theblacknessdyer:

prokopetz:

The way that terrible dudes have ruined the phrase Devil’s advocate really irks me, because the origin of the phrase is amazing.

Back in the day, when someone was up for potential sainthood, the Catholic Church would put the stiff on trial.

Each side of the case would be assigned to an actual, accredited lawyer (who was, of course, also a priest, so it’s sort of a priest/lawyer multiclass deal).

One of them would take up the role of God’s advocate, and argue in favour of the candidate’s canonisation.

The other would take up the role of the Devil’s advocate, and argue that the candidate was just a regular asshole and didn’t deserve it.

So in its original sense, the term isn’t at all metaphorical. The Devil’s advocate is literally the Devil’s representative in a court of law.

Which is a. awesome, and b. all kinds of messed up, if you think about it from the perspective of the priest who gets stuck with the job. You’ve devoted years of your life to becoming a priest and an expert in Church law? Good job – here’s your first case. Your client is the actual Devil.

I started going down the Wikipedia rabbit-hole on this one and was introduced to the actual court case United States ex rel. Gerald Mayo v. Satan and His Staff, and I just:

Mayo alleged that “Satan has on numerous occasions caused plaintiff misery and unwarranted threats, against the will of plaintiff, that Satan has placed deliberate obstacles in his path and has caused plaintiff’s downfall” and had therefore “deprived him of his constitutional rights”. This is prohibited under several sections of the United States Code.

The judge considers this very logically, cites “The Devil and Daniel Webster” due to a lack of legal precedent, wonders whether Satan might be considered a foreign prince, but eventually decides…

Ultimately, though, the Court refused the request to proceed in forma pauperis because the plaintiff had not included instructions for how the U.S. Marshal could serve process on Satan.