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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.
129. For Potiphar took upon him no disposal of anything, but let Joseph manage the government: Thus also are all officers instituted in the kingdom of this world, that they should outwardly manage God's government; as Christ gives a similitude or parable of stewards whom a lord appointed over all his goods, and went into a far country, and after a long time returned again to require an account of his stewards, where he distributed to the officers, and gave one of them five talents, and the other four talents, to the third three talents, to the fourth two, to the fifth one talent, wherewith everyone should trade and get gain. And then when he that had but one talent had gained nothing, he commanded him to be bound hand and foot, and to be cast out into darkness; and commanded also to destroy those murderers, and to burn their cities, who after their lord was gone away, and had committed his goods to them, and they presently in his house began to fight, and beat their fellow-servants, and to be drunken, and play, and kill his messengers which he sent to them (Matt. xxv. 14-31; Luke xix. 12-28). All which are similitudes and parables concerning his officers in the house of this world, showing how he will punish the evil householders with hell fire, and burn their cities, viz. their kingdom which they have built in their own voluptuousness to their own glory and honour, and shut them out from his face for ever. But the others, who were faithful in his ministry and service, he gave full power over his house, and gave them also the government (Luke xix. 17) and talent of him that had buried it in the earth (Luke xix. 24), and would not execute his office that was appointed him.
230. Thus all potentates and magistrates in offices ought well to consider this, that they ought to work in God's office, and have a care of his house, and not think only to look after nobility and high estate, and think how to fill their belly, and satisfy their pleasures with gourmandising and guzzling, gluttony and drunkenness, and to wrest the sweat of the miserable with unrighteousness, and lay it out upon their pride and bravery, and constrain and press upon the miserable and inferior with power. All these, one with another, are the evil and wicked officers, and the murderers, which the Lord commands to be destroyed, and their cities to be burned with the fire of God's anger. 31. But at present the world is full of such officers, to whom the Lord clearly for a long time sent many messengers, but they have vilified and contemned them. Therefore now is the time of the Lord's coming; for they have even now also killed his son (Matt. xxi. 39), viz. the plain truth of his word, and turned it into mere selflust [and wantonness]; therefore these householders must give an account of their offices (Luke xvi. 2).
332. Moses speaks further concerning Joseph, and says, And it came to pass after this was done, that his Master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph, and said, Lie with me. But he refused, and said to her, Behold, my master takes no notice what is with me in the house; and whatsoever he has, he has committed it under my hand and charge; and there is nothing so great in the house which he has withholden from me, but you, because you are his wife: how should I then do so great an evil, and sin against God. And she pressed such words upon Joseph daily, but he obeyed her not, to lie with her, or to be near about her (Gen. xxxix. 7-10). This is now the mighty type,l showing how it goes with the children of God, when they have attained the divine government in the new regeneration, in that they must now converse in this house of flesh and Adamical prison with their holy blessed governments. Also how the soul has taken in marriage this unchaste whorish woman in the spirit of this world in the bestial desire in flesh and blood; which whorish woman now sets upon the chaste Joseph, and continually would urge and draw him to her amorous lust, that the new virgin child might lie with the bestial whore again, as Adam did, from which lustful bed the earthly Eve proceeded, with whom afterwards he copulated in his lust, as all beasts do.
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.
129. For Potiphar took upon him no disposal of anything, but let Joseph manage the government: Thus also are all officers instituted in the kingdom of this world, that they should outwardly manage God's government; as Christ gives a similitude or parable of stewards whom a lord appointed over all his goods, and went into a far country, and after a long time returned again to require an account of his stewards, where he distributed to the officers, and gave one of them five talents, and the other four talents, to the third three talents, to the fourth two, to the fifth one talent, wherewith everyone should trade and get gain. And then when he that had but one talent had gained nothing, he commanded him to be bound hand and foot, and to be cast out into darkness; and commanded also to destroy those murderers, and to burn their cities, who after their lord was gone away, and had committed his goods to them, and they presently in his house began to fight, and beat their fellow-servants, and to be drunken, and play, and kill his messengers which he sent to them (Matt. xxv. 14-31; Luke xix. 12-28). All which are similitudes and parables concerning his officers in the house of this world, showing how he will punish the evil householders with hell fire, and burn their cities, viz. their kingdom which they have built in their own voluptuousness to their own glory and honour, and shut them out from his face for ever. But the others, who were faithful in his ministry and service, he gave full power over his house, and gave them also the government (Luke xix. 17) and talent of him that had buried it in the earth (Luke xix. 24), and would not execute his office that was appointed him.
230. Thus all potentates and magistrates in offices ought well to consider this, that they ought to work in God's office, and have a care of his house, and not think only to look after nobility and high estate, and think how to fill their belly, and satisfy their pleasures with gourmandising and guzzling, gluttony and drunkenness, and to wrest the sweat of the miserable with unrighteousness, and lay it out upon their pride and bravery, and constrain and press upon the miserable and inferior with power. All these, one with another, are the evil and wicked officers, and the murderers, which the Lord commands to be destroyed, and their cities to be burned with the fire of God's anger. 31. But at present the world is full of such officers, to whom the Lord clearly for a long time sent many messengers, but they have vilified and contemned them. Therefore now is the time of the Lord's coming; for they have even now also killed his son (Matt. xxi. 39), viz. the plain truth of his word, and turned it into mere selflust [and wantonness]; therefore these householders must give an account of their offices (Luke xvi. 2).
332. Moses speaks further concerning Joseph, and says, And it came to pass after this was done, that his Master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph, and said, Lie with me. But he refused, and said to her, Behold, my master takes no notice what is with me in the house; and whatsoever he has, he has committed it under my hand and charge; and there is nothing so great in the house which he has withholden from me, but you, because you are his wife: how should I then do so great an evil, and sin against God. And she pressed such words upon Joseph daily, but he obeyed her not, to lie with her, or to be near about her (Gen. xxxix. 7-10). This is now the mighty type,l showing how it goes with the children of God, when they have attained the divine government in the new regeneration, in that they must now converse in this house of flesh and Adamical prison with their holy blessed governments. Also how the soul has taken in marriage this unchaste whorish woman in the spirit of this world in the bestial desire in flesh and blood; which whorish woman now sets upon the chaste Joseph, and continually would urge and draw him to her amorous lust, that the new virgin child might lie with the bestial whore again, as Adam did, from which lustful bed the earthly Eve proceeded, with whom afterwards he copulated in his lust, as all beasts do.
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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