When a man is tempted and yields to the temptation, he is eager to blame someone else for his sin. If he cannot do otherwise, he will blame God for having made him as he is, with evil possibilities. In particular is this true of sexual sin, which Oesterley (_in loco_) thinks James has specifically in mind here. Compare Matthew 5:28; 1 Peter 2:11. Adam blamed Eve, and Eve the serpent. And even Adam blamed God, for he said: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me” (Gen. 3:12). Some dare to say in so many words: “I am tempted of God.” They hold God responsible for their appetites and passions and seek to quiet the conscience thus while they give way to sin. Others hide behind heredity, environment, or evil companions. Even Agamemnon excused himself for his wrong to Achilles by holding Zeus and fate responsible. Sirach (15:11 f.) says: “Say not thou, It is through the Lord that I fell away.” The origin of sin is a dark problem, but it is a lazy philosophy or a blind one that shirks human responsibility, or tries to do it. It matters not whether sin is the remnant of the beast in us (surely some men act at times like the tiger) or the response to evil environment or both, we are merely cowardly when we blame God for our own wrongdoing. There is no response to evil in God. He is not “man’s giant shadow skyward thrown.” The absolute holiness and ethical purity of God should at least protect him from the charge of leading us into sin. The worst of men, in their darkest moments of loneliness, sometimes come face to face with God. Then they do not flippantly blame God but confess their sins with broken heart. Two things are true about evil and God. One is that God himself tempts no man to sin. He does send trial but not temptation. We may not understand all the ways of God’s providence, but we may rest secure in this: The devil does tempt us. That is his business. And yet James does not refer to Satan by name here, for after all, we ourselves are responsible, as he proceeds to show. It does not help matters with us any more than it did with Eve to lay our sin upon the devil. The other thing that is true is that God cannot be tempted with evil. He cannot be tempted to do evil himself or be led to tempt others with evil. The phrase does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament or in the Septuagint, but it is a paraphrase of a common proverb in the early Christian writings.[56] God does chastise us (Heb. 12:4 f.), but he does not tempt us. All this is in strong contrast to the Greek and Roman notions of duty, for the heathen gods were credited with all human and even inhuman vices. The gods upon Olympus revel in lust and cruelty, jealousy and hate. They furnish fit ideals for the philosophy of Nietzsche but do not accord with the God of the New Testament, the God of consolation and of peace, of purity and love. Snared by One’s Own Bait (1:14)