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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.
1the birth of the light, then he kindleth the wrathfire therein, and then shall thy soul be spewed out from the word, and then it qualifieth or uniteth with the wrath of God, and so afterwards thou art a devil, and not an angel, and canst not, with thy animated or soulish birth, reach the gates of heaven. 50. But if thou fightest and strivest with the devil, and keepest the gate of love in thy astral birth, and so departest from hence as to the body, then thy soul remaineth in the word quite hidden from the devil, and reigneth with God, even unto the day of the restitution of that which was lost. 51. But if thou standest with thy astral birth in the wrath, when thou departest from hence as to the body, and thy soul be not comprehended in the word, then thou canst never reach the gates of heaven; but into what part thou hast sown thy seed, that is, thy soul, in that very part will thy body also rise. The Gate of the Power. 52. That soul and body will come together again at the Day of the Resurrection thou mayest perceive here by the earth. For the Creator said, Let the earth bring forth grass and herbs, and trees bearing fruit, each according to its kind. Then each sprang up according to its kind, and grew. And as before the time of the wrath it had a heavenly body, so it got now an earthly one, answerable to its mother. 53. But it is to be considered how all was comprised in the word at the great tumult and uproar of the devil, so that all sprang up in its own being according to its power, virtue and kind, as
2if it had never been destroyed, but only altered. 54. Now if it was thus at that time, when there was such murdering and robbing, sure it will be much more so at the Last Judgment Day, when the earth shall be separated in the kindled wrathfire, and will be living again or revived. Then, surely, it will be comprehended in the word of love, as it hath in the same word here generated its fruit of grass, herbs and trees, as also all manner of mineral ores of silver and gold. 55. But seeing the astral birth of the earth standeth in the love, and the outward standeth in death, therefore will each remain in its seat, and so life and death will sever themselves. 56. Where, now, would the soul of man rather be at the day of regeneration, than in its father, that is, in the body which hath generated it? [Note, Christ's not being ascended to his Father] 57. But seeing the soul, all the while the body had been in death, remained hidden in the word, and seeing the same word also holdeth the earth in the astral birth in the love, therefore it [the soul] qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth through the word, all the time of its hiddenness and secrecy, also with its mother the body, according or as to the astral birth or geniture in the earth, and so body and soul in the word were never separated the one from the other, but live jointly and equally together in God. 58. And though indeed the bestial body must putrefy and rot, yet its power and virtue live, and in the meanwhile there grow out of its power, in its mother, fair, beautiful roses, blossoms and flowers; and though it were quite burnt up and consumed in the fire, yet its power and
3virtue stand in the four elements in the word, and the soul qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth therewith; for the soul is in heaven, and the same heaven is everywhere, even in the midst or centre of the earth. 59. O, dear man, view thyself for a while in this lookingglass; thou wilt find it more largely to be read of concerning the creation of man. This I set down here for this very cause, that thou mightest the better understand the power of creation, and that thou mightest the better conceive and fit thyself for this spirit, and so learn to understand its language. The open Gate of the Earth. Now it might be asked, From or out of what matter or power and virtue, then, did the grass, herbs and trees spring forth? What manner of substance or condition or constitution hath this kind of creature? Answer. 60. The simple saith, God made all things out of nothing. But he knoweth not that God; neither doth he know what God is: for when he beholdeth the earth, together with the deep above the earth, he thinketh, verily all this is not God; or else he thinketh, God is not there. He always imagineth that God dwelleth only above the azure heaven of the stars, and ruleth, as it were, with some spirit which goeth forth from him into this world; and that his body is not present here upon the earth, nor in the earth. 61. Just such opinions and tenets I also have read in the books and writings of doctors (der Doctoren), and there are also very many opinions, disputations and controversies arisen about this
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.
1the birth of the light, then he kindleth the wrathfire therein, and then shall thy soul be spewed out from the word, and then it qualifieth or uniteth with the wrath of God, and so afterwards thou art a devil, and not an angel, and canst not, with thy animated or soulish birth, reach the gates of heaven. 50. But if thou fightest and strivest with the devil, and keepest the gate of love in thy astral birth, and so departest from hence as to the body, then thy soul remaineth in the word quite hidden from the devil, and reigneth with God, even unto the day of the restitution of that which was lost. 51. But if thou standest with thy astral birth in the wrath, when thou departest from hence as to the body, and thy soul be not comprehended in the word, then thou canst never reach the gates of heaven; but into what part thou hast sown thy seed, that is, thy soul, in that very part will thy body also rise. The Gate of the Power. 52. That soul and body will come together again at the Day of the Resurrection thou mayest perceive here by the earth. For the Creator said, Let the earth bring forth grass and herbs, and trees bearing fruit, each according to its kind. Then each sprang up according to its kind, and grew. And as before the time of the wrath it had a heavenly body, so it got now an earthly one, answerable to its mother. 53. But it is to be considered how all was comprised in the word at the great tumult and uproar of the devil, so that all sprang up in its own being according to its power, virtue and kind, as
2if it had never been destroyed, but only altered. 54. Now if it was thus at that time, when there was such murdering and robbing, sure it will be much more so at the Last Judgment Day, when the earth shall be separated in the kindled wrathfire, and will be living again or revived. Then, surely, it will be comprehended in the word of love, as it hath in the same word here generated its fruit of grass, herbs and trees, as also all manner of mineral ores of silver and gold. 55. But seeing the astral birth of the earth standeth in the love, and the outward standeth in death, therefore will each remain in its seat, and so life and death will sever themselves. 56. Where, now, would the soul of man rather be at the day of regeneration, than in its father, that is, in the body which hath generated it? [Note, Christ's not being ascended to his Father] 57. But seeing the soul, all the while the body had been in death, remained hidden in the word, and seeing the same word also holdeth the earth in the astral birth in the love, therefore it [the soul] qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth through the word, all the time of its hiddenness and secrecy, also with its mother the body, according or as to the astral birth or geniture in the earth, and so body and soul in the word were never separated the one from the other, but live jointly and equally together in God. 58. And though indeed the bestial body must putrefy and rot, yet its power and virtue live, and in the meanwhile there grow out of its power, in its mother, fair, beautiful roses, blossoms and flowers; and though it were quite burnt up and consumed in the fire, yet its power and
3virtue stand in the four elements in the word, and the soul qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth therewith; for the soul is in heaven, and the same heaven is everywhere, even in the midst or centre of the earth. 59. O, dear man, view thyself for a while in this lookingglass; thou wilt find it more largely to be read of concerning the creation of man. This I set down here for this very cause, that thou mightest the better understand the power of creation, and that thou mightest the better conceive and fit thyself for this spirit, and so learn to understand its language. The open Gate of the Earth. Now it might be asked, From or out of what matter or power and virtue, then, did the grass, herbs and trees spring forth? What manner of substance or condition or constitution hath this kind of creature? Answer. 60. The simple saith, God made all things out of nothing. But he knoweth not that God; neither doth he know what God is: for when he beholdeth the earth, together with the deep above the earth, he thinketh, verily all this is not God; or else he thinketh, God is not there. He always imagineth that God dwelleth only above the azure heaven of the stars, and ruleth, as it were, with some spirit which goeth forth from him into this world; and that his body is not present here upon the earth, nor in the earth. 61. Just such opinions and tenets I also have read in the books and writings of doctors (der Doctoren), and there are also very many opinions, disputations and controversies arisen about this
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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