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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.
1mercy which you have shown unto me, in that You have saved my life; I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die: Behold, there is a city very near, unto which I may flee, it is a little one: oh, let me escape thither ( is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live. And he said unto him, See, I have accepted you concerning this thing, that I should not overturn the city for which you have spoken. Haste yourself, escape thither; for I can do nothing till you be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. And the sun was risen upon the earth when Lot came into Zoar (Gen. xix. 17-23). The inward figure stands thus: 15. The spirit of truth had moved the spirit in the Covenant in Lot, and taken him by his spiritual hand, and brought him forth out of the judgement; understand, the soul of Lot, in which the Word of Promise in the Covenant had opened itselfaccording to the spiritual property, into which also the now sent voice of truth and judgement did force, and defended Lot from and in the judgement.
216. For with the judgement the first Principle, viz. the soul's centre, was sifted and proved through all the properties of the eternal nature. Into this the Lord's hand, viz. the angel of the Lord, did put itself, with the grace of Christ's Covenant in Abraham, and drew Lot out of the judgement, and from the children of Sodom. Therefore the angel said, Deliver yourself and look not behind you into judgement, viz. into the enkindled wrath, lest the same take you. As happened to Lot's wife, who turned her desire back again to see and behold what the wrath of the Lord should be. 17. As Adam and Lucifer also did the like, who would essentially behold and prove God's, viz. the eternal nature's, wrath, which yet is a consuming fire, and forthwith proves spirit, and body; and if it reaches anything of which it is capable, it devours it into itself. 18. Now the soul of Lot trembled and stood in fear before the angel of the judgement, viz. before God's righteousness; and entreated his truth, that he would be pleased to magnify his mercy in the Covenant towards him, lest the turba should take hold of him; and it is a very excellent example, how God takes his children, in the time of punishment and judgement, into his love, defends them, and brings them forth from great destruction; as he did here unto Lot, and also unto the upright children in the final destruction of Jerusalem.
319. Also the angel of vengeance said: I can do nothing, until you be come thither. Oh! you wonderful God, who can hinder you? But this is even thus to be understood: the spirit of his love in the Covenant had set or established itself with the truth, in Lot, and kept off the anger that it could not burn until Lot came out. 20. And we see that oftentimes the children of God are able to withhold great plagues and punishment of God [from coming down on a people]; there is even such a might in them, that God's anger is able to do nothing, and is as it were impotent where they are present. Also they are a might and power against hell and the devil; for such a thing is true real faith, that it can withhold and overpower God in his anger. 21. Therefore the Lord said to Lot, I cannot do anything, until you be gone out. And he spared also the little city called Pella, or Zoar (viz. a diversion or turning away of the anger) for Lot's sake; for when he came thither the turba must be extinguished, as the name, in the uncompacted tongue of sense, does express it. 22. And then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and overthrew the cities, and all the plain; and all the inhabitants of the cities, and all whatsoever grew upon the ground. And his wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt (Gen. xix. 24-26).
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.
1mercy which you have shown unto me, in that You have saved my life; I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die: Behold, there is a city very near, unto which I may flee, it is a little one: oh, let me escape thither ( is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live. And he said unto him, See, I have accepted you concerning this thing, that I should not overturn the city for which you have spoken. Haste yourself, escape thither; for I can do nothing till you be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. And the sun was risen upon the earth when Lot came into Zoar (Gen. xix. 17-23). The inward figure stands thus: 15. The spirit of truth had moved the spirit in the Covenant in Lot, and taken him by his spiritual hand, and brought him forth out of the judgement; understand, the soul of Lot, in which the Word of Promise in the Covenant had opened itselfaccording to the spiritual property, into which also the now sent voice of truth and judgement did force, and defended Lot from and in the judgement.
216. For with the judgement the first Principle, viz. the soul's centre, was sifted and proved through all the properties of the eternal nature. Into this the Lord's hand, viz. the angel of the Lord, did put itself, with the grace of Christ's Covenant in Abraham, and drew Lot out of the judgement, and from the children of Sodom. Therefore the angel said, Deliver yourself and look not behind you into judgement, viz. into the enkindled wrath, lest the same take you. As happened to Lot's wife, who turned her desire back again to see and behold what the wrath of the Lord should be. 17. As Adam and Lucifer also did the like, who would essentially behold and prove God's, viz. the eternal nature's, wrath, which yet is a consuming fire, and forthwith proves spirit, and body; and if it reaches anything of which it is capable, it devours it into itself. 18. Now the soul of Lot trembled and stood in fear before the angel of the judgement, viz. before God's righteousness; and entreated his truth, that he would be pleased to magnify his mercy in the Covenant towards him, lest the turba should take hold of him; and it is a very excellent example, how God takes his children, in the time of punishment and judgement, into his love, defends them, and brings them forth from great destruction; as he did here unto Lot, and also unto the upright children in the final destruction of Jerusalem.
319. Also the angel of vengeance said: I can do nothing, until you be come thither. Oh! you wonderful God, who can hinder you? But this is even thus to be understood: the spirit of his love in the Covenant had set or established itself with the truth, in Lot, and kept off the anger that it could not burn until Lot came out. 20. And we see that oftentimes the children of God are able to withhold great plagues and punishment of God [from coming down on a people]; there is even such a might in them, that God's anger is able to do nothing, and is as it were impotent where they are present. Also they are a might and power against hell and the devil; for such a thing is true real faith, that it can withhold and overpower God in his anger. 21. Therefore the Lord said to Lot, I cannot do anything, until you be gone out. And he spared also the little city called Pella, or Zoar (viz. a diversion or turning away of the anger) for Lot's sake; for when he came thither the turba must be extinguished, as the name, in the uncompacted tongue of sense, does express it. 22. And then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and overthrew the cities, and all the plain; and all the inhabitants of the cities, and all whatsoever grew upon the ground. And his wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt (Gen. xix. 24-26).
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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