Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T22:40:11.422Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Influence of Jacob Boehme on Russian Religious Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Zdenek V. David
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the eighteenth and more particularly in the nineteenth century, Russia enjoyed a reputation for unusually strong currents of religious spirituality. Most frequently these mystical currents have been traced to peculiarly native traditions, such as the Eastern patristic literature and the “naturally” mystical bent of the Russian mind. The influence of Western mysticism has been minimized, if not entirely overlooked. Actually, Western mysticism and theosophy were eagerly absorbed in Russia by religiously oriented thinkers from the reign of Peter the Great on into the era of romanticism in the early nineteenth century. Finally, Western mystical sources provided the chief inspiration for the leading theologian and philosopher in late nineteenth-century Russia, Vladimir Soloviëv (1853-1900), whose thought in turn had a decisive impact on the intellectual currents of the so-called Silver Age of Russian culture before World War I.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , March 1962 , pp. 43 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1962

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Notable exceptions are Rufus Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion (London, 1909) and Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism (London, 1910).

2 The remarkably lucid work of Hans Martensen and Stephen Hobhouse, Jacob Boehme (London, 1949) and the more detailed work of Alexandre Koyré, La philosophic de Jacob Boehme (Paris, 1929) contain valuable expositions of Boehme's teaching.

3 On the influence of Schwenckfeld, Franck, and Weigel on Boehme, see Koyré, op. cit., pp. 39, 429, 479-502; also Boehme, Epistolae Theosophicae, XII, 54, 59-60. ( Jacob Boehme, , Sämmtliche Werke, ed. Schiebler, K. W. [7 vols.; Leipzig, 1830-47]Google Scholar is used for citations from Boehme. The title of the work and the chapter and section numbers are given.) The concept of androgyny in the originally created human being and in the future perfected one appears in Plato; The Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett (4th ed. rev.; Oxford, 1953), I, 521-25. It recurs in the Jewish cabala and under the influence of Neoplatonism in early Christian writings, most notably in John Scotus Erigena. In this Judaic-Christian setting the division of sexes is traced to the fall of the androgynous Adam, and a restoration of androgyny in the state of salvation is foreseen; e.g., Henry Bett, , Johannes Scotus Erigena (Cambridge, Eng., 1925), pp. 67, 79 Google Scholar. Boehme probably received the idea of androgyny through the cabala, the knowledge of which was diffused in the Renaissance period especially by the works of John Pico della Mirandola and his German disciple Johann Reuchlin (Martensen and Hobhouse, op. cit., p. 153; Koyré, op. cit., pp. 427-28, n. 2). Boehme owed his acquaintance with the ideas of cabalistic mysticism (Questiones Theosophicae, III, 34, VI, 11) primarily to his friend and mentor Balthasar Walther, director of the chemical laboratory in Dresden. Hans Grunsky, , Jacob Boehme (Stuttgart, 1956), pp. 37–38 Google Scholar; Koyré, op. cit., pp. 126-27, n. 7.

4 Concerning the influence of Paracelsus and alchemistic literature on Boehme see Martensen and Hobhouse, op. cit., pp. 21-26; Boehme, Epistolae Theosophicae, XII, 54, 59.

5 Koyré, op. cit., pp. 213-14, 126; Wilhelm Schulze, , “Jacob Boehme und die Kabbala,” Judaica, XI (1955), 12–29 Google Scholar.

6 Gregoire, Henri, Histoire des sectes religieuses (Paris, 1828-45), V, 341 Google Scholar; Albrecht, Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus (Bonn, 1880-86), I, 96–98, II, 106-7, 244-46, 301Google Scholar. Their attachment to Boehme was a major reason for attacks on the Pietists by the orthodox Lutherans: Ritschl, op. cit., II, 147-50; Grégoire, op. cit., V, 338.

