Böhme taught that every person lives three lives at once: an eternal life of fire, an eternal life of light, and the short outer life of the stars and elements. De Triplici Vita Hominis, the Threefold Life of Man, is his anatomy of the arrangement. It was written in 1620. The printed summary at its head tells you something about Böhme's state of mind. The book was set down, Böhme says, for our own remembrance and uprightness "in this confused, sorrowful time, in the year 1620." For some context, the Thirty Years' War was two years old and Görlitz stood directly in its destructive path.
The volume carries two engravings, and the second one unfolds. The plate numbered III., under a banner reading "Dreyfaches Leben," shows a great ring of eyes and cherub faces with the dove descending at its center, over the starry sphere of the world belted with the zodiac, the moon hanging below: the three lives in one image. And bound to face page 171, exactly where Böhme describes the Rad Naturae, the wheel of nature with Saturn at its height, stands the celebrated folding plate: Das Rad der Geburt der Bildniß Gottes im Menschen, the Wheel of the Birth of the Image of God in Man, a full circle graduated through all 360 degrees, ringed with stars and the signs of the zodiac, the divine name blazing in a triangle at the hub, FEUR and the heavenly tincture on the axis, the planets strung along the pole. It opens out to roughly triple the width of this small volume. Folding plates are vulnerable to tearing and loss. This one survived just where the text itself asks for it.
The text appears here in the celebrated edition of 1730, the Theosophia Revelata, a revised collected edition of Böhme's works, assembled from the editorial apparatus of Johann Georg Gichtel and carried through the press by his disciple Johann Wilhelm Ueberfeld: 344 pages in Fraktur with Gichtel's chapter-summaries, the short summary of the book and the chapter-index at the head, eighteen chapters, ending with "Halleluja, Amen," the terminal ENDE, and the printer's knot.
The binding is the original one: stiff paper boards covered in red-daubed paste-paper, brighter on this volume than on its shelf-mates, the spine titled in ink in an eighteenth-century hand, "Jac: Böhm de Triplici Vita," with an old paper shelf-label at the head. There are light worm tracks at the gutters and upper margins, leaving the text untouched. The copy is clean, without annotations.
Provenance: Early paper shelf-label at the spine-head, from an old library arrangement.
De Triplici Vita Hominis, oder Vom Dreyfachen Leben des Menschen. From the Theosophia Revelata, the collected edition of Böhme's works, 1730, with the emblematic plate and the large folding "Rad der Geburt." In original stiff paper boards, entirely unsophisticated.
BÖHME, Jacob (1575–1624). De Triplici Vita Hominis, oder Hohe und tiefe Gründung von dem Dreyfachen Leben des Menschen (written 1620). From the Theosophia Revelata, the collected edition, ed. Johann Georg Gichtel, seen through the press by Johann Wilhelm Ueberfeld. No place or printer: "Gedruckt im Jahr des ausgebornen grossen Heils," 1730.
Physical Description: Small 8vo. Engraved emblematic plate numbered III. ("Dreyfaches Leben") facing the special title, dated 1730; "Kurtzer Begriff dieses Buchs" and chapter-index; 344 pp., eighteen chapters, terminal ENDE with calligraphic knot ornament; final blank. Large folding engraved plate, "Das Rad der Geburt der Bildniß Gottes im Menschen, durch die drey Principia Göttliches Wesens," bound facing p. 171. Fraktur type, Gichtel's chapter-summaries throughout.
Binding: Original stiff paper boards covered in red-patterned paste-paper, spine with manuscript ink title "Jac: Böhm de Triplici Vita" and early paper shelf-label at head; an untouched, unsophisticated period state. Boards rubbed, spine ends worn.
Condition: Light worming to gutters and upper margins of some leaves, not touching the print; paper toned and foxed as usual with this stock. Clean of annotations; the folding plate complete and well-preserved. Final blank present.
Böhme taught that every person lives three lives at once: an eternal life of fire, an eternal life of light, and the short outer life of the stars and elements. De Triplici Vita Hominis, the Threefold Life of Man, is his anatomy of the arrangement. It was written in 1620. The printed summary at its head tells you something about Böhme's state of mind. The book was set down, Böhme says, for our own remembrance and uprightness "in this confused, sorrowful time, in the year 1620." For some context, the Thirty Years' War was two years old and Görlitz stood directly in its destructive path.
The volume carries two engravings, and the second one unfolds. The plate numbered III., under a banner reading "Dreyfaches Leben," shows a great ring of eyes and cherub faces with the dove descending at its center, over the starry sphere of the world belted with the zodiac, the moon hanging below: the three lives in one image. And bound to face page 171, exactly where Böhme describes the Rad Naturae, the wheel of nature with Saturn at its height, stands the celebrated folding plate: Das Rad der Geburt der Bildniß Gottes im Menschen, the Wheel of the Birth of the Image of God in Man, a full circle graduated through all 360 degrees, ringed with stars and the signs of the zodiac, the divine name blazing in a triangle at the hub, FEUR and the heavenly tincture on the axis, the planets strung along the pole. It opens out to roughly triple the width of this small volume. Folding plates are vulnerable to tearing and loss. This one survived just where the text itself asks for it.
The text appears here in the celebrated edition of 1730, the Theosophia Revelata, a revised collected edition of Böhme's works, assembled from the editorial apparatus of Johann Georg Gichtel and carried through the press by his disciple Johann Wilhelm Ueberfeld: 344 pages in Fraktur with Gichtel's chapter-summaries, the short summary of the book and the chapter-index at the head, eighteen chapters, ending with "Halleluja, Amen," the terminal ENDE, and the printer's knot.
The binding is the original one: stiff paper boards covered in red-daubed paste-paper, brighter on this volume than on its shelf-mates, the spine titled in ink in an eighteenth-century hand, "Jac: Böhm de Triplici Vita," with an old paper shelf-label at the head. There are light worm tracks at the gutters and upper margins, leaving the text untouched. The copy is clean, without annotations.
Provenance: Early paper shelf-label at the spine-head, from an old library arrangement.
De Triplici Vita Hominis, oder Vom Dreyfachen Leben des Menschen. From the Theosophia Revelata, the collected edition of Böhme's works, 1730, with the emblematic plate and the large folding "Rad der Geburt." In original stiff paper boards, entirely unsophisticated.
BÖHME, Jacob (1575–1624). De Triplici Vita Hominis, oder Hohe und tiefe Gründung von dem Dreyfachen Leben des Menschen (written 1620). From the Theosophia Revelata, the collected edition, ed. Johann Georg Gichtel, seen through the press by Johann Wilhelm Ueberfeld. No place or printer: "Gedruckt im Jahr des ausgebornen grossen Heils," 1730.
Physical Description: Small 8vo. Engraved emblematic plate numbered III. ("Dreyfaches Leben") facing the special title, dated 1730; "Kurtzer Begriff dieses Buchs" and chapter-index; 344 pp., eighteen chapters, terminal ENDE with calligraphic knot ornament; final blank. Large folding engraved plate, "Das Rad der Geburt der Bildniß Gottes im Menschen, durch die drey Principia Göttliches Wesens," bound facing p. 171. Fraktur type, Gichtel's chapter-summaries throughout.
Binding: Original stiff paper boards covered in red-patterned paste-paper, spine with manuscript ink title "Jac: Böhm de Triplici Vita" and early paper shelf-label at head; an untouched, unsophisticated period state. Boards rubbed, spine ends worn.
Condition: Light worming to gutters and upper margins of some leaves, not touching the print; paper toned and foxed as usual with this stock. Clean of annotations; the folding plate complete and well-preserved. Final blank present.
