Sin

Front 1

Faustus and Mephistopheles committed similar sins

Back 1

"O, by aspiring pride and insolence" - Mephistopheles

• Exchange should be warning about the wages of sin, but Faustus ignores it
• Faustus, too, will not get into Heaven (foreshadowing)

Front 2

Faustus does the opposite of the first commandment

Back 2

"The god thou serv'st is thine own appetite" - Faustus

• He takes other gods before the Christian God, in this case, his own desires

Front 3

Rejects' old traditions' in favour of magic

Back 3

"To him I'll build an altar and a church" - Faustus

• Faustus believes he is being innovative by rejecting these old traditions when in actuality his worship is Old Testament in nature

Front 4

Pride is root of all sin

Back 4

"I am Pride. I disdain to have any parents" - Pride

• Pride is the first in the parade as people believed it to be the root of all sin
• Many believed at the beginning of creation, the devil fell from heaven due to his pride as he did not wish God to rule over him
• Devil wished to have no 'parents'

Front 5

Faustus's greed leads to his demise

Back 5

"this house, you, and all should turn to gold" - Covetousness

• Faustus wishes to get his hands on everything, which turns out to not be enough
• Greed feeds greed

Front 6

Faustus leads to his own demise due to anger

Back 6

"Wounding myself when I could get none to fight withal" - Wrath

• Anger hurts those who are angry
• He is angry at the mortal life he has been given and so takes to self-harm, selling his soul to the devil, to fight back against this

Front 7

Faustus becomes lazy in his seek for knowledge

Back 7

"I'll not speak a word more for a king's ransom" - Sloth

• Sloth resents any attempts to make him do anything at all
• Faustus refused to utilise talents given to him by God and instead resorts to talents born of sin taking the fast instead of honourable route

Front 8

Faustus' actions are ruled by his desire as opposed to reason

Back 8

"I am one that loves an inch of raw mutton" - Lust

• Lust is ruled by her sexual desires
• Believed in Elizabethan times that devil targets those who were ruled by their appetites

Front 9

Faustus over-indulges in his quest for knowledge

Back 9

"and that buys me thirty meals a day and ten bevers" - Gluttony

• Gluttony over-indulges on food
• Faustus over-indulges on both wealth and knowledge before realising they were not what he expected

Front 10

Faustus' sins manifest through sickness

Back 10

"A surfeit of deadly sin that hath damned both body and soul" - Faustus

• Believed that blood or bile was root cause of a disease
• Faustus acknowledges he has an excess of deadly sin