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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 HOLY GHOST. 62. God the Holy Ghost is the third Person in the triumphing holy Deity, and proceedeth from the Father and the Son, and is the holy moving spring or fountain of joy in the whole Father. 63. He is a pleasant, meek, quiet wind, or whispering breath, or still voice, out of all the powers of the Father and of the Son; as on mount Horeb with the prophet Elijah, and on Whitsunday or the Day of Pentecost with the Apostles, may be perceived. 64. Therefore if we would describe his Person, substance and property from the true ground, it must be represented in a similitude. For the spirit cannot be written down, being no creature, but the moving, flowing, boiling power of God. 65. Consider the sun and stars again: The stars being many and several, inexpressible and innumerable, signify the Father: out of the stars the sun is come to be; for God hath made it out of them, and it signifieth the Son of God. 66. From the sun and stars proceed the four elements, fire, air, water and earth, as hereafter I shall demonstrate plainly, when I shall write of the creation. Now observe: 67. The three elements, fire, air and water, have a threefold moving or qualification, but proceed from one body; and consider, the fire or heat swells and flies aloft from the sun and stars; and from the heat the air swells [or expands itself] and flies* aloft; and from the air comes the water. * "swells and flies" (empöret sich), "rises aloft". In the
21715 and 1730 eds. there is added—presumably from Gichtel's MS. notes to his 1682 ed.—("gebäret"), "generateth itself forth." Thus, "empöret (gebäret) sich." 68. And in this motion or qualification consisteth the life and spirit of all creatures, and whatever can be named in this world; and that signifieth the Holy Ghost. 69. And as the three elements, fire, air and water, proceed from the sun and stars, and are one body in one another, and cause the living motion, and the spirit of all the creatures of this world. 70. So the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son, and causeth the living motion in all the powers of the Father. 71. And as the three elements move in the deep, as a selfsubsisting spirit, and cause heat, cold and clouds, and flow forth from the power of all the stars; and as all the powers of the sun and stars are in the three elements, as if they themselves were the sun and stars, from whence is the life and spirit of all creatures, and doth consist therein; just so the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son, and moveth in the whole Father, and is the spirit and life of all the powers of the whole Father. Observe here the deep Mystery. 72. All the stars which men see, and those which they do not see, they all signify the power of God the Father; and out of these stars is generated the sun, which is the heart of all the stars.
373. Also there goeth forth into the deep from all the stars the power which is in every star: And the power, heat and shining of the sun goeth likewise into the deep. 74. In the deep the power of all stars, together with the heat and lustre of the sun, are all but one thing, a moving, boiling, hovering, like a spirit or matter; * only it hath not reason, for it is not the Holy Spirit. And thus also the fourth element must adhere or belong to a natural spirit, or it is not capable of reason. * "a moving, boiling, hovering, like a spirit or matter" (eine bewegende Wallung gleich eines Geistes oder einer Materia), " a moving undulation [i.e. a wavelike motion] like that of a spirit, or of a substance." [75. " Thus God the Father goeth forth in his " deep out of all his powers, and generateth the " splendour, the Heart, or the Son of God in his " centre."] 76. Which may be likened to the round globe of the sun, which shineth upwards, downwards, and on every side; and so the splendour, together with all the powers, goeth forth from the Son of God in the whole Father. 77. Now in the whole deep of the Father, externally, without the Son, there is nothing but the manifold and immeasurable or unsearchable power of the Father. 78. And the unsearchable power and light of the Son is, in the deep of the Father, a living, allpowerful, allknowing, allhearing, allseeing, allsmelling, alltasting, allfeeling spirit, wherein is all power, splendour and wisdom, as in the Father and the Son.
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 HOLY GHOST. 62. God the Holy Ghost is the third Person in the triumphing holy Deity, and proceedeth from the Father and the Son, and is the holy moving spring or fountain of joy in the whole Father. 63. He is a pleasant, meek, quiet wind, or whispering breath, or still voice, out of all the powers of the Father and of the Son; as on mount Horeb with the prophet Elijah, and on Whitsunday or the Day of Pentecost with the Apostles, may be perceived. 64. Therefore if we would describe his Person, substance and property from the true ground, it must be represented in a similitude. For the spirit cannot be written down, being no creature, but the moving, flowing, boiling power of God. 65. Consider the sun and stars again: The stars being many and several, inexpressible and innumerable, signify the Father: out of the stars the sun is come to be; for God hath made it out of them, and it signifieth the Son of God. 66. From the sun and stars proceed the four elements, fire, air, water and earth, as hereafter I shall demonstrate plainly, when I shall write of the creation. Now observe: 67. The three elements, fire, air and water, have a threefold moving or qualification, but proceed from one body; and consider, the fire or heat swells and flies aloft from the sun and stars; and from the heat the air swells [or expands itself] and flies* aloft; and from the air comes the water. * "swells and flies" (empöret sich), "rises aloft". In the
21715 and 1730 eds. there is added—presumably from Gichtel's MS. notes to his 1682 ed.—("gebäret"), "generateth itself forth." Thus, "empöret (gebäret) sich." 68. And in this motion or qualification consisteth the life and spirit of all creatures, and whatever can be named in this world; and that signifieth the Holy Ghost. 69. And as the three elements, fire, air and water, proceed from the sun and stars, and are one body in one another, and cause the living motion, and the spirit of all the creatures of this world. 70. So the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son, and causeth the living motion in all the powers of the Father. 71. And as the three elements move in the deep, as a selfsubsisting spirit, and cause heat, cold and clouds, and flow forth from the power of all the stars; and as all the powers of the sun and stars are in the three elements, as if they themselves were the sun and stars, from whence is the life and spirit of all creatures, and doth consist therein; just so the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son, and moveth in the whole Father, and is the spirit and life of all the powers of the whole Father. Observe here the deep Mystery. 72. All the stars which men see, and those which they do not see, they all signify the power of God the Father; and out of these stars is generated the sun, which is the heart of all the stars.
373. Also there goeth forth into the deep from all the stars the power which is in every star: And the power, heat and shining of the sun goeth likewise into the deep. 74. In the deep the power of all stars, together with the heat and lustre of the sun, are all but one thing, a moving, boiling, hovering, like a spirit or matter; * only it hath not reason, for it is not the Holy Spirit. And thus also the fourth element must adhere or belong to a natural spirit, or it is not capable of reason. * "a moving, boiling, hovering, like a spirit or matter" (eine bewegende Wallung gleich eines Geistes oder einer Materia), " a moving undulation [i.e. a wavelike motion] like that of a spirit, or of a substance." [75. " Thus God the Father goeth forth in his " deep out of all his powers, and generateth the " splendour, the Heart, or the Son of God in his " centre."] 76. Which may be likened to the round globe of the sun, which shineth upwards, downwards, and on every side; and so the splendour, together with all the powers, goeth forth from the Son of God in the whole Father. 77. Now in the whole deep of the Father, externally, without the Son, there is nothing but the manifold and immeasurable or unsearchable power of the Father. 78. And the unsearchable power and light of the Son is, in the deep of the Father, a living, allpowerful, allknowing, allhearing, allseeing, allsmelling, alltasting, allfeeling spirit, wherein is all power, splendour and wisdom, as in the Father and the Son.
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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