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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.
110. The nature of the mind must not in its will of reason take upon it to lord and master it, and doubt at what God will do, when the office or charge of a servant is laid upon it; it must not make itself its looking-glass, and doubt, when it sees that the soul lies captivated in the ens of the Serpent; it must not think with itself; I shall not here arrive [with a prosperous success] with my divine message; but it must leave that to God, and discharge its message according to God's command, and commit it to God, how he will bring the woman, viz. the human spirit, and betroth and join it with the son Isaac, that is, with Christ, in the divine ens. 11. But if the woman will not follow you, then you are clear of the oath; that is, if the human will, when I send my will before you in man, will not follow you, then the messenger, viz. God's officer, with the sent heaven's ens, is clear. Only, bring not my son thither again; that is, bring not the heavenly ens again into that essence out of which it is come; but stand still therewith, and hear whereunto God shall direct and incline you; for the rain from heaven shall not ascend up again empty without fruit. So likewise God's word and command shall not return home empty, but work and bring forth fruit in its formed wisdom. 12. If one man will not, then the same word falls upon another
2which is capable of it. Therefore nature, viz. the messenger, officer, advocate or petitioner of the heavenly message, must not bring the word with the divine ens back again into that place, viz. into the inward divine voice. For what God once speaks forth by his Word in power, that shall and must stand in a divine form, to the divine contemplation. Nature must go forward as a messenger his way, and declare that the Lord has given Isaac all his goods; that is, he has given to Christ all his goods; and desires now a wife, viz. man, who should give himself in marriage with Isaac in Christ. 13. And the servant laid his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and sware unto him concerning this matter (Gen. xxiv. 9). That is, when God put his holy word with the heavenly ens or essence,l viz. with the formed wisdom, into the natural ens of Mary, as into God's servant, and God and man became one person, then the human nature sware under the thigh of the Father's eternal nature unto God;2 that it would obey God, and henceforward go forth, and seek the human wife, and marry it to the divine ens. All which is to be understood in Christ's person, who in his assumed humanity, as Abraham's, or God his Father's, servant, in the natural property, should go forth with his word and seek this woman, viz. his bride and spouse, which the angel of the Lord, viz. God's will, should bring unto him. 1 Did dive, immerse, or baptise. 2 Or, in God.
314. And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed; and had with him all sorts of his master's goods: and arose and went to Mesopotamia, the city of Nahor (Gen. xxiv. 10). Here now the spirit looks upon the process of God; and intimates, how God sent his angel or messenger, Gabriel, with the voice of nature to the human nature in Nahor, viz. to Adam's nature in the ens of Mary; in which voice the living holy word was hidden with the heavenly living ens; and gave also the Father's nature ten camels; that is, the ten forms of the three Principles to the natural and supernatural fire-life. Namely, seven forms of the centre of nature, and three forms of the three distinctions of the Principles; all which are God's camels whereby he bears and carries all things. 15. And the goods of the Lord are the formed wisdom of the great wonders and powers. All these, God's officer took along with him, when he had the divine word in himself, and introduced the same into the human natural ens, even into the ens of Mary; or awakened, opened or manifested the same therein; as a man might express the great deeds and works of God; whereas indeed the outward, compacted, bound-up, sensual tongue, cannot give words sufficient enough to the deep mental understanding. 16. For here the spirit of Moses does take the angel's message along with Isaac's figure, and plays externally in the figure, with
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.
110. The nature of the mind must not in its will of reason take upon it to lord and master it, and doubt at what God will do, when the office or charge of a servant is laid upon it; it must not make itself its looking-glass, and doubt, when it sees that the soul lies captivated in the ens of the Serpent; it must not think with itself; I shall not here arrive [with a prosperous success] with my divine message; but it must leave that to God, and discharge its message according to God's command, and commit it to God, how he will bring the woman, viz. the human spirit, and betroth and join it with the son Isaac, that is, with Christ, in the divine ens. 11. But if the woman will not follow you, then you are clear of the oath; that is, if the human will, when I send my will before you in man, will not follow you, then the messenger, viz. God's officer, with the sent heaven's ens, is clear. Only, bring not my son thither again; that is, bring not the heavenly ens again into that essence out of which it is come; but stand still therewith, and hear whereunto God shall direct and incline you; for the rain from heaven shall not ascend up again empty without fruit. So likewise God's word and command shall not return home empty, but work and bring forth fruit in its formed wisdom. 12. If one man will not, then the same word falls upon another
2which is capable of it. Therefore nature, viz. the messenger, officer, advocate or petitioner of the heavenly message, must not bring the word with the divine ens back again into that place, viz. into the inward divine voice. For what God once speaks forth by his Word in power, that shall and must stand in a divine form, to the divine contemplation. Nature must go forward as a messenger his way, and declare that the Lord has given Isaac all his goods; that is, he has given to Christ all his goods; and desires now a wife, viz. man, who should give himself in marriage with Isaac in Christ. 13. And the servant laid his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and sware unto him concerning this matter (Gen. xxiv. 9). That is, when God put his holy word with the heavenly ens or essence,l viz. with the formed wisdom, into the natural ens of Mary, as into God's servant, and God and man became one person, then the human nature sware under the thigh of the Father's eternal nature unto God;2 that it would obey God, and henceforward go forth, and seek the human wife, and marry it to the divine ens. All which is to be understood in Christ's person, who in his assumed humanity, as Abraham's, or God his Father's, servant, in the natural property, should go forth with his word and seek this woman, viz. his bride and spouse, which the angel of the Lord, viz. God's will, should bring unto him. 1 Did dive, immerse, or baptise. 2 Or, in God.
314. And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed; and had with him all sorts of his master's goods: and arose and went to Mesopotamia, the city of Nahor (Gen. xxiv. 10). Here now the spirit looks upon the process of God; and intimates, how God sent his angel or messenger, Gabriel, with the voice of nature to the human nature in Nahor, viz. to Adam's nature in the ens of Mary; in which voice the living holy word was hidden with the heavenly living ens; and gave also the Father's nature ten camels; that is, the ten forms of the three Principles to the natural and supernatural fire-life. Namely, seven forms of the centre of nature, and three forms of the three distinctions of the Principles; all which are God's camels whereby he bears and carries all things. 15. And the goods of the Lord are the formed wisdom of the great wonders and powers. All these, God's officer took along with him, when he had the divine word in himself, and introduced the same into the human natural ens, even into the ens of Mary; or awakened, opened or manifested the same therein; as a man might express the great deeds and works of God; whereas indeed the outward, compacted, bound-up, sensual tongue, cannot give words sufficient enough to the deep mental understanding. 16. For here the spirit of Moses does take the angel's message along with Isaac's figure, and plays externally in the figure, with
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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