Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
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.
1does any more understand its own language, and contends only about the compaction of the formed nature of the outward name, and understanding. The mental tongue none will learn to understand, how the same has formed, imprinted and ideafiedl itself in the words and names in the sensual tongue; and yet the whole understanding lies therein, without opinions. If we were not so very blind and shut up in ignorance, suffering self in pride to rule and govern us, we should soon attain to the deepest understanding. But the Antichrist bears the supremacy, therefore Esau alone rules in the understanding. 1 formed and modelised. 44. And Moses says further, And when the children were grown up, Esau was a cunning hunter, and a man of the field; and Jacob was a plainl man, and dwelt in tents. And Isaac loved Esau, and loved to eat of his venison: but Rebecca loved Jacob (Gen. xxv. 27,28). O you wonderful God, how very simply and plainly are the greatest Mysteries typified and deciphered! Who can be able to understand, without your spirit, from whence it was that the precious man Isaac, in the type of Christ, loved the natural man in Adam's corrupt image, Esau, more than Jacob, in the type of Christ in his figure? If you had not in your knowledge vouchsafed me to understand the same, I must be here even stark blind: But it is your counsel, OLord, that we know you, and your time is born, that you reveal the secrets.
245. Moses says, that Esau was a hunter, and a man of the field, and the father loved to eat of his venison, and loved him above Jacob. Here stands an external figure, as if Isaac loved Esau for his activeness, cunning skill or worldly exercise, and loved him more than Jacob. So wholly has the Lord the heart of the wise and of his children in his hand, that his children must not in their will do what they please, and oftentimes well understand, but [must do] what God wills. 46. Also we herein see how oftentimes God withdraws the Mysteries from the most holy, that they must be even children in them; and although they bear the divine play in their hands, and 'tis their work and exercise, yet they must have a child-like heart in the understanding thereof; as it may be seen here in Isaac. 47. He loved Esau more than Jacob, why so? The ens of Christ lay in him, which ruled him. For Christ should love his enemies, viz. the corrupt Esau, and his natural children; him he loved more than his divine nature; for he brought his divine nature into the death of the corrupt Adam, and loved Adam's corrupted nature2 more than his holy ens, which he, for man's corrupt nature's sake, gave into the fire of God's anger, that so he might redeem it in his love. Of this, Isaac was here a figure in the image of Christ, who loved his hunter in his evil nature more than Jacob. He did not love his iniquity, but his child-like nature, to which he would do much good; as Christ loved us
3in our Adamical nature, and did us good. He did not love us according to the will of sin in us; as Isaac also did not therein love his son Esau, but [he loved him] according to the Father's nature and property, according to the child-like filial nature. 1 Honest. 2 Not his sin in the nature, but his poor undone nature by sin, which he by death freed from sin and death. The inward figure stands thus: 48. When Isaac entreated the Lord, that his Rebecca might conceive, his natural desire, with the lubetl of the divine ens of faith, entered into Rebecca, whereby Rebecca was opened. And so the natural love of Isaac, which was environed with faith, was propagated in his seed, and opened itself in Esau. Isaac's love did not open itself in Esau as to his corrupt nature; [I say] not according to the kingdom of the nature of this world, but according to the Covenant, according to the second Principle, viz. according to God's kingdom, which the external nature in him had not as yet apprehended; as the divine ens in Abraham did open and manifest itself according to the second Principle, and not in the mortal corrupt Adamical nature of the outward world: The like also is here to be understood in the figure in Esau. 1 Earnest longing.
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.
1does any more understand its own language, and contends only about the compaction of the formed nature of the outward name, and understanding. The mental tongue none will learn to understand, how the same has formed, imprinted and ideafiedl itself in the words and names in the sensual tongue; and yet the whole understanding lies therein, without opinions. If we were not so very blind and shut up in ignorance, suffering self in pride to rule and govern us, we should soon attain to the deepest understanding. But the Antichrist bears the supremacy, therefore Esau alone rules in the understanding. 1 formed and modelised. 44. And Moses says further, And when the children were grown up, Esau was a cunning hunter, and a man of the field; and Jacob was a plainl man, and dwelt in tents. And Isaac loved Esau, and loved to eat of his venison: but Rebecca loved Jacob (Gen. xxv. 27,28). O you wonderful God, how very simply and plainly are the greatest Mysteries typified and deciphered! Who can be able to understand, without your spirit, from whence it was that the precious man Isaac, in the type of Christ, loved the natural man in Adam's corrupt image, Esau, more than Jacob, in the type of Christ in his figure? If you had not in your knowledge vouchsafed me to understand the same, I must be here even stark blind: But it is your counsel, OLord, that we know you, and your time is born, that you reveal the secrets.
245. Moses says, that Esau was a hunter, and a man of the field, and the father loved to eat of his venison, and loved him above Jacob. Here stands an external figure, as if Isaac loved Esau for his activeness, cunning skill or worldly exercise, and loved him more than Jacob. So wholly has the Lord the heart of the wise and of his children in his hand, that his children must not in their will do what they please, and oftentimes well understand, but [must do] what God wills. 46. Also we herein see how oftentimes God withdraws the Mysteries from the most holy, that they must be even children in them; and although they bear the divine play in their hands, and 'tis their work and exercise, yet they must have a child-like heart in the understanding thereof; as it may be seen here in Isaac. 47. He loved Esau more than Jacob, why so? The ens of Christ lay in him, which ruled him. For Christ should love his enemies, viz. the corrupt Esau, and his natural children; him he loved more than his divine nature; for he brought his divine nature into the death of the corrupt Adam, and loved Adam's corrupted nature2 more than his holy ens, which he, for man's corrupt nature's sake, gave into the fire of God's anger, that so he might redeem it in his love. Of this, Isaac was here a figure in the image of Christ, who loved his hunter in his evil nature more than Jacob. He did not love his iniquity, but his child-like nature, to which he would do much good; as Christ loved us
3in our Adamical nature, and did us good. He did not love us according to the will of sin in us; as Isaac also did not therein love his son Esau, but [he loved him] according to the Father's nature and property, according to the child-like filial nature. 1 Honest. 2 Not his sin in the nature, but his poor undone nature by sin, which he by death freed from sin and death. The inward figure stands thus: 48. When Isaac entreated the Lord, that his Rebecca might conceive, his natural desire, with the lubetl of the divine ens of faith, entered into Rebecca, whereby Rebecca was opened. And so the natural love of Isaac, which was environed with faith, was propagated in his seed, and opened itself in Esau. Isaac's love did not open itself in Esau as to his corrupt nature; [I say] not according to the kingdom of the nature of this world, but according to the Covenant, according to the second Principle, viz. according to God's kingdom, which the external nature in him had not as yet apprehended; as the divine ens in Abraham did open and manifest itself according to the second Principle, and not in the mortal corrupt Adamical nature of the outward world: The like also is here to be understood in the figure in Esau. 1 Earnest longing.
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.
No commentary for this page.