The element of paradox, of the unexpected juxtaposition of apparently irreconcilable opposites, is one of the most fascinating aspects of Baroque literature. Theological and doctrinal paradoxes too play their part in the poetry of the German Baroque, and an attempt will be made here to show how the Protestant Gryphius reflects in his early sonnets much of the spirit and spirituality, and at times the ascetic and devotional theology of the later Counter-Reformation, as well as making use of the liturgical forms and traditions of the Post-Tridentine period in the history of Catholicism.

Andreas Gryphius published his early sonnets in two volumes which appeared in 1643 and 1650 respectively.¹ The first volume opens with a sonnet addressed to God, the Holy Spirit, and takes the form of an epiclesis. Gryphius moves the sonnet into the liturgical realm by transforming it, at least in part, into a litany incorporating elements of the Veni Creator Spiritus. Thus the opening line—

O Fewer wahrer lieb! O brunn der gutten gaben!

contains an obvious allusion:

Fons vivus, ignis, caritas,
Et spiritalis unctio.

More obvious even are elements from the Sequence on the feast of Pentecost, the Veni, Sancte Spiritus:

Consolator optime,
Dulcis hospes animae
Dulce refrigerium.
In labore requies,
In aestu temperies,
In fletu solatium.

Gryphius re-phrases this only slightly:

O weisheit ohne mass; O reiner Seelen gast /
O tewre gnaden quell' / O trost in herber last!
O regen der in angst mitt segen vns befeuchtet!(2)

The Postcommunion of the Proper for Pentecost has clear analogies too:

May the outpouring of the Holy Spirit purify our hearts,
O Lord, and by the inward sprinkling of his heavenly dew
may they be made fruitful … (… corda nostra mundet infusio:
et sui roris intima aspersione fecundet)

(In Dominica Pentecostes).

In the concluding lines of his sonnet Gryphius prays for refreshment and enlightenment, the dulce refrigerium and the lucis tuae radium of the Sequence:

Ach lass ein tröpflinn nur von deinem lebens-taw
Erfrischen meinen Geist. Hilff das ich doch nur schaw'
Ein füncklin deiner glutt; so bin ich recht erleuchtet.(3)

The second sonnet, like the first entitled “An Gott den Heiligen Geist,” is much less formal and much more immediately personal and devotional in tone. It begins with, and emphasises, the concept of conversion, of a μετανοία; old and new are contrasted, his former erring self with his newly-won vision of the truth:

Bisher hab ich die alte kalte Welt /
Bisher hab ich die eitelkeit gelibet:
Bisher hatt mich der harte sturm betrübet.
Mich der ich falschem gutte nachgestelt.(4)

The poet has now laid aside his love of eitelkeit, of vanitas, and again invokes the Holy Spirit as the Comforter, the Paraclete:

Und tröste wen mein hertz in schmertz verfelt.
O Helles licht / erleuchte meine nacht.
Die nacht voll angst / vol wehmutt / ach vnd zagen
Erquicke mich eh' als mein Geist verschmacht.(5)

The next few sonnets (“III,” “IV,” “V,” “VI”)⁶ at first sight appear to be devotional exercises, meditations on events and scenes depicted in the Gospels. “III” (“Vber die Geburt Jesu”) revolves around the highly effective juxtaposition of “nacht” and “licht”:

Nacht mehr den lichte nacht! nacht lichter als der tag /
Nacht heller als die Sonn' / in der das licht gebohren /
Das Gott / der licht / in licht wohnhafftig / ihmb erkohren:
O nacht / die alle nächt' und tage trotzen mag.
O frewdenreiche nacht. …(7)

The formal and somewhat stylised tone here, with occasional quasi-Miltonic touches, gives way in “IV,” “V” and “VI” to a progressively more subjective, highly personalised approach. The meditation on the Passion (“Vber des Herrn gefängnus,” “Vber des Herrn leiche,” “An den gekreutzigten Jesum”) evokes a profoundly felt response in the poet; he hears and answers a renewed call to follow and serve his Divine Master:

