THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS
IN THE MEDIEVAL GOSPEL OF BARNABAS
©Copyright R. Blackhirst 2015
In the first installment of his study of the historical James the Just, Robert Eisenman offers a bold interpretation of the Temptation episode in the synoptic gospels.[1] He interprets the picture of Jesus at the "pinnacle" of the Temple being tempted by the devil to throw himself down as, in fact, a picture of James and an adaptation ( a "negative parody") of the tradition that James was thrown from the pinnacle of the Temple.[2] There is no doubt that the figure of James is associated with this "pinnacle" and with the notion of being cast from it in several of our sources, and there is an obvious similarity between these traditions and the gospel episode. Eisenman proposes that, in this, as in other cases, ideas, motifs and scriptural texts applied to the figure James have become attached to Jesus, ostensibly James' "brother". He regards the link between the James traditions and the Temptation in the Wilderness episode as "indisputable",[3] a clear case where a story about James has been carried into the gospel presentations of the life of Christ.
This reading illuminates and is illuminated in turn by the Temptation episode in that strangest and most obscure work of Christian apocrypha, the medieval Gospel of Barnabas. This work is little known and is nowhere regarded as a useful source of insights into the origins of Christianity, yet in this instance it is remarkably relevant to the issues raised by Eisenman's study. In its extant form it is probably the product of the late sixteenth century and makes its first mark in history among Spanish Morisco communities in the early seventeenth century. Although an explicitly Muslim-inspired work (possibly by an apostate Christian monk) it presents a distinctly Ebionitic or 'Jewish-Christian' version of the gospel, as the Irish deist John Toland noted as long ago as 1718 and as Pines and Flusser reiterated in the 1960s. Jesus is presented as a prophet, in the Muslim manner, but he is also shown as a staunch defender of the Laws of Moses, of circumcision and food restrictions; it is an explicitly anti-Pauline work that seems to find its scriptural opportunity in the split between Paul and Barnabas described in the letter to the Galatians.[4] It's account of the life and teachings of Jesus engages in some truly extraordinary encounters and interchanges with the canonical accounts. It is a type of diatesseron, as Sox observed,[5] drawing upon episodes from all four canonical gospels, blending them with a large quantity of non-canonical material. Much of the work is fantastic and even amateurish, but in other places the author sometimes shows surprising insight. The Temptation episode is, I think, among the more startling instances of the author's sophistication and one of the strongest clues that this "obnoxious forgery", as it has been described by Christian apologists, somehow preserves or recreates material or at least a point of view of great interest to students of early Christianity and especially to those persuaded by the basic thrust of Eisenman's work.
The section to consider in the medieval Barnabas is not, however, just the Temptation scene itself. The author's methodology demands a wider investigation. Typically, he takes a gospel episode and then elaborates upon it, building apocryphal speeches, miracles and healings onto a canonical framework, as if by way of commentary. Often he follows the canonical accounts more or less exactly, but then he surrounds these episodes with apocryphal material, most of it clearly of medieval invention and usually at least suggested by some idea or motif in the canonical episode. His retelling of the story of the inhospitable Samaritan town that the 'Sons of Thunder' wanted to destroy, for example, precipitates extra chapters in which Jesus gives a long, medieval discourse on the evils of seeking vengeance. In his Temptation scene, consistent with this method, the author follows the gist of the canonical accounts closely but condenses a section: then from the material of this abridged section he creates several apocryphal chapters, placing them immediately before the Temptation scene itself. That is, the chapters before the Temptation should be seen as an elaboration upon the canonical accounts; in this instance the author has expanded the text fowards in sequence so that the non-canonical elaborations come before the canonical episode.
Here is the Barnabas version of the Temptation. The abridgement comes where Satan appeared and "tempted him [Jesus] in many words..."
Jesus descended from the mount, and passed alone by night to the farther side of Jordan, and fasted forty days and forty nights, not eating anything day nor night, making continual supplication to the Lord for the salvation of his people to whom God had sent him. And when the forty days were passed he was hungry. Then Satan appeared to him, and tempted him in many words, but Jesus drove him away by the power of words of God. Then, Satan having departed, the angels came and ministered to Jesus everything that he needed.
