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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.
1both eyes, [viz. with the eye that seeth into the eternity, and the eye that seeth into that which is temporary]. 23. Thus the devil dwelleth near us, and yet hath a princely dominion much deeper, nearer towards the constellations, in the midst [amongst them], where it is darkest: for he may not come [dares not, likes not] near the shining lustre of the stars: and so is a prisoner, and dare not touch the seven governments of the word Fiat, and hath no power therein, and so is the poorest creature in the crown. 24. This cannot be described by a circle, for the sun standeth innermost in the most inward circle, and the other [planets] always further outwards, even to the crown which includeth the outwardmost heaven: and it cannot be understood [by outward reason], but the spirit understandeth it in itself; for, as it is, so is this circle also: neither can it be set down in writing, for the life windeth itself inwards to the sun: and so also the spirit of life in man windeth itself inwards into the soul, as you may consider concerning the Three Principles, where the outermost is also the innermost, which the outward spirit of our reason cannot conceive, for it is but one and not three in number. But the spirit of the soul, if it be turned about, so that it looketh with its own eyes into the innermost, and with the eyes of this world into the outermost, understandeth it: for this is the vision in Ezekiel, of the spirit with inward and outward
225. Although the wise Magi and mathematicians have made a sphere, and described the wheel, yet that is not enough: It is indeed a help to the unskilful to consider of the Mysterium Magnum, the Great Mystery: but the wheel hath a much more subtle understanding, and cannot be made in any circle after this manner: for it goeth into itself towards the heart of the sun, and out from itself towards the figure of the substantiality; it driveth upwards and downwards; for the spirit of the tincture, viz. the right fire-life, driveth upwards inwards towards the liberty of God, and yet desireth the spirit of the substantiality, which driveth downwards, for without that the fire-life doth not subsist: Thus the fire-spirit turneth itself about, as it were side-ways, and always reacheth after the spirit of the substantiality, and the spirit of the substantiality flieth from the fire; but since it is generated out of the fire-life, and cannot be severed from it, therefore it is wheeled about with the fire-spirit: For when the fire-spirit wheeleth to the right-side, and reacheth after the spirit of the substantiality, then the spirit of the substantiality wheeleth also on the left-side upwards, and that maketh a wheeling round, and one maketh haste after the other; for the substantiality flieth from the fire, and yet it cometh out of the fire, as you see that out of the fire goeth air, and out of the air water, which is the substantiality.
326. Thus the fire, which is an anguish, desireth meekness, and the liberty, which is without source [or pain], and reacheth after the water-source: and the meekness, viz. the water-source, desireth a body, and that it may be free from the fire and covered, and the fire runneth always after the water, and the water flieth from the fire; for if the fire should go away upwards, and the water go away downwards, there would then be a great separation between them, and each [both the fire and the water] would die and come to nothing. But seeing the fire inclineth towards the water, and refresheth itself therein, it so preserveth itself, and can send forth the spirit of the air again from itself, so that the life subsisteth. 27. Thus we shew you the Great Mystery, Mysterium Magnum, that you might learn to understand how far you should go, and where your number and end is; for the fire, (after the seven spirits of nature), is the eighth number [or form], and is a cause of the seven spirits. Now no creature subsisteth in the fire, for the fire consumeth the substantiality wherein the natural life standeth; but yet the fire maketh tincture; and that twofold: One reaching inward into itself after the eternal liberty, after the still meekness [that is] without being; and the other reaching forth out from itself, after the outward substantiality, viz. after the oil, which cometh out from the water,
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.
1both eyes, [viz. with the eye that seeth into the eternity, and the eye that seeth into that which is temporary]. 23. Thus the devil dwelleth near us, and yet hath a princely dominion much deeper, nearer towards the constellations, in the midst [amongst them], where it is darkest: for he may not come [dares not, likes not] near the shining lustre of the stars: and so is a prisoner, and dare not touch the seven governments of the word Fiat, and hath no power therein, and so is the poorest creature in the crown. 24. This cannot be described by a circle, for the sun standeth innermost in the most inward circle, and the other [planets] always further outwards, even to the crown which includeth the outwardmost heaven: and it cannot be understood [by outward reason], but the spirit understandeth it in itself; for, as it is, so is this circle also: neither can it be set down in writing, for the life windeth itself inwards to the sun: and so also the spirit of life in man windeth itself inwards into the soul, as you may consider concerning the Three Principles, where the outermost is also the innermost, which the outward spirit of our reason cannot conceive, for it is but one and not three in number. But the spirit of the soul, if it be turned about, so that it looketh with its own eyes into the innermost, and with the eyes of this world into the outermost, understandeth it: for this is the vision in Ezekiel, of the spirit with inward and outward
225. Although the wise Magi and mathematicians have made a sphere, and described the wheel, yet that is not enough: It is indeed a help to the unskilful to consider of the Mysterium Magnum, the Great Mystery: but the wheel hath a much more subtle understanding, and cannot be made in any circle after this manner: for it goeth into itself towards the heart of the sun, and out from itself towards the figure of the substantiality; it driveth upwards and downwards; for the spirit of the tincture, viz. the right fire-life, driveth upwards inwards towards the liberty of God, and yet desireth the spirit of the substantiality, which driveth downwards, for without that the fire-life doth not subsist: Thus the fire-spirit turneth itself about, as it were side-ways, and always reacheth after the spirit of the substantiality, and the spirit of the substantiality flieth from the fire; but since it is generated out of the fire-life, and cannot be severed from it, therefore it is wheeled about with the fire-spirit: For when the fire-spirit wheeleth to the right-side, and reacheth after the spirit of the substantiality, then the spirit of the substantiality wheeleth also on the left-side upwards, and that maketh a wheeling round, and one maketh haste after the other; for the substantiality flieth from the fire, and yet it cometh out of the fire, as you see that out of the fire goeth air, and out of the air water, which is the substantiality.
326. Thus the fire, which is an anguish, desireth meekness, and the liberty, which is without source [or pain], and reacheth after the water-source: and the meekness, viz. the water-source, desireth a body, and that it may be free from the fire and covered, and the fire runneth always after the water, and the water flieth from the fire; for if the fire should go away upwards, and the water go away downwards, there would then be a great separation between them, and each [both the fire and the water] would die and come to nothing. But seeing the fire inclineth towards the water, and refresheth itself therein, it so preserveth itself, and can send forth the spirit of the air again from itself, so that the life subsisteth. 27. Thus we shew you the Great Mystery, Mysterium Magnum, that you might learn to understand how far you should go, and where your number and end is; for the fire, (after the seven spirits of nature), is the eighth number [or form], and is a cause of the seven spirits. Now no creature subsisteth in the fire, for the fire consumeth the substantiality wherein the natural life standeth; but yet the fire maketh tincture; and that twofold: One reaching inward into itself after the eternal liberty, after the still meekness [that is] without being; and the other reaching forth out from itself, after the outward substantiality, viz. after the oil, which cometh out from the water,
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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