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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.
1hear the voice of God from within, in the centre of the soul: for the Word, with the Number Three, dwelleth within it, in the centre on the cross, and that soundeth forth outwards, and raiseth up the body of the essences: For the souls of men are all, as it were, one soul; for they are all propagated out of one only soul; and therefore they will all hear the voice of the human soul in Christ, and arise with their bodies. 14. So, then, when we pray to God, God heareth our souls in the centre in ourselves; that is, the soul presseth forth with its repenting will, out of the centre of anguish, out of the abyss of hell, and also out of the spirit of this world, into the second Principle, into God, which is also in the soul; for all the Three Principles are in the soul, viz. the two eternal, and the corruptible, which maketh the death of this world. 15. Understand us accurately, according to its high worth, thus; God the Father moveth not
2himself [when thou prayest], the Holy Ghost only moveth himself: though that indeed availeth us not either. But the Word which hath created our soul is become man, and that hath the Holy Ghost in it, and he goeth forth from the Father in the Word, and meeteth the calling mind and will, and openeth himself from within outwards into the soul: For the outward bestial body is not worthy of the Holy Ghost, that he should open himself in it; though sometimes it happened so to the saints, that he went forth of the soul into the outward Principle; and then the body triumpheth, and for very joy knoweth not what is happened to it: but in the new body of the soul in Christ, when the soul attaineth the body of Christ, in that the Holy Ghost dwelleth. 16. And so when the devil cometh, and will set upon the soul from beneath, in the first Principle, in the centre of the first four forms to the source of the fire, then the will of the soul presseth into the flesh of Christ, into the second Principle, inwards into itself, and there it is refreshed and released, and the devil must go down; for that life doth not relish with him: yet he is so furious, that he setteth upon the soul, so often as he perceiveth it to be secure and careless, or never so little burdeneth itself with falsehood and wickedness: he always seeketh an opportunity wherein he might find his nest open [for him]. 17. Therefore, dear children, when ye pray,
3think not that God dwelleth afar off from you, and so neither heareth you, nor seeth you; that is a false conceit and opinion. Indeed those, who will not enter into God, those that stick fast in their malice and iniquity, and retain wickedness in their soul, those indeed are not heard. He that crieth to God, that he would outwardly accept his words from him, and yet retaineth the evil one in his soul, he mocketh God: God dwelleth not outwardly; for the outward is the bestial starry spirit: he dwelleth inwardly in himself; the outward substance is only a figure and similitude of God: Indeed it is of God, and generated out of the inward centre, and expressed [or spoken forth] through the Verbumfiat: but it is not the substance of the Number Three, which is a substance and spirit in the Trinity, above nature, and yet dwelleth in nature in itself; incomprehensible to nature, as the wind and the light are not comprehended by the fire, and yet are the spirit, brightness, and life of the fire. 18. Therefore, when you will pray, put away the abominations out of your soul, and enter into yourself; that is, you must loathe the abominations, and frame a will and purpose in your soul, that you will not let such abominations unto you any more; also you must not suffer your will to stick in any abomination and despair; for when you despair, you sink yourself down into the abyss. 19. But consider, that it is the dear will and
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.
1hear the voice of God from within, in the centre of the soul: for the Word, with the Number Three, dwelleth within it, in the centre on the cross, and that soundeth forth outwards, and raiseth up the body of the essences: For the souls of men are all, as it were, one soul; for they are all propagated out of one only soul; and therefore they will all hear the voice of the human soul in Christ, and arise with their bodies. 14. So, then, when we pray to God, God heareth our souls in the centre in ourselves; that is, the soul presseth forth with its repenting will, out of the centre of anguish, out of the abyss of hell, and also out of the spirit of this world, into the second Principle, into God, which is also in the soul; for all the Three Principles are in the soul, viz. the two eternal, and the corruptible, which maketh the death of this world. 15. Understand us accurately, according to its high worth, thus; God the Father moveth not
2himself [when thou prayest], the Holy Ghost only moveth himself: though that indeed availeth us not either. But the Word which hath created our soul is become man, and that hath the Holy Ghost in it, and he goeth forth from the Father in the Word, and meeteth the calling mind and will, and openeth himself from within outwards into the soul: For the outward bestial body is not worthy of the Holy Ghost, that he should open himself in it; though sometimes it happened so to the saints, that he went forth of the soul into the outward Principle; and then the body triumpheth, and for very joy knoweth not what is happened to it: but in the new body of the soul in Christ, when the soul attaineth the body of Christ, in that the Holy Ghost dwelleth. 16. And so when the devil cometh, and will set upon the soul from beneath, in the first Principle, in the centre of the first four forms to the source of the fire, then the will of the soul presseth into the flesh of Christ, into the second Principle, inwards into itself, and there it is refreshed and released, and the devil must go down; for that life doth not relish with him: yet he is so furious, that he setteth upon the soul, so often as he perceiveth it to be secure and careless, or never so little burdeneth itself with falsehood and wickedness: he always seeketh an opportunity wherein he might find his nest open [for him]. 17. Therefore, dear children, when ye pray,
3think not that God dwelleth afar off from you, and so neither heareth you, nor seeth you; that is a false conceit and opinion. Indeed those, who will not enter into God, those that stick fast in their malice and iniquity, and retain wickedness in their soul, those indeed are not heard. He that crieth to God, that he would outwardly accept his words from him, and yet retaineth the evil one in his soul, he mocketh God: God dwelleth not outwardly; for the outward is the bestial starry spirit: he dwelleth inwardly in himself; the outward substance is only a figure and similitude of God: Indeed it is of God, and generated out of the inward centre, and expressed [or spoken forth] through the Verbumfiat: but it is not the substance of the Number Three, which is a substance and spirit in the Trinity, above nature, and yet dwelleth in nature in itself; incomprehensible to nature, as the wind and the light are not comprehended by the fire, and yet are the spirit, brightness, and life of the fire. 18. Therefore, when you will pray, put away the abominations out of your soul, and enter into yourself; that is, you must loathe the abominations, and frame a will and purpose in your soul, that you will not let such abominations unto you any more; also you must not suffer your will to stick in any abomination and despair; for when you despair, you sink yourself down into the abyss. 19. But consider, that it is the dear will and
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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