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ANGELUS SILESIUS (1624-1677)

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 8 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ANGELUS SILESIUS (1624-1677) , See also:German religious poet, was See also:born in 1624 at See also:Breslau. His See also:family name was Johann Scheffler, but he is generally known by the See also:pseudonym Angelus Silesius, under which he published his poems and which marks the See also:country of his See also:birth. Brought up a Lutheran, and at first physician to the See also:duke of See also:Wurttemberg-See also:Oels, he joined in 1652 the See also:Roman See also:Catholic See also:Church, in 1661 took orders as a See also:priest, and became coadjutor to the See also:prince See also:bishop of Breslau. He died at Breslau on the 9th of See also:July 1677. In 1657 Silesius published under the See also:title Heilige Seelenlust, odes geistliche Hirtenlieder der in ihren Jesum verliebten See also:Psyche (1657), a collection of 205 See also:hymns, the most beautiful of which, such as, Liebe, See also:die du mich zum Bilde deiner Gottheit hast gemacht and Mir nach, spricht Christus, unser Held, have been adopted in the German See also:Protestant hymnal. More remarkable, however, is his Geistreiche Sinn- and Schlussreime (16J7), afterwards called Cherubinischer Wandersmann (1674). This is a collection of " Reimspruche " or rhymed distichs embodying a See also:strange mystical See also:pantheism See also:drawn mainly from the writings of See also:Jakob Bohme and.his followers. Silesius delighted specially in the subtle paradoxes of See also:mysticism. The essence of See also:God, for instance, he held to be love; God, he said, can love nothing inferior to himself; but he cannot be an See also:object of love to himself without going out, so to speak, of himself, without manifesting his infinity in a finite See also:form; in other words, by becoming See also:man. God and man are therefore essentially one. A See also:complete edition of Scheffler's See also:works (Sdmtliche poetische Werke) was published by D. A.

See also:

Rosenthal, 2 vols. (See also:Regensburg, 1862). Both the Cherubinischer Wandersmann and Heilige Seelenlust have been republished by G. Ellinger (1895 and 1901); a selection from the former See also:work by O. E. Hartleben (1896). For further noticesof Silesius' See also:life and work, see See also:Hoffmann von Fallersleben in See also:Weimar'sches Jahrbuch I. (See also:Hanover, 1854) ; A. Kahiert, Angelus Silesius (1853); C. Seltmann, Angelus Silesius and See also:seine Mystik (1896), and a biog. by H. Mahn (See also:Dresden, 1896).

End of Article: ANGELUS SILESIUS (1624-1677)

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