The Political History of the Devil

Daniel Defoe

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780486810539
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Irreverent and ironic, this 1726 satire by the author of Robinson Crusoe examines the evolution of evil and the rise of the historical force known as `the devil.` Daniel Defoe's passionate and perceptive survey starts with Satan's origins, chronicling the devil's presence in the Bible and his growing sway over humanity. An overview of satanic influences on eighteenth-century life follows, focusing on monarchs and tyrants as well as common folk. Defoe supports his arguments not only with extensive quotes from scripture but also with citations from other sources, including Milton's Paradise Lost.
Written at the dawn of the Enlightenment, this treatise recaptures a moment in time when widespread certainty of the devil's existence was dwindling. Defoe, a firm believer, posits that the devil reacted to the changing times by shifting his influence from the supernatural realm of witches and wizards to the ordinary world of `beaus, beauties, wits, and fools.` This intriguing view of politics and society during the 1700s offers a vivid contemporary portrait of a culture torn between theology and reason.

PART I

I

Being an Introduction to the whole work.

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 witch’s 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 Devil’s 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 Platina’s 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:

I think I do no injury at all to the Devil, to say that he had a great hand in the old holy war, as it was ignorantly and enthusiastically called; and in stirring up the Christian princes and powers of Europe to run a-madding after the Turks and Saracens, and make war with those innocent people above a thousand miles off only because they entered into God’s heritage when he had forsaken it, grazed upon his ground when he had fairly turned it into a common and laid it open for the next corner; spending the nation’s treasure, and embarking their kings and people, I say, in a war above a thousand miles off, filling their heads with that religious madness, called, in those days, ‘holy zeal’ to recover the terra sancta, the sepulchres of Christ and the saints, and as they called it falsely, the ‘holy city,’ though true religion says it was the accursed city, and not worth spending one drop of blood for.

This religious bubble was certainly of Satan, who, as he craftily drew them in, so like a true Devil he left them in the lurch when they came there faced about to the Saracens, animated the immortal Saladin against them, and managed so dexterously that he left the bones of about thirteen or fourteen hundred thousand Christians there as a trophy of his infernal politics; and after the Christian world had run à la santa terra, or in English, a-sauntering about a hundred years, bedropped it to play another game less foolish, but ten times wickeder than that which went before it, namely, turning the crusadoes of the Christians one against another; and, as Hudibras said in another case,

Made them fight like mad or drunk,

For dame Religion as for punk.

Of this you have a complete account in the history of the popes’ decrees against the count of Toulouse, and the Waldenses and Albigenses, with the crusadoes and massacres which followed upon them, wherein, to do the Devil’s politics some justice, he met with all the success he could desire, and the zealots of that day executed his infernal orders most punctually, and planted religion in those countries in a glorious and triumphant manner, upon the destruction of an infinite number of innocent people, whose blood has fattened the soil for the growth of the Catholic faith, in a manner very particular, and to Satan’s full satisfaction.

I might, to complete this part of his history, give you the detail of his progress in these first steps of his alliances with Rome, and add a long list of massacres, wars, and expeditions in behalf of religion, which he has had the honour to have a visible hand in; such as the Parisian massacre, the Flemish war under the Duke d’Alva, the Smithfield fires in the Harlan days in England, and the massacres in Ireland; all which would most effectually convince us that the Devil has not been idle in his business; but I may meet with these again in my way, it is enough, while I am upon the generals only, to mention them thus in a summary way; I say, it is enough to prove that the Devil has really been as much concerned as anybody, in the methods taken by some people for propagating the Christian religion in the world.

Some have rashly, and I had almost said maliciously, charged the Devil with the great triumphs of his friends the Spaniards in America, and would place the conquest of Mexico and Peru to the credit of his account.

But I cannot join with them in this at all, I must say, I believe the Devil was innocent of that matter; my reason is, because, Satan was never such a fool as to spend his time or his politics, or embark his allies to conquer nations who were already his own; that would be Satan against Beelzebub, a-making war upon himself, and at least doing nothing to the purpose.

If they should charge him, indeed, with deluding Philip II of Spain into that preposterous attempt calle the Armada, (Anglicè, the Spanish Invasion,) I should indeed more readily join with them; but whether he did it weakly, in hope, which was indeed not likely, that it should succeed; or wickedly, to destroy the great fleet of the Spaniards and draw them in within the reach of his own dominions, the elements; this being a question which authors differ exceedingly about, I shall leave it to decide itself

But the greatest piece of management which we find the Devil has concerned himself in of late, in the matter of religion, seems to be that of the mission into China; and here indeed Satan has acted his masterpiece. It was, no doubt, much for his service, that the Chinese should have no insight into matters of religion, I mean that we call Christian; and therefore, though Popery and the Devil are not at so much variance as some may imagine, yet he did not think it safe to let the general system of Christianity be heard of among them in China. Hence, when the name of the Christian religion had but been received with some seeming approbation in the country of Japan, Satan immediately, as if alarmed at the thing, and dreading what the consequence of it might be, armed the Japanese against it with such fury, that they expelled it at once.

