FAUST, Da., according to tradition, a celebrated dealer in the black art, frequently confounded with the preceding, was b. at Knittlingen, in Wfirtemberg, or, as some say, at Roda near Weimar. He flourished during the latter half of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries, and is said to have studied magic at Cracow. After having spent a rich inheritance left him by his uncle, F. is alleged to have made use of his " power" to raise or conjure up the devil, with whom he entered into a contract for twenty-four years, obtaining during that time his fill of earthly pleasure, but at its ter mination surrendering body and soul into the hands of the great enemy. The devil gave him an attendant spirit or demon, called Mephistopheles. though other names are given him by the later traditionists, with whom he traveled about, enjoying life in all its forms, and astonishing persons by working wonders, till he was finally carried off by the evil one, who appeared in terrible guise, between twelve and one o'clock at night, at the village of Himlich, near Wittenberg, though several other places lay claim to that very questionable honor. Some have doubted, considering the monstrously mythical form in which his career has come down to us. whether such an individual as F. ever existed; but it is now generally believed that there was a basis of fact, on which tradition has built its gross superstructure. Gorres, indeed, asserts that one George Sabellicus, who disappeared about the year 1517, is the real F.; but Philip Melanchtbon —the man of all the reformers whose word in regard to a matter of fact would most readily be trusted—says that he had himself conversed with Dr. Faustus. Conrad Gesner (1561) is equally positive; and Luther. in his Table Talk, speaks of Dr. F. as a man lost beyond all hope. The opinion that prevails, and which is reckoned to be intrinsically the more probable, is that some man of this name, possessed of varied knowledge, may possibly have practiced jugglery (for the wandering savants of the middle ages had all a touch of the quack about them), and thus have been taken by the ignorant people for a dealer in the black art, and one who maintained a secret and intimate relation with evil spirits. His widely diffused celebrity not only occasioned the wonders worked by other so-called necromancers of an earlier age—Albertus Mag• nus, Simon Magus, and Paracelsus—to be attributed to him, but likewise many ancient tales and legends of a marvelotts character were gradually transferred to him, till lie finally appears as the very hero of magicians. But while, on the one hand, the narra Live of F.'s marvels afforded amusement to the people, on the other, they were made use of for instruction by the clergy, who pointed out, in the frightful fate of F., the danger of tampering with the " black art; and the abominableness of a life sunk in sensuality and vice. The myth of F. has received a manifold literary treatment. First come the Volksbilelter (or people's books), which record F.'s enterprises and feats. The
oldest of these now known appeared at Frankfort in 1588. Then came an " improved" edition of the same, by Widmann, entitled Wahrhaftige Historien, von eenen grdulichen Sanden Dr. Joh. F.'s (true history of the horrible crimes of Dr. John F., Hamb. 3 vols., 1599); and in 169,5, a work was published at Nurnberg by Pfitzer, based upon that of Widmann. The oldest of these books was translated into all the civilized languages of Europe. Impostors also published books of magic under the name of F., such as Faust's grosser and gewaltiger IThilenzwang (Faust's Great and Potent Book of Spells), Fausten's Miraeulkumt (Faust's A rt of Performing Miracles), and Dreifctehe Halenzwang (The Threefold Book of Spells). These wretched productions are filled throughout with meaningless scrawls and figures, interspersed with texts from the Bible scandalously misapplied; but in the belief of the vulgar, they were supposed capable, when properly understood, of accomplishing prodigies. That the poetical art should in due time have seized on a subject affording so much material for the fancy to work upon, was inevita ble; and consequently, German literature abounds in elegies, pantomimes, tragedies, and comedies on Faust. Since the end of the 17th c., the l'uppenspiel (Puppet-show) of Dr. F. (first published at Leipsic in 18•0) has been one of the most popular pieces in Germany. It forms the transition from the rude magic tales concerning F., to the later philosophic conception of the Faust-myth, which has become the most perfect poetical expression of the eternal strife between good and evil in the soul of man. The first writer who treated the story of F. dramatically was the English writer Christopher Marlowe, about the year 1600 (German translation by W. Miller, Berlin, 1818); but the grandest work on the subject is Goethe's Faust, the first part of which appeared under the title of Dr. F. ein Trauerspiel (Leip. 1790), and afterwards in a remodeled form, under the title of F., eine 7ragodie (Tubingen, 1808). The second part was published after the author's death, at Stuttgart in 1833. Besides Goethe's drama, may be men tioned Eessing's masterly fragment, F. and die Sieben Geister (F. and the Seven Spirits), G. F. L. Mii'ller's Dr. F.'s Leben (Dr. F.'s Life, Mach., 1778), and Klinger's F.'s Leben, Platen, and Hollenfalirt (F.'s Life, Doings, and Descent Into Hell; Petersb. and Leip., 1791). The plastic art has also found a fit subject in Faust. In Auerbach's cellar at Leipsic, where F. is said to have performed many of his feats, are two rude daubs of the year 1,525, representing F. and Mephistopheles riding out of the cellar on a wine-barrel. Rembrandt and Christoph von Sichem have also illustrated the story of F., and, in modern times, Cornelius and Retzsch have done the same. See Peter's Die Literatur der Faustsage (3d ed. 1857); Engel's Das Volkssehauspiel Dr. F. (1873).