Pastor Pastorum Part 8

The Apologue was to Orientals a favourite vehicle for conveying moral lessons; and we have a familiar instance in English Literature of the attraction of allegory. Would Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_ have possessed itself, as it has done, of the hearts of whole sections of the British race, if, shorn of its human characters and its scenery, it had only a.n.a.lysed and depicted the inward conflicts, the mental vicissitudes and religious difficulties of a sorely-tried Christian youth?

The use of the name Satan must be considered. This name, which means the enemy, occurs in the Old Testament, in the book of Job and elsewhere but not in the Pentateuch. The Jews we know had a daemonology of their own. The G.o.ds of the heathen they regarded as devils, of whom the Sidonian deity Beelzebub was Prince. Our Lord never countenances these views. I believe that He uses the word Satan in a _generic_ sense to personify evil spiritual influences exercised upon earth.

When the Apostles returned safe after being sent through the cities, our Lord regards this as an augury of their success in the great conflict and says that He "beheld Satan fallen as lightning from Heaven."(62) We have clearly impersonation here. He says also "If Satan hath risen up against himself and is divided,"(63) a supposition which excludes the idea of an individual being, and agrees with the collective meaning I attribute to the term. When St Peter rebukes our Lord for declaring before His followers that He would be "rejected and killed and after three days rise again," our Lord says "Get thee behind me, Satan." St Peter, by saying of the suffering of which our Lord spake "this shall never be unto thee,"(64) unwittingly had acted as the ally of those who would tempt our Lord from yielding implicitly to His Father's will, and our Lord therefore calls him Satan. On the whole then I lean to the view that the communication, or discourse of our Lord, which has been preserved in the form of the narrative of the Temptation, was delivered by Him in the form of an _apologue_ or species of parable, in which our Lord, after Eastern fashion, introduced Satan as an embodiment of the powers of evil.

It must not be supposed that by giving up here the personality of the tempter we are making an abatement of what is superhuman in the Gospel, in order that, in virtue of having so done, we may hope to win this or that section of doubters over to our side-the whole question of evil remains a mystery, and in mystery there can be no degrees. It is of no use endeavouring to make infinity a trifle less infinite.

Whether the word Satan be here used collectively or personally is altogether a different question from the existence of intermediate intelligences, and is quite an open one even for the most orthodox.

Temptation to turn stones into loaves.

I now come to the Temptations themselves. As these trials were mental, we can only realise them by imagining what, consistently with our history, _may_ have pa.s.sed in our Lord's mind. What _actually did_ so pa.s.s is of course beyond our knowledge altogether. We are however justified in supposing that, as our Lord was "tempted as man," the thoughts and feelings which actuated Him would be such as men might follow and more or less understand.

It would appear that when G.o.d lays a work on a man He gives him a general view of the end to be kept in sight, a vehement desire to accomplish it, and a forefeeling of the capacity so to do. But He does not shew him how he is to do it, He does not make the way clear so that he sees his course before him and marks its several stages. If a man were so guided he would not fulfil the conditions of human agency, there would be no room for his own will to act, he would have no responsibility. He would move along a pre-arranged path. G.o.d would, in effect, be doing all and he nothing, and so it would come to much the same thing as if the work were done once for all by G.o.d's _fiat_, independently of human action-and this, as we have already seen, is not G.o.d's way of governing the world.

When St Paul takes his last journey to Jerusalem, the Spirit, he tells us, "testifieth unto me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me." That he must go to Jerusalem he knew and to go he was resolved, but what course of conduct he was to adopt or what the result was to be he did not know at all; afterwards in like manner, he knew that he was to bear witness at Rome, but he had no directions as to what he was to do. It was left to him to act as seemed to him to be the best. This may give us a help towards understanding how it may have been with our Lord, when the mighty charge unto which He was born came home to His mind, and He felt, rising in Him, the wondrous powers given to aid Him in carrying it out.

Our Lord when driven by the Spirit into the wilderness would take no thought of food or shelter. The one thing He craved for was to be alone; He must have solitude, and the wilderness provided that.

