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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.
125. We do not say that you shall feel Enoch with your hands; no: Enoch did not preach from the spirit of the earthly life, but from that which was a prophet, which introduced the outward man into the Principle; and so you shall not feel the outward Enoch, but you shall hear the prophet which speaketh from Enoch, from the Mystery. 26. Babel doth mock and scorn at this, and contemneth 5 Enoch for a while, and then Enoch calleth 6 Noah; but they call him old fool, for preaching so of the downfall of Babel. 27. But Noah passeth into the other world through the 7 water, and calleth to 8 Moses with his wonders, and he cometh; for he hath the wonders of God. 1 ministerium, or office of teaching, or preaching. 2 malice, or wickedness. 3 Or sins. 4 Or becometh. 5 Or prophecy. 6 preaching, or teaching. 7 simplicity, or humility. 8 Or miracles. 28. For he passed through death, and brought his body through death, when the turba desired to consume it; and the devil contended for it, and would have the 1 turba which was in Moses, because he had been an angry man, and carried the 2 turba in him. 29. But it was told the devil that the turba in the fire did not belong to him, for it served to the Majesty of God, and contained the wonders; and the turba in the darkness of the wrath only belonged to him who is without the city, and must not dwell in the city, in the Principle, but without it.
230. For God did not create him 3 in the fire; let him remain, therefore, in his own awakened fire-fife: he hath nothing to do with Moses 'body; for his wonders in the anger belong not to his 4 turba; he is a very outcast, a castaway. 31. And Moses'body is passed through death; his unfadeable body, which had the wonders, hath swallowed up that which was earthly in the turba, and yet not consumed it to putrefaction, but it also is in the Mystery: and his 5 turba, which killed the first-born in Egypt, drowned Pharaoh in the water, slew them that worshipped the calf, and swallowed up Corah, Dathan, and Abiram into the earth, continued in 6 death. 32. For when he died, then his spirit and soul departed 7 from the turba; and he remained in the wonders in the Mystery. 1 corruption, or transitoriness. 2 Or destroyer. 3 Or for. 4 The devil's. 5 anger, sharpness, or severity. 6 Moses' death. 7 Or from the anger and severity, and passed into innocency; and so he was but an instrument of God's anger, in true resignation, and not in selfhood. 33. And now he is become a lamb, and bringeth his works amongst the goods of Isaac and Shem, as a Mystery of God in his deeds of wonder: but the house is Isaac's; and all dwell in the tents of Shem, in his kingdom: take notice of this, both Jews and Christians.
334. Now seeing Moses is gone with righteousness from the strife of the turba, and of the devil, into the Mystery, and yet hath his first unfadeable body on him, which, though it be delivered from the turba, must yet be tried in the fire at the end of the days; therefore his prophet is in the Mystery. 35. And since he is become a lamb, after the turba, he hath sent his people many prophets to preach the Mystery: as indeed there are not only laws and works contained in the Mystery, but also the Lamb Christ, into whom he is also entered, and hath brought his 1 Law to be a servant in the 2 family of the Lamb, that so his wonders may be in the sheepfold of the Lamb. 36. This Moses calleth to 3 Enoch, seeing he also is in the Mystery, and is clothed with the white garment, which he got of the Lamb in the other world; and Moses cometh to help him with the Lamb's deeds of wonder, seeing they call Noah, fool, who, without wonders, teacheth as an honest man. 37. Babel is not able to endure 4 this; for so her pomp and pride will be taken away; she setteth herself against 5 Moses and 6 Enoch, and persecuteth them; she would murder them: but Moses is already dead, and Enoch is taken up, and neither of them is in the outward hfe with her: she saith, Where are Enoch and Moses? Shew us their wonders! But she is blind and cannot see them; and so she raveth against Moses and Enoch, and falleth into contention. 1 Or the Jews. 2 Or household. 3 Or prophecy.
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.
125. We do not say that you shall feel Enoch with your hands; no: Enoch did not preach from the spirit of the earthly life, but from that which was a prophet, which introduced the outward man into the Principle; and so you shall not feel the outward Enoch, but you shall hear the prophet which speaketh from Enoch, from the Mystery. 26. Babel doth mock and scorn at this, and contemneth 5 Enoch for a while, and then Enoch calleth 6 Noah; but they call him old fool, for preaching so of the downfall of Babel. 27. But Noah passeth into the other world through the 7 water, and calleth to 8 Moses with his wonders, and he cometh; for he hath the wonders of God. 1 ministerium, or office of teaching, or preaching. 2 malice, or wickedness. 3 Or sins. 4 Or becometh. 5 Or prophecy. 6 preaching, or teaching. 7 simplicity, or humility. 8 Or miracles. 28. For he passed through death, and brought his body through death, when the turba desired to consume it; and the devil contended for it, and would have the 1 turba which was in Moses, because he had been an angry man, and carried the 2 turba in him. 29. But it was told the devil that the turba in the fire did not belong to him, for it served to the Majesty of God, and contained the wonders; and the turba in the darkness of the wrath only belonged to him who is without the city, and must not dwell in the city, in the Principle, but without it.
230. For God did not create him 3 in the fire; let him remain, therefore, in his own awakened fire-fife: he hath nothing to do with Moses 'body; for his wonders in the anger belong not to his 4 turba; he is a very outcast, a castaway. 31. And Moses'body is passed through death; his unfadeable body, which had the wonders, hath swallowed up that which was earthly in the turba, and yet not consumed it to putrefaction, but it also is in the Mystery: and his 5 turba, which killed the first-born in Egypt, drowned Pharaoh in the water, slew them that worshipped the calf, and swallowed up Corah, Dathan, and Abiram into the earth, continued in 6 death. 32. For when he died, then his spirit and soul departed 7 from the turba; and he remained in the wonders in the Mystery. 1 corruption, or transitoriness. 2 Or destroyer. 3 Or for. 4 The devil's. 5 anger, sharpness, or severity. 6 Moses' death. 7 Or from the anger and severity, and passed into innocency; and so he was but an instrument of God's anger, in true resignation, and not in selfhood. 33. And now he is become a lamb, and bringeth his works amongst the goods of Isaac and Shem, as a Mystery of God in his deeds of wonder: but the house is Isaac's; and all dwell in the tents of Shem, in his kingdom: take notice of this, both Jews and Christians.
334. Now seeing Moses is gone with righteousness from the strife of the turba, and of the devil, into the Mystery, and yet hath his first unfadeable body on him, which, though it be delivered from the turba, must yet be tried in the fire at the end of the days; therefore his prophet is in the Mystery. 35. And since he is become a lamb, after the turba, he hath sent his people many prophets to preach the Mystery: as indeed there are not only laws and works contained in the Mystery, but also the Lamb Christ, into whom he is also entered, and hath brought his 1 Law to be a servant in the 2 family of the Lamb, that so his wonders may be in the sheepfold of the Lamb. 36. This Moses calleth to 3 Enoch, seeing he also is in the Mystery, and is clothed with the white garment, which he got of the Lamb in the other world; and Moses cometh to help him with the Lamb's deeds of wonder, seeing they call Noah, fool, who, without wonders, teacheth as an honest man. 37. Babel is not able to endure 4 this; for so her pomp and pride will be taken away; she setteth herself against 5 Moses and 6 Enoch, and persecuteth them; she would murder them: but Moses is already dead, and Enoch is taken up, and neither of them is in the outward hfe with her: she saith, Where are Enoch and Moses? Shew us their wonders! But she is blind and cannot see them; and so she raveth against Moses and Enoch, and falleth into contention. 1 Or the Jews. 2 Or household. 3 Or prophecy.
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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