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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.
144. At present the world is full of these vermin, among high and low, and therefore also at present the Serpent itself is pregnant and will shed forth its spawn, which the zeal of God will consume. For Joseph with his governing office lies as yet in prison, and Potiphar's wife governs in her burning lust which she bare to Joseph. But since she could not betray Joseph, she set herself in Joseph's government, and governs the house of this world, and accordingly has generated many bastards, which now govern in her stead; and therefore the judgement comes upon her whoredom, and breaks her to pieces; that men will say, She is fallen, she is fallen, Babel, the mother of the great whoredom, and is become a habitation of all devils and unclean spirits (Rev. xviii. 2), she is for ever sealed up in the abyss. 45. On the contrary, we here see in this image and type also the great chastity and purity of Joseph, who, when he was drawn and held with power, yet fled from this whore, and had rather leave his garment and good name at stake that he might but keep a good conscience. The holy figure stands thus:
246. When this chaste new virgin child in the spirit of Christ sees this whore in flesh and blood draw near it, that her desire lays hold on this chastity, then it flees out of the house; that is, this virgin child hides itself in its own Principle, and may not come near the soul, seeing the soul is defiled by this whore's poison, so that it is brought into lust. Thus strongly the divine purity shields itself from the devil's vanity. 47. For in this new child there stands the fair carbuncle stone of the highest love of God in the name JESUS, which suffers itself to be sullied no more, for it once passed through death and hell in man. It will be pure, and possess the throne of God, whereupon the Scripture speaks strongly, that, Whosoever has once tasted the sweetness of the world to come, and departs from it again, that this soul has no forgiveness more for ever (Heb. vi. 4-6); that is no other than where the noble virgin child is born anew again out of the soul in its substance that faded in Adam, and the soul departs quite from it again, and separates itself from it with its will, so that it fades again once more; there is no remedy for it more eternally. For in the birth of this virgin child the foretaste of the eternal joy is given to the soul, and that is done in the wedding of the Lamb, known to our schoolfellows.
348. Therefore this noble virgin with her fair stone [or star] hides itself frequently from the soul, but she breaks not off from the marriage, except the soul breaks itself off from her; and there is great weeping and lamentation towards the soul, if it defile itself again, as in the little book of Repentance is set forth, and cannot easily befall Joseph; for the soul is hugged, embraced and kept in Christ's arms, as it is John x. 28, My sheep are in my hand. 49. Thus we understand in this figure, how very chaste, modest and pure hearts are given to the children of God in their inward ground, and how they must be strongly proved and tried, before the government of Divine Vision will be given them, to be able to see the Mysterium Magnum [the Great Mystery] . 50. And Moses says further, And Potiphar's wife laid up his garment by her until his master came home, and told him those very words (Gen. xxxix. 16, 17). We see in this figure the perfidious treacherous dealings of the world, how wickedly they recompense and reward their Christian faithful servants and ministers. Joseph carried himself faithfully in the sight of their whole house, and all succeeded happily that went through his hand: but when he would not lie with this whore, to pollute himself with her, then she persecutes him in his body and life, and studies how to steal away his honour from him by falsehood and wickedness; when she cannot take it away with subtlety and devilish plots.
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.
144. At present the world is full of these vermin, among high and low, and therefore also at present the Serpent itself is pregnant and will shed forth its spawn, which the zeal of God will consume. For Joseph with his governing office lies as yet in prison, and Potiphar's wife governs in her burning lust which she bare to Joseph. But since she could not betray Joseph, she set herself in Joseph's government, and governs the house of this world, and accordingly has generated many bastards, which now govern in her stead; and therefore the judgement comes upon her whoredom, and breaks her to pieces; that men will say, She is fallen, she is fallen, Babel, the mother of the great whoredom, and is become a habitation of all devils and unclean spirits (Rev. xviii. 2), she is for ever sealed up in the abyss. 45. On the contrary, we here see in this image and type also the great chastity and purity of Joseph, who, when he was drawn and held with power, yet fled from this whore, and had rather leave his garment and good name at stake that he might but keep a good conscience. The holy figure stands thus:
246. When this chaste new virgin child in the spirit of Christ sees this whore in flesh and blood draw near it, that her desire lays hold on this chastity, then it flees out of the house; that is, this virgin child hides itself in its own Principle, and may not come near the soul, seeing the soul is defiled by this whore's poison, so that it is brought into lust. Thus strongly the divine purity shields itself from the devil's vanity. 47. For in this new child there stands the fair carbuncle stone of the highest love of God in the name JESUS, which suffers itself to be sullied no more, for it once passed through death and hell in man. It will be pure, and possess the throne of God, whereupon the Scripture speaks strongly, that, Whosoever has once tasted the sweetness of the world to come, and departs from it again, that this soul has no forgiveness more for ever (Heb. vi. 4-6); that is no other than where the noble virgin child is born anew again out of the soul in its substance that faded in Adam, and the soul departs quite from it again, and separates itself from it with its will, so that it fades again once more; there is no remedy for it more eternally. For in the birth of this virgin child the foretaste of the eternal joy is given to the soul, and that is done in the wedding of the Lamb, known to our schoolfellows.
348. Therefore this noble virgin with her fair stone [or star] hides itself frequently from the soul, but she breaks not off from the marriage, except the soul breaks itself off from her; and there is great weeping and lamentation towards the soul, if it defile itself again, as in the little book of Repentance is set forth, and cannot easily befall Joseph; for the soul is hugged, embraced and kept in Christ's arms, as it is John x. 28, My sheep are in my hand. 49. Thus we understand in this figure, how very chaste, modest and pure hearts are given to the children of God in their inward ground, and how they must be strongly proved and tried, before the government of Divine Vision will be given them, to be able to see the Mysterium Magnum [the Great Mystery] . 50. And Moses says further, And Potiphar's wife laid up his garment by her until his master came home, and told him those very words (Gen. xxxix. 16, 17). We see in this figure the perfidious treacherous dealings of the world, how wickedly they recompense and reward their Christian faithful servants and ministers. Joseph carried himself faithfully in the sight of their whole house, and all succeeded happily that went through his hand: but when he would not lie with this whore, to pollute himself with her, then she persecutes him in his body and life, and studies how to steal away his honour from him by falsehood and wickedness; when she cannot take it away with subtlety and devilish plots.
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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