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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.
1especially that man who liveth in a continual desire of pride, covetousness, envy and wrath, and will at no time fight and strive against them with the spirit and fire of love; such a one himself attracteth the wrath of God, and the burning hellish fire, upon his body and soul. 130. But that the tongue doth crouch so much towards the nether gums when the word goeth forth, signifieth and denoteth the animated or soulish spirit of the creatures, especially of man. 131. The word which conceiveth itself at the upper gums, and which qualifieth or uniteth with the astringent and bitter spirit, signifieth the seven spirits of nature, or the astral birth or geniture, in which the devil ruleth, and the Holy Ghost opposeth him therein, and overcometh the devil. 132. But the tongue signifieth the soul, which is generated from the seven spirits of nature, and is the son; and so now when the seven spirits will, then the tongue must stir, and must perform their demands. 133. If the astral spirits would not prove false, and would not woo the devil, to commit adultery with him, then they would hide the animated or soulish spirit, and hold it fast in their bands as a treasure, when they fight with the devil: Just as they hide and cover the tongue as their best jewel, when they wrestle with the astringent and bitter quality. 134. Thus you have a short and real introduction concerning the word which God hath spoken, rightly described in the knowledge of the spirit, faithfully imparted according to my gifts, and the talent I am entrusted with.
2Now it may be asked, What then is it that God spake, when he said, Let there be light, and there was light? The Depth. 135. The light went forth from the innermost birth or geniture, and kindled itself in the outermost. It gave again to the outermost a natural peculiar light of its own. 136. Thou must not think that the light of the sun and of nature is the heart of God, which shineth in secret. No; thou oughtest not to worship the light of nature, it is not the heart of God, but it is a kindled light in nature, whose power and heart stand in the unctuosity or fatness of the sweet water, and of all the other spirits in the third birth or geniture, and is not called God. 137. Though it be generated in God and from God, yet it is but the instrument of his handiwork, which cannot apprehend and reach back again to the clear Deity in the deepest birth or geniture, as the flesh cannot apprehend or reach the soul. 138. But it must not so be understood as if the Deity were separated from nature; no, but they are as body and soul: Nature is the body, and the heart of God is the soul. Now a man might ask, What kind of light then was it that was kindled? Was it the sun and stars? Answer. 139. No, the sun and stars were first created but on the fourth day, out of that very light: * There was a light arisen in the seven spirits of
3nature which had no peculiar distinct seat or place, but did shine everywhere all over, but was not bright like the sun, but like an azure blue and light, according to the kind and manner of the qualifying or fountain spirits; till afterwards the right creation and kindling of the fire in the water, in the astringent spirit, followed, viz. the sun. * "light" = luminous, transparent, full of light. See Ch. 3, par. 50. THE NINETEENTH CHAPTER Concerning the Created Heaven, and the Form of the Earth, and of the Water, as also concerning Light and Darkness. Concerning Heaven. 1. THE true heaven, which is our own proper human heaven, into which the soul goeth when it parteth from the body, and into which Christ our King is entered, and from whence it was that he came from his Father, and was born, and became man in the body or womb of the Virgin Mary, hath hitherto been close hidden from the children of men, and they have had many opinions about it. 2. Also the learned have scuffled about it with many strange scurrilous writings, falling one upon another in calumnious and disgraceful terms, whereby the holy name of God hath been reproached, his members wounded, his temple destroyed, and the holy heaven profaned with
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.
1especially that man who liveth in a continual desire of pride, covetousness, envy and wrath, and will at no time fight and strive against them with the spirit and fire of love; such a one himself attracteth the wrath of God, and the burning hellish fire, upon his body and soul. 130. But that the tongue doth crouch so much towards the nether gums when the word goeth forth, signifieth and denoteth the animated or soulish spirit of the creatures, especially of man. 131. The word which conceiveth itself at the upper gums, and which qualifieth or uniteth with the astringent and bitter spirit, signifieth the seven spirits of nature, or the astral birth or geniture, in which the devil ruleth, and the Holy Ghost opposeth him therein, and overcometh the devil. 132. But the tongue signifieth the soul, which is generated from the seven spirits of nature, and is the son; and so now when the seven spirits will, then the tongue must stir, and must perform their demands. 133. If the astral spirits would not prove false, and would not woo the devil, to commit adultery with him, then they would hide the animated or soulish spirit, and hold it fast in their bands as a treasure, when they fight with the devil: Just as they hide and cover the tongue as their best jewel, when they wrestle with the astringent and bitter quality. 134. Thus you have a short and real introduction concerning the word which God hath spoken, rightly described in the knowledge of the spirit, faithfully imparted according to my gifts, and the talent I am entrusted with.
2Now it may be asked, What then is it that God spake, when he said, Let there be light, and there was light? The Depth. 135. The light went forth from the innermost birth or geniture, and kindled itself in the outermost. It gave again to the outermost a natural peculiar light of its own. 136. Thou must not think that the light of the sun and of nature is the heart of God, which shineth in secret. No; thou oughtest not to worship the light of nature, it is not the heart of God, but it is a kindled light in nature, whose power and heart stand in the unctuosity or fatness of the sweet water, and of all the other spirits in the third birth or geniture, and is not called God. 137. Though it be generated in God and from God, yet it is but the instrument of his handiwork, which cannot apprehend and reach back again to the clear Deity in the deepest birth or geniture, as the flesh cannot apprehend or reach the soul. 138. But it must not so be understood as if the Deity were separated from nature; no, but they are as body and soul: Nature is the body, and the heart of God is the soul. Now a man might ask, What kind of light then was it that was kindled? Was it the sun and stars? Answer. 139. No, the sun and stars were first created but on the fourth day, out of that very light: * There was a light arisen in the seven spirits of
3nature which had no peculiar distinct seat or place, but did shine everywhere all over, but was not bright like the sun, but like an azure blue and light, according to the kind and manner of the qualifying or fountain spirits; till afterwards the right creation and kindling of the fire in the water, in the astringent spirit, followed, viz. the sun. * "light" = luminous, transparent, full of light. See Ch. 3, par. 50. THE NINETEENTH CHAPTER Concerning the Created Heaven, and the Form of the Earth, and of the Water, as also concerning Light and Darkness. Concerning Heaven. 1. THE true heaven, which is our own proper human heaven, into which the soul goeth when it parteth from the body, and into which Christ our King is entered, and from whence it was that he came from his Father, and was born, and became man in the body or womb of the Virgin Mary, hath hitherto been close hidden from the children of men, and they have had many opinions about it. 2. Also the learned have scuffled about it with many strange scurrilous writings, falling one upon another in calumnious and disgraceful terms, whereby the holy name of God hath been reproached, his members wounded, his temple destroyed, and the holy heaven profaned with
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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