FAUST or FAUSTUS, the name of a magician and charla tan of the 16th century, famous in legend and in literature. The historical Faust forms little more than the nucleus round which a great mass of legendary and imaginative material gradually accumulated. That such a person existed, there is, however, suf ficient proof, though the opinion long maintained by some that he was identical with Johann Fust the printer is now universally rejected. He is first mentioned in a letter, dated Aug. 20, 1507, of the learned Benedictine Johann Tritheim or Trithemius (1462 1516) abbot of Spanheim, to the mathematician and astrologer, Johann Windung. Trithemius, himself reputed a magician, speaks contemptuously of Faust, who called himself Magister Georgius Sabellicus Faustus Junior, as a fool rather than a philosopher, a vain babbler and mountebank who ought to be whipped. The same unflattering estimate is contained in the second extant notice of Faust, in a letter of the jurist and canon Konrad Mudt (Mutianus Rufus) of Oct. 3, 1513, to Heinrich Urbanus. Mudt, too, simply regards Faust as a charlatan. So does another con temporary, Philipp Begardi, who in his Index sanitatis (Worms, ranks Faust, with Theophrastus Paracelsus, among the "wicked, cheating, useless and unlearned doctors." It was Johann Gast (d. 1572) a Protestant pastor of Basel who in his Sermones convivales (Basel, 1543) first credited the ma gician with genuine supernatural gifts. Gast believed Faust to be in league with the devil, by whom about 1525 he was ultimately carried off, and declared the performing horse and dog by which he was accompanied to be familiar and evil spirits. Further in formation was given to the world by Johann Mannel or Manlius (d. 156o), councillor and historian to the emperor Maximilian II., in his Locorum communium collectanea (Basel, undated). Man lius reports a conversation of Melanchthon in which the Reformer speaks of Faust as "a disgraceful beast and sewer of many devils" as having been born at Kundling (Kundlingen or Knittlingen), a little town near his own native town (of Bretten), and as having studied magic at Cracow. According to Melancthon Faust was killed by the devil wringing his neck. While he lived he had taken about with him a dog, which was really a devil. A similar opinion seems to have been held of Faust by Luther, who in Widmann's Faust-book is mentioned as having declared that, by God's help, he had been able to ward off the evils which Faust with his sorceries had sought to put upon him. Bullinger also, in his Theatrum de beneficiis (Frankfurt 1569) mentions Faust as one of those "of whom the Scriptures speak in various places, calling them magi." Lastly Johann Weiher, Wierus or Piscinarius a pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, body physician to the duke of Cleves and a man of enlightenment, who opposed the persecution of witches—in his De praestigiis daemonum (Basel 1563, etc.) speaks of Faust as a drunken vagabond who had studied magic at Cracow, and before 154o had practised "this beautiful art shamelessly up and down Germany, with unspeak able deceit, many lies and great effect." Such was the man as he appeared to his contemporaries : a wandering charlatan who lived by his wits, or a necromancer whose supernatural gifts were the outcome of a foul pact with the enemy of mankind. Whatever his character, his efforts to se cure notoriety certainly succeeded. By the latter part of the 16th century he had become the necromancer par excellence, and all that legend had to tell about the great wizards of the middle ages, Virgil, Pope Silvester, Roger Bacon, Michael Scot, or the mythic Klingsor, had become for ever associated with his name. When in 1587, the oldest Faust-book was published, the Faust legend was, in all essential particulars, already complete. The origin of the main elements of the legend must be sought far back. The idea of a compact with the devil for the purpose of obtaining super human power or knowledge, is of Jewish origin, dating from the centuries immediately before and after the Christian era which produced the Talmud, the Kabbalah and such magical books as that of Enoch. In the mystical rites that accompanied the in cantations with which the Jewish magicians evoked the Satanim we have the prototypes and originals of all the ceremonies which occupy the books of magic down to the various versions of the Hollenzwang ascribed to Faust. The other principle underlying the Faust legend, the belief in the essentially evil character of purely human learning, has existed ever since the triumph of Christianity set divine revelation above human science. The legend of Theophilus (a Cilician archdeacon of the 6th century, who sold his soul to Satan for no better reason than to clear him self of a false charge brought against him by his bishop) was immensely popular throughout the middle ages, and in the 8th century formed the theme of a poem by the nun Hroswitha of Gandersheim. Equally widespread were the legends which gath ered round the great name of Gerbert (Pope Silvester II.) . Ger bert's vast erudition, far in advance of his age, cast upon him the suspicion of traffic with the infernal powers; and in due course the tale arose of a compact with the arch-fiend, by which the scholar had obtained the summit of earthly ambition at the cost of his immortal soul. These are but the two most notable of many similar stories, and in an age which believed in witchcraft and the ubiquitous activity of devils, it was natural that they should be retold in all good faith of a notorious wizard who was himself at no pains to deny their truth. The Faust legend, however, owes its peculiar significance to the special conditions of the age which gave it birth ; the age of the Renaissance and the