The Alliance Between Man and the Devil

By Réka Ortutay.

“Faust — after Christ, Mary and the devil — is the most popular character in Western Christian culture.”1 Yet his character has undergone many changes since his first appearance: in the Middle Ages a magician, later a scholar, then an artist. According to Oswald Spengler,2 Faustian man is the symbol of Western culture, the bearer of desires that reach into the infinite, the archetype of the man forever seeking a new goal, who wishes to conquer and seize the world. Faust is a personality who chooses an extreme path to achieve an often extreme goal. The extreme path involves seeking the devil’s help — but to what end? Well, that is what has changed over the centuries. This is why we associate Faust with any story in which the protagonist achieves their goal with the devil’s help.3 ¹ Jeffrey Burton Russell: Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World.

² Oswald Spengler: The Decline of the West. ³ E.g. Gogol: The Night Before Christmas (on which Rimsky-Korsakov also based an opera); Stravinsky: The Soldier’s Tale; E.T.A. Hoffmann: The Strange Story of Peter Schlemihl; and the film The Devil’s Advocate. In this essay we examine the origins of the Faust myth and the literary works that inspired the musical compositions presented in this book: namely Goethe’s Faust and Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. The Faust myth is a product of the spirit of the sixteenth century.4 In these adaptations one can discern the clash between the medieval and modern worldviews, the moment when man realises that knowledge is not attainable through the tools of theology. The spirit of the Renaissance yearns for freedom, but ossified medieval morality restrains the flight of the mind.

It is the morality of an age strongly defined by the spirit of Protestantism, according to which the devil may rule over man, for man is already condemned to damnation through original sin. There is no intercession for the remission of sins; forgiveness can be earned only through faith and repentance. He who turns away from God consorts with the devil, and cannot hope for salvation. ⁴ An interesting illustration of medieval morality is Sebastian Brant’s moral satire The Ship of Fools, which holds up a mirror to readers by depicting flawed human behaviour.

Faust, the historical figure

At the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there lived in Germany a man reputed to be a palm-reader, card-reader, fortune-teller and alchemist, who moved in the highest circles. The fact is, we have no information about either his date or his place of birth; he has no relatives, acquaintances or friends. We have no family tree and no grave for him. In fact, we do not even know his name; we know only the name by which posterity has come to know him. He is Faust, who challenges the boundaries of the known and accepted world, and to that end seeks the devil’s help. Unfortunately, we have few sources from which to sketch Faust’s true ‘portrait’.

Frank Baron5 writes, in his book on Faust, that a certain Georg6 Faust travelled through the cities of southern Germany for some thirty years, turning up in Gelnhausen, Kreuznach, Erfurt, Bamberg, Ingolstadt, Nuremberg and Würzburg, among others, where he presented himself as a doctor, a Doctor of Philosophy, a miracle-healer, an alchemist and a soothsayer. We know of these events from letters and documents. ⁵ Frank Baron (b. 1936): an American professor of Hungarian origin, author of Der Mythos des

faustischen Teufelspakts: Geschichte, Legende, Literatur and Doctor Faustus from History to Legend.

⁶ Faust’s original first name was probably Georg or Jörg; in literature he appears as Johann, and in Goethe’s work as Heinrich. The most telling description survives in a letter from Abbot Johann Trithemius,7 written in 1507 to the astrologer Johannes Virdung. According to his calling card, Faust referred to himself as “Magister Georg Sabellicus, Faustus iunior,8 fons necromanticorum, astrologus, magus secundus, chiromanticus, agromanticus, pyromanticus, in hydra secundus”.9 The abbot warns Virdung against making contact with this man, whom he considers a charlatan boasting of his abilities, who molests children, and of whom he alleges even worse things. ⁷ Johann Trithemius (born Johannes Heidenberg): abbot of the Sponheim monastery, a humanist scholar, and a proponent of ascetic Catholicism and white magic. ⁸ According to Gusztáv Heinrich, ‘Faustus’ is likely an assumed name.

