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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.
114. Behold now in what danger we are, according to the outward life; neither are we at home in this life, and yet we are quickened and awakened, through the outward life, and so a soul comes to be generated: though indeed the outward life cannot generate a soul; for the seed is sown with [or in ] all the three Principles, and there are three mothers, each of which hatcheth its chicken. 15. This might was given to man: though indeed the image of God did not stand thus: For Adam, before his Eve [was made], was a chaste virgin, not man nor woman: he had both the tinctures, that in the fire, and that in the spirit of meekness, and could of himself have brought forth after a heavenly manner, without dividing or rending of himself, if he had stood out the trial; and then one man had been generated from another, after that manner; as Adam in his virgin-like manner was man, and the image of God. 16. For that which is out of the eternal hath also, an eternal manner of generating, its substance must go wholly out of the eternal, else it subsisteth not in eternity. But having no tongue to bring to light how one is in death, when he is dead, though indeed we understand it, therefore we must shew it in similitudes. 17. A dead man hath no breath, neither hath
2he any fire in his body: the body hath no feeling, for it breaketh [or corrupteth] altogether: its essences go into the earth: its elementary spirit, viz. the air, goeth into the air, and vanisheth in a vapour: the water and blood is received by the water and earth, and then there remaineth nothing of the outward man: he is quite gone, for he hath beginning and end, all his essences are gone. 18. Understand us after this manner: As the image stood in a form from eternity, and yet it had no certain form, but was a wonder, like one that dreameth of a sight or image; and so it hath been foreseen in the wisdom of God, with all wonders. 19. Also observe this; when God the Father once moved himself to the creation, then he awakened (in the image) essences, which stood hidden in the centre of nature; and these essences are out of the eternal liberty, they should work their wonders in or according to the will of God; they should frame no other will, for that which they should do and open should stand eternally, for it was out of the eternal, and should work in the fragile or corruptible, and bring its similitudes into the wonders.
320. For the fragile or corruptible hath in the inward an eternal mother; and seeing now that the eternal image hath let the corruptible into its will, therefore hath the root of the corruptible (which is also eternal) wrought in the image, and put its wonders therein, which continue now standing eternally as & figure, seeing they are generated out of the eternal: and so they stand in the will, in the desire of the soul, when it is departed from the body. 21. And though it happen that the will (in the time of this life, viz. in the time of the body) goeth forth out of falsehood and wickedness, yet the will [purpose and intention (The representation of the thought)] remaineth as a figure, which followeth the will as a shadow, for it is generated out of the eternal, the soul, in its eternal essences, hath made that; for the soul worketh by its will in the centre, and the starry spirit worketh in the body, in the flesh and blood, and hangeth on to the soul, and maketh the soul to long and lust, that it also may do as the starry spirit doth. 22. And so now what the soul doth, it doth in its Principle, in the eternal, and all that followeth the soul in the deceasing of the body; only in the time of the body, it hath ability to draw its will out from it: and when the will is renewed, then also the substance [or subject matter], which the will hath made in the centre, is renewed; and though it had been evil, yet it becometh good, and so standeth in the
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.
114. Behold now in what danger we are, according to the outward life; neither are we at home in this life, and yet we are quickened and awakened, through the outward life, and so a soul comes to be generated: though indeed the outward life cannot generate a soul; for the seed is sown with [or in ] all the three Principles, and there are three mothers, each of which hatcheth its chicken. 15. This might was given to man: though indeed the image of God did not stand thus: For Adam, before his Eve [was made], was a chaste virgin, not man nor woman: he had both the tinctures, that in the fire, and that in the spirit of meekness, and could of himself have brought forth after a heavenly manner, without dividing or rending of himself, if he had stood out the trial; and then one man had been generated from another, after that manner; as Adam in his virgin-like manner was man, and the image of God. 16. For that which is out of the eternal hath also, an eternal manner of generating, its substance must go wholly out of the eternal, else it subsisteth not in eternity. But having no tongue to bring to light how one is in death, when he is dead, though indeed we understand it, therefore we must shew it in similitudes. 17. A dead man hath no breath, neither hath
2he any fire in his body: the body hath no feeling, for it breaketh [or corrupteth] altogether: its essences go into the earth: its elementary spirit, viz. the air, goeth into the air, and vanisheth in a vapour: the water and blood is received by the water and earth, and then there remaineth nothing of the outward man: he is quite gone, for he hath beginning and end, all his essences are gone. 18. Understand us after this manner: As the image stood in a form from eternity, and yet it had no certain form, but was a wonder, like one that dreameth of a sight or image; and so it hath been foreseen in the wisdom of God, with all wonders. 19. Also observe this; when God the Father once moved himself to the creation, then he awakened (in the image) essences, which stood hidden in the centre of nature; and these essences are out of the eternal liberty, they should work their wonders in or according to the will of God; they should frame no other will, for that which they should do and open should stand eternally, for it was out of the eternal, and should work in the fragile or corruptible, and bring its similitudes into the wonders.
320. For the fragile or corruptible hath in the inward an eternal mother; and seeing now that the eternal image hath let the corruptible into its will, therefore hath the root of the corruptible (which is also eternal) wrought in the image, and put its wonders therein, which continue now standing eternally as & figure, seeing they are generated out of the eternal: and so they stand in the will, in the desire of the soul, when it is departed from the body. 21. And though it happen that the will (in the time of this life, viz. in the time of the body) goeth forth out of falsehood and wickedness, yet the will [purpose and intention (The representation of the thought)] remaineth as a figure, which followeth the will as a shadow, for it is generated out of the eternal, the soul, in its eternal essences, hath made that; for the soul worketh by its will in the centre, and the starry spirit worketh in the body, in the flesh and blood, and hangeth on to the soul, and maketh the soul to long and lust, that it also may do as the starry spirit doth. 22. And so now what the soul doth, it doth in its Principle, in the eternal, and all that followeth the soul in the deceasing of the body; only in the time of the body, it hath ability to draw its will out from it: and when the will is renewed, then also the substance [or subject matter], which the will hath made in the centre, is renewed; and though it had been evil, yet it becometh good, and so standeth in the
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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