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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.
1it is the virtue and power of the first will, and is generated in the first will, and maketh (in the liberty of the first will) a centre of an out-birth [or procreation], incomprehensible by the four forms in the first will And this other generated will in the first will is the heart of the first will, and is in the first will as a word, which moveth in itself, and remaineth eternally in the birth of the first will; for it is his Son or Heart: and is severed [or distinct] from the first will in that it hath a several centre in itself 63. Now the Father, viz. the first will, expresseth all things by this Word (as out of the centre of the liberty); and that which proceedeth from the Father by the 'Word (viz. the spirit and power of the Father in the Word) formeth that which is expressed, after a spiritual manner, so that it appeareth as a spirit. 64. For in the sour matrix (viz. in the Fiat) all is comprehended, and the spirit of the Word formeth it in the centre of that essence wherein the Father moveth and expresseth by the Word, so that it is, and remaineth to be, an essence. For whatsoever is formed out of the eternal is spirit, and is eternal; as the angels and souls of men are. 65. But because it may happen that we should
2be as one that is dumb to you, and hard to be understood, in this description (for the understanding and apprehension of it is not in the subtle spirit of this outward world), we will therefore shew how the other three heavenly forms are generated [being together with the four forementioned forms, the seven forms or spirits of nature] in which [three forms] especially, God, the kingdom of heaven, paradise, and the angelical world are understood; to try whether it might be brought into the mind of the reader. 66. You must not understand it as if the Deity had a beginning, or were subject to any alteration, no; but I write in what manner it may be learnt and understood what the divine essence is: for we can bring no angelical words: and though we could use them, yet they would appear in this world no other than creaturely, and earthly to the earthly mind. For we are but a part of the whole and cannot speak the total, but in part, which the Reader ought to consider. 67. For the divine mind in the Heart of God, that alone is total [or perfect], but else there is nothing total, for without that, all stand in the essences, and God only is free, and nothing else; and therefore we speak but in part, and comprehend the total in the mind: for we have no tongue to express it, we only bring the Reader to a ladder (to heaven) [he must go up himself] .
368. If we will rightly speak or write of God, we must speak of the light, and of the flame of love; for therein is God rightly understood. 69. We cannot say that the source of the fire is light, we see it only shine out of the fire. Thus now we have informed you concerning the original of the fire, how it is generated in the wheel of the essences, in the hard anxious sharpness, and receiveth its shining out of the eternal liberty, where the liberty is driven on in nature, so that the liberty becometh a source [or property], which is fire. 70. So also we have mentioned how the flash instantly presseth through the wheel of the essences, and maketh a cross; and then the wheel of the essences turneth round no more, but standeth wavering in the sound [of the crack] ; and all essences receive their virtue and strength in the flash of the cross: for the flash presseth right through, and divideth the essences of the wheel: and the essences press through flatly [squarely] upon the flash: for the flash is their spirit, which in the sour astringency maketh a brimstony form. 71. Thus the birth standeth square like a cross, and hath beneath the centre of the birth, which driveth up the flash aloft, and so the whole birth is as a sprout, where the fire driveth up, and the essences hasten after the fire-spirit, as their own spirit, which attracteth and desireth them, for they are its food and nourishment, and it is their life, and one is not without the other.
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.
1it is the virtue and power of the first will, and is generated in the first will, and maketh (in the liberty of the first will) a centre of an out-birth [or procreation], incomprehensible by the four forms in the first will And this other generated will in the first will is the heart of the first will, and is in the first will as a word, which moveth in itself, and remaineth eternally in the birth of the first will; for it is his Son or Heart: and is severed [or distinct] from the first will in that it hath a several centre in itself 63. Now the Father, viz. the first will, expresseth all things by this Word (as out of the centre of the liberty); and that which proceedeth from the Father by the 'Word (viz. the spirit and power of the Father in the Word) formeth that which is expressed, after a spiritual manner, so that it appeareth as a spirit. 64. For in the sour matrix (viz. in the Fiat) all is comprehended, and the spirit of the Word formeth it in the centre of that essence wherein the Father moveth and expresseth by the Word, so that it is, and remaineth to be, an essence. For whatsoever is formed out of the eternal is spirit, and is eternal; as the angels and souls of men are. 65. But because it may happen that we should
2be as one that is dumb to you, and hard to be understood, in this description (for the understanding and apprehension of it is not in the subtle spirit of this outward world), we will therefore shew how the other three heavenly forms are generated [being together with the four forementioned forms, the seven forms or spirits of nature] in which [three forms] especially, God, the kingdom of heaven, paradise, and the angelical world are understood; to try whether it might be brought into the mind of the reader. 66. You must not understand it as if the Deity had a beginning, or were subject to any alteration, no; but I write in what manner it may be learnt and understood what the divine essence is: for we can bring no angelical words: and though we could use them, yet they would appear in this world no other than creaturely, and earthly to the earthly mind. For we are but a part of the whole and cannot speak the total, but in part, which the Reader ought to consider. 67. For the divine mind in the Heart of God, that alone is total [or perfect], but else there is nothing total, for without that, all stand in the essences, and God only is free, and nothing else; and therefore we speak but in part, and comprehend the total in the mind: for we have no tongue to express it, we only bring the Reader to a ladder (to heaven) [he must go up himself] .
368. If we will rightly speak or write of God, we must speak of the light, and of the flame of love; for therein is God rightly understood. 69. We cannot say that the source of the fire is light, we see it only shine out of the fire. Thus now we have informed you concerning the original of the fire, how it is generated in the wheel of the essences, in the hard anxious sharpness, and receiveth its shining out of the eternal liberty, where the liberty is driven on in nature, so that the liberty becometh a source [or property], which is fire. 70. So also we have mentioned how the flash instantly presseth through the wheel of the essences, and maketh a cross; and then the wheel of the essences turneth round no more, but standeth wavering in the sound [of the crack] ; and all essences receive their virtue and strength in the flash of the cross: for the flash presseth right through, and divideth the essences of the wheel: and the essences press through flatly [squarely] upon the flash: for the flash is their spirit, which in the sour astringency maketh a brimstony form. 71. Thus the birth standeth square like a cross, and hath beneath the centre of the birth, which driveth up the flash aloft, and so the whole birth is as a sprout, where the fire driveth up, and the essences hasten after the fire-spirit, as their own spirit, which attracteth and desireth them, for they are its food and nourishment, and it is their life, and one is not without the other.
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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