A few remarks on Christ's temptation by the Devil will suffice to show its absurdity. In the first place, then, can we believe that a being of Infinite Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, ever has, or does now, keep in existence a Devil whose whole aim and happiness consist in tempting God's creatures to rebel against their maker and benefactor; and that God has given him power and capacity to induce men and women to commit every sort of crime that disgraces humanity? Besides, so artful is this Devil that man has but a poor chance to escape his cunning attacks and devices. We are told that the Lord is angry with the wicked every day; and yet for all that, he has made a being of immense power who possesses unbounded malice against both God and man. Would any man, who was in his right mind, keep in his employ a person who would daily destroy his property, and breed discord among his steady workmen? None but a madman could so act; and shall we suppose that the all-wise ruler of the universe would follow in the path of a man out of his senses?
Again, according to the account in Matthew, the Devil seems full of life and impudence; while the reputed Saviour appears sheepish and stupid, and seems willing to follow the Devil about at his bidding! We have no account as to the form in which the Devil appeared, whether as a rich man or a loafer; whether fat or lean, and how old he appeared to be; neither are we informed in what kind of dress he walked through the street of Jerusalem, whether it was in the costume of the age, or in the livery of hell. At any rate, Jesus seemed rather scared at the old serpent. Jesus commenced his mission more like a hermit than as a messenger of peace; to God's chosen people. In fact, there is, in Jesus, through his whole life, something so unearthly that his existence as a man is very doubtful. In the whole account of the temptation of the Devil, the evidence of its being a mixture of fable and falsehood is, apparent.
Besides, it is altogether unaccountable how Jesus and the Devil became so well acquainted with each other; for Jesus was a Jew by nation, and strictly obeyed the law of Moses; but Moses is completely silent as to the existence of any such personage as the Devil. At the time when it is said Jesus came to the Jewish nation, they had, during their captivity, embraced the theology of their conquerors; and on their return to the land of their nativity, brought with them the-belief in the existence of good and bad angels, and also the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments,--dogmas unknown to, and never taught by, Moses. It is clear, then, that the very existence of a Devil never was a doctrine of the Old Testament, but on the contrary, it was borrowed from eastern mythology; and Jesus, finding that the Jews professed to believe it, fell in with it, as also a heaven and a hell, and a judgment to come, which doctrines were all of heathen origin. The Old Testament is silent as to what constitutes orthodox Christianity. Ye Christian ministers! your heaven and hell, by the teaching of which you gain wealth and live like princes, is nothing but an echo of by-gone ages, which had its origin in the imagination of the priesthood of an antiquity anterior to the existence of Moses or of the Jewish nation!
