Christian Belief in Doctor Faustus
Author(s): Margaret Ann O'Brien
Source: ELH, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Mar., 1970), pp. 1-11
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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____________1MARCH, 1970
CHRISTIAN BELIEF IN DOCTOR FAUSTUS
BY MARGARET ANN 0 BRIEN
In 1588, Robert Greene charged Christopher Marlowe of " daring God out of heaven with that atheist Tamburlan or blaspheming with the mad priest of the sun." 1 In 1593, such accusations
of atheism came to a head when Thomas Kyd credited Marlowe
with the authorship of a heretical religious tract found in Kyd's
room. Irving Ribner, in his Introduction to The Complete Plays
of Christopher Marlowve, defends the playwright against the label
of " atheist " as a modern man would understand it, but he admits
that " it is clear that in his own day Marlowe was known as a
skeptic and a heretic, not above uttering what more sober Elizabethans might consider blasphemous." Yet, even Mr. Ribner
does not absolve Marlowe, as he continues, " His plays give evidence that he did not accept without question the ordinary Tudor
notions of man's relation to society and to God."'3 Mr. Ribner
describes Dr. Faustus as a mirror of " agnostic intellectual confusion . . . [which] offers little hope for humanity, for the damnation of Faustus leads to no affirmation of order or harmony in
the universe. . . ." 4
Ribner's description may be appropriate to Dr. Faustus, the
' Robert Greene, "Preface " Perimedes the Blacksmith, in The Comqplete Plays of
Christopher Marlowe, ed. Irving Ribner (New York, 1963), p. xvi.
aIrving Ribner, Complete Plays, p. xviii.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., pp. xxxvii, xxxvii.
Margaret
Arn
O'Brien'
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1
protagonist, but a study of the play in the light of its reflection
of Christian doctrine reveals the intellectual precision of a past
theology student and the hope that the play offers is its reassertion that no man is a god of himself, that God is the Christ of
Faustus's outcry:
See, see, where Christ's blood streams
in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul, half a drop!
Ah, my Christ!
Dr. Faustus's adventures with Mephistophilis, the promptings
from a Good and a Bad Angel, the appearance of the Seven
Deadly Sins, and Faustus's graphic delivery into hellmouth obviously link Marlowe with the tradition of the Morality Plays.
More significant, though, to an appreciation of Marlowe's understanding of Christian doctrine is his resemblance to the earlier
Mystery Plays. In Dr. Faustus, Marlowe recapitulates the mysteries of Salvation History within the smaller world of one man's
soul: the Fall of Lucifer, the Creation and Fall of Man, Divine
Providence in times of human stress (Cain and Abel, Job, Noah),
and the mysteries of Redemption through Jesus Christ.
Central to the Mystery Plays, as to Salvation History, is the
celebration of the Incarnation, the mystery of God's becoming
man, and the continuation of this event in time through the mystery of the Eucharist and Holy Communion. By his treatment
of the decline of Dr. Faustus from a human height to the anguish
of eternal separation from God, Marlowe embodies in his play
the same direction of the spiritual life towards a Divine-human
communion. In Faustus's aspiration to godhood, Faustus seeks
"that to which he would have come had he stood fast," 5 and he
destroys himself by his impatience.
In this portrayal of a man moving away from Divine Love,
Marlowe approaches areas of doctrine which invite heresy in their
distinctions: the nature of good and evil, the possibility of free
will, the nature of human repentance, the availability of Divine
forgiveness, the impossibility of angelic repentance, and the fact
of eternal hell. In all of these areas, Dr. Faust= reflects the
Christian doctrine as presented in Scripture and Tradition and
5St. Thomas Acquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q. 63, a. 3, trans. Fathers of the
English Dominican Province (London, 1927), p. 432.
Chritin Belief -tin " Doctor Fauqr 'I"
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recorded by the Fathers of the Church, especially St. Augustine's On Christian Doctrine and St. Thomas Acquinas's Summa
Theologica.