Simon the Magician had a disciple named Faustus; it is conceivable that he adopted the name in his honour, which is why he calls himself ‘junior’ or ‘magus secundus’. ⁹ Faustus junior: the source of necromancy, astrologer, second magus, palm-reader, diviner using a magic wand. In a letter dated 1513, Mutianus Rufus10 writes: “Eight days ago a palm-reader arrived in Erfurt, by the name of Georgius Faustus Helmitheus Heidelbergensis, a deceitful fool, like all fortune-tellers.” Philipp Melanchthon11 reports in a letter that “I knew him by the name of Faust of Kundling (a small town not far from my hometown). He attended school in Krakow, where he learnt sorcery, as it was practised in times of old, and he also taught this art in public.” ¹⁰ Mutianus Rufus, or Konrad Muth (1470–1526): a German Renaissance humanist.

His correspondence with the humanists of his day (including Erasmus of Rotterdam and Johannes Reuchlin) is of great value, testifying to his exceptional classical education. ¹¹ Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560): one of the leading figures of the Wittenberg Reformation, alongside Luther. Philipp Begardi, a physician from Worms, writes in his work Index sanitatis, Zeyger der gesundheyt (published in 1539) that Faust was a charlatan who swindled money from many people through sleight of hand. According to him, Faust stayed with Abbot Johann Entenfuss in Maulbronn between 1516 and 1525. Proof of this, it is said, is that the Faust Tower, where the magician lived, can still be visited in Maulbronn today. Johann Gast, a Protestant pastor in Basel, is said to have once dined with Faust, who had a dog; it was said of the animal that it was Faust’s infernal servant.

According to Günther Mahal,12 “what contemporaries made up about Faust (…) is a mixture of banal remarks and serious slander.” ¹² Günther Mahal (b. 1944): Faust scholar, literary historian, and former curator of the Faust Museum in Knittlingen. Nevertheless, we also find sources that portray Faust in a favourable light. According to one document, he drew up a horoscope for the Bishop of Bamberg, who was so pleased with the service that he gave him ten guilders for it. Philipp von Hutten13 reports that the prediction of ‘Philosophus Faustus’ proved true — namely, that their South American expedition would meet with many difficulties. ¹³ Philipp von Hutten (1505–1546): German explorer.

Although he is believed to have been born in Knittlingen around 1480, a document from the University of Heidelberg records that a Georg Helmstetter studied at that alma mater between 1483 and 1487, and in 1487 obtained a master’s degree in astrology and alchemy. He may well be the Faust we are looking for, as one source states that Faust came from Helmstett.14 ¹⁴ Kilian Leib, the abbot of Rebdorf, refers to it as the weather book of Georgius Faustus Helmstettensis. His death was probably caused by a failed alchemical experiment; his body was destroyed in the explosion, which was regarded as the work of the devil. The Zimmerische Chronik15 mentions this: “in any case, many believed that the evil spirit (bös gaist), whom he called his brother-in-law during his lifetime, killed him.”

Johann Weyer mentions Faust’s death in his work De praestigiis Daemonum, stating that he “was found dead beside his bed in the morning, lying face down; and the night before, there had been such a noise in the house that the whole house shook.”16 ¹⁵ Zimmerische Chronik: the chronicle of the von Zimmern family, which offers an excellent insight into sixteenth-century aristocratic culture. The aim of the work was to document the rise and history of the Counts of Zimmern. It was written by Froben Christoph von Zimmern between 1540 and 1566. ¹⁶ Carsten Rohde, Thorsten Valk, Mathias Mayer: Faust Handbook. From the sources we can say that there is little first-hand experience; most of the claims rest on rumour and hearsay.

It turns out, however, that even his contemporaries regarded Faust as a false scholar, a turncoat, and a man who pushed the boundaries of the world’s ‘normal’ functioning. In Melanchthon’s writings, reality, hearsay and fantasy are already intertwined, and he links Faust with the figure of Simon Magus,17 thereby laying the foundations for the relationship between Faust and the devil. Melanchthon’s pupil Manlius makes liberal use of the available sources, occasionally embellishing or supplementing them. Thus emerges the image of a man who derives his power not from nature but from the devil. In the popular imagination he soon became a hero seeking knowledge through the tools of sorcery. A few years later the events of his life were further embellished by the imagination, and so a myth was born: the myth of Faust.

