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N. A.

BERDYAEV (BERDIAEV)
STUDIES CONCERNING JACOB BOEHME 1
Etude I. The Teaching about the Ungrund and Freedom
(1939 - #349)
"Im Wasser lebt der Fisch, die Pflanzen in der Erden,
Der Vogel in der Luft, die Sonn im Firmament,
Der Salamander muss mit Feur erhalten werden:
Und Gottes Herz ist Jakob Boehmens Element".
["In water lives the fish, the plant in the ground,
The bird in the sky, the sun in the firmament,
The salamander must with fire be sustained,
And God's Heart is Jacob Boehme's element".]
Angelus Silesius
I.
Jacob Boehme has to be termed the greatest of Christian gnostics. The word gnosis I
employ here not in the sense of the heresies of the first centuries of Christianity,2 but in the sense
of knowledge basic to revelation and dealing not with concepts, but with symbols and myths;
contemplative knowledge, and not discursive knowledge. This is also a religious philosophy or
theosophy. Characteristic for J. Boehme is that he had a great simplicity of heart, a child-like
purity of soul. Therefore before death he could exclaim: "Nun fahre ich in's Paradeis" {"Now I
journey on into Paradise"}. He was not learned, not bookish, not schooled a man, but rather a
simple craftsman, a shoemaker. He belonged to the type of the wise-seers from amongst the
people. He did not know Aristotle, he did not know Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite, he did not
know the Medieval Scholasticism and mysticism. In him it is impossible, just as it is for the
larger part of Christian mystics, to discern any direct influences of Neo-Platonism. He found his
sustenance first of all in the Bible3 and beyond this he read Paracelsus, Sebast. Franck, Weigel,
Schwenckfeld. He lived within the atmosphere of the German mystico-theosophic currents of his
time. Boehme was not a philosopher in the academic school sense of this word, he was first of all
a theosophist, a visionary and myth-creator, but his influence on German philosophy was
enormous. His thinking was not by calculated and clear concepts, but by symbols and myths. He
was convinced, that Christianity had become distorted by the learned and by the theologians, by
the popes and the cardinals. Boehme by faith-confession was a Lutheran and he died with the
final unction of a pastor. But the Lutheran clergy vexed and harassed him, and forbade him to
publish his works. This is a phenomenon typical to all faith-confessions. And just like with the
greater part of mystics and theosophists, he was supra-confessional. It is possible to discern in
him strong Catholic elements, despite his extreme hostility to papism. The origin from which the
knowledge of Boehme derived -- is a very complex problem. This problem involves the
possibility of a personal gnostic revelation and enlightening, by a special cognitive charism. At

present they tend to think, that Boehme was more widely read, than earlier was thought, but
certainly least of all can the teachings of Boehme be explained by borrowings and influences (an
explanation unbecoming for such an original and remarkable thinker). Eckhardt was a man
learned and bookish, he knew Aristotle, Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite, Thomas Aquinas, the
Medieval Scholasticism and mysticism. Boehme however was self-made, and with him
undoubtedly were primal intuitions. Boehme himself says about the sources of his cognition:
"Ich brauche ihrer Art und Weise und ihrer Formeln nicht, weil ich es von ihnen nicht gelernt
habe; ich habe einen andern Lehrmeister, und der ist die ganze Natur. Von dieser ganzen Natur
mit ihrer instehenden Geburt habe ich meine Philosophie, Astrologie und Theologie studirt und
gelernt, und nicht von oder durch Menschen" {"I use not their art and wisdom and their
formulas, since from them I have learned nothing; I have an other Master-Teacher, and this is the
whole of nature. From this whole of nature with innate birth I have studied and learned my
philosophy, astrology and theology, and nothing from or through man"}.4 There is here a sense
of the Renaissance reaction against the Scholastics and a reorientation towards nature itself.
Moreover, Boehme was convinced, that his knowing was not by his own human powers, but with
the help of the Holy Spirit. "In meinen eigenen Kraeften bin ich so ein blinder Mensch, als
irgend einer ist, und vermag nichts, aber im Geiste Gottes siehet mein eingeborner Geist durch
Alles, aber nicht immer beharrlich; sondern wenn der Geist der Liebe Gottes durch meinen Geist
durchbricht, alsdann ist die animalische Geburt und die Gottheit ein Wesen, eine Begreiflichkeit
und ein Licht" {"In mine own ability I am as blind a man, as is anyone, and am capable of
nothing, but in the Spirit of God throughout all stands my inborn spirit, but not always
unwaveringly; but when the Spirit of the love of God is focused through my spirit, then is the
creaturely birth and the Godhead one essence, one understanding and one light"}.5 Sophia assists
him in the perception of the very mystery of God. He believes, that God "wird dich zum lieben
Kinde annehmen und dir ein neu Kleid der edeln Jungfrauen Sophiae anziehen, und einen
Siegelring (Mysterii Magni) an deine Hand des Gemueths stecken; und in demselben Kleide (der
neuen Wiedergeburt) hast du allein Macht, von der ewigen Geburt Gottes zu reden" {"wilt adopt
thee as a beloved child and clothe thee in the new garb of the nobly virginal Sophia, and a signetring (Mysterii Magni) upon thine hand of mind wilt set; and in the selfsame garb (the new birthanew) hast thou alone the power, to speak from God's eternal birth"}.6
In contrast to the majority of mystics, Boehme writes not about his own soul nor about his
own spiritual path, nor about what happened with him, but rather what has transpired with God,
with the world and with man. This is a feature distinguishing mystical theosophy from pure
mysticism per se. The mysticism of Boehme belongs to the gnostic type. But Boehme perceives
God and the world through man, his knowledge issues forth from the subject, and not from the
object, despite the predominance in him of nature-philosophy and cosmology. The visible world
is a reflection of the invisible world. "Und die sichtbare Welt ist eine Offenbarung der innern
geistlichen Welt, aus dem ewigen Lichte und aus der ewigen Finsterniss, aus dem geistlichen
Gewirke; und ist ein Gegenwurf der Ewigkeit, mit dem sich die Ewigkeit hat sichtbar gemacht"
{"And the visible world is a manifestation of the inner spiritual world, from the eternal light and
the eternal darkness, from the spiritual working; and it is an opposition of eternity, which
eternity itself hath made visible"}.7 Heaven reveals itself within man. "Ich bin auch nicht in den
Himmel gestiegen und habe alle Werke und Geschoepfe Gottes gesehen, sondern derselbe
Himmel ist in meinem Geiste offenbaret, dass ich im Geist erkenne die Werke und Geschoepfe
Gottes" {"I however have not climbed up to Heaven so as to have seen all the works and

creatures of God, but the selfsame Heaven is revealed in my spirit, so that I in spirit perview the
works and creatures of God"}.8 For Boehme, the natural physical elements are essentially the
same in common with the elements of soul. He sees in nature likewise that which is in spirit.
Man -- is a microtheos and a microcosmos. Heaven and hell are within the soul of man. And it
from thence only that there is possible the cognition of God and the world. The unseen spiritual
world is the foundational basis of the visible material world. And God can only be found in the
depths of one's own heart. Divine wisdom is not to be sought for in the academies and books.
The world-view of Boehme is symbolic. All the visible world is but a symbol of the inner world.
"Die ganze aeussere sichtbare Welt mit all ihrem Wesen ist eine Bezeichnung oder Figur der
inneren geistlichen Welt; alles was im Inneren ist, und wie es in der Wirkung ist, also hats auch
seinen Charakter aeusserlich" {"The whole external visible world with all its essence is a sign or
figure of the inner spiritual world; all what is in the inner, and how it is in effect, also indeed has
its character externally"}.9 Physical traits signify the spiritual ones. The preface to the greatest
work of Boehme, the "Mysterium magnum", begins with the assertion, that the visible world -- is
a symbol of the invisible spiritual world. "Denn die sichtbaren empfindlichen Dinge sind ein
Wesen des Unsichtbaren; von dem Unsichtlichen, Unbegreiflichen ist kommen das Sichtbare,
Begreifliche" {"The visible and sensible things are an essence of the invisible; from the
unseeable and incomprehensible are come the seeable, the understandable"}.10 The world is a
symbol of God: "diese Welt ist ein Gleichniss nach Gottes Wesen, und ist Gott in einem irdischen
Gleichniss offenbar" {"This world is in likeness to God's essence, and God is manifest in the
earthly likeness"}.11 The cognition of God is a birth of God in the soul. And such a cognition is
possible only through the illumination of the soul by the Spirit of God. Boehme quite distinctly
comprehends the limitations of human cognition, and he speaks about the foolishness of mere
human wisdom. But together with this, he possesses a very sublime conception concerning
cognitive knowledge. The cognitive knowledge of God -- is a duty of man, and for this he was
created. Boehme -- is a symbolist, but he is not an idealist in the sense of the German Idealism of
the XIX Century. He -- is a realist. He has not lost that living vital connection with real being, he
has not trapped himself into an abstract world begotten of thought, a world of subjective
experiences. The contemplation of Boehme -- is realistico-symbolic. The cognitive knowing of
the spiritual world was for him a dwelling within the spiritual world, it was of the very life
within him. Being for him was not transformed into an object, set opposite the subject. Cognition
transpires within being itself, it is an event within being.
The gnosis of Boehme was experiential and from life, it arose from the torment over the fate
of man and the world. Boehme had a child-like pure, good and compassionate soul. But his
feeling for worldly life was austhere, not sentimental. His fundamental intuition of being was of
an intuition of fire. In this he was akin to Herakleitos. He had an extraordinarily acute and strong
sense of evil in the life of the world. And therefore he sees a struggle of opposing principles, a
struggle of light and darkness. As regards his sensing of the power of evil and of the struggle of
God with the devil, of light and darkness, he was nigh close to Reformation sources, to the
experience of Luther.12 He senses God not only as love, but also as anger, wrath. He senses
within God a poignant and harsh quality. Herein the physical qualities signify also the spiritual
qualities. He sees within the very Divinity a dark nature, an irrational abyss. As regards his
feeling of life, Boehme stands already at the threshold of modern times. He begins, having his
roots still within the Medieval, and a mystical realism is a Medieval trait in him. But in him
already there storms the blood of the man of the Reformation and the Renaissance. With him

