obedience, voluntary endurance of suffering was for Jesus Christ a moment of endurance of temptations 281. The conditions under which Christ’s voluntary humility became a feat of temptation for Him were created by the demands of the people’s faith. A sinful person can only believe in triumphant truth, happy virtue, and can recognize the messenger of God only in a person surrounded by visible glory. The Jewish people, to whom Jesus Christ first of all addressed the word of the gospel, were predominantly incapable of believing in the humiliated Messiah due to their attachment to earthly happiness, which the Jews expected from religion, to their chosenness of God, which they understood as exclusive and external, to the external side of religion, in which they saw the guarantee of their well-being, and, finally, due to their national pride, which embraced religious ritual as much as folk external glory. Expecting in the Messiah their earthly king, who would restore the national glory of the Jewish people, bring them possible prosperity and place their religious rituals at the height of the world cult, the Jews predetermined for themselves, with the help of a one-sided grouping of Old Testament prophecies, the image of His apparently glorious appearance, timing many external signs to coincide with the coming of the Messiah. Looking more at the fulfillment of the latter than at the inner power of truth and the invisible greatness of goodness, they did not believe in Jesus, because He came from Galilee, from Nazareth, because He came from parents whom the Jews knew as simple and even poor fellow citizens: is it, they said, that Christ will come from Galilee? No prophet comes from Galilee (John VII, 41, 52); Can anything good come from Nazareth (John I, 46)? We know Him where He comes from; But when Christ comes, no one will know where He comes from (John VII, 27; cf. Matt. XIII, 57; Mark VI, 3; John VI, 42; also Luke IV, 24; John IV, 44), etc. To make sure whether Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, they all, starting from the inhabitants of this city and ending with Jerusalem, demanded from Him signs from heaven (Matthew XII:38, XVI, 1; Mark VIII,11; Luke XI, 29; John IV, 48). Jesus Christ marveled at such unbelief (Mark VI, 6). When it was connected with the corruption of the heart, it caused Him suffering: O faithless and corrupt generation! He said: How long will I be with you? How long will I bear with you (Matthew XVII, 17; Mark IX, 19; Luke IX, 41)? When it flowed from a hardened heart, He became angry and grieved (Mr. III, 5). The demand for signs caused him to sigh deeply (Mr. VIII, 12) and He called the Jews for this demand an evil and adulterous generation (Matt. XII, 39 and par.) The especially proud daughter of Zion, Jerusalem, which was loved by Jesus as much as a holy city (Matt. IV, 6, etc.), as it concentrated in itself the national vices of the Jewish people, caused Him great suffering with its disbelief. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to you! How often have I wanted to gather your children together, like a bird gathering its chicks under its wings, and you did not want (Luke XIII, 34; Matt. XXIII, 37)! Oh, if,” Christ said again, approaching Jerusalem shortly before his death and weeping over it, “if only you, even on this day, knew what serves for your peace (Luke XIX, 41.42)! Meanwhile, Jerusalem, apparently, was ready to believe, but only under the condition of signs and wonders! 58. Although the entire public ministry of Christ was for Him a continuous feat of struggle against temptations, however, in some events of His public life, the tempting nature of His ministry is revealed more clearly than in others. Let's celebrate these events. From this point of view, the conversation of Jesus Christ with the Samaritan woman (John IV) already deserves attention. Having stopped one day near Sychar, at Jacob's well, Jesus asked a woman who had come to draw water: Give Me a drink. The woman was surprised by such a request from a Jew addressed to a Samaritan woman. Answering her, Jesus said: if you knew who is speaking to you, then you yourself would ask Him, and He would give you living water. – Jesus Christ understood the water of His teaching, but the woman attributed the words to sensual water. However, according to her understanding, the words of Jesus, if fulfilled, would show in Him a man who is greater than the father of James, who gave this well. When Jesus Christ explained the extraordinary properties of His water: everyone who drinks this water will thirst again; and whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never thirst, etc.; then the woman’s faith rose to the level of desire for such wonderful water: sir! - she said: give me this water so that I don’t have thirst and don’t come here to draw... When Jesus Christ, in the vicinity of Tiberias (John VI), fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread; Then the people who saw the miracle performed by Jesus said: This is truly the prophet who is to come into the world. All those hopes for wealth and abundance that they had based on this coming quickly arose in their hearts, and they were filled with reverence for Christ. The dreams that their ancestors cherished are now ready to come true: earthly happiness is so close and so easy to master. Here, before their eyes, is the almighty Prophet, they just need to keep Him with them and take possession of Him; and they wanted to come and accidentally take Him and make Him king. Having learned about this, the Lord, according to the Gospel of John, withdrew to the mountain alone. Parallel passages from the gospels of Matthew (Matt. XIV, 22.23) and Mark (Mk VI, 45. 46) more strongly convey the danger that Jesus Christ saw in the feelings and proposal of the people for His disciples, and the strong excitement that was caused in Himself by this proposal: · immediately Jesus forced His disciples to enter the boat and go before Him to the other side until He let the people go. And having dismissed the people, He went up the mountain to pray alone; and in the evening he remained there alone. – The next day, Jesus Christ (John VI) tried to direct the thoughts of the people from perishable food to eternal food, which the Son of Man will give. But the people, who saw in the miracle not a symbol of spiritual blessings, but a true good to which they were attached, again asked for heavenly bread as a sign. They understood the words of Christ Jesus that true bread is that which comes down from spiritual heaven and gives (true, eternal invisible) life to the world in the sense of sensory bread and said to Him: Lord! always give us such bread. - When the Lord explained to them that this bread is He Himself, that man must accept Him, the Son of God, into himself, that He offers Himself as food for people - His flesh and His blood, He exposes Himself to the sufferings of human life in order to dwell in the human heart; Then the Jews grumbled at Him because He said: I am the bread that came down from heaven - they grumbled, deceived in their hopes of receiving material bread from Him and seeing the coming Prophet in the external majesty of the Son of God, and not in a suffering human form. 59. A new event, in which the tempter again approached Jesus Christ, and approached in the person of one of His closest disciples, took place at Caesarea Philippi. The evangelists Matthew (XVI) and Mark (VIII) report about him. – Jesus Christ asked His disciples who the people consider Him to be and who they, the disciples, consider Him to be. According to their answer, people revered Him as one of the prophets, and they themselves, through the mouth of Simon Peter, confessed Him as Christ, the Son of the living God. Then the Lord answered Peter; blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah; for it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I say to you: you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matthew XVI: 13-18). Already from the solemnity of this answer, it is easy to see how comforting the confession of His sonship of God was for Jesus Christ - this is the foundation of the Church: in the Son of Man, who had no place to lay his head (Matthew VIII, 20) and with