Article February 19, 1921 Issue

Signs of the Times

Frederick L. Hoffman with contributions from Douglas Clyde Macintosh, Edward Shillito, Leverhulme, Fredrick L. Hoffman

["The Mount of Temptation"—The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, U.S.A., Dec. 2, 1920]

In the fourth chapters of the gospels of Matthew and of Luke, respectively, accounts are given of what are known as the temptations of Jesus. These accounts are practically the same, although the order of the temptations is different. In both the active agent is stated to be the devil. Now the Bible is an Eastern book and in the East all qualities are personalized whenever possible, the winds, the stars, all were written about as if they were people; so the devil stands simply for evil quality, and the temptations are symbolic of the difficulties of all mankind. In the Glossary of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy (p.589), "Jesus" is defined in this way: "Jesus. The highest human corporeal concept of the divine idea, rebuking and destroying error and bringing to light man's immortality." On page 584 we find: "Devil. Evil; a lie; error; neither corporeality nor mind; the opposite of Truth; a belief in sin, sickness, and death; animal magnetism or hypnotism; the lust of the flesh, which saith: 'I am life and intelligence in matter.'" These definitions illuminate the Scriptural accounts of the temptations, and the accounts of how Jesus met and overcame them illustrate the method of resisting the temptation to believe in life and intelligence in matter, a point which sometimes seems obscure to mortals.

Jesus, the Bible says, was tempted in all points. Nevertheless divine Principle does not set these lusts in the way of His own children, in order to test them. Principle has made man perfect, in His own image, and has no need to test His own creation. The lust of the flesh is simply the belief that there is pleasure, life, and intelligence in matter, that is, apart from Principle, Spirit. Now until it is clearly known that divine Principle contains every possible expression of pleasure, life, and intelligence, mankind is tempted by its own ignorance of that fact. This ignorance, and the fear of it, is the so-called quality of evil, personalized in Eastern language as the devil.

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