Poetry For The Future

What the Verses of Angelus Silesius’ Cherubinic Wanderer tell us

By Bertram von Zabern

Many readers are familiar with the grace: The bread is not your food; what feeds you in the bread Is God’s eternal Word, is spirit and is life. We may also remember the Christmas verse: If Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem is born And not in you, you will forever be forlorn.

Why do we love these verses, so easy to remember, yet mystical in content? Rudolf Steiner spoke with highest recognition about the author of the Cherubinic Wanderer, that he was able to see the world’s mysteries and that his inspired poetry is helpful to those who pursue a spiritual path.

Born into a Protestant family, his baptized name was Johann Scheffler. He grew up and lived most of his life in or nearby Breslau, the capital of Lower Silesia, a German-speaking province of the Kingdom of Bohemia, now part of Poland. When he started studying medicine in Leiden/Holland in 1644-47, he met Abraham von Franckenberg, a friend and admirer of Jakob Böhme. Von Franckenberg introduced the young Scheffler into Christian mysticism, hermetic wisdom, alchemy, and Rosicrucian teachings. Their friendship deepened when both resided a few years later in Oels near Breslau. Johann Scheffler was deeply impressed by the teachings of his friend and Jakob Böhme. The Cherubinic Wanderer, more than 1600 two-line “Alexandrine couplets,” were most likely written in the three years following the death of his beloved teacher in 1652.

It had not been long since the Thirty Years’ War ended in 1648. The extent of destruction, death, and suffering it had left in Germany is hard to imagine. At such time of chaos, Angelus Silesius, now his poet’s name, was able to write verses of timeless spirituality in a perfect format, appealing to modern philosophical thinking as much as being beautiful. He wanted to save the mysticism of the medieval and ancient wisdom in danger of be lost, while logic reason and mechanistic thinking prevailed.

So it can be understood that the 29-year-old converted to the Roman Catholic Church. As a result, he was targeted by the Protestant side with criticism, leading to many polemic writings by him. The Cherubinic Wanderer was published in 1657. The physician and poet spent several years in the service of a prince bishop and was ordained to priesthood by the age of 37. In later years, he joined a monastic community. He was said to have served as a doctor for the poor, who gave all his belongings to charities.

The enormous collection of the short verses of the Cherubinic Wanderer strikes us by the charm of their language, their pointedness, and their inner depth. Is it that he always challenges the human being, himself, and the reader, and leads us into the true meaning of Christianity? The poetry has been perceived as mystic, quietist, alchemistic, and even existentialist.

During the vast changes of the war-torn Middle Europe in the 17th century, the Rosicrucian stream strongly unfolded, especially in the Bohemian Kingdom. It touched the life and work of Johannes Kepler, Amos Comenius, Jakob Böhme, Abraham von Franckenberg, and Angelus Silesius. The search was for the higher common ground of the knowledge of religion and nature, with the human being at its center. On first glance one may wonder about the sparkling diversity of the poetry of the Cherubinic Wanderer. But with Rudolf Steiner’s loving words about this work in mind, there is no doubt that the path of the “Wanderer” belongs to the Rosicrucian school, which leads toward a new spiritual world view.1

The lovely rose, which here your earthly eye can see, In God it blossomed thus in His eternity.

Go where you cannot walk, look where you do not see, Listen in silence, so where God speaks you will be.

Each herb brings proof to you that God is Trinity, For Sulfur, Mercury, Salt are seen in unity.

Man, be essential, when the world will cease existing, The incidents will fail, the essence is persisting.

Born are we out of God, we die in Christ, the Lord And in the Holy Spirit new life is coming forth. 2

Who has a sense for understanding what Angelus Silesius became just by such mystical contemplation, how he was able to not only view the great laws of the spiritual world order, but what Angelus Silesius also accomplished in compassionate, heart-warming beauty, which he was allowed to convey about the world secrets: who all this knows, will realize which power of inner life of humankind can be found in this medieval mysticism and which immense help from this mysticism the one can receive, who will walk the paths of spiritual research himself. 3

1 Rudolf Steiner, Mystics at the Dawn of Modern Age , SteinerBooks CW 7

2 Angelus Silesius, Cherubinic Wanderer , Verses selected and translated by Bertram von Zabern, Amazon

3 Rudolf Steiner, Metamorphoses of Soul Life II (GA 59).