Question Four of Chapter Six of the Third Decade
Whether temptations are to be desired
It is asked whether being tempted by the devil and by the other tempters already described is to be desired.
To this it first appears that one must respond affirmatively. For James 1 says: “My brethren, account it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations.”
Likewise, that in which someone’s virtue is manifested is to be desired. But a human being’s virtue is manifested in temptations, and there virtue in a certain way flowers again. Therefore temptations are to be desired.
But to the contrary is Christ, who teaches us in the Lord’s Prayer to pray that temptation may be removed from us, saying: “And lead us not into temptation.”
Likewise, Matthew 26 says: “Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation.”
And 1 Corinthians 10 says: “Let no temptation apprehend you except a human one,” that is, a venial one, because human life is not lived without it.
To this it is answered that, since nothing is desired for its own sake except that which has the character of a good and an end, and since temptation does not properly possess the character of a good and an end, it ought not properly and for its own sake to be desired.
But temptation can be ordained toward an end, and this can possess the character of a good.
Something is ordained toward an end in two ways.
In one way, per se: namely, that which of itself tends to lead to the end. Thus well-prepared medicine, when applied to a well-disposed subject, tends of itself and per se to lead to health.
In the other way, accidentally: namely, that which of itself tends to lead to an end other than the one intended, but nevertheless, through another concurrent cause, tends to lead to the intended end. Thus someone might eat poison in order to die, and it might consequently happen that he is healed.
Therefore, since temptation per se is ordained toward the destruction of the human being and is not ordained toward salvation except accidentally—namely, through the fact that it is conquered with the aid of divine grace—being tempted is therefore not simply to be desired. It is to be desired accidentally, however: namely, to be tempted and at the same time to conquer with divine aid.
Nevertheless, because victory is exceedingly doubtful on account of human frailty, temptation is more safely and better fled than sought.
In reply to the first argument, it is said that James did not exhort them to joy concerning temptations, but to patience through which temptations are conquered. Nor does patience shine forth unless victory is presupposed.
The reply to the second is evident in the body of the question.
These things are from the theologians.
Addition
The demon tempted the woman rather than the man because a woman is easier to bring to consent. Since she is of weaker virtue, he therefore obtained victory more easily.
He approached in the form of a serpent not only because, among demonic animals, the serpent is the one most suited to the devil himself, but also so that we might know that, just as we can hope for nothing good from a serpent, so from the devil we can receive nothing but foulness, destruction of the soul, and evil of many kinds.
But the reason God permitted him no other animal than the serpent was so that the human being might disdain to believe so deformed an animal more than God, and so that after the fall he might have a greater occasion for accusing himself because, contrary to the most manifest word of God, he had believed so vile and abject a little animal.
Furthermore, it was so that even in this way the demon’s nature might become known to us.
He tempted, however, by vocal speech because, as Saint Jerome says in a prologue, “The act of a living voice possesses I know not what hidden energy.”
And just as a demon uses possessed persons and, by moving their tongue, makes them speak so that they say this or that which they themselves nevertheless do not know, so he used the serpent as an instrument, guiding its tongue and making it speak.
Saint Augustine agrees with this in Book II On Genesis, when he says that the serpent could be called the wisest of all beasts not by its own irrational soul but now by an alien spirit, that is, a diabolical one.