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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.
1the brain, from whence, in the brain, the senses of the heart exist. The brain in the head taketh its original from the power of the heart. Now observe: 106. After the firecrack of the gall, or Mars, was departed from the light of life, then the power pressed out of the heart after it, through the light of life, even into the head, into the austere quality; and when the power can rise up no higher, then it is stayed or captivated by the austere birth, and is dried up by the cold. 107. Now here it stayeth, and qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth with the spirit of life in the heart, and is a royal seat of the spirit of the heart; for thus far the spirit of the heart's power presseth forth, and there is it approved. 108. For the brain sitteth in the severe birth or geniture, and in its own body it is the meek power of the heart, and signifieth the new birth, which is new regenerated in the midst or centre of the austereness of death and wrath, in its heaven, and presseth forth through death into life. 109. For there the spirit or the thoughts become a whole creaturely person again, through the affecting or proving of all powers, which in man I call the animated or soulish birth. 110. For when the new spirit in the brain is well settled, then it goeth to its mother again, into the heart; and then it standeth as a perfect spirit or will, or as a newborn person, which, in man, is called the soul. 111. Now behold! as the brain in man is a being and product, so also is the planet Jupiter a being and product; for it hath its original from
2the rising up of life, from the power which is risen up out of the water of life, out of the place of the sun, through the light. 112. And that power is risen up so high, that it is caught or captivated again in or by the austere, hard and cold power; and there it remaineth at a stand; and by the first revolution or going forth is become corporeal, and became exsiccated or dried by the austere and cold power. 113. And it is rightly the brain in the corporeal government of this world, from whence the senses and the reason are generated, also all meekness and wisdom in natural things; but the right and holy spirit in man is generated in the hidden heaven in the water of life. 114. The outward Jupiter is only the meekness and understanding in the outward comprehensi bility or palpable things; but the holy fountain or wellspring is incomprehensible and unsearcha ble or unfathomable to outward reason. For the astral birth or geniture stands only as to its root in the holy heavens , and as to its corporeity [ it standeth ] in the wrath.
3THE TWENTYSIXTH CHAPTER Of the Planet Saturnus 1. SATURN, that cold , sharp , austere and astringent regent , taketh its beginning and original not from the sun; for Saturn hath in its power the chamber of death , and is a drier up of all powers , from whence corporeity existeth. 2. For as the sun is the heart of the life , and an original of all spirits in the body of this world , so Saturn is a beginner of all corporeity and com prehensibility or palpability. In the power of these two planets standeth the whole body of this world; and there can not be any creature , nor any imaging , in the natural body of this world , nor any mobility , without the power of these two. 3. But Saturn's original is the earnest , astringent and austere anxiety of the whole body of this world; for as , in the time of the kindling of the wrath , the light in the outermost birth or geniture of this world was extinct, ( which birth or geniture is the nature or comprehensibility , or the rising up of the birth of all qualifying or fountain spirits), so also the astringent quality stood in its sharpness and severest birth or geniture, and attracted or contracted most strongly and eagerly the whole work or effect * of the qualifying or fountain spirits. * " work or effect" (Gewirke), " web, or texture." The word implies not so much what is effected or done as that which is in process of being done. 4. From whence the earth and stones then came to be, and were very rightly the house of death, or the enclosing or shutting up of the life,
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.
1the brain, from whence, in the brain, the senses of the heart exist. The brain in the head taketh its original from the power of the heart. Now observe: 106. After the firecrack of the gall, or Mars, was departed from the light of life, then the power pressed out of the heart after it, through the light of life, even into the head, into the austere quality; and when the power can rise up no higher, then it is stayed or captivated by the austere birth, and is dried up by the cold. 107. Now here it stayeth, and qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth with the spirit of life in the heart, and is a royal seat of the spirit of the heart; for thus far the spirit of the heart's power presseth forth, and there is it approved. 108. For the brain sitteth in the severe birth or geniture, and in its own body it is the meek power of the heart, and signifieth the new birth, which is new regenerated in the midst or centre of the austereness of death and wrath, in its heaven, and presseth forth through death into life. 109. For there the spirit or the thoughts become a whole creaturely person again, through the affecting or proving of all powers, which in man I call the animated or soulish birth. 110. For when the new spirit in the brain is well settled, then it goeth to its mother again, into the heart; and then it standeth as a perfect spirit or will, or as a newborn person, which, in man, is called the soul. 111. Now behold! as the brain in man is a being and product, so also is the planet Jupiter a being and product; for it hath its original from
2the rising up of life, from the power which is risen up out of the water of life, out of the place of the sun, through the light. 112. And that power is risen up so high, that it is caught or captivated again in or by the austere, hard and cold power; and there it remaineth at a stand; and by the first revolution or going forth is become corporeal, and became exsiccated or dried by the austere and cold power. 113. And it is rightly the brain in the corporeal government of this world, from whence the senses and the reason are generated, also all meekness and wisdom in natural things; but the right and holy spirit in man is generated in the hidden heaven in the water of life. 114. The outward Jupiter is only the meekness and understanding in the outward comprehensi bility or palpable things; but the holy fountain or wellspring is incomprehensible and unsearcha ble or unfathomable to outward reason. For the astral birth or geniture stands only as to its root in the holy heavens , and as to its corporeity [ it standeth ] in the wrath.
3THE TWENTYSIXTH CHAPTER Of the Planet Saturnus 1. SATURN, that cold , sharp , austere and astringent regent , taketh its beginning and original not from the sun; for Saturn hath in its power the chamber of death , and is a drier up of all powers , from whence corporeity existeth. 2. For as the sun is the heart of the life , and an original of all spirits in the body of this world , so Saturn is a beginner of all corporeity and com prehensibility or palpability. In the power of these two planets standeth the whole body of this world; and there can not be any creature , nor any imaging , in the natural body of this world , nor any mobility , without the power of these two. 3. But Saturn's original is the earnest , astringent and austere anxiety of the whole body of this world; for as , in the time of the kindling of the wrath , the light in the outermost birth or geniture of this world was extinct, ( which birth or geniture is the nature or comprehensibility , or the rising up of the birth of all qualifying or fountain spirits), so also the astringent quality stood in its sharpness and severest birth or geniture, and attracted or contracted most strongly and eagerly the whole work or effect * of the qualifying or fountain spirits. * " work or effect" (Gewirke), " web, or texture." The word implies not so much what is effected or done as that which is in process of being done. 4. From whence the earth and stones then came to be, and were very rightly the house of death, or the enclosing or shutting up of the life,
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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