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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.
148. For the children of Christ in this lifetime, as to the outward man, live in the kingdom of the depraved human nature, viz. in the kingdom of the Esauites, and are, as to the spirit, only strangers and pilgrims therein. As Christ said, My kingdom is not of this world; and therefore the children of this world are enemies to them, and persecute them, as Esau his brother Jacob. 49. For where the kingdom of Christ begins to flourish, there presently the kingdom of the devil begins to storm and rage; and therefore, because the kingdom of Christ shall and will take away and ruin his might and princely throne; hence is the strife in this world between the children of Jacob, and Esau. 50. For as soon as Jacob had obtained the blessing, Esau purposed in his mind to kill Jacob (v. 41). Which is a figure of Christ, showing how that God's anger would kill him in this blessing, in our assumed humanity, as to the kingdom of nature; and that the children of God also should be killed in God's anger, as to the kingdom of nature, and shed their blood into this murdering spirit; that thereby God's anger might be blotted out and changed into love. The Fifty-Sixth Chapter How Isaac and Rebecca sent away Jacob because of Esau into another Country; and how the Lord appeared to him in a Vision upon the Ladder, which reached even into heaven; and how Esau carried himself afterwards towards his Parents: What we are to understand by this figure
21. WHEN Jacob had received the blessing, 1 then he must depart from his native home, from father and mother, and flee from the wrath of Esau. This is now a figure of Christ, showing how that he, after that he had assumed and anointed our humanity, should flee with our humanity out of its father's Adamical house again into the first Paradisical house. 1 Gen. xxviii. 2. And it further denotes that the children of Christ (after they have received the unction and blessing, and the new birth begins to spring forth in them, in the blessing), shall and must forthwith flee with their thoughts and mind from their father Adam's house of the depraved nature; and it shows that the devil and the world do soon hate them, and they must forthwith give themselves to the pilgrim's path of Christ, and live under the world's slavish yoke, in misery and oppression; in disfavour and disrespect. For God brings them forth with their thoughts and mind out of their father's house, viz. out of the desire in flesh and blood; so that they do nothing at all regard the pleasure of the world, and flee from it, as Jacob from his father's house.
33. And then we see how wonderfully God guides his children, and defends them from their enemies, that the devil in God's anger cannot kill them, unless it be God's will. As he defended Jacob from the fury of Esau, and led him away from him. And we have here an excellent example in Jacob; in that he forsook his native home, also father and mother, for this blessing's sake, and loved God more than all temporal goods, and willingly left all to Esau; that so he might but be the blessed of God. 4. And we see that when he had left the riches of the world in his father's house, the Lord appeared to him with the eternal goods, and showed him a ladder, whereupon he could ascend into God's eternal kingdom: which ladder was no other than Christ, whom he had put on in the line of the Covenant. And here now the type was represented to him, showing him what person Christ should be. 5. For this ladder (as to his apprehension) was upon the earth, and the top of it reached into heaven; and thereon the angels of God did ascend and descend (Gen. xxviii. 12). Which signifies that God's eternal Word, with the power of heaven, viz. with the angelical divine world's essence, should descend or immerse itself into our essence, [which was] departed from God, and blind as to God; and assume our humanity; and so unite the heaven with the world in man; that the humanity, through this entrance of the Deity into the humanity, might have a ladder unto God.
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.
148. For the children of Christ in this lifetime, as to the outward man, live in the kingdom of the depraved human nature, viz. in the kingdom of the Esauites, and are, as to the spirit, only strangers and pilgrims therein. As Christ said, My kingdom is not of this world; and therefore the children of this world are enemies to them, and persecute them, as Esau his brother Jacob. 49. For where the kingdom of Christ begins to flourish, there presently the kingdom of the devil begins to storm and rage; and therefore, because the kingdom of Christ shall and will take away and ruin his might and princely throne; hence is the strife in this world between the children of Jacob, and Esau. 50. For as soon as Jacob had obtained the blessing, Esau purposed in his mind to kill Jacob (v. 41). Which is a figure of Christ, showing how that God's anger would kill him in this blessing, in our assumed humanity, as to the kingdom of nature; and that the children of God also should be killed in God's anger, as to the kingdom of nature, and shed their blood into this murdering spirit; that thereby God's anger might be blotted out and changed into love. The Fifty-Sixth Chapter How Isaac and Rebecca sent away Jacob because of Esau into another Country; and how the Lord appeared to him in a Vision upon the Ladder, which reached even into heaven; and how Esau carried himself afterwards towards his Parents: What we are to understand by this figure
21. WHEN Jacob had received the blessing, 1 then he must depart from his native home, from father and mother, and flee from the wrath of Esau. This is now a figure of Christ, showing how that he, after that he had assumed and anointed our humanity, should flee with our humanity out of its father's Adamical house again into the first Paradisical house. 1 Gen. xxviii. 2. And it further denotes that the children of Christ (after they have received the unction and blessing, and the new birth begins to spring forth in them, in the blessing), shall and must forthwith flee with their thoughts and mind from their father Adam's house of the depraved nature; and it shows that the devil and the world do soon hate them, and they must forthwith give themselves to the pilgrim's path of Christ, and live under the world's slavish yoke, in misery and oppression; in disfavour and disrespect. For God brings them forth with their thoughts and mind out of their father's house, viz. out of the desire in flesh and blood; so that they do nothing at all regard the pleasure of the world, and flee from it, as Jacob from his father's house.
33. And then we see how wonderfully God guides his children, and defends them from their enemies, that the devil in God's anger cannot kill them, unless it be God's will. As he defended Jacob from the fury of Esau, and led him away from him. And we have here an excellent example in Jacob; in that he forsook his native home, also father and mother, for this blessing's sake, and loved God more than all temporal goods, and willingly left all to Esau; that so he might but be the blessed of God. 4. And we see that when he had left the riches of the world in his father's house, the Lord appeared to him with the eternal goods, and showed him a ladder, whereupon he could ascend into God's eternal kingdom: which ladder was no other than Christ, whom he had put on in the line of the Covenant. And here now the type was represented to him, showing him what person Christ should be. 5. For this ladder (as to his apprehension) was upon the earth, and the top of it reached into heaven; and thereon the angels of God did ascend and descend (Gen. xxviii. 12). Which signifies that God's eternal Word, with the power of heaven, viz. with the angelical divine world's essence, should descend or immerse itself into our essence, [which was] departed from God, and blind as to God; and assume our humanity; and so unite the heaven with the world in man; that the humanity, through this entrance of the Deity into the humanity, might have a ladder unto God.
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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