¹⁷ Simon the Magician: according to the Bible, he practised devilish arts (Acts 8:5–25); on account of his Gnostic views, he was the Church’s first heretic. According to Schedel’s world chronicle (which shaped the worldview of medieval people), he is seized by demons.

The man who made a pact with the devil in medieval legends

In popular tradition, stories about Faust became intertwined with motifs from various medieval legends in which a pact with the devil played a central role. Hrotsvit of Gandersheim’s Carmina18 recounts the story of Saint Theophilus of Adana, a sixth-century cleric. Theophilus is elected bishop but declines out of humility; his successor, however, proves unworthy of the office, and so Theophilus enters into a pact with the devil. He must sign the contract — in which he renounces Jesus and Mary — with his own blood. Eventually he repents of his sins and prays to Mary for forgiveness. Mary hears his plea and grants him absolution. ¹⁸ Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (c. 935 – after 973): Abbess of Gandersheim Abbey, regarded as the first German female poet. Her book of legends is known as the Carmina.

The Legend of Cyprian appears in one of the chapters of the Legenda aurea.19 According to the story, a wealthy man sets his sights on a young nun, Justina, and turns to Cyprian the sorcerer for help. Cyprian contacts three demons, but none can break Justina’s resolve. When Cyprian asks why this is so, the demons reply that Christ is stronger than they are. On hearing this, Cyprian converts, and later becomes Bishop of Carthage. ¹⁹ Legenda aurea: a collection by the Dominican monk Jacobus de Voragine (1228–1298), which lists legends of the saints in connection with church feasts. It became the best-known and most popular book of the Middle Ages, and for centuries shaped Christian iconography. The Vorauer Novelle is a Middle High German rhyming poem of 649 verses.

It survives only in fragments; the original manuscript is held at Vorau Abbey in Styria.20 According to the story, two students run away from the monastery and enrol in a school of sorcery in the city. At the beginning of their textbook a warning can be read (in my own rough translation): ²⁰ Vorau Codex.

“Here death descends upon the soul, accompanied by eternal suffering and many horrors, and the blasphemers find themselves in the devil’s clutches for all eternity.”

The boys lead a dissolute, immoral life in the town. One of them falls ill, whereupon the other urges him to repent of his sins, so that God may help him. The young man believes his sins are so grave that he cannot receive forgiveness; he does not trust in divine providence. He promises his friend that he will return thirty days after his death to report on hell. The manuscript breaks off here, but a manuscript known as the ‘Reuner Relationen’, held in the abbey at Rein (Styria), is believed by some scholars to be a continuation of the story. The young man returns on Walpurgis Night21 and recounts the horrors of hell to his friend, who, as a result, is strengthened in his faith and returns to the monastery. The first collection to contain stories specifically about Faust is the Wolfenbüttel manuscript.22 ²¹ Walpurgis Night plays a central role in Goethe’s Faust.

²² Wolfenbüttel Manuscript: a manuscript published in 1585 which compiles Faust stories. A significant portion of these appeared in the 1587 edition of the Historia.

Faust in literature: the Historia of Doctor Johann Faustus

The first printed book on the subject was the Historia of Doctor Johann Faustus,23 published in 1587 by Johann Spies. It is full of colourful adventures and vivid imagery. The variation in language and style between chapters, and the diversity of the stories, suggest that we are dealing not with one author but with several. A good many chapters draw on Manlius’s notes. The book likely compiles stories about the figure of Faust circulating in popular consciousness and on the lips of the people, with a strongly moralising tone. This is supported by the fact that the publisher itself primarily issued books on religious subjects. The story reflects the Lutheran worldview, in which the devil’s presence is strong, and those who make a pact with him receive their just punishment. ²³ Original title: Historia von D. Johann Fausten.

