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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.
1forth after it, like a mighty potency or power, and took the fierce firecrack captive, and highly elevated itself aloft beyond it, as a prince and subduer of the fierceness, from whence now arose the sensibility of nature, or the planet Jupiter. The Gate of Love. 20. But when the two spirits, the spirit of the mobility and the spirit of the life, were risen up out of the place of the sun, through the kindling of the water, then the meekness, as a seed of the water, pressed downward in the chamber of death, with the power of light, with a very gentle and friendly affection or influence; from whence existed the love of life, or the planet Venus. But thou must here understand this high Thing. 21. The birth, or the rising or springing up of the seven planets, and of all the stars, is no otherwise than as the life, and wonderful proportion, variety and harmony of the Deity, hath generated itself from eternity. 22. For when king Lucifer had caused this place of the world to be appointed as a house of wrath for himself, and supposed thus fiercely and powerfully to rule therein, then instantly the light in nature went out, wherein he supposed to be lord; and the whole nature was benumbed and congealed as a body of death, wherein was no mobility; and he must remain there in darkness, as an eternal, captive prisoner. 23. But now the holy God would not let this place of his body (understand the space or room of this world) stand in eternal darkness and ignominy, and leave it to the devils for their proper own, but generated a new regimen or dominion of light, and of all the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of the Deity; which the devil
2could neither apprehend, nor lay hold on, nor touch; neither was it useful or profitable to him at all. 24. But he can no more see in the light of the sun, for he can see in the darkness alone; for he is not become a creature in this light, and therefore it is not profitable or useful to him. 25. But seeing there must be a new government or dominion, it must needs be such a one as the devil could not touch nor lay hold on, nor make use of as his corporeal proper own. Now that Government or Dominion is thus constituted. 26. The Love, or Word, or Heart, that is, the innate or only begotten Son of the Father, who is the light and meekness, and the love and joy of the Deity (as he himself said, when he had assumed the humanity, I am the light of the [John viii. 12] world), he himself took the place of this world by the heart, and sat in the midst or centre of this space or room, in that place where the mighty prince and king Lucifer did sit before his fall, and there the only begotten Son was new born to be a creature. 27. And so out of this kindled place of the sun there existed and were chiefly generated six sorts of qualities, all according to the right, law or order of the divine birth or geniture.* * "And out of this kindled place of the sun six distinct (sonderlich sechserley) qualities arose and were generated, all according to the law of the divine birth." St M. has, "six kinds of distinct (particulières) qualities." The two German words, "sonderlich sechserley" (very quaint, and pure Böhmese), mean that the qualities are six, that they are separate, and that each has its own peculiar character.
328. I. First, there arose the firecrack, or the mobility in the heat; and that is the beginning of life in the chamber of death. II. After this, secondly, the light in the unctuosity or fatness of the water became shining in the heat; and that is now the sun. III. Thirdly, when now the light of the sun had affected or possessed the whole body of the sun, then the power of life, which rose up out of the first affecting or possessing, ascended, as when wood is kindled, or when fire is struck out of a stone. 29. Then first is discerned the glance or splendour, and out of the splendour the firecrack, and after the firecrack the power of the kindled body; and the light, with the power of the body, elevateth itself instantly above the crack, and ruleth or reigneth much higher, deeper and more powerfully than the firecrack. 30. Also the power of the kindled body, in the outgone power without and beyond the fire, qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth gently, pleasantly, and very sensibly; and herein rightly is understood the divine being. 31. In the same manner also is the existency of the sun, and of the two planets, Mars and Jupiter. 32. But since the place of the sun (that is, the sun) had in itself (as also had all other places) all qualities according to the right of the Deity, thereupon instantly, in the first kindling, all the qualities went upwards and downwards, and generated themselves according to the eternal, beginningless, infinite law and right. 33. For the power of the light, which did mitigate the astringent and bitter quality in the place of the sun, and made it thin like water, or
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.
