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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.
1is the twenty-seventh. And the spirit in Moses speaks very hiddenly, saying, that he was the father of all the children of Eber; and Eber begat two sons, the name of one was Peleg, for at his days the world was divided; and the other was named Joktan 1 (Gen. x. 21-25). All whatsoever the spirit in Moses speaks of the outward acts of the patriarchs, he has under them a single inward eye upon the line of Christ; for he says that Shem was the father of all the children of Eber. Although Eber be first in the third degree after Shem, yet the spirit looks so punctually upon the Word in the Covenant, wheresoever it does open itself in a line.
241. For EBER signifies in the forming of the word, as much as a sound or manifestation of the Word out of the centre; and says further, that he begat Peleg, and called him so by reason of the division [of the earth] . The spirit doth not only look upon the outward division of lands and countries, but much rather upon the line in which stood the limit 2 of the Covenant; for in Eber the limit of the Covenant did open itself in the Word, as in the sound or manifestation, and went all along in the seed upon Peleg. And the line of Adam and Christ did there sever itself in the two brethren; as afterwards it did among the children of Abraham and Isaac: with Isaac and Ishmael; and with Jacob and Esau. Thus likewise it was here with Peleg and Joktan. Externally the world was divided, and internally the kingdom of Christ, and the kingdom of the world. Not that we are to understand that Joktan did not remain in the Covenant; only the spirit does here look upon the motion of the seed, in which line the limit or mark of the Covenant was to be moved, wherein the Word would again move itself in the disappeared humanity of the heavenly ens, and manifest itself in the humanity. 42. The names of Shem's children and grand-children are mere intimations and significations of the properties out of the wonderful line of the prophetical spirit of Enoch; where these same properties were brought forth out of the stock into boughs; but here into branches.
343. The spirit in Moses (Gen. x. 26-30) sets fourteen names under Joktan's line, which are the wonderful number of this bough in the tree's property, being the kingdom of Christ according to the property of nature. And of Peleg he says no more but of one son, which he calls Reu, whom he begat when he was thirty years old (Gen. xi. 18). Intimating and pointing at the line of Christ, wherein the main limit and eye-mark of the Covenant stood. The spirit denotes only one, for by One the Covenant should be opened; for the spirit looked with the one upon the kingdom of grace; and with his brothers' fourteen names it hinted at the human kingdom. 1 Or Jaketan. 2 Or mark. 44. And in that he says, that he begat Reil, when he was thirty years old, the spirit therein looks forwards upon Christ, who should arise and come forth out of this stock, and manifest himself the thirtieth year of his age in his office; as also likewise all the ages under the line of Christ, which Moses has set down, have a very certain intimation and prophecy, and point at the times of the motion in the Covenant; as [may be seen] through the prophets and other saints in whom the Covenant has moved itself. 45. The spirit of Moses sets five names of the children of Shem, which came forth of his loins. And though he did beget more for Moses says that he begat sons and daughters (Gen. xi. 11), yet the spirit minds only the properties of the formed Word in the Covenant of
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.
1is the twenty-seventh. And the spirit in Moses speaks very hiddenly, saying, that he was the father of all the children of Eber; and Eber begat two sons, the name of one was Peleg, for at his days the world was divided; and the other was named Joktan 1 (Gen. x. 21-25). All whatsoever the spirit in Moses speaks of the outward acts of the patriarchs, he has under them a single inward eye upon the line of Christ; for he says that Shem was the father of all the children of Eber. Although Eber be first in the third degree after Shem, yet the spirit looks so punctually upon the Word in the Covenant, wheresoever it does open itself in a line.
241. For EBER signifies in the forming of the word, as much as a sound or manifestation of the Word out of the centre; and says further, that he begat Peleg, and called him so by reason of the division [of the earth] . The spirit doth not only look upon the outward division of lands and countries, but much rather upon the line in which stood the limit 2 of the Covenant; for in Eber the limit of the Covenant did open itself in the Word, as in the sound or manifestation, and went all along in the seed upon Peleg. And the line of Adam and Christ did there sever itself in the two brethren; as afterwards it did among the children of Abraham and Isaac: with Isaac and Ishmael; and with Jacob and Esau. Thus likewise it was here with Peleg and Joktan. Externally the world was divided, and internally the kingdom of Christ, and the kingdom of the world. Not that we are to understand that Joktan did not remain in the Covenant; only the spirit does here look upon the motion of the seed, in which line the limit or mark of the Covenant was to be moved, wherein the Word would again move itself in the disappeared humanity of the heavenly ens, and manifest itself in the humanity. 42. The names of Shem's children and grand-children are mere intimations and significations of the properties out of the wonderful line of the prophetical spirit of Enoch; where these same properties were brought forth out of the stock into boughs; but here into branches.
343. The spirit in Moses (Gen. x. 26-30) sets fourteen names under Joktan's line, which are the wonderful number of this bough in the tree's property, being the kingdom of Christ according to the property of nature. And of Peleg he says no more but of one son, which he calls Reu, whom he begat when he was thirty years old (Gen. xi. 18). Intimating and pointing at the line of Christ, wherein the main limit and eye-mark of the Covenant stood. The spirit denotes only one, for by One the Covenant should be opened; for the spirit looked with the one upon the kingdom of grace; and with his brothers' fourteen names it hinted at the human kingdom. 1 Or Jaketan. 2 Or mark. 44. And in that he says, that he begat Reil, when he was thirty years old, the spirit therein looks forwards upon Christ, who should arise and come forth out of this stock, and manifest himself the thirtieth year of his age in his office; as also likewise all the ages under the line of Christ, which Moses has set down, have a very certain intimation and prophecy, and point at the times of the motion in the Covenant; as [may be seen] through the prophets and other saints in whom the Covenant has moved itself. 45. The spirit of Moses sets five names of the children of Shem, which came forth of his loins. And though he did beget more for Moses says that he begat sons and daughters (Gen. xi. 11), yet the spirit minds only the properties of the formed Word in the Covenant of
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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