Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
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.
117. Through the five holy speeches proceeding from JOTH, the spirit in the formed word of nature speaks holy divine words in the children of the saints; and through the seventy-two tongues he speaks through the nature of the wonders, both from the evil and the good, according as the word does form and amass itself in an ens. 18. The five speeches belong to the spirit of God, who speaks by his children, when and how he pleases, but the seventy-two belong to man's selfness and particular ownhood, whence man's self-full understanding speaks lies and truth. Therefore the seventy-two languages, viz. Babel, must pass through the judgement of God, and the pure shall be separated from the impure, and tried in the fire. 19. For him, who is taken under, and capable of this knowledge, we will give a short direction and manuduction, to trace out our sense and meaning, (which yet we in this place will keep to ourselves), and thereby intimate unto him, how he may search out all mysteries and secrets which lie couched under these names, which the holy spirit, in Moses, has marked out.
220. The spirit in Moses sets down seven names in Japheth's line, viz. the seven sons which he begat; which are these: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. Now Japheth is the first, and betokens the first Principle, and therein the kingdom of nature; intimating how, even out of nature, the seven free arts or liberal sciences should be found under a natural philosophy; and these were found out in this Japheth's line in a natural manner, by the heathenish philosophy. For this was the twig which should dwell in Shem's tent, as Noah foretold. 21. For the seven sons of Japheth signify and point out the seven properties of nature, and under their seven names lies the great mystery of the Japhethical lines in the kingdom of nature, [intimating to us] what kind of people and kingdoms should arise from them, even unto the end of the world; concerning the manifestation and writing of which our speech is stopped and taken from us; but it shall be freely and fully manifested to our school-fellows in its time; and be wholly made known and revealed. 22. After this the spirit mentioneth only two sons of Japheth which begat children, viz. Gomer and Javan; he passes over the other children of Japheth in silence, and mentions not at all what children they begat. And this is not without cause. The spirit points at the two sorts of men among the Gentiles in the kingdom of nature, viz. under Gomer he sets three names, Ashkenaz, Riphas and
3Togarmah; these were the sons of Gomer, who do thus manifest themselves in the Language of Nature, viz. they form [conceive or amass] the ens of nature, viz. the formed word, into an ens, and bring it into a contemplation, that is, into an acute speculating reason, and make a figure out of it, viz. a dominion (or form of a government of self will) according to the kingdom of nature, for temporal glory and renown.
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.
117. Through the five holy speeches proceeding from JOTH, the spirit in the formed word of nature speaks holy divine words in the children of the saints; and through the seventy-two tongues he speaks through the nature of the wonders, both from the evil and the good, according as the word does form and amass itself in an ens. 18. The five speeches belong to the spirit of God, who speaks by his children, when and how he pleases, but the seventy-two belong to man's selfness and particular ownhood, whence man's self-full understanding speaks lies and truth. Therefore the seventy-two languages, viz. Babel, must pass through the judgement of God, and the pure shall be separated from the impure, and tried in the fire. 19. For him, who is taken under, and capable of this knowledge, we will give a short direction and manuduction, to trace out our sense and meaning, (which yet we in this place will keep to ourselves), and thereby intimate unto him, how he may search out all mysteries and secrets which lie couched under these names, which the holy spirit, in Moses, has marked out.
220. The spirit in Moses sets down seven names in Japheth's line, viz. the seven sons which he begat; which are these: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. Now Japheth is the first, and betokens the first Principle, and therein the kingdom of nature; intimating how, even out of nature, the seven free arts or liberal sciences should be found under a natural philosophy; and these were found out in this Japheth's line in a natural manner, by the heathenish philosophy. For this was the twig which should dwell in Shem's tent, as Noah foretold. 21. For the seven sons of Japheth signify and point out the seven properties of nature, and under their seven names lies the great mystery of the Japhethical lines in the kingdom of nature, [intimating to us] what kind of people and kingdoms should arise from them, even unto the end of the world; concerning the manifestation and writing of which our speech is stopped and taken from us; but it shall be freely and fully manifested to our school-fellows in its time; and be wholly made known and revealed. 22. After this the spirit mentioneth only two sons of Japheth which begat children, viz. Gomer and Javan; he passes over the other children of Japheth in silence, and mentions not at all what children they begat. And this is not without cause. The spirit points at the two sorts of men among the Gentiles in the kingdom of nature, viz. under Gomer he sets three names, Ashkenaz, Riphas and
3Togarmah; these were the sons of Gomer, who do thus manifest themselves in the Language of Nature, viz. they form [conceive or amass] the ens of nature, viz. the formed word, into an ens, and bring it into a contemplation, that is, into an acute speculating reason, and make a figure out of it, viz. a dominion (or form of a government of self will) according to the kingdom of nature, for temporal glory and renown.
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.
No commentary for this page.