Note 93 — Chapter II · BAPTISM AND TEMPTATION OF JESUS.

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;93 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 world94 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.