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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.
1own by right of nature, as its own peculiar life. 23. Thus the earth brought forth no strange life, except that which had been in it from eternity: As before the time of the wrath it had brought forth heavenly fruits, which had a holy, pure heavenly body, and were the food of angels, so now it brought forth fruits according to its comprehensible, palpable, hard, evil, wrathful, poisonous, venomous, halfdead kind; for as the mother was, so were her children. 24. Not that the fruits of the earth are thereupon wholly in the wrath of God; for the one only, incorporated or compacted word, which is immortal and incorruptible, which was from eternity in the Salitter of the earth, sprang up again in the body of death, and brought forth fruit out of the dead body of the earth; but the earth comprehended not the word, though the word comprehended the earth. 25. And now as the whole earth was, together with the word, so was the fruit also; but the word remained in the centre of the heaven, which is also in this place hiddenly; and this birth or geniture caused the seven qualifying or fountain spirits, out of or from the outermost, corrupt and dead birth or geniture, to form the body; and itself, viz. the Word or Heart of God, remained in its heavenly seat, sitting on the throne of majesty, and filled the astral and also the mortal birth or geniture, but to them was the holy life altogether incomprehensible. 26. Thou must not think that thereupon the outermost dead birth or geniture of the earth hath gotten such a life, through the risen word that sprang up, that it is no more a death, and that death no longer is in her fruit: No; that
2can never be; for that which is once dead in God is really dead, and in its own power can never be living again; but the word, which qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth with the astral birth in the part of the love, generateth the life through the astral birth or geniture, through the death. 27. For thou seest plainly how all the fruits of the earth, whatsoever it bringeth forth, must putrefy and rot; also that they are a death. 28. But that the fruits get a body other than the earth is, which body is much fuller of virtue, fairer or more beautiful, also of a better taste, relish and smell, is because the astral birth or geniture receiveth power or virtue from the word, and formeth or frameth another body, which standeth half in the death and half in the life, and standeth hidden between the wrath of God and the love. 29. But, that the fruits upon the body are much pleasanter, more lovely, sweeter and milder, and with a good taste and relish, that is [because of] the third birth out of the earth, according to which the earth shall be purged and cleansed at the end of this time, and shall be set or put again into its first place; but the wrath will abide in death. The richly joyful Gate of Man. 30. Behold, thus saith the spirit in the word, which is the very heart of the earth, and which riseth or springeth up in his heaven, in the clear flash of the life, wherewith my spirit in its knowledge qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth, and through which I write these words. 31. Man is made out of the seed of the earth, out of an incorporated or compacted mass or lump—
3[" Understand, out of the matrix of the " earth, wherein the eye is twofold, the one " in God and the other in this world, out of " three Principles."] —and not out of the wrath, but out of the birth or geniture of the earth, as a king or heart of the earth, and stood in the astral birth or geniture in the part of the love; but wrath hung to him, which he should have put forth from himself, as the fruit putteth forth from itself the bitterness of the tree. 32. But that, he did not, but reached back from the love into the wrath, and lusted after his dead or mortal mother, to eat of her, and to suck her breast, and to stand upon her stock. 33. Now according to his wrestling so also it befell him, and so he brought himself with his outermost birth or geniture into the death or mortality of his mother, and with his life he brought himself out from the love into the part of the wrathful, astral birth or geniture. 34. And there he standeth now, between heaven and hell, in the face of the devil in his kingdom, against whom the devil warreth, fighteth and striveth continually, that he might either banish him out of his country into the earth, or make him a child of wrath in hell. And what is now his hope? Answer. 35. Behold! thou blind Heathen; behold! thou render, perverter, obscurer and wrester of the Scriptures, open thy eyes wide, and be not ashamed at this simple plainness; for God lieth hid in the centre, and is yet much more simple and plain; but thou seest him not. 36. Behold! thy spirit or thy soul is generated from or out of thy astral birth or geniture, and is
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.
