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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.
149. And now, when these nuptials are celebrated, then Abraham's servant, with all his servants, sits down with his obtained bride, and with father and mother at the table, and eat together the marriage feast (Gen. xxiv. 54). That is, when man, understand the inward virginlike spiritual man, is married to Christ, then God eats of man's will and words; and again man eats of God's will and words. There they sit at one feast, and then 'tis truly said and applied, Whosoever hears you, he hears me. Whosoever hears these men to teach and speak of God, he hears God speak, for they speak in the power of the Holy Spirit's spices, and eat together of the great Supper of Christ. 50. O, what a very glorious and sumptuous feast is there kept, where this wedding day is celebrated in manl which no Canaanitish serpent-man is worthy to know, or taste of; yes, he does not experimentally taste of it to all eternity; neither knows he what meat or food is there eaten; also what internal joy is there, where Christ and virgin Sophia are bride and bridegroom; and the inward and outward soul sit by the bride, and eat with her of this feast; which we leave to the consideration of the children of Christ, who have been at this wedding feast: No man else in this world understands it: none knows anything thereof, but the right Laban and Bethuel.
251. But this bridal does not last continually, but when Abraham's servant had obtained the virgin, and celebrated this feast and wedding day with the father and mother, and Laban; and had continued there all night, he arose up early in the morning, and said, Let me go unto my master. The inward figure stands thus: 52. When Christ has married himself with virgin Sophia, viz. with the inward humanity, soon after, the voice of God sounds in the soul, and says, I will go away from you with the virgin, and it is continually as if he would force away and depart from man. Then the poor soul must make continual prayers and supplications, that he would be pleased to tarry still longer with it; but the voice oftentimes sounds, Hinder me not, I must go, or make my journey, to my master, you are vain, evil and sinful, I may not tarry with you any longer. 53. And then the poor soul calls virgin Rebecca, viz. Christ with his bride, and puts him in mind of his precious word and promise, in that He has promised to remain with us even to the end of the world, and to make his abode in us (Matt, xxviii. 20). And thus one day upon another it is delayed, and yet Christ goes with his bride into his native country, viz. into the second Principle, but the marriage is celebrated in all the three Principles.
354. A very excellent figure we have in this also: That when Rebecca went home with Abraham's servant, and Isaac met her in the field, and she asked Abraham's servant what man that was, and he told her that it was his master, Isaac, how she lighted off the camel, and put a veil before her eyes, and was ashamed; and how Isaac took her and carried her into his mother's tent (Gen. xxiv. 61 et seq.). The inward figure is this: 55. When the inward disappeared humanity does again obtain the precious jewel, and is quickened in the spirit of Christ, and discovers its beloved Christ in itself, then it falls down into the deepest humility before the holiness of God, and is ashamed that it has lain so long captive in the bestial man, and that it was a queen, but has lost its kingdom in Adam; then it veils its own face before God's glorious clarity, and humbles itself. But Christ takes her into his arms, and leads her into his mother's tent, viz. into the heavenly world's essence, from whence he is come with his heavenly essence, and there she becomes his wife; and thus Isaac is truly comforted for his mother, viz. for the disappeared matrix in the tincture of Venus which died in Adam, and which he again does now obtain in virginlike chastity for his spouse: as here the history concerning Isaac sounds.
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.
149. And now, when these nuptials are celebrated, then Abraham's servant, with all his servants, sits down with his obtained bride, and with father and mother at the table, and eat together the marriage feast (Gen. xxiv. 54). That is, when man, understand the inward virginlike spiritual man, is married to Christ, then God eats of man's will and words; and again man eats of God's will and words. There they sit at one feast, and then 'tis truly said and applied, Whosoever hears you, he hears me. Whosoever hears these men to teach and speak of God, he hears God speak, for they speak in the power of the Holy Spirit's spices, and eat together of the great Supper of Christ. 50. O, what a very glorious and sumptuous feast is there kept, where this wedding day is celebrated in manl which no Canaanitish serpent-man is worthy to know, or taste of; yes, he does not experimentally taste of it to all eternity; neither knows he what meat or food is there eaten; also what internal joy is there, where Christ and virgin Sophia are bride and bridegroom; and the inward and outward soul sit by the bride, and eat with her of this feast; which we leave to the consideration of the children of Christ, who have been at this wedding feast: No man else in this world understands it: none knows anything thereof, but the right Laban and Bethuel.
251. But this bridal does not last continually, but when Abraham's servant had obtained the virgin, and celebrated this feast and wedding day with the father and mother, and Laban; and had continued there all night, he arose up early in the morning, and said, Let me go unto my master. The inward figure stands thus: 52. When Christ has married himself with virgin Sophia, viz. with the inward humanity, soon after, the voice of God sounds in the soul, and says, I will go away from you with the virgin, and it is continually as if he would force away and depart from man. Then the poor soul must make continual prayers and supplications, that he would be pleased to tarry still longer with it; but the voice oftentimes sounds, Hinder me not, I must go, or make my journey, to my master, you are vain, evil and sinful, I may not tarry with you any longer. 53. And then the poor soul calls virgin Rebecca, viz. Christ with his bride, and puts him in mind of his precious word and promise, in that He has promised to remain with us even to the end of the world, and to make his abode in us (Matt, xxviii. 20). And thus one day upon another it is delayed, and yet Christ goes with his bride into his native country, viz. into the second Principle, but the marriage is celebrated in all the three Principles.
354. A very excellent figure we have in this also: That when Rebecca went home with Abraham's servant, and Isaac met her in the field, and she asked Abraham's servant what man that was, and he told her that it was his master, Isaac, how she lighted off the camel, and put a veil before her eyes, and was ashamed; and how Isaac took her and carried her into his mother's tent (Gen. xxiv. 61 et seq.). The inward figure is this: 55. When the inward disappeared humanity does again obtain the precious jewel, and is quickened in the spirit of Christ, and discovers its beloved Christ in itself, then it falls down into the deepest humility before the holiness of God, and is ashamed that it has lain so long captive in the bestial man, and that it was a queen, but has lost its kingdom in Adam; then it veils its own face before God's glorious clarity, and humbles itself. But Christ takes her into his arms, and leads her into his mother's tent, viz. into the heavenly world's essence, from whence he is come with his heavenly essence, and there she becomes his wife; and thus Isaac is truly comforted for his mother, viz. for the disappeared matrix in the tincture of Venus which died in Adam, and which he again does now obtain in virginlike chastity for his spouse: as here the history concerning Isaac sounds.
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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