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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.
1to the world. 147. But for that cause I will let it stand in its heaven, and write according to my gifts, and with wonder and admiration expect what will become of it. For in the qualifying or fountain spirits I cannot sufficiently comprehend or apprehend it, because they stand in the anxious chamber. 148. With or through the soul, I see it very well; but the firmament of the heaven is between, in which the soul hideth itself, and there receiveth its rays from the light of God; and in that respect it goeth through the firmament of heaven as a tempest of lightning, but very gently, in a most amiable and pleasant delight and joy. 149. So that I cannot, in the comprehensibility, in my innate, instant or present qualifying or fountain spirits, or in the circle of life, discern or know it otherwise, for the day breaketh forth apace. 150. For that cause I will write according to this knowledge, though the devil should offer to assault and storm the world; which, however, he cannot do. But his hourglass is shewn to him, and set before him. 151. Now come on, you Electionists, and contenders about the Election of Grace, you that suppose you alone are in the right, and esteem a simple faith to be but a foolish thing; you have danced long enough before this door, and have made your boast of the Scriptures, that they maintain that God hath of grace chosen some men in their mother's womb to the kingdom of heaven, and reprobated or rejected others. 152. Here make to yourselves many masses, out of which there may proceed other manner of men of other qualities, and then you may be in
2the right. But out of the one only mass you can make no more than one only love of God, which presseth forth through the first man, and so presseth through and upon all. If God should have permitted Peter or Paul to have written otherwise, then look to the ground, to the heart. 153. If you lay hold on the Heart of God, then you have ground enough. 154. If God give me life a little while longer, I will shew you Saint Paul's Election of Grace. THE TWENTYSEVENTH CHAPTER * * * * * * * * * * * * Note. * " I advertise the Reader who loveth God, that this book, the Aurora or MorningRedness, was not finished. [See Epistles of Jacob Behmen (1649), Ep. 3, v. 30.] For the devil intended to put a stop to it, and suppress it, when he perceived that the Day would break forth therein. And the Day hath clearly made haste after the MorningRedness, so that it is become very light. There wants yet about thirty sheets to the end of it. But seeing the storm hath broken them off, therefore it was not finished; and in the meanwhile it is come to be Day, so that the MorningRedness is passed away, and since that time the work hath gone on by Day. And it shall so stand, for an eternal remembrance, seeing the defect herein is supplied in the other books." [ Three Principles; Threefold Life; 40 Questions.] Jacob Behme, 1620.
3Note. [See Epistles of Jacob Behmen (1849), Ep. 2 , v. 66. ] The Dawning or MorningRedness riseth up from the infancy and childhood, and sheweth or demonstrated the creation of all beings, but very mystically, and not sufficiently clear, though full of magical understanding, for there are some Mysteries therein which are yet to come to pass. Note. This is the deep, hidden, magical book, which the author at that time might not make clearer, but may now do it through the grace of God. 1621. Note. This book is written in a magical sense or understanding, for the author himself alone, who knew of no other Readers; he supposed he made this work only for himself, but God hath disposed it otherwise. Note. The author expressed the first syllable MER, in the word MERCURIUS, with an A, as MAR, MARCURIUS, not without a special mystical cause, with the first vowel, A. But because the selfconceited wise in reason dislike it, accounting it but a country, vulgar expression, therefore the transcriber of the High Dutch copy, from whence this was translated, wrote it according to the commonly received word, MERCURIUS The corn groweth against the will of the enemy. [See Epistle 3] For that which is sown by God, no man can pre vent or hinder the growing thereof. * The above five Notes are in the 1656 German ed., with the exception of the words in the last one, "therefore the transcriber of the High Dutch copy," etc. The fifth Note, literally translated, reads: "It is not without a certain
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.
1to the world. 147. But for that cause I will let it stand in its heaven, and write according to my gifts, and with wonder and admiration expect what will become of it. For in the qualifying or fountain spirits I cannot sufficiently comprehend or apprehend it, because they stand in the anxious chamber. 148. With or through the soul, I see it very well; but the firmament of the heaven is between, in which the soul hideth itself, and there receiveth its rays from the light of God; and in that respect it goeth through the firmament of heaven as a tempest of lightning, but very gently, in a most amiable and pleasant delight and joy. 149. So that I cannot, in the comprehensibility, in my innate, instant or present qualifying or fountain spirits, or in the circle of life, discern or know it otherwise, for the day breaketh forth apace. 150. For that cause I will write according to this knowledge, though the devil should offer to assault and storm the world; which, however, he cannot do. But his hourglass is shewn to him, and set before him. 151. Now come on, you Electionists, and contenders about the Election of Grace, you that suppose you alone are in the right, and esteem a simple faith to be but a foolish thing; you have danced long enough before this door, and have made your boast of the Scriptures, that they maintain that God hath of grace chosen some men in their mother's womb to the kingdom of heaven, and reprobated or rejected others. 152. Here make to yourselves many masses, out of which there may proceed other manner of men of other qualities, and then you may be in
2the right. But out of the one only mass you can make no more than one only love of God, which presseth forth through the first man, and so presseth through and upon all. If God should have permitted Peter or Paul to have written otherwise, then look to the ground, to the heart. 153. If you lay hold on the Heart of God, then you have ground enough. 154. If God give me life a little while longer, I will shew you Saint Paul's Election of Grace. THE TWENTYSEVENTH CHAPTER * * * * * * * * * * * * Note. * " I advertise the Reader who loveth God, that this book, the Aurora or MorningRedness, was not finished. [See Epistles of Jacob Behmen (1649), Ep. 3, v. 30.] For the devil intended to put a stop to it, and suppress it, when he perceived that the Day would break forth therein. And the Day hath clearly made haste after the MorningRedness, so that it is become very light. There wants yet about thirty sheets to the end of it. But seeing the storm hath broken them off, therefore it was not finished; and in the meanwhile it is come to be Day, so that the MorningRedness is passed away, and since that time the work hath gone on by Day. And it shall so stand, for an eternal remembrance, seeing the defect herein is supplied in the other books." [ Three Principles; Threefold Life; 40 Questions.] Jacob Behme, 1620.
3Note. [See Epistles of Jacob Behmen (1849), Ep. 2 , v. 66. ] The Dawning or MorningRedness riseth up from the infancy and childhood, and sheweth or demonstrated the creation of all beings, but very mystically, and not sufficiently clear, though full of magical understanding, for there are some Mysteries therein which are yet to come to pass. Note. This is the deep, hidden, magical book, which the author at that time might not make clearer, but may now do it through the grace of God. 1621. Note. This book is written in a magical sense or understanding, for the author himself alone, who knew of no other Readers; he supposed he made this work only for himself, but God hath disposed it otherwise. Note. The author expressed the first syllable MER, in the word MERCURIUS, with an A, as MAR, MARCURIUS, not without a special mystical cause, with the first vowel, A. But because the selfconceited wise in reason dislike it, accounting it but a country, vulgar expression, therefore the transcriber of the High Dutch copy, from whence this was translated, wrote it according to the commonly received word, MERCURIUS The corn groweth against the will of the enemy. [See Epistle 3] For that which is sown by God, no man can pre vent or hinder the growing thereof. * The above five Notes are in the 1656 German ed., with the exception of the words in the last one, "therefore the transcriber of the High Dutch copy," etc. The fifth Note, literally translated, reads: "It is not without a certain
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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