Abstract

The present text first engages with the ambiguity of the term “mysticism,” which has been applied equally to Jacob Bohme and Johann Scheffler (Angelus Silesius). Against this background, the chapter sketches Bohme’s hagiographically stylized biography and points to the group of his followers with whom Bohme discussed his main topoi. These include the Ungrund, Trinity, the seven sources or qualities, the androgynous Adam, Sophia and Mary, the Fall of Man, Restitution and apocalyptic discussions, which must be understood in the context of the Thirty Years’ War. Johann Scheffler, who was born in the year of Bohme’s death (1624), became acquainted with the latter’s texts during his student days in Leiden and later probably also through his friend Abraham von Franckenberg, who knew Bohme personally. After Silesius’ conversion to Catholicism in 1653, his most important writings, for example the Cherubinischer Wandersmann (1657/1675) and the spiritual poems Heilige Seelenlust (1657/1668), are evidently oriented exclusively toward the medieval and Catholic spiritualists of the Early Modern period. The main topoi of Bohme’s theosophy do not appear in these writings. Therefore, one cannot speak of a clear and demonstrable influence of Bohme on Angelus Silesius.