Paradise Regained

Troubled that he cannot overcome Jesus’s resistance to temptation, Satan gives Jesus another mountaintop view, this time presenting the Son of God with the architectural and military glories of Rome. The current political situation in Rome present a remarkable opportunity: though Rome receives tribute from throughout the world, the Roman Empire is now under the rule of Emperor Augustus, who is aged and childless. Satan urges Jesus to take advantage of this weakness and assume control of the Roman Empire.

Jesus, however, replies that the Romans are responsible for their own undoing—since they have forsaken true virtue to pursue fleshly pleasures. Even a virtuous ruler could not correct their mentality. Satan proceeds to make Jesus an even more dramatic offer: if Jesus will worship Satan, Satan will grant Jesus dominion over all of civilization. Jesus reacts to this offer with aversion, pointing out that only God deserves worship, here emphasizing Satan’s evil and aberrant nature.

Satan then acknowledges that on a personal level, Jesus’s coming will be fatal for him and his demons, but he proposes a new form of power for Jesus to seize. Showing Jesus the glories of Athens, Satan exhorts the Son of God to become famous through wisdom, to absorb the knowledge of famed philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Yet Jesus is uninterested in philosophical knowledge, believing that philosophy is but a distraction from the only source of true enlightenment: God. He further believes the Hebrew arts and civic teachings, which are traceable directly to God through the Old Testament, are vastly superior to the achievements of Greece and Rome.

After predicting that Jesus will be experience sorrow and hardship—even if Jesus does eventually attain authority—Satan departs. Night falls, and a storm assaults the area where Jesus is sleeping. Jesus, for his part, endures the storm without complaint. In the morning, Satan greets him and once again indicates that Jesus’s life will be attended by suffering, no matter whether Jesus fulfills his prophesied role as a savior.

The unbothered Jesus dismisses the storm as only another trial sent by Satan. Infuriated by Jesus’s reply, Satan reveals that he has monitored Jesus from his manger birth and that his temptations thus far have been attempts to understand the virtues and the powers of his deadly enemy. Satan then transports Jesus high above Jerusalem; there, he tells Jesus to cast himself down from the highest tower in the city. If Jesus is truly the Son of God then God will protect Jesus from harm. Quoting scripture, Jesus tells Satan that God must not be tempted. These words send Satan himself falling in defeat.

Taking the form of a fiery orb, angels rush to Jesus’s aid as Satan falls. These angels transport Jesus to a lush valley. Then, joining together in song, the angels praise Jesus as a reflection of God’s majesty—the true Son of God—and affirm that Jesus will be the savior of humankind. In Jesus, humanity has found a corrective for Adam’s sins and a protector who will defeat Satan. Having concluded this song of triumph, the angels then transport Jesus to his mother Mary’s home.