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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. What we must do if we desire to serve God. The limit of our life is set in the mother's womb . . 6 14. A short exposition of the Threefold Life in man . 46 14. How the three lives in Adam were pleasing to God . 47 14. How the third life, through the subtility of the devil, did get the predominancy 48 14. After this lifetime there is no remedy: If we make ourselves either an angel, or a devil, that we are, and remain 72 15. They that will find their own life and their children in heaven, must lose them in this world . . 24 17. How the outward life consisteth of three parts . . 13 18. How Enoch, Elijah, and Moses, are entered into the paradisical life 5 18. How Saturn leaveth the life 12 18. The danger in the outward life. The seed is hatched and brought forth out of three mothers ... 14 CHAP. Light. - VERSE 1. How the light and life of God cometh into the soul . 15 2. How the fifth form is the true original of life. How the light shineth in the darkness, and yet the darkness remaineth 74 2. How the light standeth opposite to the darkness, hut the light is chief 89 4. The longing of God hath created all things to the light, and not to the darkness 26 4. The light consisteth in the meekness, and dwelleth in the liberty 63 7. How the light is the love, and how the fire is a cause of the light . 63 8. Of the light of the Majesty, and of the light of the life of the creatures 5
29. We should not bury our received talent in the earth, but set our light upon a table .... 3 9. Of the creation of the light 51 14. Whence the outward light or wisdom ariseth . 37 Lily. 14. What lily it is the devil is not willing to smell of . 16 Limit. 2. The limit of the eternal death 29 Love. 2. How love is the death of the fierce wrath ... 86 2. The fountain of love is the overcoming of the fierce might 92 3. Of the birth of the kind love, and of the sixth form of nature, wherein the five senses are to be found. God maketh the genetrix ... 1 3. How the sourness sharpeneth itself in the love . . 14 12. A friendly invitation to love and concord ... 10 12. Wherewith we are well-pleasing to the Most High, by seiking every one with our love. Much knowledge is not profitable 36 Lucifer. 4. Of the heavy Fall of Lucifer 33 4. The mind asketh what moved Lucifer to fall . . 34 4. Whence the superior principal dominion cometh. In the matrix the purpose and imagination of Lucifer is to be understood 38 CHAP. Lucifer. VERSE 4. The cause of the pride of Lucifer, and his angels . 40 4. Lucifer was created in the fourth form of the matrix, where love and anger stand opposite ... 41 4. The desire of love is generated in humility, which was not in Lucifer 44 4. The mind is warned of that whereby Lucifer became a devil 61 5. Why Lucifer, with his whole dominion, is fallen . 61 8. The Fall of Lucifer is compared to the cold fire that maketh ice 42
38. Lucifer, being a throne-prince, had free will like us men 43 8. What was Lucifer's Fall, and what was not his Fall . 44 9. Of the creation: Also how Lucifer lost his supposed kingdom 5 0 10. Lucifer would be creator in the tenth number, he sought the eternal original fire, which is now his hell 30 12. We wrestle for the crown which Lucifer once had . 46 Luna. 10. How Luna shineth not of itself, but from Sol . . 7 Lust. 9. Out of what the provocation or lust to copulate in all kinds ariseth 4 3 15. The second lesson youth learn is the bestial lust . 8 Magistrate. 12. Of the office of the magistrate. Advice to subjects . 37 13. The office of princes, but not Sabel's tricks, are founded in nature. Babel maketh the magistrate blindfold. The princes are the true head of the Church . 7 18. All hunt for the belly, both the shepherd and the sheep, magistrate and people; so that there is very little of the spirit of God amongst men ... 36 Majesty. 4. The Majesty hath generated nature .... 88 11. What the food o f the Majesty is 49 Maker. 2. God and the will have no maker 1 CHAP. Man. Men. VERSE 1 . Man belongeth not to the outward world ... 1 1. Man hath a Threefold Life 2 1. How man may know God, and rightly speak of him . 45 4. The Three Principles stand open in no creature but in man 58 4. How God in love and anger hath manifested himself in man, and how the omnipotence of man was barred up through Adam 76
