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Christ and Satan, lines 655b-730 [end]

The poet continues his description of heaven, where God Himself sits. He suffered death for us, and also fasted for forty days, the poet says. At that point, the Devil tries to tempt him, asking him to turn stones into loaves.

[Here, although the manuscript is not damaged, there is a major break in the sense of the poem. In the Bible, there are 3 temptations, and Jesus uses quotations from Deuteronomy to argue against Satan. As you will see, the complete temptation scene is absent from Christ and Satan here.  Many scholars therefore think that a short section of the poem is thus missing]

Jesus answers the Devil that He alone has promised a reward to his followers [the sense and syntax of this passage are both confusing]. Then the Devil carries Him to a high place and offers him rule over the earth and its people. Jesus tells the Devil to take himself down to hell and lectures him about how miserable hell will be. Satan becomes miserable and runs away to hell where he will be stuck with God’s adversaries. The tormented spirits yell that they hope the Devil remains in his misery because he never previously cared about the good.

The poem end with “Finit Liber II” (the end of book 2). This is the last poem in the Junius Manuscript.

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