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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.
137. Also this is an excellent emphatical figure how Abraham (when God would punish Abimelech) did pray unto God for Abimelech, and made reconciliation, that God did bless Abimelech. And this whole history stands in the figure of Christ, and holds forth how Adam and Christ are together; how Christ is come into the self-assumed kingly ownhood or selfness of man, and terrifies sin and death; and how the poor corrupt nature does turn itself in the horror and acknowledgment of sin, to God, as here Abimelech turned unto Abraham; and how it then gives the kingdom of nature for a possession unto Christ. And the inward figure in the spirit of Moses (who was the type and figure of Christ, who yet points, out of the father's property, upon the Son, in the flesh, viz. in the humanity) can be understood no otherwise, than even thus: It is the true ground. The Forty-Seventh Chapter Of the Covenant of Abimelech and Abraham, showing what the same is, in the spiritual figure; and what the Spirit in Moses, under his veil, does here point at A VERY PRECIOUS AND EXCELLENT GATE TO THE CHILDREN OF GOD IN BEER-SHEBA
21. COURTEOUS and friendly Reader, know, that if a man should write many hundred books of the history of Abraham, yet he could not sufficiently express the abundant richness which lies hid under this figure. But we will afford a little service to the children of God in their weakness, and somewhat unveil this figure, seeing otherwise it is not to be understood by the natural man; and yet the Lord does thus lead us in grace [to the understanding thereof]. Therefore I shall here lend and give him the hand thereto. Observe it well: there is couched under it a peerless matchless pearl, which shall here stand open, and yet also continue hidden, which cannot be purchased with the goods of the whole world. It is hidden unto reason. The outward figure in the Text of Moses stands thus: 2. And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech, and Phichol the chief captain of his host spoke unto Abraham, saying, God is with you in all that you do: Now therefore swear unto me here by God that you will not deal unfaithfully [falsely] with me, nor with my children,
3nor grand- children: but according to the kindness which I have done unto you, you shall also do unto me, and to the land wherein you art a stranger. And Abraham said, I will swear. And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away. And Abimelech answered, I know not who has done this thing: neither did you tell me, neither yet heard I of it, but to-day. And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech; and both of them made a covenant together. And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves. And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which you have set apart by themselves? And he answered, Seven lambs you shall take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well. Whereupon he called that place Beer-sheba; because they there sware both of them. And thus they made a covenant at Beer-sheba: then Abimelech rose up, and Phichol
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.
137. Also this is an excellent emphatical figure how Abraham (when God would punish Abimelech) did pray unto God for Abimelech, and made reconciliation, that God did bless Abimelech. And this whole history stands in the figure of Christ, and holds forth how Adam and Christ are together; how Christ is come into the self-assumed kingly ownhood or selfness of man, and terrifies sin and death; and how the poor corrupt nature does turn itself in the horror and acknowledgment of sin, to God, as here Abimelech turned unto Abraham; and how it then gives the kingdom of nature for a possession unto Christ. And the inward figure in the spirit of Moses (who was the type and figure of Christ, who yet points, out of the father's property, upon the Son, in the flesh, viz. in the humanity) can be understood no otherwise, than even thus: It is the true ground. The Forty-Seventh Chapter Of the Covenant of Abimelech and Abraham, showing what the same is, in the spiritual figure; and what the Spirit in Moses, under his veil, does here point at A VERY PRECIOUS AND EXCELLENT GATE TO THE CHILDREN OF GOD IN BEER-SHEBA
21. COURTEOUS and friendly Reader, know, that if a man should write many hundred books of the history of Abraham, yet he could not sufficiently express the abundant richness which lies hid under this figure. But we will afford a little service to the children of God in their weakness, and somewhat unveil this figure, seeing otherwise it is not to be understood by the natural man; and yet the Lord does thus lead us in grace [to the understanding thereof]. Therefore I shall here lend and give him the hand thereto. Observe it well: there is couched under it a peerless matchless pearl, which shall here stand open, and yet also continue hidden, which cannot be purchased with the goods of the whole world. It is hidden unto reason. The outward figure in the Text of Moses stands thus: 2. And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech, and Phichol the chief captain of his host spoke unto Abraham, saying, God is with you in all that you do: Now therefore swear unto me here by God that you will not deal unfaithfully [falsely] with me, nor with my children,
3nor grand- children: but according to the kindness which I have done unto you, you shall also do unto me, and to the land wherein you art a stranger. And Abraham said, I will swear. And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away. And Abimelech answered, I know not who has done this thing: neither did you tell me, neither yet heard I of it, but to-day. And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech; and both of them made a covenant together. And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves. And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which you have set apart by themselves? And he answered, Seven lambs you shall take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well. Whereupon he called that place Beer-sheba; because they there sware both of them. And thus they made a covenant at Beer-sheba: then Abimelech rose up, and Phichol
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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