many would avoid it if someone called it cursed. But when it is holy they go into it freely, and, behind that sanctity in those people, the devil accomplishes what has interested him for a long time.
The devil makes good use of scriptures concerning foods, too. They come in handy, because evil people take license from them–arriving, not at what the scripture intends, but at what the will demands. Therefore, the devil exploits the scriptures for evil.
The devil also disguises himself from a person in the things he has and corrupts the heart through them–first of all so that a person acquires them, and then so that he uses them evilly. He leads a man’s heart into great unrest, many cares, anger, impatience, and pride because of possessions. He then makes light of license in some things, telling himself in his heart that those things are necessary, that he should watch over them so that they do not disappear, and so that something may be given to the poor for God. Therefore, the devil dresses himself in possessions and leads a person into faithlessness, anger, and restlessness of the heart because of them. His heart will deceive him when he does not keep watch over them, and will lead him to think that he would lose out on a good thing because of neglect. A person can watch over the things necessary to life without anger and disbelief, but the devil is able to corrupt our hearts through them, thereby putting them to use himself first instead of us. He is able to bring spiritual harm to us because of our temporal necessities. He clothes himself in our bodily needs and leads us away from the truth of life and a good conscience.
The devil clothes himself in our lives, shortcomings, many frailties, idleness, greed, anger, and other vices because we are weak and feeble. Even if a person acts rashly, overeats, titters, makes merry, sleeps for a long time, and squanders a lot of time uselessly and in wanton living, he reassures himself in it all. His conscience does not affect him because of his feebleness. He is not grieved by it, does not repent of those things, and never strives to resist or fight against that evil because his feebleness takes away selfcontrol and the fear of God from such things. The devil is happy to see complacency in us because of that feebleness instead of the unwavering decisiveness of Saint Peter because he has many inroads in and to us by clothing himself in it. We do not readily discover that garment because, when we are reprimanded or chastened by others for such shortcomings because they are bad and dangerous for a Christian, we secretly excuse our frailties and weakness or say, “These things must be in us. We will not be punished for that which is weak in us, nor will God count as sin against us what we cannot do because of weakness.” But in the meantime, looking at that which we cannot do, we forsake doing or observing what we can.
The devil also clothes himself in the parts of our and our neighbors’ entire bodies in order to tantalize and provoke our flesh and hearts to wickedness, clothing himself in our hearing and sight so that we see our neighbors’ and our own bodies and are driven by nasty thoughts and desires. The handling of our or our neighbors’ bodies is also the sin of the heart. That is why the devil employs almost all the parts of the body as a garment, to harm our hearts by it. The devil’s garment and access to a person also manifest themselves in what we are inclined towards, what we take pleasure in, what we are diligent in, the habits we have, what we are able to do, what concerns we have for good or evil, the time or place we find ourselves in, and what our circumstances and needs are. He clothes himself in each of them very carefully and approaches us so cunningly that we do not catch on that he would approach us through that thing. And then sometimes he exposes his approaches after several years because someone recognizes how they began to be lured away in a place–perhaps somewhere in the castle, the city, a beautiful house, at the market, in a church, or in the field. He is able to take advantage of each place differently, seeing how
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