Reformation. The opinion that the religious reformers were the champions of liberty of thought against the obscurantism of Rome is mistaken. To themselves they were the protagonists of "the pure Word of God" against the corruptions of the Church, and the sceptical spirit of Italian humanism was as abhorrent to them as to the Catholic reactionaries. If, then, in Goethe's drama, Faust ulti mately develops into the type of the unsatisfied yearning of the human intellect for "more than earthly meat and drink" this was because the great German humanist infused into the old story a spirit absolutely opposed to that by which it had originally been inspired. The Faust of the early Faust-books, of the ballads, the dramas and the puppet-plays which grew out of them, is damned because he prefers human to "divine" knowledge ; "he laid the Holy Scriptures behind the door and under the bench, refused to be called doctor of theology, but preferred to be styled doctor of medicine." The orthodox moral of the earliest versions is pre served to the last in the puppet-plays. The voice to the right cries : "Faust ! Faust ! desist from this proposal ! Go on with the study of theology, and you will be the happiest of mortals." The voice to the left answers "Faust ! Faust ! leave the study of the ology. Betake you to necromancy, and you will be the happiest of mortals !" The Faust legend was, in fact, the creation of ortho dox Protestantism, its moral the inevitable doom which follows the wilful revolt of the intellect against divine authority as repre sented by the Holy Scriptures and its accredited interpreters.
It was doubtless this orthodox and Protestant character of the Faust story which contributed to its immense popularity in the Protestant countries. The first edition of the Historia von D. Johann Fausten published by Johann Spies at Frankfurt in 1587, sold out at once, and before the year was out it had been re printed in four pirated editions. In the following year a rhymed version was printed at Tubingen, a second edition was published by Spies at Frankfurt, and a version in Low German by J. J. Bal horn at Lubeck. Reprints and amended versions continued to appear in Germany every year, till they culminated in the pe dantic compilation of Georg Rudolf Widmann, who obscured the dramatic interest of the story by his well-meant efforts to elabo rate the orthodox moral. Widmann's version of 1599, formed the basis of that of Johann Nicholaus Pfitzer, published at Nurem berg in 1674, which passed through six editions, the last appearing in 1726. Lastly there appeared about 1712, what was to prove the most popular of all the Faust-books : The League with the Devil established by the world-famous Archnecromancer and Wizard Dr. Johann Faust, by a Christian Believer (Christlich Meynenden). This version which bore the obviously false date of 1525, passed through many editions, and was circulated at all the fairs in Germany. Abroad the success of the story was scarcely less striking. A Danish version appeared in 1588. In England the History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus was published some time between 1588 and 1594. In France the translation of Victor Palma Cayet was published at Paris in 1592, and in the course of the next 200 years went through 15 editions; the oldest Dutch and Flemish versions are dated 1592; and in 1612 a Czech translation was published at Prague. Besides the popular histories of Faust, numerous ballads on the same subject were also soon in circulation. Of these, the most interesting for the English reader is A Ballad of the Life and death of Dr. Faustus the great congerer, published in 1588 with the imprimatur of the learned Aylmer, bishop of London. This ballad is supposed to have preceded the English version of Spies's Faust-book, on which Marlowe's drama was founded.
To Christopher Marlowe belongs the honour of first seeing the great dramatic possibilities of the Faust legend. The Tragicall History of D. Faustus as it lath bene acted by the Right Honour able the Earle of Nottingham his servants was first published by Thomas Bushall in 1604. As Marlowe died in 1593, the play must have been written shortly after the appearance of the English version of the Faust story on which it was based. The first re corded performance was on Sept. 3o, 1594. As Marlowe's Faustus is the first, so it is imcomparably the finest of the Faust dramas which preceded Goethe's masterpiece, though, like most of Mar lowe's work, it is very unequal. In Marlowe, too, Protestant ortho doxy is conciliated by irrelevant insults to the Roman Church and by the final catastrophe, when Faustus pays for his revolt against the Word of God by the forfeit of his soul. This concep tion, which followed that of the popular Faust histories underlay all further developments of the Faust drama for nearly 200 years. Of the serious stage plays founded on this theme, Marlowe's Faustus remains the sole authentic example until near the end of the 18th century; but in Germany the Comedy of Dr. Faust, in one form or another continued to be a popular item in the reper tories of theatrical companies until far into the 18th century. It is supposed that the German versions were based on those intro duced into the country by English strolling players early in the I7th century. However this may be, the dramatic versions of the Faust legend followed much the same course as the prose his tories. Just as these gradually degenerated into chap-books hawked at fairs, so the dramas were replaced by puppet-plays, handed down by tradition through generations of showmen. In this way the traditional Faust story retained its popularity until far into the 19th century, long after, in the sphere of literature, Goethe had for ever raised it to quite another plane.
