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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.
158. How can you well suppose that you can change yourselves into another form? Indeed you suffer the devil thus to play the ape with you, and cheat you; and all this while you are but blind in your own skill. Though you have learned your art never so well, yet you do not know the purpose it driveth at; for the pith and heart therein is the changing or altering of the qualifying or fountain spirits, as Lucifer did, when he would needs be God. Now thou askest, How can that be? Answer. 59. Behold, when the corporeal, qualifying or fountain spirits set their will into sorcery or witchcraft, then the animated or soulish spirit, which they generate, and which in the astral elementary quality ruleth in the hidden and deepest centre, is clearly already a sorcerer or witch, and hath changed, transformed or metamorphosed itself into sorcery or witchcraft. 60. But the bestial body cannot follow so suddenly and nimbly, but must be charmed to it by characters and conjurations, and by some instruments for that purpose, whereby the animated or soulish spirit maketh the bestial body invisible, and changeth it into such a form as the will of the qualifying or fountain spirits was in, at the beginning of its purpose to a metamorphosis or transmutation. 61. The bestial flesh cannot well change itself, or put itself into another birth or geniture, but is brought into a slender and inferior base form, as of a beast, of wood, or such like thing which hath its body qualifying or boiling in the elements, as in their fountain. 62. But the astral spirits can well clothe themselves in another form or shape, but that
2continueth so long only as the birth or geniture of nature above their pole or zenith permitteth them. 63. For when it changeth itself with its wheeling and penetrating, so that another qualifying or fountain spirit becomes chief or predominant, then their art lieth down upon the ground, and their Deity in the first qualifying or fountain spirit, in which they had begun their art, hath an end. 64. Now if it be to last any longer, then it must be made again afresh according to the qualifying or fountain spirit then ruling at that present, or the devil with his animated or soulish spirit must be in the astral spirits of the body, which instantly and suddenly changeth it, or else his art is here also at an end. 65. For nature will not suffer itself to be juggled with at all times and hours, as the spirits would have it, but all must be done according to that spirit which then at that present time is lord and chief or predominant. 66. It is not that spirit of God which is lord and chief in nature, which causeth or maketh the juggling, but it is made in the fierceness of the Salitter, which lord Lucifer hath kindled with his elevation, and which is his eternal kingdom. 67. But when the power or might of that spirit is allayed, then the kindled fire can be no more useful to the juggler. 68. For the wrathfire in nature is not, during this time of the world, the devil's own house of his power; for the love standeth hidden in the centre of the wrathfire, and Lucifer, together with his angels, lieth imprisoned in the outward
3wrathfire, even until the Judgment of God: Then he will have the wrathfire separated from the love, for an eternal bath or lake, and he will wash his juggler's head and face withal, doubtless. 69. This I set thee down here for a warning, that thou mayest know what manner of ground sorcery or witchcraft hath, not in such a way as if I would write any heathenish sorcery or witchcraft, neither have I learned any; but the animated or soulish spirit beholdeth their juggling, which in the body I do not understand. 70. But seeing it runneth counter, quite contrary to the love and meekness of the birth or geniture of God, and is a contrary or opposite will in the love of God, so that he is loath to hurt man, unless pressing necessity driveth him to it, therefore will the spirit have the wrathbath or lake of nature set apart to be an eternal parching or drying place for jugglers, perverters or changers of God's ordinance or order: And therein they may practise and shew forth their new deity. Of the kindling of the WrathFire. 71. Now when king Lucifer, together with all his angels, kindled himself, then the wrathfire rose up instantly in the body, and the gracious amiable and blessed light was extinguished in the animated or soulish spirit, and became a fierce, furious, devilish spirit, all according to the kindling and will of the qualifying or fountain spirits. 72. Now this animated or soulish spirit was bound or united with the Deity, in nature, and could qualify, mix or operate in and with the same, as if it were one and the same thing; and that now darted forth out of the bodies of the
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.
