AE 650g - in the wilderness

AE 650g [70]
The spirit urging Jesus caused Him to go into the wilderness,
and He was in the wilderness forty days;
and He was with the beasts,
and angels ministered unto Him.
(Mark 1:12, 13)

The Lord's being in the wilderness forty days
represented the duration of all those most direful temptations
which He, above all others in the whole world, endured and withstood;
for "forty days" signify the entire period and duration of temptations,
thus not that He was tempted at that time only,
but from childhood even to the end of His life in the world;
His last temptation was in Gethsemane.
For by temptations He subjugated all the hells and also glorified His Human.
Because temptations arise through evil spirits and genii
who are from hell, thus through the hells,
from which evils and falsities and their cupidities and lusts arise,
so the "beasts" here, with which the Lord was, do not mean beasts,
but the hells and the evils that rise out of them;
and the "angels" who ministered unto Him do not mean angels,
but Divine truths,
through which from His own power He overcame and subjugated the hells.