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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.
116. For he had determined to send another prince, by whom he would redeem man from his sickness and death, and purify and purge the earth through the fire of God, and introduce it into the holy (being), as it was when Lucifer was an angel, before it came into such a creature. [ Or creatural being] 17. And Adam was created only unto [or in] the divine image, which should be eternal; and though it was known in the wrath of God that man would fall, yet the Regenerator [or Restorer] was also known in God's love; to [Text, for] whom this hierarchy should be given for a royal possession, in Lucifer' s stead. 18. But that the fall might not proceed (or come) from the divine appointment *, God made man perfect, and created and ordained him unto Paradise, and forbade him the false lust, which the devil stirred up through the limus of the earth, in Adam's outward body, with his false imagination and hungry-desire. * Or might not so much as appear to arise from the divine decree 19. And Adam was, before his Eve, forty days in Paradise in the temptation, before God made the woman out of him; if he had stood steadfast, then God had so confirmed him to eternity.
220. But that I write of forty days, contrary to the custom [and opinion] of other writers, is, that we have certain knowledge and sufficient ground of the same, not only by conjecture, but from another knowledge; of this also we will show you the types. As (first) of Moses upon Mount Sinai, when God gave him the Law; this was done in forty days, and Israel was tried whether they would continue in divine obedience; but seeing they made a calf, and an idol, and fell from God, therefore Moses must break the first Tables of the Law, signifying the first Adam in the divine law, who departed from it: therefore the same was broken from him, and he fell into the breaking [destruction] of his body, as Moses broke the Tables in pieces. 21. And God gave Moses another Scripture or writing upon a table [round ball or globe] of stone; which signifies the Second Adam (Christ), who should restore the first, and again introduce his Law into his table of the heart, viz. into the life, into the humanity, and write it with the living spirit in the sweet name JESU; thus the other law was also written, how God's love would destroy or break in pieces the anger; of which the Covenant in the Law was a type, as shall be hereafter mentioned in Moses.
322. The second figure of Adam in Paradise are the forty years in the wilderness; where Israel was tried in the Law with the heavenly manna, whether or not they would be obedient to God, that the anger might not so much devour them. The third figure is the true, real one, viz. Adam's hard encounter [combat] with Christ in the wilderness, where he stood in Adam's stead before the devil and God's anger, where he did eat forty days magically, viz. of the word of the Lord [Verbo Domini] ; in which Adam also was tempted, whether he would remain wholly resigned unto God's will. Christ was, in Adam's stead, tempted in Adam's temptation, and with all that whatsoever wherein Adam was tempted, as shall be mentioned hereafter. 23. The fourth figure are the forty hours of Christ in the grave, where he awakened Adam out of his first sleep. The fifth figure are the forty days of Christ after his resurrection in the last proba, where the humanity was last of all tried, whether it would now stand, and be wholly resigned in God, being that death was destroyed, and the inward human life was new-born in God. 24. These five figures belong unto the five degrees of nature; from the first form of nature even to the fifth, viz. to the holy centre of the love-birth. If it were not too large we would set it forth very clearly. It shall be shown in its place. 25. These forty days Adam was tried in his innocency
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.
116. For he had determined to send another prince, by whom he would redeem man from his sickness and death, and purify and purge the earth through the fire of God, and introduce it into the holy (being), as it was when Lucifer was an angel, before it came into such a creature. [ Or creatural being] 17. And Adam was created only unto [or in] the divine image, which should be eternal; and though it was known in the wrath of God that man would fall, yet the Regenerator [or Restorer] was also known in God's love; to [Text, for] whom this hierarchy should be given for a royal possession, in Lucifer' s stead. 18. But that the fall might not proceed (or come) from the divine appointment *, God made man perfect, and created and ordained him unto Paradise, and forbade him the false lust, which the devil stirred up through the limus of the earth, in Adam's outward body, with his false imagination and hungry-desire. * Or might not so much as appear to arise from the divine decree 19. And Adam was, before his Eve, forty days in Paradise in the temptation, before God made the woman out of him; if he had stood steadfast, then God had so confirmed him to eternity.
220. But that I write of forty days, contrary to the custom [and opinion] of other writers, is, that we have certain knowledge and sufficient ground of the same, not only by conjecture, but from another knowledge; of this also we will show you the types. As (first) of Moses upon Mount Sinai, when God gave him the Law; this was done in forty days, and Israel was tried whether they would continue in divine obedience; but seeing they made a calf, and an idol, and fell from God, therefore Moses must break the first Tables of the Law, signifying the first Adam in the divine law, who departed from it: therefore the same was broken from him, and he fell into the breaking [destruction] of his body, as Moses broke the Tables in pieces. 21. And God gave Moses another Scripture or writing upon a table [round ball or globe] of stone; which signifies the Second Adam (Christ), who should restore the first, and again introduce his Law into his table of the heart, viz. into the life, into the humanity, and write it with the living spirit in the sweet name JESU; thus the other law was also written, how God's love would destroy or break in pieces the anger; of which the Covenant in the Law was a type, as shall be hereafter mentioned in Moses.
322. The second figure of Adam in Paradise are the forty years in the wilderness; where Israel was tried in the Law with the heavenly manna, whether or not they would be obedient to God, that the anger might not so much devour them. The third figure is the true, real one, viz. Adam's hard encounter [combat] with Christ in the wilderness, where he stood in Adam's stead before the devil and God's anger, where he did eat forty days magically, viz. of the word of the Lord [Verbo Domini] ; in which Adam also was tempted, whether he would remain wholly resigned unto God's will. Christ was, in Adam's stead, tempted in Adam's temptation, and with all that whatsoever wherein Adam was tempted, as shall be mentioned hereafter. 23. The fourth figure are the forty hours of Christ in the grave, where he awakened Adam out of his first sleep. The fifth figure are the forty days of Christ after his resurrection in the last proba, where the humanity was last of all tried, whether it would now stand, and be wholly resigned in God, being that death was destroyed, and the inward human life was new-born in God. 24. These five figures belong unto the five degrees of nature; from the first form of nature even to the fifth, viz. to the holy centre of the love-birth. If it were not too large we would set it forth very clearly. It shall be shown in its place. 25. These forty days Adam was tried in his innocency
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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