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Shakespeare’s Allegory of the Fall of Man: Notes on Macbeth and Christian Artistry

Macbeth is a short play compared to the rest of Shakespeare’s masterful canon. That doesn’t take away from this masterpiece of tragedy—though it has caused some to speculate whether parts are missing. Nevertheless, Macbeth as a tragedy is also the most theological in its allusions and allegory. The master bard of Anglodom, in portraying the tragedy of Macbeth, is also reimagining Original Sin, the Fall, and Augustinian guilt for the stage. So despite its length, Macbeth remains one of the deepest plays in all of Shakespeare.
Before we begin with “double, double, toil and trouble,” we might also begin with the real “double, double, toil and trouble” that Shakespeare draws upon for the implicit source of his tragedy. No, it is not Scottish history but the Christian theological tradition of the Fall. Perhaps the greatest evidence of Shakespeare’s Catholicism is the implicit theological spirit that influences his plays: from the necessity of baptism in Merchant of Venice, to his ridicule of Puritanism in Twelfth Night, finally to his allegorical reimagining of sin, fall, and guilt in Macbeth, Shakespeare’s theological inheritance seems to indicate a Catholic disposition moreover than any Reformed sentiment.
It might be said that Shakespeare was not alone in his ridicule of the Puritans. Many Elizabethan playwrights mocked the Puritans for their hypocrisy and killjoy attitudes. The anti-Puritanism of the playwrights reaches fruition, for instance, in Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair. Nonetheless, the rest of Shakespeare’s theological inheritance veers in a much stronger Catholic direction than the ostentatiously Protestant and Anglican playwrights despite their anti-Puritan disposition and humor.
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While Saint Paul articulated the early formation of Original Sin and the Fall of Man in his epistles, it wasn’t until Saint Irenaeus and more forcefully with Saint Augustine that these truths of revealed faith crystalized in dogmatic doctrine. Augustine, here, is most important and influential. For it was under his authority that these truths were passionately articulated and dogmatically defined; for all the efforts of Irenaeus, Ambrose, and others, conciliar theology leaned heavily on Augustine more than any other Church Father.
Part of Augustine’s articulation of the Fall of Man lay in his exposition that Adam and Eve lusted after their own happiness and therefore rebelled against the moral order of the creation in pursuing their own passions. Rather than remain happy in the beautiful and bountiful grace-filled world that they found themselves in, humanity’s first parents sought to increase their happiness by having self-control over the world they inhabited. This, of course, had disastrous consequences.
The relational reality of man and woman was severed according to Augustine. Man grew increasingly alienated from others and, finally, the world. In this isolation and alienation, he grew resentful and opened himself up to the demons—if not the demons, his own uncontrolled and now uncontrollable lusts. What began in the lust to dominate (dominate one’s own happiness) ends in the lust to dominate (dominate the world and others). This, of course, brings death.
Unlike some strands of later Reformed theology, however, Augustine never articulated unrestrained total depravity though strict Calvinists will say Augustine’s own logic demands it. In fact, in De Trinitate—not to mention elsewhere in Confessions, City of God, and even his anti-Pelagian writings—Augustine said that though the image of God in man was now tainted, he was still guilt-ridden by his crimes and knows, in some perverse sense, that he does wrong. There remains a dim flame in man for the good even though he cannot, now, on his own free will ever remain wedded to the truth. Try as he may, he invariably fails. Worse yet, in trying to flee from this guilt calling him back to God, depraved man becomes more and more evil. In the end, the further one flees from God the more one becomes enslaved to his lust to dominate.
This permits us to return to Macbeth. Macbeth, when introduced, is a man who is already in an existent world. The world Macbeth lives in and has just fought valiantly—bravely—in, is not a world of his own making. Macbeth, importantly, is not a creator in a world needing creation. He enters a world already created with existing hierarchies and relationships that make his life meaningful.
Yet this beautiful world that Macbeth lives in is also a world of temptation. He is tempted by the witches and then by his own wife. If he only reach out and take what is not his it can be his; kingship lay in the grasp of his control should he only take it himself. Immediately, now, we begin to see the world of Macbeth as a medievalized Eden: Macbeth’s world is already an existent garden he finds himself in and he is about to transgress the boundaries that are meant to be off-limits to him. In this world there is temptation. The temptation of other spirits and the temptation of his wife. He, as we know, succumbs to temptation.
In fact, the allusions to Eden, the Serpent, and the Fall are made very explicit. When Lady Macbeth comes to tempt Lord Macbeth to commit the heinous sin of murder and usurpation (never forgetting that they do are doing so to increase their own happiness and power), she appeals to Macbeth by saying:
Shall sun that morrow see!
Your face, my Thane, is as a book when men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like th’ innocent flower,
But be the serpent under’t.
When King Duncan does come to stay with Macbeth, which is also a sign of affection and reward for Macbeth’s heroism, the serpent—Macbeth—does strike. And strike him with a venomous bite he does in the form of a steel dagger. Duncan’s death leads to a chaotic scene and a motion of events that quickly spiral out of control and lead to further death and destruction. We should also remember that in contemplating to kill Duncan, the moral order is inverted with the angels above calling for restraint while the furies below crying out for blood; Macbeth chooses the later and therefore rejects the moral order implanted inside of him and ordered external to him in his rebellious and usurping act of violence (echoing the Christian understanding of mankind’s original sin).
