“Heavenly Words”: Marlowe’s Faustus as a Renaissance Magician

Abstract

" H E A V E N L Y W O R D S " : M A R L O W E ' S F A U S T U S A S A R E N A I S S A N C E M A G I C I A N WILLIAM BLACKBURN University of Calgary S in c e magic is obviously of central importance in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, we may well be surprised that critics have given so little attention to the hero's first effort at conjuring. Some critics, notably Paul Kocher, have written extensively and well of the elements of witchcraft in the play,1 but none, to the best of my knowledge, has made any detailed examination of Faustus's one attempt at magic before he signs the pact with Lucifer, or tried to show how this attempt fits into the context of Renaissance magic, or what it can tell us about the nature of Marlowe's protagonist and the reasons for his failure. When we try to place Faustus in the context of contemporary magic, one fact immediately forces itself upon our attention - that Faustus does not first venture upon magic with the simple intention of becoming a witch. A witch, as defined by William Perkins in A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft (Cambridge 1608) is "a Magician who, either by open or secret league, wit­ tingly and willingly consenteth to use the aide and assistance of the Deuill in the working of wonders."2 Protestant and Catholic theologians agreed that the league, the pact with the Devil, was an essential element of witchcraft. Accord­ ing to Kramer and Sprenger, the two Dominicans who wrote the textbook of the Inquisition, the Malleus Maleficarum (i486), "the Catholic truth is this, that ... witches and the devil always work together, and that, in so far as these matters are concerned, one can do nothing without the aid and assistance of the other."3 Had Faustus simply intended to become a witch straightaway, he would have had no need of the "words of art" and "all other ceremonies"4 which he learns from Valdes and Cornelius. Magic is not necessary to raise devils; for this, blasphemy alone is sufficient, as Mephistophilis says: the shortest cut for conjuring Is stoutly to abjure the Trinity And pray devoutly to the prince of hell. (1. iii. 52-54) Faustus does indeed do this - Kocher is undoubtedly right when he observes of Faustus that "many of his thoughts and actions are unmistakably those of the English Studies in Can ad a, rv, 1, Spring 1978 witch of European tradition, and they are not to be found in the English Faust-book" (p 140) - but this is by no means all he does. Though he is surprisingly quick to agree to the pact Mephistophilis requires, it is clear from the play's opening scene, and from the nature of his magical ceremony, that Faustus had not intended simply to sign a pact with Lucifer in return for the limited powers witches were thought to enjoy.5 To understand why Faustus turned to magic, and to see what he expected from it, we must go to the first scene of the play, in which he examines the vocations suitable to a man of his talents. Philosophy he rejects because it appears to him merely a matter of disputing well, and this he can already do. Medicine he cannot esteem because it bows to death and the obvious limitations of the human condition; Faustus, though famous for his cures, remains "but Faustus and a man" (1. i. 23), and cannot be content with this. Law is even worse; he scorns it as a "petty case of paltry legacies" (1. i. 30), a study which "fits a mercenary drudge / Who aims at nothing but external trash" (1. i. 34-35). Theology likewise fails to satisfy him because it teaches that "we must sin" (1. i. 45) and that "the reward of sin is death" (1. i. 40). All that this means, according to Faustus, is that "what will be, shall be" (1. i. 49), and we see him reject theology as we see him...