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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.
1130. Astrologers appropriate or attribute the second day to Sol or the sun, but it belongeth to Jupiter, to speak astrologically; for on the second day the light brake forth out of the heart of the seven qualifying or fountain spirits, through the hard quality of heaven, and caused a mitigation, or an allaying in the hard water of the heaven, and the light became shining in that meekness and allaying. 131. Then the meekness and the hard water separated themselves asunder, and the hardness remained in its hard place, as a hard death, and the meekness or softness penetrated through the hardness in the power of the light. 132. And this now is the water of life, which is generated in the light of God out of the hard death. And thus the light of God in the sweet water of heaven brake through the astringent and hard, dark death; and thus the heaven is made out of the midst or centre of the water. 133. The hard firmament is the astringent quality, and the gentle, mild or meek firmament is the water, in which the light of life riseth up, which is the clarity or bright light of the Son of God. In this manner or form also the knowledge, and the light of life, riseth up in man, and the whole light of God in this world standeth in such a form, birth, and rising up. 134. The third day is very rightly attributed to Mars, because Mars is a bitter, and a furious raging and stirring spirit. It [in?] the third revolution of the earth the bitter quality rubbed itself with the astringent. Understand this Thing rightly. 135. When the light in the sweet water did
2penetrate through the astringent spirit, then the fireflash, terror or crack of the light, when it kindled itself in the water, rose up in the astringent and hard, dead quality, and made all stirring: from thence existed the mobility. 136. Now I speak here not only of the heaven above the earth, but this stirring and birth or geniture was also in the earth, and everywhere. 137. But seeing the heavenly fruits, before the time of the wrath, sprang up only in this stirring of the seven qualifying or fountain spirits, and vanished and passed away again by their stirring, and so changed or altered themselves, therefore on the third day of the birth or geniture of the creation they sprang up also through the stirring of the fireflash in the astringent quality of the earth. 138. Though indeed the whole Deity is in the centre of the earth, hidden, yet the earth could not, for all that, bring forth heavenly fruit, for the astringent quality had shut and barred the hard bolt of death upon it, and so the heart of the Deity, in all the births, remained hidden in its meek and light heaven. 139. For the outermost birth is nature, and that ought not to reach back into the heart of God, neither can it, but it is the body, in which the qualifying or fountain spirits generate themselves, and shew forth and manifest their birth or geniture by their fruits. 140.* Therefore on the third day the earth began to spring, just as the qualifying or fountain spirits stood in the crack of the word or fireflash. * This par. does not appear in Sparrow's translation, though it is in all the German editions.
3THE TWENTYSECOND CHAPTER Of the Birth or Geniture of the Stars, and Creation of the Fourth Day. 1. HERE now is begun the describing of the astral birth. It ought well to be observed what the first title of this book meaneth, which is thus expressed: The DaySpring or Dawning in the East, or MorningRedness in the Rising. For here will a very simple man be able to see and comprehend or apprehend the being of God. 2. The Reader should not make himself blind through his unbelief and dull apprehension; for here I bring in the whole or total nature, with all her children, for a witness and a demonstration. If thou art rational, then look round about thee, and view thyself; also consider thyself aright, and then thou wilt soon find from or out of what spirit I write. 3. For my part, I will obediently perform the command of the spirit, only, have thou a care, and suffer not thyself to be shut out by an open door; * for here the gates of knowledge stand open to thee. * " shut out by an open door." That is, the door is open, do not imagine that it is shut. 4. Though the spirit will indeed go against the current of some astrologers, that is no great matter to me, for I am bound to obey God rather than men; men are blind in or concerning the spirit, and if they will not see, then they may remain blind still.
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.
1130. Astrologers appropriate or attribute the second day to Sol or the sun, but it belongeth to Jupiter, to speak astrologically; for on the second day the light brake forth out of the heart of the seven qualifying or fountain spirits, through the hard quality of heaven, and caused a mitigation, or an allaying in the hard water of the heaven, and the light became shining in that meekness and allaying. 131. Then the meekness and the hard water separated themselves asunder, and the hardness remained in its hard place, as a hard death, and the meekness or softness penetrated through the hardness in the power of the light. 132. And this now is the water of life, which is generated in the light of God out of the hard death. And thus the light of God in the sweet water of heaven brake through the astringent and hard, dark death; and thus the heaven is made out of the midst or centre of the water. 133. The hard firmament is the astringent quality, and the gentle, mild or meek firmament is the water, in which the light of life riseth up, which is the clarity or bright light of the Son of God. In this manner or form also the knowledge, and the light of life, riseth up in man, and the whole light of God in this world standeth in such a form, birth, and rising up. 134. The third day is very rightly attributed to Mars, because Mars is a bitter, and a furious raging and stirring spirit. It [in?] the third revolution of the earth the bitter quality rubbed itself with the astringent. Understand this Thing rightly. 135. When the light in the sweet water did
2penetrate through the astringent spirit, then the fireflash, terror or crack of the light, when it kindled itself in the water, rose up in the astringent and hard, dead quality, and made all stirring: from thence existed the mobility. 136. Now I speak here not only of the heaven above the earth, but this stirring and birth or geniture was also in the earth, and everywhere. 137. But seeing the heavenly fruits, before the time of the wrath, sprang up only in this stirring of the seven qualifying or fountain spirits, and vanished and passed away again by their stirring, and so changed or altered themselves, therefore on the third day of the birth or geniture of the creation they sprang up also through the stirring of the fireflash in the astringent quality of the earth. 138. Though indeed the whole Deity is in the centre of the earth, hidden, yet the earth could not, for all that, bring forth heavenly fruit, for the astringent quality had shut and barred the hard bolt of death upon it, and so the heart of the Deity, in all the births, remained hidden in its meek and light heaven. 139. For the outermost birth is nature, and that ought not to reach back into the heart of God, neither can it, but it is the body, in which the qualifying or fountain spirits generate themselves, and shew forth and manifest their birth or geniture by their fruits. 140.* Therefore on the third day the earth began to spring, just as the qualifying or fountain spirits stood in the crack of the word or fireflash. * This par. does not appear in Sparrow's translation, though it is in all the German editions.
3THE TWENTYSECOND CHAPTER Of the Birth or Geniture of the Stars, and Creation of the Fourth Day. 1. HERE now is begun the describing of the astral birth. It ought well to be observed what the first title of this book meaneth, which is thus expressed: The DaySpring or Dawning in the East, or MorningRedness in the Rising. For here will a very simple man be able to see and comprehend or apprehend the being of God. 2. The Reader should not make himself blind through his unbelief and dull apprehension; for here I bring in the whole or total nature, with all her children, for a witness and a demonstration. If thou art rational, then look round about thee, and view thyself; also consider thyself aright, and then thou wilt soon find from or out of what spirit I write. 3. For my part, I will obediently perform the command of the spirit, only, have thou a care, and suffer not thyself to be shut out by an open door; * for here the gates of knowledge stand open to thee. * " shut out by an open door." That is, the door is open, do not imagine that it is shut. 4. Though the spirit will indeed go against the current of some astrologers, that is no great matter to me, for I am bound to obey God rather than men; men are blind in or concerning the spirit, and if they will not see, then they may remain blind still.
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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