the humility of a poor teacher walked around the villages of the Galileans, the disciples recognized the Son of God. But Jesus Christ was at that time on his last journey to Jerusalem, where his dying suffering and death on the cross soon awaited Him. From that time on, Jesus began openly (Mark VIII, 32) to tell His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, suffer much, and be killed (Matt. XVI, 21; Mark VIII, 31, 32). He began to talk about this openly because the faith of the disciples expressed through the lips of Peter served as a guarantee of their readiness to face the severe humiliation of the Teacher. But could not the very faith of the disciples be shaken? And indeed, Peter, having recalled Him, began to reproach Him: Be merciful to Yourself, Lord; let this not happen to you (Matt. XVI, 22; Mark VIII, 32), expressing with this contradiction not compassion for his Teacher, but his conviction of the inconsistency of such suffering with the dignity of the Son of God. Then the Lord turned and looked at His disciples and said to Peter: get away from Me, Satan; you are a temptation to me; because you think not about what is God, but about what is human (Matthew XVI, 23; Mark VIII, 33). Then He said to all the people and disciples: if anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his soul will lose it; and whoever loses his soul for My sake will find it (Matthew XVI, 24 et seq. Mark VIII, 34 et seq.), etc. 60. The last days of Christ’s earthly life were, one might say, a continuous temptation for Him. Already what is usually called the solemn entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem was accompanied for Him by the suffering of temptation. Brought to extreme tension by the events of recent years, and especially recently before the miraculous resurrection of Lazarus, the people came out of Jerusalem to meet Christ with solemn exclamations: Hosanna! blessed is the King of Israel who comes in the name of the Lord (John XII, 13; Luke XIX, 38)! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David coming in the name of the Lord (Mark XI, 10)! So once again, and in a more solemn atmosphere, the Jewish people offered Jesus Christ the kingdom. The Pharisees said among themselves: the whole world is following Him (John XII, 19). Even among those who came to worship on the holiday, some Greeks expressed a desire to see Jesus (John XX, 21). Then the hour came for the Son of Man to be glorified. But was this glorification supposed to manifest itself in him? Truly, truly, I say to you, Christ said: unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; and if he dies, he will bear much fruit, etc. (John XX, 23. 24 et seq.). It is very remarkable that Jesus Christ responded to the cries of the people and to the desire of the Greeks with the same words that He had previously uttered following the answer to Peter, at Caesarea Philippi. But when Christ Jesus made it clear by what kind of death He would die, the people answered Him: We have heard from the law that Christ abides forever; How then do You say that the Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of man? - and did not believe in Him (John XII, 32. 33. 37). So, the people, glorifying God for all the miracles they saw (Luke XIX, 37), willingly followed Jesus as a king, but did not believe in Him because of the suffering and humiliation that awaited Him. Then the soul of the Lord Jesus was indignant at the coming hour of suffering and He said: Father! deliver Me from this hour! When a voice from heaven answered Him and spiritual indignation was overcome, He said: “Now is the judgment of this world; Now the prince of this world will be cast out (John. XII, 27–31), as if indicating that this prince of the world was the cause of His indignation. A little later, the prince of peace again approached Christ: it was the battle of Gethsemane (Luke XXII, 44). Many gospel sayings related here point to the participation of the devil in the sufferings of Christ in Gethsemane. Already the description of the Easter supper is preceded by the evangelists Luke and John with the remark that Satan entered Judas and put it in his heart to betray Jesus (Luke XXII, 3; John XIII, 2, cf. 21). During the supper, Jesus Himself, having reminded the disciples of the misfortunes in which they were with Him, turned to Peter with the words: Simon! Simon! Behold, Satan has asked to sow you like wheat (Luke XXII, 28.31). Before leaving the supper for Gethsemane, He said: the prince of this world is coming (John XIV, 30. 31; cf. Luke XXII, 53). – The struggle itself began at the evening, when Jesus was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said to the disciples: Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you will betray Me (John XIII: 21). Having come to Gethsemane, He, taking with Him Peter and both sons of Zebedee, began to grieve, be horrified and yearn, and said to them: My soul is grieved to death, stay here, watch with Me and pray so as not to fall into temptation (Matt. XXVI, 36-38; Mark. XIV, 33, 34; Luke, XXII, 39–40). Then He walked away from them a stone's throw, knelt down, fell on His face, prayed and said: My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from Me; however, not as I want, but as You want. And being in struggle, he prayed more diligently; and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground (Matthew XXVI, 39; Mark XIV, 35; Luke XXII, 41–44). Then, getting up from prayer, he comes to the disciples and, finding them sleeping (from sadness), says to them: watch and pray! so as not to fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matt. XXVI, 40.41; Mk. XIV, 37.38; Luke XXII, 45.46). Then he prayed in the same way a second and third time (Matthew XXVI, 42.44; Mark XIV, 39, 41). When Judas finally came and handed Him over to the high priests, the rulers of the church and the elders, Christ said to the latter: now is your time and the power of darkness (Luke XXII, 53). – What kind of power of darkness was this? This was the malice generated by the devil against Him, now, no more than the day before the crucifixion, completely ripened in the hearts of men and just waiting for its extreme outward manifestation: it was unbelief in Him, which had now reached its highest degree: His death had already been decided not only by the lips of the high priest, not only in the hearts of the leaders of the people, but the entire crowd of people, already prepared to shout: crucify, crucify Him, agreed to it in the depths of their souls! During the trial and on the cross, the temptations of Jesus Christ continued from the people's unbelief in degraded good, from the inability of people to recognize the sonship of the sufferer. So in Pilate’s Praetorium the soldiers placed a crown of thorns on Jesus’ head, gave Him a cane in His right hand, and, kneeling before Him, mocked Him, saying: Hail, King of the Jews (Matthew XXVII, 29; Mark XV, 17, 18)! On the cross on which He was crucified, there was an inscription: King of the Jews (Mark XV, 26; Luke XXIII, 38; Matt. XXVII, 37). His suffering on the cross did not restrain the painful manifestations of popular unbelief for Him. The people, the high priests, scribes, elders, Pharisees, soldiers passed by, stood and watched, mocked and slandered Him, nodding their heads: if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross; if He is the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe in Him; let Him trust in God, let Him now deliver Him, if He pleases Him, for He said: I am the Son of God; even one of the villains crucified with Him slandered Him and said: if You are the Christ, save Yourself and us (Matthew XXVII, 40-44; Mark XV, 29-31; Luke XXIII, 35-39). Truly, Christ, although a Son, learned obedience through suffering (Heb. V, 8), was the author and perfecter of faith, and suffered reproach from sinners, struggling against sin (Heb. XII, 2-4). This question hides another one - about the authenticity of the gospels, i.e., were our gospels really written by the apostles? But in fact, only gospel isagogy can answer this question; when applied to a private text, it is necessary to modify this general question to the more specific one posed above. Moreover, there is no