762

Dia/ogue

2 The pages in t'at~H/;llrO

with an asterisk (*) to distinguish
them from the pages of .!bl~iittffi1~~hhiich are numbered without an asterisk.

Boehme: An Intellectual Biography of the Seventeenth-Century

Philosopher and Mystic
ANDREW WEEKS

Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1991, xii + 268 pp.

I will not be coy, making you guess whether or not I liked this book. I liked it.
Weeks has written both an important and a good book. In order to explain why
this is a good book, however, I must first explain why it is an important book.
In Boehme scholarship, there have traditionally been several types of interpre
tation. First, many writers consciously or unconsciously have regarded Boehme
as proto-Hegelian.' While Hegel certainly knew about Boehme, and discussed him
in his History of Philosophy, there is doubt about how much of Boehme Hegel
actually appropriated. Nevertheless, the point is that later interpreters sometimes
have a tendency to think that Boehme's dialectic is basically the same as Hegel's,
only expressed more figuratively.
The problem with this position is that it obscures and distorts elements of
Boehme's dialectic. For instance, Boehme had a type of concern for the ontologi
cal status and knowledge of individuals that is not easily found in Hegel. He did
not historicize his dialectic the way Hegel did. He invested a great deal in the
beginning of the dialectic, whereas Hegel seems more concerned about the ulti
mate end of the dialectic. This is not to say, of course, that Boehme is better than
Hegel, but only different.
A second tendency is what might be called the "metaphysication" of Boehme.
Some writers2 interpret Boehme as constructing a metaphysical system, and as
such are inclined to downplay the fluidity and dynamism of Boehme's dialectic. In
fact, Boehme's system was conceived as an antidote to metaphysics. The Ungrund
that is at the core of the dialectic is explicitly not a grounding for all else, but rather
a Chaos that challenges the complacency of metaphysical entities. For Brinton (for
instance), Boehme's system is evolutionary; for Boehme, however, there is no Auf
hebung, no progress or development that builds on what went before and at the
same time negates it. Boehme holds that individuals manifest themselves by a free
choice of their imagination to co-operate with Ungrund, but this never negates
Ungrund. The result for Boehme is that individuals are constantly chalIenged by
the chaos that lies at their core. Metaphysicians, on the other hand, consider that
negative core to be the same as the positive grounding of (for instance) an Aristo
telian metaphysic.
A third (loosely defined) group of interpreters has chosen to emphasize
Boehme's voluntarism. Drawing more on Schelling's appropriation of Boehme
than Hegel's,) these interpreters (the most important of whom are Nicolas Ber
dyaev in Russia and Alexandre Koyre in Francet emphasized the dynamism of
Boehme's dialectic. Berdyaev sees Boehme as a proto-existentialist, while Koyre
emphasizes the historical development of Boehme's work. Both avoid metaphysi

