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4.0 out of 5 stars
Essential primary source in study of Russian Mystic..., Mar 8 2004
Vladimir Solovyov is regarded as Eastern(Russian-Orthodox) Christianity's preeminent speculative theologian;mystic and mythological essayist.His influence on Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy is said to be radical.Czeslaw Milosz...perhaps the 20th Century's greatest poet...acknowledges Solovyov's vision and ideas to have profoundly affected his Faith and voluminous writing.Lectures on DIVINE HUMANITY(1878-1881)proclaim...as Teilhard de Chardin would assert in "The Phenomenon of Man" fifty years later...Mankind being "entelogically" driven to perfection in Cosmic(re)Unity with God. This OMEGA can be opposed or rejected by Sin.Christ...incarnated in history as Saviour in Time; and LOGOS in Eternal Being...redeems men with His Saving Act from which Plenitude of Grace(God's Life)issues and MAY be received as Divine,(re)Informing Principle of Spiritual Actualization. The HOLY SPIRIT is God's Actualizing Principal of cosmic, creation- sustaining, LOVE "hypostasized"(personally individuated,and subsistent). To Valdimir Solovyov literal,"physical"incarnation and manifestation of this HYPOSTASIS is SOPHIA, Divine Wisdom. (What pagans and gnostics term: The Eternal Feminine...Goethe's Das Ewig-Weibliche zeiht uns hinan;The Eternal-Womanly which lures to perfection). THE POEMS OF SOPHIA is literary documentation of the author-seer's mystical vision of The Holy Spirit as he "experienced 'Her'" as SOPHIA in Egypt in November 1875. The booklet,translated by Boris Jakim and Laury Magnus,comprises six poems. The first three(set)are rapturous and prayer-like:"'ALL IN AZURE DID MY EMPRESS APPEAR BEFORE ME'...(She chides him)'YOUR RESOLVE IS MORE INCONSTANT THAN SEA WAVES; YOU VOWED TO KEEP FIDELITY TO ME.YOU HAVE BETRAYED YOUR VOW--BUT COULD YOUR BETRAYAL REALLY HAVE CAUSED MY HEART TO CHANGE?'" The second set...written more than 20 years later...called THE THREE MEETINGS are more literary and "affected"/controlled. Purpose of these poems is to historically substantiate the decisive, spiritual epiphany of Solovyov's life. These VISIONS are basis of profound speculations on Man's destiny and God who offers it to him. Literary anaylsis will discover much Dante(Beatrice)in Solovyov's poems. But POEMS of SOPHIA are not,in my estimate--in agreement with the translators--mythological literature. They are EXISTENTIAL declarations in tradition of St.Augustine. Certainly they are essential as primary source of study of a Russian mystic, philosopher and literary genius. More importantly they, again, reveal ever-waiting PRESENCE of God revealing HOLY MYSTERIOUS LOVE, as "beauty ever ancient, ever new"...
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