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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.
1which is yourself, and then you will be free from all images, and will see the place of which it is said, The Lord is here (Gen. xxviii. 16). And then you will attain the life of power and virtue again, and become fat, and put away the mantle of Christ, and say, Here is the man that will walk in the footsteps of Christ, and will follow and imitate him, and be like and conformable to him (Phil. iii. 10) in his life and image. 43. This whole history of the dreams of Pharaoh is an image, whereby the spirit under an outward action portrays and typifies the human ground, how good, God created him, and set him in his fatness, and how he is thus destroyed by Satan's envy and poison, and changed into so ill-favoured an image. 1 consists in that which their posture, condition or quality does represent and express. 44. But in Joseph the spirit represents a figure, showing how a man must again spring up through the new birth out of this poison; and how he should be set before God again, and how God gives him his spirit, and makes him ruler in his house; how he shall gather in heavenly fruits in faith and a good conscience, against the time of temptation, when the dearth or famine, viz. God's anger, sifts the soul. 45. In which sifting then, that fruit which is for food, which stands by the soul in repentance, and in which its little pearl-plant with its branches grows, it takes along, and bears good fruit.
246. Those fruits are then Joseph's interpretation, as he declared God's counsel, and taught it to Pharaoh. So the new birth brings forth such good fruit and doctrine, which makes known the way of God to mankind, and stands before him with wisdom, as Joseph before Pharaoh. And this we see in Joseph's counsel, after he had interpreted his dream. He said to Pharaoh, Let the king look out for a wise and prudent man, who may build granaries for Pharaoh, where provision may be laid up, that men may have necessary sustenance in the famine (Gen. xli. 33-36). Which the spirit secretly represents in the figure of man,l that a man should look out for wise men, fearing God (Exod. xviii. 21), which should help to gather in the divine treasury and provision, with wisdom and understanding, with doctrine, life and prayer; that thereby the divine treasure and provision might be gathered in. 47. And then when the time of trial, sifting and hunger comes, that God's anger might be thereby kept back and prevented, and not so suddenly make both body and soul, land and people, lean, and devour them, but that there may be something for provision. Concerning which God says he will do well to them that fear God, unto a thousand generations (Exod. xx. 6); and this provision shall continue to a thousand generations. 1 Or, condition of such a man: the Man Christ, or a Christian man.
348. And Moses says further, This saying of Joseph pleased Pharaoh, and all his servants, well. And Pharaoh said to his servants, How can we find such a man, in whom the spirit of God is; and said to Joseph, Seeing God has made all this known to you, there is none so understanding and wise as you: you shall be over my house, and all my people shall he obedient to your word, only in the regal throne will I be higher than you. And further, Pharaoh said to Joseph, Behold, I have set you over the whole land of Egypt, and took his ring off his own hand, and gave it to Joseph into his hand, and clothed him with white silk garments, and hung a golden chain upon his neck; and caused him to go in his second chariot, and caused it to he proclaimed before him, This is the father of the land; and set him over the whole land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without your will shall no man stir his hand or his foot in the whole land of Egypt. And he called him his secret council, and gave him a wife named Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of ON (Gen. xli. 37-45).
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.
1which is yourself, and then you will be free from all images, and will see the place of which it is said, The Lord is here (Gen. xxviii. 16). And then you will attain the life of power and virtue again, and become fat, and put away the mantle of Christ, and say, Here is the man that will walk in the footsteps of Christ, and will follow and imitate him, and be like and conformable to him (Phil. iii. 10) in his life and image. 43. This whole history of the dreams of Pharaoh is an image, whereby the spirit under an outward action portrays and typifies the human ground, how good, God created him, and set him in his fatness, and how he is thus destroyed by Satan's envy and poison, and changed into so ill-favoured an image. 1 consists in that which their posture, condition or quality does represent and express. 44. But in Joseph the spirit represents a figure, showing how a man must again spring up through the new birth out of this poison; and how he should be set before God again, and how God gives him his spirit, and makes him ruler in his house; how he shall gather in heavenly fruits in faith and a good conscience, against the time of temptation, when the dearth or famine, viz. God's anger, sifts the soul. 45. In which sifting then, that fruit which is for food, which stands by the soul in repentance, and in which its little pearl-plant with its branches grows, it takes along, and bears good fruit.
246. Those fruits are then Joseph's interpretation, as he declared God's counsel, and taught it to Pharaoh. So the new birth brings forth such good fruit and doctrine, which makes known the way of God to mankind, and stands before him with wisdom, as Joseph before Pharaoh. And this we see in Joseph's counsel, after he had interpreted his dream. He said to Pharaoh, Let the king look out for a wise and prudent man, who may build granaries for Pharaoh, where provision may be laid up, that men may have necessary sustenance in the famine (Gen. xli. 33-36). Which the spirit secretly represents in the figure of man,l that a man should look out for wise men, fearing God (Exod. xviii. 21), which should help to gather in the divine treasury and provision, with wisdom and understanding, with doctrine, life and prayer; that thereby the divine treasure and provision might be gathered in. 47. And then when the time of trial, sifting and hunger comes, that God's anger might be thereby kept back and prevented, and not so suddenly make both body and soul, land and people, lean, and devour them, but that there may be something for provision. Concerning which God says he will do well to them that fear God, unto a thousand generations (Exod. xx. 6); and this provision shall continue to a thousand generations. 1 Or, condition of such a man: the Man Christ, or a Christian man.
348. And Moses says further, This saying of Joseph pleased Pharaoh, and all his servants, well. And Pharaoh said to his servants, How can we find such a man, in whom the spirit of God is; and said to Joseph, Seeing God has made all this known to you, there is none so understanding and wise as you: you shall be over my house, and all my people shall he obedient to your word, only in the regal throne will I be higher than you. And further, Pharaoh said to Joseph, Behold, I have set you over the whole land of Egypt, and took his ring off his own hand, and gave it to Joseph into his hand, and clothed him with white silk garments, and hung a golden chain upon his neck; and caused him to go in his second chariot, and caused it to he proclaimed before him, This is the father of the land; and set him over the whole land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without your will shall no man stir his hand or his foot in the whole land of Egypt. And he called him his secret council, and gave him a wife named Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of ON (Gen. xli. 37-45).
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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