It was natural that during the literary revival in Germany in the i8th century, when German writers were eagerly on the look-out for subjects to form the material of a truly national literature, the Faust legend should have attracted their attention. Lessing was the first to point out its great possibilities, and he himself wrote a Faust drama, of which only a fragment remains. To Lessing, not to Goethe, is due the new point of view from which the story was approached by most of those who, after about the year 17 7o, attempted to tell it. The traditional Faust legend represented the sternly orthodox attitude of the Protestant reformers. Even the mitigating elements which the middle ages had permitted had been banished by the stern logic of the the ologians of the new religion. Theophilus had been saved in the end by the intervention of the Blessed Virgin ; Faust was irrev ocably damned, since the attractions of theology proved insuf ficient to counteract the fascinations of the classic Helen. But if he was to become, in the i8th century, the type of the human intellect faced by the problems of human life, it was intolerable that his struggles should issue in eternal reprobation. Es irrt der Mensch so Lang er strebt, which sums up in one pregnant line the spirit of Goethe's Faust, sums up also the spirit of the age which killed with ridicule the last efforts of persecuting piety. Lessing, in short, proclaimed that the final end of Faust must be not his damnation, but his salvation. This is the measure of Goethe's debt to Lessing. The essential change which Goethe himself in troduced into the story is in the nature of the pact between Faust and Mephistopheles, and in the character of Mephistopheles himself. The Mephistopheles of Marlowe, as of the old Faust hooks, for all his brave buffoonery, is a melancholy devil, with a soul above the unsavoury hell in which he i3 forced to pass a hope less existence. Goethe's Mephistopheles is no such fallen angel. He is according to his own definition, the Spirit of Denial, the impersonation of that utter scepticism which can see no distinc tion between high and low, between good and bad, and is there fore without aspiration because it knows no "divine discontent." And the compact which Faust makes with this spirit is from the first doomed to be void. Faustus had bartered away his soul for a definite period of pleasure and power. The conception that un derlies the compact of Faust with Mephistopheles is far more subtle. He had sought happiness vainly in the higher intellectual and spiritual pursuits; he is content to seek it on a lower plane since Mephistopheles gives him the chance ; but he is confident that nothing that "such a poor devil" can offer him could give him that moment of supreme satisfaction for which he craves. He goes through the traditional mummery of signing the bond with scornful submission ; for he knows that his damnation will not be the outcome of any formal compact, but will follow inevitably, and only then, when his soul has grown to be satisfied with what Mephistopheles can purvey him. It is because Mephistopheles fails to give him this self-satisfaction that the compact comes to nothing. When, at last, Faust cries to the passing moment to remain, it is because he has forgotten self in enthusiasm for a great and beneficent work, in a state of mind the very antithesis of all that Mephistopheles represents. In the old Faust-books, Faust had been given plenty of opportunity for repentance, but the inducements had been no higher than the exhibition of a throne in heaven on the one hand and the tortures of hell on the other. Goethe's Faust departs widely from this orthodox stand point. Faust shows no signs of "repentance"; he simply emerges by the innate force of his character from a lower into a higher state. The triumph, foretold by "the Lord" in the opening scene, was inevitable from the first, since though— Man errs so long as he is striving, A good man through the obscurest aspiration Is ever conscious of the one true way.
This idea, which inspired also the kindred theme of Browning's Paracelsus, is the main development introduced by Goethe into the Faust legend. The episode of Gretchen does not belong to the legend at all; and it is difficult to deny the pertinency of Charles Lamb's criticism, "What has Margaret to do with Faust?" Yet in spite of all that may be said of the irrelevancies with which Goethe overloaded especially the second part of the poem, his Faust remains for the modern world the final form of the legend out of which it grew, the magnificent expression of the broad hu manism which has replaced the spirit inspiring the early Faust books.
See Karl Engel, Zusammenstellung der Faust-Schriften vom z6. Jahrhundert bis Mitte 1884—a end ed. of the Bibliotheca Faustiana (1874) (Oldenburg, 1885), a complete bibl. of all pub. matter con cerned, even somewhat remotely with Faust. Carl Kiesewetter, Faust in der Geschichte and Tradition (Leipzig, 1893) . (W. A. P.)