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Does Faust speak of divine magic?

[On the types of magic, and their purpose in the esoteric (vaguely superstition”, “magic”, and “the occult”) Christian search for truth.]

“In the later Middle Ages, forms of Western esotericism such as alchemy and astrology were constructed on Christian foundations, combining Christian theology and doctrines with esoteric concepts.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Apologia (“Apologia J. Pici Mirandolani, Concordiae comitis” published in 1489) states that there are two types of magic, which are theurgy (divine magic), and goetia (demonic magic). These disciplines were explained as the “Operation of the Stars”, just as alchemy was the “Operation of the Sun”, and astrology the “Operation of the Moon.” Kabbalah was also an active discipline. These spiritual traditions allegedly aided the esoteric to arise to higher forms of consciousness, and arise to a better understanding of God, The Self, and the Universe.

Esoteric Christians practice these forms or traditions, which they believe are all a part of the same spiritual truth, which help to convey “mystery knowledge”, which can only be learned directly from spiritual experience via Theurgy, Kabbalah, or Mysticism.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, this was followed up by the development of Theosophy and Rosicrucianism. Behmenism also developed around this time, as did Freemasonry.”

From Wikipedia Esoteric_Christianity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_Christianity.

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There are two types of magic

Magic just before the time of the historical Faust:

From Wikipedia:

“In the later Middle Ages, forms of Western esotericism such as alchemy and astrology were constructed on Christian foundations, combining Christian theology and doctrines with esoteric concepts.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Apologia (“Apologia J. Pici Mirandolani, Concordiae comitis” published in 1489) states that there are two types of “magic”, which are theurgy (divine magic), and goetia (demonic magic). These disciplines were explained as the “Operation of the Stars”, just as alchemy was the “Operation of the Sun”, and astrology the “Operation of the Moon.” Kabbalah was also an active discipline. These spiritual traditions allegedly aided the esoteric to arise to higher forms of consciousness, and arise to a better understanding of God, The Self, and the Universe. Esoteric Christians practice these forms or traditions, which they believe are all a part of the same spiritual truth, which help to convey “mystery knowledge”, which can only be learned directly from spiritual experience via Theurgy, Kabbalah, or Mysticism.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, this was followed up by the development of Theosophy and Rosicrucianism. Behmenism also developed around this time, as did Freemasonry.”

Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_Christianity>

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Come, Mephistopheles, let us dispute again

Doctor Faustus. By Christopher Marlowe

“He that is grounded in astrology,
Enriched with tongues, well seen in minerals,
Hath all the principles magic doth require.
Then doubt not, Faustus, but to be renowned
And more frequented for this mystery
Than henceforth the Delphian oracle.”

….

“I am resolv’d; Faustus shall ne’er repent.—
Come, Mephistophilis, let us dispute again,
And argue of divine astrology.
Tell me, are there many heavens above the moon
Are all celestial bodies but one globe,
As is the substance of this centric earth?

MEPHIST. As are the elements, such are the spheres,
Mutually folded in each other’s orb,
And, Faustus,
All jointly move upon one axletree,
Whose terminine is term’d the world’s wide pole;
Nor are the names of Saturn, Mars, or Jupiter
Feign’d, but are erring stars.

FAUSTUS. But, tell me, have they all one motion, both situ et
tempore?

MEPHIST. All jointly move from east to west in twenty-four hours
upon the poles of the world; but differ in their motion upon
the poles of the zodiac.

FAUSTUS. Tush,
These slender trifles Wagner can decide:
Hath Mephistophilis no greater skill?
Who knows not the double motion of the planets?
The first is finish’d in a natural day;
The second thus; as Saturn in thirty years; Jupiter in twelve;
Mars in four; the Sun, Venus, and Mercury in a year; the Moon in
twenty-eight days. Tush, these are freshmen’s suppositions.
But, tell me, hath every sphere a dominion or intelligentia?

MEPHIST. Ay.

FAUSTUS. How many heavens or spheres are there?

MEPHIST. Nine; the seven planets, the firmament, and the empyreal
heaven.

FAUSTUS. Well, resolve me in this question; why have we not
conjunctions, oppositions, aspects, eclipses, all at one time,
but in some years we have more, in some less?

MEPHIST. Per inoequalem motum respectu totius.

FAUSTUS. Well, I am answered. Tell me who made the world?

MEPHIST. I will not.”

The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus, by Christoper Marlowe.

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Over the course of the next three centuries

From a Master’s thesis, The scientific revolution’s axiomatic rejection of magical thinking : the case of astrology in England (1600-1700):

“Over the course of the next three centuries the Church would actually fluctuate between policies of toleration and persecution of astrologers though, with some Church leaders even taking an avid interest in astrology.

