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This volume presents the earliest surviving English renditions of the Faust legend, drawing on the 1592 Faust Book and the 1594 Wagner Book, both of which exist in only a single surviving copy each. The editor has modernized spelling and punctuation while leaving the original syntax untouched, allowing readers to experience the text as it appeared in the early modern period. The opening pages explain the scholarly provenance of the texts, citing the 1900 reprint by H. Logeman and the 1907 edition by Alfred E. Richards, and then launch into a sweeping historical essay that traces the Faust motif from biblical origins through medieval myth, culminating in a series of contemporary testimonies that document the life of the historical figure known as Doctor John Faustus.
The work is written in a learned, discursive style typical of late‑16th‑century scholarship, blending Latin citations with English narrative and a tone that oscillates between erudite commentary and vivid anecdote. Readers who relish early modern prose, the evolution of legend, and the interplay of folklore with documented history will find this collection rewarding. It especially appeals to scholars of Renaissance literature, historians of occult practices, and anyone interested in the cultural roots of the Faustian bargain.
The opening · free to read
The story of the man who sells his soul to the powers of evil in return for material gain, is one of the most ancient in the history of humanity. It is perhaps as old as humanity, for when the light of self-consciousness first began to dawn on man, he no doubt desired to know more than his limited intellect could tell him, or to possess something that the world could not or would not give him. When he looked around, and was frightened at his own littleness, he created gods for his protection, and these gods he endeavoured to propitiate, until they became his tyrants. They were the symbols of his hopes and fears, so that when he was propitiating his gods he was stereotyping the limitations of his own mind. And the most important of those limitations was that he must not look beyond his manufactured gods for the hidden causes of things. A profound instinct nevertheless urged him to probe beyond, and the resulting spiritual unrest, which has always manifested itself spasmodically in the human race, underwent various personifications at different times. The elements of the Faust story were already present in the Garden of Eden—the Tree of Knowledge, the personification of Evil in the Serpent, and the Woman who was tempted to overstep the bounds of what was permitted by the orthodox authority, in order to grasp the Forbidden Fruit. It is significant for the peculiar construction of the human mind, that it was always the Spirit of Evil which led the way to spiritual emancipation. In order to give concrete expression to his almost unconscious thirst for greater knowledge, man had to pretend to himself that this craving was pernicious. His very attempts to free himself from superstition provide the strongest evidence of the tortuous way in which his mind had to work, for it could only rise to a higher conception of its own worth by playing a game of self-deception.
The Faust problem was not peculiar to the Christian era. The Jews had their Solomon and the Greeks their Prometheus, but it was only at the end of the Middle Ages, when the old world was in the melting-pot, that there arose the most famous of all these legends, the most curious element in which is perhaps the fact that there was at the source of it an actual person.
“That man, about whom you have written to me, Georgius Sabellicus, who has ventured to call himself the prince of necromancers is a vagabond, an empty babbler and a knave: worthy to be whipped, that he might no longer profess publicly abominable matters which are opposed to the holy Church. For what are the titles which he assumes, other than the signs of a most stupid and senseless mind, which proves that he is a fool and no philosopher? Thus he has adopted the following title: Magister Georgius Sabellicus, Faustus junior, fountain of necromancers, astrologer, magus secundus, chiromancer, aëromancer, pyromancer, second in hydromancy. Behold the foolish temerity of the man; what madness is necessary to call oneself the fountain of necromancy. A man who is, in truth, entirely devoid of education, should rather call himself a fool than a magister. But his wickedness is not unknown to me. When some years ago I was returning from the March of Brandenburg, I met this man in the town of Gelnhausen, where I was told in the inn of many frivolous things promised by him with great audacity. When he heard of my presence, he fled forthwith from the inn and could not be persuaded by anyone to present himself to me.
He sent to me also by a citizen the advertisement of his foolishness, which I remember he sent to you. In that town I was told by priests, that he had said in the presence of many people that he had attained such great knowledge and memory of all wisdom, that if all the works of Plato and Aristotle, together with all their philosophy, had been absolutely wiped out of human memory, he would restore them, like a second Hebrew Ezra, by his genius, totally and more excellently than before.
When I was later on in Speyer, he came to Würzburg, and is said to have boasted with similar conceit in the presence of many people, that the miracles of our Redeemer Christ are no cause for astonishment; he himself could do everything that Christ had done, as often as and whenever he wished. This year, during the last days of Lent, he came to Kreuznach, where he made vast promises in a similar swaggering manner, and said that in alchemy he was the most perfect of any that had ever lived, and knew and could perform whatever the people wished. During this time the office of schoolmaster in this town was vacant, and it was conferred upon him through the intercession of Franz von Sickingen, the steward of your prince, a man who is exceedingly ardent with regard to mystical matters. But soon afterwards he began to practise a most infamous kind of fornication, forsooth, with the boys, and he fled, when the matter came to light, from his imminent punishment.
This is what is evident to me, according to the most certain testimony, concerning that man whose visit you are awaiting with such eagerness.”
The accusations of the abbot are to be taken with a pinch of salt, for he was himself suspected of dabbling in magic, and his indignation may have been coloured by more than a tinge of jealousy. He is known to have declaimed before the Emperor Maximilian against the followers of the black art, and there is a letter, written by him only four days before the above epistle to Virdung, in which he protests against the imputing to him of magic practices. He was even rumoured to have conjured up the spirits of the dead in the presence of the Emperor. At any rate, he does not seem to have been anxious for popular inclusion among the necromancers. Neither is it at all certain that there is any truth in the scandal about the school at Kreuznach, for that was the sort of vice which it was usual to attribute to dissolute magicians.
