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Eleven books by a shoemaker of Görlitz who wrote, by his own account, because he could not help it. Ten of them stand here in the seventeenth-century English of John Sparrow, who translated Boehme within a generation of his death and whose prose is itself now four hundred years old; where that English has drifted out of reach, the facing pane carries a modern register — the same text with archaic inflection and spelling normalised by rule, never paraphrased. Nothing is reworded, and where no register appears beside a passage it is because the rules found nothing to change.
The eleventh book is not in English at all, and it is the reason this note exists.
Des trois principes de l'essence divine, printed at Paris in 1802, is the same work as Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence, which stands here as the second book — the same twenty-seven chapters in the same order, opening `Du premier principe de l'essence divine` against Sparrow's `Of the first Principle of the Divine Essence`. Its translator was Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, who gave the last years of his life to putting Boehme into French, and who has a shelf of his own in this Lycaeum.
That makes a closed circuit inside this archive, and it is worth naming plainly. Saint-Martin translates Boehme. La Iniciación, printed in Montevideo a hundred and forty years later, traces its own descent through Saint-Martin. A reader can therefore follow one thread from a German mystic of 1619, through the French philosopher who carried him into another language, to a Spanish-language monthly of the 1940s that claimed them both — and read every step of it in the original.
The two are shelved as one work rather than two because that is what they are. They are not set as facing panes: an English translation of 1619 and a French translation of 1802 are two independent readings of a lost German original, and pairing them line by line would assert a correspondence neither translator ever claimed.
15. The soul, the spirit, and the body, form a, word . . 86 5. How the meaning, the word, and the forming of words is to be understood 96 5. How the Third Principle also may be understood in the word 111 6. How the Word in nine months became a perfect man 84 6.- What in the iron represented the Word, the Majesty, and the Holy Ghost 89 8. How it is that the eternal Word was to become man . 67 8. How the Word which became man entered into death on the cross, and broke the seven seals ... 68 14. How the soul formeth the word .... 29 CHAP. World. VERSE 1. The angelical world is not without the place of this world 34 3. Of what and wherefore this world hath been created . 40 3. God is a spirit: The seventh form manifesteth him; wherein the creation of this world is effected . . 45 4. This world shall not die, but be changed: The shadow of every thing therein remaineth eternally as a figure to the glory of God 28 5. The inward government is not separated from this world 16 5. Whence this world is become corporeal ... 17 5. This world is a similitude of the Deity in love and anger 8 1 5. This world is a sprout out of the eternal nature . . 82 5. The form of this world was from eternity in God's immaterial nature 83 5. How before time the world was without substance. Lucifer hath stirred up the fire in his habitation 97 5. Where the angelical world is manifest . .117 6. How we are yet blind concerning the substance of this world 10
26. What we are; also what the world, and the original thereof is 40 6. The eternal substance and this world are like a man, they each generate their hike .... 46 7. Why God rejecteth not the world before the end of time 18 8. Of our own hard prison in the spirit of this world 14 9. Why this world was created, which before the creation stood in the eternal wisdom as an invisible figure 6 9. Of the inclination of the spirit of this world . . 9 9. Of that which the spirit of this world hath built . 10 9. That which desireth to reach God must pass through the fire: Also what fire that is which must dissolve the world 8 2 11. The world is full of God: Where God is, and where the abyss is 106 11. What the substance of this world, the angelical world, and the hellish world, are in the sight of God: Also where God is to be sought 109 14. The world maketh the children of God but a gazing stock 55 CHAP. Works. VERSE 4. As the building shall appear, so shall the builder: our works follow us 52 5. How the evil works of the regenerate in Christ shall appear 134 8. The description of the New Body, and of the Old Man; and how our works shall follow us .77 18. How all works follow after the will; also how lust in the soul is awakened 21 Wrath. I. The severe kingdom of wrath is in the centre; how the Father is but one; how the third Principle could not have been created .... 49
