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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.
1shell or bark of the tree, and are one life with God. 12. And the wrath also springeth up in the house of darkness, and holdeth many a noble twig captive in death, through its infection in the house of fierceness. 13. This now is the sum or the contents of the astral birth or geniture, of which I here intend to write. Now it may be asked, What are the stars? or out of what are they come to be? 14. They are the power of the seven spirits of God; for when in this world the wrath of God was kindled by the devil, then the whole house of this world in nature, or the outermost birth or geniture, was as it were benumbed or chilled in death; from whence the earth and stones are come to be. But when this hard dross or scum was driven together into a lump or heap, then the deep was cleared. But the deep was very dark, for the light therein was dead in the wrath. 15. Now the body of God, as to this world, could not remain in death, so God moved himself with his seven qualifying or fountain spirits to the birth or geniture. But thou must understand this high thing rightly. 16. The light of God, which is the Son of God, and also the Holy Ghost, died not; but the light, which hath gone forth from or out of the heart of God from eternity, and hath enlightened nature, ([the nature] which is generated out of the seven spirits), that [light] is departed or gone away from the hard corrupted nature. From whence it is that the nature of this world, with its comprehensibility
2or palpability, hath remained in death, and cannot apprehend the light of God, but is a dark house of devils. 17. Upon this, on the fourth day of the creation, God regenerated anew the whole house of this world, with the qualities thereof, and hath placed or set the qualifying or fountain spirits in the house of darkness, that he might generate to himself again out of that a new body, to his praise, honour and glory. 18. For his purpose was to create another angelical host or army out of this house, which was to be done thus: He would create an angel, namely Adam, who should generate out of himself creatures like himself, who should possess the house of the new birth; and in the middle of time their king should be generated or born out of a human body, and possess the newborn kingdom as a king of these creatures, in place of the corrupted and expelled Lucifer. 19. Further, at the fulness or accomplishment of this time, God would adorn and trim this house with its qualities, as a royal government, and let those very qualifying or fountain spirits possess the whole house, that they might, in that house of darkness and of death, bring forth creatures and images again, as they had done from eternity, till the accomplishment or fulfilling of the whole host or army of the new created angels, namely men. Then God would bolt and bar up the devil in the house of darkness in a narrow hell, and then kindle the whole house in its own light again, all but the very hole, hell or dungeon of the devils. Now it may be asked, Why did not God bolt him up instantly, and then he had not done so much mischief.
3Answer. 20. Behold! this was God's purpose, which [purpose] must stand: that he would reedify out of the corrupted nature of the earth, or build again to himself an angelical host or army: Understand, a new body, which should subsist eternally in God. 21. It was not at all God's intention to let the devil have the whole earth for an eternal dwelling house, but to let him have only the death and fierceness of the earth, which he had brought into it. 22. For what sin had the Salitter committed against God, that it should stand totally in eternal shame? None: It was only a body, which must remain still, when the devil elevated or swelled himself therein. 23. Now if God should have instantly left it to the devil for an eternal dwellinghouse, then out of that place a new body could not have been built. Now what sin had that space, place or room committed against God, that it should stand in eternal shame? None; and therefore that were an injustice. 24. Now the purpose of God was to make a beautiful, excellent, angelical host or army out of the earth, and [also] all manner of ideas, forms or images. For in and upon that [earth] all should spring and generate themselves anew, as we see in mineral ores, stones, trees, herbs and grass, and in all manner of beasts after a heavenly image or form. 25. And though those imagings were transitory, seeing they were not pure before God, yet God would, at the end of this time, extract and draw forth the heart and the kernel out of the new birth or geniture, and separate it from death
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.
1shell or bark of the tree, and are one life with God. 12. And the wrath also springeth up in the house of darkness, and holdeth many a noble twig captive in death, through its infection in the house of fierceness. 13. This now is the sum or the contents of the astral birth or geniture, of which I here intend to write. Now it may be asked, What are the stars? or out of what are they come to be? 14. They are the power of the seven spirits of God; for when in this world the wrath of God was kindled by the devil, then the whole house of this world in nature, or the outermost birth or geniture, was as it were benumbed or chilled in death; from whence the earth and stones are come to be. But when this hard dross or scum was driven together into a lump or heap, then the deep was cleared. But the deep was very dark, for the light therein was dead in the wrath. 15. Now the body of God, as to this world, could not remain in death, so God moved himself with his seven qualifying or fountain spirits to the birth or geniture. But thou must understand this high thing rightly. 16. The light of God, which is the Son of God, and also the Holy Ghost, died not; but the light, which hath gone forth from or out of the heart of God from eternity, and hath enlightened nature, ([the nature] which is generated out of the seven spirits), that [light] is departed or gone away from the hard corrupted nature. From whence it is that the nature of this world, with its comprehensibility
2or palpability, hath remained in death, and cannot apprehend the light of God, but is a dark house of devils. 17. Upon this, on the fourth day of the creation, God regenerated anew the whole house of this world, with the qualities thereof, and hath placed or set the qualifying or fountain spirits in the house of darkness, that he might generate to himself again out of that a new body, to his praise, honour and glory. 18. For his purpose was to create another angelical host or army out of this house, which was to be done thus: He would create an angel, namely Adam, who should generate out of himself creatures like himself, who should possess the house of the new birth; and in the middle of time their king should be generated or born out of a human body, and possess the newborn kingdom as a king of these creatures, in place of the corrupted and expelled Lucifer. 19. Further, at the fulness or accomplishment of this time, God would adorn and trim this house with its qualities, as a royal government, and let those very qualifying or fountain spirits possess the whole house, that they might, in that house of darkness and of death, bring forth creatures and images again, as they had done from eternity, till the accomplishment or fulfilling of the whole host or army of the new created angels, namely men. Then God would bolt and bar up the devil in the house of darkness in a narrow hell, and then kindle the whole house in its own light again, all but the very hole, hell or dungeon of the devils. Now it may be asked, Why did not God bolt him up instantly, and then he had not done so much mischief.
3Answer. 20. Behold! this was God's purpose, which [purpose] must stand: that he would reedify out of the corrupted nature of the earth, or build again to himself an angelical host or army: Understand, a new body, which should subsist eternally in God. 21. It was not at all God's intention to let the devil have the whole earth for an eternal dwelling house, but to let him have only the death and fierceness of the earth, which he had brought into it. 22. For what sin had the Salitter committed against God, that it should stand totally in eternal shame? None: It was only a body, which must remain still, when the devil elevated or swelled himself therein. 23. Now if God should have instantly left it to the devil for an eternal dwellinghouse, then out of that place a new body could not have been built. Now what sin had that space, place or room committed against God, that it should stand in eternal shame? None; and therefore that were an injustice. 24. Now the purpose of God was to make a beautiful, excellent, angelical host or army out of the earth, and [also] all manner of ideas, forms or images. For in and upon that [earth] all should spring and generate themselves anew, as we see in mineral ores, stones, trees, herbs and grass, and in all manner of beasts after a heavenly image or form. 25. And though those imagings were transitory, seeing they were not pure before God, yet God would, at the end of this time, extract and draw forth the heart and the kernel out of the new birth or geniture, and separate it from death
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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