Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
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.
113. Also it intimates very pregnantly, that he (when the time of the offering in prayer is out) will certainly come again unto us, from the place whither he is gone, and dwell visibly with the creatural humanity among us; as the two angels said unto the men of Israel, You shall see this Jesus come again in like manner as he is ascended;2 which time is now near; and his voice to prepare the bride has already sounded; and therefore hold not this for an uncertain fiction. The Morning Star and Messenger of the Annunciation is appeared. 14. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and the knife; and they went both of them together (Gen. xxii. 6). The inward figure stands thus: Adam had divided and rent asunder God's love, and anger, in himself and brought himself with the creatural life into the anger, which had amassed the earthly vanity to itself: Now the spirit of Moses does here point at this figure, how Christ should take our introduced sin upon himself, and carry it to the burnt offering. 1 Yonder, or to that place. 2 Note.-jesus's coming again. Acts i. 11.
215. And Abraham took the knife, and the fire: Abraham denotes Adam, who took the fire of God's anger into himself; and the knife signifies death, that Christ should be killed, and offered up in Abraham's, that is, in Adam's, anger-fire, to the Father; and it clearly denotes that Abraham, that is, Adam, should do it to Christ; for Christ should be offered up of man: seeing the man Adam had taken on himself the fuel (viz. the sin) for the offering; therefore also man, viz. the Jews, must offer it up to the anger of God, that so man might be atoned by man, understand by the humanity of Christ. 16. And Isaac spoke unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and Abraham answered, Here am I, my son. And he said, Lo! here is the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering: and so they went both of them together (Gen. xxii. 7, 8). The precious figure is thus:
3The spirit here plays in Christ's person, who was come in great humility into Adam's humanity, and presents himself to his father in Adam's essence, with his heavenly humanity, and says: Behold, my father! here I have taken on me the sin and death in the humanity; here is now the fire of your anger, viz. the divided life's forms of man's property, selfhood and own will; in this now I have the fuel, wherein your fire of anger burns: Here now I have the wood, viz. the sins of all men; and also your fire to the offering; where is now the lamb,l viz. the patient lamb which shall be offered up in this fire? And Abraham answered from his strong faith's ens: My son, God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering; and they went both of them together. 17. Here Christ does in Isaac's figure present himself in our assumed humanity to his Father; and says, Where is now the lamb Jor the true peace offering? But the faith of Abraham had apprehended the patient lamb, which lay in Isaac, viz. the heavenly humanity, which God would open in the ens of faith in our disappeared and also heavenly humanity, and said: God would provide himself a lamb for the right burnt offering. And hereby he secretly points at the heavenly humanity, which God would introduce into Christ's humanity, viz. into our humanity, which should be the patient lamb that God would provide for himself; which Abraham had already apprehended in faith, and hints at. 1 Text, sheep.
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.
113. Also it intimates very pregnantly, that he (when the time of the offering in prayer is out) will certainly come again unto us, from the place whither he is gone, and dwell visibly with the creatural humanity among us; as the two angels said unto the men of Israel, You shall see this Jesus come again in like manner as he is ascended;2 which time is now near; and his voice to prepare the bride has already sounded; and therefore hold not this for an uncertain fiction. The Morning Star and Messenger of the Annunciation is appeared. 14. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and the knife; and they went both of them together (Gen. xxii. 6). The inward figure stands thus: Adam had divided and rent asunder God's love, and anger, in himself and brought himself with the creatural life into the anger, which had amassed the earthly vanity to itself: Now the spirit of Moses does here point at this figure, how Christ should take our introduced sin upon himself, and carry it to the burnt offering. 1 Yonder, or to that place. 2 Note.-jesus's coming again. Acts i. 11.
215. And Abraham took the knife, and the fire: Abraham denotes Adam, who took the fire of God's anger into himself; and the knife signifies death, that Christ should be killed, and offered up in Abraham's, that is, in Adam's, anger-fire, to the Father; and it clearly denotes that Abraham, that is, Adam, should do it to Christ; for Christ should be offered up of man: seeing the man Adam had taken on himself the fuel (viz. the sin) for the offering; therefore also man, viz. the Jews, must offer it up to the anger of God, that so man might be atoned by man, understand by the humanity of Christ. 16. And Isaac spoke unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and Abraham answered, Here am I, my son. And he said, Lo! here is the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering: and so they went both of them together (Gen. xxii. 7, 8). The precious figure is thus:
3The spirit here plays in Christ's person, who was come in great humility into Adam's humanity, and presents himself to his father in Adam's essence, with his heavenly humanity, and says: Behold, my father! here I have taken on me the sin and death in the humanity; here is now the fire of your anger, viz. the divided life's forms of man's property, selfhood and own will; in this now I have the fuel, wherein your fire of anger burns: Here now I have the wood, viz. the sins of all men; and also your fire to the offering; where is now the lamb,l viz. the patient lamb which shall be offered up in this fire? And Abraham answered from his strong faith's ens: My son, God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering; and they went both of them together. 17. Here Christ does in Isaac's figure present himself in our assumed humanity to his Father; and says, Where is now the lamb Jor the true peace offering? But the faith of Abraham had apprehended the patient lamb, which lay in Isaac, viz. the heavenly humanity, which God would open in the ens of faith in our disappeared and also heavenly humanity, and said: God would provide himself a lamb for the right burnt offering. And hereby he secretly points at the heavenly humanity, which God would introduce into Christ's humanity, viz. into our humanity, which should be the patient lamb that God would provide for himself; which Abraham had already apprehended in faith, and hints at. 1 Text, sheep.
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.
No commentary for this page.