Commentaires bibliques

Matthew 4:3. Ὁ πειράζων Part, present taken substantively. See on Matthew 2:20. Here: the devil. Comp. 1 Thessalonians 3:5.

εἰ] does not indicate that Satan had doubts of Jesus being the Son of God (Origen, Wolf, Bengel), or was not aware of it (Ignat. Phil. interpol. 9), comp. Matthew 28:20; but the problematical expression was to incite Jesus to enter upon the unreasonable demand, and to prove Himself the Son of God. Euth. Zigabenus: ᾤετο, ὅτι παρακνισθήσεται τῷ λόγῳ, καθάπερ ὀνειδισθεὶς ἐπὶ τῷ μὴ εἶναι υἱὸς θεοῦ.

υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ] See Matthew 3:17. The devil makes use of this designation of the Messiah, not because he deemed Jesus to be only a man, who υἱοθετήθη τῷ θεῷ διὰ τὰς ἀρετὰς αὐτοῦ (Euth. Zigabenus), or because he had become doubtful, owing to the hungering of Jesus, of His divinity, which had been attested at His baptism (Chrysostom); but because Jesus’ supernatural relation to God is well known to him, whilst he himself, as the principle opposed to God, has to combat the manifestation and activity of the divine. Observe that by the position of the words the emphasis lies on υἱός: if Thou standest to God in the relation of Son.

εἰπὲ, ἵνα] ἵνα after verbs of commanding, entreaty, and desire, and the like, does not stand in the sense of the infinitive, as is commonly assumed (Winer, de Wette, Bleek), in opposition to the necessary conception of the words, but is, as it always is, an expression of the purpose, in order that, the mistaking of which proceeds from this, that it is not usual in the German language to express the object, of the command, and so on, in the form of a purpose. Here: speak (utter a command) in order that these stones, and so on. Comp. Matthew 20:21. The oldest examples from Greek writers after ἐθέλειν, ὄφρα, in Hom. Il. i. 133 (see Nägelsbach thereon), occur in Herodotus and Demosthenes. See Schaefer, ad Dem. 279. 8 : ἀξιοῦν, ἵνα βοηθήσῃ; Kühner, II. 2, p. 519.

οἱ λίθοι οὗτοι] comp. Matthew 3:9.

ἄρτος] Bread, in the proper sense; not, like לֶחֶם, food in general. Comp. Matthew 7:9.

The Son of God must free Himself from the state of hunger, which is unbecoming His dignity, by an act similar to the divine creation, and thus employ His divine power for His own advantage. The tempter introduces his lever into the immediate situation of the moment.

Matthew 4:4. Deuteronomy 8:3, after the LXX., contains the words of Moses addressed to the Israelites, which have reference to the divinely-supplied manna. Note how Jesus repels each one of the three temptations, simply with the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17).

ἐπʼ ἄρτῳ] the preservation of life does not depend upon bread alone. Examples of ζῆν ἐπί in Kypke, Obss. I. p. 14 f.; Markland, ad Max. Tyr. Diss. Matthew 27:6; Bergler, ad Alciphr. p. 294, This construction is a common one in classical writers with ἐκ, ἀπό, or the simple dative.

ζήσεται] The future tense designates in Deuteronomy 1:1, and in LXX. as well as here, simply the future, that which will happen, the case which will occur under given circumstances. So also in classical writers in general sentences. Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. p. 369.

ὁ ἄνθρωπος] universal: Man. So in the original text and in the LXX.; there is the less reason to depart from this, and to explain it: de insigni illo homine, that is, Messiah (Fritzsche), as the application of the universal statement to Himself on the part of Jesus was a matter of course.

ῥήματι Word, in its proper sense. By every statement which proceeds from the mouth of God, that is, through every command which is uttered by God, by which the preservation of life is effected in an extraordinary, supernatural manner (without ἄρτος).[388] Comp. Wis 16:26. ῥῆμα is not res (רָּבָר), not even in Matthew 18:16, Luke 2:15, Acts 5:32, 1Ma 5:37, since ἘΚΠΟΡ. ΔΙᾺ ΣΤΟΜ. ΘΕΟῦ necessarily points to the meaning of word, declaration, which, however, is not to be explained, with Fritzscbe (comp. Usteri and Ullmann): omni mandato divino peragendo.

