And Jesus being full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
All Commentaries on Luke 4:1 Go To Luke 4
Basil the Great
AD 379
For not by word provoking the enemy, but by His actions rousing him, He seeks the wilderness. Forthe devil delights in the wilderness, he is not wont to go into the cities, the harmony of the citizens troubles him.
Or, the Lord remained for forty days untempted, for the devil knew that He fasted, yet hungered not, and dared not therefore approach Him. Hence it follows: And he eat nothing in those days. He fasted indeed, to show that He who would gird Himself for struggles against temptation must be temperate and sober.
But we must not however so use the flesh, that through want of food our strength should waste away, nor that by excess of mortification our understandings wax dulland heavy. Our Lord therefore once performed this work, but during this whole succeeding time He governed His body with due order, and so in like manner did Moses and Elias.
But because not to suffer hunger is above the nature of man, our Lord took upon Himself the feeling of hunger, and submitted Himself as it pleased Him to human nature, both to do and to suffer those things which were His own. Hence it follows: And those days being ended, he was as a hungered. Not forced to that necessity which overpowers nature, but as if provoking the devil to the conflict. For the devil, knowing that wherever hunger is there is weakness, sets about to tempt Him, and as the deviser or inventor of temptations, Christ permitting him tries to persuade Him to satisfy His appetite with the stones. As it follows; Butthe devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones that they be made bread.
He tried to persuades Christ to satisfy His appetite with stones, i.e. to shift his desire from the natural food to that which was beyond nature or unnatural.
But Christ while He vanquishes temptation, banishes not hunger from our nature, asthough that were the cause of evils, (which is rather the preservative of life, but confining nature within its proper bounds, shows of what kind its nourishment is, as follows; And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone.
