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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.
17. The spirit of God here also presents a figure, showing how Christ would for a while put himself under this servile yoke in the kingdom of nature, and would betroth to him Adam's daughter, that is, our flesh and blood, and acquire to himself Adam's possessions, goods and riches, viz. the kingdom or dominion of the human nature; that is, draw many men to him, and in the end go therewith out of this servile house of this world, again into his Father's eternal house, in which departure to his Father would the devil and the wicked world scorn him and quite slay him, and would take away and rob him of his goods, as also of his children which he has here begotten. Even as the devil, by the Pharisees and wicked Jews, did, who would take away and rob Christ of all his faithful children, as Laban pursued and hunted after Jacob, and would take away his purchased goods from him again. 8. But as God would not suffer Laban to hurt Jacob, (Gen. xxxi. 7), so God would not suffer the devil and the wicked high priests to rob Christ of his purchased goods. Although they slew his outward humanity, yet he rose again from the dead, and brought his purchased goods into his Father's country.
29. The spirit of Moses represents in this chapter a wonderful figure, which ought well to be observed, because he intimates a secret mystery under it: for he says, When Jacob did flee away from Laban, Rachel had stolen away her father's idol gods: and further says, Thus Jacob stole away the heart of Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled: and we see further, how Laban, when he came to Jacob, was eager after his idol gods, and searched all Jacob's household stuff for his idol gods. Also we see in this text, how Rachel was she that loved those idol gods, and sat upon them, and so hid them that her father could not get them again (Gen. xxxi. 19,20,30, 33,34). 10. In these words there is represented to us an outward and an inward figure, showing how it would go with Israel in the future. For these idol gods were not heathenish idols, according to the constellation or star (Acts vii. 43) Moloch, as the heathen had. But as we read, they made images, monuments, statues or pictures of their friends that were dead, as a pattern for instruction, which images among the heathen afterwards were turned to idols; and these might well be such images of his kindred that were dead, which Laban was loath to lose, because they were patterns of instruction, and memorials to him of his ancestors and deceased kindred whom he loved.
311. But the true figure under which the spirit points at the future, is this: First, That Israel would not continually cleave to God with their whole heart, but would always take these idol gods of fleshly self-love along with them, and love themselves and their images, viz. genealogies of human greatness, state, high birth and noble pedigrees of gentility, more than God, even as it came to pass. 12. Especially this departure of Jacob intimates the departure of Israel out of Egypt into the promised land, when they took with them also their fleshly idol gods, and presently after served their own idol gods (I Sam. viii. 8), viz. human greatness; and forsook their God, and regarded their Mammon, and would have kingr among them according to the custom of the heathen (I Sam. viii. 19), and forsook their right King, who had brought them out of Egypt. 13. Secondly, It intimates how Christ, in whose figure Jacob stood, would take to him this Rachel in our flesh and blood, viz. these, in Adam, idol-wills of the soul turned away from God, which has acquired to itself images and idols, and possessed them as Rachel; and would bring the averted wills of the soul, with their acquired idols and images, out of the idol's house or temple, which idols, viz. idolwills and desires, must afterwards be all broken to pieces in the death of Christ.
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.
17. The spirit of God here also presents a figure, showing how Christ would for a while put himself under this servile yoke in the kingdom of nature, and would betroth to him Adam's daughter, that is, our flesh and blood, and acquire to himself Adam's possessions, goods and riches, viz. the kingdom or dominion of the human nature; that is, draw many men to him, and in the end go therewith out of this servile house of this world, again into his Father's eternal house, in which departure to his Father would the devil and the wicked world scorn him and quite slay him, and would take away and rob him of his goods, as also of his children which he has here begotten. Even as the devil, by the Pharisees and wicked Jews, did, who would take away and rob Christ of all his faithful children, as Laban pursued and hunted after Jacob, and would take away his purchased goods from him again. 8. But as God would not suffer Laban to hurt Jacob, (Gen. xxxi. 7), so God would not suffer the devil and the wicked high priests to rob Christ of his purchased goods. Although they slew his outward humanity, yet he rose again from the dead, and brought his purchased goods into his Father's country.
29. The spirit of Moses represents in this chapter a wonderful figure, which ought well to be observed, because he intimates a secret mystery under it: for he says, When Jacob did flee away from Laban, Rachel had stolen away her father's idol gods: and further says, Thus Jacob stole away the heart of Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled: and we see further, how Laban, when he came to Jacob, was eager after his idol gods, and searched all Jacob's household stuff for his idol gods. Also we see in this text, how Rachel was she that loved those idol gods, and sat upon them, and so hid them that her father could not get them again (Gen. xxxi. 19,20,30, 33,34). 10. In these words there is represented to us an outward and an inward figure, showing how it would go with Israel in the future. For these idol gods were not heathenish idols, according to the constellation or star (Acts vii. 43) Moloch, as the heathen had. But as we read, they made images, monuments, statues or pictures of their friends that were dead, as a pattern for instruction, which images among the heathen afterwards were turned to idols; and these might well be such images of his kindred that were dead, which Laban was loath to lose, because they were patterns of instruction, and memorials to him of his ancestors and deceased kindred whom he loved.
311. But the true figure under which the spirit points at the future, is this: First, That Israel would not continually cleave to God with their whole heart, but would always take these idol gods of fleshly self-love along with them, and love themselves and their images, viz. genealogies of human greatness, state, high birth and noble pedigrees of gentility, more than God, even as it came to pass. 12. Especially this departure of Jacob intimates the departure of Israel out of Egypt into the promised land, when they took with them also their fleshly idol gods, and presently after served their own idol gods (I Sam. viii. 8), viz. human greatness; and forsook their God, and regarded their Mammon, and would have kingr among them according to the custom of the heathen (I Sam. viii. 19), and forsook their right King, who had brought them out of Egypt. 13. Secondly, It intimates how Christ, in whose figure Jacob stood, would take to him this Rachel in our flesh and blood, viz. these, in Adam, idol-wills of the soul turned away from God, which has acquired to itself images and idols, and possessed them as Rachel; and would bring the averted wills of the soul, with their acquired idols and images, out of the idol's house or temple, which idols, viz. idolwills and desires, must afterwards be all broken to pieces in the death of Christ.
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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