Pages from a Journal with Other Papers Part 5

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."

It is He who

"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 G.o.d 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.)

So they were, for at a word

"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.

"Yet this not all To which my spirit aspir'd: victorious deeds Flam'd in my heart, heroic acts."

(P. R. i. 214-16.)

But he denies that the glory of mob-applause is worth anything.

"What is glory but the blaze of fame, The people's praise, if always praise unmixt?

And what the people but a herd confus'd, A miscellaneous rabble, who extol Things vulgar, and, well weigh'd, scarce worth the praise?"

(P. R. iii. 47-51.)

To the Jesus of the New Testament this answer is, in a measure, inappropriate. He would not have called the people "a herd confus'd, a miscellaneous rabble." But although inappropriate it is Miltonic. The devil then tries the Saviour with a more subtle lure, an appeal to duty.

"If kingdom move thee not, let move thee zeal And duty; zeal and duty are not slow; But on occasion's forelock watchful wait.

They themselves rather are occasion best, Zeal of thy father's house, duty to free Thy country from her heathen servitude."

(P. R. iii. 171-6.)

But zeal and duty, the endeavour to hurry that which cannot and must not be hurried may be a suggestion from h.e.l.l.