Introduction to Jacob Boehme

Introduction to Jacob Boehme

This companion will prove an invaluable resource for all those engaged in research or teaching on Jacob Boehme and his readers, as historians, philos- ophers, literary scholars or theologians. Boehme is “on the radar” of many researchers, but often avoided as there are relatively few aids to understand- ing his thought, its context and subsequent appeal. This book includes a fi ne spread of topics and specialists. Cyril O’Regan, University of Notre Dame, USA 66244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd i 55/31/2013/31/2013 88:46:56:46:56 AAMM 66244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd iiii 55/31/2013/31/2013 88:48:14:48:14 AAMM An Introduction to Jacob Boehme This volume brings together for the fi rst time some of the world’s leading authorities on the German mystic Jacob Boehme to illuminate his thought and its reception over four centuries for the benefi t of students and advanced scholars alike. Boehme’s theosophical works have infl uenced Western culture in profound ways since their dissemination in the early seventeenth century, and these interdisciplinary essays trace the social and cultural networks as well as the intellectual pathways involved in Boehme’s enduring impact. The chapters range from situating Boehme in the sixteenth-century Radical Reformation to discussions of his signifi cance in modern theology. They explore the major contexts for Boehme’s reception, including the Pietist movement, Russian religious thought, and Western esotericism. In addition, they focus more closely on important readers, including the religious rad- icals of the English Civil Wars and the later English Behmenists, literary fi gures such as Goethe and Blake, and great philosophers of the modern age such as Schelling and Hegel. Together, the chapters illustrate the depth and variety of Boehme’s infl uence, and a concluding chapter addresses directly an underlying theme of the volume, asking why Boehme matters today and how readers in the present might be enriched by a fresh engagement with his apparently opaque and complex writings. Ariel Hessayon is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at Gold- smiths, University of London. He has published extensively on a variety of early modern topics, including antiscripturism, book burning, communism, environmentalism, esotericism, extra-canonical texts, heresy, crypto-Jews, Judaizing, millenarianism, mysticism, prophecy, and religious radicalism. Sarah Apetrei is Departmental Lecturer in Ecclesiastical History at the Uni- versity of Oxford. She is the author of Women, Feminism and Religion in Early Enlightenment England and is currently working on a book dealing with the place of mystical theology in seventeenth-century British religion. 66244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd iiiiii 55/31/2013/31/2013 88:48:14:48:14 AAMM Routledge Studies in Religion 1 Judaism and Collective Life 11 Shared Idioms, Sacred Symbols, Self and Community in the and the Articulation of Identities Religious Kibbutz in South Asia Aryei Fishman Edited by Kelly Pemberton and Michael Nijhawan 2 Foucault, Christianity and Interfaith Dialogue 12 Theology, Creation, and Henrique Pinto Environmental Ethics From Creatio Ex Nihilo to 3 Religious Conversion and Identity Terra Nullius The Semiotic Analysis of Texts Whitney Bauman Massimo Leone 13 Material Religion and Popular 4 Language, Desire, and Theology Culture A Genealogy of the Will to Speak E. Frances King Noëlle Vahanian 14 Adam Smith as Theologian 5 Metaphysics and Transcendence Edited by Paul Oslington Arthur Gibson 15 The Entangled God Divine Relationality and Quantum 6 Sufi sm and Deconstruction Physics A Comparative Study of Derrida Kirk Wegter-McNelly and Ibn ‘Arabi Ian Almond 16 Aquinas and Radical Orthodoxy A Critical Inquiry 7 Christianity, Tolerance and Paul J. DeHart Pluralism A Theological Engagement with 17 Animal Ethics and Theology Isaiah Berlin’s Social Theory The Lens of the Good Samaritan Michael Jinkins Daniel K. Miller 8 Negative Theology and Modern 18 The Origin of Heresy French Philosophy A History of Discourse in Second Arthur Bradley Temple Judaism and Early Christianity 9 Law and Religion Robert M. Royalty, Jr. Edited by Peter Radan, Denise Meyerson and Rosalind F. Atherton 19 Buddhism and Violence Militarism and Buddhism in 10 Religion, Language, and Power Modern Asia Edited by Nile Green and Mary Edited by Vladimir Tikhonov and