1 The Devil’s Crony
Doctor Faustus was a real person. Georg Faustus was probably born in the city of Knittlingen (although his History mentions Roda in Thuringia), and lived between around 1480 and 1540. Give or take a year, he was the exact contemporary of Martin Luther. There is not much information about his life and person, but some of it must be true. He was well-educated and even seems to have held a university teaching post. It is said that when lecturing about Homeric heroes he made their ghosts appear. But above all, he was known as a magician, trickster, necromancer and travelling astrologer. We still have the bill for a horoscope commissioned from him in 1520 by his namesake the bishop Georg of Bamberg; the municipal records of his expulsion from the city of Ingolstadt in June 1528 and the order prohibiting him from entering Nuremberg in May 1532. There is no record of Luther and Faustus having met in person, but both the leader of the Reformation and his disciple Philip Melanchthon mention him in their writings. Doctor Faustus was proud of his nickname of the ‘Devil’s crony’, but we do not know whether it was given him by Luther himself, who used it extensively to refer to him. The following are the editions I quote from: Füssel and Keutzer, Haile, Jones, Del Solar.
The legend of Faustus continued to grow in the 16th Century. It included a pact with the Devil, an infinite number of magical excesses and a tragic end. Luther held that the Devil had taken him to hell. The name Faustus (lucky) was not infrequent. It appears that at some stage Georg’s name was confused with that of Johann Faustus, an acquaintance of Melanchthon during his years as a student in Heidelberg. Over the years, some of his exploits were probably written down and expanded by a variety of hands, with the legend finally reaching its written form with the anonymous publication in Frankfurt in 1587 of The life of Dr. Faustus, the renowned sorcerer and black magician; how he sold himself to the Devil for a specified term, what curious exploits he devised and practiced during that time, until he finally received his well-deserved reward. The title or title page does not end there but adds the purpose of writing the History: ‘For the most part gathered from his own posthumous papers and published as a terrible and horrific example and a sincere warning to all the overweening, inquisitive and ungodly’. This book was printed by the Lutheran publisher Johann Spies and is known as the Faustbuch. In the late 19th Century, a slightly shorter
According to its most recent publisher, the Wolfenbüttel manuscript (wolfenbütteler Handschrift) and the text published by Spies are independent but come from a common source (Haile 1995: vi–vii). The Wolfenbüttel manuscript (wm) includes three chapters which are not in the Faustbuch published by Spies, and the Faustbuch includes many phrases, paragraphs and whole episodes that are not in the manuscript. According to Haile, the original core of the legend can be distinguished in the manuscript, together with the later additions of different copyists (Haile edition, 1965: 11–13). Many of the additions in the published text are theological and didactic in content, with admonitions to the readers to avoid Faustus’s example. The recent critical edition of the Faustbuch not only includes the chapters of the Wolfenbüttel manuscript not found in the Spies edition, but also some additions from editions published shortly after the original; one by Spies himself in 1587 and another dating from 1589 (Füssel and Keutzer edition, 2006). Curiously, this critical edition is based on a copy of the first edition, which is also preserved in the library that gives the manuscript its name. There is an early English translation from 1592, known as English Faust Book (efb), the one Marlowe read. It has additions, omissions and altered chapter numbers from the original German (gfb). I mainly quote gfb text, taking it from Jones’ critical edition of efb (1994), who highlights additions and gives omitted gfb text in notes. When chapter numbers differ, I give both: gfb/efb. Once more, we can only know what we are talking about if we follow the wise and patient indications of philologists, editors and translators, to whom any gratitude we show is insufficient. When comparing this first version of the myth with the subsequent creations of Marlowe or Goethe, I will refer to all the initial elements, which come almost entirely from the Wolfenbüttel manuscript and the Spies edition of 1587 (gfb), with the general name of Faustbuch.
The Faustbuch was published anonymously. According to socialist authors such as Gorki and Lukács, its author is the people (Baron 1989). For this reason, it is classified as a popular book or people’s book (Volksbuch). However, despite the later addition of fragments and even whole episodes, the story of Doctor Faustus itself presents a unity and one or two lines of argument which make the work appear that of a single author, though based on legends that had been passed down. Before examining the specific features of the versions and subsequent recreations of the story of this unusual character, we should first look in detail at the basic components of the narration included in Faustbuch, the first published version of the myth. In my opinion, this is how we will then be able to determine the common and diverse elements of the most important literary
Given the subject of our research, we are particularly interested in Faustus’s desires and their motivation. From this point of view, we can distinguish in the first part of the story narrated in Faustbuch several fundamental links. Although in Faustbuch they follow each other quickly, it is a good idea to make these initial elements explicit in order to determine where future Faustuses coincide and where they differ. First, there is the presentation of Doctor Faustus and his basic desire. Second, his first requests to the spirit he manages to call up. Third, the response and conditions laid down by the spirit to attend his requests. Fourth, the pact. There follow the important questions Faustus asks of the spirit and the great journeys resulting from them, to hell, heaven and the court of the powerful. After this, a variety of other episodes occur, above all with a magical content; and then the final outcome. Nearly always, two narrative threads appear to coexist, which at times occur in parallel and at others interlace: the story of the character himself and the pious or theological commentaries by the author, whether one person, or a number of them. Next, let’s see how events unfold until the pact is executed. In the next section, we see the subjects of Faustus’s curiosity or thirst for knowledge.
