The Gospel tells how, immediately after His Baptism in the waters of the Jordan, Jesus Christ withdrew into the desert, where he fasted for forty days and defeated three temptations from the devil. But why did He need to fast at all, and what was the point for Satan in tempting Christ?
In itself, this gospel story will not seem at all strange to someone for whom Christ is just an ordinary person. You never know, he wanted to be baptized - and was baptized, he wanted to impose a fast on himself - that’s also understandable, but temptations - they happen to everyone. But if you think about the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the incarnate Son of God, God who appeared on earth, then questions already arise. How do Christians explain that their God appears to be fasting? How could the devil even dare to approach Him and tempt him - and could Christ really succumb to persuasion and sin?
Of course not, the Christian will answer, God is sinless and holy in His essence, and there is no darkness in Him (1 John 1:5), so Satan tried in vain. But meanwhile, the interesting thing in this whole story is that the devil somehow still had hope that Christ would submit to him. What could we be talking about?
Did the devil have a chance to win?
The Gospel tells how, immediately after His Baptism in the waters of the Jordan, Jesus Christ withdrew into the desert, where he fasted for forty days and defeated three temptations from the devil. But why did He need to fast at all, and what was the point for Satan in tempting Christ?
In itself, this gospel story will not seem at all strange to someone for whom Christ is just an ordinary person. You never know, he wanted to be baptized - and was baptized, he wanted to impose a fast on himself - that’s also understandable, but temptations - they generally happen to everyone. But if you think about the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the incarnate Son of God, God who appeared on earth, then questions already arise. How do Christians explain that their God appears to be fasting? How could the devil even dare to approach Him and tempt him - and could Christ really succumb to persuasion and sin?
Of course not, the Christian will answer, God in His essence is sinless and holy, and there is no darkness in Him (1 John 1:5), so Satan tried in vain. But meanwhile, the interesting thing in this whole story is that the devil somehow still had hope that Christ would submit to him. What could we be talking about?
Jesus Christ in the desert
The biblical episode “Christ in the Wilderness” is described in detail by the evangelists Matthew (Matthew 4:1-11) and Luke (Luke 4:1-13), and is briefly mentioned by Mark (Mark 1:13). After the Baptism of John the Baptist, Jesus Christ withdrew into the desert for 40 days. There the Lord, through fasting and prayer, prepared Himself for public service. On the last day the devil came to Him. With three temptations He tried unsuccessfully to tempt Jesus to sin. Satan sought to lead the Savior astray from the destined path of saving humanity from spiritual death.
Christ in the desert, tempted by the devil
Came to save everyone
In Judea of the 1st century AD, when the Old Testament prophecies began to come true one after another, many people expected the appearance of Christ. Together with everyone else, Christ was also expected by... the devil - so that, if not to kill, then at least to prevent Him from fulfilling His mission. For example, everyone remembers from the Gospel how, as if by satanic will, King Herod, as soon as he heard that the King of the Jews had been born in Bethlehem, ordered to kill all the babies in the city. And who knows, I would not have repeated the attempt to kill the Savior as a child if the Virgin Mary had openly announced to the people who Her son Jesus really is. Therefore, as it is written in the Gospel, the Lord entered into open ministry when he was already about thirty years old (Luke 3:23) - that is, at the age of a mature man, according to the ideas of the Jews, when a person is already responsible for himself, has the right to speak and teach in the synagogue. And, as the Gospel says, the first thing the Son of God did was come to the Jordan River to receive ablution (baptism) from John the Baptist, revered by all as a prophet and righteous man.
John's baptism was a baptism of repentance - in other words, people who desired reconciliation with God publicly testified to their sins and asked their Creator for forgiveness through this ritual washing. Such baptism did not yet carry the power of the Sacrament, as it became in Christianity. Washing in the waters of the Jordan River (not any special one at that time, but simply the only large river in Judea), which John proposed, was unable to actually cleanse a person from sin. It did not even cancel the offering of the temple sacrifice for sin, required by the Old Testament Law. However, washing in front of everyone, practically publicly admitting “I have sinned against You,” certainly helped a person to repent and fight against sin, so as not to repeat it in the future. And people wanted to be cleansed from their sins all the more because John preached: the long-awaited Messiah is about to come, repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand (Matthew 3:2).