Das ich mich sünden frey / zu dienen dier befleisse …(8)

In “V,” “deine lieb” and “meine schuld” are juxtaposed. The them of felix culpa is alluded to; the Divine Lover Himself compels the poet to “wiederliebe”. The vision of the crucified Lord in “VI” in the apotheosis of His suffering confirms the poet's resolve:

Hier will ich gantz nicht weg! lass alle schwerdter klingen.
Greiff spiess vnd seebell an! brauch aller waffen macht
Vnd flam' vnd was die welt für vnerträglich acht.
Mich soll von diesem Creutz kein Todt / kein Teufell dringen …(9)

The final prayer is all the more poignant through its directness and child-like simplicity:

Herr Jesu neig herab dein bluttig angesicht /
Vnd heis durch deinen todt im todt mich ewig leben.(10)

Again it should be noted that “IV,” “V” and “VI” are not the expression of purely spontaneous, haphazard or arbitrary meditations of a pious individual but follow closely the liturgical and devotional traditions that the Counter-Reformation had revived and fostered. These three sonnets contain not only linguistic and poetic allusions to the Crux fidelis, the Pange lingua from the liturgy of Good Friday,¹¹ but they follow closely the Stations of the Cross, and even more specifically they suggest, in their repetition and their emphasis on personal reflection and private meditation, the Five Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary.

As is the case with so many other sonnets in this volume, “VIII” is a revised version of one which had appeared earlier under the title which expresses the quintessence of the Baroque:

VANITAS, VANITATUM, ET OMNIA VANITAS:(12)
Du sihst / wohin du sihst nur eitelkeit auff erden.
Was dieser heute bawt / reist jener morgen ein:
Wo itzund städte stehn / wird eine wiesen sein
Auf der ein schäffers kind wird spilen mitt den heerden …(13)

The transitoriness, the mutability of all human existence represents of course one of the quintessential themes of all Baroque poetry, and indeed of Gryphius. The cataclysmic events of the Thirty Years' War and the sufferings directly and indirectly resulting from it, attuned men more immediately to the mutability of life, and this realization was there irrespective of the religious adherence of the individual; it transcended the dividing line between Catholic and Protestant and became the existential premise, the philosophical starting-point for much contemporary religious thought. Moreover, the concept of vanitas is of utmost importance within the context of the spirituality of the Counter-Reformation. Post-Tridentine Catholicism had incorporated, absorbed and indeed developed numerous aspects of the devotio moderna, and the enormous influence of the Imitatio Christi is an outstanding example of this. The spirit and spirituality of the Imitatio had a universal appeal for Christians which again transcended denominational frontiers and made it one of the most profoundly influential devotional writings of all time. It is not surprising, therefore, that elements of the spirituality of the Imitatio occur repeatedly in the religious poetry of Gryphius and particularly so in the early sonnets under consideration here. This should not be taken to imply that Gryphius directly and literally followed the text of the Imitatio or any of a number of possible versions or translations, the most likely of which would perhaps have been that of Johann Arndt (Leipzig, 1634).¹⁴ The evidence for this is too sketchy or at best not wholly conclusive. It could be argued that the many points of contact between the Imitatio and the early sonnets of Gryphius are merely topoi. But the significant fact is that they are demonstrably expressions of contemporary religious thought which in themselves are convincing proof of how deeply even Lutheran piety was still—or again?—imbued with the heritage of Catholic spirituality, stretching back into the mediaeval past but finding in the Imitatio and the devotio moderna a spiritual link between the Middle Ages and the Post-Tridentine Era. There is no conclusive way of telling how familiar Gryphius himself was at first hand with à Kempis, but the religious outlook of the Baroque owed a great debt to the devotio moderna and specifically to the Imitatio (and its numberless imitators and heirs) whose spirituality Gryphius was bound to absorb and reflect to the extent that he absorbed and reflected the idiosyncratic piety of the Baroque age in his poetry. But the intriguing paradox of Catholic spirituality within the confines of a conventional Lutheran framework remains, however direct or indirect his personal acquaintance with the writings of à Kempis may have been. Thus “VIII,” “IX” (“Threnen in schwerer kranckheit”) and “X” (“Der Welt Wolust”) bring to mind Book III Chapter 20 of the Imitatio (On acknowledging our own Weakness and on the Miseries of this Life).¹⁵ The theme of “X” recalls Book I Chapter 22 of the Imitatio (A View of Man's Misery), sometimes quite closely, as in the reference to the sufferings and crosses that men have to put up with, “kings and Popes like the rest of us. And who comes off best? The man who can stand up to a certain amount of suffering for the love of God”.¹⁶ Gryphius stresses precisely the same point:

