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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.
1thus: When Dan will judge, then comes Gad with his subtle agility and readiness [officiousness to undermine and insinuate himself], and works him out of his office with flattering speeches and specious pretences; with lying and perverting prevarication, for it winds all truth about, and sets his agile nimble subtlety in the right of truth, and so the judge is blinded by his agile nimble pragmaticalness. 28. This the spirit intimates strongly concerning Israel, signifying how they would live one among another, and how the self-power and authority with Dan, and the agility with Gad, would govern the world: But these are both of them but children of the maid- servants, and not of the free women, and their offices shall have an end. IX THE TESTAMENT of ASHER
229. From Asher comes his fat bread [or, finest of flour], and he will act to please kings (Gen. xlix. 20). When Zilpah, Leah's maid-servant, had born Gad, prepared, subtle, crafty, always ready at every subtle assault against the right, justice and judgement of Dan, then says Moses, Zilpah bare Jacob the second son. And then said Leah, It is well with me, for the daughter will praise me and call me blessed: and she called him Asher (Gen. xxx. 12, 13). And Jacob said in the testament, From Asher comes his fat bread, and he will live to please kings. Here Jacob, viz. the spirit in the Covenant, comprises these two brethren together in a figure: for Gad has the agility, and Asher takes his fat bread from the king, and Leah says at his birth, The daughters will praise me and call me blessed.
330. Here now stands the figure. But what explanation may this have? Gad orders his ways with subtlety, and Asher with flattery and hypocrisy, among the kings and potentates in authority and power, whereby he attains prosperous fat days of plenty, pleasure and voluptuousness: and such are everyone that shall sit in offices; and as judges and magistrates they do all to please their lord and king; that they may be reputed, honoured, applauded and rewarded by him, and that they may have their fat bread from him. And the spirit by these three sons signifies powerfully what kind of people would rule the world; viz. by Dan, the serpent, viz. self-will; and by Gad, subtlety, treachery, and undermining deceit; and by Asher, false and wicked flattery, and sycophanting hypocrisy, who always sit in the courts of kings, and serve them for their fat bread, and only hunt after the applause and honour of men. 31. Therefore says the spirit, From Asher comes his fat bread. From whom comes the fat bread? Answer, from the nimble subtle
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.
1thus: When Dan will judge, then comes Gad with his subtle agility and readiness [officiousness to undermine and insinuate himself], and works him out of his office with flattering speeches and specious pretences; with lying and perverting prevarication, for it winds all truth about, and sets his agile nimble subtlety in the right of truth, and so the judge is blinded by his agile nimble pragmaticalness. 28. This the spirit intimates strongly concerning Israel, signifying how they would live one among another, and how the self-power and authority with Dan, and the agility with Gad, would govern the world: But these are both of them but children of the maid- servants, and not of the free women, and their offices shall have an end. IX THE TESTAMENT of ASHER
229. From Asher comes his fat bread [or, finest of flour], and he will act to please kings (Gen. xlix. 20). When Zilpah, Leah's maid-servant, had born Gad, prepared, subtle, crafty, always ready at every subtle assault against the right, justice and judgement of Dan, then says Moses, Zilpah bare Jacob the second son. And then said Leah, It is well with me, for the daughter will praise me and call me blessed: and she called him Asher (Gen. xxx. 12, 13). And Jacob said in the testament, From Asher comes his fat bread, and he will live to please kings. Here Jacob, viz. the spirit in the Covenant, comprises these two brethren together in a figure: for Gad has the agility, and Asher takes his fat bread from the king, and Leah says at his birth, The daughters will praise me and call me blessed.
330. Here now stands the figure. But what explanation may this have? Gad orders his ways with subtlety, and Asher with flattery and hypocrisy, among the kings and potentates in authority and power, whereby he attains prosperous fat days of plenty, pleasure and voluptuousness: and such are everyone that shall sit in offices; and as judges and magistrates they do all to please their lord and king; that they may be reputed, honoured, applauded and rewarded by him, and that they may have their fat bread from him. And the spirit by these three sons signifies powerfully what kind of people would rule the world; viz. by Dan, the serpent, viz. self-will; and by Gad, subtlety, treachery, and undermining deceit; and by Asher, false and wicked flattery, and sycophanting hypocrisy, who always sit in the courts of kings, and serve them for their fat bread, and only hunt after the applause and honour of men. 31. Therefore says the spirit, From Asher comes his fat bread. From whom comes the fat bread? Answer, from the nimble subtle
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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