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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.
1Trinity, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, dwelleth in the centre under the firmament of heaven, though that very firmament cannot comprehend him. 49. Indeed, all is as it were one body, the outermost and the innermost birth, together with the firmament of heaven, as also the astral birth therein, in and with which the wrath of God also qualifieth, mixeth and uniteth; but yet they are one to another as is the government, frame or constitution in man. 50. [Note three sorts of births or genitures in man] The flesh signifieth, 1. The outward birth or geniture, which is the house of death. 2. The second birth or geniture in man is the astral, in which the life standeth, and wherein love and wrath wrestle the one with the other; and thus far man himself knoweth himself; for the astral birth generateth the life in the outermost, that is, in the dead flesh. 3. The third birth is generated between the astral and the outermost, and that is called the animated or soulish birth or geniture, or the soul, and is as large as the whole man. 51. And that birth or geniture the outward man neither knoweth nor comprehendeth; neither doth the astral comprehend it, for every qualifying or fountain spirit comprehendeth only its innate or instant root, which signifieth or resembleth the heaven. 52. And that animated or soulish man must press through the firmament of heaven to God, and live with God, else the whole man cannot come into heaven to God. 53. For every man that desireth to be saved, must, with his innate, instant births or genitures,
2be as the whole Deity with all the three births in this world is. 54. Man cannot be absolutely or wholly pure, or devoid of wrath and sin, for the births of the depth in this world are not fully pure before the heart of God [Job XV. 15]; love and wrath always wrestle the one with the other, whence God is called [Exod. XX. 5., Deut V. 9.] an angry zealous God. 55. Now as a man is, in the government or order of his nativity, birth or geniture, just so also is the whole body of God in or of this world; but in the water standeth the meek life. 56. As, I. First in the outward body of God, in or of this world, there is the congealed, astringent, bitter and hot death, in which the palpable water is also congealed and dead. 57. Therein now is the darkness, wherein king Lucifer and his angels, as also all fleshly or carnal wicked men, lie captive, even with or in their living bodies, as also the separated spirits of damned men. 58. This birth can neither see, hear, feel, smell nor comprehend the heart of God, but is a foolish virgin [folly], which king Lucifer in his pride hath caused so to be. 59. II. The second birth is the astral, which thou must understand to be the life of the seven qualifying or fountain spirits, wherein now the love and the wrath are against each other; therein standeth the upper water, which is a spirit of the life, and therein, or between, is the firmament of heaven, which is made out of the midst or centre of the water. 60. Now this birth or geniture presseth through
3the outward congealed birth quite through death, and generateth the astral life in the death, that is, in the congealed earth, water and flesh of the beasts and of men, also of the fowls, fishes and worms or creeping things. 61. The devil can reach half into this birth, so far as the wrath comprehendeth or reacheth, but no deeper, and thus far goeth his dwelling, but no deeper. Therefore the devil cannot know how the other part in this birth hath a root; and so far man is come in his knowledge, from the beginning of the world to this time, since his fall. But the other root, called the heaven, the spirit hath kept hidden and concealed from man till this time, lest the devil should have learned it from man, and should have strowed poison into it for man before his eyes. 62. This other part of the astral birth, which standeth in the love in the sweet water, is the firmament of heaven, which holdeth captive the kindled wrath, together with all the devils, for they cannot enter thereinto; and in that heaven dwelleth the Holy Spirit, which goeth forth from the heart of God, and striveth or fighteth against the fierceness, and generateth to himself a temple in the midst, in the fierceness of the wrath of God. 63. And in this heaven dwelleth the man that feareth God, even with and in the living body; for that heaven is as well in man as in the deep above the earth. As is the deep above the earth, so is man also, both in love and wrath, till after the departure of the soul; but when the soul departeth from the body, then it abideth either in the heaven of love only, or only in the heaven of wrath.
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.
1Trinity, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, dwelleth in the centre under the firmament of heaven, though that very firmament cannot comprehend him. 49. Indeed, all is as it were one body, the outermost and the innermost birth, together with the firmament of heaven, as also the astral birth therein, in and with which the wrath of God also qualifieth, mixeth and uniteth; but yet they are one to another as is the government, frame or constitution in man. 50. [Note three sorts of births or genitures in man] The flesh signifieth, 1. The outward birth or geniture, which is the house of death. 2. The second birth or geniture in man is the astral, in which the life standeth, and wherein love and wrath wrestle the one with the other; and thus far man himself knoweth himself; for the astral birth generateth the life in the outermost, that is, in the dead flesh. 3. The third birth is generated between the astral and the outermost, and that is called the animated or soulish birth or geniture, or the soul, and is as large as the whole man. 51. And that birth or geniture the outward man neither knoweth nor comprehendeth; neither doth the astral comprehend it, for every qualifying or fountain spirit comprehendeth only its innate or instant root, which signifieth or resembleth the heaven. 52. And that animated or soulish man must press through the firmament of heaven to God, and live with God, else the whole man cannot come into heaven to God. 53. For every man that desireth to be saved, must, with his innate, instant births or genitures,
2be as the whole Deity with all the three births in this world is. 54. Man cannot be absolutely or wholly pure, or devoid of wrath and sin, for the births of the depth in this world are not fully pure before the heart of God [Job XV. 15]; love and wrath always wrestle the one with the other, whence God is called [Exod. XX. 5., Deut V. 9.] an angry zealous God. 55. Now as a man is, in the government or order of his nativity, birth or geniture, just so also is the whole body of God in or of this world; but in the water standeth the meek life. 56. As, I. First in the outward body of God, in or of this world, there is the congealed, astringent, bitter and hot death, in which the palpable water is also congealed and dead. 57. Therein now is the darkness, wherein king Lucifer and his angels, as also all fleshly or carnal wicked men, lie captive, even with or in their living bodies, as also the separated spirits of damned men. 58. This birth can neither see, hear, feel, smell nor comprehend the heart of God, but is a foolish virgin [folly], which king Lucifer in his pride hath caused so to be. 59. II. The second birth is the astral, which thou must understand to be the life of the seven qualifying or fountain spirits, wherein now the love and the wrath are against each other; therein standeth the upper water, which is a spirit of the life, and therein, or between, is the firmament of heaven, which is made out of the midst or centre of the water. 60. Now this birth or geniture presseth through
3the outward congealed birth quite through death, and generateth the astral life in the death, that is, in the congealed earth, water and flesh of the beasts and of men, also of the fowls, fishes and worms or creeping things. 61. The devil can reach half into this birth, so far as the wrath comprehendeth or reacheth, but no deeper, and thus far goeth his dwelling, but no deeper. Therefore the devil cannot know how the other part in this birth hath a root; and so far man is come in his knowledge, from the beginning of the world to this time, since his fall. But the other root, called the heaven, the spirit hath kept hidden and concealed from man till this time, lest the devil should have learned it from man, and should have strowed poison into it for man before his eyes. 62. This other part of the astral birth, which standeth in the love in the sweet water, is the firmament of heaven, which holdeth captive the kindled wrath, together with all the devils, for they cannot enter thereinto; and in that heaven dwelleth the Holy Spirit, which goeth forth from the heart of God, and striveth or fighteth against the fierceness, and generateth to himself a temple in the midst, in the fierceness of the wrath of God. 63. And in this heaven dwelleth the man that feareth God, even with and in the living body; for that heaven is as well in man as in the deep above the earth. As is the deep above the earth, so is man also, both in love and wrath, till after the departure of the soul; but when the soul departeth from the body, then it abideth either in the heaven of love only, or only in the heaven of wrath.
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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