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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.
172. Now understand us concerning the crack of the fire, for it is horrible and consuming, and overcometh all the forms of all the essences: for as soon as the twinkling beginneth, all the forms of the darkness are consumed, and the dark sour astringency (viz. the stern death) trembleth at the life, and falleth back as dead and overcome, and of hard becometh feeble and weak; and so becometh heavy, as being impotent and not fixed [not able to subsist] in itself; and thence cometh weight in nature. For the sour astringent matrix becometh thin and light, and a water-spirit, from whence the water is generated. 73. And now this crack of the sour astringency in the dark death is a crack of great joy, for of dark it becometh light: and now when the flash twinkleth in the sour astringency of the sting, the sting is terrified much more than its mother, the sour astringency; and yet it is no hostile crack or terrifying, but a very joyful crack or terror of exulting that its mother is so thin, pliant, and soft, whereby the sting loseth its fiery propriety, and in the liberty of the eternal will (in the centre) becometh white, clear, light, amiable, and joyful; and herewith springeth up the fifth form of nature, viz. the friendly love. 74. For there the flash desireth with great longing to have its mother for its food, and here is the true original of life; for it is the kindling of the light in the sour astringent matrix, where the
2severe tartness is turned into meekness: and you should rightly understand it here, that it is not so, wholly in the centre of its being; but (as I may say in a similitude) it is as if oil were generated in the meekness, out of which the light shineth constantly, and remaineth for ever, in which the flash loseth its propriety, and so out of its form a shining and light is produced, wherein there is a distinct centre, out of which the great joy springeth up; and yet the first four forms keep their own centre to themselves: for the darkness remaineth as an enclosed thing, and the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not. 75. Thus there are two Principles; which are therefore two, because the meekness existeth out of the first eternal will, which [will] is free from the matrix [or nature] and is as thin as if it were nothing, and is still and quiet. Now that which is still and without a being in itself, that hath no darkness in it, but is merely a still clear light joy, without essence; and that is the eternity which is without any thing, and is called God, above all other things, for there is nothing evil in it, and it is without a being. 76. Understand us thus; God the Father is so in himself, but without a name, for he is in himself the light clear bright eternity without a being, if we speak merely of the light of God.
377. But since he will not be without a being, therefore we consider his will, which he conceiveth in himself, out of nothing, but merely out of and in himself; and we understand the desire [is] in his will, and [that] in the desire [there is] the centre of the genetrix, wherein the being is generated. 78. Now the eternal genetrix desireth nothing but the Word, which doth create in the genetrix: for the eternal still and light joy createth nothing, but is merely still and light; for where there is no darkness, there is mere light without alteration; but the genetrix in the desire maketh the attraction, so that there is a darkness, which is eternal, wherein nature is generated; as is mentioned before. 79. And now the eternal genetrix, in the first longing, desireth the liberty (viz. God), and not the darkness, in itself: for he willeth not her, but the Word which createth in the longing of the genetrix : and yet there can be no genetrix without the attracting, which impregnateth itself in the will; in which impregnation the centre of the nature doth consist: and there would be no Word, if there were no nature. 80. For the Word taketh its original in nature: and we here give you highly and dearly to understand
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.
172. Now understand us concerning the crack of the fire, for it is horrible and consuming, and overcometh all the forms of all the essences: for as soon as the twinkling beginneth, all the forms of the darkness are consumed, and the dark sour astringency (viz. the stern death) trembleth at the life, and falleth back as dead and overcome, and of hard becometh feeble and weak; and so becometh heavy, as being impotent and not fixed [not able to subsist] in itself; and thence cometh weight in nature. For the sour astringent matrix becometh thin and light, and a water-spirit, from whence the water is generated. 73. And now this crack of the sour astringency in the dark death is a crack of great joy, for of dark it becometh light: and now when the flash twinkleth in the sour astringency of the sting, the sting is terrified much more than its mother, the sour astringency; and yet it is no hostile crack or terrifying, but a very joyful crack or terror of exulting that its mother is so thin, pliant, and soft, whereby the sting loseth its fiery propriety, and in the liberty of the eternal will (in the centre) becometh white, clear, light, amiable, and joyful; and herewith springeth up the fifth form of nature, viz. the friendly love. 74. For there the flash desireth with great longing to have its mother for its food, and here is the true original of life; for it is the kindling of the light in the sour astringent matrix, where the
2severe tartness is turned into meekness: and you should rightly understand it here, that it is not so, wholly in the centre of its being; but (as I may say in a similitude) it is as if oil were generated in the meekness, out of which the light shineth constantly, and remaineth for ever, in which the flash loseth its propriety, and so out of its form a shining and light is produced, wherein there is a distinct centre, out of which the great joy springeth up; and yet the first four forms keep their own centre to themselves: for the darkness remaineth as an enclosed thing, and the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not. 75. Thus there are two Principles; which are therefore two, because the meekness existeth out of the first eternal will, which [will] is free from the matrix [or nature] and is as thin as if it were nothing, and is still and quiet. Now that which is still and without a being in itself, that hath no darkness in it, but is merely a still clear light joy, without essence; and that is the eternity which is without any thing, and is called God, above all other things, for there is nothing evil in it, and it is without a being. 76. Understand us thus; God the Father is so in himself, but without a name, for he is in himself the light clear bright eternity without a being, if we speak merely of the light of God.
377. But since he will not be without a being, therefore we consider his will, which he conceiveth in himself, out of nothing, but merely out of and in himself; and we understand the desire [is] in his will, and [that] in the desire [there is] the centre of the genetrix, wherein the being is generated. 78. Now the eternal genetrix desireth nothing but the Word, which doth create in the genetrix: for the eternal still and light joy createth nothing, but is merely still and light; for where there is no darkness, there is mere light without alteration; but the genetrix in the desire maketh the attraction, so that there is a darkness, which is eternal, wherein nature is generated; as is mentioned before. 79. And now the eternal genetrix, in the first longing, desireth the liberty (viz. God), and not the darkness, in itself: for he willeth not her, but the Word which createth in the longing of the genetrix : and yet there can be no genetrix without the attracting, which impregnateth itself in the will; in which impregnation the centre of the nature doth consist: and there would be no Word, if there were no nature. 80. For the Word taketh its original in nature: and we here give you highly and dearly to understand
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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