Crucial to a study in damnation is an understanding of the
nature of good and evil. In this regard, St. Augustine sets up
the norm:
Scripture teaches nothing but charity, nor condemns anything except cupidity, and in this way shapes the minds of men.6
Augustine further explains these terms in such a way as to make
their appearance in Dr. Faustus clear:
I call "charity" the motion of the soul toward the enjoyment of
God for His own sake, and the enjoyment of one's self and of one's
neighbor for the sake of God; but " cupidity" is a motion of the soul
toward the enjoyment of one's self, one's neighbor, or any corporal
thing for the sake of something other than God.7
Faustus had read the same Scriptures as Augustine, but Faustus
could distort his readings to find there, not charity, but inevitable
condemnation. His sin would be the extreme commitment to
cupidity by which he would direct all of his developed human
gifts towards a self-exaltation that further aspired to godhood.
If Faustus could have his way, he would snatch the controls of
the universe from the hands of Divine Providence:
All things that move between the quiet poles
Shall be at my command. Emperors and kings
Are but obeyed in their several provinces,
Nor can they raise the wind or rend the clouds,
But his dominion that exceeds in this
Stretcheth as far as does the mind of man
(I. i. 57-692)
Faustus's cupidity is a human reflection of the first sin, committed by Lucifer, of which Thomas Acquinas asserts:
. Without doubt, the angel sinned by seeking to be a God....
he sought to have final beatitude of his own power, whereas this is
proper to God alone.8
6 St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 3.10.15, trans. D. W. Robertson, Jr. (N
York, 1958), p. 88.
'Ibid., 3.10.16.
8 Summa, I, Q. 63, a. 3, p. 432-3.
Margaret Ann O'Brien
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Faustus would come to share also in the ironic consequence of
his choice, by which he loses the beatitude which he seeks and
which was to have been the reward of his fidelity. In condemning
himself to eternal death, Faustus ironically wishes for the power
to give eternal life:
Couldst thou make men to live eternally,
Or being dead, raise them to life again. . . . (I. i. 24-5)
The supreme blasphemy is the magic circle in which the name
of Jehovah is anagrammatized and Divinity is made to join His
creatures on the circumference of the circle while Faustus assumes
his position in the center of the universe. The blasphemy is
admirable in its theological completeness! He takes care to
abolish every hallmark of salvation: the triune God, the Christian Redemption, and the Baptismal inclusion of man into Redemptive powers, through his vows by which he renounces Satan
and embraces belief in Christ.
When the devil, Mephistophilis, appears, his first words are
an ironic commentary on Faustus's desertion because they are
the words of St. Paul upon his conversion to Christianity: " What
wouldst thou have me do? " (I. iii. 35; Acts 9:6). When Mephistophilis reviews the Fall of Lucifer " by aspiring pride and insolence" (I. iii. 68) and describes hell's torment, he prefigures the
damnation of Faustus. The Summa Theologica is equivalent to
a prose description of Mephistophilis's account:
* . . man's extreme unhappiness will consist in the fact that his intellect is completely shut off from the divine light, and that his affections
are stubbornly turned against God's goodness. And this is the chief
suffering of the damned. It is known as the punishment of loss.9
St. Thomas also explains the possibility of devils roaming through
the earth, being used by Providence as means of purging the faith
of humans, and bearing within themselves always the essence of
hell:
* . . although the demons are not actually bound within the fire of
hell while they are in this dark atmosphere, nevertheless their punishment is none the less; because they know that such confinement is in
store for them. Hence it is said in the gloss upon James iii, 6 " They
carry the fire of hell with them wherever they go." 1"
'St. Thomas Acquinas, Compendium of Theology, trans. VoUert, S. J. (St. Louis,
1947), p. 188.
10 Summ4, I, Q. 64, p. 459.
4 Christian Belief in A Doctor Fauit '"
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Mephistophilis's truthfulness and even charity towards Faustus
in urging him to " leave these frivolous demands" (I. iii. 81) is
surprising, coming from a devil. In contrast to this devil's
honesty is Faustus's self-deception and cruelty, " Learn thou of
Faustus manly fortitude, / And scorn those joys thou never shall
possess" (I. iii. 85-6). The contrast sharpens the question of
redemptive grace because, despite his cruelty, Faustus has still a
chance for redemption, while Mephistophilis is damned hopelessly.
The Summa explains that the possibility of repentance is determined by the manner of intellectual apprehension of principles
at the time of choice. Since angels apprehend first principles,
their wills become fixed in their choice once their decision is made.