[388] Amongst the Israelites it was effected by means of the manna; therefore we must not say with Euth. Zigabenus: πᾶν ῥῆμα ἐκπορευόμενον διὰ στόματος θεοῦ ἐπὶ τὸν πεινῶντα δίκην τροφῆς συνέχει τὴν ζωὴν αὐτοῦ. Comp. Chrysostom: δύναται ὁ θεὸς καὶ ῥήματι θρέψαι τὸν πεινῶντα, Pfleiderer also refers it to the power of spiritual nourishment contained in the divine word; as also Calovius, who says: “Revocat a verbo potentiae, quo lapides erant in panem convertendi, ad verbum gratiae, cui adhaerentes vivent, etiamsi pane careant.”

Matthew 4:5. Παραλαμβ] he takes Him with him, 1Ma 3:37; 1Ma 4:1, and frequently in Greek writers.

τὴν ἁγίαν πόλιν] עִיר הַקֹּרֶשׁ, Isaiah 48:2; Isaiah 52:1; Nehemiah 11:1. Jerusalem, the city of God, on account of the national temple, Matthew 5:35, Matthew 27:53; Luke 4:9; Sir 36:13; Sir 49:6; Josephus, Antt. iv. 4. 4; Lightfoot, Hor. p. 43; Ottii Spicileg. p. 9. Even at the present day it is called by the Arabs: the place of the Sanctuary, or the Holy City [El Kuds]. Hamelsveld, biol. Geogr. I. p. 204 ff.; Rosenmüller, Morgenl. in loc. The designation has something solemn in contrast to the devil.

ἵστησιν] not “auctor erat, ut Christus (with him) illuc se conferret” (Kuinoel, Fritzsche), but: he places Him, which implies the involuntary nature of the act on the part of Jesus, and the power on the part of the devil. Comp. Euseb. H. E. ii. 23 : ἔστησαν … τὸν Ἰάκωβον ἐπὶ τὸ πτερύγιον τοῦ ναοῦ. A more precise determination of what is certainly a miraculous occurrence (conceived of by Jerome as a carrying away through the air) is not given in the text, which, however, does not permit us to think of it as something internal taking. place in the condition of a trance (Olshausen). Comp. Acts 8:38.

τὸ πτερύγιον τοῦ ἱεροῦ] the little wing of the temple[389] is sought for by many on the temple building itself, so that it is either its battlement (Luther, Beza, Grotius), that is, the parapet surrounding the roof, or the ridge (Fritzsche, Winer), or the gable, pediment (Vulgate: pinnaculum; Paulus, Bleek), the two latter from their wing shape (Λ), or roof generally (Keim, and older expositors. See especially Krebs on the passage), that is indicated. But, apart from this, that the roofing of the temple house, according to Josephus, Antt. v. 5. 6, vi. 5. 1, was furnished on the top with pointed stakes as a protection against birds, and, moreover, on account of the extreme sacredness of the place, would hardly he selected by tradition as the spot where the devil stationed himself, the τοῦ ἱεροῦ is opposed to it, which does not, like ΝΑΌς, designate the main building of the temple, properly speaking, but the whole area of the temple with its buildings. See Tittmann, Synon. p. 178 f. The view, therefore, of those is to be preferred who, with Euth. Zigabenus, Olearins, Reland, Valckenaer, seek the πτερύγιον in an outbuilding of the temple area; where, however, it is again doubtful whether Solomon’s portico or the στοὰ βασιλική, the former (Josephus, Antt. xx. 9. 7) on the east side, the latter (Josephus, Antt. xv. 11. 5) on the south, both standing on an abrupt precipice, is intended. Wetstein and Michaelis prefer the former; Kuinoel, Bretschneider, B. Crusius, Arnoldi, the latter. In favour of the latter is the description of the giddy look down from this portico given in Josephus: εἴ τις ἀπʼ ἄκρου τοῦ ταύτης τέγους ἄμφω συντιθεὶς τὰ βάθη διοπτεύει, σκοτοδινιᾶν, οὐκ ἐξικνουμένης τῆς ὄψεως εἰς ἀμέτρητον τὸν βυθόν. In Hegesippus, quoted by Eus. ii. 23 (where James preaches downwards from the ΠΤΕΡΎΓΙΟΝ ΤΟῦ ΝΑΟῦ, and the scribes then go up and throw him down), it is not the gable, but the pinnacle, the balustrade of the temple building, which formed a projection (ἀκρωτήριον), that we are to think of. Comp. Hesychius: ΠΤΕΡΎΓΙΟΝ· ἈΚΡΩΤΉΡΙΟΝ. The article denotes that the locality where the occurrence took place was well known.