Kein stand / kein ortt / kein mensch ist seines Creutzes frey.
Wer lacht; fühlt wen er lacht im hertzen tausend plagen.
Wer hoch in ehren sitzt / muss hohe sorgen tragen.(17)

The title of “XI” (Menschliches Elende) is virtually that of Book I Chapter 22 of the Imitatio (A View of Man's Misery), though if anything Gryphius takes an even more gloomily eschatological, at times apocalyptic view of man's existence, the transitoriness of his life on earth. The extremely skilful and subtle usage of poetic diction should be noted, as well as the simple yet powerful imagery which combine to make this one of the most accomplished of Gryphius' sonnets:

Was sind wir menschen doch? ein wohnhaus grimmer schmertzen.
Ein baall des falschen glücks / ein irrlicht dieser zeit.
Ein schawplatz herber angst / vnd wiederwertikeit /
Ein bald verschmeltzter schnee vnd abgebrante kertzen.
Dis leben fleucht davon wie ein geschwätz vnd schertzen.
Die vor vns abgelegt des schwachen leibes kleidt
Vnd in das todten buch der grossen sterblikeit
Längst eingeschrieben sind / sind vns aus sinn vnd hertzen …(18)

Whether Gryphius realized it or not, this is a powerful poetic recreation of much of the thought-content of Book I Chapter 23 of the Imitatio (On thinking about Death),¹⁹ though the two preceding chapters (About Holy Sorrow, A View of Man's Misery) are relevant too. This thanatological content and approach is of course highly symptomatic for the Weltanschauung of the Baroque where the awareness of death and its nearness—media in vita in morte sumus—represents a major leitmotiv. Also an ever-present sense of the rapid, irreversible, irresistible passing of time—ut hora, ut vita fugit—comes out impressively in this sonnet:

Gleich wie ein eitell traum leicht aus der acht hinfält
Vnd wie ein strom verscheust / den keine macht aufhält /
So mus auch vnser nahm / lob ehr vnd ruhm verschwinden.
Was itzund athem holt / fält vnversehns dahin:
Was nach vns kommen wird / wird vns ins grab nach zihn.
Was sag ich? wir vergehn gleich als ein rauch von winden.(20)

The last line could perhaps be said to have liturgical overtones too, for it might be reminiscent of the symbolic rite at a Papal Coronation when a handful of flax is burned and the newly-elected Pontiff, now the supreme head of the Universal Church, is three times reminded in the liturgical action immediately preceding the Coronation: “Pater sancte, sic transit gloria mundi”.²¹ This would no doubt have appealed greatly to the Baroque instinct for meaningful dramatic symbolism, though its origins go back to a rite dating from the latter part of the 14th century.²² Another significant contribution to the theme of vanitas is in “XLIII” (“Ebenbildt unsers lebens”) which is of particular interest also from the point of view of poetic technique. Antithesis, linguistic juxtaposition and chiastic phrasing are used to considerable effect:

