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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.
1imageth all whatsoever was decreed in the centre of the heart, in the council of the seven spirits of God the Father. 87. In such a gentle way and manner should king Lucifer also have generated, qualified or operated; and according to the right of the Deity, with his animated or soulish spirit in the Salitter, or in the nature of God, he should have helped to image or frame things, as a dear son in nature. 88. Just as a son in the house helps his father to drive or manage his work, according to his father's way and profession, kind and art; so, in the great house of God the Father, according to the manner and way of God, should Lucifer also, with his angels, have helped with his animated or soulish spirit to image all the forms, ideas and vegetations in the Salitter of God. 89. For the whole Salitter should be a house of pleasure and delight for angelical bodies, and all should rise up according to the delight of their spirit, and they should so image themselves that they would never at all have any displeasure in any figure, shape or creature, but their animated or soulish spirit should be cooperative in every imaging; and then the Salitter would have been the creature's proper own. [" The imaging out of the heavenly essences is " performed magically, all according to the will " and ability or potentiality of nature and the " creatures."] 90. If they had but continued in their meek birth or geniture, according to the divine right, then all had been their own, and their will would have been always fulfilled eternally, and nothing had been among them and in them but merely the joy of love; to speak after an earthly manner,
2as it were an eternal laughing, and a perpetual rejoicing in an eternal hearty delight. For God and the creatures had been one heart and one will. [" The image out of or proceeding from the " soul's fire, and the love or the divine centre, " are in one essence."] 91. But when Lucifer exalted himself, and kindled his qualifying or fountain spirits, then the animated or soulish spirit went forth in the tone out of or from all the bodies of Lucifer's angels into the Salitter of God, as a fiery serpent or dragon, and imaged and framed all manner of fiery and poisonous forms and images, like to wild, cruel and evil beasts. 92. And from hence the wild, fierce and evil beasts in this world have their original. For the host or army of Lucifer had kindled the Salitter of the stars and of the earth, and half killed, spoiled and destroyed it. 93. But when God, after the fall of Lucifer, made or prepared the creation of this world, then all was created out of the same Salitter wherein Lucifer had his seat: So afterwards the creatures also in this world must needs be created out of that same Salitter, which then formed themselves according to the condition or kind of the kindled qualities, evil and good. 94. That beast, which had most of the fire or the bitter or the astringent quality in the Mercurius, became also a bitter, hot and fierce beast, all according as the quality was predominant or chief in the beast. 95. This I set down here only for a manuduction; you will find it demonstrated more at large concerning the creation of this world.
396. Now, whether this fiery tone or dragonspirit in Lucifer and in his angels be right, and whether God hath thus created him, let the advocates of Lucifer, who make God to be as a devil, justify it here by their answer, and prove it in nature, if they can, whether God be such a God as willeth the evil, and hath created the evil. 97. If not, then shall this spirit also be condemned to the eternal prison; and they should give over their lying and blaspheming of God; or else they are worse than the wild Heathen or Pagans, who know nothing of God, who notwithstanding live in God, and shall sooner possess the kingdom of heaven than many of these blasphemers of God shall, which I shall also demonstrate in its proper place. THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER Of the Seventh Species, Kind, Form, or Manner of Sin's Beginning in Lucifer and his Angels. 1. HERE thou shouldst open thy eyes wide, for thou wilt see the hidden secret things which have been kept hidden from all men since the world began. For thou wilt see the murderous den of the devil, and the horrible sin, enmity and perdition. 2. The devil hath taught man sorcery or witchcraft, thereby to strengthen and fortify his kingdom. But if he had revealed to man the right, true, fundamental ground, which lurked behind or under sorcery, many would have let it alone altogether, and not have meddled with it at all.
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.
1imageth all whatsoever was decreed in the centre of the heart, in the council of the seven spirits of God the Father. 87. In such a gentle way and manner should king Lucifer also have generated, qualified or operated; and according to the right of the Deity, with his animated or soulish spirit in the Salitter, or in the nature of God, he should have helped to image or frame things, as a dear son in nature. 88. Just as a son in the house helps his father to drive or manage his work, according to his father's way and profession, kind and art; so, in the great house of God the Father, according to the manner and way of God, should Lucifer also, with his angels, have helped with his animated or soulish spirit to image all the forms, ideas and vegetations in the Salitter of God. 89. For the whole Salitter should be a house of pleasure and delight for angelical bodies, and all should rise up according to the delight of their spirit, and they should so image themselves that they would never at all have any displeasure in any figure, shape or creature, but their animated or soulish spirit should be cooperative in every imaging; and then the Salitter would have been the creature's proper own. [" The imaging out of the heavenly essences is " performed magically, all according to the will " and ability or potentiality of nature and the " creatures."] 90. If they had but continued in their meek birth or geniture, according to the divine right, then all had been their own, and their will would have been always fulfilled eternally, and nothing had been among them and in them but merely the joy of love; to speak after an earthly manner,
2as it were an eternal laughing, and a perpetual rejoicing in an eternal hearty delight. For God and the creatures had been one heart and one will. [" The image out of or proceeding from the " soul's fire, and the love or the divine centre, " are in one essence."] 91. But when Lucifer exalted himself, and kindled his qualifying or fountain spirits, then the animated or soulish spirit went forth in the tone out of or from all the bodies of Lucifer's angels into the Salitter of God, as a fiery serpent or dragon, and imaged and framed all manner of fiery and poisonous forms and images, like to wild, cruel and evil beasts. 92. And from hence the wild, fierce and evil beasts in this world have their original. For the host or army of Lucifer had kindled the Salitter of the stars and of the earth, and half killed, spoiled and destroyed it. 93. But when God, after the fall of Lucifer, made or prepared the creation of this world, then all was created out of the same Salitter wherein Lucifer had his seat: So afterwards the creatures also in this world must needs be created out of that same Salitter, which then formed themselves according to the condition or kind of the kindled qualities, evil and good. 94. That beast, which had most of the fire or the bitter or the astringent quality in the Mercurius, became also a bitter, hot and fierce beast, all according as the quality was predominant or chief in the beast. 95. This I set down here only for a manuduction; you will find it demonstrated more at large concerning the creation of this world.
396. Now, whether this fiery tone or dragonspirit in Lucifer and in his angels be right, and whether God hath thus created him, let the advocates of Lucifer, who make God to be as a devil, justify it here by their answer, and prove it in nature, if they can, whether God be such a God as willeth the evil, and hath created the evil. 97. If not, then shall this spirit also be condemned to the eternal prison; and they should give over their lying and blaspheming of God; or else they are worse than the wild Heathen or Pagans, who know nothing of God, who notwithstanding live in God, and shall sooner possess the kingdom of heaven than many of these blasphemers of God shall, which I shall also demonstrate in its proper place. THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER Of the Seventh Species, Kind, Form, or Manner of Sin's Beginning in Lucifer and his Angels. 1. HERE thou shouldst open thy eyes wide, for thou wilt see the hidden secret things which have been kept hidden from all men since the world began. For thou wilt see the murderous den of the devil, and the horrible sin, enmity and perdition. 2. The devil hath taught man sorcery or witchcraft, thereby to strengthen and fortify his kingdom. But if he had revealed to man the right, true, fundamental ground, which lurked behind or under sorcery, many would have let it alone altogether, and not have meddled with it at all.
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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