¹ The argument is usually seen in terms of the two chief studies by Peuckert, Will-Erich (Das Leben Jakob Böhmes [Jena, 1624]Google Scholar and Pansophie. Ein Versuch zur Geschichte der weiszen und schwarzen Magie [2nd ed., Berlin, 1956])Google Scholar and Bornkamm, Heinrich (Luther und Böhme [Bonn, 1925])CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Peuckert sees Boehme in the pansophistic tradition and does not study his Lutheran inheritance, while Bornkamm stresses Boehme's inheritance with but a few references to figures in the hermetic-cabalistic tradition. The tendency to put Boehme in the pansophistic tradition can be seen already in von Harless, Gottfried (Jakob Böhme und die Alchymisten [2nd. ed., Leipzig, 1882])Google Scholar, who studies Boehme's relation to alchemy, and as recently as the sophisticated studies of Weiss, Victor (Die Gnosis Jakob Boehmes [Zürich, 1955])Google Scholar and Metzke, Erwin (Von Steinen und Erde und vom Grimm der Natur in der Philosophic Jacob Böhmes, in Cointidentia Oppositorum, Gesammelte Studien zur Philosophiegeschichte, hrsg. V. K. Gründer [Witten, 1961])Google Scholar. Borkkamm's understanding of Boehme is the singular in-depth analysis of Luther and Boehme, though Karl Holl also makes brief mention of Boehme's indebtedness to Luther in his Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte (Tübingen, 1921), I, 405fGoogle Scholar.

But a final assessment of Boehme's relationship to Lutheran thought hinges not only on one's reading of Boehme, but also on the significance one gives to Luther's place in history. For example, as soon as Bornkamm's study appeared, Felix Voigt (Das Böhmebild des Gegenwart. Ein kritischer Überblick über die neueste Böhmeliteratur, Neues Lausitzisches Magazin 102 [1926], 252–312Google Scholar) criticized its basic conception, noting that there are of course natural parallels between Luther and Boehme, but that in contrast to Luther, who was a purer homo religiosus tied to the piety of the old church and the Middle Ages, Boehme is of new, world significance, belonging to a new time in which the church had been pushed to the background. And so recent a book as Nigg's, WalterHeimliche Weisheit (Zürich und Stuttgart, 1959)Google Scholar accepts Bornkamm's thesis only partially, noting that Boehme stands close to Luther, but acknowledging that his thought is less Christological than Christo-Sophological. And he sees Luther as part of the older mystical tradition, for he says that the reformer is a figure who loudly said “no” to mysticism, but softly and secretively said “yes” in his acknowledgment that he approved of Tauler, whose concept of the divine spark in man helped him to his reformation breakthrough and in his doctrines of piety, the death and resurrection of the soul in Christ, righteousness, Eucharist, and the role of the Holy Spirit.

I wish to thank the Southeast Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies for appointing me as a junior fellow at the summer, 1968, session, and giving me the opportunity to spend many pleasurable hours in the excellent Duke Divinity School library. I am grateful to the American Association of University Women for a fellowship, 1968–69, which enabled me to research in the library of Erlangen University and gave me the sustained time for writing this article. I wish to thank professors Lewis W. Spitz, John Kunstmann, Erich Beyreuther, and Horst Weigelt for reading this chapter and offering invaluable comments, suggestions, and encouragement of my research. Dr. Peter Frank of the Stanford University Libraries provided invaluable bibliographical assistance, for which I am very appreciative.

² D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar, 1883ff.), 42:600 (26–27)Google Scholar. References to the Weimar Ausgabe show the volume before the colon in italics, page after the colon, and lines in parentheses when the text is quoted.

³ Mysteriutn Magnum; oder Erklärung über das erste Buch Mosis in Theosophia Revelata … (Hamburg, 1715)Google Scholar, 46:29. Hereafter abbreviated MM. References are to chapter and section.

⁴ MM 54:17.

