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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.
1the circle of the life, we must consider the genetrix [or matrix] which is the centre, and the essence of all essences. All things are generated out of the centre, and out of that which is generated all things are created which are in being. And we have cleared to you the ground, how the eternal Word was in the beginning (as in the centre) and the Word is God's, and the eternal will is that Word. For the eternal God hath that will in him, and that is his Heart; and in that recomprehended will (in the eternal Father of all things) the eternal Deity hath its name GOD. 7. For we cannot say that God hath a maker, as also the will hath no maker; for he maketh himself from eternity to eternity continually; whereas it is not a making but an eternal generation. The Word in the Father, and the spirit which goeth forth from the power, is the life of the Deity. 8. But now we see that the mark standeth in the centre: for God is also an angry zealous or jealous God, and a consuming fire; and in that source [or quality] standeth the abyss of hell, the anger and malice of all the devils, as also the poison [corruption] of all creatures: and it is found that without poison and eagerness [fierceness or stinging sharpness] there is no life: and from thence ariseth all contrariety and strife: and it is found that the strongest and most eager is the most useful and profitable: for it maketh all tilings, and is the only cause of all mobility and life.
29. For, as is mentioned before, the eternal Word (viz. the eternal will of the Father) is the Creator of all things; and the eternal Father is the being of the will, out of which the Word hath created all things. Now the essences are the being which causeth the will: for here you must understand that there are two wills in one being, and they cause two Principles: One is the love and the other is the anger or the source [or property] of wrath. The first will is not called God, but nature: the second will is called A and O, the beginning and the end, from eternity to eternity: and in the first will nature could not be manifest; the second will [it is that] maketh nature manifest; for the second will is the virtue in the strength; and the one would be nothing without the other. 10. Seeing then that the will of the Father in the eternity is the first, therefore also he is the first person in the ternary [trinity], viz. the centre itself. So now the will or the centre is to desire to generate the Word or Heart: for it is nothing else, and it can be called nothing else, but the desiring in the will.
311. Thus we search in a deep sense in the mind; and find that the desiring is eager and attractive; for it is the strong might: not in one point only, but every where all over, contracting the wideness into narrowness, to manifest itself [therein]. For else there would be nothing in the whole deep, and there would appear nothing, but all would be still and quiet. 12. But now the desiring attracteth, and yet it hath nothing there but itself: and that which is attracted is the impregnation of the desiring, and maketh the desire full, and yet is nothing but a darkness, for that which is attracted is thicker than the will, and therefore it is the darkness of the thin will. 13. For the will is as thin [or empty] as [if it were] nothing, and very still and quiet: but the desiring maketh it full, and the going forth in the desiring is the essences, viz. a sting of sensibility, (which is against the sensibility), which the desiring also cannot endure, but attracteth the more vehemently to it; and so the sting or puncture is the greater, and rageth against the attracting, and yet cannot get out of it, for the desiring generateth it, and yet cannot endure it, for it is such an enmity as [is between] heat and cold. 14. And so the desiring, which in itself is an earnest longing, by its longing doth awaken such
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.
1the circle of the life, we must consider the genetrix [or matrix] which is the centre, and the essence of all essences. All things are generated out of the centre, and out of that which is generated all things are created which are in being. And we have cleared to you the ground, how the eternal Word was in the beginning (as in the centre) and the Word is God's, and the eternal will is that Word. For the eternal God hath that will in him, and that is his Heart; and in that recomprehended will (in the eternal Father of all things) the eternal Deity hath its name GOD. 7. For we cannot say that God hath a maker, as also the will hath no maker; for he maketh himself from eternity to eternity continually; whereas it is not a making but an eternal generation. The Word in the Father, and the spirit which goeth forth from the power, is the life of the Deity. 8. But now we see that the mark standeth in the centre: for God is also an angry zealous or jealous God, and a consuming fire; and in that source [or quality] standeth the abyss of hell, the anger and malice of all the devils, as also the poison [corruption] of all creatures: and it is found that without poison and eagerness [fierceness or stinging sharpness] there is no life: and from thence ariseth all contrariety and strife: and it is found that the strongest and most eager is the most useful and profitable: for it maketh all tilings, and is the only cause of all mobility and life.
29. For, as is mentioned before, the eternal Word (viz. the eternal will of the Father) is the Creator of all things; and the eternal Father is the being of the will, out of which the Word hath created all things. Now the essences are the being which causeth the will: for here you must understand that there are two wills in one being, and they cause two Principles: One is the love and the other is the anger or the source [or property] of wrath. The first will is not called God, but nature: the second will is called A and O, the beginning and the end, from eternity to eternity: and in the first will nature could not be manifest; the second will [it is that] maketh nature manifest; for the second will is the virtue in the strength; and the one would be nothing without the other. 10. Seeing then that the will of the Father in the eternity is the first, therefore also he is the first person in the ternary [trinity], viz. the centre itself. So now the will or the centre is to desire to generate the Word or Heart: for it is nothing else, and it can be called nothing else, but the desiring in the will.
311. Thus we search in a deep sense in the mind; and find that the desiring is eager and attractive; for it is the strong might: not in one point only, but every where all over, contracting the wideness into narrowness, to manifest itself [therein]. For else there would be nothing in the whole deep, and there would appear nothing, but all would be still and quiet. 12. But now the desiring attracteth, and yet it hath nothing there but itself: and that which is attracted is the impregnation of the desiring, and maketh the desire full, and yet is nothing but a darkness, for that which is attracted is thicker than the will, and therefore it is the darkness of the thin will. 13. For the will is as thin [or empty] as [if it were] nothing, and very still and quiet: but the desiring maketh it full, and the going forth in the desiring is the essences, viz. a sting of sensibility, (which is against the sensibility), which the desiring also cannot endure, but attracteth the more vehemently to it; and so the sting or puncture is the greater, and rageth against the attracting, and yet cannot get out of it, for the desiring generateth it, and yet cannot endure it, for it is such an enmity as [is between] heat and cold. 14. And so the desiring, which in itself is an earnest longing, by its longing doth awaken such
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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