Chapter 1

A MARVELOUS IDEA

AN OLD BENEDICTINE MANUSCRIPT tells how, one day, the Devil had the idea of founding a church. Although he was making steady and substantial profits, he felt humiliated by the rather isolated role he had played down the centuries, with no organization, no rules, no canon law, and no rituals, indeed nothing much at all. He lived, so to speak, on divine leftovers, on human oversights and favors. Nothing fixed, nothing regular. Why shouldn’t he have his own church? A Devil’s Church would be the best way to take on the other religions and destroy them once and for all.

“Yes, a church of my own,” he concluded. “Scripture against Scripture, breviary against breviary. I’ll have my own mass, with wine and bread aplenty, my own sermons, bulls, novenas, and all the other ecclesiastical bells and whistles. My creed will be the universal nucleus of souls, my church a tent of Abraham. And then, while other religions quarrel and split, my church will stand united and alone, with no Muhammad or Luther to oppose me. There are many ways to affirm a belief, but only one way to deny it.”

As he said this, the Devil shook his head and stretched out his arms in a magnificently manly gesture. Then he remembered that he really ought to go and see God, to tell him his plan and throw down this challenge; he raised his eyes, burning with hatred and bitter with revenge, and said to himself: “Yes, it is time.” And with a beat of his wings—which set off a rumble that shook all the provinces of the abyss—he flew swiftly up from the shadows into the infinite blue.

Chapter 2

BETWEEN GOD AND THE DEVIL

When the Devil arrived in Heaven, God was just welcoming an old man. The seraphim who were busily garlanding the recent arrival immediately stopped what they were doing, and the Devil stood waiting at the entrance with his eyes fixed on the Lord.

“What do you want with me?” asked the Lord.

“I haven’t come for your servant Faust,” replied the Devil, laughing and pointing at the old man, “but for all the Fausts of this and every century.”

“Explain yourself.”

“The explanation is easy, Lord. But let me first say this: take in this worthy old man, give him the best place in Heaven, command your most tuneful zithers and lutes to receive him with their divinest choruses . . .”

“Do you have any idea what he did?” asked the Lord, his eyes filled with tenderness.