Leseprobe

126 B öhme’s R e ce pti on 2 Tobias Stimmer, Caspar Schwenckfeld, from: Nikolaus Reusner, Icones sive virorum literis illustrium […], Woodcut, 1590, Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, A 135157 GÖR L I T Z/ZGORZE L EC (town in Lusatia, today on the eastern German-Polish border) Böhme had both friends and foes in Görlitz, and this included the city’s clergy. His family was close to that of his pastor, Martin Moller. Böhme was likely influ- enced by Moller’s emphasis on Christian meditation and by his idea that laity should lead informal wor- ship services in the home. WhenMoller died in 1606, Gregor Richter became pastor of the Sts. Peter and Paul Church that Böhme attended. In contrast to Moller, who wanted laity to be able to take on greater roles in religious matters, Richter believed that only an ordained theologian had the authority to make public statements on religion. When Richter learned of Böhme’s Aurora , which was circulating in hand- written form, he attacked Böhme from the pulpit, and in 1613 Richter initiated an investigation that ended with Aurora being confiscated and Böhme being forbidden from writing. In 1624, the year of Böhme’s death, both Richter and Böhme penned polemical texts giving their side of the story. [LM] L EOPOLDSHA I N/ŁAGÓW (town in the region of Silesia, today in Poland) Karl Ender von Sercha (1579–1624), one of Böhme’s most devoted early supporters, readers, correspon­ dents, and interlocutors, lived in Leopoldshain. Ender’s family reputedly were supporters of the spiritualist doctrines of Caspar Schwenckfeld von Ossig (1489/90–1561). According to tradition, Ender copied and publicly distributed manuscript copies of Böhme’s first work, Aurora (1612), which won many adherents to Böhme’s theosophical ideas.Throughout the 1610s and 1620s Ender provided food, money, and other support to Böhme, in order to forward and encourage his theosophical activity. [LP] 1 Unknown artist, Portrait of Chief Pastor Martin Moller, Oil on wood, c. 1605, Ev. Innenstadt­ gemeinde Görlitz