Doctor Faustus Faustus Quotes

Here, Faustus reads lines from the Bible, specifically Romans 6:23, "The wages of sin is death," and 1 John 1:8. But Faustus isn't exactly being a thorough reader here. Romans 6:23 goes on to say, "but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord," while 1 John 1:8 reads, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Considering the fact that Faustus is such a renowned scholar, it's hard to believe that he doesn't know the rest of these lines. Maybe he's just already made his choice, so he's reading the Bible in a way that validates it. It's clever, sure, but it doesn't exactly help him in the end.

The way Faustus sees it, the Bible tells him that he is damned to hell no matter what he does (never mind the fact that he didn't read the whole thing). In a weird way, it makes sense then, that he rejects the study of theology. After all, wouldn't it be worthless if, no matter how much you study it, it doesn't buy you a ticket to heaven. And to be fair, however incomplete it is, Faustus's interpretation of these Bible verses comes close to the Calvinist doctrine of Predestination—that a man's fate as saved or damned is set in stone long before he's even born. The only difference is that here, Faustus doesn't think anyone can be saved.

Faustus's logic in surrendering his soul to the devil is similar to his thinking when he turned to magic: "I am already damned, so why not go whole hog?" In other words, Faustus has already blasphemed against God, and has therefore lost all hope of heaven. There's no turning back now.

The question of whether or not man's soul belongs to him is actually a question about Predestination in disguise. Does a man have free will to choose whom he'll serve, or does his soul already belong to God or the Devil from the moment he is born?

Here again, we see Faustus not quite convinced that his fate is sealed. Mephistopheles is all, um, dude, you wrote it down in your own blood. But Faustus gave his soul to Lucifer, which means it was a conscious choice. So if Faustus made that choice, what's to stop him from making a different choice later on? Backsies?

In a strange change of heart, Mephistopheles now takes the blame for Faustus's damnation. Did Faustus ever have a choice about his salvation? Or was Mephistopheles pulling the strings all along? This passage, like all the ones that came before it, leaves the answer unclear. P.S. Also notice the neat wordplay in line 94: Mephistopheles has "dammed up" Faustus's passage to heaven (as a beaver builds a dam), and this has damned him. Ba-dum ching.

Shmoop calls this the Doris Day doctrine. But here's the thing. Faustus doesn't just think that mankind is predestined to sin, and is therefore headed to hell. He also thinks that, because of this, studying religion has no point. This tells us that Faustus is not interested in knowledge for its own sake—only for how it can benefit him. But the joke's on Faustus, because if he had studied religion, he probably wouldn't be in this predicament.

Mephistopheles's Latin response to Faustus's question translates into "to the unhappy it is a comfort to have had company in misery." (In other words, "misery loves company.") This is basically a warning from Mephistopheles to Faustus to turn back from his intended course of action, since it implies that hell is miserable. But Faustus ignores it. He's really good at ignoring people.

Why is the answer to Faustus's question so threatening to Mephistopheles? Maybe because the answer—that God made the world—is just too good. After all, if God made the world, then God must be awesome, and Mephistopheles only wants to talk about the bad stuff. Acknowledging the goodness of god would threaten Mephistopheles and Lucifer's hold upon Faustus's soul.

The Pope and his cronies just keep getting more and more ridiculous. In this passage, they believe that the invisible Faustus is a soul that's come out of Purgatory to haunt them all. And this mention of Purgatory is yet another reminder of the rather negative view Protestants held of the Catholic Church. Many Protestants believed that Purgatory didn't exist. It was just as absurd to them as the other rituals the Pope and Archbishop participate in here—exorcism and crossing oneself. Faustus can't resist mocking the Pope for these habits and beliefs.

Hmmm. Pride and insolence? Those sins sound awfully familiar. In fact, they sound just like the traits Faustus has. So if those happen to be the sins that got the devil kicked out of heaven, shouldn't Faustus get the hint? This exchange should be a warning to Faustus about the wages of sin but, of course, he ignores it.

What Faustus proposes to do here is exactly the opposite of the first commandment: to take other gods before God. These gods don't necessarily have to be Old Testament-type idols (which is what the ten commandments were warning against). They can be anything a person loves more than God, in this case, Faustus's own appetite. Yet Faustus expresses his worship in a very Old Testament way. He wants to build an altar and undergo human sacrifice. The point of this is probably to emphasize that despite how innovative Faustus thinks he's being by rejecting the old traditions in favor of magic, his sin is the very same Old Testament idol worship. In other words, Faustus, we've been there, done that.

Aside from this lovely image of a flea creeping into every corner of a wench (pause for gagging), there's something else going on here, too. Did you notice that Pride was first up in this sinful stroll? Pride probably begins the parade of the Seven Deadly Sins because folks thought it was the root of all sin. For example, many believed that at the beginning of creation, the devil fell from heaven because of his pride, because he didn't want God ruling over him. Our hunch is that Pride's refusal to "have any parents" is probably an allusion to that event.

Meet Sin #2, everyone. Covetousness is another word for plain old-fashioned greed, so it makes sense that the embodiment of this sin would want to get its hands on, well, everything. And of course having everything isn't enough; Covetousness wants it all to turn to gold, too. We guess greed only creates more greed.

Chim Chim Cheree! We never thought the chimney-sweeper of Mary Poppins was a jealous guy, but maybe we missed… something.

The lesson to be learned from Wrath seems to be that it hurts the angry person as much as the person he's angry at, since Wrath wounds himself when he has no one to fight with. Whoops.

Gluttony is the sin of eating and drinking in excess. Gluttony, for example, eats thirty meals a day and ten "bevers," or snacks, but is still ready for more. Here's hoping he's a Costco member.

True to his nature, Sloth, the product of lazy days lying in the sunshine on a hill, is too lazy to even describe himself as the other sins have done. He'd rather just sit… and sit.

Lechery, or lust, tells a dirty joke here. The "inch of raw mutton" likely refers to an erect penis, whereas "fried stockfish" (a textual error for "dried stockfish") is a slang expression that refers to sexual impotence. You get the idea…

Describing "necromantic books" as "heavenly" is more than a little ironic considering the fact that these books will actually cause Faustus to turn away from heaven, and toward hell. Oh Faustus, don't you hear yourself?