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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.
136. For the inward spiritual government stands in great humility in an angelical form; whereunto God also created man. If he had but remained in Paradise, then he would have had no need of the hunter; but seeing he would be a beast, God ordained him also a hunter, who might keep under the wild unruly bestial men. And the hunter and [the] beast are both alike before God in this world's bestial property; but seeing it may not be any otherwise, God holds it for his natural order; for he has given every thing its government [station and order]. 37. But it is to be lamented that this hunter does hunt, slay and devour the tame human beasts, which do not belong to his game. But what shall we say, or wherewith shall the children of God excuse themselves, or quit themselves of this hunter, before God? Seeing every man bears externally the hunter's hind on him, over which the hunter of nature has power, the inward spiritual man must leave his outward beast unto the hunter; for his outward beast is also evil.
238. The spirit of Moses sets under Ham's lineage twenty-nine names, which came from Ham. Which intimate the twenty-nine properties proceeding from the third Principle, viz. From the spirit of the outward world; hinting how the formed word would be manifested through the outward nature; both in tongues and properties, whence the governments and orders of countries and nations have had their rise; albeit each property has again its extern birth, like as one branch or sprout of a tree does produce and bring forth other twigs. Yet the spirit in Moses does point at the chief head-root, and the properties under these names; showing what kind of people would arise from thence, and what their alterations and their final conclusions would be; all this lies hidden under their names.
339. Thus Ham has twenty-nine names of his children, and he is the thirtieth, twenty-nine is the set number of his children and childrens' children, under which the number of the end lies in Ham's government and dominion. Thirty is his whole number, whereof the prophet speaks, that this Ham would sell the Righteous One for thirty pieces of silver; and give the same for a potter's field. As a pot is accounted of in reference to its maker, even so is the fleshly man Ham in regard of God. He takes his thirtieth number, which he ought to bring into God's kingdom, and gives it for an earthly vessel, which does resemble a field, and in that, does sell the Righteous One, who lies hid under the thirtieth number in the Word of power. Thus the Righteous One, under the thirtieth number, does, by the death or mortification of Ham's flesh, sever himself from the twenty-nine numbers of these properties, which have gotten the upper hand in Ham. For in the thirtieth year the Righteous One, viz. Christ, did separate himself unto his office, and in the thirtieth number lies this same mystery. This is understood by our fellow-scholars, and only hinted at in this place. 40. Shem has in his line of propagation twenty-six names, and he
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.
136. For the inward spiritual government stands in great humility in an angelical form; whereunto God also created man. If he had but remained in Paradise, then he would have had no need of the hunter; but seeing he would be a beast, God ordained him also a hunter, who might keep under the wild unruly bestial men. And the hunter and [the] beast are both alike before God in this world's bestial property; but seeing it may not be any otherwise, God holds it for his natural order; for he has given every thing its government [station and order]. 37. But it is to be lamented that this hunter does hunt, slay and devour the tame human beasts, which do not belong to his game. But what shall we say, or wherewith shall the children of God excuse themselves, or quit themselves of this hunter, before God? Seeing every man bears externally the hunter's hind on him, over which the hunter of nature has power, the inward spiritual man must leave his outward beast unto the hunter; for his outward beast is also evil.
238. The spirit of Moses sets under Ham's lineage twenty-nine names, which came from Ham. Which intimate the twenty-nine properties proceeding from the third Principle, viz. From the spirit of the outward world; hinting how the formed word would be manifested through the outward nature; both in tongues and properties, whence the governments and orders of countries and nations have had their rise; albeit each property has again its extern birth, like as one branch or sprout of a tree does produce and bring forth other twigs. Yet the spirit in Moses does point at the chief head-root, and the properties under these names; showing what kind of people would arise from thence, and what their alterations and their final conclusions would be; all this lies hidden under their names.
339. Thus Ham has twenty-nine names of his children, and he is the thirtieth, twenty-nine is the set number of his children and childrens' children, under which the number of the end lies in Ham's government and dominion. Thirty is his whole number, whereof the prophet speaks, that this Ham would sell the Righteous One for thirty pieces of silver; and give the same for a potter's field. As a pot is accounted of in reference to its maker, even so is the fleshly man Ham in regard of God. He takes his thirtieth number, which he ought to bring into God's kingdom, and gives it for an earthly vessel, which does resemble a field, and in that, does sell the Righteous One, who lies hid under the thirtieth number in the Word of power. Thus the Righteous One, under the thirtieth number, does, by the death or mortification of Ham's flesh, sever himself from the twenty-nine numbers of these properties, which have gotten the upper hand in Ham. For in the thirtieth year the Righteous One, viz. Christ, did separate himself unto his office, and in the thirtieth number lies this same mystery. This is understood by our fellow-scholars, and only hinted at in this place. 40. Shem has in his line of propagation twenty-six names, and he
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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