CHAPTER 11

HOW THE DEVIL HAS TRIED TO COPY GOD IN METHODS OF SACRIFICES AND OF RELIGION AND SACRAMENTS

But before we do this we must warn of something very worthy of consideration, and it is how the devil in his arrogance, and in competition with God, has taken over the things that God in his wisdom has ordained for his cult and honor, and for man's good and his salvation; these the devil strives to imitate and pervert so as to make himself honored and man more deeply damned. And so we see that, just as the Supreme God has sacrifices and priests, and sacraments, and religious persons, and prophets, and people dedicated to his divine cult and sacred ceremonies, so, too, does the devil have his sacrifices and priests, and his kind of sacraments, and people living in seclusion and feigned holiness, and a thousand kinds of false prophets. All of this, when described in detail, will give great pleasure and be of no little value in making us remember that the devil is the father of lies, as absolute truth tells us in the Gospel; and so he tries to usurp the glory of God for himself, and to counterfeit light with his darkness. The enchanters of Egypt, taught by their master, Satan, tried to do other similar marvels in competition with Moses and Aaron. And in the Book of Judges we read of that Michas who was the priest of a false idol, using the same implements that were used in the tabernacle of the true God, the ephod and teraphim and the rest. No matter what the learned may say, there is scarcely anything instituted by Jesus Christ Our Lord in his Evangelical Law that the devil has not in some way falsified and transmitted to his heathen followers, as anyone may see who observes what we have learned from trustworthy accounts about the Indian rites and ceremonies with which we are dealing in this book .