ACC ~ Mark 1 v12 - 13

OVERVIEW:

The setting of Jesus’ temptation, like that of Eve’s, is the wilderness, with its loneliness and vulnerability (CHRYSOSTOM). Baptism is accompanied by prayer and fasting and is followed by earnest perseverance (BEDE). The dynamics of temptation proceed first by suggestion, then by taking delight in the suggestion, then by consent (GREGORY THE GREAT).

1:12 | The Spirit Drove Him Out into the Wilderness

THE WILDERNESS SETTING

CHRYSOSTOM: You see how the Spirit led him, not into a city or public arena, but into a wilderness. In this desolate place, the Spirit extended the devil an occasion to test him, not only by hunger, but also by loneliness, for it is there most especially that the devil assails us, when he sees us left alone and by ourselves. In this same way did he also confront Eve in the beginning, having caught her alone and apart from her husband. THE GOSPEL OF ST. MATTHEW, HOMILY 13.1. [1]

[1] TLG 2062.152, 57.209.28-36; NPNF 1 10:80*. The theme of temptation alone in the wilderness appears similarly in Matthew, Mark and Luke.

1:13 | Tempted by Satan

SUGGESTION, DELIGHT, CONSENT

GREGORY THE GREAT: Temptation is brought to fulfillment by three stages: suggestion, delight, consent. And we in temptation generally fall through delight, and then through consent; for being begotten of the sin of the flesh we bear within us that through which we suffer conflict. But God, incarnate in the womb of a virgin, came into the world without sin, and so suffers no conflict within himself. He could therefore be tempted by suggestion, but the delight of sin could never touch his mind. So all these temptations of the devil were from without, not from within Him. ON THE GOSPEL OF THE SUNDAY SERMON 16. [1]

[1] Cetedec 1711, 1.16.1.23; SSGF 2:3.

THE SUCCESSION OF TEMPTATIONS

BEDE: Soon after he had been baptized, he performed a fast of forty days by himself, [1] and he taught and informed us by his example that, after we have received forgiveness of sins in baptism, we should devote ourselves to vigils, fasts, prayers and other spiritually fruitful things, lest when we are sluggish and less vigilant the unclean spirit expelled from our heart by baptism may return, and finding us fruitless in spiritual riches, weigh us down again with a sevenfold pestilence, and our last state would then be worse than the first. [2] Let us be wary that we do not relight the fires of old obsessions which would wreck us on our new voyage. Whatever sort of flaming sword it is that guards the doorway of paradise has been already effectively extinguished for each of the faithful in the font of baptism. For the unfaithful, however, the gate remains always formidable, and also for those falsely called faithful though they have not been chosen, since they have no fear of entangling themselves in sins after baptism. It is as though the same fire put out in baptism has been rekindled after it had been once extinguished. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 1.12. [3]

[1] Mt 4:2; Mk 1:13; Lk 4:2.

[2] Mt 12:43-45; Lk 11:24-26.

[3] Cetedoc 1367, 1.12.174; HOG 1:119-20**.