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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.
1and wrath; and the new birth should eternally spring up in God, without, distinct from this place, and bear heavenly fruits again. 26. But the death of the earth, and the wrath therein, should be lord Lucifer's eternal house, after the accomplishing of the new birth or geni ture. In the meanwhile lord Lucifer should lie captive in the darkness in the deep above the earth; and there he now is, and may very shortly expect his portion. 27. That this new birth or geniture might be accomplished, whether the devil will or no, the Creator hath therefore, in the body of this world, generated himself, as it were creaturely, in his qualifying or fountain spirits; and all the stars are nothing else but God's powers, and the whole body of this world consisteth in the seven qualifying or fountain spirits. 28. But that there are so many stars of so manifold different effects and operations is from the infiniteness, which is in the efficiency [infection or affecting] of the seven spirits of God, in one another, which gener ate themselves infinitely. 29. But that the birth, or the body of the stars in their seat, doth not change or alter (but do as they did from eternity), signifieth that there shall be a constant, continued birth or geniture, whereby, in one uniform operation, which yet standeth in the infiniteness, the benumbed body of the earth should continually and constantly be kindled again, and generate itself anew, and so also should the house of darkness of the deep above the earth; whereby the new body might continually and constantly be generated out of death, till time should be accomplished, and the whole newborn body [perfected].
2Now thou wilt object and say, Then sure the stars are God, and they must be honoured and worshipped as God. 30. The wise Heathen also came to this [conclusion], who, indeed, in their sharp or acute understandings, far excelled our philosophers; but the right door of knowledge hath yet remained hidden from them. 31. Behold! the stars are plainly incorporated or compacted out of or from God; but thou must understand the difference between the stars and God, for the stars are not the heart and the meek pure Deity, which man is to honour and worship as God; but they are the innermost and sharpest birth or geniture, wherein all things stand in a wrestling and a fighting, wherein the heart of God always generateth itself, and wherein the Holy Ghost continually riseth up from the rising of the life. 32. But the sharp birth or geniture of the stars cannot again apprehend the heart of God, nor the Holy Ghost; but the light of God, which riseth up in the anxiety, together with the moving of the Holy Ghost, remaineth free to itself as the heart, and ruleth in the midst or centre of the closure of the hidden heaven, which is from or out of the water of life. 33. For from the heaven the stars have their first kindling, and are only as an instrument, which God useth to the birth or geniture. 34. It is just such a birth as is in man; the body is even the father of the soul, for the soul is generated out of the power of the body, and when the body standeth in the anguishing birth or geniture of God, as the stars do, and not in the fierce hellish birth, then the soul of man qualifieth,
3mixeth or uniteth with the pure Deity, as a member in or of his body. 35. Thus also is the heart or light of God always generated in the body of this world, and that generated heart is one heart with the eternal, unbeginning, infinite heart of God, which is in and above all heavens. 36. It is not generated in and from the stars only, but in the whole body of this world; but the stars always kindle the body of this world, that the birth or geniture may subsist everywhere. But here thou must well observe this. 37. The light or the heart of God taketh not its original barely from the wild rough stars, where, indeed, love and wrath are in each other, but out of or from the seat where the meek water of life is continually generated. 38. For that water, at or in the kindling of the wrath, was not apprehended by death, but subsisteth from eternity to eternity, and reacheth to all the ends and parts of or in this world, and is the water of life, which breaketh through death, out of which is built the new body of God in this world. 39. And it is in the stars, as well as in all ends, corners and places, but not in any place comprehensible or palpable, and it at once filleth or replenisheth all alike. It is also in the body of man, and he that thirsteth after this water, and drinketh thereof, in him the light of life kindleth itself, which is the heart of God; and there [in that place] presently springeth forth the Holy Ghost. Now thou askest, How then do the stars subsist in love and wrath?
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.
1and wrath; and the new birth should eternally spring up in God, without, distinct from this place, and bear heavenly fruits again. 26. But the death of the earth, and the wrath therein, should be lord Lucifer's eternal house, after the accomplishing of the new birth or geni ture. In the meanwhile lord Lucifer should lie captive in the darkness in the deep above the earth; and there he now is, and may very shortly expect his portion. 27. That this new birth or geniture might be accomplished, whether the devil will or no, the Creator hath therefore, in the body of this world, generated himself, as it were creaturely, in his qualifying or fountain spirits; and all the stars are nothing else but God's powers, and the whole body of this world consisteth in the seven qualifying or fountain spirits. 28. But that there are so many stars of so manifold different effects and operations is from the infiniteness, which is in the efficiency [infection or affecting] of the seven spirits of God, in one another, which gener ate themselves infinitely. 29. But that the birth, or the body of the stars in their seat, doth not change or alter (but do as they did from eternity), signifieth that there shall be a constant, continued birth or geniture, whereby, in one uniform operation, which yet standeth in the infiniteness, the benumbed body of the earth should continually and constantly be kindled again, and generate itself anew, and so also should the house of darkness of the deep above the earth; whereby the new body might continually and constantly be generated out of death, till time should be accomplished, and the whole newborn body [perfected].
2Now thou wilt object and say, Then sure the stars are God, and they must be honoured and worshipped as God. 30. The wise Heathen also came to this [conclusion], who, indeed, in their sharp or acute understandings, far excelled our philosophers; but the right door of knowledge hath yet remained hidden from them. 31. Behold! the stars are plainly incorporated or compacted out of or from God; but thou must understand the difference between the stars and God, for the stars are not the heart and the meek pure Deity, which man is to honour and worship as God; but they are the innermost and sharpest birth or geniture, wherein all things stand in a wrestling and a fighting, wherein the heart of God always generateth itself, and wherein the Holy Ghost continually riseth up from the rising of the life. 32. But the sharp birth or geniture of the stars cannot again apprehend the heart of God, nor the Holy Ghost; but the light of God, which riseth up in the anxiety, together with the moving of the Holy Ghost, remaineth free to itself as the heart, and ruleth in the midst or centre of the closure of the hidden heaven, which is from or out of the water of life. 33. For from the heaven the stars have their first kindling, and are only as an instrument, which God useth to the birth or geniture. 34. It is just such a birth as is in man; the body is even the father of the soul, for the soul is generated out of the power of the body, and when the body standeth in the anguishing birth or geniture of God, as the stars do, and not in the fierce hellish birth, then the soul of man qualifieth,
3mixeth or uniteth with the pure Deity, as a member in or of his body. 35. Thus also is the heart or light of God always generated in the body of this world, and that generated heart is one heart with the eternal, unbeginning, infinite heart of God, which is in and above all heavens. 36. It is not generated in and from the stars only, but in the whole body of this world; but the stars always kindle the body of this world, that the birth or geniture may subsist everywhere. But here thou must well observe this. 37. The light or the heart of God taketh not its original barely from the wild rough stars, where, indeed, love and wrath are in each other, but out of or from the seat where the meek water of life is continually generated. 38. For that water, at or in the kindling of the wrath, was not apprehended by death, but subsisteth from eternity to eternity, and reacheth to all the ends and parts of or in this world, and is the water of life, which breaketh through death, out of which is built the new body of God in this world. 39. And it is in the stars, as well as in all ends, corners and places, but not in any place comprehensible or palpable, and it at once filleth or replenisheth all alike. It is also in the body of man, and he that thirsteth after this water, and drinketh thereof, in him the light of life kindleth itself, which is the heart of God; and there [in that place] presently springeth forth the Holy Ghost. Now thou askest, How then do the stars subsist in love and wrath?
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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