A New York teacher was chastised for providing his students books he said would tell how to recognize those serving Satan, a school spokeswoman said.

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Steven Arizmendi, a sixth-grade science teacher at Junior High School 220 in New York's Brooklyn borough, sold copies of an evangelical novel, "He Came to Set the Captives Free," to four students for $5 apiece and loaned copies to eight others, the New York Daily News reported Tuesday.

The 1989 novel, written by former doctor Rebecca Julia Brown, features a devout physician who triumphs over a devil-worshiping young woman, is promoted as an "honest, in-depth account of Satan's activities today," the newspaper said.

"He has been instructed that he cannot hand out material that hasn't been previously approved," Marge Feinberg, an Education Department spokeswoman, said.