WERDENHAGEN, var'den-ha"-gen, JOHANN ANGELIUS VON: German layman and mystic; b. at Helmstedt (102 m. s.w. of Berlin) Aug. 1, 1581; d. at Ratzeburg (31 m, n.e. of Hamburg) Dec. 26, 1652. He studied under the humanists of the university of his native town, to whom he was one of the first to apply the term Rationistce because of their undue valuation and use of the reasoning faculty. In 1618, moreover, he defended Daniel Hoffmann, whom the humanists expelled from Helmstedt on account of his attacks on philosophy.

On the other hand, he assailed the Lutheran theologians, whether of the moderate school of Helmstedt, or of the stricter Lutheran school of electoral Saxony. He was a private, lecturer at Helmstedt (1601-06); then, except for a brief interval as associate rector at Salzwedel, served as traveling companion to people of rank (1606-10), visiting various universities; was employed as diplomatic agent by the court of Brunswick (1612-16); became professor of ethics at Helmstedt (1616), but soon had to surrender this office because of participation in the controversies over Daniel Hoffm4fin. Thereafter, when he was a syndic of the city of Magdeburg, he fell into strife with the resident~Lutheran canons, and lost his position in 1626. From that time till 1628, he was employed on various missions in behalf of the administrator. After sojourning several years at Leyden and The Hague, where he completed and published his chief writings, he entered in 1632 the service of Archbishop Johann Friedrich of Bremen, and later, that of the city of Magdeburg and of Duke August of Brunswick and Lüneburg. He spent his closing years, 1637-52, at Lübeck, acting as envoy for Emperor Ferdinand III. to the Hanseatic towns.

All his writings, even those which deal mainly with historical and philosophical problems, dwell upon the moral conditions of his times. He insists on the incompatibility of the Thirty Years' War with the precepts of Christ, and demands a better system of education. In Leyden he wrote under the pseudonym Angelus Marianua a brief tract: "Open Gateway of the Heart to the True Kingdom of Christ" (1632), which arraigns the Lutheran clergy for the injury done to the Church through their scholastic and polemical .theology. In 1648 he wrote against the Jesuits and in favor of peace, and declared that Emperor Ferdinand III. trusted him more than he trusted them.

Carl Mirbt.

Bibliography: J. M511er, Introductio ad hist. ducatuuvn Slesvicensia et Holaatici, ii. 510 sqq., Leipsic, 1899; idem, Cimbrica litterata, ii. 9BB-970, Copenhagen, 1744; G. Arnold, Hirchen- and Ifelzerhistorie, iii. 88 sqq., iv. 488 sqq., 847 sqq., Frankfort, 1700; E. L. T. Henke, Georg Calsxtua und seine Zeit, i. 247 sqq., Halle, 1853; E. Schlee, Der Streit des Daniel Hoffmann über das VerhtilEnis der Pht,Tosophie zur Theologie, pp. 46 sqq., Marburg, 1882; ADB, zli. 759 slq·