Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  How accustomed he was to enlarge on this favourite subject in his addresses to the people is plain from a sermon delivered at the Coburg in 1530, which he sent to the press the following year: “The devil sends plagues, famines, worry and war, murder, etc. Whose fault is it that one man breaks a leg, another is drowned, and a third commits murder? Surely the devil’s alone. This we see with our own eyes and touch with our hands.” “The Christian ought to know that he sits in the midst of demons and that the devil is closer to him than his coat or his shirt, nay, even than his skin, that he is all around us and that we must ever be at grips with him and fighting him.” In these words there is already an echo of his fancied personal experiences, particularly of his inward struggles at the time of the dreaded Diet of Augsburg, to which he actually alludes in this sermon; the subjective element comes out still more strongly when he proceeds in his half-jesting way: “The devil is more at home in Holy Scripture than Paris, Cologne and all the godless make-believes, however learned they may be. Whoever attempts to dispute with him will assuredly be pitched on the ash heap, and when it comes to a trial of strength, there too he wins the day; in one hour he could do to death all the Turks, Emperors, Kings and Princes.” “Children should be taught at an early age to fear the dangers arising from the devil; they should be told: ‘Darling, don’t swear, etc.; the devil is close beside you, and if you do he may throw you into the water or bring down some other misfortune upon you.’” It is true that he also says children must be taught that, by God’s command, their guardian angel is ever ready to assist them against the devil; “God wills that he shall watch over you so that when the devil tries to cast you into the water or to affright you in your sleep, he may prevent him.” Still one may fairly question the educational value of such a fear of the devil. Taking into account the pliant character of most children and their susceptibility to fear, Luther was hardly justified in expecting that: “If children are treated in this way from their youth they will grow up into fine men and women.”

  According to an odd-sounding utterance of Luther’s, every bishop who attended the Diet of Augsburg brought as many devils to oppose him “as a dog has fleas on its back on Midsummer Day.” Had the devil succeeded in his attempt there, “the next thing would have been that he would have committed murder,” but the angels dispatched by God had shielded him and the Evangel.

  When a fire devastated that part of Wittenberg which lay beyond the Castle gate, Luther was quite overwhelmed; watching the conflagration he assured the people that, “it was the devil’s work.” With his eyes full of tears he besought them to “quench it with the help of God and His holy angels.” A little later he exhorted the people in a sermon to withstand by prayer the work of the devil manifested in such fires. One of his pupils, Sebastian Fröschel, recalled the incident in a sermon on the feast of St. Michael. After the example and words of the “late Dr. Martin,” he declares, “the devil’s breath is so hot and poisonous that it can even infect the air and set it on fire, so that cities, land and people are poisoned and inflamed, for instance by the plague and other even more virulent diseases.... The devil is in and behind the flame which he fans to make it spread,” etc. This tallies with what Luther, when on a journey, wrote in later years to Catherine Bora of the fires which were occurring: “The devil himself has come forth possessed with new and worse demons; he causes fires and does damage that is dreadful to behold.” The writer instances the forest fires then raging (in July) in Thuringia and at Werda, and concludes: “Tell them to pray against the troublesome Satan who is seeking us out.”

  Madness, in Luther’s view, is in every case due to the devil; “what is outside reason is simply Satanic.” In a long letter to his friend Link, in 1528, dealing with a case raised, he proves that mad people must be regarded “as teased or possessed by the devil.” “Medical men who are unversed in theology know not how great is the strength and power of the devil”; but, against their natural explanations, we can set, first, Holy Scripture (Luke xiii. 16; Acts x. 38); secondly, experience, which proves that the devil causes deafness, dumbness, lameness and fever; thirdly, the fact that he can even “fill men’s minds with thoughts of adultery, murder, robbery and all other evil lusts”; all the more easily then was he able to confuse the mental powers. In the case of those possessed, the devil, according to Luther, either usurps the place of the soul, or lives side by side with it, ruling such unhappy people as the soul does the body.

