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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.
110. Now the cry of the Sodomites was come before the above, 3 viz. before and into the first Principle, where the above 3 does conceive or comprehend itself out of the Nothing in the first eternal beginning; viz. to a nature and formation of the powers or Word; and God's formed Word or voice, out of the Father's and Son's property, out of love and anger (which had betrothed itself by promise to be a Christ to man, and formed itself into a divine ens) heard the cry in the property of the anger, wherewith he is a judge of the wicked ens, or ungodliness. 3 Or, highness. 11. Therefore said the Father, / will come down that I may see whether it be so or no. That is, he came down, that is, out of the above, 4 with that formed Hearing of these three men in the ens, which God had formed to be judge of the world, which was to become the Christ. 4 Or, from on high. 12. For this ens was to be creatural in the person, therefore it was formative, in an angelical manner, in the conceived Word of the promise; and therewith it came from above, that is, out of the above, viz. out of God; out of the unchangeable God; and with his love heard first in Abraham into the ens of the Covenant, into the aim or limit of his Covenant. And with the anger, viz. with the hearing of the fire, he heard into the iniquity and vanity of man; and saw with the
2anger what they did; that is, his wrath saw essentially into the iniquity and vanity of man, in manner as an incentive fire should arise in any piece of wood [or fuel], and would devour the wood. So likewise God looked with his anger-eye in the formed ens (through the same judicial Word in Christ's ens, wherein he will judge the world) into the wicked infection and will of the children of Ham at Sodom and Gomorrah. 13. For when God had set before him, in Abraham, the new birth of his holy children out of his love ens; he also set before him the judgement in his anger ens, how he would, through this Christ, prove the wicked in the fire. 14. And the judgement upon Sodom is a figure of the Last Judgment; as the three men which came before Abraham were a figure of our new angelical humanity, where God dwells in man; so was also his anger in the wicked. And we see here, that God will judge the devils, and all wicked men, by the children of the saints; as he now did represent the figure of the judicial office in a humanity of three, and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah from the world. 15. Also God said to Abraham, How can I hide from Abraham the thing which I dol It was hidden unto the earthly Abraham, but unto the heavenly, out of God's ens, God would not hide it. And here he set forth the figure of his love, and his anger, viz. the humanity of Christ in the great humility and love, and his truth and righteousness in the two angels.
316. For thus says the text in Moses: And Abraham stood yet before the Lord (viz. before these three men, which he here calls only one), and came near to him, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Per-adventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy them; and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein ? That be far from you to do so, to slay the righteous with the wicked; and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from you: that thou, who art the Judge of the whole earth, shouldst so judge (Gen. xviii. 22-25). 17. This is now the very excellent and pregnant figure; how Abraham (in. the ens of faith in Christ's person and spirit) comes before God, viz. before the triune God, before the severe righteousness of God; and will reconcile and atone the Father; and prays for his children, which dwell among the company of the wicked; that his Father would be pleased to spare that place (where yet righteous people dwell) from rebuke, and draws his mercy into his righteousness, and says, Thou wilt not so judge, thou who art the Judge of the whole world. 18. This figure is nothing else but God in his righteousness, and God in Christ with his mercy. Here the two types stand both together; what else should it mean, that a man would withhold God from doing what he please?
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.
110. Now the cry of the Sodomites was come before the above, 3 viz. before and into the first Principle, where the above 3 does conceive or comprehend itself out of the Nothing in the first eternal beginning; viz. to a nature and formation of the powers or Word; and God's formed Word or voice, out of the Father's and Son's property, out of love and anger (which had betrothed itself by promise to be a Christ to man, and formed itself into a divine ens) heard the cry in the property of the anger, wherewith he is a judge of the wicked ens, or ungodliness. 3 Or, highness. 11. Therefore said the Father, / will come down that I may see whether it be so or no. That is, he came down, that is, out of the above, 4 with that formed Hearing of these three men in the ens, which God had formed to be judge of the world, which was to become the Christ. 4 Or, from on high. 12. For this ens was to be creatural in the person, therefore it was formative, in an angelical manner, in the conceived Word of the promise; and therewith it came from above, that is, out of the above, viz. out of God; out of the unchangeable God; and with his love heard first in Abraham into the ens of the Covenant, into the aim or limit of his Covenant. And with the anger, viz. with the hearing of the fire, he heard into the iniquity and vanity of man; and saw with the
2anger what they did; that is, his wrath saw essentially into the iniquity and vanity of man, in manner as an incentive fire should arise in any piece of wood [or fuel], and would devour the wood. So likewise God looked with his anger-eye in the formed ens (through the same judicial Word in Christ's ens, wherein he will judge the world) into the wicked infection and will of the children of Ham at Sodom and Gomorrah. 13. For when God had set before him, in Abraham, the new birth of his holy children out of his love ens; he also set before him the judgement in his anger ens, how he would, through this Christ, prove the wicked in the fire. 14. And the judgement upon Sodom is a figure of the Last Judgment; as the three men which came before Abraham were a figure of our new angelical humanity, where God dwells in man; so was also his anger in the wicked. And we see here, that God will judge the devils, and all wicked men, by the children of the saints; as he now did represent the figure of the judicial office in a humanity of three, and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah from the world. 15. Also God said to Abraham, How can I hide from Abraham the thing which I dol It was hidden unto the earthly Abraham, but unto the heavenly, out of God's ens, God would not hide it. And here he set forth the figure of his love, and his anger, viz. the humanity of Christ in the great humility and love, and his truth and righteousness in the two angels.
316. For thus says the text in Moses: And Abraham stood yet before the Lord (viz. before these three men, which he here calls only one), and came near to him, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Per-adventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy them; and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein ? That be far from you to do so, to slay the righteous with the wicked; and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from you: that thou, who art the Judge of the whole earth, shouldst so judge (Gen. xviii. 22-25). 17. This is now the very excellent and pregnant figure; how Abraham (in. the ens of faith in Christ's person and spirit) comes before God, viz. before the triune God, before the severe righteousness of God; and will reconcile and atone the Father; and prays for his children, which dwell among the company of the wicked; that his Father would be pleased to spare that place (where yet righteous people dwell) from rebuke, and draws his mercy into his righteousness, and says, Thou wilt not so judge, thou who art the Judge of the whole world. 18. This figure is nothing else but God in his righteousness, and God in Christ with his mercy. Here the two types stand both together; what else should it mean, that a man would withhold God from doing what he please?
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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