First, Johann Faustus is presented to us as a highly intellectual youth. His parents and uncle, whom he lived with during his studies, are absolved of all his later excesses. The young Faustus makes a brilliant impression among professors and students in his exams and easily wins his doctorate in theology. The narrator also alludes to the aid provided by the young Faustus for the pro bono work of his father as a doctor. But he calls him above all a Speculator—a term which tended to include magic and alchemy—who dedicated himself night and day to search diligently for ‘the secrets of heaven and earth’. From the start, the narrator emphatically notes the sinful nature of this desire, although he does not adduce any other grounds for this than Faustus’s lack of moderation. According to the narrator, the young Doctor Faustus knew the Holy Scriptures and the Law of Christ, according to which anyone who knows the will of the Lord and does not follow it is doubly cursed. These admonitions appear to point to the final outcome and make the reader expect more comments and edifying morals.
Next, there is a narration of Faustus’s invocation of the spirits (Chapters 2 and 3). Unlike the later versions of the story, in which Faustus’s spiritual concerns are described and developed extensively in these initial pages, the Faustbuch presents his petitions very directly. The Doctor asks for total obedience from
The third moment in time we have distinguished is the spirit’s response to Faustus’s questions (Chapter 4). Before telling him the answer of his Lordship Lucifer, the minister Mephistopheles asks Faustus to explain his desires again. As we have just seen, Faustus has asked for two things: obedience and information; and the former he appears to want to use at the service of the latter. These desires, expressed in this way, no doubt do not appear sufficiently perverse; so, after he is asked to repeat them, the narrator attributes an additional motivation to Faustus. This observation clashes somewhat with the previous storyline and belongs to what we might call the theological thread of the story: ‘Doctor Faustus gave him this answer, though faintly (for his soul’s sake) that his request was none other but to become a devil, or at the least a limb of him’ (Chapter 4).
In any case, the spirit accepted Faustus’s requests, but asked for something in return. He would grant Faustus’s intellectual desires for a limited period (twenty-four years), after which Faustus would become his possession. Faustus had to sign the pact in his own blood; and he had to renounce the Christian faith. Although Faustus’s explicit answer has not come down to us, signing the pact implies acceptance of these conditions. What the narrator of the Faustbuch does indicate, though without much analysis, is that the basic reason for doing so is pride or hubris. What moves Faustus is pride, arrogance and transgression, with no fear of pledging his soul. In very graphic form, the narrator observes that Faustus perhaps deceived himself thinking that the Devil was not as black as he was painted, and that hell was not as hot as people said.
I Johannes Faustus, Doctor, do openly acknowledge with mine own hand, to the greater force and strengthening of this letter, that sithence I began to study and speculate the course and order of the elements, I have not found through the gift that is given me from above, any such learning and wisdom that can bring me to my desires: and for that I find that men are unable to instruct me any farther in the matter, now have I Doctor John Faustus, unto the hellish prince of Orient and his messenger
Mephostophiles, given both body and soul, upon such condition that they shall learn me and fulfill my desire in all things, as they have promised and vowed unto me, with due obedience unto me, according unto the articles mentioned between us. Further, I covenant and grant with them by these presents, that at the end of 24 years next ensuing the date of this present letter, they being expired, and I in the mean time, during the said years, be served of them at my will, they accomplishing my desires to the full in all points as we are agreed, that then I give them full power to do with me at their pleasure, to rule, to send, fetch or carry me or mine, be it either body, soul, flesh, blood or goods, into their habitation, be it wheresoever: and hereupon, I defy God and His Christ, all the host of heaven, and all living creatures that bear the shape of God, yea all that lives; and again I say it, and it shall be so. And to the more strengthening of this writing, I have written it with mine own hand and blood, being in perfect memory, and hereupon I subscribe to it with my name and title, calling all the infernal, middle, and supreme powers to witness of this my letter and subscription.
john faustus, approved in the elements, and the spiritual doctor
Thus, the original written version of the pact sealed between Doctor John Faustus, in his own name, and the spirit Mephistopheles, representing the devilish Prince of the East, is explicit. Doctor Faustus sets out his motives in the recitals: after having exhausted his intellectual and spiritual capacities, he still does not understand; it is his desire to investigate more in depth, speculating about the elements; humanity does not teach these things. In exchange for information, instruction and the obedience of Mephistopheles for twenty-four years, he will deliver his possessions, his body and his soul. Faustus defies all living creatures, all celestial spirits and the whole of humanity. When he gave him Lucifer’s answer, Mephistopheles had said that he would be available to make all his wishes come true, and in the written pact he specifies his service and obedience for a period of twenty-four years; however, when he writes the pact in his blood, Doctor Faustus mentions only one desire: learning.
