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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.
190. " So when it is written, the angels are " created out of God, then it is understood or " meant out of God's eternal nature, wherein is " understood or meant the seven forms, and yet " the divine holy nature is not understood to be " in the fire, but in the light. 91. " Yet the fire giveth or holdeth forth to us " a mystery of the eternal nature, and of the " Deity also, wherein a man is to understand " two Principles of a twofold source, viz. I. " a hot, fierce, astringent, bitter, anxious, con " suming one in the firesource. And out of " the fire cometh II. viz. the light, which " dwelleth in the fire, but is not apprehended " or laid hold on by the fire; also it hath another " source than the fire hath, which is meekness, " wherein there is a desire of love, where then, " in the lovedesire, another will is understood " than that which the fire hath. 92. " For the fire will consume all, and causeth " a high rising in the source, and the meekness " of the light causeth entity or substantiality; viz. " in the eternal light it causeth the waterspirit " of eternal life; and in the third principle of " this world it causeth water, together with the " existency or original of the air. 93. " Thus the Reader is to understand this " book as concerning three Principles or births; viz. one is the original of the eternal nature, in the eternal will or desire of God, which desire driveth itself on in great anguish till it cometh to the fourth form, viz. to the fire. 94. " Wherein the second, which is the light, existeth and replenisheth the eternal liberty besides or beyond nature, wherein we understand the holy Ternary in the light, without or beyond nature, in the power of the light, in the
2liberty, as another or second spring or source without being, and yet united with the fire's nature, viz. as fire and light together in one. 95. " The third Principle of this world is generated and created out of the first, that is, magically: As is clearly demonstrated in our second [Three Principles], and in our third book [Threefold Life], unto which this book is only an introduction, and is the first book, which was not sufficiently apprehended by the author at the first time, though it appeared clearly enough, yet all of it could not be conceived ; also it was as when a torrent or stormy shower of rain passeth over a place, from whence vegetation and springing existeth; for therein is the seed of the whole Deity."] 96. [See par. 88. ] 97. But here thou must know that the Deity doth not stand still, but worketh and riseth up without intermission, as a pleasant wrestling, moving or struggling. 98. Like two creatures which in great love play together, embracing, struggling and wrestling the one with the other; now one is above, by and by the other, and when one hath overcome it yieldeth or giveth over, and letteth the other rise up again. 99. Thou mayest also understand it thus, in a similitude, as when seven persons had begun a friendly sport and play, where one gets the upper hand above another, and a third comes to help that one which is overcome; and so there is a pleasant friendly sporting among them; whereas indeed they all have one and the same agreement or lovewill together, and yet strive and fight or vie one against another in a way of love, in
3sporting and pastime. 100. Thus also is the working of the six spirits of God in the seventh; suddenly one of them hath a strong rising up, suddenly another; and thus they wrestle in love one with another. 101. When the light riseth up in this striving, then the Holy Ghost moveth in the power of the light, in the play of the other six spirits, and so in the seventh spring up all manner of fruits of life, and all manner of colours and vegetations, or ideas and forms. 102. Now as that quality is which is strongest, so the body of the fruit is imaged, and the colours also; in this striving or wrestling the Deity formeth itself into infinite and unsearchable variety of kinds and manners of images or ideas. 103. For the seven spirits are the seven head sources or springs, and when Mercurius riseth up therein, that stirreth all, and the bitter quality moveth it, and distinguished it, and the astringent drieth it up. [104. " Nature and the Ternary are not one and " the same; they are distinct, though the Ternary " dwelleth in nature, but unapprehended, and yet " is an eternal band, as is plainly unfolded in our " second and third books."] Now observe here, how the Imaging in Nature is in the seventh Spirit. 105. The sweet water is the beginning of nature, and the astringent quality draweth or attracteth it together, that it becomes natural and creatural, to speak in an angelical way.
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.
190. " So when it is written, the angels are " created out of God, then it is understood or " meant out of God's eternal nature, wherein is " understood or meant the seven forms, and yet " the divine holy nature is not understood to be " in the fire, but in the light. 91. " Yet the fire giveth or holdeth forth to us " a mystery of the eternal nature, and of the " Deity also, wherein a man is to understand " two Principles of a twofold source, viz. I. " a hot, fierce, astringent, bitter, anxious, con " suming one in the firesource. And out of " the fire cometh II. viz. the light, which " dwelleth in the fire, but is not apprehended " or laid hold on by the fire; also it hath another " source than the fire hath, which is meekness, " wherein there is a desire of love, where then, " in the lovedesire, another will is understood " than that which the fire hath. 92. " For the fire will consume all, and causeth " a high rising in the source, and the meekness " of the light causeth entity or substantiality; viz. " in the eternal light it causeth the waterspirit " of eternal life; and in the third principle of " this world it causeth water, together with the " existency or original of the air. 93. " Thus the Reader is to understand this " book as concerning three Principles or births; viz. one is the original of the eternal nature, in the eternal will or desire of God, which desire driveth itself on in great anguish till it cometh to the fourth form, viz. to the fire. 94. " Wherein the second, which is the light, existeth and replenisheth the eternal liberty besides or beyond nature, wherein we understand the holy Ternary in the light, without or beyond nature, in the power of the light, in the
2liberty, as another or second spring or source without being, and yet united with the fire's nature, viz. as fire and light together in one. 95. " The third Principle of this world is generated and created out of the first, that is, magically: As is clearly demonstrated in our second [Three Principles], and in our third book [Threefold Life], unto which this book is only an introduction, and is the first book, which was not sufficiently apprehended by the author at the first time, though it appeared clearly enough, yet all of it could not be conceived ; also it was as when a torrent or stormy shower of rain passeth over a place, from whence vegetation and springing existeth; for therein is the seed of the whole Deity."] 96. [See par. 88. ] 97. But here thou must know that the Deity doth not stand still, but worketh and riseth up without intermission, as a pleasant wrestling, moving or struggling. 98. Like two creatures which in great love play together, embracing, struggling and wrestling the one with the other; now one is above, by and by the other, and when one hath overcome it yieldeth or giveth over, and letteth the other rise up again. 99. Thou mayest also understand it thus, in a similitude, as when seven persons had begun a friendly sport and play, where one gets the upper hand above another, and a third comes to help that one which is overcome; and so there is a pleasant friendly sporting among them; whereas indeed they all have one and the same agreement or lovewill together, and yet strive and fight or vie one against another in a way of love, in
3sporting and pastime. 100. Thus also is the working of the six spirits of God in the seventh; suddenly one of them hath a strong rising up, suddenly another; and thus they wrestle in love one with another. 101. When the light riseth up in this striving, then the Holy Ghost moveth in the power of the light, in the play of the other six spirits, and so in the seventh spring up all manner of fruits of life, and all manner of colours and vegetations, or ideas and forms. 102. Now as that quality is which is strongest, so the body of the fruit is imaged, and the colours also; in this striving or wrestling the Deity formeth itself into infinite and unsearchable variety of kinds and manners of images or ideas. 103. For the seven spirits are the seven head sources or springs, and when Mercurius riseth up therein, that stirreth all, and the bitter quality moveth it, and distinguished it, and the astringent drieth it up. [104. " Nature and the Ternary are not one and " the same; they are distinct, though the Ternary " dwelleth in nature, but unapprehended, and yet " is an eternal band, as is plainly unfolded in our " second and third books."] Now observe here, how the Imaging in Nature is in the seventh Spirit. 105. The sweet water is the beginning of nature, and the astringent quality draweth or attracteth it together, that it becomes natural and creatural, to speak in an angelical way.
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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