he Son of God: wherefore (the
devil) wished to tempt Him. This is implied by the words of Matt.
4:2, 3, saying that, after "He was hungry, the tempter" came "to
Him," because, as Hilary says (Super Matth., cap. iii), "Had not
Christ's weakness in hungering betrayed His human nature, the devil
would not have dared to tempt Him." Moreover, this appears from the
very manner of the temptation, when he said: "If Thou be the Son of
God." Which words Ambrose explains as follows (In Luc. iv): "What
means this way of addressing Him, save that, though he knew that the
Son of God was to come, yet he did not think that He had come in the
weakness of the flesh?"

Reply Obj. 2: Christ came to destroy the works of the devil, not by
powerful deeds, but rather by suffering from him and his members, so
as to conquer the devil by righteousness, not by power; thus
Augustine says (De Trin. xiii) that "the devil was to be overcome,
not by the power of God, but by righteousness." And therefore in
regard to Christ's temptation we must consider what He did of His own
will and what He suffered from the devil. For that He allowed Himself
to be tempted was due to His own will. Wherefore it is written (Matt.
4:1): "Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, to be tempted by
the devil"; and Gregory (Hom. xvi in Evang.) says this is to be
understood of the Holy Ghost, to wit, that "thither did His Spirit
lead Him, where the wicked spirit would find Him and tempt Him." But
He suffered from the devil in being "taken up" on to "the pinnacle of
the Temple" and again "into a very high mountain." Nor is it strange,
as Gregory observes, "that He allowed Himself to be taken by him on
to a mountain, who allowed Himself to be crucified by His members."
And we understand Him to have been taken up by the devil, not, as it
were, by force, but because, as Origen says (Hom. xxi super Luc.),
"He followed Him in the course of His temptation like a wrestler
advancing of his own accord."

Reply Obj. 3: As the Apostle says (Heb. 4:15), Christ wished to be
"tempted in all things, without sin." Now temptation which comes from
an enemy can be without sin: because it comes about by merely outward
suggestion. But temptation which comes from the flesh cannot be
without sin, because such a temptation is caused by pleasure and
concupiscence; and, as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xix), "it is not
without sin that 'the flesh desireth against the spirit.'" And hence
Christ w