Temptation of Christ
The temptation of Christ is a biblical narrative detailed in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. After being baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus was tempted by the devil after 40 days and nights of fasting in the Judaean Desert. At the time, Satan came to Jesus and tried to tempt him. Jesus having refused each temptation, Satan then departed and Jesus returned to Galilee to begin his ministry.
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews also refers to Jesus having been tempted "in every way that we are, except without sin".
Mark's account is very brief, merely noting the event. Matthew and Luke describe the temptations by recounting the details of the conversations between Jesus and Satan. The temptation of Christ is not explicitly mentioned in the Gospel of John but in this gospel Jesus does refer to the Devil, "the prince of this world", having no power over him.
In church calendars of many Christian denominations, Jesus' forty day period of fasting in the Judaean Desert is remembered during the season of Lent, during which many Christians fast, pray and give alms to the poor.
Literary genre
Discussion of status as a parable
Discussion of the literary genre includes whether what is represented is a history, a parable, a myth, or compound of various genres. This relates to the reality of the encounter. Sometimes the temptation narrative is taken as a parable, reading that Jesus in his ministry told this narrative to audiences relating his inner experience in the form of a parable. Or it is autobiographical, regarding what sort of Messiah Jesus intended to be. Writers including William Barclay have pointed to the fact that there is "no mountain high enough in all the world to see the whole world" as indication of the non-literal nature of the event, and that the narrative portrays what was going on inside Jesus' mind. Dominican theologian Thomas Aquinas explained, "In regard to the words, 'He showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,' we are not to understand that He saw the very kingdoms, with the cities and inhabitants, their gold and silver: but that the devil pointed out the quarters in which each kingdom or city lay, and set forth to Him in words their glory and estate."The debate on the literality of the temptations goes back at least to the 18th-century discussion of George Benson and Hugh Farmer.
The Catholic understanding is that the temptation of Christ was a literal and physical event. "Despite the difficulties urged, …against the historical character of the three temptations of Jesus, as recorded by St. Matthew and St. Luke, it is plain that these sacred writers intended to describe an actual and visible approach of Satan, to chronicle an actual shifting of places, etc., and that the traditional view, which maintains the objective nature of Christ's temptations, is the only one meeting all the requirements of the Gospel narrative."
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
Use of Old Testament references
The account of Matthew uses language from the Old Testament. The imagery would be familiar to Matthew's contemporary readers. In the Septuagint Greek version of Zechariah 3 the name Iesous and term diabolos are identical to the Greek terms of Matthew 4. Matthew presents the three scriptural passages cited by Jesus not in their order in the Book of Deuteronomy, but in the sequence of the trials of Israel as they wandered in the desert, as recorded in the Book of Exodus. Luke's account is similar, though his inversion of the second and third temptations "represents a more natural geographic movement, from the wilderness to the temple". Luke's closing statement that the devil "departed from him until an opportune time" may provide a narrative link to the immediately following attempt at Nazareth to throw Jesus down from a high place, or may anticipate a role for Satan in the Passion.Matthew and Luke narratives
Fasting traditionally presaged a great spiritual struggle. Elijah and Moses in the Old Testament fasted 40 days and nights, and thus Jesus doing the same invites comparison to these events. In Judaism, "the practice of fasting connected the body and its physical needs with less tangible values, such as self-denial and repentance." At the time, 40 was less a specific number and more a general expression for any large figure. Fasting may not mean a complete abstinence from food; consequently, Jesus may have been surviving on the sparse food that could be obtained in the desert. On the other hand, the synoptic gospel of Luke specifies that "He ate nothing" which, based on the plain reading of the text, suggests complete abstinence of food.Mark does not provide details, but in Matthew and Luke "the tempter" or "the devil" tempts Jesus to:
- Make bread out of stones to relieve his own hunger
- Jump from a pinnacle and rely on angels to break his fall. The narratives of both Luke and Matthew have Satan quote Psalm 91:11–12 to indicate that God had promised this assistance.
- Worship the tempter in return for all the kingdoms of the world.
The Temptations
Stones to bread
The temptation of bread out of stones occurs in the same desert setting where Jesus had been fasting, with a spot on Mount Quarantania traditionally being considered the exact location. The desert was seen as outside the bounds of society and as the home of demons such as Azazel. Robert H. Gundry states that the desert is likely an allusion to the wilderness through which the Israelites wandered during the Exodus, and more specifically to Moses. Jesus' struggle against hunger in the face of Satan points to his representative role of the Israelites, but he does not fail God in his urge for hunger. This temptation may have been Jesus' last, aiming towards his hunger.In response to Satan's suggestion, Jesus replies, "It is written: Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God". Only in Matthew's gospel is this entire sentence written.
Pinnacle of the temple
This is the second temptation mentioned in Matthew and the third temptation listed in Luke.Most Christians consider that holy city refers undoubtedly to Jerusalem and the temple to which the pinnacle belongs is thus identified as the Temple in Jerusalem. Gospel of Matthew refers to "the temple" 17 times without ever adding "in Jerusalem". That Luke's version of the story clearly identifies the location as Jerusalem may be due to Theophilus' unfamiliarity with Judaism.
What is meant by the word traditionally translated as pinnacle is not entirely clear since the Greek diminutive form pterugion is not extant in other architectural contexts. Though the form pterux is used for the point of a building by Pollianus, Schweizer feels that little tower or parapet would be more accurate, and the New Jerusalem Bible does use the translation "parapet". The only surviving Jewish parallel to the temptation uses the standard word šbyt "roof" not "wing": "Our Rabbis related that in the hour when the Messiah shall be revealed he shall come and stand on the roof of the temple." The term is preserved as "wing" in Syriac translations of the Greek.
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. In later Christian tradition this is the tower from which James the brother of Jesus was said by Hegesippus to have been thrown by way of execution.
Once more, Jesus maintained his integrity and responded by quoting scripture, saying, "It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.'" quoting Deuteronomy 6:16.
Mountain
For the third and final temptation in Matthew the devil takes Jesus to a high place, which Matthew explicitly identifies as a very high mountain, where all the kingdoms of the world can be seen. The spot pointed out by tradition as the summit from which Satan offered to Jesus dominion over all earthly kingdoms is the "Quarantania", a limestone peak on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.Instead of a literal reading, George Slatyer Barrett viewed the third temptation as inclining to a doubt of Christ's mission, or at least the methodology. Barrett sees this as a temptation to accept the adulation of the crowds, assume leadership of the nation to overthrow Roman rule, take the crown of his own nation, and from there initiate the kingdom of God on earth. The kingdoms Jesus would inherit through Satan are obtained through love of power and political oppression. Barrett characterizes this "the old but ever new temptation to do evil that good may come; to justify the illegitimacy of the means by the greatness of the end."
The mountain is not literal if the temptations only occur in the mind's eye of Jesus and the Gospel accounts record this mind's eye view, as related in parable form, to the disciples at some point during the ministry.
Satan says, "All these things I will give you if you fall down and do an act of worship to me." Jesus replies "Get away, Satan! It is written: 'You shall worship the Lord your God and only Him shall you serve.'" . Readers would likely recognize this as reminiscent of the temptation to false worship that the Israelites encountered in the desert in the incident of the Golden Calf mentioned in Ex. 32:4.