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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.
1body mother Eves wrathapples to eat. Concerning the Kindling of the Heart or Life of this World. 32. When, in two days, God had brought the body of this world into a right form, and had made the heaven for a partition between the love and the wrath, then, on the third day, the love pressed through the heaven and through the wrath, and instantly the old body in death stirred and moved itself to the birth or geniture. 33. For the love is hot, and that kindled the firesource or quality, and that rubbed itself in the astringent and cold quality of the benumbed death, till the astringent quality was heated on the third day, whereby the mobility or the astringent earth became moveable. 34. For all stood in the firecrack till the fourth day, and then the light of the sun kindled itself; for the whole body stood in anguish or pain in the birth, as a woman in travail. 35. The astringent quality was the encompasser or encloser of the life; therein * was the heat now anxious, which was kindled through the love of God, and did drive out the astringent quality as a dead body; but the heat retained its seat in the midst or centre of the body, and so pressed through. * " therein " — in the astringent quality. 36. But when the light of the sun kindled itself, then the next circle or orb above the sun stood in the firecrack, (for the sun or the light was shining in the water), and the bitterness ascended also in the firecrack out of the water. But the light made very great haste after it, and
2laid hold on the firecrack; and there it remained as a captive, and became corporeal. 37. In this revolution the planet Mars came to be, whose power standeth in the bitter firecrack, for Mars is a tyrant, rager, raver and stormer, like a firecrack; moreover it is hot, and a poisonous, venomous enemy of nature; through whose rising up and birth or geniture in the earth all manner of poisonous, venomous, evil worms and vermin are come to be. 38. But seeing the heat in the middle point or centre of the body was so mighty great, thereupon it extended itself so very largely, and opened the chamber of death so wide before its kindling of the light, that it (the SUN) is the greatest star. 39. But as soon as the light kindled itself in the heat, so instantly was that hot place caught in the light, and then the body of the sun could grow no bigger. For the light mitigated the heat, and so the body of the sun remained there in the midst or centre as a heart; for the light is the heart of nature, not the heat. But here thou must observe exactly, 40. As far as the middle point or centre hath kindled itself, just so big is the sun; for the sun is nothing else but a kindled point in the body of nature. 41. Thou must not think that there is any other power or virtue in it, or belonging to it, than there is in the whole deep of the body everywhere, all over. 42. For should the love of God, through its heaven, kindle the whole body of this world through the heat, it would be everywhere all over as light as it now is in the sun.
343. Now if the great heat were taken away from the sun, then it would be one light with God; but seeing in this time that cannot be, therefore it remaineth a king and regent in the old corrupted and kindled body of nature; and the clear Deity remaineth hidden in the meek heaven. 44. But the light of the meekness of the sun qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth with the pure Deity; but the heat cannot comprehend the light, and therefore also the place of the sun remaineth in the body of God's wrath, and thou must not worship, nor pray to nor honour the sun as God, for its place or body cannot apprehend the water of life, because of the fierceness in the sun. The highest Ground of the SUN, and of ALL the PLANETS. 45. Here I shall have adversaries enough who will be ready to censure me, for they will not have regard to consider the spirit, but will mind their old rules, and say, Astrologers, who have written of such matters, understand it better; and my adversaries will look on the great open gate as a cow looks on a new barn door. 46. Dear Reader, I understand the astrologers' meanings and sayings full well, and I have perused their writings also, and taken notice how they describe the course of the sun and stars, neither do I despise it, but, for the most part, hold that to be good and right. 47. But that in some things I write otherwise than they, I do it not out of selfwill or conceit and supposition, doubting whether it be so or no. I dare not make any doubt herein, neither can
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.
1body mother Eves wrathapples to eat. Concerning the Kindling of the Heart or Life of this World. 32. When, in two days, God had brought the body of this world into a right form, and had made the heaven for a partition between the love and the wrath, then, on the third day, the love pressed through the heaven and through the wrath, and instantly the old body in death stirred and moved itself to the birth or geniture. 33. For the love is hot, and that kindled the firesource or quality, and that rubbed itself in the astringent and cold quality of the benumbed death, till the astringent quality was heated on the third day, whereby the mobility or the astringent earth became moveable. 34. For all stood in the firecrack till the fourth day, and then the light of the sun kindled itself; for the whole body stood in anguish or pain in the birth, as a woman in travail. 35. The astringent quality was the encompasser or encloser of the life; therein * was the heat now anxious, which was kindled through the love of God, and did drive out the astringent quality as a dead body; but the heat retained its seat in the midst or centre of the body, and so pressed through. * " therein " — in the astringent quality. 36. But when the light of the sun kindled itself, then the next circle or orb above the sun stood in the firecrack, (for the sun or the light was shining in the water), and the bitterness ascended also in the firecrack out of the water. But the light made very great haste after it, and
2laid hold on the firecrack; and there it remained as a captive, and became corporeal. 37. In this revolution the planet Mars came to be, whose power standeth in the bitter firecrack, for Mars is a tyrant, rager, raver and stormer, like a firecrack; moreover it is hot, and a poisonous, venomous enemy of nature; through whose rising up and birth or geniture in the earth all manner of poisonous, venomous, evil worms and vermin are come to be. 38. But seeing the heat in the middle point or centre of the body was so mighty great, thereupon it extended itself so very largely, and opened the chamber of death so wide before its kindling of the light, that it (the SUN) is the greatest star. 39. But as soon as the light kindled itself in the heat, so instantly was that hot place caught in the light, and then the body of the sun could grow no bigger. For the light mitigated the heat, and so the body of the sun remained there in the midst or centre as a heart; for the light is the heart of nature, not the heat. But here thou must observe exactly, 40. As far as the middle point or centre hath kindled itself, just so big is the sun; for the sun is nothing else but a kindled point in the body of nature. 41. Thou must not think that there is any other power or virtue in it, or belonging to it, than there is in the whole deep of the body everywhere, all over. 42. For should the love of God, through its heaven, kindle the whole body of this world through the heat, it would be everywhere all over as light as it now is in the sun.
343. Now if the great heat were taken away from the sun, then it would be one light with God; but seeing in this time that cannot be, therefore it remaineth a king and regent in the old corrupted and kindled body of nature; and the clear Deity remaineth hidden in the meek heaven. 44. But the light of the meekness of the sun qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth with the pure Deity; but the heat cannot comprehend the light, and therefore also the place of the sun remaineth in the body of God's wrath, and thou must not worship, nor pray to nor honour the sun as God, for its place or body cannot apprehend the water of life, because of the fierceness in the sun. The highest Ground of the SUN, and of ALL the PLANETS. 45. Here I shall have adversaries enough who will be ready to censure me, for they will not have regard to consider the spirit, but will mind their old rules, and say, Astrologers, who have written of such matters, understand it better; and my adversaries will look on the great open gate as a cow looks on a new barn door. 46. Dear Reader, I understand the astrologers' meanings and sayings full well, and I have perused their writings also, and taken notice how they describe the course of the sun and stars, neither do I despise it, but, for the most part, hold that to be good and right. 47. But that in some things I write otherwise than they, I do it not out of selfwill or conceit and supposition, doubting whether it be so or no. I dare not make any doubt herein, neither can
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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