Addiction and Devotion in Early Modern England. Rebecca Lemon

and dedication can the philosopher find his calling. Furthermore, addiction represents a process of culling away rival pressures, be they worldly or even intellectual. Lodge’s translation of Seneca’s essay “The Tranquilitie and Peace of the Mind” reads, for example, “A multitude of bookes burtheneth and instructeth him not that learneth, and it is better for thee to addict thy selfe to few Authrs, then to wander amongst many.”¹³ Addiction as dedication stands in contrast to flighty, unfocused pursuits: “He then that hath all his commidities in their entyre, may stay in the hauen, and addict himselfe readily to good occupations, rather then make saile and to go and cast himselfe athwart the winds and waves.”¹⁴ The scholar is not, Seneca argues, an explorer visiting new ports. One cannot “wander,” but one must hone, cull, and focus. Committing to one location, one “haven,” the scholar studies deeply. Wide-ranging study is a burden and distraction. Better to “addict thy selfe to few Authrs.” So, too, with Faustus, who, in narrowing the available fields, announces he will “sound the depth” (1.1.2) to find a pursuit that will envelop or ravish him. He will “profess” his art, proving a “studious artisan” and a “sound magician” (1.1.2, 56, 63). From this vantage point of addiction, Faustus’s desire to “sound the depth” of his studies, and his interrogation of fields in search of the proper path, seems not fickle but ultimately focused. Rather than choosing necromancy out of a kind of boredom, as Kristen Poole argues—“his descent into the black arts at first seems to be the product of his intellectual ennui, as he searches for new challenges and intellectual heights”—he instead seeks his Senecan “haven.”¹⁵ While Poole’s phrase “intellectual ennui” aptly accounts for Faustus’s fear of death and stasis, which is evident in his condemnation of divinity as “hard” (1.1.40), nevertheless he dismisses certain forms of scholarship not out of exhaustion but because he seeks to immerse himself in a limitless field. He needs to aim at the unknown, the unseen, and the unachievable.

      Addiction, then, is a particular form of scholarship—it involves commitment, focus, depth, and stillness. Of course, these authors also concede the dangers of such single-minded dedication. Seneca announces the dangerous power of addiction when he writes, for example, that one must be cautious in one’s pursuits: “For the minde being once mooued and shaken, is addicted to that whereby it is driven. The beginning of some things are in our power, but if they bee increased, they carie us away perforce, and suffer us not to returne backe: even as the bodies that fall head-long downeward, have no power to stay themselves.”¹⁶ Seneca teases out the complex relationship of surrender and free will in scholastic addiction. Initially, the addict exercises choice: in the beginning “some things are in our power.” One might choose one’s path, as Faustus does—he elects to practice necromancy over divinity. But, Seneca writes, once the mind heads in a certain direction, addiction can carry one away. Addicts “have no power to stay” themselves. Momentum threatens but also fuels the addicted mind. Once on a path, the scholar progresses along it, gains speed, and moves forward even against his or her own will. Thus addiction is at once desirable, since it provides the dedicated resolve that propels the scholar forward, and potentially dangerous, since the power of addiction pulls one along the chosen path, for good or ill. The title of a text by the lawyer William Fulbecke betrays this double link of addiction and study: A direction or preparatiue to the study of the lawe wherein is shewed, what things ought to be observed and used of them that are addicted to the study of the law, and what on the contrary part ought to be eschued and auoyded (London, 1600). If the pursuit of learning is admirable, then the deeper the devotion, the greater the addiction and the more accomplished the scholar proves. “Driven,” “carr [ied] away,” “fall[ing] head-long downward,” the scholar demonstrates a lack of control admirable and overwhelming at once.

