3 books to know The Devil. Джон Мильтон
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and in another place, “the Devil departed from him.” What shape or figure he appeared in, we do not find mentioned; but I cannot doubt his appearing to him there, any more than I can his talking to our Saviour in the mouths, and with the voices, of the several persons who were under the terrible affliction of an actual possession.
These things leave us no room to doubt of what is advanced above; namely, that he (the Devil) has a certain residence, or liberty of residing in, and moving about upon, the surface of this earth, as well as in the compass of the atmosphere, vulgarly called the air, in some manner or other: that is the general.
It remains to inquire into the manner; which I resolve into two kinds:
1. Ordinary, which I suppose to be his invisible motions as a spirit; under which consideration I suppose him to have an unconfined, unlimited, unrestrained liberty, as to the manner of acting; and this either in persons, by possession; or in things; by agitation.
2. Extraordinary; which I understand to be his appearances in borrowed shapes and bodies, or shadows rather of bodies; assuming speech, figure, posture, and several powers, of which we can give little or no account; in which extraordinary maner of appearances, he is either limited by a superior power, or limits himself politically, as being not the way most for his interest or purpose, to act in his business, which is more effectually done in his state of obscurity.
Hence we must suppose the Devil has it very much in his own choice, whether to act in one capacity, or in the other, or in both; that is to say, of appearing, and not appearing, as he finds for his purpose. In this state of invisibility, and under the operation of these powers and liberties, he performs all his functions and offices, as devil, as prince of darkness, as god of this world, as tempter, accuser, deceiver, and all whatsoever other names of office, or titles of honor, he is known by.
Now taking him in this large unlimited, or little limited state of action, he is well called, the god of this world; for he has very much of the attribute of omnipresence, and may be said, either by himself, or his agents, to be everywhere, and see everything; that is to say, everything that is visible; for I cannot allow him any share of omniscience at all.
That he rages about everywhere, is with us. and sometimes in us, sees when he is not seen, hears when he is not heard, comes in without leave, and goes out without noise; is neither to be shut in, or shut out; that when he runs from us, we cannot catch him; arid when he runs after us, we cannot escape him; is seen when he is not known, and is known when he is not seen; all these things, and more, we have knowledge enough about, to convince us of the truth of them; so that, as I have said above, he is certainly walking to and fro through the earth, &c. after some manner or other, and in some figure or other, visible or in visible, as he finds occasion. Now, in order to make our history of him complete, the next question before us is, how, and in what manner, he acts with mankind? How his kingdom is carried on; and by what methods he does his business, for he certainly has a great deal of business to do; he is not an idle spectator, nor is he walking about incognito, and clothed in mist and darkness, purely in kindness to us, that we should not be frighted at him; but it is in policy, that he may act undiscovered, that he may see and not be seen, may play his game in the dark, and not be de tected in his roguery; that he may prompt mischief, raise tempests, blow up coals, kindle strife, embroil nations, use instruments, and not be known to have his hand in anything; when at the same time he really has an hand in everything.
Some are of opinion, and I among the rest, that if the Devil was personally and visibly present among us, and we conversed with him face to face, we should be so familiar with him in a little time, that his ugly figure would not affect us at all; that his terrors would not fright us; or that we should any more trouble ourselves about him, than we did with the great comet in 1678, which appeared so long, and so constantly, without any particular known event, that at last we took no more notice of it, than of the other ordinary stars which had appeared before we or our ancestors were born.
Nor indeed should we have much reason to be frighted at him, or at least none of those silly things could be said of him, which we now amuse ourselves about, and by which we set him up, like a scare-crow, to fright children and old women, to fill up old stories, make songs and ballads; and, in a word, carry on the low-prized buffoonry of the common people; we should either see him in his angelic form, as he was from the original; or, if he has any deformities entailed upon him by the supreme sentence, and injustice to the deformity of his crime, they would be of a superior nature, and fitted more for our contempt as well as horror, than those weak-fancied trifles contrived by our ancient devil-raisers and devil-makers, to feed the wayward fancies of old witches and sorcerers, who cheated the ignorant world with a devil of their own making, set forth in terror, with bat’s wings, horns, cloven foot, long tail, forked tongue, and the like.
In the next place, be his frightful figure what it would, and his legions as numerous as the host of heaven, we should see him still, as the prince of devils, though monstrous as a dragon, flaming as a comet, tall as a mountain, yet dragging his chain after him equal to the utmost of his supposed strength; always in custody of his gaolers the angels, his power overpowered, his rage cowed and abated, or at least awed, and un der correction, limited and restrained; in a word, we should see him a vanquished slave, his spirit broken, his malice, though not abated, yet hand-cuffed and overpowered, and he not able to work anything against us by force; so that he would be to us but like the lions in the tower, engaged and lacked up, unable to do the hurt he wishes to do, and that we fear, or in deed any hurt at all.
From hence it is evident, that it is not his business to be public, or to walk up and down in the world visibly, and in his own shape; his affairs require a quite different management, as might be made apparent from the nature of things, and the manner of our actings, as men, either with ourselves, or to one another.
Nor could he be serviceable in his generation, as a public person, as now he is, or answer the end of his party who employ him. and who, if he was to do their business in public, as he does in private, would not be able to employ him at all.
As in our modem meetings for the propagation of impudence, and other virtues, there would be no entertainment, and no improvement for the good of the age if the people did not all appear in masque, and concealed from the common observation; so neither could Satan (from whose management those more happy assemblies are taken, as copies of a glorious original,) perform the usual and necessary business of his profession, if he did not appear wholly in covert, and un der needful disguises. How, but for the convenience of his habit, could he cast himself into so many shapes, act on so many different scenes, and turn so many wheels of state in the world, as he has done? as a mere professed devil he could do nothing.
Had he been obliged always to. act the mere devil in his own clothes, and with his own shape, appearing uppermost in all cases and places, he could never have preached in so many pulpits, presided in so many councils, voted in so many committees, sat in so many courts, and influenced so many parties and factions in church and state, as we have reason to believe he has done in our nation, and in our memories too, as well as in other nations and in more ancient times. The share Satan has had in all the weighty confusions of the times, ever since the first ages of Christianity in the world, has been carried on with so much secrecy, and so much with an air of cabal and intrigue, that nothing can have been managed more subtly and closely; and in the same manner has he acted in our times in order to conceal his interest, and the influence he has had in the councils of the world.
Had it been possible for him to have raised the flames of rebellion and war so often in this nation, as he certainly has done? Could he have agitated the parties on both sides, and inflamed the spirits of three nations, if he had appeared in his own dress, a mere naked devil? It is not the Devil as a devil that does the mischief, but the Devil in masquerade, Satan in full disguise, and acting at the head of civil confusion and distraction.
If history may be credited, the French court at the time of our old confusions was made the scene of Satan’s politics, and prompted both parties in England and in Scotland also, to quarrel; and how was it done? Will any man offer to scandalize the Devil so much as to say, or so much as to suggest, that Satan had no hand in it? Did not the Devil, by the agency of Cardinal Richelieu, send four hundred thousand crowns at one time, and six hundred thousand