2 The Curiosity of Doctor Faustus
The adventures of our pair start with desires somewhat more prosaic than knowledge, such as gluttony and lust (Chapters 9 and 10). Surprisingly, after the heights they have reached, Faustus and Mephistopheles turn to theft. Although it is Faustus who has hired Mephistopheles, and although they can steal easily
Faustus’s curiosity or thirst for knowledge is directed above all at religious matters, such as Lucifer’s fall and the nature of hell. Faustus and Mephistopheles have a number of conversations about these matters, but there comes a time in which Faustus sees that Mephistopheles will not inform him further. He then dedicates himself to astronomy and astrology. The author of the History narrates the expertise and authority he achieved both in the knowledge of the stars and in the art of foretelling the future, which reflects the fame of the historical Faustus. The two discuss the organisation and movement of the heavens, winter and summer; and then the comets, stars and thunder.
But there then comes a time when Faustus relapses into sadness and melancholy. Mephistopheles examines his motives tactfully and Faustus tells him that the contract has proved very expensive for him and is not meeting his expectations. Astronomy is not enough for Faustus. When Mephistopheles asks him to confess what is really worrying him, Faustus ends up telling the truth about the real objects of his curiosity: the creation of the world and the origins of man (Chapter 22; the latter changed into ‘why man was made after the image of God’ in efb, Ch. 19). And then, as the narrator explains, Mephistopheles tells a big lie: that the world and man do not have an origin or beginning but have existed for all eternity. Faustus is not convinced by this theory, as it contradicts Genesis, but at least it gives him the entry point to start asking the questions that interest him. Thus, leaving to one side the idiosyncratic interest of Faustus in hell and demons, to which they will return in their discussion, his conversations with Mephistopheles deal with issues that are very similar to those which occupied our father Adam and the archangel Raphael in Earthly Paradise. Perhaps for this reason, Faustus has been called ‘the new Adam’. As is well-known, Jesus of Nazareth is also considered ‘the new Adam’ for other reasons. I consider that felicitous expressions like the above, or like ‘new Prometheus’, ‘new Babylon’, ‘second Orpheus’, must be accompanied by some clarification as to their meaning, which at times we miss.
In this second phase, Faustus’s curiosity is worth not only new conversations, but also new experiences. The two then undertake three major trips: to
No doubt the subjects of Faustus’s curiosity and the destinations of his trips are worthy of great intellectual and existential adventures. According to the author of the theological theme of the narrative, which sometimes coincides with the theme of adventure and sometimes not, these subjects are too much for human knowledge and the destinations too much for human travel. Faustus had an immoderate aspiration to know about or visit them, and, according to the ideology the narrator wants to transmit, this immoderation can only be due to impiety and familiarity with the Devil. But whether immoderate or not, his curiosity is expressed with precision and at times with a clearly systematic purpose. Unfortunately, the answers given by Mephistopheles do not tend to be at the same level as the questions asked by Faustus. Some of them, as shown by the editors, are literally taken from contemporary manuals and not always updated.
More than anything, Faustus directs his curiosity at what is closest to him—his speaker—and asks what type of spirit he is. Mephistopheles defines himself as ‘a flying spirit: ruling beneath the heavens’ (Chapter 11/10). This answer gives rise to the question about Lucifer’s fall. Mephistopheles does not explain any more than the hierarchies into which angels were divided before the sin committed by the most beautiful (seraphim, cherubim, and thrones) and confuses the rebel angel with none other than the archangel Raphael. When
The first time Faustus becomes interested in hell, he asks Mephistopheles ‘about the nature, location and creation of hell’. If that were not enough, he insists, ‘and how it really was’ (Chapter 11/12). On the second occasion, he inquires about ‘the judgement, rule, power, attempts, tyranny and temptation of the Devil, and why he was moved to such kind of living’ (Chapter 15/14). On the third, he makes a special effort at systematisation and Mephistopheles answers him respecting the order and numbering of Faustus’s questions:
- 1.What hell is.
- 2.How it has been created.
- 3.The laments and sufferings of the reprobates.
- 4.Whether a condemned man can ever recover the grace of God and be rescued from suffering in hell.
This time, Mephistopheles tries to cool down the curiosity of Faustus, we don’t know whether it is because it appears excessive to him or due to his own exhaustion. But Faustus’s response is immediate and determined: ‘I will know, or I will not live, wherefore dispatch and tell me’ (Chapter 16/15). On this occasion, it wasn’t necessary to remind Mephistopheles that they had signed a contract. Another time, and at his own initiative, Faustus undertakes his long-awaited journey to hell, led by three dragons, during which he observes all kinds of prodigies. At a certain time, he launches himself headfirst into the abyss and there tries in vain to hold on to some of the contemned souls, but they dissipate in his hands. When he can no longer bear the thunder, tumult, fog, sulphur, smoke and fire, frost and heat, he begins the return ascent to the heights on the back of the snake Beelzebub (Chapter 24/20). Mephistopheles and the narrator insinuate that this trip was a dream induced by the Devil.
