Michael Martin (ed.) - The Heavenly Country: An Anthology of Primary Sources, Poetry, and Critical Essays on Sophiology

The Heavenly Country

An Anthology of Primary Sources,

Poetry, and Critical Essays on Sophiology

THE

HEAVENLY

COUNTRY

An Anthology of Primary Sources,

Poetry, and Critical Essays

on Sophiology

Edited by

Michael Martin

First published
by Angelico Press /Sophia Perennis 2016
Michael Martin 2016

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission.

For information, address:
Angelico Press
4709 Briar Knoll Dr.
Kettering, OH 45429
www.angelicopress.com

Pbk: 978-1-62138-174-7
Cloth: 978-1-62138-175-4

Cover design: Michael Schrauzer

CONTENTS

Dedicated to St. Edith Stein,
also known as St. Teresia Benedicta of the Cross (1891 1942),
in anticipation of the seventy-fifth anniversary
of her forced entrance into Eternity.

Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

Acknowledgments

A PROJECT of this size and scope takes much in the way of coordination and cooperation and I am very grateful to all those, both in the temporal and eternal realms, who participated in its production.

I am thankful, first of all, to Marygrove College for the gifts of a number of research grants without which this book might never have been completed. I am particularly appreciative for my two research assistants, Shauntay Frazier-Hall and Alejandra Villegas, who worked diligently in transcribing and formatting much of the book: no mean task.

I am likewise indebted to the poets, translators, and scholars contributing new work to the collection: David Craig, Bruce Foltz, Gregory Glazov, Jennifer Newsome Martin, Daniel Polikoff, Aaron Riches, Artur Sebastian Rosman, Fr. Robert Slesinski, Lourdes Torres-Monaghan, and Arthur Versluis.

And, as always, I offer my deepest appreciation to my wife, Bonnie, and my children. I am a man rich in blessings. mm

Selections from the Bible are taken from the Douay-Rheims American Edition (1899).

The Book of Six Great Points by Jacob Boehme, taken from Several Treatises of Jacob Behme, translated by John Sparrow (London, 1661).

Selection from The Three Principles of the Divine Essence of the Eternall, Dark, Light, and Temporary World by Jacob Boehme, translated by John Sparrow (London, 1648).

Jacob Boehme, Of the Becoming Man or Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Sonne of God, taken from The Fifth Book of the Authour, in Three Parts the First, Of the Becoming Man or Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Sonne of God, That Is, concerning the Virgin Mary and How the Eternal Word Is Become Man: The Second Part Is of Christs Suffering, Dying, Death, and Resurrection: The Third Part Is of The Tree of Christian Faith, translated by John Sparrow (London, 1659).

John Pordage, Theologia Mystica, or The Mystic Divinitie of the Aeternal Invisibles, Viz. the Archetypous Globe, or the Original Globe, or World of All Globes, Worlds, Essences, Centers, Elements, Principles and Creations Whatsoever. A Work Never Exstant Before. By a Person of Qualitie JPMD (London, 1683).

Thomas Bromley, The Way to the Sabbath of Rest or the Souls Progress in the Work of the New Birth (London, 1692).

Jane Lead, A Fountain of Gardens Watered by the Rivers of Divine Pleasure, and Springing up in All the Variety of Spiritual Plants, Blown up by the Pure Breath into a Paradise: To Which Is Prefixed a Poem, Introductory to the Philadelphian Age, Called Solomons Porch, or The Beautiful Gate to Wisdoms Temple (London, 1697).

Robert Fludd, Mosaicall Philosophy Grounded upon the Essentiall Truth, or Eternal Sapience (London, 1659).

Thomas Vaughan, Anima Magica Abscondita (London, 1650).

Thomas Vaughan, Lumen de Lumine (London, 1651).

Thomas Vaughan, Euphrates (London, 1655).

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Autobiography: Truth and Poetry, from My Own Life, translated by John Oxenford (1897).

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Theory of Colours (1840).

Novalis, Christendom or Europe?, translated by Charles E. Passage (1960).

Selection from Cosmic and Human Metamorphoses by Rudolf Steiner. Reprinted by permission of Steiner Books.

The Body of the Father Christian Rosencrux by William Butler Yeats first appeared in Ideas of Good and Evil (1903).

Vladimir Solovyov, Russia and the Universal Church, translated by Herbert Rees (1948).

Selection from The Pillar and Ground of the Truth by Pavel Florensky, translated by Boris Jakim. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press, copyright 1997.

Selection from Sophia, the Wisdom of God: An Outline of Sophiology by Sergei Bulgakov, translated by Patrick Thompson, O. Fielding Clarke, and Xenia Braikevitc. Reprinted by permission of Lindisfarne Press, an imprint of Steiner Books, copyright 1993.

Nikolai Berdyaev, Freedom and the Spirit, translated by Oliver Fielding Clarke (1935).

Selection from The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, Volume I: Seeing the Form by Hans Urs von Balthasar, translated by Joseph Fessio and John Riches, reprinted by permission of Ignatius Press, copyright 1982.

Louis Bouyer, The Seat of Wisdom: An Essay on the Place of the Virgin Mary in Christian Theology, translated by A.V. Littledale (1962).

The Eternal Feminine by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, translated by Ren Hague (1968). Written in 1918.

Selection from Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism translated by Robert Powell. Reprinted by permission of Robert Powell.

All in azure did my empress, My empress has a lofty palace, and Three Meetings by Vladimir Solovyov, translated by Boris Jakim and Laury Magnus, from The Religious Poetry of Vladimir Solovyov (Angelico Press, 2014). Reprinted by permission of Boris Jakim.

Poems from Ante Lucem and Verses about the Beautiful Lady by Alexander Blok, translated by Boris Jakim, from Poems of Sophia by Alexander Blok (Angelico Press, 2014). Reprinted by permission of Boris Jakim.

As when on a holiday by Friedrich Hlderlin, translated by William S. Allen; from Ellipsis: Of Poetry and the Experience of Language after Heidegger, Hlderlin, and Blanchot by William S. Allen. Reprinted by permission of SUNY Press, copyright 2007.

Selections from Hymns to the Night by Novalis, translated by Dick Higgins, are reprinted by permission of McPherson & Company, copyright 1988.

Hagia Sophia by Thomas Merton, from The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton, copyright 1963 by The Abbey of Gethsemani. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Piet from New Collected Poems by David Gascoyne. Reprinted by permission of Enitharmon Press.

The Tutelar of the Place by David Jones, from Agenda (1963). Reprinted by permission of Agenda Poetry.

Rivers, translated by Renata Gorczynski and Robert Hass, and Rivers (prose poem), translated by Czelaw Milosz and Robert Hass, by Czeslaw Milosz, from New and Collected Poems: 19312001. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, copyright 2003.

The Heavenly Country from The Convections by Robert Kelly. Reprinted by permission of Black Sparrow Books, an imprint of David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc. Copyright by Robert Kelly.