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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.
118. And that the spirit of Moses says, They went both of them together (understand, unto the offering), betokens our Adamical humanity, and Christ's heavenly supernatural humanity of divine essentiality, that both these should go together to the offering of God; as Christ offered on the cross his heavenly humanity in our humanity to the Father; and with the heavenly reconciled ours, captivated in the anger of God, and preserved it in the fire of God's anger, as the gold is preserved of the tincture, in the fire.
219. And when they came to the place of which God had told him; Abraham built there an altar, and laid the wood in order upon it; and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son (Gen. xxii. 9, 10). This is now the right earnestness, viz. the figure how God would bind his Son by Adam's children, viz. by Abraham's children, the Jews; that is, he would bind our sin, and lay it upon the wood; that is, hang it on the cross; viz. on the figure of the holy Trinity, which was become in man a wooden earthly cross: whereas before, the life's cross, viz. the figure of the Deity, was spiritual and holy in Adam; but in the earthly lust it had made itself earthly, and as 'twere wooden. Thus also the death, viz. the dying of the holy cross in man must be again offered up to God upon a wooden earthly cross; and be again changed out of the earthly death into the holy spiritual figure. 20. Christ should not be slain, but hung up on the cross, pierced through in his hands and feet. For the anger of God was awakened in the conversation and works of our hands and feet; and therefore also Isaac, in the figure of Christ, must not be slain; and also not burnt; for he was not the right one, but only the figure in our humanity; for he could not accomplish this offering in its powers. And it denotes that we are indeed bound with Christ, and laid upon the wood, and also
3must die for Christ's sake. But with our death we cannot attain this offering, as Isaac also could not effect that; but the ens of faith in Abraham and Isaac, out of which Christ arose, the same did effect it; and can yet now in these days effect it in the Christians in Christ in his humanity in us. 21. And as Isaac was represented in Christ's figure, as if he were to be the sacrifice, even so every true Christian must with Isaac enter into Christ's figure. He must willingly resign himself into Christ's death; and bind his sin with the will in the spirit of Christ, and offer it upon the altar of Christ; and with a full and free will die wholly to sin. Then comes the voice of God, as it came to Abraham, and to Hagar in the wilderness of Beer-sheba, and says, Do not anything to nature, viz. your son: now I know you believe 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.
118. And that the spirit of Moses says, They went both of them together (understand, unto the offering), betokens our Adamical humanity, and Christ's heavenly supernatural humanity of divine essentiality, that both these should go together to the offering of God; as Christ offered on the cross his heavenly humanity in our humanity to the Father; and with the heavenly reconciled ours, captivated in the anger of God, and preserved it in the fire of God's anger, as the gold is preserved of the tincture, in the fire.
219. And when they came to the place of which God had told him; Abraham built there an altar, and laid the wood in order upon it; and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son (Gen. xxii. 9, 10). This is now the right earnestness, viz. the figure how God would bind his Son by Adam's children, viz. by Abraham's children, the Jews; that is, he would bind our sin, and lay it upon the wood; that is, hang it on the cross; viz. on the figure of the holy Trinity, which was become in man a wooden earthly cross: whereas before, the life's cross, viz. the figure of the Deity, was spiritual and holy in Adam; but in the earthly lust it had made itself earthly, and as 'twere wooden. Thus also the death, viz. the dying of the holy cross in man must be again offered up to God upon a wooden earthly cross; and be again changed out of the earthly death into the holy spiritual figure. 20. Christ should not be slain, but hung up on the cross, pierced through in his hands and feet. For the anger of God was awakened in the conversation and works of our hands and feet; and therefore also Isaac, in the figure of Christ, must not be slain; and also not burnt; for he was not the right one, but only the figure in our humanity; for he could not accomplish this offering in its powers. And it denotes that we are indeed bound with Christ, and laid upon the wood, and also
3must die for Christ's sake. But with our death we cannot attain this offering, as Isaac also could not effect that; but the ens of faith in Abraham and Isaac, out of which Christ arose, the same did effect it; and can yet now in these days effect it in the Christians in Christ in his humanity in us. 21. And as Isaac was represented in Christ's figure, as if he were to be the sacrifice, even so every true Christian must with Isaac enter into Christ's figure. He must willingly resign himself into Christ's death; and bind his sin with the will in the spirit of Christ, and offer it upon the altar of Christ; and with a full and free will die wholly to sin. Then comes the voice of God, as it came to Abraham, and to Hagar in the wilderness of Beer-sheba, and says, Do not anything to nature, viz. your son: now I know you believe 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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