Faust “put on the wings of an eagle, wishing to explore every height of the heavens and every depth of the earth. His insatiable curiosity, free-spirited nature and recklessness drove and goaded him so, that after a while he resolved to try his hand at certain spells, figures, diagrams and incantations, in the hope of making them work and so summoning the devil.”24 Faust signs a contract with Mephistopheles for twenty-four years.25 During this time he travels widely, flaunting his magical powers: he rides on a wine barrel in the Auerbachskeller, conjures wine from the tabletop, travels to the papal court, to Constantinople and to the sultan’s court, and has many other spectacular adventures. After sixteen years he wants to back out of the pact, but Mephistopheles promises him Helen, and so Faust continues to live by the devil’s guidance.

Finally, after twenty-four years, the devil comes for him: ²⁴ The texts of the Historia and of Faust are given here in László Márton’s translation. ²⁵ Mephisto originally appeared as Mephostophiles in the Historia; in later adaptations the name was changed to Mephistopheles.

“And it came to pass between midnight and the first hour of the night that a strong, stormy wind struck the house and laid siege to it from all sides, as though it were about to raze the house to the ground, so that not one stone would be left upon another. (…) They heard a dreadful hissing and whistling, as if the house were swarming with snakes, vipers and other dangerous reptiles. Suddenly the door of Faustus’s study flew open; Faustus cried out ‘Help!’ and ‘Murder!’, first loudly, then in a voice that grew fainter and fainter, until at last it could no longer be heard. Faustus was nowhere to be found; all that remained was that the room was splattered with blood. Faustus’s brains were smeared across the wall, where the devil had hurled him from one wall to the other. There lay his eyeballs and his broken teeth: a dreadful and terrifying sight.”

The book’s primary aim was to serve as a warning, and so it paints a picture of impending damnation for all who lead immoral lives. The Faust of the Historia is Luther’s antithesis: the eternal sceptic who believes in scholarship, who sells the Bible, who makes a pact with the devil. The book became an excellent vehicle for Luther’s teachings, since the spread of printing meant it reached the broadest sections of the population. It gained immense popularity, was reprinted several times, and was supplemented with numerous additions; some twenty thousand copies were published in all. The book was translated into English the very year of its publication, paving the way for the world premiere of a play on the subject: Christopher Marlowe26 is thought to have written his play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus27 around 1592, based on the English translation.

²⁶ Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593): one of the most prominent figures of Elizabethan theatre — a writer, poet and translator. ²⁷ The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. The eighteenth century brought a change in people’s thinking. The mindset of the age was more expansive; the shackles of religious morality had loosened, and scientific knowledge came to the fore. Sturm und Drang28 brought forward a type of person who sought to transcend boundaries, whose physical and spiritual freedom was boundless, and whose emotions and senses could express themselves instinctively. Nature is the source of all creation, and the highest manifestation of the individual’s natural abilities is genius — which took shape in the cult of genius. The creative artist is the original genius; the artists of the era held genius in the highest regard, which is why we also call it the Age of Genius.

²⁸ Sturm und Drang: the intellectual movement of the German literary Enlightenment, which emerged from 1770 onwards. At the same time the framework of the Faust myth also changes, with a new motif emerging: redemption. Although the motif of redemption was already present in the legends of Theophilus and Cyprian, regarded as precursors to the Faust stories, their primary purpose was to instil a sense of repentance. By the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, this formula of redemption changes: ‘He who ceaselessly strives for good, the Angel can save him.’

Goethe: Faust

Three attempts,29 two parts, 12,111 lines, sixty years of work — this is the summary of Goethe’s Faust in figures, undoubtedly the most influential and best-known adaptation of the Faust theme to this day. ²⁹ The first attempt, the Ur-Faust, was written between 1772 and 1775 and published posthumously in 1887. The Faust fragment appeared in 1790, Part I in 1808, while the second part was also published only after Goethe’s death, in 1832. Goethe’s Faust is a fusion of two themes: the scholar-drama and the so-called Margaret tragedy. It is within the framework of the scholar-drama that he explores the pact made with the devil — which, as we have seen, has been part of the literary canon for centuries.

