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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.
1layman is to be compared to him, because he [the layman] cannot express himself or speak according to art; nor [or, neither can he] follow the other's proud ways. 95. In brief, the simple plain man must be his fool, whereas he himself is indeed a proud angel, and is in his love but a dead man. This sort of party also will have its lookingglass in the following chapter. III. 96. Thirdly, If one be richer nowadays than the other, then the poorer man is counted the fool; and if he can wear but better and more fashionable clothes or apparel than his neighbour, then the poorer man is no more worthy, or good enough to be in his company. 97. And so the old song is nowadays in full force and practice, which is this: Der Reich den Armen zwinget, Und ihm sein Schweisz abdringet, Dasz nur sein Grosche Klinget. The rich man doth constrain the poor, And squeezeth out his sweat so sore, That's own great wealth abroad may roar. These angels also are invited as guests to the next chapter for their lookingglass in which to see themselves. IV. 98. Fourthly, There is for the generality such a devilish pride and stateliness, and such overtopping one another, such despising, belying, entrapping, circumventing, overreaching, cheating,
2deceiving, betraying, extorting usury, coveting, envying, and hating one another, that the world burneth now as in the hellish fire: Woe, woe for ever! 99. O world, where is thy humility? Where is thy angelical love? Where is thy courteous friendliness? At that very instant when the mouth saith, God save thee! the heart thinks, Yes, beware. 100. O thou excellent angelical kingdom, how comely dressed and adorned wert thou once? How hath the devil turned thee into a murderous den? Dost thou suppose thou standest now in the flower of thy beauty and glory? No! thou standest in the midst of hell: If thine eyes were but opened, thou wouldst see it. 101. Or dost thou think that the spirit is drunken, and doth not see thee? O, it seeth thee very well: Thy shame standeth quite naked before God, thou art an unchaste, wanton, lascivious woman, and goest a whoring day and night, and yet thou sayest, I am a chaste virgin. 102. O, how fair a lookingglass art thou, in the presence of the holy angels; do but smell thy sweet love and humility, doth it not smell or savour just like hell? All these parties are invited as guests to the following chapters. Of the Kingly Primacy, or of the Power and Authority of the Three Angelical Kings. 103. As the Deity in its being is threefold, in that the efflux out of the seven spirits of God sheweth and generateth itself as threefold, viz. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God; wherein the whole divine power consisteth, and all what
3soever is therein; and they are the three Persons in the Deity, and yet are not a divisible being or essence, but in one another as one: 104. So also, when God moved himself and created the angels, there came to be three special angels out of the best kernel of nature, out of the being of the Ternary in the nature of God, and in such power, authority and might, as hath the Ternary in the seven spirits of God; for the Ternary of God riseth up in the seven spirits of God, and is again the life and heart of all the seven spirits. 105. Thus also are the three angelical kings risen up, each in the nature of his host or place, and a natural lord of his place over the government of his angels; but the Ternary of the Deity retaineth to itself that place which is unalterable or unchangeable; and the king retaineth the dominion of the angels. 106. Now, as the Ternary of the Deity is one only being or substance in all parts in the whole Father, and is united together, as the members in man's body, and all places are as one place, though one place may have a different function from the others, as also the members of men have; yet it is the one body of God: 107. So also are the three angelical kingdoms united one in another, and not each severed asunder: No angelical king ought to say, This is my kingdom; or that there ought no other king to come thereinto; though indeed it is his first beginning, original and natural inheritance, and remaineth also to be his: Yet all other kings and angels are his true natural brothers, generated out of or from one Father, and do inherit their Father's kingdom.
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.
1layman is to be compared to him, because he [the layman] cannot express himself or speak according to art; nor [or, neither can he] follow the other's proud ways. 95. In brief, the simple plain man must be his fool, whereas he himself is indeed a proud angel, and is in his love but a dead man. This sort of party also will have its lookingglass in the following chapter. III. 96. Thirdly, If one be richer nowadays than the other, then the poorer man is counted the fool; and if he can wear but better and more fashionable clothes or apparel than his neighbour, then the poorer man is no more worthy, or good enough to be in his company. 97. And so the old song is nowadays in full force and practice, which is this: Der Reich den Armen zwinget, Und ihm sein Schweisz abdringet, Dasz nur sein Grosche Klinget. The rich man doth constrain the poor, And squeezeth out his sweat so sore, That's own great wealth abroad may roar. These angels also are invited as guests to the next chapter for their lookingglass in which to see themselves. IV. 98. Fourthly, There is for the generality such a devilish pride and stateliness, and such overtopping one another, such despising, belying, entrapping, circumventing, overreaching, cheating,
2deceiving, betraying, extorting usury, coveting, envying, and hating one another, that the world burneth now as in the hellish fire: Woe, woe for ever! 99. O world, where is thy humility? Where is thy angelical love? Where is thy courteous friendliness? At that very instant when the mouth saith, God save thee! the heart thinks, Yes, beware. 100. O thou excellent angelical kingdom, how comely dressed and adorned wert thou once? How hath the devil turned thee into a murderous den? Dost thou suppose thou standest now in the flower of thy beauty and glory? No! thou standest in the midst of hell: If thine eyes were but opened, thou wouldst see it. 101. Or dost thou think that the spirit is drunken, and doth not see thee? O, it seeth thee very well: Thy shame standeth quite naked before God, thou art an unchaste, wanton, lascivious woman, and goest a whoring day and night, and yet thou sayest, I am a chaste virgin. 102. O, how fair a lookingglass art thou, in the presence of the holy angels; do but smell thy sweet love and humility, doth it not smell or savour just like hell? All these parties are invited as guests to the following chapters. Of the Kingly Primacy, or of the Power and Authority of the Three Angelical Kings. 103. As the Deity in its being is threefold, in that the efflux out of the seven spirits of God sheweth and generateth itself as threefold, viz. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God; wherein the whole divine power consisteth, and all what
3soever is therein; and they are the three Persons in the Deity, and yet are not a divisible being or essence, but in one another as one: 104. So also, when God moved himself and created the angels, there came to be three special angels out of the best kernel of nature, out of the being of the Ternary in the nature of God, and in such power, authority and might, as hath the Ternary in the seven spirits of God; for the Ternary of God riseth up in the seven spirits of God, and is again the life and heart of all the seven spirits. 105. Thus also are the three angelical kings risen up, each in the nature of his host or place, and a natural lord of his place over the government of his angels; but the Ternary of the Deity retaineth to itself that place which is unalterable or unchangeable; and the king retaineth the dominion of the angels. 106. Now, as the Ternary of the Deity is one only being or substance in all parts in the whole Father, and is united together, as the members in man's body, and all places are as one place, though one place may have a different function from the others, as also the members of men have; yet it is the one body of God: 107. So also are the three angelical kingdoms united one in another, and not each severed asunder: No angelical king ought to say, This is my kingdom; or that there ought no other king to come thereinto; though indeed it is his first beginning, original and natural inheritance, and remaineth also to be his: Yet all other kings and angels are his true natural brothers, generated out of or from one Father, and do inherit their Father's kingdom.
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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