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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.
1how the eternal still liberty taketh the glance as its own; and how the first will is herein satisfied (according to its desire) with that which it would have in the original in its desire. 11. And so when the first desire (together with the generated essences) is filled with the glance of the light, then all the essences (which have laid hold on the light) stand in the first desiring will, and the will thereby becometh triumphant, and full of joy, that the child of light is generated in it: And here the second centre flieth open in the joy, where the love is the fire of the centre; and the love-desire of the first will attracteth the joy, and the light shineth out of the joy: And so this precious holy birth remaineth upon the crosswheel, where the wheel of the essences moveth in the cross; and the joy (viz. the source of the fire) flieth upward, and the centre retaineth it. 12. And so there the new-born will goeth forth with power and wonders; and establisheth the first will of the liberty of the Father, with the centre of the love-birth of the Son: for this birth is the Word of the Heart of the Father, which he speaketh out of his essences [flowing essential powers or faculties]: and that which goeth forth out of the love, is the Holy Spirit of the Word, which formeth the essences; and this is together the Ternary in one essence [or Trinity in Unity]. 13. And so now, when the centre in the Word
2f lieth open in the virtue of the light out of the love, then one form embraceth the other with very friendly desire: for the first will is desiring, and maketh the centre; as is declared before concerning the wrath, so also it is here with the love; and instead of the striving contrary will, there is nothing herein but an embracing and acceptable relish: For when the wheel of the essences is sounding, the sixth form is generated. 14. For the sourness retaineth its fierce might well enough in the sharpness of the love; but indeed it is very soft; and in the sixth form maketh voices, tunes and sounds, so that in the sounding, the essences hear one another: and with the essences of the wheel in the assimilation [infection or mixture] they taste one another: and in the desirous love they smell one another: and with the breaking through of the source, they feel one another: and in the light, they see one another: and so there is a living form of the spirit, which goeth forth as a life, in all forms, and it [the spirit] is the stirring of the voices in the essences, which make the senses [thoughts or constellations], or stars. 15. Thus the true insuperable love - desire springeth up in the first will, which is called Father; for in the centre of the Son, out of the Fathers sharpness, the glance is generated, which is a very friendly desire, to turn the wrath of the Father into love: For when the essences of the
3Father taste the meekness in the light [or love], then they are all stirred, and it is a mere lovely desire, pleasing relish, and friendly well doing; and the form Mercurius is indeed the Word: which in the dark centre is a poisonous woe and anguish; but in the virtue of the light it is the source of joy: and affordeth voices, tunes, and sounds, but not like the sound in the fire in the first centre. 16. Thus, my dear Mind that readest this, understand, and take our meaning rightly; and consider what we mean in this description. We mean, not two Gods, that are one against the other, but one only God in Ternary, or Trinity of subsistence, in his eternal birth, or geniture. 17. In the word Ternarius is rightly to be understood in the language of nature the divine birth in the six forms in nature, which art the six seals of God. 18. But when I say Ternarius Sanctus, then I have therein the number Three in seven forms, wherein the angelical world is comprehended, which standeth in the seventh birth. Not according to the [pronunciation of] the Latin tongue, but according to the [pronunciation of] the language of nature from whence all things have taken their names which our philosophers, in the schools of the Third Principle of this world, do not understand; [but the theosophers of the school of Pentecost under stand it well] .
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.
1how the eternal still liberty taketh the glance as its own; and how the first will is herein satisfied (according to its desire) with that which it would have in the original in its desire. 11. And so when the first desire (together with the generated essences) is filled with the glance of the light, then all the essences (which have laid hold on the light) stand in the first desiring will, and the will thereby becometh triumphant, and full of joy, that the child of light is generated in it: And here the second centre flieth open in the joy, where the love is the fire of the centre; and the love-desire of the first will attracteth the joy, and the light shineth out of the joy: And so this precious holy birth remaineth upon the crosswheel, where the wheel of the essences moveth in the cross; and the joy (viz. the source of the fire) flieth upward, and the centre retaineth it. 12. And so there the new-born will goeth forth with power and wonders; and establisheth the first will of the liberty of the Father, with the centre of the love-birth of the Son: for this birth is the Word of the Heart of the Father, which he speaketh out of his essences [flowing essential powers or faculties]: and that which goeth forth out of the love, is the Holy Spirit of the Word, which formeth the essences; and this is together the Ternary in one essence [or Trinity in Unity]. 13. And so now, when the centre in the Word
2f lieth open in the virtue of the light out of the love, then one form embraceth the other with very friendly desire: for the first will is desiring, and maketh the centre; as is declared before concerning the wrath, so also it is here with the love; and instead of the striving contrary will, there is nothing herein but an embracing and acceptable relish: For when the wheel of the essences is sounding, the sixth form is generated. 14. For the sourness retaineth its fierce might well enough in the sharpness of the love; but indeed it is very soft; and in the sixth form maketh voices, tunes and sounds, so that in the sounding, the essences hear one another: and with the essences of the wheel in the assimilation [infection or mixture] they taste one another: and in the desirous love they smell one another: and with the breaking through of the source, they feel one another: and in the light, they see one another: and so there is a living form of the spirit, which goeth forth as a life, in all forms, and it [the spirit] is the stirring of the voices in the essences, which make the senses [thoughts or constellations], or stars. 15. Thus the true insuperable love - desire springeth up in the first will, which is called Father; for in the centre of the Son, out of the Fathers sharpness, the glance is generated, which is a very friendly desire, to turn the wrath of the Father into love: For when the essences of the
3Father taste the meekness in the light [or love], then they are all stirred, and it is a mere lovely desire, pleasing relish, and friendly well doing; and the form Mercurius is indeed the Word: which in the dark centre is a poisonous woe and anguish; but in the virtue of the light it is the source of joy: and affordeth voices, tunes, and sounds, but not like the sound in the fire in the first centre. 16. Thus, my dear Mind that readest this, understand, and take our meaning rightly; and consider what we mean in this description. We mean, not two Gods, that are one against the other, but one only God in Ternary, or Trinity of subsistence, in his eternal birth, or geniture. 17. In the word Ternarius is rightly to be understood in the language of nature the divine birth in the six forms in nature, which art the six seals of God. 18. But when I say Ternarius Sanctus, then I have therein the number Three in seven forms, wherein the angelical world is comprehended, which standeth in the seventh birth. Not according to the [pronunciation of] the Latin tongue, but according to the [pronunciation of] the language of nature from whence all things have taken their names which our philosophers, in the schools of the Third Principle of this world, do not understand; [but the theosophers of the school of Pentecost under stand it well] .
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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