1own by right of nature, as its own peculiar life. 23. Thus the earth brought forth no strange life, except that which had been in it from eternity: As before the time of the wrath it had brought forth heavenly fruits, which had a holy, pure heavenly body, and were the food of angels, so now it brought forth fruits according to its comprehensible, palpable, hard, evil, wrathful, poisonous, venomous, halfdead kind; for as the mother was, so were her children. 24. Not that the fruits of the earth are thereupon wholly in the wrath of God; for the one only, incorporated or compacted word, which is immortal and incorruptible, which was from eternity in the Salitter of the earth, sprang up again in the body of death, and brought forth fruit out of the dead body of the earth; but the earth comprehended not the word, though the word comprehended the earth. 25. And now as the whole earth was, together with the word, so was the fruit also; but the word remained in the centre of the heaven, which is also in this place hiddenly; and this birth or geniture caused the seven qualifying or fountain spirits, out of or from the outermost, corrupt and dead birth or geniture, to form the body; and itself, viz. the Word or Heart of God, remained in its heavenly seat, sitting on the throne of majesty, and filled the astral and also the mortal birth or geniture, but to them was the holy life altogether incomprehensible. 26. Thou must not think that thereupon the outermost dead birth or geniture of the earth hath gotten such a life, through the risen word that sprang up, that it is no more a death, and that death no longer is in her fruit: No; that
2can never be; for that which is once dead in God is really dead, and in its own power can never be living again; but the word, which qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth with the astral birth in the part of the love, generateth the life through the astral birth or geniture, through the death. 27. For thou seest plainly how all the fruits of the earth, whatsoever it bringeth forth, must putrefy and rot; also that they are a death. 28. But that the fruits get a body other than the earth is, which body is much fuller of virtue, fairer or more beautiful, also of a better taste, relish and smell, is because the astral birth or geniture receiveth power or virtue from the word, and formeth or frameth another body, which standeth half in the death and half in the life, and standeth hidden between the wrath of God and the love. 29. But, that the fruits upon the body are much pleasanter, more lovely, sweeter and milder, and with a good taste and relish, that is [because of] the third birth out of the earth, according to which the earth shall be purged and cleansed at the end of this time, and shall be set or put again into its first place; but the wrath will abide in death. The richly joyful Gate of Man. 30. Behold, thus saith the spirit in the word, which is the very heart of the earth, and which riseth or springeth up in his heaven, in the clear flash of the life, wherewith my spirit in its knowledge qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth, and through which I write these words. 31. Man is made out of the seed of the earth, out of an incorporated or compacted mass or lump—
3[" Understand, out of the matrix of the " earth, wherein the eye is twofold, the one " in God and the other in this world, out of " three Principles."] —and not out of the wrath, but out of the birth or geniture of the earth, as a king or heart of the earth, and stood in the astral birth or geniture in the part of the love; but wrath hung to him, which he should have put forth from himself, as the fruit putteth forth from itself the bitterness of the tree. 32. But that, he did not, but reached back from the love into the wrath, and lusted after his dead or mortal mother, to eat of her, and to suck her breast, and to stand upon her stock. 33. Now according to his wrestling so also it befell him, and so he brought himself with his outermost birth or geniture into the death or mortality of his mother, and with his life he brought himself out from the love into the part of the wrathful, astral birth or geniture. 34. And there he standeth now, between heaven and hell, in the face of the devil in his kingdom, against whom the devil warreth, fighteth and striveth continually, that he might either banish him out of his country into the earth, or make him a child of wrath in hell. And what is now his hope? Answer. 35. Behold! thou blind Heathen; behold! thou render, perverter, obscurer and wrester of the Scriptures, open thy eyes wide, and be not ashamed at this simple plainness; for God lieth hid in the centre, and is yet much more simple and plain; but thou seest him not. 36. Behold! thy spirit or thy soul is generated from or out of thy astral birth or geniture, and is
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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