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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.
13. And Jacob said to Joseph, The Almighty God appeared to me at Luz, in the land of Canaan, and blessed me; and said to me, Behold, I will cause you to increase and multiply, and will make you a great people, and will give this land for a possession to your seed for ever. In this figure the spirit speaks not only of the inheritance of the outward land of Canaan, but also of the inheritance of the kingdom of Christ, [which is] understood and signified under this Canaan; for he says God has given him and his children this land for an eternal possession, in which for a long time after that they had no inheritance; therefore then in this [figure] the Kingdom of Christ is understood, which shall endure for ever. 4. Thus Jacob took the two sons of Joseph and set them in his root in the inheritance of this kingdom, and, moreover, in his first power and virtue, as Reuben and Simeon his first sons. Which signifies how Joseph's, that is, Christ's, children in the faith and spirit (whose nature yet is come from the seed of corrupted Adam) shall be through faith planted again in the first root of God's Covenant. For Adam has set his twigs and children with himself in the kingdom of God's anger; but the Covenant and grace takes these Adamical twigs and puts them back again into the image of God: whose figure Jacob here represents with Joseph's sons.
25. And Israel saw the sons of Joseph and said, Who are these? Joseph answered his father, and said, They are my sons, which God has given me (Gen. xlviii. 8, 9). That is, the Covenant of grace was strange to the corrupt nature, and said, Who are these children of nature in self have they not broken themselves off from God. But Joseph, in the figure of Christ's humanity, said, They, are my children, which God has given me in the kingdom of this world. And the Covenant of grace in Jacob said, Bring them to me that I may bless them (Gen. xlviii. 9), that is, that I may anoint them with grace, that is, Christ shall bring them to God, that he may bless them again. 6. And Moses says, for the eyes of Israel were dim with age (Gen. xlviii. 10). That is, nature, in the Father's property in the soulish creature, was grown dim and old, and that, because the soul's ens had modelled itself in the time, for all that lives in the time grows old and dim. But the Covenant in Jacob grows not old. The Covenant was that which should bless the sons of Joseph with the future revelation or manifestation of the power in the name Jesus; and Joseph, who stood in the image or type of the humanity of Christ, should bring them to this blessing; for the humanity of Christ brings Adam's children to the blessing of God: as here Joseph brings his sons to the Covenant of God, in Jacob.
37. Moses says further, But he kissed them, and encouraged them, and said to Joseph, Behold, I have seen your face, which I had not thought to have done; and behold, God has let me see your seed. And Joseph took them from his [Jacob's] bosom, and bowed himself towards the earth before his countenance (Gen. xlviii. 10-12): Which is as much as to say, in the figure, thus: When Joseph, in the image or type of the humanity of Christ, brought his sons to his father, viz. before the Covenant of God, then the Covenant took them in the arms, or into the bosom, of his desire, viz. into God's essence, and kissed them with the kiss of love, which God would manifest in Christ: and the father's righteousness in the Word of might and power says to the soul's essences, Behold, you art dim to my sight, and now I have seen your countenance again, through the love and grace of God, which I thought not to have done; for I thought to have kept the soul in the strong and severe might of God's anger, for God's eye was departed in it, with its turning away from him, and so, as to God's righteousness, it was rent off from God: But now I have seen the countenance of the soul again, through God's love in the grace of God, and God's love has let me see them [the soul's essences, powers or faculties] in the seed of the Covenant 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.
13. And Jacob said to Joseph, The Almighty God appeared to me at Luz, in the land of Canaan, and blessed me; and said to me, Behold, I will cause you to increase and multiply, and will make you a great people, and will give this land for a possession to your seed for ever. In this figure the spirit speaks not only of the inheritance of the outward land of Canaan, but also of the inheritance of the kingdom of Christ, [which is] understood and signified under this Canaan; for he says God has given him and his children this land for an eternal possession, in which for a long time after that they had no inheritance; therefore then in this [figure] the Kingdom of Christ is understood, which shall endure for ever. 4. Thus Jacob took the two sons of Joseph and set them in his root in the inheritance of this kingdom, and, moreover, in his first power and virtue, as Reuben and Simeon his first sons. Which signifies how Joseph's, that is, Christ's, children in the faith and spirit (whose nature yet is come from the seed of corrupted Adam) shall be through faith planted again in the first root of God's Covenant. For Adam has set his twigs and children with himself in the kingdom of God's anger; but the Covenant and grace takes these Adamical twigs and puts them back again into the image of God: whose figure Jacob here represents with Joseph's sons.
25. And Israel saw the sons of Joseph and said, Who are these? Joseph answered his father, and said, They are my sons, which God has given me (Gen. xlviii. 8, 9). That is, the Covenant of grace was strange to the corrupt nature, and said, Who are these children of nature in self have they not broken themselves off from God. But Joseph, in the figure of Christ's humanity, said, They, are my children, which God has given me in the kingdom of this world. And the Covenant of grace in Jacob said, Bring them to me that I may bless them (Gen. xlviii. 9), that is, that I may anoint them with grace, that is, Christ shall bring them to God, that he may bless them again. 6. And Moses says, for the eyes of Israel were dim with age (Gen. xlviii. 10). That is, nature, in the Father's property in the soulish creature, was grown dim and old, and that, because the soul's ens had modelled itself in the time, for all that lives in the time grows old and dim. But the Covenant in Jacob grows not old. The Covenant was that which should bless the sons of Joseph with the future revelation or manifestation of the power in the name Jesus; and Joseph, who stood in the image or type of the humanity of Christ, should bring them to this blessing; for the humanity of Christ brings Adam's children to the blessing of God: as here Joseph brings his sons to the Covenant of God, in Jacob.
37. Moses says further, But he kissed them, and encouraged them, and said to Joseph, Behold, I have seen your face, which I had not thought to have done; and behold, God has let me see your seed. And Joseph took them from his [Jacob's] bosom, and bowed himself towards the earth before his countenance (Gen. xlviii. 10-12): Which is as much as to say, in the figure, thus: When Joseph, in the image or type of the humanity of Christ, brought his sons to his father, viz. before the Covenant of God, then the Covenant took them in the arms, or into the bosom, of his desire, viz. into God's essence, and kissed them with the kiss of love, which God would manifest in Christ: and the father's righteousness in the Word of might and power says to the soul's essences, Behold, you art dim to my sight, and now I have seen your countenance again, through the love and grace of God, which I thought not to have done; for I thought to have kept the soul in the strong and severe might of God's anger, for God's eye was departed in it, with its turning away from him, and so, as to God's righteousness, it was rent off from God: But now I have seen the countenance of the soul again, through God's love in the grace of God, and God's love has let me see them [the soul's essences, powers or faculties] in the seed of the Covenant 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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