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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.
132. But now at present there is great cause (as all the prophets have prophesied thereof) that the same should be made manifest. And the cause is this: that in this last trumpet's sound the mystery of the kingdom of God shall be finished (Rev. x. 7); and the bride of Christ, viz. the wise virgins, shall be prepared, who shall meet the Lord in his appearance. And it betokens the day of Christ's coming, when he will appear with the holy city, the New Jerusalem, and bring home his bride. Therefore the mystery of the kingdom of God must first be unfolded and explained out of its types, and become wholly manifest. 33. And this will be the fall of the fleshly sinful man, in that the man of sin must be made manifest; as St. Paul plainly prophesies thereof (2 Thess. ii. 3-8), that the child of perdition shall be revealed to all nations, speeches, tongues; and the beast with the whore shall go into the bottomless pit. That is, when the kingdom of Christ becomes wholly manifest, then the beast, and the whore of flesh, viz. the false bond- woman, with her scoffing son, stands in great shame, and is judged of everyone, as a whore in the cage, that everyone scorns and scoffs at.
234. As indeed hitherto men have reviled Christ in the outward image of simplicity in his children and members, in which, reason has seen and known no more, than Hagar and Ishmael in their miserable banishment; under which, notwithstanding, the voice of the angel has been; which they have scorned and mocked in the foolish plain simplicity under the veil, and have set up the mocker, Ishmael, in Christ's stead; which has been only an Antichrist. Now, this mocker and Antichrist shall be revealed under this trumpet's sound; and be cast out of [or by] the children of God into the abyss, which Babel shall see in a short time: declares the spirit of the wonders of God. 35. We see all an excellent figure of this in Abimelech, that, when God will manifest himself to a people, how he terrifies them in the midst of their sins, and appears to them in anger; as to Abimelech in the vision; and to Moses in the bush of fire; and also to Israel upon the Mount Sinai, also in the fire; and also to Elias in the fire and wind. Where always the rebuke of God's wrath is fore- signified, how God does bruise the hearts of men that they may fear and tremble before him; as here, Abimelech, when the Lord appeared to him by night in a vision, and threatened him by reason of Sarah, he was astonished, and told the same in the ears of his people, and the people were sore afraid, and Abimelech called Abraham, and made a covenant with him.
336. This is an excellent figure [and pregnantly intimates] how God terrifies the enemies, and comforts poor dejected nature when it quails for fear; and turns its fear into joy. And how the miserable and afflicted, if he be honest, is at last drawn out of misery and affliction; and how at last his enemies (who before he thought to be his enemies) must serve him and advance him. So wonderfully does God lead his children, if they do but endure temptation and continue under the cross of Christ in humility, and not look upon self-revenge, but put on patience in hope, and persevere steadfast in the faith. At last all a man's adversaries must see and acknowledge that God is with the man, and that the world has dealt wrongfully and unrighteously with him.
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.
132. But now at present there is great cause (as all the prophets have prophesied thereof) that the same should be made manifest. And the cause is this: that in this last trumpet's sound the mystery of the kingdom of God shall be finished (Rev. x. 7); and the bride of Christ, viz. the wise virgins, shall be prepared, who shall meet the Lord in his appearance. And it betokens the day of Christ's coming, when he will appear with the holy city, the New Jerusalem, and bring home his bride. Therefore the mystery of the kingdom of God must first be unfolded and explained out of its types, and become wholly manifest. 33. And this will be the fall of the fleshly sinful man, in that the man of sin must be made manifest; as St. Paul plainly prophesies thereof (2 Thess. ii. 3-8), that the child of perdition shall be revealed to all nations, speeches, tongues; and the beast with the whore shall go into the bottomless pit. That is, when the kingdom of Christ becomes wholly manifest, then the beast, and the whore of flesh, viz. the false bond- woman, with her scoffing son, stands in great shame, and is judged of everyone, as a whore in the cage, that everyone scorns and scoffs at.
234. As indeed hitherto men have reviled Christ in the outward image of simplicity in his children and members, in which, reason has seen and known no more, than Hagar and Ishmael in their miserable banishment; under which, notwithstanding, the voice of the angel has been; which they have scorned and mocked in the foolish plain simplicity under the veil, and have set up the mocker, Ishmael, in Christ's stead; which has been only an Antichrist. Now, this mocker and Antichrist shall be revealed under this trumpet's sound; and be cast out of [or by] the children of God into the abyss, which Babel shall see in a short time: declares the spirit of the wonders of God. 35. We see all an excellent figure of this in Abimelech, that, when God will manifest himself to a people, how he terrifies them in the midst of their sins, and appears to them in anger; as to Abimelech in the vision; and to Moses in the bush of fire; and also to Israel upon the Mount Sinai, also in the fire; and also to Elias in the fire and wind. Where always the rebuke of God's wrath is fore- signified, how God does bruise the hearts of men that they may fear and tremble before him; as here, Abimelech, when the Lord appeared to him by night in a vision, and threatened him by reason of Sarah, he was astonished, and told the same in the ears of his people, and the people were sore afraid, and Abimelech called Abraham, and made a covenant with him.
336. This is an excellent figure [and pregnantly intimates] how God terrifies the enemies, and comforts poor dejected nature when it quails for fear; and turns its fear into joy. And how the miserable and afflicted, if he be honest, is at last drawn out of misery and affliction; and how at last his enemies (who before he thought to be his enemies) must serve him and advance him. So wonderfully does God lead his children, if they do but endure temptation and continue under the cross of Christ in humility, and not look upon self-revenge, but put on patience in hope, and persevere steadfast in the faith. At last all a man's adversaries must see and acknowledge that God is with the man, and that the world has dealt wrongfully and unrighteously with him.
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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