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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.
1This is a powerful figure of the outward power and authority of human offices in the kingdom of this world, and is so strongly prefigured that it is terrible to read, if a man rightly discern the figure. And yet in the presence of God it stands in its own proper figure, thus: The spirit says, Dan will be a judge among his people, as one of the generations or tribes in Israel. In the figure it stands thus: 14. Dan stands in the figure of all outward offices, from those of highest authority and power, even to the government of the human life itself [Ordering of a man's own private affairs or employment]; therefore the spirit says of him, he shall be in his own might and power as one man is to another. In the presence of God he is not esteemed greater in his own nature than a servant or minister, for he serves God in his office as another servant does his lord and master; the office is God's, wherein he sits as a judge. The office is the authority and power, and he himself is, before God, as another man.
215. But the spirit says, Dan will be a serpent by the way, and an adder in the path. That is, this judge in God's office would draw poison out of the power and authority, viz. self-will, and say of himself, The authority is mine, the office is mine. That is called, in the way; for the way which they should go is God's, viz. true righteousness. Then says Dan, That land and country, this city, that village, those goods, that money, is mine; it is my own. I will use it to my own profit, advantage and honour, and live in this office as I will. 16. And this very selfhood is the serpent and venomous adder on the way, for it walks very dangerous steps upon the paths of righteousness; it turns righteousness into selfhood, to do what it will. It says, I am a lord, the city, land and country, the village or authority and power is mine, I may do with the people what I will, they are mine. And so sucks poison out of God's office of a judge, and thereby afflicts the miserable, and stings with this poison round about in the way of the office, as an adder and serpent. 17. For the spirit says, He will bite the horse in the heels, so that his
3rider will fall backward. That is, he will bite the horse, that is, the office whereon he rides, in the heels, viz. in the just right, that the righteousness, viz. God's rider which he shall bring, may fall backward, and that he may govern as God's rider instead of the righteousness. Whereupon the rider, God's righteousness in his office, says, O Lord, I wait for your salvation, that is, till you send the right rider, Christ, who shall ride over this adder and serpent again. 18. When Rachel could bear no children to Jacob, she was troubled at Jacob, and said to him, Procure me children, if not, I die. But Jacob was wrath with Rachel, and said, I am not God, that I should give you fruit of your hody. But she said, Behold, there is my maid-servant Bilhah, lie you with her, that she may bring forth on my lap, and I shall be built up by her. And thus she gave him Bilhah her maid-servant to wife: and Jacob lay with her. So Bilhah conceived, and bare Jacob a son. Then said Rachel, God has judged my cause, and heard my voice, and has given me a son: therefore she called him Dan (Gen. xxx. 1-6). 19. This now is the powerful figure of Jacob's testament, wherein he prophesies so terribly concerning Dan, that he would be a serpent; and in the right figure it signifies, man's own will, which will not suffer God to judge and lead it, but always murmures against God,
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.
1This is a powerful figure of the outward power and authority of human offices in the kingdom of this world, and is so strongly prefigured that it is terrible to read, if a man rightly discern the figure. And yet in the presence of God it stands in its own proper figure, thus: The spirit says, Dan will be a judge among his people, as one of the generations or tribes in Israel. In the figure it stands thus: 14. Dan stands in the figure of all outward offices, from those of highest authority and power, even to the government of the human life itself [Ordering of a man's own private affairs or employment]; therefore the spirit says of him, he shall be in his own might and power as one man is to another. In the presence of God he is not esteemed greater in his own nature than a servant or minister, for he serves God in his office as another servant does his lord and master; the office is God's, wherein he sits as a judge. The office is the authority and power, and he himself is, before God, as another man.
215. But the spirit says, Dan will be a serpent by the way, and an adder in the path. That is, this judge in God's office would draw poison out of the power and authority, viz. self-will, and say of himself, The authority is mine, the office is mine. That is called, in the way; for the way which they should go is God's, viz. true righteousness. Then says Dan, That land and country, this city, that village, those goods, that money, is mine; it is my own. I will use it to my own profit, advantage and honour, and live in this office as I will. 16. And this very selfhood is the serpent and venomous adder on the way, for it walks very dangerous steps upon the paths of righteousness; it turns righteousness into selfhood, to do what it will. It says, I am a lord, the city, land and country, the village or authority and power is mine, I may do with the people what I will, they are mine. And so sucks poison out of God's office of a judge, and thereby afflicts the miserable, and stings with this poison round about in the way of the office, as an adder and serpent. 17. For the spirit says, He will bite the horse in the heels, so that his
3rider will fall backward. That is, he will bite the horse, that is, the office whereon he rides, in the heels, viz. in the just right, that the righteousness, viz. God's rider which he shall bring, may fall backward, and that he may govern as God's rider instead of the righteousness. Whereupon the rider, God's righteousness in his office, says, O Lord, I wait for your salvation, that is, till you send the right rider, Christ, who shall ride over this adder and serpent again. 18. When Rachel could bear no children to Jacob, she was troubled at Jacob, and said to him, Procure me children, if not, I die. But Jacob was wrath with Rachel, and said, I am not God, that I should give you fruit of your hody. But she said, Behold, there is my maid-servant Bilhah, lie you with her, that she may bring forth on my lap, and I shall be built up by her. And thus she gave him Bilhah her maid-servant to wife: and Jacob lay with her. So Bilhah conceived, and bare Jacob a son. Then said Rachel, God has judged my cause, and heard my voice, and has given me a son: therefore she called him Dan (Gen. xxx. 1-6). 19. This now is the powerful figure of Jacob's testament, wherein he prophesies so terribly concerning Dan, that he would be a serpent; and in the right figure it signifies, man's own will, which will not suffer God to judge and lead it, but always murmures against God,
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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