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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.
1This history once again prefigures powerfully the future times, how it would go both with Israel and also with Christendom. For when Levi and Simeon had committed that murder, and slain all the males of Shechem, and taken captive all their wives and children, having plundered and spoiled all, then Jacob was afraid of the people of the land, And then God called him from thence to go to Bethel, and make an altar there. The inward figure stands thus: 2. When men, both the Jews and afterwards the Christians, were grown up in fleshly whoredom and unchaste life, and became wicked, then would God's spirit depart from them, and then they began a spiritual whoredom and idolatry, and were erroneous in their opinions, and would fall together by the ears, and say one to another, He deflowers his sister Dinah, that is, his worship and service of God. And would fall one upon another, and murder, kill, plunder, spoil and rob one another with wars, and bring their country to desolation and misery. And then when they should stick in such misery and trouble, they would attain the fear and trembling, as here Jacob, upon the murder which his children committed. For the Lord would touch their evil consciences, and call them again to repentance, as he did Jacob and his children, when he commanded them to come away from the place of this murder, and commanded Jacob to make an altar to him, viz. to the Lord, at Bethel, that is, in the lowliness of the fear of God.
23. So the spirit here signifies, that God would then again send them prophets and teachers, who would dissuade them from their idolatry and wicked life; as here Jacob exhorted his family that they should put away the strange gods, and the pride of their earrings from them. And then, when they had thus seen the anger of the Lord, which destroyed their land, and exceedingly devoured them for their whoredom, pride, and idolatrous life, then would they follow and obey the prophets who reproved them for it; and bring their idols and strange gods, viz. their idolatry, before God, and put it away from them; and would again seek the temple of God within them. And then would God again build up his altar in them, and they would again rightly offer sacrifice to him, viz. offer up their souls; and would cleanse their garments, that is, their hearts, as Jacob here commanded his people. This also would the prophets, and among the Christians the true apostles and teachers, command and direct. 4. And we see further here a powerful figure, how Jacob took their idols and earrings, and buried them under an oak by Shechem, where the murder was done. O you great and wonderful God! what does this signify? Nothing else but that these their errors and idolatry, together with their wars and contentions, should thus for a long time lie buried in the anger of God.
35. And seeing the spirit mentions an oak, under which these idols and pride are buried, the figure is clear to us. For an oak is of a magnetic attractive kind, and makes a tenacious 1 hardness in its property; moreover blackness, duskiness and darkness. This signifies that the former idolatry, sins and blasphemies, which they have committed, shall there, in the hungry wrath of the anger of God in turba magna, viz. under the great oak in spiritu mundi, viz. in the hidden mystery, stand still a long while. 1 Tough. 6. And what sin they shall commit anew, all that will this magnetic oak draw to it, and bring it to the treasure of the former idolatry and pride, till they become so great that the earth under the oak can cover them no more. Then shall these their old and new whoredoms and idolatries, together, be naked before the anger and judgement of God, and their measure be full. 7. And they would stink before God for these abominations, for the sake of which the spirit of God would hide its countenance from them, and take away from them the light of his countenance; so that they would run on in vain errors, and enter again upon the way of such whoredom, and with their evil zeal for Dinah their sister, which yet is but a deflowered whore, trample all under with murder and robbery.
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.
1This history once again prefigures powerfully the future times, how it would go both with Israel and also with Christendom. For when Levi and Simeon had committed that murder, and slain all the males of Shechem, and taken captive all their wives and children, having plundered and spoiled all, then Jacob was afraid of the people of the land, And then God called him from thence to go to Bethel, and make an altar there. The inward figure stands thus: 2. When men, both the Jews and afterwards the Christians, were grown up in fleshly whoredom and unchaste life, and became wicked, then would God's spirit depart from them, and then they began a spiritual whoredom and idolatry, and were erroneous in their opinions, and would fall together by the ears, and say one to another, He deflowers his sister Dinah, that is, his worship and service of God. And would fall one upon another, and murder, kill, plunder, spoil and rob one another with wars, and bring their country to desolation and misery. And then when they should stick in such misery and trouble, they would attain the fear and trembling, as here Jacob, upon the murder which his children committed. For the Lord would touch their evil consciences, and call them again to repentance, as he did Jacob and his children, when he commanded them to come away from the place of this murder, and commanded Jacob to make an altar to him, viz. to the Lord, at Bethel, that is, in the lowliness of the fear of God.
23. So the spirit here signifies, that God would then again send them prophets and teachers, who would dissuade them from their idolatry and wicked life; as here Jacob exhorted his family that they should put away the strange gods, and the pride of their earrings from them. And then, when they had thus seen the anger of the Lord, which destroyed their land, and exceedingly devoured them for their whoredom, pride, and idolatrous life, then would they follow and obey the prophets who reproved them for it; and bring their idols and strange gods, viz. their idolatry, before God, and put it away from them; and would again seek the temple of God within them. And then would God again build up his altar in them, and they would again rightly offer sacrifice to him, viz. offer up their souls; and would cleanse their garments, that is, their hearts, as Jacob here commanded his people. This also would the prophets, and among the Christians the true apostles and teachers, command and direct. 4. And we see further here a powerful figure, how Jacob took their idols and earrings, and buried them under an oak by Shechem, where the murder was done. O you great and wonderful God! what does this signify? Nothing else but that these their errors and idolatry, together with their wars and contentions, should thus for a long time lie buried in the anger of God.
35. And seeing the spirit mentions an oak, under which these idols and pride are buried, the figure is clear to us. For an oak is of a magnetic attractive kind, and makes a tenacious 1 hardness in its property; moreover blackness, duskiness and darkness. This signifies that the former idolatry, sins and blasphemies, which they have committed, shall there, in the hungry wrath of the anger of God in turba magna, viz. under the great oak in spiritu mundi, viz. in the hidden mystery, stand still a long while. 1 Tough. 6. And what sin they shall commit anew, all that will this magnetic oak draw to it, and bring it to the treasure of the former idolatry and pride, till they become so great that the earth under the oak can cover them no more. Then shall these their old and new whoredoms and idolatries, together, be naked before the anger and judgement of God, and their measure be full. 7. And they would stink before God for these abominations, for the sake of which the spirit of God would hide its countenance from them, and take away from them the light of his countenance; so that they would run on in vain errors, and enter again upon the way of such whoredom, and with their evil zeal for Dinah their sister, which yet is but a deflowered whore, trample all under with murder and robbery.
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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