But then the inexplicable happens. Yes, the Messiah really comes, and John recognizes Him, testifies of Him as the Savior of the world - but the Savior who revealed Himself says that He came... to be baptized!
One can understand how surprised John was, who, having heard Jesus’ request for baptism, restrained Him and said: I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me? (Matt. 3:14). It wasn't just modesty. John probably asked himself the question - how is salvation possible for sinners, if even the Savior, the Messiah, the greatest Righteous One, for whom the Jews had been waiting for hundreds of years, wants to publicly repent of their sins?
Let us now remember what Christians have known for two thousand years, but which no one except the Virgin Mary knew at that time. Jesus is not just a righteous man, he is the Son of God, God Himself, incarnate and became a man. And as God, He has no sin on Himself. But that is precisely why, paradoxically, he came to be baptized by John - so that before all the people who had ever come here and washed away their iniquities, before all the people who had long since died and before everyone who had yet to be born, he could forever testify: He, who has no sin on Himself, does not disdain sinful people, he came to save everyone. God became incarnate, became the same as all people - and so he came to wash himself in the waters of repentance, like a simple sinner, and voluntarily take upon himself the crimes of others in order to later atone for them on the Cross.
The fact is that in the world, without a doubt, there is not a single completely righteous person free from sin. In relationships between people, it always happens that whoever offended a loved one at least once, whoever violated at least one commandment of love towards him, thereby violated them all. The relationship between man and God must be precisely a relationship of love, and then what kind of righteousness can we talk about, how can a person be “a little” faithful to God? Therefore, although Jesus was not guilty of absolutely anything, by being baptized, He thereby took upon himself absolutely all sins, and not just those that were named out loud on the banks of the Jordan. Being innocent, He allowed Himself to be blamed for everything.
Since then, the phrase “taking sin upon oneself” has long become popular, but in its own sense it refers only to Christ, and originates in the words of John, who realized after the baptism of Christ why He came to earth: behold the Lamb of God who takes away take upon himself the sin of the world (John 1:29). As Saint John Chrysostom said about this, “He who could destroy the sins of the entire human race was already, without a doubt, sinless.” In essence, Christ took upon himself the disease of our nature, which we ourselves cannot cope with - he took it in order to heal us from it and destroy the very cause of this disease - sin. It is not for nothing that the feast of the Baptism of the Lord is also called Epiphany, because God the Father, who at the moment of Jesus’ baptism uttered the words This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17), revealed to the whole world a revelation of His love for people, for the sake of whose salvation gave his Son.
What is temptation?
Translated from Church Slavonic, the word “temptation” means “test.” In Orthodoxy, temptation is a sinful temptation provoked by evil spirits (often through other people). This is a situation where a person is faced with a choice between good and evil.
The Creator created man as a free person. If we want to be with God, then we will not transgress His commandments and by force of will we will reject temptation. When we succumb to sinful temptation, we alienate ourselves from the Lord and pass into the power of dark forces. Some temptations are allowed by God, but not in order to incline to evil. And to test a person, check his spiritual and moral state. Saint John Chrysostom draws the attention of Christians to the following important point:
“God not only does not send temptations beyond the strength, but is also present when tempted by strength, supporting us and strengthening us if we ourselves bring in advance what is due on our part: readiness, hope in Him, gratitude, firmness and patience” (Creations, volume 3 ).
Overcoming temptations spiritually strengthens a Christian and makes him more steadfast in the fight against passions. By rejecting temptation, a person proves his love and loyalty to the Lord. And He generously bestows saving grace on His creation. Temptations also help a Christian to humble himself, to know his “weaknesses” and sinful inclinations. In trials, a person understands best what he should especially work on. Therefore, the Holy Fathers call us not only to be firm in temptations, but also to thank God for them. Venerable Ambrose of Optina (Grenkov) teaches:
“The Lord allows the evil enemy to tempt Christians so that they do not indulge in negligence, but try to live carefully and carefully. Secondly, so that through temptations they humble themselves and not become arrogant, which people are easily exposed to without struggle and the temptation of the enemy. Thirdly, through temptations people become more experienced, skillful and firm” (“Letters”).
Last days of loneliness
So, the Lord announced Himself and went out into open service. But what did it cost Him? During Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane in the last hours before His suffering on the cross, the Lord grieved and cried, and asked the disciples to stay with Him and not leave Him alone. The divine nature of the Savior voluntarily going to execution was unshakable and firm - but His human nature could not, of course, remain indifferent to what was happening, as if He were some kind of insensitive robot. Therefore, who knows what Jesus could have felt at the very beginning of His journey, when He took on His shoulders the unimaginable weight of all the sins ever committed by people?..
