representative capacity - as giver, restorer, or perfecter of the Covenant. When Moses and

Elijah failed, it was not only as individuals, but as giving or restoring the Covenant. And

when Jesus conquered, it was not only as the Unfallen and Perfect Man, but as the

Messiah. His Temptation and Victory have therefore a twofold aspect: the general human

and the Messianic, and these two are closely connected. Hence we draw also this happy

inference: in whatever Jesus overcame, we can overcome. Each victory which He has

gained secures its fruits for us who are His disciples (and this alike objectively and

subjectively). We walk in His foot-prints; we can ascend by the rock- hewn steps which

His Agony has cut. He is the perfect man; and as each temptation marks a human assault

(assault on humanity), so it also marks a human victory (of humanity). But He is also the

Messiah; and alike the assault and the victory were of the Messiah. Thus, each victory of

humanity becomes a victory for humanity; and so is fulfilled, in this respect also, that

ancient hymn of royal victory, 'Thou hast ascended on high; Thou hast led captivity

captive; Thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that Jehovah God,

might dwell among them.'11 12

But even so, there are other considerations necessarily preliminary to the study of one of

the most important parts in the life of Christ. They concern these two questions, so

closely connected that they can scarcely be kept quite apart: Is the Evangelic narrative to

be regarded as the account of a real and outward event? And if so, how was it possible -

or, in what sense can it be asserted - that Jesus Christ, set before us as the Son of God,

was 'tempted of the Devil?' All subsidiary questions run up into these two.

As regards the reality and outwardness of the temptation of Jesus, several suggestions

may be set aside as unnatural, and ex post facto attempts to remove a felt difficulty.

Renan's frivolous conceit scarcely deserves serious notice, that Jesus went into the

wilderness in order to imitate the Baptist and others, since such solitude was at the time

regarded as a necessary preparation for great things. We equally dismiss as more

reverent, but not better grounded, such suggestions as that an interview there with the

deputies of the Sanhedrin, or with a Priest, or with a Pharisee, formed the historical basis

of the Satanic Temptation; or that it was a vision, a dream, the reflection of the ideas of

the time; or that it was a parabolic form in which Jesus afterwards presented to His

disciples His conception of the Kingdom, and how they were to preach it.13 Of all such

explanations it may be said, that the narrative does not warrant them, and that they would

probably never have been sugge sted, if their authors had been able simply to accept the

Evangelic history. But if so it would have been both better and wiser wholly to reject (as

some have done) the authenticity of this, as of the whole early history of the Life of

Christ, rather than transform what, if true, is so unspeakably grand into a series of modern

platitudes. And yet (as Keim has felt) it seems impossible to deny, that such a transaction

at the beginning of Christ's Messianic Ministry is not only credible, but almost a

necessit y; and that such a transaction must have assumed the form of a contest with