Angelus Silesius , born Johann Scheffler and also known as Johann Angelus Silesius, was a German Catholic priest and physician, known as a mystic and religious poet. Born and raised a Lutheran, he adopted the name Angelus (Latin for "angel" or "heavenly messenger") and the epithet Silesius ("Silesian") on converting to Catholicism in 1653.
Background
While his exact birthdate is unknown, it is believed that Silesius was born in December 1624 in Breslau, the capital of Silesia. The earliest mention of him is the registration of his baptism on Christmas Day, 25 December 1624.
At the time, Silesia was a German-speaking province of the Habsburg Empire. Today, it is the southwestern region of Poland. Baptized Johann Scheffler, he was the first of three children. His parents, who married in February 1624, were Lutheran.
His father, Stanislaus Scheffler (c. 1562–1637), was of Polish ancestry and was a member of the lower nobility. Stanislaus dedicated his life to the military was made Lord of Borowice (or Vorwicze) and received a knighthood from King Sigismund III.
A few years before his son's birth, he had retired from military service in Kraków. In 1624, he was 62. The child's mother, Maria Hennemann (c. 1600–1639), was a 24-year-old daughter of a local physician with ties to the Habsburg Imperial court.
Education
Scheffler obtained his early education at the Elisabethsgymnasium (Saint Elizabeth's Gymnasium, or high school) in Breslau. His earliest poems were written and published during these formative years.
Scheffler was probably influenced by the recently published works of poet and scholar Martin Opitz and by one of his teachers, poet Christoph Köler.
He subsequently studied medicine and science at the University of Strasbourg (or Strassburg) in Alsace for a year in 1643. It was a Lutheran university with a course of study that embraced Renaissance humanism.
From 1644 to 1647, he attended Leiden University. At this time, he was introduced to the writings of Jacob Böhme (1575–1624) and became acquainted with one of Böhme's friends, Abraham von Franckenberg (1593–1652), who probably introduced him to ancient Kabbalist writings, alchemy, and hermeticism, and to mystic writers living in Amsterdam. Franckenberg had been compiling a complete edition of Böhme's work at the time Scheffler resided in the Netherlands. The Dutch Republic provided refuge to many religious sects, mystics, and scholars who were persecuted elsewhere in Europe. Scheffler then went to Italy and enrolled in studies at the University of Padua in Padua in September 1647.
A year later, he received a doctoral degree in philosophy and medicine and returned to his homeland.
Career
An enthusiastic convert and priest, Silesius worked to convince German Protestants in Silesia to return to the Roman Catholic Church. He composed 55 tracts and pamphlets condemning Protestantism, several of which were published in two folio volumes entitled Ecclesiologia (trans. "The Words of the Church"). He is now remembered chiefly for his religious poetry, and in particular for two poetical works both published in 1657: Heilige Seelenlust (literally, "The Soul's Holy Desires"), a collection of more than 200 religious hymn texts that have been used by Catholics and Protestants; and Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann ("The Cherubinic Pilgrim"), a collection of 1, 676 short poems, mostly Alexandrine couplets. His poetry explores themes of mysticism, quietism, and pantheism within an orthodox Catholic context.
Religion
Silesius delighted specially in the subtle paradoxes of mysticism.
The essence of God, for instance, he held to be love; God, he said, can love nothing inferior to himself; but he cannot be an object of love to himself without going out, so to speak, of himself, without manifesting his infinity in a finite form; in other words, by becoming man.
God and man are therefore essentially one.
Brought up a Lutheran, and at first physician to the duke of Wiirttemberg-Oels, he joined in 1652 the Roman Catholic Church, in 1661 took orders as a priest, and became coadjutor to the prince bishop of Breslau.
In 1657 Silesius published under the title Heilige Seelenlust, oder geistliche Hirtenlieder der inihrenjesumverliebten Psyche {1657), a collection of 205 hymns, the most beautiful of which, such as, Liebe, die du mich zum Bilde deiner Gottheit hast gemacht and Mir nach, spricht Christus, unser Held, have been adopted in the German Protestant hymnal.
The Lutheran authorities in the Reformed states of the Empire were not tolerant of Scheffler's increasing mysticism, and he was publicly attacked and denounced as a heretic.
At this time, the Habsburg rulers (who were Catholic) were pushing for a Counter Reformation and advocated a re-Catholicisation of Europe.
Scheffler sought to convert to Catholicism and was received by the Church of Saint Matthias in Breslau on 12 June 1653.
Upon being received, he took the name Angelus, the Latin form of "angel", derived from the Greek ángelos (ἄγγελος, "messenger"); for his epithet, he took Silesius (Latin for "Silesian").
Views
Silesius's poetry directs the reader to seek a path toward a desired spiritual state, an eternal stillness, by eschewing material or physical needs and the human will. It requires an understanding of God that is informed by the ideas of apophatic theology and of antithesis and paradox.
Some of Silesius's writings and beliefs that bordered on pantheism or panentheism caused tensions between Silesius and local Protestant authorities.
However, in the introduction to Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann, he explained his poetry (especially its paradoxes) within the framework of Catholic orthodoxy and denied pantheism which would have run afoul of Catholic doctrine.