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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.
1or fountain spirits of God, is quite extinct: No; there is only a darkness or dim obscurity upon it, so that we cannot apprehend it with our corrupted eyes. 101. But if God did [but] once put away that darkness, which moveth about the light,* and that thy eyes were opened, then in that very place where thou standest, sittest or liest thou wouldst see the glorious countenance or face of God, and the whole heavenly gate. * "moveth about the light" (über dem Lichte schwebet), " moveth [floateth] above the light," or " over the light." 102. Thou needest not first to cast thine eyes up into heaven, for it is written: [1 Deut. xxx. ,14. Rom.x.8.] The Word is near thee, viz. on thy lips, and in thy heart. 103. Yea, God is so near thee, that the birth or geniture of the Holy Trinity is done or wrought even in thy heart, yea, all the three Persons are generated in thy heart, even God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 104. Now when I write here concerning the midst or centre, that the fountain of the divine birth or geniture is in the midst or centre, the meaning is not that in heaven there is a peculiar or several place, or a peculiar several body, wherein the fire of the divine life riseth up, out of which the seven spirits of God go forth into the whole deep of the Father. 105. No; but I speak in a corporeal or angelical or human way that the Reader may the better understand it, in such a manner as the angelical creatures were imaged or framed, and as it is in God everywhere universally.
2106. For thou canst not nominate* any place, either in heaven or in this world, wherein the divine birth or geniture is not thus, be it in an angel, or in a holy man, or anywhere else. * "nominate," German ernennen, to nominate, to name; with a bymeaning of pick out, point out, indicate = (nominate, 1. b., to give a name or names to; to provide with a name. Obs.). [O.E.D.] 107. Wheresoever one qualifying or fountain spirit in the divine power is touched or stirred, let the place be where it will or the thing what it will (except in the devils, and all wicked, damned men), there is the fountain of the divine birth or geniture directly at hand, and there already are all the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of God. 108. As when thou wouldst make a spacious, creaturely, circumscribed circle, and hadst the whole Deity peculiarly apart therein. Just as the Deity is generated in a creature, so it is also in the whole deep of the Father in all places and parts thereof, and in all things. Note. 109. And in such a manner is God an allmighty, allknowing, allseeing, allhearing, allsmelling, alltasting, allfeeling God, who is everywhere, and proveth the hearts and reins of the creatures. 110. And in such a manner heaven and earth are his; also in such a manner all the devils, together with all wicked men, must be his eternal prisoners; and in the Salitter, which they have corrupted and kindled in their place or space, must endure eternal pain and torment, and moreover eternal shame and reproach. 111. For the total glorious face of God, together
3with all the holy angels, will shine bright and gloriously above them and under them, and round about them on every side. 112. And all holy angels, together with all holy men, will eternally triumph above them, below them and round about them, and for great joy, delight and pleasantness will sing of God's holiness, of their royal kingly government or regimen, and of the gracious, amiable, blessed fruit of the heavenly spring or vegetation; and that will go forth according to the qualities of the seven spirits of God, in many various voices. 113. On the contrary, the devils, with all wicked men, will be forced into a hole, where a hellish stink will well up and rise up, and the hellish fire, and the hellish coldness and bitterness, will burn after the manner of the kindled spirits of God, eternally in their body, as also in their courts, dominions, regions, space or circumference. 114. Nay, if they could be locked in or barred up in a hole, that the angry face of God might not touch them, then they might be quiet and contented, and would not be necessitated to endure eternal ignominy, shame and reproach. 115. But here is no help, their torment in creaseth and becometh but the greater; the more they bewail it, the more doth the hellish fierceness or wrath kindle itself, they must lie in hell, as dead bones, like singed scorched sheep in the fire, their stink and abomination gnaweth them. 116. They dare not lift up their eyes for shame, for they see in their circumference, courts or regions, nothing else but only a severe judge; and above them, and on all sides of them, they see the eternal joy.