When He reflected, He could hardly help asking Himself whether this light which had shone upon Him-this voice from Heaven,-were the resuscitation of His Diviner life or only something in His own eyes and ears? A sure test lay ready: when He had heard Himself hailed as the Son of G.o.d a conviction had risen in Him that G.o.d would give effect to His commands. He had only to try whether this was so and all doubts would be resolved. Perhaps the whisper came "Try this experiment in a _very small matter first_." Who could think this apparent caution and prudence came from an ill quarter?

Spiritual evil always chooses a trifle, something from which it seems that no harm can possibly come, to win its victim to the first false step. Our Lord was hungry, and loaf-shaped stones were lying all about Him. Why not turn a few actually into the loaves they looked like? In so doing, how could He possibly be wrong?

However plausible the appeal of the Tempter, it was not entertained. We can conceive that a whole array of objections would arise; some may have been such as these-

This putting of G.o.d to trial by a test of my own choosing, that I may determine whether I will believe His words or not: this implying that I will admit His authority if He speaks in one way and not if He speaks in another-Is this befitting one called to a work like this?

Then came another point-He was hungry. As St Mark says nothing about the fasting it will be best not to a.s.sume that the fasting was part of our Lord's original purpose; but as, in the desert of Judea, food could not be got without a journey of some miles, our Lord, whether designedly or not, had put Himself out of the immediate reach of food. Should He remedy this by using the mysterious power with which He felt He was invested? This power was given Him to forward G.o.d's Kingdom upon earth-should He use it for Himself?

Then the tempter might return to the a.s.sault. There are fluxes and refluxes in human feeling; we are always afraid that we have gone too far in one direction, or been too obstinate about our own point; it strikes us that perhaps we have made more of it than it was worth, and then we listen submissively to the other side.

Such a whisper as this may have come-"These powers are given you to enable you to set up G.o.d's Kingdom upon earth; for this you must win adherents.

These adherents must be maintained. Your opponents are supported by the great ones of the earth; the G.o.d of Heaven has committed to you His powers for the support of yours. This little incident of the loaves only points the way to a much weightier matter; you _must_ use your special powers to supply your own bodily wants in the coming contest,-why not begin with using them for this purpose now?"

Here we have arrived at the gravest point of the debate-Were these powers really to be used for His bodily wants or not? As the true conditions of His work rose before Him, the principles grew clearer; He was to deliver mankind as the Son of Man, He was to work as man, to suffer as man, that suffering men might always look to Him, saying "He was one of us." And how could this be, if His lot was so unlike theirs that He met His own wants by a word of command directly they arose? How could His followers own the duty of labouring for their daily bread, if stones at a word were turned into loaves for Him? How could He tell men not to think overmuch of the meat that perisheth, if He had used Divine powers to provide it for Himself as soon as He possessed them? If He were to be the stay of loving human hearts, He must say to men, "As you live, I live: of all your ills and troubles I claim my part."

Our Lord's answer points out a train of thought along which He may have pa.s.sed, until at length He reached a firm resolve and reduced the Tempter to silence. It will not be irreverent to imagine what might, consistently with what we learn, have been its nature.

Man wants no reminding that he lives by _bread_. There is no fear of his not giving care enough to the needs of his body; but there is danger lest he should think of nothing but these needs, and starve his soul and become such that eternal life, without a body to care for, would only be a condition of aimless weariness. He resolved therefore to keep His powers apart for spiritual ends. He will work no miracle to shew that He _can_ work a miracle, or to a.s.sure either Himself or others that He is the Son of G.o.d; neither will He use this power to provide what others win by toil, or to preserve Himself or His followers from the common ills of human life.

There are a few of our Lord's Signs which might, at first sight, look as if in them this principle were not observed. At the marriage of Cana in Galilee, the Sign is worked as an act of kindness to save the host from mortification arising from an accident.

I have mentioned, as regards the miracles of the loaves and fishes, that on both occasions the supply which our Lord's own company had with them was sufficient for their immediate wants. The crowds, however, had, by their rapt attention to our Lord, been detained away from their homes and their supplies, and, if they had had to go a distance to buy bread, they would have suffered from taking so long a journey fasting. The case was an exceptional emergency parallel to that of illness, and our Lord meets it by miraculous means.