This is a paraphrase of the synoptic accounts and resembles Mark's in its brevity, but the "many words" of Satan allude to the longer versions in Matthew and Luke. These "many words" are, according to Matthew (4:3+), and Luke (4:5+), Satan's daring Jesus to turn stones into loaves, his offering Jesus kingship of the earth, and his daring Jesus to throw himself down to test whether he will be saved by angels. Unlike Mark both Matthew and Luke have the devil take Jesus from the wilderness to Jerusalem and, at the pinnacle of the Temple, dare him to hurl himself from the height to see if angels will save him. It is at this point that we have the celebrated instance of the devil himself quoting scripture - Satan quotes from Psalm 91, "he will put his angels in charge of you to guard you". The author of the medieval Barnabas is, typically, and like any diatesseron writer, interested the differences between the synoptic accounts. While he gives a short version of the story like Mark he nevertheless has his eye upon the longer accounts of Matthew and Luke, condensing their detailed descriptions of the temptations withstood by Jesus to "many words".
Matthew and Luke's descriptions of the Temptation have not been discarded, however; they supply the raw material for the non-canonical episodes immediately prior to Barnabas' Temptation. In particular, in chapter 12 of this gospel we find Jesus in Jerusalem at the pinnacle of the Temple, not via the wilderness through the agency of the devil, as in Matthew and Luke, but directly and at the instigation of the Jerusalem authorities. The events described in chapter 12 at first seem to have no canonical basis at all but when we reach the Temptation episode which follows it and notice the abridged "many words" we are reminded that Matthew and Luke both have the devil transporting Jesus to the "holy city" and the Temple's pinnacle. The relationship between the episodes becomes clear. Where, we ask, did Barnabas get his idea for placing Jesus at the pinnacle of the Temple in chapter 12? The answer is that what has been reduced to "many words" in the Temptation (Chpt. 14 ) has supplied the constituent elements of Barnabas' chapter 12, an episode otherwise foreign to the canonical texts and without parallel in any surviving gospel literature. In the canonical texts (Matthew and Luke) the devil transports Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple; this is reduced to "many words" in Barnabas' Temptation but would be redundant in any case because Jesus, just prior to going into the wilderness where he is tempted, has just been to Jerusalem, to the Temple and to the pinnacle of the Temple. Barnabas, that is, does have the story of Jesus going to the pinnacle of the Temple, as in Matthew and Luke's Temptations, but it is not part of the Temptation itself. Or, to put it another way, Jesus' visit to the Pinnacle of the Temple is inserted into the Temptation in the Wilderness in Matthew and Luke. Mark (and John) do not record such a visit, but in the medieval Barnabas Jesus goes there before going into the wilderness; what is inserted into the Temptaton episode in the canonical texts (Matthew and Luke) is free-standing, as a prelude to the Temptation, in the medieval Barnabas. Evidently, the details of the Temptation supplied by Matthew and Luke but missing in Mark are used to construct the extra-canonical elaborations of the preceeding scenes in the Gospel of Barnabas.
This is confirmed by a detailed analysis of the relevant section. It emerges that both chapters 12 and 13 have been written with an eye to Matthew and Luke's accounts of the Temptations in what is really a complete, expanded reconstruction of the Temptation episode. In Barnabas' gospel, Jesus' ministry begins in Jerusalem (not Galilee). Having healed a leper and come to public attention (chapter 11) he is urged to speak from the pinnacle of the Temple by the priests (chapter 12). Following that he retreats to the Mount of Olives (chapter 13) where the angel Gabriel comes to assure him that he will be saved by God. It is after that (chapter 14) that Jesus goes into the wilderness and we rejoin the canonical text. This entire section has its scriptural basis in the texts of Matthew and Luke, the texts that Barnabas' Temptation condenses to "many words".
