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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.
154. But when they shall be great and possess kingdoms, that is, when Christ's name shall come under the power and authority of Dan, so that laws and ordinances shall be made out of pretence of Christian liberty, and its orders and exercises shall come under worldly authority and dominion, then will this Christendom be a wolf, which will no more judge and proceed in the love of Christ, but whosoever will not call all their belly-orders good and right, those they would devour with the sword of excommunication, with fire and vengeance [(G.) Racha], and would raise wars for Christ's name, and for their superstitions; and compel the people with power to the acknowledgment of Christ, and devour round about them as a wolf, and always hunt after the spoil, and yet for the most part intend to get the goods and authority of strange and foreign people to themselves. 55. Thus would Benjamin, in the morning, viz. in his rising up, devour the prey, and towards the evening he would again divide this devoured spoil; that is, towards the end of the world, when Joseph's government will get aloft again, so that Christ shall be wholly manifest, and that this wolf shall cease, then will Benjamin, viz. the holy true Christendom, divide the spoil of Christ, wherewith Christ has suppressed death and hell.
256. This dividing or distribution of the spoil shall come, and is already come, and yet is not, though it is, really, in truth, and the whole world is blind concerning it, except the children of the Mystery. The time is, and is not, and yet truly is, when this prey and spoil of Christ, and also the wolfs prey, shall, through Joseph's hand, be given into Benjamin's hand, and be divided and distributed. 57. O Babel, let this be a wonder to you, and yet no wonder, either; for you have nothing, and see nothing at which you can wonder: as a young plant grows from a seed, and becomes a great tree which brings forth much fair fruit; so that a man would wonder at the grain of seed, how so excellent a tree, and so much good fruit, has laid hid in one only grain or seed, which men neither knew of nor saw before. But, because men have knowledge and experience thereof that it is possible that a tree should come out of one grain or seed, men wonder not at it; yet men see not how it comes to pass, or where that great power and virtue was. So also at present, men see the grain or seed of the tree well enough, but reason contemns that, and believes not that such a tree lies therein, whence such good fruit should come, that thereby the kingdom of Benjamin, at the end of time, shall be called a dividing or distribution of the prey and spoil.
358. But Joseph must first be a governor in Egypt, and then Benjamin comes to him; and then Joseph gives him five garments of sumptuous apparel, and five times more food from his table than the others. When the famine famishes the land, and the soul of Jacob hungers, then know that God will thereby draw Israel into Egypt, viz. into repentance: and then is the time of visitation, and Benjamin carries his spoiling sword in his mouth. But Joseph's countenance smites him, so that he comes into great terror, and fear of death, because the silver cup of Joseph was found in his sack, at which he is ashamed, and lets his spoiling sword and wolves' teeth fall from him. And then Joseph manifests himself to him, together with all his brethren, at which there will be such joy that the wolf Benjamin will become a lamb, and yield his wool patiently. This is the end of that speech. 59. The Testament of Jacob is a figure of the whole time of the world, from Adam to the end: of which we will set down a short figure for the Reader that knows the vision or histories to consider of. 60. 1. Reuben, in this place, being the first son, is set in the figure of the first world, which lived in the right of nature without law, that has the priesthood and the kingdom in the right of nature, and should be in the chiefest sacrifice, and in the greatest dominion: but he was fickle therein as water, and was thrust out. 61. II. Simeon begins with Noah, after the flood, and keeps
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.
154. But when they shall be great and possess kingdoms, that is, when Christ's name shall come under the power and authority of Dan, so that laws and ordinances shall be made out of pretence of Christian liberty, and its orders and exercises shall come under worldly authority and dominion, then will this Christendom be a wolf, which will no more judge and proceed in the love of Christ, but whosoever will not call all their belly-orders good and right, those they would devour with the sword of excommunication, with fire and vengeance [(G.) Racha], and would raise wars for Christ's name, and for their superstitions; and compel the people with power to the acknowledgment of Christ, and devour round about them as a wolf, and always hunt after the spoil, and yet for the most part intend to get the goods and authority of strange and foreign people to themselves. 55. Thus would Benjamin, in the morning, viz. in his rising up, devour the prey, and towards the evening he would again divide this devoured spoil; that is, towards the end of the world, when Joseph's government will get aloft again, so that Christ shall be wholly manifest, and that this wolf shall cease, then will Benjamin, viz. the holy true Christendom, divide the spoil of Christ, wherewith Christ has suppressed death and hell.
256. This dividing or distribution of the spoil shall come, and is already come, and yet is not, though it is, really, in truth, and the whole world is blind concerning it, except the children of the Mystery. The time is, and is not, and yet truly is, when this prey and spoil of Christ, and also the wolfs prey, shall, through Joseph's hand, be given into Benjamin's hand, and be divided and distributed. 57. O Babel, let this be a wonder to you, and yet no wonder, either; for you have nothing, and see nothing at which you can wonder: as a young plant grows from a seed, and becomes a great tree which brings forth much fair fruit; so that a man would wonder at the grain of seed, how so excellent a tree, and so much good fruit, has laid hid in one only grain or seed, which men neither knew of nor saw before. But, because men have knowledge and experience thereof that it is possible that a tree should come out of one grain or seed, men wonder not at it; yet men see not how it comes to pass, or where that great power and virtue was. So also at present, men see the grain or seed of the tree well enough, but reason contemns that, and believes not that such a tree lies therein, whence such good fruit should come, that thereby the kingdom of Benjamin, at the end of time, shall be called a dividing or distribution of the prey and spoil.
358. But Joseph must first be a governor in Egypt, and then Benjamin comes to him; and then Joseph gives him five garments of sumptuous apparel, and five times more food from his table than the others. When the famine famishes the land, and the soul of Jacob hungers, then know that God will thereby draw Israel into Egypt, viz. into repentance: and then is the time of visitation, and Benjamin carries his spoiling sword in his mouth. But Joseph's countenance smites him, so that he comes into great terror, and fear of death, because the silver cup of Joseph was found in his sack, at which he is ashamed, and lets his spoiling sword and wolves' teeth fall from him. And then Joseph manifests himself to him, together with all his brethren, at which there will be such joy that the wolf Benjamin will become a lamb, and yield his wool patiently. This is the end of that speech. 59. The Testament of Jacob is a figure of the whole time of the world, from Adam to the end: of which we will set down a short figure for the Reader that knows the vision or histories to consider of. 60. 1. Reuben, in this place, being the first son, is set in the figure of the first world, which lived in the right of nature without law, that has the priesthood and the kingdom in the right of nature, and should be in the chiefest sacrifice, and in the greatest dominion: but he was fickle therein as water, and was thrust out. 61. II. Simeon begins with Noah, after the flood, and keeps
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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