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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.
167. As the Holy Ghost goeth forth from the Father and the Son, and formeth, imageth, figureth or frameth and loveth all; even so the Holy Ghost goeth forth in the angel, into his fellow brethren, and loveth them, and rejoiceth with them. 68. For there is no difference between the spirits of God and the angels, but only this, that the angels are creatures, and their corporeal being hath a beginning; but their power, out of which they are created, is God himself, and is from eternity, and abideth in eternity. 69. Therefore their agility is as nimble and swift as the thoughts of a man, wherever they would be, there also they are, instantly; moreover, they can be great or small, as they please. 70. This is the true being of God in heaven, yea heaven itself: If thy eyes were opened, thou wouldst see it plainly and clearly on earth, in that place where thou art at present. 71. For since God can let the spirit of man see it, which spirit is yet staying in the body, and can reveal or manifest himself to him in the flesh, surely he can well do it also when he is out of the flesh, if he pleaseth. 72. O thou sinful house of this world, how art thou encompassed with hell and death; awake, the hour of thy regeneration is at hand; the daybreak, the dayspring, dawning or morningredness sheweth itself! 73. O thou foolish and dead world, why dost thou require or demand signs and wonders? Is thy whole body chilled and benumbed? Wilt thou not awake from sleep?
274. Behold, a great sign is given thee, but thou sleepest and seest it not: Therefore the Lord will give thee a sign in his zeal or jealousy, which thou hast awakened and provoked with thy sins. Of the whole Heavenly Delightfulness and Habitation of all the Three Kingdoms of Angels. 75. Here the spirit sheweth that where every angel is constituted, stated or settled, there that place in the heavenly nature, wherein and out of which he is become a creature, is his own seat, which he possesseth by right of nature, as long as he abideth in God's love. 76. For it is the place which he hath had from eternity, before he was become a creature, and that Salitter stood in the same place out of which he existed, and therefore that seat remaineth to him, and is his by right of nature, as long as he moveth in God's love. 77. But thou must not think as if God were tied to it, and cannot or may not expel him from thence, if he should move or stir otherwise than God had created, settled or stated him at first. 78. For as long as he abideth in obedience and in love, the place is his, by right of nature; but when he exhalteth himself and kindleth that place in the wrathful fire, then he sets his Father's house on fire, and becomes a contrary will, or opposite to [against] the place out of which he is made, and maketh TWO out of that which was ONE before his exhaltation. 79. Now when he doth so, then he keeps his corporeal right of nature to himself, and that
3place also keepeth its own to itself: But seeing the creature, which hath a beginning, will oppose or set itself against the first being, which was before the creature was, and which had no beginning, and will needs spoil the place which is none of its making, wherein it was created a creature in the love, and will turn that love into a wrathfire, then it is only fair that the love should spew up the wrathfire forth, together with the creature. 80. From hence also the RIGHTS [Laws ] in this world exist, or have their original. For when a son resisteth his father, and striketh his father, then he loseth his paternal inheritance, and his father may thrust him out of his house; but so long as he continueth in obedience to his father, the father hath no right, authority or lawful power to disinherit him. 81. This worldly Right taketh its original from heaven; as also many other worldly rights, which are written in the books of Moses, take their beginning and original from the divine nature in heaven, which I shall demonstrate plainly in its due place, from the true ground in the Deity. Now one might object and say: Objection. Then an angel is fully bound and tied to that place in which he is created, and must not stir, nor can stir from thence. Answer. 82. No: As little as the spirits of God are or will be tied in their rising up, that they should not move one among another, so little also are the angels quite [entirely] bound to their place. 83. For as the spirits of God rise up continually one in another, and have a sport or game of love in their birth or geniture, and yet every spirit
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.
167. As the Holy Ghost goeth forth from the Father and the Son, and formeth, imageth, figureth or frameth and loveth all; even so the Holy Ghost goeth forth in the angel, into his fellow brethren, and loveth them, and rejoiceth with them. 68. For there is no difference between the spirits of God and the angels, but only this, that the angels are creatures, and their corporeal being hath a beginning; but their power, out of which they are created, is God himself, and is from eternity, and abideth in eternity. 69. Therefore their agility is as nimble and swift as the thoughts of a man, wherever they would be, there also they are, instantly; moreover, they can be great or small, as they please. 70. This is the true being of God in heaven, yea heaven itself: If thy eyes were opened, thou wouldst see it plainly and clearly on earth, in that place where thou art at present. 71. For since God can let the spirit of man see it, which spirit is yet staying in the body, and can reveal or manifest himself to him in the flesh, surely he can well do it also when he is out of the flesh, if he pleaseth. 72. O thou sinful house of this world, how art thou encompassed with hell and death; awake, the hour of thy regeneration is at hand; the daybreak, the dayspring, dawning or morningredness sheweth itself! 73. O thou foolish and dead world, why dost thou require or demand signs and wonders? Is thy whole body chilled and benumbed? Wilt thou not awake from sleep?
274. Behold, a great sign is given thee, but thou sleepest and seest it not: Therefore the Lord will give thee a sign in his zeal or jealousy, which thou hast awakened and provoked with thy sins. Of the whole Heavenly Delightfulness and Habitation of all the Three Kingdoms of Angels. 75. Here the spirit sheweth that where every angel is constituted, stated or settled, there that place in the heavenly nature, wherein and out of which he is become a creature, is his own seat, which he possesseth by right of nature, as long as he abideth in God's love. 76. For it is the place which he hath had from eternity, before he was become a creature, and that Salitter stood in the same place out of which he existed, and therefore that seat remaineth to him, and is his by right of nature, as long as he moveth in God's love. 77. But thou must not think as if God were tied to it, and cannot or may not expel him from thence, if he should move or stir otherwise than God had created, settled or stated him at first. 78. For as long as he abideth in obedience and in love, the place is his, by right of nature; but when he exhalteth himself and kindleth that place in the wrathful fire, then he sets his Father's house on fire, and becomes a contrary will, or opposite to [against] the place out of which he is made, and maketh TWO out of that which was ONE before his exhaltation. 79. Now when he doth so, then he keeps his corporeal right of nature to himself, and that
3place also keepeth its own to itself: But seeing the creature, which hath a beginning, will oppose or set itself against the first being, which was before the creature was, and which had no beginning, and will needs spoil the place which is none of its making, wherein it was created a creature in the love, and will turn that love into a wrathfire, then it is only fair that the love should spew up the wrathfire forth, together with the creature. 80. From hence also the RIGHTS [Laws ] in this world exist, or have their original. For when a son resisteth his father, and striketh his father, then he loseth his paternal inheritance, and his father may thrust him out of his house; but so long as he continueth in obedience to his father, the father hath no right, authority or lawful power to disinherit him. 81. This worldly Right taketh its original from heaven; as also many other worldly rights, which are written in the books of Moses, take their beginning and original from the divine nature in heaven, which I shall demonstrate plainly in its due place, from the true ground in the Deity. Now one might object and say: Objection. Then an angel is fully bound and tied to that place in which he is created, and must not stir, nor can stir from thence. Answer. 82. No: As little as the spirits of God are or will be tied in their rising up, that they should not move one among another, so little also are the angels quite [entirely] bound to their place. 83. For as the spirits of God rise up continually one in another, and have a sport or game of love in their birth or geniture, and yet every spirit
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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