for his ingratitude. To pacify his interlocutor, Satan then proposes
to make him famous through wisdom, and exhibits Athens,--that
celebrated centre of ancient learning--offering to make him master of
all its schools of philosophy, oratory, and poetry, and thus afford
him ample intellectual gratification. But Jesus rejects this offer
also, after proving the vanity and insufficiency of heathen philosophy
and learning, and after demonstrating that many books are a weariness
to the flesh, and that none compare with those which are the proudest
boast of God's Chosen People.

"However, many books,
Wise men have said, are wearisome: who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior
(And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seek?),
Uncertain and unsettled still remains,
Beep versed in books and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys
And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge;
As children gathering pebbles on the shore."

Irritated by the failure of all his attempts, Satan next taunts his
opponent by describing the sufferings and humiliations he will have to
undergo, until, seeing this too has no effect, he suddenly bears him
back to the wilderness, where he leaves him for the night, during
which he sends a terrific storm to appall him. Even in sleep Jesus is
haunted by dreams and spectres sent by the tempter, but at dawn all
these visions disappear, the storm dies down, and a lovely morning
greets him when he awakes. Once more Satan appears to warn our Lord
that the dreams of the night and the horrors of the tempest were