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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.
19. For the kingdom of man's nature was so poisoned that it must be dissolved; therefore the blessing of God the Father turned itself upon the woman's tincture, viz. upon the Adamical female tincture, understand, the light's tincture. For the fiery tincture in Adam was awakened in the wrath, viz. in the kingdom of darkness, and was made an earthly image; and herein the heavenly was swallowed up and mortified. Now, the blessing would come to help this heavenly disappeared image, that so it might be quickened again in the blessing; and so the kingdom of nature with which it was incorporated should be blessed, tinctured and regenerated. 10. Seeing then two lines went forth in Abraham's and Isaac's seed, viz. in Ishmael and Esau, the right depraved Adamical image, and in Isaac and Jacob the line of the Covenant in the free given grace, the blessing of God the Father, which was manifested in Isaac, turned itself upon Jacob, viz. upon the line of Christ whom God has anointed; that he should again anoint the first-born Esau, viz. the first Adamical depraved man; for the first Adam had lost his first birth given him out of the divine Word in the creation, and could not any more be blessed out of his centre.
211. For the soul's will was broken off from the eternal Word of divine holiness, and had given itself into the centre of the first Principle, viz. into the wrath of the eternal nature, into the severation of the speaking word, viz. into the opposition and contentious contrariety. Whence also Isaac blessed Esau with the word of strife, when he said unto him in the blessing, you shall live by your sword, and break your brother's yoke from off your neck. Signifying, that now the depraved nature in him was become a servant of God's anger, and should now bear and manage the combat which Adam had raised up in the life's properties, and be a servant of the same. 12. But that Isaac did not understand this thing, and would have blessed Esau with the blessing of the Covenant, and given him the sceptre in Zion, does show unto us that Isaac, and all the holy children of God (although they be born again of the new birth in the line of the Covenant and stand therein), do not apprehend and understand the internal ground of their essence, wherein the kingdom of God works and is in power, so as to be able to do anything thereby in self-will. But God turns this internal ground of the place of God as he pleases; and the soul must see to what he [God] does; as here Isaac must see to what the Lord had blessed by him.
313. For Isaac said to Esau, That he should make him ready savoury meat, such as he loved to eat; and then his soul would bless him (v. 4). But now this blessing stood in the line of the Covenant, in which, Christ should spring forth; not in the soul's might, but in God's might. For the soul of Isaac and of all the children of Adam were as yet, with the soul's root, on the band of God's anger, which anger this internal incorporated line of grace should destroy in Christ's death, and wholly incorporate and unite it into the line of the Covenant. 14. Therefore the soul's will in Isaac should not propagate the blessing of this Covenant's line, and give it to the kingdom of the soul-like 1 nature, viz. to the first-born, Esau, and first Adam; for the soul was a cause of the destruction: the fire's tincture received not the might and strength of the new virtue, for its might should be broken, viz. its proud Lucifer, who likewise is the very same; but the light's tincture (which disappeared in Adam when the fire's might introduced dark earthliness thereinto), which tincture sprang forth again afresh in this Covenant's line in the power of the inspoken and promised, incorporated Word of grace, the same had the might and power of the blessing. 1 Or soul's.
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.
19. For the kingdom of man's nature was so poisoned that it must be dissolved; therefore the blessing of God the Father turned itself upon the woman's tincture, viz. upon the Adamical female tincture, understand, the light's tincture. For the fiery tincture in Adam was awakened in the wrath, viz. in the kingdom of darkness, and was made an earthly image; and herein the heavenly was swallowed up and mortified. Now, the blessing would come to help this heavenly disappeared image, that so it might be quickened again in the blessing; and so the kingdom of nature with which it was incorporated should be blessed, tinctured and regenerated. 10. Seeing then two lines went forth in Abraham's and Isaac's seed, viz. in Ishmael and Esau, the right depraved Adamical image, and in Isaac and Jacob the line of the Covenant in the free given grace, the blessing of God the Father, which was manifested in Isaac, turned itself upon Jacob, viz. upon the line of Christ whom God has anointed; that he should again anoint the first-born Esau, viz. the first Adamical depraved man; for the first Adam had lost his first birth given him out of the divine Word in the creation, and could not any more be blessed out of his centre.
211. For the soul's will was broken off from the eternal Word of divine holiness, and had given itself into the centre of the first Principle, viz. into the wrath of the eternal nature, into the severation of the speaking word, viz. into the opposition and contentious contrariety. Whence also Isaac blessed Esau with the word of strife, when he said unto him in the blessing, you shall live by your sword, and break your brother's yoke from off your neck. Signifying, that now the depraved nature in him was become a servant of God's anger, and should now bear and manage the combat which Adam had raised up in the life's properties, and be a servant of the same. 12. But that Isaac did not understand this thing, and would have blessed Esau with the blessing of the Covenant, and given him the sceptre in Zion, does show unto us that Isaac, and all the holy children of God (although they be born again of the new birth in the line of the Covenant and stand therein), do not apprehend and understand the internal ground of their essence, wherein the kingdom of God works and is in power, so as to be able to do anything thereby in self-will. But God turns this internal ground of the place of God as he pleases; and the soul must see to what he [God] does; as here Isaac must see to what the Lord had blessed by him.
313. For Isaac said to Esau, That he should make him ready savoury meat, such as he loved to eat; and then his soul would bless him (v. 4). But now this blessing stood in the line of the Covenant, in which, Christ should spring forth; not in the soul's might, but in God's might. For the soul of Isaac and of all the children of Adam were as yet, with the soul's root, on the band of God's anger, which anger this internal incorporated line of grace should destroy in Christ's death, and wholly incorporate and unite it into the line of the Covenant. 14. Therefore the soul's will in Isaac should not propagate the blessing of this Covenant's line, and give it to the kingdom of the soul-like 1 nature, viz. to the first-born, Esau, and first Adam; for the soul was a cause of the destruction: the fire's tincture received not the might and strength of the new virtue, for its might should be broken, viz. its proud Lucifer, who likewise is the very same; but the light's tincture (which disappeared in Adam when the fire's might introduced dark earthliness thereinto), which tincture sprang forth again afresh in this Covenant's line in the power of the inspoken and promised, incorporated Word of grace, the same had the might and power of the blessing. 1 Or soul's.
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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