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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.
147. In Rachel we see now the self-love of the kingdom of nature, where both tinctures, the masculine and the feminine, according to the kingdom of nature in self-love, bind themselves in conjunction; as Jacob loved Rachel according to the kingdom of nature, according to the tincture of self-love, and on the other side so did Rachel love Jacob. Therefore must these tinctures of natural self-love be so long shut up and bring forth no life, till the Lord remembered Rachel, and heard her (Gen. xxx. 22), as the text in Moses says. That is, till the Lord stirred up the tinctures of the kingdom of nature with his blessing, then she bare a prince in the kingdom of nature, viz. Joseph, in whom we see, by his great chastity and fear of God, that the blessing of God stirred up the tinctures of the kingdom of nature, which lay shut up in the seeds, and manifested the Covenant of grace therein. 1 Or, trifled. 48. For Christ should deliver from wrath the kingdom of nature in man; therefore also the spirit in this figure presents an image or type in Joseph, which it sets down also in the figure of Christ's humanity, how it would go in the future with Christ's humanity, which he took from us men. 49. In Leah Christ was represented according to his heavenly hidden humanity, showing how the heavenly world's substance would be hidden in our humanity under the yoke of God's anger, and how Christ must appear in a servile and contemptible form.
250. In Rachel with Joseph now the figure is represented, which shows how he would overcome, and in our human nature should be a Lord and Prince over all his enemies, who have held us poor men in flesh and blood captive; and how he would bring us forth out of the misery and famine of Adam, into a good land, and not remember how we in this world have cast him into the pit, as Joseph's brethren cast Joseph. 51. The spirit of God presents this figure in the twelve patriarchs, as a glass, to see by whom God was atoned in his anger, pointing at the future fulfilling, for the text in Moses speaks very hiddenly in this figure, and says, Now when Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, Let me depart and travel to my own place, and into my country. Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, that I may go (Gen. xxx. 25, 26). The inward spiritual figure is thus:
352. When the blessing of Jacob, viz. Christ, in the kingdom of the human nature was manifest, so that man stood in Christ's image, then he desires to return from the servitude of this house wherein he must serve, and go again to his Father's first house, and desires to take with him his fruits, viz. his children, brethren and sisters, and all the children of this birth; he has a great longing after that, as Jacob had after his father's house. But the Lord says to him, Stay and serve here a while, and feed my sheep, appoint the wages that I shall give you (Gen. xxx. 28); that is, ask of me, so will I give it you, as Christ says, Whatsoever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it you (John xvi. 23). 53. Thus then this Jacob demerses himself in humility, and keeps the sheep of Christ, in hope of the eternal wages, which follow after him; for in Joseph, that is, in Christ, the wages will be first given him; as Joseph was the wages of Jacob in the outward kingdom, and preserved and nourished him and his house in the famine. Which signifies Christ, who will eternally nourish us in himself; and bring us home with him into his Father's house, as Joseph brought his father and children into his lord's country. The Fifty-Ninth Chapter How Jacob departed from Laban: What this Figure signifies, and what is to be understood thereby [Gen. xxxi.]
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.
147. In Rachel we see now the self-love of the kingdom of nature, where both tinctures, the masculine and the feminine, according to the kingdom of nature in self-love, bind themselves in conjunction; as Jacob loved Rachel according to the kingdom of nature, according to the tincture of self-love, and on the other side so did Rachel love Jacob. Therefore must these tinctures of natural self-love be so long shut up and bring forth no life, till the Lord remembered Rachel, and heard her (Gen. xxx. 22), as the text in Moses says. That is, till the Lord stirred up the tinctures of the kingdom of nature with his blessing, then she bare a prince in the kingdom of nature, viz. Joseph, in whom we see, by his great chastity and fear of God, that the blessing of God stirred up the tinctures of the kingdom of nature, which lay shut up in the seeds, and manifested the Covenant of grace therein. 1 Or, trifled. 48. For Christ should deliver from wrath the kingdom of nature in man; therefore also the spirit in this figure presents an image or type in Joseph, which it sets down also in the figure of Christ's humanity, how it would go in the future with Christ's humanity, which he took from us men. 49. In Leah Christ was represented according to his heavenly hidden humanity, showing how the heavenly world's substance would be hidden in our humanity under the yoke of God's anger, and how Christ must appear in a servile and contemptible form.
250. In Rachel with Joseph now the figure is represented, which shows how he would overcome, and in our human nature should be a Lord and Prince over all his enemies, who have held us poor men in flesh and blood captive; and how he would bring us forth out of the misery and famine of Adam, into a good land, and not remember how we in this world have cast him into the pit, as Joseph's brethren cast Joseph. 51. The spirit of God presents this figure in the twelve patriarchs, as a glass, to see by whom God was atoned in his anger, pointing at the future fulfilling, for the text in Moses speaks very hiddenly in this figure, and says, Now when Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, Let me depart and travel to my own place, and into my country. Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, that I may go (Gen. xxx. 25, 26). The inward spiritual figure is thus:
352. When the blessing of Jacob, viz. Christ, in the kingdom of the human nature was manifest, so that man stood in Christ's image, then he desires to return from the servitude of this house wherein he must serve, and go again to his Father's first house, and desires to take with him his fruits, viz. his children, brethren and sisters, and all the children of this birth; he has a great longing after that, as Jacob had after his father's house. But the Lord says to him, Stay and serve here a while, and feed my sheep, appoint the wages that I shall give you (Gen. xxx. 28); that is, ask of me, so will I give it you, as Christ says, Whatsoever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it you (John xvi. 23). 53. Thus then this Jacob demerses himself in humility, and keeps the sheep of Christ, in hope of the eternal wages, which follow after him; for in Joseph, that is, in Christ, the wages will be first given him; as Joseph was the wages of Jacob in the outward kingdom, and preserved and nourished him and his house in the famine. Which signifies Christ, who will eternally nourish us in himself; and bring us home with him into his Father's house, as Joseph brought his father and children into his lord's country. The Fifty-Ninth Chapter How Jacob departed from Laban: What this Figure signifies, and what is to be understood thereby [Gen. xxxi.]
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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