Overview

The volume aims to establish the influence of German or Rhenish mysticism on English religious thought, chiefly in the 17th-century. The English reception of such German mystical authors as Meister Eckhart, the anonymous author of Theologia Germanica, Johannes Tauler, Nicholas of Cusa, Sebastian Franck, Hans Denck, Valentin Weigel, and Jakob Böhme has been hitherto little studied. Such English readers as Henry More, Anne Conway, John Sparrow, John Everard, Giles Randall, and several Cambridge Platonists established a lineage that connected these mystics, and created a philosophical bridge between England and Germany. The volume highlights the international legacy of these mystical writers by adopting the perspective of historico-philosophical engagement with sources, placing them within the theological milieu of their time.

Full Product Details

Author:   Daniel J. Tolan ,  W.J.T. (Torrance) Kirby ,  Douglas Hedley
Publisher:   Brill
Imprint:   Brill
Volume:   203
Weight:   0.001kg
ISBN:  

9789004186101

ISBN 10:   9004186107
Pages:   424
Publication Date:   19 February 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgements Figures Contributors Abbreviations Divine Illumination: The Reception of German Mysticism in Early Modern England  Torrance Kirby, Douglas Hedley and Daniel J. Tolan  Part 1 Pre-modern Antecedents 1 Cusanus’ Apologia: Its Systematic Structure and Historiographical Significance  Garth W. Green 2 Got gebirt mich sich: Eriugena’s and Eckhart’s Teachings on the Birth of God in Creation  Adrian Mihai  Part 2 Reception in Early Modern England 3 The Single Eye: On Giles Randall’s Translation of Nicholas of Cusa’s De Visione Dei  Matthew Nini 4 Cusan Astronomical Mysticism in the Hartlib Circle and Its Periphery  Simon Burton 5 “Full of life and marrow” or “dangerous Book”? The Theologia Germanica in Seventeenth-Century England  Benjamin Crosby 6 John Everard: Medieval German Mysticism in Early Modern London  Torrance Kirby 7 John Everard and Hermeticism  Daniel J. Tolan 8 The Uses of German Mystical Texts in Elias Ashmole’s Collections and Milieu: The Languages of Enthusiasm in Interregnum England  Vittoria Feola 9 Christian Cabbalistic Platonism in Paradise Lost  James Bryson  Part 3 Jacob Boehme, Cambridge Platonists, and Spinoza 10 John Pordage’s Concept of God as Spirit in His Metaphysica  Jan Rohls 11 “High Flown” Mystics: Peter Sterry and Jacob Boehme  Eric Parker 12 Questions Concerning Enthusiasm: Henry Maurice’s Reception of Henry More’s Censura of Böhme  Marilyn A. Lewis 13 A Collection of First Editions of Jacob Böhme’s Works: A Visual Essay  Scott Brown 14 Athwart both Spinoza and Pascal! Faith, Reason, and the Cambridge Platonists  Douglas Hedley 15 Anne Conway, Herrera, and Spinoza: On God and God’s Relation to Individual Beings  Marie-Élise Zovko  Part 4 Nachleben 16 Jacob Boehme’s Theosophy and Romanticism in Germany and England  Jan Rohls 17 Fides Quaerens Argumentum Newton’s Fruitful Dialogue between Faith and Science  Jure Zovko 18 Recovering German Mysticism via Early Modern England: Shakespeare and Franz von Baader on Diabolical Evil  James Bryson Select Bibliography Index

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Author Information

Torrance Kirby, DPhil (1988), Oxford University, is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at McGill University. He has published monographs and edited volumes of essays, including Paul’s Cross and Culture of Persuasion in England, 1520-1640 (Brill, 2014). Douglas Hedley, PhD (1992), Munich, is Professor of the Philosophy of Religion and Director of the Centre for the Study of Platonism, Cambridge University. He is author of numerous monographs, and co-edited Platonism at the Origins of Modernity (Springer, 2008). Daniel J. Tolan, PhD (2021), Cambridge University, is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow funded in part by the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism and by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He is the author of ‘The Flight of the All-One to the All-One: The φυγὴ μόνου πρὸς μόνον as the Basis of Plotinian Altruism’ (Harvard Theological Review 114.4 (2021): 469–490).

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