Page:Devil stories - an anthology.djvu/315

 NOTES St. Theophilus, of Cilicia, in the sixth century, was the first to make the notable discovery that a man could enter into a pact of this nature. The price he set for his soul was a bishopric. This story has been superseded during the Renaissance period by a similar legend concerning the German Dr. Faustus. Other famous personages reputed to have sold their souls to the devil for one consideration or another are Don Juan in Spain, Twardowski in Poland, Merlin in England, and Robert le Diable in France. Socrates, Apuleius, Scaliger and Cagliostro are also said to have entered into compacts with him.

In devil-contracts the Evil One insists that his human negotiator sign the deed with his own blood, while the man never requires the devil to sign it even in ink. The human party to the transaction has always had full confidence in the word of the fiend. There is a universal belief that the devil invariably fulfils his engagement. In no single instance of folk-lore has Satan tried to evade the fulfilment of his share in the agreement. But the man, in violation of the written pact, has often cheated the devil out of his legal due by technical quibbles. "It is peculiar to the German tradition," says Gustav Freytag, "that the devil endeavours to fulfil zealously and honestly his part of the contract; the deceiver is man." In regard to fidelity to his word, the father of lies has always set an example to his victims. "You men," said Satan, "are cheats; you make all sorts of promises so long as you need me, and leave me in the lurch as soon as you have got what you wanted." Mediaeval man had no scruples about his breach of contract with the devil. He always considered the legal document signed with his own blood as "a scrap of paper." "But still the pact is with the enemy; the man is not bound beyond the letter, and may escape by any trick. It is still the ethics of war. We are very close to the principle that a man by stratagem or narrow observance of the letter may escape the eternal retribution which God decrees conditionally and the devil delights in" [293]