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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.
1the bestial soul was hereby brought to its predominant power and force. And this same is Ham's property, which God has ordained to be servant under the angelical kingdom, and cursed its jeering scorning power, in that it did mock at the heavenly matrix, and set forth its own figure and form. 20. The spirit says in Moses, Shem and Japheth took a garment upon their shoulders, and went backward to their father and covered him; so that their faces were turned backward, and they saw not his shame (Gen. ix. 23). O you wonderful God! how very mystically and secretly dost you carry your works: who would know and understand your ways, if your spirit did not lead us, and open the understanding! 21. Both these brothers took a garment upon their shoulders and covered the father. Wherefore did not one do it alone? or wherefore did Noah drink himself drunk, and lay so naked with his shame? This, reason looks upon, as if there were nothing more in it [but only a history of such an act] . But seeing that Ham was thereby cursed, and made to be a servant of his brethren, and not only he, but also all his posterity out of him, we see thereby very clearly what the spirit doth hereby signify, viz. that it is a type, character and figure of that which should afterwards come to pass.
222. The earthly spirit, which the devil had made monstrous, was a scorner and jeerer of the heavenly birth; it indeed saw the shame which it must bear upon it as a monster; but he went away as a beast, and mocked the new regeneration of the heavenly matrix. But Japheth, viz. the poor soul, and Shem, that is, the disappeared heaven's image, which was moved, stirred or quickened again in the Covenant, they took a garment upon their shoulders. This garment was the new humanity, which should open itself out of the Covenant, out of the angelical world. 23. And they went backward, and covered the father's shame. This intimates and betokens that the free will of self must and shall wholly turn itself away from the bestial monster of self-fullness and ownhood, wherein the shame stands open, and enter again into the resigned filiation or child-ship; and go no more forwards, but retire again backwards; and must take the garment of the new humanity, viz. Christ's innocency, merit and satisfaction upon it, and therewith cover the shame which our father Adam has, with the monster, passed upon us by inheritance: This was the type which was here set forth. 24. And that Shem did not carry the garment alone, and cover the father, doth figure out unto us, that the soul, viz. Japheth, (that is, the inward kingdom) of the inward eternal nature, must help; for
3the soul is of the Father's property, and this, Japheth doth typify. And the soul's spirit, viz. the fair image of God in the light, which did vanish or disappear in Adam, and stood typically 1 in the Covenant, of which Shem was the figure, doth point out unto us the Son's property, who should open the Covenant. Thus also we are to understand that the Father in his will, who freely gave us the Son, took on one part the garment of our sins' covering, and this was typified by Japheth; and the Son, on the other part, who covered our shame with the Father's will, of this Shem was a figure. 25. For if Christ shall lay the covering garment upon our shame, then the soul must help, that is, it must give up and resign its will wholly thereinto; and go backwards with its will towards the bosom of the Father; and not any longer parley with itself in its own will and knowledge, how it goes or will go; and so it must take the garment, in true repentance, upon its shoulders; and leave the other part upon the shoulders of Shem, viz. unto the true image of Christ, 2 which is the precious noble Sophia. 1 Or in the image. 2 Or God.
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.
1the bestial soul was hereby brought to its predominant power and force. And this same is Ham's property, which God has ordained to be servant under the angelical kingdom, and cursed its jeering scorning power, in that it did mock at the heavenly matrix, and set forth its own figure and form. 20. The spirit says in Moses, Shem and Japheth took a garment upon their shoulders, and went backward to their father and covered him; so that their faces were turned backward, and they saw not his shame (Gen. ix. 23). O you wonderful God! how very mystically and secretly dost you carry your works: who would know and understand your ways, if your spirit did not lead us, and open the understanding! 21. Both these brothers took a garment upon their shoulders and covered the father. Wherefore did not one do it alone? or wherefore did Noah drink himself drunk, and lay so naked with his shame? This, reason looks upon, as if there were nothing more in it [but only a history of such an act] . But seeing that Ham was thereby cursed, and made to be a servant of his brethren, and not only he, but also all his posterity out of him, we see thereby very clearly what the spirit doth hereby signify, viz. that it is a type, character and figure of that which should afterwards come to pass.
222. The earthly spirit, which the devil had made monstrous, was a scorner and jeerer of the heavenly birth; it indeed saw the shame which it must bear upon it as a monster; but he went away as a beast, and mocked the new regeneration of the heavenly matrix. But Japheth, viz. the poor soul, and Shem, that is, the disappeared heaven's image, which was moved, stirred or quickened again in the Covenant, they took a garment upon their shoulders. This garment was the new humanity, which should open itself out of the Covenant, out of the angelical world. 23. And they went backward, and covered the father's shame. This intimates and betokens that the free will of self must and shall wholly turn itself away from the bestial monster of self-fullness and ownhood, wherein the shame stands open, and enter again into the resigned filiation or child-ship; and go no more forwards, but retire again backwards; and must take the garment of the new humanity, viz. Christ's innocency, merit and satisfaction upon it, and therewith cover the shame which our father Adam has, with the monster, passed upon us by inheritance: This was the type which was here set forth. 24. And that Shem did not carry the garment alone, and cover the father, doth figure out unto us, that the soul, viz. Japheth, (that is, the inward kingdom) of the inward eternal nature, must help; for
3the soul is of the Father's property, and this, Japheth doth typify. And the soul's spirit, viz. the fair image of God in the light, which did vanish or disappear in Adam, and stood typically 1 in the Covenant, of which Shem was the figure, doth point out unto us the Son's property, who should open the Covenant. Thus also we are to understand that the Father in his will, who freely gave us the Son, took on one part the garment of our sins' covering, and this was typified by Japheth; and the Son, on the other part, who covered our shame with the Father's will, of this Shem was a figure. 25. For if Christ shall lay the covering garment upon our shame, then the soul must help, that is, it must give up and resign its will wholly thereinto; and go backwards with its will towards the bosom of the Father; and not any longer parley with itself in its own will and knowledge, how it goes or will go; and so it must take the garment, in true repentance, upon its shoulders; and leave the other part upon the shoulders of Shem, viz. unto the true image of Christ, 2 which is the precious noble Sophia. 1 Or in the image. 2 Or God.
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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