reason for the author to enter into discussions about the authenticity of the gospels, since for rationalist criticism both the question of literary probability and the question of the historical reliability of the gospel narratives are equally possible, whether the apostles are recognized as the authors of the gospels or not. Strauss, I, 428; Keim, I, 555–556; Weiss, I, 305–306. Strauss, 426–428; Paulus, L. J, 141–142. A. V. Gorsky, 96; cp. Kuhn, 343–345. r. 114; cp. Meyer, Baumgarten - Crusius, Kuhn, 1, 355, 390. - Goette, 211-212, regarding these words, Renan asks him: why does he, Renan, stand for the story of the Evangelist Mark? In this story angels and the devil are mentioned as persistently as in the other two synoptic gospels; the character of the supernatural is the same in all of them. Weiss, 321–322, Keim, 557–558, Keil, Schanz in Mark.: Die Darstellung des Marcus ist aus sich allein gar nicht vollständig zu verstehen. Man muss… den Matthäus… voraussetzen. Archbishop Pavel at Barsov, I, 249. Trent, Knabenbauer, Schanz ü Luc. Significationi et usui παλιν omnino satisfit, si dicitur ea particula solum aliam annuntiari tentationem vei continuationem tentationis designari, quasi diceres porro; Quare non necessario secunda vel repetita assumptio enuntiatur, sed alia tentatio. Knabenbauer. "Geographical order". Ep. Mikhail on ev. from Luke. Trench coat, Meyer, Olshausen. True, it is objected to this that, according to the Gospel of Luke, Christ’s answer to the third temptation: do not tempt the Lord your God is quite suitable for the conclusion of history. So Knabenbauer, Sсhanz, etc. But such a final meaning is given to the answer of Jesus Christ to the third temptation according to the Gospel of Luke only because by the Lord God they mean Jesus Christ, which is unfair in this place: the meaning of the answer is not that the devil should not tempt I. Christ, but that I. Christ should not tempt the Lord God, which the devil called Him to do. The above consideration would be even more valid if, according to the Gospel of Luke, Christ responded to the second temptation with the same words as to the third according to St. Luke. Matthew: Get behind me, Satan. This is what the textus recept authorizes. But according to Tischendorf, these words are not in Luke’s gospel. p. 163. Like Hünefeid, s(eite). 38. – The explanation that Grimm gives for this difference is curious. He decides not the question of which of the evangelists is more faithful to history - a question that, in his opinion, is not resolvable - but why Matthew and Luke each follow the order of temptations that they present, no matter which of them is historical. Luke, in the course of the Gospel stories, depicts the work of saving man by Christ in accordance with the order in which people are first saved. pagans, and then Jews; Matthew - the opposite. The evangelists follow this order, both in their entire gospel, and more particularly in conveying the story of Christ’s temptations in the desert. The feat of victory over temptation on the mountain is a feat of salvation for the pagans; the feat of victory on the wing of the temple, the feat of salvation of the Jews. Therefore, in the Evangelist Luke, the temptation on the mountain precedes the temptation on the wing of the church, and in the Evangelist Matthew, the temptation on the wing of the church precedes it. S. 197–200. Anm. — Likewise Westcott in Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, p. 295 explains the difference in the order of temptations by the general difference between the evangelists, that Matthew portrays Christ as a king, and Luke as the Son of Man. Barrett, b. 168–170. I, 117–119; Wed Spirit. Demon. Vol. IX, 39. Primo... (nrzb.)... - In modern times, a forty-day duration is accepted by Hünefeld, Grimm, etc. Hoelemmann, s. 109–113; cp. Lucas Brugensis Cornel a Lap. in Math. Oosterzee, Germany in Luc. About these words, Euthymius Zigaben: Matthew omitted them as not necessary, and Luke placed them as spoken exactly in this case. The analysis of rationalistic hypotheses is far from new in theological literature. On the contrary, as diverse as these hypotheses are, criticism is just as richly developed. Therefore, our task is nothing more than the collection of already developed material. St. and Kr. 1832, 4. Previously (St. and Kr. 1829, 3) Usteri held a different view, which is discussed below. Kritik, d. ev. Gesch. d. Synopt. 1841, 1, 240 – Keim, 563, Hase L. j. 106. Web. Math. 3 Aufi. s. 109. On the myth hypothesis, see Ullman 171–173, Weiss 331–332. D. christl. Glaube, 2 Aufl., 2B. s. 39–40. (§ 93.4), 86–88 (§ 98.1). More on this below. On the parable hypothesis, see Keil, Gaze, A.V. Gorskago, Ullman, Kane. L.I.S. 141 folgg: Exed. Handb. s. 375–392 folgg. From the last 1 to Serapion, - creation. Part III, Moscow, 1853, rev. 5–6. According to the Gospel of Luke, Pavlus thinks among other things, “Jesus was led in spirit through the desert for 40 days”: Pavlus cannot accept this message as reality, but, obviously, the misunderstanding here is generated by incorrect reading. It did not seem to Christ (in the vision, as Paulus thinks) that He was in the desert for 40 days, but by the Holy Spirit he was led into the desert for 40 days. – In general, about the hypothesis of vision, see A.V. Gorsky, Ullman, Usteri, Trench, Lange, Weiss, Kuhn, Strauss, Gase. De princ. lib. IV, cap. 16 (t. 1, p. 175–176). Suo spiritu Christum credendum est ductum et in desertum, et super templum, ut utrobique eum diabolus assumeret ad tentandum. – Et localiter quidem in deserto prima fuit tentatio; sed ceteras eo modo circumduxit tentatoris astutia, rei circumduci passa est patientia salvatoris, quo modo Ezechiel cum super fluvium Chobar sederet, Hierosolymam raptus in spiritu civitatem aedificat et metitur, et muros, et templum instaurat. Hoc modo super culmen templi Christus erat in spiritu... p. 36. So, Krabbe, Vollesungen über d. Leben lesu, also Oosterzee, Hofmann and Ullman in later articles and editions of their work Ueb. d. Sundlosigkeit. – Bl. maintained a similar understanding of the temptations of his ancestors for some time. Augustine. See V. Veltistova, Sin, its origin. etc. M. 1885, p. 163. Quibus ego, magnis licet auctoribis, ideo non assentior, quoa dictu absurdum videatur diabolum Christo eodem modo, quo prophetis Deum visiones animo injecisse. Maldonatus. For this reason, Farmer’s view (Inquiry etc. London 1761), according to whom the vision in the soul of Christ was produced by God Himself, does not even deserve analysis. Renan’s opinion that the devil, who tempted Christ, lives in the heart of each of us, that, in other words, Christ was tempted not by the devil, as the objective cause of temptation, but by the desires of his own heart, that, further, such temptations not only could, but also had to, be repeated in His Life more than once, that one of such temptations lies at the basis of the Gospel story, conveying a psychological fact in a legendary form - this opinion can only be mentioned... Renan, b. 458, 114. In Jahrbücher f. d. Theologie, 1878, 1. cp. Keil. – Keim speaks more clearly in Op. Der Geschichtliche Christus, Zürich 1865. Here he says that the temptations of Christ not only had a sufficient basis in His nature, in the conditions of its development, but were necessary due to the nature of this - conditional - development. See I: die menschliche Entwicklung Jesu, ss. 39–43. – According to Ullmann and Kane, Gase thinks, Gnosis, 258, Leb. Jes., 107 and Weiss, 331. We do not want to say with such remarks that the mistake of Keim and Ullman consists only in not recognizing the devil as the source of temptations of Christ and that with the recognition of only this their views would have become correct... And without the direct participation of the devil, there could have been real temptations for Christ, and with the recognition of the cause of temptation in the devil, the view of Keim and Ullman would have won only partly. The shortcomings of them and similar views, as we will see, are deeper. But we look at these views as approximate statements of the hypothesis, and, without denying the possibility of a better presentation, we want to show the internal inconsistency of these statements, considering them from their own point of view. And we do this not so much to criticize the hypothesis, but in order to prevent confusion in concepts in the reader’s mind that could arise if the author, in the present case, rejected the hypothesis under consideration without any reservations, and below expressed the thoughts found in this explanation and even with reference to its defenders. Except for weak objections to the literal understanding of the Gospel story, which are discussed below. See A.V. Gorsky. We no longer repeat the questions posed above, but still applicable here: do we have other examples of a similar allegory? How could the disciples not understand the Teacher? and under. See eg. Gospel of Nicodemus Fabricii Cod. Apocr. No. T. r. 280. Exeg. Handb. s. 386 and generally cf. 384–386. St. u Kr. 1832, 2. 