As readers will recall, the spiritually curious had less surly guides available to them in mediaeval times. Dante’s curiosity was always answered with politeness and courtesy by Virgil, Beatriz and Matelda. The former two explained many things to him, but it is true that they also kept quiet at particularly difficult moments. There were things they did not clarify or justify, limiting themselves to showing them. There was nothing for Dante to do but disguise and limit his curiosity and anxiety as best he could. Meanwhile, Matelda offered herself expressly to answer all his questions: ‘And you who stand in front and begged me, say if you wish to hear more, for I have come ready for your every question, as much as will suffice’ (Purgatory 28, 82–84). But a time also came in which Matelda stopped talking and Dante could only look. The three who accompanied him were completely silent when the decisive moment arrived. In all, I believe it can be said that the mediaeval Dante was better accompanied and had more friendly teachers than the modern Faustus.
3 The Plurality of Faustuses
In critical literature, texts are carefully studied in their historical and cultural context. In the case of the Faustbuch, we have to examine it in relation to the
In my opinion, the historical and ideological classifications such as pre-modern theodicy, renaissance spirit or the de-Oedipalised individual must be used carefully and only as a result of exhaustive and balanced analyses; otherwise, we may excessively restrict texts that offer a wealth of ideas and trends which are worth examining in themselves, without any premature categorisation. Faustus’s three initial requests to the spirit, which we have just seen, already demonstrate his curiositas, the desire for learning, Wissbegierde, or whatever we want to call it. The most traditional term for this universal desire made Unamuno exclaim, ‘But is there anyone who is content with this? Pure curiosity! —to call this load that wellnigh crushes our heart pure curiosity!’. Without classifying it too much or trying to base it on relations of production of the time, we have seen how this desire operates across the story of the character narrated in the original Faustbuch. A little further on, we will deal in more detail with the relationship between curiosity and impiety.
Now we are going to use these moments we have highlighted in this story as a guiding thread to establish the comparison with other major versions, which introduce wealth, complexity and perhaps contradictions into the myth. Although we will not describe them in strict order or detail, I would like to recall what these moments are: the presentation and desires of the character, the requests to the spirit, the spirit’s response, discussions, trips and adventures, lamentation and the conclusion. The other Faustuses I will deal with are those of Marlowe, Goethe and Mann. The latter two are much more extensive and include more things. Naturally, this is just a starter, and it is also worth looking at Calderón, Lessing, Byron, Valéry, Pessoa and Bulgákov. But my knowledge is limited and my ignorance meticulous. And, as far as I know, the
The presentations of the character and his concerns are richer in the later Faustuses. Marlowe and Goethe do not include biographical details and immediately express with eloquence the exhaustive journeys of the character across the branches of knowledge: philosophy, medicine, law. Philosophy is odious and obscure, says John. We cannot know anything, says Heinrich. Knowledge is suffering. The doctor of the Faustbuch yearns to know and puts magic at the service of this aspiration. In contrast, the Faustuses of Marlowe and Goethe add an additional turn of the screw: they already have the knowledge and that is why they make use of magic. As well as referring to the more theoretical disciplines, both allude, like the original Faustus, to important practical achievements in the field of medicine. For Marlowe’s Faustus, these achievements are nothing, as he has not managed to make human beings live forever or bring them back to life after death. In his madness, Goethe’s Faustus gives us to understand that his medical contributions may have produced more harm than good. Both are dedicated to magic, not so much to know more, but to go beyond the realm of knowledge. In Mann’s novel, there are no equivalent theatrical sermons, but there is an infinity of hidden messages and allusions to the Faustbuch, both explicit and concealed. To go no further than his youth, the young Adrian Leverkühn goes to live with his uncle, is outstanding in all subjects at school and begins his university studies of theology.
Moreover, immoderation and pride are crucial in the presentation of all the Faustuses, as we will now see. The oldest, the Faustbuch and Marlowe, also include curious references to the scope of the human mind. According to legend, Johann Faustus carried out a kind of casting among the demons, to see if any could move as quickly as the human mind (Haile edition, 1965: 6). And in his initial desires, Marlowe’s Faustus imagines a power, honour and omnipotence which extend as far as the mind of man. To distinguish the different Faustuses, we will refer to them below by their creators, or, to make the expressions less complex, by their first names, which are all different: Johann, John, Heinrich and Adrian.
