While waiting for the arrival of Rubedo Press’ Cypriana:Old World, I used the time to revisit some of the books on St.Cyprian of Antioch that were already waiting on my bookshelf. Next to JSK’s Testament of St.Cyprian and several general books on saints and folklore I rediscovered a worn old softcover volume from 1927.

I vaguely recalled buying it years ago when researching on the origins of the Faust legend. Thus its title was little surprise: ‘Greek sources of the Faust legend. The magus Cyprianus. The account of Helladius, Theophilus.’

In this small book the classical philologist and once professor at the universities of Greifswald, Münster and Vienna Ludwig Radermacher (1867-1952) provides an in depth account of the legend of St.Cyprian of Antioch and examines its ties to older Greek sources.

Diving into it and being amazed by the wonderful scholarship and exegesis Radermacher provides, I came across two other little known German sources on St.Cyprian from the late 19th and early 20th century. These are Richard August Reitzenstein’s detailed article ‘Cyprian the Mage’ from 1917 as well as Theodor Zahn’s liminal study and reconstruction of the source text ‘Cyprian von Antiochien und die deutsche Faustsage’ (1882).

As all three articles are available in German only, I thought I’ll share a few things that stood out for me while immersing myself in these slightly older publications. Due to their academic authors all of the points below are looking at the historic tradition of St.Cyprian - rather than the practical devotional side of working with this inner contact. Yet despite the academic background, we will still hear about Apollonius of Tyana, the Greek Magical Papyri as well as a Greek satire that might have well paved the way for Cyprian's own legend....

Here we go. I hope it wets your appetite just as it did mine to dig deeper into JSK's massive double volume as well as the currently shipping Cypriana: OldWorld.

LVX,

Frater Acher