Chapter 12 begins like this:
The whole city of Jerusalem was moved by these words so they all ran together to the Temple to see Jesus, who had entered it to pray, so that they could scarecly be contained therein. Therefore the priests sought Jesus saying: "The people desires to see you and hear you. Ascend to the pinnacle; and if God gives you a word, speak it in the name of the Lord..."
At this Jesus ascends to the "pinnacle" and delivers his first sermon which is built around the refrain "Blessed is the holy name of God!" However, he also rebukes
"the people for forgetting the word of God, and for giving themselves only to vanity. He rebuked the priests for their negligence in God's service and for their worldly greed. He rebuked the scribes because they preached vain doctrine, and forsook the Law of God. He rebuked the doctors because they made the Law of God of no effect through their traditions."
The people, we are then told, "wept, from the least to the greatest, crying for mercy and beseeching Jesus to pray for them" but this endorsement of the sermon was not shared by "their priests and leaders, who conceived hatred for Jesus on that day for having spoken against the priests, scribes, and doctors." They "meditate upon his death" but cannot touch him "for fear of the people, who had received him as a prophet of God."
In the next chapter Jesus has "perceived the desire of the priests in spirit" and ascends to the Mount of Olives. He prays:
"O Lord, I know that the scribes hate me, and the priests have it in their minds to kill me, your servant; therefore, Lord God almighty and merciful, hear the prayers of your servant in mercy, and save me from their snares, for you are my salvation...
In response to the prayer the Angel Gabriel appears to Jesus and comforts him:
Fear not, O Jesus, for a thousand thousand that dwell above the heaven guard your garments...
It is when Jesus "descended from the mount" that he "passed alone by night to the farther side of the Jordan..." and is tempted by Satan. This whole movement is formed from ideas in Matthew and Luke's versions of the Temptation. Put simply, two elements of Matthew and Luke's stories, (a) the pinnacle of the Temple and (b) being saved by angels, have become (a) Barnabas' story of Jesus' sermon at the pinnacle of the Temple and (b) his encounter with Gabriel. The first part of the story Barnabas has created, it seems, from the canonical account of the Devil transporting Jesus to the Temple's "pinnacle". In the medieval work, more realistically, the priests (the agents of Satan, as they are portrayed) ask Jesus to address the people from the Temple's pinnacle. The second part of the story then responds to the idea from the canonical account that Angels will save Jesus.
The strongest confirmation of this is in Jesus' prayer where the words "save me from their snares" unquestionably allude to the Devil's Psalm 91 which sings of a God who "rescues you from the snares of fowlers..." As a psalm about God's protection Psalm 91, in fact, emerges as a chief proof text for all these constructions of the Temptation episode; its themes are especially pertinent to the Gospel of Barnabas which presents Jesus as the Protected One who, in the Koranic manner, is saved from the cross. This is what the Angel assures Jesus on the Mount of Olives in chapter 13 - he will be rescued from the "snares" being prepared by his enemies, as the righteous are promised in Psalm 91. The Angel's words regarding "a thousand thousand" that protect him may echo the Psalm's "though a thousand fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, you yourself will remain unscatched..." More likely, the Psalm's " I protect whoever knows my Name..." provides the basis for the subject matter and refrain of Jesus' first sermon, "Blessed is the holy name of God!" in chapter 12.
