It's difficult not to note Luke's extensive attention to Christ's family and childhood. I believe his is the only gospel in which John the Baptist appears as Jesus' cousin, and Luke alone gives us the account of Jesus as a boy in the temple. He gives us the oft-read Christmas story and tells it differently than does Matthew (Mark skips it altogether). No Magi. No flight to Egypt. He settles it very much in an external political context and includes the circumcision. However, Luke attends more to the universal significance of Christ's redemptive work for mankind than does Matthew in this story. The Magi are indeed foreign but coming to submit themselves to the new king who is in Israel, and Egypts Old Testament significance hardly needs be stated. Luke includes in the very Judaic circumcision passage the prophecy of Simeon that He will be "the salvation which [God has] prepared for all the nations to see, a light to enlighten the pagans and the glory of [God's] people Israel" (2:30-32). Already the mercy and, well, the democracy of Christ's message is shining beyond the kinds of conflicts that will afflict the apostolic church in Luke's second book. Come to think of it, I've never really read Acts as a continuation of the themes of Luke. Maybe we should try that sometime. The arrangement of the gospels is a little unfortunate in that it would be difficult to separate Luke from Matthew and Mark for similarity's sake but difficult to place John at the beginning since his prologue assumes a little more of the background story and deals in spiritual matters more than temporal. The old line about saving the best for last also comes to mind.
The temptation in the wilderness seems like a strange thing, especially the second and third of Satan's temptations. One can easily believe that any human deprived of food would find the bread proposition enticing. I have a little trouble understanding why He who was with God in the beginning would find the power and the glory of the kingdoms of the world remotely interesting, especially considering the "kingdom of heaven" discussions to come. There just seems to be so little to gain potentially in the second and third temptations. Perhaps some of you have a better reading on them?
As in previous posts, I haven't commented on the whole reading, but feel free to bring up anything I have passed over.
3 comments:
n the light of parallelism and a habit of nitpicking:
To the first temptation, I propose that Satan was tempting Jesus to a sure-fire way of gaining power over all men. You saw (and will see) what happens when Jesus takes not a stone but another piece of bread and feeds thousands; "they would come and take him by force, to make him a king" (John 1:15).
Quite frankly, Gabriel, I'm surprised that your beloved Dostoyevsky made no appearance; he says a lot on this subject, but particularly in relation to the first temptation I think he shows grace and merit:
[Addressed by The Grand Inquisitor to the figure known as The Prisoner, who is Jesus:] 'Thou didst know, Thou couldst not but have known, this fundamental secret of human nature, but Thou didst reject the one infallible banner which was offered Thee to make all men bow down to Thee alone -- the banner of earthly bread; and Thou hast rejected it for the sake of freedom and the bread of Heaven. Behold what Thou didst further. And all again in the name of freedom! I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born. But only one who can appease their conscience can take over their freedom. In bread there was offered Thee an invincible banner; give bread, and man will worship thee, for nothing is more certain than bread. But if someone else gains possession of his conscience -- Oh! then he will cast away Thy bread and follow after him who has ensnared his conscience. In that Thou wast right. For the secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for.' (link)
Indeed, "Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." (Luke 4:4)
Maybe the second temptation is not that he will gain power over men by abusing his own power but surrendering his own power, moving from what would seem to be commission to omission?
At this point Jesus actually says "Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve" (Luke 4:8). The only other time I remember Christ using such a phrase--and correct me where I'm wrong--is when he says it to Peter (Matthew 16:23), in what I see as the same context; a temptation to run.
The last temptation seems to me to be rather an act of conscious destruction; despair without the consequences of eternal damnation because Christ will never be any other than the son of God. Of course, the logic is skewed here because if Christ will not be any other than he is, he will not compromise his own integrity and therefore will not be tempted; "Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God" (Luke 4:12).
