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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.
133. When this dear Eve in the seed of Mary should lie with Adam, and receive Adam's seed into her holy birth; as Judah, in whom lay the line of the Covenant, must give Tamar, who stood in the image and type of the new Eve, viz. of the heavenly world's substance; these ornaments and jewels, viz. his ring, bracelet and staff: Both which stood in the figure, showing how Christ should be manifested out of Adam's nature in Mary, wherein lay and was manifested the right Tamar or new Eve. 34. And when Tamar had gotten the ring, bracelet and staff for a pledge, she took them and laid them up, and asked not after the kid, but kept these jewels and went from thence with them, and changed herself again into her former widow's estate, and hid herself from Judah, that he knew not who she was, nor whence she came. 35. This now is the most excellent figure, showing how the spirit in the Covenant mingles and unites itself again with the heavenly
2world's substance, viz. with the new wedlock or Eve, viz. with Adam's faded substance, which is from the heavenly world's substance, which substance faded or vanished in the fall; viz. how God becomes man, and man becomes God, and how this image or type (conceived in the new divine seed) even then again hides itself from the earthly Adam,l that Eve must put on and wear her widow's apparel again, that the noble seed might not be known in this world. As is to be seen by the children of Christ, who are conceived of Christ according to the inward ground, how they must, after the wedding of the Lamb, viz. this divine wedlock or coition, which is indeed done in the soul with great joy; enter again into the state of mourning, and be forsaken in this world, as a poor widow. 1 One copy says Eve. 36. And as Tamar inquired not after the kid, but would have an eminent pledge; so the spirit of Christ in the Covenant inquires not after the outward solemnity and pageantry, wherein men will offer gifts to it: It will have the body, soul and spirit for a pledge.
337. In this figure it represents the Jewish offerings as a whoredom in the sight of God. For as Judah committed whoredom with Tamar, and intended only the whoredom, and would give a kid for it, so also stood the priests of the Law, and in seeming holiness and hypocrisy play the harlots with God, with the blood and flesh of beasts. Which indeed was a figure of the inward, and God was pleased to bear with it; but he would not accept their offerings, neither did he mix himself with the offering, but with the faith in the body, soul and spirit of man: whereof we have here an excellent example.
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.
133. When this dear Eve in the seed of Mary should lie with Adam, and receive Adam's seed into her holy birth; as Judah, in whom lay the line of the Covenant, must give Tamar, who stood in the image and type of the new Eve, viz. of the heavenly world's substance; these ornaments and jewels, viz. his ring, bracelet and staff: Both which stood in the figure, showing how Christ should be manifested out of Adam's nature in Mary, wherein lay and was manifested the right Tamar or new Eve. 34. And when Tamar had gotten the ring, bracelet and staff for a pledge, she took them and laid them up, and asked not after the kid, but kept these jewels and went from thence with them, and changed herself again into her former widow's estate, and hid herself from Judah, that he knew not who she was, nor whence she came. 35. This now is the most excellent figure, showing how the spirit in the Covenant mingles and unites itself again with the heavenly
2world's substance, viz. with the new wedlock or Eve, viz. with Adam's faded substance, which is from the heavenly world's substance, which substance faded or vanished in the fall; viz. how God becomes man, and man becomes God, and how this image or type (conceived in the new divine seed) even then again hides itself from the earthly Adam,l that Eve must put on and wear her widow's apparel again, that the noble seed might not be known in this world. As is to be seen by the children of Christ, who are conceived of Christ according to the inward ground, how they must, after the wedding of the Lamb, viz. this divine wedlock or coition, which is indeed done in the soul with great joy; enter again into the state of mourning, and be forsaken in this world, as a poor widow. 1 One copy says Eve. 36. And as Tamar inquired not after the kid, but would have an eminent pledge; so the spirit of Christ in the Covenant inquires not after the outward solemnity and pageantry, wherein men will offer gifts to it: It will have the body, soul and spirit for a pledge.
337. In this figure it represents the Jewish offerings as a whoredom in the sight of God. For as Judah committed whoredom with Tamar, and intended only the whoredom, and would give a kid for it, so also stood the priests of the Law, and in seeming holiness and hypocrisy play the harlots with God, with the blood and flesh of beasts. Which indeed was a figure of the inward, and God was pleased to bear with it; but he would not accept their offerings, neither did he mix himself with the offering, but with the faith in the body, soul and spirit of man: whereof we have here an excellent example.
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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