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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.
15. But now, seeing that God had again introduced the holy ens of his holy word into Isaac, which Abraham apprehended in the desire of faith, and represented the same here in Isaac, with a new twig springing forth out of the corrupt tree of the human property, and born out of Christ's spirit, thereupon nature, viz. God's officer, must here deeply engage itself to God, and swear that it will no more take the Serpent's ens for a wife, viz. For its beloved companion and yoke-fellow (understand [that it will not take its comfort] out of the poisonful Serpentine property of the introduced iniquity of the adverse opposite will). But God's officer, viz. nature, must take essence and substance out of Abraham's true climate, where Abraham's home was, in Adam, viz. out of the right human essence; and bring the same to Isaac, viz. to Christ's members in their heavenly spiritual holy ens of faith, as a spiritual woman, with whom the true man takes delight in himself with the heavenly matrix, in pure desire of love, and loves his own nature in God's love, and not in the Canaanitish selfish Serpent's ens, in the apostate, rebellious, ungodly will; that so the new birth might be holy in its virginity as to the inward man.
26. For man, in his essence or being, does stand in a twofold essence, viz. in the natural and [in the] supernatural; in the divine ens of the formed Word, and in the natural ens of the centre of nature in the Fiat, viz. in the divine desire; in which desire nature, and the bright-burning world, do take their original; which bright-flaming nature should not any more take the false lust of the bestial Serpent's property into itself: of which the spirit here does prophesy in the inward figure. 7. And Abraham's servant said, How, if the woman will not follow me, shall I bring your son again unto the land from whence you came (Gen. xxiv. 5)? The meaning hereof in the inward understanding is this: Nature speaks to God, and says, How, if the right human ens will not follow me, seeing it has a cleaving affection to the Serpent's poison, shall I then bring your son, viz. the holy heavenly ens, again into the land, viz. into the place from whence it came, along with me? That is, when God betrusts the officer of nature with his holy ens, to bring the ,same into the human property, and to take the human ens for a wife of the heavenly man, then says nature, viz. God's officer, How then, if the woman (understand the human ens) will not follow me and come with this Isaac, that is, with the ens of Christ, into the true human land, viz. into the true Adamical paradisical tree, shall I bring your son again, viz. your holy ens, into the place of God?
38. And Abraham said, Beware you that you do not bring my son thither again. The Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father's house, and from the land of my kindred, and that spoke unto me, and swear also unto me, saying, Unto your seed I will give this land; he shall send his angel before you, and you shall there take a wife unto my son. But if the woman will not follow you, then you are clear from the oath: only bring not my son thither again. And then the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and sware unto him concerning this matter (Gen. xxiv. 6-9). 9. The inward meaning is thus: God says to his officer, nature, Have a care, that you do not go according to your reason, and conceive another will, and bring my holy ens again thither from whence it is come, for it must dwell in man. The God of heaven, who has taken the human ens from the eternal Word, from his eternal native country, which is the house of the eternal Father, who has promised man the land of Canaan according to the paradisical property, and moreover has sworn to him, he shall send his angel before you; that so you may take a wife unto my son there, even where the angel, viz. the divine will, shall guide and direct you. That is, when God will betroth and bind himself with his Word and power in his children, with an eternal marriage, then he sends his angel before, viz. his will, into the human ens; that the same does convert and turn itself to 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.
15. But now, seeing that God had again introduced the holy ens of his holy word into Isaac, which Abraham apprehended in the desire of faith, and represented the same here in Isaac, with a new twig springing forth out of the corrupt tree of the human property, and born out of Christ's spirit, thereupon nature, viz. God's officer, must here deeply engage itself to God, and swear that it will no more take the Serpent's ens for a wife, viz. For its beloved companion and yoke-fellow (understand [that it will not take its comfort] out of the poisonful Serpentine property of the introduced iniquity of the adverse opposite will). But God's officer, viz. nature, must take essence and substance out of Abraham's true climate, where Abraham's home was, in Adam, viz. out of the right human essence; and bring the same to Isaac, viz. to Christ's members in their heavenly spiritual holy ens of faith, as a spiritual woman, with whom the true man takes delight in himself with the heavenly matrix, in pure desire of love, and loves his own nature in God's love, and not in the Canaanitish selfish Serpent's ens, in the apostate, rebellious, ungodly will; that so the new birth might be holy in its virginity as to the inward man.
26. For man, in his essence or being, does stand in a twofold essence, viz. in the natural and [in the] supernatural; in the divine ens of the formed Word, and in the natural ens of the centre of nature in the Fiat, viz. in the divine desire; in which desire nature, and the bright-burning world, do take their original; which bright-flaming nature should not any more take the false lust of the bestial Serpent's property into itself: of which the spirit here does prophesy in the inward figure. 7. And Abraham's servant said, How, if the woman will not follow me, shall I bring your son again unto the land from whence you came (Gen. xxiv. 5)? The meaning hereof in the inward understanding is this: Nature speaks to God, and says, How, if the right human ens will not follow me, seeing it has a cleaving affection to the Serpent's poison, shall I then bring your son, viz. the holy heavenly ens, again into the land, viz. into the place from whence it came, along with me? That is, when God betrusts the officer of nature with his holy ens, to bring the ,same into the human property, and to take the human ens for a wife of the heavenly man, then says nature, viz. God's officer, How then, if the woman (understand the human ens) will not follow me and come with this Isaac, that is, with the ens of Christ, into the true human land, viz. into the true Adamical paradisical tree, shall I bring your son again, viz. your holy ens, into the place of God?
38. And Abraham said, Beware you that you do not bring my son thither again. The Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father's house, and from the land of my kindred, and that spoke unto me, and swear also unto me, saying, Unto your seed I will give this land; he shall send his angel before you, and you shall there take a wife unto my son. But if the woman will not follow you, then you are clear from the oath: only bring not my son thither again. And then the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and sware unto him concerning this matter (Gen. xxiv. 6-9). 9. The inward meaning is thus: God says to his officer, nature, Have a care, that you do not go according to your reason, and conceive another will, and bring my holy ens again thither from whence it is come, for it must dwell in man. The God of heaven, who has taken the human ens from the eternal Word, from his eternal native country, which is the house of the eternal Father, who has promised man the land of Canaan according to the paradisical property, and moreover has sworn to him, he shall send his angel before you; that so you may take a wife unto my son there, even where the angel, viz. the divine will, shall guide and direct you. That is, when God will betroth and bind himself with his Word and power in his children, with an eternal marriage, then he sends his angel before, viz. his will, into the human ens; that the same does convert and turn itself to 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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