For instance, despite the widespread assault on witchcraft and magic brought about by the Protestant Reformation, and the strong anti-astrology stance taken by Protestant leaders like Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, we have the example of Phillip Melancthon, who, as dedicated as he was to Luther’s ideals for Church reform, never renounced his belief in a valid and divinely sanctioned science of astrology.

He was able not only to maintain his devout faith in Christianity, but could combine it with a decidedly judicial view of astrology:

“What is true discipline except the ruling of life, but this is impossible if the distant causes are unknown. This divining art is manifestly necessary to the conduct of life, for it shows what one’s natural inclinations are and allows one to exercise one’s good qualities and bridle one’s vicious instincts.”

The scientific revolution’s axiomatic rejection of magical thinking : the case of astrology in England (1600-1700). Kemp, David (2003). Masters thesis, Concordia University. From <http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/2327/>

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In the Middle Ages…

From the intro to Marlowe’s Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (Clarendon Press, 1887):

“In the Middle Ages, two branches of study, the votaries of which were necessarily to a large extent groping in the dark or unsteadily moving in the twilight, were specially adapted to attract enquiring minds, and to excite the suspicions of the ignorant. These were astrology, which in the terminology of the Middle Ages included what we call astronomy, but which also occupied itself with speculations on the supposed influences of the heavenly bodies upon the inhabitants of the earth and their destinies, as well as with their actual or supposed influences upon the earth itself; and alchemy or chemistry, the speculative part of which treated of the production of all things out of the elements, while the practical part sought to rival or outdo nature in the production of colours and of many other things, but more especially of precious metals.

The connexion which both these sciences thus assumed with common life, with its chief events and most cherished objects, could not fail to impress and excite the wild imagination of common men; and the isolation in which these studies have to be carried on, the loneliness of the observatory and the laboratory, added a peculiar element of mystery.

In these and in other sciences the instruments used or invented by their professors seemed a machinery of a more than human character and origin. All these studies and their appliances were regarded as magic and as appliances of magic by the vulgar, who could not, like philosophic minds, distinguish the mighty powers of nature and the still mightier powers of art which uses nature as its instrument, from that which passes beyond the powers of nature and art, and is therefore either superhuman, or fiction and imposture..”

Marlowe’s Tragical History of Doctor Faustus: Greene : Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Clarendon Press series. Christopher Marlowe. Edition 2. Clarendon Press, 1887.

Download the PDF at http://ia700402.us.archive.org/18/items/oldenglishdramas00warduoft/oldenglishdramas00warduoft.pdf

…Or see it at Google Books:

https://books.google.ca/books?id=BLc8AAAAYAAJ

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The historical Faust was an educated astrologer….

The historical Faust was an educated astrologer. Properly done, Astrology was a difficult application taught as part of a higher education and requiring mathematical skills and discipline.

“But an indisputable record of Faust has been recently discovered, which proves him to have ‘flourished’ as early as 1520, five years before the supposed date of his visit to Auerbach’s Cellar. In the accounts for that ear of Hans Miiller, Chamberlain (Kammermeister) of George von Limburg Prince-Bishop of Bamberg, J. Mayerhoffer has found an entry purporting that by the orders of Reverendissimus ten florins were on the Sunday after Scholastica (whose festival falls on February loth) paid to Doctor Faust, pho [=philosopho], as a gratuity, he having cast a nativity or indicium to his lordship. The bishop, a patron of the New Learning and friend of Luther, died 31 May 1522; and it seems probable that the consultation took place at the castle of Altenburg,the bishop’s favourite residence.”

Marlowe’s Tragical History of Doctor Faustus: Greene: Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Clarendon Press series. Christopher Marlowe. Edition 2. Clarendon Press, 1887.

Download the PDF at:
http://ia700402.us.archive.org/18/items/oldenglishdramas00warduoft/oldenglishdramas00warduoft.pdf

…Or see it at Google Books:

https://books.google.ca/books?id=BLc8AAAAYAAJ

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Doctor Faustus, being no longer able to obtain answers

The Faust Book, based on the Wolfenbüttel Manuscript:

Historia and Tale of Doctor Johannes Faustus. Ch. XII

Doctor Faustus, being no longer able to obtain answers from his spirit concerning godly matters, now had to rest content and desist from this purpose. It was in those days that he set about making almanacs and became a good astronomus and astrologus. He gained so much learning and experience from the spirit concerning horoscopes that all which he did contrive and write won the highest praise among all the mathematici of that day (as is, after all, common knowledge by now). His horoscopes, which he sent to great lords and princes, always were correct, for he contrived them according to the advice of his spirit as to what would come to pass in the future, all such matters falling duly out even as he had presaged them.