771–773. A νάγο from ανω + αγω, opposed to κατάγω, means sursum duco, in locum altiorem duco and is used both about resurrection - about erection from the underworld to the heavenly abodes (Heb. XIII, 20), and about those sailing on a boat or ship from the shore, to the high side, or in altum mare ( Luke VIII, 22; Acts XIII, 13, etc.) Grimm. Ἐκβάλλω – inclusa majoris minori sue notionë expello, ejicio, exturbo etc. Grimm. Sochin. – vol. III, Moscow 1877, p. 389. – Wed. Lucas Brugensis, Cornel. a. lap., Knabenbauer – in Math. Undefined Inc. πειρασθηναι denotes the goal (Win. § 44, 4, 6); Wed Meyer-Weiss. More precisely: - not entirely true, - meaning various types of temptations, which will be discussed below. Ascetic words. M. 1854, 471. Ad diabolum Jesus ductus est, ut tentaretur: ad homines quidem diabolus vadit, ut tentet eos, nou homines ad diabolum, ut tententur ab eo. Quoniam autem adversus Christus diabolus ire non poterat, ideo contra diabolum Christus processit – Incerti auct. Op. imp. p. 775. This addition distinguishes Jesus Christ from fasting according to the custom of the Jews, qui per diem nihil cibi potusve sumentes noctu vescebantur. Maldonatus. One ούκ εφαγεν can only indicate abstinence from food (Matt. XI. 18), and the addition of ουδεν means complete abstinence from food. John Zlat. Kirill Alex. Wed Theophylact. Also Theophylact: “the devil appeared in a sensual form”; Maldonatus: forma corporea, eaque humana accessisse... quia si alia accessisset forma, evangelistae non tacuissent (as if the silence of the evangelists about the appearance of the devil in human form is completely understandable?!); Lucas Brugensis thinks that just as the devil deceived Christ by his disguised appearance, so Christ deceived him (diabolo pia fraude circumvento) by appearing hungry and then by his disguised answers; Bogolepov; W. Thu. Part III, 406 and many others. On the contrary: ep. Michael: “the devil may have appeared, not in a crude, sensual form”; Spirit. Demon. IX, 41: “The evangelists do not say that the devil, when tempting Christ, took on any image, as, for example, when tempting the ancestors; but they call him by the proper name of the devil”... pl. etc. That is why the Evangelist Luke, who previously said πειραζόμενος υπο τού διαβόλων, now limits himself to the words: ειπεν αύτω ο διάβολος (IV, 2. 3). Many St. the fathers and ancient writers asserted that the secret of the divine dignity of Christ was hidden from the devil. See Matveevsky, 253, approx. So St. John Chrysostom speaks about the devil εν άμηχανία γενομενος, αμφιβόλους άφιησι φωνάς, - also St. Kirill Alex. Maji, t. VIII, 75; Xp. Thurs. 192; Theodore of Mopsuestia, Euthymius Zigaben t. 1, 119. But the ancient exegetes expressed themselves with restraint, as will be discussed a little below. Wed. bl. Jerome, St. Cyprian, Lucas Brugensis: an Iesus sit Christus verus atque ομούσιος Filius Dei. Knabenbauer speaks about the same motive of the devil (diabolum voluisse explorare, utrum Iesus esset Filius Dei necne...); Spirit. Bec. IX, 39: the first and immediate goal that the devil had in tempting Jesus Christ was to find out and be sure who Christ is - whether he is really the Son of God, or an ordinary person... and many more. etc. This is exactly what the St. think. John Chrysostom and other Greek fathers. St. John Chrysostom, although he says that the devil is the devil, nevertheless explains the devil’s bewilderment by the fact that, on the one hand, he heard a voice from heaven, and on the other, he saw Christ hungry. The devil’s proposal tended to arouse in Christ distrust of the heavenly voice: – St. Cyril Alex. This is how he conveys the words of the devil: I heard a voice coming down from above, which called You the Son of God, but I will not believe it until experience teaches me. Maji, t. VIII, 76; Chr, Thu, 192 Cp. Mayer: Christo dubitationem injicere de filiatione ejus divina, Hist. diab. p. 287, Meyer Weiss). Catholic writers know this explanation as the explanation of the school of John Chrysostom, but do not agree with it. Explaining the words of the devil by his desire to know who Christ is, Corn. and Lap. continues: Quare minus verisimile est quod sanctus Chrysostomus hic hom. 13 ait diabolum voluisse Christum inducere in incredulitatem, q. d. Audisti in baptismo vocem: Hic est Filius meus: ne credas te esse Filium Dei etc. It was the Catholic theologians who gave an absurd expression to the thought of the devil’s doubt in his words: ει υιος εϊ του θεου. – This should be taken into account by those Orthodox theologians who are indiscriminate in assimilating other people’s opinions. So, at least, Christ could not provide an example of struggle and victory. Having finished all the temptation, the devil departed (Luke IV, 13). It is obvious that one well-known diabolus, cujus officium est tentare does not help much in resolving the issues raised. Creation Part IV, M. 1846, 12–18. Wed. Cyril of Alexandria, Theophylact. Of course, the words of Basil the Great and John Chrysostom can least of all be understood in the sense that the hunger of Christ was pia fraus, a bait for the devil, like Lucas Brugeusid, Maldonatus and other Catholic theologians. Accedens, assumpta scilicet humani corporis forma quasi homo ad hominem, ut eum externa voce alloquendo tentaret. Kam haec tentatio Christi, sicut et Adami per Evam in statu innocentiae, facta est per externam tantum vocis suggestionem, non autem per internas phantasiae cogitationes et commotiones, contra rationem et spiritum insurgentes. In Adamo enim, et multo magis in Christo erat justitia originalis etc. Likewise Knabenbauer. Like Barrett, 54. Cf. Above is an analysis of rationalistic hypotheses. Hom. 67, ar. Cremer. – Therefore, only half – and the half that is not suitable for the story of temptation – is expressed by Corn. and Lap., when he writes: διάβολος Graecis idem est, quod accusator, calumniator, qualis maxime est, Satanas, qui homines perpetim accusat apud Deum, ut eos sibi suaeque potestati addicat in gehenna in Mat. LV, 1. On the contrary, Theophylact: the devil is called that way, that is, a slanderer, because he slandered God to Adam when he said to him: God envies you. He still slanderes our virtue. ' Η δήποτε καθ᾿ εκάστην πείραν τούτο προστίθησιν , εί υίος ει του θεου; τούτο και νυν ποιεί, ώσπερ γαρ τότε δίεβαλε τον θεον λεγων οτι αν ήμερα φιίγητε υμών οί οφθαλμοί, διά τούτων δειξαι βουλόυενος, οτι ήπάτηνται και παρελογίσθησαν και ουδεν εισιν ευηργετημόνοι ουτω δή καί τό αυτό τούτο άινίττεται λεγων οτι είκή σε εκαλεσεν υιόν και ήπάτησε τη δωρεά επεί ει μή τούτο εστιν , πάράσχου ήμΐν άποδειξεν τοϋ τη; δννάμεως είναι εκεινης. Like St. Athanasius: Why does the devil ask Christ at every temptation, saying: if you are the Son of God? These words are similar to what was originally said to him in paradise. He said to Adam: on the day that you eat, your eyes will be opened, showing that your first parents were deceived by God. That’s why here, after each of his speeches, he constantly adds: if You are the Son of God, that is, if the voice that called You Son is true, then why don’t you confirm it? – According to Euthymius Zigaben, the devil, saying: if you are the Son of God όνειδισθεις επι τω μή είναϊ υιος Θεοΰ – I, 119; Cyprian calls the devil cavillator and assimilates to him the words: quod si esuris, manifestum est te filium Dei non esse, quem violentia necessitatis communibus