[389] Amongst the Greeks (Strabo, Plutarch, the Scholiasts), πτερόν, wing, is specially used in an architectural sense. See the Lexica, also Müller, Archäol. § 220. 3. On πτέρυξ in this sense, comp. Poll. vii. 121; on πτερύγιον, Joseph. Antt. xv. 11. 5; on πτέρωμα, Vitruv. iii. 3. 9.

REMARK.

The second temptation in Matthew is the third in Luke. The transposition was made with a view to the order in which the localities succeeded each other. But in a climactic point of view, how inappropriate is the order in which it occurs in Luke, and how appropriate is that in Matthew,[390] whose greater originality must here also be maintained against Schnecken burger and Krafft. The variation itself, however, is not removed by the circumstance that Matthew only continues the narrative with τότε and ΠΆΛΙΝ (Ebrard), but it remains and is unessential.

[390] Luther: At the first temptation, the devil appeared as a black one; at the second, where he puts forth a word of Scripture, a light, white one; at the third, “quite as a divinely majestic devil, who comes out straightway, indeed, as if he were God Himself.”

Matthew 4:6. In Psalm 91:11-12, according to the LXX., it is God’s providential care for the pious in general that is spoken of. Here the tempter, who now himself grasps the weapon of Scripture, which had just been used against him, cunningly applies the typical expressions in the Psalms (the figure is borrowed from maternal anxiety) strictly to the Messiah.

ὅτι], not the recitative, but a part of the passage.

The Son of God, in reliance on the divine protection, must undertake a daring miracle of display in order to win over the masses for Himself. For the multitudes, with a view to influencing whom this miracle is proposed, are understood to be, as a matter of course, on the temple area; and therefore we are not to assume, with Kohlschütter, Ullmann, Engelhardt, that it was only an exhibition of divine favour and protection, and no public spectacle, which was aimed at. On that view no sufficient reason is shown why Jesus is brought from the wilderness to the most populous centre of the metropolis. Euth. Zigabenus strikingly remarks: διὰ κενοδοξίας ἑλεῖν αὐτὸν ἐπιχειρεῖ.

Matthew 4:7. Πάλιν] rursus, never signifies in the N. T., not even in 2 Corinthians 10:7, Galatians 5:3, 1 John 2:8, at quoque, e diverso, a meaning which it frequently has in classic writers (Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 485), as Erasmus, Er. Schmid, Schleusner, B. Crusius, have interpreted it; but here means, on the other hand, looking back to the γέγραπται of the devil in Matthew 4:6, and introducing another passage of Scripture as something which again has been written; comp. Matthew 5:33. Bengel well says: Scriptura per scripturam interpretanda et concilianda.

οὐκ ἐκπειράσεις] future, as in Matthew 1:21; the compound strengthens the meaning; comp. on 1 Corinthians 10:9.

The meaning is: “Do not let it be a question whether God will save thee from dangers on which thou hast entered uncalled.”

