Did Satan know that Jesus was God incarnate when he tried to tempt Him in the desert?  It would make sense for Satan to try and tempt a mere human (like Job), but it makes no sense for Satan to try and tempt God Himself, so it would seem that Satan didn't know who Jesus truly was.  Any thoughts?

I read somewhere that Satan was not sure of Jesus divinity and the temptations in the desert were a "test" to determine if he was the messiah.

Sorry Stubborn, I just accidentally "thumbed" you down while scrolling... hardly a post worthy of a negative review... :-[

From the Mystical City of God, Volume III, The Transfixion:

226... Immediately the prince of darkness, together with countless legions of evil spirits, issued forth from hell and spread over the whole world. They persisted in roaming through it many times, searching out in their malice and cunning all the just, tempting those they recognized as such and provoking them and other men to commit the evil deeds hatched out in their own infernal minds. But Christ our Lord in his wisdom concealed his own person and that of his Mother for many days from the haughty Lucifer. He did not permit him to see or recognize Him, until He betook Himself to the desert, where He allowed and wished the devil to tempt Him after his long fast; and Lucifer did tempt Him, as I shall relate in its place.

....285. Christ the Savior permitted Lucifer to remain under the false impression, that He was a mere human creature though very holy and just; He wished to raise his courage and malice for the contest, for such is the effect of any advantages espied by the devil in his attacks upon the victims of his temptations. Rousing his courage by his own arrogance, he began this battle in the wilderness with greater prowess and fierceness than the demons ever exhibited in their battles with men.

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I've heard several priests commenting on this question in their sermons or catechism classes or casual conversation. They have agreed in that we surmise from Church tradition and the writings of the doctors and saints that Satan may have suspected that Jesus could have been the messiah but in his pride he could not come to think that God would so humble Himself as to become truly man. Also, it's thought that the devils did not understand the triune nature of God because it had been obscured before its revelation on Pentecost to the Church.
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The end of the Crucifixion scene in "The Passion of the Christ" (movie) depicts this well when it shows Satan sinking into the abyss in frustration when he realized that what he had thought was his own great achievement in seeing to the execution of Jesus was in reality his own undoing and the thing that ultimately defeats him. The great deceiver was in the end only a deceiver of himself.
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Anything I would have commented has all just been said by Neil Obstat! I've grown up hearing the same things.

I heard a priest use this one:

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Which none of the princes of this world knew; for if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. 

1 Corinthians 2:8

I can see the relation... thanks.

I am sure there have been many theological expositions on the subject but I have not read them.  I have read a few commentaries on the issue and it seems that Satan probably knew, or at least, suspected that Jesus was the Messias but he likely did not understand what the nature of the Messias was.  He may have thought that the Messias was going to be an angel like himself since he simply could not believe, because of his own pride, that God, Himself, would deign to become truly human.

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This was a good post too. 
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By "nature of the Messias" you could mean the two wills of Our Lord, divine and human nature, or God and man, or second Person of the Blessed Trinity. But the devil would never have imagined the Trinity. We are told the devil cannot create anything new, but can only work with what he has been given to work with, and therefore could have imagined the Messias to be like himself, as an angel, but he could never have imagined the Messias could be the second Person of the Blessed Trinity because that would require the angel to imagine something beyond his own experience.
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Similarly, the devil could never imagine what it is like to see God with vision clear. And similarly, man cannot imagine that, either.
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“If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.”

(emph. DZP)

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