1forth after it, like a mighty potency or power, and took the fierce firecrack captive, and highly elevated itself aloft beyond it, as a prince and subduer of the fierceness, from whence now arose the sensibility of nature, or the planet Jupiter. The Gate of Love. 20. But when the two spirits, the spirit of the mobility and the spirit of the life, were risen up out of the place of the sun, through the kindling of the water, then the meekness, as a seed of the water, pressed downward in the chamber of death, with the power of light, with a very gentle and friendly affection or influence; from whence existed the love of life, or the planet Venus. But thou must here understand this high Thing. 21. The birth, or the rising or springing up of the seven planets, and of all the stars, is no otherwise than as the life, and wonderful proportion, variety and harmony of the Deity, hath generated itself from eternity. 22. For when king Lucifer had caused this place of the world to be appointed as a house of wrath for himself, and supposed thus fiercely and powerfully to rule therein, then instantly the light in nature went out, wherein he supposed to be lord; and the whole nature was benumbed and congealed as a body of death, wherein was no mobility; and he must remain there in darkness, as an eternal, captive prisoner. 23. But now the holy God would not let this place of his body (understand the space or room of this world) stand in eternal darkness and ignominy, and leave it to the devils for their proper own, but generated a new regimen or dominion of light, and of all the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of the Deity; which the devil
2could neither apprehend, nor lay hold on, nor touch; neither was it useful or profitable to him at all. 24. But he can no more see in the light of the sun, for he can see in the darkness alone; for he is not become a creature in this light, and therefore it is not profitable or useful to him. 25. But seeing there must be a new government or dominion, it must needs be such a one as the devil could not touch nor lay hold on, nor make use of as his corporeal proper own. Now that Government or Dominion is thus constituted. 26. The Love, or Word, or Heart, that is, the innate or only begotten Son of the Father, who is the light and meekness, and the love and joy of the Deity (as he himself said, when he had assumed the humanity, I am the light of the [John viii. 12] world), he himself took the place of this world by the heart, and sat in the midst or centre of this space or room, in that place where the mighty prince and king Lucifer did sit before his fall, and there the only begotten Son was new born to be a creature. 27. And so out of this kindled place of the sun there existed and were chiefly generated six sorts of qualities, all according to the right, law or order of the divine birth or geniture.* * "And out of this kindled place of the sun six distinct (sonderlich sechserley) qualities arose and were generated, all according to the law of the divine birth." St M. has, "six kinds of distinct (particulières) qualities." The two German words, "sonderlich sechserley" (very quaint, and pure Böhmese), mean that the qualities are six, that they are separate, and that each has its own peculiar character.
328. I. First, there arose the firecrack, or the mobility in the heat; and that is the beginning of life in the chamber of death. II. After this, secondly, the light in the unctuosity or fatness of the water became shining in the heat; and that is now the sun. III. Thirdly, when now the light of the sun had affected or possessed the whole body of the sun, then the power of life, which rose up out of the first affecting or possessing, ascended, as when wood is kindled, or when fire is struck out of a stone. 29. Then first is discerned the glance or splendour, and out of the splendour the firecrack, and after the firecrack the power of the kindled body; and the light, with the power of the body, elevateth itself instantly above the crack, and ruleth or reigneth much higher, deeper and more powerfully than the firecrack. 30. Also the power of the kindled body, in the outgone power without and beyond the fire, qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth gently, pleasantly, and very sensibly; and herein rightly is understood the divine being. 31. In the same manner also is the existency of the sun, and of the two planets, Mars and Jupiter. 32. But since the place of the sun (that is, the sun) had in itself (as also had all other places) all qualities according to the right of the Deity, thereupon instantly, in the first kindling, all the qualities went upwards and downwards, and generated themselves according to the eternal, beginningless, infinite law and right. 33. For the power of the light, which did mitigate the astringent and bitter quality in the place of the sun, and made it thin like water, or
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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