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Ole Schenk's avatar

Thanks so much for this guide to Caputo's journey and its possible crossing of paths with Pope Leo. I knew the name of Angelus Silesius but I didn't know he was the source of "the rose is without a why." The account you give of Caputo's concern for phenomenology and ethics is really helpful. I look forward to reading Papal Encyclicals from Pope Leo.

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Ole Schenk's avatar

For you the film buff, on Angelus Silesius: "In the 1991 American film Cape Fear directed by Martin Scorsese, the film's sadistic antagonist, Max Cady (played by Robert De Niro) quotes a verse of Silesius.[17] The verse is:

10. Ich bin wie Gott, und Gott wie ich.

Ich bin so groß als Gott, er ist als ich so klein:

Er kann nicht über mich, ich unter ihm nicht sein.[18][19]

I am like God and God like me.

I am as large as God, He is as small as I.

He cannot above me, nor I beneath him be."

—English translation used in film (copied and pasted from Wikipedia)

Chris, I knew Silesius/Scheffler because of quotations of him by Lutherans -- but I didn't know he had converted to become a Catholic and a Franciscan. Neat.

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Christopher B. Barnett's avatar

Scorsese's remake of CAPE FEAR is brilliant, IMO! As a sidebar: Kierkegaard owned a copy of Silesius' CHERUBIC PILGRIM (Cherubinischer Wandersmann). Pietism was the point of contact...

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