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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.
151. When this was done, God said, Let there be light, (let the light of the tincture open itself), and there was light: then God separated the light from the darkness. Understand this rightly. He [God] shut up the fierce fire which Lucifer had kindled (which taketh its source out of the darkness), and let the tincture in the quintessence burn, as in the fat of the water-spirit, as in a beast [the fire of its life burneth] . 52. Thus the life did burn in the tincture, and turned the fat, viz. the oil, into a quintessence, viz. blood, and so that life did burn in the blood; for therein standeth the noble tincture: and God hath reserved in his own power the centre of the fire: for he hath shut it up in the darkness, as it hath stood from eternity in the darkness: and so every life standeth in his hand: for if he let the fire come into the tincture, then the spirit is in the hellish fire. 53. Now when the light did shine out of the tincture, he divided the tincture into two parts, even as it divideth itself, viz. into the fire-life, and into the light-life, as hath been mentioned before; and created the two lives, the fire-life to be a heaven and a firmament between the holy meekness, viz. the Heart of God, and the impotent airspirit : and yet the air goeth forth from its mother, the tincture of the fire-spirit, and God dwelleth between them both.
254. The fire- spirit of the tincture hath the eternity in [or for] its root, and the air-spirit hath the material life, which sourced forth with the awakened substantiality, and ruleth the outward bestial life: for it is the bestial life of every creature, also [it is the life] of trees, herbs and grass; it hath also a tincture, but not strong enough. 55. Thus you see how the life standeth in the water, and hath two dominions, viz. fire and air; and you see whence the blood hath its original, which maketh a creature [that hath blood] more noble than one that hath not blood in it; for that creature hath a false tincture, and is proceeded from the will of the devil, as you see in vipers and venomous worms, they have not the noble tincture [or the noble life]. 56. But when the devil intended to be lord in the tincture, and would create, he awakened such a life in his will, which yet is not all his [life] : he is indeed of the same essences, and the devils' bodies are figured also in hell into such serpents, venomous worms, and ugly beasts: for they cannot in their own form be otherwise; although indeed they have not a body from the divided tincture from its substantiality, but [they have a body] out of the centre of nature, out of the fierce matrix, out of the eternal substantiality, out of the darkness, which is a spiritual body.
357. Now when God had created the earth, the water was over the whole earth, which God separated, that the earth became dry, and called the water sea, Meer, which in the language of nature signifieth a covering and holding fast the fierceness of the devil, a true reproach to the devil, that his power was drowned: To expound this, very acute writings are requisite, and man would hardly be able to apprehend it. 58. Thus the earth sprang in its own essences and tincture, which were also comprehended in the first creation. 59. It shall also be rightly expounded to you what Moses saith, God separated the water above the firmament from the water under the firmament; that is, into the water and blood of the [living] creatures; for the water above the firmament is blood, and therein standeth the tincture [or life], which separateth the heaven from the water beneath the firmament, viz. from the elementary water; as we see that each of them hath its own habitation and dominion: of which may be spoken more at large in another place. 60. Only we understand therein two kingdoms, viz. the soul dwelleth in the blood in the tincture, and in the water dwelleth the air-spirit, which is corruptible, for it had a beginning, but the soul had none; for the tincture is from eternity, and therefore the figures of all kinds must remain in eternity; account it not for an opinion, it is really so.
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.
151. When this was done, God said, Let there be light, (let the light of the tincture open itself), and there was light: then God separated the light from the darkness. Understand this rightly. He [God] shut up the fierce fire which Lucifer had kindled (which taketh its source out of the darkness), and let the tincture in the quintessence burn, as in the fat of the water-spirit, as in a beast [the fire of its life burneth] . 52. Thus the life did burn in the tincture, and turned the fat, viz. the oil, into a quintessence, viz. blood, and so that life did burn in the blood; for therein standeth the noble tincture: and God hath reserved in his own power the centre of the fire: for he hath shut it up in the darkness, as it hath stood from eternity in the darkness: and so every life standeth in his hand: for if he let the fire come into the tincture, then the spirit is in the hellish fire. 53. Now when the light did shine out of the tincture, he divided the tincture into two parts, even as it divideth itself, viz. into the fire-life, and into the light-life, as hath been mentioned before; and created the two lives, the fire-life to be a heaven and a firmament between the holy meekness, viz. the Heart of God, and the impotent airspirit : and yet the air goeth forth from its mother, the tincture of the fire-spirit, and God dwelleth between them both.
254. The fire- spirit of the tincture hath the eternity in [or for] its root, and the air-spirit hath the material life, which sourced forth with the awakened substantiality, and ruleth the outward bestial life: for it is the bestial life of every creature, also [it is the life] of trees, herbs and grass; it hath also a tincture, but not strong enough. 55. Thus you see how the life standeth in the water, and hath two dominions, viz. fire and air; and you see whence the blood hath its original, which maketh a creature [that hath blood] more noble than one that hath not blood in it; for that creature hath a false tincture, and is proceeded from the will of the devil, as you see in vipers and venomous worms, they have not the noble tincture [or the noble life]. 56. But when the devil intended to be lord in the tincture, and would create, he awakened such a life in his will, which yet is not all his [life] : he is indeed of the same essences, and the devils' bodies are figured also in hell into such serpents, venomous worms, and ugly beasts: for they cannot in their own form be otherwise; although indeed they have not a body from the divided tincture from its substantiality, but [they have a body] out of the centre of nature, out of the fierce matrix, out of the eternal substantiality, out of the darkness, which is a spiritual body.
357. Now when God had created the earth, the water was over the whole earth, which God separated, that the earth became dry, and called the water sea, Meer, which in the language of nature signifieth a covering and holding fast the fierceness of the devil, a true reproach to the devil, that his power was drowned: To expound this, very acute writings are requisite, and man would hardly be able to apprehend it. 58. Thus the earth sprang in its own essences and tincture, which were also comprehended in the first creation. 59. It shall also be rightly expounded to you what Moses saith, God separated the water above the firmament from the water under the firmament; that is, into the water and blood of the [living] creatures; for the water above the firmament is blood, and therein standeth the tincture [or life], which separateth the heaven from the water beneath the firmament, viz. from the elementary water; as we see that each of them hath its own habitation and dominion: of which may be spoken more at large in another place. 60. Only we understand therein two kingdoms, viz. the soul dwelleth in the blood in the tincture, and in the water dwelleth the air-spirit, which is corruptible, for it had a beginning, but the soul had none; for the tincture is from eternity, and therefore the figures of all kinds must remain in eternity; account it not for an opinion, it is really so.
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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