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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.
1Yet because the History of Joseph, being an Exposition of the last 14 Chapters of Genesis, is so excellent and entire a piece, it may well go as a Third Part of the Mysterium Magnum, as it is here distinctly divided and printed by itself, with a several Title Page, as follows. 1 In the Hebrew. 2 Text, mountainous. 3 Note. -Another place in other writings of his. THE THIRD PART OF THE Mysterium Magnum: BEING THE MOST EXCELLENT HISTORY OF JOSEPH, WHICH IS The Clearest Figure of the New-Man Regenerated out of the Earthly Old ADAM AND IS A Looking Glass, wherein everyone may try, examine, and discern what Spirits Child himself is. Written by JACOB BEHM , Teutonicus Beginning at the XXXVII Chapter of Genesis, and the 64 of this Mysterium Magnum, and at the 6 Verse, and ending at the L and last Chapter of Genesis, and the 78 and last Chapter of the Mysterium Magnum. LONDON, printed by Matthew Simmons. 1654. Of Esau 's Genealogy
26. THE thirty- seventh chapter,l concerning Joseph, is indeed the most pleasant and excellent figure of the new man regenerate out of the old Adam. Which [new regenerate man] is become a prince over the kingdom of nature, and also a lord over all his Adamical members, being the brethren of the little child Jesus in him; as Joseph became a prince in the whole land of Egypt, and a lord over all his brothers, and whole kindred and family (Gen. xlii. 6). And it shows us very emphatically and pregnantly in its figure in the history, how a man must become such a Joseph; also how it then goes with him, and how the world deals with him, before he be made a prince over the Adamical kingdom of his nature, and that the new man may obtain the government and power over his earthly members: How the devil in the wrath of God does assault the precious lily-twig in the power of God, out of which the chaste Joseph springs, grows, and is brought forth; and first casts him down into the pit of darkness in flesh and blood, and there hides him, that so he might be destitute of all help, comfort and assistance, and be even forced to perish. 7. As Joseph's brethren did to Joseph, even so the earthly members of the old Adam do likewise to this lily-twig of the new birth in the chastity of Christ's spirit; whereat the devil is also busy, and continually stirs up the evil beasts, full of carnal, greedy, and burning lust in flesh and blood, so that they strive to domineer and have
3the upperhand. 8. Externally, or from without, the devil also brings Potiphar's wife, viz. unchaste lewd people to him, who would fain defile the chaste countenance of the inward ground, and egg on the earthly flesh to feed upon the whoredom of the world, and all lascivious lewdness, wantonness and vanity, and draw the same unto it with the imagination; and bring the new Joseph to commit adultery with Potiphar's wife. But he must so violently and resolvedly break through, and force his way from thence, that he must be fain to leave his garment, that is, his substance,2 and fly from thence nakedly, and resignedly in spirit and power, that his chaste virginity may abide steadfast before God. 1 Gen. xxxvii. 2 All whatsoever he has, or is.
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.
1Yet because the History of Joseph, being an Exposition of the last 14 Chapters of Genesis, is so excellent and entire a piece, it may well go as a Third Part of the Mysterium Magnum, as it is here distinctly divided and printed by itself, with a several Title Page, as follows. 1 In the Hebrew. 2 Text, mountainous. 3 Note. -Another place in other writings of his. THE THIRD PART OF THE Mysterium Magnum: BEING THE MOST EXCELLENT HISTORY OF JOSEPH, WHICH IS The Clearest Figure of the New-Man Regenerated out of the Earthly Old ADAM AND IS A Looking Glass, wherein everyone may try, examine, and discern what Spirits Child himself is. Written by JACOB BEHM , Teutonicus Beginning at the XXXVII Chapter of Genesis, and the 64 of this Mysterium Magnum, and at the 6 Verse, and ending at the L and last Chapter of Genesis, and the 78 and last Chapter of the Mysterium Magnum. LONDON, printed by Matthew Simmons. 1654. Of Esau 's Genealogy
26. THE thirty- seventh chapter,l concerning Joseph, is indeed the most pleasant and excellent figure of the new man regenerate out of the old Adam. Which [new regenerate man] is become a prince over the kingdom of nature, and also a lord over all his Adamical members, being the brethren of the little child Jesus in him; as Joseph became a prince in the whole land of Egypt, and a lord over all his brothers, and whole kindred and family (Gen. xlii. 6). And it shows us very emphatically and pregnantly in its figure in the history, how a man must become such a Joseph; also how it then goes with him, and how the world deals with him, before he be made a prince over the Adamical kingdom of his nature, and that the new man may obtain the government and power over his earthly members: How the devil in the wrath of God does assault the precious lily-twig in the power of God, out of which the chaste Joseph springs, grows, and is brought forth; and first casts him down into the pit of darkness in flesh and blood, and there hides him, that so he might be destitute of all help, comfort and assistance, and be even forced to perish. 7. As Joseph's brethren did to Joseph, even so the earthly members of the old Adam do likewise to this lily-twig of the new birth in the chastity of Christ's spirit; whereat the devil is also busy, and continually stirs up the evil beasts, full of carnal, greedy, and burning lust in flesh and blood, so that they strive to domineer and have
3the upperhand. 8. Externally, or from without, the devil also brings Potiphar's wife, viz. unchaste lewd people to him, who would fain defile the chaste countenance of the inward ground, and egg on the earthly flesh to feed upon the whoredom of the world, and all lascivious lewdness, wantonness and vanity, and draw the same unto it with the imagination; and bring the new Joseph to commit adultery with Potiphar's wife. But he must so violently and resolvedly break through, and force his way from thence, that he must be fain to leave his garment, that is, his substance,2 and fly from thence nakedly, and resignedly in spirit and power, that his chaste virginity may abide steadfast before God. 1 Gen. xxxvii. 2 All whatsoever he has, or is.
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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