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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.
1after crafty designs, which bring honour, power or authority, and riches. A Reply. 91. If thou climbest up this ladder on which I climb up into the deep of God, as I have done, then thou hast climbed well: I am not come to this meaning, or to this work and knowledge, through my own reason, or through my own will and purpose; neither have I sought this knowledge, nor so much as knew anything concerning it. I sought only for the Heart of God, therein to hide myself from the tempestuous storms of the devil. 92. But when I gat in thither, then this great, weighty and hard labour was laid upon me, which is, to manifest and reveal to the world, and to make known, the great day of the LORD; and, seeing men seek and long so eagerly after the root of the tree, to reveal to them what the whole tree is, thereby to intimate that it [the present time] is the Dawning, or Morning Redness of the Day, which God hath long ago decreed in his council. AMEN. 93. Thus thou seest what God is, and how his love and wrath have been from eternity, also how his birth or geniture is: And now thou canst not say that thou art not in God, or dost not live in God, or that God is any strange thing which thou canst not come at, but must confess, that where thou art, there is the gate of God. 94. Now if thou art holy, then, as to thy soul, thou art with God in heaven; but if thou art wicked, then, as to thy soul, thou art in hellfire. Now observe further:
295. When God created the angels, all of them were created wholly out of this birth or geniture of God; their body was compacted or incorporated out of nature, therein their spirit and light generated themselves, as the Deity generated itself. And, as the qualifying or fountain spirits of God always took their power and strength out of or from the body of nature, so the angels also took their power and strength always out of or from the nature of God. 96. And as the Holy Ghost in nature formeth and imageth or frameth all, so the spirit of the angels also qualified or united with the Holy Ghost, and did help to form, frame and image all, that all might be one heart and will, and a mere delight and joy: For the angels are the children of the great God, whom he hath generated in his body of nature for the multiplying of the divine joy. 97. But here thou must know that the bodies of angels cannot apprehend the birth or geniture of God, neither doth their body understand it, their spirit alone understandeth it, but the body holdeth still, as the nature in God doth, and lets the spirit cowork and labour with God, and play lovingly. 98. For the angels play before and in God, as little children play before their parents, whereby the divine joy is increased. 99. But when the mighty, potent prince and king Lucifer was created, he would not do so, but elevated and swelled himself, and would alone be God, and kindled the wrathfire in himself, and so did all his angels also. 100. Now when that was done he roared with his kindled firespirit abroad into the nature of God, and then the whole body in the nature of
3God, as far as Lucifer's kingdom and dominion reached, was kindled. But seeing his light was instantly extinguished, he could no more qualify or unite with his spirit in the two births or genitures, viz. of the Son of God, and of the Holy Spirit of God, but remained fixed in the sharp birth or geniture of God. 101. For the light of God, and the spirit of God, cannot comprehend the sharp birth or geniture, and therefore they are two distinct Persons; and so lord Lucifer could no more touch, see, feel or taste the Heart of God and the Holy Spirit of God, with his austere, cold and hard firebirth, but was spewed out with his firespirit into the outermost nature, wherein he had kindled the wrathfire. 102. This same nature is, indeed, the body of God, wherein the Deity generateth itself; but the devils cannot apprehend the meek birth of God which riseth up in the light For their body is dead to the light, and liveth in the outermost and austere birth or geniture of God, wherein the light never kindleth itself again any more. 103. For their unctuosness or fatness in the sweet water is burnt up, and that water is turned into a sour stink, wherein the light of God can no more kindle itself, and the light of God can no more enter into it. 104. For the qualifying or fountain spirits of the devils are shut up in the hard wrath; their bodies are a hard death, and their spirits are a fierce sting of the wrath of God, and their qualifying or fountain spirits generate themselves continually in the innermost sharpness, according to the sharp law [right or order] of the Deity. 105. For otherwise they cannot generate themselves; neither can they die, nor pass away 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.
