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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.
1116. So now, if thou minglest with this water or powder some good treacle or the like, which holdeth captive the rising up and the power of the wrath in the astral birth, and givest it to the sick party or patient in a little warm drink, be it beer or wine, then operateth the innermost and hidden birth of the thing which, through its outermost dead birth, hath caused the disease in man. 117. For when it is put into warm liquor, then the life in the thing becometh rising, and would fain raise itself, and be kindled in the light; but it cannot, because of the wrath, which is opposite to it in the astral birth or geniture. 118. But it can do thus much, viz. it can take away the disease from a man; for the astral life riseth up through death, and taketh away the power from the sting of death: And so when that hath gotten the victory, then the party becometh sound again. 119. Thus thou seest how the power or virtue of the Word and eternal life in the earth, and in its children, lieth hidden in the centre in death, and springeth up through death, incomprehensibly as to the death, and continually travaileth in anguish to the birth of the light, and yet cannot flourish or bud, till the death be severed from it. 120. But it hath its life in its seat, and that cannot be taken from it, but death hangeth to it in the outermost birth or geniture, as also the wrath in death; for the wrath is the life of death and of the devil; and in the wrath standeth also the corporeal being, or the bodies of the devils, but the dead birth or geniture is their eternal dwellinghouse. The Depth in the Circle of the Birth or Geniture.
2Now one might ask, What manner of substance hath it, or what is the condition thereof, that the astral birth of the earth did begin its qualifying, operating and generating one day sooner than the astral in the deep above the earth; seeing the fire in the deep above the earth is much sharper and easier to be kindled, than the fire in the earth; and seeing also that the earth must be kindled by the fire in the deep above the earth, else it can bear no fruit? Answer. 121. Behold, thou understanding spirit: The spirit speaketh to thee, and not to the dead spirit of the flesh: Open wide the door of thy astral birth, and elevate that one part of the astral birth in the light, and let the other in the wrath stand still, and take heed also that thy animated or soulish spirit do wholly unite with the light. 122. So when thou standest in such a form, then thou art as heaven and earth are, or as the whole Deity is with its births or genitures in this world. 123. But now if thou art not thus, then thou art blind herein, though thou were the wittiest and wisest doctor that ever could be found in the world. 124. But if thou art thus, then raise up thy spirit and see: through thy astrological art, thy deep sense and thy measuring of circles thou canst not apprehend it; it must be born IN THEE, else thou gettest neither grace nor art. 125. If the eyes of thy spirit are to stand open, then thou must generate thus, else thy comprehensibility is a foolish virgin, and it befalls thee, as if a limner* should offer to pourtray the Deity on a table, and tell thee, It is made right, the Deity is just so.
3* "limner" (Mahler [Maler]), a painter. 126. Then the believer and the limner are both alike, both of them see nothing but wood and colours only, and the one, blind, leadeth the other: Surely thou art not to fight there with beasts, but with gods. Now observe: 127. When the whole Deity in this world moved itself to the creation, then, not only the one part did move, and the other rest, but all stood jointly in the mobility, even the whole deep, so far as lord Lucifer was king, and so far as the place of his kingdom reached, and so far as the Salitter in the wrathfire was kindled. 128. The motion of the three births lasted the length of six days and nights, wherein all the seven spirits of God stood in a full moving birth or geniture, as also the heart of the spirits; and the Salitter of the earth turned about in that while six times in the great wheel; which wheel is the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of God. At each turning about or diurnal revolution there was generated a several special work or production, according to the innate, instant qualifying or fountain spirits. 129. For the first qualifying or fountain spirit is the astringent, cold, sharp and hard birth or geniture, and that belongeth to the first day; in the astral birth or geniture the astrologers call it the Saturnine, which was performed on the first day. For therein the hard, dry, sharp earth and stones came to be, and were incorporated or compacted together; moreover, then also was generated the strong firmament of heaven, and the heart of the seven spirits of God stood hidden in the hard sharpness.
