I have been thus particular in holding forth the decidedly magical and theurgic character of the Alexandrian School of Platonists, in the second and third centuries, as it is easy to perceive that the revival of the Platonic, or rather Neo-Platonic philosophy, on occasion of the restoration of learning in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, had a principal share in the formation of the theosophic and magical views of the sixteenth century, which it is my intention here to characterise. The world had become heartily sick of the eternal boom-booming of the Aristotelian bitterns.[i4] The hungry spirit of man, aroused from its lethargic slumber, demanded some more vital nourishment than the skeleton distinctions of a thought-dissecting logic, and the vain pomposity of a learned terminology, could afford; and when such men as Dante, Petrarch, and Boccacio had taught the world to prefer the fulness of poetical life to the nakedness of scholastic speculation, no wonder that Plato, Plotinus, and Proclus, when brought into the West by the learned fugitives of Constantinople, should have received a hearty welcome, and exercised a deep-spread influence over the philosophy of the succeeding centuries. Gemistus Pletho, Bessarion, and Marsilius Ficinus, are well known as the three principal restorers of the Platonic philosophy in the fifteenth century: but it deserves especially to be remarked, that these men were far from being pure worshippers of their great master, but mixed it up with the theurgic dreamings of Jamblichus and Porphyry, nay, even went as far back as Pythagoras and Hermes Trismegistus, and held the simple Platonic doctrines as of comparatively little consequence, unless taken in connection with the mighty system which, out of such strange materials, had been built up by the Neo-Platonists.[i5]
In connection with the revival of the Platonic philosophy in Italy, we cannot omit to mention the name of Reuchlin, whose zeal for cabbalistical studies is said to have been first excited by the famous Johannes Picus Mirandula.[i6] Reuchlin was a German, and is the more interesting to us as the contemporary, or rather the master and instructor of Agrippa, Melancthon, and many celebrated men of the sixteenth century, whose names stand immediately connected with the story of Doctor Faust. To complete the wild dreamings of the Italian Platonists, nothing was now wanting but a revival of the Rabbinical and Talmudistic lore; and Reuchlin, whom Europe still reveres as the father of Hebrew learning in modern Theology, was precisely the man for this purpose. It was natural that the language of the sacred Book should have been considered as containing something mystical and transcendental even in its very letters; and we need not wonder that the enthusiasm of the first Hebrew scholars in Germany should have discovered the key of all the sciences in that cabbalistic lore, which we are now accustomed to use in common discourse, as a synonym for the most childish and unintelligible jargon.
Taking, thus, the prevailing theology of the Church, in connection with the impulse which the human mind had received from the revival of the Platonic philosophy, and the strong reaction, which the risings of independent thought in the breasts of men like Telesius, Campanella, and Bruno, had raised against the long-established despotism of the Aristotelian philosophy,—and all this worked up to a point by the revival of Cabbalism, through Reuchlin and other cultivators of Oriental literature,—we shall have no difficulty in perceiving at once the leading features of the age in which Faust flourished, and the causes which led to their development. We see the human intellect, in being roused into new life from the icy night of scholasticism, surrounded by the glowing but unsubstantial morning-clouds of a philosophy of feeling and imagination. Sufficiently occupied with gazing, child-like, on the hovering shapes that teemed so richly from its new-awakened being, it had no time, no wish, to enter upon the severe task of conscious manhood, that of criticising its own powers, and defining, with cautious precision, what the mind of man can know, and what it cannot know,—and was thus destined, for a short season, to flounder through the misty regions of theosophy and magic, till it should learn, from experience, to find at once its starting-point and its goal, in the exhaustless fulness of actual Nature.
