Thoughts

It is noticeable that the next thing reported by Matthew after the baptism of Christ is the temptation of Christ by the devil, or as it is titled in the Orthodox Study Bible, ‘Jesus’ Triumph over Satan’, recalling that part of the ritual of baptism now includes our renouncing and spitting on the devil. Green and John Chrysostom both comment on this. Green generalizes this experience (p.82) by pointing out that after any kind of a spiritual ‘high’, some kind of serious temptation often follows, as he says, to help us separate the emotional effect from the lasting and to encourage us to seek not the ‘highs’ but the experience of constancy and dependence on God for our daily bread. John Chrysostom (p.80) emphasizes particularly the connection with baptism: that in baptism we are taking up arms to fight, and the temptations are where the fight begins: here we have to show our fortitude in standing against the demons and learn to be strong. He also points out that when man is brought to honour, the devil will always attack: as with Adam as king of creation, as with Job recommended by God, as with Christ and with us in baptism.

Green, after a brief paragraph mentioning how the experience of temptation is a feature of the Christian life, goes on to say that “it would be a great mistake to suppose that the story of the temptations is included in the Gospel primarily to provide an example to Christian disciples, though they do provide that example. These temptations were messianic.” On the other hand, Chrysostom, in his only sermon on the temptations in this collection, Homily XIII, spends the bulk of his time precisely in relating Christ’s temptations to ours. While it is true that the story of the temptations as presented by Matthew and Luke very clearly presents what kind of Messiah Jesus is – against the expectations of the Jewish people of the day, I think Green is overstating the case when he wants to divide these two aspects of the passage elevating its messianic nature far above the exemplary nature. Chrysostom (p.83) points out how beautifully this summary[1] of the temptations is framed to provide us with the three most common basic forms of temptation: through sensual appetites and desires (‘the belly’ as he puts it), through vainglory and self-importance, and through wealth and power. If we are in Christ, if we form the body of Christ, then there is no distinction between what kind of Messiah Jesus is and what our own temptations and struggle with the devil involve, especially since it is ‘in Christ’ by the Holy Spirit that we overcome. In contrast to Green’s dividing of our experience of temptation from the messianic nature of the account of Christ’s temptations, Irenaeus, in putting the temptations of Christ at the centre of his account of how Christ recapitulates Adam’s fall without giving into sin[2], brings together the messianic nature of Christ’s temptations with the basic experience of human sin in Adam which we all share.

Neither Green nor Chrysostom miss the parallel between Christ’s temptation with the bread and Adam and Eve’s with the fruit, though this is not explicit in the text. Here is a hint in Matthew of Christ as the ‘new Adam’ expressed by Paul[3] and detailed so thoroughly by Irenaeus in his exploration of the divine economy. But there are other parallels too, not least Israel in the wilderness, succumbing to the devil’s temptations instead of overcoming them (Green p.83 with reference to Deut.8:2 as the verse immediately preceding Jesus’s quotation).

One other interesting point about the temptation to turn stones into bread is pointed out by Chrysostom: this is not a temptation to break any law. In fact, were we to receive such a temptation, we may not even see it as such, as it contravenes no ethical instruction. Nonetheless, just as Paul cast out a demon (Acts 16:18) that was doing nothing but identify him as a preacher of salvation, we have to be wise to all the devil’s wiles, and learn to discern when the devil speaks, as even when we cannot see the evil in what the devil suggests, we should know that he is using something not necessarily bad in itself to lead us down to a darker place. Once we have started on that downward path it is hard to climb back up from it.

Green points out the messianic expectation of the Jews based on the experience of the manna given by God in the wilderness of the Exodus: the Messiah would do the same[4]. However, apart from this, Green doesn’t speak of the significant place that eating has in this pericope (perhaps because of his separation between the ‘messianic’ nature of the text in terms of showing who Christ is and the nature of Christians as the Church, the body of Christ, now on earth[5]). Chrysostom shows no such division, and therefore sees the connection here between the fasting of Jesus mentioned in Matthew and the baptismal candidates’ fasting, the temptation to turn stones into bread, Adam’s taking of the forbidden fruit, and even the indication in Ezekiel 16:9 that the basic sin of Sodom was “fullness of bread” which resulted in all their other sin. He also says that, just as with Job, the devil loves to begin with the weak and most base appetites, only progressing to the more beguiling (vainglory and riches) when these fail. Thus, fasting, following Jesus’s example, is a key way to be prepared to do battle with the devil.

Speaking of battle with the devil, Green draws an excellent parallel between Christ’s use of the expression ‘it is written…’ and Eph. 6:17: ‘the sword of the Spirit… is the word of God’. Indeed the whole of the passage Eph 6:10-20 is useful parallel reading to Mt 4:1-11 in terms of the spiritual struggle. Finally, John Chrysostom points out, that after the battle, Matthew tells us that angels came and ministered to him, and that this is a promise also to us, that having stood up and done battle with the devil, we will not be left comfortless.

[1] He suggests that Luke, in his version of this story, by the use of his phrase ‘when the devil had ended every temptation’ (Lk 4:13) implies that there were more than the three specified in the text.

[2] Against Heresies 5:21: “recapitulating all things he also recapitulated the war against our enemy… utterly crushing him, and striking his head with his heel.”

[3] Rom 5:12-21 and 1 Cor 15:21-23

[4] And hence, according to Green, the excitement in Jn.6:5-15.

[5] Although his mention of the manna in the wilderness and the comparison with the passage in John’s gospel implies the close connection between the manna and the Eucharist (especially reading further in Jn 6:22-66), Green doesn’t follow this up.