Abstract
Early modern religious writers betray anxieties over how to distinguish between the work of God and the devil. Luther, for instance, writes that “The devil so clothes and adorns himself with Christ’s name and works and can pose and act in such a way that one could swear a thousand oaths that it is truly Christ himself.” This is due to Satan’s ability to transform himself into an “angel of light” referenced by German humanist Johannes Susenbrotus in his rhetoric textbook (c.1540) in connection with the figure of paradiastole. Paradiastole is the technique of extenuating a vice by describing it as a virtue that it resembles, such as calling foolhardiness courage, or stinginess carefulness, or in Milton’s Paradise Lost, when Satan resolves, “Evil, be thou my good.”
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Parry, D. (2017). As an Angel of Light: Satanic Rhetoric in Early Modern Literature and Theology. In: Thuswaldner, G., Russ, D. (eds) The Hermeneutics of Hell. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52198-5_4
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