The miraculous draughts of fishes benefited probably all who were partners in the vessel, but they were not wrought to meet any necessity on the part of our Lord. All night long they had taken nothing; this scarcity may have been part of the lesson of the miracle, and the great draught is only a bounteous compensation. This is a miracle of instruction, as I said in the last chapter: it tells men that a turn comes at the moment when they are about to give up, and that the faith which bears up long is rewarded.

Moreover, to recur to what I said in the last chapter, St Peter had been told that he was to be henceforth a fisher of men; and when mult.i.tudes, both of Jews and Gentiles, were gathered into the Church in Jerusalem he must have thought of this as answering to the Sign.

The miracle of the stater in the fish's mouth also requires notice. It is not wrought to obtain the coin, but to keep before Peter's mind that he as well as his Master were the children and not the servants or tributaries of G.o.d.

From St Peter's answering without hesitation that his master would pay the didrachm, it is clear that there was no difficulty about producing the small sum. He does not speak to our Lord on the matter, but our Lord, directly he enters the house, asks him, "What thinkest thou, Simon? the kings of the earth, from whom do they receive toll or tribute? from their sons, or from strangers?"(65)

This miracle, as we said in the last chapter, is one of instruction. The payment according to the received view was the half-shekel that every Israelite had to pay for providing victims for the Temple service. It gave the idea of a tribute to G.o.d which stood in the way of the conception of perfect sonship. It implied that Israelites alone had part or lot in the worship of the living G.o.d. Our Lord would have St Peter regard G.o.d as the Father of mankind and not only as the Lord and ruler of Israel. The whole point of the lesson lies in the words "then are the children free." These words would be stamped on St Peter's mind by the finding the stater in the fish's mouth; and they would recur to him and bring their proper lesson with them when the right moment came. The circ.u.mstance is not in itself necessarily miraculous, but it was rendered so in this case by our Lord's foreseeing that the coin would be found in the first fish that came.

The Temptation on the Mount.

Next comes a scene in which the Spirit of the World is represented as pointing out all the glories of the empire of the inhabited earth, and offering it to our Lord on the strange condition that He should fall down and worship him. This represents, in plain and very forcible imagery, a spiritual temptation to which those who have laboured to regenerate mankind have fallen victims over and over again. Those who have most nearly attained universal conquest, Mahomet, Zengis, Timour, and many great political leaders as well, have begun with a genuine wish to alleviate the ills of mankind, of whom eventually they became a scourge.

I believe that what our Lord sets before us here is the temptation to aim at visible and comparatively immediate success, and to bring about our ideal by using the arts of worldly policy; which were to be supported in the case before us by superhuman power.

We can conceive a Tempter, such as the Satan of _Paradise Regained_, saying as he does,

"Great acts require great means of enterprise,"

and urging worldly counsels such as these:-"You seek to set up a perfect kingdom upon earth, to minimise evil by wise laws, and to make men love G.o.d and serve G.o.d out of love. You want success and you want it soon, in order that in your lifetime you may see your plans matured. For this, first of all, you must have at your back not merely disciples who shall listen and meditate, but men who can advance _a cause_. The uppermost feeling of the people among whom you have come is the desire to be free from Rome. They have drawn from the Scriptures a notion that a Messiah will soon come and restore the kingdom to Israel. With this view, be it right or wrong, you must fall in. You carry with you powers like those wielded by the prophets of old. Proclaim yourself such a Messiah as men expect. Strike to the ground the Roman eagles that are sent against you.

Offer to all who fall on your side a paradise of palpable enjoyments such as they can understand. Shew yourself invulnerable, and be everywhere foremost in the fight. Your superhuman power will balance the enormous might of Rome. In order to win the empire of the world you must employ policy as well as arms. You must excite enthusiasm. You must fascinate crowds by eloquence and lead them to serve your purpose when they think that you are serving theirs. When you have secured the empire, you can inaugurate a golden reign and call on men to bless your Father who sent you to their aid."

