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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.
13. Afterwards comes the kingdom of grace, which takes in the nature; as first there must be a fire ere there be a light; the fire begets the light, and the light makes the fire manifest in itself; it takes the fire, viz. the nature into itself and dwells in the fire. 4. The like also we are to understand concerning the two properties of the humanity, viz. in the two Principles, according to fire and light; viz. according to the Father's, and Son's property, according to the anger, and according to the love, both which are in one essence. 5. But seeing man's will had subjected itself to the kingdom of nature, the kingdom of nature did now also represent its property in man's image, to the highest God, especially in this wonderful man Abraham, in whom the Spirit and Word of God moved itself. Now the figures of the eternal Principles, viz. of both wills, were represented out of one man to the Word of God, which had brought forth and formed all essences, viz. the revolted disobedient [will] in Ishmael, and the holy obedience, which sprang forth from the power of the received Word of faith, in Isaac.
26. Two types were here set forth, viz. in Ishmael the poor, sick, distempered, evil, corrupted Adam, fallen from the will of God; and in Isaac the image of Christ [was represented], which was come to help the poor corrupt Adam, and to introduce his apostate will into death and mortification, and purify the same again in the fire of God; and regenerate it anew in the love-fire, and in the first only eternal will of God, where the Father and the Son are one only will and essence in the wrathful anger-fire and in the love-light-fire. 7. For with the motion of the divine property, when God moved the nature and created the creatures, the two properties, viz. of the love and the anger in nature, did sever themselves; so that the mystery of God, viz. the invisible spiritual world, might be manifest, and come into a wrestling [love- striving] sport, in the strife and counter-will.
38. For if there were but one only will, then all essences would do but one thing; but in the counter-will each exalts itself in itself to its victory and exaltation. And all life and vegetation stands in this contest, and thereby the divine wisdom is made manifest, and comes into form to contemplation, and to the kingdom of joy; for in the conquest is joy. But one only will is not manifest to itself, for there is neither evil nor good in it, neither joy nor sorrow; and if there were, yet the one, viz. the only will, must first in itself bring itself into a contrary, that it might manifest itself. 9. The like also is here to be understood concerning Isaac and Ishmael: for Christ must be born of Abraham's seed; and the corrupt man must also be born out of this Abraham's seed, whom Christ should help and save. 10. For Christ, viz. God's Word and Will, took unto him, on his holy heavenly ens, man's revolted ens and will, and brought the same in him into the mortification of selfhood, even into the root, whence man's revolted apostate will did arise in the beginning of his creation, viz. into the wrath of the eternal nature, into the Father's property, as to that nature; and regenerated the revolted human will in the same fire through the love-fire, and united or atoned God's love and anger, viz. the divided nature, in the human will; which nature, in the creation of the world, had introduced itself into a contrary, to the manifestation of the wonders.
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.
13. Afterwards comes the kingdom of grace, which takes in the nature; as first there must be a fire ere there be a light; the fire begets the light, and the light makes the fire manifest in itself; it takes the fire, viz. the nature into itself and dwells in the fire. 4. The like also we are to understand concerning the two properties of the humanity, viz. in the two Principles, according to fire and light; viz. according to the Father's, and Son's property, according to the anger, and according to the love, both which are in one essence. 5. But seeing man's will had subjected itself to the kingdom of nature, the kingdom of nature did now also represent its property in man's image, to the highest God, especially in this wonderful man Abraham, in whom the Spirit and Word of God moved itself. Now the figures of the eternal Principles, viz. of both wills, were represented out of one man to the Word of God, which had brought forth and formed all essences, viz. the revolted disobedient [will] in Ishmael, and the holy obedience, which sprang forth from the power of the received Word of faith, in Isaac.
26. Two types were here set forth, viz. in Ishmael the poor, sick, distempered, evil, corrupted Adam, fallen from the will of God; and in Isaac the image of Christ [was represented], which was come to help the poor corrupt Adam, and to introduce his apostate will into death and mortification, and purify the same again in the fire of God; and regenerate it anew in the love-fire, and in the first only eternal will of God, where the Father and the Son are one only will and essence in the wrathful anger-fire and in the love-light-fire. 7. For with the motion of the divine property, when God moved the nature and created the creatures, the two properties, viz. of the love and the anger in nature, did sever themselves; so that the mystery of God, viz. the invisible spiritual world, might be manifest, and come into a wrestling [love- striving] sport, in the strife and counter-will.
38. For if there were but one only will, then all essences would do but one thing; but in the counter-will each exalts itself in itself to its victory and exaltation. And all life and vegetation stands in this contest, and thereby the divine wisdom is made manifest, and comes into form to contemplation, and to the kingdom of joy; for in the conquest is joy. But one only will is not manifest to itself, for there is neither evil nor good in it, neither joy nor sorrow; and if there were, yet the one, viz. the only will, must first in itself bring itself into a contrary, that it might manifest itself. 9. The like also is here to be understood concerning Isaac and Ishmael: for Christ must be born of Abraham's seed; and the corrupt man must also be born out of this Abraham's seed, whom Christ should help and save. 10. For Christ, viz. God's Word and Will, took unto him, on his holy heavenly ens, man's revolted ens and will, and brought the same in him into the mortification of selfhood, even into the root, whence man's revolted apostate will did arise in the beginning of his creation, viz. into the wrath of the eternal nature, into the Father's property, as to that nature; and regenerated the revolted human will in the same fire through the love-fire, and united or atoned God's love and anger, viz. the divided nature, in the human will; which nature, in the creation of the world, had introduced itself into a contrary, to the manifestation of the wonders.
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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