7 Concerning Boehme's influence on subsequent theosophic movements, see especially Auguste Viatte, , Les sources occultes du romantisme: Illuminisme-théosophie (2 vols.; Paris, 1928), I, 25–33 Google Scholar, and passim; Underhill, op. cit., pp. 469-73; Serge Hutin, , Les disciples anglais de Jacob Boehme aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siécles (Paris, 1960)Google Scholar. Saint-Martin's attitude is illustrative of the respect in which the later theosophists held Boehme. He considered his own works useless to those who absorbed Boehme's teaching; de Saint-Martin, Louis Claude, Der Dienst des Geist-Menschen (Miinster, 1858), p. 32 Google Scholar. About Boehme he wrote: “I do not consider myself worthy to loosen the sandal straps of that astonishing man whom I regard as the greatest light which appeared on earth after the One Who was light itself“; Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, La correspondence inédite, eds. L. Schauer and A. Chuquet (Paris, 1862), p. 9.

8 Signe Toksvig, , Emanuel Swedenborg: Scientist and Mystic (New Haven, 1948), pp. 83, 234 Google Scholar; Viatte, op. cit., I, 85. The area of religious mysticism does not exhaust the range of Boehme's influence in the West. Newton was deeply interested in Boehme's works, and an impact of theosophy on his scientific thought has been frequently suggested; Karl Popp, , Jacob Boehme und Isaac Newton (Leipzig, 1935), pp. 59–86 Google Scholar. Of great importance is Boehme's contribution to Post-Kantian German idealism, particularly to Hegel and Schelling. See especially Kurt Leese, , Von Jacob Boehme zu Schelling (Erfurt, 1927)Google Scholar; Robert Schneider, , Schellings und Hegels schωäbische Geistesahnen (Würzburg, 1938)Google Scholar; Heinz Burger, , Die Gedankenwelt der grossen Schwaben (Stuttgart, 1951)Google Scholar.

9 No. 3, 1883, pp. 120-21. Nordermann had been introduced to Boehme's teaching around 1669 by a German doctor in Archangel and acquired the latter's library of mystical literature ( op. cit., II, 354).

10 , op. cit., II, 316-19, 326-28, 342-47, 361. Kuhlmann's interest in Russia had been stimulated by a Russian-born German artist, Otto Henin, who painted his portrait in London in 1679 and whom he met again in Amsterdam five years later (, op. cit., p. 139). For documents pertaining to the trial of Kuhlmann and Nordermann, see ibid., pp. 110-49; Dmitri Chyzhevski, Aus zwei Welten (The Hague, 1956), pp. 231-68.

11 J. H. Feustking, Gynaeceum haeretico-janaticum (Wittenberg, 1704), p. 476, cited by Ritschl, op. cit., II, 360. Kellner, who came to Moscow as a private tutor, had joined the Pietist movement in the 1680's while a student of theology in Leipzig. From 1710 till his death in 1738 he resided in Halle, then an important center of Pietist agitation directed toward Russia; ibid.; Bertheau, “Johann Wilhelm Kellner v. Zinnendorf, ” Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, XV (1882), 593-94.,

12 , op. cit., p. 122; Karl Grass, Die russischen Sekten (Leipzig, 1907-14), I, 591-96; (2nd ed. rev.; Petrograd, 1915), pp. 196-99. N. V. Reutskii develops the parallels between the teaching of Kuhlmann and the Khlysty in (Moscow, 1872), pp. 4-5, 12-24, 84.

13 (3rd ed. rev.; St. Petersburg, 1884), p. 365.

14 The attention of Halle Pietists was drawn to Russia with the increasing contacts between their Prussian homeland and the Tsarist Empire in Peter the Great's reign. By seeking to promote an understanding between Protestantism and Orthodoxy, they also hoped to counteract similar efforts by the Jesuits in the Ukraine and White Russia on behalf of the Catholic Church; Eduard Winter, , Halle als Ausgangspunkt der deutschen Russlandkunde im 18. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1953), pp. 31-38, 66-69, 99–104 Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., pp. 123-60, 219-23, 437-38. Georges Florovsky says of Prokopovich: “He did not just stand under the influence of Protestantism, he simply was a Protestant“; “Westliche Einflüsse in der russischen Theologie, ” Kyrios, II (1937), 11.

