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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.
128. Understand us rightly thus: The fire hath the eighth number, and the inward tincture hath the ninth number; and so far [only] we ought to go; for the tenth number is the eternal fire of God, and holdeth in the midst of, its birth the cross, which severeth the centre of the eternal nature into two kingdoms, of which we have made mention formerly: and what creature soever will go back through it, that creature cometh through the kingdom of God back again into the outermost out from God, and out from this world back into the centre of the fire, as into an eternal darkness, where the fire is black, and a perpetual hunger: The kindling of the light of the fire standeth only under the cross, in the meekness, in the ninth number, which is a single number; the tenth number is a twofold number, and belongeth to angels and men but they ought not to reach further into the centre of the cross, but must stand there before the cross of the Number Three, and cast their minds down into the tincture of humility backwards into the ninth number, and look forward into the tenth number, but with a timorous mind, not desiring to create and have [any thing] in the tenth number, viz. to go back into the centre of the fire of God; but highly rejoice before the tenth number eternally, and with their songs of
2praise and Hallelujahs, sing, Holy! Holy! Holy! is our God the Lord of Hosts; and that song is a food to the divine fire, from whence goeth forth, in the divine essences, the wonder, paradise, the element and heavenly substantiality, and it standeth before the Number Three as a virgin of the eternal knowledge of God; and that is the Wisdom of God; for in the wisdom appeareth the substantiality of all divine essences, which to write of here we have no more pen nor tongue. 29. Only, we shew you how far you should search into such a revelation: for in the ninth number you see all things, for it is the tincture of the heavenly life; you see [in the ninth number] the hundredth number of the virgin of wisdom, and also the thousandth number of the, crown of the Majesty. 30. But you must not search further into the tenth number, there to search and dive into the abyss, else you go out from God as Lucifer did, who would fain be a creator in the tenth number, and sought [to have] the fire of the eternal original, and therein he must remain as in the death, in the darkness, eternally. 31. Therefore let the Reader be warned, not to dive further into these very deep writings, nor plunge his will deeper, than [so far] as he apprehendeth: he should always rest satisfied with his apprehension: for in the apprehension he standeth
3yet in the substantiality, and there he erreth not, how deep soever the spirit leadeth him: for to one more will be given than to another: And this only is the mark [to be aimed at], that every one continue steadfast in humility towards God, and submit himself to God, that he may make the will and the deed as he pleaseth. When you do that, you are in yourself as dead: for you desire nothing but God's will; and the will of God is your life, which goeth inward even to the thousandth number, and searcheth into the deep of the Deity with all wonders: He leadeth your will, submitted to him, into the virgin of his wisdom, so that you may behold all wonders: But you must not leave him, and imagine into the wonders; so soon as you do so, you go quite out from God's will, which is the eternal liberty, and are captivated in your imagination: Mark this; for every imagination maketh substantiality, and therein you stand, and must go out from that again, or else you shall not see God. 32. Therefore Christ teacheth us humility, love, pureness of heart, and to be merciful; and calleth upon us to seek after the will of God, and to submit ourselves to it: For in God's will we are able to do ALL; our own nature must not do it; but God himself is zealous in us, and he is our doing if we work any wonder: For no human soul should say or think, I will do wonders: No, that cannot be: for the wonders above the outward nature go forth only from the centre of the eternal
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.
128. Understand us rightly thus: The fire hath the eighth number, and the inward tincture hath the ninth number; and so far [only] we ought to go; for the tenth number is the eternal fire of God, and holdeth in the midst of, its birth the cross, which severeth the centre of the eternal nature into two kingdoms, of which we have made mention formerly: and what creature soever will go back through it, that creature cometh through the kingdom of God back again into the outermost out from God, and out from this world back into the centre of the fire, as into an eternal darkness, where the fire is black, and a perpetual hunger: The kindling of the light of the fire standeth only under the cross, in the meekness, in the ninth number, which is a single number; the tenth number is a twofold number, and belongeth to angels and men but they ought not to reach further into the centre of the cross, but must stand there before the cross of the Number Three, and cast their minds down into the tincture of humility backwards into the ninth number, and look forward into the tenth number, but with a timorous mind, not desiring to create and have [any thing] in the tenth number, viz. to go back into the centre of the fire of God; but highly rejoice before the tenth number eternally, and with their songs of
2praise and Hallelujahs, sing, Holy! Holy! Holy! is our God the Lord of Hosts; and that song is a food to the divine fire, from whence goeth forth, in the divine essences, the wonder, paradise, the element and heavenly substantiality, and it standeth before the Number Three as a virgin of the eternal knowledge of God; and that is the Wisdom of God; for in the wisdom appeareth the substantiality of all divine essences, which to write of here we have no more pen nor tongue. 29. Only, we shew you how far you should search into such a revelation: for in the ninth number you see all things, for it is the tincture of the heavenly life; you see [in the ninth number] the hundredth number of the virgin of wisdom, and also the thousandth number of the, crown of the Majesty. 30. But you must not search further into the tenth number, there to search and dive into the abyss, else you go out from God as Lucifer did, who would fain be a creator in the tenth number, and sought [to have] the fire of the eternal original, and therein he must remain as in the death, in the darkness, eternally. 31. Therefore let the Reader be warned, not to dive further into these very deep writings, nor plunge his will deeper, than [so far] as he apprehendeth: he should always rest satisfied with his apprehension: for in the apprehension he standeth
3yet in the substantiality, and there he erreth not, how deep soever the spirit leadeth him: for to one more will be given than to another: And this only is the mark [to be aimed at], that every one continue steadfast in humility towards God, and submit himself to God, that he may make the will and the deed as he pleaseth. When you do that, you are in yourself as dead: for you desire nothing but God's will; and the will of God is your life, which goeth inward even to the thousandth number, and searcheth into the deep of the Deity with all wonders: He leadeth your will, submitted to him, into the virgin of his wisdom, so that you may behold all wonders: But you must not leave him, and imagine into the wonders; so soon as you do so, you go quite out from God's will, which is the eternal liberty, and are captivated in your imagination: Mark this; for every imagination maketh substantiality, and therein you stand, and must go out from that again, or else you shall not see God. 32. Therefore Christ teacheth us humility, love, pureness of heart, and to be merciful; and calleth upon us to seek after the will of God, and to submit ourselves to it: For in God's will we are able to do ALL; our own nature must not do it; but God himself is zealous in us, and he is our doing if we work any wonder: For no human soul should say or think, I will do wonders: No, that cannot be: for the wonders above the outward nature go forth only from the centre of the eternal
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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