734 Marlowe, Christopher
To put it simply, because of his pride, Faustus seeks
only a profession that will make him “a mighty god,”
not a useful human being, and that profession, he
believes, is sorcery.
When Faustus tells Valdes and Cornelius that
he will follow their profession, he claims that, rather
than their words, it was his own imagination that
persuaded him—yet another example of his pride.
He believes that his superior skill in magic has con-
jured up Mephistopheles, but the devil tells him that
he comes whenever anyone abuses the Scriptures,
God, or Christ. This point is reinforced when Wag-
ner, Faustus’s servant, and Robin, a foolish stable
boy, also conjure up devils, proving that the intellect
of which Faustus is so proud has nothing to do with
his success.
There is little doubt that Faustus’s pride in
his own mind leads to his damnation. In his first
conversation with Mephistopheles, Faustus asks
how Lucifer, once God’s favorite angel, became
the prince of devils. The answer should serve as a
warning: “O, by aspiring pride and insolence, / For
which God threw him from the face of heaven”
(1.4). Yet Faustus scoffs at this and other warn-
ings throughout the play, which his reason cannot
accept. When contemplating the power he will gain
through his bargain with the devil, Faustus devises a
plan to improve upon God’s creation by moving the
continents and oceans. Believing that he can correct
God’s “mistake” is a demonstration of extreme but
wrongheaded pride in his own brilliance.
Ironically, despite this pride in the superiority of
his mind, the play depicts Faustus as a man strongly
tied to his body and easily seduced by his physical
senses. His language is infused with words suggest-
ing sensuality, and in one insightful moment he
observes of himself, “The god thou servest is thine
own appetite” (2.1). Lucifer and Mephistopheles
soon learn that, whenever Faustus considers calling
on God to forgive him, he can be easily diverted
with threats of physical pain or offers of sensual
pleasure. In one such scene, Lucifer first threatens
to command a team of devils to tear him limb from
limb and then calls up an amusing pageant of the
Seven Deadly Sins—significantly led by Pride.
Faustus’s greatest displays of pride occur in his
moments of doubt, when he contemplates the seri-
ousness of damnation and the possibility of gaining
God’s pardon. Inevitably, he concludes that his sins
are so great that they are unforgivable. He brushes
aside the Good Angel’s advice and repays an old
man who encourages him to repent by sending
devils to torment his body. At his last supper, his
scholarly friends also beg him to ask forgiveness, but
he replies that his sin can never be pardoned. In his
last soliloquy, he seems about to repent, but instead
of simply asking pardon, Faustus attempts to strike
a bargain with God similar to that he made with
Lucifer: to serve a term in hell if he will be prom-
ised heaven in the end. Ultimately, he is damned
because his pride will not allow him to believe that
the promise of Christ’s sacrifice—forgiveness of sins
and eternal life for those who believe—is his for the
asking.
Deborah MontourireliGion in Doctor Faustus
When Christopher Marlowe wrote Doctor Faustus,
England was still reeling from decades of religious
turmoil, and intolerance for those whose beliefs
diverged from the Church of England was still
the rule. Henry VIII had broken with the Roman
Catholic Church in 1533, declaring himself the
head of the new state religion, closing abbeys and
monasteries and confiscating church property. His
son, Edward VI, continued these reforms, but when
Mary I became queen in 1553, she forcibly returned
England to the Catholic fold, making Protestant
martyrs of nearly 300 subjects who refused to
abandon their faith. When Elizabeth I, who ruled
when the play was written, reinstated the Anglican
Church in 1557, she promised tolerance for dis-
senters, but all subjects were expected to outwardly
conform. Repeated Catholic plots to overthrow or
assassinate her led to greater restrictions. Quakers,
Methodists, Lutherans, and those of other Prot-
estant sects were also expected to conform, and
anyone who spread dissenting doctrines was liable
to be charged with heresy. Blasphemy and atheism,
for which Marlowe himself was being investigated
at the time of his death, were also considered crimes
against both church and state.
In this context, Doctor Faustus can be read as
propaganda for the Anglican Church—a warning