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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > General > Philosophy of religion
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Tears and Saints (Paperback, New edition)
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Tears and Saints (Paperback, New edition)
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By the mid-1930s, Emil Cioran was already known as a leader of a
new generation of politically committed Romanian intellectuals.
Researching another, more radical book, Cioran was spending hours
in a library poring over the lives of saints. As a modern
hagiographer, Cioran dreamt himself the chronicler of these saints'
falls between heaven and earth, the intimate knower of the ardors
in their hearts, the historian of God's insomniacs. Inspired by
Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, Cioran searched for the origin of
tears. He asked himself if saints could be the sources of tears'
better light. Who can tell? he wrote in the first paragraph of this
book, first published in Romania in 1937. To be sure, tears are
their trace. Tears did not enter the world through the saints; but
without them we would never have known that we cry because we long
for a lost paradise. By following in their traces, wetting the
soles of one's feet in their tears, Cioran hoped to understand how
a human being can renounce being human. Written in Cioran's
characteristic aphoristic style, this flamboyant, bold, and
provocative book is one of his most important--and
revelatory--works. Cioran focuses not on martyrs or heroes but on
the mystics--primarily female--famous for their keening
spirituality and intimate knowledge of God. Their Christianity was
anti-theological, anti-institutional, and based solely on intuition
and sentiment. Many, such as Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila,
and Saint John of the Cross, have produced classic works of
mystical literature; but Cioran celebrates many more minor and
unusual figures as well. Following Nietzsche, he focuses explicitly
on the political element hidden in saints' lives. In his hands,
however, their charitable deeds are much less interesting than
their thirst for pain and their equally powerful capacity to endure
it. Behind their suffering and their uncanny ability to renounce
everything through ascetic practices, Cioran detects a fanatical
will to power. Like Nietzsche, Cioran is an important religious
thinker. His book intertwines God and music with passion and tears.
. . . [Tears and Saints] has a chillingly contemporary ring that
makes this translation important here and now.--Booklist
General
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