The temptation to conscious self-destruction may not seem like much of a temptation, but do think of it in the light of self-surrender. We surrender to Christ, give everything we are up to him--does that not fill you with an incredible sense of relief, to be able to trust in someone that powerful? Our consequences are not easy: the very symbol of our faith, no matter what division we belong to, is the crucified Christ. If we submit to anything else, we cannot call ourselves Christians. Satan is trying to promise Christ that his own self-surrender will not have any consequences; he won't even stub his (little! human!) toe.
I think you will not be sorry to hear more of Dostoyevsky:
[In the same vein as the previous quote:] 'Oh, of course, Thou didst proudly and well, like God; but the weak, unruly race of men, are they gods? Oh, Thou didst know then that in taking one step, in making one movement to cast Thyself down, Thou wouldst be tempting God and have lost all Thy faith in Him, and wouldst have been dashed to pieces against that earth which Thou didst come to save. And the wise spirit that tempted Thee would have rejoiced.' (link)
As in an obvious example like the first Psalm (link), the parallelism of the temptations seems clear to me: abuse of power over others, neglect of others in "favour" of oneself, and abuse of power over oneself. And in all this, Satan proffers the consequences; (1) the integrity of Christ as the Son of God remain unchallenged, (2) all earthly power be given him, (3) he won't even be physically hurt.
Do you see how the consequences, regardless of their validity, increasingly compromise the very nature of Christ just as the antecedents (I hope that's the right word) are focus more and more on self rather than others?
Anyway, it was a thought. A very long thought. Sorry about that.
Gabe, I think that you should definitely start a pentecost-in-us community for us to read through the Acts of the Apostles. :-)
Also, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the different geneologies provided by Matthew and Luke. Eusebius has an interesting explanation of the difference in his Ecclesiastical History. I'll try to find the passage and post it in here later.
The History of the Church
Book I, Section 7
The alleged discrepancy in the gospels as to Christ's geneology
The geneology of Christ has been differently recorded for us in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Most people see a discrepancy in this, and through ignorance of the truth each believer has been only too eager to dilate at length on these passages. So I feel justified in reproducing an explanation of the difficulty that has come into my hands. This is to be found in a letter which Africanus, to whom I referred a little while back, wrote to Aristides on the harmony of the gospel geneologies. Having first refuted other people's theories as forced and demonstrably false, he sets out the explanation he had himself received. I will quote his actual words:
"The names of the families of Israel were reckoned either by nature or by law; by nature, when there was genuine offspring to succeed; by law, when another man fathered a child in the name of a brother who had died childless. For as no clear hope of being raised from the dead had yet been given, they portrayed the promise of the future with a mortal 'raising up,' in order that the name of the deceased might be preserved for all time.(1 )These geneologies therefore comprise some who succeeded their actual fathers, and some who were the children of one father but were registered as children of another. Thus the memory of both was preserved - of the real and nominal fathers. Thus neither of the gospels is in error, since they take both the nature and the law. For the two families, descended from Solomon and Nathan respectively, were so interlocked by the re-marriage of childless widows and the 'raising up' of offspring, that the same persons could rightly be regarded at different times as the children of different parents - sometimes the reputed fathers, sometimes the real. Thus both accounts are true, bringing the line down to Joseph in a manner complex but certainly accurate."
(D. Ed. - At this point, Africanus goes into lengthy proof of his point by looking very closely at the individuals of each geneology. This portion is being skipped over in order to save this poor scribe the hassle of typing out many 'begots.' I have fast-forwarded back to Eusebius' own writing...)
In tracing thus the geneology of Joseph, Africanus has virtually proved that Mary belonged to the same tribe as her husband, in view of the fact that under the Mosaic law inter-marriage between different tribes was forbidden, for the rule is that a woman must wed someone from the same town and the same clan, so that the family inheritance may not be moved from tribe to tribe. Let us leave it at that.
I have briefly read that some modern scholars dismiss Eusebius' explanation of the different geneologies of Christ, but his explanation is at least interesting and very ancient.
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