there is a Renaissance orientation towards cosmic life, towards nature, and the self-consciousness
of man becomes far higher, than that of the Medieval. As regards the dynamism of his worldconcept, his interest in the genesis and establishing of order, his sense of the struggle of opposed
principles, the idea of freedom fundamental to him, Boehme was a man of modern times. The
world is no longer still conceived of by him, as an eternally forever static order, as a rigid
hierarchical system. World life is a struggle, an establishing of order, a fiery dynamic process.
This is nowise similar to the world-concept of Thomas Aquinas and Dante. Quite more
profoundly than the people of the Middle Ages, Boehme pondered over the problem of the origin
of evil, over the problem of theodicy. He was very much tormented by the question, how God
could have created the world, yet foreseeing the evil and suffering. In the face of the evil and
suffering of world life, the anger and wrath of the Father, he sought salvation in the heart of the
Son, of Jesus. There was a moment, when it seemed to Boehme, that God had withdrawn from
the evil world and he seeks God close at hand. Koyre says quite accurately, that Boehme started
out with torment over the problem of evil and he sought salvation first of all, and thereupon
knowledge.13 How is one to conceive of evil in the face of the Absoluteness of the Divinity?
How is one to be saved from evil and from the anger, the wrath of the Divinity, such as is no
longer discerned in the Son, as Love? Boehme has affinity with the gnostics of old in his torment
over the problem of evil. But his resolution is distinct from the merely gnostic by its
immeasurably more Christian character. In any case, Boehme belonged to that profound select
group of people, who are pained by the evil and torment of world life. Boehme was the first in
the history of modern thought to make a distinction, which will thereafter play an enormous role
in German Idealism, -- everything can be discerned only through the other, through opposition.
Light cannot be discerned without darkness, good without evil, the spirit without the opposition
of matter.
II.
Boehme wants to decide the question, which has disquieted many a philosopher: how is it
possible to make the transition from God to the world, from the one to the many, from eternity to
time? But he fashioned himself an even more audacious question: how did the Divine Trinity
come about, how from the Divine Nothing, how from the Absolute did there become possible the
creation of the world, how became manifest the Creator, how did the Person become manifest in
God? The Absolute of apophatic theology and metaphysics cannot be as such the Creator of the
world. God -- the Creator, as regards kataphatic theology, is correlative to the creation, is
correlative with man. And suchlike it was there already in Eckhardt.14 An investigation of
Boehme's teaching concerning the concept of the Trinity does not at present enter into my task,
and the theme of my study here is rather more limited. The formulations of Boehme in this
regard are not always distinct with exactitude nor dogmatically satisfactory. But his virtue is in
this, that he sees everywhere in the world and in man the Trinitarian principle, a reflection of the
Divine Trinity. The traditional-type theology has always been vexed with this, that Boehme
taught about a theogonic process, about a birth within God, about a dynamic stirring within God.
His understanding of God was to the highest degree dynamic. Christian theological systems,
however, have worked out their teachings about God, employing categories of thought from
Greek philosophy. Thus, the teaching about God, as pure act, comprising within Him no sort of
potentiality, was constructed wholly upon Aristotle. The teaching about the unstirring, selfsufficient, static God of Christian theology was taken not from the Bible, not from the Christian

Revelation, but from Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle. Within it was reflected the static aspect from
Greek ontology. An unstirring God, God as pure act, is God -- as a concept, and not God -- as
life. The predominant theological doctrine deprives God of inner life, denies any sort of process
within God, makes Him equivalent to an unstirring stone. And this idea ultimately is idolatrous.
Not such is the God of the Bible, the God of Revelation. He is full of inner life and drama, in
Him there is dynamic stirring. There is a tragic aspect within God that is both Biblical and
mythological, though too non-theological an understanding of God. God, undergoing the torment
and sufferings of the Cross, God, offering the sacrifice of love -- is a God dynamic, and not
static. Bl. Augustine in a certain sense also admitted of dynamism in God. L. Bloy defined God,
as a lonely and misunderstood sufferer, and in this he was more correct, than Thomas Aquinas.
The tremendous significance of Boehme is in this, that after the dominance of Greek philosophy
and Medieval Scholasticism with their static concept of God, he then introduces a dynamic
principle into the understanding of God, i.e. he sees an inner life within God, the tragic aspect
characteristic of all life. And with Boehme it was bound up with this, that on the one hand he
immersed himself in the Bible and meditated upon it, free from the categories of Greek thought,
yet on the other hand he carried over into his contemplation of God an experience about the evil
in world life and about the contradictions rending the world, about the struggle of light and
darkness, of the sweet and the bitter, of love and anger. Boehme was of the modern type of soul,
which stood face to face afront the problem of evil, unable to still yet humbly bow and hold back
through a consciousness of its own sinfulness. He boldly wanted to gain insight into the origin
and meaning of evil. In this he was a gnostic. He saw a dark principle within the primal sources
of being, deeper than being itself. He was compelled to admit of a dark principle within the
Divinity itself, and that there is some positive meaning to the very existence of evil, which so
tormented him. But he does not fall into a Manichaean-gnostic dualism, into a dualism of gods.
Without evil, good cannot be known. Through evil, the good is discerned. As regards the
character of his thought concerning Divine matters Boehme is no Neo-Platonist, as were the
majority of Christian mystics. Boehme likewise was not at all a monist, and he does not at all
teach about emanation. Everywhere for him it is a matter of will and contradiction. The moral
sense of evil in Luther was transformed in Boehme into the metaphysical. The metaphysics of
Boehme is voluntaristic, and not intellectualistic, as was the Greek and Medieval metaphysics.
The voluntarism of Boehme is a new principle, introduced by him into philosophy, and German
philosophy would tend to develope it along further. It is only Boehme's voluntarism also that has
rendered possible a philosophy of freedom. The whole of Boehme is saturated with the magic of
will, which at its primal-basis is still dark and irrational. Boehme to the very end is seriously
concerned with the problem of evil and he approaches it neither as the pedagogue nor as the
moralist, nor from the point of view of tending to infants. Being for him is a fiery current. And
this fire in the darkness -- is both cold and scorching: "ein jedes Leben ein Feuer ist" {"every life
is a fire"}.15 The will is fire. The primal-basis of being is a ravenous and hungry will. In
response to it issues forth light and love. The potentiality of darkness lies in the very depths of
being, in the Divinity itself.16 It is bound up with meonic freedom.
The mysterious teaching of Boehme about the Ungrund, about the abyss, without
foundation, dark and irrational, prior to being, is an attempt to provide and answer to the basic
question of all questions, the question concerning the origin of the world and of the arising of
evil. The whole teaching of Boehme about the Ungrund is so interwoven with the teaching
concerning freedom, that it is impossible to separate them, for this is all part and parcel of the

same teaching. And I am inclined to interpret the Ungrund, as a primordial meonic freedom,
indeterminate even by God.17 We tend to see that the teaching of Boehme concerning the
Ungrund is not distinguished by any clarity of precision, such as is characteristic to a concept.
But such a demand would be improper in approaching it, there cannot be such a precision in
concept concerning the Ungrund and being, this is an area situated at the very limits of rational
concepts. In what regard do the teachings of Boehme come nigh to that of the traditional rational
theology, which has the desire to know nothing corresponding to the Ungrund? I have always
tended to think, that the theodicy, worked out by the prevailing systems of rational theology, only
but transforms the relationship between God and the world into a comedy, into a mere play of
God with Himself, and it reflects upon the ancient slavery of man, his being crushed down into
cowering fear. This -- is an ontology of sin. Boehme has no desire to conceive of the mystery of
the world-creation, but as of a tragedy, a tragedy not only of man, but also of God. The only
thing that saves the rational kataphatic theology is this, that at a certain moment it is transformed
into an apophatic theology and then asserts, that we stand facing a mystery unfathomable and
unapproachable, before which we have to bow. But the kataphatic theology too late recourses to
the mystery, as to its sole salvation and only way out, after it has already rationalised everything
so much so, that it has become impossible to breathe. This theology both goes too far in the
rationalisation of Divine mysteries and too early on, it proclaims an interdict for knowledge, it
asserts agnosticism. In this it is distinct from theosophy, which both more admits the irrationality
of Divine matters and permits more the possibility of an endless movement in the cognition of
these mysteries, but a cognition not through concepts. Theology however operates primarily
through concepts, especially the Catholic school theology, so beautifully worked out. I term it a
comedy, this following conception from the kataphatic rational theology. God is perfect and
unstirring, having no need of anything, and as self-sufficing, all-powerful, omniscient and allgood He created the world and man for His own glorification and for the good of the creation.
The act of the world-creation was neither evoked by nor answered any sort of need in God, it
was the product purely of free chance, it nowise added up to anything more for the Divine being
and nowise enriched it. God endowed His creature, man, with his fatal freedom, and sees in the
freedom the worthiness of His creation and a likeness to Himself. Man however made bad use of
his freedom, he rose up in revolt against his Creator, he fell away from God and in his fall he
dragged down after him the whole of creation. Man, having transgressed the will of God, fell
under a curse and the power of the law. The whole of creation groans and weeps. Such was the
first act. In the second act begins the Redemption and there transpires the Incarnation of God for
the salvation of the creature. The image of the Creator is replaced by that of the Saviour. But it is
remarkable, that this whole cosmology and anthropology is constructed upon the principle of a
pure monotheism, without any sort of relationship to Christ or to the revelation of the MostHoly
Trinity. This is a dualistic theism, knowing nothing about the aspect of the Trinity within the
Deity, knowing only the monarchic teaching about God, i.e. a teaching non-Christian. The
comedy or play of God with Himself here involves also this, that God, having endowed man with
freedom, in His Omniscience knew also all the consequences of this freedom -- sin, evil, worldly
torment and suffering, the eternal perishing and the eternal torments in hell of an indeterminable,
and evidently, enormous number of beings, created by Him for bliss. Man is rendered an
insignificant plaything, innately having received freedom, but together with this there is imposed
upon him an immense responsibility. He is great of stature only in his falling. For God
everything transpires within eternity and in the act of world-creation, so that in eternity are
predestined both the temporal and the eternal torments. This inevitably leads to the teaching