In such an age, and under the influence of opinions, religious and philosophical, so different from those now prevalent, flourished the mysterious hero of modern magic, whom the pen of Goethe has made, likewise, one of the principal heroes of modern poetry. That a good deal of obscurity should have gathered around such a character,—that the love of the marvellous should have united with the ignorance of the age, in magnifying juggling tricks into miracles of magic, and clouding with a poetical mistiness that which was clear and definite,—is not to be wondered at. But that such a character actually existed, the tradition perpetuated from age to age on its native soil, and found, with little variation, scattered over almost every country, and clothed in almost every language of Europe, is of itself sufficient evidence. Popular legends seldom spring, like the antediluvian and prelapsarian traditions of the Talmudists, or the genealogies of old Celtic families, from mere airy nothingness; and, however contradictory and inconsistent their integrant parts may appear, they have all formed themselves around a nucleus of substantial reality. Nevertheless, as there is nothing so absurd which has not been asserted by some one of the philosophers, so there have not been wanting men of learning and investigation, who have seriously set themselves to the task of proving away the personality of the renowned Doctor Faust.[i7] But to detect a few chronological inaccuracies in the common popular legend, and to hold out to merited contempt the silliness, and even the impossibility of many things contained in it, may afford an opportunity for the display of a pedantic erudition, but can give no ground for the sweeping conclusion that the person, of whom these stories are told, did actually never exist. The monks were clever fellows; but, with all their ability, they would have found it difficult to invent such a story as Faust—so generally believed—out of mere nothing. The sceptics themselves are sensible of this; and, accordingly, Dürr, the chief of them, while he denies the personality of Faust the magician, endeavours to give a probable reason for the prevalence of the story, by throwing the whole burden upon the back of Faust the printer, father-in-law of Peter Schoeffer, and fellow-workers both of Guttenburg,—the famous trio, among whom the honour of the invention of printing is divided. The envy of the monks, acting on the ignorance of the age, here comes most opportunely into play, to explain how the inventor of such a novel art of multiplying books should have been generally accounted a magician. There can, indeed, be little doubt that he was so accounted by many ignorant people; and as this idea is sufficiently poetical, Klingemann has taken advantage of it in his tragedy of Doctor Faust.[i8] The main objection, however, on the face of this theory, is, that all the legends of Faust agree in placing the hero of magic fully half a century later than Faust the printer, who flourished about 1440. It is true, indeed, that some of the Volksbücher (vide Dürr, ut supra) ascribe to the Emperor Maximilian, what is generally told of Charles V., viz. that Doctor Faust conjured up before him the apparitions of Alexander the Great and his queen; but the other tricks, which were played before Cardinal Campegio and Pope Adrian, agree better with the age of Charles V. than with that of Maximilian. It is quite possible, however, that Faust may have exhibited his magical skill before both these emperors, whose reigns occupied the space from 1492 to 1558, Maximilian dying in 1519; for even the date of Maximilian will never bring us back to the era when Faust the printer was in his glory.
The personality of Faust, however, is not left to rest upon the mere traditionary evidence of the vulgar legend. The diligence of German antiquaries, even before Goethe’s Faust gave importance to the theme, had collected many trustworthy historical testimonies in confirmation of the common belief. Dürr’s Letter on this subject is dated 1676; and, not seven years afterwards, appeared Neumann’s historical disquisition De Fausto praestigiatore. This essay I have not seen at full length; but from the epitome given of it by Hauber (Bibliotheca Magica, vol. ii. p. 706), I fear that there may be but too much cause for the remark of Heumann,[i9] that “it smacks too much of the young graduate.” It was certainly a very pious motive that induced Neumann, a student of Wittenberg, to attempt removing from his alma mater the shame of having given birth, or even education, to such a notorious character as Doctor Faust; but truth often forces us to admit what fondest prejudice would fain deny. The next critical essay on Faust, is that of Heumann, just quoted, in Hauber’s Library of Magic, and it contains the most important of these historical testimonies to the truth of the Faustish legend, which have since been so comprehensively exhibited in one work by Doctor Stieglitz.[i10]