Searle-Chatterjee Torkel Brekke 66244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd iivv 55/31/2013/31/2013 88:48:14:48:14 AAMM 20 Popular Music in Evangelical 26 Gender and Power in Youth Culture Contemporary Spirituality Stella Sai-Chun Lau Ethnographic Approaches Anna Fedele and Kim E. Knibbe 21 Theology and the Science of Moral Action 27 Religions in Movement Virtue Ethics, Exemplarity, The Local and the Global in and Cognitive Neuroscience Contemporary Faith Traditions Edited by James A. Van Slyke, Robert W. Hefner, John Gregory R. Peterson, Hutchinson, Sara Mels and Kevin S. Reimer, Christiane Timmerman Michael L. Spezio and Warren S. Brown 28 William James’s Hidden Religious Imagination 22 Abrogation in the Qur’an and A Universe of Relations Islamic Law Jeremy Carrette Louay Fatoohi 29 Theology and the Arts 23 A New Science of Religion Engaging Faith Edited by Gregory Ruth Illman and W. Alan Smith W. Dawes and James Maclaurin 30 Religion, Gender, and the Public 24 Making Sense of the Secular Sphere Critical Perspectives from Europe Edited by Niamh Reilly and Stacey to Asia Scriver Edited by Ranjan Ghosh 31 An Introduction to Jacob Boehme 25 The Rise of Modern Jewish Four Centuries of Thought and Politics Reception Extraordinary Movement Edited by Ariel Hessayon and C. S. Monaco Sarah Apetrei 66244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd v 55/31/2013/31/2013 88:48:14:48:14 AAMM 66244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd vvii 55/31/2013/31/2013 88:48:14:48:14 AAMM An Introduction to Jacob Boehme Four Centuries of Thought and Reception Edited by Ariel Hessayon and Sarah Apetrei 66244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd vviiii 55/31/2013/31/2013 88:48:14:48:14 AAMM First published 2014 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa Business © 2014 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identifi ed as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data An introduction to Jacob Boehme : four centuries of thought and reception / edited by Ariel Hessayon and Sarah Apetrei. — 1st [edition]. pages cm. — (Routledge studies in religion ; 31) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Böhme, Jakob, 1575-1624. 2. Mysticism—History. I. Hessayon, Ariel, editor of compilation. BV5095.B7I64 2013 230'.044092—dc23 2013008795 ISBN: 978-0-415-84357-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-75402-3 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC 66244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd vviiiiii 55/31/2013/31/2013 88:48:25:48:25 AAMM Dedication To our students (past, present, and future) 66244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd iixx 55/31/2013/31/2013 88:48:25:48:25 AAMM 66244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd x 55/31/2013/31/2013 88:48:25:48:25 AAMM Contents List of Figures xi Acknowledgments xiii 1 Introduction: Boehme’s Legacy in Perspective 1 ARIEL HESSAYON AND SARAH APETREI 2 Boehme’s Life and Times 13 ARIEL HESSAYON 3 Radical Reformation and the Anticipation of Modernism in Jacob Boehme 38 ANDREW WEEKS 4 Boehme’s Intellectual Networks and the Heterodox Milieu of His Theosophy, 1600–1624 57 LEIGH T. I. PENMAN 5 Jacob Boehme’s Writings During the English Revolution and Afterwards: Their Publication, Dissemination, and Infl uence 77 ARIEL HESSAYON 6 Did Anyone Understand Boehme? 98 NIGEL SMITH 7 Jacob Boehme and the Anthropology of German Pietism 120 LUCINDA MARTIN 66244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd xxii 55/31/2013/31/2013 88:48:25:48:25 AAMM xii Contents 8 “No New Truths of Religion”: William Law’s Appropriation of Jacob Boehme 142 ALAN GREGORY 9 Boehme and German Romanticism 162 KRISTINE HANNAK 10 Boehme and the Early English Romantics 180 ELISABETH ENGELL JESSEN 11 The Russian Boehme 196 OLIVER SMITH 12 Hegel’s Reception of Jacob Boehme 224 GLENN ALEXANDER MAGEE 13 H. L. Martensen on Jacob Boehme 244 GEORGE PATTISON 14 The Place of Jacob Boehme in Western Esotericism 263 ARTHUR VERSLUIS 15 Conclusion: Why Boehme Matters Today 279 BRUCE B. JANZ Contributors 295 Select Bibliography 299 Index 301 66244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd244-139-0FM-2pass-r02.indd xxiiii 55/31/2013/31/2013 88:48:25:48:25 AAMM Figures 2.1 Jacob Boehme’s house on the east bank of the river Neisse where he lived between 1599 and 1610. 20 2.2 Plaque placed outside Boehme’s house on the tercentenary of his death in 1924.

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