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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.
1Answer. 40. Behold! the stars are risen or proceeded out of the kindled house of God's wrath, as the mobility or stirring of a child in the mother's body or womb in three months. But now they have attained their kindling from the eternal, benumbed, not quite dead, water of life, for in nature that water was never dead. 41. But when God moved himself in the body of this world, then on the third day the anxiety, in the birth of this world, rubbed itself, from whence the fireflash existed, and the light of the stars kindled itself in the water of life. 42. For till the third day from the time of the kindling of God's wrath in this world, nature, in the anxiety, was a dark valley, and stood in death; but on the third day the life brake through death, and the new birth began. 43. For so long, and not an hour longer, the newborn King and grand Prince of this world, JESUS CHRIST, rested in death, and hath regenerated the first three days of the creation of nature, and that very time [which was] in death, to light again; that this time might again be one time with the eternal time, and that no day of death might be between; and that the eternal love, and the newborn or regenerated love out of the new body of nature, might be one eternal love; and that there might be no difference between the eternal love, and the newborn or regenerated love, but that the newborn love might reach into the being or substance which was from eternity, and itself also be in eternity. 44. Thus the newborn love, which rose out of the water of life in the light in the stars, and in the whole body of this world, is wholly bound
2and united with the eternal, unbeginning, infinite love, so that they are one heart and one spirit, which supporteth and preserveth all. 45. In this kindling of the light, in the stars and elements, the birth of nature did not thereupon wholly transmute or change itself into the holy meekness, as it was before the time of the wrath, so that the birth of nature be now altogether holy and pure: No, but it standeth in its sharpest, most austere, and most anxious birth, wherein the wrath of God incessantly springeth up like hellish fire. 46. For if, with its sharp birth, nature had fully changed itself into love, according to the heavenly right, law or manner, then were the devils again in the seat of God. 47. And this thou mayest very well perceive and understand, in extreme heat and cold, as also by the poison, bitterness and sourness in this world; all which stand in the birth or geniture of the stars, wherein the devil lieth captive. 48. The stars are only the kindling of the great house; for the whole house is benumbed in death, as the earth is; for the outermost birth or geniture is dead and benumbed, as the rind, shell or bark of a tree. But the astral birth is the body in which the life riseth up. 49. But the astral birth is in its body very sharp; yet the new birth, which riseth up in the water of life, and presseth through death, mitigateth it. But the new birth cannot alter the kernel of the sharp birth, but is generated out of it, and keeps its own holy new life to itself, and presseth through the angry death, and the angry death comprehendeth it not.
350. Now this love and this wrath are indeed one body, but the water of life is the heaven of partition between them, so that the love doth not receive or comprehend the wrath, nor the wrath the love, but the love riseth up in the water of life, and receiveth into itself, from the first and austere birth, the power which is in the light, and which is generated out of the wrath; so that the new body is born out of the old. 51. For the old body, which standeth in the austere birth, belongeth to the devil for a house, and the new belongeth to the kingdom of Christ. Now it may be asked, Are not all the three Persons of the Deity in the birth or geniture of meekness in this world? Answer. 52. Yes, they are all three in this world in the full birth or geniture of love, meekness, holiness and purity, and they are always generated in such a substance and being, as was done from eternity. 53. Behold! God the Father spake to the People of Israel on mount Sinai, when he gave the Law to them, saying; I am an angry, [Exod. xx. 5;Deut.9] zealous or jealous God to those that hate me. 54. Now, of this one only Father, who is both angry and also full of love, thou canst not make two persons; but he is one only Father, who continually generateth his heartily beloved Son, and from both these the Holy Ghost goeth forth continually. Observe the Depth in the Centre. 55. The Father is the one only being, who himself is ALL, who from eternity continually
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.
1Answer. 40. Behold! the stars are risen or proceeded out of the kindled house of God's wrath, as the mobility or stirring of a child in the mother's body or womb in three months. But now they have attained their kindling from the eternal, benumbed, not quite dead, water of life, for in nature that water was never dead. 41. But when God moved himself in the body of this world, then on the third day the anxiety, in the birth of this world, rubbed itself, from whence the fireflash existed, and the light of the stars kindled itself in the water of life. 42. For till the third day from the time of the kindling of God's wrath in this world, nature, in the anxiety, was a dark valley, and stood in death; but on the third day the life brake through death, and the new birth began. 43. For so long, and not an hour longer, the newborn King and grand Prince of this world, JESUS CHRIST, rested in death, and hath regenerated the first three days of the creation of nature, and that very time [which was] in death, to light again; that this time might again be one time with the eternal time, and that no day of death might be between; and that the eternal love, and the newborn or regenerated love out of the new body of nature, might be one eternal love; and that there might be no difference between the eternal love, and the newborn or regenerated love, but that the newborn love might reach into the being or substance which was from eternity, and itself also be in eternity. 44. Thus the newborn love, which rose out of the water of life in the light in the stars, and in the whole body of this world, is wholly bound
2and united with the eternal, unbeginning, infinite love, so that they are one heart and one spirit, which supporteth and preserveth all. 45. In this kindling of the light, in the stars and elements, the birth of nature did not thereupon wholly transmute or change itself into the holy meekness, as it was before the time of the wrath, so that the birth of nature be now altogether holy and pure: No, but it standeth in its sharpest, most austere, and most anxious birth, wherein the wrath of God incessantly springeth up like hellish fire. 46. For if, with its sharp birth, nature had fully changed itself into love, according to the heavenly right, law or manner, then were the devils again in the seat of God. 47. And this thou mayest very well perceive and understand, in extreme heat and cold, as also by the poison, bitterness and sourness in this world; all which stand in the birth or geniture of the stars, wherein the devil lieth captive. 48. The stars are only the kindling of the great house; for the whole house is benumbed in death, as the earth is; for the outermost birth or geniture is dead and benumbed, as the rind, shell or bark of a tree. But the astral birth is the body in which the life riseth up. 49. But the astral birth is in its body very sharp; yet the new birth, which riseth up in the water of life, and presseth through death, mitigateth it. But the new birth cannot alter the kernel of the sharp birth, but is generated out of it, and keeps its own holy new life to itself, and presseth through the angry death, and the angry death comprehendeth it not.
350. Now this love and this wrath are indeed one body, but the water of life is the heaven of partition between them, so that the love doth not receive or comprehend the wrath, nor the wrath the love, but the love riseth up in the water of life, and receiveth into itself, from the first and austere birth, the power which is in the light, and which is generated out of the wrath; so that the new body is born out of the old. 51. For the old body, which standeth in the austere birth, belongeth to the devil for a house, and the new belongeth to the kingdom of Christ. Now it may be asked, Are not all the three Persons of the Deity in the birth or geniture of meekness in this world? Answer. 52. Yes, they are all three in this world in the full birth or geniture of love, meekness, holiness and purity, and they are always generated in such a substance and being, as was done from eternity. 53. Behold! God the Father spake to the People of Israel on mount Sinai, when he gave the Law to them, saying; I am an angry, [Exod. xx. 5;Deut.9] zealous or jealous God to those that hate me. 54. Now, of this one only Father, who is both angry and also full of love, thou canst not make two persons; but he is one only Father, who continually generateth his heartily beloved Son, and from both these the Holy Ghost goeth forth continually. Observe the Depth in the Centre. 55. The Father is the one only being, who himself is ALL, who from eternity continually
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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