16 Winter, op. cit., pp. 227-30, 234-39; Filaret, op. cit., p. 325; Dmitri Chyzhevski, “Die 'Russische Drucke’ der Hallenser Pietisten, ” Kyrios, III (1938), 60, 66-68. The printed treatises included works by August Francke, his collaborator Johann Freylinghausen, and an earlier theologian favored by the Pietists, Christian Arndt; Dmitri Chyzhevski, “Der Kreis A. H. Franckes in Halle und seine slavistischen Studien, ” Zeitschrift filr slavische Philologie, XVI (1939), 31-32. Winter, op. cit., pp. 227-30, 234-39; Filaret, op. cit., p. 325; Dmitri Chyzhevski, "Die 'Russische Drucke' der Hallenser Pietisten, " Kyrios, III (1938), 60, 66-68. The printed treatises included works by August Francke, his collaborator Johann Freylinghausen, and an earlier theologian favored by the Pietists, Christian Arndt; Dmitri Chyzhevski, "Der Kreis A. H. Franckes in Halle und seine slavistischen Studien, "Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie, XVI (1939), 31-32.

17 Winter, op. cit., pp. 105, 239-40. Todorskii taught at Kiev from 1738 to 1742. He became bishop of Pskov three years later, still maintaining discreet relations with the Halle Pietists. Pietist books from Halle were openly used by the clergy of the diocese of Kiev and, until their confiscation was ordered in 1743 by the Holy Synod, they were sold in the bookstore of the Kievan monastery. In a Moscow monastery one of the Pietist tracts was read to the monks at mealtimes in the late 1730's. See ibid., p. 237; Chyzhevski, Kyrios, III, pp. 66-67.

18 (Paris, 1937), pp. 104-7, 109-12; Kyrios, II, 13. Florovsky characterizes Platon's theological orientation as a “churchified pietism“ (votserkovlennyi pietizm), op. cit., p. 166. Subsequently, in 1786 Platon's sympathy helped to save the Boehmist circle of Russian Freemasons from an immediate suppression by the Tsarist government (Filaret, op. cit., pp. 407-8).

19 ..., pp. 120, 123; Chyzhevski, Zeitschrift fiir slavische Philologie, XVI, 33; Dmitri Chyzhevski, “Skovoroda Studien, ” ibid., VII (1930), 8-13, 19-25, XII (1935), 74-76, 309-19. Skovoroda may have also drawn in part on Boehme's predecessor Weigel; ibid., XII, 331-32. Skovoroda's authorship of the Boehme translations, or at least his knowledge of them, is advanced by their discoverer Bishop Filaret (op. cit., p. 365).

20 In an advanced age Skovoroda was to criticize the followers of Boehme among Russian Freemasons, with whom otherwise he had so much in common, for their interest in occult sciences (ibid., pp. 364-65).

21 (Petrograd, 1915), pp. 9, 24, 52, 91, 199-200.

22 Even under Elagin's leadership, however, the lodges opposed Voltairism, i.e., deism and freethinking, and were pledged to foster religious sentiments. Elagin himself was interested in Saint-Martin; , No. 4, 1893, pp. 117-43.

23 Woellner, trained as a Lutheran clergyman, rose by 1770 to the position of a Prussian royal councilor. Long engaged in Masonic activity, he became Oberdirektor in the lodge of “Three Globes” in 1779; Paul Schwartz, , Der erste Kulturkampf in Preussen um Kirche und Schule (Berlin, 1925), pp. 39–43 Google Scholar; Bailleu, P., “Johann Christoph v. Woellner, ” Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, XLIV (1898), 150–51.Google Scholar

24 (Petrograd, 1917), pp. 67 ff.; , op. cit., pp. 266-67. Branches of the theoretical degree existed within the local Masonic lodges of St. Petersburg, Mogilev, Orel, Vologda, and Simbirsk; George Vernadski, “Beitrage zur Geschichte der Freimauerei und des Mystizismus in Russland, ” Zeitschrift fur slavische Philologie, IV (1927), 164. Schroeder's diary written in Russia is printed in op. cit., pp. 215-34.

