Johann Scheffler
1624–1677 · Reformation
Silesian physician and mystic poet, raised Lutheran, who became a Roman Catholic priest under the name Angelus Silesius; Lutherans still sing several of his hymns of love for Jesus.
Life
Johann Scheffler was born in Breslau in 1624 and raised a Lutheran. He studied medicine in Strasbourg, Leiden and Padua, and in the Netherlands came to know the writings of the medieval mystics and of Jacob Böhme through Böhme's friend Abraham von Franckenberg. His mystical views brought him into conflict with Lutheran authorities, and in 1653 he became a Roman Catholic, taking the name Angelus Silesius ('the Silesian messenger'). He was ordained in 1661, wrote many polemical tracts against Protestantism, and retired to a Jesuit house in Breslau, where he died in 1677.
As a Hymn Writer
Scheffler's Heilige Seelenlust (1657) is a collection of 'spiritual pastoral songs' of the soul's love for Jesus. Despite his conversion, Lutheran editors adopted several of them, carefully chosen and sometimes altered, because they speak of Christ's love in intensely personal terms: 'Thee Will I Love, My Strength, My Tower' and 'Come, Follow Me, the Savior Spake'. His epigrams, The Cherubinic Wanderer, are a classic of German mystical poetry.
In The Lutheran Hymnal and Lutheran Service Book (4)
- Jesus, Savior, Come to Me
- O Love, Who Madest Me to Wear
- Thee Will I Love, My Strength, My Tower
- Come, Follow Me, the Savior Spake
Sources: Wikipedia, 'Angelus Silesius'.