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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.
128. Not that we are to understand that Esau was wholly out of the Serpent's ens. No; he was of the right Adamical nature, from his father Isaac and Abraham; only, God did here set forth the figure of the kingdom of nature, which was poisoned in man, and then [he] also [set forth] the figure of the kingdom of grace; showing that the natural man must forsake his own evil will, and therewith also wholly immerse and give up himself into the kingdom of grace. And the figure which was here represented in Esau was to show that the evill Adamical man did not at all avail [in God's sight, that it was not profitable for the kingdom of God, but] it was cast away and rejected from God, and that man must wholly forsake his natural right of selfness, and wholly give in himself into God's will. 1 Jacob's evil nature was as rejected of God, as Esau's, only the figure was set in Esau; not that he was personally, and wholly from all eternity predestinated to damnation, as Babel falsely teaches. The Fifty-Fourth Chapter How Isaac, by reason of the Famine, went down to Abimelech, King of the philistines at Gerar; And how the Lord appeared there to him, and commanded him to stay there, and renewed there the Covenant of his Father with him: of the meaning of this, in its Spiritual Figure 1 1 Gen. xxvi. 1. THE twenty-sixth chapter of Genesis does further relate the history touching Isaac; how God did so very wonderfully
2guide him, and renewed the Covenant of his father Abraham with him, and preserved and blessed him and his wife with him. For seeing the kingdom of grace in the Covenant of God was now manifested in him, the blessing of God did now spring forth effectually in his purpose through the kingdom of nature. 2. And, on the contrary, how the devil was an utter enraged enemy to this blessing, and desired to sift and search the kingdom of nature in Isaac, and in his wife Rebecca (in whom as yet the Serpent's ens lay in the earthly flesh) through the lust of King Abimelech. 3. And this again is a figure of Adam in Paradise, and also of Christ in the new regeneration; showing how Adam went into King Abimelech's land, that is, into a strange kingdom, viz. into the four elements, where he has denied his wife, viz. the matrix of the heavenly generatress in him, in that he introduced his lust into the bestial property. 4. As here Isaac did stand in fear of his life before King Abimelech, by reason of his wife, even so Adam, in his strange lust in the kingdom of the four elements and the stars, did also stand in fear before the strange king, viz. before the kingdom of this world, and denied his heavenly birth out of fear of the kingdom of this world; and gave his eternal will to the king of this world, that it might the better fare with him in his strange lust, as Isaac thought to do with his wife, who stood herewith in the figure of Adam.
35. Which figure the divine imagination did represent unto itself in Isaac, and set down withal the Covenant of the new birth, viz. his promised truth, how he would lead and guide the children of his grace in the presence of the strange king, viz. in the kingdom of this world; and preserve them from 1 the lust and desire of this king, and would lay hold of this king with his power, and change his lust and desire, viz. the lust of the stars and four elements, into another will of the essential desire. So that the sharp and severe might of the astrum in flesh and blood should be changed into a covenant of peace, and do no hurt to the children of grace in the Covenant; but it should serve them to bring forth the blessing and fruits, that they might grow greatly, as here Isaac with King Abimelech stood surrounded in the mere blessing of God; and his possession of goods and cattle grew so great, that King Abimelech thought he would be too potent and mighty for him, and therefore commanded him to go out of his land. 6. Which is a figure of the new birth in the kingdom of nature; that if the inward spiritual man does in divine power outgrow or overtop the kingdom of nature, then the kingdom of the outward nature in flesh and blood in the spirit of the world 2 is sore afraid and astonished at it, for it sees and feels its ruin and decrease, and would fain preserve its ownhood and propriety in the outward life.
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.
128. Not that we are to understand that Esau was wholly out of the Serpent's ens. No; he was of the right Adamical nature, from his father Isaac and Abraham; only, God did here set forth the figure of the kingdom of nature, which was poisoned in man, and then [he] also [set forth] the figure of the kingdom of grace; showing that the natural man must forsake his own evil will, and therewith also wholly immerse and give up himself into the kingdom of grace. And the figure which was here represented in Esau was to show that the evill Adamical man did not at all avail [in God's sight, that it was not profitable for the kingdom of God, but] it was cast away and rejected from God, and that man must wholly forsake his natural right of selfness, and wholly give in himself into God's will. 1 Jacob's evil nature was as rejected of God, as Esau's, only the figure was set in Esau; not that he was personally, and wholly from all eternity predestinated to damnation, as Babel falsely teaches. The Fifty-Fourth Chapter How Isaac, by reason of the Famine, went down to Abimelech, King of the philistines at Gerar; And how the Lord appeared there to him, and commanded him to stay there, and renewed there the Covenant of his Father with him: of the meaning of this, in its Spiritual Figure 1 1 Gen. xxvi. 1. THE twenty-sixth chapter of Genesis does further relate the history touching Isaac; how God did so very wonderfully
2guide him, and renewed the Covenant of his father Abraham with him, and preserved and blessed him and his wife with him. For seeing the kingdom of grace in the Covenant of God was now manifested in him, the blessing of God did now spring forth effectually in his purpose through the kingdom of nature. 2. And, on the contrary, how the devil was an utter enraged enemy to this blessing, and desired to sift and search the kingdom of nature in Isaac, and in his wife Rebecca (in whom as yet the Serpent's ens lay in the earthly flesh) through the lust of King Abimelech. 3. And this again is a figure of Adam in Paradise, and also of Christ in the new regeneration; showing how Adam went into King Abimelech's land, that is, into a strange kingdom, viz. into the four elements, where he has denied his wife, viz. the matrix of the heavenly generatress in him, in that he introduced his lust into the bestial property. 4. As here Isaac did stand in fear of his life before King Abimelech, by reason of his wife, even so Adam, in his strange lust in the kingdom of the four elements and the stars, did also stand in fear before the strange king, viz. before the kingdom of this world, and denied his heavenly birth out of fear of the kingdom of this world; and gave his eternal will to the king of this world, that it might the better fare with him in his strange lust, as Isaac thought to do with his wife, who stood herewith in the figure of Adam.
35. Which figure the divine imagination did represent unto itself in Isaac, and set down withal the Covenant of the new birth, viz. his promised truth, how he would lead and guide the children of his grace in the presence of the strange king, viz. in the kingdom of this world; and preserve them from 1 the lust and desire of this king, and would lay hold of this king with his power, and change his lust and desire, viz. the lust of the stars and four elements, into another will of the essential desire. So that the sharp and severe might of the astrum in flesh and blood should be changed into a covenant of peace, and do no hurt to the children of grace in the Covenant; but it should serve them to bring forth the blessing and fruits, that they might grow greatly, as here Isaac with King Abimelech stood surrounded in the mere blessing of God; and his possession of goods and cattle grew so great, that King Abimelech thought he would be too potent and mighty for him, and therefore commanded him to go out of his land. 6. Which is a figure of the new birth in the kingdom of nature; that if the inward spiritual man does in divine power outgrow or overtop the kingdom of nature, then the kingdom of the outward nature in flesh and blood in the spirit of the world 2 is sore afraid and astonished at it, for it sees and feels its ruin and decrease, and would fain preserve its ownhood and propriety in the outward life.
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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