about the predestination of some to salvation, for others however to eternal perdition, a teaching,
to which Bl. Augustine had already inclined and which Calvin took to its conclusion. God in thus
having created man, predestined him to eternal perdition, since He knows the consequences of
freedom, He knows, what a man will choose. A man has received his freedom from God, he does
not possess it of himself and this freedom is wholly set within the grip of God, wholly
determined by Him, i.e. ultimately, it is fictitious. God awaits a response from the creature to His
call, so that the creature should love God and dwell in a godly life, but ultimately it is that God is
awaiting an answer from Himself, He plays Himself a game, since He Himself endows the
freedom and He knows Himself the consequences of this freedom, for Him it is clearly apparent.
The problem of Ivan Karamazov is posited at greater depth and carries over into eternity. The
matter involves not merely the tears of a child in the temporal earthly life, but about the torments
both temporal and eternal of an enormous quantity of living beings, having received the fatal gift
of freedom from God, knowing, what this gift signifies and to what it will lead. The soteriology
of the traditional theological systems can readily be interpreted, as an unseemly correction by
God of a mistake created by Him and assuming the form of a criminal penal process. The
rational kataphatic theology, in its cosmology and anthropology having forgotten about God in
Trinity, having forgotten about Christ, about the God of Love and Sacrifice and having relegated
the mystery of the Christian Revelation to the part concerning Redemption, and not concerning
the world-creation, cannot as such rise about this Divine Comedy and only therein but builds a
fictitious theodicy. The theological teaching about the freedom of the will bears a pedagogical,
moral-juridical character and does not penetrate down into the primal foundations of the mystery
of freedom. All that is necessary is that there should be someone to punish. And in such a sort of
outlook, the apophatic and the kataphatic get all hopelessly jumbled together. J. Boehme was one
of the few bold enough to rise above this rational kataphatic theology and to perceive the
mystery of the world-creation, as a tragedy, and not as a comedy. He teaches about a process not
only cosmogonic and anthropogonic, but also concerning a theogonic process. But the theogony
does not at all signify, that God has a beginning, that He arises within time, it does not mean, that
He comes about to be within the world process, as with Fichte or Hegel, it signifies, that the
inner eternal life of God reveals itself, as a dynamic process, as a tragedy within eternity, as a
struggle with the darkness of non-being. The teaching about the Ungrund and freedom is also a
bold attempt to apperceive the world-creation from the inner life of the Divinity. The worldcreation bears a relationship to the inner life of the Divine Trinity, and cannot be for It something
completely external. The principle of evil thus acquires an actual seriousness and tragic aspect.
The cosmogony and anthropogony of Boehme is pervaded by the Christian Revelation, it does
remain something Old Testament, but it is within the New Testament light, in the light of Christ.
Boehme teaches about a serious "Quall [Qual] des Abgrundes",18 about the torment in the dark
abyss, which the light of Christ has to conquer.
III.
The teaching of Boehme about the Ungrund was not all immediately worked out, and was as
yet not there in the "Aurora". It was chiefly revealed in the "De signatura Rerum" and in the
"Mysterium magnum". It answers the need of Boehme to penetrate the mystery of freedom, the
origin of evil, the struggle of darkness and light. In Chapter III of the "De signatura Rerum",
which is entitled "Vom grossen Mysterio aller Wesen" {"Of the Great Mystery of All Being"},
Boehme says: "Ausser der Natur ist Gott ein Mysterium, verstehet in dem Nichts; denn ausser

der Natur ist das Nichts, das ist ein Auge der Ewigkeit, ein ungruendlich Auge, das in nichts
stehet oder siehet, denn es ist der Ungrund; und dasselbe Auge ist ein Wille, verstehet ein Sehnen
nach der Offenbarung, das Nichts zu finden" {"For out of nature is God a Mysterium, i.e. the
Nothing; for from out of nature is the Nothing, which is an eye of eternity, a groundless eye,
which stands nowhere nor sees, for it is the Ungrund and the selfsame eye is a will, i.e. a longing
for manifestation, to discern the Nothing"}.19 The Ungrund thus is the Nothing, the groundless
eye of eternity, yet together with this it is will, without foundation, unfathomable and
indeterminate will. But this -- is a Nothing, which is "ein Hunger zum Etwas" {"an hunger to be
something"}.20 And together with this the Ungrund is freedom.21 Within the darkness of the
Ungrund there is ablaze a fire and this is freedom, a freedom meonic with potential. According to
Boehme, freedom is contrary to nature, but nature has issued forth from freedom. Freedom is a
semblance of the Nothing, but from it issues something. The hunger of freedom, of the
groundless will to something has to be satisfied: "das Nichts macht sich in seiner Lust aus der
Freiheit in der Finsterniss des Todes offenbar, denn das Nichts will nicht ein Nichts sein, und
kann nicht ein Nichts sein" {"The Nothing loves to make itself manifest from out of freedom in
the deathly darkness, for then the Nothing wills not to be the Nothing, and cannot be the
Nothing"}.22 The freedom of the Ungrund is neither light, nor darkness, neither good, nor evil.
Freedom lies within the darkness and thirsts for the light. And freedom is the cause of light. "Die
Freiheit ist und stehet in der Finsterniss, und gegen der finstern Begierde nach des Lichts
Begierde, sie ergreifet mit dem ewigen Willen die Finsterniss; und die Finsterniss greifet nach
dem Lichte der Freiheit und kann es nicht erreichen, denn sie schleusst sich mit Begierde selber
in sich zu, und macht sich in sich selber zur Finsterniss" {"Freedom exists and is set within the
darkness, and over against the dark desire is still yet the desire for light, it seizes the darkness
with the eternal will; and the darkness aspires after the light of freedom and cannot attain it, for
then it passes with desire over into itself, and attains in itself but to the darkness"}.23 Boehme
apophatically and as an antinomy describes the mystery, transpiring in the depths of being, at that
depth, which is contiguous with the primordial Nothing. In the darkness there is kindled a fire
and a glimmer of light, the Nothing comes to be something, the groundless freedom gives rise to
nature. And two processes occur: "Die Freiheit [...] ist des Lichts Ursache, und die Impression
der Begierde ist der Finsterniss und der peinlichen Quaal Ursache. So verstehet nun in diesen
zwei ewige Anfaenge, als zwei Principia: eines in der Freiheit im Lichte, das andre in der
Impression in der Pein und Quaal der Finsterniss; ein jedes in sich selber wohnend"{"Freedom
[...] is the cause of the light. And the impression made of the desire is the cause of darkness and
painful torment. So there arises now in this two eternal points of departure, as two principles: one
in freedom in the light, the other in the impression made in the pain and torment of the
darkness; ; each living in itself"}.24 Freedom, as the Nothing, as meonic, possesses in itself no
substantial essence.25 Boehme was perhaps the first in the history of human thought to have
seen, that at the basis of being and prior to being lies a groundless freedom, the passionate desire
of the Nothing to become something, the darkness, within which would blaze the fire and light,
i.e. he was the originator of an unique metaphysical voluntarism, unknown to Medieval and
ancient thought.26 Will, i.e. freedom, is at the origin of everything. But Boehme thinks it is so
because the conjectured Ungrund, the groundless will lies within the depths of the Divinity, and
prior to the Divinity. The Ungrund is also the Divinity of apophatic theology and is together with
this an abyss, a free Nothing deeper than God and outside God. In God there is a nature, a
principle distinct from It. The Primal-Divinity, the Divine Nothing -- is on the other side of good
and evil, of light and darkness. The Divine Ungrund -- is somehow prior to the arising within

