Faustus’ Sin and its Consequences

In the pageant of Seven Deadly Sins in the second scene of Act II, Pride has been shown leading all
other deadly vices that follow. Thus pride has been given the pride of place among all other Deadly
Sins. And Doctor Faustus has committed this very great sin of sins. In the prologue of the play the
Chorus informs us how Faustus puffed up with pride and afire with inordinate ambition takes to the
black art of Magic and how he is going to meet his doom just like Icarus whose ‘waxen wings did
mount above his reach.’

Theological Concept of Evil or Sin

Marlowe was a student of theology, so he could not but have a first hand acquaintance with the
current theological concept of sin or evil as stated and formulated by St. Augustine in his classic
work. According to his concept the commission of any sin means turning away from God and godly
things and turning towards things which are evil and evanescent. And naturally the sin of man must
lead to his damnation. According to this concept and Christian theology the greatest sin of man is
pride—pride that brought about the fall of Lucifer, ‘most dearly lov’d of God’ from heaven. In this
connection Douglus Cole has justly remarked: “There is no denying the fact that in Doctor Faustus
Christopher Marlowe, whatever his personal views of Christianity may have been, has fashioned a
play that is thoroughly Christian in conception and import. Christianity was of course explicit in
Marlowe’s source, the English Faustbuch. But in adapting that meandering collection of anecdotes
about the famous German magician Marlowe gave it a more concentrated intellectual shape by
reorganizing his material along a more sophisticated line of philosophical and theological concept of
evil. That theology had been given its classical and enduring formulation by St. Augustine with whose
Marlowe, as a student of theology, had first hand acquaintance.”

Pride and Insolence

When Faustus asked Mephistophilis how Lucifer, ‘an angel once’, became the prince of devils, he
rather gave a very clear warning in his relevant reply:

“O, by aspiring pride and insolence!

For which God threw him from the face of heaven.”

And this very sin is going to be committed by Faustus. We find the play opening at a very crucial
juncture of his life. In the very first scene of the play we find him disappointed with all branches of
knowledge that he has so far mastered. Physic, philosophy, law, divinity, all are absolutely
inadequate to fulfil his inordinate ambition. In spite of mastering all these great branches of
knowledge he is ‘still but Faustus and a man.’ Human mind very often reveals a very great tendency
to venture beyond limits set by religion and ethical principles. But this also is a very dangerous
tendency that often bring about ruin and disaster, both physically and morally. And the soul of
Faustus is afire with a supreme yearning for infinite knowledge and a craze for limitless superhuman
power and supreme sensual pleasures of life. And we can clearly understand whether the wind
blows when Faustus takes his final decision to leap into the darkness or into the lap of the Devil
when he utters these memorable lines:—
“……….Divinity, Adieu!

These metaphysics of magicians.

And necromantic books are heavenly;

……………………………….

O, what a world of profit and delight,

Of power, of honour, of omnipotence, .

Is promised to the studious artizan!

All things that move between the quiet poles

Shall be at my command……………

…………….

A sound magician is a mighty God:

Here, Faustus, tire thy brains to gain a deity.”

So Faustus wants to tire his brain ‘to gain a deity’ and to become—‘Lord and commander of the
elements.’ And this desire to be a god himself is one of the greatest sins on the part of a Christian as
it reveals ‘aspiring pride and insolence’ beyond limits. And Faustus commits it.

Deliberate Commission of Sin

The worst thing for Faustus is that Faustus commits his sin deliberately. He sins knowing fully well
what he is doing or going to do. Puffed up with such pride and afire with such inordinate ambition a
man is bound to discard God and turn to Devil. And Faustus does so wilfully and deliberately. Thus in
the third scene of Act I when Mephistophilis tells him without any ambiguity that the easiest method
to call up the spirits of hell, is to abjure God and the Trinity and to ‘pray devoutly to the prince of
hell.’ Faustus’s reply was deliberately insolent:

“So Faustus hath

Already done! and holds this principle,

There is no chief but only Belzebub!

To whom doth Faustus dedicate himself.

This word ‘damnation’ terrifies not him,

For he confounds hell in Elysium”,

And then he had audacity to declare:

“Had I as many souls as there be stars,

I’d give them all for Mephistophilis.”

