The Devil’s Suspicion Lasted to the Cross

But perhaps afterward he stopped and rested, and when his temptations were defeated he laid his suspicion aside because it came to nothing? No; rather it stayed in him always. Right up to the Lord’s cross the suspicion lasted in him, and it was increased by terrors of a special kind. What more need be said? Not even then did he stop thinking of him as the Son of God, after he knew that such license had been given to his persecutors against him. The crafty enemy saw the signs of divinity even in the midst of his bodily sufferings. Though he would much have preferred him to be a mere man, he was still forced to suspect that he was God. He would have preferred to believe what he wanted, but he was driven by the surest proofs to what he feared. And no wonder. Though he saw him spat on, scourged, disgraced and led to the cross, he still saw divine powers overflowing even in the midst of the insults and wrongs. The veil of the temple is torn, the sun hides itself, the day is darkened, and all things feel the effects of the Passion. All things, even those that do not know God, acknowledge the work of the Deity. [a]

So the devil, seeing this and trembling, tried in every way to reach the knowledge of his Godhead, even at the very death of his manhood, speaking through those who crucified him: “If he is the Son of God, let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe him.” He certainly perceived that by his bodily Passion our Lord God was working out the redemption of man’s salvation, and also that by it he himself was being destroyed and subdued, while we were being redeemed and saved. So the enemy of mankind wanted, by every means and every trick, to defeat what he knew was being done for the redemption of all men. “If he is the Son of God,” he says, “let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe him.” He said it on purpose, so that the Lord might be stung by the taunt of the words and undo the mystery by avenging the wrong.

You see, then, that even when the Lord was hanging on the cross he was called the Son of God. You see that they suspect the very fact they speak of. So learn, as I said above, even from his persecutors, even from the devil, to believe in the Son of God. Who ever came up to the unbelief of the devil? Who went beyond it? He suspected that he was the Son of God even when he endured death; you deny it even now that he has risen. He suspected that he was God, though he hid himself from him; you deny it, though he has proved it to you.