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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.
119. For when I speak of the wrath and of the anger of God, I mean not anything that is without God; neither do I mean thereby the pure Deity which is unchangeable, and in eternity is nothing else but good; and is not nature: but the Word is generated out of the nature of the Father, as another or second sprout, which is not comprehended in nature; and therefore it is even another Person, and yet is generated out of the first. 20. Understand, that the first will, which is without nature, is free from nature, but nature is generated in its desire: and now therefore the second will (which goeth forth out of the first, out of nature as a proper centre of its own) is also free from nature: for it dwelleth in the first will, which is called Father, in the light eternity, and it is the glance [or brightness], power, strength, and being of the light eternity; or else there would be therein no being, but a light still habitation, without being or operation. 21. But since it would be manifested, it must needs create a will which is desirous, and yet there was nothing to be desired but the powerful Word: and yet that was not in the still eternity either: and therefore the seven forms of the eternal nature must be generated; which are the seven seals of the Son of God, as the Apocalypse witnesseth, and thence from eternity the powerful Word is generated; which is the power and virtue, the heart, the life, and being of the still eternity.
222. And since it is generated out of the seven seals or forms of nature, therefore it is the Maker and Creator of all things out of the being of nature: for there is nothing else that can overpower the nature, but only the effectual powerful Word in the light; that only can overcome the wrath. (He only hath the key that can open and break the seven seals of the wrathful nature of the Father, and open the Book of life of him that sitteth upon the eternal throne. Read Apocalypse 1, it is just so.) For as soon as the wrath twinkleth, that is a dissipating of the darkness, and taketh away the power of the fierce wrathful anguish, and is rightly called the mercy [the Barmhertzigkeit] of God. 23. For Barm is the light twinkling in the centre, out of the light eternity; where the glimpse captivateth the stern hard sour or harsh bitter anguish, and terrifieth it with the glimpse, and taketh away the power of the fierceness, and tumeth it into meekness: Hertz is the flash, that hath captivated the four forms, where the glimpse of the eternity is sharpened, and thence forward hath the four forms in it, which [glimpse] moveth upon the cross in the centre, and maketh another centre in itself: ig is the converting of the flash into the light of the glance or brightness, wherein the fifth and sixth forms are generated, viz. the love, and the joy, wherein the potency of the whole nature doth consist: and without these two forms,
3nature would be a wrathful, harsh, and cruel death: but the light maketh the love, and also the desire of the sixth form; wherein consisteth the life, with the understanding: Keit is the eternal entrance, and the ascending over the nature of the four forms; and an eternal inhabiting of the still eternity; and a satiating or fulfilling of the first will, which is called Father. 24. Thus the second birth is called the Son of God, the word of God, the power of God, the love of God, the life of God, the wonder of God: and is itself the essence that manifesteth every essence [or thing]. 25. My beloved seeking Mind, I would willingly write it in thy heart if I could. Behold! all is but one only God. But you ask then, whence cometh evil? Therefore you have an information concerning that, in this high description: for you see in all creatures, evil, poison, and bitterness; as also love, and desire [or delight]: therefore consider now how nature is such an earnest [or eager] thing. 26. But as the Heart of God allayeth the fierceness of the Father in his nature, and maketh it kind and friendly; so also doth the light of the sun to all things in this world, which all have their original out of the eternal nature. 27. For if the fierceness were not generated in the eternal will, there would be no nature, also there would not, in the eternity, be generated
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.
119. For when I speak of the wrath and of the anger of God, I mean not anything that is without God; neither do I mean thereby the pure Deity which is unchangeable, and in eternity is nothing else but good; and is not nature: but the Word is generated out of the nature of the Father, as another or second sprout, which is not comprehended in nature; and therefore it is even another Person, and yet is generated out of the first. 20. Understand, that the first will, which is without nature, is free from nature, but nature is generated in its desire: and now therefore the second will (which goeth forth out of the first, out of nature as a proper centre of its own) is also free from nature: for it dwelleth in the first will, which is called Father, in the light eternity, and it is the glance [or brightness], power, strength, and being of the light eternity; or else there would be therein no being, but a light still habitation, without being or operation. 21. But since it would be manifested, it must needs create a will which is desirous, and yet there was nothing to be desired but the powerful Word: and yet that was not in the still eternity either: and therefore the seven forms of the eternal nature must be generated; which are the seven seals of the Son of God, as the Apocalypse witnesseth, and thence from eternity the powerful Word is generated; which is the power and virtue, the heart, the life, and being of the still eternity.
222. And since it is generated out of the seven seals or forms of nature, therefore it is the Maker and Creator of all things out of the being of nature: for there is nothing else that can overpower the nature, but only the effectual powerful Word in the light; that only can overcome the wrath. (He only hath the key that can open and break the seven seals of the wrathful nature of the Father, and open the Book of life of him that sitteth upon the eternal throne. Read Apocalypse 1, it is just so.) For as soon as the wrath twinkleth, that is a dissipating of the darkness, and taketh away the power of the fierce wrathful anguish, and is rightly called the mercy [the Barmhertzigkeit] of God. 23. For Barm is the light twinkling in the centre, out of the light eternity; where the glimpse captivateth the stern hard sour or harsh bitter anguish, and terrifieth it with the glimpse, and taketh away the power of the fierceness, and tumeth it into meekness: Hertz is the flash, that hath captivated the four forms, where the glimpse of the eternity is sharpened, and thence forward hath the four forms in it, which [glimpse] moveth upon the cross in the centre, and maketh another centre in itself: ig is the converting of the flash into the light of the glance or brightness, wherein the fifth and sixth forms are generated, viz. the love, and the joy, wherein the potency of the whole nature doth consist: and without these two forms,
3nature would be a wrathful, harsh, and cruel death: but the light maketh the love, and also the desire of the sixth form; wherein consisteth the life, with the understanding: Keit is the eternal entrance, and the ascending over the nature of the four forms; and an eternal inhabiting of the still eternity; and a satiating or fulfilling of the first will, which is called Father. 24. Thus the second birth is called the Son of God, the word of God, the power of God, the love of God, the life of God, the wonder of God: and is itself the essence that manifesteth every essence [or thing]. 25. My beloved seeking Mind, I would willingly write it in thy heart if I could. Behold! all is but one only God. But you ask then, whence cometh evil? Therefore you have an information concerning that, in this high description: for you see in all creatures, evil, poison, and bitterness; as also love, and desire [or delight]: therefore consider now how nature is such an earnest [or eager] thing. 26. But as the Heart of God allayeth the fierceness of the Father in his nature, and maketh it kind and friendly; so also doth the light of the sun to all things in this world, which all have their original out of the eternal nature. 27. For if the fierceness were not generated in the eternal will, there would be no nature, also there would not, in the eternity, be generated
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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