Doctor Faustus is based on an older tale; it is

Doctor Faustus is based on an older tale; it is believed to be the first dramatization of the Faust legend.

Some scholars believe that Marlowe developed the story from a popular 1592 translation, commonly called The English Faust Book. There is an official 1528 Ingolstadt municipal reference to a “suspicious” Doctor Faustus. There is thought to have been an earlier, lost, German edition of 1587, which itself may have been influenced by even earlier, equally unpreserved pamphlets in Latin, such as those that likely inspired Jacob Bidermann’s treatment of the damnation of the doctor of Paris, Cenodoxus (1602).

Whatever the inspiration, the development of Marlowe’s play is very faithful to the Faust Book especially in the way it mixes comedy with tragedy. However, Marlowe also introduced some changes to make it more original. Here, he made three main additions in the play:

Faustus’ soliloquy in the Act 1 on the vanity of human science
Good and Bad Angels
substitution of Seven Deadly Sins for a pageant of Devils

Apart from these changes, he emphasized his intellectual aspirations and curiosity and minimized the vices in the character of Faustus to lend a Renaissance aura to the story.

Pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tragical_History_of_Doctor_Faustus>