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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.
131. Thus I propose nature to you, to be considered of, which if you consider it well, cannot bespoken against: for it appeareth in all things, and it hath its birth just so. And nature standeth thus in four forms. 32. First, in a sour and strong attracting, which is called harshness [sourness, tartness, astringency], and maketh in itself sharp coldness. 33. And then, secondly, the attracting is its sting [spur], which rageth in the sourness, and breaketh the hardness, and maketh the wheel of the innumerable essences, wherein the wonders are generated. 34. But the flash of the liberty of the eternal will, which sharpeneth itself in the sourness, and turneth to consuming fire, breaketh its wheel, wherein as a flash it penetrateth through in a moment, and terrifieth its mother, the sourness, which loseth her hard propriety, and is changed into a sharp nature like Salt; and in this sharpness, the sting also loseth its own right and becometh bitter: for it hath in it two forms, viz. the raging, and also the flash of the fire, which are like brimstone, and it is the might of the kindling of the fire, for the source [or property] of the fire standeth therein. 35. Understand us rightly thus: the flash of fire out of the sharpness maketh the third form in nature: for it maketh in the sourness, and out
2of the Eager (the bitter sting in the tart anguish) a brimstone- spirit, wherein the flash standeth, and is the soul (or the eternal life) of the four forms. For the anguish maketh in itself again a desire to fly out from the anguish, and yet there is nothing that can fly away, but so it is in the centre, and is called the centre no more. 36. The fourth form is the changing of the hard sourness, viz. the crack of the flash, the dark hardness perceiving that it is feeble, and [as it were] dead and overcome; and it is then turned into* SAL, and yet retaineth the propriety of the sour attracting. 37. Thus the four forms of nature are no more called the centre, though indeed they have the centre in them, and in their original, but [are called] Sulphur, Mercurius, and Sal. For the brimstone-spirit is the soul of the four forms: for it hath the fire in it, and the anguish in it maketh another will, so that the four forms have an eternal will in them, which is their own: for that will is to fly aloft out of the four forms, above nature, and to kindle nature in the fire, and so to be in a horrible might, as may be [discerned and] considered in the devils, who live in such a will as this, as we shall shew afterward. 38. Thus understand us rightly what the wiseof old have understood by the three words,
3Sulphur, Mercurius, and Sal: though they all could not apprehend the high light, yet they understood it well enough in the light of this world, viz. in the third Principle; all which hath one and the same understanding and meaning; only they understood not the three Principles; or else they had known God; and so they remained in the light of this world as heathen with their understanding. For they had found the soul of the four forms in the light of the virtue of the sun [only], and the second Principle was no further revealed to them. 39. There the soul standeth in the eternal band, and there, in the cross of nature, out of the original eternal will, is the eternal Word generated, which is the maker and creator in nature, and this hath been hidden to them, even to this very day: but the time discovereth it, where it To be seen, standeth as a banner [to be seen] : of which [shall be spoken] in its place. 40. And deep considerate reason hath it very clearly in our description what Sulphur, Mercurius, and Sal are: for SUL is the soul, and is a brimstonespirit, which hath the flash of fire with all forms in it: but if the power and light of the sun operate therein (seeing the soul standeth in flesh and blood) the sun with its friendly beams maketh out of the sour salt-spirit, an oil, and kindleth the fire: and so the brimstone-spirit burneth, and is a light in the essences: and out of the anxious will
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.
131. Thus I propose nature to you, to be considered of, which if you consider it well, cannot bespoken against: for it appeareth in all things, and it hath its birth just so. And nature standeth thus in four forms. 32. First, in a sour and strong attracting, which is called harshness [sourness, tartness, astringency], and maketh in itself sharp coldness. 33. And then, secondly, the attracting is its sting [spur], which rageth in the sourness, and breaketh the hardness, and maketh the wheel of the innumerable essences, wherein the wonders are generated. 34. But the flash of the liberty of the eternal will, which sharpeneth itself in the sourness, and turneth to consuming fire, breaketh its wheel, wherein as a flash it penetrateth through in a moment, and terrifieth its mother, the sourness, which loseth her hard propriety, and is changed into a sharp nature like Salt; and in this sharpness, the sting also loseth its own right and becometh bitter: for it hath in it two forms, viz. the raging, and also the flash of the fire, which are like brimstone, and it is the might of the kindling of the fire, for the source [or property] of the fire standeth therein. 35. Understand us rightly thus: the flash of fire out of the sharpness maketh the third form in nature: for it maketh in the sourness, and out
2of the Eager (the bitter sting in the tart anguish) a brimstone- spirit, wherein the flash standeth, and is the soul (or the eternal life) of the four forms. For the anguish maketh in itself again a desire to fly out from the anguish, and yet there is nothing that can fly away, but so it is in the centre, and is called the centre no more. 36. The fourth form is the changing of the hard sourness, viz. the crack of the flash, the dark hardness perceiving that it is feeble, and [as it were] dead and overcome; and it is then turned into* SAL, and yet retaineth the propriety of the sour attracting. 37. Thus the four forms of nature are no more called the centre, though indeed they have the centre in them, and in their original, but [are called] Sulphur, Mercurius, and Sal. For the brimstone-spirit is the soul of the four forms: for it hath the fire in it, and the anguish in it maketh another will, so that the four forms have an eternal will in them, which is their own: for that will is to fly aloft out of the four forms, above nature, and to kindle nature in the fire, and so to be in a horrible might, as may be [discerned and] considered in the devils, who live in such a will as this, as we shall shew afterward. 38. Thus understand us rightly what the wiseof old have understood by the three words,
3Sulphur, Mercurius, and Sal: though they all could not apprehend the high light, yet they understood it well enough in the light of this world, viz. in the third Principle; all which hath one and the same understanding and meaning; only they understood not the three Principles; or else they had known God; and so they remained in the light of this world as heathen with their understanding. For they had found the soul of the four forms in the light of the virtue of the sun [only], and the second Principle was no further revealed to them. 39. There the soul standeth in the eternal band, and there, in the cross of nature, out of the original eternal will, is the eternal Word generated, which is the maker and creator in nature, and this hath been hidden to them, even to this very day: but the time discovereth it, where it To be seen, standeth as a banner [to be seen] : of which [shall be spoken] in its place. 40. And deep considerate reason hath it very clearly in our description what Sulphur, Mercurius, and Sal are: for SUL is the soul, and is a brimstonespirit, which hath the flash of fire with all forms in it: but if the power and light of the sun operate therein (seeing the soul standeth in flesh and blood) the sun with its friendly beams maketh out of the sour salt-spirit, an oil, and kindleth the fire: and so the brimstone-spirit burneth, and is a light in the essences: and out of the anxious will
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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