Abstract

An important part of the work of the Lutheran pastor, mystic, theosophist, and Paracelsian Valentin Weigel consists of interpretations of the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis. The writings, which treat the theme systematically and in extenso, had already caught the interest of modern scholars primarily from the historical and philological perspective, oriented towards determining their disputed authorship. Even now, however, after the publication of the critical edition of Weigel’s four major commentaries on Genesis in 2007, these treatises have been little examined from the point of view of their intellectual content, sources, and role in his thought. These questions are addressed in this study. It deals with not only the four systematic commentaries but also with reflections on the same topic in other texts of the author. Weigel, whose discussions in many points foreshadow the theosophy of Jacob Böhme, turns critically against Luther and Melanchthon, and he tacitly draws on earlier interpretations. It is on the basis of the commentaries on Genesis, which Weigel himself considered as fundamentally important from the very beginnings - and, indeed, they have a crucial position within his work - that one can assess not only his natural philosophical concepts but above all the relationship of the "natural" knowledge to the mystical and religious knowledge that are inseparably conjoined in his work. Their convergence does not include empirical examination of the world but rather the correct understanding of the introductory passages of Genesis, which according to Weigel sum up the whole Bible. For Weigel, the knowledge of nature is something essentially different from how it is presented by Paracelsus - to whom Weigel otherwise refers so much. It is man who stands at the centre of Weigel’s interests - more exactly man as capax Dei - and he subjects all his theosophical reflections on creation to this mystical perspective. © FILOSOFIA, 2014.