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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.
1cometh the mind: and out of the wheel of the essences come the thoughts: for the virtue of the sun hath also the mind, so that it doth not stand in the anguish, but rejoiceth in the virtue of the light. 41. Thus SUL is the soul, in an herb it is the oil, and in man also according to the spirit of this world in the third Principle, which is continually generated out of the anguish of the will in the mind, and the brimstone-worm is the spirit, which hath the fire and burneth: PHUR is the sour wheel in itself which causeth that. 42. Mercurius comprehendeth all the four forms, even as the life springeth up, and yet hath not its beginning in the centre as the PHUR hath; but after the flash of fire, when the sour dark form is terrified, where the hardness is turned into pliant sharpness, and where the second will (viz. the will of nature, which is called the anguish) ariseth, there Mercurius hath its original. For MER is the shivering wheel, very horrible, sharp, venomous, and hostile; which assimilateth it thus in the sourness in the flash of fire, where the sour wrathful life ariseth. The syllable CU is the pressing out, of the anxious will of the mind, from nature; which is climbing up, and willeth to be out aloft. RI is the comprehension of the flash of fire, which in MER giveth a clear sound and tune. For the flash maketh the tune, and it is the salt-spirit which soundeth, and its form [or quality] is gritty like sand, and herein
2arise noises, sounds, and voices, and thus CU comprehendeth the flash, and so the pressure is as a wind that thrusteth upwards, and giveth a spirit to the flash, so that it liveth and burneth. Thus the syllable US is called the burning fire, which with the spirit continually driveth itself forth: and the syllable CU presseth continually upon the flash. 43. And the third word SAL is the salt-spirit; because the ancient wisemen saw how nature is thus divided into many parts, and that every form of nature hath a particular matter in this world, as may be seen in the earth: and that the salt-spirit especially is the greatest in corporeal things (for it preserveth the body that it doth not decay), therefore they have rightly set down this gate only; which is the mother of nature. For out of this form, in the creation, earth, stones, water, and all sorts of minerals were made, yet with the mixture of the other forms; as you shall see hereafter: My beloved Reader, understand us thus according to our own sense, meaning, and apprehension. 44. The four forms in themselves are the anger and the wrath of God in the eternal nature: and they are in themselves nothing else but such a source [or property] as standeth in the darkness, and is not material, but an originality of the spirit, without which there would be nothing.
345. For the four forms are the cause of all things, as you may perceive that every life hath poison, yea the poison itself is the life: and therefore many creatures are so venomous, because they proceed from a poisonous original. And you must know, (though these be the chief causes of nature), that nature consisteth in very many more other forms: for this maketh the wheel of the essences, which maketh innumerable essences: where every essence is again a centre: so that a whole birth of quite another form may appear. 46. Therefore the power of God is unsearchable: and our writing is not to that end that we should search out the ground of the Deity in the eternal nature [and lay it before any]: no, that cannot be: but we will direct the blind the way that himself must go: we cannot go with his feet, but (as a Christian) we would fain lead him, and impart to him what we have; not out of boasting in ourselves, but that we might help to plant the great body [consisting] of the members in Christ; of which we will make mention hereafter: to which end these very high things are mentioned, that we might shew you the right mark in the original: that yourself might see, and learn to understand the course of the world, and how blind all are concerning God, and what the cause and end of it is. 47. We tell you this that you might rightly consider it; for these four forms are in all things: yet in this world (as in the third Principle) they
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.
1cometh the mind: and out of the wheel of the essences come the thoughts: for the virtue of the sun hath also the mind, so that it doth not stand in the anguish, but rejoiceth in the virtue of the light. 41. Thus SUL is the soul, in an herb it is the oil, and in man also according to the spirit of this world in the third Principle, which is continually generated out of the anguish of the will in the mind, and the brimstone-worm is the spirit, which hath the fire and burneth: PHUR is the sour wheel in itself which causeth that. 42. Mercurius comprehendeth all the four forms, even as the life springeth up, and yet hath not its beginning in the centre as the PHUR hath; but after the flash of fire, when the sour dark form is terrified, where the hardness is turned into pliant sharpness, and where the second will (viz. the will of nature, which is called the anguish) ariseth, there Mercurius hath its original. For MER is the shivering wheel, very horrible, sharp, venomous, and hostile; which assimilateth it thus in the sourness in the flash of fire, where the sour wrathful life ariseth. The syllable CU is the pressing out, of the anxious will of the mind, from nature; which is climbing up, and willeth to be out aloft. RI is the comprehension of the flash of fire, which in MER giveth a clear sound and tune. For the flash maketh the tune, and it is the salt-spirit which soundeth, and its form [or quality] is gritty like sand, and herein
2arise noises, sounds, and voices, and thus CU comprehendeth the flash, and so the pressure is as a wind that thrusteth upwards, and giveth a spirit to the flash, so that it liveth and burneth. Thus the syllable US is called the burning fire, which with the spirit continually driveth itself forth: and the syllable CU presseth continually upon the flash. 43. And the third word SAL is the salt-spirit; because the ancient wisemen saw how nature is thus divided into many parts, and that every form of nature hath a particular matter in this world, as may be seen in the earth: and that the salt-spirit especially is the greatest in corporeal things (for it preserveth the body that it doth not decay), therefore they have rightly set down this gate only; which is the mother of nature. For out of this form, in the creation, earth, stones, water, and all sorts of minerals were made, yet with the mixture of the other forms; as you shall see hereafter: My beloved Reader, understand us thus according to our own sense, meaning, and apprehension. 44. The four forms in themselves are the anger and the wrath of God in the eternal nature: and they are in themselves nothing else but such a source [or property] as standeth in the darkness, and is not material, but an originality of the spirit, without which there would be nothing.
345. For the four forms are the cause of all things, as you may perceive that every life hath poison, yea the poison itself is the life: and therefore many creatures are so venomous, because they proceed from a poisonous original. And you must know, (though these be the chief causes of nature), that nature consisteth in very many more other forms: for this maketh the wheel of the essences, which maketh innumerable essences: where every essence is again a centre: so that a whole birth of quite another form may appear. 46. Therefore the power of God is unsearchable: and our writing is not to that end that we should search out the ground of the Deity in the eternal nature [and lay it before any]: no, that cannot be: but we will direct the blind the way that himself must go: we cannot go with his feet, but (as a Christian) we would fain lead him, and impart to him what we have; not out of boasting in ourselves, but that we might help to plant the great body [consisting] of the members in Christ; of which we will make mention hereafter: to which end these very high things are mentioned, that we might shew you the right mark in the original: that yourself might see, and learn to understand the course of the world, and how blind all are concerning God, and what the cause and end of it is. 47. We tell you this that you might rightly consider it; for these four forms are in all things: yet in this world (as in the third Principle) they
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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