eternity of the Divine Trinity. God arises, realises Himself from out of the Divine Nothing. This
is a path of thought about God akin to that, whereupon Meister Eckhardt makes a distinction
between the Godhead (Gottheit) and God (Gott). God, as the Creator of the world and of man,
corresponds with the creation, He arises from the depths of the Godhead, the unfathomable
Nothing. This is an idea that lies deep down within German mysticism. Such a path of thinking
about God inevitably involves an apophatic theology. Everything, that Boehme says concerning
the Divine Ungrund, relates to the apophatic, the negative theology, and not to the kataphatic
positive theology. The Nothing is deeper and more primieval than anything that is, the
darkness27 is deeper and more primordial than light, freedom is more primordial and deeper than
any nature. The God of kataphatic theology is already something and He as such signifies a
thinking about a second-level aspect: "und der Grund derselben Tinctur ist die goettliche
Weisheit; und der Grund der Weisheit ist die Dreiheit der ungruendlichen Gottheit, und der
Grund der Dreiheit ist der einige unerforschliche Wille, und des Willens Grund ist das Nichts"
{"And the ground of the selfsame tincture is the Godly wisdom, and the ground of the Wisdom is
the Trinity of the ungrounded Godhead, and the ground of the Trinity is the one unfathomable
Will, and the ground of the Will is the Nothing"}.(Italics mine. N.B.)28 This also is a theogonic
process, a process of the birthing of God within eternity, within eternal mystery, which is
described in accord with the method of apophatic theology. And this therefore is all the less
heretical, than it would seem to the exclusive adherents of the kataphatic, i.e. rationalising
theology. The pondering of Boehme lies deeper than all the second-tier rationalising kataphatics.
Boehme opens out a path from the eternal foundation for nature, from the free will of the
Ungrund, i.e. the ungroundedness without foundation, which is the natural ground of the soul.29
Nature always is secondary and derivative in aspect. Nature is not the will, is not freedom.
Freedom is uncreated. "Wenn ich betrachte, was Gott ist, so sage ich: Er ist das Eine gegen der
Kreatur, als ein ewig Nichts; er hat weder Grund, Anfang noch Staette; und besitzet nicht, als nur
sich selber: er ist der Wille des Ungrundes, er ist in sich selber nur Eines: er bedarf keinen Raum
noch Ort: er gebaeret von Ewigkeit in Ewigkeit sich selber in sich: er ist keinem Dinge gleich
oder aehnlich, und hat keinen sonderlichen Ort, da er wohne: die ewige Weisheit oder Verstand
ist seine Wohne: er ist der Wille der Weisheit, die Weisheit ist seine Offenbarung" {"When I
ponder, what God is, I then say: He is the One in contrast to the creature, as an eternal Nothing;
He has neither a ground, a beginning nor state; and is of naught, save only of Himself: He is the
Will of the Ungrund, He is in Himself only One, He occupies no space nor place: from eternity
in eternity in Himself He comes to be: He is like or similar to no thing, and hath no particular
place, which He inhabits: the eternal Wisdom or Intelligibility is His habitation: He is the Will of
the Wisdom, the Wisdom is of His manifestation"}.30 God comes about to be everywhere and
always, He is both the foundational ground and the groundlessness.
The Ungrund mustneeds first of all be understood as freedom, a freedom in the darkness.
"Darum so hat sich der ewige freie Wille in Finsterniss, Pein und Quaal, sowohl auch durch die
Finsterniss in Feuer und Lichte, und in ein Freudenreich eingefuehret, auf dass das Nichts in
Etwas erkannt werde, und dass es ein Spiel habe in seinem Gegenwillen, dass ihm der freie Wille
des Ungrundes im Grunde offenbar sei, denn ohne Boeses und Gutes moechte kein Grund sein"
{"So therefore in the darkness doth the eternal free will have itself the pain and torment, just also
as with the fire and light through the darkness, and it passes over into a kingdom of joy, so that
the Nothing can be known as something, and that it should have a playing out in its opposition
of wills, so that by it the free will of the Ungrund should have a ground upon which to manifest

itself, for without the evil and the good it would have no ground upon which to be"}.31 Freedom
is rooted in the Nothing, in the meonic, it is also the Ungrund, "Der freie Wille ist aus keinem
Anfange, auch aus keinem Grunde in nichts gefasset, oder durch etwas geformet... Sein rechter
Urstand ist im Nichts" {"The free will is from no sort of origin, likewise upon no sort of ground
is it constituted, nor through anything is it formed... Its proper primal setting is in the
Nothing"}.32 The free will has within it both good and evil, both love and wrath. "Darum hat der
freie Wille sein eigen Gericht zum Guten oder Boesen in sich, er hat Gottes Liebe und Zorn in
sich" {"The free will therefore hath its own court for the good and the evil within it, it has its
proper path within it, it hath God's love and wrath within it"}.33 The free will likewise possesses
within it both light and darkness. The free will in God is of the Ungrund within God, of the
Nothing within Him. Boehme provides a profound interpretation to the truth about the freedom
of God, which likewise the traditional Christian theology admits of. He teaches about a freedom
of God, deeper than that of Dun Scotus. "Der ewige goettliche Verstand ist eine freier Wille,
nicht von Etwas oder durch Etwas entstanden, er ist selbst eigener Sitz und wohnet einig und
allein in sich selber, unergriffen von etwas, denn ausser und vor ihm ist nichts, und dasselbe
Nichts ist einig, und ist ihm doch auch selber als ein Nichts. Er ist ein einiger Wille des
Ungrundes, und ist weder nahe noch ferne, weder hoch noch niedrig, sondern er ist Alles, und
doch als ein Nichts" {"The eternal Divine mind is a free will, not having arisen from anything
nor through anything, it is itself its own seat and abides at one and alone in itself, ungrasped by
anything, for then beside it and before it is nothing, and the selfsame Nothing is at one, and is
moreover itself as the Nothing. It is the one Will of the Ungrund, and is neither near nor far,
neither high nor low, but is rather the All, and moreover as the Nothing"}.34 For Boehme chaos
lies at the root of nature, chaos, i.e. freedom, the Ungrund, will, an irrational principle. In the
Divinity itself there is a groundless will, i.e. an irrational principle. Darkness and freedom for
Boehme are always correlative and conjoined. God Himself is also freedom and freedom is at the
beginning of all things: "darum sagen wir recht, es sei Gottes, und die Freiheit (welche den
Willen hat) sei Gott selber; denn es ist Ewigkeit, und nichts weiters. [...] Erstlich ist die ewige
Freiheit, die hat den Willen, und ist selber der Wille" {"We properly therefore say, such would be
God, and the Freedom (which hath the Will) would be the selfsame God; therefore it is eternity,
and nothing further. [...] Firstly is the eternal Freedom, which hath the Will, and is the selfsame
Will"}.35 Boehme was apparently the first in the history of human thought to have posited
freedom at the primal foundation of being, deeper and more primary than all being, deeper and
more primary than God Himself. And this would bear enormous consequences for the history of
thought. Such an understanding of the primacy of freedom would have induced terror in both the
Greek philosophers and the Medieval Scholastics. And this would open up the possibility of a
completely different theodicy and anthropodicy. The primal mystery of being is a kindling up of
light within the dark freedom, in the Nothing is also the solid firmness of the world from this
dark freedom. Boehme speaks wondrously about this in the "Psychologia vera": "denn in der
Finsterniss ist der Blitz, und in der Freiheit das Licht mit der Majestaet. Und ist dieses nur das
Scheiden, dass [...] die Finsterniss materialisch macht, da doch auch kein Wesen einer
Begreiflichkeit ist; sondern finster Geist und Kraft, eine Erfuellung der Freiheit in sich selber,
verstehe in Begehren, und nicht ausser: denn ausser ist die Freiheit" {"Then in the darkness is the
flash of lightning, and in the freedom is the light with majesty. And this is only the point of
departure, so that [...] the darkness be made material, while however therein is no manner of
intelligibility; rather only a dark spirit and power, a fullness of freedom in itself, i.e. in desire,
and nothing else: for the else is but freedom"}.36 There are two wills -- the one within the fire,

the other within the light.37 Fire and light -- are basic symbols for Boehme. "Denn die
Finsterniss hat kalt Feuer, so lange bis es die Angst erreicht, dann entzuendet sich's in Hitze"
{"For the darkness possesses a cold fire, to the extent of attaining anguish, then it sparks itself
forth into heat"}.38 The fire -- is the origin of everything, without fire there would be nothing,
only the Ungrund would be: "und waere Alles ein Nichts und Ungrund ohne Feuer" {"And
without the fire all would be a Nothing and the Ungrund"}.39 The passage over from non-being
to being is accomplished through the blazing up of fire from out of freedom. Within eternity
there is the primeval will of the Ungrund, which is outside of nature and prior to nature. Fichte
and Hegel, Schopenhauer and Hartmann proceeded from this point, although they deChristianised Boehme. German idealist metaphysics passes in transition directly from the
Ungrund, from the unconscious, from the primary act of freedom, passing over to the world
process, and not to the Divine Trinity, as with Boehme. The primal mystery of being according to
Boehme consists in this, that the Nothing seeks to become something. "Der Ungrund ist ein ewig
Nichts, und machet aber einen ewigen Anfang, als eine Sucht; denn das Nichts ist eine Sucht
nach Etwas: und da doch auch Nichts ist, das Etwas gebe; sondern die Sucht ist selber das Geben
dessen, das doch auch nichts ist als bloss eine begehrende Sucht" {"The Ungrund is an eternal
Nothing, and it opens upwards to an eternal beginning, as with a passion; for then the Nothing is
a passion for something: and therein yet moreover it is the Nothing, giving forth into something;
for the passion is itself the fruition of such, and the yet still Nothing is a bare desiring
passion"}.40 The teaching of Boehme concerning freedom is not some psychological or ethical
teaching about the freedom of the will, but is rather a metaphysical teaching about the primal
basis of being. Freedom for him is not a grounding of moral responsibility upon man nor a
regulation of the relationship of man to God and neighbour, but rather an explanation of the
genesis of being and together with this the genesis of evil, as a problem ontological and
cosmological.
The evil has happened from a bad inner-imaging, i.e. from the imagination. The magic effect
of the imagination plays an enormous role in the world-view of Boehme. Through it the world
was made and there occurred the downfall of the devil into the world. The fall of the creation for
Boehme is a matter not of the human, but of the angelic world, wherein the human world arises
later and has to set right the deed wrought by the fallen angel. The fall of Lucifer is defined by
Boehme thus: "Denn Luzifer ging aus der Ruhe seiner Hierarchie aus, in die ewige Unruhe"
{"Then Lucifer went from out of the tranquil repose of his hierarchy, out into an eternal
unrest"}.41 There occurs a confusion of the hierarchical centre, a transgression of the hierarchical
order. And here is how Boehme describes the Fall: "Dass sich der freie Wille im Feuerspiegel
besah, was er waere, dieser Glanz machte ihn beweglich, dass er sich nach den Eigenschaften des
Centri bewegte, welche zuhand anfingen zu qualificiren. Denn die herbe, strenge Begierde, als
die erste Gestalt oder Eigenschaft, impressete sich, und erweckte den Stachel und die
Angstbegierde: also ueberschattete dieser schoene Stern sein Licht, und machte sein Wesen ganz
herb, rauh und streng; und war seine Sanfmuth und recht englische Eigenschaft in ein ganz
streng, rauh und finster Wesen verwandelt: da war es geschehen um den schoenen Morgenstern,
und wie er that, thaten auch seine Legionen: das ist sein Fall" {"Thus the free will caught sight of
itself in the fire reflection, what it was, and the brilliant luminance of this caused it to agitatedly
shake, so that it itself shook the unique ordering of the centre, which had initially started the
process of qualification. Then the severe bitter desire, as a first form or quality, made its
impression, and aroused hurt and anguished desire: therein this beautiful star overshadowed its

