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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.
1The Seventy-Sixth Chapter How Jacob called all his Sons before his End, and signified and prophesied to them how their Generations would rise up, and what each of their State and Condition would be, whereby he expressed the Root of Abraham's Tree, together with its Branches and Fruit; what the State and office of each of them would be, and how they would behave themselves, and how Christ would be born of the Stock of Judah: also how long their Kingdom would continue under the Law * * Gen. xlix. 1. MOSES says, And Jacob called his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may make known unto you what will happen to you in the future times. Come together, and hearken, ye children of Jacob, and hear your father Israel (Gen. xlix. I, 2). In this chapter lies the whole understanding and knowledge, how it would go with the children of Israel in the future time under the Law, as also afterwards with Christendom. For in this chapter the spirit has expressed and figuratively represented the tree of Israel, with its branches, twigs and fruit, both according to the kingdom of nature, and according to the kingdom of grace; and under that signifies concerning all states, conditions, orders and officers, among both Jews and Christians;
2especially the Antichristian kingdom among Jews and Christians is powerfully prefigured under it, whence it arises, and how it must fall to the ground again, and yet would continue a long time, even till the manifestation or revelation of Jesus Christ. 2. For Israel here under this exposition declares concerning the whole Adamical tree, how it was good in the beginning, and how it perished; also how it would be helped again; and how the kingdom of nature would outwardly govern in God's wrath, and yet the kingdom of grace co-operate through the wrath; whereby the natural evil man would outwardly seem as if he would serve God and minister to him, but would only be a false flattery and show of hypocrisy, so long till Christ would break forth out of God's Covenant, and destroy Satan's hypocritical kingdom. 3. And he begins at Reuben, viz. from the first power of the human life, and reaches to Benjamin, the last, under whom Christendom is powerfully prefigured, and what its properties would be; so also are the times and ages of the world powerfully portrayed under it. If the Reader will observe it, and gather the sense thereof; then he will find our exposition in the true and right ground. I THE TESTAMENT of REUBEN
34. He began at Reuben, and said, Reuben, my first son, you are my power and virtue, and my first might and strength, the chief est in the sacrifice, and the chiefest in the kingdom and government: He was vain and fickle therein as water: you shall not be the chiefest, you did climb up into your father's couch, and there has defiled my bed with your climbing up (Gen. xlix. 3, 4). In the figure it stands thus: 5. The spirit in the Covenant speaks forth the human nature of Adam, viz. the first power of the first seed to a re-propagation, as indeed Reuben also was the first power of Jacob; and signifies that the natural first Adamical man should be the chiefest in God's sacrifice; that is, he should bring forth right fruit to him, which might be to the praise of God, and in the virtue thereof increase the heavenly joy. He should generate virtue to him, and a re-expression through the implanted Word of God. And that is called sacrificing to God, when the creaturely human word, which God formed into a creature, viz. the human understanding life, re-expresses God's word out of itself and forms itself in holy images [thoughts or imaginations].
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.
1The Seventy-Sixth Chapter How Jacob called all his Sons before his End, and signified and prophesied to them how their Generations would rise up, and what each of their State and Condition would be, whereby he expressed the Root of Abraham's Tree, together with its Branches and Fruit; what the State and office of each of them would be, and how they would behave themselves, and how Christ would be born of the Stock of Judah: also how long their Kingdom would continue under the Law * * Gen. xlix. 1. MOSES says, And Jacob called his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may make known unto you what will happen to you in the future times. Come together, and hearken, ye children of Jacob, and hear your father Israel (Gen. xlix. I, 2). In this chapter lies the whole understanding and knowledge, how it would go with the children of Israel in the future time under the Law, as also afterwards with Christendom. For in this chapter the spirit has expressed and figuratively represented the tree of Israel, with its branches, twigs and fruit, both according to the kingdom of nature, and according to the kingdom of grace; and under that signifies concerning all states, conditions, orders and officers, among both Jews and Christians;
2especially the Antichristian kingdom among Jews and Christians is powerfully prefigured under it, whence it arises, and how it must fall to the ground again, and yet would continue a long time, even till the manifestation or revelation of Jesus Christ. 2. For Israel here under this exposition declares concerning the whole Adamical tree, how it was good in the beginning, and how it perished; also how it would be helped again; and how the kingdom of nature would outwardly govern in God's wrath, and yet the kingdom of grace co-operate through the wrath; whereby the natural evil man would outwardly seem as if he would serve God and minister to him, but would only be a false flattery and show of hypocrisy, so long till Christ would break forth out of God's Covenant, and destroy Satan's hypocritical kingdom. 3. And he begins at Reuben, viz. from the first power of the human life, and reaches to Benjamin, the last, under whom Christendom is powerfully prefigured, and what its properties would be; so also are the times and ages of the world powerfully portrayed under it. If the Reader will observe it, and gather the sense thereof; then he will find our exposition in the true and right ground. I THE TESTAMENT of REUBEN
34. He began at Reuben, and said, Reuben, my first son, you are my power and virtue, and my first might and strength, the chief est in the sacrifice, and the chiefest in the kingdom and government: He was vain and fickle therein as water: you shall not be the chiefest, you did climb up into your father's couch, and there has defiled my bed with your climbing up (Gen. xlix. 3, 4). In the figure it stands thus: 5. The spirit in the Covenant speaks forth the human nature of Adam, viz. the first power of the first seed to a re-propagation, as indeed Reuben also was the first power of Jacob; and signifies that the natural first Adamical man should be the chiefest in God's sacrifice; that is, he should bring forth right fruit to him, which might be to the praise of God, and in the virtue thereof increase the heavenly joy. He should generate virtue to him, and a re-expression through the implanted Word of God. And that is called sacrificing to God, when the creaturely human word, which God formed into a creature, viz. the human understanding life, re-expresses God's word out of itself and forms itself in holy images [thoughts or imaginations].
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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