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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.
131. We do not here shut up the grace of God from those that turn and become New-born out of this bestial condition: for Christ is therefore become man on purpose to help us, that we may come again into the similitude of God: and HE hath therefore brought our human soul into the fire of the anger of God, as into the abyss of the centre, into hell, and into death, where our souls lay shut up, and out of death and hell again, into the tenth number, into the eternal tincture of God, upon the cross, from whence the soul existed from eternity, which appeared before the time of this world, in his wisdom. 32. And you are to know, that every soul, while it is yet in the seed, is no [living] creature, but is in the fire, or a fire of the tincture, and is a will of the creature; and it standeth yet in the power of the parents, either to quicken [enliven] or destroy the creature, which [to destroy] runs opposite against the order of the creation, and is an abomination in the sight of God: and hereby is shewed you, that such as the tree is, such is the fruit that groweth out from it: yet the compulsion is not wholly perfect, for the two kingdoms, viz. love and anger, stand presently in the wrestling, one against another: For God hath brought his love in Christ again into the humanity: and so it standeth in strife against the anger.
233. But you must know, that a false wicked seed may well be forsaken: and if that come to be so, then the nature of the fire often figureth the spirit of the soul in a horrible form, which is not known in the outward image, but only in the evil [or false] conversation and will; as is seen that everyone's conversation is from his abyss, and the spirit of his soul is so in figure: for the inward goeth outward: whatsoever the will in the abyss is, that the body doth; and though he dare not do it openly, because of disgraceful punishment, yet he doth it secretly, and hath continually a will to it, neither doth he account it any vice: for he knoweth not himself, but he himself doth that which he judgeth [to be evil in another]. 34. And then, secondly, we give you to understand, that the outward dominion ( viz. the spirit of this world) is also in the seed, while it is yet a sulphur, [that is, matter without form or life], and in that [spirit] hath the constellation its dominion, and it draweth also with it inwards the constellation of the stars, as they have influence [aspects], and infect or poison a thing, and also make it lovely, according as the imagination is at all times: for every
3star is a seeking; a desiring (viz. of the wonders), according to its property: Each of them desireth a life, and the elementary sulphur, which is also desirous, longeth after the desiring of the stars, and attracteth, or letteth that into it, and becometh pregnant therewith. 35. Now, in the stars, there are all the properties of this world, whatsoever all the creatures are, that the stars are, every one of them helpeth towards life, and to the revelation of the wonders of God: for therefore they are brought into being, because God would open all forms of nature: and many of them make a property of a dog in the outward spirit of this world; many of a wolf, a bear, a lion, a fox, a hare, a bull, a peacock, a cock, also of a toad, a serpent, and so forth, after the condition of all sorts of creatures; and so, if such a star bo, fixed, so that it hath received the virtue of the sun through the introducing of the spirit; then it is powerful, and its imagination presseth along in the seed, whereby a creature getteth such a property in the elementary life and spirit, as well in men as in beasts. 36. And such an evil property many times covereth the soul, and enticeth it from the will of God, so that it goeth out from God's will; for it often cometh to pass, that the image of God is in the soul (which desireth [or longeth after] God), and is captivated with such an outward spirit, which plagueth and tormenteth it; this you see
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.
131. We do not here shut up the grace of God from those that turn and become New-born out of this bestial condition: for Christ is therefore become man on purpose to help us, that we may come again into the similitude of God: and HE hath therefore brought our human soul into the fire of the anger of God, as into the abyss of the centre, into hell, and into death, where our souls lay shut up, and out of death and hell again, into the tenth number, into the eternal tincture of God, upon the cross, from whence the soul existed from eternity, which appeared before the time of this world, in his wisdom. 32. And you are to know, that every soul, while it is yet in the seed, is no [living] creature, but is in the fire, or a fire of the tincture, and is a will of the creature; and it standeth yet in the power of the parents, either to quicken [enliven] or destroy the creature, which [to destroy] runs opposite against the order of the creation, and is an abomination in the sight of God: and hereby is shewed you, that such as the tree is, such is the fruit that groweth out from it: yet the compulsion is not wholly perfect, for the two kingdoms, viz. love and anger, stand presently in the wrestling, one against another: For God hath brought his love in Christ again into the humanity: and so it standeth in strife against the anger.
233. But you must know, that a false wicked seed may well be forsaken: and if that come to be so, then the nature of the fire often figureth the spirit of the soul in a horrible form, which is not known in the outward image, but only in the evil [or false] conversation and will; as is seen that everyone's conversation is from his abyss, and the spirit of his soul is so in figure: for the inward goeth outward: whatsoever the will in the abyss is, that the body doth; and though he dare not do it openly, because of disgraceful punishment, yet he doth it secretly, and hath continually a will to it, neither doth he account it any vice: for he knoweth not himself, but he himself doth that which he judgeth [to be evil in another]. 34. And then, secondly, we give you to understand, that the outward dominion ( viz. the spirit of this world) is also in the seed, while it is yet a sulphur, [that is, matter without form or life], and in that [spirit] hath the constellation its dominion, and it draweth also with it inwards the constellation of the stars, as they have influence [aspects], and infect or poison a thing, and also make it lovely, according as the imagination is at all times: for every
3star is a seeking; a desiring (viz. of the wonders), according to its property: Each of them desireth a life, and the elementary sulphur, which is also desirous, longeth after the desiring of the stars, and attracteth, or letteth that into it, and becometh pregnant therewith. 35. Now, in the stars, there are all the properties of this world, whatsoever all the creatures are, that the stars are, every one of them helpeth towards life, and to the revelation of the wonders of God: for therefore they are brought into being, because God would open all forms of nature: and many of them make a property of a dog in the outward spirit of this world; many of a wolf, a bear, a lion, a fox, a hare, a bull, a peacock, a cock, also of a toad, a serpent, and so forth, after the condition of all sorts of creatures; and so, if such a star bo, fixed, so that it hath received the virtue of the sun through the introducing of the spirit; then it is powerful, and its imagination presseth along in the seed, whereby a creature getteth such a property in the elementary life and spirit, as well in men as in beasts. 36. And such an evil property many times covereth the soul, and enticeth it from the will of God, so that it goeth out from God's will; for it often cometh to pass, that the image of God is in the soul (which desireth [or longeth after] God), and is captivated with such an outward spirit, which plagueth and tormenteth it; this you see
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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