light, and made its nature to become quite embittered, rough and severe; and its gentleness and
rather angelic quality was transformed into total severity, a rough and dark nature: so the bright
morning star was lost, and how he acted, so acted his legions: that is his Fall"}.42 The Fall
through sin occurred from a dark desire, from a lust, from a bad inner imagination, from the dark
magic playing out of the will.43 Boehme tends to describe the Fall mythologically, never in clear
concepts. The devil experiences a fiery torment in the darkness because of his own false desire
(Begierde). Without Boehme's teaching about the Ungrund and about freedom, the origin of the
Fall and evil would be incomprehensible. The Fall and evil for Boehme represents a cosmic
catastrophe, a moment in the world creation, a cosmogonic and anthropogonic process, the result
of the struggle of contrary qualities, of darkness and of light, of rage and of love. The
catastrophes are prior to the arising of our world, prior to our aeon was many another aeon. Evil
possesses also a positive significance in the arising of the cosmos and of man. Evil is a
shadowing of light, and light presupposes the existence of darkness. Light, the good and love for
their revealing have need of a contrary principle, in opposition. God Himself possesses two
visages, a visage of love and a visage of wrath, a bright and a dark visage. "Denn der heiligen
Welt Gott und der finstern Welt Gott sind nicht zween Goetter: es ist ein einiger Gott; er ist
selber alles Wesen, er ist Boeses und Gutes, Himmel und Hoelle, Licht und Finsterniss, Ewigkeit
und Zeit, Anfang, und Ende: wo seine Liebe in einem Wesen verborgen ist, allda ist sein Zorn
offenbar" {"For the holy world God and the dark world God are not two Gods; there is only one
God; He is Himself all being, He is the bad and the good, heaven and hell, light and darkness,
eternity and time, the beginning, and the end: wherein lies concealed His love in a being is all
therein His wrath revealed"}.44 And further on: "Die Kraft im Lichte ist Gottes Liebefeuer, und
die Kraft in der Finsterniss ist Gottes Zornfeuer, und ist doch nur ein einig Feuer, theilet sich aber
in zwei Principia, auf dass eines im andern offenbar werde: denn die Flamme des Zornes ist die
Offenbarung der grossen -- Liebe; in der Finsterniss wird das Licht erkannt, sonst waere es ihm
nicht offenbar" {"The power in the light is God's love-fire, and the power in the darkness is
God's wrath-fire, and is but yet only one selfsame fire, it divides itself over into two principles,
in order that the one be revealed in the other: for the flame of wrath is the revelation of great -love: in the darkness will be known the light, elsewise would nothing be revealed to it"}.45 With
Boehme there was a teaching of genius in this, that the love of God amidst the darkness is
transformed into wrath, thus perceived. Boehme thinks always in oppositions, in antitheses, in
antinomies. All life is fire, but the fire has a twofold aspect: "der ewigen Leben zwei in zweierlei
Quaal sind, und ein jedes stehet in seinem Feuer. Eines brennet in der Liebe im Freudenreich; das
andere im Zorne, im Grimme und Wehe, und seine Materia ist Hoffart, Geiz, Neid, Zorn, seine
Quaal vergleichet sich einem Schwefel-Geist: denn Aufsteigen der Hoffart im Geiz, Neid und
Zorn macht zusammen einen Schwefel, darinnen das Feuer brennet, und sich immer mit dieser
Materia entzuendet" {"The two eternal lives are in a twofold tension, and each one is set within
its own fire. The one burns within love in a state of joy; the other within wrath, in fury and woe,
and its material is pride, greed, envy, anger. Its torment makes of it a sulphurous-spirit: then the
arousal of pride, in greed, envy and wrath mix altogether that sulphur, wherein the fire doth burn,
and is always fired up with this material"}.46 But Christ upon the Cross hath transformed the
wrath into love. "Am Kreuze musste Christus diesen grimmigen Zorn, welcher in Adams Essenz
war aufgewacht, in sein heiliges, himmlisches Ens trinken, und mit der grossen Liebe in
goettliche Freude verwandeln" {"Upon the Cross Christ had to suffer that furious wrath, which
had in Adam's essence been aroused, imbibing it into His holy and heavenly Being, and with

great love in godly joy transformed"}.47 Boehme's understanding of the Redemption is


cosmogonic and anthropogonic, a continuation of the world creation.
Schelling, in his book, "Philosophische Untersuchungen ueber das Wesen der menschlichen
Freiheit" {"Philosophic Investigations Concerning the Nature of Human Freedom"}, moves
along the lines of Boehme's ideas concerning the Ungrund and freedom, although he does not
always correctly understand Boehme. Clearly echoing Boehme resound the words of Schelling:
"Alle Geburt ist Geburt aus Dunkel ins Licht" {"All birth is a birth from darkness into light"}.
The initial primal creation is nothing other, than a birth of light, as a surmounting of darkness. In
order that there be the good from darkness, from a potential condition that should pass over into
an actual condition, freedom is necessary. Being for Schelling is will. He is the first in German
philosophy to develope Boehme's voluntarism. Things possess their ground not in God Himself,
but in the nature of God. Evil is possible only because, that in God there is that, which is not
God, which is an ungroundedness in God, a dark will, i.e. the Ungrund. Nature both for
Schelling, and for Boehme, is an history of spirit, and for Schelling everything, which is
examined within nature, within the objective world, leads forth through the subject. The idea of
process within God, of a theogony, is taken by Schelling from Boehme. In his "Philosophie der
Offenbarung" {"Philosophy of Revelation"}, Schelling makes an heroic effort to surmount
German idealism and break through into philosophic realism. And Boehme helps him in this.48
Schelling attempted to surmount the pantheistic monism of German idealist philosophy. He was
aware, that pantheism is incompatible with freedom. The pantheistic denial of evil leads to a
denial of freedom. The fundamental basis of evil, according to Schelling -- is predicated to the
utmost. Evil is the ungroundedness of existence, i.e. bound up with the Ungrund, with potential
freedom. All this involves Boehme's motifs. But closer to Boehme and more in accord with him
was Fr. Baader, who to the extreme felt poisoned by the idealist rift from being and like
Schelling became immersed in Boehme. Fr. Baader was Catholic, but a Catholic very free and
very in the spirit of Eastern Orthodoxy. Baader with a remarkable simplicity and clarity finds
justified Boehme's dynamic understanding of God, with the admitting of a genesis within the
Divine life. If there were no genesis within the self-consciousness of God, then the Divine selfconsciousness would be bereft both of life and of process.49 A dynamic understanding of God
means also, that God for us is alive, has an inner life, that within the Divine life is the dramatism
common to all life. This is perhaps inconsistent with Thomas Aquinas and with the Scholastic
theology, but it is consistent with the Biblical Revelation. Baader indeed provides a remarkable
definition of evil, as a sickness, a distortion of the hierarchical order, a displacement of the centre
of being, after which being passes over into non-being.
IV
Characteristic to Boehme's world-view is that he hated the idea of predestination. And in this
he was not a man in the Protestant spirit.50 He wanted to defend the goodness of God and the
freedom of man, both alike undermined by the teaching about predestination. He was prepared to
sacrifice the almightiness and omniscience of God and admit, that God not foresee the
consequences of freedom. He asserts, that God did not foresee the downfall of angels. This
problem deeply tormented him and in this torment was the moral significance of his creative
path. But Boehme herein does not always say one and the same thing, and his thoughts tend to be
antinomic and even contradictory. Characteristic to him was an antinomic attitude towards evil.

