What human curiosity, what the labor of the ancients, what worldly wisdom seeking, and long seeking, could not find, this the divine law has easily furnished both to know and not to know. Whence comes evil, whence fault, whence the force of vices, whence the fury of crimes, whence the wars of bodies, whence the conflict of the soul, whence so great a storm of life, whence so cruel a shipwreck of death—man would not know, had not the law of God betrayed the devil.
The devil, the author of evil, the origin of wickedness, the enemy of things, ever the foe of man's welfare, he stretches out snares, prepares falls, digs pits, fits ruins, goads bodies, pricks souls, suggests thoughts, sends in wraths, gives virtues to hatred, gives vices to love, sows errors, nourishes discords, disturbs peace, dissipates affections, tears apart unity, savors of evil enough, of good nothing, violates things divine, tempts things human. Hence, even as far as Christ, the rash tempter is thus reported to have reached: 'And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards He was hungry; and the tempter coming said to Him: If you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made loaves' (Matt. 4:2-3).
Those who hear these things, let them not go against God, let them not accuse nature, let them not revile the Author, let them not blame the flesh; let them not complain of the soul, let them not assail the times, let them not impute it to the stars, let them cease to defame the innocence of the creature; let them perceive evil to be something that befalls, not something created; and God the Creator of good, the devil the inventor of evil: and so let them ascribe evils to the devil, good things to God; let them turn aside from evils, let them do good, being about to have in good things God as their helper, who gives the power for what He commands, and Himself does what He enjoins: for as the devil impels to evil, so God leads to good.
Let no one, therefore, yield to vices as if they were created together with him, and think that to be of nature which is of crime; but let him take up with Christ the arms of fasting, let him drive back the assaults of crimes, let him lay low the camp of vices, and from the very author of evil, with Christ fighting, let him take the victory; the devil being conquered, the vices shall avail nothing: for the tyrant being extinguished, the ranks of the tyrant are disbanded. Hear the Apostle saying: 'Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual things of wickedness in the heavenly places' (Eph. 6:12). 'Then,' it says, 'Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit'—not by the devil, that it might be a divine course, not a human incursion, that it might be the spirit of foreknowledge, not human ignorance, and that it might be the power of God, not the power of the enemy.
The devil ever assails the first beginnings of good, tempts the rudiments of virtues, hastens to extinguish holy things at their very rising, knowing that once founded he cannot overthrow them. Not being ignorant of this, Christ patiently indulged the devil who sought Him, that the enemy might be caught in his own snare, and be taken thence whence he thought to take, and so, conquered by Christ, might yield to Christians. 'And when He had fasted,' it says, 'forty days and forty nights.' You see, brethren, that the fact that we fast Lent is not a human invention, it is a divine authority, and it is mystical, not presumed; nor is it of earthly usage, but is of the heavenly secrets.
Lent, through its fourteen-times-tens, contains the discipline of a squared faith, for perfection is always four-square. Since it is not now the moment to unfold what mysteries the number four and the number ten hold in heaven and on earth, let us rather expound the fast that the Lord undertook. 'And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights.' O man, God fasts in you, in you he hungers; nay, he fasts for you, for you he hungers, he who, just as he knows not how to eat for himself, so cannot hunger for himself. Therefore, since Christ fasts for your sake, he hungers for you. 'And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he was hungry.' This is no sign of weakness, but the badge of power;
for when it says 'afterward he was hungry,' it proves that during the forty days and forty nights there was no hunger in him. To feel hunger and to conquer it belongs to human toil; but to have no hunger belongs to divine power. Therefore Christ does not grow faint through fasting, nor does he hunger from want of food; rather Christ hungered so that the devil might find matter for tempting, since he dared not approach one who fasted, because he perceived one who fasted thus to be God, not man. Then he perceived a man, then he believed him mortal, then he supposed him able to be tempted, when the cunning spy observed him hunger. 'And the tempter, drawing near, said.' He approached with the guile of one tempting, not with the affection of one obeying. He drew near more shamelessly than he had withdrawn; but let us hear what he offered to the hungry one.
'Command that these stones be made bread.' He offers stones to the hungry one: such is ever the humanity of the enemy; thus does the author of death feed men; thus does the one who envies life. 'Command that these stones be made bread.' O devil, your foresight deceives you. He who can change stones into bread can turn hunger into fullness. What is your counsel to him whose own power suffices him? 'Command that these stones be made bread.' O devil, you have both betrayed yourself and have not fed your Lord. 'Command that these stones be made bread.' Wretch, you wish to be evil, but you cannot; you desire to tempt, but you know not how. To a hungry man you ought to have offered soft things, not hard; you should have soothed hunger not with rough things but with gentle, and pressed upon his starvation not with harsh things but with dainties.
With such things you could ensnare not merely the Son of God, but not even the son of man. Understand, O tempter, that in the presence of Christ your arts perish. 'Command that these stones be made bread.' He who turned water into wine can make bread from stones. But the signs of faith are to be granted, not to deceits; they are to be given to one who believes, not to be given to one who tempts; and they are to be wrought for the salvation of him who asks, not for the injury of him who works them. O devil, why signs for you, for whom nothing avails to salvation, for whom all remains for punishment, for whom even signs profit only to your ruin? But receive an answer, that you may understand yourself and be made subject to your Maker.
'Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.' Hear that the Word of the Father hungers for the words of our salvation, not for bread, and that he acts so that man may ever live by the heavenly word, but not always by earthly bread; and thus may live to God, so as to be unaware of his own toil; for that life is the true life which knows no sweat, has no sorrows, and has no end.