Book Reviews/ Comptes rendus 763

cal categories, and it must be said that they are the most faithful and successful of
Boehme's interpreters. They are, however, relatively inaccessible, and neither con
textualizes Boehme in his historical and intellectual milieu.
A fourth type of interpretation is the tendency, as Weeks puts it, to "allocate
[Boehme] to the timeless category reserved for the mystics of all ages and cultures"
(p. xi). Boehme in the hands of the devout becomes spiritualized, and is regarded
as little more than inspiration for living. He is taken out of the realm of historical
influence and made one of the Enlightened Ones. This is accentuated by empha
sizing his lack of education and his visionary experiences. It is much less common
to find this type of interpretation today; yet, it still exists.5
Weeks augments and corrects these types of interpretation by providing for
Boehme what has always been lacking: a cultural, historical and political contex
tualization. He takes us beyond Hegel to Boehme in his own time. He resists mak
ing Boehme's dialectic into a metaphysical system by following Nicolas Berdyaev
and Alexandre Koyre in emphasizing the irrationality of the will and the impor
tance of freedom. He helps us to understand why Boehme's historical develop
ment occurred. And, without dismissing the spiritual significance of Boehme's
writing, he manages to portray a thinker who struggled with the issues of his day.
A mystic, perhaps, but one with his feet on the ground.
Because of this, Boehme is an important book. But it is also for the most part a
good book, primarily because Weeks demystifies Boehme. For most commenta
tors, Boehme's context is completely irrelevant; for Weeks, Boehme is a Lusatian
caught up in the conflicts between the princes, the Crypto-Calvinists, the orthodox
Lutherans and any number of other political and intellectual factions. The devel
opment of Boehme's thought begins to make more sense as it is seen in context.
Weeks makes Boehme less exotic, but more significant.
There are places, however few and far between, where I would disagree with
Weeks's account of Boehme. For instance, he says on page 105 that "Boehme is
trying to formulate an understanding of a creation which is neither ex nihilo nor
ex materia, but rather ex Deo (and therefore both out of nothing else and out of a
divine material). If this is really true, there is a major (and I think, unsolvable)
problem concerning evil. He addresses this issue in the preceding paragraph, and
argues that the origin of evil lies in an eternal moment of the theogony, and is part
of the necessary self-realization of God. But if this is true, Boehme has not solved
the problem at all. If creation is a kind of Plotinian emanation, it is difficult to
absolve God of the blame. The answer, I think, lies in the chaotic nature of the
Ungrund, which makes it possible both that the spirit of God and the spirits of
individuals are primordial, and also that the manifestation (and, indeed, reality)
of these individuals depends on the spirit of God infusing them. This way, evil can
be explained as the refusal of these proto-individuals to allow God to infuse them,
and it still can be said that God is the creator of all that exists and finds his man
ifestation in the development of individuals.
As an introduction to Boehme's thought, this book is valuable. For a reader
whose only acquaintance with Boehme is as an influence on someone else, Weeks
provides useful summaries of the arguments of Boehme's major works, within the
chronological context of a biography. He is, it should be said, stronger on Boehme's
early works than on his later ones. The summaries emphasize thematic progression
and historical reference rather than internal structure (for instance, in his treatment

764

Dialogue

of Signature Rerum, he does not notice that the work seems to be an amalgam of
three smaller sections, since it starts its project anew in Chapters 1,9 and 13).
This selectivity, however, does not damage this intellectual biography. Weeks set
out to write a book that "examines [Boehme's] writings work by work and relates
them to his life and times, in order to survey and, where necessary, revise his stand
ing in intellectual history" (p. xi). In this task he has succeeded, and if he has not
done everything he might have done, we should not let the minor problems distract
us from the major achievement.
Notes

A recent example of this is David Walsh, The Mysticism of Innerworldly Fulfill

ment (Gainsville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1983); much earlier is Elizabeth
Haldane, "Jacob Boehme in his Relation to Hegel," Philosophical Review, 6
(1897): 146-61.
2 I have in mind here John 1. Stoudt, Sunrise to Eternity (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1957), and Howard Brinton, The Mystic Will (New York:
Macmillan, 1930).
3 The best work in English on the influence of Boehme on Schelling is Robert
Brown, The Later Philosophy of Schelling: The Influence of Boehme on the Works
of 1809-1815 (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1977). As Hegel has
been much more influential in Western philosophy than Schelling, the "Hegeliza
tion" of Boehme is more prominent (and more problematic) than interpretation
derived from Schelling.
4 Nicolas Berdyaev, "Ungrund and Freedom," in Six Theosophic Points (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1958), and Alexandre Koyre, La Philoso
phie de Jacob Boehme (Paris: 1. Vrin, 1929).
5 An example in this century is Sheldon Cheney, Men Who Have Walked with God
(New York: Alfred Knopf, 1945), pp. 238-84
BRUCE JANZ

Augustana University College

Avant-prop traduction et glossaire par JEAN-FABIEN SPITZ

Collection Fon
ents de la politique
Paris, Presses Univer' ires de France, 1993,201
rappeler

e l'reuvre politique de Jean Bodin est

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nklin publia a Cambridge, en 1973,
l'ouvrage intitule Jean Bod' and the Rise 0 bsolute Theory, !'idee de souverai
nete n'avait pas encor onne lieu aux analyses . toriques et philosophiques que
mtenant. Malgre les etudes jun . ues ou politologiques qui
nous possedons
se sont de . ors attachees a l'elucidation et a l'enrac' ement historique de ce
conce ,e livre dont 1.-F. Spitz nous apporte la traduction n~ise en lui adjoi
gnant des references mises it jour conserve toute sa force heuristique et n'a rien