Luther’s views agree in so far with the actual teaching of the olden Church, that he regards the devils as fallen angels condemned to eternal reprobation, who oppose the aims of God for the salvation of the world and the spiritual and temporal welfare of mankind. “The devil undoes the works of God,” so he says, adding, however, in striking consonance with the teaching of the Church and to emphasise the devil’s powerlessness, “but Christ undoes the devil’s works; He, the seed [of the woman] and the serpent are ever at daggers drawn.”[1049] But Luther goes further, and depicts in glaring and extravagant colours the harm which the devil can bring about. He declares he himself had had a taste of how wrathful and mighty a foe the devil is; this he had learned in the inward warfare he was compelled to wage against Satan. He was convinced that, at the Wartburg, and also later, he had repeatedly to witness the sinister manifestations of the Evil One’s malignant power. Hence in his Church-postils, home-postils and Catechism, to mention only these, he gives full vent to his opinions on the hostility and might of Satan. In the Larger Catechism of 1529,[1050] “when enumerating the evils caused by the devil,” he tells of how he “breaks many a man’s neck, drives others out of their mind or drowns them in the water”;[1051] how he “stirs up strife and brings murder, sedition and war, _item_ causes hail and tempests, destroying the corn and the cattle, and poisoning the air,” etc.;[1052] among those who break the first commandment are all “who make a compact with the devil that he may give them enough money, help them in their love-affairs, preserve their cattle, bring back lost property, etc., likewise all sorcerers and magicians.”[1053] In his home-postils he practically makes it one of the chief dogmas of the faith, that all temporal misfortune hails from the devil; “the heathen” alone know this not; “but do you learn to say: This is the work of the hateful devil.” “The devil’s bow is always bent and his musket always primed, and we are his target; at us he aims, smiting us with pestilence, ‘Franzosen’ [venereal disease], war, fire, hail and cloudburst.” “It is also certain that wherever we be there too is a great crowd of demons who lie in wait for us, would gladly affright us, do us harm, and, were it possible, fall upon us with sword and long spear. Against these are pitted the holy angels who stand up in our defence.”[1054]