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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.
126. And Moses says further, Jared begat Enoch. Here the great and wonderful gate does open; for out of Jared, viz. out of the kingdom of the wonders, the prophet must arise: for the prophet is the mouth of the kingdom. He shows what the kingdom is, and how it is taken and apprehended in the evil and good, and what the issue and end of all things will be; also he declares and points out the means, how the turba has apprehended the life; and denounces severe and earnest threatenings concerning God's anger; how the sword of the Cherub will cut off the false [man or prophet] . 27. Enoch signifies in its own speech as much as a forth-breathed breath of the divine good pleasure, [lubet] which has in the time thus beheld itself with the out-breathing in a form; which power of the forth-breathing doth again draw the formed breath into itself, and does only give forth its sound, as a voice of the divine will. And first it does point at a twig, springing from the line of the Covenant, viz. out of the internal priestly office, out of the holy divine lubet of the wisdom of God, out of Jehovah. The spirit would comprehend the deepest love in Jehovah in one name and word, which is called Jesus. But in the meantime it did thereby play, in the time of the figure, in the holy wisdom, in the line of the Covenant, as with an internal hidden holy kingdom, which he would manifest in the fullness of time.
228. Secondly, it signifies the power of the formed word, viz. the person or the body out of the limus of the earth, [viz.] of the heavenly part of the earth; intimating that this body should be taken into the holy word, and translated from this earthliness. As the light does withdraw and swallow up the darkness, even so likewise the good part of the true humanity in Adam's first image shall be translated [extracted or drawn forth] by the word out of the earthliness, and arise out of the earth: which Enoch's translation from this world does point out and signify. 29. Thirdly, it signifies and points at the prophet, viz. the voice of the divine lubet, which did declare and set forth the kingdom of Christ, and also the kingdom of the wonders in their future transactions and junctures of time; for the prophetical voice did manifest itself again out of the translation. And did foretell and signify out of the essence of the spirit, viz. out of the most spiritual kingdom, that is, out of the human angelical kingdom, through the soul's spirit; and then also from the whole body of the kingdom, viz. from the nature of the wonders, from the limus of the earth and of the stars, [I say, it did set forth both from the spiritual and from the corporal kingdom], how the outward kingdom of man should afterwards arise in this world's being, and what would happen and come to pass therein.
3This the inward holy omniscient spirit does signify throughl the outward, viz. through the wonders of the pregnatress [or mother] of the outward beings, viz. through the spirit of the outward world, for the inward spirit did view itself through the formed wisdom of God, and did contemplate and behold itself in the formed spirit of the wonders: this the name Enoch signifies unto us. 30. Now the spirit in Moses does further demonstrate, and says, Enoch was sixty-five years old, and he begat Methuselah, and after that he begat him he continued in a divine life three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: so that the whole age of Enoch was three hundred sixty and five years. And seeing he led a divine life God took him away, and he was no more seen (Gen. v. 21-24). Here the veil hangs right before the face of Moses, by reason of the unworthiness of man; and the spirit signifies very clearly in Moses (if we had but the eyes of our understanding open), when these mysteries should be manifested [or fulfilled]. 31. But seeing the Most High has freely granted us by his counsel to understand this, we will, so far as we dare, somewhat unfold these mysteries to our schoolfellows, and show the precious pearl unto the children; and yet withal suffer a bolt to lie before our description, that the false heart shall not enter into it: but we shall be sufficiently and fundamentally intelligible unto those that are ours.
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.
126. And Moses says further, Jared begat Enoch. Here the great and wonderful gate does open; for out of Jared, viz. out of the kingdom of the wonders, the prophet must arise: for the prophet is the mouth of the kingdom. He shows what the kingdom is, and how it is taken and apprehended in the evil and good, and what the issue and end of all things will be; also he declares and points out the means, how the turba has apprehended the life; and denounces severe and earnest threatenings concerning God's anger; how the sword of the Cherub will cut off the false [man or prophet] . 27. Enoch signifies in its own speech as much as a forth-breathed breath of the divine good pleasure, [lubet] which has in the time thus beheld itself with the out-breathing in a form; which power of the forth-breathing doth again draw the formed breath into itself, and does only give forth its sound, as a voice of the divine will. And first it does point at a twig, springing from the line of the Covenant, viz. out of the internal priestly office, out of the holy divine lubet of the wisdom of God, out of Jehovah. The spirit would comprehend the deepest love in Jehovah in one name and word, which is called Jesus. But in the meantime it did thereby play, in the time of the figure, in the holy wisdom, in the line of the Covenant, as with an internal hidden holy kingdom, which he would manifest in the fullness of time.
228. Secondly, it signifies the power of the formed word, viz. the person or the body out of the limus of the earth, [viz.] of the heavenly part of the earth; intimating that this body should be taken into the holy word, and translated from this earthliness. As the light does withdraw and swallow up the darkness, even so likewise the good part of the true humanity in Adam's first image shall be translated [extracted or drawn forth] by the word out of the earthliness, and arise out of the earth: which Enoch's translation from this world does point out and signify. 29. Thirdly, it signifies and points at the prophet, viz. the voice of the divine lubet, which did declare and set forth the kingdom of Christ, and also the kingdom of the wonders in their future transactions and junctures of time; for the prophetical voice did manifest itself again out of the translation. And did foretell and signify out of the essence of the spirit, viz. out of the most spiritual kingdom, that is, out of the human angelical kingdom, through the soul's spirit; and then also from the whole body of the kingdom, viz. from the nature of the wonders, from the limus of the earth and of the stars, [I say, it did set forth both from the spiritual and from the corporal kingdom], how the outward kingdom of man should afterwards arise in this world's being, and what would happen and come to pass therein.
3This the inward holy omniscient spirit does signify throughl the outward, viz. through the wonders of the pregnatress [or mother] of the outward beings, viz. through the spirit of the outward world, for the inward spirit did view itself through the formed wisdom of God, and did contemplate and behold itself in the formed spirit of the wonders: this the name Enoch signifies unto us. 30. Now the spirit in Moses does further demonstrate, and says, Enoch was sixty-five years old, and he begat Methuselah, and after that he begat him he continued in a divine life three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: so that the whole age of Enoch was three hundred sixty and five years. And seeing he led a divine life God took him away, and he was no more seen (Gen. v. 21-24). Here the veil hangs right before the face of Moses, by reason of the unworthiness of man; and the spirit signifies very clearly in Moses (if we had but the eyes of our understanding open), when these mysteries should be manifested [or fulfilled]. 31. But seeing the Most High has freely granted us by his counsel to understand this, we will, so far as we dare, somewhat unfold these mysteries to our schoolfellows, and show the precious pearl unto the children; and yet withal suffer a bolt to lie before our description, that the false heart shall not enter into it: but we shall be sufficiently and fundamentally intelligible unto those that are ours.
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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