The godless man of antiquity was a scholar, a relentless seeker of knowledge and science in an age when this pursuit was not yet considered entirely trustworthy. Moving towards the Enlightenment, European society was slowly moving away from the conservative church and towards intellectual curiosities, however, as the church was still powerful and the people highly superstitious, such advances were often met with suspicion. A scholar or scientist in this period, especially if not tied closely enough to the church, straddled the line between cautious acceptance and persecution. Simply put, in an era of great religious change, scholars were a sign of the changing times and thus found themselves in a precarious position. So for Mephisto's Faust being a stage actor is the most appropriate thing, because in the early years of the Third Reich they occupied a rather similar position. Consider: Instead of the religious upheaval that occurred from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, pre-war and Nazi Germany was experiencing political upheaval. The democracy of the Weimarer Republic gave way to the politics of the National Socialist Party, which greatly influenced the theater. Nazism aimed to change the ideal physical and aesthetic appearance of the country, and popular theater was a very useful propaganda tool, considered by Hanns Johst, president of the German Writers' Union and creator of the famous