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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.
1or write of their high art, if it were not given to me by the spirit of nature, in whom I live and am? I am in the condition or state of a vulgar or layman, and have no salary, wages or pay for this writing: Should I, then, oppose the spirit, that he should not begin to open where, and in whom, he pleaseth? I am not the door, but an ordinary wooden bolt upon it: Now if the spirit should pluck me out from thence, and fling me into the fire, could I hinder it? 21. But if I should be an unprofitable bolt, which would stubbornly resist to be pulled out, and would bolt up and hinder the spirit in the opening, would not the spirit be angry with me, tear me off, and cast me away, and provide a more profitable and & fitter bolt? Then should I lie on the ground and be trampled under foot, whereas formerly I made so fair a show upon the door: What would be the use of the bolt, except as firewood? 22. Behold! I tell thee a Mystery: so soon as the door is set wide open to its angle,* all useless, fastnailed, sticking bolts or bars will be cast away, for the door will never be shut any more at all, but standeth open, and then the four winds will go in and out at it. * "to its angle," lit., "upon its hinges," i. e. as wide as the hinges will allow. 23. But the sorcerer sitteth in the way, and will make many so blind that they will not see the door; and then they return home and say, There is no door at all, it is a mere fiction. And so they go thither no more. 24. Thus men suffer themselves easily to be turned away, and so live in their drunkenness.
225. Now when this is done, then the spirit which hath opened the gates is angry, because none will go OUT and IN at its doors any more, and then it flings the doorposts into the abyss, and then there is no more time at all. Those that are within, remain within; and those that are without, remain without. AMEN. Now it may be asked, What are the stars? Answer. 26. Moses writeth concerning them thus: And God said; Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, to divide or distinguish the day from the night; and let them give signs and seasons, days and years; and let them be lights in the firmament of heaven to shine or give light upon the earth; and it was so done. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; as also the stars. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to shine or give light upon the earth; and to rule day and night; also to divide or distinguish the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good, so out of the evening and the morning the fourth day came to be. 27. This description sheweth sufficiently that the dear man Moses was not the original author thereof; for the first writer did not know either the true God, or the stars, what they were. It is very likely that the creation, before the flood, was not described in writing, but was kept as a dark word in men's memories, and so delivered from one generation to another, till after the flood, and till people began to lead epicurean lives in all voluptuousness. 28. Then the holy patriarchs, when they saw that, described the creation, that it should
3not be quite forgotten, and that the swinish, epicurean world might have a lookingglass in the creation, wherein they might see that there is a God, and that this being of the world did not so stand from eternity; whereby they might have a glass to look into, and so fear the hidden God. 29.* This was the chief teaching and doctrine of the patriarchs, both before and after the flood, [namely] to direct men [i.e. men's attention] to the creation, which [object] the whole book of Job also driveth at. * A new translation of this par. has been substituted for Sparrow's rendering. 30. After these patriarchs came the wise Heathen, who went somewhat deeper into the knowledge of nature. And I must needs say, according to the ground of the truth, that they, in their philosophy and knowledge, did come even before the face or countenance of God, and yet could neither see nor know him. 31. Man was so altogether dead in death,* and so bolted up in the outermost birth or geniture in the dead palpability; or else they could have thought, that in this palpability there must needs be a divine power hidden in the centre, which had so created this palpability, and moreover preserveth, upholdeth and ruleth the same. * "Man was so altogether dead in death," etc. The first clause of this par. is really a completion of the foregoing par. That is, "they . . . did come . . . and yet could neither see nor know him, so entirely torpid in death was man, and so bolted up in the outermost . . . else they [the heathen]," etc. 32. Indeed they honoured, prayed to, or worshipped the sun and stars for gods, but knew not
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.
1or write of their high art, if it were not given to me by the spirit of nature, in whom I live and am? I am in the condition or state of a vulgar or layman, and have no salary, wages or pay for this writing: Should I, then, oppose the spirit, that he should not begin to open where, and in whom, he pleaseth? I am not the door, but an ordinary wooden bolt upon it: Now if the spirit should pluck me out from thence, and fling me into the fire, could I hinder it? 21. But if I should be an unprofitable bolt, which would stubbornly resist to be pulled out, and would bolt up and hinder the spirit in the opening, would not the spirit be angry with me, tear me off, and cast me away, and provide a more profitable and & fitter bolt? Then should I lie on the ground and be trampled under foot, whereas formerly I made so fair a show upon the door: What would be the use of the bolt, except as firewood? 22. Behold! I tell thee a Mystery: so soon as the door is set wide open to its angle,* all useless, fastnailed, sticking bolts or bars will be cast away, for the door will never be shut any more at all, but standeth open, and then the four winds will go in and out at it. * "to its angle," lit., "upon its hinges," i. e. as wide as the hinges will allow. 23. But the sorcerer sitteth in the way, and will make many so blind that they will not see the door; and then they return home and say, There is no door at all, it is a mere fiction. And so they go thither no more. 24. Thus men suffer themselves easily to be turned away, and so live in their drunkenness.
225. Now when this is done, then the spirit which hath opened the gates is angry, because none will go OUT and IN at its doors any more, and then it flings the doorposts into the abyss, and then there is no more time at all. Those that are within, remain within; and those that are without, remain without. AMEN. Now it may be asked, What are the stars? Answer. 26. Moses writeth concerning them thus: And God said; Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, to divide or distinguish the day from the night; and let them give signs and seasons, days and years; and let them be lights in the firmament of heaven to shine or give light upon the earth; and it was so done. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; as also the stars. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to shine or give light upon the earth; and to rule day and night; also to divide or distinguish the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good, so out of the evening and the morning the fourth day came to be. 27. This description sheweth sufficiently that the dear man Moses was not the original author thereof; for the first writer did not know either the true God, or the stars, what they were. It is very likely that the creation, before the flood, was not described in writing, but was kept as a dark word in men's memories, and so delivered from one generation to another, till after the flood, and till people began to lead epicurean lives in all voluptuousness. 28. Then the holy patriarchs, when they saw that, described the creation, that it should
3not be quite forgotten, and that the swinish, epicurean world might have a lookingglass in the creation, wherein they might see that there is a God, and that this being of the world did not so stand from eternity; whereby they might have a glass to look into, and so fear the hidden God. 29.* This was the chief teaching and doctrine of the patriarchs, both before and after the flood, [namely] to direct men [i.e. men's attention] to the creation, which [object] the whole book of Job also driveth at. * A new translation of this par. has been substituted for Sparrow's rendering. 30. After these patriarchs came the wise Heathen, who went somewhat deeper into the knowledge of nature. And I must needs say, according to the ground of the truth, that they, in their philosophy and knowledge, did come even before the face or countenance of God, and yet could neither see nor know him. 31. Man was so altogether dead in death,* and so bolted up in the outermost birth or geniture in the dead palpability; or else they could have thought, that in this palpability there must needs be a divine power hidden in the centre, which had so created this palpability, and moreover preserveth, upholdeth and ruleth the same. * "Man was so altogether dead in death," etc. The first clause of this par. is really a completion of the foregoing par. That is, "they . . . did come . . . and yet could neither see nor know him, so entirely torpid in death was man, and so bolted up in the outermost . . . else they [the heathen]," etc. 32. Indeed they honoured, prayed to, or worshipped the sun and stars for gods, but knew not
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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