Der Mensch das spiel der zeit / spielt weil er alhie lebt.
Im schaw-platz dieser welt; er sitzt vnd doch nicht feste.
Der steigt vnd jener fält / der suchet die Paläste /
Vndt der ein schlechtes dach / der herscht vnd jener webt.
Was gestern war ist hin / was itz das gluck erhebt;
Wirdt morgen vntergehn / die vorhin grünen äste
Sindt nuhmer dür vndt todt …(23)

Again the thanatological dimension is added, death is the great leveller of social and material differences. But the recurring theme is that of ‘spiel’, culminating in the almost didactic but highly effective final phrasing:

Spilt den dis ernste spiell: weil es die zeit noch leidet.
Vndt lernt: das wen man vom pancket des lebens scheidet:
Kron / weisheit / stärck vndt gutt / sey eine leere pracht.(24)

The collection of Gryphius' sonnets published in 1650 (Sonnette: Das Ander Buch)²⁵ shows the same influence of themes that play a significant role in the spirituality of the Counter-Reformation but became the common spiritual property of Protestants as well as Catholics. “VII” (“Sicut uri nata ligna, nata messis demeti”) is another illustration of this, and again the spirituality of the devotio moderna is apparent. It is a moving attempt to deal with the problem of human suffering and the existential problems evoked by the sufferings of the individual by reference to the Incarnation, to the sufferings, the Passion of God-made-man in the cause of human redemption. It is here that Gryphius discovers the final explanation and the ultimate meaning of the Cross:

Gott stellt sich in die Erd' auff Creutz vnd Geisseln eyn.
Der Mutter Leib gebahr in armuth Ihn zur pein.
Er schloss in höchster Angst das schmertzen volle zagen.
Was sucht ein blosser Mensch / wenn JESVS dornen trägt /
Begehrt der Kriegsmann Rast / wenn man den Fürsten schlägt
Der Feld Herr / schaw / geht vor / was soll der Knecht nicht wagen.(26)

Again the analogy with the spirituality of the Imitatio is apparent when reference is made to Book II Chapter 12 (On the Royal Road of the Holy Cross):

The whole life of Christ was a cross and a martyrdom; and you go looking for rest and mirth! … Set out, then, as a good and faithful servant of Christ, to bear like a man the cross of your Lord, that cross to which he was nailed for love of you.²⁷

More direct parallels may be discovered in the liturgy of Good Friday, notably in the Pange lingua (Spina, clavi, lancea, Mite corpus perforarunt), and more obliquely in the Vexilla regis (Quae vulnerata lancea; Ornata Regis purpura). Other sonnets in which similar parallels may be observed are almost too numerous to mention. “IX” (“Johannis Chrysostomi Morte. Tom. V. Epist 3 ad Cyriac”) has a large number of scriptural allusions woven together and made up into a kind of poetic mosaic with a unique flavour, culminating in the triumphant conviction:

Ich bin ins Buch dess Lebens eingeschrieben.(28)

“XXVII” (“Domine, quid est Homo, quod memor est ejus!”) is strongly reminiscent of earlier attempts to deal with the ever-present reality of death—its nearness and its inexorability. Again the predominant mood is that of media in vita in morte sumus:

Wir spielen sorgenfrey / wir schimpfen / lachen / schmehn!
Doch vnser End ist dar. Wir werden gantz nicht jnnen
Wie nahe wir der grufft. diss Leben muss zerrinnen
Wenn Gott nicht beystand schickt / ehr wir umb beystand flehn.(29)

Thanatological analogies with the Imitatio (particularly in the notion of sudden death) can be made out here, and these analogies capture and circumscribe an aspect of Counter-Reformation spirituality which a century later was to characterize the attitude of the Redemptorist Order to the “Four Last Things ever to be remembered”:

Ein Stein / ein stücklin Bley / vnd ein vergifftend schnauben
Ein fall / ein Wassertropf / kann vns diss leben rauben
Geschwinder denn es Pest / vnd frost / vnd Schwindsucht thut.
Wir sorgen nur vmbsonst / wenn Gott nicht für vns wachet /
Wenn er nicht Wall vnd Burg vnd Läger vmb vns machet.
Der ist schon lebend-todt der nicht in seiner Hut.(30)

