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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.
1not aright, let them look to it: O no, it concerns your very self, it will cost the loss of your body and soul. Dear Christendom is departed from all the apostolical ordinances, virtue, and power, into human inventions and institutions; and instead of Christ's kingdom, there is a pompous, stately, hypocritical one set up, by Baptism and the [Lord's] Supper. 43. Men set up ceremonies: O, if they had kept the true faith, and had shewn people the divine way into the new regeneration: If they had shewn them the clear countenance of God, then people had departed from their sins into a divine life. 44. But thy wit and subtlety, O thou whore, hath blinded all: If my eyes had not been opened by God, how should I have known thee? I should indeed have still worshipped thee: The world shall seek thee, and at length find thee; and then Europe shall be a crown, and Asia the man [or husband], and Africa the country, and a simple shepherd shall lead us to pasture: If thou didst understand this, thou wouldst enter into thyself; but thou wilt be blind till thou art recompensed: As thou hast poured forth affliction, so thou shalt drink up misery and torment, for thou hast made it so very great as it is, and art a wild tree, and shalt be broken off: There is no remedy, thy own wrath casteth thee to the ground; for thou art weighed in a balance, and art found too light, saith the spirit of the Great Wonders. The Magia out of the Wonders.
245. A thing which groweth out of a beginning, hath beginning and end, and groweth no higher than that thing hath in its number out of which it groweth; but that which in the one number [or unit number] is incorruptible, for it is but one and no more, there is nothing in it that can break it; for, not any thing that is one is at enmity with itself; but when there are two things in one, there is plain contrariety and strife; for that which is one striveth not against itself, but draweth into itself, and out of itself, and remaineth one, and though it seek more in itself, yet it findeth no more, and that can never be at odds with itself; for it is one thing, whithersoever it goeth, it goeth in one will; for where there are two wills, there is division or separation; for one will often goeth inward and the other outward; and then, if that thing have a body, then that kingdom or government in that body is at odds: And so if one enter into the other with enmity, there that is a contrary will which goeth in against the other, and then therein dwelleth the third number, and the third number is a mixed essence out of the first two, and is against them both, and will be its own, and yet hath also two wills in itself from the first two, one whereof tendeth to the right hand, and the other to the left. 46. Thus the thing riseth up from two into many, and every one hath its own will, and if it be in one [only] body, then it is at odds with
3itself, for it hath many wills, and needeth a judge to part them, and keep the wills in awe; but if the wills be strong, and will not be kept under in awe by the judge, but go out aloft, then of one government [or kingdom] there becometh two, for that which is flown out judgeth or ruleth itself according to its own will, and hateth the first, because that is not in its will, and so there is a strife, one desiring to keep down the other, and so to elevate itself alone
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.
1not aright, let them look to it: O no, it concerns your very self, it will cost the loss of your body and soul. Dear Christendom is departed from all the apostolical ordinances, virtue, and power, into human inventions and institutions; and instead of Christ's kingdom, there is a pompous, stately, hypocritical one set up, by Baptism and the [Lord's] Supper. 43. Men set up ceremonies: O, if they had kept the true faith, and had shewn people the divine way into the new regeneration: If they had shewn them the clear countenance of God, then people had departed from their sins into a divine life. 44. But thy wit and subtlety, O thou whore, hath blinded all: If my eyes had not been opened by God, how should I have known thee? I should indeed have still worshipped thee: The world shall seek thee, and at length find thee; and then Europe shall be a crown, and Asia the man [or husband], and Africa the country, and a simple shepherd shall lead us to pasture: If thou didst understand this, thou wouldst enter into thyself; but thou wilt be blind till thou art recompensed: As thou hast poured forth affliction, so thou shalt drink up misery and torment, for thou hast made it so very great as it is, and art a wild tree, and shalt be broken off: There is no remedy, thy own wrath casteth thee to the ground; for thou art weighed in a balance, and art found too light, saith the spirit of the Great Wonders. The Magia out of the Wonders.
245. A thing which groweth out of a beginning, hath beginning and end, and groweth no higher than that thing hath in its number out of which it groweth; but that which in the one number [or unit number] is incorruptible, for it is but one and no more, there is nothing in it that can break it; for, not any thing that is one is at enmity with itself; but when there are two things in one, there is plain contrariety and strife; for that which is one striveth not against itself, but draweth into itself, and out of itself, and remaineth one, and though it seek more in itself, yet it findeth no more, and that can never be at odds with itself; for it is one thing, whithersoever it goeth, it goeth in one will; for where there are two wills, there is division or separation; for one will often goeth inward and the other outward; and then, if that thing have a body, then that kingdom or government in that body is at odds: And so if one enter into the other with enmity, there that is a contrary will which goeth in against the other, and then therein dwelleth the third number, and the third number is a mixed essence out of the first two, and is against them both, and will be its own, and yet hath also two wills in itself from the first two, one whereof tendeth to the right hand, and the other to the left. 46. Thus the thing riseth up from two into many, and every one hath its own will, and if it be in one [only] body, then it is at odds with
3itself, for it hath many wills, and needeth a judge to part them, and keep the wills in awe; but if the wills be strong, and will not be kept under in awe by the judge, but go out aloft, then of one government [or kingdom] there becometh two, for that which is flown out judgeth or ruleth itself according to its own will, and hateth the first, because that is not in its will, and so there is a strife, one desiring to keep down the other, and so to elevate itself alone
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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