⁵ Hankamer's, PaulDie Sprache, ihr Begriff und ihre Deutung im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Bonn, 1927)Google Scholar sees Boehme's philosophy of language related to the unto mystica of Eckhart and Sebastian Franck and the logos theory of Paracelsus which relates microcosm to macrocosm, allowing man to understand the outer world in that self-perception is world-perception. However, he does insist in his Deutsche Gegenreformation und deutsches Barock (Stuttgart, 1964, 3rd ed.Google Scholar) that though Boehme unites Renaissance and Reformation, Paracelsus and Luther, he comes his own way. Kaiser, Wolfgang in his Böhme's Natursprachenlehre und ihre Grundlagen, Euphorion 31 (1930), 521–62Google Scholar, critical of Hankamer's Die Sprache in its development of Boehme's sources, suggests that the cabalist, humanist, and Paracelsan, and various Christian theological currents that meet in Boehme lead him to a new philosophical grounding of language — that is, he returns to the ancient Greek physis theory of language, uniting it to Adamic language by means of the Paracelsan signature theory for the purpose of deciphering the divine secrets from the letters of a word as was practiced in the cabalistic exegetical tradition. Ernst Benz has contributed a learned article to this study of Sprachphilosophie in his Zur metaphysischen Begründung der Sprache bei Böhme, Jacob, Dichtung und Volkstum 37 (1936), 340–57Google Scholar. Though there are unfortunate printing errors in citations to Boehme, the study is most valuable in its treatment of the unity of essence and speech, perceiving and speaking in Boehme's work. Benz's Die Sprachtheologie der Reformationszeit, Studium Generale (1951), puts this in the context of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century thought-currents. A most significant study of the Sprachphilosophie problem from the philological point of view has been undertaken by Schxäblin, Peter in his Zur Sprache Jakob Boehmes (Winterthur, 1963)Google Scholar, in which he carefully studies Boehme's use of specific words and concludes that there is no pure line of influence from Franck, Paracelsus, Weigel, Schwenckfeld, and Luther to the seventeenth-century theosoph, which Wentzloff-Eggebert, F. W. in his Deutsche Mystik zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit (Berlin, 1947)Google Scholar saw stemming from a strong Eckhartian tradition.

⁶ MM 48:40.

⁷ MM 35:49–50.

⁸ MM 52:19.

⁹ “… das I das A fasset / und sich im A empor schwinget / und die sensualische Zunge in die mentalische einfasset / als in das COB, dasz das O zum Centro des Worts gesetzet wird / da sich der schwere Name Gottes ins O fasset; und wird recht darinnen verstanden / wie sich des Vaters Natur / als der sensualische Geist im A, C, und B ins I und O fasset: Denn I ist das Centrum des höchsten Liebe / und O ist das Centrum des faslichen Worts in der Gottheit / welches ausser aller Natur verstanden wird.” MM 52:41.

¹⁰ MM 52:43.

¹¹ MM 52:36.

¹² See his conclusion to Jakob Boehme, Glaube und Tat. Eine Auswahl aus dem Gesamtwerk (Witten, 1957)Google Scholar.

¹³ See MM 36:34, 39–48; 74–76.

¹⁴ WA 42:567–68 (39–2).

¹⁵ WA 42:219 (37–38).

¹⁶ WA 42:599 (7–8).

¹⁷ WA 44:438 (28–31).

¹⁸ WA 43:667–68 (5–7, 13–17).

¹⁹ WA 42:600–1.

²⁰ WA 43:388 (34–35) and 409 (8–9).

²¹ WA 42:645 (27–29).

²² WA 42:648.

²³ MM 41:37, 40.

²⁴ WA 42:141 (25).

²⁵ See MM 2:5.

²⁶ MM 10:46; 16:5.

²⁷ MM 18:2, 10; 19:8.

²⁸ MM 18:19.

²⁹ MM 19:3.

³⁰ MM 18:31.

³¹ MM 19:10–11.

³² WA 42:51 (23–25).

³³ WA 42:85 (13).

³⁴ WA 42:53 (26–28).

³⁵ MM 19:3.

³⁶ WA 42:86 (18–25).

³⁷ MM 9:7.

³⁸ WA 42:264. See also 42:18, 646–47.

³⁹ WA 42:107, 291–92.

⁴⁰ WA 42:93 (15–22).

⁴¹ WA 42:307 (36–38).

⁴² WA 42:64 (31–4), 290–1; 43:68–69.

⁴³ WA 42:107, 348–52.

⁴⁴ WA 42:123; 44:503–04, 45–46.

⁴⁵ MM 76:14. See also 58:20; 76:11, 13.

⁴⁶ MM 28:70.

⁴⁷ MM 61:50, 54.

⁴⁸ MM 66:65.

⁴⁹ MM 27:5.

⁵⁰ MM 51:17.

⁵¹ MM 2:4.

⁵² MM 31:32.

⁵³ MM 45:17.

⁵⁴ MM 11:25.

⁵⁵ MM 29:10.

⁵⁶ WA 42:10 (3–4).

⁵⁷ WA 42:293 (31–32).

⁵⁸ WA 43:46 (11–13).

⁵⁹ WA 43–13 (3–7).

⁶⁰ WA 42:294–95. See also 43:458–59.

⁶¹ MM 7:11.

