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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.
1fruit of eternal life springeth forth out of the soul's body, with many branches and fair fruit, and standeth as a glorious tree in the kingdom of God; so that when we pray our soul eateth of many heavenly fruits, which are all grown out of the body of the soul as out of a heavenly soil or ground: and the soul eateth of them again in prayer, and they are its food on the table of God: Thus it eateth ex verbo Domini, of the Word of the Lord; concerning which Christ saith; Man liveth not by bread only, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 39. The Lord's Prayer affordeth a very high and excellent understanding in the language of nature: for it expresseth the eternal birth, also all the three Principles, also the lamentable Fall of man, and sheweth him the Regeneration in Christ: it sheweth him what he should do, and how he should behave himself, that he may come again into the divine union; and sheweth him how kindly the spirit of God meeteth him. 40. But because it is hard to be understood we will set down a brief summary, contents andl exposition; and commit the further work of the Highest tongue to the spirit of God in every soul; and it may well be handled at large in a treatise by itself, if the Lord give us leave. [Here followeth a summary exposition of the LORD'S Prayer, how it is to be understood in the language of nature from syllable to syllable, as it is expressed in the words of the
2High German tongue [German language], which was the author's native language; but because the language of nature is not yet clearly understood by me, therefore I cannot transfer it to the English tongue: but must set it down in the syllables of the High German words, and interline the English under it. "Whosoever desireth to see more concerning the language of nature, let him read in the fifth chapter of this Book, verse the 85th, upon the word Schuff, and elsewhere in his other writings [Aurora; Epistles; Mysterium Magnum; etc.]] [The Entrance.] Unser Vater im Himmel. (Our Father which art in Heaven) 41. When we say, Unser Vater im Himmel, then the soul raiseth up itself in all the Three Principles, and giveth itself up into that out of which it is created; which we understand, in the language of nature, very exactly and accurately. For Un- is God's eternal will to nature, -ser comprehendeth in it the first four forms of nature; wherein the first Principle consists.
342. Voter giveth the two distinctions of the two Principles; for va- is the matrix upon the cross, -ter is Mercury in the centre of nature; and they are the two mothers in the eternal will, out of which all things are come to be; the one severeth itself into fire, and the other into the light of meekness, and into water: for va- is the mother of the light, which affordeth substantiality, and -ter is the mother of the fire's tincture, which affordeth the great and strong life: and Voter is both of them. 43. When we say im, we understand the innermost, viz. the heart, from which the spirit goeth forth: for the syllable im goeth forth from the heart, and soundeth through the lips, and the lips keep the heart in the innermost unawakened. 44. When we say Him-, we understand the creation of the soul. The syllable -mel is the angelical soul itself, which the heart on the cross in the centre between the two mothers hath comprehended; and with the word Him-, framed it into a creature, viz. into -mel: for Him- is the habitation of -mel: therefore the soul is created in heaven, that is, in the loving matrix [or mother]. The First Petition. Dein Name werde geheiliget. Thy Name be hallowed [sanctified.] 45. When we say Dein, we understand how the poor soul swimmeth in the water of this world; and how it casteth itself with its will into the Principle of God: it goeth with the syllable Dein into the voice of God.
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.
1fruit of eternal life springeth forth out of the soul's body, with many branches and fair fruit, and standeth as a glorious tree in the kingdom of God; so that when we pray our soul eateth of many heavenly fruits, which are all grown out of the body of the soul as out of a heavenly soil or ground: and the soul eateth of them again in prayer, and they are its food on the table of God: Thus it eateth ex verbo Domini, of the Word of the Lord; concerning which Christ saith; Man liveth not by bread only, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 39. The Lord's Prayer affordeth a very high and excellent understanding in the language of nature: for it expresseth the eternal birth, also all the three Principles, also the lamentable Fall of man, and sheweth him the Regeneration in Christ: it sheweth him what he should do, and how he should behave himself, that he may come again into the divine union; and sheweth him how kindly the spirit of God meeteth him. 40. But because it is hard to be understood we will set down a brief summary, contents andl exposition; and commit the further work of the Highest tongue to the spirit of God in every soul; and it may well be handled at large in a treatise by itself, if the Lord give us leave. [Here followeth a summary exposition of the LORD'S Prayer, how it is to be understood in the language of nature from syllable to syllable, as it is expressed in the words of the
2High German tongue [German language], which was the author's native language; but because the language of nature is not yet clearly understood by me, therefore I cannot transfer it to the English tongue: but must set it down in the syllables of the High German words, and interline the English under it. "Whosoever desireth to see more concerning the language of nature, let him read in the fifth chapter of this Book, verse the 85th, upon the word Schuff, and elsewhere in his other writings [Aurora; Epistles; Mysterium Magnum; etc.]] [The Entrance.] Unser Vater im Himmel. (Our Father which art in Heaven) 41. When we say, Unser Vater im Himmel, then the soul raiseth up itself in all the Three Principles, and giveth itself up into that out of which it is created; which we understand, in the language of nature, very exactly and accurately. For Un- is God's eternal will to nature, -ser comprehendeth in it the first four forms of nature; wherein the first Principle consists.
342. Voter giveth the two distinctions of the two Principles; for va- is the matrix upon the cross, -ter is Mercury in the centre of nature; and they are the two mothers in the eternal will, out of which all things are come to be; the one severeth itself into fire, and the other into the light of meekness, and into water: for va- is the mother of the light, which affordeth substantiality, and -ter is the mother of the fire's tincture, which affordeth the great and strong life: and Voter is both of them. 43. When we say im, we understand the innermost, viz. the heart, from which the spirit goeth forth: for the syllable im goeth forth from the heart, and soundeth through the lips, and the lips keep the heart in the innermost unawakened. 44. When we say Him-, we understand the creation of the soul. The syllable -mel is the angelical soul itself, which the heart on the cross in the centre between the two mothers hath comprehended; and with the word Him-, framed it into a creature, viz. into -mel: for Him- is the habitation of -mel: therefore the soul is created in heaven, that is, in the loving matrix [or mother]. The First Petition. Dein Name werde geheiliget. Thy Name be hallowed [sanctified.] 45. When we say Dein, we understand how the poor soul swimmeth in the water of this world; and how it casteth itself with its will into the Principle of God: it goeth with the syllable Dein into the voice of God.
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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