Temptation of Christ
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Christianity, the temptation of Christ refers to the temptation of Jesus by the devil as detailed in each of the three Synoptic Gospels, specifically at [Matthew 4:1-11], [Mark 1:12-13], and [Luke 4:1-13]. Though Christian translations often use the term Satan to describe Jesus' adversary in this narrative, the bible actually says [diabolos] (greek for devil) in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
According to these texts, after being baptised, Jesus fasted for forty days and nights in the desert. During this time, the devil appeared to him and tempted Jesus to demonstrate his supernatural powers as proof of his divinity, each temptation being refused by Jesus with a quote of scripture from the Book of Deuteronomy. The Gospels state that having failed, the devil departed and angels came and brought nourishment to Jesus.
Mark's account is very brief, merely noting the aforementioned events, but giving no details about them, not even how many there were. Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, describe the temptations by recounting the details of the conversations between Jesus and the devil. Since the elements of the narrative that are in Matthew and Luke but not Mark are mostly pairs of quotations, rather than detailed narrative, many scholars believe that these extra details originate in the Q Document.
Accounts
In Luke and Matthew's accounts, the devil tempts Jesus to:
- Worship the devil in return for all the kingdoms of the world. Luke has the devil explicitly claim this authority had previously been handed to himself, the devil.
- Make bread out of stone(s) to relieve his own hunger (Matthew has stones while Luke has this stone)
- Free himself from a pinnacle by jumping and relying on angels to break his fall. The narrative of both Luke and Matthew has the devil quote Psalm 91:11-12 to show that God had promised this assistance, although the devil omits the part of that passage which makes clear that it is only accidents that are being referred to, not deliberate jumps.
Matthew makes clear that the Spirit, presumably the Holy Ghost prominently mentioned only two verses before, has lead Jesus into the desert. Many scholars see Matthew as presenting Jesus being tested under the orders of God, rather than the devil simply being opportunist. While Christian Fundamentalists state that the devil's goals were his own, most scholars see the devil's role here as echoing Satan's role in some parts of the Old Testament, where he is portrayed as an angel acting under God's orders as an official opposing council, to test humans on behalf of God.
That Mark's account is very short while Matthew and Luke's accounts consists mostly of quotes from Jesus and Satan has led scholars to believe that the latter accounts of the event both originate in the Q Document.
Fasting
According to Hill, fasting traditionally presaged a great spiritual struggle. The Israelites, as well as Elijah, and Moses individually, are described in the Old Testament as fasting for 40 days and nights, in the case of the Israelites doing so involuntarily and being slightly relieved by Manna, and so Jesus doing the same appears to be a deliberate comparison to these events. According to Clarke, at the time forty was less a specific number and more a general expression for any large figure. France notes that fasting does not necessarily mean a complete abstinence from food and consequently that Jesus may have been surviving on the sparse food that could be obtained in the desert. Mark does not mention any fasting and although Luke implies it, it does not use the word. Gundry notes that Matthew seems to be a far more interested in presenting Jesus as having fasted prior to the events than the other gospels are.
Jesus' fasting became the model for the practice of Lent in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, a ritual that lasts forty days, but is today a less than total abstinence. Protestants, in general, do not see this passage as a justification for Lent, and while Martin Luther felt that the Lent ritual was useful in focusing the minds of the faithful, he still considered it artificial. John Calvin felt the entire notion was silly and that if imitation was truly the path to salvation then believers ought to strive to walk on water or to turn water to wine.
Locations
Each temptation takes place in a different setting. The first temptation, in both Luke and Matthew, is that of making bread out of stones, occurring in the same desert setting where Jesus had previously been fasting. Jones reports that the wilderness mentioned here has since the fifth century been believed to be the rocky and uninhabited area between Jerusalem and Jericho, with a spot on Mount Quarantina traditionally being considered the exact location, at which a Greek Orthodox monastery now exists. The desert was seen as outside the bounds of society and as the home of demons, such as Azazel. Some have read this reference to the wilderness as a comparison to Adam in the Garden of Eden, implying that Jesus will be a new Adam but one that doesn't make the same mistake. However, like most scholars, Gundry rejects this idea, stating that nowhere does Matthew's text imply such a comparison, but rather the desert is more likely an allusion to the wilderness through which the Israelites wandered during the Exodus, and more specifically to Moses.
After the first temptation is rejected, the devil takes Jesus to a high pinnacle in what Matthew terms the holy city. Most Christians consider that holy city refers unquestionably to Jerusalem and the temple to which the pinnacle belongs is thus identified as the Temple in Jerusalem, although the text is quite ambiguous in this matter since Matthew could easily name the location, and the question arises why he didn't. Luke's version of the story clearly identifies the location as Jerusalem. What is meant by the word traditionally translated as pinnacle is not entirely clear since the Greek word is almost identical to the word that translates as little wings. Schweizer hence feels that little tower or parapet would be more accurate. Gundry lists three sites at the Jerusalem temple that would fit this description:
- On the top of the temple's main tower, above the sanctuary proper, some 180 feet above ground, the location that artists and others using the traditional translation generally set the story.
- Atop the lintel of the main gateway into the temple, the most prominent position where the pair could easily have been seen.
- A tower on the southeast corner of the outer wall that looks down into the Kidron Valley, which James the Just was said to have later been thrown from by way of execution.
