The character of Luther’s peculiar and often very broad and homely humour is well seen in his letter-preface to a story on the devil which he had printed in 1535 and which made the round of Germany.[1279] The devil, according to this “historia ... which happened on Christmas Eve, 1534,” had appeared to a Lutheran pastor in the confessional, had blasphemed Christ and departed leaving behind a horrible stench. In the Preface Luther pretends to be making enquiries of Amsdorf, “the chief and true Bishop of Magdeburg,” as he calls him, as to the truth and the meaning of the apparition. He begs him “to paint and depict the pious penitent as he deserves,” though quite aware that Amsdorf, the Bishop, would refer back the matter to him as the Pope (“which indeed I am”). He had ready the proper absolution which Amsdorf was to give the devil: “I, by the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the most holy Father Pope Luther the First, deny you the grace of God and life everlasting and herewith consign you to hell,” etc. Meanwhile he himself gives his view of the tale, which he assumes to be true, and, as so often elsewhere when he has to do with the devil, proceeds to mingle mockery of the coarsest sort with bitter earnest. When the Evil One ventures to approach so close to the Evangel, every nerve of Luther is strung to hatred against the devil and his Roman Pope, both of whom he overwhelms with a shower of the foulest abuse. “The devil’s jests are for us Christians a very serious matter”; having a great multitude of kings, princes, bishops and clergy on his side he makes bold to mock at Christ; but let us pray that he may soil himself even as he soiled himself in Paradise; our joy, our consolation and our hope is, that the seed of the woman shall crush his head. Hence, so he exclaims, the above absolution sent to Amsdorf is amply justified. Like confession, like absolution; “as the prayer, so the incense,” with which words he turns to another diabolical apparition, which a drunken parson had in bed; he had meant to conclude the canonical hours by reciting Compline in bed, and, while doing so, “_se concacavit_,”[1280] whereupon the devil appeared to him and said: “As the prayer, so also is the incense.”[1281]