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MYSTICAL WORK THAT CIRCULATED AMONG ELITE MINDS OF EUROPE
BÖHME, Jakob. Het tweede boeck des auteurs, handelende vande Drie Principien van 't Goddelijcke Wesen.
[Amsterdam], [Nicolaes(?) van Ravesteyn], written in German 1619 (translator's foreword dated 20 August 1636).
INCLUDING: BÖHME, Jacob. Appendix, Grondelijcke ende Ware Beschryvinge van 't Drievoudig Leven inden Mensche: ...
[Amsterdam], [Nicolaes(?) van Ravesteyn], written in German 1619 (translator's note to reader dated 15 February 1637). 4to. First edition (translated into Dutch from German manuscripts by Abraham Willemsz van Beyerland) of the mystic Christian Böhme's second work. With the singleton leaf containing an engraved plate of Christ's resurrection, with a letterpress poem by Böhme on the reverse. Further with woodcut decorations, decorations built up from cast fleurons, and about 20 decorated woodcut initial letters (about 7 series) plus about 10 repeats. Lacking the engraved frontispiece. Contemporary vellum.
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Rare first edition (translated into Dutch from German manuscripts by Abraham Willemsz. van Beyerland) of the mystic Christian Jakob Böhme's Three Principles of Divine Essence, his second major work, written in 1619. No edition in German appeared until 1660, when it was published at Amsterdam as Beschreibung der drey göttliches Wesens. Van Beyerland had searched six years for a manuscript he could use for the translation, finally acquiring a copy made by Christiaan Bernhard. Van Beyerland added Böhme's poem Meditatie over de Opstandinge onser Heeren Jesu Christi, (on an inserted leaf with the engraved plate, but with a note that it is to face page 466), Böhme's own foreword and appendix, tenth pastoral letter (to Abraham von Sommerfeld) and some smaller items, as well as the 38-page index and Van Beyerland's own four-page foreword to the main work and one-page note to the reader of the appendix. Most of the book may have been printed and perhaps even published by 1636, but the translator's note to the appendix (which, with several other additions, occupies quires 3S-3Z) is dated 1637. Van Lamoen attributes the publication to Nicolaes van Ravesteyn, whose father Paulus used many of the types and woodcut initials.
Jacob Böhme (1575-1624), a German Christian mystic, philosopher and theologian, based his religious views on a mixture of ideas from the Bible, the Middle Ages, the kabala and the works of Valentin Weigel and Paracelsus. He published nothing himself, but a few months before his death his friends published (without his prior knowledge) his Der weg zu Christo (Görlitz, 1624). Several of his manuscripts circulated among his friends and followers, who published several in Amsterdam, where his unorthodox religious views were better tolerated. The present book was the first major work to appear in this way, bringing it (and in 1642 several others) to a much larger audience. They proved highly influential in their own day, circulating especially among the elite minds of Europe, and influenced important intellectual figures of later centuries, including Nietzsche and Hegel.
Van Beyerland (1586-1648) was a successful merchant in Amsterdam, and later produced account books. His social position helped him to spread Böhme's ideas. He translated a small book of Böhme's short works, published by Paulus van Ravesteyn in 1634 and 1635, and in 1637 came into possession of the manuscript collection of the brothers Karl and Michael Ender, enabling him to produce the major critical editions. He compared as many manuscripts as possible to ensure the reliability of the German texts. By 1643 he had translated nearly all of Böhme's known work.
Lacking the engraved frontispiece, somewhat browned, and with some mostly marginal water stains. With numerous owner's inscriptons (many dated) and a bookplate giving detailed information about the book's provenance from at least the eighteenth century to its acquisition by the Rochester Theological Seminary. The binding is somewhat soiled and the hinges cracked. Rare first edition of an important work by an influential Christian mystic.
