John Sparrow (1615 – December 1670) was an English translator, best known for his translations of the work of

Jakob Böhme Jakob Böhme (; ; 24 April 1575 – 17 November 1624) was a German philosopher, Christian mystic, and Lutheran Protestant theologian. He was considered an original thinker by many of his contemporaries within the Lutheran tradition, and his first ...

. Sparrow attended

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

, and entered the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wal ...

in 1633. There is an engraved portrait of John Sparrow in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

and in the

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...

, made in 1659 by

David Loggan David Loggan (1634–1692) was an English baroque engraver, draughtsman, and painter. Life He was baptised on 27 August 1634 in Danzig, then a semi-autonomous city (granted by the Danzig law) within Polish Prussia (''Prusy Królewskie'') a ...

(1634-1692)

Sparrow's Translations of the Works of Jakob Böhme

Between 1645 and 1662 John Sparrow and his cousin John Ellistone translated all the works of the German mystic

(1575-1624) into English. They were printed by Humphrey Blunden, Bookselling, bookseller in London active between 1635 and 1652, and a few others. The bookseller

Giles Calvert Giles Calvert (baptised 1612 – 1663) was a prominent printer during the English Revolution The English Revolution is a term that describes two separate events in English history. Prior to the 20th century, it was generally applied to the 1688 ...

was also involved in the publication of Böhme's works. For the translation Sparrow used manuscripts from Abraham Willemszoon van Beyerland, sent from Holland. The image of Böhme’s cosmogony or the “Wonder-Eye of Eternity” of 1620 is found on the engraved portrait of John Sparrow, made by David Loggan in 1659. The concept of the “Wonder-Eye of Eternity” is explained in Sparrow’s translation of the ''XL Questions concerning the Soule'' (1647). The following text from 1716, a much later date, describes the first English translators of Böhme as learned and pious men who understood the "spirit of the author", (except perhaps for the more obscure passages):

''The person that translated these writings was John Sparrow, barrister of the Inner Temple; Mr. Ellistone and Mr. Hotham also have translated one or the other treatise into English, though Sparrow is generally considered the real translator and editor: he was a man of true piety and seems to have penetrated very deeply into the spirit of the author. His translation is considered faithful and correct in most points, except in some of the most obscure passages, which probably he did not apprehend. …. As regards the period, they were all translated towards the end of the reign of
Charles I Charles I may refer to: Kings and emperors * Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings * Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily * Charles I of ...
, and printed … during the Civil War except the last volume, which was not printed till the Restoration of Charles II in 1661 and 1662. Some have alleged that King Charles I read and highly esteemed the writings of Boehme (it had been said that he supplied the funds for their publication, and that therefore they are printed so royally)''.

Translations by Sparrow, Ellistone, Blunden and Hotham

The English translations appeared between 1645 and 1662, almost at the same time as the German editions, sometimes even preceding them. Most of the seventeenth-century German editions of the works of Böhme were published in Amsterdam between 1656 and 1678 by Hendrick Beets, who was German.W. Heijting, "Hendrick Beets (1625-1708), “Publisher to the German Adherents of Jacob Böhme in Amsterdam", in Quaerendo 3 (1973), pp. 250-280. In 1682 appeared the German

Johann Georg Gichtel Johann Georg Gichtel (March 14, 1638 – January 21, 1710) was a German mystic and religious leader who was a critic of Lutheranism. His followers ultimately separated from this faith. Biography Gichtel was born at Regensburg, where his father wa ...

edition in two volumes, printed in Amsterdam. The English translations by John Sparrow, John Ellistone, Humphrey Blunden (printer and bookseller who was active between 1641 and 1667) and

Charles Hotham Sir Charles Hotham, KCB, RN (14 January 180631 December 1855)B. A. Knox,Hotham, Sir Charles (1806–1855), '' Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 4, MUP, 1972, pp 429-430. was Lieutenant-Governor and, later, Governor of Victoria, ...

followed the original German texts remarkably closely and they were later used for the

William Law William Law (16869 April 1761) was a Church of England priest who lost his position at Emmanuel College, Cambridge when his conscience would not allow him to take the required oath of allegiance to the first Hanoverian monarch, King George I. P ...

edition published between 1764-1781. Published in 1645 1. Two theosophical Epistles; Dialogue between an Enlightened and a Distressed Soul nonymous 2. The Tree of Christian Faith nonymous Published in 1647 3. XL Questions concerning the Soule parrow 4. The Clavis or Key … parrow Published in 1648 5. Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence parrow 6. The Threefold Life of Man parrow 7. The Way to Christ discovered

lunden Lunden is a municipality in the district of Dithmarschen, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is situated on the Eider river, about 16 km north of Heide. It is part of the '' Amt Kirchspielslandgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") of Eider. ...

Published in 1649 8. The Fourth and Fifth Epistles parrow 9. The Epistles of Jacob Behmen llistone 10. Mercurius Teutonicus; or Christian Information concerning the last Times … gathered out of the mystical writings of Jacob Behmen nonymous Published in 1650 11. The High Deep Searching out of the Threefold Life of Man parrow Published in 1651 12. Signatura Rerum llistone Published in 1652 13. Of Christ’s Testaments, viz.: Baptism and the Supper parrow Published in 1653 14. A consideration upon the Book of Esaias Stiefel nonymous Published in 1654 15. Mysterium Magnum llistone and Sparrow 16. The Tree of Christian Faith nonymous 17. Four Tables of Divine Revelation

18. A consolatory Treatise of the Four Complexions harles Hotham Published in 1655 19. Table of the Divine Manifestation nonymous 20. Concerning the Election of Grace parrow Published in 1656 21. Aurora parrow Published in 1659 22. The Fifth Book of the Author, on Incarnation parrow Published in 1661 23. Several Treatises parrow 24. Christian Information: prophetical passages out of Jacob Behmen’s Works nonymous Published in 1662 25. The Remaining of Books parrow

Notes

References

*Buddecke, Werner, ''Die Jakob Böhme-Ausgaben'', Vol. 2, Göttingen, 1957. *Gibbons, Brian J., ''Gender in Mystical and Occult Thought: Behmenism and its Development in England'', 1996. *"Giles Calvert's Publishing Career", in ''The Journal of the Friends' Historical Society'', nr. 35, 1938. *Hutin, Serge, ''Les disciples anglais de Jacob Boehme, au XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles'', Éditions Denoël, Paris, 1960. *Joling-van der Sar, Gerda J., ''The Spiritual Side of Samuel Richardson, Mysticism, Behmenism and Millenarianism in an Eighteenth-Century English Novelist'', 200

*Lamoen, Frank van, "Spreading the word. The Earliest Editions of Jacob Bohme", a translation of the preface to ''Abraham Willemsz van Beyerland, Jacob Bohme en het Nederlandse hermetisme in de 17e eeuw, Amsterdam, In de Pelikaan, 198

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sparrow, John 1615 births 1670 deaths