Alexandrines from The Cherubinic Pilgrim

What It's About

Alexandrines is a selection of short rhymed couplets drawn from Angelus Silesius's larger collection, Cherubinischer Wandersmann (The Cherubinic Pilgrim). Written mostly as two-line epigrams in the Alexandrine metre, the verses circle around the soul's longing for union with God, using paradox, negation, and startling imagery to gesture at experiences the poet considered beyond ordinary language.

Key Concepts

Recurring themes include the dissolution of the self into the divine, the idea of God as "nothing" and "everything" at once, and the soul as bride of Christ. Some couplets, read in isolation, have been accused of leaning toward pantheism or quietism; Silesius addressed this directly in his own preface, insisting his paradoxes were meant in an orthodox Catholic sense, and the work was published with an ecclesiastical Imprimatur.

About the Author

Angelus Silesius was the pen name of Johann Scheffler, a German physician and priest born in Breslau, Silesia. Raised Lutheran, he converted to Catholicism in his twenties after immersing himself in the writings of the Christian mystics, and was later ordained a priest, spending much of his later life writing and preaching in his native Silesia.

About This Edition

This is a 1944 translation by Julia Bilger.