25 Ibid., pp. 267, 269, 316. Trubetskoi further exhorted Rzhevskii: “I thank God that the works … of our brother Jacob Boehme are agreeable to your heart; … believe me that the more you read them, the more the spirit of the Lord (revealed through this great man and favorite—or better a friend—of God) shall be rooted in your heart and, arousing your dormant magical powers and properties, shall transform you into a member of our Arch- Magus and Savior, Who also is revealed to you in the works of Boehme, in a way in which no human tongue and no man can reveal or describe to you.” ﹛Ibid., pp. 263-64).

26 ibid., pp. 263-64, 269.

27 (Petrograd, 1916), pp. 358–59.

28 , No. 1, 1884, pp. 15, 30.

29 (2nd ed.; Moscow, 1836-39), I, 47, 200; II, 233; III, 36-37, 163; Labzin in Introduction to Jacob Boehme, , Christosophia (St. Petersburg, 1815), p. xxiv Google Scholar, cited by , op. cit., Ill, Part I, 72.

30 Gamaleia translated the 1682 edition of Boehme's works, other contemporary translations were based on the edition of 1715; Chyzhevski, Aus zxvei Welten, pp. 208-9. The most important surviving selection from Boehme's works bears the title and is based on a German original published in Amsterdam in 1700; C. II-BI, op. cit., pp. 134-36. For detailed lists of the Masonic translations of theosophic literature, see Vernadski, Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie, IV, 162-78; Chyzhevski, Aus ziuei Welten, pp. 191-96. None of the Boehme translations was printed, being apparently considered too secret by the Masons.

31 ., No. 1, 1884, pp. 24-28.

32 , p. 52.

33 Cited in p. 659.

34 Novikov was imprisoned and other members of the Hauptdirektorium confined to their country estates (, op. cit., pp. 37-38). When relations between Russia and Prussia became strained in the early 1790's, the Berlin connections of the Masons were an important factor in their suppression. Woellner had been appointed Minister of Justice by his grateful disciple Frederick William II, and thus the Masonic leadership in Russia found itself in a spiritual subordination to the high-ranking official of a hostile power; ibid., pp. 43-44; Pyc. Apx., No. 3, 1875, pp. 75-76; Schwartz, op. cit., pp. 94-101.

35 Pyc. Cmap., No. 1, 1876, p p . 271-72; , , op. cit., No. 12, 1894, p p . 117-18.

36 Speransky himself became a devoted student of theosophy during the years of his political prominence, and Boehme belonged among his favorite authors; Pyc. Cmap., No. 5, 1902, pp. 254-55. Golitsyn's conversion to mysticism followed his appointment as Procurator of the Holy Synod in 1803; Pyc. Apx., No. 2, 1886, 52-86. Koshelev had personally known Swedenborg and Saint-Martin and later corresponded with Eckartshausen; ibid., pp. 79, 86-89. Alexander I, converted to theosophic mysticism at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, joined the Biblical Society in 1813. On his contact with European theosophists, see Viatte, op. cit., II, 192-203.

37 H e wrote further: “I have thanked the God-Savior that he sent me these words through his righteous Jacob … “ About the central message he said: “And thus I read further where the holy Boehme warns me that, when I decide to become the new man on the way to a rebirth, … I will have decided to entrust my body and soul to God's will, thus making a renunciation of all and of my own self…“; cited in Chyzhevski, Aus zwei Welten, p. 212. Lokhvitskii also became interested in alchemistic literature; Filaret, op. cit., p. 449. On the activities of Gamaleia in this period, see Pyc. Cmap., No. 1, 1872, pp. 560-64.

38 op. cit., No. 11, 1894, pp. 59-61, 83-91, No. 12, 1894, pp. 113, 119-27, No. 1, 1895, p. 79. Labzin included in his edition of Der Weg zu Christo an account of Boehme's life and a list of Boehme's writings. Bezsonov lists in detail Labzin's theosophic publications in op. cit., pp. 826-30. Beside Labzin there were other publishers of theosophic books, most of them members of the Biblical Society, especially Zakhar Karneev, a senator and curator of the Kazan educational region; Ivan Shamshin; Countess Sophia Meshcherskaia; and Aleksandra Khvostova, who also wrote for ., No. 12, 1894, p. 118.