His tables and almanacs were praised above others because he set down naught in them but what did indeed come to pass. When he forecast fogs, wind, snow, precipitation, etc., these things were all quite certain. His almanacs were not as those of some unskilled astrologi who know of course that it gets cold in the winter, and hence forecast freezes, or that it will be hot in the summer, and predict thunderstorms. Doctor Faustus always calculated his tables in the manner described above, setting what should come to pass, specifying the day and the hour and especially warning the particular districts–this one with famine, that one with war, another with pestilence, and so forth.

Historia and Tale of Doctor Johannes Faustus. Ch. XII. The Faust Book, based on the Wolfenbüttel Manuscript

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A Brief Timeline of Faust

A Brief Timeline of Faust

The story of Faust is a product of, and a commentary on its times and so is our interpretation of it a product of, and a commentary on our own time. A society subject to God is replaced by one which hopes to prosper despite God. Faust’s ambitions are first a threat to God, then they become what ultimately frees us from God.

1440Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press. Rise of literacy.
1453Revival of Greek learning (fall of Constantinople). Renaissance.
1480The historical Georg Faust is believed to have been born in 1480 in Knittlingen.
1483-1487Georg Helmstetter enrolled at Heidelberg University and got his Master’s Degree in philosophy in 1487. He practiced astrology and alchemy.
1517Martin Luther begins the Protestant Reformation in Wittenberg.
1540The historical Faust is said to have died.
1543Copernicus shows that Earth is not the centre of God’s Universe (‘beginning of the scientific revolution’).
1575The Wolfenbüttel manuscript version of Faust.
1584Giordano Bruno further discredits the Christian doctrine of the heavens (he is executed in 1600).
1587The chapbook Historia von Johann D. Fausten published in Frankfurt am Main by Johann Spies.
1588(1587-1592?) Likely printing of the chapbook’s English translation, The Historie of the damnable life, and deserved death of Doctor John Faustus by ‘P.F.’
1588-1592Christopher Marlowe’s drama “Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus.”
1650(1650s to 1780s) Age of Enlightenment/Age of Reason. Decline of superstition.
1687Newton’s Principia – ‘the close of the beginning of the scientific revolution.’
1790The first publication of a version of Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Faust.
1808Goethe published Faust. Eine Tragödie.
1832Goethe’s Faust II published shortly after his death in that year.
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The Pre-Death Thoughts of Faust

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (1874 – 1948) was a Russian religious and political philosopher.

Following is an excerpt of Berdayaev’s thoughts on Christianity, Faust, Goethe, Spengeler and the end of Western Civilization:

N. A. BERDYAEV (BERDIAEV)

The Pre-Death Thoughts of Faust (1922 – #59)

The fate of Faust — is the fate of European culture. The soul of Faust — is the soul of Western Europe. This soul was full of stormy, of endless strivings. In it there was an exceptional dynamism, unknown to the soul of antiquity, to the Greek soul. In its youth, in the era of the Renaissance, and still earlier, in the Renaissance of the Middle Ages, the soul of Faust sought passionately for truth, they fell in love with Gretchen and for the realisation of his endless human aspirations it entered into a pact with Mephistopheles, with the evil spirit of the earth. And the Faustian soul was gradually corroded by the Mephistophelean principle. Its powers began to wane. What ended the endless strivings of the Faustian soul, to what did they lead? The Faustian soul led to the draining of swamps, to the engineering art, to a material arranging of the earth and to a material mastery over the world. Thus we find spoken towards the conclusion of the second part of Faust:

Ein Sumpf zieht am Gebirge hin,
Verpestet alles schon Errungene;
Den faulen Pfuhl auch abzuziehn,
Das letzte waer das Hoechsterrungene,
Eroeffn ich Raeume vielen Millionen,
Nicht sicher zwar,
doch taetig-frei zu wohnen.

Nigh the mountain a swamp doth stretch,
Pollutes there every advancement;
To drain off the foul pool,
Would be the utmost highest achievement,
I’d open up space for many a million,
Not indeed secure, but active-free to be.

Pasted from <http://www.berdyaev.com/berdiaev/berd_lib/1922_059.html>

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Christians are not allowed to practise magic….

Christians are not allowed to practise magic. It is forbidden in the Bible:

Exodus 22:18 King James Version (KJV):

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Leviticus 17:7:

So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom they whore. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations.

1 Timothy 4:1:

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;

2 Kings 17:14-17:

They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.