We will not know how deep His grief and anxiety was for people who did not understand either the meaning of His baptism or the words of John - but we only know that immediately after baptism the Lord fasted in the desert for forty days. Of course, He knew from the very beginning that He was going to suffer. And perhaps that is why the beginning of the end of His earthly life, these first forty days after baptism, became for him a time spent in solitude and prayer. After all, you can try to imagine how, for example, an innocent person feels who voluntarily went to prison to save his loved ones and is now awaiting a deliberately unfair trial from his people, and the verdict is already known to him - death. Such a person is probably grieving and, perhaps, does not even want to eat out of grief - but the point here, of course, is not at all about the quality of food or religious norms.
So Christ did not require fasting in our usual understanding, when we make some effort of our will to refuse food and force ourselves to pray. The Lord did not need to force Himself to anything - but He had already given all of Himself without a trace to people, and therefore the time that He had while still on earth, if He later used it for food and feasting, was only to maintain strength or during conversation bring one more person to repentance. Therefore, it is impossible to say something like “God fasted for forty days; it would be more accurate to say that for forty days Christ only prayed. Moreover, the Gospel says that He became hungry (Matthew 4:2) only in the end - and from this we can see what the tension of His spiritual and mental strength was during prayer - for forty days He did not remember that He was hungry. And if someone is confused by such a length of fasting (after all, most likely, Christ simply did not eat anything for all forty days in the desert!) - then suffice it to say that in medicine there are cases of much longer complete fasting than forty days, so There is nothing fantastic about this at all.
The Fast of Christ is a feat of real prayer, and not a painful restriction in food. This means that for Christians, fasting should always be associated primarily with prayer. Limiting yourself in food should in no way be understood as a “cleansing diet for the body” - after all, in fact, it is a means to cleanse the mind and soul. And the forty-day fast of the Savior is the only episode in the Gospel about which we can firmly say that Christ was absolutely alone here - which means that He Himself later told His disciples about what happened in the desert. But what happened there besides the post itself?
The Holy Fathers did not specifically ask the question of the devil’s faith
The question of whether the devil knew that Jesus Christ is the true God, or mistook him for someone else: a great righteous man, a prophet, a teacher - was never raised as a separately studied topic among the holy fathers. The holy fathers did not specifically ask this question, for the reason that the faith of the devil does not play any significance in the context of human soteriology. On the contrary, it was important for the fathers to understand for the people themselves that the man Jesus who came into the world was the true God, because this was the essence of man’s salvation. Faith in Jesus Christ as the true God who came in the flesh was the stumbling block over which the minds of the heresiarchs stumbled.
Therefore, patristic thought developed Christology with the goal of convincing all humanity of the Divinity of Jesus Christ, but not the world of fallen spirits.
"Sworn Friend"
Yes, the devil has been waiting for the Messiah for a long time. He was preparing for His coming, figuring out how to amaze, how to tempt, how to fight His disciples if they appeared. There was one thing Satan could not imagine - that God would not just send a great righteous man in His place, but would Himself come to Earth. No one can penetrate the plans of God, much less a fallen spirit. The devil usurped God's power over the world, subjugating people to himself so that even Christ spoke of Satan as the prince of this world (John 14:30). And this enemy has been waiting for centuries for the name of the Savior to become known. He waited and feared - and finally heard that the long-awaited Christ revealed himself in baptism on the Jordan River.
Unable to penetrate the mystery of the Incarnation, the devil could not be sure that Jesus was really the Messiah. Therefore, as soon as Christ withdrew into the wilderness, the devil decided to personally come, see and conquer.
But here the fallen spirit was deceived in its expectations for the first time. After all, as we already know, Christ was immersed in prayer for forty days, and no one could have interrupted His conversation with the Father - if not for the human nature of the Lord, which needed food. “According to the height of His Divinity, He would have been unapproachable to the enemy,” writes St. Basil the Great, “if through hunger He had not descended to human weakness.” And only having caught a brief moment of Christ’s physical weakness, the devil approached Him - to be deceived a second time...