158. How can you well suppose that you can change yourselves into another form? Indeed you suffer the devil thus to play the ape with you, and cheat you; and all this while you are but blind in your own skill. Though you have learned your art never so well, yet you do not know the purpose it driveth at; for the pith and heart therein is the changing or altering of the qualifying or fountain spirits, as Lucifer did, when he would needs be God. Now thou askest, How can that be? Answer. 59. Behold, when the corporeal, qualifying or fountain spirits set their will into sorcery or witchcraft, then the animated or soulish spirit, which they generate, and which in the astral elementary quality ruleth in the hidden and deepest centre, is clearly already a sorcerer or witch, and hath changed, transformed or metamorphosed itself into sorcery or witchcraft. 60. But the bestial body cannot follow so suddenly and nimbly, but must be charmed to it by characters and conjurations, and by some instruments for that purpose, whereby the animated or soulish spirit maketh the bestial body invisible, and changeth it into such a form as the will of the qualifying or fountain spirits was in, at the beginning of its purpose to a metamorphosis or transmutation. 61. The bestial flesh cannot well change itself, or put itself into another birth or geniture, but is brought into a slender and inferior base form, as of a beast, of wood, or such like thing which hath its body qualifying or boiling in the elements, as in their fountain. 62. But the astral spirits can well clothe themselves in another form or shape, but that
2continueth so long only as the birth or geniture of nature above their pole or zenith permitteth them. 63. For when it changeth itself with its wheeling and penetrating, so that another qualifying or fountain spirit becomes chief or predominant, then their art lieth down upon the ground, and their Deity in the first qualifying or fountain spirit, in which they had begun their art, hath an end. 64. Now if it be to last any longer, then it must be made again afresh according to the qualifying or fountain spirit then ruling at that present, or the devil with his animated or soulish spirit must be in the astral spirits of the body, which instantly and suddenly changeth it, or else his art is here also at an end. 65. For nature will not suffer itself to be juggled with at all times and hours, as the spirits would have it, but all must be done according to that spirit which then at that present time is lord and chief or predominant. 66. It is not that spirit of God which is lord and chief in nature, which causeth or maketh the juggling, but it is made in the fierceness of the Salitter, which lord Lucifer hath kindled with his elevation, and which is his eternal kingdom. 67. But when the power or might of that spirit is allayed, then the kindled fire can be no more useful to the juggler. 68. For the wrathfire in nature is not, during this time of the world, the devil's own house of his power; for the love standeth hidden in the centre of the wrathfire, and Lucifer, together with his angels, lieth imprisoned in the outward
3wrathfire, even until the Judgment of God: Then he will have the wrathfire separated from the love, for an eternal bath or lake, and he will wash his juggler's head and face withal, doubtless. 69. This I set thee down here for a warning, that thou mayest know what manner of ground sorcery or witchcraft hath, not in such a way as if I would write any heathenish sorcery or witchcraft, neither have I learned any; but the animated or soulish spirit beholdeth their juggling, which in the body I do not understand. 70. But seeing it runneth counter, quite contrary to the love and meekness of the birth or geniture of God, and is a contrary or opposite will in the love of God, so that he is loath to hurt man, unless pressing necessity driveth him to it, therefore will the spirit have the wrathbath or lake of nature set apart to be an eternal parching or drying place for jugglers, perverters or changers of God's ordinance or order: And therein they may practise and shew forth their new deity. Of the kindling of the WrathFire. 71. Now when king Lucifer, together with all his angels, kindled himself, then the wrathfire rose up instantly in the body, and the gracious amiable and blessed light was extinguished in the animated or soulish spirit, and became a fierce, furious, devilish spirit, all according to the kindling and will of the qualifying or fountain spirits. 72. Now this animated or soulish spirit was bound or united with the Deity, in nature, and could qualify, mix or operate in and with the same, as if it were one and the same thing; and that now darted forth out of the bodies of the
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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