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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.
1the chief captain of his host; and they returned into the land of the Philistines. And Abraham planted trees in Beer-sheba, and preached there of the name of the Lord, the eternal God; and was for a long time a stranger in the land of the Philistines (Gen. xxi. 22 et seq.). This figure seems outwardly, as if Abimelech was afraid of Abraham; seeing God had given him to understand in a vision, that Abraham was a prince of God; thereupon he desired a covenant and oath from Abraham, lest he should root out him and his posterity. 3. But the spirit of Christ under the veil of Moses has ciphered out before him far another figure, wherewith he alludes and prophesies; for under all the acts of Abraham which the spirit of Moses has written down, we are to understand a twofold figure, viz. externally a history relating something done; and under that same history, the spirit of Christ in the Covenant does so aptly and exactly set its figure, as if he played therewith. 4. For the place here mentioned is even the same whither Hagar fled with Ishmael; it is even the same Beer-sheba, and the same fountain of water signified, which the angel showed Hagar; which Abraham, that is, Christ, digged; where afterwards Christendom preached of [Or, called on] the name of the Lord, the eternal God, in Christ, by this well of water in Beer-sheba.
25. And the covenant between Abimelech and Abraham, is the Covenant of Christ with the humanity, where Abraham, that is, Christ, sware that he would not destroy the humanity; as he also said when he came into the flesh; that he was not come into this world to condemn the world, but to save the world (John iii. 17), that is, to bless and keep Covenant. The inward holy figure stands thus: 6. Abimelech and Phichol, who spoke with Abraham concerning the covenant, the spirit does here represent in the type of God the Father, and then also of nature. King Abimelech points at the Father in the soul's property, and Phichol, his field-captain, points at nature, viz. God's officer. Both these approach to the type of Christ, viz. to Abraham. For mankind was given to this Christ: he should be a Prince of God in and over the humanity. 7. Now nature had brought itself out of the Father's property into false lust, (understand in the human nature), for it desired to manifest Sarah, viz. the free woman, (understand the heavenly virgin-like matrix), in the earthly bestial property, which came to pass in Adam when he brought his female property into a bestial lust. Now the spirit here in Moses does hint at this figure, and represents, under King Abimelech, Adam in the Father's property and nature. 8. As Adam lusted to manifest himself with his female property,
3viz. with the mother of the holy birth in the earthly bestial mother, or to prove, try and taste in the tincture of Venus the root or the ground of the third Principle; so here, King Abimelech in the same nature (understand the masculine out of the Father's property) did lust after the mother of the Covenant which was now moved in Sarah, to know the same. Which the holy God would not have, and therefore came unto Abimelech, and terrified this nature of lust, and threatened punishment and destruction to it. 9. Now understand in King Abimelech the soul out of the Father's property; and by Phichol understand the outward nature, viz. the third Principle, which is the field-captain or servant of the king, viz. of the soul; and by Abraham understand Christ in the humanity, or in the ens of the faith of the Covenant, as the spirit signifies and sets forth pregnantly by way of allusion in this figure. 10. God the Father brings the poor soul, viz. the king of the human property, unto Christ, after that it had given itself to lust with its servant, viz. the body of nature; and now the soul speaks to Abraham in the figure of Christ, Wherefore did you not tell me that God was in Sarah, viz. in this image? wherefore did you not say unto me that she was your wife? understand, Christ's wife, which is called the woman's seed in this mother, for I had almost heinously offended towards her.
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.
1the chief captain of his host; and they returned into the land of the Philistines. And Abraham planted trees in Beer-sheba, and preached there of the name of the Lord, the eternal God; and was for a long time a stranger in the land of the Philistines (Gen. xxi. 22 et seq.). This figure seems outwardly, as if Abimelech was afraid of Abraham; seeing God had given him to understand in a vision, that Abraham was a prince of God; thereupon he desired a covenant and oath from Abraham, lest he should root out him and his posterity. 3. But the spirit of Christ under the veil of Moses has ciphered out before him far another figure, wherewith he alludes and prophesies; for under all the acts of Abraham which the spirit of Moses has written down, we are to understand a twofold figure, viz. externally a history relating something done; and under that same history, the spirit of Christ in the Covenant does so aptly and exactly set its figure, as if he played therewith. 4. For the place here mentioned is even the same whither Hagar fled with Ishmael; it is even the same Beer-sheba, and the same fountain of water signified, which the angel showed Hagar; which Abraham, that is, Christ, digged; where afterwards Christendom preached of [Or, called on] the name of the Lord, the eternal God, in Christ, by this well of water in Beer-sheba.
25. And the covenant between Abimelech and Abraham, is the Covenant of Christ with the humanity, where Abraham, that is, Christ, sware that he would not destroy the humanity; as he also said when he came into the flesh; that he was not come into this world to condemn the world, but to save the world (John iii. 17), that is, to bless and keep Covenant. The inward holy figure stands thus: 6. Abimelech and Phichol, who spoke with Abraham concerning the covenant, the spirit does here represent in the type of God the Father, and then also of nature. King Abimelech points at the Father in the soul's property, and Phichol, his field-captain, points at nature, viz. God's officer. Both these approach to the type of Christ, viz. to Abraham. For mankind was given to this Christ: he should be a Prince of God in and over the humanity. 7. Now nature had brought itself out of the Father's property into false lust, (understand in the human nature), for it desired to manifest Sarah, viz. the free woman, (understand the heavenly virgin-like matrix), in the earthly bestial property, which came to pass in Adam when he brought his female property into a bestial lust. Now the spirit here in Moses does hint at this figure, and represents, under King Abimelech, Adam in the Father's property and nature. 8. As Adam lusted to manifest himself with his female property,
3viz. with the mother of the holy birth in the earthly bestial mother, or to prove, try and taste in the tincture of Venus the root or the ground of the third Principle; so here, King Abimelech in the same nature (understand the masculine out of the Father's property) did lust after the mother of the Covenant which was now moved in Sarah, to know the same. Which the holy God would not have, and therefore came unto Abimelech, and terrified this nature of lust, and threatened punishment and destruction to it. 9. Now understand in King Abimelech the soul out of the Father's property; and by Phichol understand the outward nature, viz. the third Principle, which is the field-captain or servant of the king, viz. of the soul; and by Abraham understand Christ in the humanity, or in the ens of the faith of the Covenant, as the spirit signifies and sets forth pregnantly by way of allusion in this figure. 10. God the Father brings the poor soul, viz. the king of the human property, unto Christ, after that it had given itself to lust with its servant, viz. the body of nature; and now the soul speaks to Abraham in the figure of Christ, Wherefore did you not tell me that God was in Sarah, viz. in this image? wherefore did you not say unto me that she was your wife? understand, Christ's wife, which is called the woman's seed in this mother, for I had almost heinously offended towards her.
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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