The old Faustuses, that of the Faustbuch and Marlowe (Johann and John), talk and negotiate with an emissary of the Devil, the spirit called Mephistopheles, the minister of Lucifer, who also appears in person later on. According to the Spanish translator, the most accepted hypothesis for the name Mephistopheles is perhaps that it derives from three Greek words: ‘the negative particle μη, the substantive φῶς (light), and the adjective φιλὴς (one who loves); in other
On these conditions following:
First, that Faustus may be a spirit in form and substance;
Secondly, that Mephistophilis shall be his servant and at his command;
Thirdly, that Mephistophilis shall do for him, and bring him whatsoever;
Fourthly, that he shall be in his chamber or house invisible;
Lastly, that he shall appear to the said John Faustus at all times in what shape or form soever he please;
I, John Faustus of Wittenberg, doctor, by these presents do give both body and soul to Lucifer, prince of the East, and his minister Mephistophilis; and furthermore grant unto them that, four-and-twenty years being expired, the articles above written being inviolate, full power to fetch or carry the said John Faustus, body and soul, flesh, blood, or goods, into their habitation wheresoever.
john faustus ii, 1, 95–112
Johann delivers his soul for knowledge, John for caprices, Heinrich for peace and Adrian for art. We already know Johann’s desires. John’s appetite is less specific. Although he is the most determined Faustus when it comes to arranging the pact, and the only one who directly proposes to deliver himself body and soul, his demand is the least specific: that Mephistopheles should bring him everything he wants. Although the Faustian desire always appears to have something unspecific and impossible to satisfy, the other Faustuses are given at some time and in some way not only an intuition on what they want but also the experience of knowledge, love or recognition. It is John’s soul that suggests all these experiences in the blandest form in which there does not appear to be any lasting effect. As the Spanish translator notes, John does not really desire either love or power; his de-Oedipalised desire remains completely indeterminate. When Mephistopheles perceives in Heinrich this desire without an object he asks, ‘What do you want, the moon?’ (10180). At this, Heinrich reacts and focuses his mind, at least for a time, on wealth and power, something that appears impossible for John.
Heinrich and Adrian do not write down their pacts with the Devil, but they are no less real for that. Heinrich already knows everything and dedicates himself to magic in the search not for new knowledge but for new experiences. Knowledge and life mature on different trees. In fact, Goethe puts into the mouth of Wagner and of the student who visits Mephistopheles the appetite for knowledge in order to parody it. ‘All is what I’d like to know’, says his assistant (i, 601). ‘I’d like to be a proper scholar and have a comprehensive knowledge of what there is on earth and in the sky, of nature and all the branches of learning’, says the student (i, 1898–1901). Mephistopheles sarcastically refers him to the phrase: ‘Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum’ (i, 2048). When he is presented to us initially, Heinrich wishes to uncover the forces of nature; however, his basic unease is not intellectual, but existential. He declares himself free of all anxiety to know. In their later dialogues, Faustus and Mephistopheles test and lead each other on with what each could offer the other or expect from the other. Heinrich yearns to see one of his desires fulfilled, and the pact is subtle and conditional. Mephistopheles will make Heinrich live through all kinds of experiences and, if in any of them he finds a moment’s peace, the Devil
Meanwhile, Adrian Leverkühn delivers his soul for musical creation over the same period as Johann and John: twenty-four years. Goethe was much more generous, and Heinrich not only became thirty years younger to be able to court Marguerite but enjoyed a long life and died at the age of one hundred. The price of the pacts of all the Faustuses is the same, the highest that can be imagined: the soul. But the conditions until the end are not the same, and those imposed on Adrian Leverkühn are particularly tough. In exchange for some amazing works and his recognition as a creative artist, the highest destiny that a human being can aspire to in this life in the eyes of professor Serenus Zeitblom, his friend and biographer, the composer will be condemned to utter solitude. Practically everything else will be barred from him, particularly love. After having learned their paths until the pact and the differences between the different pacts signed by the Faustuses and the demons, we will have to again consider the plurality of Faustuses to examine their excess and destiny.
4 Excess and Pride
The two features that best define the personality of Doctor Faustus, as described in the Faustbuch, appear to be impiety and curiosity or desire for knowledge. Other features of his personality, such as lasciviousness, which the narrator makes much of at times, whether or not it is relevant, or even something as idiosyncratic as magic, are secondary with respect to the first two and may be understood through them. My hypothesis is that the Faustian drive may be described adequately by the conjunction of impiety and curiosity. This conjunction is not immediate, and we must begin by examining it in Johann, the first Doctor Faustus, the main character in the Faustbuch. We already know that the Faustian drive was manifested later in other forms, from which I have selected three particularly significant ones. If we can list the new manifestations, as far as possible, through some adjustments to the original conjunction of impiety and curiosity, we will have found a certain unifying thread in the plurality, for the intelligence of excess and Faustian pride.
