The Heavenly Country: An Anthology of Primary Sources, Poetry, and Critical Essays on Sophiology

494 Pages·2016·2.06 MB·English

by  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
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
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I: Primary Sources
THE BIBLE
Proverbs Canticle of Canticles (Song of Songs) The Book of Wisdom
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)
JACOB BOEHME
The Book of Six Great Points The Three Principles of the Divine Essence
of the Eternall, Dark, Light, and Temporary World Of the Becoming Man
or Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Sonne of God
SOPHIOLOGY AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SCIENCE
Robert Fludd: Mosaicall Philosophy Grounded upon the Essentiall Truth,
or Eternal Sapience
Thomas Vaughan: Anima Magica Abscondita Lumen de Lumine Euphrates
THE PHILADELPHIAN SOCIETY
John Pordage: Theologia Mystica, or The Mystic Divinitie of the Aeternal
Invisibles
Thomas Bromley: The Way to the Sabbath of Rest or the Soul’s Progress
in the Work of the New Birth
Jane Lead: A Fountain of Gardens
SOPHIOLOGY AND ROMANTICISM
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Autobiography: Truth and Poetry, from My
Own Life Theory of Colours
Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg): Christendom
or Europe?
Rudolf Steiner: Cosmic and Human Metamorphoses
William Butler Yeats: The Body of the Father Christian Rosencrux
RUSSIAN SOPHIOLOGY
Vladimir Solovyov: Russia and the Universal Church
Pavel Florensky: The Pillar and Ground of the Truth
Sergei Bulgakov: Sophia, the Wisdom of God: An Outline of Sophiology
Nikolai Berdyaev: Freedom and the Spirit
CATHOLIC SOPHIOLOGY
Hans Urs von Balthasar: The Glory of the Lord
Louis Bouyer: The Seat of Wisdom
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: The Eternal Feminine
Valentin Tomberg: Meditations on the Tarot
PART II The Poetry of Sophia
PART III Critical Essays
Aaron Riches: Theotokos: Sophiology and Christological
Overdetermination of the Secular
Gregory Yuri Glazov: On Understanding, Wisdom, and the Son of Man
Arthur Versluis: John Pordage and Sophianic Mysticism
Brent Dean Robbins: New Organs of Perception: Goethean Science as a
Cultural Therapeutics
Robert F. Slesinski: Russian Sophiology
Jennifer Newsome Martin: True and Truer Gnosis: The Revelation of the
Sophianic in Hans Urs von Balthasar
Bruce V. Foltz: Nature and Divine Wisdom: How (Not) to Speak of Sophia
Artur Sebastian Rosman: The Catholic Imagination: A Sophiology Between
Scatology and Eschatology
Michael Martin: The Poetic of Sophia
Notes on Contributors
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 Christ’s 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).