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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.
1Chapter 35 : How the human tree spread forth Chapter 36: The antichristian Babylonical whore Chapter 37 : Of Abraham and his seed Chapter 38 : The beginning of the heathenish war Chapter 39: How God appeared to Abraham in a vision Chapter 40: The type of Hagar and Ishmael Chapter 41 : Circumcision and baptism Chapter 42: Three men which appeared to Abraham Chapter 43: The ruin of Sodom and Gomorrah Chapter 44: How Lot departed out of Sodom Chapter 45: How God led Abraham very wonderfully Chapter 46: Of Isaac's birth Chapter 47: Of the covenant of Abimelech and Abraham Chapter 48: How God tried Abraham Chapter 49: Of the death of Sarah Chapter 50: Of Isaac taking a wife Chapter 51: How Abraham took another wife Chapter 52: Of the history of Isaac Chapter 53: How Esau contemned his birthright Chapter 54: How Isaac went to Abimelech Chapter 55: Of Isaac's blessing Jacob Chapter 56: Of Jacob's ladder Chapter 57: How Jacob came to Laban Chapter 58: How Jacob served his father-in-law Chapter 59: How Jacob departed from Laban Chapter 60: How Esau went to meet Jacob Chapter 61 : Showing how Jacob and Esau met Chapter 62: Of Dinah, Jacob's daughter Chapter 63: Jacob to depart from Shechem Chapter 64: Of Esau's genealogy Chapter 65: Of Judah and Tamar Chapter 66: The most excellent history of Joseph Chapter 67: How Joseph expounded dreams Chapter 68: Of the dreams of king pharaoh Chapter 69: How this famine went through all lands
2Chapter 70: How Jacob's sons went into Egypt Chapter 71: Joseph's brethren's sacks filled Chapter 72: How Joseph manifested himself Chapter 73: How Jacob went into Egypt Chapter 74: How Jacob was set before pharaoh Chapter 75: How Jacob blessed Joseph's two sons Chapter 76: How Jacob called all his sons before his end Chapter 77: Further exposition of Jacob's testament Chapter 78: Of Jacob's burial in land of Canaan Alphabetical index of names, places, etc. THE SECOND PART of the Mysterium Magnum Begins with the Propagation of the Humane Tree through Noahs Children. AND The building of the Tower of Babel and Confusion of the Speeches and their Division into Several Nations This is The other Tree Wherein the Powers of the Properties unfold and form themselves into the Languages; even out of One into many Languages Tongues and Speeches. Beginning with the X. Chapter of Genesis and the 35 th Chapter of the Mysterium Magnum: and ending with the XXXV. Chapter of Genesis and the 64. Chapter of the Mysterium Magnum, at the 5 th verse. Written by JACOB BEHM Teutonicus. LONDON, Printed by M. Simmons for H. Blunden, at the Castle in Corn-hill. 1654. The Thirty-Fifth Chapter Shows how the Human Tree 1 has spread forth itself in its properties by the children of Noah; and how they were divided and severed at the Tower of Babel in their properties, by the confusion of the Tongues into distinct Nations
31. EVERY tree grows first 2 (after that it shoots out of its pregnant seed) 3 into a stock, afterwards into branches and boughs; and brings forth further out of its ens the blossom and fruit. Thus also we are to understand of the human tree, according to its virtue and manifestation of its hidden wonders of the divine wisdom, which lay hid in the human ens, and put itself forth in time out of each degree of the properties. 2. Adam was the first ens to the grain [or pregnant fruitful seed of mankind], and this same ens, which produced the human life, was in the divine wisdom in the Word of the divine power of the divine understanding. The spirit of God brought this holy ens out of the divine wisdom and lubet into the Verbum Fiat, viz. into the desire of the forming word, viz. into nature; and therein the spirit of God figured the ens of divine wisdom, through the speaking Word, into a formal life; and the nature of the three Principles into a body; into which body (understand the ens of nature) the spirit of God breathed this same figured, shaped, creatural life of divine understanding.
