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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.
1to fly into humility; and therefore Christ teacheth us so very earnestly to study meekness, love, and mercy, that we should love one another, and should not so eagerly endeavour after the spirit of this world; for the devil slippeth into it, and seduceth us: We should watchfully take heed of pride, for the devil flieth into it; and of anger, for that is the devil's sword, wherewith he commiteth all murders. 43. O how lamentable a thing it is that the soul is thus blinded that it knoweth not the heavy shackles and bands wherein it lieth captive ! The fire of hell riseth up to its very lips, the whole world is full of snares which the devil hath laid to catch the poor soul: If the eyes of the outward man should be opened, he would be terribly affrighted: All whatsoever man doth but touch or look upon, there is a net and snare of the devil in it; and if the Verbum Domini, the Word of the Lord, which is become man, were not in the middle, so that the hidden eternal substantiality of the Word is a body, there would none be saved: the devil would catch and devour all souls. 44. Therefore, dear children, Christ hath well told us, That the kingdom of God in us is small as a grain of mustard- seed; but he that endeavoureth seriously, and striveth after it, to him it groweth great as a tree, and the devil must needs let it alone; and though he often breaketh off a twig, yet the stock standeth still.
245. Christ warned the rich young man to beware of covetousness, and told him, that a camel would easier go through the eye of a needle, than a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven; and the cause of all this is, that the soul entereth into lust, and into the dominion of this world: for if the soul wholly giveth up itself into the lust, pleasure, and dominion of this world, then the devil doth not sift [or tempt] it so strongly, but carrieth it in his triumphant chariot, from one abomination and wickedness to another: his chariot is Venus, viz. the love of the flesh, wherein the soul continually endeavoureth after temporary power, authority, and honour, after riches, beauty, and the desires of the flesh, after bestial inordinate copulation; though indeed the soul doth not so eagerly desire it, unless it be totally infected: but it is only from hence that the soul in Adam hath lusted after it, and is captivated therewith; and the devil continually maketh it stirring, he continually tickleth the soul therewith, that it might confidently and freely eat of the forbidden fruit.
346. We find that the human life is Threefold, with three spirits together in one, as if it were but one spirit, and it is indeed but one life; but it hath three dominions, each of which hath its own mother, which afibrdeth or generateth it; the centre of nature, with its forms [or properties], is the eternal life; for it is the fire-life; and the spirit, which is generated and goeth forth out of the centre of nature, which dwelleth in the tincture, is the eternal life of the soul; and the air-spirit, with the qualities or properties of the dominion of the stars, is the beginning, ending, and transitory life, which is the bestial life, [the animal life which we have in common with beasts] . 47. Now the soul is generated only out of the first two, and the third is breathed into it; not that it should enter into it, and give up itself thereto, as Adam hath done; but that the soul should mightily rule over it, and therein open the great wonders of God, which from eternity were beheld in the wisdom of God; for the third dominion is generated and created out of the first;
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.
1to fly into humility; and therefore Christ teacheth us so very earnestly to study meekness, love, and mercy, that we should love one another, and should not so eagerly endeavour after the spirit of this world; for the devil slippeth into it, and seduceth us: We should watchfully take heed of pride, for the devil flieth into it; and of anger, for that is the devil's sword, wherewith he commiteth all murders. 43. O how lamentable a thing it is that the soul is thus blinded that it knoweth not the heavy shackles and bands wherein it lieth captive ! The fire of hell riseth up to its very lips, the whole world is full of snares which the devil hath laid to catch the poor soul: If the eyes of the outward man should be opened, he would be terribly affrighted: All whatsoever man doth but touch or look upon, there is a net and snare of the devil in it; and if the Verbum Domini, the Word of the Lord, which is become man, were not in the middle, so that the hidden eternal substantiality of the Word is a body, there would none be saved: the devil would catch and devour all souls. 44. Therefore, dear children, Christ hath well told us, That the kingdom of God in us is small as a grain of mustard- seed; but he that endeavoureth seriously, and striveth after it, to him it groweth great as a tree, and the devil must needs let it alone; and though he often breaketh off a twig, yet the stock standeth still.
245. Christ warned the rich young man to beware of covetousness, and told him, that a camel would easier go through the eye of a needle, than a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven; and the cause of all this is, that the soul entereth into lust, and into the dominion of this world: for if the soul wholly giveth up itself into the lust, pleasure, and dominion of this world, then the devil doth not sift [or tempt] it so strongly, but carrieth it in his triumphant chariot, from one abomination and wickedness to another: his chariot is Venus, viz. the love of the flesh, wherein the soul continually endeavoureth after temporary power, authority, and honour, after riches, beauty, and the desires of the flesh, after bestial inordinate copulation; though indeed the soul doth not so eagerly desire it, unless it be totally infected: but it is only from hence that the soul in Adam hath lusted after it, and is captivated therewith; and the devil continually maketh it stirring, he continually tickleth the soul therewith, that it might confidently and freely eat of the forbidden fruit.
346. We find that the human life is Threefold, with three spirits together in one, as if it were but one spirit, and it is indeed but one life; but it hath three dominions, each of which hath its own mother, which afibrdeth or generateth it; the centre of nature, with its forms [or properties], is the eternal life; for it is the fire-life; and the spirit, which is generated and goeth forth out of the centre of nature, which dwelleth in the tincture, is the eternal life of the soul; and the air-spirit, with the qualities or properties of the dominion of the stars, is the beginning, ending, and transitory life, which is the bestial life, [the animal life which we have in common with beasts] . 47. Now the soul is generated only out of the first two, and the third is breathed into it; not that it should enter into it, and give up itself thereto, as Adam hath done; but that the soul should mightily rule over it, and therein open the great wonders of God, which from eternity were beheld in the wisdom of God; for the third dominion is generated and created out of the first;
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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