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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.
118. For the devil had introduced his will into the human will, inclined to selfhood in the Serpent's ens, which will did only mock and scorn the new birth; just as the devil is only a scorner and contemner. When he is told how that the anger, viz. the wrath of the eternal nature, of which he is a prince and possessor, shall be changed in man again into love, the same seems ridiculous to him. This false spirit was a reviler and mocker, in Ishmael; of whom God said, Cast out the son of the bondwoman, viz. this scoffer; for the scoffer's spirit and will shall not inherit with the free, viz. with the only will of God. 19. But now we are not to understand this concerning the whole person of Ishmael; as if God had rejected him out of his purpose from the divine adoption. No, no; the contrary plainly demonstrates itself; for when Hagar waxed proud, seeing that she had conceived, and not her mistress; and lightly set by Sarah her mistress; and Sarah reproving her sharply for it, she fled from her. Then the angel of the Lord met her, and said unto her, Hagar, Sarah's maid, where will you go? Return again to your mistress, and humbly submit yourself unto her, I will so multiply your seed that it shall not be numbered for multitude.
220. And the angel of the Lord said further unto her, Behold, you are with child, and shall bear a son, and his name shall be called Ishmael; because the Lord has heard your affliction. He shall be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man 's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And she called the name of the Lord who spoke with her, Thou God sees me:for she said, Here I have seen him, who has looked after me. Therefore she called the well where this was done, the well of the living who has looked upon me (Gen. xvi. 8-14). 21. Understand this figure thus: Hagar fled in the will of self; viz. in disobedience, that is, in the will of nature, in which the devil, according to the wrath's property, desires to be a prince. This will would not humble itself under the Covenant, and obey the free one, viz. God's only free will: In the figure, Hagar fled away; for the will of selfhood must fly away, and wholly die, and not inherit the Covenant, and the adoption. But the angel of the Lord met Hagar, and said, Where will you go, Hagar, Sarah's maid? Return again to your mistress, and humble yourself under her hand. Behold, you are with child, and shall bear a son, whose name you shall call Ishmael; because the Lord has heard your affliction. The meaning of it is this:
322. You poor miserable man, captivated by the kingdom of nature; nature has indeed brought you forth in its contrariety, in its wonders; and the devil has poisoned you, so that you must be a wild man upon the earth, to the opposition of God's children, so that they must be tried and exercised by you, and be brought into tribulation, that so they also might powerfully put forth out of the holy ens the sap of their root of salvation, and in the pressure, move, act, and penetrate with the ardent desire, through the love ens, which is wholly meek, soft, and still; so that in this contrariety and contest fruit might also grow upon the divine One. Your wild will must indeed be cast out and mortified, but return again to the free, viz. to the only will of God, and humble yourself before the free one; for I have looked upon your misery and affliction, and have not cast you from my presence, but [have cast forth] only the wild property, viz. the will of the natural selfhood. 23. But I must have it also in the time of this world, for it shall dwell in the presence of all its brethren, and exercise them in the fear of God with its opposition. But return you only in repentance unto the free. I will so multiply you that your seed shall not be numbered.
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.
118. For the devil had introduced his will into the human will, inclined to selfhood in the Serpent's ens, which will did only mock and scorn the new birth; just as the devil is only a scorner and contemner. When he is told how that the anger, viz. the wrath of the eternal nature, of which he is a prince and possessor, shall be changed in man again into love, the same seems ridiculous to him. This false spirit was a reviler and mocker, in Ishmael; of whom God said, Cast out the son of the bondwoman, viz. this scoffer; for the scoffer's spirit and will shall not inherit with the free, viz. with the only will of God. 19. But now we are not to understand this concerning the whole person of Ishmael; as if God had rejected him out of his purpose from the divine adoption. No, no; the contrary plainly demonstrates itself; for when Hagar waxed proud, seeing that she had conceived, and not her mistress; and lightly set by Sarah her mistress; and Sarah reproving her sharply for it, she fled from her. Then the angel of the Lord met her, and said unto her, Hagar, Sarah's maid, where will you go? Return again to your mistress, and humbly submit yourself unto her, I will so multiply your seed that it shall not be numbered for multitude.
220. And the angel of the Lord said further unto her, Behold, you are with child, and shall bear a son, and his name shall be called Ishmael; because the Lord has heard your affliction. He shall be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man 's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And she called the name of the Lord who spoke with her, Thou God sees me:for she said, Here I have seen him, who has looked after me. Therefore she called the well where this was done, the well of the living who has looked upon me (Gen. xvi. 8-14). 21. Understand this figure thus: Hagar fled in the will of self; viz. in disobedience, that is, in the will of nature, in which the devil, according to the wrath's property, desires to be a prince. This will would not humble itself under the Covenant, and obey the free one, viz. God's only free will: In the figure, Hagar fled away; for the will of selfhood must fly away, and wholly die, and not inherit the Covenant, and the adoption. But the angel of the Lord met Hagar, and said, Where will you go, Hagar, Sarah's maid? Return again to your mistress, and humble yourself under her hand. Behold, you are with child, and shall bear a son, whose name you shall call Ishmael; because the Lord has heard your affliction. The meaning of it is this:
322. You poor miserable man, captivated by the kingdom of nature; nature has indeed brought you forth in its contrariety, in its wonders; and the devil has poisoned you, so that you must be a wild man upon the earth, to the opposition of God's children, so that they must be tried and exercised by you, and be brought into tribulation, that so they also might powerfully put forth out of the holy ens the sap of their root of salvation, and in the pressure, move, act, and penetrate with the ardent desire, through the love ens, which is wholly meek, soft, and still; so that in this contrariety and contest fruit might also grow upon the divine One. Your wild will must indeed be cast out and mortified, but return again to the free, viz. to the only will of God, and humble yourself before the free one; for I have looked upon your misery and affliction, and have not cast you from my presence, but [have cast forth] only the wild property, viz. the will of the natural selfhood. 23. But I must have it also in the time of this world, for it shall dwell in the presence of all its brethren, and exercise them in the fear of God with its opposition. But return you only in repentance unto the free. I will so multiply you that your seed shall not be numbered.
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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