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.
1Chapter 35 : How the human tree spread forth Chapter 36: The antichristian Babylonical whore Chapter 37 : Of Abraham and his seed Chapter 38 : The beginning of the heathenish war Chapter 39: How God appeared to Abraham in a vision Chapter 40: The type of Hagar and Ishmael Chapter 41 : Circumcision and baptism Chapter 42: Three men which appeared to Abraham Chapter 43: The ruin of Sodom and Gomorrah Chapter 44: How Lot departed out of Sodom Chapter 45: How God led Abraham very wonderfully Chapter 46: Of Isaac's birth Chapter 47: Of the covenant of Abimelech and Abraham Chapter 48: How God tried Abraham Chapter 49: Of the death of Sarah Chapter 50: Of Isaac taking a wife Chapter 51: How Abraham took another wife Chapter 52: Of the history of Isaac Chapter 53: How Esau contemned his birthright Chapter 54: How Isaac went to Abimelech Chapter 55: Of Isaac's blessing Jacob Chapter 56: Of Jacob's ladder Chapter 57: How Jacob came to Laban Chapter 58: How Jacob served his father-in-law Chapter 59: How Jacob departed from Laban Chapter 60: How Esau went to meet Jacob Chapter 61 : Showing how Jacob and Esau met Chapter 62: Of Dinah, Jacob's daughter Chapter 63: Jacob to depart from Shechem Chapter 64: Of Esau's genealogy Chapter 65: Of Judah and Tamar Chapter 66: The most excellent history of Joseph Chapter 67: How Joseph expounded dreams Chapter 68: Of the dreams of king pharaoh Chapter 69: How this famine went through all lands
2Chapter 70: How Jacob's sons went into Egypt Chapter 71: Joseph's brethren's sacks filled Chapter 72: How Joseph manifested himself Chapter 73: How Jacob went into Egypt Chapter 74: How Jacob was set before pharaoh Chapter 75: How Jacob blessed Joseph's two sons Chapter 76: How Jacob called all his sons before his end Chapter 77: Further exposition of Jacob's testament Chapter 78: Of Jacob's burial in land of Canaan Alphabetical index of names, places, etc. THE SECOND PART of the Mysterium Magnum Begins with the Propagation of the Humane Tree through Noahs Children. AND The building of the Tower of Babel and Confusion of the Speeches and their Division into Several Nations This is The other Tree Wherein the Powers of the Properties unfold and form themselves into the Languages; even out of One into many Languages Tongues and Speeches. Beginning with the X. Chapter of Genesis and the 35 th Chapter of the Mysterium Magnum: and ending with the XXXV. Chapter of Genesis and the 64. Chapter of the Mysterium Magnum, at the 5 th verse. Written by JACOB BEHM Teutonicus. LONDON, Printed by M. Simmons for H. Blunden, at the Castle in Corn-hill. 1654. The Thirty-Fifth Chapter Shows how the Human Tree 1 has spread forth itself in its properties by the children of Noah; and how they were divided and severed at the Tower of Babel in their properties, by the confusion of the Tongues into distinct Nations
31. EVERY tree grows first 2 (after that it shoots out of its pregnant seed) 3 into a stock, afterwards into branches and boughs; and brings forth further out of its ens the blossom and fruit. Thus also we are to understand of the human tree, according to its virtue and manifestation of its hidden wonders of the divine wisdom, which lay hid in the human ens, and put itself forth in time out of each degree of the properties. 2. Adam was the first ens to the grain [or pregnant fruitful seed of mankind], and this same ens, which produced the human life, was in the divine wisdom in the Word of the divine power of the divine understanding. The spirit of God brought this holy ens out of the divine wisdom and lubet into the Verbum Fiat, viz. into the desire of the forming word, viz. into nature; and therein the spirit of God figured the ens of divine wisdom, through the speaking Word, into a formal life; and the nature of the three Principles into a body; into which body (understand the ens of nature) the spirit of God breathed this same figured, shaped, creatural life of divine understanding.
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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