It is in the light of Eisenman's work on the historical (?) James that what Barnabas has created in chapters 12 and 13, evidently from the abridged "many words" in chapter 14, takes on great significance, for it surely presents a portrait of Jesus that we can recognize as remarkably James-like. There are more than a few ways in which Barnabas' Jesus, here and elsewhere, is a very James-like character. The depiction of him being invited to ascend to the "pinnacle" to speak, with the suggestion that he is being "snared", the forthright rebukes, the popularity among the people as against the hatred of the authorities, the association with the Mount of Olives as a retreat nearby the Temple, the underlying idea of the 'Protected One' and the petitions of the people that Jesus might pray for God's protection over them and the holy city: all of these are strikingly Jamesean ideas and motifs, especially as Eisenman delineates them. But more importantly, there is an explicit connection with the Temptation scene, consistent with Eisenman's interpretation. Indeed, Barnabas' narrative conforms to nearly every aspect of Eisenman's analysis. "The original tradition," Eisenman asserts, "about 'being set upon the Pinnacle of the Temple' first appeared in ... traditions about James being placed upon 'the Pinnacle of the Temple' to quiet the Passover crowds hungering for the Messiah, [as] conserved by Hegesippus in the middle of the second century"[6] and he quotes the relevant passage from Hegissipus (via Eusebius) where the authorities call upon James to:
Stand, therefore, upon the Pinnacle of the Temple that you may be clearly visible on high and your words readily heard by all the people, for because of the Passover all the tribes have gathered together and numbers of Gentiles too.' So the aforesaid Scribes and the Pharisees made James stand on the Pinnacle of the Temple, and shouting to him cried out, 'O Just One, whose words we all ought to obey, since the people are led astray after Jesus, who was crucified, tell us what is the Gate to Jesus?' And he answered shouting out loudly, 'Why do you ask me concerning the Son of Man? He is now sitting in Heaven at the right hand of the Great Power and is about to come on the clouds of Heaven.'
This is surely the 'original source' of not only the Temptation episode in the canonical Gospels but, even more evidently, the description of Jesus' sermon in chapter 12 of the Gospel of Barnabas, although a number of details may place Barnabas' version closer to the description of Gamaliel inviting James to speak from "an elevated place" in the Recognitions of Clement. Gamaliel's words to James, "If you know anything more, shrink not from laying it before the people of God...", although perhaps formulaic, provides a very near parallel to the words of the authorities in Barnabas: "if God gives you a word, speak it..." In Eisenman's reconstruction of the life of James the pivotal event was an occasion where James was invited, or lured, to speak to the crowds. "One imagines," he writes, " that what James was called upon to discourse on in the Temple to quiet the Passover crowds...was the nature and understanding of the Messianic ideal."[7] This, he supposes, was "like throwing a lighted match"[8] into a volatile religio-political situation just prior to the outbreak of the first Jewish revolt. This address to the people and the disturbance it created "set the stage for the final destruction of James."[9] This is exactly as Jesus is depicted in the Gospel of Barnabas.
How are we to account for the depiction of Jesus at the Pinnacle of the Temple in Barnabas? Is it merely the product of a medieval imagination, the sleight of hand of an apostate forger? We do not need to suppose that the medieval author had access to the Recognitions or was drawing upon Hegissipus or upon more obscure sources because the idea is found in the canonical sources, in Matthew and Luke's Temptation episodes. Since he is writing a diatesseron it is safest to assume that the author is engaged in re-ordering and rewriting the canonical accounts, but this leaves us with the conclusion that the medieval author knows that Matthew and Luke's accounts of the Temptation are conflations of the traditions about James' (or Jesus') address to the people from the Pinnacle. To put it another way, if (as per Eisenman) Matthew and Luke have conflated the traditions about James into the story of Satan taking Jesus to the Pinnacle of the Temple, the author of the medieval Barnabas has expanded them again, reversing the transformation; he has taken the texts of Matthew and Luke and rewritten them to be very like the original traditions about James. How? By what knowledge? The possibility that this strange medieval "forgery" preserves early material should not be dismissed out of hand. The mere fact that Barnabas' portrait of Jesus is, here and elsewhere, strikingly James-like is in itself of great interest in terms of Eisenman's thesis concerning "the absorption of extra-biblical materials about James into the biblical narrative of Jesus..." but, if, as it seems, the author has expanded this James-like Jesus from the Temptation episode, then the Gospel of Barnabas comforms to Eisenman's thesis precisely; it undoes what Eisenman says was done by the Gospel writers. One of the refreshing features of Eisenman's work is that it acknowledges the persistence of early Ebionite and Jamesean traditions into both the Christian and Islamic Middle Ages; the mysterious Gospel of Barnabas deserves greater consideration as a useful and possibily a very important medieval source.
