"If thou be the Son of God, command That out of these hard stones be made Thee bread, So shalt Thou save Thyself, and us relieve With food, whereof we wretched seldom taste."
Christ at once discerns who His tempter is and rebuffs him; and the Fiend, "now undisguised," goes on to narrate his own history, arguing that he is not a foe to mankind.
"They to me Never did wrong or violence. By them I lost not what I lost; rather by them I gained what I have gained, and with them dwell Co-partner in these regions of the world."
Christ, replying, attributes to Satan the evils of Idolatry and the crafty oracles of heathendom, which have taken the place of the "inward oracle in pious hearts," whereupon Satan, "bowing low his gray dissimulation, disappeared."
II.—The Temptation of the Body
Meanwhile the disciples were gathered "close in a cottage low," wondering where Christ could be, and Mary with troubled thoughts, rehearsed the story of His early life. Satan, returning to the council of his fellow fiends, in "the middle region of thick air," reports his failure, and that he has found in the Tempted "amplitude of mind to greatest deeds." Belial advises that the temptation should be continued by women "expert in amorous arts," but Satan rejects the plan, and reminds Belial—
"Among the sons of men How many have with a smile made small account Of beauty and her lures. For beauty stands In the admiration only of weak minds Led captive: cease to admire and all her plumes Fall flat.... We must try His constancy with such as have more show Of worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise."
With this aim Satan again betakes himself to the desert, where Christ, now hungry, sleeps and dreams of food.
And now the herald lark Left his ground-nest, high towering to descry The morn's approach, and greet her with his song, As lightly from his grassy couch uprose Our Saviour, and found all was but a dream; Fasting he went to sleep and fasting waked. Up to a hill anon his steps he reared, And in a bottom saw a pleasant grove, With chant of tuneful birds resounding loud. Thither He bent His way ... When suddenly a man before Him stood, Not rustic as before, but seemlier clad, As one in city or court or palace bred.
Here Satan again tempts Him with a spread of savoury food, which Jesus dismisses with the words: