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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.
1and called it Lamech, viz. a contemplation and beholding of the great affliction and wound, that the human ens was corrupted. For like as Lamech in Cain's line did express the wound of corruption [and misery that was broke in upon mankind], and spoke of a seventy-and- sevenfold Racha upon the free will which did corrupt the life, even so here the divine spirit said: the human ens is Lamech ; that is, the wound is too great, it prevails. Although the strong and mighty breath of God in Methusalah proceeded forth out of the prophetical voice, yet the ens, in propagation, did form itself in the corrupted nature in Lamech; that is, in two wills, as Moses says, The first Lamech in Cain's line took two wives, viz. Adah and Zillah. Even so here likewise it would not be otherwise. 3. Now Moses says, And Lamech begat Noah (Gen. v. 28). With this name the spirit goes forth out of the wound of Lamech into the end of time, and brings the end into the beginning; for NOAH signifies in the Language of Nature, End and Beginning. Now the spirit finds in the end the holy word, which had espoused and incorporated itself in the Covenant, and says, This same shall comfort us in our labour and toil upon the earth which the Lord has cursed (Gen. v. 29). 4. For the comfort of man must come out of the beginning and end; for in the beginning is, and was, the Word of God, which is the beginning of all things;
2and in the end is also the Word of God, which is the comfort of all things; that the creature shall be delivered from the vanity. Whereunto the spirit looked, and said, this same (where he meant the Word which would manifest itself in the humanity) shall comfort us in our labour upon the earth which the Lord has cursed; for Noah could not comfort men, for he preached to them the rebuke, punishment and perdition. But he that was in the beginning and end, he comforted mankind in their labour and toil upon the earth, which they had in the curse and anger of God. 5. In this name, Noah, the spirit in Lamech looks forwards into the end, and backwards into the beginning; and conceives itself in the beginning and end into a form, and calls the same, Noah, that is, an ark of the wonders which were in the beginning and end, and [in] the whole time; and displays or puts forth this same spirit of the whole form through Noah into three branches, which went forth out of the tree of wonders, viz. out of the prophetical ens of Enoch in the human property. And thereof Moses says, And Noah begat Sem, Ham, and Japhet. These were the three twigs of the second monarchy, under which most excellent mysteries are given us to be understood.
36. Sem signifies an out-breathing divine lubet [or desire] out of the line of the Covenant, out of the life of man, and a comprehension of the lubet, viz. a type of that which secretly passed forth afterwards under the lubet. It points at the humanity of Christ in the flesh, the type of which was Sem, viz. a representation [or express form] in the same lubet; in which lubet also the Covenant was made with Abraham, concerning the seed of the woman, wherein the blessing should appear. 7. The other branch or twig the spirit called Ham, which signifies a strong breathing out of the centre of nature, and a gross amassment or compaction into a flesh. Which denotes the earthly, natural, fleshly man, which holds Sem captive in itself; [understand by Sem] the inward man, which shall arise from death out of the earth. 1 Understand, the man proceeded from the limus of the good part of the earth, which was in Sem formed according to the divine lubet. 2 1 Note.-Concerning the Resurrection. 2 Or taken into the divine lubet.
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.
1and called it Lamech, viz. a contemplation and beholding of the great affliction and wound, that the human ens was corrupted. For like as Lamech in Cain's line did express the wound of corruption [and misery that was broke in upon mankind], and spoke of a seventy-and- sevenfold Racha upon the free will which did corrupt the life, even so here the divine spirit said: the human ens is Lamech ; that is, the wound is too great, it prevails. Although the strong and mighty breath of God in Methusalah proceeded forth out of the prophetical voice, yet the ens, in propagation, did form itself in the corrupted nature in Lamech; that is, in two wills, as Moses says, The first Lamech in Cain's line took two wives, viz. Adah and Zillah. Even so here likewise it would not be otherwise. 3. Now Moses says, And Lamech begat Noah (Gen. v. 28). With this name the spirit goes forth out of the wound of Lamech into the end of time, and brings the end into the beginning; for NOAH signifies in the Language of Nature, End and Beginning. Now the spirit finds in the end the holy word, which had espoused and incorporated itself in the Covenant, and says, This same shall comfort us in our labour and toil upon the earth which the Lord has cursed (Gen. v. 29). 4. For the comfort of man must come out of the beginning and end; for in the beginning is, and was, the Word of God, which is the beginning of all things;
2and in the end is also the Word of God, which is the comfort of all things; that the creature shall be delivered from the vanity. Whereunto the spirit looked, and said, this same (where he meant the Word which would manifest itself in the humanity) shall comfort us in our labour upon the earth which the Lord has cursed; for Noah could not comfort men, for he preached to them the rebuke, punishment and perdition. But he that was in the beginning and end, he comforted mankind in their labour and toil upon the earth, which they had in the curse and anger of God. 5. In this name, Noah, the spirit in Lamech looks forwards into the end, and backwards into the beginning; and conceives itself in the beginning and end into a form, and calls the same, Noah, that is, an ark of the wonders which were in the beginning and end, and [in] the whole time; and displays or puts forth this same spirit of the whole form through Noah into three branches, which went forth out of the tree of wonders, viz. out of the prophetical ens of Enoch in the human property. And thereof Moses says, And Noah begat Sem, Ham, and Japhet. These were the three twigs of the second monarchy, under which most excellent mysteries are given us to be understood.
36. Sem signifies an out-breathing divine lubet [or desire] out of the line of the Covenant, out of the life of man, and a comprehension of the lubet, viz. a type of that which secretly passed forth afterwards under the lubet. It points at the humanity of Christ in the flesh, the type of which was Sem, viz. a representation [or express form] in the same lubet; in which lubet also the Covenant was made with Abraham, concerning the seed of the woman, wherein the blessing should appear. 7. The other branch or twig the spirit called Ham, which signifies a strong breathing out of the centre of nature, and a gross amassment or compaction into a flesh. Which denotes the earthly, natural, fleshly man, which holds Sem captive in itself; [understand by Sem] the inward man, which shall arise from death out of the earth. 1 Understand, the man proceeded from the limus of the good part of the earth, which was in Sem formed according to the divine lubet. 2 1 Note.-Concerning the Resurrection. 2 Or taken into the divine lubet.
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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