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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.
1Number Three [or Trinity], is numbered to thrice four- andtwenty, (as indeed the Number Three doth manifest itself in three kingdoms and persons, and according to the Number Three all is threefold, but according to the creatures all is twofold), then the sum is seventy-two in number, which signify, and are, the seventy-two languages, which signify Babel, a confusion and wonder. 79. If we should go on here, we should shew you the whore and the beast, which the Revelation speaketh of, and moreover all the wonders which have been since the world began: The greatest secret lieth herein, and is called Mysterium Magnum, the Great Mystery, and all the controversies in matters of religion and faith arise from hence, and all willing, evil and good. 80. The Seven Spirits, wherein the Son of Man consisteth, in the Revelation, are the seven spirits of nature; one of them is the kingdom, and the six are the centre of nature, / viz. the] heavenly: if this be set down according to the human number, it maketh the number twelve, and according to the two kingdoms, viz. the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of this world, out of which the faithful are generated, then there are four-and-twenty spirits, which are the Elders before the throne of God, who worship God, and the slain Lamb: consider it well.
281. We further intimate, concerning this world's centre of nature, thus: The birth of life windeth itself like a wheel inwards into itself, and when it cometh to the innermost point, then it attaineth the Liberty, yet not [the Liberty] of God, but only the tincture out of which the life burneth. 82. For that which will catch hold of God must pass through the fire; for no substantiality reacheth God, unless it subsist in the fire: understand in a peculiar fire: If that should kindle, the world would melt away. We mean not the fire of the out-birth, which is no fire, but only a sharp fierceness, which consumeth the outward substantiality which springeth from the water, viz. wood and flesh, but doth not stir the inward fire in stone. 83. Therefore observe it; the Liberty, without the nature of this world, is only the eternity without substance. Now, as the eternal centre generateth itself out of the desiring of the eternal willing, as is mentioned before; so hath also the other centre of the Third Principle, (through the Word Fiat in the out-birth, out of the eternal,) generated itself [in like manner] . 84. For from the first creation of the first day, the outward centre of nature had wound itself thrice about, (understand before the sun and stars were corporeally created), and had attained six forms, three superior, and three inferior; and there are always twelve of them that belong to one form
3of the centre, where there is always a sign; understand, the signs [of the zodiac] in the eighth sphere (in the crown). 85. Saturn, with his harsh, strong, attracting and cold, is one form and spirit in the centre, which shutteth up the abyss, and maketh darkness in the deep, and attracteth the substantiality of the outward power of this principle, and the centre windeth about like a wheel; and that which is concrete standeth over against Saturn, as in a wheel, and is called Mond [the Moon] in respect of its property, which would be too large to set down in writing. 86. Then the wheel windeth further inwards into itself, and maketh Jupiter: For Saturn, with its attracting, desireth the Liberty of the divine substance, but he maketh Him [the brain] ; for it catcheth with its desire the power of the Liberty, and not the Liberty of the divine Majesty itself which is without substance. 87. But because there is understanding in the power, and yet the power cannot in its own might awaken the understanding, therefore Jupiter desireth a life in the power, and that is about on the wheel Mercury: for the wheel is always winding about, and Mercury is a stirrer, a maker of a sound and a noise, and yet hath not the life, for that existeth in the fire; and therefore it desireth the fierce stormy turbulency, which striketh up the fire; and that about on the wheel is Mars, which is a rager, stormer, and striker up of the fire.
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.
1Number Three [or Trinity], is numbered to thrice four- andtwenty, (as indeed the Number Three doth manifest itself in three kingdoms and persons, and according to the Number Three all is threefold, but according to the creatures all is twofold), then the sum is seventy-two in number, which signify, and are, the seventy-two languages, which signify Babel, a confusion and wonder. 79. If we should go on here, we should shew you the whore and the beast, which the Revelation speaketh of, and moreover all the wonders which have been since the world began: The greatest secret lieth herein, and is called Mysterium Magnum, the Great Mystery, and all the controversies in matters of religion and faith arise from hence, and all willing, evil and good. 80. The Seven Spirits, wherein the Son of Man consisteth, in the Revelation, are the seven spirits of nature; one of them is the kingdom, and the six are the centre of nature, / viz. the] heavenly: if this be set down according to the human number, it maketh the number twelve, and according to the two kingdoms, viz. the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of this world, out of which the faithful are generated, then there are four-and-twenty spirits, which are the Elders before the throne of God, who worship God, and the slain Lamb: consider it well.
281. We further intimate, concerning this world's centre of nature, thus: The birth of life windeth itself like a wheel inwards into itself, and when it cometh to the innermost point, then it attaineth the Liberty, yet not [the Liberty] of God, but only the tincture out of which the life burneth. 82. For that which will catch hold of God must pass through the fire; for no substantiality reacheth God, unless it subsist in the fire: understand in a peculiar fire: If that should kindle, the world would melt away. We mean not the fire of the out-birth, which is no fire, but only a sharp fierceness, which consumeth the outward substantiality which springeth from the water, viz. wood and flesh, but doth not stir the inward fire in stone. 83. Therefore observe it; the Liberty, without the nature of this world, is only the eternity without substance. Now, as the eternal centre generateth itself out of the desiring of the eternal willing, as is mentioned before; so hath also the other centre of the Third Principle, (through the Word Fiat in the out-birth, out of the eternal,) generated itself [in like manner] . 84. For from the first creation of the first day, the outward centre of nature had wound itself thrice about, (understand before the sun and stars were corporeally created), and had attained six forms, three superior, and three inferior; and there are always twelve of them that belong to one form
3of the centre, where there is always a sign; understand, the signs [of the zodiac] in the eighth sphere (in the crown). 85. Saturn, with his harsh, strong, attracting and cold, is one form and spirit in the centre, which shutteth up the abyss, and maketh darkness in the deep, and attracteth the substantiality of the outward power of this principle, and the centre windeth about like a wheel; and that which is concrete standeth over against Saturn, as in a wheel, and is called Mond [the Moon] in respect of its property, which would be too large to set down in writing. 86. Then the wheel windeth further inwards into itself, and maketh Jupiter: For Saturn, with its attracting, desireth the Liberty of the divine substance, but he maketh Him [the brain] ; for it catcheth with its desire the power of the Liberty, and not the Liberty of the divine Majesty itself which is without substance. 87. But because there is understanding in the power, and yet the power cannot in its own might awaken the understanding, therefore Jupiter desireth a life in the power, and that is about on the wheel Mercury: for the wheel is always winding about, and Mercury is a stirrer, a maker of a sound and a noise, and yet hath not the life, for that existeth in the fire; and therefore it desireth the fierce stormy turbulency, which striketh up the fire; and that about on the wheel is Mars, which is a rager, stormer, and striker up of the fire.
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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