Untitled Essay Research Paper free essay sample

Untitled Essay, Research Paper Shortly before Christopher Marlowe # 8217 ; s prematurely decease during a saloon bash, he was arrested and charged with godlessness, a high offense at the clip. Much of the footing for this claim may hold stemmed from his controversial drama, # 8220 ; Doctor Faustus, # 8221 ; which deals to a great extent with sorcery and the Satan. Using merely this drama as a footing to make up ones mind his guilt or artlessness under the charge of godlessness, I have found him guiltless, with the apprehension that if I was a justice presiding over the proceedings of a mock Marlowe test, I might good hold found him guilty. Let me explain.In make up ones minding Marlowe # 8217 ; s guilt or artlessness, one must take into history the clip period during which he was charged. To be # 8220 ; guilty # 8221 ; of godlessness today is non a offense ; therefore it is easy to be an vocal non-believer in God. We will write a custom essay sample on Untitled Essay Research Paper or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page During Marlowe # 8217 ; s clip, this would hold led to a fleet terminal, if non by tribunal than by criminal. Today # 8217 ; s society is besides for more intuitive than Marlowe # 8217 ; s, and the being of God is questioned on a day-to-day footing by a big per centum of the population, whereas during Marlowe # 8217 ; s clip, God was accepted as a truth by such a huge bulk of the population, that even those who doubted at all might be swept over by overpowering beliefs of the populace. Therefore I would happen it difficult to convict Marlowe of being an atheist on the degree of such a individual today. He could non hold been highly vocal about his belief in God, otherwise he would hold been killed for merely that, and non arrested. If he were an # 8220 ; atheist # 8221 ; as described by his clip period, it is in fact far more likely that he was an agnostic, particularly given his involvement in faith in # 8220 ; Doctor Faustus. # 8221 ; Marlowe # 8217 ; s play # 8220 ; Doc tor Faustus # 8221 ; is in some ways really helpful, and in other ways really hard, in supplying information as to Christopher # 8217 ; s positions on faith. It seems difficult at the beginning and terminal of the drama to label him as an atheist, due to the morality and significance of the drama ( pride will take to destroy, make non abandon God for worldly pleasances, etc. ) . The chorus opens the drama by depicting how Faustus # 8217 ; s downfall will happen, with inordinate pride and contempt for God, which barely seems profane. In Faustus # 8217 ; s opening monologue he quotes incomplete lines of Bible, doing him to misinterpret their intended significance, and turning him to the Satan. If person did non read the full drama, it might be imaginable that in their spiritual ardor they might hold missed the significance of these lines and simply seen Marlowe as writhing the Bible for his ain demands, but in any complete reading of the drama that thought seems ludicrous.Furtherm ore, throughout the drama it seems evident that Marlowe makes it really clear that Hell is a atrocious thing, and that Faustus is clearly deceiving himself as to reverberations of 24 old ages of close almighty power on Earth for an infinity in torture in Hell. At the terminal of the drama, Faustus excessively tardily acknowledge s his error, and we are led to believe that his erroneous ways have led to his demise. All of these reasons seem to make it fairly clear that even if Marlowe himself was not convinced of God and Satan, that perhaps he wasn’t quite willing to risk their nonexistence by scorning God.So where then, does one find evidence of atheism in Doctor Faustus? In two places, the scene where Faustus and Mephistopheles torment the pope, and in one of the play’s themes: the location and existence of Hell. The first of these examples is also highly questionable, because it is the pope who is tormented, and Marlowe was living in England after the separation from Rome, and had in fact been previously charged with the crime of converting to Roman Catholicism. Still, the actions of Faustus towards the pope, if construed to imply that Marlowe would like to do likewise, would show scorn for more than the pope, but to God as well. Once again, I find that trying to pull evidence of atheism fr om this scene to be almost ludicrous under careful examination.The only idea, in my opinion, that might have caused quite a stir, and angered the church, would be Marlowe’s ideas on Hell. In â€Å"Doctor Faustus,† the good doctor asks Mephistopheles how the devil is out of Hell to which Mephistopheles replies, â€Å"Why this is hell, nor am I out of it. Think’st thou that I who saw the face of God and tasted the eternal joys of heaven am not tormented with ten thousand hells in being deprived of everlasting bliss?† (Faustus lines 75 – 79) The idea that anything that is not heaven is at least in part Hell could have certainly caused an uproar amongst religious leaders. Despite the importance on living for the afterlife, and not for the world today (as is stressed as well in the play), the idea that earth was itself a hellish place was hardly what the church was preaching. However, once again if interpreted carefully, Marlowe is not saying that every thing that isn’t heaven is Hell, so much as he is saying that when the time comes for one to enter heaven, being rejected, or choosing to reject it, will result in a comparatively Hellish existence.Every â€Å"reason† that I can think of for anyone accusing Christopher of atheism seems like it would be pretty easily dismissed under careful examination, and yet I hesitate to say that Marlowe would have been found innocent of the crime. Given the time period, and the overall paranoia about such things as atheism, the simple fact that Marlowe was raising ANY concerns would be enough concern for plenty of people that he was an atheist, and that all of the things that appear to discredited any claim of atheism were merely disguises used by Marlowe to hide his true feelings on the matter. Basically, people always find a way to believe what they want to, and given Christopher’s disreputable character, getting him in a room full of people who disliked him might very wel l have resulted in a guilty verdict.