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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.
114. And the spirit speaks further in the figure under an outward act done, and says, Then spoke Judah to Tamar his daughter in law, saying, Remain a widow in your father's house, till my son Shelah be grown up: for he thought, Perhaps he may die also, as his brethren. So Tamar went home and remained in her father's house (Gen. xxxviii. 11). In the first world before the flood, as also in the second world after the flood, the world lived free, without the divine law: for they were married with the Covenant of grace, and should have lived under the Covenant of grace, viz. under the promise of the woman's seed. This woman's seed married herself with them, as Judah's son with Tamar; but they only committed adultery with the earthly Eve, and so the true woman in the Covenant remained unfruitful in them.
215. But when God gave the Law, then he promised this woman, in the Covenant of grace under the Law, the true Shelah. But she, viz. the woman's seed in the Covenant, should remain a widow, under the Law, till Shelah grew up; that is, till the Law had attained its time and limit: in that, should the woman in the Covenant remain in her father's house, hidden under the Law, as a widow in her state and condition: for the Law should govern under it. But she, viz. the holy woman of grace, should be still and quiet, that the wrath of God (for the sake of this high grace which he gave to men, when they regarded it not, nor did not receive it and live therein) should not slay Israel also, as Judah thought the Lord would slay Shelah also. 16. And we rightly see in this figure, that this woman in the Covenant was not given to Shelah, viz. to the Law, though the Law waited long for it. Yet Shelah might not marry this woman in the Covenant of grace; but Judah, that is, God's word and power, must again lie with this woman's seed in the Covenant, and raise it up, that this woman conceived and bare the woman's seed. Which was fulfilled in Mary, as we see by the figure of Judah and Tamar,how Judah (when Tamar sat before the door, and waited for his promise that he would give her Shelah) did get her with child himself: for the Law could not get the right Tamar in the Covenant with child, but the word in the Covenant must move itselfand get Tamar with child.
317. For we see here the most powerful figure of the whole Old Testament: where Judah stands in the figure in the line of the Covenant, as his father Jacob declares concerning him; and Tamar his daughter in law, of whom the children of the Covenant should raise up seed in the time of Judah, stands in the figure of the inward and outward Eve. Inwardly she signifies the mother of the Covenant of grace, in which stood the incorporated Word of grace; and outwardly she stood in the figure of corrupted Eve, in whom the Covenant lay inwardly. 18. And now the line, that was sprung up out of this Covenant, should sow divine seed, and bring forth fruit in God's kingdom: and that they could not do, for their own self-power and might was lost. Therefore the first eternal speaking Word, that had inspired or inspoken the woman's seed into Eve, must again move itself, in this incorporated Covenant of grace in the woman's seed, and itself get this woman with child, that she may bring forth Christ: as Judah gat his daughter in law with child in this type. 19. The text of Moses says clearly, thus: When many days were overpassed, Shuah's daughter, Judah' s wife, died; and after Judah's time of mourning was out, he went up to shear his sheep at Timnath, with his shepherd, Hirah of Odollam [Adullam]. Then it was told Tamar, Behold, your father in law goes up to Timnath to shear his sheep. Then she put off her widow's apparel that she wore, and cast a
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.
114. And the spirit speaks further in the figure under an outward act done, and says, Then spoke Judah to Tamar his daughter in law, saying, Remain a widow in your father's house, till my son Shelah be grown up: for he thought, Perhaps he may die also, as his brethren. So Tamar went home and remained in her father's house (Gen. xxxviii. 11). In the first world before the flood, as also in the second world after the flood, the world lived free, without the divine law: for they were married with the Covenant of grace, and should have lived under the Covenant of grace, viz. under the promise of the woman's seed. This woman's seed married herself with them, as Judah's son with Tamar; but they only committed adultery with the earthly Eve, and so the true woman in the Covenant remained unfruitful in them.
215. But when God gave the Law, then he promised this woman, in the Covenant of grace under the Law, the true Shelah. But she, viz. the woman's seed in the Covenant, should remain a widow, under the Law, till Shelah grew up; that is, till the Law had attained its time and limit: in that, should the woman in the Covenant remain in her father's house, hidden under the Law, as a widow in her state and condition: for the Law should govern under it. But she, viz. the holy woman of grace, should be still and quiet, that the wrath of God (for the sake of this high grace which he gave to men, when they regarded it not, nor did not receive it and live therein) should not slay Israel also, as Judah thought the Lord would slay Shelah also. 16. And we rightly see in this figure, that this woman in the Covenant was not given to Shelah, viz. to the Law, though the Law waited long for it. Yet Shelah might not marry this woman in the Covenant of grace; but Judah, that is, God's word and power, must again lie with this woman's seed in the Covenant, and raise it up, that this woman conceived and bare the woman's seed. Which was fulfilled in Mary, as we see by the figure of Judah and Tamar,how Judah (when Tamar sat before the door, and waited for his promise that he would give her Shelah) did get her with child himself: for the Law could not get the right Tamar in the Covenant with child, but the word in the Covenant must move itselfand get Tamar with child.
317. For we see here the most powerful figure of the whole Old Testament: where Judah stands in the figure in the line of the Covenant, as his father Jacob declares concerning him; and Tamar his daughter in law, of whom the children of the Covenant should raise up seed in the time of Judah, stands in the figure of the inward and outward Eve. Inwardly she signifies the mother of the Covenant of grace, in which stood the incorporated Word of grace; and outwardly she stood in the figure of corrupted Eve, in whom the Covenant lay inwardly. 18. And now the line, that was sprung up out of this Covenant, should sow divine seed, and bring forth fruit in God's kingdom: and that they could not do, for their own self-power and might was lost. Therefore the first eternal speaking Word, that had inspired or inspoken the woman's seed into Eve, must again move itself, in this incorporated Covenant of grace in the woman's seed, and itself get this woman with child, that she may bring forth Christ: as Judah gat his daughter in law with child in this type. 19. The text of Moses says clearly, thus: When many days were overpassed, Shuah's daughter, Judah' s wife, died; and after Judah's time of mourning was out, he went up to shear his sheep at Timnath, with his shepherd, Hirah of Odollam [Adullam]. Then it was told Tamar, Behold, your father in law goes up to Timnath to shear his sheep. Then she put off her widow's apparel that she wore, and cast a
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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