Flacius: Si habuisset expressum mandatum dei, non fuisset tentatio. Deuteronomy 6:16 (LXX.), comp. Exodus 17:2.

Matthew 4:8 f. Πάσας … κόσμου] כָּל־מַמְּלְכוֹת הָאָרֶץ, Ezra 1:2. Not a hyperbolical expression: amplissimum terrarum tractum, but actually all the kingdoms of the world, Luke 4:5. The devil could indeed regard only all heathen lands as his disposable possession (Luke 4:6; Lightfoot, p. 1088; Eisenmenger, entd. Judenth. II. p. 820 ff.); but even unto those remote heathen lands, and beyond, and far beyond the small country of Palestine, has the marvellous height of the mountain enabled the eye to look; the Holy Land, with the temple and the peculiar people of God, certainly belonged besides to the Son of God as a matter of course; therefore to explain it away as omnes Palaestinae regiones (Krebs, Loesner, Fischer, Gratz) is quite away from the point.

ἐὰν πες … μοι] If Thou wilt have cast Thyself down before me as Thy master, and thereby have manifested Thy homage (Matthew 2:2) to me. By the fulfilment of this demand the devil would have made Jesus unfaithful to Himself, and would have secured his own world-rule over Him. Where the mountain in question is to be sought for (according to Michaelis, it was Nebo; according to others, the Mount of Olives, Tabor, Moriah, Horeb) is, considering the miraculous nature of the scene (Luke 4:5 : ἐν στιγμῇ χρόνου), not even to be asked; just as little is δείκνυσιν to be rationalized as if it denoted not merely the actual pointing, but also the verbis demonstrare (Kuinoel, Glöckler); the δόξα αὐτῶν, moreover, is the external splendour of the kingdoms that lay before His eye.

Matthew 4:10. Ὕπαγε] The spurious words ὀπίσω μου would have to be explained: go behind me—that is, go back that I may see thee no longer! ἀφανίσθητι, Euth. Zigabenus. ὀπίσω with the genitive belongs to the LXX. and the Apocrypha, after the Hebrew, אַחֲרֵי פ׳; in this way the Greeks construe ὄπισθεν.

σατανᾶ] to infer from this that Jesus now for the first time (too late) recognises Satan (de Wette), is arbitrary, and opposed to the representation of the matter in Matthew 4:1, according to which Jesus cannot have been unaware of the intention of the Holy Spirit, who impelled Him to go into the wilderness. That He now calls Satan by name, is in keeping with the growing intensity of the emotion in general, as well as with the personal address of the tempter in Matthew 4:9. “Tentatorem, quuni is maxime favere videri vult, Satanam appellat,” Bengel.

κύριον, κ.τ.λ.] Jehovah alone shalt thou worship, do homage to Him only as thy master. Deuteronomy 6:13, according to the LXX., freely applied to the proposal of Satan.” According to this arrangement, it is by the way of obedience to God that Jesus is aware that He will attain to the government of the world. John 18:36; Php 2:6 ff.; Matthew 28:18; Acts 10:36 ff.

Matthew 4:11. Ἄγγελοι] Angels, without the article.

διηκόνουν] ministered to Him. The remark of Bengel is correct: “sine dubio pro eo, ac tum opus erat, sc. allato cibo.” So Luther, Piscator, Jansen, Wolf, Hammond, Michaelis, Paulus, Fritzsche, Strauss, de Wette, Ewald, Bleek, Nebe, Keim. Concerning the use of διακονεῖν in this sense, see Wetstein, and Matthiae, ad Soph. Phil. 284; and how pragmatically does this appearance of angels, after a series of temptations that have been victoriously withstood, correspond to the appearance of Satan in Matthew 4:3! Comp. 1 Kings 19:5. Others, not referring it to food, say that extraordinary divine support (John 1:51) is intended (Calvin, Maldonatus, Kuinoel, Olshausen, Kuhn, Ammon, Ebrard), on which view the angels themselves are partly left out, partly effaced from the narrative; whilst Chrysostom (who compares the carrying of Lazarus by angels into Abraham’s bosom), Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Grotius, do not enter into any more minute exposition of the διακονεῖν. But considering the appropriateness of the above definite explanation, it is not right to be satisfied with one that is indefinite and wavering.