It was much safer to his designs, when, if the story be not a fiction, he put that Dutch witticism into the mouths of the state’s commanders, when they came to Japan; who, having more wit than to own themselves Christians in such a place as that, when the question was put to them, answered negatively, that they were not, but that they were of another religion, called Hollanders.

However, it seems the diligent Jesuits outwitted the Devil in China, and, as I said above, overshot him in his own bow; for the mission being in danger, by the Devil and the Chinese emperor’s joining together, of being wholly expelled there too, as they had been in Japan, they cunningly fell in with the ecclesiastics of the country, and joining the priestcraft of both religions together, they brought Jesus Christ and Confucius to be so reconcilable, that the Chinese and the Roman idolatry appeared capable of a confederacy, of going on hand in hand together, and consequently of being very good friends.

This was a masterpiece indeed, and, as they say, almost frightened Satan out of his wits; but he being a ready manager, and particuiarly famous for serving himself of the rogueries of the priests, faced about immediately to the mission, and making a virtue of necessity, clapped in, with all possible alacrity, with the proposal¹; so the Jesuits and he formed a hotchpotch of religion, made up of Popery and paganism, and calculated to leave the latter rather worse than they found it, blending the faith of Christ and the philosophy or morals of Confucius together, and formally christening them by the name of religion; by which means the politic interest of the mission was preserved, and yet Satan lost not one inch of ground with the Chinese, no, not by the planting the gospel itself, such as it was, among them.

Nor has it been much disadvantage to him that this plan or scheme of a new-modeled religion would not go down at Rome, and that the Inquisition damned it with bell, book, and candle; distance of place served his new allies, the missionaries, in the stead of a protection from the Inquisition; and now and then a rich present well-placed found them friends in the congregation itself; and where any nuncio with his impudent zeal pretended to take such a long voyage to oppose them, Satan took care to get him sent back re infecta, or inspired the mission to move him off the premises, by methods of their own, that is to say, being interpreted, to murder him.

Thus the mission has, in itself, been truly devilish, and the Devil has interested himself in the planting the Christian religion in China.

The influence the Devil has in the politics of mankind, is another especial part of his history, and would require, if it were possible, a very exact description; but here we shall necessarily be obliged to inquire so nicely into the arcana of circumstances, and unlock the cabinets of state in so many courts, canvass the councils of ministers and the conduct of princes so fully, and expose them so much, that it may, perhaps make a combustion among the great politicians abroad; and in doing that we may come so near home too, that though personal safety and prudentials forbid our meddling with our own country, we may be taken in a double entendre, and fall unpitied for being only suspected of touching truths that are so tender, whether we are guilty or no; on these accounts I must meddle the less with that part at least for the present.

Be it that the Devil has had a share in some of the late councils of Europe, influencing them this way or that way, to his own advantage, what is it to us? For example, what if he has had any concern in the late affair of Thorn? what need we put it upon him, seeing his confederates the Jesuits with the Assessorial tribunal of Poland take it upon themselves? I shall leave that part to the issue of time. I wish it were as easy to persuade the world that he had no hand in bringing the injured Protestants to commit the arbitration of that affair to the very party, and leave the justice due to the cries of Protestant blood to the arbitrement of a Popish power, who dare say that the Devil must be in it, if justice should be obtained that way I should rather say, the Devil is in it, or else it would never be expected.

It occurs next to inquire from the premises, whether the Devil has more influence or less in the affairs of the world now, than he had in former ages; and this will depend upon comparing, as we go along, his methods and way of working in past times, and the modern politics by which he acts in our days; with the differing reception which he has met with among the men of such distant ages.

But there is so much to inquire of about the Devil, before we can bring his story down to our modern times, that we must for the present let that drop, and look a little back to the remoter part of his history, and draw his picture that people may know him when they meet him, and see who and what he is, and what he has been doing ever since he got leave to act in the high station he now appears in.

In the mean time, if I might obtain leave to present an humble petition to Satan, it should be, that he would, according to modern usage, oblige us all with writing the history of his own times; it would, as well as one that is gone before it, be a devilish good one; for, as to the sincerity of the performance, the authority of the particulars, the justice of the characters, &c, if they were no better vouched, no more consistent with themselves, with charity, with tr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Part I
• Part II
• The Conclusion: Of the Devil’s last scene of liberty, and what may be supposed to be his end; with what we are to understand of his being tormented for ever and ever.