And when the devil had ended all the temptation.
"Thou Spirit, who ledd'st this glorious eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field,
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence
By proof the undoubted Son of God."
(Milton.)
St. Matthew closes the story of the "victorious field" by telling us how, when every hellish suggestion had been made and repelled, the wearied and exhausted Jesus was visited and refreshed by the visible ministry of angels. The words of the Greek original translated "all the temptation" would be more accurately rendered by "every kind of temptation." The three great temptations, related by two of the evangelists in detail, are very varied and comprehensive in character, and appeal to most of the human passions and desires; but from the words with which St. Luke began his recital, "being forty days tempted of the devil," it is clear that Jesus was incessantly tempted the whole time by hellish whispers and suggestions, perhaps of the same kind, though with varied details, as the three we have recorded for us. Besides the uses of the temptation mystery in the development of the humanity of the blessed Son of God, the great scene has its deep lessons for all sorts and conditions of men in all times. Some eminent expositors would seem to wish to limit the area of the teaching of the temptation, and to regard it as mainly an experience preserved for the guidance of the disciples of the Master. They—so say these scholars—were, from this scene in the life of the great Teacher, to learn never to use their miraculous power for their personal advantage (first temptation); never to associate with wicked men for the attainment of good ends (second temptation); never to perform a miracle in an ostentatious spirit (third temptation). All this was doubtless contained in the Lord's story of his awful experience, and the lesson was never forgotten by the twelve and their own immediate followers. But the instruction was not meant to be confined to the little circle of his own; it was, like the whole of the gospel teaching, intended for all sorts and conditions of men. The common everyday lesson which every child may read in this story of his Master's trial, is that from the plain appointed path of duty, which very often too is the path of suffering, no persuasion however skillfully worded, no sophistry however plausible, must be sufficient to turn him. He departed from him for a season; more accurately, till a convenient season. It is evident that all through the two years and a half of the public ministry, which succeeded the events just recorded, Jesus was exposed to the various trials and temptations to which suffering mortal flesh is exposed. So Bonaventura, in his 'Life of Christ,' says, "Many other were the occasions on which he endured temptation." Still there is no doubt but that the "convenient season" here pointedly alluded to referred to that other great epoch of temptation just before the cross, when our Lord prayed in the agony of the garden at the close of his earthly work. There the tempter tried if great suffering was not able to conquer that Sinless One.