REMARK.

According to the representation of the evangelists, the temptation of Jesus by the devil appears in the connection of the history as a real external marvellous occurrence. See Ch. F. Fritzsche in Fritzschior. Opusc. p. 122 ff. To abide by this view (Michaelis, Storr, Ebrard, P. Ewald, Graul, Könemann, Arnoldi, Schegg, Delitzsch, Nebe, Engelhardt, Hofmann, Riggenbach, Baumgarten) is a necessary consequence of the denial of any legendary elements in the canonical Gospels, and is equally justifiable with this denial in general. The evangelists were aware that they were relating a real external history in time and space (in answer to Kuhn, Lichtenstein), and the choice only remains between adopting either this view or assuming that of an ideal history in the garb of legend, gradually brought into shape by the power of the idea. All attempts at explaining away the devil and his external appearance are arbitrary contradictions or critical carpings, opposed to the design and representations of the evangelists, more or less of a rationalistic character. This holds good, not merely of the absurd, and, in relation to the third act, even monstrous view of those who, instead of the devil, introduce one or even various individuals, perhaps a member of the Sanhedrim or high priest, who wished to examine Jesus and to win Him over, or destroy Him (Herm. v. d. Hardt, Exegesis he. difficilior. quat. ev. p. 470 ff.; Basedow, Venturini, Möller, neue Ansichten, p. 20 ff.; Rosenmüller, Kuinoel, Feilmoser in the Tüb. Quartalschr. 1828, 1, 2), but also of the view which regards the event as a vision, whether this was brought about by the devil (Origen? Pseudo-Cyprian, Theodore of Mopsuestia), or by God (Farmer, Inquiry into the Nature and Design of Christ’s Temptation, London, 1761; comp. also Calvin on Matthew 4:5), or by natural means (Balth. Becker, Scultetus, Clericus, Wetstein, Bolten, Bertholdt, Jahn, Gabler, Paulus, Gratz, Pfieiderer), or of those who view it as a significant morning dream (Meyer in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1831, p. 319 ff.),—which interpretations, moreover, are in contradiction with the clear repose and moral definiteness of the divine-human consciousness of Jesus, in virtue of which there never occurs in His life any condition of ecstasy, or a trace of any special manifestations in dreams. Akin to this, but equally offensive to the gospel history, and besides by no means leaving unaffected the moral character of the development of Jesus Himself, if we look to Hebrews 2:18; Hebrews 4:15, is the view which transforms the occurrence into an internal history, which took place in the thoughts and fancy of Jesus (Döderlein, Eichhorn, allg. Bibl. III. p. 283 ff.; Thaddaeus d. i. Dereser, d. Versuch. Christi, Bonn 1794; Hezel, Augusti, Bretschneider, Weisse, Kritik d. ev. Gesch. II. p. 12; Hocheisen in the Tüb. Zeitschr. 1833, 2; Kohlschütter, Pfeiffer, Rink, Ammon, Laufs, Schenkel, Held). On this view the devil has again been recently brought forward, on grounds exegetically justifiable, as the operating principle (Krabbe, Hoffmann, Schmid, bibl. Theol. I. p. 65; and very indirectly also by Ullmann); while, in a more arbitrary manner, it has been attributed to the disciples that they apprehended in an objective form the inner fact related to them by Jesus, that He had rejected the false idea of the Messiah; whilst Neander, L. J. p. 120 ff., substantially giving up the reality of the history of the temptation (“a fragmentary symbolical setting forth of the facts of His inner life,” where the manner of the devil’s co-operation is left undetermined), holds hesitatingly by its truth; and Kuhn, moreover, is divided between the historical and unhistorical view of the manner of its occurrence. To those who transfer the history into the inner life of Jesus’ spirit, belong also Hase and Olshausen, the former of whom recognises in it the whole history of His mental growth, probably externalized by Himself, with reference to Exodus 16, Deuteronomy 8:2, Psalm 91:11 f, into an individual fact, but in the tradition assumed to be actual history, and who volatilizes the devil into the spirit of the world; while Olshausen, notwithstanding the ὑπὸ τοῦ πνεύματος in Matthew 4:1, finds the reality of the. occurrence in this, that the soul of Jesus was exposed to the full operations of the kingdom of darkness; while Lange regards the internal temptation of Jesus as caused by the devil, but brought about by human means—that is, as an assault of the sympathetic in working of the national and world spirit upon His soul, and as the tentative representatives of this spirit, drags in, by an invention that is his own, the deputation of the Sanhedrim, which had been despatched to John (John 1:19), as they were on their way back to Jerusalem. With more caution and with profounder historical insight, Keim (comp. Weizsäcker, p. 239 ff.) regards the history of the temptation in the light of the victorious beginning of the struggle with Satan, Matthew 12:25 ff., where the historical kernel is the heavy weight of questions and doubts which were imposed on the soul of Jesus whilst He was calmly meditating upon the obligation and the manner of His vocation to the Messiahship, and on His decision to enter upon it, which had so powerfully taken hold of Him on the banks of the Jordan; on this initial victory Jesus could not have left His disciples without some information. But however we may apprehend the narrative as an historical occurrence in the mind of Jesus, the monstrous nature of the external formation of the history remains the more inexplicable the more directly its origin is brought into connection with Jesus Himself and His circle of disciples, especially as the threefold details of the temptation were still unknown to Mark. To view the event as a parable, is in contradiction to the narrative, arbitrary in itself, and alien to the style of parabolic address employed by Jesus elsewhere. So, after older writers, who, however, endanger the sinless character of Jesus, it has been viewed as a symbolical address of Jesus or of one of His disciples directed against false Messianic hopes. See Schleiermacher, Schr. d. Lukas, 54f., and L. J. p. 157 ff.; B. Crusius, bibl. Theol. p. 303, and on Matthew, p. 82; Usteri in the Stud. u. Krit. 1829, p. 455 ff., who at a later time recanted this opinion, and regarded the narrative as a myth (1832, p. 768); Richter, formam narrat. Matthew 4:1-11, parabolicam ex Judaeor. opinione de duplici Adamo esse repetend., Viteb. 1824; Schweizer, Bleek; coinp. Theile, z. Biogr. J. p. 49: “a warning directed by some adherent or another in support of the spiritually moral view, in opposition to the chief elements of the earthly Messianic hope.” Against the parabolic character, see Hasert in the Stud. u. Krit. 1830, p. 74 f.; Strauss, L. J. I. p. 444 f.; Schmid, bibl. Theol. I. p. 60; Engelhardt, Nebe.

