Boehme, Jakob

Boehme, Jakob (1575-1624), German theosophist and mystic, born in Altseidenberg, Silesia. His surname is also spelled Boehm or Behmen. He received only an elementary education but was an assiduous student of the Bible and the works of the Swiss alchemist and doctor Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus. Apprenticed to a shoemaker in his youth, Boehme later opened his own shop in Görlitz, Saxony.

From an early age he believed that he saw visions, and throughout his life he claimed to be divinely inspired. In about 1612 he wrote Die Morgenröte im Aufgang (The Morning Redness Arising), in which he recorded his visions and expounded the attributes of God. The manuscript, which was published in 1634 under the title Aurore, was condemned as heretical by local ecclesiastical and civil authorities. Eventually Boehme was forced to seek asylum in Dresden, Saxony. There he was cleared of charges of heresy and allowed to return to Görlitz. His best-known treatises include Von den drei Prinzipien des Göttlichen Wesens (Of the Three Principles of the Nature of God, 1619) and Der Weg zu Christo (The Way to Christ, 1624). Although written in a style difficult to understand, his works were received with favour in a number of countries, particularly Germany, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. His English followers called themselves Behmenists. Many of them later were absorbed into the Quaker movement.

In his fundamental doctrine, Boehme held that everything exists and is intelligible only through its opposite. Thus, he believed, evil is a necessary element in goodness, for without evil the will would become inert and progress would be impossible. God himself, according to Boehme, contains conflicting elements in his nature. Boehme's religious views have influenced modern Western thought in both philosophy and theology.