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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.
126. And Abraham answered, Here am I. And he [the angel] said, Lay not your hand upon the lad, neither do you any thing unto him: for now I know that you fear God, and have not spared your only son for my sake (Gen. xxii. 12). That is thus: when man has wholly resigned up his self, viz. his own will or son, and put it wholly to the mortification in Christ's death, then the nature of man falls into sadness; for it has lost its right [its own law and will]. Then says the spirit of God by the soul, Do nothing to your nature; now I know that it is given up and resigned to me, and that the soul has now an assurance 3 of confidence in God; and is fully bold even to leave the outward life, for God's sake, and give over its will to me in obedience. As here Abraham had fully resigned up his will unto God; he would now do whatsoever God commanded him. 27. And as Abraham did not spare his son, and would have given him up unto death; so also God did not spare his Son, and gave him to death for us. Even so should we also not spare even our own will, but rather be willing to leave all whatsoever the own will has taken possession of, and delights in, and willingly die to all temporals for God's sake; let it be principality, dominion or kingdom, temporal honour, or goods, or whatsoever it may be that is our dearly beloved son. All this a Christian must give over, and resign up in the mind; 1 Ensign. 2 Twofold. 3 Plerophory.
2and account and esteem himself only a servant therein; yea, esteem his outward life not for his own; but in his mind depart from and forsake every creature. And then he lies bound upon the wood of the burnt-offering's altar, and waits for the voice of God from heaven, which calls to him; and becomes the voice and mouth of his life. And this is truly with Abraham, to believe God, where God believes in man; and then God says, Now I know that you fear God, and puttest your trust in him alone, for the human will sinks into the most pure being of God. 28. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and lo! a ram was hung in a thicket by his horns: alzd he went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the
3place, The Lord 1 sees; as it is said to this day, Upon the mount where the Lord sees (Gen. xxii. 13, 14). This is the golden figure which shows that the killing, death and dying, does not reach the true man, but only the ram with his horns, which sticks in the flesh and blood in the thorns of sin. And it chiefly denotes that the true human soul 2 in Christ and his children shall not die in this burnt offering of God; but after that it has resigned up the will of self; then God opens its eyes, that it sees the ram behind it, viz. it spies the will of the wild evil flesh, and learns to know it, which will sticks with its pushing beast's horns in the thorny thicket of the devil, in flesh and blood, viz. in the desire of the vanity of the world in self-full lust. This the resigned soul sees, and offers it up for a burnt offering in the stead of the true nature; for in this burnt offering the right nature is delivered from the ram of the flesh. The horns are the injections, oppositions and assaults of the devil, and the thicket of thorns is the Serpent's ens, which the lust of Adam has introduced.
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.
126. And Abraham answered, Here am I. And he [the angel] said, Lay not your hand upon the lad, neither do you any thing unto him: for now I know that you fear God, and have not spared your only son for my sake (Gen. xxii. 12). That is thus: when man has wholly resigned up his self, viz. his own will or son, and put it wholly to the mortification in Christ's death, then the nature of man falls into sadness; for it has lost its right [its own law and will]. Then says the spirit of God by the soul, Do nothing to your nature; now I know that it is given up and resigned to me, and that the soul has now an assurance 3 of confidence in God; and is fully bold even to leave the outward life, for God's sake, and give over its will to me in obedience. As here Abraham had fully resigned up his will unto God; he would now do whatsoever God commanded him. 27. And as Abraham did not spare his son, and would have given him up unto death; so also God did not spare his Son, and gave him to death for us. Even so should we also not spare even our own will, but rather be willing to leave all whatsoever the own will has taken possession of, and delights in, and willingly die to all temporals for God's sake; let it be principality, dominion or kingdom, temporal honour, or goods, or whatsoever it may be that is our dearly beloved son. All this a Christian must give over, and resign up in the mind; 1 Ensign. 2 Twofold. 3 Plerophory.
2and account and esteem himself only a servant therein; yea, esteem his outward life not for his own; but in his mind depart from and forsake every creature. And then he lies bound upon the wood of the burnt-offering's altar, and waits for the voice of God from heaven, which calls to him; and becomes the voice and mouth of his life. And this is truly with Abraham, to believe God, where God believes in man; and then God says, Now I know that you fear God, and puttest your trust in him alone, for the human will sinks into the most pure being of God. 28. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and lo! a ram was hung in a thicket by his horns: alzd he went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the
3place, The Lord 1 sees; as it is said to this day, Upon the mount where the Lord sees (Gen. xxii. 13, 14). This is the golden figure which shows that the killing, death and dying, does not reach the true man, but only the ram with his horns, which sticks in the flesh and blood in the thorns of sin. And it chiefly denotes that the true human soul 2 in Christ and his children shall not die in this burnt offering of God; but after that it has resigned up the will of self; then God opens its eyes, that it sees the ram behind it, viz. it spies the will of the wild evil flesh, and learns to know it, which will sticks with its pushing beast's horns in the thorny thicket of the devil, in flesh and blood, viz. in the desire of the vanity of the world in self-full lust. This the resigned soul sees, and offers it up for a burnt offering in the stead of the true nature; for in this burnt offering the right nature is delivered from the ram of the flesh. The horns are the injections, oppositions and assaults of the devil, and the thicket of thorns is the Serpent's ens, which the lust of Adam has introduced.
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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