Since an English text of the Gospel of Barnabas may be difficult for readers to locate, the full text of the relevant section, with my own notations, follows:
JERUSALEM
The Healing of the Leper
11.[10]Descending from the mountain to come into Jerusalem, Jesus met a leper, who, by divine inspiration, knew Jesus to be a prophet. Therefore he prayed him with tears, saying: "Jesus, you son of David, have mercy on me."[11] Jesus answered: "What do you want me to do for you, brother?" The leper answered: "Lord, give me health."
Jesus reproved him, saying: "You are foolish. Pray to God who created you, and he will give you health; for I am a man, as you are." The leper answered: "I know that you, Lord, are a man, but a holy one of the Lord, so pray to God, and he will give me health." Then Jesus, sighing, said: "Lord God Almighty, for the love of your holy prophets give health to this sick man." Then, having said this, he said, touching the sick man with his hands in the name of God: "O brother, receive your health!"
When he had said this the leprosy was cleansed, such that the flesh of the leper was left like that of a child. Seeing that he was healed, the leper cried out with a loud voice: "Come hither, Israel, to receive the prophet whom God sends to you!" Jesus prayed him, saying: "Brother, hold your peace and say nothing," but the more he prayed him the more he cried out, saying: "Behold the prophet! behold the holy one of God!" At which words many that were going out of Jerusalem ran back, and entered with Jesus into Jerusalem, recounting that which God, through Jesus, had done to the leper.
The First Sermon
12. [12]The whole city of Jerusalem was moved by these words so they all ran together to the Temple to see Jesus, who had entered it to pray, so that they could scarcely be contained there. Therefore the priests sought Jesus, saying: "This people desires to see you and hear you. Ascend to the pinnacle, and if God gives you a word, speak it in the name of the Lord."[13]
Then Jesus ascended to the place from which the scribes were wont to speak, and having beckoned with [his] hand for silence,[14] he opened his mouth, saying: "Blessed be the holy name of God,[15] who of his goodness and mercy willed to create his creatures [so] that they might glorify him. Blessed be the holy name of God, who created the splendour of all the saints and prophets before all things to send him[16] for the salvation of the world, as he spoke by his servant David, saying: Before Lucifer in the brightness of the saints I created you.[17] Blessed be the holy name of God, who created the angels that they might serve him.
And blessed be God, who punished and reprobated Satan and his followers, who would not reverence him whom God wills to be reverenced. Blessed be the holy name of God, who created man out of the clay of the earth, and set him over his works. Blessed be the holy name of God, who drove man out of paradise for having transgressed his holy precept. Blessed be the holy name of God, who with mercy looked upon the tears of Adam and Eve, first parents of the human race.
Blessed be the holy name of God, who just punished Cain the fratricide, sent the deluge upon the earth, burned up three wicked cities, scourged Egypt, overwhelmed Pharaoh in the Red Sea, scattered the enemies of his people, chastised the unbelievers, and punished the impenitent. Blessed be the holy name of God, who with mercy looked upon his creatures, and therefore sent them his holy prophets, that they might walk in truth and righteousness before him who delivered his servants from every evil, and gave them this land, as he promised to our father Abraham and to his son for ever. Then by his servant Moses he gave us his holy Law, that Satan should not deceive us, and he exalted us above all other peoples. But, brethren, what do we do today, that we are not punished for our sins?"
And then with great vehemence Jesus rebuked the people for forgetting the word of God, and [for] giving themselves only to vanity. He rebuked the priests for their negligence in God's service and for their worldly greed.[18] He rebuked the scribes because they preached vain doctrine, and forsook the Law of God. He rebuked the doctors because they made the Law of God of no effect through their traditions.[19] Such did Jesus speak to the people, that everyone wept, from the least to the greatest, crying [for] mercy and beseeching Jesus to pray [for] them - [everyone except] their priests and leaders, who conceived hatred for Jesus on that day[20] for having spoken against the priests, scribes, and doctors.[21]
And they meditated upon his death, but for fear of the people, who had received him as a prophet of God,[22] they [said nothing]. Jesus raised his hands to the Lord God and prayed, and the people, weeping, said: "So be it, O Lord, so be it."[23] The prayer being ended, Jesus descended from the Temple and that day he departed from Jerusalem with many that followed him. And the priests spoke evil of Jesus among themselves.