Because the human will follows limited apprehension through
sense knowledge and particular goods, its will remains flexible
even after choice. At death, however, the human will becomes
immovable in its final choice.1'
... the sins of the demons and of men who are lost cannot be blotted
out by Penance, because their will is confirmed in evil, so that sin
cannot displease them as to its guilt, but only as to the punishment
which they suffer, by reason of which they have a kind of repentance,
which yet is fruitless, according to Wisdomr V. 3: " Repenting and
groaning for anguish of spirit." Consequently, such Penance brings
no hope of pardon, but only despair. Nevertheless no sin of a wayfarer can be such as that, because his will is flexible to good and evil.
Wherefore to say that in this life there is any sin of which one cannot
repent is erroneous. ...12
In that Faustus is still a wayfarer, he is still liable to conversion; in that his intellect is superior and highly trained, the likelihood of a repented choice is lessened. The cold deliberation which
obviously precedes his choice of Satan further makes the chance
of his repentance remote.
In Act II, Faustus anticipates his pact with the devil with
some fear:
Now Faustus must thou needs be damned,
And canst thou not be saved.
What boots it then to think on God or heaven?
Away with such vain fancies, and despair;
Despair in God, and trust in Beelzebub.
Now go not backward; Faustus, be resolute.
a' Summa, 1, Q. 64, a. 3, p. 456.
la Summa, I, Q. 86, a. 1, p. 42.
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Why waver'st thou? 0, something soundeth in mine ear:
'Abjure this magic; turn to God again.'
Ay, and Faustus will turn to God again!
To God? He loves thee not. (HI. i. 1-10)
The Good Angel and the Bad Angel urge Faustus in the opposing
directions of contrition and obstinacy. It is possible to understand these angels as externalizations of two tendencies within
Faustus, but it would be heretical to consider them externalizations of two wills, a good will and a bad will, within one man.
Theology does, in fact, admit of the existence of angels and of
their influence on the human will:
To change the will belongs to God alone . . . [but] the will is moved
from without. As regards an angel, this can be only in one way,-
by the good apprehended by the intellect. Hence in as far as anyone
may be the cause why anything be apprehended as an appetible good,
so far does he move the will. In this way also God alone can move
the will efficaciously; but an angel and man move the will by way of
persuasion.... In addition to this mode the human will can be
moved from without in another way; namely, by the passion residing
in the sensitive appetite; as by concupiscence or anger the will is in-
clined to will something. In this manner the angels, as being able to
rouse these passions, can move the will, not however by necessity, for
the will ever remains free to consent to, or to resist, the passion.t3
Another power of the angels which relates to Dr. Faustws is
their ability to control matter so that corporeal nature can be
moved to produce a hallucinatory vision 14 or to provide an
assumed body.15
The deliberation behind Faustus's choice is also made evident
in his comment, " Had I as many souls as there be stars, / I'd
give them all for Mephistophilis" (I. iii. 102-3). His trivial
evaluation of his soul contrasts with St. Paul's exclamation to the
Corinthians, " You have been brought at a great price! " (1 Cor.
6:20).
Throughout Faustus's consideration of the pact with Satan,
Marlowe keeps the Christian dispensation in his audience's mind.
It was included in Faustus's prayer to the gods of Acheron, in
Mephistophilis's echo of St. Paul's response, and in references to
the " Savior Christ." The fact of the Incarnation is possibly
: Summna, I, Q. I11, a. 2, p. 46
14 Ibid., a. 8, pp. 468-9.
: Ibid., a. 4, p. 470.
6 Christian Belief in " Doctor Faustus "
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implied even in the account of Lucifer's Fall since Tradition has
it that Lucifer's refusal to " serve " was a rejection of the possibility that God would become a man, a creature lower than the
angels, and raise mankind to a glory above the angels,
* . . having become so much superior to the angels as he has inherited
a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels has he
ever said, Thou art my &on. . . * (Hebrews 1: 4-5)
Finally, Marlowe has suggested the doctrine of redemptive graces
made available through the sufferings of Christ.
In the comic scene between Wagner and Robin, Marlowe interprets Faustus's decision in a manner that displays the absurdity
of his ambition. In cutting himself off from God, Faustus would
become sub-human:
Robin: . .. But hark you, master, will you teach me this conjur-
ing occupation?
Wagner: Ay, sirrah. I'll teach thee to turn thyself to a dog, or a
cat, or a mouse, or a rat, or any thing.
