Abraham von Franckenberg
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
mystic
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
-writer.
Life
Abraham von Franckenberg was born in 1593 into an old SilesiaSilesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
n noble family in Ludwigsdorf bei Oels
Olesnica
Oleśnica is a town in the Trzebnickie Hills in southwestern Poland with 36,951 inhabitants . It is situated in Lower Silesian Voivodeship...
. He attended the Gymnasium in Brieg
Brzeg
Brzeg is a town in southwestern Poland with 38,496 inhabitants , situated in Silesia in the Opole Voivodeship on the left bank of the Oder...
and the University of Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
and looked set to become a lawyer; however, he abandoned his studies in 1617 and was drawn to more ascetic and mystical
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
ideas. By 1622, he was familiar with the works of Jakob Böhme
Jakob Böhme
Jakob Böhme was a German Christian mystic and theologian. He is considered an original thinker within the Lutheran tradition...
, and he met the mystic in person the following year. Franckenberg would continue to revere Böhme even after the latter’s death in 1624, and was a friend to several of Böhme's other followers, such as the Liegnitz physician Balthasar Walther
Balthasar Walther
Balthasar Walther was a Silesian physician and Christian Kabbalist of German ethnicity. Born in Liegnitz in modern Poland, Walther was a significant influence on the thought of the German theosopher Jakob Böhme. As an itinerant Paracelsian enthusiast, Walther was active throughout the Holy Roman...
.
He inherited the family estate in Ludwigsdorf in 1623, but passed it on to his brother Balthasar in exchange for the right to keep a few small rooms in the family home. He lived a very reclusive life and rarely ventured forth from this room – only in 1634 to attend to those suffering from plague, and in 1640 to challenge the rhetoric of Georg Seidel, a Lutheran
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
preacher from Oels whom Franckenberg regarded as intolerant.
Tired of this and other confrontations, and mindful of the fact that events of the Thirty Years’ War were moving in the direction of Silesia, Franckenberg moved to Danzig
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
via Breslau in 1641, where he lodged until 1649 with the astronomer Johannes Hevelius
Johannes Hevelius
Johannes Hevelius Some sources refer to Hevelius as Polish:Some sources refer to Hevelius as German:*Encyplopedia Britannica * of the Royal Society was a councilor and mayor of Danzig , Pomeranian Voivodeship, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
, who introduced him to Copernican
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe....
astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
. He spent the winter of 1642-43 in Holland, where he had several works by Böhme published.
He returned home to Ludwigsdorf in 1649 and, the following year, met Daniel Czepko. He was to read Czepko’s Monodisticha in 1652 and wrote two dedicatory poems for it. Around the same time, he met and began to influence Angelus Silesius
Angelus Silesius
Angelus Silesius was a German Catholic mystic and poet.-Life:Silesius was born in Breslau , Silesia as son of Polish noble and German mother...
. He died on 25 June 1652 and is buried in Oels; his gravestone is covered with as yet undeciphered mystical symbols.
Works
His works show ideas drawn from many sources: from the KabbalahKabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
, Paracelsian
Paracelsus
Paracelsus was a German-Swiss Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and general occultist....
alchemy
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
, medieval mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, the medieval 'heretics' of the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
, Spanish sixteenth-century Quietism, Lutheran mysticism and Pansophism. The works themselves are a mixture of ascetic-mystical treatises, such as Schlussreden der Wahrheit (1625), Mir nach! and Vita veterum sapientium (both 1637); others, such as Jordanssteine (1636) challenge orthodox Lutheranism or, as in Oculus siderius, discuss astronomical questions. He had a reputation as an insightful teacher, and the crux of his teachings was the unity with God based on the denial of all things wordly and of the self; particular emphasis was placed on the significance of Christ for the attainment of salvation. Like Jakob Böhme
Jakob Böhme
Jakob Böhme was a German Christian mystic and theologian. He is considered an original thinker within the Lutheran tradition...
, he juxtaposed the Fall of Lucifer
Lucifer
Traditionally, Lucifer is a name that in English generally refers to the devil or Satan before being cast from Heaven, although this is not the original meaning of the term. In Latin, from which the English word is derived, Lucifer means "light-bearer"...
and Adam with attaining his salvation.
Raphael
Perhaps Franckenberg's most famous work - and certainly his most unusual - is Raphael, Oder Arzt-Engel, first published posthumously in Amsterdam 1676.The Hebrew name 'Raphael' means 'God has healed'. The archangel Raphael
Raphael (archangel)
Raphael is an archangel of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, who in the Judeo-Christian tradition performs all manners of healing....
has traditionally been linked with healing and restoration, and it is clear that Franckenberg, in subtitling his manuscript Arzt-Engel ('doctor-angel', a play on Erzengel, 'archangel'), is aware of this fact and wishes to make it clear to his readers. The work, ostensibly a medical tract, draws on both Paracelsian alchemy and Böhmian mysticism. There is also evidence pointing to Franckenberg's interest in the Kabbalah
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
and of links with Rosicrucianism and the ideas of Joachim of Fiore
Joachim of Fiore
Joachim of Fiore, also known as Joachim of Flora and in Italian Gioacchino da Fiore , was the founder of the monastic order of San Giovanni in Fiore . He was a mystic, a theologian and an esoterist...
.