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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.
1a raging (which doth so sting in that will) that the longing becometh very sour and strongly attracting, that it might hold the sting fast, whereby the sting, as a stirring life, affordeth mobility, in which the longing attaineth the first crack [or shriek] of trembling, from whence ariseth a contrary anguish: for in the anguish of the longing (in the hard attracting) is caused a sharp coldness: and the attraction is eager, bitter and stinging, so that it affordeth a terrible strong power, which the sting cannot endure, but would fain break away, and yet it cannot: For its own mother that generateth it, holdeth it, and so, seeing it cannot get away upwards, it runneth round like a wheel, and breaketh asunder the contraction, from whence the essences of multiplicity arise. 15. And this is the right centre: for in the wheel existeth the nature of mobility and of the essences: and it is a band of the spirit, though without feeling [perception] or understanding: but in this form only, is it called the centre: for it is the circle of life, which the desiring hath shut up, out of the still wideness, into narrowness: although it is not comprehensible, but every where merely spirit and form of nature. 16. Seeing then that the Raver maketh such a stinging bitter wheel (in the sharp cold) therefore the centre is so terrible, like a great anguish, where the life is continually broken [or destroyed], and by the essences is also built [again] in such a
2manner, and is like to life and death. 17. The philosophers and high knowers [naturalists] of. nature, write, that nature consisteth in three2 things, viz. in Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt, which is very right: but the simple will understand nothing therein: and although the apprehension of it was open to the wise [so that they understood it] yet at this present time very few understand the centre, but they have it in the history, as also [they have] the divinity or theology from the mouth of the Apostles, which at present is also no other than a history, without the power and the living spirit (which was among the Apostles), as is clearly testified by their contentious disputations, lip-labour and dead letter [in their teachings]. 18. Now seeing we have through the divine grace attained the light, and are able to know the centre, which is the birth of our life, we have power to demonstrate it, and shew what is comprised and understood in the three words, Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt: not that we thereby despise the ignorant blindness: but as a Christian we would willingly afford and shew them the light. And although our speech seemeth simple, yet our knowledge, meaning, and apprehension is very deep: none should be offended at the simple speech: as if we had not the deep apprehension. Let him but read it with a true earnestness, and consider seriously of it, in the fear of God, and he shall find well enough
3what spirit's child we are in this writing; but we would have him faithfully warned, concerning the scorners and hypocrites. 19. As is mentioned concerning the Sulphur, the centre is and may very well be called PHUR: but if the light be generated, the light that shineth out of the PHUR is called SUL, for it is the soul thereof. And as I say of the dark centre, wherein the divine light is generated, the same I say also of nature: though indeed they are one: but we must so speak, that we might bring it into the thoughts of the Reader, that he might incline his mind to the light, and so attain it. 20. For the two forms, viz. sharp cold, and bitter stinging, which are generated by the longing in eternal will, they hold the centre, and make the wheel of the essences, whence the senses [Or thoughts], as also perception and mobility continually arise eternally. 21. Now these two forms are in very great and terrible anguish, in themselves, without the other forms that are generated out of them. For the attracting sharp sourness is like to hard stones, and the sting of the attracting is the breaker of the astringency: and so it is like a wheel, and may well be called PHUR: as the language of nature in that syllable doth declare. 22. Therefore though the two forms enter so terribly in themselves into the will, and hold 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.
1a raging (which doth so sting in that will) that the longing becometh very sour and strongly attracting, that it might hold the sting fast, whereby the sting, as a stirring life, affordeth mobility, in which the longing attaineth the first crack [or shriek] of trembling, from whence ariseth a contrary anguish: for in the anguish of the longing (in the hard attracting) is caused a sharp coldness: and the attraction is eager, bitter and stinging, so that it affordeth a terrible strong power, which the sting cannot endure, but would fain break away, and yet it cannot: For its own mother that generateth it, holdeth it, and so, seeing it cannot get away upwards, it runneth round like a wheel, and breaketh asunder the contraction, from whence the essences of multiplicity arise. 15. And this is the right centre: for in the wheel existeth the nature of mobility and of the essences: and it is a band of the spirit, though without feeling [perception] or understanding: but in this form only, is it called the centre: for it is the circle of life, which the desiring hath shut up, out of the still wideness, into narrowness: although it is not comprehensible, but every where merely spirit and form of nature. 16. Seeing then that the Raver maketh such a stinging bitter wheel (in the sharp cold) therefore the centre is so terrible, like a great anguish, where the life is continually broken [or destroyed], and by the essences is also built [again] in such a
2manner, and is like to life and death. 17. The philosophers and high knowers [naturalists] of. nature, write, that nature consisteth in three2 things, viz. in Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt, which is very right: but the simple will understand nothing therein: and although the apprehension of it was open to the wise [so that they understood it] yet at this present time very few understand the centre, but they have it in the history, as also [they have] the divinity or theology from the mouth of the Apostles, which at present is also no other than a history, without the power and the living spirit (which was among the Apostles), as is clearly testified by their contentious disputations, lip-labour and dead letter [in their teachings]. 18. Now seeing we have through the divine grace attained the light, and are able to know the centre, which is the birth of our life, we have power to demonstrate it, and shew what is comprised and understood in the three words, Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt: not that we thereby despise the ignorant blindness: but as a Christian we would willingly afford and shew them the light. And although our speech seemeth simple, yet our knowledge, meaning, and apprehension is very deep: none should be offended at the simple speech: as if we had not the deep apprehension. Let him but read it with a true earnestness, and consider seriously of it, in the fear of God, and he shall find well enough
3what spirit's child we are in this writing; but we would have him faithfully warned, concerning the scorners and hypocrites. 19. As is mentioned concerning the Sulphur, the centre is and may very well be called PHUR: but if the light be generated, the light that shineth out of the PHUR is called SUL, for it is the soul thereof. And as I say of the dark centre, wherein the divine light is generated, the same I say also of nature: though indeed they are one: but we must so speak, that we might bring it into the thoughts of the Reader, that he might incline his mind to the light, and so attain it. 20. For the two forms, viz. sharp cold, and bitter stinging, which are generated by the longing in eternal will, they hold the centre, and make the wheel of the essences, whence the senses [Or thoughts], as also perception and mobility continually arise eternally. 21. Now these two forms are in very great and terrible anguish, in themselves, without the other forms that are generated out of them. For the attracting sharp sourness is like to hard stones, and the sting of the attracting is the breaker of the astringency: and so it is like a wheel, and may well be called PHUR: as the language of nature in that syllable doth declare. 22. Therefore though the two forms enter so terribly in themselves into the will, and hold 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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