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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.
122. And the human nature in the Covenant, in the seed of Abraham, in his ens of faith (when he apprehended the word of promise in the faith, which was his righteousness), had the fair golden-forehead-jewel 1 in itself; and the two bracelets, which it hung on the word of God, which moved itself in the angel's message in Mary, where then the ens of faith was espoused or married with the now-moving voice; which motion beset and embraced nature; as here Abraham's servant, when he saw that God had brought to him the true virgin, he drew forth the free gift of his master, Abraham, and hung it on the virgin. 1 Or, ear-rings. 23. Thus also nature, in the Covenant, in the seed of Mary, did put the fair jewel (which God promised Adam in Paradise, and opened in Abraham, which Abraham apprehended in the spirit and faith), upon the voice of God, viz. on the living moving word of God, which sounded in the angel's message, in Abraham's ens of faith; and herewith also, itself.
224. For Abraham had laid hold on the word of the Covenant in faith, so that it was formed into an ens, but not wholly into the humanity; and this ens was the fair jewel, which nature bare as a hidden treasure in itself, until the limit of the Covenant, even towards the evening of the world; and then God's living voice sounded into nature in the seed of the woman. And so nature, viz. God's servant, gave forth the hidden pearl, and hung it on the forehead of the virginlike love of Jesus, which was moved in the angel's message; and came now to the fountain to draw forth the shut-up virginity, in man, from the divine ens. And there it obtained its bridegroom, viz. the soul of man, with the Father's jewels and great goods: With this the spirit of Moses does here play, and holds forth a secret intimation under the outward act. 25. Abraham's servant made him a lot, to know the virgin by, which was this: She that should come and give him, and all his servants and camels drink, that even she should be the right one (Gen. xxiv. 14). Thus also God has planted this lot, and put it into the nature of the soul and the right humanity: that the virgin, which should refresh the soul with the true humanity out of God's love-fountain, the same the soul should desire for its eternal spouse.
326. As it came to pass in Mary, when the angel greeted her, he refreshed the soul) and also her seed of the soul's nature, proceeding from the woman's tincture, whereby this soul's essence brought its desire towards the sweet spring-water of the fountain of Jesus, and drank of this water of the love of Jesus; whereby and wherein it was married to the sweet love of Jesus, in Jehova. So that in this seed of Mary) in the limit of the Covenant, a manly virgin of God was conceived; which is Christ Jesus in our humanity, and in the divine ens in the power of the word of God; a formed God, according to the creature; but according to the divine voice, God all in all. Understand, a formed God according to the human property, viz. a visible image of the Deity, and therein the whole invisible immense God in Trinity in essence. 27. This whole figure stands in the process of the new birth, and shows how it should come to pass. For Abraham in his faith stands in the figure of Adam, viz. in God the Father's figure; who created him in his very image and likeness. And Isaac his son stands in the figure of the humanity of Christ, viz. in the Son's figure. 28. God the Father has given all his goods, understand, of the formed Word, viz. all created and procreated beings, in the place of this world, unto his Son, who manifested himself in the divine Image of the humanity; even as Abraham gave all his goods to Isaac, who was the type of Christ.
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.
122. And the human nature in the Covenant, in the seed of Abraham, in his ens of faith (when he apprehended the word of promise in the faith, which was his righteousness), had the fair golden-forehead-jewel 1 in itself; and the two bracelets, which it hung on the word of God, which moved itself in the angel's message in Mary, where then the ens of faith was espoused or married with the now-moving voice; which motion beset and embraced nature; as here Abraham's servant, when he saw that God had brought to him the true virgin, he drew forth the free gift of his master, Abraham, and hung it on the virgin. 1 Or, ear-rings. 23. Thus also nature, in the Covenant, in the seed of Mary, did put the fair jewel (which God promised Adam in Paradise, and opened in Abraham, which Abraham apprehended in the spirit and faith), upon the voice of God, viz. on the living moving word of God, which sounded in the angel's message, in Abraham's ens of faith; and herewith also, itself.
224. For Abraham had laid hold on the word of the Covenant in faith, so that it was formed into an ens, but not wholly into the humanity; and this ens was the fair jewel, which nature bare as a hidden treasure in itself, until the limit of the Covenant, even towards the evening of the world; and then God's living voice sounded into nature in the seed of the woman. And so nature, viz. God's servant, gave forth the hidden pearl, and hung it on the forehead of the virginlike love of Jesus, which was moved in the angel's message; and came now to the fountain to draw forth the shut-up virginity, in man, from the divine ens. And there it obtained its bridegroom, viz. the soul of man, with the Father's jewels and great goods: With this the spirit of Moses does here play, and holds forth a secret intimation under the outward act. 25. Abraham's servant made him a lot, to know the virgin by, which was this: She that should come and give him, and all his servants and camels drink, that even she should be the right one (Gen. xxiv. 14). Thus also God has planted this lot, and put it into the nature of the soul and the right humanity: that the virgin, which should refresh the soul with the true humanity out of God's love-fountain, the same the soul should desire for its eternal spouse.
326. As it came to pass in Mary, when the angel greeted her, he refreshed the soul) and also her seed of the soul's nature, proceeding from the woman's tincture, whereby this soul's essence brought its desire towards the sweet spring-water of the fountain of Jesus, and drank of this water of the love of Jesus; whereby and wherein it was married to the sweet love of Jesus, in Jehova. So that in this seed of Mary) in the limit of the Covenant, a manly virgin of God was conceived; which is Christ Jesus in our humanity, and in the divine ens in the power of the word of God; a formed God, according to the creature; but according to the divine voice, God all in all. Understand, a formed God according to the human property, viz. a visible image of the Deity, and therein the whole invisible immense God in Trinity in essence. 27. This whole figure stands in the process of the new birth, and shows how it should come to pass. For Abraham in his faith stands in the figure of Adam, viz. in God the Father's figure; who created him in his very image and likeness. And Isaac his son stands in the figure of the humanity of Christ, viz. in the Son's figure. 28. God the Father has given all his goods, understand, of the formed Word, viz. all created and procreated beings, in the place of this world, unto his Son, who manifested himself in the divine Image of the humanity; even as Abraham gave all his goods to Isaac, who was the type of Christ.
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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