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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.
1Of GOD the SON. 28. If a man will see God the Son, he must once more look upon natural things, otherwise I cannot write of the Son: The spirit indeed beholdeth him, but that can neither be spoken nor written; for the divine being consisteth in power, which can neither be written nor spoken. 29. Therefore, if we intend to speak of God, we must use similitudes. For we live in this world as men who know but in part, and are made of that which is but in part. Therefore I cite the Reader into the life to come, where and when I shall speak more properly and more clearly of this high article. 30. In the meanwhile the loving Reader is to attend to the sense and meaning of the spirit, and then, if he hath but any hunger in him, he will not fail to get a little refreshing. Now observe, 31. The Turks and Heathen say, God hath no Son: Set wide open your eyes here; and do not make yourselves stark blind, and you will see the Son. 32. The Father is all, and all power subsisteth in the Father: He is the beginning and the end of all things; and besides and beyond him is nothing; and whatever is, is from the Father. 33. For before the beginning of the creation of the creatures there was nothing but GOD only; and where there is nothing, out of that, nothing will be. All things must have a cause or root, or else nothing will be.
234. Yet you are not to think that the Son is another God than the Father. Neither should you think that the Son is without or apart from the Father, and that he is a severed part or divided piece, as when two men stand the one by the other, where one comprehendeth not the other. 35. No, the Father and the Son are not of such a substance, or such a kind of thing; for the Father is not an image, to be likened to anything; the Father is the fountain of all powers, and all the powers are one in another as one power, and therefore he is said to be ONE only GOD. 36. Otherwise, if his powers were divided, then he were not allmighty, but now he is the selfsubsisting, allmighty and allpowerful God. 37. And the Son is the Heart in the Father; all the powers which are in the Father are the propriety of the Father; and the Son is the Heart, or the kernel or pith in all the powers in the whole Father, and he is the cause of the springing joy in all powers in the whole Father. 38. From the Son, who is the Father's Heart in all his powers, the eternal joy ariseth and springeth in all the powers of the Father; such a joy as no eye hath seen, nor ear heard, neither hath ever entered into the heart of any man, as [1 Cor. ii.9.] St Paul saith. 39. But if a man here on earth is enlightened with the Holy Ghost from the fountain of JESUS CHRIST, so that the spirits of nature, which signify the Father, are kindled in him, then there ariseth such a joy in his heart, and it goeth forth into all his veins, so that the whole body trembleth, and the soulish, animal spirit triumpheth, as if it were in the holy Trinity, which is understood
3only by those who have been guests in that place. 40. This is but a type [see ch. 4. v.15] or glimpse of the Son of God in man, whereby faith is strengthened and preserved: For the joy cannot be so great in an earthen vessel as in a heavenly, wherein the perfect power of God is, fully. Now here I must write a Similitude. 41. I will shew thee a similitude in nature, signifying how the holy being in the holy Trinity is. 42. Consider heaven, which is a round globe, having neither beginning nor end, for its beginning and end are everywhere, which way soever you look upon it: So is God, who is in and above the heaven, he hath neither beginning nor end. 43. Now consider further the circle or sphere of the stars, they denote the various powers and wisdom of the Father, and they also are made by the power and wisdom of the Father. 44. Now the heaven, the stars, and the whole deep between the stars, together with the earth, signify the Father. 45. And the seven planets signify the seven spirits of God, or the princes of the angels, among which also lord LUCIFER was one before his fall; all [these] were made out of the Father in the beginning of the creation of angels, before the time of this world.* * " before the time of this world." At the end of this par. St M. has the following note: " The author was imbued with the ideas which were prevalent until the time of Herschel, in relation to the seven planets. Many assert that up to that astronomer's discovery, only six were known. But others
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.
1Of GOD the SON. 28. If a man will see God the Son, he must once more look upon natural things, otherwise I cannot write of the Son: The spirit indeed beholdeth him, but that can neither be spoken nor written; for the divine being consisteth in power, which can neither be written nor spoken. 29. Therefore, if we intend to speak of God, we must use similitudes. For we live in this world as men who know but in part, and are made of that which is but in part. Therefore I cite the Reader into the life to come, where and when I shall speak more properly and more clearly of this high article. 30. In the meanwhile the loving Reader is to attend to the sense and meaning of the spirit, and then, if he hath but any hunger in him, he will not fail to get a little refreshing. Now observe, 31. The Turks and Heathen say, God hath no Son: Set wide open your eyes here; and do not make yourselves stark blind, and you will see the Son. 32. The Father is all, and all power subsisteth in the Father: He is the beginning and the end of all things; and besides and beyond him is nothing; and whatever is, is from the Father. 33. For before the beginning of the creation of the creatures there was nothing but GOD only; and where there is nothing, out of that, nothing will be. All things must have a cause or root, or else nothing will be.
234. Yet you are not to think that the Son is another God than the Father. Neither should you think that the Son is without or apart from the Father, and that he is a severed part or divided piece, as when two men stand the one by the other, where one comprehendeth not the other. 35. No, the Father and the Son are not of such a substance, or such a kind of thing; for the Father is not an image, to be likened to anything; the Father is the fountain of all powers, and all the powers are one in another as one power, and therefore he is said to be ONE only GOD. 36. Otherwise, if his powers were divided, then he were not allmighty, but now he is the selfsubsisting, allmighty and allpowerful God. 37. And the Son is the Heart in the Father; all the powers which are in the Father are the propriety of the Father; and the Son is the Heart, or the kernel or pith in all the powers in the whole Father, and he is the cause of the springing joy in all powers in the whole Father. 38. From the Son, who is the Father's Heart in all his powers, the eternal joy ariseth and springeth in all the powers of the Father; such a joy as no eye hath seen, nor ear heard, neither hath ever entered into the heart of any man, as [1 Cor. ii.9.] St Paul saith. 39. But if a man here on earth is enlightened with the Holy Ghost from the fountain of JESUS CHRIST, so that the spirits of nature, which signify the Father, are kindled in him, then there ariseth such a joy in his heart, and it goeth forth into all his veins, so that the whole body trembleth, and the soulish, animal spirit triumpheth, as if it were in the holy Trinity, which is understood
3only by those who have been guests in that place. 40. This is but a type [see ch. 4. v.15] or glimpse of the Son of God in man, whereby faith is strengthened and preserved: For the joy cannot be so great in an earthen vessel as in a heavenly, wherein the perfect power of God is, fully. Now here I must write a Similitude. 41. I will shew thee a similitude in nature, signifying how the holy being in the holy Trinity is. 42. Consider heaven, which is a round globe, having neither beginning nor end, for its beginning and end are everywhere, which way soever you look upon it: So is God, who is in and above the heaven, he hath neither beginning nor end. 43. Now consider further the circle or sphere of the stars, they denote the various powers and wisdom of the Father, and they also are made by the power and wisdom of the Father. 44. Now the heaven, the stars, and the whole deep between the stars, together with the earth, signify the Father. 45. And the seven planets signify the seven spirits of God, or the princes of the angels, among which also lord LUCIFER was one before his fall; all [these] were made out of the Father in the beginning of the creation of angels, before the time of this world.* * " before the time of this world." At the end of this par. St M. has the following note: " The author was imbued with the ideas which were prevalent until the time of Herschel, in relation to the seven planets. Many assert that up to that astronomer's discovery, only six were known. But others
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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