Whereas in the Historia Faust and the devil enter (to use modern terms) into a fixed-term, reciprocal agreement, in Goethe’s work the contract is, so to speak, open-ended, and Faust sets a condition: the devil may take him only —

‘If to the moment I should say: “You are so beautiful! Please stay!” then your chains shall fall upon me, then cling to me until my ruin!’

What is this, really? On the one hand, a contract in which the only party bearing the risk is the devil, who may have to wait an indefinite time for his due while continuing to fulfil his part. On the other hand, a paradox. Does Faust really tell the devil that he may take his soul only when he wishes to enjoy a moment to infinity? This contradiction will be resolved at the end of the second part. Faust’s initial crisis — the central idea of the scholar-drama — is that, despite all his learning, reading and scientific knowledge, he still does not know the essence, the core, the meaning of life. All this knowledge is not enough ‘to grasp in my innermost being what holds the world together, to see the power and seed of things, and not to rummage through the dregs of words.’

Although this sense of life was experienced as a concrete, existing reality by the educated, emerging bourgeoisie of the time, it nonetheless rose to become a truly present, universally valid idea for later generations, and for people of every age seeking answers to the great questions of existence. The starting point of Goethe’s Faust is thus the crisis of the scholar, who seeks knowledge and hopes to find it with the devil’s help. Mephisto first offers opportunities within his own narrower world that might perhaps grant Faust the experience of fulfilment. The student scene following the pact continues the theme of the first monologue: we witness a kind of satire on academic life.

The scholar-drama then intertwines with the love-drama, which was inspired by the execution of a woman who had murdered her child.30 Goethe justified the intertwining of the two themes by arguing that there is no path to redemption in the scholar-drama, but there is in the love-drama. The love-drama is introduced by the Witch’s Kitchen, where Faust is rejuvenated. Here he sees the image of Margaret31 and becomes obsessed with her, moving heaven and earth to win her. Margaret is a very young, infinitely naïve and pure soul who will do anything for her love — and who, so that the night of love might come to pass, unwittingly causes even her own mother’s death. In the end, finding no other way out of her misery and shame, she kills her newborn child as well. ³⁰ On 14 January 1772, Susanna Margaretha Brandt was executed in Frankfurt for infanticide.

The young servant girl had been made pregnant by a traveller; in her despair she killed the newborn. Goethe had just completed his law studies at the time and was well acquainted with the lawyers involved in the case. He studied the case files alongside another, similar case: the execution of Maria Flint, who had committed infanticide a few years earlier. Her story is interesting because the child’s father had helped her escape from prison, but she returned a few days later, saying she could not cope with constantly being on the run. ³¹ In Goethe’s work the girl’s name is originally Margarete. Mephisto first calls her Gretchen, and from the moment she loses herself she is referred to by that name, right up to the prison scene, when she regains her original name. Gretchen is a diminutive form, and it also carries a somewhat pejorative connotation.

One of the climactic scenes of Faust I, Walpurgis Night,32 follows — a decadent orgy that feels almost like a feverish dream, and it is in this chapter that the diabolical, underworld forces manifest themselves in their true form. Even in this world of emotionless, aimless sensuality, the figure of Margaret appears before Faust, reawakening his emotions. Faust attempts to rescue her from prison, and it is then that this young, God-fearing girl shows immense human and spiritual greatness. Though tormented by feverish dreams, she makes a conscious decision: her life has no meaning, ‘there is no hope to draw me on’, and, fully aware of her sin and punishment, she bows her head before justice. Then we hear the voice from heaven: ‘She is saved!’ ³² Walpurgis Night: a festival held in honour of Saint Walburga, who offered protection against the plague, epidemics and witches.