Thus quite deliberately and of his own will Faustus firmly makes up his mind to sell his soul to the
Devil to gain superhuman powers with the help of Mephistophilis as his pliant slave and ‘to live in
voluptuousness’ for twenty-four years. And in the first scene of Act II we find Faustus finally
surrendering his soul to the Devil and writing the bond with the blood from his own veins—‘a deed
of gift of body and soul.’ Then again, when Mephistophilis frankly tells Faustus that he would be
condemned to hell as he had given away his soul to the Devil, Faustus’s reply is defiant and
audacious according to Christian theology:

‘Think’st thou that Faustus is so fond to imagine

That, after this life, there is any pain:

Tush, these are trifles and mere old wives, tales.

Had Faustus committed his sin out of passion or due to ignorance then his moral responsibility could
have been mitigated to a great extent. But all his utterances in the very first few scenes establish
beyond any doubt that he had discarded the path of virtue ‘to gain a deity’ deliberately and of his
own accord.

Presumption and Arrogance

Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus may rightly be regarded as a tragedy of presumption. Literally

‘presumption’ means arrogance as well as taking things for granted. In fact pride and presumption
go together. And it is his excessive pride and intemperate ambition that lead Faustus to commit the
folly of presumption. Even after mastering almost all the important branches of study and in spite of
his vast scholarship Faustus is still far from satisfied as he still cannot ‘make men to live eternally’
and is unable ‘to raise the dead to life again.’ And hence he bids farewell to Divinity and the
‘metaphysics of magicians’ and necromantic books seem heavenly to him. Vanity and sky-high
ambition obscure his vision completely and lead him to take things for granted blindly. Faustus takes
it to be granted that by mastering the black art of magic,

All things that move between the quiet poles

Shall be at my command: emperors and kings

Are but obey’d i’ their several provinces,

Nor can they raise the wind or rend the clouds:

But his dominion that exceeds in this,

Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man!

A sound magician is a mighty god:

Here Faustus, tire thy brains to gain a deity.

What proud and presumptuous utterance these are! He takes it for granted that a ‘sound magician’
is like a mighty god and that his mastery over the black art of magic will enable him to become as
powerful a monarch on this earth as Jove is in heaven.

Diffidence and Degradation

The irony of the situation is that Doctor Faustus, in spite of all his erudition and scholarship, could
not realise that although he was denouncing Christian doctrines intellectually with his scepticism and
atheistic bias, his emotional attachment to them was too deep to be rooted out so easily. And then
he is also not devoid of conscience. Hence we find Faustus becoming a prey to his own doubts and
diffidence and his mind wavering between his God and the Devil. And that is why the Good Angel,
the voice of his conscience, appears and urges him to shun that ‘damned book’ and to read the
scriptures. But lust for sensual pleasures of life have completely obscured his vision and vitiated his
soul. He turns a deaf ear to the earnest appeal of the Good Angel and his voice of passion, the Evil
Angel, scores a victory by turning his soul away with the assurance that by mastering the black art of
magic Faustus will be like Jove in the Sky:

“Lord and commander of these elements”.

Even almost at the end of this tragic drama, in the first scene of Act V the old man fails in his sincere
attempt to guide his ‘steps unto the way of life.’ In the pageant of Seven Deadly Sins we have Sin of
Lechery to come last of all. It means when a man gets absolutely degenerate he is ultimately bound
to become an abject victim of his carnal desires. So Faustus’s degradation is complete when we find
him making a frantic appeal to the apparition of that peerless. Helen of Greece to make him
immortal with a kiss. And thus Faustus gives up the last possibility of his redemption and becomes
an abject prey to dejection and despair is also a sin for a devout Christian named Curiosity. Another
important aspect of his sin is his limitless curiosity. Of course this was one of the most significant
characteristics of the Renaissance. But Faustus’s boundless curiosity led him to practise more than
heavenly power permits; he begins wondering at unlawful things and thus bringing about his own
doom and damnation. Hence in the epilogue the Chorus warns us all:

“Faustus is gone: regard his hellish fall,

Whose fiendful may exhort the wise,

Only to wonder at unlawful things.

Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits

To practise more than heavenly power permits.”