indigentiis intercludit. Quod corporaliter eum diabolus tulerit, videtur inconveniens; quod humeris ejus Salvator insederit et pro, vehiculo usus sit quem praecipitatorem sciebat; vel ei ferendum se commiserit cujus insidias agnoscebat, p. 36. Knabenbauer: Quod aliqui imaginati sunt Iesum ductum esse pedibus et quasi iter instituisse cum diabolo, ridiculum videtur, et quamvis non sola voce παρα λαμβάνει excludatur, tamen satis voce statuit εστησε exploditur. Wed. Dictionnaire de théologie par Bergier, – Perro ι, – Migne, sub. v.: tentation, t. 4, p. 668: le grec παραλαμβάνει et le latin assumpsit ne signifient pas toujours transporter; ils veulent dire souvent prendre avec soi, conduire etc. The understanding of the word εστησεν is determined entirely by the meaning of the word παραλ αμβάνει. Weiss., 325, Anm.; Strauss, 437: Kuhn, 389. When understanding the journey of Christ as natural, the question raised by Meyer, Gase, Weiss, Strauss about the violence of the devil against Christ loses the force of objection. The attitude of Christ towards the devil is well depicted in Origen: sequebatur plane quasi athleta ad tentationem sponte proficiscens, – et quodammodo loquebatur: duc, quo vis, tenta, ut placet, ad tentandum sponte me tribuo; sustineo quao suggesseris: praebeo me in quibuscumqie tentaveris: invenies (me) in omnibus fortiorem – in Lucam p. 968. Roresmùller, d. Alte u, N. Morgenland, V. V, (Leipz. 1820), s. 18. – It was for Matthew, as for a Jew, that Jerusalem was a holy place (XXIV, 15), the city of the great King (V, 35). Together with Hoelemann also Olear, Deyling, Kuinoel, Meyer and others. Το Ιερόν et o ναός ita differunt, ut illud totum templi circuitum, totum aedificiorum, murorum, porticuum, atriorum, ad templum pertinentium complexum, hoc aedem sacram proprie dictam, duabus e partibus, sancto et sancto sanctorum s. sanctissimo constantem, designet, Grimm. Usteri (St. u. Kr. 1829, 3, 450 - Strauss, 437–438) points out the apparent contradiction that the gospel does not mention the people, whose presence is assumed by the second temptation, but “if the people were present, what excitement would have occurred in them at the sight of Jesus standing on the Wing of the Church.” – But although the second temptation in its entirety is designed for the presence of the people, this presence would only be necessary if Jesus Christ agreed to the devil’s offer. Temptation may relate to the coming day (and even long in advance) and the mental circumstances of this day, but for its initial origin it does not necessarily presuppose the real presence of the object to which it relates, much less the conditions for its fulfillment. Thus, Gaze’s objection to understanding one Palestine under the “loud name of all the kingdoms of the world” falls by itself. Cfr. S. Ambros, in Lucam, 50–51. Ovid. Trist. III, 7. 51, – Dumque suis victrix omnem de montibus orbem Prospiciet domitum Martia Roma. – Dio Xiphilini p. 295 de Severo imp, και αλλοτε ανήχθη είς περιωπην υ i π o τίνος , κα ) και ορών απ αυτής ? εμ av θ a εν . – Cnfr. Spart. – Somniavit primo-deinde ex altissimi montis vertice terrarum Romamque despexit, etc. Vid. Wetten in h. loc. Cui traditioni non omnis fides erit deneganda cum jam antiquissimo tempore eo in loco multi, degerent anachoratae Christi jejunium ac solitudinem pia memoria recolentes. Knabenb. Holy land. Tp. K. D. A. 1876, I, 96–98. Usteri, de Wette, Meyer, Strauss, Ullmann. Καιρός and καιροί are used about certain points in time: Luke. VIII, 13; Rom. XIII, 11; 2 Cor. VI, 2. Sometimes, rightly says Barret, 104, about our temptations, victory, if it be won at all, is won at such a cost that it is only less terrible than a defeat. Theodori Mopsuesteni Fragmenta ex libris de incarnatione Filii Dei, in Act. V conc. g. coll. IV, Mansi, t. IX, (ap. Migne, s. gr. t. LXVI): excerpt. XLIX. Ουκ εδεικνυτο αναμάρτητος ο μηπω κατα nav τ a πολιτευσαμενος και εν πασίν αγωνισαμενος προς την αμαρτίαν , Δ ia τ o υτο εξ αναγκης συγχωρειταί ινα κάθαρως αναμάρτητος o φθη, ου τω μη πειρασθηναι, αλλα τω φυλαξασθαι πειρασθεις. Fragmenta patrum gr. ed. Munter, fasc. 1, 101–107. The attitude of Theodore of Mopsuestia towards the Pelagians is known. Even the ancients noticed the internal connection between the Christology and anthropology of the Antiochian school and the similarity between Pedagogianism and Nestorianism based on this. Neander Gesch. d. chr. K. 2/3, 1831, Hamb., 933, Anm. 2. Theodore of Mopsuestia was one of the few Eastern theologians who took part in the Pelagian disputes, and Julian referred to his agreement with Theodore. Ibid. 1359. Only the Pelagians, who were exclusively occupied with anthropological questions, did little about Christology; we find the application of Pelagian anthropology to Christology more developed in Julian, against whom Augustine wrote Or. imperf. contra sec. Iuliani responsionem – Op. t. x/2. Paris. 1696. Although, according to the teachings of the Pelagians, Christ won complete victory over all lust. Op. imp. lib. III, 53. 54. 57. 84. In what, and only in this, in contrast to Theodore of Mopsuestia, did the Pelagians believe the redemptive feat of Christ. Quid mirum, cohibere oculos carnis suae auxilio non vagantes? Quid magnum, abducere ab illecebris odoribus nares, quibas nescirent patere? Quid stupendum, tenere arduam quoteidie in epulis parcitaten, quarum nequibat irritamenta sentire? quid postremo ardui haberent in quadragesimam diem prolata jejunia, si esuries molesta esse non poterat?… quae autem gloria castitatis, si virilitas magis aberat quam voluntas, et quod putabatur fieri de vigore animi, veniebat de debilitate membrorum?…. quae postremo palma tolerantiae, si dolor vulnerum et verberum, intercepto itinere sensuum, pertingere ad animum non valebat? etc. Op. imp. lib. IV, 49, 50, 53. Dorner, System etc. 2/1, 462–463; Bruce, 250–254. De peccat mer. et remise. lib. 1, 31. Immaniter, Iuliane, blasphemas, coaequans carnem Christi ceterorum hominum carni Op. imp. IV, 60. Contra Juhanum pelag. lib. V, 15. Quisquis credit carnem Christi contra spiritum concupisse anathema est. Op. imp. lib. IV, 47. Op. imp. lib. III, 210; lib IV, 61, de nuptiis et concupisse. lib. I, 24; lib. II, 2; contra Julian. pel. lib. V, 9. De pecc. merr. et rem. lib. II, 17, 27 Ibid. lib. II, 17, 27; 24, 38. Ibid, lib. IV, 49, 52, 53. Cui se ipse quoque lentandum praebuit, ut ad superandas etiam tentationes ejus mediator esset, non solum per adjutorium, verum etiam per exemplum. At ille primitus ubi per omnes aditus ad interiora moliens irrepere, expulsus est, post baptisma in eremo completa omni tentatione illecebrosa, quia vivum spiritu spiritu mortuus non invasit, quoquo modo avidus mortis humanae convertit se ad faciendam mortem quam potuit,, et permissus est in illud quod ex nobis mortale vivus Mediator acceperat. De Trinitate, lib. IV, 13, 17 (t. 8). Quomodo victus est (diabolus)? Quia cum in eo nihil morte dignum inveniret, occidit eum tamen. Ibid. lib. XIII, 14, 18. Et ubi potuit aliquid facere, ibi ex omni parte devictus est, et unde accepit exterius potestatem Dominicae carnis occidendae, inde interior ejus potestas qua nes tenebat occisa est... Ille qui spiritu vivus carnem suam mortuam resscitavit, verus vitae Mediator, illum spiritu mortuam et mortis mediatorem a spiritibus in se credentium foras misit, ut non regnaret intrinsecus, sed forinsecus oppugnaret, nec tamen expugnaret. Ibid. lib. IV, 13, 17. Gousset, 278–279: Ainsi, quand il est dit dans l’Evangile qu’il a été tenté par le démon, cela doit sentendré d’une tentation purement extérieure… 279. Cnfr. Cornel. a Lapidë Sicut sol nubes dissipat, sic et Christus omnes diaboli tentationes. In Mat. 98; Kleë... in dieser Vollkommenheit war Christus auch innerlich ohne alle Versuchung... Wer in Christo eine Versuchung oder Versuchlichkeit statuirt, der erklart ihn damit für selber erlosungsbedurftig und läugnet seine Erloserwürde. Gegen die Unversuchlichkeit ist nicht die Versuchung in der Wüste, von welcher die Evangelisten berichten, indem diese nicht in, sondern ausser ihm enstand und hlieb, sein Inneres auch nicht einen Augenblick davon bewegt wurde 524–525. Schleiermacher's dogmatics, upon closer examination, turns out to be a chain of mutual contradictions. This