- John Calvin supported the view that the devil took Jesus to a vision of a high place where he could see the entire world, and the Geneva Bible even translates the passage in this way
- Alternatively kingdoms could be a metaphorical reference to power rather than a geographic one
- or all...of the world could refer only to the known world, a comparatively small region at the time of Matthew
- or that the devil took Jesus to a mountain top but from there flew him around the entire world
- or that the devil took Jesus to a mountain top but then simply pulled out a map of the earth (although this does leave the question of why the devil would take him up a mountain top to do so).
Purpose
Exactly what the devil was trying to achieve by these temptations has been open to debate - for example, the act of using divine power to produce bread is indicated elsewhere in Matthew as being perfectly acceptable for Jesus to perform, and so this cannot in itself be seen as wrong. The traditional view is that the devil on each occasion is trying to make Jesus commit a particular sin - avarice by offering power over the kingdoms of the world, gluttony by suggesting a way to relieve Jesus' hunger, and hubris by suggesting that Jesus jump and rely on angels to break his fall. Most modern scholars do not accept this view, Jones for example noting that calling someone who has fasted for forty days gluttonous simply because they now desire food is really not very fair.
Another view that was popular for a time was that the devil wasn't so much tempting Jesus as presenting him with the different options he could take to be a Messiah, and making him decide on one. Evangelicals, such as France point to the word usually translated as tempt as being more accurately translated as test, i.e. that the devil was testing Jesus' understanding of his role rather than trying to lure him to sin. The rejected options under this interpretation being:
- someone who rescues the poor and needy from their hardships, as manifested by feeding the hungry
- a magician and miracle worker who wins converts by spectacular acts, as manifested by surviving a jump from a high pinnacle. That the devil places Jesus in a very public location, rather than the numerous high pinnacles in the desert, gives credence to this view.
- a political liberator from the oppression of the Romans, as manifested by having power over the kingdoms of the world
- The offer of power over the kingdoms of the world mirrors Moses being sent to the top of Mount Nebo, where Yahweh shows him Jericho and Canaan, and then promises them to the Israelites if the Israelites worship Yahweh
- The feeding of the hungry parallels the period of the Exodus where the Israelites wander hungry in the desert, and harass Yahweh so much by their complaints that food is eventually provided for them, by supernatural means
- The jumping from a pinnacle presents something which would test God's abilities, paralleling the Israelites behaviour in the desert where they tested God
Rejections
Jesus rejects each of the temptations by quoting from the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy. It is worth noting that the wording in the Masoretic text, which forms the basis of most Christian translations of the Old Testament, is not as good a match. The three quotations are:
- Deuteronomy 6:13, which refers to a rejection of idolatry, to reject power over all the kingdoms of the world. In Matthew, Jesus also says Get away from me, Satan (sometimes quoted as Begone Satan), the only place in the whole story that the word Satan is used to refer to the devil. In a famous letter, Pope Gregory VII used Jesus' quotation of this passage to assert his precedence over the Holy Roman Emperor, by claiming that it showed that spiritual authority had supremacy over secular power, since both the devil and Jesus seem to put more value in it than in ruling the world.
- Deuteronomy 6:16, which admonishes the Israelites for testing Yahweh, to reject jumping and relying on divine rescue. Some Christians extrapolate from this a rejection of Antinomianism since it is a quote from Moses. A ninth century Islamic tradition instead explains that Jesus refused to leap because he quite sensibly doubted whether he would be saved.
- Deuteronomy 8:3, which refers to a need to have spiritual as well as physical sustenance, to reject a solution to hunger. Unlike Matthew, Luke abbreviates the quote, neglecting to include the part that states that man should live by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of God. The part of this quote that is in both Luke and Matthew - man shall not live by bread alone- has today become a common expression, which some take to refer to a need for spirituality, but most use in the opposite sense, to justify material luxuries beyond simple things like bread.
Jesus' banquet
Once the three temptations are over, the narrative has the devil depart and Jesus being serviced by angels. In the original Greek of Matthew, "devil left him" was in the historic present tense, indicating a lack of permanence, i.e. that the devil would later return to further tempt Jesus, which Luke spells out explicitly. While both Mark and Matthew mention the angels, Luke does not, and Matthew seems once again here to be making parallels with the old testament, in this case though with Elijah, who was fed by ravens, rather than making a parallel with Moses. The word minister/served is often interpreted as the angels feeding Jesus, and traditionally artists have depicted the scene as Jesus being presented with a feast, a detailed description of it even appearing in Paradise Regained. According to Clarke, this ending to the temptation narrative is a common literary device of using a feast scene to emphasize a happy ending, while to Jones this ending is proof that Jesus never lost his faith in God during the temptations. In the War Scroll found at Qumran, angels are described as forming an army to battle evil, which is somewhat at odds with most interpretations of the portrayal of angels here, but it could indicate that the angels in the passage should instead be interpreted as ministering to Jesus by driving off the devil.
Cultural Influences
The temptation of Christ has been a frequent subject in the art and literature of Christian cultures. In more recent times, to "turn stones into bread" has become a common phrase in American English.
See also
- The Last Temptation of Christ
- New Testament view on Jesus' life
- Mount Quarantania, the traditional location of one of the temptations
References
- Albright, W.F. and C.S. Mann. "Matthew." The Anchor Bible Series. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1971.
- Clarke, Howard W. The Gospel of Matthew and its Readers: A Historical Introduction to the First Gospel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003.
- France, R.T. The Gospel According to Matthew: an Introduction and Commentary. Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 1985.
- Gundry, Robert H. Matthew a Commentary on his Literary and Theological Art. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1982.
- Hill, David. The Gospel of Matthew. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981
- Jones, Alexander. The Gospel According to St. Matthew. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1965.
- Schweizer, Eduard. The Good News According to Matthew. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975
External Links
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