Jakob Böhme Jakob Böhme writing at a workbench by a window

The light Böhme sees in a gemstone

Jakob Böhme (1575–1624), a German shoemaker and religious writer from Upper Lusatia, considers the formation of the earth in his Aurora. He imagines creation as an event whose different forces can still be discerned in things. A rough flint and a clear ruby therefore present him with different questions. How did one come by its spiky outline and the other by a light that seems to shine from within?

Where the light has gone

As for precious stones such as carbuncle, ruby, emerald, delphin, onyx and the like, the finest of stones, they have their origin where the flash of light arose in love.

– Jakob Böhme, Aurora oder Morgenröthe im Aufgang, 1832, p. 198.[1]

The passage follows a discussion of harsh, bitter and fiery powers. Böhme uses words of this kind both for how something feels and for the process by which he imagines it came into being. His language changes when he reaches the gemstones. What matters to him here is a flash of light, a happening he associates with love. In the following line he speaks of gentleness. A hard substance can therefore bear a sign of gentleness for someone looking at it in his way. Turn a stone until its lustre catches the eye for an instant and it becomes easier to see why he chooses a word for an event.

What someone will do with a stone

A little further on Böhme turns to his reader and asks what use gold, silver and gemstones serve in this world and whether people ought to use them. Attention shifts from how a stone came into being to what happens when it changes hands. Seeing a sign of creation in a precious thing gives its owner no special claim to being a good custodian. For Böhme the same stone deserves another look when someone takes it into their possession.