explains why among his extremely Protestant views there are extremely Catholic ones. § 93, 4, s. 39–40; § 98.1, s. 86–88. In this regard, the views of Augustine and precisely the condemnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia were authorized by the definition of the 5th Ecumenical Council: Μοψυεστιας του ειποντος αλλον ειναι τον Θεον Λογον και αλλον ????? . έργων βελτιωθεντα καί εκ πολιτείας αμώμον καθισταντα …. άναθέμά εστω. In addition, Ullman wrote journal articles on the same issue. Op. St. u. Kr. 1829, 3, 462. Creations, part 5, M. 1850, 122–123. St. Ephraim the Syrian loc. cit. Thomas a Kempis says directly: in ourselves there is the root of temptation, since we were born in sins, I, 13 4. ' Ομολογονμεν, οτι πάντα τά φυσικά και άδιαβλητα πάθη του άνθρωπου ανελαβεν. ' Ολον γάρ τον άνθρωπον , καί πάντα τά του άνθρώπσυ ανέΐαβε , πλην τής αμαρτιας. Αυτη γάρ ου φυσική εστιν, ουδε υπο τοΰ Δημιουργου ήμίν ενοπαρεισα εκ τής τον διαβόλου έπισποράς έν τή ήμετέρα προαιρέσει εκουσίως συνισταμενη, ου βία ήμων κρατουσα. A ?? δίψα κτλ. De fide orthodoxa, lib. III, 20. (Migne, a, gr. t. XCIV, - transl. Bronzova). Christ was tempted both positively and negatively: pos ι tively, by the attractions of that which is agreeable to sense; negatively, by the repulsions of pain. 248. Eg. one passion or another. The same temptation may arise from various causes, and therefore the absence of a particular cause in any given case does not necessarily imply exemption from the temptation. 263. Not only may the same kind of temptation proceed from morally opposite causes, but temptation which proceeds from a holy source may be in degree fiercer than that which has its origin in sinful lust. 265. His difficulties, however, were certainly not the same as those of His followers. A Christian can, for example, fight even to the point of blood against lust or “old” habits. Christ had no such struggle. He tolerated the opposition of sinners, but not the opposition of sinful inclinations. But in all essential respects, the temptations of man are quite similar to the temptations of the One who knew no sin. The disciple of Christ experiences a struggle between the aspirations of the spirit and the desires of the flesh. Christ essentially experienced the same thing when he said: let this cup pass, with the only difference that the desire of Christ’s human nature was innocent. The disciple of Christ, out of obedience to the will of God, must renounce the cup for which his flesh thirsts; and Christ, out of obedience to the same will, had to drink the cup, before which His flesh trembled... 266-267. If it were not so, we would have to assume that all poor people are thieves at heart. The author also talks about the fear of suffering as one of the types of temptation with its direct application to Jesus Christ. Indeed, the temptation of suffering is one of the types of temptation, but this temptation is completely different from those temptations by desire, which the author talks about in all other examples; secondly, fear of suffering does not yet cover the entire area of ​​temptations to suffering, as will be seen below; thirdly, the author himself gives the temptation of Christ the name of seduction by evil, p. 248. Bruce's view, found in various variations, although in a less developed form, in several theologians, such as Godet, Barrett, and others, does not have the character of such classical integrity and consistency as the views of Theodore of Mopsuet and bl. Augustine. While the latter necessarily followed from firmly established convictions, this view is a forced way of reconciling various definitions of the temptations of Jesus Christ, with the beginning of this reconciliation unclear. In it we find an attempt to mechanically connect the criterion of reality of one kind of temptation with the subjective basis of other temptations, determined by a different criterion. Analysis of this view is necessary to the extent that it is necessary to clarify unsettled concepts and unclear ideas with which, however, one has to deal, and is useful as an inevitable note for the clarity of the matter. Quantititiv und qualitativ – sein Versuchwerden dem ansrigen gieich. Wie bei uns, so knüpfte sich bei ihm das Versuchtwerden an (nrzb.) Swachheiten der menschlichen Natur. S. 17. Bose Lust abzuwehren, hat, zu Iesu Arbeit an siçh selbst nicht gehort; aus ihm selbst tauchte bose Lust nicht auf, Lockung zu ihr von aussen her fand keine Sympathie in ihm. S. 25. Ss. 10–20. – According to Hess, the temptations of Jesus Christ stemmed from the sinfulness of people, from the devil and from the Heavenly Father. The sinful world presented Jesus Christ with the difficult task of reconciling love for man with anger at his sinfulness. But Christ not only loved a sinful person, but even had to obey parents, authorities, etc. The sinfulness of the world was directed directly at Him: people did not believe in Him and caused Him suffering. Then temptations came from Satan, who offered Him a choice; two paths - the narrow path of suffering and the wide path of power and external glory. Finally, temptations from the Heavenly Father came when He was silent, despite the appeals of the Son to Him. Iesus ward versucht in dem, was er litt. Und nur in dem was er litt. Auf Verzichtleisten, und immer neues Verzichteisten ging seine Führurig hin u. s; w. 36. De fide orth. lib. III, 14. Ἐν ω γάρ πεπονθεν αύτος παρασθεις , δυναται τοΐς πειραζομενοις βοηθησαι Heb. ΙΙ, 18. – Since, writes John Chrysostom in. h. loc., many people consider experience to be the surest means to knowledge, then the apostle wants to show that Christ, who himself suffered, knows what human nature endures. The meaning of the apostle’s words is as follows: Christ, having come, experienced by his very deed what we endure; now He is not unaware of our sufferings; for he knows not only as God, but also as a person who has come to know and experience it in action; He suffered, so he can have compassion for us too. – He knows what suffering is, knows what temptation is, and knows no less than us who suffer, because He Himself suffered... Conversations on the last. to Heb., St. Petersburg. 1859, pp. 90–91, 96 (Discourse 5). The words πειραζειν, πειρασμός are used in the word of God in very diverse meanings In the broad sense of any passion. Cp. Olshausen in. h. loc. The same suffering is perceived differently by feeling and differently by will: feeling perceives a blow, and the will perceives a blow inflicted by malice. Ascetic words, M. 1854, 192. Creation Part IV, M. 1854, 68. According to this objective side, the temptation from suffering is δοκιμη or δοκιμιον - το δοκίμιον τής πίστεως. Although the suffering that gives rise to a temptation or test of faith for a person is determined by the divine will, at the same time it is caused by sin - just as a medicine prescribed by a merciful doctor is at the same time caused or caused by illness. Suffering serves as much for God as an instrument of testing faith as it does for sin or the devil as an instrument of temptation (such were the sufferings of Job). “Sinners”, “righteous people” - of course, speaking relatively. It is known that the dirty trick of the flesh is understood in very different ways. But in any case, calling this dirty trickster an angel of Satan gives the right to place the words of the apostle in this connection of thoughts. Wed. Below there is a similar connection in St. Isaac the Syrian. On the patience of sorrows, the teaching of St. fathers, collected Ep. Ignatius, ed. 3, St. Petersburg. 