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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.
1withered in the wickedness of their spirit, in their sins, all those came forth also, each in his power or faculty; and they were received into the kingdom of darkness, and each was invested in that power in which he was grown up; and their king is called Lucifer, viz. one expelled or driven forth from the light. 82. The hellish quality brought forth fruit also, as it had done upon earth; only, the good was severed or parted from it, and therefore now it brought forth fruit in its own quality. And these men (who were now like the spirits), did each eat the fruit of his quality, and so did the devils also. 83. For as there is a difference in men upon earth in their qualities, and all are not of one quality, condition or disposition, even so among the rejected reprobate spirits; and so also in the heavenly pomp in angels and men; and that lasteth unto its eternity. AMEN. 84. Courteous Reader, This is a short information concerning the two qualities in nature from the beginning to the end, how there arose from thence two kingdoms, a heavenly and a hellish, and how they stir in this time and strive the one against the other, and what the issue of it will be in the time to come.
2THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK By Way of Introduction TO this book I have given this name, The ROOT or MOTHER of Philosophy, Astrology, and Theology. And that you may know what it doth treat of, Observe, I. 1. In the Philosophy it treateth of the divine power. I. What God is. II. How in the being of God, is created nature, the stars and the elements. III. From whence every thing hath its original. IV. How heaven and earth were created. V. How angels, men, and devils were created. VI. How heaven and hell, and whatever is creaturely, were created, and what the Two Qualities are in nature. All out of a true ground in the knowledge of the spirit, by the impulse and motion of God. II. 2. In the Astrology it treateth, I. Of the powers of nature, of the stars and of the elements. II. How all creatures proceeded from thence. III. How the same do impel and rule all. IV. And work in all, and how good and bad are wrought by them in men and beasts. V. Whence it cometh that good and bad are, and reign in this world.
3VI. And how the kingdoms of heaven and of hell consist therein. 3. My purpose is not to describe the course, place and name of all stars, and what is their annual conjunction, opposition, quadrate, or the like, and what they yearly and hourly operate, which, by a long process of time, and by diligent contemplation, observation, deep sense, calculation and computation, hath been observed by wise, skilful and expert men, who were rich and large in spirit. 4. Neither have I studied or learned the same, and I leave that to the learned to discourse of; my intention is to write according to the spirit and sense, and not according to speculation. III. 5. In the Theology it treateth, I. Of the kingdom of Christ, what constituteth the same. II. How it is set in opposition to the kingdom of hell. III. How in nature it fighteth and striveth against the kingdom of hell. IV. How men, through faith and spirit, are able to overcome the kingdom of hell, and triumph in divine power and obtain eternal blessedness, and all this as a victory in the battle. V. How man, through the operation or working in the hellish quality, casts himself into perdition. VI. And what the issue of both will be at last. 6. The supreme title is AURORA, that is, The Dawning of the Day in the East, or Morning Redness in the rising of the SUN. It is a secret Mystery, concealed from the wise and prudent of this world, of which they themselves
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.
1withered in the wickedness of their spirit, in their sins, all those came forth also, each in his power or faculty; and they were received into the kingdom of darkness, and each was invested in that power in which he was grown up; and their king is called Lucifer, viz. one expelled or driven forth from the light. 82. The hellish quality brought forth fruit also, as it had done upon earth; only, the good was severed or parted from it, and therefore now it brought forth fruit in its own quality. And these men (who were now like the spirits), did each eat the fruit of his quality, and so did the devils also. 83. For as there is a difference in men upon earth in their qualities, and all are not of one quality, condition or disposition, even so among the rejected reprobate spirits; and so also in the heavenly pomp in angels and men; and that lasteth unto its eternity. AMEN. 84. Courteous Reader, This is a short information concerning the two qualities in nature from the beginning to the end, how there arose from thence two kingdoms, a heavenly and a hellish, and how they stir in this time and strive the one against the other, and what the issue of it will be in the time to come.
2THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK By Way of Introduction TO this book I have given this name, The ROOT or MOTHER of Philosophy, Astrology, and Theology. And that you may know what it doth treat of, Observe, I. 1. In the Philosophy it treateth of the divine power. I. What God is. II. How in the being of God, is created nature, the stars and the elements. III. From whence every thing hath its original. IV. How heaven and earth were created. V. How angels, men, and devils were created. VI. How heaven and hell, and whatever is creaturely, were created, and what the Two Qualities are in nature. All out of a true ground in the knowledge of the spirit, by the impulse and motion of God. II. 2. In the Astrology it treateth, I. Of the powers of nature, of the stars and of the elements. II. How all creatures proceeded from thence. III. How the same do impel and rule all. IV. And work in all, and how good and bad are wrought by them in men and beasts. V. Whence it cometh that good and bad are, and reign in this world.
3VI. And how the kingdoms of heaven and of hell consist therein. 3. My purpose is not to describe the course, place and name of all stars, and what is their annual conjunction, opposition, quadrate, or the like, and what they yearly and hourly operate, which, by a long process of time, and by diligent contemplation, observation, deep sense, calculation and computation, hath been observed by wise, skilful and expert men, who were rich and large in spirit. 4. Neither have I studied or learned the same, and I leave that to the learned to discourse of; my intention is to write according to the spirit and sense, and not according to speculation. III. 5. In the Theology it treateth, I. Of the kingdom of Christ, what constituteth the same. II. How it is set in opposition to the kingdom of hell. III. How in nature it fighteth and striveth against the kingdom of hell. IV. How men, through faith and spirit, are able to overcome the kingdom of hell, and triumph in divine power and obtain eternal blessedness, and all this as a victory in the battle. V. How man, through the operation or working in the hellish quality, casts himself into perdition. VI. And what the issue of both will be at last. 6. The supreme title is AURORA, that is, The Dawning of the Day in the East, or Morning Redness in the rising of the SUN. It is a secret Mystery, concealed from the wise and prudent of this world, of which they themselves
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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