Two Takes on the Three Tests of Jesus
Sidebar to: Triumph over Temptation
The most extensive descriptions of Satan’s three tests of Jesus appear in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. While the essence of the three tests is essentially the same in both books, the order of Matthew’s last two tests is reversed in Luke. An 11th-century illumination (above) of the three tests opts for Matthew’s sequence: At left, a black devil points at a pile of stones as he challenges Jesus to turn them into bread; at center, Jesus and the devil meet on the roof of the Jerusalem Temple; and at far right, Jesus, on a mountaintop, gazes out across all the kingdoms of the world. The scene appears in the Codex Aureus, produced at the Abbey of Echternach (now in Luxembourg) for the emperor Henry III in about 1055.
The Three Tests According to Matthew 4:1–11(4:1) Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the desert to be tested by the devil. First Test(2) He fasted 40 days and 40 nights and after he hungered. (3) And the tester came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God tell these stones to become loaves!” (4) But he answering said, “It has been written. ‘No one shall live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God!’” |
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