As now, however, the history of the temptation in the first and third evangelists, viewed as an actual external occurrence, contains not merely a legendary magical scenery which is still foreign to the oldest Gospel, but also absolute impossibilities and contradictions with the moral character of Jesus as filled with the Spirit, who does not at once get rid of Satan, but allows him to proceed to the utmost extreme; as, moreover, this occurrence on the other side stands in contradiction with the devil’s cunning and craftiness (Paulus, exeget. Handb. I. p. 376), whose assaults as proceeding from the devil against the Son of man would be planned with as much clumsiness as pointlessness,—there thus remains nothing else than to explain the narrative which in Mark still exhibits its first undeveloped beginnings, the first crystallisations of its ideal contents, the subject of which the narrators deemed to be true history, and repeated as such, as a legend, the contents of which, regarded as thought, possessed historical truth, and which arose among Jewish Christians,[391] being derived from the idea of the Messiah as opposed to the devil, and the necessity and complete realization of which was exhibited in the whole life and work of Christ, placed, like a compendious programme, an “epitome omnium tentationum” (Bengel), at the beginning of the Messianic career, which commenced at the baptism. Not as if there had not been on the part of Jesus after His baptism, and before His entrance on His work, the most serious preparation and most intense concentration of thought in still retirement, in which the whole opposition of the devil, as well as the manner of His own struggles and conquests which had been peculiarly determined by God, must have presented themselves vividly before His eyes; although this alone could not have given rise to the history of the temptation. For that purpose it was necessary that His holy life, that actual victory over Satan, should first be completed. That narrative might now first have arisen in the living history-moulding power of the ideas which prevails generally throughout the preliminary history, first of all in the form in which it appears in Mark, but soon after gradually expanded into detail, yet again silently excluded by John, considering the impossibility of assigning a place to it in connection with his history. Its expanded form, however, as it lies before us in Matthew and Luke, corresponds with the highest internal truth to the main relations of the opposition directed by the power of the devil against the second Adam and His kingdom,—an opposition which is decidedly to be recognised from the very beginning onwards to the end, and victory over which was the condition of His whole work. In this way the contents of the narrative, the psychological factors of which are quite as much the temptability as the sinlessness of the Lord, certainly belong to the history, but not as a concrete occurrence with its three individual acts, but as a summary reflection of the work of Jesus in His vocation in relation to the demoniacal kingdom, without, however, our being obliged to assume as an historical foundation any internal temptation taking place in thought, and any originally symbolic representation of the same, which was transformed into actual history in the course of tradition (de Wette). This foundation is rather the complete victory of our Lord over the craft and power of the devil, as the whole course of His Messianic life is a series of temptations by the devil, with the result of the latter being conquered both in detail and in the main (Hebrews 2:18; Hebrews 4:15); comp. John 14:30. With profound meaning and truth (for from the very beginning must Jesus make experience of the enemy of His kingdom, begin the struggle with him, and become certain of the right victory) has the synoptic tradition unanimously assigned to the narrative the early place which it occupies; and the attempt cannot be successful to maintain a later special situation as the historical seat of its origin, as Pfleiderer does, who transposes the vision which he assumes into the time of ch. 15 16, making use, moreover, of John 6:26 for the first act of the temptation. That the history of the temptation in Matthew is even a later insertion derived from oral tradition (Köstlin), is a very arbitrary inference, from the circumstance that Matthew 4:12 does not make any reference to the history of the temptations; Matthew follows Mark, and quotes his short notice from a special source.

