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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.
1presence of God, sheweth the evil child, which is now washed in the love, and there putteth it among the wonders of God, for it setteth forth whatsoever is come to be a wonder in the tincture of the fire in the soul. 75. Schul-, this syllable sheweth the unprofitable [or vain] works, which one soul hath wrought towards another out of the tincture of the fire [fierce wrathful life], and is a setting forth of the evil, which the soul in the will itself hath washed and cleansed again: -di-, this syllable putteth the union again into the Majesty, and into the Holy Ghost, where there is no contrary will any more: -gern, is the evil child, which now standeth before God, to God's deeds of wonder; from whence the will took its fall, and desireth that the Holy Ghost will take it in as a wonder into the Majesty. The Sixth Petition. Und fiihre uns nicht in Versuchung. And lead us not into Temptation. 76. Und is once more an injection into the loving meekness of God, where the will of the soul in the Majesty humbleth itself before the Number Three [or Trinity] . 77. Fuh-, there the will goeth along with the Holy Ghost: -re, there the will would not go
2through the fierce wrath; for it is afraid of the prison of the fierce wrath; for the will should always be stedfastly inclined into God, that it may pass through the fire without molestation, and also through the outward Principle, viz. through this world, and yet should not catch at, or offer to lust after, any thing: but seeing the soul knoweth that it stood not out in the first temptation, when it was brought into the spirit of this world, when the Verbum Fiat breathed it into the image, therefore it flieth now to the Holy Ghost, entreating that he would not enter with its will into the temptation, proba, or trial, for it trusteth not in itself that it shall stand stedfastly against the devil; when he shall sift it: as Christ said to Peter, The devil hath desired to sift thee; but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not: that is, I have enclosed thee in the Word, and have not given the devil any leave, but I have in my prayer brought thee into the will of God, that thou shouldst be preserved by the Holy Ghost; else thou shouldst have been sifted by the devil, through the anger, and through the spirit of this world. 78. Uns, this syllable once again compriseth the brotherly union, as in one will in the Majesty, and flieth into the spirit. 79. Nicht, in this syllable the will rendeth itself quite out from the root of the anger, and retaineth a peculiar government without the anger, and then the soul burneth forth from the fire, and is the
3true life without the fire, in the light flaming tincture in air, and virtue or power. 80. In, there it standeth as a sound and substance of its own, as if it were the centre itself: ver-, there it must, with the will, go through the fierce wrath, and mitigate or satiate it, and must cool it, that it might not enflame its meek life: -such-, with this syllable it presseth through the fierce wrath with its love-tincture, viz. through the centre of nature, and quencheth the fierce wrath after a divine manner, and driveth the subtlety of the devil out of the fire-source out of the original, where otherwise he would have an access into the soul: ung, there the soul taketh the virtue out of the seven forms of its nature with it, as a spirit, and setteth itself mightily over the centre, and ruleth over it as a king over his kingdom; for now it hath overcome [or cooled] the centre with its love, and will now let in the tempter no more. The Seventh Petition. Sondern erlose uns vom libel. But deliver us from Evil. Son-, in this syllable it [the soul] appeareth in the Majesty with its virtue, power and brightness over the centre of the heart, and hath a principle of its own in the Majesty: -dern, there it commandeth the fierce wrath in the centre, and ruleth over it, and tameth it with its will (as may be seen by Moses, when the fierce wrath said; Let me alone, that 1 may consume Israel).
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.
1presence of God, sheweth the evil child, which is now washed in the love, and there putteth it among the wonders of God, for it setteth forth whatsoever is come to be a wonder in the tincture of the fire in the soul. 75. Schul-, this syllable sheweth the unprofitable [or vain] works, which one soul hath wrought towards another out of the tincture of the fire [fierce wrathful life], and is a setting forth of the evil, which the soul in the will itself hath washed and cleansed again: -di-, this syllable putteth the union again into the Majesty, and into the Holy Ghost, where there is no contrary will any more: -gern, is the evil child, which now standeth before God, to God's deeds of wonder; from whence the will took its fall, and desireth that the Holy Ghost will take it in as a wonder into the Majesty. The Sixth Petition. Und fiihre uns nicht in Versuchung. And lead us not into Temptation. 76. Und is once more an injection into the loving meekness of God, where the will of the soul in the Majesty humbleth itself before the Number Three [or Trinity] . 77. Fuh-, there the will goeth along with the Holy Ghost: -re, there the will would not go
2through the fierce wrath; for it is afraid of the prison of the fierce wrath; for the will should always be stedfastly inclined into God, that it may pass through the fire without molestation, and also through the outward Principle, viz. through this world, and yet should not catch at, or offer to lust after, any thing: but seeing the soul knoweth that it stood not out in the first temptation, when it was brought into the spirit of this world, when the Verbum Fiat breathed it into the image, therefore it flieth now to the Holy Ghost, entreating that he would not enter with its will into the temptation, proba, or trial, for it trusteth not in itself that it shall stand stedfastly against the devil; when he shall sift it: as Christ said to Peter, The devil hath desired to sift thee; but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not: that is, I have enclosed thee in the Word, and have not given the devil any leave, but I have in my prayer brought thee into the will of God, that thou shouldst be preserved by the Holy Ghost; else thou shouldst have been sifted by the devil, through the anger, and through the spirit of this world. 78. Uns, this syllable once again compriseth the brotherly union, as in one will in the Majesty, and flieth into the spirit. 79. Nicht, in this syllable the will rendeth itself quite out from the root of the anger, and retaineth a peculiar government without the anger, and then the soul burneth forth from the fire, and is the
3true life without the fire, in the light flaming tincture in air, and virtue or power. 80. In, there it standeth as a sound and substance of its own, as if it were the centre itself: ver-, there it must, with the will, go through the fierce wrath, and mitigate or satiate it, and must cool it, that it might not enflame its meek life: -such-, with this syllable it presseth through the fierce wrath with its love-tincture, viz. through the centre of nature, and quencheth the fierce wrath after a divine manner, and driveth the subtlety of the devil out of the fire-source out of the original, where otherwise he would have an access into the soul: ung, there the soul taketh the virtue out of the seven forms of its nature with it, as a spirit, and setteth itself mightily over the centre, and ruleth over it as a king over his kingdom; for now it hath overcome [or cooled] the centre with its love, and will now let in the tempter no more. The Seventh Petition. Sondern erlose uns vom libel. But deliver us from Evil. Son-, in this syllable it [the soul] appeareth in the Majesty with its virtue, power and brightness over the centre of the heart, and hath a principle of its own in the Majesty: -dern, there it commandeth the fierce wrath in the centre, and ruleth over it, and tameth it with its will (as may be seen by Moses, when the fierce wrath said; Let me alone, that 1 may consume Israel).
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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