“Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,”
Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple. The geography of the temptations moves from the wilderness (where Israel wandered) to the holy city and the temple pinnacle (the center of Israel's religious life). The devil can take Jesus to the holy city; the holy city is not a place of spiritual safety from which the enemy is excluded. The pinnacle of the temple — probably the southeast corner of the temple complex overlooking the Kidron Valley, a dizzying height — is the setting for the second temptation. The move from wilderness to city, from stone to temple, is the move from physical need to religious display. The temptation shifts register but its underlying logic remains the same: use your identity as Son of God in a way that bypasses the Father's way.
Church Fathers on Matthew 4:5
From this first answer of Christ, the Devil could learn nothing certain whether He were God or man; he therefore betook him to another temptation, saying within himself; This man who is not sensible of the appetite of hunger, if not the Son of God, is yet a holy man; and such do attain strength not to be overcome by hunger; but when they have subdued every necessity of the flesh, they often fall by desire of empty glory. Therefore he began to tempt Him by this empty glory.
'Took him,' not because the Lord was weak, but the enemy proud; he imputed to a necessity what the Saviour did willingly.
Jerusalem was called the Holy City, for in it was the Temple of God, the Holy of holies, and the worship of the one God according to the law of Moses.
Read all 24 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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