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MEPHISTOPHELES

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 147 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MEPHISTOPHELES ,' in the See also:

Faust See also:legend, the name of the evil spirit in return for whose assistance Faust signs away his soul. The origin of the conception and name of Mephistopheles has been the subject of much learned debate. In Dr Fausts Hollenzwang " Mephistophiel " is one of the seven See also:great princes of See also:hell; " he stands under the See also:planet See also:Jupiter, his See also:regent is named Zadkiel, an enthroned See also:angel of the See also:holy See also:Jehovah . . .; his See also:form is firstly that of a fiery See also:bear, the other and fairer See also:appearance is as of a little See also:man with a See also:black cape and a bald See also:head." The origin of the See also:idea of Mephistopheles in Faust's mind is thus clear. He was one of the evil demons of the seven See also:planets, the Maskim of the See also:ancient Akkadian See also:religion, a conception transmitted through the Chaldeans, the Babylonians and the Jewish Kabbala to See also:medieval and See also:modern astrologers and magicians. This fact suggests a plausible theory of the origin of the name. In the ancient Mesopotamian religion the Intelligence of Jupiter was See also:Marduk, " the See also:lord of See also:light," whose See also:antithesis was accordingly conceived as the lord of darkness. Mephistopheles, then (or rather Mephostophiles, as the Faust-books spell the name) is " he who does not love light" (Gr. Ai, 4x s, (Pans) .2 ' In the Faustbuch of 1587 it is spelt Miphostophiles; by See also:Marlowe Mephistophilis; by See also:Shakespeare (Merry Wives of See also:Windsor, See also:Act i.) Mephostophilus. The form Mephistopheles adopted by See also:Goethe first appears in the version See also:des Christlich Meinenden, c. 1712. 2 Kiesewetter, p.

163. To Schroer this derivation seems improbable, and he appears to prefer that from See also:

Hebrew Mephiz, destroyer, To Faust himself, somnambulist and See also:medium, Mephistopheles had—according to Kiesewetter—a real existence: he was " the objectivation of the transcendental subject of Faust," an experience See also:familiar in dreams and, more especially, in the visions of mediums and clairvoyants. He was thus a " familiar spirit," akin to the " daemon " of See also:Socrates; and if he was also See also:half the See also:devil of See also:theology, half the kobold of old See also:German myth, this was only because such " objectivations " are See also:apt to clothe themselves in forms borrowed from the See also:common stock of ideas current at the See also:time when the seer lives; and Faust lived in an See also:age obsessed with the fear of the devil, and by no means sceptical of the existence of kobolds. It is suggested, then, in the light of modern psychical See also:research, that Mephistopheles, though (as the Faust-books See also:record) invisible to any one else, was visible enough to Faust himself and to See also:Wagner, the famulus who shared his somnambulistic experiences. He was simply Faust's "other self," appearing in various guises—as a bear, as a little bald man, as a See also:monk, as an invisible presence ringing a See also:bell—but always recognizable as the same " familiar." The Mephostophiles of the Faust-books and the puppet plays passed with little or no modification into literature as the Mephistophilis of Marlowe's Faustus. Mephistophilis has the kobold qualities: he not only See also:waits upon Faustus and provides him with sumptuous fare ; he indulges in See also:horse-See also:play and is addicted to See also:practical joking of a homely See also:kind. He is, however, also the devil, as the age of the See also:Reformation conceived him: a fallen angel who has not for-gotten the splendour of his first See also:estate, and who pictures to Faust the glories of See also:heaven, in See also:order to accentuate the horrors of the hell to which he triumphantly drags him. Goethe's Mephistopheles is altogether another conception. Some of the traditional qualities are indeed preserved: the practical joke, for instance, in the See also:scene in See also:Auerbach's See also:Keller shows that he has not altogether See also:shed his See also:character as kobold; and, like the planet-See also:spirits of the old magic he appears alternately in See also:animal and human shape. He is also identified with the devil ; thus, in accordance with old German tradition, he is dressed as a nobleman (ein edler See also:Junker), all in red, with a little cape of stiff See also:silk, a See also:cock's See also:feather in his See also:hat, and a See also:long pointed See also:sword; at the witches' See also:Sabbath on the See also:Brocken he is hailed as " the See also:knight with the horse's hoof," and See also:Sybel in Auerbach's Keller is not too drunk not to See also:notice that he limps. But his limp is the only indication that he is See also:Lucifer fallen from heaven. He could not, like Marlowe's Mephistophilis or See also:Milton's Satan, regretfully paint the glories of the height from which he has been hurled; for he denies the distinction between high and See also:low, since " everything that comes into being deserves to be destroyed." 3 He is, in See also:short, not the devil of See also:Christian orthodoxy, a spirit conscious of the See also:good against which he is in revolt, but akin to the Evil Principle of the older dualistic systems, with their conception of the eternal antagonism between good and evil, light and darkness, creation and destruction.

(See FAUST.) (W. A.

End of Article: MEPHISTOPHELES

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