Formerly he had been fond of describing in his joking way how the devil, “though he had never actually taken his doctor’s degree,”[1237] proved himself an “able logician” in his suggestions and disputations; when he brought forward objections Luther would reply: “Devil, tell me something new; what you say I already know.”[1238] In his book on the “Winkle-Mass,” pretending to “make a little confession,” he tells how, “on one occasion, awakening at midnight,” the devil began a disputation against the Mass with the words: “Hearken, oh most learned Doctor, are you aware that for some fifteen years you said such Winkle-Masses nearly every day?”[1239] Whereupon he had “seized on the old weapons” which “in Popery he had learnt to put on and to use” and had sought an excuse. “To this the devil retorted: ‘Friend, tell me where this is written, etc.’”[1240] Formerly he had been fond of poking fun at the Papists by telling them how they “were beset merely by naughty little devils, legal rather than theological ones;[1241] that they were tempted only to homicide, adultery and fornication,” in short, to sins of the second table of the Law, by “puny fiendkins and little petty devils,” whereas we on the other hand have “by us the great devils who are _doctores theologiæ_”; “these attack us as the leaders of the army, for they tempt us to the great sins against the first table,” to question the forgiveness of sins, to doubts against faith and to despair.[1242] He was very inventive and quite indefatigable in devising new epithets with the help of the devil’s name; his adversaries were, according to him, “full of devils, on whose backs moreover lived other and worse devils”; it seems to him to fall all too short of the truth to say they are “endevilled,” “perdevilled,” or “superdevilled” and “the children of Satan.”[1243] The devil’s mother, grandmother and brothers and sisters are frequently alluded to by Luther, particularly when in a merry mood. In hours of gloom or emotion he could, however, curse people with such words as “may the devil take you,”[1244] “May the devil pay you out,” or “May he tread you under foot!” He was perfectly aware, nevertheless, of the failings of his tongue, and even expressed his regret for them to his friends. During his illness, in 1527, we are told how he begged pardon for and bewailed the “hasty and inconsiderate words he had often used the better to dispel the sadness of a weak flesh.”[1245] Melancholy is “a devil’s bath” (“_balneum diaboli_”), so he remarked on another occasion, against which there is no more effective remedy than cheerfulness of spirit.[1246] 5. The Psychology of Luther’s Jests and Satire Joking was a permanent element of Luther’s psychology. Often, even in his old age, his love of fun struggles through the lowering clouds of depression and has its fling against the gloomy anxiety that fills his mind, and against the world and the devil.