as his imagination could conceive, or his pencil execute.
That the Devil could show himself to man, in a tangible form, was, for many centuries, an article of firm belief, but, when it came to be argued out logically, it was difficult of proof. The only evidence that could be adduced which could carry conviction was from the Bible, which, of course, was taken as the ipsissima verba of God, and, on that, the old writers based all their proof. One of the most lucid of them, Gyfford or Gifford, writing in the sixteenth century, evidently feels this difficulty. Trying to prove that ‘Diuels can appeare in a bodily shape, and use speeche and conference with men,’ he says:2
‘Our Saviour Christ saith that a spirite hath neither flesh nor bones. A spirite hath a substance, but yet such as is invisible, whereupon it must needes be graunted, that Diuels in their owne nature have no bodilye shape, nor visible forme; moreover, it is against the truth, and against pietie to believe that Diuels can create, or make bodies, or change one body into another, for those things are proper to God. It followeth, therefore, that whensoever they appeare in a visible forme, it is no more but an apparition and counterfeit shewe of a bodie, unless a body be at any time lent them.’
And further on he thus speaks of the incarnation of Satan, as recorded in the Bible.
‘The Deuill did speake unto Eua out of the Serpent. A thing manifest to proue that Deuils can speake, unlesse we imagine that age hath made him forgetfull and tongue tyde. Some holde that there was no visible Serpent before Eua, but an invisible thing described after that manner, that we might be capable thereof.... But to let those goe, this is the chiefe and principall, for the matter which I have undertaken, to shewe euen by the very storye that there was not onely the Deuill, but, also, a very corporall beaste. If this question bee demaunded did Eua knowe there was anye Deuill, or any wicked reprobate Angels. What man of knowledge will say that she did? She did not as yet knowe good and euill. She knewe not the authour of euill. When the Lorde sayde unto hir, What is this which thou hast done? she answereth by and by, The serpent deceiued me. Shee saw there was one which had deceiued hir, shee nameth him a serpent; whence had she that name for the deuill whome shee had not imagined to bee? It is plaine that she speaketh of a thing which had, before this, receiued his name.
‘It is yet more euident by that she sayth, yonder serpent, or that serpent, for she noteth him out as pointing to a thing visible: for she useth the demonstratiue particle He in the Hebrew language, which seuereth him from other. Anie man of a sound mind may easilie see that Eua nameth and pointeth at a visible beast, which was nombred among the beastes of the fielde.’
The Devil seems, with the exception of his entering into persons, not to have used his power of appearing corporeally until people became too holy for him to put up with, and many are the records in the Lives of the Saints of his appearance to these detestably good people—St. Anthony, to wit. Of course he always came off baffled and beaten, and, in the case of St. Dunstan, suffered acute bodily pain, his nose being pinched by the goldsmith-saint’s red-hot tongs. Yet even that did not deter him from again becoming visible, until, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of our era, he became absolutely familiar on this earth.
But, according to all the records that we possess, his mission no longer was to seduce the saints from their allegiance, and, having become more democratic, he mixed familiarly with the people, under different guises. Of course, his object was to secure the reversion of their souls at their decease, his bait usually being the promise of wealth in this life, or the gratification of some passion.
He found many victims, but yet he met with failures—two of which are recorded here.
A NEW BALLAD.
SHEWING THE GREAT MISERY SUSTAINED BY A POORE MAN IN ESSEX, HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN, WITH OTHER STRANGE THINGS DONE BY THE DEVILL.
A poore Essex man
that was in great distresse,
Most bitterly made his complaint,
in griefe and heavinesse:
Through scarcity and want,
he was oppressed sore,
He could not find his children bread,
he was so extreme poore.
His silly Wife, God wot,
being lately brought to bed,
With her poore Infants at her brest
had neither drinke nor bread.
A wofull lying in
was this, the Lord doth know,
God keep all honest vertuous wives
from feeling of such woe.
My Husband deare, she said,
for want of food I die,
Some succour doe for me provide,
to ease my misery.
The man with many a teare,
most pittiously replyde,
We have no means to buy us bread;
with that, the Children cry’d.
They came about him round,
upon his coat they hung:
And pittiously they made their mone,
their little hands they wrung.
Be still, my boyes, said he,
And I’le goe to the Wood,
And bring some Acornes for to rost,
and you shall have some food.
Forth went the Wofull Man,
a Cord he tooke with him,
Wherewith to bind the broken wood,
that he should homewards bring:
And by the way as he went,
met Farmers two or three,
Desiring them for Christ his sake,
to helpe his misery.
Oh lend to me (he said)
one loafe of Barley-bread,
One pint of milke for my poore wife,
in Child-bed almost dead:
Thinke on my extreme need,
to lend me have no doubt,
I have no money for to pay,
but I will worke it out.
But they in churlish sort,
did one by one reply,
We have already lent you more
than we can well come by.