To make sure that this aim is not classified as excessive from the start, let me say that I will try out my own thesis, rather than commenting those of Saint Thomas Aquinas, for the simple reason that we do not have any thesis by Doctor Angelicus on the sin of Faustus, who lived after him. Naturally, we
Naturally, our progress in the study of the Faustian drive (‘Faustus function’ as the translator of Marlowe puts it) will in some way be tentative and we will not be able to proceed as securely as we would with the guidance of Aquinas. Nevertheless, the fact that we do not have specific analyses by Aquinas of the Faustian sin does not mean that we cannot use his tools. As I do not have any need or desire to begin my thoughts from nothing, I am happy to use the proposals we have been sketching in the course of our research, supported by the work of Aquinas, such as the distinction between the angel’s sin and the woman’s sin and between spiritual pride and moral pride. As perhaps readers will already suspect, an analysis of the Faustian drive as a combination of impiety and curiosity means conceiving it as an articulation of the angel’s sins and the woman’s: Satanic sin and human sin. Faustian sin, pride and excess are new, but the material with which they are woven are old. My proposal is to understand the Faustian drive in its different manifestations as an articulation of these two elementary sins, with decisive variants in priority and order.
From the start, I feel there are two narrative threads in the original Faustbuch, which is simpler than the later ones: the story of the character and theological commentaries. Although at times they appear to run in parallel, we will now look at the way in which they are woven together. These two threads correspond to the curiosity and impiety which I pointed out above. It is important to remember that this is not the only way of seeing it; there is a clearly alternative interpretation, which appears to be that of the narrator himself—which perhaps he would agree with explicitly if we asked him about it. According to this interpretation, the metaphor of two threads is inadequate, because Faustian curiosity and impiety must not be conceived separately. Faustian curiosity is in itself a sacrilege. In fact, to highlight this, the splendid Spanish edition translates with a composite term the basic notion to characterise the
That is not my proposal. My idea is that there are two different things and that we can recognise them as such. Of course, Faustus’s curiosity is often sacrilegious. But I think that Faustus’s curiosity or desire to know is not essentially a sacrilege; it is not always a sacrilege, despite the efforts of the narrator of the Faustbuch to make us think so. In Faustus, there is a propensity for knowledge and a propensity for impiety; and deep inside them (allowing myself a little grandiloquence and inverting the previous order) beat a human sin and a satanic sin. These two propensities sometimes merge; but only at times. In general, they are distinguishable; they occur at different points in time and one may even be the basis for the other: curiosity can lead to impiety and impiety to curiosity. My proposal is that the different ways of articulating curiosity and impiety allow us to explain the unity and plurality of the Faustuses.
Hence, to deal accurately with the choice between the identification of and distinction between curiosity and impiety, we shall begin by looking at Faustus’s own words. Of course, it is not commonplace for a hero to put his heart in writing, and still less so that he should do it with his own blood and before the Devil himself. Since two Faustuses did this, we can assign a special importance to their testimonies, and from this point of view, look at the old stories of the narrators and poets. It is difficult to understand foreign blood, as Zarathustra humbly said. Let’s look at it with the same spirit. The two Faustuses who signed written pacts have left us explicit statements on their motivations. As we have seen, Johann asks the spirit for complete obedience, and that he should not conceal from him any information that he may require in his studies and always answers his questions truthfully. What Johann wants—at least what he says he wants—is truthful information for his research. His words, whether we believe them or not, reflect curiosity without impiety. John, on the other hand, explains his initiative to deliver his soul to the Devil in this way, ‘Go bear these tidings to great Lucifer: | Seeing Faustus hath incurr’d eternal death | By desperate thoughts against Jove’s deity’ (i, 3, 86–88). The reasons John gives are his sins against the divinity, and he does not know what he wants. His words reflect impiety without curiosity.
It is true that the narrator of the Faustbuch insists that in his yearning for knowledge, Faustus moves away from God (Chapter 14). But it is also true that the same narrator allows us to see the completely intellectual nature of this curiosity. I have already noted that on the path to the pact and in the pact itself, Faustus’s curiosity does not appear a sacrilege, except, as on many other occasions, when the narrator adds explicit theological comments. We have already seen how Mephistopheles makes Faustus repeat his desires for the pact and
Moreover, when Johann Faustus enquires after religious matters—those that really interest him—he does so with a kind of analytical or scientific curiosity, as we have seen in the previous section. The questions about the nature, foundations and substance of hell, for example, are scientific questions applied to divine matters. The narrator appears to hold that it is a sacrilegious curiosity, not because the questions involve an explicit sacrilegious intention, but for the mere fact of turning the scientific attitude towards these matters. At heart, that is his message. It is possible that any apparently scientific approach to heaven and hell involves some kind of impiety. But what I want to point out is the difference between this concomitant impiety, if I can put it like that, and a direct and defiant impiety or insubordination. Mephistopheles states that Faustus has renounced God and abused intelligence (Chapter 17). However, he does not appear to attribute to Faustus the wish to renounce God, but rather to consider that the abuse of intelligence necessarily involves the denial of God.
