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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.
11. MOSES says, Then came Joseph and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brethren, with their small and great cattle, and all that they have, are come to me out of the land of Canaan; and behold they are in the land of Goshen. And he took five of his youngest brethren and set them before Pharaoh. Then said Pharaoh to his brethren, What is your employment and trade? And they answered, Your servants are herdsmen, we and our father. And said further to Pharaoh, We are come to dwell by you in the land; for your servants have not pasture for their cattle, the famine does so hard press the land of Canaan: now therefore let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, Is this your father, and are these your brethren who are come to you ? The land of Egypt stands open for you; let them dwell in the best place of the land; let them dwell in the land of Goshen: and if you know any among them that are fit and expert, set them over my beasts and cattle (Gen. xlvii. 1-6). The inward figure stands thus:
22. When Christ manifests his brethren, and the old father Adam, in the power and virtue of God, that they are with all their substance come to him, and have wholly given up themselves to him, then he takes five of the youngest brethren in the properties of life, and sets them before God; that is, he takes the five senses of man, which always are and continue to be the youngest in the life's property (for they are continually generated anew), and sets these, with the power and virtue of their life, before God. 3. For these are they that shall be God's ministers and servants in the love: to these Christ in-gives his counsel, and says, When you come before the face of God, so that the spirit of God in you proceeds upon you, and proves and sifts what your office and work is in the presence of God, then humble yourselves, and say in the presence of God, your servants are but herdsmen, and are come to you in the famine of misery in our great hunger, to dwell near you in the land of God; for in our own powers and virtues in the Adamical kingdom of nature we have not pasture and food for the poor miserable life; therefore now, O Lord, suffer your servants to dwell in the land of Goshen, viz. in your courts, that we may eat of the dew of heaven, [and live to you] and serve you in our office.
34. Then says the eternal Father to Christ, viz. to his steward, Behold, is that your father Adam, and are these your brethren according to the humanity, which are come to you? The land of Egypt stands open for you; that is, the kingdom of heaven, together with the kingdom of nature, stands open to you, you are my steward in the kingdom of grace, and also in the kingdom of the nature of the human property; let them dwell in the best place in the kingdom of grace, and in the kingdom of nature; and if you see that there are men among them fit for it, set them over my cattle; that is, those among them that are fit and expert, make them officers in the kingdom of nature, that they may rule over my creatures, that is, set them in the Apostolic office, that they may feed my flock, whom you lead inwardly in them with your staff or crook; let them be outwardly shepherds, 1 and lead and govern the properties of nature, viz. my sheep or beasts. 5. All spiritual shepherds in this world do sit in the office of the Father, as also the worldly shepherds, which are instituted only by Christ, through whom Christ himself inwardly rules and governs; and they are all of them God's officers.
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.
11. MOSES says, Then came Joseph and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brethren, with their small and great cattle, and all that they have, are come to me out of the land of Canaan; and behold they are in the land of Goshen. And he took five of his youngest brethren and set them before Pharaoh. Then said Pharaoh to his brethren, What is your employment and trade? And they answered, Your servants are herdsmen, we and our father. And said further to Pharaoh, We are come to dwell by you in the land; for your servants have not pasture for their cattle, the famine does so hard press the land of Canaan: now therefore let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, Is this your father, and are these your brethren who are come to you ? The land of Egypt stands open for you; let them dwell in the best place of the land; let them dwell in the land of Goshen: and if you know any among them that are fit and expert, set them over my beasts and cattle (Gen. xlvii. 1-6). The inward figure stands thus:
22. When Christ manifests his brethren, and the old father Adam, in the power and virtue of God, that they are with all their substance come to him, and have wholly given up themselves to him, then he takes five of the youngest brethren in the properties of life, and sets them before God; that is, he takes the five senses of man, which always are and continue to be the youngest in the life's property (for they are continually generated anew), and sets these, with the power and virtue of their life, before God. 3. For these are they that shall be God's ministers and servants in the love: to these Christ in-gives his counsel, and says, When you come before the face of God, so that the spirit of God in you proceeds upon you, and proves and sifts what your office and work is in the presence of God, then humble yourselves, and say in the presence of God, your servants are but herdsmen, and are come to you in the famine of misery in our great hunger, to dwell near you in the land of God; for in our own powers and virtues in the Adamical kingdom of nature we have not pasture and food for the poor miserable life; therefore now, O Lord, suffer your servants to dwell in the land of Goshen, viz. in your courts, that we may eat of the dew of heaven, [and live to you] and serve you in our office.
34. Then says the eternal Father to Christ, viz. to his steward, Behold, is that your father Adam, and are these your brethren according to the humanity, which are come to you? The land of Egypt stands open for you; that is, the kingdom of heaven, together with the kingdom of nature, stands open to you, you are my steward in the kingdom of grace, and also in the kingdom of the nature of the human property; let them dwell in the best place in the kingdom of grace, and in the kingdom of nature; and if you see that there are men among them fit for it, set them over my cattle; that is, those among them that are fit and expert, make them officers in the kingdom of nature, that they may rule over my creatures, that is, set them in the Apostolic office, that they may feed my flock, whom you lead inwardly in them with your staff or crook; let them be outwardly shepherds, 1 and lead and govern the properties of nature, viz. my sheep or beasts. 5. All spiritual shepherds in this world do sit in the office of the Father, as also the worldly shepherds, which are instituted only by Christ, through whom Christ himself inwardly rules and governs; and they are all of them God's officers.
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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