The festival was instituted by the Catholic Church to supplant the indigenous pagan custom observed on the same day (1 May), when witches and devils were said to perform their rituals in forests, on mountains and around gallows. On such occasions they would anoint themselves with witch’s ointment, drink from the witch’s potion, and ride naked on broomsticks or black cats. In the second part of Faust, Goethe expands Faust’s drama to a global scale, for within the world known to him so far the problem of Faust offers no solution. Stepping out of space and time, he traverses the entire course of human historical development, ceaselessly seeking the purpose of life. Faust eventually goes blind — for only thus is ultimate clarity possible — and so beholds the purpose of life:

“Life and freedom belong only to him who must fight for them every day. A life of toil awaits, beset by danger, for child, adult and aged alike. I would love to see this sight: a free people swarming across a free land! I could say to the moment: ‘You are so beautiful, please stay!’”

With this he utters the magic words, yet the contract will not be fulfilled — for the contradiction in the bargain seems to be resolved. Now that Faust has reached this point, it becomes clear that if a man achieves the goal he has set himself in life, then his life is fulfilled, and may come to an end with a peaceful heart. Faust’s soul — with Margaret’s help — is lifted up to heaven by the angelic hosts.33 ³³ In the final lines of Faust, the ‘eternal feminine’, which lifts one up to the heavens, is a symbol of unconditional, boundless love. After the final line Goethe wrote just one word: Finis. He then sealed the manuscript so that it could be read only after his death, indicating that his work was intended for future generations. He himself said that he regarded the remainder of his life as a gift, since he too had fulfilled his purpose.

Indeed, he died six months after writing the word ‘Finis’, and the second part of the drama was published in 1832.

Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita

The twentieth century brought a new turning point, primarily in politics: this was the era of totalitarian dictatorships. The chief question for art became how, as artists, we can exist in such a world — what compromises we must make, and are capable of making, in order to exist as artists. In this century the Faust theme also became a political one, as it examines how we relate to power. The three best-known Faust stories of the twentieth century are Klaus Mann’s Mephisto, Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus, and Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. Bulgakov’s novel is a captivating story that navigates the fine line between history, the fantastical, the grotesque and reality. It is set in 1930s Moscow, whose life is turned upside down by the appearance of fantastical beings: Woland34 and his entourage.

By the twentieth century not only Faust but the devil himself has been transformed, desacralised and politicised. Bulgakov’s Woland is a strikingly elegant, supremely intelligent, multifaceted and strange figure. Just like Mephistopheles — clearly Woland’s literary prototype, given that Bulgakov’s novel even quotes from Goethe’s Faust in its preface — he too is a shape-shifter. He leaps back and forth through space and time, and is even capable of existing in several dimensions at once: a modern-day magician, a conjurer, who appears as a judging Christ in 1930s Moscow to strike down sinners. In parodic scenes he holds up a mirror to people, punishing the sinners and aiding the righteous. He has many faces: the one who breakfasts with Kant, the hooded head of Pilate’s secret service, and finally one of the horsemen of the Last Judgement.

A complex, witty, human figure whose dispensing of justice fills the reader with satisfaction. ³⁴ Voland means ‘devil’ in Middle High German. For we are in a world where people vanish every day, where the caretaker is the master of life and death, where there is no place for those unable to work in the spirit of the prevailing ideology. It is in this world that our hero, the Master, and his love, Margarita, live. The Master is a writer who — having been rendered unproductive — has retreated to a sanatorium to stay out of the crossfire of daily political and ideological struggle, and tries to live in complete passivity. The Master exemplifies the paradox of being an artist in the Soviet Union: if he wants to live, he cannot create; if he creates, he cannot live.

Bulgakov openly signals that this is a Faust story: the novel’s preface is a quotation from Goethe’s Faust; the head of Woland’s walking stick is a poodle;35 the pendant given to Margarita also depicts a poodle; Satan’s ball evokes Walpurgis Night; and certain characters bear the names of composers who themselves set the Faust story to music.36 Moreover, Margarita’s name also refers to Faust’s Margaret. ³⁵ In Goethe’s Faust, Mephisto first appears as a poodle. ³⁶ Rimsky-Korsakov (in the novel, Rimsky, the director of the variety theatre): his opera Christmas Eve, after Gogol, adapts a Faust story; so too does Stravinsky (in the novel, the director of the asylum) in The Soldier’s Tale, and Berlioz (in the novel, the editor-in-chief of the literary journal) in The Damnation of Faust.

