Abraham von Franckenberg and the Ancient Wisdom of Rebirth

Abstract This chapter shows how the Silesian nobleman Abraham von Franckenberg linked Jacob Boehme’s spiritual alchemy to the idea of ancient wisdom, as exemplified by the gnostic church father Valentinus. Franckenberg himself experienced a crisis of faith in 1617 and discovered the heterodox devotional literature of his day upon his religious awakening. In the early 1620s, he read many of Boehme’s works in manuscript and met with their author in person repeatedly. Soon after Boehme’s death, Franckenberg composed an epistolary treatise that defended Valentinus against his detractors and presented him as a model Christian who had experienced rebirth. Much like Boehme, Franckenberg described this as spiritual alchemy. In later writings, he frequently alluded to concepts of his spiritual alchemy yet never again presented it as fully as in his early Theophrastia Valentiniana.