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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.
1fire, and the glance or lustre is out of the sharpness of the fire, yet there is no feeling in the glance or lustre, and yet the glance hath the virtue or power, and not the fire; for, from the virtue of the lustre there springeth up and groweth a sprout, and not from the fire, as you may perceive by the [sunshine or] lustre of the sun. 87. Now, seeing the poor soul, in the heavy fall of Adam, was captivated by two fires, viz. by that fire through which the spirit of this world hath comprised it in itself, under which lieth the fire of the original; therefore it would be again free with its spirit-life, in which it is an angel, and the image of God, and goeth with its will vom [from], that is, as a sprout out from nature, and also out from the spirit of this world, out of the wonders of God, forth from them; and standeth rightly quite vom, [from], that is, it hath now the virtue of nature and Mercury, in the virtue and power of the Majesty, which is another Principle, and yet hath also the severe fiery [Principle], but not manifested; for the holy Principle in the Majesty changeth the fierce wrath into love. 88. And if the severe Principle should be awakened again, it would be fire, and the first four forms of nature would flow forth; and therefore God is become man, that the love-spirit [might] have a body. 89. Therefore it flieth, (if it be yet unregenerated, and so sticketh only in the earthly
2body) and saith, Erlose uns vom Ubel, [deliver us from evil] : It desireth to be released from the anger; for U-, and -bel, are two wills in one substance: u- is the fire-child, and -bel hath also two Principles; for the first letter -b- hath the outward dominion, and the other two, viz. -e- and -/, that is, -el, hath the angel, the will to be delivered from both, [viz. from the child of the fire, and the spirit of the outward world], not presently separated, (for it is the counsel of God that they dwell in one another); but the angel's will would be free from the falsehood; it would rule over the Ubel or evil: He desireth to be in the will of God, and the Ubel or evil shall stand, the one [part] (according to the spirit of this world) to the wonders of God, and the other [part] (according to the source of the fierce wrath) to the wonders of the anger of God.
390. For both the mothers are stirring, and desire to open their wonders; yet the will of the soul would not go into the anger; for it knoweth the devil, that he is haughty, and flying aloft over the love and meekness of God, at which the soul is amazed; so also it would not willingly work in the spirit of this world, for that hideth also God's light from it, and therefore it goeth forth with its will from them both, and would be free in its will: The spirit of this world may awaken its wonders in the flesh, but it casteth its will into God's spirit, he shall govern it; and he will not let the Ubel [or evil] enter into its will: It desireth [with its will] to be dead in [or to] this world, that it may live in the Holy Ghost; so also it will not awaken the abyss, and therefore it hideth or sheltereth itself under the cross, and letteth the roaring devil pass by; also it letteth the spirit of this world, viz. the fleshly life, pass by, it doth as if it were dead: It suffereth, yet not in God, but in the Ubel [or evil], which the soul of Adam hath left it as an inheritance; it holdeth not that Ubel [or evil] for its own, but for the wonders of God. 91. Therefore it remaineth patient, as a sufferer (and yet also not a sufferer), under the cross of
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.
1fire, and the glance or lustre is out of the sharpness of the fire, yet there is no feeling in the glance or lustre, and yet the glance hath the virtue or power, and not the fire; for, from the virtue of the lustre there springeth up and groweth a sprout, and not from the fire, as you may perceive by the [sunshine or] lustre of the sun. 87. Now, seeing the poor soul, in the heavy fall of Adam, was captivated by two fires, viz. by that fire through which the spirit of this world hath comprised it in itself, under which lieth the fire of the original; therefore it would be again free with its spirit-life, in which it is an angel, and the image of God, and goeth with its will vom [from], that is, as a sprout out from nature, and also out from the spirit of this world, out of the wonders of God, forth from them; and standeth rightly quite vom, [from], that is, it hath now the virtue of nature and Mercury, in the virtue and power of the Majesty, which is another Principle, and yet hath also the severe fiery [Principle], but not manifested; for the holy Principle in the Majesty changeth the fierce wrath into love. 88. And if the severe Principle should be awakened again, it would be fire, and the first four forms of nature would flow forth; and therefore God is become man, that the love-spirit [might] have a body. 89. Therefore it flieth, (if it be yet unregenerated, and so sticketh only in the earthly
2body) and saith, Erlose uns vom Ubel, [deliver us from evil] : It desireth to be released from the anger; for U-, and -bel, are two wills in one substance: u- is the fire-child, and -bel hath also two Principles; for the first letter -b- hath the outward dominion, and the other two, viz. -e- and -/, that is, -el, hath the angel, the will to be delivered from both, [viz. from the child of the fire, and the spirit of the outward world], not presently separated, (for it is the counsel of God that they dwell in one another); but the angel's will would be free from the falsehood; it would rule over the Ubel or evil: He desireth to be in the will of God, and the Ubel or evil shall stand, the one [part] (according to the spirit of this world) to the wonders of God, and the other [part] (according to the source of the fierce wrath) to the wonders of the anger of God.
390. For both the mothers are stirring, and desire to open their wonders; yet the will of the soul would not go into the anger; for it knoweth the devil, that he is haughty, and flying aloft over the love and meekness of God, at which the soul is amazed; so also it would not willingly work in the spirit of this world, for that hideth also God's light from it, and therefore it goeth forth with its will from them both, and would be free in its will: The spirit of this world may awaken its wonders in the flesh, but it casteth its will into God's spirit, he shall govern it; and he will not let the Ubel [or evil] enter into its will: It desireth [with its will] to be dead in [or to] this world, that it may live in the Holy Ghost; so also it will not awaken the abyss, and therefore it hideth or sheltereth itself under the cross, and letteth the roaring devil pass by; also it letteth the spirit of this world, viz. the fleshly life, pass by, it doth as if it were dead: It suffereth, yet not in God, but in the Ubel [or evil], which the soul of Adam hath left it as an inheritance; it holdeth not that Ubel [or evil] for its own, but for the wonders of God. 91. Therefore it remaineth patient, as a sufferer (and yet also not a sufferer), under the cross of
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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