the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Behmenists
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
or a name given to those mystics who adopted the explication of the mysteries of nature and grace, as given by Jacob Behmen. This writer was born in the year 1675, at Old Siedenburg, near Gorlitz, in Upper Lusatia. He was a shoemaker by trade, and is described as having been thoughtful and religious from his youth up, taking peculiar pleasure in frequenting the public worship. At length, seriously considering within himself that speech of our Saviour, "Your heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him," he was thereby awakened to desire that promised Comforter; and, continuing in that earnestness, he was at last, to use his own expression, "surrounded with a divine light for seven days, and stood in the highest contemplation and kingdom of joys!" After this, about the year 1600, he was again surrounded with a divine light and replenished with the heavenly knowledge; insomuch as, going abroad into the fields, and viewing the herbs and grass, by his inward light, he saw into their essences, uses, and properties, which were discovered to him by their lineaments, figures, and signatures. In the year 1610, he had a third special illumination, wherein still farther mysteries were revealed to him; but it was not till the year 1612 that Behmen committed these revelations to writing. His first treatise is entitled, "Aurora," which was seized by the senate of Gorlitz before it was completed. His next production is called, "The Three Principles," by which he means the dark world, or hell; the light world, or heaven; and the external, or visible world, which we inhabit. In this work he more fully illustrates the subjects treated of in the former, and supplies what is wanting in that work, showing,
1. How all things came from a working will of the holy, triune, incomprehensible God, manifesting himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, through an outward, perceptible, working, triune power of fire, light, and spirit, in the kingdom of heaven.
2. How and what angels and men were in their creation; that they are in and from God, his real offspring; that their life begun in and from this divine fire, which is the Father of Light, generating a birth of light in their souls; from both which proceeds the Holy Spirit, or breath of divine love, in the triune creature, as it does in the triune Creator.
3. How some angels, and all men, are fallen from God, and their first state of a divine triune life in him; what they are in their fallen state, and the difference between the fall of angels and that of man.
4. How the earth, stars, and elements were created in consequence of the fall of angels.
5. Whence there is good and evil in all this temporal world; and what is meant by the curse that dwells in it.
6. Of the kingdom of Christ, how it is set in opposition to the kingdom of hell.
7. How man through faith in Christ, is able to overcome the kingdom of hell, and thereby obtain eternal salvation.
8. How and why sin and misery shall only reign for a time, until God shall, in a supernatural way, make fallen man rise to the glory of angels, and this material system shake off its curse, and enter into an everlasting union with that heaven from whence it fell.
The next year, Behmen produced his "Threefold Life of Man," according to the three principles above mentioned. In this work he treats more largely of the state of man in this world: that he has,
1. That immortal spark of life, which is common to angels and devils.
2. That divine life of the light and Spirit of God, which makes the essential difference between an angel and a devil; and,
3. The life of this external and visible world. The first and last are common to all men; but the second only to a true Christian, or child of God.
Behmen wrote several other treatises; but these are the basis of all his other writings. His conceptions are often clothed under allegorical symbols; and, in his later works, he frequently adopted chemical and Latin phrases, which he borrowed from conversation with learned men. But as to the matter contained in his writings, he disclaims having borrowed it either from men or books. He died in the year 1624; and his last words were, "Now I go hence into paradise!" Behmen's principles were adopted by Mr. Law, who clothed them in a more modern dress, and in a style less obscure. The essential obscurity of the subjects indeed he could not remedy. If they were understood by the author himself, he is probably the only one who ever made that attainment.
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Watson, Richard. Entry for 'Behmenists'. Richard Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/wtd/b/behmenists.html. 1831-2.
