“For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel…Thus is the Devil ever God's ape.”

—  Martin Luther , book Table Talk

67. Compare "Where God hath a temple, the Devil will have a chapel", Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, part III, section 4, member 1, subsection 1
Table Talk (1569)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update May 6, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel…Thus is the Devil ever God's ape." by Martin Luther?
Martin Luther photo
Martin Luther 214
seminal figure in Protestant Reformation 1483–1546

Related quotes

George Herbert photo

“No sooner is a temple built to God, but the Devil builds a chapel hard by.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Robert Burton photo

“Where God hath a temple, the Devil will have a chapel.”

Section 4, member 1, subsection 1.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III

Daniel Defoe photo

“Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there;
And 'twill be found, upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation.”

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) English trader, writer and journalist

Pt. I, l. 1. Compare: "Where God hath a temple, the Devil will have a chapel", Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii, section 4, Memb. 1, Subsect. 1.
The True-Born Englishman http://www.luminarium.org/editions/trueborn.htm (1701)

Patti Smith photo
William Drummond of Hawthornden photo

“God never had a church but there, men say,
The Devil a chapel hath raised by some wyles.
I doubted of this saw, till on a day
I westward spied great Edinburgh’s Saint Gyles.”

William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649) British writer

Posthumous Poems, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Where God hath a temple, the Devil will have a chapel", Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part iii, Section 4, Member 1, Subsection 1 .

“Only by repudiating both devils and small gods will they ever know the Real One.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

The small god in Ch. 44 : the visitor
The Visitor (2002)
Context: Occasionally, I will do a conspicuous miracle to save one dying child while a thousand children starve elsewhere. This will convince sensible people I am perverse, and they will curse my name. Be sure to recruit those who do, they'll be invaluable. Only by repudiating both devils and small gods will they ever know the Real One.

Hermann Hesse photo

“Abraxas was the god who was both god and devil.”

Source: Demian (1919), p. 168

William Peter Blatty photo

Related topics