  Thus it is the devil alone who is at work in those who commit suicide, for the death a man fancies he inflicts on himself is nothing but the “devil’s work”; the devil simply hoodwinks him and others who see him. To Frederick Myconius he wrote, in 1544: “It is my habit to esteem such a one as killed ‘simpliciter et immediate’ by the devil, just as a traveller might be by highwaymen.... I think we must stick to the belief that the devil deceives such a man and makes him fancy that he is doing something quite different, for instance praying, or something of the sort.” In the same sense he wrote to Anton Lauterbach, in 1542, when the latter informed him of three men who had hanged themselves: “Satan, with God’s leave, perpetrates such abominations in the midst of our congregation.... He is the prince of this world who in mockery deludes us into fancying that those men hanged themselves, whereas it was he who killed them. By the images he brought before their mind, he made them think that they were killing themselves” — a statement at variance with the one last given. Whereas in this letter he suggests that the people should be told of such cases from the pulpit so that they may not despise the “devil’s power from a mistaken sense of security,” previously, in conversation he had declared, that it ought not to be admitted publicly that such persons could not be damned not having been masters of themselves: “They do not commit this wilfully, but are impelled to it by the devil.... But the people must not be told this.” Speaking of a woman who was sorely tempted and worried, he said to his friends, in 1543: “Even should she hang herself or drown herself through it, it can do her no harm; it is just as though it all happened in a dream.” The source of this woman’s distress was her low spirits and religious doubts.

  On all that the Devil is able to do

  Many, in Luther’s opinion, had been snatched off alive by the devil, particularly when they had made a compact or had dealings with him, or had given themselves up to him.

  For instance, he had carried off Pfeifer of Mühlberg, not far from Erfurt, and also another man of the same name at Eisenach; indeed, the devil had fetched the latter away in spite of his being watched by the preacher Justus Menius and “many of his clergymen,” and though “doors and windows had been shut so as to prevent his being carried away”; the devil, however, broke away some tiles “round the stove” and thus got in; finally he slew his victim “not far from the town in a hazel thicket.” Needless to say it is a great crime to bargain with the devil. This Dr. Eck had done and likewise the Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg († 1535), who wanted to live another fifteen years; this, however, the devil did not allow. Amsdorf too was dragged into the diabolical affair; one night at an inn two dead men appeared to him, thanks to some “Satanic art,” and compelled him to draw up a document in writing and hand it over to Joachim. Two spirits assisted on the occasion, bearing candles.

  During battles the devil is able to carry men off more easily, but then the angels also kill by Divine command, as the Old Testament bears witness, for there “one angel could cause the death of many persons.” In war the devil is at work and makes use of the newest weapons “which indeed are Satan’s own invention,” for these cannon “send men flying into the air” and that “is the end of all man’s strength.” It is also the devil who guides the sleep-walkers “so that they do everything as though wide awake,” “but still there is something wanting and some defect apparent.”

  Elsewhere too Luther discerns the work of the devil; for instance, when Satan sends a number of strange caterpillars into his garden, pilfers things, hampers the cattle and damages the
stalls and interferes with the preparation of the cheese and milk. “Every tree has its lurking demon. You can see how, to your damage, Satan knocks down walls and palings that already totter; he also throws you down the stairs so as to make a cripple of you.”

  In cases of illness it is the devil who enables the Jews to be so successful in effecting cures, more particularly in the case of the “great and those of high standing”; on the other hand he is also able maliciously to hinder the good effect of any medicine, as Luther himself had experienced when he lay sick in 1537. He can alter every medicine or medicament in the boxes, so that what has served its purpose well once or twice no longer works at all; “so powerful is the devil.” Luther, as his pupils bear witness, had frequently maintained that many of his bodily ailments were inflicted on him solely by the devil’s hatred.

