Angelus Silesius, whose real name was Johann Scheffler, a German philosophical poet, born at Breslau, in Silesia, in 1624, died there, July 9, 1677. After receiving a medical degree, he travelled through Holland, became court physician to the emperor Ferdinand III., embraced in 1653 the Roman Catholic faith, afterward became a priest and councillor to the bisliop of Breslau, and finally retired to a cloister. He is the author of a system kindred to that of the mystic pantheists Tauler and Bohme, of whose writings he had been a student. His peculiar faith is mainly expressed in poems, of which he published collections, with the titles of " The Cherub's Guide Book," "Spiritual Pastorals," "The Troubled Psyche," and "The String of Pearls."