⁶² MM 7:6–9. Boehme also puts the same concept in terms of his often-used firelight world metaphors: “Als den Vater mit der Feuer-Welt; und den Sohn mit der Liebe-Begierde im Licht / als mit der Licht-Welt / oder mit der grossen Sänfte im Feuer; und den Heiligen Geist mit dem webenden Leben / in der Tinctur, im ölischen und wässerischen Leben und Regiment / der im Feuer und Lichte offenbar wird / als in einer grossen feurischen Licht-und Liebe-Flamme / nach der freyen Lust Eigenschaft/ als nach der göttlichen Eigenschaft.” MM 7:13.

⁶³ WA 42:356 (22–24).

⁶⁴ WA 43:65.

⁶⁵ WA 44:429 (24–26). “Sciamus igitur Deum abscondere se sub specie pessimi Diaboli ideo ut discamus bonitatem, misericordiam, potentiam Dei non posse comprehendi speculando, sed experiendo.”

⁶⁶ WA 45:243–44 (33–5).

⁶⁷ WA 43–93 (5–6).

⁶⁸ WA 43:93 (33–36).

⁶⁹ WA 44:503 (24–26). “Quia lex intus in corde est, quae terret et est lex Dei, Ideo omnis consternatio et pavor conscientiae fit cooperante Deo.”

⁷⁰ WA 43:155. “Dixi autem Paulo ante promissionem duplicem esse: Passivam, quae nobis fit, et Activam, quam nos fide amplectimur” (16–17).

⁷¹ WA 44:401–02 (38–3).

⁷² WA 44:473 (36–38).

⁷³ WA 43:537.

⁷⁴ WA 44:387 (19–29). “Saepe autem dixit me ab initio causae meae semper rogasse Dominum, ne mihi vel somnia, vel visiones, vel angelos mitteret…. Idque ardentibus votis precatus sum, ut daret mihi Deus certum sensum et intellectum scripturae sanctae. Si enim verbo habeo, scio me recto via ingredi, nee facile falli aut errare posse. Ac malo sane Davidicum intellectum, quam propheticas visiones, quas nee Davidem magnopere desiderasse arbitror. Sed vide quam certum sensum habeat scripturae.”

⁷⁵ WA 44:485 (31–40).

⁷⁶ WA 42:198. See also 42:182–83.

⁷⁷ WA 42:301 (9–11).

⁷⁸ WA 42:561–63.

⁷⁹ WA 42:651.

⁸⁰ WA 42:610 (33–35). See also 42:627–28.

⁸¹ WA 42:184.

⁸² WA 43:171–74. See also 43:387–88.

⁸³ WA 44:324 (24–26).

⁸⁴ “Darum ward Christus von einer Jungfrauen geboren / dasz er die weibliche Tinctur wieder heiligte / und in die mannliche Tinctur wandelte / auf-dasz der Mann und das Weib wieder ein Bild Göttes würden / und nicht mehr Mann und Weib waren / sondern münnlichen Jungfrauen / wie Christus war.” MM 58:46.

⁸⁵ MM 51:31.

⁸⁶ MM 22:68.

⁸⁷ MM 39:8. See also 27:15.

⁸⁸ MM 66:64.

⁸⁹ MM 52:10.

⁹⁰ Heiko A. Oberman, Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Mysticism, Church History 30 (1961), 259–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹¹ MM 52:3. “Darum liget das Helfen an der Seelen Willen / ob sie ihr wil lassen helfen / ob sie wil in ihrem Willen stille stehen; nicht dasz sie ihr das Helfen nehmen könne: Nein / es ist ein Gnaden-Geben / allein die Göttliche Sonne scheinet in ihr im Abgrund; und liget an ihr/ob sie sich mit ihrem Willen / den sie aus Gott hat / wil wieder einen Augenblick in ihre Mütter / als in Gottes Ungründlichen Willen einersinken / so wird sie das Können erlangen.” MM 61:39.

⁹² MM 48:6.

⁹³ MM 52:4–7.

⁹⁴ MM 27:37.

⁹⁵ MM 32:13.

⁹⁶ MM 39:1.

⁹⁷ MM 39:6.

⁹⁸ MM 41:1–20.

⁹⁹ MM 60:37ff.

¹⁰⁰ MM 65:17–32.

¹⁰¹ WA 42:332 (33–34).

¹⁰² WA 45:253 (21–40).

¹⁰³ MM 62:13.

¹⁰⁴ MM 63:47, 50.

¹⁰⁵ Luther on the whole sees the Jew as one who is unwilling to accept grace and prefers to follow the Law, expecting grace as a right. Yet his position is not hardened against the possibility that if a Jew gave up his belief that he had a right to grace and sought refuge in grace alone, he would become a participant of the promise. See WA 43:166.

¹⁰⁶ MM 51:38–39.