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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.
11. IN this chapter for the most part is the outward history set forth, under which yet the spirit has its secret figure wherewith it plays, for the text says, And the words of the children of Laban came before Jacob, saying, Jacob has gotten all our father's goods to himself, and of our father's goods has he procured this riches. And Jacob looked upon Laban 's countenance, and saw that it was not towards him as formerly (Gen. xxxi. 1,2). 2. This is a figure represented in the spirit of Christ. When the spirit of Christ in man has gotten the kingdom of the human nature to himself, then the envy of the Serpent in the wrath of nature in flesh and blood awakes, understanding and feeling that the power of nature in man is taken away from him, and opposes the spirit of Christ in the power of nature. 3. Then proceeds the opposite will in man, so that the poor soul
2is everywhere faint and in an agony, perceiving that it dwells among strange goods, and that the devil is its neighbour, and has a continual access to its own nature, and opposes the soul, because it has, in Christ's spirit, taken away from him the kingdom of nature, viz. the land and country which he had for his possession. And therefore the mortal nature in the wrath of God sets its desire and endeavour against the poor soul, as a stranger, unfriendly, when it sees that it looses its voluptuous earthly inheritance (which right is intimated in the children of Laban, where reason looks to get temporal honour and pleasure), that all its natural right is taken away, as Jacob by subtlety took away Laban's goods. 4. Then thus says God to the soul, as here he did to Jacob, Return again into your father's country, to your kindred: I will be with you (Gen. xxxi. 3). That is, the poor soul should enter again into its first country of its father, viz. into the eternal Word, out of which it proceeded; and therein God blesses it, and therein it can also call its children and members, and bring them along out of the servile house of God's anger in the kingdom of nature, as Jacob called his wives and his children, and brought them out of the servitude of his father. Thus also the enlightened soul brings the power of its life in the kingdom
3of nature, together with its fellow-members, out of the servile house of flesh and blood, again into the first house, viz. into God's Word. 5. And as Jacob did flee from the servile house of his stepfather, and Laban pursued after and would hurt him (Gen. xxxi. 21-23), so also in like manner is done to the children of Christ, when they begin to flee out of the servile house of Satan, viz. out from fleshly pleasure and voluptuousness, and would again enter into its first land of its father, viz. into righteousness and the fear of God. Then instantly the fleshly crew of the wicked world, with rage and folly pursue after it and would slay it, and take away with evil and false tongues all its riches and goods in God's righteousness. 6. But the Lord awes them, that they cannot do it (as was done to Laban), though they stand up and reprove the children of God as unrighteous, because they turn away from their idols and abominations, and follow their hypocrisy no more, neither will they bear their evil yoke any more, and serve them in their unrighteousness, and call their falsehood, good. As the present world plays the hypocrite under this yoke, and serves their wickedness only that their god Mausim may live and be fat.
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.
11. IN this chapter for the most part is the outward history set forth, under which yet the spirit has its secret figure wherewith it plays, for the text says, And the words of the children of Laban came before Jacob, saying, Jacob has gotten all our father's goods to himself, and of our father's goods has he procured this riches. And Jacob looked upon Laban 's countenance, and saw that it was not towards him as formerly (Gen. xxxi. 1,2). 2. This is a figure represented in the spirit of Christ. When the spirit of Christ in man has gotten the kingdom of the human nature to himself, then the envy of the Serpent in the wrath of nature in flesh and blood awakes, understanding and feeling that the power of nature in man is taken away from him, and opposes the spirit of Christ in the power of nature. 3. Then proceeds the opposite will in man, so that the poor soul
2is everywhere faint and in an agony, perceiving that it dwells among strange goods, and that the devil is its neighbour, and has a continual access to its own nature, and opposes the soul, because it has, in Christ's spirit, taken away from him the kingdom of nature, viz. the land and country which he had for his possession. And therefore the mortal nature in the wrath of God sets its desire and endeavour against the poor soul, as a stranger, unfriendly, when it sees that it looses its voluptuous earthly inheritance (which right is intimated in the children of Laban, where reason looks to get temporal honour and pleasure), that all its natural right is taken away, as Jacob by subtlety took away Laban's goods. 4. Then thus says God to the soul, as here he did to Jacob, Return again into your father's country, to your kindred: I will be with you (Gen. xxxi. 3). That is, the poor soul should enter again into its first country of its father, viz. into the eternal Word, out of which it proceeded; and therein God blesses it, and therein it can also call its children and members, and bring them along out of the servile house of God's anger in the kingdom of nature, as Jacob called his wives and his children, and brought them out of the servitude of his father. Thus also the enlightened soul brings the power of its life in the kingdom
3of nature, together with its fellow-members, out of the servile house of flesh and blood, again into the first house, viz. into God's Word. 5. And as Jacob did flee from the servile house of his stepfather, and Laban pursued after and would hurt him (Gen. xxxi. 21-23), so also in like manner is done to the children of Christ, when they begin to flee out of the servile house of Satan, viz. out from fleshly pleasure and voluptuousness, and would again enter into its first land of its father, viz. into righteousness and the fear of God. Then instantly the fleshly crew of the wicked world, with rage and folly pursue after it and would slay it, and take away with evil and false tongues all its riches and goods in God's righteousness. 6. But the Lord awes them, that they cannot do it (as was done to Laban), though they stand up and reprove the children of God as unrighteous, because they turn away from their idols and abominations, and follow their hypocrisy no more, neither will they bear their evil yoke any more, and serve them in their unrighteousness, and call their falsehood, good. As the present world plays the hypocrite under this yoke, and serves their wickedness only that their god Mausim may live and be fat.
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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