Robin: A dog, or a cat, or a mouse, or a rat! 0 brave Wagner!
(I. iv. 36-40)
The triviality of their agreement is no less foolish than the
trickery to which Faustus declines. Faustus's ambitions at the
time of his agreement with Mephistophilis were great:
l ..I'll be great emperor of the world,
And make a bridge thorough the moving air,
To pass the ocean with a band of men.
I'll join the hills that bind the Afric shore,
And make that country continent to Spain,
And both contributory to my crown. (I. iii. 104-9)
Instead, his new-found powers find vent in snatching plates from
the Pope and in performing disappearing tricks on the horsecourser. Faustus becomes a figure of comic vitality marked for
laughter, such a character as was usually portrayed by a devil
on the Elizabethan stage. He attains a comical absurdity rather
than an independent glory.
At each invitation to repentance, Faustus cuts off the possibility of his renewal at its source: " Ay, and Faustus will return
to God again! / To God? He loves thee not " (II. i. 9-10). Given
the essential nature of Christianity as a love bond, the betrayal
of Faustus in his covenant with Satan assumes affective over-
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tones. " For love of Mephistophilis" A Faustus cut his arm to seal
the pledge with his blood. The Christian covenant had been
sealed in the blood of Jesus, and Faustus's surprised question
" Why streams it not . . . ? " will be echoed in his final longing
for one drop of Christ's blood.
Mephistophilis watches Faustus write his agreement and asks,
"What will I not do to obtain his soul? " (II. i. 72) . His
question is immediately followed by Faustus's " Consummatum
est," setting his betrayal again in contrast to Divine Mercy.
When God asked the same question about man's soul, His answer
was Christ's " Consummatum est," yet when Faustus sees the
words " Homo fugel " his reaction is fear rather than trust:
"Whither should I fly?/ If unto God, he'll throw me down
to hell " (II. i. 76-7).
It is significant that Faustus's first demand from Mephistophilis
is " let me have a wife" (II. i. 138), a demand which Marlowe
recalls later when Faustus commands that Helen should appear.
The union of a man with God effected through Christ's Redemption and accepted through the vows of Baptism have been traditionally expressed as a marriage between man and God. By his
agreement with the devil, Faustus has divorced himself from God.
Even in the Old Testament, the Jahweh-Israel covenant was conceived to be not merely a legal contract but a love affair:
No more shall men call you " Forsaken " or your land " Desolate,"
but you shall be called " My Delight," and your land " Espoused."
For the Lord delights in you, and makes your land his spouse. As a
young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; and as a
bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you.
(Isaiah 62: 4-5)
Israel's infidelity was compared to harlotry and her fidelity re-
warded by union with God expressed in terms of husband and
wife (Hosea and Song of Songs).
With the sealing of the New Covenant in Christ's Blood, the
union becomes not only a union of wills based on trust and obedience but a union of Person with person through a sacramental
means of transformation. In the mystery of the Eucharist and
Holy Communion, Divine Life becomes active in man, making
him more like God. It is only through fidelity to this union that
man can achieve the Divinity which he is created to enjoy. Faustus's sin lay in trying to become God by his own powers rather
8 Christian Belief in " Doctor Fautu "'
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than through God's power within him. The ideal Christian conmmunion finds its ultimate expression in the Apocalyptic description of the sanctified human race, personified as a bride:
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and
the first earth passed away, and the sea is no more. And I saw the
holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made
ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice
from the throne saying, " Behold the dwelling of God with men, and
he will dwell with them. And they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (Revelation 91: 1-3)
Faustus, as a result of his divorce from God, tries to escape
the beginning of his hell through a new union. Appropriately, his
mate must be a devil. The man who had longed to be a " great
emperor of the world " finds his desires now easily appeased on the
sensual level of whoredom.
The beginning of the next scene in Faustus's study emphasizes
his decline. At his entrance, Faustus begins, " When I behold
the heavens, then I repent . ." '> (II. ii. 1). The words a
opening words of Psalm 8, a song of exaltation in the great things
God has done for men:
When I behold the heavens, the works of your hands, the moon and
the stars, which you have made, what is man that you should care
for him, or the son of man that you should remember him? Yet
you have made him little less than a god; with glory and honor you
crowned him, gave him power over the works of your hands, put all
things
under
his
feet.