However, Bulgakov links the Faust myth with another myth, the story of Jesus (which is the Master’s novel within the novel), to illustrate the relationship between power and the oppressed, and between power and its representatives. In this so-called Jerusalem novel we see that the characters of history never change: the chief ideologues (Caiaphas and Berlioz) define the framework of thought; the system is served by traitors and sycophants whom we might have taken for our friends (Judas and Latunsky); while the persecuted (Jesus and the Master) want nothing more than to do their duty. Although the Jerusalem novel presents the story of Yeshua and Pilate with apparent historical accuracy, it deliberately diverges from reality in many respects.

The scene in which Pilate gives the order to kill Judas in almost flowery language is quite masterful, illustrating that in an oppressive system even the walls have ears, and that the power of those who serve the regime is, in certain cases, just as fleeting as if they were enemies of the system. In Bulgakov’s novel Margarita makes a pact with the devil, yet she does not pay with her soul for fulfilling the contract; instead she must play hostess at Satan’s ball. Her sole aim is to be with the Master. But such a union is not possible in this world; our heroes die — and in their case this is salvation itself. They are then reborn in another dimension, where eternal peace is their lot.

Mephistopheles

The most intriguing figure in the Faust myth is undoubtedly the devil. The devil has been part of our lives for centuries: part of our beliefs, our myths and even our folk tales. A fundamental element of tales about the devil is a pact between man and the devil, in which the devil grants our hero supernatural powers in exchange for his soul. The devil has many names: Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan, Azazel, Samael, and so on. The image of the devil held by people in the Middle Ages can be seen in the apocalyptic scenes of medieval paintings — one need only think of the depictions of the Last Judgement by Bosch, Dürer and Vasari. Even the Historia depicts the devils in this way (though not Mephistopheles, who usually appears in the guise of a monk) — Beelzebub, for example, who had “fur the colour of his skin and an ox’s head, with two frightfully large ears.

He too was quite shaggy and dishevelled, with two large wings protruding from him, as spiky as thistles in a field. His colour was half green, half yellow; moreover, tongues of flame flickered above his wings, and he also had a cow’s tail.” According to the preface to the Historia, ‘The devil is not merely a renegade, a rebel and a damned spirit who, in his arrogance, broke away from God, but also a cruel, cunning and tempting spirit, a conscious and sworn enemy of God and the human race, who tolerates neither man’s reverence for God nor the goodwill and happiness God bestows upon man. He strives in every way, to the best of his ability, to prevent this and to sever man from God.’ The devil of the Middle Ages is thus God’s adversary, whose aim is to undermine God’s work. But who is Mephistopheles, who has undergone as many transformations as our hero, Faust?

Mephisto is in fact a literary figure, associated solely with the Faust legend. The original form of the name in the Historia is Mephostophiles. We cannot know who invented the name, nor what their intention was in doing so. Its origin and exact meaning are unknown; in any case, elements of Greek, Latin and Hebrew can demonstrably be detected in it. If we derive the meaning from Hebrew, it may stem from a combination of the words tophel (liar) and mefir (destroyer). If we start from Latin, we might suspect the word mephitis, meaning foul-smelling or stinking. Greek offers a third explanation: μή (mē, ‘not’), φῶς (phōs, ‘light’) and φίλος (philos, ‘friend, lover’), meaning ‘one who does not love the light’, ‘not a friend of the light’.

This solution is particularly ingenious, because it is also a parody of the name Lucifer.37,38 ³⁷ Lucifer: a name derived from the words lux, lucis (light) and fero (to bring), meaning ‘bringer of light’. He is also called the Morning Star. ³⁸ Jeffrey Burton Russell: Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World. Mephostophiles burst onto the stage of world literature in 1587 — literally — and his entrance was rather theatrical:

“…the devil, making a terrible clamour, appeared before his eyes: (…) it seemed as though a griffin or a dragon were hovering above the magic circle, flapping its wings, and when Doctor Faustus uttered the next incantation, the creature screeched in a shrill voice. Then, almost at once, a fiery star plummeted down to a height of three or four fathoms above the magic circle, where it transformed into a fireball, so that Doctor Faustus was thoroughly terrified. (…) A pillar of fire as tall as a man burst forth from the ground, then collapsed, and six small candle-flames appeared. Suddenly one of the flames shot high into the air while another fell to the ground, until they formed the figure of a man of fire. This fiery man circled the magic circle for a quarter of an hour. After this, the devil took the form of a grey friar — that is, a Franciscan — addressed Faust, and asked what he desired.”

