A Latin book tells us that a French king honored a high-level official with his friendship, which he showed with overly generous gifts. The official reacted in his own discretion regarding the king’s wealth, gathering taxes and income for him.
For a long time he enjoyed the honor and good fortune, but then the king died. The king’s successor surrounded himself with new advisors, requiring those of his predecessor to show accountability for their actions. Only a few of these escaped the new king’s wrath, then there are many thieves in the world. The aforementioned official did not escape unscathed. He admitted that he had taken much from the king’s wealth to his own advantage. The result was, his own wealth was taken from him so that he barely had enough to provide for himself and his servants.
This sudden change caused him the greatest grief. Ever since his youth, he was used to living well and having an honorable office. He found himself unable to adjust to these changed conditions, and became depressed because no one could show him the way to regain his lost prestige.
One day as he sat, sad and full of care, a man came to him who appeared to be a salesman and who asked him sympathetically after the cause of his sorrow. “I see” said the stranger, “that you face is fallen and drained of color, resembling the grass that the frost has bleached – all from need and care. I am prepared to hear what disturbs you, and perhaps I can help you with good advice.”
The official told the stranger the whole story of his misfortune. The stranger replied, “I fully believe that I can cure your cares if we can do business. What I require is only this: if I can use my cleverness to restore you to your earlier honor, you must leave your home in France after a certain number of years, make a trading journey with me, and for the remainder of time subject yourself to me. If you agree to this contract, we will close the agreement with a handshake before witnesses.”
The official agreed immediately; his greed and need for honor left him no room to reconsider what the hidden purpose of the offer was or who had proposed it, and so the pact was lawfully sealed.
After a few days, messengers appeared in the hut where the demoted official now lived, bringing him a written request from the king asking him to return to the court. The message said that the king regretted the process against the official and would make amends for the injustice done him. The official went with the messengers to the king’s palace where he was received with the greatest honor by the ruler and restored again to his honor and position.
He again enjoyed in full measure the joys of the world, and paid no attention to the years as they passed one after the other. One morning as he awoke in his bedroom he thought about the course of his life and how the wheel of fortune had turned and restored things for him. He also began to think about whom the stranger for whose cleverness and trickery he had to thank for the happy changes in his situation.
Moreover, since God loves his creations in spite of their errors, the recognition dimmed in the official that the stranger belonged to the brotherhood of Hell and what form the trip would have to which he had committed himself.
Now with fright it occurred to him that only seven days remained before the deadline. With horror, he thought that very shortly he would experience a terrifying death, and that the endless torture of hell was before him. But the Holy Ghost, the consoler of souls, gripped his cold heart with a fiery flame of mercy and melted the glacier that was hard as a diamond so that through God almighty a stream of tears broke forth from those cliffs.
After the official had cried for a long time while cursing his misfortune, a consoling thought came to him that an escape from the threatening misfortune could be found. He remembered that a Jew in the town who was known to give advice and help in the most hopeless situations. The official decided to seek him.
On that same day, he carried out his decision; he told the Hebrew of his dangerous situation and begged him pleadingly for his support. “It is surprising,” said the Jew, “that you who believe in the crucified one, when in danger and need turn to me even though you know that we are different from you in our belief and way of life. However, since I am accustomed to not holding back my counsel when someone can receive consolation and help from it, I will also not turn you away. I can see that you are in the greatest trouble.”
“But my advice can help you only in the case where your belief in the man of Nazarene is proven. If this belief has a basis, then you will be rescued; if not, you will lose. My ancestors crucified Christianity because they believed and argued that he was a simple man and not a god. On the other hand, you believe that he was a real man and a God. You told and described in your books that after his earthly body died on the cross, his godly body made an expedition to hell, the king of which he tied up like a child and then captured all those to whom he believed he had a right.”
“If it is true that the godly one did those things through the blood and wounds of his human nature, then undoubtedly the spirits of hell have remembered it, and in what form he overpowered their king and laid waste to their kingdom. So for eternity will they be no more fearful and powerless than before the image of the martyr’s wounds and the cross of Jesus.”
“Now it depends on you, as I already told you: do you believe in your Jesus Christ as you call him, then place your hope in him when the day comes for your meeting takes place with your antagonist. It is fortunate that this meeting, as does the death of Christ, comes on the sixth day of the week. So my advice is that if your belief does not flag, let a cross as big as you are be made and on that day stand it in the room where you normally live. Make the whole cross red with blood as though it ran down in drops from a wound as it really did from the torture of your Lord.”
“You should also have a cross that appears to be made of thorns. On that day that you expect the stranger, remain in your house alone and send away all of your servants. Undress yourself and wrap a towel around your hips. Place the crown on your head and pierce yourself roughly at all the places where Christ was wounded so that you bleed. When the time comes, as I expect, a noise will rise hang yourself on the cross in the same way that, as your story of Christ tells, he hung with feet crossed, hands spread out and head bowed under the crown. Do exactly as I have said. With that, my counsel is ended”
The official thanked the Jew many times for his wise and noble and said that his belief in Jesus was so strong that he would risk the test. On the following Friday he arranged everything as the Jew had instructed him. The Jew in the meantime had entered secretly into the official’s house to see what the coming events would be.
As he expected, the stranger did not come alone, but instead with the company of four hellish spirits who descended on the house with tremendous noise. The leader, who hoped to obtain his price, went in first. But as he entered the door with burning eyes he met the blood-reddened cross of our Lord Jesus Christ holding all the signs of its holy martyr. This view caused the devil such severe pain as though the fire of hell had been thrown in his eyes.
He cursed himself with bitter accusations for having again taken up with a believer in Christ. For such exceptional service, he said to himself, he had only reaped scorn. The official was gone and in his place was Jesus Christ who had broken the gates of hell, had beaten Lucifer and with the cross that he now saw before him, he took over the devil’s realm. “Pain, pain,” he cried, “away from here as quickly as possible! A nasty trip, scorn and disgrace is what I have for my trouble. I’ll not come near this place, and allow Jesus to beat me down a second time.”
The cursed one returned howling back to hell. The Jew had to acknowledge that Jesus was a true God and a good shepherd of his sheep, and so was baptized along with his whole family. The official withdrew to a tower, did penance, studied godly works and awaited his end with the Lord Jesus Christ who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns from eternity to eternity.
Although the Theophilus legend as a precursor of the Faust saga has received general attention for some time, this exceptionally unusual parallel appears until now to be totally unknown; at least in the writings known to me dealing with the Cilician priests’ confederation with the devil is nothing of this kind.