<P> In the late 1650s, he sought permission (a nihil obstat or imprimatur) from Catholic authorities in Vienna and Breslau to begin publishing his poetry . He had begun writing poetry at an early age, publishing a few occasional pieces when a schoolboy in 1641 and 1642 . He attempted to publish poetry while working for the Duke of Württemberg - Oels, but was refused permission by the Duke's orthodox Lutheran court clergyman, Christoph Freitag . However, in 1657, after obtaining the approval of the Catholic Church, two collections of his poems were published--the works for which he is known--Heilige Seelenlust ("The Soul's Holy Desire") and Der Cherubinische Wandersmann ("The Cherubinic Pilgrim"). </P> <P> On 27 February 1661, Silesius took holy orders as a Franciscan . Three months later, he was ordained a priest in the Silesian Duchy of Neisse--an area of successful re-Catholicisation and one of two ecclesiastical states within the region (that is, ruled by a Prince - Bishop). When his friend Sebastian von Rostock (1607--1671) became Prince - Bishop of Breslau, Silesius was appointed his Rath und Hofmarschall (a counselor and Chamberlain). During this time, he began publishing over fifty tracts attacking Lutheranism and the Protestant Reformation . Thirty - nine of these essays he later compiled into a two - volume folio collection entitled Ecclesiologia (1676). </P> <P> After the death of the Prince - Bishop of Breslau in 1671, Silesius retired to the Hospice of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star (the Matthiasstift), a Jesuit house associated with the church of Saint Matthias at Breslau . He died on 9 July 1677 and was buried there . Some sources claim he died from tuberculosis ("consumption"), others describe his illness as a "wasting sickness ." Immediately after news of his death spread, several of his Protestant detractors spread the untrue rumor that Silesius had hanged himself . By his Will, he distributed his fortune, largely inherited from his father's noble estate, to pious and charitable institutions, including orphanages . </P> <P> The poetry of Angelus Silesius consists largely of epigrams in the form of alexandrine couplets--the style that dominated German poetry and mystical literature during the Baroque era . According to Baker, the epigram was key to conveying mysticism, because "the epigram with its tendency towards brevity and pointedness is a suitable genre to cope with the aesthetic problem of the ineffability of the mystical experience ." The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition identifies these epigrams as Reimsprüche--or rhymed distichs--and describes them as: </P>

I am as big as god and he is as small as me