Abstract

This contribution concerns the reception of Jacob Bohme and his works in the historical territories of Poland, primarily in the seventeenth century. Based on new and overlooked archival evidence, it surveys the several readers, correspondents, friends, and followers of Bohme’s theosophy who lived in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. At least one, Balthasar Walther, helped shape the content and trajectory of Bohme’s theosophy. A major focus of this essay is on the complex background to the publication of an eight-volume collection of Bohme’s German-language writings, issued in Toruń in the early 1650s. Led by the mysterious Gottfried Richter, the project involved collaborators from across Europe. On account of its inclusion of several of Bohme’s then-unprinted works, and its incorporation of Abraham von Franckenberg’s influential 1651 biography of the theosopher, the Toruń collection has shaped scholarly and popular understandings of the theosopher’s life and work. Intriguingly, however, the available evidence suggests that the publishing enterprise also involved the poet Johann Scheffler (Angelus Silesius). By examining Bohme’s reception in seventeenth-century Poland, we achieve not only a deeper understanding of the circumstances and the personalities involved in this milieu, but also provide a starting point for reconsidering Bohme’s place in Poland’s religious and intellectual history.