(47)
Faustus's decision to " renounce this magic and repent " (II. ii.
11) brings on the two Angels again. The Bad Angel deceives
him with the half-truth, "Thou art a spirit; God cannot pity
thee " (II. ii. 13), leading Faustus to conclude, " My heart is
hardened; I cannot repent" (II. ii. 18). Even though Faustus,
as a wayfarer, retains a movable will capable of repentance, it
is true that hardness of heart can prevent his accepting the grace
of repentance. The Summa describes the situation in these words:
Spiritual blindness and hardness of heart imply two things. One is
the movement of the human mind in cleaving to evil, and turning
away from the Divine light; and as regards this, God is not the cause
of spiritual blindness and hardness of heart, just as He is not the cause
of sin. . . . On the other hand, God, of His own accord, withholds
His grace from those in whom Ile finds an obstacle: so that the cause
Margaret
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9
of grace being withheld is not only the man who raises an obstacle to
grace; but God, Who, of His own accord, withholds His grace."
Before Faustus is carried off to hell at the end of the play, the
two incidents of Helen's kiss and the Old Man's visit again recall
the covenant significance of Faustus's sin. As Faustus finds his
heaven in Helen's lips, his union is again contrasted against
fidelity. The Old Man rebukes him:
Accursed Faustus, miserable man,
That from thy soul exclud'st the grace of heaven
And fliest the throne of his tribunal seat!
(Enter the devils)
Satan begins to sift me with his pride.
And in this furnace God shall try my faith.
My faith, vile hell, shall triumph over thee.
(V. iv. 119-9,)
The Old Man represents a faithful Christian, but he also recalls
the words spoken to Peter by Christ:
And the Lord said, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to
have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for
thee, that thy faith may not fail; and do thou, when once thou hast
turned again, strengthen they brethren." (Luke 22: 31-2)
Although Dr. Faustus portrays a man who has rejected his
Christian faith, it should not be said that "Faustus' view of
Christianity is the only one made explicit in the play." "I Neither
is it true that, "The God of Doctor Faustus is one singularly
without love, a god of terrible justice without mercy." 18 The
Christian God of the " Consummatum est " is present throughout
the play and it is His very superabundance of love which Faustus
recognizes as rejected and which effects the anguished longing in
him: " Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ! " (V. ii. 145).
The Chorus' final comment, " Cut is the branch that might
have grown full straight" (Epilogue, 1) is at once a warning
and an invitation to the spectators. It refers to the Christian
doctrine of the Mystical Body in the image suggested by Christ
at His Last Supper:
16 Sumina, II, Q. 79, a. 3, pp. 390-1.
7Irving Ribner, Complete Plays, p. xxxiii.
8 Ibid.
10 Christian Belief in " Doctor Faustus "
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I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-dresser. Every branch
in me that bears no fruit he will take away; and every branch that
bears fruit he will cleanse, that it may bear more fruit. . . Abide
n me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless
it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me.
I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in
him, he bears much fruit; for without me you can do nothing. If
anyone does not abide in me, he shall be cast outside as the branch
and wither; and they shall gather them up and cast them into the
fire, and they shall burn. If you abide in me, and if my words abide
in you, ask whatever you will and it shall be done to you.
(John 15: 1-7)
It is this union that is the goal of all the mysteries dramatized
in the Mystery Plays and of all the decisions for good or evil
enacted in the Morality Plays. Marlowe has directed this central
truth to the world of one man and, even though he does so through
inversion, he re-focuses Christian values away from doctrines
and codes to the heart of a personal commitment to a Person,
marked by fidelity.
The Christians of Marlowe's day could self-righteously condemn him and point to the " justice of God A 19 revenging the
blasphemies which allegedly came from his brain and hand. In
their adherence to formal phrases and set codes, they were blind
or hardened to Marlowe's insights. In his prophetic vision, in
the Scriptural understanding of the term which implies the ability
to see to the heart of truth and to communicate his vision, Marlowe is much like the avant garde men in the era of Vatican II.
Today's world would probably recognize him among contemporary prophets, who see to the heart, but whose vision creates
confusion in the minds of the comfortable and the unthinking.
Academy of Notre Dame
Villanova, Pennsylvania
"Thomas Beard, Theatre of Gods Judgements (1597), in C(nplete Plays, p. x.
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11