As all the traditions agree in representing Faust as having studied at Wittenberg, and there, too, exhibited a number of magical tricks to his good friends the students, it was natural to suspect that Luther or Melancthon should, somewhere or other, make mention of such a notorious character. And, accordingly, Stieglitz follows Horst (Zauber-Bibliotheck, vi. 87) in asserting that Melancthon actually does make mention of Doctor Faust in one of his epistles; but as neither of these writers cites the passage, or mentions in what particular part of Melancthon’s work it is to be found, I barely mention this circumstance on their authority. There is, however, very great probability that the testimony of Joannes Manlius, in his Collectanea, the principal one relied on both by Heumann and Stieglitz, is, in reality, to be considered as a testimony of Melancthon. Manlius himself[i11] says of his Collectanea, “Labor hic noster collectus ex ore D. Phillippi Melanchthonis aliisque clarissimis viris,” and might, on this account, as Heumann remarks, have fitly been named Melancthoniana, or Melancthon’s Table-Talk. But be this as it may, Manlius’ testimony is most decided, and runs as follows:—“I was acquainted with a certain person, called Faust of Kundling, a small town in Wurtemberg. He was a Cracovian Scholasticus, and read lectures on magic in the university there. He was a great rambler (vagabatur passim), and possessed many secrets. At Venice, wishing to amuse the populace, he boasted that he would fly up to heaven. The devil accordingly wafted him up a certain height, but dashed him down again in such a plight, that he lay half-dead on the ground. A few years ago, the same John Faust, on the last day of his life, was found sitting in the common inn of a certain village in the Duchy of Wittenberg. He was, indeed, a most vile blackguard (turpissimus nebulo), of a most filthy life, so much so, indeed, that he once and again almost lost his life on account of his excesses. The landlord of the inn asked him why he sat there so sad, contrary to his wont? “Be not terrified if you shall hear anything on this night,” was his short answer. And at midnight the house was shaken. Next morning, near mid-day, as Faust did not make his appearance, the landlord entered into his chamber, and found him lying beside his bed, with his face on the ground, having been so slain by the devil. When he was yet alive, he was accompanied by a dog, which was the devil. ... This Faust the magician, a most vile beast, and a common sewer of many devils (cloaca multorum diabolorum), was also a great boaster, and pretended that all the victories of the Imperial armies in Italy were gained by the help of his magic.”[i12] With this account agrees exactly that given by Wier,[i13] the disciple and confidant of the celebrated Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim. Del Rio,[i14] who wrote at the end of the sixteenth century, introduces him along with the same Agrippa, playing tricks on the poor landlords, with whom they sojourned in their vagabond excursions, by paying them with money which turned into crumbs and chaff, whenever the magicians were out of sight; but his connection with such a philosopher as Agrippa is much to be doubted, as Wier has not even hinted at it in the passage where he treats expressly of the Doctor.
The only other contemporary writer from whom I shall quote at length, is Begardi[i15] whose book, Zeyger der Gesundheit, was published in 1539, and contains the following interesting testimony to the age and character of Faust, which I give here from the German, as it stands in Dr. Stieglitz’s essay.
“There is yet a celebrated character whom I would rather not have named; but since I must mention him, I will tell what I know of him in a few words. Some years ago this man passed through almost all lands, princedoms, and kingdoms, making his name known to everybody, and making great show of his skill, not in medicine only, but in chiromancy, necromancy, physiognomy, visions in crystals, and such like. And in these things he not only acquired great notoriety, but also obtained the name of a famous and experienced master. He did not conceal his name, but called himself Faust, and used to subscribe himself philosophus philosophorum. But of those who were cheated by him, and complained of the same to me, there is a great multitude. His promise was great like that of Thessalus in Galen’s days, as also his fame like that of Theophrastus;[i16] but his deeds, as I have heard, were almost always found to be very petty and deceitful, though he was, to speak plainly, not slow at giving, and especially taking, money, as many a worthy person had cause to know. But now the matter is not to be remedied; past is past, and gone is gone. I must even leave the matter as it is; and see thou to it, that thou treat it as a good Christian ought to do.”
Thus far Begardi in his honest naïve language. Heumann cites further a long passage from Tritheim’s Epistolæ Familiares,[i17] describing a character altogether similar to that above described by Manlius and Begardi; with this remarkable difference, that he is not called Doctor John Faust, as he is by Manlius, and in all the vulgar traditions, but “Magister Georgius Faustus Sabellicus, Faustus Junior.” I think Stieglitz has been too precipitate in concluding that difference in the name must necessarily imply a difference in the person. The vagabond wonder-workers of those days were wont to have a number of names, as the example of Paracelsus alone is sufficient to show. With regard to the denomination of “Faustus junior,” this cannot certainly refer to our John Faust, with whom this George (if he was a different person) must have been contemporary. It probably relates to Faust the printer, who has also been accused of magic, or to some other Faust of the fifteenth century, whose fame has been now swallowed up in that of Doctor John Faust of Wittenberg.
Camerarius and Gesner[i18] also make mention of Doctor Faust; but let the passages already quoted suffice to prove the historical reality of our magical hero.