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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.
1on earth, as it is written in the Gospel, where he [John v. 19.] saith: Verily the Son can do nothing of Himself; but what he seeth his Father do, the Son doth also: Also, [Matt. xviii. 3] If you do not convert, and become like children, you cannot come into the kingdom of heaven. 52. Whereby he meaneth that our hearts should be knit together in love, as are the holy angels of God, and that we should deal friendly, courteously and kindly one with another, and love one another, and prefer one another in kindness and respect, as do the angels of God. 53. Not that we should deceive and belie one another, and tear the morsel out of others' mouths for very greediness and great covetousness, neither should one outbrave another in stateliness, fashions. and deportment, and so despise another who cannot use his bad, devilish, cunning policy and tricks. 54. O no! the angels in heaven do not so; but they love one another, and rejoice in the beauty and loveliness of others, and none esteemeth or accounteth himself more excellent than the others; but every one hath his joy in the others, and rejoiceth in another s fair beauty, comely form and loveliness, whence then their love one towards another riseth up, so that they lead one another by the hand, and friendly kiss one another. Observe the depth. 55. As when the flash of life riseth up in the centre of the divine power, wherein all the spirits of God attain their life, and highly rejoice, there is a loving and holy embracing, kissing, tasting, touching or feeling, hearing, seeing and smelling, so also there is among the angels; when the one seeth, heareth, feeleth or toucheth another, then "there riseth up in his heart the flash of life, and
2the one spirit embraceth the other, as it is in the Deity. Observe here the Ground and highest Mystery of God's Angels. 56. If thou wilt now know from whence their love, humility and friendliness come, which rise up in their heart, then observe that which followeth: 57. Every angel is constituted as the whole Deity is, and is as a little god. For when God constituted the angels, he constituted or framed them out of himself. 58. Now God is the same in one place as he is in another; God is everywhere the Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost. 59. In these three names and powers stand heaven and this world, and all whatsoever thy heart can think upon, and though thou shouldst draw a little circle, which thou canst hardly look into, or which thou canst hardly discern, even less than the smallest point thou canst imagine, yet even in that is the whole divine power; and the Son of God is generated therein, and the Holy Ghost therein goeth forth from the Father and the Son; if not in love, then in wrath, as it is written, [Psalm xviii. 26] With the holy thou art holy, and with the perverse thou art perverse. 60. They who stir up the wrath of God upon themselves, that wrath standeth also in all the spirits of God, in that place where it is awakened, stirred up or provoked. On the other side, where the love of God is awakened or stirred up, there it also standeth in the full birth or geniture of the whole Deity, of or in the place or thing wherein it is awakened.
361. Herein there is no difference, the angels are created, one as well as another, all out of the divine Salitter of the heavenly nature; only this is the difference between them, that when God constituted them, each quality in the great motion stood in the highest geniture or rising up. 62. Hence it is come to pass that the angels are of various and manifold qualities, and have several colours and beauties, and yet all out of or from God. 63. Yet every angel hath all the qualities of God in him, but one of them is strongest in him, after the same he is named, and in the same he is glorified. 64. Now, as the qualities in God always generate, rise up and heartily love the one the other, and the one always getteth its life from the other; and as the flash in the sweet water riseth up in the heat, from whence the life and the joy have their original; so it is also in an angel, his internal birth or geniture is no otherwise than the external, which is without [apart from] him in God. 65. As the Son of God, without or distinct from the angels, is generated in the middle or central fountain spring, in the heat, in the sweet water, out of or from all the seven spirits of God, and reenlighteneth back again all the seven spirits of God, whence they have their life and joy: 66. So also, in like manner, the Son of God in an angel is generated in the angel's middle or central fountain spring of the heart in the heat, in the sweet water, and reenlighteneth back again all the seven qualifying spirits of that angel.
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.
1on earth, as it is written in the Gospel, where he [John v. 19.] saith: Verily the Son can do nothing of Himself; but what he seeth his Father do, the Son doth also: Also, [Matt. xviii. 3] If you do not convert, and become like children, you cannot come into the kingdom of heaven. 52. Whereby he meaneth that our hearts should be knit together in love, as are the holy angels of God, and that we should deal friendly, courteously and kindly one with another, and love one another, and prefer one another in kindness and respect, as do the angels of God. 53. Not that we should deceive and belie one another, and tear the morsel out of others' mouths for very greediness and great covetousness, neither should one outbrave another in stateliness, fashions. and deportment, and so despise another who cannot use his bad, devilish, cunning policy and tricks. 54. O no! the angels in heaven do not so; but they love one another, and rejoice in the beauty and loveliness of others, and none esteemeth or accounteth himself more excellent than the others; but every one hath his joy in the others, and rejoiceth in another s fair beauty, comely form and loveliness, whence then their love one towards another riseth up, so that they lead one another by the hand, and friendly kiss one another. Observe the depth. 55. As when the flash of life riseth up in the centre of the divine power, wherein all the spirits of God attain their life, and highly rejoice, there is a loving and holy embracing, kissing, tasting, touching or feeling, hearing, seeing and smelling, so also there is among the angels; when the one seeth, heareth, feeleth or toucheth another, then "there riseth up in his heart the flash of life, and
2the one spirit embraceth the other, as it is in the Deity. Observe here the Ground and highest Mystery of God's Angels. 56. If thou wilt now know from whence their love, humility and friendliness come, which rise up in their heart, then observe that which followeth: 57. Every angel is constituted as the whole Deity is, and is as a little god. For when God constituted the angels, he constituted or framed them out of himself. 58. Now God is the same in one place as he is in another; God is everywhere the Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost. 59. In these three names and powers stand heaven and this world, and all whatsoever thy heart can think upon, and though thou shouldst draw a little circle, which thou canst hardly look into, or which thou canst hardly discern, even less than the smallest point thou canst imagine, yet even in that is the whole divine power; and the Son of God is generated therein, and the Holy Ghost therein goeth forth from the Father and the Son; if not in love, then in wrath, as it is written, [Psalm xviii. 26] With the holy thou art holy, and with the perverse thou art perverse. 60. They who stir up the wrath of God upon themselves, that wrath standeth also in all the spirits of God, in that place where it is awakened, stirred up or provoked. On the other side, where the love of God is awakened or stirred up, there it also standeth in the full birth or geniture of the whole Deity, of or in the place or thing wherein it is awakened.
361. Herein there is no difference, the angels are created, one as well as another, all out of the divine Salitter of the heavenly nature; only this is the difference between them, that when God constituted them, each quality in the great motion stood in the highest geniture or rising up. 62. Hence it is come to pass that the angels are of various and manifold qualities, and have several colours and beauties, and yet all out of or from God. 63. Yet every angel hath all the qualities of God in him, but one of them is strongest in him, after the same he is named, and in the same he is glorified. 64. Now, as the qualities in God always generate, rise up and heartily love the one the other, and the one always getteth its life from the other; and as the flash in the sweet water riseth up in the heat, from whence the life and the joy have their original; so it is also in an angel, his internal birth or geniture is no otherwise than the external, which is without [apart from] him in God. 65. As the Son of God, without or distinct from the angels, is generated in the middle or central fountain spring, in the heat, in the sweet water, out of or from all the seven spirits of God, and reenlighteneth back again all the seven spirits of God, whence they have their life and joy: 66. So also, in like manner, the Son of God in an angel is generated in the angel's middle or central fountain spring of the heart in the heat, in the sweet water, and reenlighteneth back again all the seven qualifying spirits of that angel.
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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