Thinker, lyrical poet, mystic
Silesian Angel, Angelus Silesius, real name Jan Scheffler lived and worked in Silesia, mainly in Wrocław. His father came from Krakow, he participated and distinguished himself in many military expeditions, for which King Sigismund III granted him and his descendants the title of nobility in 1557. Around 1618 he came to Wroclaw, probably for religious reasons, as he was of Lutheran faith. At the age of 62, he married the daughter of the famous physician Johann Hennemann, 24-year-old Magdalena Hennemann. The first child of this marriage was Johann, who also had a sister, Maria Magdalena, and a brother Christian. In 1637, when Johann was 13, his father died, and two years later so did his mother. On April 29, 1639, the orphaned Scheffler brothers became students at Gimnazjum św. Elżbiety, whose rector was the famous scholar and lover of poetry, Elias Major. Among the educators, a great deal of influence on young Johann had Christoph Köler (Colerus), the rhetoric teacher, who discovered in him a talent for poetry. During the middle school period, Scheffler made his first poetic attempts, of which, however, little has survived.
In 1643, after graduating from Gimnazjum, Johann went to Strasbourg, where on May 4 he was admitted to the faculty of medicine and state law. A year later he went to Leiden in the Netherlands for further studies. Here he made contact with sects and mystical circles. He became acquainted with the writings of Jacob Böhme and other mystics, which was reflected in his first poetry. In the fall of 1646 he moved to Padua and on July 9, 1648, he was awarded the title of doctor of medicine and philosophy at the local university.
In spring of 1649 Scheffler returned to Silesia. Here, probably thanks to the recommendation from his brother-in-law, the well known doctor Tobiass Brückner, he received the position of cout physician at Prince Sylwiusz Nemrod in Oleśnica. At that time, Johann met Abraham von Franckenberg (1593-1652), who lived in the Bystre castle near Oleśnica. He was a mathematician, physicist, doctor and theologian, he also dealt with alchemy, astrology and Kabbalah, but he was known mainly as a spiritual guide of “Silesian mystic”. Under his influence, Scheffler’s spiritual development took place. Franckenberg introduced him to Catholic and Protestant mysticism, and provided him with writings and treatises on philosophical topics. He personally met Daniel Czepko, who represented the beliefs of Jacob Böhme and Valentin Weigl, whose views influenced further Scheffler’s works.
On June 25, 1652, when Franckenberg died, Johann expressed his despair over the loss of his friend in the poem “Chrześcijańskie uczczenie pamięci”, which is also a proof of his inner transformation. The deceased left Scheffler his extensive book collection, which included works by Ruysobroeck, Blosius, and St. Gertrude, St. Mechthilde, St. Therese of the Child Jesus and St. John of the Cross. Scheffler, having translated some of the excerpts from Latin to German, decided to publish them for Christmas as a collection of prayers. Unfortunately, the court preacher, Christoph Freitag, who was a censor, refused to allow the publication of this collection, seeing it as a threat to Lutheranism in the form of mythical ideas. As a result of this dispute, Scheffler left the office of court physician in Oleśnica in 1652 and returned to Wroclaw, where he became a doctor at St. Matthew hospital. Here he quickly made contact with the leaders of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, which was reviving in Silesia. On June 12, 1653, he made a profession of faith in the church of St. Matthias, and took the name Angelus from the 16th-century Spanish mystic, which, with the addition of Silesian, became his literary pseudonym.
In 1654, he received the title of court physician from Emperor Fredrick III. The result of many years of reflections and considerations were two flagship works of Silesian Angel. “Cherubowy wędrowiec” is a collection themed around the Christian mysticism, in which the subject of consideration is God, who is the beginning, middle and end of all things On the other hand, ‘Święta radości duszy” is a collection of hymns describing the life of the Savior from his birth to his death on the cross. Music was written for those hymns, and to this day they are sung in German churches. The literary works of Silesian Angel are enclosed in “Opis czterech rzeczy ostatecznych” and in the work of Dutch mysticism translated from Latin, “Kosztowna perła ewangelicka”.
On May 29, 1661, Silesian Angel received priestly ordination in Nysa, and he began efforts to restore the custom of Christmas processions, which was abandoned in Wroclaw with the advent of Reformation, he himself walked at the head of Corpus Christi procession (the first one in 130 years), wanting to win over Wroclaw citizens to the Catholic faith. He was very generous, he gave away all his fortune to the poor, he funded collective services, holy masses and meals for the poor, and devoted considerable funds to building churches. In 1664 he became the marshal of the court of Sebastian von Rostöck. In the years 1665-75 he entered into harsh discussions with Protestants whom he accused of heresy, and during that time he wrote about 55 polemic writings. The last years of his life, exhausted physically and spiritually, Angelus Silesius spent in a monastery. He died on July 9, 1677 at the age of 53, of tuberculosis. He was buried in the church of St. Maciej in Wroclaw. The crypt, into which the coffin of Angelus Silesius was lowered, was turned into a shelter and hospital by the German army during the siege of Wroclaw in 1945. The mystic’s remains were probably moved between the monument to St. Jan of Nepomuk, and the wall of the temple.
Angelus Silesius is a figure still present in European culture, literature and art. Leibniz, Schlegel, Schopenhauer, Rilke, Heidegger and others were interested in him, and his poetic talent influenced the work of Adam Mickiewicz, who included a collection of poems entitled “Zdania i uwagi” in the eighth volume of “Poezja”. From the works of Jakub Bem, Silesian Angel (A. Silesius) and St. Martena. In 1991, the name Angel of Silesia was given to a street in Wroclaw’s Oporów, and the Meeting House i Wrocław, which was funded by the Jesuits in 1933, was named after him. In addition, on April 28, 2000, a memorial plaque dedicated to Angelus Silesius was unveiled next to the entrance to the church of St. Maciej in Wrocław, and in 2005 his name was given to the Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Zawodowa w Wałbrzychu (State Higher Vocational School in Wałbrzych).