And similar to him in this is our Dostoevsky. The evil, so tormentive for Boehme, finds its
explanation in this, that at the primal basis of being lies the Ungrund, the dark, irrational, meonic
freedom, a potentiality determined by nothing. The dark freedom is unpenetrable for God, He
does not foresee its results and is not answerable for evil as regards its origin, it is not created by
God. The teaching about the Ungrund removes from God the responsibility for evil, which the
almightiness and omniscience of God evokes a sense of. Yet amidst all this Boehme sees the
Ungrund in God Himself, within God there is the dark principle, there is the struggle of light and
darkness. It might be said, that the dark principle (dark here does not mean evil) is in the
Gottheit, in the Godhead, but not in Gott, not in God. Boehme to the extreme sets in opposition
the Person of the Son, as love, in contrast to the Person of the Father, as wrath. In the Son
already there is no sort of dark principle, He is all entirely light, love, good. But thereupon the
Father is transformed into the Divinity of apophatic theology. And herein are to be sensed gnostic
motifs. But the evil, which so torments Boehme, has for him also a positive mission. The Divine
light can reveal itself only through the opposition of the other, the darkness set opposite. This is a
condition of every actualisation, of every genesis. The evil is not only a negative principle, but
also positive. Yet amidst this, the evil remains evil and has to burn itself out, has to be conquered.
Everywhere in nature there is the struggle of opposing principles, and not calm, not an eternal
order. And this struggle of opposing principles possesses also a positive significance. Only
through it there is revealed the supreme light, good, love. Being is a combination of contrasting
opposites, of the yes and the no.51 The yes is impossible without the no. And the whole of being
and the Divinity itself -- is in a fiery movement. But this does not mean, as the German idealist
metaphysics at the beginning XIX Century tended to assert it, that God is merely becoming,
merely the end of the world process. Hell does exist for Boehme, but in the hell of Boehme, just
as in the hell of Swedenborg, they do not suffer. With Boehme already there was that new
manner of soul, which could not say like Thomas Aquinas, that the righteous one in paradise
takes delight at contemplating the torment of the sinner in hell. The thoughts of Boehme
concerning freedom and evil remain antinomic. His thoughts, begotten of a basic intuition of the
Ungrund, were not logically harmonious and consistent. When the German idealist metaphysics
attempted to harmonise them and take them to their logical conclusion, within an higher
consciousness, it failed to surmount the tragic antinomy of evil and freedom, it sought to annul, it
dulled down into a primordial monism the acute and burning awareness of evil and freedom.
Boehme's teaching about the Ungrund explains as deriving from freedom the origin of evil, the
downfall of Lucifer, drawing after him in the Fall the whole of creation, yet together with this the
Ungrund carries over into God Himself and explains a genesis, the dynamic process within the
Divine life. Herein becomes possible a break with extreme monism and extreme dualism, alike
mistaken from the perspective of the Christian revelation. The thinking of Boehme is all as it
were on a slender edge and constantly subject to danger from the opposite sides, but his
fundamental intuition is a matter of genius, organic and fruitful. The teaching concerning the
Ungrund and freedom run counter to Greek rationalism, with which the Medieval Scholasticism
was infected and from which even the Patristic thought was not free. Boehme has to be
acknowledged as the founder of the philosophy of freedom, which is genuinely a Christian
philosophy.52 The non-tragic and rationalistic optimism of Thomas Aquinas gives way to a tragic
philosophy of freedom. Freedom -- is the source of tragedy.
Hegel attempted to apply an optimistic character to the very principle of contradiction and
the struggle of opposing principles. He transferred life over into the concept and made the

concept itself to be the source of dramatism and passion. After Thomas Aquinas, Hegel
represents a second genius-like flaring up of rationalism. But at the foundational basis of Hegel's
philosophy lies an irrational principle. The Divinity for Hegel is a primordially unconscious
Deity, which comes to consciousness only through human philosophy, in the philosophy of
Hegel himself. The irrational has to become rationalised, within the darkness there has to be
awakened the light. The rational perception of the irrational, lying at the ground of being, is a
fundamental and grandiose theme of German metaphysics. German philosophy is that of the
metaphysical northlands. The world is not illumined naturally and from the start by the solar
light, it is plunged in darkness, light is obtained through a plunging into the subject, from the
depths of the spirit. In this lies a deep-rooted difference of German thought from the Latin.
German thought understands the reason differently, than does the Latin. Within the German
understanding, reason stands afront the irrational darkness and has to bring light into it. In the
Latin understanding, antiquity's understanding, reason from the start illumines the world, like the
sun, and the reason within man but reflects reason in the nature of things. The German idea
however comes from Boehme, from the teaching about the Ungrund, about freedom, about the
irrational principle, lodged within the depths of being. With Boehme begins a new era in the
history of Christian thought. His influence is enormous, but externally not so obvious, acting
moreso like an inner engrafting. This influence is obvious only in Fr. Baader and Schelling. But
it is there also in Fichte, in Hegel, in Schopenhauer.53 And very strong is Boehme's influence in
Romanticism and in occult currents.54 Without Boehme's intuitions of genius, the rationalism of
antiquity and Scholastic philosophy, as also the rationalism of modern philosophy, of Descartes
and Spinoza, count not be surmounted. Only a mythologic consciousness could have seen an
irrational principle within being, wherein the philosophic consciousness had always seen but a
rational principle. Boehme returns metaphysics back to the sources of the mythological
consciousness of mankind. But his mythological consciousness itself is nourished by the
wellsprings of the Biblical Revelation. From Boehme comes the dynamism of German
philosophy, and it might even be said, the dynamism of all the thought of the XIX Century.
Boehme was the first to have conceived of the world, of life as a passionate struggle, as
movement, process, an eternal genesis. Only amidst such an intuition of world life could there
become possible the phenomenon of Faust, could there become possible Darwin, Marx,
Nietzsche, already so remotely sundered from the religious ponderings of Boehme. The teaching
of Boehme about the Ungrund and about freedom makes it possible to explain not only the origin
of evil, even though antinomically, but also to explain the creativity of the new in world life,
creative dynamics. Creativity by its nature is a creativity from out of meonic freedom, from out
of nothing, from the Ungrund, it presupposes this unfathomable wellspring within being, it
presupposes the darkness, underlying the enlightening. There was an aberration of Boehme in
this, that he thought the Ungrund, the dark principle was in God Himself, rather than seeing the
principle of freedom in the Nothing, in the meonic, outside of God. It is necessary to distinguish
between the Divine Nothing and the non-being outside God. But the thought of Boehme is
inconducive to the understanding, it is somewhat coarse. Boehme would not have consented to
this, that within God is the source of evil. This also is something that tormented him. His thought
remains antinomic, not subject to logical explication. But his moral will was pure, not for an
instant poisoned by an inner evil. Boehme -- was a pious Christian, fervently believing, and with
a pure heart. His viprous wisdom was combined with a simplicity of heart, with faith. This
mustneeds always be kept in mind in making judgements on Boehme. Boehme was neither a

pantheist nor a monist, nor was he a Manichaean. Carriere also correctly says, that Boehme was
neither a pantheist, nor a dualist.
Boehme's idea about the Ungrund tended not only to be further developed, but also
distorted, within German philosophy, similar to what resulted from the wellsprings of the
Christian revelation, from the Christian realism. German metaphysics thus became prone to
imperialism, to monism, it taught about God, as coming about to be within the world process.
But the voluntarism of Boehme was very fruitful for philosophy, just as also was the teaching
about the struggle of opposing principles, of light and darkness, about the necessity of opposition
for the developement of positive principles. The metaphysics of Boehme is a musical Christian
metaphysics and in this it is in character for the German spirit. In this it is distinct from the
architectural Christian metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas, in character for the Latin spirit. The
German metaphysics of the XIX Century attempted to convey a musical theme into a conceptual
system. In this grandiose scope of their project was also the cause for the breakdown of their
systems. At present a revival of Boehme has become feasible. He is written about in a series of
new books. He can be of help in surmounting not only the routines of Greek thought and
Medieval Scholasticism, but also that German Idealism, upon which he himself had an inner
influence. Just also as with Fr. Baader, Boehme for us as Russians ought to be nearer and dearer
than other thinkers of the West. By the unique traits of our spirit we are called to construct a
philosophy of tragedy, and foreign to us is the optimistic rationalism of European thought.
Boehme so loved freedom, that he saw therein the authentic Church, only where there is
freedom. Boehme had an influence on Russian mystical currents of the late XVIII and early XIX
Centuries, but they assimilated him naively and without any creative working out. He was
translated into the Russian language and penetrated right down into the segments of the common
people, into the theosophy of the people, where they esteemed him as almost a father of the
Church. Curiously, Herzen, in his "Letters Concerning the Study of Nature", spoke
enthusiastically about Boehme. Boehme's influence later on can be found in Vl. Solov'ev, but it
was overshadowed by the rationalistic schematism. The philosophy of Vl. Solov'ev cannot be
called a philosophy of freedom or a philosophy of tragedy. But in the Russian thought of the
beginning XX Century those closest to Boehme were writing along suchlike lines. The guardians
of Orthodoxy, having an especial taste for the detection of heresies, tend to fear the influence of
Boehme, as being someone non-Orthodox, a Protestant, as well as a gnostic and theosophist. But
actually the whole Western world is non-Orthodox, the whole of the thought of Western Europe
is a non-Orthodox thought. From such a point of view, indeed, it would become necessary to flee
any involvement with Western thought and moreover struggle against it, as a temptation and evil.
This is a most unadulterated form of obscurantism and a return to our old empty-headedness. The
Christian world in its most creative period nourished itself upon the pagan thought of antiquity.
And in any case Boehme was more a Christian, than was Plato, who stands for high esteem with
us as regards the Patristic tradition, and moreso also than Kant, who is held in high regard by
many Orthodox theologians, e.g. Metropolitan Antonii. Boehme is very difficult a challenge for
the understanding and from him can result very diverse and contrary conclusions. I see the
significance of Boehme for Christian philosophy and Christian theosophy to be in this, that he
attempted by his contemplation to surmount the grip of Greek and Latin thought over the
Christian consciousness, he immersed himself in the primal mystery of life, which the thought of
antiquity had avoided. Christian theology, and not only the Catholic theology, is so overgrown
with Greek thought, with Platonism, Aristotelianism and Stoicism, that any infringements upon

the routines of this thought are regarded as an infringement upon the Christian Revelation. And
indeed the Greek teachers of the Church were learned in Greek philosophy, they were Platonists
and upon their thinking lies the imprint of the limitedness of Greek rationalism. This thinking
failed to resolve the problem of the person, the problem of freedom, the problem of creative
dynamics. Boehme not only was not an Aristotelian, he also was not a Platonist, and his
influence lies outside the struggle between Eastern Platonism and Western Aristotelianism.
Boehme was nigh close only to Herakleitos. I think, that there has to be surmounted in Christian
philosophy not only the Aristotelianism, but also the Platonism, as representing a philosophy
static and of a repetitive world, incapable of pondering the mystery of freedom and creativity.
The teaching of Boehme about Sophia, to which I shall shift in the following etude, is not a
Christian Platonism, as Russian Sophiology tries to conceive of itself, its sense is altogether
different. Boehme's teaching concerning the Ungrund and freedom needs however to be further
developed regarding the distinction between the Divine abyss and Divine freedom, in contrast to
the meonic abyss and meonic freedom.55 In the final inexpressible depths of the mystery this
distinction also will dissipate, but at the threshold in approach of this mystery, this distinction
ought to be made.
Nikolai Berdyaev.
1930
2002 by translator Fr. S. Janos -- with the great and gracious assist of Fr Michael Knechten in
correction of the German portions of the original Put' text, and his intensive review with the
translation from German.
(1930 - 349 -en)
IZ ETIUDOV O YA. BEME. ETIUD I. UCHENIE OB UNGRUND'E I SVOBODE. Journal
Put', feb. 1930, No. 20, p. 47-79.

