The incident of the Temptation is recorded in all the Gospels except that of St John; but the account in St Mark's Gospel relates only that our Lord withdrew into the wilderness, and that He was there “forty days tempted of Satan.” In the Gospels of St Matthew and St Luke we find, with some small variations to be noted presently, what is commonly known as the History of the Temptations of our Lord.
The narratives, taken from the Revised Version, are as follows:
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he afterward hungered. And the tempter came and said unto him, If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him into the holy city; and he set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: And on their hands they shall bear thee up, Lest haply thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, Again it is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again, the devil taketh him unto an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and he said unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him; and behold, angels came and ministered unto him.”[55]
“And straightway the Spirit driveth him forth into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.”[56]
“And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness during forty days, being tempted of the devil. And he did eat nothing in those days: and when they were completed, he hungered. And the devil said unto him, If thou art the Son of God, command this stone that it become bread. And Jesus answered unto him, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone. And he led him up; and shewed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, To thee will I give all this authority, and the glory of them: for it hath been delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship before me, it shall all be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And he led him to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, to guard thee: and, On their hands they shall bear thee up, Lest haply thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had completed every temptation, he departed from him for a season.”[57]
What we find in St Mark may have been generally known to our Lord's disciples from the earliest period of the ministry. But the account of the Temptations themselves, which we find in St Matthew and St Luke, can only have come from our Lord Himself. Assuming this to be the case, the passage before us is singular in two respects.
First, Because the Evangelists have here, and here only, altered the form of what our Lord delivered, and changed into a narration in the third person what must, in the first instance, have been expressed in the first.
Secondly, Because this is the only instance in which our Lord breaks through His reticence as to His own personal history on earth. Here and here only does He give us a glimpse of what had befallen Him or of what had passed within His breast.
St Matthew and St Luke differ as to the order of the second and third Temptations. I have adopted that given by St Luke. According to my view, our Lord in the one rejects the use of physical violence and in the other that of moral compulsion. It is more after our Lord's way to proceed from what is concrete to what is abstract, than in the reverse order.
I feel strengthened in this view by some of the characteristics of the Gospel of St Matthew, in the form in which it has come down to us. This Evangelist has always the Kingdom before his eyes. He would therefore be inclined to account the [pg 117] rejection of “all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them” as the highest possible instance of the renunciation of self; and as he accounted it the most severe of the temptations he would naturally place it last. St Matthew moreover throughout his Gospel often puts together the discourses of our Lord according to their subject-matter, and not in the order in which they were spoken. He would therefore have no scruple about changing the order of the account of the Temptations which may have come before him as a detached document. On the other hand we do not know of any bias of St Luke which should lead him to prefer one order of events to another.