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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.
141. And when the time of Enos was at the end, in the days of the children of Nimrod, the Word grieved at the vanity of man, that they would not know God, and drowned the understanding of the one only tongue, and divided it, and gave by 2 its repentance the certain understanding in the Covenant with Abraham. 2 Or, out of 42. And when the time of Cainan was at the end, that the children of Abraham's Covenant were compelled in the vanity of servitude, the Word grieved at the vanity, and destroyed Pharaoh; and afterwards all the men of the children of Israel in the wilderness, save Joshua and Caleb, and gave them, out of its sorrow and repentance, the Law of his Covenant: a true type of Christ, who should drown the abomination in his blood. 43. Thus also when Mahalaleel's time was come to the end, the Word grieved in the deepest repentance, and brought the life of God in Christ Jesus into the formed creatural Word in the human ens, and drowned the turba in the human ens, with God's love and mercy, and gave them the spirit of comfort, and the Gospel. 44. Thus even now also, where the time of Jared is at the end, which has been covered with Babel, even now, at this present, the Word doth repent and grieve at our great vanity, and will destroy the abomination with the devouring jaws of wrath: with sword, hunger, fire, and death; and gives, out of its sorrow, grief and repentance, a lily out of Enoch's mouth, in God's sweetness.
245. And when Enoch's line shall be at the end, that the vanity does again grow in the turba, then comes the greatest grief and sorrow of all, upon the nature of the wonders; that it is at the end, and there is no more any remedy for it. Even then comes the last motion with 1 the turba in the first Principle of the eternal nature, and swallows up the outward nature in the fire. Even then the formed Word shall be wholly freed from vanity, and gives, by 2 its last repentance, the holy spiritual world. Amen. 1 Or, of . 2 From, or out of . The Thirty-Second Chapter Of the Covenant between God and Noah 1. GOD said to Noah, / will establish a covenant with you, and you shall go into the ark with your and your son's wives with you (Gen. vi. 18). A great, pregnant and remarkable example we have here in Noah and his children. The Covenant was made with Noah; for his spirit was a discovery or beaming forth of the formed Word in him, in the beginning and end of time; and the beginning and end was the eternal Word, which had espoused itself in the Covenant. In which Covenant the soul of Noah, viz. the formed Word of the eternal nature, found grace, and obtained the confirmation of the Covenant of grace.
32. As his name does properly and peculiarly signify, in the Language of Nature, a beholding of the beginning and end. In this same beginning and end, viz. in the eternal- speaking Word of the Father, which would manifest and open itself again in the human life, grace was opened and presented to Noah, so that God did establish and confirm the Covenant with him. 3. And here we have a very excellent, and an emphatical example, which is exceedingly worth the mentioning, in the three sons of Noah, which in their properties were sprung forth from the stock of Adam in a threefold line. For we see that three nations [several sorts of people] did arise from them, and that God did include them all three, with their wives, in the Covenant of grace, and commanded them also to go into the ark, into the second monarchy, and did not exclude the fleshly Ham. 4. This is first highly to be considered: that a gate of grace stands open to all men, and that God has not set any election or predestination in nature; but the election or choice doth arise out of the free will, when it turns itself from the good into the evil. 5. Secondly, it is a type of the three Principles, viz. Sem is a type of the spiritual light- world in the Covenant; and Japhet of the fireworld, which should be a sojourner of the light- world, and a mirror
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.
141. And when the time of Enos was at the end, in the days of the children of Nimrod, the Word grieved at the vanity of man, that they would not know God, and drowned the understanding of the one only tongue, and divided it, and gave by 2 its repentance the certain understanding in the Covenant with Abraham. 2 Or, out of 42. And when the time of Cainan was at the end, that the children of Abraham's Covenant were compelled in the vanity of servitude, the Word grieved at the vanity, and destroyed Pharaoh; and afterwards all the men of the children of Israel in the wilderness, save Joshua and Caleb, and gave them, out of its sorrow and repentance, the Law of his Covenant: a true type of Christ, who should drown the abomination in his blood. 43. Thus also when Mahalaleel's time was come to the end, the Word grieved in the deepest repentance, and brought the life of God in Christ Jesus into the formed creatural Word in the human ens, and drowned the turba in the human ens, with God's love and mercy, and gave them the spirit of comfort, and the Gospel. 44. Thus even now also, where the time of Jared is at the end, which has been covered with Babel, even now, at this present, the Word doth repent and grieve at our great vanity, and will destroy the abomination with the devouring jaws of wrath: with sword, hunger, fire, and death; and gives, out of its sorrow, grief and repentance, a lily out of Enoch's mouth, in God's sweetness.
245. And when Enoch's line shall be at the end, that the vanity does again grow in the turba, then comes the greatest grief and sorrow of all, upon the nature of the wonders; that it is at the end, and there is no more any remedy for it. Even then comes the last motion with 1 the turba in the first Principle of the eternal nature, and swallows up the outward nature in the fire. Even then the formed Word shall be wholly freed from vanity, and gives, by 2 its last repentance, the holy spiritual world. Amen. 1 Or, of . 2 From, or out of . The Thirty-Second Chapter Of the Covenant between God and Noah 1. GOD said to Noah, / will establish a covenant with you, and you shall go into the ark with your and your son's wives with you (Gen. vi. 18). A great, pregnant and remarkable example we have here in Noah and his children. The Covenant was made with Noah; for his spirit was a discovery or beaming forth of the formed Word in him, in the beginning and end of time; and the beginning and end was the eternal Word, which had espoused itself in the Covenant. In which Covenant the soul of Noah, viz. the formed Word of the eternal nature, found grace, and obtained the confirmation of the Covenant of grace.
32. As his name does properly and peculiarly signify, in the Language of Nature, a beholding of the beginning and end. In this same beginning and end, viz. in the eternal- speaking Word of the Father, which would manifest and open itself again in the human life, grace was opened and presented to Noah, so that God did establish and confirm the Covenant with him. 3. And here we have a very excellent, and an emphatical example, which is exceedingly worth the mentioning, in the three sons of Noah, which in their properties were sprung forth from the stock of Adam in a threefold line. For we see that three nations [several sorts of people] did arise from them, and that God did include them all three, with their wives, in the Covenant of grace, and commanded them also to go into the ark, into the second monarchy, and did not exclude the fleshly Ham. 4. This is first highly to be considered: that a gate of grace stands open to all men, and that God has not set any election or predestination in nature; but the election or choice doth arise out of the free will, when it turns itself from the good into the evil. 5. Secondly, it is a type of the three Principles, viz. Sem is a type of the spiritual light- world in the Covenant; and Japhet of the fireworld, which should be a sojourner of the light- world, and a mirror
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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