39 Ibid., No. 12, 1894, pp. 99-100; op. cit., pp. 546-57; ., n.v. (1914), 4-5.

40 Letter of Nevzorov to Metropolitan Seraphim, J u n e 23, 1825, p r i n t e d in (Petrograd, 1916-17), I, 285.

41 , No. 3, 1856, pp. 93-100.

42 Cited in Chyzhevski, Aus zwei Welten, p. 213.

43 Filaret, op. cit., p. 446; Archimandrite Fotii , No. 8, 1895, p. 177. Photius concentrated his attack on Labzin and on the latter's protector Golitsyn, whom he called “the most complete heretic, so to say, an apostate” (ibid., p. 184).

44 p. 4. Labzin was exiled in 1822 from Petersburg to Simbirsk, where he died two years later; op. cit., pp. 274-76. The Biblical Society was entirely abolished in 1826.

45 (Moscow, 1889-92), I, Part II, 440-42, cited by Alexandre Koyre, , La philosophie et lé probléme national en Russie au début du XIXe siécle (Paris, 1929), p. 88 Google Scholar; ibid., p. 136. On the theosophic background of German romanticism, see especially Viatte, op. cit.; David Baumgardt, , F. von Baader und die philosophische Romantik (Halle, 1928)Google Scholar; Rudolf Unger, , Hamann und die Aufklädrung: Studien zur Vorgeschichte des romantischen Geistes (2 vols.; Jena, 1911)Google Scholar.

46 op. cit., I, p. xxix.

47 pp. 247, 254-57. The other important Slavophile leader, Alexei Khomiakov, was a marginal member of the Moscow romantic circle in the 1820's and also became deeply interested in Schelling, who had a strong impact on his religious thought. Khomiakov, however, did not proceed beyond Schelling to Boehmist theosophy itself; Albert Gratieux, , A. S. Khomiakov et le mouvement Slavophile (Paris, 1939), 1, 8-9, 11, 17, II, 218–19 Google Scholar.

48 XXXIX (1929), 274-305, XL (1929), 335-67. Even Bakunin read Saint-Martin and Eckartshausen in the 1830's; Eugene Pyziur, , The Doctrine of Anarchism of Michael A. Bakunin (Milwaukee, 1955), p. 26 Google Scholar. Concerning young Leo Tolstoy's interest in Masonic and theosophic writings, as well as the influence of the mystical literature of Alexander I's time on Gogol, see , pp. 267-68, 407.

49 Ill, 238-39, XXI, 98, 112.

50 pp. 217-18. Despite his misgivings Protasov was unable to suppress the influence of German mysticism and romanticism with the exception of the Theological Academy of St. Petersburg, after his confidant Athanasii Drozdov became its rector in 1842 (ibid., pp. 209-10, 218).

51 op. cit., I, p. i.

52 (Kiev, 1869) includes lectures by Borisov and Avseniev.

53 Soloviëv's older Russian contemporary, Helena Blavatskii, became well known in the West for her peculiar “theosophic” movement, which she had launched in New York in 1875 and which attracted followers particularly in the United States and in England. She relied, however, on the esoteric lore of the Orient (Hindu and Buddhist), which lay outside the Boehmist theosophical tradition in Russia; Gertrude Williams, , Priestess of the Occult: Madame Blavatsky (New York, 1946), pp. 102, 210, 239-40, 294–95 Google Scholar. Among the isolated Russians who took a transient interest in her work was the spiritualist Alexander Aksakov, first cousin of the Slavophiles Konstantin and Ivan Aksakov, and the novelist Vsevolod Soloviëv, Vladimir's older brother; .

54 (St. Petersburg, 1897-98), I, p. lxxxviii.

55 ., I, 171-72; IX, 392-95. Viktor Kudriavtsev-Platonov, whose course Soloviëv attended in the Moscow Academy, was Golubinskii's disciple and successor in the chair of philosophy. Golubinskii's son Dmitrii, devoted to his father's ideas, also taught in the Academy; op. cit., LXIII (May, 1916), 57-60, 65.

