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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.
119. But that the wise men in the light of nature could not interpret it, signifies that the works of God are hidden to the natural man, without grace, and that he knows or understands nothing of the ways of God, unless God reveal or manifest them thereby in and through him: for this was a motion of the eternal nature through the outward nature, therefore the natural wise men could not understand it. 20. And when none could interpret it to the king, the king's butler thought on Joseph, that Joseph had interpreted his dreams for him, and [he] told this to Pharaoh. And here in this vision of Pharaoh, God called Joseph, and that which he had desired two years ago through man's help was fulfilled and granted unto him. 21. Then Pharaoh sent and commanded Joseph to he called, and they brought him speedily out of the dungeon: and he was shaved and put on other garments, and came in to Pharaoh. Then said Pharaoh to him, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it: but I have heard of you, that when you hear a dream you can interpret it. And Joseph answered Pharaoh and said, That is not ofme:l yet God will prophesy good to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh related his dream to him (Gen. xli. 14-16).
222. This figure, that Joseph put on other garments and was shaved, when he was to enter in before Pharaoh, signifies this to us: that God at present had put off the garment of his misery, and had now put on him the garment of wisdom, and would have him now in another place than he was in before; and set him before Pharaoh with the garment of wisdom, and would give him for a guardian to Pharaoh. For the spirit of Moses sets down the figure excellently, accurately and properly, as if he had a great desire to play and delight himself therein. 1 In my power. 23. And we see further, that Joseph said to the king, that it stood not in his natural power and might to know such hidden things, but that God alone gave him to know it; so that he needed neither art nor magic images about it; but God would interpret good to Pharaoh through him. 24. Therefore should a magus give up his will to God, and fix his magic faith (wherewith he will search the figure of nature in its forms and conditions) 1 in God, that he may apprehend the word of God, and introduce it into the figure of nature, and then he is a right true divine magus, and may master the inward ground with divine power and virtue, and bring nature into a figure. 2 He that practises otherwise herein, he is a false and wicked magus, as the devil and his witches are.
325. And it is no way to be thought, as if a Christian ought not to dare to meddle with the ground of nature, but that he must be a clod and dumb image in the knowledge and skill of the secret mysteries of nature; as Babel says, Man ought not to dare to search and know it, it were sin; which all of them, one and other, understand as much of the ground of sin as the pot does of the potter. 26. When they should tell how sin is sin, and how man does cause God to be angry and in wrath, then they have no other way to turn themselves to evade it, but images or conceits of opinions, which shut up the conscience in such images [and conceits], so that the conscience is afraid of their images; and the ground of sin, according to the seven properties of nature (how their fat kine are made lean and dry) they know not. 27. O you makers of images, how does the anger of God, in the inward ground of your own nature, threaten you with the seven barren kine and ears! Joseph is out of prison, and declares the counsel of God to Pharaoh. 28. The time is even at hand wherein the figure of Pharaoh shall be brought to effect: your images of false and wicked magic shall be manifested to the whole world, by Joseph's exposition of the vision. Break off from the images, and pray to God, that he would give you the understanding of Pharaoh's visions; and then you may be partakers of the seven good kine and ears within you.
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.
119. But that the wise men in the light of nature could not interpret it, signifies that the works of God are hidden to the natural man, without grace, and that he knows or understands nothing of the ways of God, unless God reveal or manifest them thereby in and through him: for this was a motion of the eternal nature through the outward nature, therefore the natural wise men could not understand it. 20. And when none could interpret it to the king, the king's butler thought on Joseph, that Joseph had interpreted his dreams for him, and [he] told this to Pharaoh. And here in this vision of Pharaoh, God called Joseph, and that which he had desired two years ago through man's help was fulfilled and granted unto him. 21. Then Pharaoh sent and commanded Joseph to he called, and they brought him speedily out of the dungeon: and he was shaved and put on other garments, and came in to Pharaoh. Then said Pharaoh to him, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it: but I have heard of you, that when you hear a dream you can interpret it. And Joseph answered Pharaoh and said, That is not ofme:l yet God will prophesy good to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh related his dream to him (Gen. xli. 14-16).
222. This figure, that Joseph put on other garments and was shaved, when he was to enter in before Pharaoh, signifies this to us: that God at present had put off the garment of his misery, and had now put on him the garment of wisdom, and would have him now in another place than he was in before; and set him before Pharaoh with the garment of wisdom, and would give him for a guardian to Pharaoh. For the spirit of Moses sets down the figure excellently, accurately and properly, as if he had a great desire to play and delight himself therein. 1 In my power. 23. And we see further, that Joseph said to the king, that it stood not in his natural power and might to know such hidden things, but that God alone gave him to know it; so that he needed neither art nor magic images about it; but God would interpret good to Pharaoh through him. 24. Therefore should a magus give up his will to God, and fix his magic faith (wherewith he will search the figure of nature in its forms and conditions) 1 in God, that he may apprehend the word of God, and introduce it into the figure of nature, and then he is a right true divine magus, and may master the inward ground with divine power and virtue, and bring nature into a figure. 2 He that practises otherwise herein, he is a false and wicked magus, as the devil and his witches are.
325. And it is no way to be thought, as if a Christian ought not to dare to meddle with the ground of nature, but that he must be a clod and dumb image in the knowledge and skill of the secret mysteries of nature; as Babel says, Man ought not to dare to search and know it, it were sin; which all of them, one and other, understand as much of the ground of sin as the pot does of the potter. 26. When they should tell how sin is sin, and how man does cause God to be angry and in wrath, then they have no other way to turn themselves to evade it, but images or conceits of opinions, which shut up the conscience in such images [and conceits], so that the conscience is afraid of their images; and the ground of sin, according to the seven properties of nature (how their fat kine are made lean and dry) they know not. 27. O you makers of images, how does the anger of God, in the inward ground of your own nature, threaten you with the seven barren kine and ears! Joseph is out of prison, and declares the counsel of God to Pharaoh. 28. The time is even at hand wherein the figure of Pharaoh shall be brought to effect: your images of false and wicked magic shall be manifested to the whole world, by Joseph's exposition of the vision. Break off from the images, and pray to God, that he would give you the understanding of Pharaoh's visions; and then you may be partakers of the seven good kine and ears within you.
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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