1893, p. 41 (Word on the spiritual law, ch. 190). We find relevant examples in Barrett, p. 106–111. Of course, in this different kind of struggle, different from seduction, it is also a matter of satisfying the desire. But the author would like to point out a very important difference between the satisfaction of passion by direct seduction by it and between the satisfaction of desire by the desire to get rid of it because of the constraints that it brings to the highest aspirations of the spirit. A similar application that will be made from here is that the temptation for Jesus Christ was not the satisfaction of his own hunger, but a miraculous satisfaction, just as the Samaritan woman wanted such a quenching of her thirst so that she would no longer have thirst and would not come here to draw (John IV, 15; cp. IV, 34). On the patience of sorrows, 114–117 ff. In a similar way, Gregory the Theologian, in word 9 about human virtue, calls knowledge of the measure of life “a sign of chastity.” Equally, he writes, it is bad for you to put aside good hope and have too bold a thought that it is not difficult to be perfect. In both cases, your mind is on a bad road. Always try to ensure that your arrow hits the very target, be careful not to fly further than the commandment of the great Christ, beware of not fully fulfilling the commandment; in both cases the goal was not achieved. And excess is often very useless when, wanting new glory, you strain the arrow beyond measure... Creation. Part IV, M. 1844, pp. 251–257 passim. Page 244; Wed Ephraim Sir. IV, M. 1850, 364–365. – From all the discussions about seduction and about grief from passions, it turns out that passion is either something that should be resisted, or something that in another kind of struggle we accept with thanksgiving. Is there a contradiction here? Essentially, the answer to this question is given by all the reasoning in the text, and from the formal side it can be solved by analogies. Geometry teaches that as the arc increases, the chord increases, but only up to a certain limit, until the chord is in diameter, after which, as the arc increases, the chord decreases. Is there a contradiction here? In the area of ​​our reasoning, this diameter is aversion to evil. Or: the absence of consciousness of sin can indicate both complete sinlessness (like Christ) and extreme sinfulness (self-justification of the scribes and Pharisees). Or: according to the commandment of Christ, alms should not be done before people so that they can see (Matt. VI, 1), but at the same time the light of Christian life must shine before people so that they can see the good deeds of Christians (Matt. V, 16): one needs too superficial a mind to see the contradiction here. On the basis of patristic writing, it would be very easy to show that (not only natural weaknesses, but also the natural limitations of man, deliberately allowed according to the plans of creation, has as its immediate goal (like the later limitations of the consequences of sin, and even initially and typically for this) the generation of human faith, humbly aware of the measure of human life and boldly trusting in God's help. Let us limit ourselves to only a few excerpts from St. Irenaeus: “If anyone says: what then? Couldn’t God have presented man as perfect in the beginning? Then let him know that... All things are possible with God, but... created beings do not have perfection because they are not uncreated... God could at first give man perfection, but man could not accept it... Therefore, you must first observe the order of man, and then participate in the glory of God. Give Him your soft heart and humble and observe the image that the artist gave you... Man is devoted to his weakness, so that he, having once exalted himself, does not deviate from the truth. Strength is perfected in weakness, making better the one who through his weakness knows the power of God, etc. Contra haer. lib. IV, ΧΧΧ VIII, 1; XXXIX, 2; lib. V, III. Of course, weaknesses are a consequence of sin; but in each given person they are as sinless as they are necessary. If we knew only about the temptation of desires, then neither natural weaknesses nor external suffering could give sinless, experimental knowledge of the power of sin, because natural attraction and external suffering, not in themselves constituting a temptation, give rise to the temptation of desires indirectly, as for example. hunger can motivate theft, etc., only in combination with the actual sinfulness of the tempted one, and even in this case they give a temptation less powerful than the temptation of lust. In addition to what has been said above, the following can be noted about the mutual relations of various types of temptations. Temptation of faith must precede deception. For the first people, who had a pure nature, only temptation of faith was possible, but not deception. Such a temptation arose regarding the commandment. The Fall gave birth to lust in man and made it possible and even inevitable for him to be seduced by lust. Such a connection between moral depravity and falling away from God, or unbelief, is established by St. Paul in the first chapters of the last. to Rom. – The whole life of a sinful person is full of deceptions, for him the whole worldly existence is exhausted by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the hair and the pride of life, καϊ ή, εηιθυμία των οφθαλμων, καϊ ή αλαζονεία (must be distinguished from τυφοθείς 1 Tim. III, 6, as well as from υ περαίρωμαι 2 Cor. XII. 7) του βίου (1 John II, 16). – But just as unbelief is the beginning of lust, so complete healing from lust is given by faith by grace and is obtained through that struggle, which, excluding sympathy for evil, is based on aversion to moral impurity. This is taught by the entire word of God, especially St. Paul, and all ascetic writing. S. 106. – Also many others. St. John of Damascus De fide orth. lib. III, 20. Catena in Lucam, r. 112–113. It is not worth much effort for the reader to apply some considerations from Chapter 1, especially §3, 20, to the reasoning of this chapter. We speak without regard to the doctrine of two wills in Christ. We speak again without regard to the doctrine of two wills in Christ, but without in the least contradicting this teaching. Wed. eg Joan of Damascus De fide orth. lib. III, XIV, etc. Neander in the Life of Jesus Christ expresses several separate, ungrouped thoughts, showing that he clearly saw a view of the temptations of Christ similar to the one we have outlined, which he, perhaps, just did not have the opportunity to express. He considers it a characteristic of the feat of self-denial of Jesus Christ and His temptations that Christ felt the weakness and dependence of human nature with a clear consciousness of his divine dignity, so that this weakness and dependence affected His lower spiritual forces, but could never influence His holy will, could never become an arousal in Him to selfish striving. Then, indicating the meaning of the first tempting proposal in that Christ would miraculously free Himself from the weakness and dependence of human nature, the second - in that He, bypassing natural conventional means, turned to divine omnipotence, and the third - in the foundation of a worldly kingdom instead of a spiritual one, Neander writes that all these temptations were directed at the created will, as such, and that victory over them was achieved by the self-denial of the created will, surrendering itself to the will of God. Considering it impossible to think in Christ the freedom of choice between good and evil, which presupposes an internal predisposition to sin, indicating the basis for the unchanging direction of Christ's life in complete devotion to the will of God, which excluded any struggle from His self-determination, Neander attributed the struggle of Jesus Christ only to the sensual weakness possible in a person without sin, to the creatureliness and variability of the human will, which He accepted along with human nature. Ss. 115–120. – Mention should also be made here of those theologians who attributed the temptations of Christ to His choice either between glory and humiliation, like Nitsch, or between the false and true messianic idea, like some of those mentioned above. Wed. also Η offmann, D. Schriftbeweis, 1, 465–466. Neander, A. G. d. chr. K. 2/3 S. 931, attributes to Theodore the teaching about the possibility of sin for Christ on the basis of his definition of the purpose of temptation παρασθηναι , άλλα τω φυλαξασθαι πειρασθεις – ως ανθρωπος αληθως πειραζομένος (cf. above). Liberum arbitrium aliter constare non poterat, quam ut haberet etiam peccandi possibilitatem. August. Op. imp lib. V, 47. – Here one cannot help but recall the expression of Gregory of Nyssa that Christ “united with Himself the human soul capable (in itself) of sin (αμαρτικην) (Creative Part VII, 104-105) and auct. inc. in