We read in the gospel that our Lord Jesus Christ was tempted in the wilderness by the devil. In Christ you were tempted, because Christ had taken his flesh from you to give you his salvation, his death from you to give you his life, his insults from you to give you his honor, and the temptations from you to give you his victory.
If we have been tempted in him, in him also we triumph over the devil. You are perfectly aware that Christ was tempted, but do you not see that he has carried off the victory? Recognize yourself in him in his temptation, recognize yourself in him in his victory. He could have prevented the devil from coming to him; but had he not been tempted how could he have taught us how to overcome temptation?
Moreover, there is nothing surprising in the fact that, harassed by temptations, he cried out from the end of the earth. But how is it that he is not overcome? "You will set me high upon a rock." From this we see who it is that is crying out from the earth's end. Remember the gospel: "On this rock I will build my church." She it is, then, who cries out from the earth's end, the Church whom he had wished to build on the rock.
-- Saint Augustine
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