Angelus Silesius
Angelus Silesius : Selections from " The Cherubinic Wanderer." Translated with an Introduction by J. E. Crawford Flitch. (Allen and TJnwin. 85. 6d.) ALL students of Christian mysticism will be grateful to Mr. Crawford Flitch for this admirably translated selection from the epigrams of Angelus Silesius ; for this spiritual descendant of Eckhart and disciple of Frankenberg has so far been difficult of access to English readers. Now we are given an erudite and deeply interesting monograph on his life and work, a representative collection of his mystical epigrams very closely and faithfully translated into English verse ; and, in an appendix, the German text.
It seems doubtful whether Johann Schefller, to give Angelus his true name, has any right to a place among the constructive mystics. Sensitive to religious atmospheres, deeply emo- tional, and easily influenced by stronger natures, his genius was rather that of the interpreter than the seer ; and even the best of his work is derivative. The epigrams of The Cherultinic Wanderer translate the soaring mysticism of Meister Eckhart and his followers into verse ; but add little that is new to the doctrines of the German metaphysical mystics. The reputation of Angelus rests on this and one other small book, The Spiritual Pastorals, in which the emotional side of his nature finds expression. From this are
taken those fervent hymns by which he is most generally known, and which represent the personal and Christo-centric side of his religious life. Mr. Flitch describes this aspect of his spirituality in a beautiful phrase :
"Unable to sustain his lonely flight to an altitude to which even the pinions of cherubin were powerless to attain, he dropped bark to rest in a loved Personality, at once human and divine, like a tired lark to the warmth of its earthly nest."
Beth epigrams and hymns were written during the short period that included and followed his friendship with Franken- berg. This remarkable man, a profound student of the mystics, and the personal friend and disciple of Jacob Boehme, was the dominant spiritual influence of Schefller's life. He died in 1652 ; and within a year of this crushing loss the lonely disciple, disgusted by the unspiritual character of contemporary Lutheranism, had drifted like a lost dog through the welcoming doors of the Roman Church. He was not yet thirty, but his work as a poet and mystic was done. The Cherub ceased to wander, and settled down ; first into an ardent devotee, and finally into a diligent and expert contro- versialist. The struggle between Reformation and Counter Reformation was at its height, and was pursued with a lack of charity which inspired the epigram of a contemporary Silesian poet :
Lut hrisch, pabstisch, and calvinisch diese (Reuben silo drey Sind vorhandon ; cloch let Zweifel we das Christenthum denn soy
Scheffier was swept into the battle. In ten years he produced fifty-five controversial and propagandist works, distinguished by a steady increase in bitterness and intolerance. ills one poem of this period, " A Sensuous Description of the Four Last Things," with its crude pictures of the joys of Paradise and tortures of the damned, is a painful proof that the poet and contemplative who had once explored with eager love both the transcendent and personal paths to the heart of Divine Reality had been completely sacrificed to the religious
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