The existence of Satan, as well as his personality, is attested throughout the whole of the New Testament, and is altogether independent of the view which may be taken of this individual narrative; see in answer to Hofmann, Schriftbew., Philippi, Dogm. III. p. 332 ff. ed. 2.

[391] Various conceptions from the legendary or mythical point of view, see in Theiss, Löffler, kl. Schr. II. p. 185 ff.; Fritzscho, Usteri in the Stud. ú. Krit. 1832, p. 768 ff.; Strauss, I. p. 479 f.; de Wette, Gfrörer, Gesch. d. Urchr. I. 1, p. 379 ff.; Ewald.—The locality of the temptation, the wilderness, was at once suggested as the idea gradually assumed bodily form from the sojourn of Jesus with the Baptist, and from the popular belief that demons had their dwellings in the wilderness; the forty days, however, found their venerable point of connection in the types of Moses and Elias (hardly of the forty years’ duration of the wanderings of the people in the wilderness, which Delitzsch, Baumgarten, and others drag in here as a type). They are also not excluded by the statement of Justin, c. Tr. 103, that, according to the ἀπομνημον. τ. ἀποστ, the devil came to Jesus ἅμα τῷ ἀναβῆναι αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ ποταμοῦ τοῦ Ἰορδάνου; but this statement agrees with Mark 1:12 f. As regards the individual temptations, the first was thus connected with the forty days’ fast of Moses, Deuteronomy 9:9; Deuteronomy 9:18; the second, with the necessity which existed in the case of the Messiah of His being accredited by miracles; the third, with the certainty of the Messiah’s rule over the world, by means of which the government of the devil must come to an end.