The forty-day fast was known from the Old Testament. Thus, Moses fasts for forty days before receiving the Ten Commandments (Ex. 34:28). The fast of the prophet Elijah is also known (1 Kings 17:19), and in general the Jews fasted four times a year (Zech. 8:19).
Christ, as Theophylact of Bulgaria writes, “fasts for as long as Moses and Elijah: and if it were longer, then His incarnation would seem illusory.”
Reasons and possibility of temptations of Christ by the devil
The devil hates God and His main creation. It was through temptation that the evil one pushed the first people to the fall. Adam and Eve disobeyed the Creator and ate the forbidden fruit of one of the trees of paradise. Thus, man severed his connection with the Creator and allowed evil, sorrow and death into his life.
And now, thousands of years later, the Savior Jesus Christ came to our world, called to return the lost paradise to humanity. Satan again resorts to temptations - to seduce the Messiah onto the wrong path, to prevent Him from correcting the consequences of the Fall. However, those who read about the temptation of Christ in the desert often have the following question. How could the evil one seduce the Lord Himself? Let us quote the words of St. Simeon the New Theologian:
“[Christ] united His entire Divine hypostasis essentially with our nature... The Creator of Adam himself immutably and invariably became a perfect man” (“Collection of Creations”).
Jesus Christ is one Person with two natures: Divine and human. It was the latter that the devil tried to influence. How could the Savior be tempted? He did not sin not due to lack of opportunity, but because of His moral perfection.
If we take into account the Divine nature of Christ, then the temptations of Satan represented his struggle against the Son of God in order to retain power over people. After all, the Lord became incarnate precisely in order to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8) and deprive him of this power (Heb. 2:14).
Not by bread alone
Expecting to see in front of him, albeit a “more powerful” person, but, from his point of view, an ordinary sinner (otherwise, why else, it would seem, was it necessary to be baptized by John?), the devil actually met... with God Himself. How did this situation develop?
Satan tried to tempt the Creator three times. And even though the order of the second and third temptations differs among the evangelists Matthew and Luke (who both heard and remembered), the apostles write about the nature of the temptations in exactly the same way.
So, the first temptation with which the devil approached Christ was clearly caused by the bewilderment of Satan, for, “remembering what was said about Jesus, he cannot believe that this was a simple man; on the other hand, seeing Him hungry, he cannot admit that it was the Son of God. Being in such bewilderment, he approaches Him with words of doubt,” writes St. John Chrysostom. So, the devil says to Christ: if you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread (Matthew 4:3). He deliberately does not mention that Christ is hungry, but flatters Him and insidiously reminds Him of His dignity.
The hungry Lord is told something appropriate to the situation. “But you, devil, become a double contradiction. If by His power stones can become bread, then in vain you tempt Him Who is so powerful. And if He cannot do this, then in vain you suspect the Son of God in Him,” Blessed Jerome of Stridon noted at one time.
But the devil nevertheless, tempting Christ, invites Him to use His Divine power in order to be sated, to perform a miracle for Himself alone - and at the same time cleverly check whether there is a limit to the omnipotence of God. But the Lord answered him: It is written: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). This phrase is taken from the biblical book of Deuteronomy (Deut. 8:3) and was, of course, heard by all Jews since the time of Moses. In fact, the Lord neither obeyed the devil nor declared His dignity - He simply rejected the temptation, without even entering into an argument with Satan.
The deceived deceiver theory
There is a theological point of view in Christianity called the deceived deceiver theory . According to it, the devil, being a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44), having deceived the first people in paradise, was deceived by Jesus Christ Himself when, hiding under the guise of a mortal human body, he struck the devil with His Divinity. The theory itself has never been elevated to the rank of dogma and does not claim to be the absolute truth, but at the same time it has a fairly strong argument. For example, verse 27 of Psalm 17, defining the relationship between God and man, literally reads like this: “You deal mercifully with the merciful, sincerely with a sincere man, purely with the pure, and with the evil one according to his wickedness.” If the Lord deals with an evil man according to his wickedness, then all the more, does He not have the right to do the same with the one who is the father of lies (John 8:44). Often, theologians who do not profess this theory rightly note that God is the truth (John 14:6), that there is no untruth in Him (John 7:18), and that He is incapable of actions that are characteristic of fallen spirits and fallen people . But here the cunning on the part of God should not be understood as deception in the strict sense; rather, according to St. Athanasius the Great, this is a military maneuver: “He who sees that his enemy is running away in fear pretends to be weak in order to draw the enemy into battle: the runner, having fallen for feigned weakness, confidently goes on the offensive, and the mighty athlete who lured the enemy with feigned weakness , here he defeats him with his strength. So the Lord, having lured [the devil] with human weakness, in the fight against the enemy strengthened human strength with his [Divine] power” (Athanasius the Great, Saint. On the Passion and Cross of the Lord. 14).