This is perhaps a good time to recall the two moments in which Faustus doubts, to which I have already alluded. There are other episodes of repentance and desperation in the story of Johann Faustus, but they are a little histrionic, apart from—perhaps—the famous final lament, to which I will refer below; and they appear to be at the service of the book’s edifying morals. The moments I am referring to express Faustus’s doubts in the midst of serenity. If Satan himself had his moment of doubt, as we were taught by Milton, it would be strange if Doctor Faustus never had his; given that he was no more than a man, after all. Johann Faustus had one moment of intellectual doubt or weakness and two of spiritual doubt or weakness. In the former, during his trip to heaven he thought for a moment that he had already seen too much. As to the latter, on one occasion he asked Mephistopheles whether those condemned to hell had any hope of grace; and on another, what he could do to save himself before God or man. Certainly, these doubts humanise the original Faustian soul.
In contrast, John Faustus, Marlowe’s Faust, clearly expresses a different kind of impiety: insubordination or direct negation of God, in desperate thoughts against Jove’s deity. This spiritual pride is even cruder due to the fact that it is not accompanied by or gives rise to a dynamic and focused (though maybe changing) curiosity, but to a cinematic and unfocused desire. Moving to a
My task is not to analyse the Faustian personality or soul as a whole, but only a part of it, albeit an important part: Faustian pride. Faustian drive is seeped with desire and dissatisfaction, but also pride. To try to encapsulate it in some way, the only thing I can think of is to again make use of the most useful characterisation of pride we have found so far: the disordered appetite for one’s own excellence. When this appetite turns against God, we are dealing with spiritual pride, insubordination or the denial of God. When this appetite remains on the human plane, it is moral pride, whose most eloquent form is perhaps intellectual pride. Lucifer committed the first sin and Eve the second. Faustian pride or excess appears to be an articulation of the two and that is what its unity consists of. But there are various forms of this articulation and that is where its plurality appears. The pride of Johann and Heinrich appears fundamentally intellectual and that of John and Adrian fundamentally spiritual. In the language of Aquinas which I promised at the start, and to ensure precision, perhaps I might say that the pride of the first two is intellectual formaliter and involves a spiritual pride secundum quid, while the pride of the latter is spiritual formaliter and of course makes them fall into intellectual pride secundum quid.
5 The Condemnation and Salvation of Faustus
The poets enjoy a number of privileges, including that of being able to condemn or save Faustus as they see fit. Each reader, in turn, is free to accept or reject the poet’s verdict and condemn or save Faustus in his or her own mind and own way. I do this myself as a reader, as does everyone. But as a researcher and historian of pride and hubris, I am very far from daring to condemn or save Doctor Faustus, although I do have two things to say. First, I do not believe that each poet does with Faustus whatever he wishes. Real poets, like real philosophers, do not do whatever they feel like; they do not try to create truth and lies
On this point, we should remember the philological conquests and recall the two original versions of the History of Faustus mentioned at the start: the manuscript of Wolfenbüttel and that published by Spies. As we have seen, both appear to come from a common source; the second includes many theological annotations that are not in the first. It is possible that the second narrative thread of which I have talked, the theological, corresponds largely but not entirely to the additions to the published text which are not in the manuscript. In this case, it is worth noting that the essentially intellectual nature of the pride of the first Faustus has survived the theological corrections in the Spies publication. A comparison of the two original documents, the manuscript and the published text, also reveals other interesting details on the personality of the original Faustus. To give an example, the second moment of spiritual doubt to which I referred above is not in the manuscript, but only in the published text. Thus, according to the first text, Faustus’s intellectual and spiritual doubts are balanced, while in the second, the spiritual prevailed. This fact corresponds to an important controversy on the nature of divine grace, which was current at the time within Protestantism, as we will see shortly.
Second, I aim to apply this general thesis (that true poets adapt to the nature of things) to the particular case of the condemnation and salvation of Faustus. My thesis is that the condemnation and salvation of Faustus are dictated by the nature of his pride. When Faustus’s pride is intellectual formaliter and spiritual secundum quid, the poet saves Faustus; I mean that the poet recognises that Faustus is saved. And when Faustus’s pride is spiritual formaliter and intellectual secundum quid, the poet condemns Faustus; I mean that he recognises that he is plunging headlong without remission to hell. Thus Johann and Heinrich are saved, while John and Adrian are condemned. As can be seen, this thesis works perfectly in three of our cases, but appears to fail in one, precisely the original Faustus, in which the Devil ends up ruthlessly quartering the body of Faustus on earth and taking his soul to hell. We must explain this anomaly, but to do so, our story—our telling of the myths—must approach for a moment the telling of the facts. Before that, I will very briefly recall a curious anecdote. One day Zarathustra, the atheist, disappeared and the rumour
Synergism was a Protestant heresy of the 16th Century, which claimed that man could deserve grace and be saved by his own efforts. Orthodox Protestants (if you forgive the oxymoron) argued that grace is entirely in the hands of God and that the sinner can only hope to be saved if he fully trusts in grace (Haile 1995: viii–x). Many ideas may be old, but they are renewed and appear in new clothes, so they become old and new at the same time. We already know from the history of the Hebrew people that trust in one’s own strength conflicts with spiritual submission. Well, the first written version of the story of Doctor Faustus—the original Faustbuch—was developed and saw the light in the context of this doctrinal controversy and in the wake of Luther’s obsession with the Devil. The initial story of Faustus does not pivot on grace and salvation; but they gradually came to have an increasing importance in the published text. Faustus’s curiosity and activities perfectly represent interference in divine and human matters without respecting frameworks, restrictions and inherited obedience.