If suggestions such as these had been made to our Lord by such a Tempter as Milton imagines, we can see from the reply in our narrative how they would have been met. This kingdom, our Lord would say, so gained might indeed be mine but a.s.suredly it will not be G.o.d's; and my business is not to work for myself but for Him. It was this utter absence of self, in our Lord, which men could not comprehend; their common standards could not measure Him-they are bewildered by this, and all but the higher sort are put out of touch with Him.

The picture which our Lord leaves us of His struggle with the evil suggestions of His insidious foe teaches us many lessons, but the clearest of all are these-If we fight the world with its own weapons we soon put our hands out for using any others than those. If we seek what the world has to give we soon fall down and worship it, without having the least intention of doing anything of the kind. But besides giving a lesson for after ages, our Lord here indicates a particular resolve which shaped His action upon earth. It was this,-He would not employ His superhuman powers to force men to obey, or even to resist the violence which might be offered Him. He would not use them to a.s.sist in setting up the outward fabric of a Kingdom of G.o.d: and then, going a little further, He determines not to set up by His own hand any outward fabric of such a Kingdom at all. He was not to be an aspirant for worldly distinction-He was not to be the _leader of a cause_-He was not to be the founder of a school of philosophy or of any external form of religion at all. He came to do a _Work_, The Central Work of the History of mankind. He declared G.o.d, and declared Himself to be united to G.o.d, and that He would be with men for ever until the end of the world. But all that has to do with organisation, outward customs, effective sanctions, or the condensing of doctrines into the formulae of creeds, belongs to the human side of religion, and men of different climes and ages must shape such matters for themselves. He came, as I have said, only to kindle the fire and to set a new force moving in the world. This Law,-that neither force nor worldly policy should be used to carry out the Work of G.o.d,-governs all our Lord's acts. It need hardly be said that there is no miracle of our Lord's recounted in the canonical Scriptures in which violence is either done or repelled. In the apocryphal Gospels we find endless legends of the retribution which our Lord brought on those who injured Him, especially in His boyish years.

Neither do we ever find that our Lord so displays His signs or shapes His conduct, as to win from the crowd material support for the work He is carrying on. It was never more important for Him to win over the enthusiasm of the people than when He taught in Jerusalem in the week of the Pa.s.sover: but no public miracle at all is then performed. It must have seemed strange to the disciples that He did not confound Pilate on his judgment seat, or Herod on his throne, but _we_ see that the whole meaning of His coming would have been lost if He had. The disciples however are not left at that time without some indication that His Divine power remained unimpaired-the withering of the fig-tree, and the foretelling to Peter that he should deny Him thrice, shewed them that Jesus was still the Lord. When the Lord in the hands of His enemies turned and looked upon Peter, how striking must have been the contrast between the Kingdoms of the earth and of G.o.d!

There is one occasion where our Lord is urged to act in violation of this principle. The sons of Zebedee ask whether they may not call down fire from Heaven on those who would not receive them. "But He turned and rebuked them."(66)

Again, if He had come down from the cross when challenged to do so, this principle would have been broken through. Those who said "He saved others, Himself He cannot save,"(67) uttered a truth deeper than they dreamed of: it was of the very essence of His mission that He should not use His powers for Himself.

In connexion with this it may be noted that when St Peter is delivered from the prison,(68) and St Paul and Silas at Philippi, these deliverances are represented, not as being worked _by_ St Peter or St Paul, but as being worked _for_ them by the Divine power, without any doing of theirs.

The Temptation on the Pinnacle of the Temple.

When the temptation to employ open force was repelled, a more insidious one came in its stead. It was to use moral compulsion, and, by the public display of a resistless manifestation, to make doubt and opposition disappear.

Our Lord, as I believe, clothes this suggestion in imagery suited to His hearers: He represents Himself as borne to the pinnacle of the Temple and bidden to cast Himself down. Of this pinnacle an account is given by Dr Edersheim: he considers it to have overlooked the Court of the Priests.

The following extracts are from his account:-