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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.
1is with the colours and taste in the rising up, so also are the figures imaged. 46. And this birth or geniture now is called GOD the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: Not one of them is the first, and not one of them is the last: though I make a distinction, and set the one after the other, yet not one of them is the first or the last, but they have all been from eternity thus seated in the same equality of being. 47. I must write thus by way of distinction, that the Reader may understand it; for I cannot write mere heavenly words, but must write human words. Indeed all is rightly, truly and faithfully described: But the being of God consisteth only in power, and only the spirit comprehendeth it, and not the dead or mortal flesh. 48. Thus thou mayest understand what manner of being the Deity is, and how the three Persons in the Deity are. Thou must not liken the Deity to any image; for the Deity is the birth or geniture of all things. If, in the first four species or kinds, there were not the sharp birth or generating, then there would be no mobility, neither could the light kindle itself and generate the life. 49. But now this sharp birth or geniture is the original of mobility and of life, as also of the light, from whence existeth the living and rational spirit, which distinguisheth, formeth and imageth all in this generating. 50. For the astringent cold birth or geniture is the beginning of all things, which quality is astringent, severe, contracting and retentive, and formeth and contracteth together the birth, and maketh the birth thick or solid, so that out of it nature cometh to be; hence nature and comprehensibility
2hath its original in the whole body of God. 51. Now this nature is as a dead, unintellectual being, and standeth or consisteth not in the power of the birth or geniture, but is a body, wherein the power generateth. 52. But it is the body of God, and hath all power as the whole geniture hath, and the generating spirits take their strength and power out of or from the body of nature, and continually generate again, and the astringent spirit continually compacteth or draweth together again, and drieth up; and thus the body subsisteth, and the generating spirits also. 53. Now the other birth or geniture is the water, which taketh its original in the body of nature. Observe: 54. Now when the light shineth through the astringent, contracted body of nature, and mitigateth it, then the mild, beneficent welldoing generateth itself in the body, and then the hard power groweth very mild, and melteth, as ice in the heat of the sun, and is extenuated or rarefied, as water is in the air; and yet the stock of nature, as to the heavenly comprehensibility, remaineth the same. 55. For the astringent and firespirit holdeth it fast, and the meek water, which melteth from the body of nature in the kindling of the light, goeth through the severe, earnest, cold and fiery birth or geniture, and is very sweet, pleasant and lovely. 56. Whereby now the earnest and austere birth or geniture is refreshed; and when it tasteth thereof it groweth capable to be raised up, and
3rejoiceth, and also is a joyful rising up, wherein the life of meekness generateth itself. 57. For this is the water of life, wherein the love, in God as also in angels and in men, generateth itself: For it is all of one sort of power, virtue and birth or geniture. 58. And now when the births or genitures of the powers taste the water of life, then they quake or tremble for very lovejoy, and that trembling or moving, which riseth up in the midst or centre of the birth or geniture, is bitter. For it riseth up swiftly out of the birth, when the water of life cometh into the birth or geniture, like a joyful leaping or springing up of the birth. 59. But seeing it riseth up so swiftly, that the birth elevateth itself so suddenly, before it be fully affected with the water of life, thereupon that terror or crack keepeth its bitterness which it hath out of or from the austere birth; for the beginning or inceptive birth or geniture is very austere, cold, fiery and astringent. 60. Therefore also is the terror or crack now so swelling and trembling; for it moveth the whole birth, and rubbeth itself therein, till it kindleth the fire in the hard fierceness, from whence the light taketh its original. Then the trembling crack becometh enlightened with the meekness of the light, and goeth in the birth or geniture up and down, and crossways, both upwards and downwards, like a wheel made with seven wheels one in another. 61. In this pressing through and turning about existeth the tone, according to the quality of each spirit; and always one power affecteth another, for the powers are as loving brethren in one body; and the meekness riseth up; and
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.
1is with the colours and taste in the rising up, so also are the figures imaged. 46. And this birth or geniture now is called GOD the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: Not one of them is the first, and not one of them is the last: though I make a distinction, and set the one after the other, yet not one of them is the first or the last, but they have all been from eternity thus seated in the same equality of being. 47. I must write thus by way of distinction, that the Reader may understand it; for I cannot write mere heavenly words, but must write human words. Indeed all is rightly, truly and faithfully described: But the being of God consisteth only in power, and only the spirit comprehendeth it, and not the dead or mortal flesh. 48. Thus thou mayest understand what manner of being the Deity is, and how the three Persons in the Deity are. Thou must not liken the Deity to any image; for the Deity is the birth or geniture of all things. If, in the first four species or kinds, there were not the sharp birth or generating, then there would be no mobility, neither could the light kindle itself and generate the life. 49. But now this sharp birth or geniture is the original of mobility and of life, as also of the light, from whence existeth the living and rational spirit, which distinguisheth, formeth and imageth all in this generating. 50. For the astringent cold birth or geniture is the beginning of all things, which quality is astringent, severe, contracting and retentive, and formeth and contracteth together the birth, and maketh the birth thick or solid, so that out of it nature cometh to be; hence nature and comprehensibility
2hath its original in the whole body of God. 51. Now this nature is as a dead, unintellectual being, and standeth or consisteth not in the power of the birth or geniture, but is a body, wherein the power generateth. 52. But it is the body of God, and hath all power as the whole geniture hath, and the generating spirits take their strength and power out of or from the body of nature, and continually generate again, and the astringent spirit continually compacteth or draweth together again, and drieth up; and thus the body subsisteth, and the generating spirits also. 53. Now the other birth or geniture is the water, which taketh its original in the body of nature. Observe: 54. Now when the light shineth through the astringent, contracted body of nature, and mitigateth it, then the mild, beneficent welldoing generateth itself in the body, and then the hard power groweth very mild, and melteth, as ice in the heat of the sun, and is extenuated or rarefied, as water is in the air; and yet the stock of nature, as to the heavenly comprehensibility, remaineth the same. 55. For the astringent and firespirit holdeth it fast, and the meek water, which melteth from the body of nature in the kindling of the light, goeth through the severe, earnest, cold and fiery birth or geniture, and is very sweet, pleasant and lovely. 56. Whereby now the earnest and austere birth or geniture is refreshed; and when it tasteth thereof it groweth capable to be raised up, and
3rejoiceth, and also is a joyful rising up, wherein the life of meekness generateth itself. 57. For this is the water of life, wherein the love, in God as also in angels and in men, generateth itself: For it is all of one sort of power, virtue and birth or geniture. 58. And now when the births or genitures of the powers taste the water of life, then they quake or tremble for very lovejoy, and that trembling or moving, which riseth up in the midst or centre of the birth or geniture, is bitter. For it riseth up swiftly out of the birth, when the water of life cometh into the birth or geniture, like a joyful leaping or springing up of the birth. 59. But seeing it riseth up so swiftly, that the birth elevateth itself so suddenly, before it be fully affected with the water of life, thereupon that terror or crack keepeth its bitterness which it hath out of or from the austere birth; for the beginning or inceptive birth or geniture is very austere, cold, fiery and astringent. 60. Therefore also is the terror or crack now so swelling and trembling; for it moveth the whole birth, and rubbeth itself therein, till it kindleth the fire in the hard fierceness, from whence the light taketh its original. Then the trembling crack becometh enlightened with the meekness of the light, and goeth in the birth or geniture up and down, and crossways, both upwards and downwards, like a wheel made with seven wheels one in another. 61. In this pressing through and turning about existeth the tone, according to the quality of each spirit; and always one power affecteth another, for the powers are as loving brethren in one body; and the meekness riseth up; and
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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