BOEHME, JAKOB (1575–1624), Protestant visionary and theologian. Born into a Lutheran farming family in the village of Alt Seidenberg near Görlitz, Saxony, Boehme was apprenticed to a shoemaker following his elementary education. In 1599 he became a citizen of Görlitz, where he opened a shoemaking business and married. Boehme was early associated with various religious groups in the city, and through them he encountered the work of the alchemist Paracelsus (1493–1541) and the nature mystic Valentin Weigel (1533–1588). He also shared with his religious associates an interest in Qabbalah.

In 1600 Martin Moller (d. 1606) came to the city as Lutheran pastor and formed the Conventicle of God's Real Servants, which Boehme joined following a religious conversion. Deeply concerned with the problem of theodicy, Boehme in 1612 completed Aurora, but when a copy of the manuscript fell into the hands of the local Lutheran pastor, the book was confiscated and the...