stiff Lutheranism of the day, and he soon became sus- pected by the local clergj-. The court jireacher, Freitag, forbade the publication of his poems because of their mystical tone. He found a patron, however, in Franck- enberg, a Silesian nobleman, who was also attracted by Btihme. A poem which he published in memory of Franckenberg in 1652 seems to have brought him into trouble. Soon afterwards he left the service of the duke, and on June 12, 16.53, entered the Catholic Church at Breslau, at the age of twenty-nine. His conversion raised no little outcry against Idm. His motives were assailed. This led him to publish at Olmiitz, in 1653, his Fundamental Reasons for Quitting LAttheianism, in which he gave fifty-five reasons for regarding Lutheran doctrine as erroneous and eighty-three for accepting Catholicism. " In the whole matter," said he, " I have acted simply as an honest, conscientious Christian." Af- ter his conversion he remained in Breslau, occupied with religious meditation and writing. In 1657 appeared si- multaneously his two chief works, Der cherubinische Wundersmunn and Geistliche Hirtenlieder. In 1661 he was consecrated to the priesthood, and thenceforth acted as an almost bigoted champion of Romanism. In 1664 he was made the intimate counsellor of the bishop of Breslau. For seven or eight years he was now engaged in embittered controversies with the Protestant Church. Among his assailants were Chemnitz of Jena and Al- berti of Leipsic. Abuse, caricature, and violence char- acterized both sides of the controversy. Many of these later writings he collected and published under the title Ecclesiologia (Neisse and Glatz, 1677, foL). His contro- versial activity seems to have rapidly consumed his strength, as he died at the early age of fifty-three. Of permanent results of his attacks upon Protestantism there is no trace. His writings soon fell into neglect, and it is onh- in quite recent times that they have met with full appreciation. They bear the stamp of deep conviction, and give evidence of wide acquaintance with the writings of the fathers and the mystics (see Grupp, Die romische Kirche [Dresden, 1840], and, on the Cath- olic side, Wittmann, A ngelus Silesius [Augsburg, 1842]). But it is more as a poet than as a polemic that Scheffler holds a place in literature. His work Der cherubinische Wandersmann consists of a collection of 1675 brief ut- terances, mostlj' in Alexandrine verses of two to four lines each, unconnected and without sj'stematic se- quence. The title explains itself from the fact that the book aims at pointing out the way whereby man, es- tranged from God by sin and buried in the love of the world, is to find his way back to communion with God. The undertone of these brief verses is of a strongly mys- tical character, and is entirely free from confessional distinctions. That we can return to God only by pro- found contemplation of God; and that the more we gaze upon God with open face and submit ourselves to him in perfect resignation and patience, so much the more are we essentially united to God and made possessors of all that is God's — such is the thought that constantly recurs under a thousand images, and spreads a fragrance over every page. The Christian element in this thought is found in the fact that Scheffler presents the incarna- tion and redemption as the effective means of our return to (Jod ; but he also insists, mystic-like, that the jirocess of incarnation must in some degree repeat itself in us, so that we also may become sons of God like Christ. That some of Scheffler's utterances have a leaning tow- ards pantheism (e. g., " I am as great as (iod, and he is as small as I;" "When I love God more than myself, then I give to him as much as he gives to me"') is not to be denied. But tliis may be explained partly from the intensely aphoristic form of expression at which the author aims, and partly from actual inconsistency of thought. In his second edition he earnestly repudiates all pantheism, and asserts tliat he never intends to im- ply the cessation f>f the creatural character of man, but only that our regenerated nature may become so filled with grace as that God shall be, to us, all and in all. Be-
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sides, he constantly emphasizes the distinctness of the world from God and the moral freedom of man. With all their defects, these aphorisms are unquestionably among the richest fruits in the whole literature of Chris- tian mysticism. They were highly esteemed by Arnold of Giessen, and by Leibnitz. In recent times tlie Wan- dersmann has received the warmest praises from Fried- rich Schlegel, and has been reissued in whole ( Sulz- bach. 1829) or in extracts (F. Horn, Varnhageu vt>n Ense, W.JI idler, and others). But the poetic fame of Schef- fler rests still more upon his volume of hymns, Seelenlust (1657-68; latest ed. Stuttgart, 1846), many of which have found a permanent place in the whole Protestant Ger- man Church. The latest of SchefHer's poetic works consists of a very realistic presentation of the Last Thinr/s (Schweidnitz, 1675), but it adds nothing to his fame. As to personal character, Scheffler is not without great inconsistencies. It is hard to believe that the pro- found sweetness of the poet and the fanatical zealotry of the controversialist could dwell in the same heart. Evidently the two natures of the man dwelt side by side, neither entirely mastering the other. The sources for the life of Scheffler are given in A. Kahlert's A ngelns Silesius (Breslau, 1853). See Herzog, Real-Encykiop. xiii, 478-485; Gervinus, Lit. Gesch.; Westminster Rev. Oct. 1853 ; Hagenbach, HUt. of Doctrines, ii, 204. (J. P. L.)