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. What we must do if we desire to serve God. The limit of our life is set in the mother's womb . . 6 14. A short exposition of the Threefold Life in man . 46 14. How the three lives in Adam were pleasing to God . 47 14. How the third life, through the subtility of the devil, did get the predominancy 48 14. After this lifetime there is no remedy: If we make ourselves either an angel, or a devil, that we are, and remain 72 15. They that will find their own life and their children in heaven, must lose them in this world . . 24 17. How the outward life consisteth of three parts . . 13 18. How Enoch, Elijah, and Moses, are entered into the paradisical life 5 18. How Saturn leaveth the life 12 18. The danger in the outward life. The seed is hatched and brought forth out of three mothers ... 14 CHAP. Light. - VERSE 1. How the light and life of God cometh into the soul . 15 2. How the fifth form is the true original of life. How the light shineth in the darkness, and yet the darkness remaineth 74 2. How the light standeth opposite to the darkness, hut the light is chief 89 4. The longing of God hath created all things to the light, and not to the darkness 26 4. The light consisteth in the meekness, and dwelleth in the liberty 63 7. How the light is the love, and how the fire is a cause of the light . 63 8. Of the light of the Majesty, and of the light of the life of the creatures 5
29. We should not bury our received talent in the earth, but set our light upon a table .... 3 9. Of the creation of the light 51 14. Whence the outward light or wisdom ariseth . 37 Lily. 14. What lily it is the devil is not willing to smell of . 16 Limit. 2. The limit of the eternal death 29 Love. 2. How love is the death of the fierce wrath ... 86 2. The fountain of love is the overcoming of the fierce might 92 3. Of the birth of the kind love, and of the sixth form of nature, wherein the five senses are to be found. God maketh the genetrix ... 1 3. How the sourness sharpeneth itself in the love . . 14 12. A friendly invitation to love and concord ... 10 12. Wherewith we are well-pleasing to the Most High, by seiking every one with our love. Much knowledge is not profitable 36 Lucifer. 4. Of the heavy Fall of Lucifer 33 4. The mind asketh what moved Lucifer to fall . . 34 4. Whence the superior principal dominion cometh. In the matrix the purpose and imagination of Lucifer is to be understood 38 CHAP. Lucifer. VERSE 4. The cause of the pride of Lucifer, and his angels . 40 4. Lucifer was created in the fourth form of the matrix, where love and anger stand opposite ... 41 4. The desire of love is generated in humility, which was not in Lucifer 44 4. The mind is warned of that whereby Lucifer became a devil 61 5. Why Lucifer, with his whole dominion, is fallen . 61 8. The Fall of Lucifer is compared to the cold fire that maketh ice 42
38. Lucifer, being a throne-prince, had free will like us men 43 8. What was Lucifer's Fall, and what was not his Fall . 44 9. Of the creation: Also how Lucifer lost his supposed kingdom 5 0 10. Lucifer would be creator in the tenth number, he sought the eternal original fire, which is now his hell 30 12. We wrestle for the crown which Lucifer once had . 46 Luna. 10. How Luna shineth not of itself, but from Sol . . 7 Lust. 9. Out of what the provocation or lust to copulate in all kinds ariseth 4 3 15. The second lesson youth learn is the bestial lust . 8 Magistrate. 12. Of the office of the magistrate. Advice to subjects . 37 13. The office of princes, but not Sabel's tricks, are founded in nature. Babel maketh the magistrate blindfold. The princes are the true head of the Church . 7 18. All hunt for the belly, both the shepherd and the sheep, magistrate and people; so that there is very little of the spirit of God amongst men ... 36 Majesty. 4. The Majesty hath generated nature .... 88 11. What the food o f the Majesty is 49 Maker. 2. God and the will have no maker 1 CHAP. Man. Men. VERSE 1 . Man belongeth not to the outward world ... 1 1. Man hath a Threefold Life 2 1. How man may know God, and rightly speak of him . 45 4. The Three Principles stand open in no creature but in man 58 4. How God in love and anger hath manifested himself in man, and how the omnipotence of man was barred up through Adam 76
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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