Saint Gregory of Nyssa, in response to bewilderment about whether it is possible for God to deceive, says that whoever has the truth before his eyes will agree that this was precisely what was most characteristic of justice and wisdom (see for more details: Nesmelov Victor. The dogmatic system of Gregory of Nyssa ).
Pope Leo the Great, speaking about the possibility of God using cunning against the devil, states: “Of course, [the devil] would not have lost his original power over the human race if he had not been defeated by that (by deception - Priest I.P.) than he once enslaved people” (Word for the Nativity of Christ).
And Origen directly says that the life of the Savior, from the very moment of His coming to earth, was, in relation to the devil, a whole chain of deceptions: “Mary’s virginity was hidden from the prince of this world: hidden thanks to Joseph, hidden thanks to their marriage; hidden because the devil thought Mary had a husband. If she did not have a spouse and, as the devil thought, a husband, then Christ could not be hidden from the prince of this world. The devil would immediately suspect: how did she, if she did not sleep with her husband, suddenly become pregnant? This means that He was conceived from God, which means that His nature is higher than human” (Homilia VI on the Gospel of Luke).
The same opinion is shared by another Western father - St. Leo the Great Pope of Rome, who in his word on the Nativity of Christ claims that Christ, at the time of his birth, hid the Divine power under the cover of our weakness; the cunning of the careless enemy was ridiculed, who decided that the Nativity of the Child, intended for the salvation of the human race, was just as subject to him as the birth of all [other] beings born... and, knowing to what extent human nature was poisoned, in no way believed “that He escaped original sin, Whom He recognized as mortal by so many signs.”
Origen himself, in a sense, can even be considered the founder of this theory. Briefly summarized by the professor of the Kazan Theological Academy, Viktor Nesmelov, it is stated as follows: “In His incarnation, He hid His Divine power from the devil, so that the devil hoped to make Him his slave, just as Christ defeated him” (Nesmelov Viktor. Dogmatic system of Gregory of Nyssa). Origen's theory received its development from another, already mentioned by us, the Cappadocian holy father Gregory of Nyssa. Like Origen, Saint Gregory viewed it in the context of the Sacrifice of Christ. In his opinion, the Son of God became incarnate so that the devil would not recognize Him and consider Him to be an ordinary person. Which he can easily keep in his power... The devil did not know that this was God ; he judged by the flesh and thought that by death he would defeat the Redeemer of people, but he was cruelly deceived: “having swallowed the bait of the flesh, he is pierced by the milk of the Divine” (Nesmelov Viktor. The dogmatic system of Gregory of Nyssa).
A similar image of bait is given by the Western Father Isidore of Seville. In his opinion, the devil is deceived by the death of the Lord, like a bird. Where the human nature of Christ is a bait, and the Divine nature is a trap for a bird - the devil (Sentences. Lib. I, sar. XIV. 10-13).
Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev) also sees in the catechetical speech of St. John Chrysostom, read at Easter Matins, the motives that the devil was deceived: “hell was “mocked” by the Resurrection of Christ and was “caught” for not noticing the invisible God under the visible man.” and further cites an excerpt from the homily of St. John “hell was saddened when it met You: it was saddened because it was abolished, it was saddened because it was ridiculed... He accepted the body - and touched God, accepted the earth - and met heaven, accepted what he saw - and was caught in what I did not see” (Ilarion (Alfeev), Metropolitan. The Sacrament of Faith).
In addition to all of the above, one can also cite evidence from the liturgical tradition of the Church. Thus, in the Menaion on the Feast of Pentecost, one of the kneeling prayers contains the following words: “I caught the beginning of the evil and deep serpent with God-wise flattery (i.e., deception).
