94T from Theodore of
Mopsuestia, Commentary on Luke 4:4
Jesus was not Teleported
“Why are you amazed. (Julian,)
that there is no high mountain in the desert, although the devil is said to
have led Jesus up an exceedingly high mountain? For he speaks of a ‘split
second of time,’ clearly showing that the devil effected a vision of a
mountain, and that Jesus saw the inhabited world ruled as a person can see it.
For it was not as a God that the devil tempted Jesus, nor was he tempted. For
this would not be an act of being tempted, but of deceiving.
But how, he says, did the
devil lead the Masters to the pinnacle of the temple when he was in the desert?
In fact, Jesus did not actually leave the desert to go up to the pinnacle. He
left for a short time, not for long, and would return there again.
Commentary
Julian does not seem to have been
willing to allow Jesus to be miraculously transported great distances while he
was being tempted in the desert. Jesus was a human being who had to obey the
laws of physics. In response, Christians either claimed that Jesus had a vision
(by which he saw all the kingdoms on earth from a high mountain) or that the
devil in fact did have the power to teleport Jesus, at least for a short time,
to a mountain or the temple. (M. David Litwa, The Emperor Julian: Against
the Apostates [Melbourne, Australia: Gnosis, 2025], 173-74)