The edition, which I have used and from which I make citations, is "Jakob Boehme's
Saemmtliche Werke herausgegeben von K. W. Schieber" ["Jacob Boehme's Collected Works
edited by K. W. Schieber"], in seven volumes from the 1840's. From books about Boehme, I have
used: FR. BAADER, "Vorlesungen uber J. Boehme's Theologumena und Philosopheme"
{"Lectures on J. Boehme's Theologumena and Philosophy"}; the third volume from 1852 has
also his "Vorlesungen und Erlaeuterungen zu J. Boehme's Lehre"{"Lectures and Insights into J.
Boehme's Teachings"}; the thirteenth volume of the "Collected Works" is 1855; M. CARRIERE,
"Die Philosophische Weltanschaung der Reformationzeit" {"The Philosophical WorldView of the
Reformation Period"} (there is a large chapter about Boehme); MARTENSEN, "Jakob Boehme.
Theosophische Studien" {"Jacob Boehme. Theosophical Studies"}; HARLESS, "Jakob Boehme
und die Alchymisten" {"Jacob Boehme and the Alchemists"}; EMILE BOUTROUX, "Le
Philosophe allemand Jacob Boehme" {"The German Philosoph Jacob Boehme"}; DEUSSEN,
Jacob Boehme; ELERT, "Die voluntaristische Mystik Jacob Boehmes" {"The Voluntaristic

Mysticism of Jacob Boehme"}; BORNKAMM, "Luther und Boehme"; HANKAMMER, "Jacob


Boehme"; "Jacob Boehme Gedenkgabe der Stadt Goerlitz zu seinem 300 jaehrigen Todestage.
herausgegeben von Richard Jecht" {"Jacob Boehme Commemoration in the City of Goerlitz for
his 300th Year of Repose. edited by Richard Jecht"}, 1924; RUFUS M. JONES, "Geistige
Reformatoren des sechzehnten und siebzehnten Jahrhunderts" {"The Spirit of the reformers of
the Sixteen and Seventeen Hundreds"}, 1925, Quaker Publishing (American author); R.
STEINER, "Mystik" {"Mysticism"}; and the most recent thorough investigation on Boehme: A.
KOYRE, "La Philosophie de Jacob Boehme", 1929.
2

I consider it incorrect to term the old gnostics as Christian heretics. Having been begotten of the
religious syncretism of the Hellenistic era -- they were not so much distorters of Christianity with
the pagan wisdom of the East and Greece, as rather enrichers of this wisdom by Christianity.
3

Close to Boehme, the German Christian theosophist of the XVIII Century, Oetinger, said about
Boehme: "Gott habe ihm durch Offenbarung gezeigt, welche diejenige Grundweisheit sei,
welche zur hl. Schrift gehoert" {"God hath shown him through Revelation, what is that
fundamental wisdom, which doth hearken to the Holy Scripture"}. "Die Theosophie Fr. Chr.
Oetingers", von Auberlen, p. 113.
4

Vide "Jacob Boehme's Saemmtliche Werke" -- edited by K. W. Schiebler, Leipzig, 1831-1846


(used for this and the quotations to follow); Vol. II, "Aurora", p. 255.
5

Vide Vol. II, p. 260.

6 Vide Vol. III, "Die Drei Principien Goettlichen Wesens" {"The Three Principles of the Godly
Essence"}, p. 26-27.
7

Vide Vol. I, p. 144.

Vide Vol. II, "Aurora", p. 19.

Vol. IV, "De signatura Rerum", p. 346.

10

Vol. V, p. 3.

11

Vide Vol. VI, "De incarnatione Verbi", p. 319.

12

Bornkamm accurately points this out in his book, "Luther und Boehme", though he
exaggerates the affinity of Boehme with Luther.
13

14

Vide A. Koyre, "La philosophie de Jacob Boehme", p. 30 and p. 25.

This was beautifully expressed by Valentin Weigel: "Gott ist in sich selber einig und hat keinen
Namen. [...] Er wird aber entweder fuer sich selbst, absolute, betrachtet, ohne alle Kreaturen, wie
er in seiner verborgenen Einigkeit ist, oder respectu creaturarum, wie er sich haelt und erzeigt in
der Offenbarung mit seiner Kreatur. Absolute, allein und fuer sich selbst, ohne alle Kreatur, ist

und bleibt Gott personlos, zeitlos, staettelos, wirkunglos, willenlos, affektlos und also ist er
weder Vater noch Sohn noch heiliger Geist, er ist die Ewigkeit selber ohne Zeit, er schwebt und
wohnt in sich selber an jedem Ort, er wirkt nichts, will auch nichts, begehrt auch nichts. Denn
was sollte er wirken, begehren oder wollen? Ist er doch mit seiner seligen Ruhe und Ewigkiet das
vollkommene All, es ist ihm alles gegenwaertig und nichts zukuenftig noch vergangen, darum
begehrt er nichts, darum hofft er nichts, er besitzt alle Dinge in sich selbst, und ist keines Dinges
beduerftig. [...] Aber respektive d.i. in, mit und durch die Kreatur wird er persoenlich, wirkend,
wollend, begehrend, nimmt Affekte an sich, oder laesst sich unserthalben Personen und Affekte
zuschreiben. Da wird er zum Vater und wird zum Sohne und ist der Sohn selber, er wird zum hl.
Geiste und ist selber der hl. Geist, er will, wirkt und schafft alle Dinge und ist alle Dinge, er ist
aller Wesen Wesen, aller Lebendigen Leben, aller Lichter Licht, aller Weisen Weisheit, aller
Vermoegenden Vermoegen" {"God in Himself is one and has no name. [...] He will however
either have to be considered for Himself an absolute, apart from all creatures, as He is in His
hidden oneness, or respectu creaturarum, as He is and manifests Himself in revealing Himself
with His creature. Absolutely, alone and but for Himself, without any creature, is and remains
God such as is personless, timeless, stateless, inactive, without will or affect, and is also neither
Father nor Son nor Holy Spirit, He is Himself eternity without time, He is present and abides in
Himself in every place, He works nothing, likewise wills nothing, likewise desires nothing. For
then, what is He supposed to work, to desire or will? He is indeed in His blissful repose and
eternity the perfect All, all is in the present for Him and there is nothing future nor of the
transitory past, therefore He desires nothing, therefore He in hope expects nothing, He sustains
all things in Himself, and is needful for His things. But respective, i.e. in, with and through the
creature He is as Person, active, willing, desiring, He assumes upon Himself affect, or lets it be
ascribed to Him in semblance to us of Person and affect. Therein He will become the Father, and
the Son and is the Son Himself, and the Spirit and is Himself the Spirit, He wills, forms and
creates all things and is all things, He is at the essence of all essence, the life of everything alive,
the light of all alight, the wisdom of everything profound, the capacity of everything possible"}.
"Deutsche Froemmigkeit, Stimmen deutscher Gottesfreunde". Verlegt bei Diederichs 1917, p.
183.
15

Vide Vol. III, "Die drei Principien goettlichen Wesens", p. 385.

16

The English follower of Boehme, Pordage, speaks about "the eye of the Ungrund from
eternity". Vide his "Theologia mystica".
17

A nothingness in the sense of me on, and not ouk on.

18

Vide Vol. IV, "Vom dreifachen Leben des Menschen", p. 25.

19

Vide Vol. IV, p. 284-285.

20

Vol. IV, p. 286.

21

Vol. IV, p. 287, 288, 289.

22

Vol. IV, p. 406.

23

Vide Vol. IV, p. 428.

24

Vol. IV, p. 429.

25

Vol. IV, p. 429.

26

The elements of voluntarism were there already in Dun Scotus, but altogether different, than
with Boehme.
27

The darkness here is not as yet evil.

28

Vide Vol. IV, "Von der Gnadenwahl", p. 504.

29

Vide Vol. IV, p. 607.

30

Vide Vol. V, "Mysterium magnum", p. 7.

31

Vide Vol. V, p. 162.

32

Vide Vol. V, p. 164.

33

Vide Vol. V, p. 165.

34

Vol. V, p. 193.

35

Vol. VI, "Psychologia vera", p. 7.

36

Vol. VI, p. 14.

37

Vol. VI, p. 15.

38

Vol. VI, p. 60.

39

Vol. VI, p. 155.

40

Vol. VI, "Mysterium pansophicum", p. 413.