1after crafty designs, which bring honour, power or authority, and riches. A Reply. 91. If thou climbest up this ladder on which I climb up into the deep of God, as I have done, then thou hast climbed well: I am not come to this meaning, or to this work and knowledge, through my own reason, or through my own will and purpose; neither have I sought this knowledge, nor so much as knew anything concerning it. I sought only for the Heart of God, therein to hide myself from the tempestuous storms of the devil. 92. But when I gat in thither, then this great, weighty and hard labour was laid upon me, which is, to manifest and reveal to the world, and to make known, the great day of the LORD; and, seeing men seek and long so eagerly after the root of the tree, to reveal to them what the whole tree is, thereby to intimate that it [the present time] is the Dawning, or Morning Redness of the Day, which God hath long ago decreed in his council. AMEN. 93. Thus thou seest what God is, and how his love and wrath have been from eternity, also how his birth or geniture is: And now thou canst not say that thou art not in God, or dost not live in God, or that God is any strange thing which thou canst not come at, but must confess, that where thou art, there is the gate of God. 94. Now if thou art holy, then, as to thy soul, thou art with God in heaven; but if thou art wicked, then, as to thy soul, thou art in hellfire. Now observe further:
295. When God created the angels, all of them were created wholly out of this birth or geniture of God; their body was compacted or incorporated out of nature, therein their spirit and light generated themselves, as the Deity generated itself. And, as the qualifying or fountain spirits of God always took their power and strength out of or from the body of nature, so the angels also took their power and strength always out of or from the nature of God. 96. And as the Holy Ghost in nature formeth and imageth or frameth all, so the spirit of the angels also qualified or united with the Holy Ghost, and did help to form, frame and image all, that all might be one heart and will, and a mere delight and joy: For the angels are the children of the great God, whom he hath generated in his body of nature for the multiplying of the divine joy. 97. But here thou must know that the bodies of angels cannot apprehend the birth or geniture of God, neither doth their body understand it, their spirit alone understandeth it, but the body holdeth still, as the nature in God doth, and lets the spirit cowork and labour with God, and play lovingly. 98. For the angels play before and in God, as little children play before their parents, whereby the divine joy is increased. 99. But when the mighty, potent prince and king Lucifer was created, he would not do so, but elevated and swelled himself, and would alone be God, and kindled the wrathfire in himself, and so did all his angels also. 100. Now when that was done he roared with his kindled firespirit abroad into the nature of God, and then the whole body in the nature of
3God, as far as Lucifer's kingdom and dominion reached, was kindled. But seeing his light was instantly extinguished, he could no more qualify or unite with his spirit in the two births or genitures, viz. of the Son of God, and of the Holy Spirit of God, but remained fixed in the sharp birth or geniture of God. 101. For the light of God, and the spirit of God, cannot comprehend the sharp birth or geniture, and therefore they are two distinct Persons; and so lord Lucifer could no more touch, see, feel or taste the Heart of God and the Holy Spirit of God, with his austere, cold and hard firebirth, but was spewed out with his firespirit into the outermost nature, wherein he had kindled the wrathfire. 102. This same nature is, indeed, the body of God, wherein the Deity generateth itself; but the devils cannot apprehend the meek birth of God which riseth up in the light For their body is dead to the light, and liveth in the outermost and austere birth or geniture of God, wherein the light never kindleth itself again any more. 103. For their unctuosness or fatness in the sweet water is burnt up, and that water is turned into a sour stink, wherein the light of God can no more kindle itself, and the light of God can no more enter into it. 104. For the qualifying or fountain spirits of the devils are shut up in the hard wrath; their bodies are a hard death, and their spirits are a fierce sting of the wrath of God, and their qualifying or fountain spirits generate themselves continually in the innermost sharpness, according to the sharp law [right or order] of the Deity. 105. For otherwise they cannot generate themselves; neither can they die, nor pass away 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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