BOEHM, or BEHMEN, JACOB, founder of the sect of Boehmists, and called by his disciples the Teutonic Theosophist, was born in 1575, near Goerlitz in Upper Lausatia. He was bred a shoemaker, and for some time supported a large family by this occupation; but having dabbled in chemistry, his mind, heated by sermons and German divinity, became subject to raptures, mystical ecstasies, and notions of divine illumination. To these he first gave vent in 1612, in a treatise entitled Aurora, or the Rising of the Sun, a mixture of astrological, philosophical, chemical, and theological extravagances, written in a quaint and obscure style. This work was censured by the magistrates of Goerlitz, who at the instigation of the clergy endeavoured to suppress it; yet Boehm continued to dream and to scribble, and in 1619 published his treatise De Tribus Principiis, inculcating a species of Spinozism, namely, that the operations of grace are subjected to laws analogous to those which nature has imposed in the purification of metals, and that God is to be regarded as the substance of the universe, which has produced
everything by way of emanation. He afterwards went to Dresden, where he was examined by some theologians more indulgent than those of Goerlitz, and found irreproachable. He died at Goerlitz in 1624, leaving a great number of treatises On the Celestial and Terrestrial Mystery, and on the Intellectual Life. "It is not possible," says Mosheim, "to find greater obscurity than there is in these pitiable writings, which exhibit an incongruous mixture of chemical terms, mystical jargon, and absurd visions." Nevertheless, in the last century, Boehm found a zealous apologist in William Law, the pious author of Christian Perfection, who published an English translation of his work, in two vols. 4to. Boehm had a great many disciples, some of whom, like Kuhlmann, who was burned at Moscow in 1684, were wild and dangerous fanatics. All his works were collected and reprinted at Amsterdam in 1682, and again in 1730, under the title of Theosophia Revelata.
BECOTIA (Βοωτία), a country of central Greece, bounded in the south by the Gulf of Corinth, by Magaris and Attica; in the east by Attica and the Euripus; in the north by the Locri Opuntii; and in the west by Phocis. Its surface is calculated to amount to about 1119 English square miles. The country, surrounded nearly on all sides by mountains, divides itself naturally into three parts, the low country of and about Lake Copais, the valley of the river Asopus, and the coast district between mount Helicon and the Corinthian gulf. The country about Lake Copais is a large valley, so completely surrounded by hills that it is connected with the Euboean Sea only by subterranean passages. The extensive Lake Copais in this hollow is fed by the Cephisus, the principal river of the country. The natural subterranean passages not being sufficient to carry off the great masses of water accumulating at times in the valley, the early inhabitants often suffered severely from inundations; whence at a very remote period cloaca were built, probably by the Minyans of Orchomenos, to carry off the waters. Remains of these works, as great and stupendous as any that were executed in antiquity, still excite the admiration of the traveller, and for thousands of years they made that part of Beotia one of the most fertile districts of Greece. For several centuries, however, these drains have been neglected, in consequence of which the country has been changed into a pestilential marsh. Between this valley and the basin of the Asopus is situated the Theban plain, which is still distinguished for its fertility. The lowlands and valleys of Beotia were notorious in antiquity for their moist and thick atmosphere, which was believed to exercise a peculiar influence upon the character of the inhabitants, for they are often spoken of as remarkable for dulness, and a kind of intellectual insensibility. The dialect spoken by the Beotians was a broad Æolic.
In the earliest times Beotia was inhabited by several tribes, such as Aonians, Temmices, Hyantes, Thracians, Leleges, Phlegyans, and the Minyans of Orchomenos, the last of whom appear to have formed a great centre of civilization at a very remote period. But all these tribes were gradually either expelled by the Beotian Æolians immigrating from Thessaly, or absorbed by them, so that in later times they wholly disappear. The country which before had had no common name, henceforth is always spoken of as Beotia, and the several towns and cities, with Thebes at their head, formed a sort of confederation; in which, however, the Thebans and Beotians frequently came into hostile collision, Thebes claiming the supremacy of the whole country, and the Beotian towns insisting upon their independence. The political history of the country is inseparably connected with the history of ORCHOMENOS, THEBES, PLATANE, and THESPIE, to which the reader must be referred for details. The Beotian confederacy continued its nominal existence even under the Roman emperors, although the country was so reduced, that about the time of
Boerhaave. Augustus, Tanagra and Thespis alone could be considered as towns, the others having been either entirely destroyed, or existing only as villages. (Compare the Travels of Clarke, Wheler, Dodwell, Sir W. Gell, Hobhouse, and Thiersch, Etat actuel de la Grèce, vol. i. p. 280, vol. ii. p. 23; Forchhammer, Hellenika, p. 143, fol.) (L. 8.)