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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.
1presseth through the wrath into the love, then is he like the man who pressed through by his knowledge. But those that persevere in the wrath, and wholly kindle it in themselves, they are all alike, one and other, be they Christians, Jews, Turks, or Heathen. Or what dost thou suppose it is, wherewith man can serve God? 56. If thou wilt dissemble with God, and adorn or magnify thy birth, then I suppose thee to be a very fine angel indeed! He that hath love in his heart, and leadeth a merciful, meek, and lowlyminded life, and fighteth against malice and hatred, and presseth through the wrath of God into the light, he liveth with God, and is one spirit with God. 57. For God needeth no other service, but that his creature, which is in his body, do not slide back from him, but be holy, as he is. 58. Therefore also God gave the Law to the Jews, that they should diligently study and endeavour after meek holiness and love, that thereby all the world might have them for their lookingglass or mirror. But when the Jews grew proud, and boasted in their birth, instead of entering into love, they turned the law of love into sharpness of wrath; then God removed their candlestick, and went to the Heathen. 59. II. Secondly, There is this difference between the Christians, Jews, Turks, and Heathen: the Christians know the Tree of Life, which is CHRISTUS, CHRIST, who is the Prince of our heaven and of this world, and ruleth in all births or genitures as a King in God his Father, and men are his members. 60. Now Christians know how they can, by the
2power of this Tree, press out from their death, through his death, to him into his life, and reign and live with him, wherein they also, with their pressing through with their new birth out from this dead body, can be with him in heaven. 61. And though the dead body is in the midst or centre of hell among all the devils, yet, for all that, the new man reigneth with God in heaven, and the Tree of Life is to them a strong gate, through which they do enter into life: But of this thou wilt find more largely in its proper place. Now observe: 62. Moses writeth, that God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, which should therein give a light to the earth, and divide or distinguish day and night; also make years and times or seasons. 63. This description sheweth that the first writer did not know what the stars are, though he was capable of understanding the right or law of God, and hath taken hold on the Deity at the heart, and looked upon or had respect to the heart, to consider what the heart and kernel of this creation is; though the spirit kept the astral and outermost dead birth or geniture hidden from him, and did only drive him in faith to the heart of the Deity. 64. Which is also the principal point most necessary for man: For when he layeth hold on true faith, then he presseth through the wrath of God, through death into life, and reigneth with God. 65. But seeing men now, at the end of this time, do listen and long very much after the root of the tree, through which nature sheweih that the time of the discovery of the tree is at hand, therefore the spirit will shew it to them. And
3the whole Deity will reveal itself, which is the Dayspring, Dawning, or Morningredness, and the breakingforth of the great day of God, in which whatsoever is generated from death to the regeneration of life shall be restored and rise again. 66. Behold, when God said, Let there be light, then the light in the powers of nature, or the seven spirits of God, rose up, and the firmament of heaven, which standeth in the Word, in the heart of the water, between the astral and the outermost birth or geniture, was closed or shut up by or with the Word and heart of the water, and the astral birth is the place of the partingmark or limit, which standeth half in heaven and half in the wrath. 67. For from or out of that half part of the wrath the dead birth generateth itself continually, and out of the other half part, which reacheth with its innermost degree even into the innermost heart and light of God, the life generateth itself now continually through death, and yet the astral birth or geniture is not two bodies, but one body. 68. But when, in these two days, the creation of heaven and of earth was completed, and the heaven was made in the heart of the water, for a difference or distinction between the light of God and the wrath of God, then, on the third day, through the terror or crack of the fireflash, which rose up in the heart of the water, and presseth through death, incomprehensibly as to death, there sprang up all manner of ideas, forms and figures, as was done before the time of the kindled wrath. 69. But seeing the water, which is the spirit of the astral life, stood in the midst or centre
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.
1presseth through the wrath into the love, then is he like the man who pressed through by his knowledge. But those that persevere in the wrath, and wholly kindle it in themselves, they are all alike, one and other, be they Christians, Jews, Turks, or Heathen. Or what dost thou suppose it is, wherewith man can serve God? 56. If thou wilt dissemble with God, and adorn or magnify thy birth, then I suppose thee to be a very fine angel indeed! He that hath love in his heart, and leadeth a merciful, meek, and lowlyminded life, and fighteth against malice and hatred, and presseth through the wrath of God into the light, he liveth with God, and is one spirit with God. 57. For God needeth no other service, but that his creature, which is in his body, do not slide back from him, but be holy, as he is. 58. Therefore also God gave the Law to the Jews, that they should diligently study and endeavour after meek holiness and love, that thereby all the world might have them for their lookingglass or mirror. But when the Jews grew proud, and boasted in their birth, instead of entering into love, they turned the law of love into sharpness of wrath; then God removed their candlestick, and went to the Heathen. 59. II. Secondly, There is this difference between the Christians, Jews, Turks, and Heathen: the Christians know the Tree of Life, which is CHRISTUS, CHRIST, who is the Prince of our heaven and of this world, and ruleth in all births or genitures as a King in God his Father, and men are his members. 60. Now Christians know how they can, by the
2power of this Tree, press out from their death, through his death, to him into his life, and reign and live with him, wherein they also, with their pressing through with their new birth out from this dead body, can be with him in heaven. 61. And though the dead body is in the midst or centre of hell among all the devils, yet, for all that, the new man reigneth with God in heaven, and the Tree of Life is to them a strong gate, through which they do enter into life: But of this thou wilt find more largely in its proper place. Now observe: 62. Moses writeth, that God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, which should therein give a light to the earth, and divide or distinguish day and night; also make years and times or seasons. 63. This description sheweth that the first writer did not know what the stars are, though he was capable of understanding the right or law of God, and hath taken hold on the Deity at the heart, and looked upon or had respect to the heart, to consider what the heart and kernel of this creation is; though the spirit kept the astral and outermost dead birth or geniture hidden from him, and did only drive him in faith to the heart of the Deity. 64. Which is also the principal point most necessary for man: For when he layeth hold on true faith, then he presseth through the wrath of God, through death into life, and reigneth with God. 65. But seeing men now, at the end of this time, do listen and long very much after the root of the tree, through which nature sheweih that the time of the discovery of the tree is at hand, therefore the spirit will shew it to them. And
3the whole Deity will reveal itself, which is the Dayspring, Dawning, or Morningredness, and the breakingforth of the great day of God, in which whatsoever is generated from death to the regeneration of life shall be restored and rise again. 66. Behold, when God said, Let there be light, then the light in the powers of nature, or the seven spirits of God, rose up, and the firmament of heaven, which standeth in the Word, in the heart of the water, between the astral and the outermost birth or geniture, was closed or shut up by or with the Word and heart of the water, and the astral birth is the place of the partingmark or limit, which standeth half in heaven and half in the wrath. 67. For from or out of that half part of the wrath the dead birth generateth itself continually, and out of the other half part, which reacheth with its innermost degree even into the innermost heart and light of God, the life generateth itself now continually through death, and yet the astral birth or geniture is not two bodies, but one body. 68. But when, in these two days, the creation of heaven and of earth was completed, and the heaven was made in the heart of the water, for a difference or distinction between the light of God and the wrath of God, then, on the third day, through the terror or crack of the fireflash, which rose up in the heart of the water, and presseth through death, incomprehensibly as to death, there sprang up all manner of ideas, forms and figures, as was done before the time of the kindled wrath. 69. But seeing the water, which is the spirit of the astral life, stood in the midst or centre
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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