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.
1116. So now, if thou minglest with this water or powder some good treacle or the like, which holdeth captive the rising up and the power of the wrath in the astral birth, and givest it to the sick party or patient in a little warm drink, be it beer or wine, then operateth the innermost and hidden birth of the thing which, through its outermost dead birth, hath caused the disease in man. 117. For when it is put into warm liquor, then the life in the thing becometh rising, and would fain raise itself, and be kindled in the light; but it cannot, because of the wrath, which is opposite to it in the astral birth or geniture. 118. But it can do thus much, viz. it can take away the disease from a man; for the astral life riseth up through death, and taketh away the power from the sting of death: And so when that hath gotten the victory, then the party becometh sound again. 119. Thus thou seest how the power or virtue of the Word and eternal life in the earth, and in its children, lieth hidden in the centre in death, and springeth up through death, incomprehensibly as to the death, and continually travaileth in anguish to the birth of the light, and yet cannot flourish or bud, till the death be severed from it. 120. But it hath its life in its seat, and that cannot be taken from it, but death hangeth to it in the outermost birth or geniture, as also the wrath in death; for the wrath is the life of death and of the devil; and in the wrath standeth also the corporeal being, or the bodies of the devils, but the dead birth or geniture is their eternal dwellinghouse. The Depth in the Circle of the Birth or Geniture.
2Now one might ask, What manner of substance hath it, or what is the condition thereof, that the astral birth of the earth did begin its qualifying, operating and generating one day sooner than the astral in the deep above the earth; seeing the fire in the deep above the earth is much sharper and easier to be kindled, than the fire in the earth; and seeing also that the earth must be kindled by the fire in the deep above the earth, else it can bear no fruit? Answer. 121. Behold, thou understanding spirit: The spirit speaketh to thee, and not to the dead spirit of the flesh: Open wide the door of thy astral birth, and elevate that one part of the astral birth in the light, and let the other in the wrath stand still, and take heed also that thy animated or soulish spirit do wholly unite with the light. 122. So when thou standest in such a form, then thou art as heaven and earth are, or as the whole Deity is with its births or genitures in this world. 123. But now if thou art not thus, then thou art blind herein, though thou were the wittiest and wisest doctor that ever could be found in the world. 124. But if thou art thus, then raise up thy spirit and see: through thy astrological art, thy deep sense and thy measuring of circles thou canst not apprehend it; it must be born IN THEE, else thou gettest neither grace nor art. 125. If the eyes of thy spirit are to stand open, then thou must generate thus, else thy comprehensibility is a foolish virgin, and it befalls thee, as if a limner* should offer to pourtray the Deity on a table, and tell thee, It is made right, the Deity is just so.
3* "limner" (Mahler [Maler]), a painter. 126. Then the believer and the limner are both alike, both of them see nothing but wood and colours only, and the one, blind, leadeth the other: Surely thou art not to fight there with beasts, but with gods. Now observe: 127. When the whole Deity in this world moved itself to the creation, then, not only the one part did move, and the other rest, but all stood jointly in the mobility, even the whole deep, so far as lord Lucifer was king, and so far as the place of his kingdom reached, and so far as the Salitter in the wrathfire was kindled. 128. The motion of the three births lasted the length of six days and nights, wherein all the seven spirits of God stood in a full moving birth or geniture, as also the heart of the spirits; and the Salitter of the earth turned about in that while six times in the great wheel; which wheel is the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of God. At each turning about or diurnal revolution there was generated a several special work or production, according to the innate, instant qualifying or fountain spirits. 129. For the first qualifying or fountain spirit is the astringent, cold, sharp and hard birth or geniture, and that belongeth to the first day; in the astral birth or geniture the astrologers call it the Saturnine, which was performed on the first day. For therein the hard, dry, sharp earth and stones came to be, and were incorporated or compacted together; moreover, then also was generated the strong firmament of heaven, and the heart of the seven spirits of God stood hidden in the hard sharpness.
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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