Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
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.
11. IT hath been sufficiently explained already, that it is the essential omnipresence of God, but in its own Principle: as the rich man who was in hell could not obtain that Abraham should send Lazarus to him, with one drop of cold water to cool his tongue in those flames: Abraham said, there was a great gulf between them; that is, a whole Principle. 2. But the bosom of Abraham is to be understood thus: Abraham was the father of the faithful; and God gave him the promise that in his seed all people should be blessed; this was to be understood of the Messiah Christ, who would become man in the 1 faithful; and as he became man in Abraham's seed, so also he would be born anew in the children of the faithful, and bless them. 3. Now this is the holy Christian Church, born in Christ, and that is the bosom of Abraham, for we are all one body in Christ; and the promise was made to Abraham: He was the patriarch; we are all born in the same promise; understand, in the new birth in Christ, and are in the same bosom which receiveth us. 1 Or believers. 4. And when by earnest repentance we enter into the promise of Abraham, then we go into the bosom of Abraham, viz. Unto our promise, and Christ is born in us, in the bosom of faith; this is the fulfilling [of the promise].
25. And thus, in humility, we are with Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham; for Christ is Abraham: Christ was promised to Abraham, and now he hath him, and we with him; and so we come into Abraham's bosom, and are his children in the promise, and Christ is the fulfilling of it; and we in the fulfilling are in the bosom of Abraham, and are the seed of Abraham, according to the spirit. 6. Here, O ye bhnd Jews, open your eyes: what was meant by Abraham's circumcision? Nothing else but that sin should be drowned in the blood and death of Christ, who shed his blood for the children of the faith of Abraham, and so [we] be regenerated in this blood, as in a heavenly tincture. 7. Abraham and his children drowned sin in their blood by faith in Christ, who should become man in their blood, and now it is fulfilled; and therefore God hath set the seal of faith 2 in the substance; and now we are and should be regenerated in the true blood of Christ. 8. The blood of Christ taketh away the turba wholly from us; and so we (viz. the new man out of the old Adam) 3 stand up in Christ's blood, and bear Christ's image, Christ's flesh and blood in us, in our image, if we are children of Abraham, and not Ishmaels. 1 into the promise that is made to us by the Trinity. 2 That is, in the essence, or in the water. 3 Or rise again.
39. For to Isaac belongeth the goods of the image of the body of Christ; the circumcision is Ishmael's, for he is conversant about works; but the goods are Isaac's: yet Ishmael shall dwell in Isaac's tents at last; for Japhet shall dwell in the tents of Shem, but the kingdom belongeth to Shem. 10. We have the goods of Isaac, not by the merit of works, but from grace, from the love of God: we cannot attain them by works, but in faith, in the will, in the deed, and in entering [into the promised inheritance]. 11. He that entereth into a 1 dominion that is not his own by right of nature, he entereth into it by the favour of the donor: Why is a servant in the house angry that his lord is so bountiful to give a stranger the dominion? 12. We were strangers, and the work is in his house; but the Lord hath given us the promise in paradise, that he would again freely, out of grace, give us his kingdom: He rejected Cain's offering, but he gave the kingdom of grace to Abel; for Abel sought it in the spirit, and Cain in the work. 13. Thus understand that Gods kingdom is magical; for the earnest will attaineth it, and not the will in the 2 essence; for that will remaineth in the essence; but he that is at liberty, he findeth eternity and the kingdom of grace therein, and the promise also, together with the essence; and so the work dwelleth in the will, and is the will's household servant. 1 Herrschaft. 2 Or work.
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.
11. IT hath been sufficiently explained already, that it is the essential omnipresence of God, but in its own Principle: as the rich man who was in hell could not obtain that Abraham should send Lazarus to him, with one drop of cold water to cool his tongue in those flames: Abraham said, there was a great gulf between them; that is, a whole Principle. 2. But the bosom of Abraham is to be understood thus: Abraham was the father of the faithful; and God gave him the promise that in his seed all people should be blessed; this was to be understood of the Messiah Christ, who would become man in the 1 faithful; and as he became man in Abraham's seed, so also he would be born anew in the children of the faithful, and bless them. 3. Now this is the holy Christian Church, born in Christ, and that is the bosom of Abraham, for we are all one body in Christ; and the promise was made to Abraham: He was the patriarch; we are all born in the same promise; understand, in the new birth in Christ, and are in the same bosom which receiveth us. 1 Or believers. 4. And when by earnest repentance we enter into the promise of Abraham, then we go into the bosom of Abraham, viz. Unto our promise, and Christ is born in us, in the bosom of faith; this is the fulfilling [of the promise].
25. And thus, in humility, we are with Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham; for Christ is Abraham: Christ was promised to Abraham, and now he hath him, and we with him; and so we come into Abraham's bosom, and are his children in the promise, and Christ is the fulfilling of it; and we in the fulfilling are in the bosom of Abraham, and are the seed of Abraham, according to the spirit. 6. Here, O ye bhnd Jews, open your eyes: what was meant by Abraham's circumcision? Nothing else but that sin should be drowned in the blood and death of Christ, who shed his blood for the children of the faith of Abraham, and so [we] be regenerated in this blood, as in a heavenly tincture. 7. Abraham and his children drowned sin in their blood by faith in Christ, who should become man in their blood, and now it is fulfilled; and therefore God hath set the seal of faith 2 in the substance; and now we are and should be regenerated in the true blood of Christ. 8. The blood of Christ taketh away the turba wholly from us; and so we (viz. the new man out of the old Adam) 3 stand up in Christ's blood, and bear Christ's image, Christ's flesh and blood in us, in our image, if we are children of Abraham, and not Ishmaels. 1 into the promise that is made to us by the Trinity. 2 That is, in the essence, or in the water. 3 Or rise again.
39. For to Isaac belongeth the goods of the image of the body of Christ; the circumcision is Ishmael's, for he is conversant about works; but the goods are Isaac's: yet Ishmael shall dwell in Isaac's tents at last; for Japhet shall dwell in the tents of Shem, but the kingdom belongeth to Shem. 10. We have the goods of Isaac, not by the merit of works, but from grace, from the love of God: we cannot attain them by works, but in faith, in the will, in the deed, and in entering [into the promised inheritance]. 11. He that entereth into a 1 dominion that is not his own by right of nature, he entereth into it by the favour of the donor: Why is a servant in the house angry that his lord is so bountiful to give a stranger the dominion? 12. We were strangers, and the work is in his house; but the Lord hath given us the promise in paradise, that he would again freely, out of grace, give us his kingdom: He rejected Cain's offering, but he gave the kingdom of grace to Abel; for Abel sought it in the spirit, and Cain in the work. 13. Thus understand that Gods kingdom is magical; for the earnest will attaineth it, and not the will in the 2 essence; for that will remaineth in the essence; but he that is at liberty, he findeth eternity and the kingdom of grace therein, and the promise also, together with the essence; and so the work dwelleth in the will, and is the will's household servant. 1 Herrschaft. 2 Or work.
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.
No commentary for this page.