FAUST LEGEND

The legendary tales that accumulated round the historical figure of George, later Johann, Faust (c. 1480–1540) embody one of man's oldest dreams, that of acquiring boundless knowledge and happiness through a spiritual alliance with superhuman forces. This motif appeared in early Christian tradition, e.g., in the story of Simon Magus (Acts ch. 8) and in accounts by Cyprian of Antioch, Theophilius of Adana, Pope Sylvester II, and others that exemplified this kind of temptation. Sorcerers such as Merlin and Klingsor played their sinister roles in medieval courtly literature. The development of the Faust legend, uniquely reflecting the intellectual climate of 16th-century Germany, adds a new dimension to the age old plot: the total destruction of man's soul brought about by demonic forces.

Religious Climate. The time of the Renaissance and Reformation filled man's mind with the realization of profound changes and revolutions. The theological schism was only one symptom of a general cultural and historical metamorphosis introduced by new scientific discoveries, the humanistic revival of antiquity, and the new spiritual and mystical impulses in religious life. Established systems of values were threatened by new, more dynamic concepts of life that laid the ground for imagining unlimited possibilities of knowledge and power; they also brought about a feeling of unrest and instability. Numerous paintings of this age (e.g., those of Dürer, Grien, and Brueghel) reflect traumatic visions of apocalyptic events and grotesque invasions of demonic forces. The widening horizons in scientific and philosophical knowledge in the thought and discoveries of men such as Nicolaus copernicus, Giordano Bruno, and Johann Kepler grew in their contemporaries' imaginations to titanic notions of human insight into cosmic forces. A significant stimulant for the development of such exalted ideas radiated from the well known but controversial Swiss physician P. A. Paracelsus, whose pansophic system of philosophy attempted to bridge the apparent gap between the natural sciences (which, for him included alchemy and astrology) and Christian theology. He visualized a secret identity of the spiritual and phenomenological world, recognizing two basic forms of human perception: the "light of grace" in Christian doctrine and God's second revelation in the "light of nature" based on the totality of earthly existence (Philosophia sagax, 1537). Such "advanced" ideas, reflecting the dynamic, antihierarchical drives of this time, were opposed and passionately condemned as black magic by reactionary and orthodox theologians of both confessions.

Development of the Legend. The remarkable career of Johann Faust, born presumably at Helmstedt, near Heidelberg, coincided with the most crucial years of the reformatory age. He exploited the clandestine fears and superstitions of the people by applying his pretended magical skills to all fields of human knowledge. Since many courts and influential personages employed astrologers, Faust played this role for the lower strata of society by practicing his dubious art in inns and at fairs. He is first mentioned by the Benedictine scholar-abbot Johannes trithemius in a letter to the mathematician and Heidelberg court astrologer J. Virdung in 1507. The abbot told his friend that he had met Faust a year before at Gelnhausen and now found this "vagabond, babbler, and rogue, who deserves to be thrashed," at Würzburg, confusing the people by many boastful promises and false divinations. Faust called himself "the chief of necromancers, astrologer, the second magus, palm-reader, diviner with earth and fire, second in the art of divination with water." He appeared shortly afterward in Kreuznach, where he obtained the position of schoolmaster through the influence of Franz von Sickingen, "a man very fond of mystical lore." Discovered to be a sodomite, Faust fled to avoid persecution. Trithemius's characterization of Faust is repeated in a series of subsequent accounts wherein he is reported to cast horoscopes, to make false sooth sayings, and fraudulently to practice medicine. But his reputation must have improved toward the end of his life. He was well known, if despised, by leaders of the Reformation, including Luther and Melanchthon. Precisely because he was a resourceful and ambiguous impersonator of many masks, he immensely stimulated the imagination of the people.

Shortly after his death, Faust's image was inflated among the people by being connected with exuberant accounts of all sorts of obscure practices and mysterious dealings with infernal powers that people in that troubled age were able to fancy. The important point for the subsequent development of the legend lies in the fact that these

mysterious tales were carefully preserved, amended, and used by Protestant theologians. As early as 1548 a Basel minister, Johann Gast, included in his popular Sermones Convivales two episodes from Faust's life that expressly illustrate the power of the devil over man. What had not occurred to any of his learned critics during Faust's lifetime now became an unquestionable certainty: Faust had made a compact with the devil and had frivolously bartered away his immortal soul for spiritual power and sensual pleasure. In the fervent explications of preachers Faust obtained the singular honor of being elevated to the ranks of great wizards and magicians of ancient and medieval tradition. He became the embodiment of spiritual pride and of that particular temptation so characteristic of the age: the attributing of greater value to man's own will and intellectual achievement than to the "pure Word of God." It is not accidental that several beginnings of the legend lead to Wittenberg, the spiritual center of the Reformation. Even Luther is said to have felt a threat from Satan and his servant Faust, but "God's word alone overcomes the fiery arrows of the devil and all his temptation." In view of the widespread and fatalistic belief in astrology, the superstitious credulity among the uneducated people, and the increasing uncertainty among learned and responsible persons, it is not surprising that some theologians took seriously the common belief in black magic and used fear and gloomy forebodings to combat spiritual pride, licentiousness, and arrogance. The newly established Protestant church needed the example of the frightful damnation of a human soul to combat what it considered an assembly-line salvation offered by a stagnant institutionalism.