THE MOUNT OF OLIVES
Jesus is Comforted by the Angel Gabriel
13. [24]Some days having passed, Jesus, having perceived the desire of the priests in spirit,[25] ascended the Mount of Olives to pray. And having passed the whole night in prayer,[26] in the morning,[27] praying, Jesus said: "O Lord, I know that the scribes hate me, and the priests have it in their minds to kill me, your servant; therefore, Lord God almighty and merciful, hear the prayers of your servant in mercy, and save me from their snares,[28] for you are my salvation. You know, Lord, that I, your servant, seek you alone, O Lord, and speak your word; for your word is truth, which endures for ever."
When Jesus had spoken these words, the angel Gabriel came to him saying:[29] "Fear not, O Jesus, for a thousand thousand who dwell above the heaven guard your garments, and you shall not die till everything is fulfilled, and the world shall be near its end."[30] Jesus fell with his face to the ground, saying: "O great Lord God, how great is your mercy upon me! What shall I give you, Lord, for all that you have granted me?"
[31]The angel Gabriel answered: "Arise, Jesus, and remember Abraham, who being willing to sacrifice his only-begotten son Ishmael[32] to God, to fulfil the word of God, [when] the knife [was] not able to cut his son, offered a sheep in sacrifice at my word. Therefore, you shall [do the same], O Jesus, servant of God." Jesus answered: "Willingly, but where shall I find the lamb. I have no money, and it is not lawful to steal it." So the angel Gabriel showed to him a sheep, which Jesus offered in sacrifice, praising and blessing God, who is glorious for ever.
THE WILDERNESS OF THE TRANS-JORDAN
The Temptation in the Wilderness
14. [33]Jesus descended from the mount, and passed alone by night to the farther side of Jordan, and fasted forty days and forty nights, not eating anything day nor night, making continual supplication to the Lord for the salvation of his people to whom God had sent him. And when the forty days were passed he was hungry. Then Satan appeared to him, and tempted him in many words,[34] but Jesus drove him away by the power of words of God. [Then,] Satan having departed, the angels came and ministered to Jesus everything that he needed.[35]
"THE REGION OF JERUSALEM"
Jesus, having returned to the region of Jerusalem, was found again of the people with exceeding great joy, and they prayed him that he would abide with them; for his words were not as those of the scribes, but were with power, for they touched the heart.
* * *
FOOTNOTES
[1]Eisenman R. James the Brother of Jesus, Faber & Faber, London, 1997.
[2]Eisenman R., op cit, pp. 423-26.
[3]Eisenman R. , op cit, p. 423
[4]Galatians 2:13
[5]Sox D.
[6]Eisenman R. op cit., p. 425
[7]Eisenman R. op cit, p. 422
[8]Eisenman R. op cit., p. 427
[9]Eisenman R. op cit, p. 422
[10]The passage is based on the Healing of the Blind man at Jericho in Lk 18:38ff. The Leper motif possibly comes from Mt 8:1-4. It also includes elements of the healing of the man with the withered hand from Lk 6:16, though he finishes the passage with sections from Lk 12:39 or Mk 7:36. Predominantly he uses Lk 18:38-41. The "Son of David..." motif comes from there.
[11]"Jesus, you son of David..." Lk 18:38-39. This phrase is imported from the Blind Man in Jericho (Bartimaeus) episode. Possibly, the connection is that this is the a healing at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, and the Blind Man at Jericho is a healing at the beginning of Jesus' Jerusalem ministry. That is, B. may be combining two 'beginning of the ministry' healings.