      Addicted to God

      Why does the scholar choose one path and not another? Seneca suggests that scholarly addiction emerges from one’s choices: “The beginning of some things are in our power.” But Marlowe’s contemporaries would answer differently. Addiction—whether to divinity or necromancy, to scholarship or to sex—comes from predispositions that, at least in a post-Reformation Europe influenced by Calvin, come not from human will but from God’s.¹⁷

      As with Seneca, Calvin praises addiction as a form of careful study, in this case not of philosophy but of scripture: “They are then apt to receive the grace of the Gospell, which not regarding any other delightes, do wholy addict themselves and their studies to the obtaining of the same.”¹⁸ Like Faustus, the believer dismisses all other fields and devotes himself to his chosen path. In the case of the Christian reader, the fruits of study lead to addiction to Christ: “Therfore no man shal ever go forward constantly in this office, save he, in whose heart the love of Christ shal so reigne, that forgetting himself, and addicting himself wholy unto him, he may overcome al impediments.”¹⁹ Followers of Christ “addict themselves unto him, so that they did acknowledge him to be that Messias.”²⁰ Further, “those are truly gathered into Gods sheepefolde … addict themselves to Christ alone.”²¹ The singularity of the commitment is clear: one is addicted to Christ “alone” “wholly.” Moreover, addiction to God compels the believer to follow a path, eschewing individual thought or will in favor of discipleship. Calvin writes, “For whosoeuer doe simplye addict themselves to Christe, and doe not strive to adde anye thinge of their owne head to the Gospell, the true lyghte shall never fayle them.”²²

      Throughout his Latin writings, including the biblical commentaries and sermons that comprise the vast majority of his published works in England and on the continent, Calvin deploys the verb addīcere to designate godly devotion, writing “se totos addicunt” of these dedicated readers.²³ These Latin commentaries appeared in multiple editions and translations in England and dominated university libraries to the degree that, as Philip Benedict notes, “by the last decades of the century, Calvin’s works had eclipsed those of all other theologians in the library inventories of Oxford and Cambridge students.”²⁴ Further, the importance of the English translations of Calvin, in addition to the French and Latin editions also published in England, can hardly be overstated. Between 1570 and 1590, forty-three editions appeared: “No author would be as frequently printed in England over the course of the second half of the sixteenth century as Calvin,” Benedict continues.²⁵ Bibliotheca Calviniana, the table of editions of Calvin by language, reveals the prominence of English editions within a European frame: they are second only to Latin and French (Calvin’s original languages) and far exceed German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, and other European-language translations.²⁶

      To study Calvin’s invocation of addiction in these publications is to find comfort in addictive surrender: being singularly focused, at the expense of other beliefs and relationships, brings the potential for redemption. Calvin writes, “GOD in his mercie dealt so lovingly with his people, when he redeemed them, that is, that they being redeemed, should addict and vow them selues wholy to worship the aucthour of their salvation.”²⁷ Ministers of the word “may addict & give themselves wholly to the Church, whereto they are appoynted.”²⁸ This reflexive construction—Christ’s followers “addict themselves” or “give themselves” (se totos addicant & deuoueant) to him and his church—might seem to indicate will and agency on the part of the believer in choosing the addiction. And Calvin does encourage his readers and audiences to foster the complete devotion encapsulated in addiction: his sermons and biblical commentaries repeatedly admonish listeners and readers to pursue utter devotion. But ultimately, he argues, addiction speaks not to individual will but to God’s favor. Only those who are “disciples of God” can “addict themselves”; those who are “unapt to be taught” reject Christ: “It cannot be but that they shal addict themselves unto Christ, whosoeuer are the disciples of God, and that they are vnapt to bee taught of God who do reject Christ.”²⁹ The appearance of a reflexive construction in his Latin and its English translation (“addict himself,” “addict themselves”) seems, on the one hand, to counsel the believer to prepare him or herself for grace: “he must doe his diligence.” On the other hand, to modern readers the reflexive nature of the construction may be misleading in implying the believer’s role in his own addiction, since the agency of addiction does not lie with the addicted believer but in God’s grace. In this chicken-and-egg construction,