It cannot be explained why Faust should have called himself junior, for there is no trace of any earlier magician of the same name. Whether Sabellicus was his real name, and Faustus junior a kind of professional title, or whether George Faust attached the title Sabellicus to his name as an allusion to the magic art of the Sabines, is likewise a mystery. It will be noticed that he is called George, and the same Christian name occurs again, six years later, in the second existing reference to Faust.
Conrad Mutianus Rufus (Conrad Mut, Canon at Gotha, called Rufus on account of his red hair), a friend of Reuchlin and Melanchthon, and one of the most cultured of the Humanists, makes the following statement in a letter written from Erfurt to his friend Heinrich Urbanus on the 7th of October, 1513:—
“There came a week ago to Erfurt a certain chiromancer named Georgius Faustus, Helmitheus Hedebergensis, a mere braggart and fool. The professions of this man and of all the fortune-tellers are vain. The rude people marvel at him, the priests should denounce him. I heard him swaggering at the inn. I did not reprove his boastfulness, for why should I bother about the foolishness of others?”
These two George Fausts are obviously the same person. The term Helmitheus Hedebergensis may be meant for Hemitheus Hedelbergensis, half-god of Heidelberg, where the charlatan perhaps pretended to have studied.[1] There was a Bachelor named Johann Faust, of Simmern, at Heidelberg in the year 1509, but it is unlikely that he has any connection with our Faust.
There is a legend that Faust was given asylum at the monastery of Maulbronn by the Abbot Entenfuss in the year 1516, and that he there pursued his alchemistic activities. The well-known “Faust tower” which is still shown there was, however, not built until nearly a hundred years later.
The next reference we find is an entry in the account book of the Bishop of Bamberg by the latter’s chamberlain, under the date 12th of February, 1520:—
“Item 10 gulden given and presented to Doctor Faustus philosophus in honour of his having cast for my gracious master a nativity or indicium, paid on Sunday after Scholastica by the order of Reverendissimus.”
A less flattering entry is that in the minutes of the resolutions of the Town Council of Ingolstadt in 1528:—
“To-day, Wednesday after St. Vitus, 1528. The fortune-teller shall be ordered to leave the town and spend his penny elsewhere.” This is supplemented by another entry in the record of expulsions: “To-day, Wednesday after St. Vitus, 1528, one who calls himself Dr. Jörg Faustus of Heidelberg has been told to spend his penny elsewhere, and has promised not to resent or mock such summons of the authorities.”
It will be noticed that the same Christian name again occurs, in conjunction with the reference to Heidelberg.
There is then a gap of some eleven years before we meet the name again in the Index Sanitatis of the physician Philipp Begardi of Worms, published in 1539:—
“There is also to be found a renowned and bold man; I did not wish to have mentioned his name, but it will not be hidden or unknown. For some years ago he wandered through almost every province, principality and kingdom, made his name known to everybody, and boasted loudly of his great art, not only in medicine, but also in chiromancy, necromancy, physiognomy, crystal-gazing and more of such arts. And not only boasted, but also gave himself out to be and wrote himself as a famous and experienced master. He also himself acknowledged and did not deny, that he was, and was called Faust, and signed himself Philosophus Philosophorum, etc. There has, however, been a great number of people, who have complained to me, that they have been swindled by him. His promises were as great as those of Thessalus. Similarly his fame, like that of Theophrastus also; but the fulfilment, as I learn, was found to be very small and fraudulent; yet he was not slow in taking money, and at his departure many people were cheated. But what can one do about it, gone is gone.”
When Philipp von Hutten, the cousin of the more famous Ulrich von Hutten, was about to start on his first expedition to Venezuela in 1534, Faust prophesied that the voyage would be unfortunate, and he was right, for von Hutten, in a description of the voyage written in 1540, writes: “I must acknowledge that the philosopher Faustus divined it correctly, for we have had a very bad year.” A rival fortune-teller, Joachim Camerarius, who had declared that the voyage would be lucky, asks in a letter to a friend, written in 1536, what Faust can prophesy about the German Emperor’s next battle with the King of France.
Johann Gast, a protestant clergyman at Basle, relates two anecdotes of Faust in the edition of his Sermones Convivales which appeared in 1548:—
“_Concerning the Necromancer Faust._
He once turned into a very wealthy monastery, in order to spend the night there. A brother sets before him ordinary, weak, not very tasty wine. Faust asks him for better wine from another barrel, which is usually given to distinguished guests. The brother says: ‘I haven’t the keys. The prior is asleep, and I may not rouse him.’ Faust replies: ‘The keys lie in that corner; take them and open that barrel on the left and bring me a drink!’ The brother refuses and declares that he has no permission from the prior to give the guests other wine. When Faust hears this, he says: ‘In a short time thou wilt experience strange things, inhospitable brother!’ Early next morning he went away full of bitterness, without taking leave, and sent a raging devil into the monastery, who made an uproar day and night, and set everything in motion in the church and in the rooms of the monks, so that they had no peace, whatever they did. At last they consulted as to whether they should abandon the monastery or totally destroy it. They therefore announced their misfortune to the Count Palatine, who took the monastery under his protection and sent away the monks, to whom he allows every year what they need, keeping the rest for himself. Some assert that even now, when monks enter the monastery, there arises such a tumult, that the inhabitants have no peace. The devil knows how to manage that.
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