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ST. MATTHEW. 49 CHAPTER IV.

''Christ’s fast of forty days. He is tempted. He begins to preach, to call disciples, and to work miracles.''

1. Then was led by the Spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil.

2. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards He was hungry.

3. And the tempter coming, said to Him: If Thou

the deserts were mountainous. By a change of a letter it would signify led off, or driven, which is conjectured to have been the original reading, gince it corresponds with the term used by St. Luke, iv. 1. See also Mark i. 12.
 * The Greek term signifies “led up"? as to a high place. Several of


 * The tloly Spirit. The article is here emphatic.

Moses entered into converse with God on the mountain. Elias jour- neyed forty days in the desert to mount floreb. Solitude is favorable to Tteflection and prayer: but our Lord needed it nat.
 * The prophets prepared themselves in solitude for their mission.

“ it is custumary. with the sacred writers to speak.of the result, as of the end to which the act was directed. The Spirit impelled Christ into the desert, that He might leave us the example of communion with God in prayer: but occasion was thence furnished for temptation. Cliriag was subject to no internal temptation, because He-was altogether free from original, 28 well as actual, sin, which is the cause, either proximate or remote, of all temptation. lle auffered Himself to he tempted exter- nally, and He underwent all kinds of severe trials from His enemier, for our example: “for we have not a high-prieat, whe cannot have come passion on our infirmities ; but one tempted in all things jike as we are, without sin.’ Heb. iv. 15. :

the divine power supporting them without food.
 * Moses and Ilias fasted in like manner, for the same length of time,

hungered,” says St. Augustin: “truly ao, but because he so willed it.” Tract. xlix.in Juan He waa pleased to experience hunger, that the reality of [dis human nature might be apparent in this respect.
 * Christ was subject to hunger only according to His will. “ Jesus


 * The devil, °

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