  Satan is a great foe of marriage and the blessing of children. “This is why you find he has so many malicious tricks and ways of frightening women who are with child, and causes such misfortune, cunning, murder, etc.” “Satan bitterly hates matrimony,” he says in 1537, and, in 1540, “he has great power in matrimonial affairs, for unless God were to stand by us how could the children grow up?” In matrimonial disputes “the devil shows his finger”; the Pope gets along easily, “he simply dissolves all marriages”; but we, “on account of the contentions instigated by the devil,” must have “people who can give advice.”

  Not him alone but many others had the devil affrighted by the “noisy spirits.” These noisy spirits were, however, far more numerous before the coming of the Evangel. They were looked upon, quite wrongly, as the souls of the dead, and Masses and prayers were said and good works done to lay them to rest; but now “you know very well who causes this; you know it is the devil; he must not be exorcised, we must despise him and waken our holy faith against him; we must be willing to abide the ‘spooks and spirits’ calmly and with faith if God permits them to ‘exercise their wantonness on us’ and ‘to affright us.’” Nevertheless, as he adds with much truth, “we must not be too ready to give credence to everyone, for many people are given to inventing such things.”

  At the present time the noisy spirits are not so noticeable; “among us they have thinned”; the chief reason is, that the devils now prefer the company of the heretics, anabaptists and fanatics; for Satan “enters into men, for instance into the heretics and fanatics, into Münzer and his ilk, also into the usurers and others”; “the fanatic spirits are greatly on the increase.” The false teachers prove by their devilish speech how greatly the devil, “clever and dangerous trickster that he is,” “can deceive the hearts and consciences of men and hold them captive in his craze.” “What is nothing but lies, idle error and gruesome darkness, that they take to be the pure, unvarnished truth!”

  If the devil can thus deceive men’s minds, surely it is far easier for him to bewitch their bodily senses. “He can hoax and cheat all the senses,” so that a man thinks he sees something that he can’t see, or hears what isn’t, for instance, “thunder, pipes or bugle-calls.” Luther fancies he finds an allusion to something of the sort in the words of Paul to the Galatians iii. 1: “Who hath bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been set forth [that you should not obey the truth]?” Children can be bewitched by the evil eye of one who is under a spell, and Jerome was wrong when he questioned whether the illness of children in a decline was really due to the evil eye. It is certain that “by his great power the devil is able to blind our eyes and our souls,” as he did in the case of the woman who thought she was wearing a crown, whereas it was simply “cow dung.” He tells how, in Thuringia, eight hares were trapped, which, during the night, were changed into horses’ heads, such as we find lying on the carrion heap. Had not St. Macarius by his prayers dispelled the Satanic delusion by which a girl had been changed into a cow in the presence of many persons, including her own parents? The distressed parents brought their daughter in the semblance of a cow to Macarius “in order that she might recover her human shape,” and “the Lord did in point of fact dissolve the spell whereby men’s senses had been misled.” Luther several times relates this incident, both in conversation and in writing.

  There is certainly no lack of marvellous tales of devils either in his works or in his Table-Talk.

  The toils of the sorcerer are everywhere. Magic may prove most troublesome in married life, more particularly where true faith is absent; for, as he told the people in a sermon on May 8, 1524, “conjugal impotence is sometimes produced by the devil, by means of the Black Art; in the case of [true] Christians, however, this cannot happen.”

  On the Abode of the Devil; his Shapes and Kinds

  It is worth while to glance at what Luther says of the dwelling-places of the devil, the different shapes he is wont to assume, and the various categories into which demons may be classed.

  First, as to his abode. In a sermon recently published, and dating from June 13, 1529, Luther says: “The devil inhabits the forests, the thickets, and the waters, and insinuates himself amongst us everywhere in order to destroy us; sleep he never does.” Preaching in the hot weather, he warns his hearers against the cool waters in which the devil lurks: “Be careful about bathing in the cold water.... Every year we hear of people being drowned [by the devil] through bathing in the Elbe.”

