When Satan came to Jesus in the wilderness, was he the Adversary or the Accuser? There are three accounts of this in the Bible in the three Synoptic Gospels1, though the second, in the Gospel of Mark, is exceedingly brief: “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”
The account in Matthew’s Gospel is more thorough: Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist and is then “led up by the Spirit2 into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1, NRSV). Emphasis mine: it is not incidental that Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness; it is the very reason that the Spirit led him there. The verb translated as “to tempt” (which I’ll dig into more in a few paragraphs) is conjugated in the passive infinitive, and as such appears to be an entirely sensible translation that does indeed indicate the above meaning.The word for Satan here is διάβολος, diabolos, literally “devil,” a apparently marked departure from how he was referenced in the Hebrew. This is the first reference to Satan in the New Testament, and the word appears in the form τοῦ διαβόλου, which is, as I understand, a genitive form, explaining the King James Version translation, “tempted of the devil,” which is somewhat nonsensical but an understandable mistake if one doesn’t know how genitive forms work with objects in old Indo-European languages. But why the change in language from “accuser” to “devil”? Turns out that there isn’t one. “Devil” as a word for a demonic spirit is an etymological retcon based on this material; prior to its writing, διάβολος meant “accuser,” just as did שָּׂטָן in the Hebrew.
The tempter came and said to [Jesus], “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 4:3-4, NRSV
This is a reference to Deuteronomy 8:3: Reminding the people of Israel of their tribulations in the desert, Moses says to them:
He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna3, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
NRSV
That “temptation” seems especially pointed. Jesus starves in the wilderness as the Israelites did, and Satan tempts him by specifically referencing this story of his ancestors? It seems more a test than a temptation: “Do you know the word of God?”
Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Matthew 4:5-7, NRSV
Satan, apparently, knows the word of God as well: he is referencing the 91st psalm. But this is a temptation? That’s the word used in the NRSV (additionally describing Satan as “the tempter”), but some research reveals that the Greek word used here is πειράζω, peirazō. I have found a usage definition of this word that includes “to try, make trial of, test: for the purpose of ascertaining his quality, or what he thinks, or how he will behave himself,”4 but which also includes, “to solicit to sin, to tempt,” though that definition references only the very verses above.
I think that “to tempt”—-which is used in the account in Luke’s Gospel as well—-must be the wrong translation of the verb. Satan is testing Jesus. But to what end, and on whose behalf?
Jesus is referencing Deuteronomy 6:16: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.” Which is itself another reference to the time the Israelites spent wandering in the desert:
From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Exodus 17:1-7, NRSV
The Hebrew words massah and meribah mean “temptation” and “strife,” respectively. So Jesus seems to be responding not only the specific test of leaping from the pinnacle of the temple, but Satan’s test of him in general.
Jesus has demonstrated that he knows the word of God, now he is demonstrating understanding, differentiation, which are of Satan the Accuser: yes, the Bible says one thing here and another thing there; how is that to be interpreted?
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘Worship the lord your God and serve only him.’” Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
Matthew 4:8-11, NRSV
Note first that “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor” are Satan’s to give, and then that, at last, we have a real temptation. And again it’s a reference to a passage in Deuteronomy, but more to the point, taken in the context of the first two “temptations,” this one gives the appearance of being just as much a test. Knowing the word, and understanding the word, will Jesus live the word?
So then we turn to the account in Luke’s Gospel: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” Differing from Matthew’s account, in that the “temptations” lasted for the duration of Jesus’s sojourn. They’re poorly documented, if that’s the case. Forty days and only the three temptations? And the order is different as well, with the offer of dominion over the kingdoms of the world coming second and the pinnacle of the temple coming third. The prose is also comparatively dull and terse. This is my first experience reading the Gospels in comparison to each other, and where Matthew’s is fluid and evocative, Luke’s is perfunctory and stilted. But there is something interesting in the second test (the third in Matthew):
Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”
Luke 4:5-7, NRSV, emphasis mine
Again we find, in actually reading the Bible, that Satan is not whom we have been told he is. For what reason would God give his adversary dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth? Satan appears here not as the Adversary, seeking to disrupt God’s plans by tempting Jesus into his service, but as the Accuser, who delimits God as they exist in the person of Jesus.
What is the Satanist to take from this, then?
It is apparent from these readings that Satan knows the sacred texts of the Hebrews as well as Jesus does, and it is by this measure that Satan is able to delimit Jesus as being of the divine. As Satan is our luminary, it is then incumbent upon the Satanist to study this work as a Christian would, and to use that knowledge not only for its own sake (with a critical eye rooted in the history of the book and one’s own experience), but also to ascertain whether self-described Christians have themselves read the work, whether they have some personal understanding of it that extends beyond the literal meaning of the text, and whether they adhere to this understanding in their lives. I think one who meets these criteria would be a true seeker of wisdom, not so different from myself except in the choice of exemplar and symbolic framework.
- “Synoptic” from the Greek meaning “same-looking;” these three Gospels contain basically the same story, with John’s Gospel being markedly different
- πνεῦμα, pneuma, “breath,” c.f. the Hebrew רוח, ruach, “wind” or “breath,” in references to the Spirit of God in the Old Testament, and נשמה, neshama, “breath,” which God breathed into Adam to give him life
- “Magic sky food”
- https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?t=kjv&strongs=g3985