3II. How God warneth men of his wrath; and how he letteth that come which man himself hath awakened, as wars, famine, pestilence, etc. ... 40 11. What we have inherited from Adam: How the anger should have rested eternally; without the awakened wrath no devil can move a fly .... 41 Writings. 4. Though the author's writings be hard and incredible, yet they have an infallible certainty of assurance . 19 4. His writings have an assurance in the centre of the earth 20 5. This is the writing of a child 33 6. How people may be benefited by these writings . . 9 9. What the devil intendeth to do with these writings . 1 9. The world's servants had rather lose God, and the kingdom of heaven, than their honour and goods. The whore by the instigation of the devil will persecute these writings 2 10. Advice in these writings, to rest contented with the present apprehension of them .... 31 Youth. 15. Of the wickedness and unruliness of youth, if they perceive their parents give way to it . . 5 Zeal. 12. The innocence of the blind simple zeal against the Martyrs . 21 16. Of the great submission of the love of God. Patience is better than zeal 36 Appendix A CATALOGUE of the Books Written by JACOB BEHMEN, The Teutonic Theosopher.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
15. The soul, the spirit, and the body, form a, word . . 86 5. How the meaning, the word, and the forming of words is to be understood 96 5. How the Third Principle also may be understood in the word 111 6. How the Word in nine months became a perfect man 84 6.- What in the iron represented the Word, the Majesty, and the Holy Ghost 89 8. How it is that the eternal Word was to become man . 67 8. How the Word which became man entered into death on the cross, and broke the seven seals ... 68 14. How the soul formeth the word .... 29 CHAP. World. VERSE 1. The angelical world is not without the place of this world 34 3. Of what and wherefore this world hath been created . 40 3. God is a spirit: The seventh form manifesteth him; wherein the creation of this world is effected . . 45 4. This world shall not die, but be changed: The shadow of every thing therein remaineth eternally as a figure to the glory of God 28 5. The inward government is not separated from this world 16 5. Whence this world is become corporeal ... 17 5. This world is a similitude of the Deity in love and anger 8 1 5. This world is a sprout out of the eternal nature . . 82 5. The form of this world was from eternity in God's immaterial nature 83 5. How before time the world was without substance. Lucifer hath stirred up the fire in his habitation 97 5. Where the angelical world is manifest . .117 6. How we are yet blind concerning the substance of this world 10
26. What we are; also what the world, and the original thereof is 40 6. The eternal substance and this world are like a man, they each generate their hike .... 46 7. Why God rejecteth not the world before the end of time 18 8. Of our own hard prison in the spirit of this world 14 9. Why this world was created, which before the creation stood in the eternal wisdom as an invisible figure 6 9. Of the inclination of the spirit of this world . . 9 9. Of that which the spirit of this world hath built . 10 9. That which desireth to reach God must pass through the fire: Also what fire that is which must dissolve the world 8 2 11. The world is full of God: Where God is, and where the abyss is 106 11. What the substance of this world, the angelical world, and the hellish world, are in the sight of God: Also where God is to be sought 109 14. The world maketh the children of God but a gazing stock 55 CHAP. Works. VERSE 4. As the building shall appear, so shall the builder: our works follow us 52 5. How the evil works of the regenerate in Christ shall appear 134 8. The description of the New Body, and of the Old Man; and how our works shall follow us .77 18. How all works follow after the will; also how lust in the soul is awakened 21 Wrath. I. The severe kingdom of wrath is in the centre; how the Father is but one; how the third Principle could not have been created .... 49
3II. How God warneth men of his wrath; and how he letteth that come which man himself hath awakened, as wars, famine, pestilence, etc. ... 40 11. What we have inherited from Adam: How the anger should have rested eternally; without the awakened wrath no devil can move a fly .... 41 Writings. 4. Though the author's writings be hard and incredible, yet they have an infallible certainty of assurance . 19 4. His writings have an assurance in the centre of the earth 20 5. This is the writing of a child 33 6. How people may be benefited by these writings . . 9 9. What the devil intendeth to do with these writings . 1 9. The world's servants had rather lose God, and the kingdom of heaven, than their honour and goods. The whore by the instigation of the devil will persecute these writings 2 10. Advice in these writings, to rest contented with the present apprehension of them .... 31 Youth. 15. Of the wickedness and unruliness of youth, if they perceive their parents give way to it . . 5 Zeal. 12. The innocence of the blind simple zeal against the Martyrs . 21 16. Of the great submission of the love of God. Patience is better than zeal 36 Appendix A CATALOGUE of the Books Written by JACOB BEHMEN, The Teutonic Theosopher.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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