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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.
192. Therefore now it expresseth * or speaketh forth all words, according to the innate, instant generating or production of nature; for the spirit of man, which standeth in the astral birth, and qualifieth or uniteth with the total universal nature, and is as it were the whole nature itself, that formeth the word, according to the innate, instant birth or geniture. * " Therefore now it expresseth," etc. In the German " it" may refer either to "the spirit of the astral birth," or to " man." St M. takes " man " to be the antecedent. 93. "When the spirit of man seeth anything, then it giveth a name to that thing, according to the qualification or condition of the thing; but if it is to do this, then it must form or frame or put itself also into such a form, and generate itself also, with its tone, sound or articulation, just so as the thing to which it will give a name doth generate or compose itself. Herein lieth the kernel of the whole understanding of the Deity. 94. I do not write this, and bring it to light, that others after me should presently fall a writing, and publish the conceits of their own spirit herein, and cry them up for sanctity, or for a holy thing. 95. Hearken, Friend, there belongeth more than so to this; thy animated or soulish spirit must first qualify, operate or unite with the innermost birth or geniture in God, and stand in the light, that it may rightly know and understand the astral birth or geniture, and that it may have a free and open gate into all the births or genitures; otherwise thou wilt not be able to write a holy and true philosophy, but a philosophy full of lice and fleas, as it were, and so thou wilt be found a mocker against God.
296. I conceive already that the devil will get many a one to ride upon his proud prancing nag; and many will make themselves ready for the journey before they be well girt [with the girdle of truth]; but I will not bear the blame for that. 97. For what I here reveal or manifest I must do; for the time of breaking through is at hand: He that will now sleep, the stormy tempest of the fierceness will rouse him. 98. But now, that every one might have a care of his affairs and doings, I would have men faithfully warned, according to the impulse, driving and will of the spirit. Observe: 99. The writer, Moses, saith, [Gen. i.] God separated the light from the darkness, and called the light day, and the darkness night, so out of evening and morning the first day came to be. 100. But seeing these words, evening and morning, are contrary to the current of philosophy and reason, therefore it may be conceived that Moses was not the sole original author thereof, but that it was derived down to him from his forefathers, who reckoned all the six days of the creation in one continued course, and preserved and kept the memory of the creation from Adam, in an obscure word, and so left it to posterity. 101. For evening and morning were not before the time of the sun and stars, which most certainly and really were first created but on the fourth day, which I shall demonstrate from an assured, certain ground, concerning the creation of the sun and stars.
3102. But there was day and night, which I will here declare according to my knowledge: Thou must here once more open wide the eyes of thy spirit, if thou intendest to understand it; if not, then thou wilt remain blind. 103. Though this great work in man hath remained hidden till this very day, yet God be praised, it will now once be day, for the dayspring or morningredness breaketh forth. The breaker through, or opener of the innermost birth, sheweth and presenteth itself with its red, green and white flag, in the outermost birth upon the rainbow. Observe: Now thou objectest, How then could there be day and night, and not also morning and evening? Answer. 104. Morning and evening are and reach up from the earth to the moon only, and take their original from the light of the sun, and this maketh evening and morning, as also the outward day, and the outward dark night, as every one knoweth. 105. But there was not a twofold creation of evening and morning at that time; but when evening and morning did once begin, they kept their constant course all along from that time to this. Of the Day. (Tag) 106. The word (Tag) conceiveth itself at the heart, and goeth forth at the mouth through the way or passage of the astringent and the bitter qualities, and doth not awaken or rouse up the astringent and the bitter qualities, but goeth forth directly through their place, which is at the hinder gums upon the tongue, very softly or gently, and incomprehensibly as to the astringent
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.
192. Therefore now it expresseth * or speaketh forth all words, according to the innate, instant generating or production of nature; for the spirit of man, which standeth in the astral birth, and qualifieth or uniteth with the total universal nature, and is as it were the whole nature itself, that formeth the word, according to the innate, instant birth or geniture. * " Therefore now it expresseth," etc. In the German " it" may refer either to "the spirit of the astral birth," or to " man." St M. takes " man " to be the antecedent. 93. "When the spirit of man seeth anything, then it giveth a name to that thing, according to the qualification or condition of the thing; but if it is to do this, then it must form or frame or put itself also into such a form, and generate itself also, with its tone, sound or articulation, just so as the thing to which it will give a name doth generate or compose itself. Herein lieth the kernel of the whole understanding of the Deity. 94. I do not write this, and bring it to light, that others after me should presently fall a writing, and publish the conceits of their own spirit herein, and cry them up for sanctity, or for a holy thing. 95. Hearken, Friend, there belongeth more than so to this; thy animated or soulish spirit must first qualify, operate or unite with the innermost birth or geniture in God, and stand in the light, that it may rightly know and understand the astral birth or geniture, and that it may have a free and open gate into all the births or genitures; otherwise thou wilt not be able to write a holy and true philosophy, but a philosophy full of lice and fleas, as it were, and so thou wilt be found a mocker against God.
296. I conceive already that the devil will get many a one to ride upon his proud prancing nag; and many will make themselves ready for the journey before they be well girt [with the girdle of truth]; but I will not bear the blame for that. 97. For what I here reveal or manifest I must do; for the time of breaking through is at hand: He that will now sleep, the stormy tempest of the fierceness will rouse him. 98. But now, that every one might have a care of his affairs and doings, I would have men faithfully warned, according to the impulse, driving and will of the spirit. Observe: 99. The writer, Moses, saith, [Gen. i.] God separated the light from the darkness, and called the light day, and the darkness night, so out of evening and morning the first day came to be. 100. But seeing these words, evening and morning, are contrary to the current of philosophy and reason, therefore it may be conceived that Moses was not the sole original author thereof, but that it was derived down to him from his forefathers, who reckoned all the six days of the creation in one continued course, and preserved and kept the memory of the creation from Adam, in an obscure word, and so left it to posterity. 101. For evening and morning were not before the time of the sun and stars, which most certainly and really were first created but on the fourth day, which I shall demonstrate from an assured, certain ground, concerning the creation of the sun and stars.
3102. But there was day and night, which I will here declare according to my knowledge: Thou must here once more open wide the eyes of thy spirit, if thou intendest to understand it; if not, then thou wilt remain blind. 103. Though this great work in man hath remained hidden till this very day, yet God be praised, it will now once be day, for the dayspring or morningredness breaketh forth. The breaker through, or opener of the innermost birth, sheweth and presenteth itself with its red, green and white flag, in the outermost birth upon the rainbow. Observe: Now thou objectest, How then could there be day and night, and not also morning and evening? Answer. 104. Morning and evening are and reach up from the earth to the moon only, and take their original from the light of the sun, and this maketh evening and morning, as also the outward day, and the outward dark night, as every one knoweth. 105. But there was not a twofold creation of evening and morning at that time; but when evening and morning did once begin, they kept their constant course all along from that time to this. Of the Day. (Tag) 106. The word (Tag) conceiveth itself at the heart, and goeth forth at the mouth through the way or passage of the astringent and the bitter qualities, and doth not awaken or rouse up the astringent and the bitter qualities, but goeth forth directly through their place, which is at the hinder gums upon the tongue, very softly or gently, and incomprehensibly as to the astringent
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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