But, though Luther and his age were not at variance in the belief in Satanic agency, Luther, of course, did this as he did every thing else, gigantically. The Devil, as Luther conceived him, was not the Satan of Milton; although, had Luther set himself to realize the Miltonic narrative, his conception might not have been dissimilar. But it was as the enemy of mankind, working in human affairs, that Luther conceived the Devil. We should expect his conception therefore to tally with Goethe’s in some respects, but only as a conception of Luther’s would tally with one of Goethe’s. Luther’s conception was truer to the strict Scriptural definition than either Milton’s or Goethe’s. Mephistopheles being a character in a drama, and apparently fully occupied in his part there, we cannot bring ourselves to recognise in him that virtually omnipotent being to whom all evil is owing, who is leavening the human mind everywhere as if the atmosphere round the globe were charged with the venom of his spirit. In the case of Milton’s Satan we have no such difficulty, because in his case a whole planet is at stake, and there are only two individuals on it. But Luther’s conception met the whole exigency of Scripture. His conception was distinctly that of a being to whose operation all the evil of all times and all places is owing, a veritable πνευμα diffused through the earth’s atmosphere. Hence his mind had to entertain the notion of a plurality of devils; for he could conceive the Arch-Demon acting corporeally only through imps or emanations. Goethe’s Mephistopheles might pass for one of these.
It would be possible farther to illustrate Luther’s conception of the Evil Principle by quoting many of his specific sayings about diabolic agency. It would be found from these that his conception was that of a being to whom evil of all kinds was dear. The Devil with him was a meteorological agent. Devils, he said, are in woods, and waters, and dark poolly places, ready to hurt passers-by; there are devils also in the thick black clouds, who cause hail and thunders and lightnings, and poison the air and the fields and the pastures. “When such things happen, philosophers say they are natural, and ascribe them to the planets, and I know not what all.” The Devil he believed also to be the patron of witchcraft. The Devil, he said, had the power of deceiving the senses, so that one should swear he heard or saw something while really the whole was an illusion. The Devil also was at the bottom of dreaming and somnambulism. He was likewise the author of diseases. “I hold,” said Luther, “that the Devil sendeth all heavy diseases and sicknesses upon people.” Diseases are, as it were, the Devil striking people; only, in striking, he must use some natural instrument, as a murderer uses a sword. When our sins get the upper hand, and all is going wrong, then the Devil must be God’s hangman, to clear away obstructions and to blast the earth with famines and pestilences. Whatsoever procures death, that is the Devil’s trade. All sadness and melancholy come of the Devil. So does insanity; but the Devil has no farther power over the soul of a maniac. The Devil works in the affairs of nations. He looks always upward, taking an interest in what is high and pompous; he does not look downward, taking little interest in what is insignificant and lowly. He likes to work on the great scale, to establish an influence over the central minds which manage public affairs. The Devil is also a spiritual tempter. He is the opponent of the Divine grace in the hearts of individuals. This was the aspect of the doctrine of Satanic agency which was most frequent in preaching; and, accordingly, Luther’s propositions on the point are very specific. He had ascertained the laws of Satanic operation upon the human spirit. The Devil, he said, knows Scripture well, and uses it in argument. He shoots fearful thoughts, which are his fiery darts, into the hearts of the godly. The Devil is acquainted even with those mysterious enjoyments, those spiritual excitements, which the Christian would suppose a being like him must be ignorant of. “What gross inexperienced fellows,” Luther says, “are those Papist commentators! They are for interpreting Paul’s ‘thorn in the flesh’ to be merely fleshly lust; because they know no other kind of tribulation than that.” But, though the Devil has great power over the human mind, he is limited in some respects. He has no means, for instance, of knowing the thoughts of the faithful until they give them utterance. Again, if the Devil be once foiled in argument, he cannot tempt that soul again on the same tack. The Papacy being with Luther the grand existing form of evil, he of course recognised the Devil in it. If the Papacy were once overthrown, Satan would lose his stronghold. Never on earth again would he be able to pile up such another edifice. No wonder, then, that at that moment all the energies of the enraged and despairing Spirit were employed to prop up the reeling and tottering fabric. Necessarily, therefore, Luther and Satan were personal antagonists. Satan saw that the grand struggle was with Luther. If he could but crush him by physical violence, or make him forget God, then the world would be his own again. So, often did he wrestle with Luther’s spirit; often in nightly heart-agonies did he try to shake Luther’s faith in Christ. But he was never victorious. “All the Duke Georges in the universe,” said Luther, “are not equal to a single Devil; and I do not fear the Devil.” “I should wish,” he said, “to die rather by the Devil’s hands than by the hands of Pope or Emperor; for then I should die, at all events, by the hands of a great and mighty Prince of the World: but, if I die through him, he shall eat such a bit of me as shall be his suffocation; he shall spew me out again; and, at the last day, I, in requital, shall devour him.” When all other means were unavailing, Luther found that the Devil could not stand against humour. In his hours of spiritual agony, he tells us, when the Devil was heaping up his sins before him, so as to make him doubt whether he should be saved, and when he could not drive the Devil away by uttering sentences of Holy Writ, or by prayer, he used to address him thus: “Devil, if, as you say, Christ’s blood, which was shed for my sins, be not sufficient to insure my salvation, can’t you pray for me yourself, Devil?” At this the Devil invariably fled, “quia est superbus spiritus et non potest ferre contemptum sui.”
What Luther called “wrestling with the Devil” we at this day call “low spirits.” Life must be a much more insipid thing than it was then. O what a soul that man must have had; under what a weight of feeling, that would have crushed a thousand of us, he must have trod the earth!
SHAKESPEARE AND GOETHE.
SHAKESPEARE AND GOETHE.[2]
If there are any two portraits which we all expect to find hung up in the rooms of those whose tastes are regulated by the highest literary culture, they are the portraits of Shakespeare and Goethe.