The author or authors of the Faustbuch attribute a sacrilegious curiosity to Faustus. If Johann’s curiosity is not sacrilegious formaliter, as I have tried to show, but only secundum quid, so much the better for the book’s moral: all curiosity, all intellectual enterprise, may easily result in impiety; at root it is diabolical and leads to condemnation. Based on this, as well as sacrilegious curiosity, orthodoxy also attributes heresy to Faustus, together with a double sin in relation to divine grace, which the published version highlights again and again: both mistrust of grace and doubt regarding its scope.
Now, if Johann’s curiosity is primarily or essentially (formaliter) intellectual and not spiritual, if we can distinguish the story of Faustus and the theological commentaries as two narrative threads that are intertwined, then we will also recognise that together with the thread which condemns him is the thread which saves him; that, together with the letter of the condemnation, is the spirit of salvation. This reading allows us to demonstrate not only the duality of the original character and the duality of the sources; it also responds to the understanding awakened by Doctor Faustus and the fact that his condemnation has been repeatedly perceived as unfair. If my proposal is correct, this appreciation is in line with the relation between the nature of his pride and his final destiny.
The backdrop to the doctrinal dispute on divine grace between Protestant orthodoxy and the synergist deviation allows us to also accept that Faustian
Now, with Faustus’s salvation or condemnation, the story of pride and hubris is no longer decided in heaven and hell. It comes to be played out on Earth. In the contemporary world, pride leaves behind this psychomachia and becomes a simpler pride, a pride without God or the Devil. In a sense, it is a strange kind of pride, without languor naturae or colossal yearnings. In another sense, it is perhaps a most intimate form of pride, not as obsessed with greatness and more concerned with small things, which are also beautiful. The earthly story of Doctor Faustus, before his supernatural fate, leads us naturally into these new historical and philosophical stages. In the earthly wanderings of Faustus, we find a mundane reflection of his salvation and eternal condemnation, which we can perhaps classify as mundane salvation and condemnation. It takes place on two fronts: love and the ‘humanitarian watery pap’, to borrow the expression used by Doctor Breisacher, with whom the composer Leverkühn would converse regularly, and who admired the archaic will of the Jewish people to overcome God and hated the attention paid to widows, orphans and foreigners. My thesis is, once more, that salvation and the condemnation in earthly love and fraternity are a direct consequence of the dominant form of Faustian pride. Intellectual pride simpliciter, although it may be accompanied by spiritual pride secundum quid, produces salvation in both erotic and fraternal or humanitarian love; while spiritual pride simpliciter, whether or not it is accompanied by intellectual pride, produces condemnation in all the forms of love.
Johann and Heinrich were able to experience love of another and love of others—eros and fraternity—even if only for a moment. However surprising
Moreover, the Devil’s crony himself was not completely free from the emotion of humility and fraternity. On one occasion, when he was walking to the city of Brunswick to attend to a marshal, Johann came across a farm worker with four horses and an empty carriage and asked him if he could use it. As it later became clear, he did not ask him seriously, ‘but to prove the buzzard, if there were any courtesy to be found in him if need were’. The farm worker refused and was very surly. However, later on, when he received his just desserts, he admitted his mistake and behaved in a very servile fashion, which touched Faustus. ‘Which humility made Faustus his heart to relent, answering him on this manner: “Well, do so no more, for there is nothing so shameful as churlishness and want of charity, which are rooted in pride”’ (Chapter 50; changed in efb, Ch. 46).
In few places is the genius of Goethe, the great reconciler, so dazzling: he even flirted with the idea of saving Satan himself, as in the domestication of the Faustian excess through the loyal and careful work of a civil engineer for the good of the people. It is true that greatness never allows one to abandon ambiguity, and that together with the regulation of freedom, perhaps here too, as the experts say, one can see the excesses of despotism and the machinery of the State (Burdach 1923: 53). At any event, what is true is that Faustus observed his dykes with the same pride and satisfaction with which Gilgamesh observed the walls of his city, while showing them to Urshanabi, the boatman. The old king of Uruk, whose vision was most profound, also had ‘a restless spirit’ (iii, 47: xi, 321–28). Perhaps the greatest expression of Goethe’s understanding and love towards his character was the prize he awarded him ‘for desiring the impossible’: an unforgettable ride on the centaur Chiron, the teacher of heroes. Gilgamesh undoubtedly also deserved this prize. Pride can be pardoned, says Goethe. There is no pardon for cynicism, say i, but that is another matter.