It is as if we were sitting in a cinema; we can almost see the flames, the explosions, the approaching apocalypse before our eyes. The ‘devil himself’ in the Historia is evil, luring his victim into wickedness; he is cunning, temptation incarnate. He is the embodiment of the medieval devil, manipulative and impossible to shake off. “When the devil moves into a person, he sets up his lair and his household altar there.” Mephostophiles probes his victim’s weaknesses, studies his character, and amplifies his doubts and his desire for temptation. Goethe’s Mephistopheles is cut from a different cloth.39 He is “the pinnacle and culmination of a cultural-historical development.

After him there is no devil in world literature who can be taken seriously.”40 Goethe makes it clear that the figure of the devil (just like the story of Faust itself) changes in line with shifts in cultural-historical paradigms. ³⁹ Goethe modelled the character of Mephistopheles on his childhood friend, Johann Heinrich Merck.

⁴⁰ László Márton: The Devil Makes a Deal, God Disappears — Guidelines for an Informed Reading of Faust. “From the all-devouring culture, not even the devil remains unscathed; the northern phantom beasts have vanished — I have no tail, no horns, no claws. As for my legs, I need them, but they bring trouble if put on display: so I too, like many a young man, have worn artificial calves for years.”

He is no longer the medieval devil with whom God-fearing people were frightened; he has no repulsive, terrifying physical features. Goethe’s Mephistopheles is a captivating, complex figure — a superior intellect, an intelligent, metaphysical character who creates situations and brings about events with elegant ease. He is so endearing that we would almost welcome him as a friend. He is a character who does not take himself too seriously, treating everything with humour and irony. In truth he is an instrument of God, assigned to be man’s companion: “Man’s activity all too easily slackens; he soon comes to love unconditional rest. That is why I gladly give him a companion who goads and works and must, as devil, create.” Goethe’s Mephistopheles is not God’s adversary but a necessary part of the universe,41 the “spirit who ever denies”, and thus serves creation and progress.

He even speaks of God with affection: “From time to time I like to see the Old Man, and take care not to break with him. How very kind of so great a lord to speak so humanly even with the devil.” ⁴¹ “That part of the Force which always wills evil, yet always works good.” Mephistopheles does not, in fact, make a pact with Faust, but with God. In the heavenly prologue42 — just as in the biblical Book of Job — the devil wagers with God that he will subject Faust to every kind of temptation and lead him astray to the ‘dark side’. At the end of the story, when he loses the wager he made with God, he becomes the hapless antagonist of a scene straight out of a comic opera: he feels cheated and cries out for redress.

Although he comes off worse in the end, Goethe’s Mephistopheles remains one of the most brilliant and colourful characters in world literature, and one of the most rewarding roles in the theatre. ⁴² In Goethe’s work the plot is preceded by a heavenly prologue, in which God and Mephistopheles converse with one another. Mephistopheles is, in fact, the embodiment of our ‘dark side’ — our unspoken desires, our unacted deeds, our unarticulated thoughts. He is the ‘no’ that lives within us, the denial and doubt that dwell within us; without him, life might even be boring. Perhaps this is precisely what makes him so human and so lovable to us; perhaps this is why we would gladly follow him anywhere, through all space and time, because he helps us achieve things for which, without him, we would lack the courage or the means.

After all, if we listen to him in healthy measure, he is the one who encourages us, who lifts us out of a lack of inspiration, who sets us on the path to a solution. If, however, we fall too far under his influence, it can indeed lead to ruin. Yet it is our decision how far we let him prevail; it is our decision whether we let him lead us into the light or into the darkness.