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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.
119. The brethren Simeon and Levi, their swords are murdering weapons. My soul, come not into their counsel, and my honour, be not thou in their churches, assemblies or congregations; for in their anger they have slain a man, and in their stubborn selfwilledness, they have destroyed oxen. Cursed be their anger, because it was so vehement and fierce; and their wrath, because it was so raging: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them abroad in Israel (Gen. xlix. 5-7). 20. In this testament the spirit very wonderfully takes the two brethren together, and represents their figure accordingly, which ought well to be observed; as also the spirit of Moses, in the thirtyfourth chapter, takes them together; where he says, Simeon and Levi took their swords, and went boisterously into the city, and slew Shechem, together with Hamor his father, and all the males that were in the whole city, and took the women and children captive, and spoiled all (Gen. xxxiv. 25-29); which might indeed be the action and robbery of two stout young men. But the spirit has in that place, as also in this, its figure, according as Jacob says, He would tell them how it would go with them in after times.
221. In Reuben the spirit represents before the Adamical corrupt nature, that the first virtue and power of man squandered away God's priesthood and kingdom, viz. the kingdom of heaven, and defiled God's marriage-bed, and made a bed of whoredom thereof. But now in this figure the spirit of God represents a powerful figure, signifying how the first power of man would nevertheless desire to keep its priesthood and dominion, and what kind of priests and rulers would be in this world, in the kingdom of self nature. 22. For out of the stock of Levi came the priesthood under the Law; and of this the spirit here speaks, and joins Simeon to him, viz. the worldly dominion, and says of them both, as of one, Your swords are murdering weapons. My soul, come thou not into their counsel; and my honour, be not thou in their Churches. That is, God's living Word, which he calls his soul, shall not be in the dominion of this earthly world, viz. in man's first natural self-power, his holy Word shall not be in their counsels and determinations, wherein they seek only temporal voluptuousness and riches. Neither shall it be in their Churches and priesthood, because they do but flatter with the mouth; for he says, My honour, be not you in their Churches.
323. But his Church is the true image of God from the heavenly world's substance, which, in their murder, by the introduced poison of the Serpent, faded in Adam, and is born again in Christ. But seeing they would only play the hypocrite before God in the monster of the Serpent, and had not the Church of God in them, therefore says the spirit, My honour, be not thou therein. 24. for God's honour, together with Christ Jesus, shall not come from the natural Adam, but from God and his holy Word. These should be the holy Church of God in man, viz. the image of the heavenly world's substance, which died in Adam, and budded forth again in Christ; in this should God's honour appear; as when life buds forth through death: this was God's honour. But the Adamical self-will, which was a murderer, and murdered the heavenly image in him, shall not have this honour: this honour shall not appear in his murderous will. 25. In this image the figure stands clearly, which is portrayed in the Apocalypse (Rev. xvii.) of the great seven-headed dragon, upon which the Babylonish whore rides, where the dragon and whore are prefigured as one image: and it is even the same with this of Simeon and Levi, and it signifies, in the Adamical corrupt power in the monstrous image, the government of nature in self-will, together with the sectarian hypocritical priesthood.
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.
119. The brethren Simeon and Levi, their swords are murdering weapons. My soul, come not into their counsel, and my honour, be not thou in their churches, assemblies or congregations; for in their anger they have slain a man, and in their stubborn selfwilledness, they have destroyed oxen. Cursed be their anger, because it was so vehement and fierce; and their wrath, because it was so raging: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them abroad in Israel (Gen. xlix. 5-7). 20. In this testament the spirit very wonderfully takes the two brethren together, and represents their figure accordingly, which ought well to be observed; as also the spirit of Moses, in the thirtyfourth chapter, takes them together; where he says, Simeon and Levi took their swords, and went boisterously into the city, and slew Shechem, together with Hamor his father, and all the males that were in the whole city, and took the women and children captive, and spoiled all (Gen. xxxiv. 25-29); which might indeed be the action and robbery of two stout young men. But the spirit has in that place, as also in this, its figure, according as Jacob says, He would tell them how it would go with them in after times.
221. In Reuben the spirit represents before the Adamical corrupt nature, that the first virtue and power of man squandered away God's priesthood and kingdom, viz. the kingdom of heaven, and defiled God's marriage-bed, and made a bed of whoredom thereof. But now in this figure the spirit of God represents a powerful figure, signifying how the first power of man would nevertheless desire to keep its priesthood and dominion, and what kind of priests and rulers would be in this world, in the kingdom of self nature. 22. For out of the stock of Levi came the priesthood under the Law; and of this the spirit here speaks, and joins Simeon to him, viz. the worldly dominion, and says of them both, as of one, Your swords are murdering weapons. My soul, come thou not into their counsel; and my honour, be not thou in their Churches. That is, God's living Word, which he calls his soul, shall not be in the dominion of this earthly world, viz. in man's first natural self-power, his holy Word shall not be in their counsels and determinations, wherein they seek only temporal voluptuousness and riches. Neither shall it be in their Churches and priesthood, because they do but flatter with the mouth; for he says, My honour, be not you in their Churches.
323. But his Church is the true image of God from the heavenly world's substance, which, in their murder, by the introduced poison of the Serpent, faded in Adam, and is born again in Christ. But seeing they would only play the hypocrite before God in the monster of the Serpent, and had not the Church of God in them, therefore says the spirit, My honour, be not thou therein. 24. for God's honour, together with Christ Jesus, shall not come from the natural Adam, but from God and his holy Word. These should be the holy Church of God in man, viz. the image of the heavenly world's substance, which died in Adam, and budded forth again in Christ; in this should God's honour appear; as when life buds forth through death: this was God's honour. But the Adamical self-will, which was a murderer, and murdered the heavenly image in him, shall not have this honour: this honour shall not appear in his murderous will. 25. In this image the figure stands clearly, which is portrayed in the Apocalypse (Rev. xvii.) of the great seven-headed dragon, upon which the Babylonish whore rides, where the dragon and whore are prefigured as one image: and it is even the same with this of Simeon and Levi, and it signifies, in the Adamical corrupt power in the monstrous image, the government of nature in self-will, together with the sectarian hypocritical priesthood.
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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