Jakob Boehme

Boehme, Jakob 

Born 1575 in Altseidenberg; died Nov. 17, 1624, in Görlitz. German philosopher, advocate of pantheism. By profession a shoemaker.

Characteristic of Boehme’s works are a fusion of natural philosophy and mysticism, exalted style, and the presence of a great number of biblical and poetic images. God, according to Boehme, is one with nature and encompasses everything within himself—heaven and hell, the inner and the outer, good and evil; he creates himself from “nothing” by splitting his original, undifferentiated unity in half and giving the two parts opposing characteristics: light and dark, good and evil. The elemental-dialectic ideas of Boehme heavily influenced the subsequent development of German philosophy (F. Baader, F. von Schelling, G. W. F. Hegel). K. Marx and F. Engels used Boehme’s term “torment (Qual) of the material” to mean a goal, a life spirit, or a straining for the characteristics of the principle of self-motivation (see Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 2, p. 142).

WORKS

Sammtliche Werke, vols. 1–7. Leipzig, 1922.
Glaube und Tat. Berlin, 1957.
In Russian translation:
Aurora, ili Utrenniaia zaria v voskhozhdenii. Moscow, 1914. (Translated from German.)

REFERENCES

Leven, V. G. “Iakob Beme i ego uchenie.” Vestnik istorii mirovoikul’tury, 1958, no. 5.
Feierbakh, L. Istoriiafilosofii, vol. 1. Moscow, 1967.
Grunsky, H. Jacob Bohme. Stuttgart, 1956.
Stoudt, J. J. Sunrise to Eternity. Philadelphia, 1957.

A. V. GULYGA