Daniel Defoe - The Political History of the Devil

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2016, is an unabridged republication of the work originally printed for T. Warner, London, in 1726. Some of the archaic spellings have been modernized for the present edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Defoe, Daniel, 1661?1731.

Title: The political history of the devil / Daniel Defoe.

Description: Mineola, New York : Dover Publications, 2016.

Unabridged republication of the work originally printed for T. Warner, London, in 1726.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015037309|eISBN-13: 9780486810539

Subjects: LCSH: DevilEarly works to 1800. |BISAC: PHILOSOPHY / Good & Evil.| PHILOSOPHY / Religious.

Classification: LCC PR3404 .H5 2016 |DDC 133.4/2dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015037309

Manufactured in the United States by RR Donnelley

80237X012016

www.doverpublications.com

I doubt not but the title of this book will amuse some of my reading friends a little at first; they will make a pause, perhaps, as they do at a witchs prayer, and be some time a-resolving whether they had best look into it or no, lest they should really raise the Devil by reading his story

Children and old women have told themselves so many frightful things of the Devil, and have formed ideas of him in their minds, in so many horrible and monstrous shapes, that really it were enough to fright the Devil himself to meet himself in the dark, dressed up in the several figures which imagination has formed for him in the minds of men; and, as for themselves, I cannot think by any means that the Devil would terrify them half so much if they were to converse face to face with him.

It must certainly therefore be a most useful undertaking to give the true history of this tyrant of the air, this god of the world, this terror and aversion of mankind, which we call Devil; to show what he is, and what he is not; where he is, and where he is not; when he is in us, and when he is not; for I cannot doubt but that the Devil is really and bona fide in a great many of our honest weak-headed friends, when they themselves know nothing of the matter.

Nor is the work so difficult as some may imagine. The Devils history is not so hard to come at as it seems to be; his original and the first rise of his family is upon record; and as for his conduct, he has acted indeed in the dark, as to method, in many things but in general, as cunning as he is, he has been fool enough to expose himself in some of the most considerable transactions of his life, and has not shown himself a politician at all. Our old friend, Machiavelli, outdid him in many things, and I may in the process of this work give an account of several of the sons of Adam, and some societies of them too, who have outwitted the Devil; nay, who have out-sinned the Devil, and that I think may be called out-shooting him in his own bow.

It may perhaps be expected of me in this history, that since I seem inclined to speak favourably of Satan, to do him justice, and to write his story impartially, I should take some pains to tell you what religion he is of; and even this part may not be so much a jest, as at first sight you may take it to be; for Satan has something of religion in him, I assure you; nor is he such an unprofitable Devil that way, as some may suppose him to be; for though, in reverence to my brethren, I will not reckon him among the clergy; yet I cannot deny but that he often preaches, and if it be not profitably to his hearers, it is as much their fault, as it is out of his design.

It has indeed been suggested that he has taken order and that a certain pope, famous for being an extraordinary favourite of his, gave him both institution and induction; but as this is not upon record, and therefore we have no authentic document for the probation, I shall not affirm it for a truth, for I would not slander the Devil.

It is said also, and. I am apt to believe it, that he was very familiar with that holy father, Pope Silvester II, and some charge him with personating Pope Hildebrand the infamous, on an extraordinary occasion, and himself sitting in the chair apostolic, in a full congregation; and you may hear more of this hereafter, but as I do not meet with Pope Diabolus among the list, in all Father Platinas Lives of the Popes, so I am willing to leave it as I find it.

But to speak to the point, and a nice point it is I acknowledge; namely, what religion the devil is of; my answer will indeed be general, yet not at all ambiguous, for I love to speak positively and with undoubted evidence.

1. He is a believer. And if, in saying so, it should follow that even the Devil has more religion than some of our men of fame can at this time be charged with, I hope my Lord and his Grace the of and some of the upper class in the redhot club, will not wear the coat, however well it may sit to their shapes, or challenge the satire, as if it were pointed at them, because it is due to them, in a word, whatever their lordships are, I can assure them that the Devil is no infidel.

2. He fears God. We have such abundant evidence of this in sacred history, that if I were not at present, in common with a few others, talking to an infidel sort of gentlemen, with whom those remote things called Scriptures, are not allowed in evidence, I might say it were sufficiently proved; but I doubt not in the process of this undertaking to show that the Devil really fears God, and that after another manner than ever he feared St Francis or St Dunstan; and if that be proved, as I take upon me to advance, I shall leave it to judgment, who is the better Christian, the Devil who believes and trembles, or our modern gentry of who believe neither God nor Devil.

Having thus brought the Devil within the pale, I shall leave him among you for the present; not but that I may examine in its order who has the best claim to his brotherhood, the Papists or the Protestants, and among the latter the Lutherans or the Calvinists, and so descending to all the several denominations of churches, see who has less of the Devil in them, and who more; and whether less, or more, the Devil has not a seat in every synagogue, a pew in every church, a place in every pulpit, and a vote in every synod; even from the sanhedrin of the Jews, to our friends at the Bull and Mouth, Sec, from the greatest to the least.

It will, I confess, come very much within the compass of this part of my discourse, to give an account, or at least make an essay towards it, of the share the Devil has had in the spreading religion in the world, and especially of dividing and subdividing opinions in religion; perhaps, to eke it out and make it reach the further; and also to show how far he is or has made himself a missionary of the famous clan de propaganda fide; it is true we find him heartily employed in almost every corner of the world ad propagandum errorem: but that may require a history by itself.

As to his propagating religion, it is a little hard indeed, at first sight, to charge the Devil with propagating religion, that is to say, if we take it literally, and in the gross; but if you take it as the Scots insisted to take the oath of fidelity, viz. with an explanation, it is plain Satan has very often had a share in the method, if not in the design, of propagating Christian faith, for example: