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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.
19. This evil beast of the Godless form is predestinated to condemnation; but the Covenant is in the life. If the free will resigns itself up to the Covenant, then Christ arises in his humanity, out of the Covenant, in the life; and even then the strange beast dies in Christ's death, and the will forms itself again into the first image, according as God created it. And this is not annexed only unto Seth, but unto Adam's life, viz. unto the only life of man which was in the Word of God, and passes from one upon all; as all branches in one tree do receive sap from the only root of the stock. 10. But the properties of nature, viz. of the natural life, have brought themselves out of Adam's stock into sundry boughs and branches, whence the multiplicity of nations, tongues and speeches is arisen. But the life is only one, and the Covenant in the life sprang forth from the root of life, viz. from the Word of God, out of which the life came upon all, even as the sin, viz. the fall and apostasy passed upon all, none excepted. For the children of Seth were concluded under sin as well as Cain's; but the Covenant, with its manifestation, passed upon Seth; for his name signifies, in the Language of Nature, a forth-breathing spring out of the life through the first centre of the soul, wherein the Word of God would open itself through the life.
211. And Moses says, Seth begat Enos, and then began men to preach of the Name of the Lord (Gen. iv. 26): for the name Enos signifies, in the Language of Nature, a divine lubet through the life, wherein the formed Word would behold itself in the sound and voice of the life. Therefore the spirit of God began to teach out of the Covenant through the life of man, concerning God and his being and will. This was the beginning of the divine contemplation through the formed wisdom in the Word, where the Word did behold itself through the wisdom of the formed human voice. 12. And as the life did form itself by Cain's line through the wonders of the formed wisdom in nature, with all manner of arts and works, and also dominions, governments and orders, and introduced them all for the setting forth of God's wondrous deeds and acts, viz. to a contemplation of evil and good, light and darkness; so likewise the spirit of God did bring forth, out of the line of the Covenant in the manifested Word, the wonders of divine holiness, truth, righteousness, love and patience; and by the preaching of the formed Word did declare what the holy and spiritual kingdom of God is.
313. In Cain the kingdom of nature was represented, and in Abel and Seth the supernatural divine kingdom. Both these arose together and went all along one in another to the remonstrance or contemplation of the divine lubet in the formed wisdom; and each put itself forth in an especial manner into its visible ken as a wonder. 14. for from Adam even unto Lamech, in the line of the wonders, there are seven generations; and in the other line, viz. in the line of the Covenant, from Adam unto Enoch are also seven generations. Enoch is the eighth, viz. a beginning of the prophetical spirit; for in the first seven generations the form of the spiritual kingdom proceeding from the life's tree was set forth. 15. Adam was the stock, for his life takes its original out of the Word. But seeing the life of nature in him did predominate over the life in the formed Word, and would have the supreme dominion, and obscured the life proceeding from the Word, the Word itself freely gave itself with a Covenant to be a life therein; and set forth its figure in Abel, how the natural life should and must be broken, and the Word of the divine power again spring forth afresh out of the first life.
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.
19. This evil beast of the Godless form is predestinated to condemnation; but the Covenant is in the life. If the free will resigns itself up to the Covenant, then Christ arises in his humanity, out of the Covenant, in the life; and even then the strange beast dies in Christ's death, and the will forms itself again into the first image, according as God created it. And this is not annexed only unto Seth, but unto Adam's life, viz. unto the only life of man which was in the Word of God, and passes from one upon all; as all branches in one tree do receive sap from the only root of the stock. 10. But the properties of nature, viz. of the natural life, have brought themselves out of Adam's stock into sundry boughs and branches, whence the multiplicity of nations, tongues and speeches is arisen. But the life is only one, and the Covenant in the life sprang forth from the root of life, viz. from the Word of God, out of which the life came upon all, even as the sin, viz. the fall and apostasy passed upon all, none excepted. For the children of Seth were concluded under sin as well as Cain's; but the Covenant, with its manifestation, passed upon Seth; for his name signifies, in the Language of Nature, a forth-breathing spring out of the life through the first centre of the soul, wherein the Word of God would open itself through the life.
211. And Moses says, Seth begat Enos, and then began men to preach of the Name of the Lord (Gen. iv. 26): for the name Enos signifies, in the Language of Nature, a divine lubet through the life, wherein the formed Word would behold itself in the sound and voice of the life. Therefore the spirit of God began to teach out of the Covenant through the life of man, concerning God and his being and will. This was the beginning of the divine contemplation through the formed wisdom in the Word, where the Word did behold itself through the wisdom of the formed human voice. 12. And as the life did form itself by Cain's line through the wonders of the formed wisdom in nature, with all manner of arts and works, and also dominions, governments and orders, and introduced them all for the setting forth of God's wondrous deeds and acts, viz. to a contemplation of evil and good, light and darkness; so likewise the spirit of God did bring forth, out of the line of the Covenant in the manifested Word, the wonders of divine holiness, truth, righteousness, love and patience; and by the preaching of the formed Word did declare what the holy and spiritual kingdom of God is.
313. In Cain the kingdom of nature was represented, and in Abel and Seth the supernatural divine kingdom. Both these arose together and went all along one in another to the remonstrance or contemplation of the divine lubet in the formed wisdom; and each put itself forth in an especial manner into its visible ken as a wonder. 14. for from Adam even unto Lamech, in the line of the wonders, there are seven generations; and in the other line, viz. in the line of the Covenant, from Adam unto Enoch are also seven generations. Enoch is the eighth, viz. a beginning of the prophetical spirit; for in the first seven generations the form of the spiritual kingdom proceeding from the life's tree was set forth. 15. Adam was the stock, for his life takes its original out of the Word. But seeing the life of nature in him did predominate over the life in the formed Word, and would have the supreme dominion, and obscured the life proceeding from the Word, the Word itself freely gave itself with a Covenant to be a life therein; and set forth its figure in Abel, how the natural life should and must be broken, and the Word of the divine power again spring forth afresh out of the first life.
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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