He who has now become incarnated for our redemption
is that same Messiah who, when He rode forth against
the angelic rebels,
“into terror chang’d His count’nance
too severe to be beheld, And full of wrath bent on
his enemies.”
“on his impious foes right onward drove,
Gloomy as night:”
whose right hand grasped
“ten thousand thunders, which he sent
Before him, such as in their souls infix’d
Plagues.”
(P. L. vi. 824-38.)
Now as Son of Man he is confronted with that same
Archangel, and he conquers by “strong sufferance.”
He comes with no fourfold visage of a charioteer
flashing thick flames, no eye which glares lightning,
no victory eagle-winged and quiver near her with three-bolted
thunder stored, but in “weakness,” and
with this he is to “overcome satanic strength.”
Milton sees in the temptation to turn the stones into
bread a devilish incitement to use miraculous powers
and not to trust the Heavenly Father.
“Why dost thou then suggest to me distrust,
Knowing who I am, as I know who thou art?”
(P. R. i. 355-6.)
Finding his enemy steadfast, Satan disappears,
“bowing low
His gray dissimulation,”
(P. R. i. 497-8.)
and calls to council his peers. He disregards
the proposal of Belial to attempt the seduction of
Jesus with women. If he is vulnerable it will
be to objects
“such as have more shew
Of worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise,
Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck’d;
Or that which only seems to satisfy
Lawful desires of Nature, not beyond.”
(P. R. ii. 226-30.)
The former appeal is first of all renewed. “Tell
me,” says Satan,
“’if food were now before thee set
Would’st thou not eat?’ ’Thereafter
as I like
The giver,’ answered Jesus.”
(P. R. ii. 320-22.)
A banquet is laid, and Satan invites Jesus to partake
of it.
“What doubts the Son of God to sit and eat?
These are not fruits forbidd’n.”
(P. R. ii. 368-9.)
But Jesus refuses to touch the devil’s meat
—
“Thy pompous delicacies I contemn,
And count thy specious gifts no gifts, but guiles.”
(P. R. ii. 390-1.)
“Both table and provision vanish’d quite,
With sound of harpies’ wings and talons heard.”
(P. R. ii. 402-3.)
If but one grain of that enchanted food had been eaten,
or one drop of that enchanted liquor had been drunk,
there would have been no Cross, no Resurrection, no
salvation for humanity.
The temptation on the mountain is expanded by Milton
through the close of the second book, the whole of
the third and part of the fourth. It is a temptation
of peculiar strength because it is addressed to an
aspiration which Jesus has acknowledged.
