viii. 3, the people of Israel tardily learned from the temptation of

hunger (a temptation, however, under which they were not resigned, but were provoked to murmur): namely, that man shall not live by bread alone, etc.

But one temptation would not suffice. Of Abraham the rabbins enumerated ten; but this number was too large for a dramatic narrative like that in the gospels, and among lower numbers the sacred three must have the preference. Thrice during his spiritual contest in Gethsemane Jesus severed himself from his disciples (Matt. xxvi.); thrice Peter denied his Lord, and thrice Jesus subsequently questioned his love (John xxi.). In that rabbinical passage which represents Abraham as tempted by the devil in person, the patriarch parries three thrusts from him; in which particular, as well as in the manner in which Old Testament texts are bandied by the parties, the scene is allied to the evangelical one. [696]

The second temptation (in Matthew) was not determined by its relation to the preceding; hence its presentation seems abrupt, and the choice fortuitous or capricious. This may be true with respect to its form, but its substantial meaning is in close connexion with the foregoing temptation, since it also has reference to the conduct of the Jewish people in the wilderness. To them the warning was given in Deut vi. 16 to tempt God no more as they had tempted him at Massah; a warning which was reiterated 1 Cor. x. 9 to the members of the new covenant, though more in allusion to Num. xxi. 4. To this crying sin, therefore, under which the ancient people of God had fallen, must the Messiah be incited, that by resisting the incitement he might compensate, as it were, for the transgression of the people. Now the conduct which was condemned in them as a tempting of the Lord, ἐκπειράζειν Κύριον, was occasioned by a dearth of water, and consisted in their murmurs at this deprivation. This, to later tradition, did not seem fully to correspond to the terms; something more suitable was sought for, and from this point of view there could hardly be a more eligible choice than the one we actually find in our history of the temptation, for nothing can be more properly called a tempting of God than so audacious an appeal to his extraordinary succour, as that suggested by Satan in his second temptation. The reason why a leap from the pinnacle of the temple was named as an example of such presumption, is put into the mouth of Satan himself.

It occurred to the originator of this feature in the narrative, that the passage Ps. xci. 11 was capable of perversion into a motive for a rash act. It is there promised to one dwelling under the protection of Jehovah (a designation under which the Messiah was pre-eminently understood), that angels should bear him up in their hands, lest at any time he should dash his foot against a stone. Bearing up in their hands to prevent a fall, seemed to imply a precipitation from some eminence, and this might induce the idea that the divinely-protected Messiah might hurl himself from a height with impunity. But from what height? There could be no hesitation on this point. To the pious man, and therefore to the head of all the pious, is appropriated, according to Ps. xv. 1, xxiv. 3, the distinction of going up to Jehovah’s holy hill, and standing within his holy place: hence the pinnacle of the temple, in the presumptuous mode of inference supposed, might be regarded as the height whence the Messiah could precipitate himself unhurt.

The third temptation which Jesus underwent—to worship the devil—is not apparent among the temptations of God’s ancient people. But one of the most fatal seductions by which the Israelites were led astray in the wilderness was that of idolatry; and the apostle Paul adduces it as admonitory to Christians. Not only is this sin derived immediately from the devil in a passage above quoted; [697] but in the later Jewish idea, idolatry was identical with the worship of the devil (Baruch iv. 7; 1 Cor. x. 20). How, then, could the worship of the devil be suggested to the Messiah in the form of a temptation? The notion of the Messiah as he who, being the King of the Jewish people, was destined to be lord of all other nations, and that of Satan as the ruler of the heathen world [698] to be conquered by the Messiah, were here combined. That dominion over the world which, in the christianized imagination of the period, the Messiah was to obtain by a long and painful struggle, was offered him as an easy bargain if he would only pay Satan the tribute of worship. This temptation Jesus meets with the maxim inculcated on the Israelites, Deut. vi. 13, that God alone is to be worshipped, and thus gives the enemy a final dismissal.

Matthew and Mark crown their history of the temptation with the appearance of angels to Jesus, and their refreshing him with nourishment after his long fast and the fatigues of temptation. This incident was prefigured by a similar ministration to Elijah after his forty days’ fast, and was brought nearer to the imagination by the circumstance that the manna which appeased the hunger of the people in the wilderness was named, ἄρτος ἀγγέλων, angels’ food (Ps. lxxviii. 25, LXX.; Wisdom xvi. 20). [699]