56 See testimony of Soloviëv's friends Leo Lopatin in , (Moscow and Petrograd, 1923), pp. 42–43. With Strakhov, Soloviëv studied Saint-Martin , I, 6). Tolstaia perpetuated in her salon the theosophic interests of her late husband; ibid., II, 199-201; Andre Lirondelle, he poeté A. Tolstoi (Paris, 1912), pp. 128, 161

57 III, 283-97. The view that Soloviëv was not influenced by Boehme's ideas directly, but through Baader (advanced, for instance, in Koyr£, La philosophic de Jacob Boehme, pp. 213-14), is refuted by the testimony of Lopatin (op. cit., pp. 59-60). See also D. Stremooukhoft, , Vladimir Soloviev et son oeuvre messianique (Paris, 1935), p . 57Google Scholar.

58 Thus V. V. Zenkovskii points out that both major interpreters of Soloviëv, Konstantin Mochulskii, (Paris, 1936), p. 10, and Stremooukhoff (op. cit., pp. 7-8) accept the doctrine of Sophia as central, yet they do not succeed “in deducing Solovyov's basic theories from his Sophiology“; A History of Russian Philosophy (New York, 1953), II, 479. Both attempt to derive Soloviëv's system primarily from Schelling and Greek Orthodox theology, and to do so they are forced to treat Soloviëv's doctrines largely outside the Sophianic context, despite their prior assertion of the primacy of Sophia in his system.

59 Schelling barely touches on the subject of Sophia, though in other respects he was indebted to Boehme; Jankélévitch, Vladimir, L'odyssée de la conscience dans la derniére philosophic de Schelling (Paris, 1932), pp. 117–18 Google Scholar. In traditional Orthodox theology “Sophia“ is simply identified with Christ, as Soloviev himself points out in La Russie et l'£glise universelle (Paris, 1889), p. 263. On the incompatibility of Soloviëv's doctrine with the Orthodox view of Sophia, see also I (1950), 159-72. The tendency to overemphasize Schelling's contribution to Soloviev has persisted into the 1950's; Ludolf Mueller, , Solovjev und der Protestantismus (Freiburg i. B., 1951), pp. 96–123 Google Scholar.

60 The cabalist concept of Shekhinah in some respects resembles Soloviëv's Sophia, though not as closely as Boehme's formulation does. It is possible that Soloviev absorbed certain cabalist ideas either directly, since he studied cabalist literature (., No. 3, 1910, p. 482), or through Boehme. Schelling, though also interested in cabalistic thought, was not significantly influenced by the teaching on Shekhinah; Wilhelm Schulze, , “Schelling und die Kabbala,” Judaica, XIII (1957), 65–99, 143-70, 210-32Google Scholar.

61 Mysterium Magnum, VI, 2; De Tribus Principiis, XIV, 87; La Russie, pp. 241, 261; ., I, 378. Boehme refers to Sophia as die göttliche or himmlische Wesenheit (Myst. Mag., LVI, 29; De Electione Grattae, III, 26), also as die wesentliche Weisheit (De Testamentis Christi, Bapt., I-I, 21, 23, 26), Soloviëv as absolutnaia sushchnost’ ( ., Ill, 111) and la Sagesse essentielle (La Russie, pp. 228, 235-36, 261).

62 Boehme identifies Sophia as Gottes Leib or die gottliche Leiblichkeit (Trib. Princ, XXII, 73-74; De Signatura Rerum, X, 8; De Triplici Vita, V, 68), Soloviev as telo Bozhie ( ., I, 355, III, 115). This identification of Sophia with the Body of God has a cabalistic background as well. The extrinsic manifestation of God, regarded as his “Body, ” became gradually assimilated with Shekhinah; Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (2nd ed.; New York, 1954), pp. 63-64. In the other sense Boehme speaks of Sophia as Herrlichkeit Gottes (Myst. Mag., XV, 1; Sig. Re., X, 41; El. Grat., Ill, 28-29), Soloviev as slava Bozhiia, tsarstvo slavy ( ., I l l , 118, 168-69).

