BÖHME, JACOB. – Protestant theosophist, born at Altseidenberg in 1575, died at Görlitz in 1624. A shoemaker and initially a wanderer, he settled in Görlitz in 1594. Of mystical temperament, he was formed by the Bible and by the writings of the Reformers and German mystics, being particularly influenced by Paracelsus, V. WEINGARTEN, and the alchemists. An ecstatic vision (1600) convinced him of divine confirmation of his ideas. In 1612 he completed his masterpiece: Aurora, oder die Morgenröthe im Aufgang, an unpublished work. But his doctrine, which had become widespread and well known, aroused the opposition of his fellow believers, who prohibited him from writing. At the invitation of admirers, he wrote his other works from 1619 to 1624.
Religious ideas of the Reformation and the pseudo-natural science of the Renaissance meet and become entangled in B. in an obscure cosmic theosophical system, involving a process between the timeless and the temporal. An unrestrained imagination predominates, without order or logical rigor. Obsessed by the problem of sin, B. makes the antithesis of Good and Evil the keystone of his system. The Divinity, the primordial abyss, the all-nothingness, contains the germs of Good and Evil; both are essential if it is to reveal itself. Looking into itself, the Divinity splits into Will, the life-force of the world (Father), and into Power-consciousness-Word (Son); the Father, loving the Son, brings forth the Spirit (Holy). The world (Mysterium magnum) arises from the opposition of the Trinity to divine Nature, «matrix et centrum natura». The first stage gives rise to the angels, represented by Michael, Lucifer, and Uriel, divided into three categories (corresponding to the opposition to the three Persons).
In the second, the primordial qualities separate from the divinity, unfolding into seven forms, the last being ideal corporeality. Lucifer falls in love with the «centrum naturae» and aspires to equal it: he sins, leaving love and entering into the wrath of God. To the hatred-darkness of Lucifer, God opposes the love-light of the Son. Concrete earthly reality then comes into being; from this point the Bible begins. In man, the microcosm that synthesizes everything, the antithetical process of Good and Evil becomes consciously and dramatically lived. Supersensible mystical intuition is true knowledge, and moral redemption lies in detachment from the world, in order to attain II. B.'s pessimistic chaos powerfully interpreted and influenced the German spirit. Schelling and Hegel underwent its influence and disseminated II.