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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.
16. But whosoever are instituted in an office without the Chief Shepherd,2 Christ, they all of them are but in the land of Canaan in the famine of God's anger, and are but devouring wolves, both one and other, be they spiritual or worldly officers, be they noble or ignoble, prince or protector or guardian, priest or sexton, one as well as another. All that rules in an office without God's spirit, that rules of self and to the judgement of God; he that thinks not in his office to serve God, and to manage his office as a shepherd of God, he [is a minister and servant of , and] serves Lucifer. 1 Note the true ministers, pastors and teachers in the Church of Christ, Jure Divino, who they are. 2 Or Archbishop. 7. Moses says further, Also Joseph brought his father Jacob, and presented him before Pharaoh: and Jacob blessed Pharaoh (Gen. xlvii. 7). That is, Christ set also the Adamical image before God, not only the five senses but the whole man: and he blesses God, that is, he thanks God and brings him fruit, to the praise of God, as a blessing. Then says God, in his acting and working, How old are you? And he answers, One hundred and thirty years is the time of my pilgrimage: few and evil have the days of my life been, and they reach not to the time of my fathers in their pilgrimage. So Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went forth from him (Gen. xlvii. 8-10).
28. Thus the Adamical man acknowledges and confesses before God his evil time in the earthly desire, and says it is but a pilgrimage, viz. a continual wandering and anxiety in continual cares and disquietness, whereby man works and effects God's wonders. 9. And Moses says further, There was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore and hard, so that the land of Egypt and Canaan were famished by reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered all the money that was found in Egypt and Canaan, for the corn that they bought: and he put all the money in the house of Pharaoh. Now when the money in Egypt and Canaan was brought, all Egypt came to Joseph, and said, Give us bread: wherefore must we die in your presence, being without money ? And Joseph said, Fetch me your beasts and cattle, and I will give you for them, seeing you are without money. Then they brought their cattle to Joseph: and he gave them bread for their horses and sheep, for their heifers and asses: and so he nourished them with bread this year for all their beasts and cattle (Gen. xlvii. 13-17). 10. This figure is very powerful, and contains great and deep understanding: although the bestial man, full of covetousness and extortion, imagines to himself as if this made for him. Yet the true figure is quite against him; as also is the parable or similitude in the Gospel, of the unjust steward, which says, The Lord commended him that he had done so prudently (Luke xvi. 8).
311. This famine in Egypt and Canaan, when all the land was famished, prefigures the poor fallen man in body and soul, which the anger of God has dried up and caused to wither, so that it is famished. For Egypt signifies the soul's nature, and Canaan the body's nature. The great provision of corn which Joseph gathered together and sold in the famine, signifies the divine word of grace. The money of the Egyptians and Canaanites, for which they bought corn of Joseph, signifies God's creaturely word of the human life. The beasts which they there gave also for bread when there was no more money, signifies the imagelike 1 property in the life of man. The figure stands thus: 12. When man in soul and body in this famine and in this starving hunger comes into God's anger and withering, then he has no refreshment nor comfort, for his conscience withers so quite in God's anger that he must go to the heavenly Joseph and buy this food of grace.
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.
16. But whosoever are instituted in an office without the Chief Shepherd,2 Christ, they all of them are but in the land of Canaan in the famine of God's anger, and are but devouring wolves, both one and other, be they spiritual or worldly officers, be they noble or ignoble, prince or protector or guardian, priest or sexton, one as well as another. All that rules in an office without God's spirit, that rules of self and to the judgement of God; he that thinks not in his office to serve God, and to manage his office as a shepherd of God, he [is a minister and servant of , and] serves Lucifer. 1 Note the true ministers, pastors and teachers in the Church of Christ, Jure Divino, who they are. 2 Or Archbishop. 7. Moses says further, Also Joseph brought his father Jacob, and presented him before Pharaoh: and Jacob blessed Pharaoh (Gen. xlvii. 7). That is, Christ set also the Adamical image before God, not only the five senses but the whole man: and he blesses God, that is, he thanks God and brings him fruit, to the praise of God, as a blessing. Then says God, in his acting and working, How old are you? And he answers, One hundred and thirty years is the time of my pilgrimage: few and evil have the days of my life been, and they reach not to the time of my fathers in their pilgrimage. So Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went forth from him (Gen. xlvii. 8-10).
28. Thus the Adamical man acknowledges and confesses before God his evil time in the earthly desire, and says it is but a pilgrimage, viz. a continual wandering and anxiety in continual cares and disquietness, whereby man works and effects God's wonders. 9. And Moses says further, There was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore and hard, so that the land of Egypt and Canaan were famished by reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered all the money that was found in Egypt and Canaan, for the corn that they bought: and he put all the money in the house of Pharaoh. Now when the money in Egypt and Canaan was brought, all Egypt came to Joseph, and said, Give us bread: wherefore must we die in your presence, being without money ? And Joseph said, Fetch me your beasts and cattle, and I will give you for them, seeing you are without money. Then they brought their cattle to Joseph: and he gave them bread for their horses and sheep, for their heifers and asses: and so he nourished them with bread this year for all their beasts and cattle (Gen. xlvii. 13-17). 10. This figure is very powerful, and contains great and deep understanding: although the bestial man, full of covetousness and extortion, imagines to himself as if this made for him. Yet the true figure is quite against him; as also is the parable or similitude in the Gospel, of the unjust steward, which says, The Lord commended him that he had done so prudently (Luke xvi. 8).
311. This famine in Egypt and Canaan, when all the land was famished, prefigures the poor fallen man in body and soul, which the anger of God has dried up and caused to wither, so that it is famished. For Egypt signifies the soul's nature, and Canaan the body's nature. The great provision of corn which Joseph gathered together and sold in the famine, signifies the divine word of grace. The money of the Egyptians and Canaanites, for which they bought corn of Joseph, signifies God's creaturely word of the human life. The beasts which they there gave also for bread when there was no more money, signifies the imagelike 1 property in the life of man. The figure stands thus: 12. When man in soul and body in this famine and in this starving hunger comes into God's anger and withering, then he has no refreshment nor comfort, for his conscience withers so quite in God's anger that he must go to the heavenly Joseph and buy this food of grace.
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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