63 Boehme designates each pole as a Centrum, Soloviëv as a tsentr (e.g., Trip. Vita, IV, 67; ., I, 350-51, 353). On the first center, Boehme's Eine, see Myst. Mag., X, 39, LX, 8, LXXI, 23; El. Grat., IV, 40-41; Clavis, 49; Soloviev's edinoe, ., I, 350, I I , 296, I I I , 87-88. On Boehme's prima materia, see Trib. Princ, I, 5, 7; on Soloviëv's pervaia materiia or prima materia, ., I, 350, 353, I I , 315, I I I , 135-36. cerning Boehme's Centrum Naturae or Centrum der Natur, see Psychologia Vera, I, 26; £/. Grat., IX, 58; Sig. Re., II, 28; Sex Puncta Theosophica, VII, 9; Soloviëv's tsentr natury, ., I l l , 135-36. Both speak of the Center of Nature or prime matter as the “dark fire“—temnyi ogon', das finstere Feuer ( ., HI, 135, 160; Myst. Mag., IV, 17; El. Grat., II, 14-16, VI, 9).

64 Myst. Mag., VI, 13-20, XL, 8; El. Grat., II, 35; Puncta Theos., I, 50; ., I, 375-76, I I , 315. On Boehme's die ewige Idea, see Questiones Theosophicae, I, 2-3, X I I , 2-4, 16-19; Trib. Princ, XV, 13; Soloviëv's vechnaia ideia, ., I, 355-57, I I I , 144-45. On the Magia, Sex Puncta Mystica, V, 6-8; El. Grat., I, 14; ., I, 376.

65 Puncta Myst., V, 7; El. Grat., II, 28; Myst. Mag., VII, 7-10, 12-14; Sig. Re., XIV, 33; Trib. Princ, VII, 25-26; ., I, 357-58, I I I , 70, 139, 141; La Russie, pp. 229, 235, 243-44.

66 £El Grat., I, 6; Myst. Mag., VII, 10; Trip. Vita, V, 44; De Incarnatione Verbi, I-XII, 1; La Russie, pp. 223, 229; ., I, 375-76.

67 MPuncta Theos., I., 50-51; Myst. Mag., VII, 5; Trip. Vita, II, 60, IX, 40; ., I, 358, 374, III, 140. Boehme distinguishes the “inner” Word (das innere Wort), the “outer” or “revealed“ Word (das aussere or offenbarte Wort), and the “incarnate” or “formed” Word (das eingeleibte or geformte Wort). Cf., Sig. Re., IX, 22; Myst. Mag., VII, 10, XII, 31, XV, 8, XXXVI, 85; also Koyre\ La philosophic de Jacob Boehme, p. 276. Soloviäv likewise differentiates among vnutrennii or skrytyi Logos, vneshnii or obnaruzhenyi Logos, and voploshchenyi or konkretnyi Logos ( ., I, 375-77). Differentiations among types of the divine Word were employed by the cabala (Scholem, op. cit., p. 216) and also by the Stoics to symbolize the stages of divine creation by an analogy with the formation of human speech. Soloviev's specific use of the triple Logos in the tripartite formation of Sophia is, however, peculiarly Boehmist.

68 Sig. Re., XIII, 1; ., I, 376. Thus Boehme speaks of Sophia as Leib Christi, Soloviäv as telo Khristovo (Myst. Mag., X, 57-58; Trip. Vita, V, 68; El. Grat., Ill, 26; Trib. Princ, App., 27; ., HI, 141, 180).

69 Myst. Mag., II, 8-10, XVI, 10; Trib. Princ, XV, 10-12, 15; Trip. Vita, VI, 48-50, XI, 13; La Russie, pp. 236, 241, 255; ., III, 132, 140, 149-50, VII, 45-46.

70 Boehme speaks of Sophia as t h e “heavenly humanity” (die himmlische Menschheit), Soloviev as t h e “ideal humanity” (ideal'noe chelovechestvo). Cf., Myst. Mag., XXIII, 3; El. Grat., V, 29; Inc. Verbi, I-XII, 1; Trip. Vita, XI, 13; ., I l l , 121, 140. On Sophia as the image of God, according to which man was originally created (Gottes Bild, Gottes Gleichnis; obraz Bozhii, podobie Bozhie), see El. Grat., V, 12; Inc. Verbi, I-XII, 1; ., I l l , 140, 150, VII, 46.

