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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.
115. The seed of the woman, viz. the light's tincture and virtue, should bruise the head of the fiery Serpent, and change the soul's fiery might into a meek love-fire. The fiery soul's will shall and must be wholly transmuted and turned into meekness. 16. As this disappeared light's tincture was brought from Adam into the woman, viz. into Eve, which when it was in Adam was his fair Paradisical rose-garden of peculiar love, wherein God was manifest, and seeing now the figure of the new birth was represented in Isaac's blessing, therefore also his wife, viz. the blessed Rebecca, must come, as one who also stood in the line of the Covenant; and set forth the right figure of Christ, viz. Jacob, in the place of the blessing. To signify that Christ should be manifested in this Covenant's line in the seed of the woman, viz. in the tincture of the light and the water, and assume the soul's nature from the power of the light, that so he might rule over the fiery nature of the soul, and change the same into the power of the light. 17. Now Rebecca, Isaac's wife, was here in this place a figure of the Virgin Mary, who brought forth Christ, viz. the blessed of God, who should bless Esau, and all the Adamical children. And it was so ordered by the Lord that Rebecca should so carry it, for she understood that the blessing, viz. the sceptre of Israel did rest in Jacob.
218. For seeing the sceptre in Zion lay in the seed of the woman, viz. in the virginity, the same sceptre was here also stirred in the seed of the woman; so that a woman must bring forth the Covenant's line to the place of God the Father's blessing, which was in Isaac; and the man's will, viz. the soul's natural fire-will, must come behind, and be a servant of God's wonders, and see what God has done with him. 19. But that it appears to be as a deceit or cunning subtlety, in that Rebecca did so instruct and put on Jacob to take away the blessing from Esau, as if she loved Jacob far above Esau, therein reason has blind eyes: for through the devil's cunning the curse came into the world; and through the divine cunning in the love the destruction of death and hell came again into the soul: the divine cunning killed the devil's cunning. 20. Understand it aright: All cunning arises from the lubet or desire. The devil's cunning arose from the false lubet or lust: so likewise God's lubet came again into the woman's seed (into which heavenly matrix the devil had insinuated his lust), and destroyed the devil's lust. 21. It was of God that Jacob obtained the blessing, wholly contrary to the mind and will of reason. For he stood in the figure of Christ, and Esau stood in the figure of the depraved Adam.
322. Therefore Esau was a hairy or rugged man, signifying the monstrous bestial property, which Adam had awaked in the fall, through lust. Now when Adam's lust had brought itself to substance, then the flesh became gross and bestial. Thus the bestial part swallowed up the heavenly in itself; and death was manifested in the flesh. And we see here in this figure very clearly typified how it should be. 23. Isaac would bless the bestial man in Esau, this, God would not: the divine blessing belonged to Christ. But the depraved Adam could not be capable of receiving the blessing of God, unless Christ take this rugged bestial skin [or form] which Adam had put on; as here Jacob could not be blessed unless he had on him the hairy beastlike skin. 24. God the Father set before him our misery in his Covenant in Christ in our humanity which he assumed; for Christ must enter into our humanity, and walk in our hairy form, and destroy our death of the bestial property; as it is written, He took on him our sickness; and laid on himself our grief (Isa. liii. 4; Matt. viii. 17; I Pet. ii. 24).
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.
115. The seed of the woman, viz. the light's tincture and virtue, should bruise the head of the fiery Serpent, and change the soul's fiery might into a meek love-fire. The fiery soul's will shall and must be wholly transmuted and turned into meekness. 16. As this disappeared light's tincture was brought from Adam into the woman, viz. into Eve, which when it was in Adam was his fair Paradisical rose-garden of peculiar love, wherein God was manifest, and seeing now the figure of the new birth was represented in Isaac's blessing, therefore also his wife, viz. the blessed Rebecca, must come, as one who also stood in the line of the Covenant; and set forth the right figure of Christ, viz. Jacob, in the place of the blessing. To signify that Christ should be manifested in this Covenant's line in the seed of the woman, viz. in the tincture of the light and the water, and assume the soul's nature from the power of the light, that so he might rule over the fiery nature of the soul, and change the same into the power of the light. 17. Now Rebecca, Isaac's wife, was here in this place a figure of the Virgin Mary, who brought forth Christ, viz. the blessed of God, who should bless Esau, and all the Adamical children. And it was so ordered by the Lord that Rebecca should so carry it, for she understood that the blessing, viz. the sceptre of Israel did rest in Jacob.
218. For seeing the sceptre in Zion lay in the seed of the woman, viz. in the virginity, the same sceptre was here also stirred in the seed of the woman; so that a woman must bring forth the Covenant's line to the place of God the Father's blessing, which was in Isaac; and the man's will, viz. the soul's natural fire-will, must come behind, and be a servant of God's wonders, and see what God has done with him. 19. But that it appears to be as a deceit or cunning subtlety, in that Rebecca did so instruct and put on Jacob to take away the blessing from Esau, as if she loved Jacob far above Esau, therein reason has blind eyes: for through the devil's cunning the curse came into the world; and through the divine cunning in the love the destruction of death and hell came again into the soul: the divine cunning killed the devil's cunning. 20. Understand it aright: All cunning arises from the lubet or desire. The devil's cunning arose from the false lubet or lust: so likewise God's lubet came again into the woman's seed (into which heavenly matrix the devil had insinuated his lust), and destroyed the devil's lust. 21. It was of God that Jacob obtained the blessing, wholly contrary to the mind and will of reason. For he stood in the figure of Christ, and Esau stood in the figure of the depraved Adam.
322. Therefore Esau was a hairy or rugged man, signifying the monstrous bestial property, which Adam had awaked in the fall, through lust. Now when Adam's lust had brought itself to substance, then the flesh became gross and bestial. Thus the bestial part swallowed up the heavenly in itself; and death was manifested in the flesh. And we see here in this figure very clearly typified how it should be. 23. Isaac would bless the bestial man in Esau, this, God would not: the divine blessing belonged to Christ. But the depraved Adam could not be capable of receiving the blessing of God, unless Christ take this rugged bestial skin [or form] which Adam had put on; as here Jacob could not be blessed unless he had on him the hairy beastlike skin. 24. God the Father set before him our misery in his Covenant in Christ in our humanity which he assumed; for Christ must enter into our humanity, and walk in our hairy form, and destroy our death of the bestial property; as it is written, He took on him our sickness; and laid on himself our grief (Isa. liii. 4; Matt. viii. 17; I Pet. ii. 24).
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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