The history of the damnable life and deserved death of Doctor John Faustus, 1592, together with The second report of Faustus, containing his appearances and the deeds of Wagner, 1594.
History
The history of the damnable life and deserved death of Doctor John Faustus, 1592, together with The second report of Faustus, containing his appearances and the deeds of Wagner, 1594.
Faust, -approximately 1540 -- Legends
Augustin Lercheimer’s (pseudonym for Professor Hermann Witekind of
Heidelberg) _Christliche Bedenken und Erinnerung von Zauberei_, which
first appeared in 1585, was formerly thought to have been a direct
source of the Faust book, but it is possible that Lercheimer himself
borrowed from an earlier manuscript of the Faust book. He anticipates
modern science when He protests against the witch-burnings, and
declares that witches should be sent to the physician rather than to
the judge. In the third edition of his book, which was published in
1597, Lercheimer denounces the Faust book as a libel on the University
and Church of Wittenberg:—
“It is all malicious lies.... He had neither house nor yard at
Wittenberg or elsewhere, was never at home, lived like a vagabond,
was a parasite, guzzled, swilled and lived by his conjuring. How
could he have a house and yard by the outer gate of the town in the
Scheergasse, since there never was a suburb and therefore no outer
gate? Neither was there ever a Scheergasse there. That in such a
University, a man whom Melanchthon used to call a cesspool of many
devils should have been made Master, to say nothing of Doctor of
Theology, which would be an eternal disgrace to the degree and
honourable title, who believes that?... About all the other vanity,
lies and _Teufelsdreck_ in the book, I will say nothing.... It is, to
be sure, nothing new and no cause for surprise that such calumnies are
issued by the enemies of our religion, but it is unwarrantable and
lamentable that our printers also should publish such books without
shame, whereby honest people are slandered and inquisitive youths led
to attempt similar magic feats; to say nothing of the abuse of the
beautiful and noble art of printing, which has been conferred on us by
God.”
The fact that Lercheimer, who was an ardent adherent of Luther, should
have condemned the book in such terms, cannot be regarded as evidence
of its anti-Lutheran tendency.
Another important manuscript was discovered recently in Nuremberg.[8]
A certain Christoph Rosshirt, a teacher of Nuremberg, who had studied
in Wittenberg, copied into an album about the year 1575, amidst other
matter, anecdotes relating to various magicians, including Doctor
Faust. It will be noticed that Faust’s Christian name is given here as
_George_. The Faust stories are four in number:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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