71 Trib. Princ, XII, 40, XIII, 40; La Russie, p. 235; ., I l l , 140-41. Boehme refers to t h e antagonist of Sophia usually as Seele der grossen Welt and Geist dieser Welt, occasionally also as Seele der Creation or Seele der Erde (Sig. Re., VIII, 3, XII, 35; El. Grat., V, 15-16; Trib. Princ, XX, 8), Soloviev as mirovaia dusha, dusha mira, I'dme du monde ( ., Ill, 141, 144; La Russie, pp. 235, 242). T h e concept of the World Soul, as the organic center of t h e universe, occurs also in the thought of Plato, in Neoplatonism and i n German romanticism, especially in Schelling, but without the Sophianic connection; e.g., The Dialogues of Plato, III, 720, 722-23; Friedrich Schelling, Sammtliche Werke, ed. K. Schelling (Stuttgart a n d Augsburg, 1856-61), VI, 40-44, X I , 415-17.

72 Trip. Vita, V, 34; Trib. Princ, XX, 8-9; Myst. Mag., XXII, 3; ., IE, 158; La Russie, p. 269.

73 Myst. Mag., X, 57-58, XXIII, 37-39, LVI, 29; Sig. Re., X, 8; ., I l l , 172, 180; La Russie, pp. 260-63.

74 Trib. Princ, XV, 46, XVII, 114; Myst. Mag., LII, 13-14; El. Grat., VII, 45; Test. Christi, Bapt., I-I, 23, I I I - I I I , 24; ., I l l , 166; La Russie, pp. 325, 332-33, 336. See also Martensen and Hobhouse, op. cit., p p . 156-57.

75 Trib., Princ, XII, 55, XVII, 11, XXII, 33; Myst. Mag., XXX, 3-4; ., VII, 21, 33-34. The power of sex is regarded as the cosmic integrative force, rooted in the divinity itself, also by the cabalistic tradition and, among more recent Christian mystics, by Swedenborg. For the cabala the power of sex ultimately emanates from the “matrimonial relationship“ between God and his Shekhinah (Scholem, op. cit., pp. 226-27). For Swedenborg the same relationship prevails between the two basic constituents of God, the good and the true, and “the universal conjugal sphere … proceeds from the Lord, and permeates the universe from the first things to the last, from angels to worms.” Emanuel Swedenborg, Deliciae Sapientiae de Amore jugiali [sic], ed. S. H. Worcester (New York, 1889), p. 87. Soloviëv sees the apex of the union of sexual principles in the relation between the active masculine power of the Word and the “terrestrial power” or “divinized nature” of Sophia, serving as the passive feminine principle [La Russie, pp. 258-60). This view closely parallels the interpretation of Boehme according to whom the male principle (Limbus), emanating from the Word, is united with the female principle (Matrix) in Sophia (Myst. Mag., XIX, 17; Trib. Princ, X, 18-20; El. Grat., V, 35).

76 Trib. Princ, X, 21, XII, 61, XIII, 38-39; Trip. Vita, VII, 25; ., VII, 24, 46-47, IX, 234.

77 Sig. Re., XII, 13: Trib. Princ, XIV, 90; Trip. Vita, VIII, 5; ., Ill, 171-72; La Russie, pp. 241, 265. Boehme refers to Sophia in this connection as das göttliche Freudenreich or Reich Gottes (El. Grat., IX, 110; Myst. Mag., LVI, 30), Soloviëv as tsarstvo Bozhie, Royaume de Dieu ( ., III , 164; La Russie, p. 242).

78 Sig. Re., XII, 35-36; Trib. Princ, XX, 133; La Russie, p. 263.

79 On Soloviev's influence and the revival of interest in Boehmist theosophy, see especially (Moscow, 1918), pp. 71–114; Zenkovskii, op. cit., II, 793, 840, 843, 853-54.