1In the meantime, our philosopher's old opponent,
Gregorius Richter, died on the 14th of August. Boehme
himself was to survive him only by a few months.
While he still was with Herr von Schweinitz, he was
seized with a fatal bowel complaint. He returned home
very ill on the 7th of November, and his friends and
his family doctor were unable to give him any hope
of recovery. He expressed a desire for the Sacrament,
which was granted only after he had answered satisfactorily a long list of questions. During the night of
the 17th November, he spoke of hearing most beautiful
music, and asked to have the door opened in order to
listen. Towards morning, he took leave of his wife and
sons, blessed them, and said : " Now I go hence into
Paradise." Then he asked his son to turn him over on
his other side, sighed deeply, and fell asleep, leaving this
world easily and peacefully.
2The clergy refused to give him a Church funeral, until
a special order from the Governor of Lausitz compelled
the second Pastor of Gorlitz to perform the burial
service. The latter began his sermon by declaring that
he would rather have walked twenty miles than have
officiated at the funeral of such a man. He also rejected
the text that had been submitted to him, and chose the
words : " And as it is appointed unto men once to die,
but after this the judgment." The cross upon Boehme's
grave was pulled down by the mob. Now, a block of
porphyry marks the resting-place of the " Philosophus
Teutonicus," and soon, we hope, the monument raised to
his memory will prove that a grateful posterity is at
pains to atone for the sins of his contemporaries.
As we now turn from the personality of our philosopher
to his works, the newest edition of which (Schiebler,
Leipzig, 1830-47) consists of seven fairly bulky volumes,
INTRODUCTION 11
3we are struck at once and not a little delighted with the
highly original treatment of first principles that we
discover therein. Everywhere Boehme appears as an
independent, bold and profoundly penetrating thinker,
who laboriously endeavours to bring into intelligible
expression his deep interior perceptions. If he does but
imperfectly succeed, if he again and again returns to
the same idea, yet without achieving a perfectly clear
and consistent presentation throughout, that is due to
his complete lack of a suitable education. The invaluable advantage of a study of the classics was denied him.
He knew nothing of the art of connectedly considering
and preparing, clearly linking and grouping in order,
the vast array of his conceptions. For the rest, he had
assimilated much of the knowledge of his time. He
was thoroughly conversant with the Bible, and he states
himself (Aurora, x. 45) that he read "the writings of
many great masters," but had found therein " only a
half -dead spirit." By these words he refers principally
to works of the school of Paracelsus, wherefrom he took
his idea of the threefold nature of man ; namely, a body
formed out of the elements, a spirit originating from the
stars, and a soul inbreathed from God. From the same
sources he also borrowed many technical, philosophical
and alchemical terms, some of which, however, he had
partly misunderstood. Yet all this applies only to the
external side of his teaching, the shell, as it were, which
encloses the kernel of his own peculiar and deep knowledge of essential truth. This same knowledge he claims,
and rightly enough, to have obtained through revelation ;
for he drew from the same fountain-head as all teachers
of religion and philosophy before him ; from the same
source that is also open to us, if we are but willing to
plunge and sink into the mysterious depths of our
own innermost Spirit, and therein reach the very Heart
of God.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.