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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.
1of the great joy in the light-world; and Ham is a figure of the limus of the earth, to which the curse and the anger of God does hang. All these three, God took into the Covenant with Noah, and brought them into the ark. 6. For every man has these three worlds upon him, and in him; and the Covenant in the Word was therefore given, that the whole man should be redeemed. 7. For Japhet signifies the fire-soul; and Sem the image of God out of the light- world, viz. the spirit out of the holy Word; and Ham betokens the limus of the earth, with the outward dominion or region of the air, and of the magical ethereal constellations, together with the body, which shall be freed by the Covenant from the curse, and arise again out of the earth. The three brothers were a type of these three Principles. 8. Not that one did wholly arise out of one Principle alone, No! Sem and Japhet had likewise Ham's property in them, as did plainly manifest itself afterwards in the Jews, who became so wicked and vile a people. Only, we speak here of the superior dominion or predominant property, of which Principle the creature has had in the outward life in its figure. 9. Ham has the outward earthly elemental kingdom in the figure, which stood in the curse. Therefore his image [or person] was also cursed of his father, in the spirit;
2for the earthly image shall not inherit the kingdom of God; but he also had a soul from Adam, which stood in the Covenant; but the free will does very seldom work any good thing in such a lodging, and very easily attains the curse upon the soul. As we see that the curse did afterwards come upon this generation; that Israel must destroy [them] by their entrance into the Land of Promise; albeit they did not wholly destroy [them] all, yet the curse was come upon them. 10. There is a very great mystery in the ark of Noah, which the Lord commanded him to build after that manner, and showed him how high, how long, and how broad it should be, and directed also that it should have three several stories; also concerning the creatures which he commanded him to bring thereinto; which is such a mystery, that the wicked malicious man is not worthy to know it. And we also shall not mention it in the ground [or depth of its meaning]. For it has its time, wherein it shall be opened, viz. in the lily-time, when Babel has its end. But yet to set down somewhat for a furtherance and direction to our fellow-branches, to whom in its due time it shall break forth and grow out of our ens of this lily (which also shall be a rose in the lily-time), we will set it down in a hidden exposition.
311. The mystery of the holy Trinity: also the three Principles: also the three sons of Noah: also the three men that appeared to Abraham in the plain of Mamre: also the vision of the great temple in Ezekiel: and the whole Revelation of John belongs unto this figure: also the temple of Jerusalem. 12. Set before you the figure of the ark, with its three stories, with its height, length, and breadth, and place it in the three Principles. And in the three Principles open the mysteries of the hierarchy 1 of Christ in the three distinctions of heavens, which yet are only one; but in three properties, as fire, light, and air are three, and yet but one. Place in these distinctions [or several differences] the three sons of Noah ; and go out of their properties into their monarchy in the world, which continues to the end of days. Also set before you the formed Word according to all the three Principles; and so you will find the ground of all. Especially set before you, Moses, Elias, and Christ, in their appearance and transfiguration upon the mount: the ark of Noah is the first type of all these figures; and the hierarchy of Christ is the fulfilling of them at the end of days. Enough to ours. 13. And the Lord said, Come you and your whole house into the ark, for you have I seen righteous before me at this time 2 (Gen. vii. I). The Scripture says elsewhere, Before you none living is righteous, if you will impute sin.
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.
1of the great joy in the light-world; and Ham is a figure of the limus of the earth, to which the curse and the anger of God does hang. All these three, God took into the Covenant with Noah, and brought them into the ark. 6. For every man has these three worlds upon him, and in him; and the Covenant in the Word was therefore given, that the whole man should be redeemed. 7. For Japhet signifies the fire-soul; and Sem the image of God out of the light- world, viz. the spirit out of the holy Word; and Ham betokens the limus of the earth, with the outward dominion or region of the air, and of the magical ethereal constellations, together with the body, which shall be freed by the Covenant from the curse, and arise again out of the earth. The three brothers were a type of these three Principles. 8. Not that one did wholly arise out of one Principle alone, No! Sem and Japhet had likewise Ham's property in them, as did plainly manifest itself afterwards in the Jews, who became so wicked and vile a people. Only, we speak here of the superior dominion or predominant property, of which Principle the creature has had in the outward life in its figure. 9. Ham has the outward earthly elemental kingdom in the figure, which stood in the curse. Therefore his image [or person] was also cursed of his father, in the spirit;
2for the earthly image shall not inherit the kingdom of God; but he also had a soul from Adam, which stood in the Covenant; but the free will does very seldom work any good thing in such a lodging, and very easily attains the curse upon the soul. As we see that the curse did afterwards come upon this generation; that Israel must destroy [them] by their entrance into the Land of Promise; albeit they did not wholly destroy [them] all, yet the curse was come upon them. 10. There is a very great mystery in the ark of Noah, which the Lord commanded him to build after that manner, and showed him how high, how long, and how broad it should be, and directed also that it should have three several stories; also concerning the creatures which he commanded him to bring thereinto; which is such a mystery, that the wicked malicious man is not worthy to know it. And we also shall not mention it in the ground [or depth of its meaning]. For it has its time, wherein it shall be opened, viz. in the lily-time, when Babel has its end. But yet to set down somewhat for a furtherance and direction to our fellow-branches, to whom in its due time it shall break forth and grow out of our ens of this lily (which also shall be a rose in the lily-time), we will set it down in a hidden exposition.
311. The mystery of the holy Trinity: also the three Principles: also the three sons of Noah: also the three men that appeared to Abraham in the plain of Mamre: also the vision of the great temple in Ezekiel: and the whole Revelation of John belongs unto this figure: also the temple of Jerusalem. 12. Set before you the figure of the ark, with its three stories, with its height, length, and breadth, and place it in the three Principles. And in the three Principles open the mysteries of the hierarchy 1 of Christ in the three distinctions of heavens, which yet are only one; but in three properties, as fire, light, and air are three, and yet but one. Place in these distinctions [or several differences] the three sons of Noah ; and go out of their properties into their monarchy in the world, which continues to the end of days. Also set before you the formed Word according to all the three Principles; and so you will find the ground of all. Especially set before you, Moses, Elias, and Christ, in their appearance and transfiguration upon the mount: the ark of Noah is the first type of all these figures; and the hierarchy of Christ is the fulfilling of them at the end of days. Enough to ours. 13. And the Lord said, Come you and your whole house into the ark, for you have I seen righteous before me at this time 2 (Gen. vii. I). The Scripture says elsewhere, Before you none living is righteous, if you will impute sin.
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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