  In another sermon incorporated in the Church-postils he explains how in countries like ours, “which are well watered,” the devils are fond of infesting the waters and the swamps; they sometimes drown those who venture there to bathe or even to walk. Item, in some places Naiades are to be met with who entice the children to the water’s edge, drag them in and drown them: all these are devils. Such devils can commit fornication with the maidens, and “are able to beget children which are simply devils”; for the devil will often drag a girl into the water, get her with child and keep her by him until she has borne her baby; he then lays these children in other people’s cradles, removing the real children and carrying them off.

  Elsewhere the devils prefer “bare and desolate regions,” “woods and wildernesses.” “Some are to be found in the thick black clouds, these cause hailstorms, thunder and lightning, and poison the air, the pastures, etc.” Hence “philosophi” ought not to go on explaining these phenomena as though they were natural. Further, the devil has a favourite dwelling-place deep down in the earth, in the mines, where he “pesters and deceives people,” showing them for instance what appears to be “solid silver, whereas it is nothing of the kind.” “Satan hides himself in the apes and long-tailed monkeys,” who lie in wait for men and with whom it is wrong to play. That he inhabits these creatures, and also the parrots, is plain from their skill in imitating human beings.

  In some countries many more devils are to be found than in others. “There are many evil spirits in Prussia and also in Pilappen [Lapland].” In Switzerland the devils make a “frightful to-do” in the “Pilatus tarn not far from Lucerne”; in Saxony, “in the Poltersberg tarn,” things are almost as bad, for if a stone be thrown in, it arouses a “great tempest.” “Damp and stuffy places” are however the devils’ favourite resort. He was firmly convinced that in the moist and swampy districts of Saxony all the devils “that Christ drove out of the swine in Jerusalem and Judæa had congregated”; “so much thieving, sorcery and pilfering goes on that the Evil One must indeed be present in person.” The fact of so many devils inhabiting Saxony was perhaps the reason, so he adds quaintly enough, “why the Evangel had to be preached there, i.e. that they might be chased away.” It was for this reason, so he repeats, “that Christ came amongst the Wends [Prussians], the worst of all the nations, in order to destroy the work of Satan and to drive out the devils who there abide among the peasants and townspeople.” That he was disposed to believe that a number, by no means insignificant, of devils could assemble in one place is plain from several statements such as, that at the Wartburg he himself had been plagued by “a thousand devils,” that at Augsburg every bishop had brought as many
devils with him to the Diet as a dog has fleas in hot weather, and, finally, that at Worms their number was probably not far short of the tiles on the roofs.

  The forms the devil assumes when he appears to men are very varied; to this the accounts sufficiently bear witness.

  He appeared as a goat, and often as a dog; he tormented a sick woman in the shape of a calf from which Luther set her free — at least for one night. He is fond of changing himself into cats and other animals, foxes, hares, etc., “without, however, assuming greater powers than are possessed by such animals.” The semblance of the serpent is naturally very dear to the devil. To a sick girl at Wittenberg with whom Luther happened to be, he appeared under the form of Christ, but afterwards transformed himself into a serpent and bit the girl’s ear till the blood came. The devil comes as Christ or as a good angel, so as to be the better able to tempt people. He has been seen and heard under the guise of a hermit, of a holy monk, and even, so the tale runs, of a preacher; the latter had “preached so earnestly that the whole church was reduced to tears”; whereupon he showed himself as the devil; but “whether this story be true or not, I leave you to decide.” The form of a satyr suits him better, what we now call a hobgoblin; in this shape he “frequently appeared to the heathen in order to strengthen them in their idolatry.” A prettier make under which he appears is that of the “brownie”; it was in this guise that he was wont to sit on a clean corner of the hearthstone beside a maid who had strangled her baby. From the behaviour of the devils we may infer that, “so far they are not undergoing any punishment though they have already been sentenced, for were they being punished they would not play so many roguish tricks.”