Leseprobe

128 B öhme’s R e ce pti on L I EGN I T Z/L EGN I CA (town in Silesia, today in Poland) Liegnitz was a major centre of Böhme readership and reception. Scribal copies of his works were prepared in Liegnitz by the apothecary Johann Leonard Knobloch (1585–1625), and read by several more residents of the city, including the physician Friedrich Krause, and the imperial toll collector Paul Kaym (c. 1572–1635), who in 1620 contacted Böhme for his opinions con- cerning the Last Judgment. In 1624 Böhme claimed to enjoy the support of Duke Georg Rudolf von Liegnitz (1595–1653) and several of his privy counselors. Yet Böhme also had opponents in the city. Abraham Friese (also Frisius, 1570–1627), head pastor at the church of Sts. Peter and Paul, complained to church officials that Böhme’s Weg zu Christo ( Way to Christ , Görlitz 1624) was heterodox. This complaint prompted Böhme’s troubles in Görlitz. [LP] SCHWE I NHAUS/S´WI NY (town in Silesia, today in Poland) Residence of Johann Sigismund von Schweinichen (1591–1664), one of Böhme’s foremost supporters and correspondents. Von Schweinichen came into contact with Böhme in 1621 after reading his Aurora . Tradition holds that Schweinichen was the publisher of Böhme’s Weg zu Christo ( Way to Christ , Goerlitz 1624). At Schweinhaus, Böhme met a number of other Silesians interested in his theosophical teach- ings. The most significant of these was the mystic Abraham von Franckenberg (1593–1652), who became aware of Böhme’s writings in January 1623. Franckenberg possessed several autograph manu- scripts of Böhme’s works, including Mysterium magnum (1623). Later he composed an influential biography of Böhme and was instrumental in the transmission of Böhme’s writings. [LP] 5 Portrait of Abraham von Franckenberg, 1725, Etching, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, Inv. No. I 4409 S T R I EGAU/SZ T REZGOM (town in Silesia, today in Poland) Striegau was the home of Jonas Daniel Koschwitz (c. 1580–1632), a physician who studied medicine at the University of Wittenberg under Daniel Sennert. Koschwitz first met Böhme in 1621, and like many others in the region, he was interested in Böhme’s ideas about predestination: Böhme rejected the idea that God has already determined all of the details of our lives. After 1621 Böhme and Koschwitz corre- sponded regularly, and Böhme designed a sevenfold method of spiritual rebirth that Koschwitz tried to realize. Koschwitz was the brother-in-law of one of Böhme’s major opponents, Balthasar Tielckau von Hochkirch (also known as Balthasar Tilcken) in the village of Nider-Girßdorf/Miłochów. [LP]