Literary Sources and Treatment. Both the moral implications of the Faust legend and its strange mystical obscurantism account for the immense popularity of the first printed edition of the Historia von D. Johann Fausten, by J. Spies (Frankfurt 1587). This collection of episodes was well developed and had circulated widely before its printing; part of it presumably had been recorded and distributed in Latin. Faust's scholarly pursuits are mentioned in the beginning: his "contemplation of the natural elements" and his vain attempt to explore restlessly all the foundations of heaven and earth. The majority of the episodes, however, depicted either low sensual enjoyments or incredible magic feats, recounted in popular balladesque style to serve "all haughty, overcurious and ungodly men as a frightful example, abhorrent illustration, and frank warning." Several new editions followed during the same year, chiefly because the book contained a representative collection of all mystery fables available at that time. A new compilation of Faust stories, greatly expanded by pedantic moral annotations, was edited by G. R. Widemann in 1599. The latest edition appeared in 1674 in Nuremberg, revised by J. H. Pfitzer, and was again published, anonymously, in 1712 by a Christian Believer (Christlich Meynenden ).

Marlowe's Handling. One of the first English translations of the Faust book was the source of The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (c. 1588) by playwright Christopher Marlowe. His hero is not the boastful rogue and licentious fool of the chapbooks but appears in the more appealing guise of a daring titan rebelling against narrow moral dogmatism. Torn by a furious tension between man and devil, temptation and repentance, revolt and despair, he is overcome by the powers of evil, partly against his will. Marlowe counted on deeper understanding and pity for his hero's grandiose error and thus gave him a more human dimension. Marlowe's dramatization of the Faust legend was brought to the Continent by strolling English players in the early 17th century. But just as the poetically stimulating legend had gradually deteriorated into moralistic chapbooks hawked at fairs, so the tragedy soon changed to a freely improvised comedy and into various puppet plays for the amusement of half-wits and children. The literary critic Johann Gottsched (1700–66) vigorously condemned the harlequinades and fairy tales of Dr. Faustus, which the masses had so long enjoyed. Later the German dramatist G. E. lessing recognized the truly "national" nature of the Faust plot and tried his own dramatization, of which only a few scenes are preserved. Lessing's treatment favored a rather unorthodox, final salvation of Faust.

Goethe's Version. Only J. von goethe, however, succeeded in opening a new dimension in Faust's inner quest for deeper and more meaningful understanding of life. His Faust is tragically driven by an ever unsatisfied yearning for "more than earthly meat and drink." The power of love as well as his continuous search for knowledge gradually develops the potentials of his soul so that Mephistopheles, the chaotic Spirit of Denial, always fails to procure that moment of supreme satisfaction for which Faust would trade his salvation. The devil is "poor" in the face of such a great aspiration for inner fulfillment, and though "man errs as long as he strives," Faust's soul finally ascends into heaven with the help of the "almighty love which forms all things and bears all things." Faust gains in each phase of his existence a new approach toward perfection despite the impossibility of ever achieving such a state in this world.

More recent attempts to revive the Faust legend in poetic form, notably Thomas Mann's novel Doktor Faustus (1950), may come closer to the original collection of 16th-century tales in their elevation of a vagrant charlatan to the ranks of powerful rebels of the intellect; Goethe's Faust, however, remains the highest expression of the legend, which contained, from the very beginning, the metaphysical question of man's ultimate destiny.

Bibliography: k. engel, Zusammenstellung der Faust-Schriften vom 16. Jahrhundert bis Mitte 1884 (Oldenburg 1865), 2d ed. of Bibliotheca Faustiana (1874). c. kiesewetter, Faust in der Geschichte und Tradition (Leipzig 1893). h. w. geissler, ed., Gestaltungen des Faust, 3 v. (Munich 1927). p. m. palmer and r.p. more, eds. and trs., The Sources of the Faust Tradition from Simon Magus to Lessing (New York 1936). e. m. butler, The Fortunes of Faust (Cambridge, Eng. 1952).

[k. schaum]