The author of the Imitatio writes:

Poor fool, what makes you promise yourself a long life, when there is not a day of it that goes by in security? … Nothing commoner than to be told, in the course of conversation, how such a man was stabbed, such a man was drowned; how one fell from a height and broke his neck, another never rose from table, another never finished his game of dice. Fire and sword, plague and murderous attack, it is always the same thing—death is the common end that awaits us all, and life can pass suddenly, like a shadow when the sun goes in.³¹

The paradoxically ecumenical aspect of Gryphius comes to the fore in connection with two sonnets written as a result of his visit to Rome in 1643.³² “XLI” is entitled “Als Er Auss Rom geschieden:”

Ade' begriff der welt' stadt der nichts gleich gewesen /
Vnd nichts zu gleichen ist / in der man alles siht
Was zwischen Ost vnd West / vnd Nord vnd Suden blüht,
Was die Natur erdacht / was je ein Mensch gelesen …(33)

There is something here of the spirit of loving admiration rather than the merely aesthetic enthusiasm of the uncommitted tourist. He describes the magnificence, the splendour of the Vatican in words that would not disgrace the fervour of a Post-Tridentine triumphalist, of an ultramontanist pilgrim on a visit ad limina apostolorum:

Ihr Wunder der gemäld / jhr prächtigen Palläst /
Ob den die Kunst erstarrt / du starck bewehrte Fest /
Du Herrlichs Vatican / dem man nichts gleich kan bawen;
Ihr Bücher / Gärten / grüfft'; Ihr Bilder / Nadeln / Stein /
Ihr / die diss vnd noch mehr schliss't in die Sinnen eyn /
Ade! Man kan euch nicht satt mit zwey Augen schawen.(34)

This sense of what could almost be described as external triumphalism, of aesthetic ultramontanism gives way to genuine devotion in a purely spiritual dimension in “XLII”—“Vber die vnter jrrdischen Gruffte der Heiligen Martyrer zu Rom.” The outward splendour, the artistic and aesthetic magnificence of the Vatican was described in the preceding sonnet. Now Gryphius meditates on the spiritual foundations of Rome, the tombs, the catacombs of the martyrs which form the spiritual and doctrinal raison d'être of the Holy See. His attitude is unequivocally that of the pilgrim to whom prayer and meditation come naturally:

Hier beuge Knie vnd Haupt! die vnter jrrd'schen gänge
Die grüffte sonder licht / die du bestürtzter Christ /
Nicht ohn entsetzen sihst …(35)

The Protestant Gryphius now pays homage too and venerates the relics of the holy martyrs; he describes their sufferings, their fervent longing for the crown of martyrdom in words which resemble closely Ignatian spirituality, a phenomenon noted earlier.³⁶

Die Leichen sonder zahl / der heilgen Cörper menge
Sind die / auff die sich Höll vnd Welt umbsonst gerüsst /
Die Pein vnd Todt gepocht / die Pfal vnd Schwerd geküsst /
Die nach der quaal gerennt mit frölichem gedränge.(37)

Whether or not Gryphius was conscious of it, this was the triumphalist doctrinal restatement of the Council of Trent, of the still militantly proselytizing Society of Jesus, of the Church of the Counter-Reformation: “Portae inferi nunquam praevalebunt”, as the Fathers of the Tridentine Council had emphatically restated the traditional doctrine based on Matthew 16:18.³⁸ The Church, according to Gryphius, is built on the tears, the sufferings, the blood of its martyrs; a Church which is dead to sin, dead to the world, has its deepest roots among its own dead, the martyrs:

Hier ists wo Christus Kirch / mit fewrigen Gebetten /
Von Blut vnd Thränen nass / Gott vor gesicht getretten
Die stets der Welt abstarb / must vnter leichen seyn …(39)

