Exegetical Fragments

⁴⁶ And said unto them, Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation.

For in the most general sense it holds good that it is apparently not possible for any man² to remain altogether without experience of ill. For, as one says, the whole world lies in wickedness; ² and again, The most of the days of man are labour and trouble.² But you will perhaps say, What difference is there between being tempted, and falling or entering into temptation? Well, if one is overcome of evil—and he will be overcome unless he struggles against it himself, and unless God protects him with His shield—that man has entered into temptation, and is in it, and is brought under it like one that is led captive. But if one withstands and endures, that man is indeed tempted; but he has not entered into temptation, or fallen into it. Thus Jesus was led up of the Spirit, not indeed to enter into temptation, but to be tempted of the devil.³ And Abraham, again, did not enter into temptation, neither did God lead him into temptation, but He tempted (tried) him; yet He did not drive him into temptation. The Lord Himself, moreover, tempted (tried) the disciples. Thus the wicked one, when he tempts us, draws us into the temptations, as dealing himself with the temptations of evil. But God, when He tempts (tries), adduces the temptations (trials) as one untempted of evil. For God, it is said, cannot be tempted of evil.³ The devil, therefore, drives us on by violence, drawing us to destruction; but God leads us by hand, training us for our salvation.

47. And while He yet spoke, behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before them, and drew near unto Jesus, and kissed Him.

48. But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?

How wonderful this endurance of evil by the Lord, who even kissed the traitor, and spoke words softer even than the kiss! For He did not say, O thou abominable, yea, utterly abominable traitor, is this the return you make to us for so great kindness? But, somehow, He says simply Judas, using the proper name, which was the address that would be used by one who commiserated a person, or who wished to call him back, rather than of one in anger. And He did not say, your Master, the Lord, your benefactor; but He said simply, the Son of man, that is, the tender and meek one: as if He meant to say, Even supposing that I was not your Master, or Lord, or benefactor, do you still betray one so guilelessly and so tenderly affected towards you, as even to kiss you in the hour of your treachery, and that, too, when the kiss was the signal for your treachery? Blessed are You, O Lord! How great is this example of the endurance of evil that You have shown us in Your own person! How great, too, the pattern of lowliness! Howbeit, the Lord has given us this example, to show us that we ought not to give up offering our good counsel to our brethren, even should nothing remarkable be effected by our words.

For as incurable wounds are wounds which cannot be remedied either by severe applications, or by those which may act more pleasantly upon them;³ so³ the soul, when it is once carried captive, and gives itself up to any kind of³ wickedness, and refuses to consider what is really profitable for it, although a myriad counsels should echo in it, takes no good to itself. But just as if the sense of hearing were dead within it, it receives no benefit from exhortations addressed to it; not because it cannot, but only because it will not. This was what happened in the case of Judas. And yet Christ, although He knew all these things beforehand, did not at any time, from the beginning on to the end, omit to do all in the way of counsel that depended on Him. And inasmuch as we know that such was His practice, we ought also unceasingly to endeavour to set those right³ who prove careless, even although no actual good may seem to be effected by that counsel.