known has had to pass through a series of tests or trials, from killing dragons to slaying giants. You can see the same process working in the saga of Frodo’s trials in Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings, or in the story of Luke Skywalker’s adventures in the well-known Star Wars series of films. The adventures of Harry Potter echo the same theme. It is worth noting that Horus had three “fights” with his uncle and enemy Seth, just as there are three temptations from Satan in the Jesus story. The Buddha also had a threefold temptation to meet and overcome. His tempter, in the tradition, was the Kama Mara, the Sanskrit words meaning “lust” and “death.”
Two observations are important before we move on to the fuller and later accounts in the other two Synoptic Gospels. Firstly, there is an echo of a very familiar Old Testament narrative in the mention by Mark that angels ministered to Jesus. In chapter 19 of 1 Kings there is a story of the prophet Elijah going into the wilderness and, experiencing a deep depression in which he actually asked that he might die, we are told he was ministered to by an angel. Mark could well have expected those familiar with the Septuagint (Greek) version of the story to see the parallel.
Secondly, in reference to Satan or the Devil, Lord Raglan in The Hero makes a powerful argument that the general public is almost wholly unaware of the extent to which past figures of note, almost universally regarded as “real” or historical, are in actuality the product of ancient myth and drama. He writes: “The history of the Devil affords an interesting example of this process [whereby a dramatic figure in a ritual of some kind becomes historicized]. Originally, it would seem, he was a ritual character who wore the horns of a bull or goat . . . and so the Horned Man became the antagonist of the Hero. Eventually he stepped out of the ritual into real life, and became what to millions he still is, a figure far more real than any historical character has ever been to anyone.”16 Extreme literalists would do well to read Raglan’s book. For example, speaking of the Jewish traditions embodied in the Old Testament, he writes: “It is a necessary part of the thesis I am putting forward in this book that whoever regards the Old Testament as a historical work, in the sense in which we understand history, entirely misunderstands its character.”17 These words precisely describe the situation reflected in the New Testament as well.
Matthew’s and Luke’s Accounts
Matthew, like Luke, expands upon the scant two-verse version of the Temptation in Mark by giving us the nature of the wilderness testing in a highly stylized, three-act drama. Again there is no hint of any specific time or place other than an immediate connection with Jesus’ baptism by John and his new awareness of having an adult relationship as a beloved “Son” with the ultimate ground of all being we call God.
Both these authors mention that Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit and that the actual testing came at the end of forty days of fasting. Both attempt to bring a little reality—not to say a ray of humour—by saying that after such a long time without food “he was famished.” Both agree on the first “temptation” about turning stones into bread, but they reverse the other two. Matthew places the pinnacle-of-the-temple ordeal first, followed by the offer of “all the kingdoms of the world,” while Luke does the opposite. Apart from this and the fact that Luke, whose theology lays a greater stress than the others’ upon the work of the Holy Spirit, says that Jesus returned from the Jordan “full of the Holy Spirit,” the two accounts are virtually identical.
Certainly anyone at all familiar with myth will recognize instantly that that’s precisely what we are encountering in these familiar stories. Again there is no hint of any witnesses or of “he told us” or “we were later told.” Besides, the vignettes themselves are wholly otherworldly, supernatural and visionary in feel and texture. There is no real suggestion of these being biographical details or historical facts. However, the mythical formation of the temptations as it has been developed in these two Gospels seems at a surface glance so obvious and, as it were, even heavy-handed that the inner meaning has been lost to millions of literalizers down the centuries. What, we can well ask, is the relevance of the temptations for the evolution of our own souls in today’s world?
I’d like to preface the answer to that question with a personal observation from my own life and from my observations of the lives of others. It is almost always just after my most exalted moments of highest spiritual experience or insight that sudden testing or temptations to doubt, to fear, to entertain negativities, can strike. The same can happen after a moment of high accomplishment. Life, it seems, wants to level us out or block us in some way. It’s a time to be watchful and mindful of past times when similar moments have come and have been overcome. Jesus is being tested precisely because he has just had a peak experience of ultimate reality at the baptism in Jordan. You will find this phenomenon on your spiritual journey too.
Temptation #1: Misuse of Spiritual Power for Selfish Ends
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:1–4)
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