Angelus Silesius: The Cherubinic Wanderer (Classics of Western Spirituality) [Paperback]

Maria Shrady (Author), Josef Schmidt (Author), E. J. Furchaby (Author)

Book Description

Series: Classics of Western Spirituality | Publication Date: January 1986

"It is the dream of every publisher to hit upon a project that will win praise for contributing to the intellectual and cultural life." John B. Breslin, Theology Today

In one series, the original writings of the universally acknowledged teachers of the Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, Islamic and Native American traditions have been critically selected, translated and introduced by internationally recognized scholars and spiritual leaders.

ANGELUS SILESIUS-THE CHERUBINIC WANDERER Translation and foreword by Maria Shrady Introduction and notes by Josef Schmidt Preface by E.J. Furcha

"The Rose which here on earth is now perceived by me, has blossomed thus in god from all eternity." Angelus Silesius (1624-1677)

Johann Scheffler was born in 1624 to Protestant parents in the Silesian capital of Breslau, seven years after the Thirty Years' War had begun unsettling Europe. At the age of 29, after graduating from the University of Padua, he converted to Catholicism and took the name Angelus. Although he pursued a career as an energetic and sometimes vitriolic apologist, it was his poetry that won him a place of importance in the mystical literature of the West. By the mid-seventeenth century the epigram had become the most widely used form for German baroque poetry. Utilizing that genre, Silesius, in Josef Schmidt's words, "molded the epigram into perfectly expressing what has been the intrinsic problem of any mystical writer: saying the ineffable." The Cherubinic Wanderer over the decades has become an integral part of German religious folk literature. Admirers such as Friedrich Schlegel in the past century and Hans Urs von Balthasar and Umberto Eco in our own day have prized the work for its power, its immediacy, and its beauty of expression.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Paulist Press (January 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809127687
• ISBN-13: 978-0809127689
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #924,751 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "All This Is a Game That God Is Playing for You", November 7, 2008

By 

Lawrence (Christchurch NZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Angelus Silesius: The Cherubinic Wanderer (Classics of Western Spirituality) (Paperback)

When the early Zen Master Ma-tsu was very old and unwell, the monastery steward visited him and asked, "How has Your Reverence's health been?"
Ma-tsu replied: "Sun-face Buddha, Moon-face Buddha".
(The "Buddha-Name Sutra" informs us that Sun-face Buddhas live for 18,000 years, while Moon-face Buddhas live for a single day and night.)

Can anyone in the Western tradition explain this cryptic exchange? Johannes Scheffler, born a Lutheran but converted to Catholicism, published in 1657 a book of mystical epigrams called "The Cherubinic Wanderer", using the pen-name Angelus Silesius. One of his couplets says: "A child who lives on this earth for one brief hour has already lived all the long years of Methuselah". (In the Bible. He lived to be 969, remember?)

Does this help? Time is the creation of our own minds. If you think a moment is shorter than a century, that a century is longer than a moment, you haven't understood yet. Angelus Silesius didn't teach anything new, he summarised the great Northern European mystics (Meister Eckhart, Jan Ruysbroek, the Lutheran Jakob Boehme). But as he compressed their teachings into tight, two-line poems, he sharpened them into arrows of paradox which, like Zen sayings, either mystify completely or open the door to a vast new world. (Please don't ask me how an arrow can open a door.)

"Even before I was me, I was God in God; and I can be once again, as soon as I am dead to myself."
"Time is eternity and eternity is time, just as long as you yourself don't make them different."
"I know God couldn't live a moment without me; if I should disappear, He would die, destitute."
"God, whose delight it is to be with you, O man, prefers to come and see you when you're not at home."

The best English translations I know of are in Willard Trask's selection, long out of print. Those in this book are not on the same level, a little too prone to inversions and quaint poetical language. Some favourite poems are missing, while others are included that I could do without. But this is an essential book and I shouldn't quibble.

The ideal English Silesius would have the original German on the facing page, because epigrams by definition defy translation. It wouldn't have to be complete. Poems on the Blessed Virgin and the Saints no longer mean much even to Catholics since Vatican II. Others make use of the forgotten language of alchemy. But hundreds of these couplets are among the most profound and surprising utterances to be found in the Christian tradition. Until the probably remote day when a better version appears, this book will do as an introduction to this out-of-the-blue spiritual poet.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Epigrammatic Wanderer, May 22, 2007

By 

cvairag (Allan Hancock College) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Angelus Silesius: The Cherubinic Wanderer (Classics of Western Spirituality) (Paperback)

This volume is an important contribution to the illustrious and much needed Classics of Western Sprituality Series from Paulist Press, a project which was initiated in the early 1980's and continues. A bonafide mystic, if not in the most progressive sense (as is made abundantly clear in the superb introductory essay and foward, a succinct, yet comprehensive, survey of the life and work of this relatively little known but important poet and hymnist), an early Lutheran Pietist who coverted to orthodox Catholicism during the Counter-Reformation, Angelus Selesius is first and foremost an artist of high rank.
My one plaint here, however, is that, what is in my opinion, Silesius' best poem, his masterpiece, is for some strange reason omitted from this collection or somehow I have missed it. Thus, I cite it here, and if you like, you can copy it, as I have, into the wisely included blank pages at the end of this handsomely constructed book.

"Though Christ a thousand times
in Bethleham be born
And not within thyself,
Thy soul will be forlorn . . .

The Cross on Golgotha
Thou lookest to in vain,
Unless within thine heart
It be set up again."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Without Question -- A Classic, January 26, 2010

By 

G. Campbell - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Angelus Silesius: The Cherubinic Wanderer (Classics of Western Spirituality) (Paperback)

The author is one of the most interesting European mystics to have appeared. This book contains excellent translations of the short generally two line poems he wrote while in - if not a fully Enlightened state - at least something close. Here is one poem I like very much: "Because through death alone we become liberated, I say it is the best of all the things created." Not everyone's cuppa' tea but for those who want to feed their inner mystic -- dinner is served...