Two Devils

There were two devils who always worked together in a kind of good cop bad cop scenario or alliance. The first devil would tempt someone with pleasure, and as long as the tempted gave into these temptations - whatever their particular form - then there was little need for the second and perhaps more formidable devil to make an appearance. But if someone made some concerted efforts and resisted the first devil’s temptations, for let’s say a week or even more, then the second devil would come in and tempt with pain. That is he would harass the thoughts of the one trying to get free with thoughts of despair, blasphemous accusations of God’s heartlessness and so on. Then eventually the tempted, perhaps just to get respite from these awful assaults, would return and give in to the temptations of the first devil, and the poor tempted one would be back to square one again. The thing was of course to push past both of them and then onwards to whatever or would come next.