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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.
1This is an exact real type of the human property, according to the three Principles or worlds: for the spirit in Noah speaks from the centre; and the three sons of Noah did now stand before the spirit in a figure; typifying what kind of people should arise from them. 2. By this figure the spirit of Noah prophesied or declared, from the very stock or root of the formed Word of the human property, what the second monarchy should be. Noah was drunk, and lay naked with his shame, at which his son Ham mocked, and also declared it to his brethren, that they also should do the like. Here the spirit intimates and points out whence the curse arose upon Ham, viz. from the shame of his father. 3. For this was even the abomination before God's holiness; out of which root Ham and his generation, viz. the man of vanity, does arise, for in the image of God the shame is an abomination. 4. Therefore God commanded Abraham to be circumcised on this member, to show that this member was not given to Adam in the beginning, and that it should be again cut off from the image of God, and not inherit the kingdom of God; upon which cause and reason also the soul's spirit is ashamed to uncover it.
25. But seeing that Adam did not stand in the image of God, when his Eve was made out of him, it was hung upon him for to propagate in a bestial nature and kind; thereupon also this bestial tree, viz. the fleshly spirit of vanity, came to be propagated all along from this property, and adheres to man. The figure of this was Ham, and therefore he mocked his own property in his father. 6. The spirit of this property mocked its ens which it had from the centre of nature; it beheld itself in his father's shame, from whence it had its rise, as in a looking-glass of its selfhood. And thus this spirit [of fleshly Ham] forthwith brake forth as a life of vanity, and manifested what itself was, viz. a scorn [disdain or mock-god] of heaven. 7. Which the spirit of God's image in the formed Word of the good ens in Noah did well know, and did awaken in him the firecentre of the soul in the wrath, and cursed this spirit of vanity, that it should not co-inherit in the kingdom of heaven. The scoff-spirit shall not possess the kingdom of God, but be cut off from the image of God, that is, from the outward image of the formed creature. 8. For the same property from whence the shame arises, is good in itself; but in Adam's imagination after the bestial property it became monstrous, bestial and strange in the image of God; and therefore this strange form and shape shall not remain for ever.
39. From this strange false shape the scorner or scoff-spirit did arise. The devil insinuated into the figure of Ham's strange spirit, and mocked at the heavenly generatress, that it was now even become a monster in the image of God; and therefore the spirit of Noah cursed the false scoff-spirit [in Ham and all his generation]. 10. Not that we are to understand that Ham was accursed in his soul and soul's spirit, but according to the figure [he and all his were accursed] in the property of the reviling mocking spirit, which brake forth and manifested itself out of the monster; but he (that is, the earthly image of the limus of the earth) should be hidden with its own self-will in the image of God, and be only as a servant or instrument of the divine image proceeding from the holy ens; the earthly spirit should not rule, but the heavenly, viz. the soul with its spirit; the monster, that is, this vile reviling spirit, must not be manifest. But seeing the free will did awaken and stir up the monstrous spirit, which was only a scorner of the Mystery and hiddenness in the Covenant, Noah cursed him, 1 and said, He should be a servant of his brethren. 1 Or it.
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.
1This is an exact real type of the human property, according to the three Principles or worlds: for the spirit in Noah speaks from the centre; and the three sons of Noah did now stand before the spirit in a figure; typifying what kind of people should arise from them. 2. By this figure the spirit of Noah prophesied or declared, from the very stock or root of the formed Word of the human property, what the second monarchy should be. Noah was drunk, and lay naked with his shame, at which his son Ham mocked, and also declared it to his brethren, that they also should do the like. Here the spirit intimates and points out whence the curse arose upon Ham, viz. from the shame of his father. 3. For this was even the abomination before God's holiness; out of which root Ham and his generation, viz. the man of vanity, does arise, for in the image of God the shame is an abomination. 4. Therefore God commanded Abraham to be circumcised on this member, to show that this member was not given to Adam in the beginning, and that it should be again cut off from the image of God, and not inherit the kingdom of God; upon which cause and reason also the soul's spirit is ashamed to uncover it.
25. But seeing that Adam did not stand in the image of God, when his Eve was made out of him, it was hung upon him for to propagate in a bestial nature and kind; thereupon also this bestial tree, viz. the fleshly spirit of vanity, came to be propagated all along from this property, and adheres to man. The figure of this was Ham, and therefore he mocked his own property in his father. 6. The spirit of this property mocked its ens which it had from the centre of nature; it beheld itself in his father's shame, from whence it had its rise, as in a looking-glass of its selfhood. And thus this spirit [of fleshly Ham] forthwith brake forth as a life of vanity, and manifested what itself was, viz. a scorn [disdain or mock-god] of heaven. 7. Which the spirit of God's image in the formed Word of the good ens in Noah did well know, and did awaken in him the firecentre of the soul in the wrath, and cursed this spirit of vanity, that it should not co-inherit in the kingdom of heaven. The scoff-spirit shall not possess the kingdom of God, but be cut off from the image of God, that is, from the outward image of the formed creature. 8. For the same property from whence the shame arises, is good in itself; but in Adam's imagination after the bestial property it became monstrous, bestial and strange in the image of God; and therefore this strange form and shape shall not remain for ever.
39. From this strange false shape the scorner or scoff-spirit did arise. The devil insinuated into the figure of Ham's strange spirit, and mocked at the heavenly generatress, that it was now even become a monster in the image of God; and therefore the spirit of Noah cursed the false scoff-spirit [in Ham and all his generation]. 10. Not that we are to understand that Ham was accursed in his soul and soul's spirit, but according to the figure [he and all his were accursed] in the property of the reviling mocking spirit, which brake forth and manifested itself out of the monster; but he (that is, the earthly image of the limus of the earth) should be hidden with its own self-will in the image of God, and be only as a servant or instrument of the divine image proceeding from the holy ens; the earthly spirit should not rule, but the heavenly, viz. the soul with its spirit; the monster, that is, this vile reviling spirit, must not be manifest. But seeing the free will did awaken and stir up the monstrous spirit, which was only a scorner of the Mystery and hiddenness in the Covenant, Noah cursed him, 1 and said, He should be a servant of his brethren. 1 Or it.
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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