Daniel Defoe: The History of the Devil, As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts

He could give us a true relation how he wheedled the people of the next world into the absurd ridiculous undertaking of building a Babel ; how far that stupendous stair-case, which was in imagination to reach up to Heaven, was carried, before it was interrupted and the builders confounded; how their speech was alter’d, how many Tongues it was divided into, or whether they were divided at all; and how many subdivisions or dialects have been made since that, by which means very few of God’s creatures, except the Brutes, understand one another, or care one farthing whether they do or no.

In all these things Satan , who, no doubt, would make a very good chronologist, could settle every Epocha, correct every Calendar, and bring all our accounts of time to a general agreement; as well the Grecian Olympiads , the Turkish Heghira , the Chinese fictitious account of the world’s duration, as our blind Julian and Gregorian accounts, which have put the world, to this day, into such confusion, that we neither agree in our holy-days or working days, fasts or feasts, nor keep the same sabbaths in any part of the same globe.

This great Antiquary could bring us to a certainty in all the difficulties of ancient story, and tell us whether the tale of the siege of Troy , and the rape of Helen was a fable of Homer or a history; whether the fictions of the Poets are form’d from their own brain, or founded in facts; and whether letters were invented by Cadmus the Phœnician , or dictated immediately from Heaven at mount Sinai .

Nay, he could tell us how and in what manner he wheedled Eve , deluded Adam , put Cain into a passion, till he made him murther his own brother; and made Noah , who was above 500 years a preacher of righteousness, turn Sot in his old age, dishonour all his ministry, debauch himself with wine, and by getting drunk and exposing himself, become the jest and laughing-stock of his children, and of all his posterity to this day.

And would Satan, according to the modern practice of the late right reverend Historian, enter into the characters of the great men of his age, how should we be diverted with the just history of Adam , in paradise and out of it; his character, and how he behaved at and after his expulsion; how Cain wandered in the land of Nod , what the mark was which God set upon him, whose daughter his wife was, and how big the city was he built there, according to a certain Poet of noble extraction,

He could have certainly drawn Eve ’s picture, told us every feature in her face, and every inch in her shape, whether she was a perfect beauty or no, and whether with the fall she did grow crooked, ugly, ill-natur’d and a scold; as the learned Valdemar suggests to be the effects of the curse.

Descending to the character of the Patriarchs in that age, he might, no doubt, give us in particular the characters of Belus , worship’d under the name of Baal ; with Satan , and Jupiter , his successors; who they were here, and how they behaved; with all the Pharaohs of Egypt , the Abimilechs of Canaan , and the great monarchs of Assyria and Babylon .

Hence also he is able to write the lives of all the Heroes of the world, from Alexander of Macedon to Lewis the XIV. and from Augustus to the great King George ; nor could the Bishop himself go beyond him for flattery, any more than the Devil himself could go beyond the Bishop for falshood.

I could enlarge with a particular satisfaction upon the many fine things which Satan , rummaging his inexhaustible storehouse of slander, could set down to blacken the characters of good men, and load the best Princes of the world with infamy and reproach.

But we shall never prevail with him, I doubt, to do mankind so much service, as resolving all those difficulties would be; for he has an indelible grudge against us; as he believes, and perhaps is assur’d that men were at first created by his sovereign, to the intent that after a certain state of Probation in life, such of them as shall be approved, are appointed to fill up those vacancies in the Heavenly Host, which were made by the abdication and expulsion of him ( the Devil ) and his Angels; so that man is appointed to come in Satan ’s stead, to make good the breach, and enjoy all those ineffable Joys and Beatitudes which Satan enjoy’d before his fall; no wonder then, that the Devil swells with envy and rage at mankind in general, and at the best of them in particular; nay, the granting this point is giving an unanswerable reason, why the Devil practises with such unwearied and indefatigable application upon the best men, if possible, to disappoint God Almighty’s decree, and that he should not find enough among the whole Race, to be proper subjects of his clemency, and qualified to succeed the Devil and his host, or fill up the places vacant by the Fall. It is true indeed, the Devil , who we have reason to say is no fool, ought to know better than to suppose that if he should seduce the whole race of mankind, and make them as bad as himself, he could, by that success of his wickedness, thwart or disappoint the determined purposes of Heaven; but that those which are appointed to inherit the Thrones, which he and his followers abdicated, and were deposed from, shall certainly be preserv’d in spite of his Devices for that inheritance, and shall have the possession secur’d to them, notwithstanding all that the Devil and all the Host of Hell can do to prevent it.

But, however he knows the certainty of this, and that when he endeavours the seducing the chosen servants of the most High, he fights against God himself, struggles with irresistible grace, and makes war with infinite power; undermining the church of God, and that faith in him which is fortified with the eternal promises of Jesus Christ, that the gates of Hell , that is to say, the Devil and all his power, shall not prevail against them; I say, however he knows the impossibility there is that he should obtain his ends, yet so blind is his rage, so infatuate his wisdom, that he cannot refrain breaking himself to pieces against this mountain, and splitting against the rock. qui Jupiter vult perdere hos dementat.

But to leave this serious part, which is a little too solemn, for the account of this rebel; seeing we are not to expect he will write his own History for our information and diversion, I shall see if I cannot write it for him: In order to this, I shall extract the substance of his whole story, from the beginning to our own times, which I shall collect out of what is come to hand, whether by revelation or inspiration, that’s nothing to him; I shall take care so to improve my intelligence, as may make my account of him authentick, and, in a word , such as the Devil himself shall not be able to contradict.

In writing this uncouth story I shall be freed from the censures of the Criticks, in a more than ordinary manner, upon one account especially; ( viz. ) that my story shall be so just and so well grounded, and, after all the good things I shall say of Satan , will be so little to his satisfaction, that the Devil himself will not be able to say, I dealt with the Devil in writing it: I might, perhaps, give you some account where I had my intelligence, and how all the Arcana of his management have come to my hands; but pardon me, Gentlemen , this would be to betray conversation, and to discover my agents, and you know statesmen are very careful to preserve the correspondences they keep in the enemy’s country, lest they expose their friends to the resentment of the Power whose councils they betray.