[12]Compare chpt. 126. The idea that Jesus "ascends to the pinnacle" comes from Matthew and Luke's Temptation scenes. This is confirmed by the use of Psalm 91 - the Psalm quoted by the Devil in Matthew and Luke - in chpt. 13. (See notes to chpts. 13 and 14.) The basis of parts of the sermon seems to be 2 Peter 2:1-10 or Jude 5. In the Petrine Epistle the point of listing the Old Testament events is to underline the theme of divine rescue. B. does not use that element here, but that is presumably what has led him to 2 Peter.
[13]"if God gives you a word..." The introduction to this First Sermon scene, and these words of the priests in particular, may echo the Recognitions of Clement Bk. 1, Chpt. 67. where Gamaliel is portrayed as inviting James to speak "from an elevation". Gamaliel, pledging to protect James, says "if you know anything more, shrink not from laying it before the people of God..."
[14]"beckoned with his hand for silence" B. uses this formula to preface sermons and speeches on several occasions. In canonical sources it comes from Acts of the Apostles. See, especially, Acts 12:17, 13:16, 26:1
[15]"blessed be the holy..." See Daniel 3:51-91. This is the only canonical passage with resemblances to the litany form used here. But see Nag Hammadi text IX (Melchizadek).
[16]"him" i.e. "the splendour of all the saints and the prophets" by which B. means the Messiah.
[17]See, possibly, Psalm 110:3 In which case B. is following the Greek reading of the Psalm. In the Arabic margin notes in the Italian manuscript is written "He (Jesus) mentioned in the Zaboor (Psalms) that the first of Allah's creations is the Light of Muhammad. All prophets and pious saints are light" above this phrase. Beside it in the left margin is written "the Light of God."
[18]See, perhaps, 2 Peter 2:3, 2:14.
[19]"he rebuked the doctors" Compare Mt. 15:3.
[20]"who on that day..." See Mt 12:14, Lk 6:12 and Jn 11:53.
[21]"for having thus spoken..." In the canonical texts it is a healing (on the Sabbath) that first sets the authorities against Jesus, not his preaching, as here.
[22]"but for fear of..." In the canonical texts this idea concerns John the Baptist, not Jesus. See Mt. 14:5, Mk 6:19-20. It does not appear in Luke.
[23]So be it, O Lord, so be it!" In the Arabic margin notes in the Italian manuscript is written "Allah is sultan" (i.e. Allah is the highest authority) beside this phrase.
[24] *There is no exact canonical parallel to this episode but it stands as a mirror image of (exactly contrary to) the temptations of the Devil in Lk 4:10. This is confirmed by the use of Psalm 91 in this chapter, the Psalm the Devil quotes in Luke, "He will put his angels in charge of you to guard you..."
[25]"Jesus having perceived..." The idea is from Mt 12:15, "Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there..." "Some days having passed..." is non-canonical.
[26]B. is elaborating upon Luke. See Lk 6:12 where Jesus went into "the hills" to pray.
[27]In Luke, Jesus selects his disciples on the morrow. See Lk 6:13. B. has inserted the appearance of Gabriel (and the temptation in the wilderness that follows) into the Lukan sequence.
[28]"save me from their snares..." An allusion to Ps 91:3.
[29]"When Jesus had spoken..." Mt 26:53.
[30]"for a thousand thousand..." An allusion to Ps 91:11.
[31]B. presents Jesus as being critical of the Temple sacrifice because it has lost its original Abrahamic significance. (See chpt. 67 in particular.) Here the angel presents Jesus with the true meaning of sacrifice.
[32]"Ishmael" B. regards Ishmael and not Isaac as the "first begotten" son of Abraham, in the Muslim manner.
[33]Mt. 4:1-17, Mk 1:12-13, Lk 4:1-13.
[34]"in many words" B. condenses the canonical account of the Devil's words, Mtt 4:1-11, Lk 4:10. The content of the Devil's words - especially his quoting Psalm 91 - seems to have supplied the constituitive elements of B.'s chpts. 12 and 13. That is, B. has taken these "many words" and written chpts. 12 and 13 in response to them.
[35]"and the angels came..." This idea only occurs in Matthew and Mark but not in Luke. See Mt. 4:11, Mk 1:13. B. follows Matthew.