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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.
1Babel, in which we became rich and fat, is become desolate. THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER Of the True Knowledge concerning Man 1. We have shewn you, what the essence of all essences is, and what its life and spirit is, and what the matrix of the genetrix is, viz. that it standeth in the eternal willing, and in that eternal willing is the centre of nature, and therein is the Number Three, which is the heart, which manifesteth the eternity in creatures, figures, and similitudes; especially in three kingdoms; viz. the heavenly angelical; and then the hellish fiery diabolical; and thirdly, the substantial kingdom of the out-birth, viz. this world. 2. Now you know very well that the dear man Moses saith in his first book, [called Genesis], That on the Fifth Day, God created all the living creatures at once: which you are to understand thus; that in one revolution of the earth, God created (out of the earthly great mystery, out of the matrix of the spirit of the earthly property, as an out-birth out of the eternal property), all living creatures, that they should be images and similitudes of the eternal being [ essence or substance ]. 3. Now they are indeed created out of the earthly Mysterium Magnum, but yet the spirit there is not so wholly earthly; for it is yet Luna, as we see that the earth standeth next the moon, and [in the
2circle about] from the moon, and as every circle is, so also is the spirit in its own inclination, and the property of the wheel in that circumference [orb] . 4. Thus the circle between the moon and the earth, is both earthly and lunar; for the moon hath the properties of all the stars, and is as a sack or container of all the properties of the stars, which it continually poureth forth in its circle: for the earth longeth vehemently after the moon, and therefore attracteth the shining and glance of the moon, as also the shining and splendour of the sun: for all things long after the heart, and desire the liberty, that so they may bo, freed from the vanity. 5. Thus the earth, in its longing desire, hath attracted the spirit of the sevenfold wheel, and holdeth that in it as its peculiar matrix of nature, and would always fain awaken in itself the wheel of life; and therefore it wheeleth [turneth] itself about, for it hath both fires, the hot and the cold; and the nethermost always striveth upward towards the sun, for it receiveth virtue and spirit from the sun: and therefore it is so rolled about [turned]; for the fire wheeleth it about: it would fain be kindled, that it might have a life of its own, but though it must remain in death, yet it hath a longing after the upper life, and attracteth the upper life to it, and continually openeth wide its centre, after the sun's tincture and fire. 6. Thus from the longing after the sun, springeth
3forth the budding and growing out of the earthly matrix: for the essences of the earth climb forth (with the captivated life of the upper centre) always, upward out of the earth, and spread forth themselves into a great tree and stalk: and you see very well, that upon the tree and stalk there groweth a mixed fruit, half earthly, and half according to the upper centre: and the fruit never cometh into a joy [or to perfection], unless it be satiated with the upper [part], and then it is ripe, for it hath attained Venus's body. But as Venus's body is unfixed, and would soon fade, if the sun did not stay it with the virtue of Saturn, so also [it is with the ripe fruit], it is not durable, but soon turns to rottenness: It cannot be preserved [long], because the paradise is out of it.
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.
1Babel, in which we became rich and fat, is become desolate. THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER Of the True Knowledge concerning Man 1. We have shewn you, what the essence of all essences is, and what its life and spirit is, and what the matrix of the genetrix is, viz. that it standeth in the eternal willing, and in that eternal willing is the centre of nature, and therein is the Number Three, which is the heart, which manifesteth the eternity in creatures, figures, and similitudes; especially in three kingdoms; viz. the heavenly angelical; and then the hellish fiery diabolical; and thirdly, the substantial kingdom of the out-birth, viz. this world. 2. Now you know very well that the dear man Moses saith in his first book, [called Genesis], That on the Fifth Day, God created all the living creatures at once: which you are to understand thus; that in one revolution of the earth, God created (out of the earthly great mystery, out of the matrix of the spirit of the earthly property, as an out-birth out of the eternal property), all living creatures, that they should be images and similitudes of the eternal being [ essence or substance ]. 3. Now they are indeed created out of the earthly Mysterium Magnum, but yet the spirit there is not so wholly earthly; for it is yet Luna, as we see that the earth standeth next the moon, and [in the
2circle about] from the moon, and as every circle is, so also is the spirit in its own inclination, and the property of the wheel in that circumference [orb] . 4. Thus the circle between the moon and the earth, is both earthly and lunar; for the moon hath the properties of all the stars, and is as a sack or container of all the properties of the stars, which it continually poureth forth in its circle: for the earth longeth vehemently after the moon, and therefore attracteth the shining and glance of the moon, as also the shining and splendour of the sun: for all things long after the heart, and desire the liberty, that so they may bo, freed from the vanity. 5. Thus the earth, in its longing desire, hath attracted the spirit of the sevenfold wheel, and holdeth that in it as its peculiar matrix of nature, and would always fain awaken in itself the wheel of life; and therefore it wheeleth [turneth] itself about, for it hath both fires, the hot and the cold; and the nethermost always striveth upward towards the sun, for it receiveth virtue and spirit from the sun: and therefore it is so rolled about [turned]; for the fire wheeleth it about: it would fain be kindled, that it might have a life of its own, but though it must remain in death, yet it hath a longing after the upper life, and attracteth the upper life to it, and continually openeth wide its centre, after the sun's tincture and fire. 6. Thus from the longing after the sun, springeth
3forth the budding and growing out of the earthly matrix: for the essences of the earth climb forth (with the captivated life of the upper centre) always, upward out of the earth, and spread forth themselves into a great tree and stalk: and you see very well, that upon the tree and stalk there groweth a mixed fruit, half earthly, and half according to the upper centre: and the fruit never cometh into a joy [or to perfection], unless it be satiated with the upper [part], and then it is ripe, for it hath attained Venus's body. But as Venus's body is unfixed, and would soon fade, if the sun did not stay it with the virtue of Saturn, so also [it is with the ripe fruit], it is not durable, but soon turns to rottenness: It cannot be preserved [long], because the paradise is out of it.
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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