On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
Gottfridus Olearius , the author of the other of the two forementioned schemes , thinks it
manifest that Jesus , before he entered on the difficult and dangerous office assigned him , retired into a wilderness b y divine direction , that there secluded from luman
society he might by prayer , fasting and meditation prepare himself for that office , aiid fortify his mind against the various evils to which he might easily foresee he should be exposed in the execution of it . Here he supposes some
wicked and crafty man , who , by having been present at our Lord ' s baptism , or by conversing with him , had discovered who he was , attempted , under a mask of friend , ship , to seduce him from his
duty , or to deter him altogether from embarking in the work allotted him . This attempt he does not think to have been made at one time only , but at such times and places as he judged most
favourable to the accomplishment of his malicious design . Who this adversary was , he does not pre - tend to say ; nor does it appear clear to him , that Jesus himself knew for certain . He delivers
it , however , as his opinion , that he was one of the principal men among the Jews , and might be a member of the Sanhedrim *
As to Dr . G / s scheme , it represents the three evangelists , by whom our Lord * s temptation is recorded , as introducing their accounts of it with relating , in plain
historical language ^ events acknowledged by all Christians to have actually happened , such as his baptism by John , the visible descent of the spirit , and an au-
Untitled Article
dible voice from heaven , and as speaking of the temptation itself in language intended to be understood parabolically and
Jiguratzvely , though still wearing all the appearance of being literal ^ and of being designed to be regarded in that light . This strikes me as being so very discordant with the well-known and justlyv
admired artlessness and simplicity of their manner in other parts of their memoirs , as to afford of itself sufficient reason for rejecting a hypothesis , which requires the admission of so glaring an
inconsistency in their mode of writing . In what way the appearance and reality of sucli an inconsistency may be avoided in an interpretation of the confessedly difficult
subject of the temptation , it will make part of my future business to endeavour to show , should I be blessed ' with life and ability to bring the work , on which I have entered , to a conclusion .
Beside the foregoing objection to the Dr / s scheme , founded on the circumstance of its requiring a figurative meaning to be put upon language , which has all the appearance of being equally
literal and free from figure with what immediately precedes and follows it , so that in the mind of a person unshackled by system , who perused the whole passage ^ * it would excite no other idea than
that of his having read an uninterrupted and uniform history of facts . Beside this objection , I have another to propose in questions , which 1 shall leave unanswered , because I imagine the reader will supply the same answers as I should return to them i
* StosenttiftUcri Scholia in Nov . Tc » um . torn . L Matt , c . 4 . cd . £ tia , i ; 3 S .
Untitled Article
un tne lemptattoh of Christ . —Letter 3 . 399
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1810, page 399, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2407/page/23/
-