Philip Roth - Our Gang

Now in order that the four demons on tonight’s panel can proceed to questioning Satan and myself and let me say, I welcome their questions — I shall now bring my opening statement to a close. But before I do, I want to make one last thing particularly clear to the denizens of Hell, and that is this. In terms of eternity, I am a relative newcomer to the Realm of Wickedness. But I am a student of history also, and I must say that in reading through the record of the current administration, and in particular its relations with the Kingdom of Righteousness, I have been shocked by a blatant example of what I can only call an attitude of appeasementan attitude, I am sorry to say, of outright submission and surrender. I am talking, of course, of the famous job case.

Now I know that in defense of his actions in that case Satan has described to you in great detail all the sufferings that he heaped upon this good man, Job. And I am not going to say to you that he did not torment him in the extreme. I am not going to try to build myself up by downgrading the job he did on job’s sheep and his servants, and the loathsome sores with which he afflicted him from head to foot. There is no question but that the program of pain and punishment’ devised by Satan was the right one in those circumstances.

Yet the question still remains, thousands of years after the event, under whose auspices and in whose behalf was that program devised? Under the auspices of Hell? In behalf of the cause of Wickedness?

My fellow Fallen, the answer is no. I am afraid that if you read the record, as I have done, you will find that it was under the auspices of Heaven, and in behalf of Righteousness, that your own Devil planned and executed job’s pro gram of P&P, a program by the way involving a considerable expenditure of our resources. I am afraid that if you read the record you will find your own Devil taking his orders from none other than the Lord God Himself. I am afraid you will find that your own Devil did not so much as undertake one Evil act without first obtaining the permission of God. I am afraid that you will find that the reason he exercised the patience of job was not to drive him from obedience and destroy him, but to serve God’s justice — and, what is worse, to cause God’s righteousness to shine forth.

Now Satan has indicated on several occasions during this campaign that I have been misrepresenting his role in the job case. In order to set the record straight once and for all, I am going to use my remaining few minutes to read to you verbatim from the minutes of the meeting that took place between God and Satan at that time. And I leave it to you, the degenerate and the debauched, the dissolute and the depraved„to judge whether the charges I have made during the campaign, and that I repeat here tonight on this broadcast, constitute “a reckless distortion and deliberate misreading of history.” I leave it to you to judge whether Satan was, as he claims, working “diabolically” and “fiendishly” for the cause of Wickedness, or whether he was, to put it in language everyone can understand, acting in accordance with Divine Will.

This document I am holding in my claw is called the Holy Scripture. It doesn’t lie. That is why it is nothing less than the Bible of our enemies. This is their number-one best seller of all time. This is the book with which they brainwash their children. Contained here are all the truths with which they intend to conquer the world. You can open it anywhere and find enough wisdom and beauty on a single page to disgust and outrage every loyal and hardworking citizen of Hell.

Let me read to you from the secret conversation between God and Satan, as documented in their Bible:

THE LORD: Whence have you come?

SATAN: From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.

THE LORD: Have you considered my servant job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?

SATAN: Does lot ) fear God for naught? Fast thou not put a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But [and I am still quoting here from Satan,] but put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse thee to thy face.

THE LORD: Behold, all that he has is in your power, only upon himself do not put forth your hand. That was the instruction given Satan by the Lord. And what did Satan do? Exactly as God told him to. Yes, my fellow Fallen, your own Devil became an instrument of God’s wrath.

Let me read to you now from the minutes of the second secret meeting that took place in an unspecified location between the Emperor of Wickedness and the God of Peace. For the sake of brevity I will read to you only the most pertinent material.

THE LORD ( speaking of Job ): He still holds fast to his integrity.

SATAN:… Put forth thy hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.

THE LORD: Behold, he is in your power; only spare his life.

And having received this second set of instructions, what did Satan do? Let me read it to you, just as it is written here in their Bible. “So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord, and afflicted job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.”

And did Satan spare Job’s life, as God instructed him to? I am afraid the answer is yes, he did that too.

We all remember, I am sure, the unhappy ending to that story. Job’s faith was not broken; it was strengthened and increased. And the Lord, as the record here states, “gave job twice as much as he had before.”

( Tricky closes Bible. Quickly wipes perspiration from his scales with the back of his claw ) My fellow Fallen, I challenge Satan to refute these charges that I have made here tonight. I challenge Satan to deny his role in the job case. I challenge him to deny that he acted willingly and knowingly in behalf of the sworn enemies of Hell. I challenge him to deny that if this was not an outright act of treason, it was one so neglectful of the security interests of the Wicked, that Satan might just as well have been in the employ of the Righteous. Now Satan may prefer to call these actions of his “fiendish” and “diabolical.” But I call what he has done here surrender, and let me tell you something — I think that’s what the leaders in Heaven are calling it, too. Because make no mistake about it — I know the other side. I have met with their representatives. I know the kind of ruthless and fanatical people they are, and I can assure you, if you surrender to their Will, if you think it will stop them to surrender a single soul to their Righteousness, you are sadly mistaken. That will only whet their appetite for more. Because this God of Peace does not just want Job. He wants all the jobs. And if we do not stop him each and every time, the day will come, my friends, when he will be hammering here at the Gates of Hell.

And that is why I say the time has come to stop appeasing the God of Peace. That is why I say the time has come to step up our own activities, and launch a new offensive in this battle for the minds and hearts and souls of men. For it is nothing less than an ideological battle that we are fighting; and that is why we need a Devil who is willing and able to stand on his ideals. It isn’t the size or the age of a man’s horns that countsit’s what he’s going to do with them. It’s our whole lives that you should be judging here tonight. It’s what we stand for. It’s what we believe. What I am trying to indicate to you tonight is that the tide of history is on our side, and that we can keep it on our side, because we’re on the right side, and that’s the side of Evil. And let there be no mistake about it: if I am elected Devil, I intend to see Evil triumph in the end; I intend to see that our children, and our children’s children, need never know the terrible scourge of Righteousness and Peace.