The Church that is to grow to the end of time, to the consummation of all things, has its roots here in Rome, in the sufferings of its martyrs, the ultimate “witnesses” to its truth; the lux mundi is born from the darkness of the tomb, the catacombs:

Die ewig wachsen solt; must alhier Wurtzel finden /
In dieser finstern Nacht musst jhr Licht sich entzünden …(40)

Among the stones, the rubble of the catacombs, is to be found the Rock of Peter on which the Church is built—“super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam”:

Die auf den Felss gegründt / wohnt' vnter lauter Stein.(41)

Here Gryphius gives expression to the Tridentine ecclesiology, the teaching of the Council of Trent on the origin, the nature and the understanding of the Church in the form in which it was to be proposed and propagated by the forces of the Counter-Reformation, above all by the Society of Jesus, some members of which demonstrably influenced the nature and content of his early poetry,⁴² and arguably important aspects of his personal religious Weltanschauung. It is no doubt this influence, together with the pervading religious climate of the age of Baroque in which he lived (and which was of course never confined to Catholic Europe alone) that accounts for these fascinating evidences and glimpses of the spirit and spirituality of the Counter-Reformation in his early sonnets—sonnets which are of considerable interest for an understanding of Gryphius' unique contribution to German Baroque poetry.

Notes

1. A. Gryphius, Frühe Sonnette. Edited by M. Szyrocki. Tübingen, 1964, p. VII. Some had appeared in earlier versions in Lissaer Sonnette in 1637; ibid., p. VII. The text, reading and spelling used throughout are those of the above edition.

2. Loc. cit., p. 29.

3. Ibid., p. 29.

4. Ibid., pp. 29-30.

5. Ibid., p. 30.

6. Loc. cit., pp. 30, 31, 32.

7. Ibid., p. 30.

8. Ibid., p. 31.

9. Ibid., p. 32.

10. Ibid., p. 32.

11. Cf.

    Felle potus ecce languet:
    Spina, clave, lancea
    Mite corpus perforarunt,
    Unde manat, et cruor:
    Terra, pontus, astra, mundus,
    Quo lavantur flumine.

    According to Szyrocki, V and VI are translations of Latin poems by well-known Jesuits. See his notes on pp. 93-94. This can hardly be a coincidence since their Counter-Reformation Weltanschauung was remarkably close to that of Gryphius, as emerges in so many of his other sonnets where Ignatian spirituality plays a significant role.

12. Cf. loc. cit., p. 7.

13. Ibid., p. 33.

14. Deutsche Mystik, ed. by L. Schreyer, Berlin, no date, p. 200.

15. Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, translated by Ronald Knox and Michael Oakley, London, 1959, pp. 129-130.

16. Ibid., p. 54.

17. Gryphius, loc. cit., p. 35.

18. Ibid., p. 35.

19. Imitatio, loc. cit., pp. 57-60.

20. Gryphius, loc. cit., p. 35.

21. W. E. Addis and T. Arnold, A Catholic Dictionary, London, 1897, p. 738.

22. Ibid., p. 738.

23. Gryphius, loc. cit., p. 58.

24. Ibid., p. 58.

25. Szyrocki, loc. cit., p. VII.

26. Gryphius, loc. cit., pp. 68-69.

27. Imitatio, loc. cit., pp. 92, 93.

28. Gryphius, loc. cit., p. 70.

29. Ibid., pp. 79-80.

30. Ibid., p. 80.

31. Imitatio, loc. cit., pp. 58, 59, 60. (Book I. Chapter 23).

32. See Szyrocki's notes, loc. cit., p. 97.

33. Gryphius, loc. cit., p. 87.

34. Ibid., p. 87.

35. Ibid., pp. 87-88.

36. Cf. note 11.

37. Ibid., p. 88.

38. See Conc. Tridentinum, Sessio III, in Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum. Freiburg, 1932. 782, p. 278 (Recipitur Symbolum fidei catholicae).

39. Gryphius, loc. cit., p. 88.

40. Ibid., p. 88.

41. Ibid., p. 88.

42. See note 11.