Macbeth’s murder of Duncan, the play’s imaginative instantiation of the Original Sin, leads to the Fall of Macbeth from the lofty heights he has just been riding. It also brings about the ruin of the world. Macbeth’s sinful act not only has consequences for himself and his wife but the whole world which oscillates toward chaos and imbalance. As R.V. Young notes, “Macbeth is thus a tragedy of the spiritual contingency of human life,” Macbeth lives out “the conflict” “between the protagonist’s knowledge of what he ought to be and what his sinful will desires.”
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Another essential aspect of Augustine’s development of the Fall is not merely Original Sin but Original Guilt. Man is tormented by this heinous ancient crime that courses through his very blood. Memory of the Edenic Paradise and knowledge of the crime of sin cause psychological trauma inside sinful man which fuel his alienation in, and from, the world.
So too is reality manifested in the anguish of Macbeth. Exiled from the original justice he was occupying before the murder, Macbeth wanders about in torment over his deed:
Whence is that knocking?
How is ’t with me, when every noise appalls me?
What hands are here? Ha! They pluck out mine eyes!
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas of incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Further to this reality:
I hear it by the way, but I will send:
There’s not a one of them in his house
I keep a servant fee’d. I will tomorrow,
And betimes I will to the weird sisters:
More shall they speak, for now I am bent to know
By the worst means the worst. For mine own good
All causes shall give way. I am in blood
Steeped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’ver.
Strange things I have in head that will to hand,
Which must be acted ere they may be scanned.
Macbeth, as we can see, is guilt-stricken by his crime. His sin and fall have left him with an insurmountable guilt that plagues him. He knows he has done wrong. But now, naked of grace, he falls only further into the pit of the abyss.
As Macbeth falls further into that pit of the abyss, he is also increasingly alienated from the world he called home. Lady Macbeth has been his sinisterly faithful wife and companion. But after the murder he grows alienated from her. It was she who had originally tempted Macbeth (along with the witches) to commit the murder and usurp the crown. Now, however, Macbeth conceals his thoughts from her. The plan to kill Banquo and Fleance is purely conjured up in his own mind and he refrains from consulting Lady Macbeth on the matter.
Lady Macbeth has noticed this alienation in Macbeth when she tries to comfort him, “Why do you keep alone, / Of sorriest fancies your companions making?” This is the last time we witness Macbeth and Lady Macbeth together. They are now fully alienated from one another precisely because of their sin, and more specifically the sin of Macbeth. Macbeth is entirely alienated from his wife, his former friends, and his world.
In this alienation Macbeth’s lust to dominate grows not because he is intrinsically evil but because alienation leads to a vengeful hatred toward everything in the world. The lust to dominate is all that man has left once fallen and stripped of the original grace. The power that Macbeth has, his venom in defending what he has sinfully usurped, are all channels for his rage and discontent stemming from his sinful crime. Life, completely stripped bare by Macbeth’s own doing, is now meaningless:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth’s sin, fall, and alienation has led him to the nothingness of sinful reality. From dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return. What makes the tragedy of Macbeth even more poignant is the fact that Macbeth knows he has done wrong and is wrecked by terrible nightmares. Everything he does only adds to this burden as he digs his own grave.
The wages of sin is death. So death is how the play ends. Macbeth—having committed the original sin, having fallen from his original grace and justice in the beautiful world he lived in, and having become alienated from everything in that world (including his wife and friends)—dies when confronted by the instruments of justice: Macduff and Siward.
Punishment for sin is the justice that is deserved for sin. So the play, paradoxically, ends with justice and a restoration of the world destroyed by Macbeth’s sin. But given the very personal nature of the play, focusing on Macbeth, it is a tragedy because of his crime, fall, and death without redemption—it is made more tragic by the fact that we saw Macbeth in his prelapsarian glory and honor, the wrestling he suffered between good and evil, and his conscious choice for evil instead of good.
From start to finish Macbeth is saturated in a theological world with theological resonance and allusion. It is hardly devoid of religious or theological significance as various postmodern scholars assert. Once familiar with the Bible and the Christian tradition which Shakespeare was also intimately familiar with, we can begin to unlock the wonders of Shakespeare’s allegories baked into his plays. Only those blind to theology, willfully or ignorantly so (mostly willfully so), are incapable of seeing the evidence in his plays. We can say with some conviction that Shakespeare was one of the greatest Christian artists who ever lived. Macbeth is but one little testament to that truth.
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Paul Krause is the Editor-in-Chief of VoegelinView. He is a writer, podcaster, and the author of Finding Arcadia: Wisdom, Truth, and Love in the Classics (Academica Press, 2023) and The Odyssey of Love: A Christian Guide to the Great Books (Wipf and Stock, 2021). Educated at Baldwin Wallace University, Yale, and the University of Buckingham, he is a frequent writer on the arts, classics, literature, religion, and politics for numerous newspapers, magazines, and journals. You can follow him on Twitter: Paul Krause.

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