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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.
1moving, wellingup spirit of God; and therefore such a one is their king, in that his power reacheth into all the angels of his whole kingdom, and he is the head and general or leader, the most beautiful and most powerful Cherubim or throne angel. Such a one was lord Lucifer also before his fall. [60. " This also is more fundamentally de " scribed in our second and third books; viz. in " the Three Principles of the Divine Being, and "in the Threefold Life of Man."] Of the Ground or Foundation, and Mystery. 61. If a man would find out the Mystery, and the deepest ground, he must diligently and exactly view and consider the creation of this world, the government or dominion, and rule or order, as also the qualities of the stars and the elements. 62. Although these are of a corrupted and twofold being, which is not living, nor hath understanding; for it is but the corrupt Salitter and Mercurius, in which king Lucifer kept house, wherein is both evil and good; though it be indeed the real power of God, which before its corruption was bright and pure, as now it is, in heaven. 63.* These powers of the stars and elements, did the Creator, after the horrible fall of Lucifer's kingdom, bring together again into the same order as that in which the kingdom of the angels stood in the divine pomp before this fall. * A new translation of this par. has been substituted for Sparrow's original rendering.
264. Only thou must not think that the angelical kingdom with its creatures was so rolled, wheeled and turned round about, as now the stars are, which are only powers, and in regard of the birth or geniture of this world are thus wheeled or turned about, whose birth or geniture standeth in the moving, boiling anguish in evil and good, in corruption and redemption, till the end of this enumeration, or till the last day. Now observe: 65. The sun standeth in the centre or midst of the deep, and is the light or heart which proceeded out of all stars: For when, in the kingdom of Lucifer, before the creation of the world, the Salitter and Mercurius was thin or dim, and had qualified the one with the other, then God extracted the heart out of all the powers, and made the sun thereof. 66. Therefore the sun is the most shining and the brightest of all, and reenlighteneth all the stars [planets] again; all the stars work in its power, and it itself hath the power of all the stars; it kindleth all the powers of the stars with its splendour and heat, and so every star receiveth from the sun, according to its power and condition or kind. 67. Thus also is the frame and constitution of the angelical kingdom: The sun signifieth the supreme throneangel, the Cherubim or king in an angelical kingdom: Such a one as lord Lucifer was before his fall: He had his seat in the centre or midst of his kingdom, and reigned by his power in all his angels. 68. Just as, in the Salitter and Mercurius, the sun ruleth in all the powers of this world, that is, in softness and hardness, in sweetness and sourness, in bitterness and astringency, in heat and cold, in air and water.
369. As is apparent in winter, when there is so hard cold or frost that the water becometh ice; though the sun shineth somewhat warm through all the cold frost, yet for all its beams, by which it shineth on them, water freezeth into snow and ice. 70. But here I will shew thee the right Mystery. Behold, the sun is the heart of all powers in this world, and is compacted, framed or composed out of all the powers of the stars, it reenlighteneth all the stars, and all the powers in this world, and all powers grow active, operative or qualifying in its power. [71. " Understand it magically: For it is a " mirror, lookingglass, or similitude of the eternal " world."] 72. As the Father generateth his Son, that is, his heart or light out of all his powers, and that light which is the Son generateth the life in all the powers of the Father, so that in the same light, in the Father's powers, goeth forth all manner of growing, vegetation, springing, ornaments and joy; so is the kingdom of angels also constituted, all according to the similitude and being of God. 73. A Cherubim or leader of a kingdom of angels is the fountain or heart of his whole kingdom, and is made out of all the powers out of which his angels are made, and is the most powerful and the brightest of them all. [74. " The angelical king is the centre or foun " tain; as Adam's soul is the beginning and centre " of all souls. And, as from the place of the sun "was created and generated the planetic wheel " or sphere, wherein each star is desirous of the
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.
1moving, wellingup spirit of God; and therefore such a one is their king, in that his power reacheth into all the angels of his whole kingdom, and he is the head and general or leader, the most beautiful and most powerful Cherubim or throne angel. Such a one was lord Lucifer also before his fall. [60. " This also is more fundamentally de " scribed in our second and third books; viz. in " the Three Principles of the Divine Being, and "in the Threefold Life of Man."] Of the Ground or Foundation, and Mystery. 61. If a man would find out the Mystery, and the deepest ground, he must diligently and exactly view and consider the creation of this world, the government or dominion, and rule or order, as also the qualities of the stars and the elements. 62. Although these are of a corrupted and twofold being, which is not living, nor hath understanding; for it is but the corrupt Salitter and Mercurius, in which king Lucifer kept house, wherein is both evil and good; though it be indeed the real power of God, which before its corruption was bright and pure, as now it is, in heaven. 63.* These powers of the stars and elements, did the Creator, after the horrible fall of Lucifer's kingdom, bring together again into the same order as that in which the kingdom of the angels stood in the divine pomp before this fall. * A new translation of this par. has been substituted for Sparrow's original rendering.
264. Only thou must not think that the angelical kingdom with its creatures was so rolled, wheeled and turned round about, as now the stars are, which are only powers, and in regard of the birth or geniture of this world are thus wheeled or turned about, whose birth or geniture standeth in the moving, boiling anguish in evil and good, in corruption and redemption, till the end of this enumeration, or till the last day. Now observe: 65. The sun standeth in the centre or midst of the deep, and is the light or heart which proceeded out of all stars: For when, in the kingdom of Lucifer, before the creation of the world, the Salitter and Mercurius was thin or dim, and had qualified the one with the other, then God extracted the heart out of all the powers, and made the sun thereof. 66. Therefore the sun is the most shining and the brightest of all, and reenlighteneth all the stars [planets] again; all the stars work in its power, and it itself hath the power of all the stars; it kindleth all the powers of the stars with its splendour and heat, and so every star receiveth from the sun, according to its power and condition or kind. 67. Thus also is the frame and constitution of the angelical kingdom: The sun signifieth the supreme throneangel, the Cherubim or king in an angelical kingdom: Such a one as lord Lucifer was before his fall: He had his seat in the centre or midst of his kingdom, and reigned by his power in all his angels. 68. Just as, in the Salitter and Mercurius, the sun ruleth in all the powers of this world, that is, in softness and hardness, in sweetness and sourness, in bitterness and astringency, in heat and cold, in air and water.
369. As is apparent in winter, when there is so hard cold or frost that the water becometh ice; though the sun shineth somewhat warm through all the cold frost, yet for all its beams, by which it shineth on them, water freezeth into snow and ice. 70. But here I will shew thee the right Mystery. Behold, the sun is the heart of all powers in this world, and is compacted, framed or composed out of all the powers of the stars, it reenlighteneth all the stars, and all the powers in this world, and all powers grow active, operative or qualifying in its power. [71. " Understand it magically: For it is a " mirror, lookingglass, or similitude of the eternal " world."] 72. As the Father generateth his Son, that is, his heart or light out of all his powers, and that light which is the Son generateth the life in all the powers of the Father, so that in the same light, in the Father's powers, goeth forth all manner of growing, vegetation, springing, ornaments and joy; so is the kingdom of angels also constituted, all according to the similitude and being of God. 73. A Cherubim or leader of a kingdom of angels is the fountain or heart of his whole kingdom, and is made out of all the powers out of which his angels are made, and is the most powerful and the brightest of them all. [74. " The angelical king is the centre or foun " tain; as Adam's soul is the beginning and centre " of all souls. And, as from the place of the sun "was created and generated the planetic wheel " or sphere, wherein each star is desirous of the
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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