Matth, that the human nature of Christ was peccatrix: quamvis ipse non erat peccator, tamen naturam susceperat peccatricem (p. 773). Op. imp., V. 31; VI, 5; Liber de corruptione et gratia. XII, 33. Liber de corr. et gfatià, XII, 33. Le praedestinatione sanctorum, XV, 30. Non dicimus nos, Christum felicitate carnis a nostris sensibus seque stratae, cupiditatem vitiorum sentire non potuissë sed dicimus, eum perfectione virtutis, et non per carnis concupiscentiam procreata carne, cupiditatem non habuisse vitiorum. Aliud est enim non habuisse cupiditatem malam, aliud non eam potuisse sentirë sensisset enim si habuisset; non enim sensus ei defuit quo eam sentiret, sed voluntas adfuit qua non haberet. – Cupiditatem Christus et sentire posset, si haberet, et habere, si vellet: sed absit ut vellet. Op. imp IV, 48, also 49, 53. In the 12th century. The question of posse et non posse peccare occupied Anselm and Abelard. The first leaned towards the teachings of Bl. Augustine: ... Christ could have lied if he had wanted to; but He could not will this, therefore with great right we can say that He could not lie, etc. Cur Deus homo, lib. II, 10 (Migne, Patrol. curs. compl. s. lat. 158, 408–410). Abelard reasoned differently. Speaking abstractly about a person who was united with God (in Christ Jesus), Abelard writes that it also belongs to the free will of a person that it is in his power whether to live well or badly, that this same power should have belonged to Jesus Christ, otherwise He would have been deprived of free will and, rather by necessity than by will, would have avoided sin, etc. Migne, seri lat. t. 178, p. 825–826. We are no longer talking about the naturalistic views of the face of Jesus Christ by the Strauss, Renans, Keims and others, who assimilate to Christ a universal human relationship to sin. Strauss calls the doctrine of the sinlessness of Jesus Christ eine aller geschichtlichen Betrachtung t ο dtiche Voraussetzung, – Die chr. Glaubenslehre, B. 2 (1841), ss. 190–193, § 65, cufr. D. Leben Iesu, 1 B. s. 442–443. – Renan: Il n’à pas été impeccable; il a vaincu les memes passions que nous combattons etc. Vie de Iesus (1863) p. 458. Like Keim, D. gesch. Christus, ss. 39–43. Together with Schaff, Ebrard believes that Christ only through gradual development passed from status integritatis, which was also the status explorationis, otherwise from the state of posse non peccare-impeccabilitas minor of the scholastics, presupposing the possibility of sin, to status confirmationis, to the state of non posse rescare-impeccabilitas major. Wiss. Kr. S. 324–325, § 54; Schaff, S. 28–29. However, Dorner calls the sinlessness of Christ well founded and precisely on the fact that the love of Christ, which determined the human will, did not act separately from His holy being, according to which He was, as it were, a man born of God. System. Ss. 460–469. Pr.-khr. doctrine of morality, St. Petersburg. 1887, pp. 218–224. – Lange, Oesterree and others should also be included here. What serves as the subject of reproach for kenotics from free-thinking Protestants - see, for example, Keim, gesch. Chr. S. 23. Scriftbew, 2H, pp. 64–65. System., 2 H. ss. 172–173. P. 165–167. Schleiermacher loc should also be included in this category of theologians on the question of the sinlessness of Christ. cit. Ss. 158–161; cnfr. IV/2 (2 Aufl. 1870), s. 44. P. 268–270. Olshausen, 181–182, Kuhn, 404–410, etc., belong to the same category of theologians on this issue. Γνώμην και προαίρεςιν επι τον Κυριον λεγειν αδύνατούν , ειπερ κυριολεκτειν (hereinafter nrzb.) John Dam. De fide orth. lib. III, 22. Further, we do not draw an analogy between the temptations of the first people and the temptations of Christ. In this regard, Orthodox theology agrees with Catholic theology, see for example. Gousset 277–278. ?? Χριστω. Κατά φυσιν μεν γάρ εκινειε v αυτω , δτε παρέχωρει τη σαρκι παθειν τα ιδια υπερ φυσιν δε , οτι ου προηγείτο εν τω Κυριω της θελυ σεως τα ? εκουσια. Θέλων γαρ επεινησε , θελων εδ ’ ψησε , θέλων εδειλίασε , θέλων άπέθανεν. De fide orth. lib. III, 20. For the Word, born of the Father, as for God, it was not impossible and inaccessible to raise the body united with Himself from the very shrouds to heights and raise it to the measure of perfect age; It would be easy and convenient for Him to impart amazing wisdom, etc. to a baby. Kirill Alexander. λόγος οτι εις about Χριστός, – op. ed. Auberti – Lutetiae 1638, V/l, 760. The freedom of Christ in humiliation consisted in the fact that He ’ έαυτώ τω κρατείν, St. Cyrus. Alex. ibid. To the words: “Not as I want, but as You want,” St. John Chrysostom (Conversations on Various Occasions, vol. 2, 1862, p. 139) writes: here, literally, we find two desires opposite to one another, i.e. the Father wants Him (i.e. the Son) to be crucified, but He Himself does not want. Page 94; Wed Matveevsky, 252. Conversations on the book. Genesis part I, 10; Wed Matveevsky – 252; also cf. Shower. Read: 1891, I, 403. R. 34; cfr. Cyril Alex, της του κυριον ενανθρωπησεος, ap. Majum, 67. This meaning is less developed in patristic writing. – Wed. M. M. Filaret Words and Speeches, ed. 48, part 2, 176; V. Veltistova - Sin, its origin, M., 1885, p. 307. II, 253; Wed Barrett, 67. The relationship of baptism to temptation is briefly but aptly depicted by Barrett: As the baptism had announced the Chris for his work, so the announce temptations the work to the Christ. 68. Conversations on the book. Genesis, Part I, 1851, pp. 139–140. Creation Part 2, M. 1852, p. 428. St. Irenaeus Contr. haer. lib. 3, p. XIX, 1 writes: The Word of God became man and the Son of God the son of man, so that man, united with the Son of God and receiving adoption as sons, would become the son of God. Also St. Afanasy. Creation Part III, M. 1853, 292, 347; St. Ephraim the Syrian I, 1848, 293. M. M. Filaret Words and speeches, T. 5, M. 1885, pp.; 286. In Barsov, p. 257; cfr. Barnett; 98. See the patristics related here. places in approx. in ch. I, § 3, 20. Creation Part 5, M. 1847, pp. 251–252. Farrar’s assumption that the devil’s pointing to these stones, surprisingly similar to small loaves, was calculated on the fact that the pangs of hunger are felt all the more strongly when they are supported by the additional torment of a living imagination, that the very shape, appearance and traditional origin of these stones gave the temptation even greater strength... 59. – It is remarkable that the Gospel says nothing about thirst, the pangs of which are stronger than the pangs of hunger (and which Barret implies, 930, and Ev.·Mark does not mention the famine at all, limiting himself to a secondary reference to the desert (και ην εν τη ερημω ημ τεος) and thus sufficiently indicating a helpless situation. Suggerit diabolus indignum esse Filio Dei esurie laborare, indignum ea indigencia et poena affligi, quare si revera sit qiu dictus sit voce coelesti, utatur potentia sibi propria et finem imponat conditioni (hereinafter nrzb.) In our days, Nietzsche called such a struggle the direct calling of man, who, according to his teaching, must transcend his natural limitations and the natural conditions of his life. Life comes down to the struggle against this limitation, to the mechanical expansion of its boundaries, to its external growth: a person must become an Übermensch. St. Cyril Alex. περί τής του κνρίου ένανθρωπήσεως, XIV. - Chr. Thurs. 47, 192. St. Ambrose, Bl. Theophylact of Bulgaria and others. Cfr. Knabenbauer: (diabolos statuit Jesum in summo tecti templi fastigio, ex quo nullus exitus, effugium nullum patere (videbatur); vel saltem indignum erat Filio Dei more hominis miseri ex loco illo altissimo caute et lente descensam tentare. The meaning of these words, Trench rightly notes, is written on every page of Scripture. John Chrysostom in Matt. It is impossible to assume that the third temptation was about accepting power from the hands of the devil under the condition of one-time worship of him: such a temptation would not be tempting even for the majority of sinful people, such a proposal from the devil would be disgusting to human hearing. Ep. John of Smolensk, Chron. Thurs. 76, 2, p. 83. According to St. Basil the Great, Works, part 3, M. 1846, p. 471. You might be interested in: