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.”[1109]
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.[1110] Such devils can commit fornication with the maidens, and “are able to beget children which are simply devils”;[1111] 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.[1112]
Elsewhere the devils prefer “bare and desolate regions,” “woods and wildernesses.”[1113] “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.[1114] 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.”[1115] “Satan hides himself in the apes and long-tailed monkeys,” who lie in wait for men and with whom it is wrong to play.[1116] That he inhabits these creatures, and also the parrots, is plain from their skill in imitating human beings.[1117]
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.”[1118] “Damp and stuffy places” are however the devils’ favourite resort.[1119] 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.”[1120] 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.”[1121] 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,[1122] and often as a dog;[1123] he tormented a sick woman in the shape of a calf from which Luther set her free—at least for one night.[1124] 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.”[1125] 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.[1126] 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.”[1127] 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.”[1128] 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.[1129] 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.”[1130]
Amongst the different kinds of devils he enumerates, using names which recall the humorous ones common in the old folk-lore of Germany, are not merely the stupid, the playful, the malicious and the murderous fiends, but also the more sightly ones,[1131] viz. the familiar and friendly demons; then again there are the childish little devils who allure to unchastity and so forth though not to unbelief or despair like the more dangerous ones.[1132] He is familiar with angelic, shining, white and holy devils, i.e. who pretend to be such, also with black devils and the “supreme majestic devil.” The majestic devil wants to be worshipped like God, and, in this, being “so quick-witted,” he actually succeeded in the ages before Luther’s day, for “the Pope worshipped him.”[1133] The devil repaid the Pope by bewitching the world in his favour; he brought him a large following and wrought much harm by means “of lies and magic,” doing on a vast scale what the “witches” do in a smaller way.[1134]
There are further, as Luther jestingly explains, house-devils, Court-devils and church-devils; of these “the last are the worst.”[1135] “Boundless is the devils’ power,” he says elsewhere, “and countless their number; nor are they all childish little devils, but great national devils, devils of the sovereigns, devils of the Church, who, with their five thousand years’ experience, have grown very knowing ... in fact, far too cunning for us in these latter days.”[1136] “Satan knows his business and no one but Jesus Christ can cope with him.”[1137] Very dangerous indeed are the Court-devils, who “never rest,” but “busy themselves at Court, and work all the mischief in the councils of the kings and rulers, thwarting all that is good; for the devil has some fine rakehells at Court.”[1138] As for the noisy devils, they had troubled him even in his youth.[1139]
The Papists have their own devils who work supposed miracles on their behalf, for the wonders which occur amongst them at the places of pilgrimage or elsewhere in answer to their prayers are not real miracles but devil’s make-believe. In fact, Satan frequently makes a person appear ill, and, then, by releasing him from the spell, cures him again.[1140]
The above ideas Luther had to a large extent borrowed from the past, indeed we may say that the gist of his fancies concerning the devil was but part of the great legacy of credulity, folk-lore and the mistaken surmises of theologians handed down verbally and in writing from the Middle Ages. Only an age-long accumulation of prejudice, rife particularly among the Saxon people, can explain Luther’s rooted attachment to such a congeries of wild fancies.