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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.
125. As the eye of man seeth even unto the stars, from whence it hath a finite original and beginning, so also the soul seeth even into the divine being wherein it liveth. 26. But the soul having its source also out of nature, and that in nature there is good and bad, and that man hath cast himself, through sin, into the fierceness or wrath of nature, so that the soul is daily and hourly defiled with sins, therefore it knoweth but in part. 27. For the wrath or fierceness in nature reigneth now also in the soul. The Holy Ghost doth not go into the wrath or fierceness, but reigneth in the source of the soul, which is in the light of God, and fighteth against the wrath or fierceness in the soul. 28. Therefore the soul cannot attain unto any perfect knowledge in this life, till at the end, when light and darkness are separated, and wrath or fierceness is, with the body, consumed in the earth, then the soul seeth clearly and perfectly in God its Father. 29. But when the soul is kindled or enlightened by the Holy Ghost, then it triumpheth in the body, like a huge fire, which maketh the heart and reins tremble for joy. 30. There is not presently a great and deep knowledge in God its Father, but its love towards God its Father triumpheth thus in the fire of the Holy Spirit. 31. The knowledge of God is sown in the fire of the Holy Ghost, and at first is as small as a grain of mustardseed, as Christ makes the [Matt xiii.] comparison. Afterwards it groweth large like
2a tree, and spreadeth itself abroad in God its Creator. 32. Just as a drop of water in the ocean cannot avail much; but if a great river runneth into it, that maketh a great commotion. 33. Time past, present, and to come, as also depth and height, near and afar off, are all one in God, one comprehensibility. 34. The holy soul of man seeth the same also, but in this world in part only. It happeneth sometimes that it seeth nothing at all, for the devil doth assault it furiously in the fierce wrathful source that is in the soul, and oftentimes covereth the noble mustardseed; therefore man must always be at strife [or in conflict]. 35. In this manner, and in this knowledge of the spirit, I will write in this book concerning God our Father, in whom are all things, and who himself is all; and will handle how all is become separable and creaturely, and how all is impelled and moveth in the whole tree of life. 36. Here you shall see, 1. The true ground of the Deity; 2. How all was one being, essence or substance before the time of this world; 3. How the holy angels were created, and out of what; 4. How the terrible fall happened, of Lucifer, together with his legions; 5. How heaven, earth, stars and the elements were made; 6. How metals, stones and the creatures in the earth are generated: 7. How the birth of life is, and the corporeity of all things; 8. What the true heaven is, in which God and his saints do dwell; 9. What the wrath of God is, and the hellish fire; 10. And how all is become kindled and inflamed.*
3In brief, how, and what, the essence of all being is. * " kindled and inflamed " (anzündlich), " inflammable." Man. 37. The first seven chapters treat very plainly and comprehensibly of the being of God, and of angels, by similitudes, that the Reader may, from one step to another, at last come to the deep sense and true ground. 38. In the eighth chapter beginneth the depth in the divine being, and so on, the further the deeper. 39. Special points are often repeated, and described still more deeply, for the Reader's sake, and by reason of my slow and dull apprehension.** ** See Ch. X. par. 41 et seq., and Ch. XXI. par. 66. 40. That which you do not find sufficiently explained in this book, you will find more clearly in the second and third books. [Of the Three Principles and Of the Threefold Life of Man.] 41. For corruption is the cause why we know but in part, and have not perfect knowledge at once. 42. Yet this book is THE WONDER OF THE WORLD, which the holy soul will understand well enough. Thus I commit the Reader into the meek and holy love of God.
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.
125. As the eye of man seeth even unto the stars, from whence it hath a finite original and beginning, so also the soul seeth even into the divine being wherein it liveth. 26. But the soul having its source also out of nature, and that in nature there is good and bad, and that man hath cast himself, through sin, into the fierceness or wrath of nature, so that the soul is daily and hourly defiled with sins, therefore it knoweth but in part. 27. For the wrath or fierceness in nature reigneth now also in the soul. The Holy Ghost doth not go into the wrath or fierceness, but reigneth in the source of the soul, which is in the light of God, and fighteth against the wrath or fierceness in the soul. 28. Therefore the soul cannot attain unto any perfect knowledge in this life, till at the end, when light and darkness are separated, and wrath or fierceness is, with the body, consumed in the earth, then the soul seeth clearly and perfectly in God its Father. 29. But when the soul is kindled or enlightened by the Holy Ghost, then it triumpheth in the body, like a huge fire, which maketh the heart and reins tremble for joy. 30. There is not presently a great and deep knowledge in God its Father, but its love towards God its Father triumpheth thus in the fire of the Holy Spirit. 31. The knowledge of God is sown in the fire of the Holy Ghost, and at first is as small as a grain of mustardseed, as Christ makes the [Matt xiii.] comparison. Afterwards it groweth large like
2a tree, and spreadeth itself abroad in God its Creator. 32. Just as a drop of water in the ocean cannot avail much; but if a great river runneth into it, that maketh a great commotion. 33. Time past, present, and to come, as also depth and height, near and afar off, are all one in God, one comprehensibility. 34. The holy soul of man seeth the same also, but in this world in part only. It happeneth sometimes that it seeth nothing at all, for the devil doth assault it furiously in the fierce wrathful source that is in the soul, and oftentimes covereth the noble mustardseed; therefore man must always be at strife [or in conflict]. 35. In this manner, and in this knowledge of the spirit, I will write in this book concerning God our Father, in whom are all things, and who himself is all; and will handle how all is become separable and creaturely, and how all is impelled and moveth in the whole tree of life. 36. Here you shall see, 1. The true ground of the Deity; 2. How all was one being, essence or substance before the time of this world; 3. How the holy angels were created, and out of what; 4. How the terrible fall happened, of Lucifer, together with his legions; 5. How heaven, earth, stars and the elements were made; 6. How metals, stones and the creatures in the earth are generated: 7. How the birth of life is, and the corporeity of all things; 8. What the true heaven is, in which God and his saints do dwell; 9. What the wrath of God is, and the hellish fire; 10. And how all is become kindled and inflamed.*
3In brief, how, and what, the essence of all being is. * " kindled and inflamed " (anzündlich), " inflammable." Man. 37. The first seven chapters treat very plainly and comprehensibly of the being of God, and of angels, by similitudes, that the Reader may, from one step to another, at last come to the deep sense and true ground. 38. In the eighth chapter beginneth the depth in the divine being, and so on, the further the deeper. 39. Special points are often repeated, and described still more deeply, for the Reader's sake, and by reason of my slow and dull apprehension.** ** See Ch. X. par. 41 et seq., and Ch. XXI. par. 66. 40. That which you do not find sufficiently explained in this book, you will find more clearly in the second and third books. [Of the Three Principles and Of the Threefold Life of Man.] 41. For corruption is the cause why we know but in part, and have not perfect knowledge at once. 42. Yet this book is THE WONDER OF THE WORLD, which the holy soul will understand well enough. Thus I commit the Reader into the meek and holy love of God.
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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