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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 the Creation of Angels. 52. The spirit sheweth plainly and clearly that, before the creation of angels, the divine being, with its rising and qualifying, was from eternity, and remained so in the creation of angels, as it is also at this day, and will so continue in and to eternity. 53. The space, room or place of this world, together with the creaturely heaven, which we behold with our eyes, as also the space or place of the earth and stars, together with the deep, was in such a form as still at this day it if in, aloft, above the heavens, in the divine pomp. 54. But it was [or became] in the creation of the angels, the kingdom of the great prince Lucifer: [" Understand according to the second " Principle, out of which he was thrust forth into " the outermost, which also is the very innermost " of all."] 55. Who, by his proud elevation in his kingdom, kindled the qualities or the divine Salitter out of which he was made; [" Understand the centre of " his nature, or the first Principle;"] and set it on fire. 56. Supposing thereby he would grow hugely and highly light and qualifying above the Son of God. But he became a fool; therefore this place or space, in its burning quality, could not subsist in God, whereupon the creation of this world ensued. 57. But this world at the end, in God's appointed time, will be set again into its first place, as it was before the creation of angels; and lord Lucifer will have a hole * or dungeon
2for his eternal habitation therein, and he will remain eternally in his kindled quality, which will be an eternal, base, filthy, reproachful habitation, an empty, void dark valley or dungeon, a hole of fierceness or wrath. * "a hole" (eine Höle), "a hollow place," "a cavern." Now observe, 58. God in his moving created the holy angels at once, not out of a strange matter, but out of himself, out of his own power and eternal wisdom. 59. But the philosophers had this opinion: as if God had made the angels out of the light only; but they erred therein, for the angels were made not only out of the light, but out of all the powers of God. 60. As I have shewn before, there are two things especially to be observed in the deep of God the Father; first, that the power, or all the powers of God the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, are very lovely, pleasant and various, and yet are all one in another as one power. 61. As the powers of all the stars rule in the air, so also in God; But with its operation every power in God sheweth itself severally and distinctly. 62. Then afterwards, that the sound is in every power, and the tone or tune of the sound is according to the quality of every power; and therein consisteth the total heavenly kingdom of joy. From this divine Salitter and Mercurius all angels are made, viz. out of the body of nature. Question. 63. But thou mayest here ask, How are they
3made or generated, or in what way and manner? Answer. 64. If I had the tongue of an angel, and thou hadst an angelical understanding, we might very finely discourse of it. But the spirit only seeth it, and the tongue cannot advance towards it. For I can use no other words than the words of this world; but now the Holy Ghost being in thee, thy soul will well apprehend it. 65. For behold, the total holy Trinity hath with its moving composed, compacted or figured a body or image out of itself, like a little god, but not so fully or strongly going forth as the whole Trinity, yet in some measure according to the extent and capacity of the creatures. 66. For in God there is neither beginning nor end; but the angels have a beginning and end,* but not circumscriptive, apprehensive, palpable or conclusive **; for an angel can sometimes be great, and suddenly little again; their alteration is as swift as man's thoughts are. All qualities and powers are in an angel, as they are in the whole Deity. * "the angels have a beginning and end." Note by St M.: " that is to say, an origin and a scope of operation." ** "circumscriptive, apprehensive, palpable or conclusive" (abmesslich oder begreiflich), "measurable or palpable." St M. translates: "que l'on ne peut mesurer ni circonscrire," "which cannot be measured nor circumscribed." 67. But thou must rightly understand this: They are made and compacted together, or figured, out of the Salitter and Mercurius, that is, out of the exit or excrescence.* * "the exit or excrescence" (der Ausgang), "the efflux." St M. has, "l'effluve," the effluence.
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 the Creation of Angels. 52. The spirit sheweth plainly and clearly that, before the creation of angels, the divine being, with its rising and qualifying, was from eternity, and remained so in the creation of angels, as it is also at this day, and will so continue in and to eternity. 53. The space, room or place of this world, together with the creaturely heaven, which we behold with our eyes, as also the space or place of the earth and stars, together with the deep, was in such a form as still at this day it if in, aloft, above the heavens, in the divine pomp. 54. But it was [or became] in the creation of the angels, the kingdom of the great prince Lucifer: [" Understand according to the second " Principle, out of which he was thrust forth into " the outermost, which also is the very innermost " of all."] 55. Who, by his proud elevation in his kingdom, kindled the qualities or the divine Salitter out of which he was made; [" Understand the centre of " his nature, or the first Principle;"] and set it on fire. 56. Supposing thereby he would grow hugely and highly light and qualifying above the Son of God. But he became a fool; therefore this place or space, in its burning quality, could not subsist in God, whereupon the creation of this world ensued. 57. But this world at the end, in God's appointed time, will be set again into its first place, as it was before the creation of angels; and lord Lucifer will have a hole * or dungeon
2for his eternal habitation therein, and he will remain eternally in his kindled quality, which will be an eternal, base, filthy, reproachful habitation, an empty, void dark valley or dungeon, a hole of fierceness or wrath. * "a hole" (eine Höle), "a hollow place," "a cavern." Now observe, 58. God in his moving created the holy angels at once, not out of a strange matter, but out of himself, out of his own power and eternal wisdom. 59. But the philosophers had this opinion: as if God had made the angels out of the light only; but they erred therein, for the angels were made not only out of the light, but out of all the powers of God. 60. As I have shewn before, there are two things especially to be observed in the deep of God the Father; first, that the power, or all the powers of God the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, are very lovely, pleasant and various, and yet are all one in another as one power. 61. As the powers of all the stars rule in the air, so also in God; But with its operation every power in God sheweth itself severally and distinctly. 62. Then afterwards, that the sound is in every power, and the tone or tune of the sound is according to the quality of every power; and therein consisteth the total heavenly kingdom of joy. From this divine Salitter and Mercurius all angels are made, viz. out of the body of nature. Question. 63. But thou mayest here ask, How are they
3made or generated, or in what way and manner? Answer. 64. If I had the tongue of an angel, and thou hadst an angelical understanding, we might very finely discourse of it. But the spirit only seeth it, and the tongue cannot advance towards it. For I can use no other words than the words of this world; but now the Holy Ghost being in thee, thy soul will well apprehend it. 65. For behold, the total holy Trinity hath with its moving composed, compacted or figured a body or image out of itself, like a little god, but not so fully or strongly going forth as the whole Trinity, yet in some measure according to the extent and capacity of the creatures. 66. For in God there is neither beginning nor end; but the angels have a beginning and end,* but not circumscriptive, apprehensive, palpable or conclusive **; for an angel can sometimes be great, and suddenly little again; their alteration is as swift as man's thoughts are. All qualities and powers are in an angel, as they are in the whole Deity. * "the angels have a beginning and end." Note by St M.: " that is to say, an origin and a scope of operation." ** "circumscriptive, apprehensive, palpable or conclusive" (abmesslich oder begreiflich), "measurable or palpable." St M. translates: "que l'on ne peut mesurer ni circonscrire," "which cannot be measured nor circumscribed." 67. But thou must rightly understand this: They are made and compacted together, or figured, out of the Salitter and Mercurius, that is, out of the exit or excrescence.* * "the exit or excrescence" (der Ausgang), "the efflux." St M. has, "l'effluve," the effluence.
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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