If You Are the Son of God
But the devil, having received neither “yes” nor “no” in response and having failed the first time, did not retreat. The Evangelist Matthew writes about the second temptation this way: the devil takes Him to the holy city and places Him on the wing of the temple, and says to Him: if You are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written: He will command His angels concerning You, and in their hands they will bear You up, lest you will dash your foot against a stone (Matthew 4:5-6). By the way, the repeated appeal of Satan to Christ is in itself interesting - if You are the Son of God. “The devil begins in this way to find out whether He is the Son of God; but the Lord answers him so modestly that he remains in doubt,” notes Blessed Jerome.
The second temptation is an attempt to play on ambition. To throw himself in front of everyone from the Temple of Jerusalem, so that angels would catch Him in flight - what could more clearly prove the Divine nature?
The devil, confident in his ability to lie, calls on the man Jesus (remember that Satan is not yet sure that this is Christ) to check whether God keeps His promises, to literally test the Scriptures for yourself - will the angels appear and save? But the Savior does not fall for this trick and answers - it is also written: Do not tempt the Lord your God (Matthew 4:7). Again, these are words from Deuteronomy (6:16), and again they do not give Satan an answer to the question of who this Man is.
What does the Lord’s answer mean here, how can a person tempt God? The continuation of this phrase sounds like this: how you tempted Him at the Mass (Deut. 6:16). Moses says these words because in a place called Massah and Meribah, the Jews, suffering in the desert from thirst, tempted God, saying - is the Lord among us or not? (Ex. 17:7). They began to doubt the truth of God's existence and His love for them only because He was slow to give them water to drink! Moreover, people tend to tempt God when He does not give them something, in their opinion, even more important. Christ speaks against such a consumerist and distrustful attitude towards God when answering Satan.
By the way, there is nothing strange in the fact that the devil quotes the Bible in this temptation - this once again shows that knowledge of Scripture can cover up any goals, including completely unseemly ones. This is why it is so important to try to understand what is behind the text, and not just memorize Bible verses. Plus, the devil quotes Scripture...wrongly.
He will command His angels about You... - the father of lies pronounces a line from the psalm. Undoubtedly, if he truly knew that this was written about the Savior, he would have to add what is further said in the same psalm and against him: You will step on the asp [a small poisonous snake] and the basilisk [a large snake] [without harm] ]; You will trample upon the lion and the dragon [great serpent]. The devil speaks to Him about the help of angels as if he were weak, but about his humiliation, like a cunning man, he is silent - Jerome again reveals the deception of the devil.
And regarding that part of the Jerusalem Temple where the devil talked with Christ, the Monk Ephraim the Syrian noted that “even until now this place is sublime, although the temple is destroyed, as (the Lord) Himself said: not one stone will remain in it upon another (Matt. 24:2). But the place where he stood was preserved as a (certain) sign.” Now this place is called the Wailing Wall...
Immediately after the third temptation, the Devil leaves Christ “until the time”
Immediately after Satan was defeated in his attempt to tempt Christ for the third time, he, according to the Evangelist Luke,
(Luke 4:13)
"until the time" leaves Him
The Scripture says that later the Enemy of the human race again begins to tempt him through the Jewish people and even through his disciples the apostles, plotting all sorts of intrigues. In addition, Evangelist Mark says that in the desert Jesus
(Mark 1:13)
"I was with the animals"
It is believed that this is an indication that Christ (the new Adam) was surrounded by animals who did not dare to harm him, just like the old Adam in paradise.
Video: Temptation in the desert. Archpriest Oleg Stenyaev. At 12 minutes 19 seconds, the author says that after the third temptation, the Devil left Christ “for the time being.”
It should be noted that during each of the temptations, Christ does nothing, but only speaks to Satan. He does this because nothing good can be expected from the Devil, and the word is the main weapon of the evil one.
That is why, as John Chrysostom notes, “the word of His mouth condemned Satan.” Thus, the Devil is defeated by Christ by the Word of God, and not by human action.
Jesus Christ defeated the wiles of the Devil in the desert with the Word of God.
The Monk Ephraim the Syrian points out that the baptism of Christ consisted of three immersions and three temptations. The passage of Jesus Christ through the temptations of the Devil precisely after his baptism is an indication of the beneficial fruits that baptism can give.
He was sent to the desert by the Holy Spirit, among other things, in order to show the struggle against the forces of evil, and what strength communion with the Lord through the sacrament of baptism gives a person in this.