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.
1or fountain spirits of God, is quite extinct: No; there is only a darkness or dim obscurity upon it, so that we cannot apprehend it with our corrupted eyes. 101. But if God did [but] once put away that darkness, which moveth about the light,* and that thy eyes were opened, then in that very place where thou standest, sittest or liest thou wouldst see the glorious countenance or face of God, and the whole heavenly gate. * "moveth about the light" (über dem Lichte schwebet), " moveth [floateth] above the light," or " over the light." 102. Thou needest not first to cast thine eyes up into heaven, for it is written: [1 Deut. xxx. ,14. Rom.x.8.] The Word is near thee, viz. on thy lips, and in thy heart. 103. Yea, God is so near thee, that the birth or geniture of the Holy Trinity is done or wrought even in thy heart, yea, all the three Persons are generated in thy heart, even God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 104. Now when I write here concerning the midst or centre, that the fountain of the divine birth or geniture is in the midst or centre, the meaning is not that in heaven there is a peculiar or several place, or a peculiar several body, wherein the fire of the divine life riseth up, out of which the seven spirits of God go forth into the whole deep of the Father. 105. No; but I speak in a corporeal or angelical or human way that the Reader may the better understand it, in such a manner as the angelical creatures were imaged or framed, and as it is in God everywhere universally.
2106. For thou canst not nominate* any place, either in heaven or in this world, wherein the divine birth or geniture is not thus, be it in an angel, or in a holy man, or anywhere else. * "nominate," German ernennen, to nominate, to name; with a bymeaning of pick out, point out, indicate = (nominate, 1. b., to give a name or names to; to provide with a name. Obs.). [O.E.D.] 107. Wheresoever one qualifying or fountain spirit in the divine power is touched or stirred, let the place be where it will or the thing what it will (except in the devils, and all wicked, damned men), there is the fountain of the divine birth or geniture directly at hand, and there already are all the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of God. 108. As when thou wouldst make a spacious, creaturely, circumscribed circle, and hadst the whole Deity peculiarly apart therein. Just as the Deity is generated in a creature, so it is also in the whole deep of the Father in all places and parts thereof, and in all things. Note. 109. And in such a manner is God an allmighty, allknowing, allseeing, allhearing, allsmelling, alltasting, allfeeling God, who is everywhere, and proveth the hearts and reins of the creatures. 110. And in such a manner heaven and earth are his; also in such a manner all the devils, together with all wicked men, must be his eternal prisoners; and in the Salitter, which they have corrupted and kindled in their place or space, must endure eternal pain and torment, and moreover eternal shame and reproach. 111. For the total glorious face of God, together
3with all the holy angels, will shine bright and gloriously above them and under them, and round about them on every side. 112. And all holy angels, together with all holy men, will eternally triumph above them, below them and round about them, and for great joy, delight and pleasantness will sing of God's holiness, of their royal kingly government or regimen, and of the gracious, amiable, blessed fruit of the heavenly spring or vegetation; and that will go forth according to the qualities of the seven spirits of God, in many various voices. 113. On the contrary, the devils, with all wicked men, will be forced into a hole, where a hellish stink will well up and rise up, and the hellish fire, and the hellish coldness and bitterness, will burn after the manner of the kindled spirits of God, eternally in their body, as also in their courts, dominions, regions, space or circumference. 114. Nay, if they could be locked in or barred up in a hole, that the angry face of God might not touch them, then they might be quiet and contented, and would not be necessitated to endure eternal ignominy, shame and reproach. 115. But here is no help, their torment in creaseth and becometh but the greater; the more they bewail it, the more doth the hellish fierceness or wrath kindle itself, they must lie in hell, as dead bones, like singed scorched sheep in the fire, their stink and abomination gnaweth them. 116. They dare not lift up their eyes for shame, for they see in their circumference, courts or regions, nothing else but only a severe judge; and above them, and on all sides of them, they see the eternal joy.
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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