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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.
1strive and fight against him, which he did; and so this striving made this kingdom so dark, waste and evil, that another creation must needs afterwards follow upon it. 98. Ye philosophers and jurists or lawyers of prince Lucifer, here you must first defend the astringent or harsh quality in Lucifer, and answer whether it hath dealt righteously or no, and prove it in nature. I do not accept of your extorted, wrested, bowed, stretched, and farfetched texts of Scripture, brought in by head and shoulders for a proof, but I will have living testimonies. 99. And I will also set before you living testimonies, viz. the created and comprehensible heaven, the stars, the elements, the creatures, the earth, stones, men, and lastly your dark, cold, hot, hard, rough, smoky, wicked prince Lucifer himself; all these are come into this present condition through his elevation. 100. Here bring in your defence, and answer for your spirit; if not, it will be condemned. For this is God's jus, right or law, which law hath no beginning, and is, that the child which is generated of the mother should be humble before the mother, and be obedient to her; for it hath its life and body from the mother who hath generated it. 101. Also the house of the mother, as long as the mother liveth, is not the child's proper own; but the mother keeps the child with her in love, she nourisheth it, and putteth on it the best and finest attire which she hath, and giveth the same to it for its own, that her joy may be increased by the child, and that she may have joy in it.
2102. But when the child rebelleth and resisteth against the mother, and takes away all from the mother, and domineers over her, and moreover striketh at her, and forceth her to change into a low condition, contrary to right and equity, then it is but just that the child should be expelled, out of the house, and left to sit behind the hedge * and quite lose its child's portion and inheritance. * " left to sit"—a literal translation of a form which means, " to be put away," " to be kept out." 103. Thus it was between God and his child Lucifer. The Father put on him the fairest attire, hoping to have joy in him: But when the child got the robe and ornament, he despised the Father, and would domineer over the Father, and would ruin his Father's house; and besides, struck at the Father, and would not be advised or taught to do otherwise. Of the Second Species, Form, Sort or Spirit of Sin's Beginning in Lucifer. 104. The second spirit is the water: As the astringent or harsh quality is the father of the other six spirits, which attracteth or draweth them together, and so holds them, so the sweet water is the mother in which all spirits are conceived, kept and generated, that softeneth and saturateth them, wherein and whereby they get their life, and then the light and joyfulness riseth up therein. 105. Thus king Lucifer in the same manner did get the sweet water for his corporeal government, and indeed the very kernel and best thereof. For God put on to his little son the best ornament, robe and attire of all, hoping to have great joy in him.
3Question. Now what did this astringent or harsh quality with its mother, the sweet water? Answer. 106. It flattered with the bitter quality, and with the heat, and persuaded them that they should elevate themselves and be kindled, and so together they would destroy their mother, and turn her into a sour form or property, whereby they would domineer with their spirit very sharply over the whole Deity: All must bow down and incline to them; and they would form, frame, figure and image all with their sharpness. 107. According to this false or wicked conclusion and result they agreed to do one and the same thing, and so dried up the sweet water in Lucifer's body; the heat kindled it, and the astringent dried it, and then it became very sour and sharp. 108. When in this qualifying or acting they had generated the spirit of Lucifer, then the life of the spirit, which riseth up in the water, as also the light, became very sour and sharp. 109. Now this sour spirit also stormed with all its powers against the sweet water, which was without, distinct from the body, in God's Salitter, and thought itself must needs be the prime and chief, and should in its own power form, frame and image everything. 110. This was the second enmity against God, from whence is existed the sour quality in this world, for it was not so from eternity; as you have an example thereof in this, viz. if you set any sweet thing in the warmth, and let it stand therein, it groweth sour of itself; as also water, beer or
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.
1strive and fight against him, which he did; and so this striving made this kingdom so dark, waste and evil, that another creation must needs afterwards follow upon it. 98. Ye philosophers and jurists or lawyers of prince Lucifer, here you must first defend the astringent or harsh quality in Lucifer, and answer whether it hath dealt righteously or no, and prove it in nature. I do not accept of your extorted, wrested, bowed, stretched, and farfetched texts of Scripture, brought in by head and shoulders for a proof, but I will have living testimonies. 99. And I will also set before you living testimonies, viz. the created and comprehensible heaven, the stars, the elements, the creatures, the earth, stones, men, and lastly your dark, cold, hot, hard, rough, smoky, wicked prince Lucifer himself; all these are come into this present condition through his elevation. 100. Here bring in your defence, and answer for your spirit; if not, it will be condemned. For this is God's jus, right or law, which law hath no beginning, and is, that the child which is generated of the mother should be humble before the mother, and be obedient to her; for it hath its life and body from the mother who hath generated it. 101. Also the house of the mother, as long as the mother liveth, is not the child's proper own; but the mother keeps the child with her in love, she nourisheth it, and putteth on it the best and finest attire which she hath, and giveth the same to it for its own, that her joy may be increased by the child, and that she may have joy in it.
2102. But when the child rebelleth and resisteth against the mother, and takes away all from the mother, and domineers over her, and moreover striketh at her, and forceth her to change into a low condition, contrary to right and equity, then it is but just that the child should be expelled, out of the house, and left to sit behind the hedge * and quite lose its child's portion and inheritance. * " left to sit"—a literal translation of a form which means, " to be put away," " to be kept out." 103. Thus it was between God and his child Lucifer. The Father put on him the fairest attire, hoping to have joy in him: But when the child got the robe and ornament, he despised the Father, and would domineer over the Father, and would ruin his Father's house; and besides, struck at the Father, and would not be advised or taught to do otherwise. Of the Second Species, Form, Sort or Spirit of Sin's Beginning in Lucifer. 104. The second spirit is the water: As the astringent or harsh quality is the father of the other six spirits, which attracteth or draweth them together, and so holds them, so the sweet water is the mother in which all spirits are conceived, kept and generated, that softeneth and saturateth them, wherein and whereby they get their life, and then the light and joyfulness riseth up therein. 105. Thus king Lucifer in the same manner did get the sweet water for his corporeal government, and indeed the very kernel and best thereof. For God put on to his little son the best ornament, robe and attire of all, hoping to have great joy in him.
3Question. Now what did this astringent or harsh quality with its mother, the sweet water? Answer. 106. It flattered with the bitter quality, and with the heat, and persuaded them that they should elevate themselves and be kindled, and so together they would destroy their mother, and turn her into a sour form or property, whereby they would domineer with their spirit very sharply over the whole Deity: All must bow down and incline to them; and they would form, frame, figure and image all with their sharpness. 107. According to this false or wicked conclusion and result they agreed to do one and the same thing, and so dried up the sweet water in Lucifer's body; the heat kindled it, and the astringent dried it, and then it became very sour and sharp. 108. When in this qualifying or acting they had generated the spirit of Lucifer, then the life of the spirit, which riseth up in the water, as also the light, became very sour and sharp. 109. Now this sour spirit also stormed with all its powers against the sweet water, which was without, distinct from the body, in God's Salitter, and thought itself must needs be the prime and chief, and should in its own power form, frame and image everything. 110. This was the second enmity against God, from whence is existed the sour quality in this world, for it was not so from eternity; as you have an example thereof in this, viz. if you set any sweet thing in the warmth, and let it stand therein, it groweth sour of itself; as also water, beer or
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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