Kingdom of darkness as a gift
Finally, out of powerlessness and despair, Satan resorts to his last argument. It is so important for him to prevent the Savior, to force Him to sin, that for this he makes seemingly great sacrifices for himself. And, taking Him to a high mountain, the devil showed Him all the kingdoms of the universe in a moment of time, and the devil said to Him: I will give you power over all these kingdoms and their glory, for it has been given to me, and I give it to whomever I want; So, if You worship me, then everything will be Yours (Luke 4:5-7) or, as Matthew surprisingly accurately says, if, having fallen, you worship me (Matthew 4:9).
By offering the first two temptations, the devil still doubts that Jesus is the Savior. But the third time, the father of lies no longer asks Him anything, but simply and rudely offers a “bribe.” Betray the Father, bow to Satan - and gain world domination, gain power over people, which can be used, among other things, to save everyone... How easy it would be to do this, and not even need the Cross - so, the devil himself suggests Christ should take power over the world into his own hands, betray God, and at the cost of this, even feigned betrayal, ease the initially difficult, and at the same time deadly, task of saving the world. Surely there was also an attempt to play on such elementary human sins as greed and thirst for power. And bowing to the devil would mean that Christ admitted that evil is invincible, that Satan is truly omnipotent and rules the world by the right of the strongest.
Therefore, to such a seemingly tempting offer from the devil, Jesus only responded: get thee behind Me, Satan, for it is written: Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and serve Him only (Matthew 4:10). And again this is a quote from Deuteronomy, but this time Christ directly calls on the devil with its help to remember to Whom all creation really belongs. Christ calls the fallen angel to worship Himself again as the true Lord and God. And even more so at this moment the lie of the enemy becomes obvious, because he offers Christ power in exchange... for recognition of his own power. But is it possible to become the ruler of something by bowing to another “lord”? The devil really does lie about everything, from beginning to end.
It is interesting that Christ does not renounce the very power over the world (no matter how Satan would like it). No, He came to rule as a true King, but a Kingdom that is not of this world, and He will save His subjects on the Cross Himself, and will not accept it from the hands of the enemy. And Satan leaves after hearing the third answer - here his machinations will no longer be able to achieve their goal.
Question: but what kind of sin was it to turn stones into bread? Answer: know that it is a sin to obey the devil in anything. (Interpretation of Theophylact of Bulgaria on the Scriptures).
The thoughts of the Church Fathers on this topic are connected with the sacrifice of Christ
But this does not mean that fathers have never asked this question. The thoughts of some of them on this matter were expressed in the context of consideration of another, more important topic related to the sacrifice of Christ. Some fathers expressed their thoughts in words spoken on great Christian holidays, while others, answering individual questions, only briefly added their thoughts regarding this area. As for the source of patristic wisdom - the Holy Scriptures - it, unfortunately, does not give a specific answer. Rather, the Bible contains contradictory evidence, of a thesis or contextual nature, which we will attempt to analyze. Also important for us is the liturgical heritage, because church hymnography is one of the forms of recording theological tradition.
conclusions
Based on these arguments, it would be quite logical to conclude that a certain part of the Divine power of Christ was revealed to the world of fallen spirits, and, consequently, to Satan, which, manifesting itself through kenosis (the image of a slave), most likely simply made it clear to Satan, that in front of him is a difficult person, who has a power hitherto unseen on earth.
It also seems to be an important question: why did the devil need to strive, and even more so, hasten the death of the Lord? After all, if the devil knew that Christ is God, then, therefore, His death is either impossible, or an attempt to achieve it will cause the destruction of the kingdom of the devil? And if Satan did not know for certain who was in front of him, then his actions aimed at killing Jesus Christ, which would mean victory over God in the struggle for humanity, turn out to be quite logical. A very logical consideration in this regard seems to be the conclusions of the Western father, the founder of medieval encyclopedism, Isidore of Seville: “Although the devil did not know the order of our liberation, he nevertheless knew that Christ came to save people. However, the devil did not know that Christ would redeem us with his death, and therefore he killed Him. For if the devil knew that Christ would ransom us with death, he would never have killed Him” (Sentences. Lib. I, sar. XIV. 10-13).
Thus, despite different opinions regarding the above question, we can say with a high degree of confidence that the consensus patrum is in the negative: the devil did not know that it was God in the flesh before him, and not just a great prophet, teacher or righteous man.
"Academic Chronicler" No. 2, 2014. Page 44-49
