Why did the Devil want to tempt Jesus?
The fact is he was alarmed – and wanted to see if his fears were justified.
The fact is he was alarmed – and wanted to see if his fears were justified.
Editor’s Notes
The Gospel of the First Sunday of Lent recounts Christ’s forty days in the wilderness, fasting and being tempted by the Devil. This takes place immediately after Christ’s baptism by St John the Baptist, and precedes the beginning of his public ministry.
Having previously given Fr Coleridge’s account of why Our Lord fasted for forty days, how this incident represented his victory over the Devil, and the under-appreciated aspect of the angels coming to minister to Our Lord – let us return to the temptations themselves.
In this part, Fr Coleridge tells us…
How the forty days brought unceasing assaults upon Our Lord.
That the Devil was alarmed by his person, and sought to discover whom he really was
Why Satan was left baffled – because of his pride, ignorance, and blindness.
He shows us that Christ endured relentless trial to expose and defeat the enemy of our souls.
For more context on this episode, see Part I.
Temptations of our Lord
The Ministry of St. John the Baptist
Chapter V
St. Matt. iv. 2–10; St. Mark i. 13; St. Luke iv. 2–12.
Story of the Gospels, § 18
Burns and Oates, London, 1888
Headings and some line breaks added.
Sung on First Sunday of Lent
Continuance of the temptations
The words of the Evangelists seem to imply that the temptations with which Satan beset the Sacred Humanity of our Blessed Lord were continued without intermission during the forty days during which His stay in the wilderness lasted.
If this was the case, we must then understand that the three remarkable temptations which are specially related by the Evangelists, took place at the close of the time, when our Lord allowed Himself, with full deliberation and will, to suffer the extreme pangs of hunger natural after an unbroken fast of forty days and forty nights.
Satan, as is implied in the narrative of the Evangelists, took occasion of this extreme hunger to begin his final and most subtle temptations.
Their manner with our Lord
It must be remembered that according to the doctrine of the Fathers,1 the manner of temptation which was possible in our Lord was not the same as that of which we ourselves have experience.
We are tempted both externally and internally, that is, by words, suggestions, or objects addressed to the exterior senses, and also by evil thoughts, which can be shot into our minds, even when there has been nothing voluntary on our part, as is so often the case, on which they may be founded or grafted, as well as by our sensual concupiscences, which can also be inflamed even against our own will.
This state of things in us is the consequence of sin, primarily of original sin, but also practically of our actual sins. The lower part of our nature is no longer held in that obedience to the reasonable will which ruled it in the case of our first parents before the Fall. Thus Adam and Eve were tempted externally, but not interiorly. There was as yet no internal discord or rebellion in their nature.
Our Blessed Lord’s Sacred Humanity could not, of course, be subjected to an interior evil or defect of this kind. There could be no disobedience of the sensitive part of His nature to the rule of reason, and, in consequence, the temptations with which He was assailed, violent and subtle as they were, were entirely external.
Satan’s object to discover our Lord
In order to understand fully the doctrine of the Fathers as to the particulars of the temptations addressed to our Blessed Lord by Satan, it must be remembered that the ancient writers suppose, what is indeed suggested by the very words used by him in the temptations, that he was ignorant, or at least doubtful, as to the Person of Jesus Christ.
There is great ground for thinking that it was the revelation of the future mystery of the Incarnation, which was set before the angels at the time of their probation, claiming their allegiance and homage for their God in a nature inferior to their own, which was the occasion of that first miserable revolt of the will of His creatures in heaven which was punished by Him by the banishment of the rebel spirits from His presence and their condemnation to the eternal torments of hell.
Thus the Incarnation had been the occasion to Satan of his own irremediable fall, and was in consequence the peculiar object of his hate, while at the same time he was aware that it was also to be the instrument of the redemption of that inferior order of God’s spiritual creatures whom he had induced in some sort to imitate and share his own rebellion. He had known and most carefully watched from the beginning every step and stage in the counsel of God for the restoration and redemption of the human race, he had noted the first promise made to Eve of the seed of the woman who was to crush the serpent’s head, and no intimation of type or prophecy concerning the carrying out of that promise in the fulness of time had been lost upon him.
If the Scribes and Priests at Jerusalem could tell Herod where the Saviour was to be born, if they could have calculated the weeks of the prophecy of Daniel, or the note of time given in the last promise of Jacob, if they knew that our Lord was to be the Son of a Virgin, and of the house and lineage of David, much more could the arch-enemy of mankind have told all these things concerning the one future event which he dreaded above all others, the coming of the Son of God in human flesh to redeem the world.
If Simeon and Anna, and others with them, were looking for the redemption of Israel at the time of our Lord’s birth, it is certain that the same expectation must have been entertained with far different feelings by Satan and his angels.
His alarm concerning Him
There were many things about our Lord’s birth and infancy which may have filled them with alarm, because they seemed to be so clearly the fulfilment of notes which were attached to the promised Messias.
Occurrences like the testimony of Simeon in the Temple, or the visit of the Eastern Sages at the Epiphany, might have made Satan suspect that the wonderful Child to Whom such honour was done might be more than human, but he seems all through to have been baffled and fooled by the humility, poverty, meekness and entire hiddenness of the life of our Lord and His Blessed Mother.
When our Lord left Nazareth and presented Himself at the Jordan, Satan may have been again alarmed at the singular and magnificent honours which were then paid to Him, and this may have been the reason why he assailed Him when in the desert, with every kind of temptation which it was permitted to him to use, with the twofold object of discovering who He was, and at the same time of inducing Him to sin.
If it be thought that it would have been impossible that a creature, with all the wonderful natural gifts of intellectual discernment which are possessed by the fallen angels, should have been deceived as to the Person of our Lord, we must remember that in the use of their natural powers to hurt and deceive us the devils are not left to themselves, but are only allowed to do what it pleases God to permit, and that in the same way there may have been many circumstances in the divine dispensation of the Incarnation which Satan was not allowed to know, even though he might perhaps have known them; notably the virginal conception of our Blessed Lord in His Mother’s womb.
Again, pride, whether in devils or in men, has the property already noted, of blinding the intellect to many things which it might otherwise know, especially if they are presented under the form of humility.
Temptations of Our Lord
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See St. Greg. Hom. in Evang. 16; Toletus in Luc. c. iii. n. 7.