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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.
1are not understood [to be] in their very eager [Or their utmost effect] essences. For the virtue of the sun, in the elements, tempereth all things, so that the essences stand not in such a wrathful source [or property], but are as a pleasant friendly life: as the light out of the second Principle (which is the light out of the Word and Heart of God the Father) doth enlighten the four forms in the centre of the angelical spirits, so that they are in their own centre friendly, lovely, and very pleasant. 48. And you should well consider the Fall of the devils, who have lost the light of the Heart of God, and must now stand in the four forms of the original, in such an anxious source [or condition] as was above mentioned. 49. Thus is the soul of man also together out of this eternal band breathed into man, and enlightened from the light of God: but in the fall of Adam it is gone out from the eternal light of the Heart of God, into the light of this world: and it hath now to expect (if it have not entered again into the light of God, when the light of this world doth break off from it) that it must then remain in the four forms (without the light) in the first birth of the life, with the devils. 50. For the four forms (without the eternal light) are the abyss, the anger of God, the hell, and the horrible flash of fire in the wheel of corruption
2[Or breaking ] in the flying up of Mercury [or the terrible cracking noise]. Their light is in the brimstone- spirit, which they must awaken in themselves: or else their spirit standeth in eternal darkness, and its living form of the abyss is a dominion of a severe [eager property or] source, which climbeth up in the flash of fire [willing to be] above God and the kingdom of heaven, and yet cannot reach, nor feel, nor see them: for it [ The eternal darkness]. is a Principle, which comprehendeth neither this world nor the angelical world: and yet is not severed, [but is] in [one and the same] place. 51. For we offer to your consideration: that as we men with our [earthly] eyes which we have from this world cannot see God and the angels, which yet are every moment present to us; and the Deity itself is in us, and yet we are not able to comprehend it, except we put our imagination and earnest will into God, [Set all our thoughts and resolutions upon God and goodness] and then God appeareth to us in the will, and filleth the mind; where we feel a God and see him with our eyes [viz. the eyes of our mind]. 52. So also if we put our imagination and will into evil [and wickedness], then we receive the source of hell in the wrath: and the devil layeth fast hold on our very heart in the anger of God, yet we see him not with these eyes, only the mind
3and poor soul in the eternal source of the original understand it, and tremble at the wrath: so that many a soul despaireth, and casteth itself into the source of the original, and driveth the body to death, by sword, the rope, or the water, that it may thereby suddenly be rid of the torment, or source, in this life, which is from the Third Principle. For that soul standeth between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of this world, in scorn, and therefore maketh haste to the abyss. 53. Also we give you very earnestly to consider: that God did not create a peculiar hell and place of torment, on purpose to plague the creatures, viz. angels and men; because he is a God that willeth not evil, and doth himself forbid it: and hath therefore suffered his heart to become man, that he might redeem man out of the eternal anguishing source [or torment] of the abyss, which endureth for ever. 54. And therefore as soon as the devils went away from the light of God, and would domineer in the might of the fire, over the meekness of the Heart of God, they were immediately, in the same hour and moment, in the abyss of hell, and were held by it: for there was no peculiar source [or place of torment] made for them: but they remained without God, in the four forms of the eternal nature.
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.
1are not understood [to be] in their very eager [Or their utmost effect] essences. For the virtue of the sun, in the elements, tempereth all things, so that the essences stand not in such a wrathful source [or property], but are as a pleasant friendly life: as the light out of the second Principle (which is the light out of the Word and Heart of God the Father) doth enlighten the four forms in the centre of the angelical spirits, so that they are in their own centre friendly, lovely, and very pleasant. 48. And you should well consider the Fall of the devils, who have lost the light of the Heart of God, and must now stand in the four forms of the original, in such an anxious source [or condition] as was above mentioned. 49. Thus is the soul of man also together out of this eternal band breathed into man, and enlightened from the light of God: but in the fall of Adam it is gone out from the eternal light of the Heart of God, into the light of this world: and it hath now to expect (if it have not entered again into the light of God, when the light of this world doth break off from it) that it must then remain in the four forms (without the light) in the first birth of the life, with the devils. 50. For the four forms (without the eternal light) are the abyss, the anger of God, the hell, and the horrible flash of fire in the wheel of corruption
2[Or breaking ] in the flying up of Mercury [or the terrible cracking noise]. Their light is in the brimstone- spirit, which they must awaken in themselves: or else their spirit standeth in eternal darkness, and its living form of the abyss is a dominion of a severe [eager property or] source, which climbeth up in the flash of fire [willing to be] above God and the kingdom of heaven, and yet cannot reach, nor feel, nor see them: for it [ The eternal darkness]. is a Principle, which comprehendeth neither this world nor the angelical world: and yet is not severed, [but is] in [one and the same] place. 51. For we offer to your consideration: that as we men with our [earthly] eyes which we have from this world cannot see God and the angels, which yet are every moment present to us; and the Deity itself is in us, and yet we are not able to comprehend it, except we put our imagination and earnest will into God, [Set all our thoughts and resolutions upon God and goodness] and then God appeareth to us in the will, and filleth the mind; where we feel a God and see him with our eyes [viz. the eyes of our mind]. 52. So also if we put our imagination and will into evil [and wickedness], then we receive the source of hell in the wrath: and the devil layeth fast hold on our very heart in the anger of God, yet we see him not with these eyes, only the mind
3and poor soul in the eternal source of the original understand it, and tremble at the wrath: so that many a soul despaireth, and casteth itself into the source of the original, and driveth the body to death, by sword, the rope, or the water, that it may thereby suddenly be rid of the torment, or source, in this life, which is from the Third Principle. For that soul standeth between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of this world, in scorn, and therefore maketh haste to the abyss. 53. Also we give you very earnestly to consider: that God did not create a peculiar hell and place of torment, on purpose to plague the creatures, viz. angels and men; because he is a God that willeth not evil, and doth himself forbid it: and hath therefore suffered his heart to become man, that he might redeem man out of the eternal anguishing source [or torment] of the abyss, which endureth for ever. 54. And therefore as soon as the devils went away from the light of God, and would domineer in the might of the fire, over the meekness of the Heart of God, they were immediately, in the same hour and moment, in the abyss of hell, and were held by it: for there was no peculiar source [or place of torment] made for them: but they remained without God, in the four forms of the eternal nature.
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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