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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.
1but ye are yet all captivated in Babel, and are contenders about the spirit [or meaning] of the letter; and yet have no understanding of the same. Ye will also be doctors and learned masters [forsooth], but yet ye understand not your own mother- tongue: ye bite and devour one another about the husk of the word, wherein the living Word does form and amass itself and ye neither desire nor understand the living Word. Ye speak only out of seven and out of seventy-and-seven, and yet ye have the Word in one number, wherein the whole understanding is contained: ye have it moving upon your tongues, yet ye cannot comprehend it. 66. And the reason is, that you will speak only out of seven, and out of seventy-and-seven, viz. out of the wrath which has divided the tongues; and doth avenge the life of Lamech seventy-and-seven times in your tongues and speeches. But if ye would go unto the centre and open your eyes then you would see how the Babylonical whore leads you captive by her string, and how she has set herself over the life of man, with seventy-and-seven numbers; and has wholly hidden our sister Naamah with the numbers; that the beast of the numbers might reign and rule in the wrath of God over the life of our sister Naamah.
267. But we have heard a watchman say: Away! the beast, with the whore, which stood upon the earth in Naamah's stead, is quite fallen, and given to the press of the sevenfold Racha [Vengeance] in the seventy-and-seven, &c. The Racha arises up in Lamech, and goes through the seventy-and-seven; and this none can hinder. Amen. 68. For Naamah shall be manifested to all nations, tongues and speeches; and even then, out of the seventy-and-seven, there shall be but one word of understanding. For the life of man proceeded from ONE only Word of God, and has formed and divided itself in selfhood, in the spirit of the wonders of the world, into seventy-andseven properties of the only Word. Now comes the time that the life's beginning shall again enter with the spirit of the wonders and speeches into the end, viz. into the beginning. And therefore the child of the wonders, which has given itself forth in [or before] the sight of God, must be made manifest in the unity. 69. And seeing that the free will has given itself into the vanity of the speeches and the multiplicity of the powers, and defiled and slain the life of the only Word, the Racha proceeds forth from the murdering spirit through seventy-and-seven; until the beast, together with the harlot, be consumed and devoured with the fire of God's anger. 70. And then Tubal-cain finds his sister Naamah in golden attire, and Adah rejoices in her son Jabal, who is a herdsman; For
3Lamech has again found his children which he left in the Racha. And the pride of self and also the craft, deceit and subtlety of the Serpent ceases. Then every beast shall eat its own pasture. The time is near: Hallelujah! The Thirtieth Chapter Of the Line of the Covenant 1. THE line of the Covenant is not so to be understood as if the Covenant fell only upon this line. No, the Covenant befalls the only life, which was in the Word before the times of the humanity. The line of Seth passes only upon the manifestation in the flesh, in which line the Word in the Covenant would externally manifest itself in the flesh. But the spirit proceeding from the centre in the Covenant falls as well upon Cain's line as upon Abel's; yet in Cain's [line] in the spirit, and in Seth's in the external mouth [or manifestation], viz. in the formed and conceived word, that is, in the office and ministry of teaching and preaching, for Seth was sprung forth according to the spirit, out of the Covenant, where the spirit moved itself in the incorporated Word in the Covenant; and Cain was comprehended under the spirit of nature. 2. For by Cain's line the arts were brought forth to light, which were a wonder of the divine wisdom, contemplation and formation, viz. of the formed Word through and in nature.
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.
1but ye are yet all captivated in Babel, and are contenders about the spirit [or meaning] of the letter; and yet have no understanding of the same. Ye will also be doctors and learned masters [forsooth], but yet ye understand not your own mother- tongue: ye bite and devour one another about the husk of the word, wherein the living Word does form and amass itself and ye neither desire nor understand the living Word. Ye speak only out of seven and out of seventy-and-seven, and yet ye have the Word in one number, wherein the whole understanding is contained: ye have it moving upon your tongues, yet ye cannot comprehend it. 66. And the reason is, that you will speak only out of seven, and out of seventy-and-seven, viz. out of the wrath which has divided the tongues; and doth avenge the life of Lamech seventy-and-seven times in your tongues and speeches. But if ye would go unto the centre and open your eyes then you would see how the Babylonical whore leads you captive by her string, and how she has set herself over the life of man, with seventy-and-seven numbers; and has wholly hidden our sister Naamah with the numbers; that the beast of the numbers might reign and rule in the wrath of God over the life of our sister Naamah.
267. But we have heard a watchman say: Away! the beast, with the whore, which stood upon the earth in Naamah's stead, is quite fallen, and given to the press of the sevenfold Racha [Vengeance] in the seventy-and-seven, &c. The Racha arises up in Lamech, and goes through the seventy-and-seven; and this none can hinder. Amen. 68. For Naamah shall be manifested to all nations, tongues and speeches; and even then, out of the seventy-and-seven, there shall be but one word of understanding. For the life of man proceeded from ONE only Word of God, and has formed and divided itself in selfhood, in the spirit of the wonders of the world, into seventy-andseven properties of the only Word. Now comes the time that the life's beginning shall again enter with the spirit of the wonders and speeches into the end, viz. into the beginning. And therefore the child of the wonders, which has given itself forth in [or before] the sight of God, must be made manifest in the unity. 69. And seeing that the free will has given itself into the vanity of the speeches and the multiplicity of the powers, and defiled and slain the life of the only Word, the Racha proceeds forth from the murdering spirit through seventy-and-seven; until the beast, together with the harlot, be consumed and devoured with the fire of God's anger. 70. And then Tubal-cain finds his sister Naamah in golden attire, and Adah rejoices in her son Jabal, who is a herdsman; For
3Lamech has again found his children which he left in the Racha. And the pride of self and also the craft, deceit and subtlety of the Serpent ceases. Then every beast shall eat its own pasture. The time is near: Hallelujah! The Thirtieth Chapter Of the Line of the Covenant 1. THE line of the Covenant is not so to be understood as if the Covenant fell only upon this line. No, the Covenant befalls the only life, which was in the Word before the times of the humanity. The line of Seth passes only upon the manifestation in the flesh, in which line the Word in the Covenant would externally manifest itself in the flesh. But the spirit proceeding from the centre in the Covenant falls as well upon Cain's line as upon Abel's; yet in Cain's [line] in the spirit, and in Seth's in the external mouth [or manifestation], viz. in the formed and conceived word, that is, in the office and ministry of teaching and preaching, for Seth was sprung forth according to the spirit, out of the Covenant, where the spirit moved itself in the incorporated Word in the Covenant; and Cain was comprehended under the spirit of nature. 2. For by Cain's line the arts were brought forth to light, which were a wonder of the divine wisdom, contemplation and formation, viz. of the formed Word through and in nature.
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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