41

Vol. V, "Mysterium magnum", p. 61.

42

Vol. V, "Mysterium magnum", p. 41.

43

Vol. IV, "De signature Rerum", p. 317-318.

44

Vide Vol. V, p. 38.

45

Vol. V, p. 38.

46

Vol. III, "Die drei Principien goettlichen Wesens", p. 385.

47

Vide Vol. V, p. 133.

48

In his final period, the period of the "Philosophy of Mythology and Revelation", Schelling was
indebted to Boehme as regards his basic ideas, but he was very unjust to him and expressed
judgements, lacking in truth. "Was dem Theosophismus zu Grunde lieget, wo er immer zu einer
wenigstens materiell wissenschaftlichen oder speculativen Bedeutung gelangt -- was namentlich
dem Theosophismus Jakob Boehmes zu Grunde liegt, ist das an sich anerkennenswerthe
Bestreben, das Hervorgehen der Dinge aus Gott als einen wirklichen Hergang zu begreifen. Diess
weiss nun aber Jakob Boehme nicht anders zu bewerkstelligen, als indem er die Gottheit selbst in
eine Art von Naturprocess verwickelt. Das Eigenthuemliche der positiven Philosophie besteht
aber gerade darin, dass sie allen Process in diesem Sinne verwirft, in welchem naemlich Gott das
nicht bloss logische, sondern wirkliche Resultat eines Processes waere. Positive Philosophie ist
insofern vielmehr in direktem Gegensatz mit allem und jedem theosophischen Bestreben"
{"What lies at the basis of theosophy, what it always has arrived at as least material scientific or
speculative meaning -- what in particular lies at the groundwork of the theosophy of Jacob
Boehme, is itself a praiseworthy effort to understand the emanation of the things from God as an
actual process. Yet this however is what Jacob Boehme but managed to accomplish, that he
entangles the Godhead Itself within an aspect of the nature-process. The peculiarness of Positive
Philosophy rests directly upon this, that the entire process would reject the sense, in which God
namely be not merely logical, but rather the actual result of a process. Positive Philosophy is far
contrary and in direct contrast to all and every theosophic endeavour"}. ("Schellings
Saemmtliche Werke", Zweite Abteilung, Dritter Band, -- "Philosophie der Offenbarung", B. I.,
1858, p. 121). "Sowie J. Boehme ueber die Anfaenge der Natur hinaus und ins Concrete geht,
kann man ihm nicht mehr folgen; hier verliert sich alle Spur, und es wird stets ein vergebliches
Bemuehen bleiben, ihn aus dem verworrenen Concept seiner Anschauungen ins Reine zu
schreiben, was man auch nacheinander Kantsche, Fichtesche, naturphilosophische, zuletzt sogar
Hegelsche Begriffe dazu anwendet" {"When J. Boehme goes far out beyond the beginnings of
nature and into the concrete, one knows not how to follow him further; here all traces are lost
and it instead will remain a vain effort, to inscribe from the confused concept its intuition in pure,
which one after the other the Kantian, the Fichtean, the Nature-Philosophy, and finally the more
pervasive Hegelian, employs therein"}. (Ibid. p. 124). "Dem Rationalismus kann nichts durch
eine That, z.b. durch freie Schoepfung, entstehen, er kennt bloss wesentliche Verhaeltnisse. Alles
folgt ihm bloss modo aeterno, ewiger, d.h. bloss logischer Weise, durch immanente Bewegung...
Der falsche Rationalismus naehert sich eben darum dem Theosophismus, der nicht weniger als
jener im bloss substantiellen Wissen gefangen ist; der Theosophismus will es wohl ueberwinden,
aber es gelingt ihm nicht, wie am deutlichsten an J. Boehme zu sehen. Wohl kaum hat je ein
anderer Geist in der Glut dieses bloss substantiellen Wissens so ausgehalten wie J. Boehme;
offenbar ist ihm Gott die unmittelbare Substanz der Welt; ein freies Verhaeltniss Gottes zu der
Welt, eine freie Schoepfung will er zwar, aber er kann sie nicht herausbringen. Obgleich er sich
Theosophie nennt, also Anspruch macht, Wissenschaft des Goettlichen zu seyn, ist der Inhalt, zu
dem der Theosophismus es bringt doch nur die substantielle Bewegung, und er stellt Gott nur in
substantieller Bewegung dar. Der Theosophismus ist seiner Natur nach nicht minder
ungeschichtlich als der Rationalismus. Aber der Gott einer wahrhaft geschichtlichen und
positiven Philosophie bewegt sich nicht, er handelt. Die substantielle Bewegung, in welcher der

Rationalismus befangen ist, geht von einem negativen Prius, d.h. von einem nichtseyenden aus,
das sich erst ins Seyn zu bewegen hat; aber die geschichtliche Philosophie geht von einem
positiven, d.h. von dem seyenden Prius aus, das sich nicht erst ins Seyn zu bewegen hat, also nur
mit vollkommener Freiheit, ohne irgendwie durch sich selbst dazu genoethigt zu seyn, ein Seyn
setzt, und zwar nicht sein eignes unmittelbar, sondern ein von seinem Seyn verschiedenes Seyn,
in welchem jenes vielmehr negirt oder suspendirt als gesetzt, also jedenfalls nur mittelbar gesetzt
ist. Es geziemt Gott, gleichgueltig gegen sein eignes Seyn zu seyn, nicht geziemt ihm aber, sich
um sein eignes Seyn zu bemuehen, sich ein Seyn zu geben, sich in ein Seyn zu gebaeren, wie J.
Boehme diess ausdrueckt, der als Inhalt der hoechsten Wissenschaft, d.h. der Theosophie, eben
die Geburt des goettlichen Wesens, die goettliche Geburt ausspricht, also eine eigentliche
Theogonie. [...] Dass nun freilich die positive Philosophie nicht Theosophismus seyn koenne,
diess liegt schon darin, dass sie eben als Philosophie und als Wissenschaft bestimmt worden;
indess jener sich selbst nicht Philosophie nennen und auf Wissenschaft verzichtend aus
unmittelbarem Schauen reden will" {"Nothing is known to rationalism through action, i.e. to
originate through action a free creation, it knows merely the bare essential conditions. All follow
it blindly modo aeterno, in an eternal i.e. blindly logical manner, through an immanent
movement... The false rationalism comes nigh close in points to theosophy, caught up no less
than it in bare substantial knowledge; theosophy itself seeks by and by to surmount it, but if
successful, it would be for naught, as clearly is seen with J. Boehme. Scarcely ever has another
spirit in the glow of this bare substantial knowledge been so noticeable as J. Boehme; God is
revealed for him as the unmediated substance of the world; he indeed wants a free creation, a
free condition of God in relation to the world, but he cannot produce it. Though it calls itself
theosophy, making pretension to be the knowledge of God, it is rather a content, which
theosophy introduces into it, only still a substantial movement, and it postulates God only in the
substantial movement therein. Theosophy of its nature is nowise less historical than rationalism.
But the God of a genuine historical and positive philosophy moves nothing, He acts. The
substantial movement, in which rationalism is involved, proceeds from a negative Prius, a first
principle, i.e. from an unfathomable such that it is the first in being to have movement; historical
philosophy however proceeds from the positive, i.e. from the fathomable Prius, a first principle,
such that it is not the first in being to have movement, yet also only with a perfect freedom,
without somehow through itself being obliged to be, a setting of being, indeed not uniquely
unmediated, without the having from its being a different being, in which this is on the contrary
denied or suspended as legitimate, since in this case only the directly immediate is legitimate.
God has to be effortlessly in His own being. He should not have to make the effort to be, should
not Himself have to be allowed being, should not Himself be born into His being, as J. Boehme
tends to express it, with all the whole content of the utmost knowing, i.e. theosophy, with even
the birth of the Divine Being, speaking about a birth of God, as some sort of an actual theogony.
Positive philosophy certainly cannot grant this now of theosophy, the reason for this is that it is
philosophy and knowledge; for this cannot call itself philosophy, because it renounces of
knowledge and speaks of an unmediated view"}. (Ibid, p. 124-126). Schelling himself might be
quite the more guilty than Boehme in a tendency towards naturalism and rationalism. The
intuitions of Schelling, bearing primarily a philosophic character, would be thus less primary,
than the intuitions of Boehme. But Schelling is subtle in his remark, that theosophism is not
historical and not felicitous for the understanding of history.

49

Vide "Franz von Baader's Saemmtliche Werke", Vol. 13, "Vorlesungen und Erlaeuterungen zu
Jacob Boehme's Lehre" {"Lectures and Explanations on Jacob Boehme's Teachings"}, p. 65.
50

This is stressed particularly by Koyre. Vide his "La philosophie de Jacob Boehme", p. 158.

51

This is well elucidated in the book of Koyre. Vide p. 395-396.

52

Vide Charles Secretan, "La philosophie de la liberte".

53

Kroner, in his notable history of German Idealism, "Von Kant bis Hegel", points to J. Boehme,
alongside Eckhardt and Luther, as one of the sources for German philosophy.
54

Vide the recently arisen and extraordinary interest as regards the material in the two tome
collection of Viatte, "Les sources occultes du Romantisme". Everywhere is apparent the
enormous influence of Boehme.
55

Modern psychology and psychopathology scientifically discern the Ungrund within the human
soul and call it the unconsciousness. But they do not adequately make a distinction between the
subconsciousness and the supra-consciousness, between the lower and the uppermost abyss. Vide
the summation in the book of Dwelshauvers, "L'Inconcient".
With the Ungrund is connected likewise archaic man. In this regard especially important is
Bachofen.

German 1932 original text..


German text (Knechten new translation)..
Jacob Boehme Website..
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