Faust the Theologian. By Jaroslav Pelikan. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. Pp. ix + 145. $20.00
This is a grandly conceived but not quite perfect book . Readers who
expect the elegance of style and design of Pelikan's earlier volumes will
be disappointed. Pelikan uses Goethe's Faust as a collection of data and
references from which to extract all that relates the protagonist "to theology,
theology as an account of religious faith but also theology as an academic
discipline among other academic disciplines" (p. 3) in order to document
the validity of the poet's epigram: "When we do natural science, we are
pantheists; when we do poetry, we are polytheists; when we moralize, we
are monotheists" (p. 19). For this purpose Pelikan chose to furnish his
own translations, aiming "to be literal rather than literary" (p. x) in
order to get as close to the original German as possible. This results
in some cumbersome passages, for the transliterations, of which there are
many, are inevitably less elegant than the author's own fine prose. Most
importantly, however, Goethe's poetic language and framework are part of
the work; stripped of its poetry some of it is bound to sound silly or
worse. In any case, much of Goethe's text making its appearance on
these pages is too awkward to be inviting.
Pelikan's familiarity with Goethe's work and the important secondary
material is obvious and admirable, even as one must dispute the accuracy
of some of his readings. Mephisto's "Verachte nur Vernunft und Wissenschaft"
is a contemptuous dismissal of human folly: You are a fool to scorn reason
and learning. In Pelikan's translation, "if you will only despise reason
and science" (p. 8) it sounds rather like a suggestion. The "nur" in "drohe
nur, mich zu vernichten is idiomatic as well: Threaten me all you want,
not "only threaten to destroy me" (p. 103). A "Komoediant" here is not
a "comedian" (p. 13) but a second-rate actor. "Schrauben" aren't "bolts"
in this context (p. 64) but "screws" with the sinister connotation of thumb
screws. There are other mistranslations, fortunately most of them minor
or just stylistic aberrations.
More serious are misreadings such as Mephisto's hatred of light, summoned
to support an erroneous claim in the wrong context (classical nudity),
namely the devil's alleged "disgust with the human body in any form" (p.
83, also p. 103). It that were so, how does one explain Mephisto's calamitous
infatuation with all those pink butts on wings in the final act? It is
important to remember that the devil's realm is darkness. Light therefore
is a hostile environment. Yet "it streams from bodies, it makes bodies
beautiful, it is intercepted by a body ... and will perish when bodies
do" (p. 83). The main thrust of the reference to "bodies" is that they
are matter, the celestial bodies that generate, reflect and block light.
The origin of matter, however, in the mythical context from which Goethe
draws, was a direct result of Lucifer's rebellion and subsequent banishment.
The devil's only chance to return things to the status quo ante, to a lightless
environment of pure energy as it were, is to destroy matter. That's why
in his own words destruction is his true mission, the resilience and fertility
of matter his most enduring frustration.
Pelikan sees Faust, like Dante's Divine Comedy, as a "narrative of
pilgrimage" (p. 17). Not, as Goethe's Prelude would have it, from heaven
through the world to hell, but in Dantean fashion from the world to hell
to heaven. Whether the story records a transition from pantheism to polytheism
to monotheism and for that reason is also "a narrative of development and
growth" is open to question. Goethe's epigram implies no change or progress.
In fact Pelikan himself insists repeatedly like others before him that
these states of mind are not mutually exclusive but interpenetrate one
another (pp. 22/3, 91 and elsewhere). The poem does however describe
a pilgrim's progress who will in the end arrive.
Debating but then leaving unresolved the question of whether Faust
is a "Doctor of Theology" or whatever may be his "academic home base" (p.
8) Pelikan devotes his second chapter to Faust the scientist. It
is a splendid collection of evidence from throughout the work. Yet missing
is the recognition of Faust's early agenda, his ambition "to know what
holds the world together at the core, and to behold the all-creative vital
energy" (line 377 ff., my translation). Knowing and beholding, (maybe even
comprehending through beholding), are complementary here. The scientist
and the mystic are inseparably joined in this bold and futile quest. In
the end, realizing that the view ("Aussicht") into the beyond is blocked
Faust determines to devote himself to the here and now. We've come
full circle. "The beginning was action," was Faust's rendition of St. John's
elusive opening phrase. He now lives according to the early, then only
vaguely appreciated insight. The scholar Faust was lamentably unfocused.
The Lord called it "verworren", i.e. scatterbrained, not "verwirrt"-confused.
The erratic and disillusioned scholar has now been replaced by the dedicated
engineer and creator of new land for settlement. Pelikan himself comes
close to recognizing this as Faust's true development in another chapter
(p. 94). Also, that immortality is not guaranteed by an immortal soul but,
in ancient military-aristocratic fashion, by immortal fame gathered through
immortal deeds (p. 100). Hasn't the theologian become rather secular?
Chapter Three deals with Goethe's polytheism which Pelikan finds "far
more prominent in the final version of Faust than in Urfaust " (p. 59 f.),
"Walpurgis Night with Walpurgis Night's Dream, Carnival, and Classical
Walpurgis Night" being the most prominent episodes (p. 84). Again, the
author's erudition and background as an intellectual historian allow superb
observations as for instance in the little treatise on astrology through
the ages (p. 86 ff.).
In the final chapter Pelikan returns to the topic of learning and teaching
encountered in Faust's first monologue. He sees in his dejected statement
that he no longer believes in his ability to teach anything useful (lines
372/3) issued in a night of bleakest despair that nearly ends in suicide,
"an abdication of moral responsibility in scientific research" (p. 92),
calling it his "tragic flaw" which is redeemed when he "is summoned to
an eternity in which, as the Boy Souls sing, he 'has learned, and he will
teach'" (p. 93). Namely what? Pelikan is no more specific than the boys
who seem to look forward to a vicarious life through Faust's experience.
Still, as Pelikan rightly implies, it is the answer to Mephisto's claim
at Faust's death that it "is over as though it had never been" (line 11597,
my translation). Something can not become nothing. It merely changes and
survives in another fashion. Eventually there may even be "eternal emptiness"
again, but not nothingness in a literal sense. Where the word is used,
as in Faust's rejoinder: "in your Nothingness I hope to find the All" (p.
107), it is important to remember that in seventeenth century theosophy,
to which Goethe is indebted, "nothingness" and "all" aren't necessarily
opposites.
An impressive scholarly exercise. The collection and organization of
relevant data alone, from Faust and other works, makes it invaluable.
Herbert Deinert Cornell University