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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.
1and be you rightly informed, God the Father hath begotten us again in Christ, that we should with our imaginations enter again into the Word, viz. into the centre of the light flaming Heart, that the Holy Ghost might proceed from us again with miracles, power and works of wonder, as may be seen by the Apostles of Christ. 50. But since we have suffered ourselves to be held, by the seven fierce spirits of the Father's nature, out of his centre; and are not with our Immanuel, gone forth from our own reason and knowledge, and pressed into the life of Christ, that the Word in us might become man; therefore also all the six spirits of the wrathful nature, have shewn their might and wonders in us, and have let us go astray in Babel, so that we have not walked in the love of the Word, in the life of Christ, but after our own inventions in a forged hypocritical seeming holy conceit about the Will of God; and have not walked in the spirit of Christ, but in pride. 51. And because the seekers (in the Father's nature) have found out [black] arts, therefore they have trodden simple humility under foot: and because, in their own inventions, they have departed from the Heart of God, and so have erected an earthly kingdom for their voluptuousness, therefore all the six spirits of wrath have justly produced their effect upon them. 52. For though the Heart of God hath sounded
2a trumpet with a spirit out of its centre, and called upon people to repent, yet they had always rather take delight in their tender flesh, [and delicate life], and had rather follow the devil, who hath always, from the anger of God, sounded a trumpet contrary to it [viz. contrary to repentance], and hath stirred up wars and blood-shedding, of which the Revelation testifieth in a figure: And the spirit of God hath therefore declared the Revelation, as a clear glass. 53. And mark what the angel said; Seal what the seven thunders have spoken. The voices of the seven thunders out of the stern essences would be well enough hidden from us, if we did not put our imagination [thought, purpose, endeavour] into them, and open them in us: for in the centre of the Son (in the meek love) they are not manifested or revealed. 54. But seeing the Word, or Heart of God, is become man, and that in him it hath assumed a human soul, to bring us again out of the wrathful nature into the glassy sea, viz. into the angelical world, to the wonders of the seven golden candlesticks; and because we yet lay hidden in the seven seals of the Father, therefore the Word of God, with its assumed humanity, must enter again into the stern matrix, into the sharpness of death and of the answer: And there the man Christ hath broken the seven seals in the soul of man.
355. For the Word of God, or the Heart of God which became man, and the human soul, which out of the seven spirits of God was breathed into man, from the spirit Mercurius, (that is, the spirit of the seven seals, which in the Word is called the Holy Ghost, and yet from the centre of the Father [is called] the spirit Mercurius, viz. out of the sharp essences, out of the fiery wheel, is mentioned before; but in the out-birth of the Father, through the meekness of the love in the Word, in this world, viz. in the third centre, is called air;) hath broken the fierce might in the centre of the soul. 56. For, when the soul of Adam went forth out of the Word, and entered into the third centre (viz. into the spirit of this world), then the centre of the soul was eternally sealed up in the matrix of the wrath, in the seven forms of the wrathful nature of the Father: and there was none in heaven, in the glassy sea, nor in this world, that was able to break open these seven seals: there was nothing else in the soul, but the eternal death in the horrible anguish, and in the darkness. 57. And there the mercy [or Barmhertzigkeit] brake forth out of the Heart of the Father, and entered into the human soul, and brake the seven seals of the fierce wrath, and kindled the light (which overcometh the death and the anger) in the soul. 58. Not that the soul was rent out from the Father's essences, as if it were no more in the
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.
1and be you rightly informed, God the Father hath begotten us again in Christ, that we should with our imaginations enter again into the Word, viz. into the centre of the light flaming Heart, that the Holy Ghost might proceed from us again with miracles, power and works of wonder, as may be seen by the Apostles of Christ. 50. But since we have suffered ourselves to be held, by the seven fierce spirits of the Father's nature, out of his centre; and are not with our Immanuel, gone forth from our own reason and knowledge, and pressed into the life of Christ, that the Word in us might become man; therefore also all the six spirits of the wrathful nature, have shewn their might and wonders in us, and have let us go astray in Babel, so that we have not walked in the love of the Word, in the life of Christ, but after our own inventions in a forged hypocritical seeming holy conceit about the Will of God; and have not walked in the spirit of Christ, but in pride. 51. And because the seekers (in the Father's nature) have found out [black] arts, therefore they have trodden simple humility under foot: and because, in their own inventions, they have departed from the Heart of God, and so have erected an earthly kingdom for their voluptuousness, therefore all the six spirits of wrath have justly produced their effect upon them. 52. For though the Heart of God hath sounded
2a trumpet with a spirit out of its centre, and called upon people to repent, yet they had always rather take delight in their tender flesh, [and delicate life], and had rather follow the devil, who hath always, from the anger of God, sounded a trumpet contrary to it [viz. contrary to repentance], and hath stirred up wars and blood-shedding, of which the Revelation testifieth in a figure: And the spirit of God hath therefore declared the Revelation, as a clear glass. 53. And mark what the angel said; Seal what the seven thunders have spoken. The voices of the seven thunders out of the stern essences would be well enough hidden from us, if we did not put our imagination [thought, purpose, endeavour] into them, and open them in us: for in the centre of the Son (in the meek love) they are not manifested or revealed. 54. But seeing the Word, or Heart of God, is become man, and that in him it hath assumed a human soul, to bring us again out of the wrathful nature into the glassy sea, viz. into the angelical world, to the wonders of the seven golden candlesticks; and because we yet lay hidden in the seven seals of the Father, therefore the Word of God, with its assumed humanity, must enter again into the stern matrix, into the sharpness of death and of the answer: And there the man Christ hath broken the seven seals in the soul of man.
355. For the Word of God, or the Heart of God which became man, and the human soul, which out of the seven spirits of God was breathed into man, from the spirit Mercurius, (that is, the spirit of the seven seals, which in the Word is called the Holy Ghost, and yet from the centre of the Father [is called] the spirit Mercurius, viz. out of the sharp essences, out of the fiery wheel, is mentioned before; but in the out-birth of the Father, through the meekness of the love in the Word, in this world, viz. in the third centre, is called air;) hath broken the fierce might in the centre of the soul. 56. For, when the soul of Adam went forth out of the Word, and entered into the third centre (viz. into the spirit of this world), then the centre of the soul was eternally sealed up in the matrix of the wrath, in the seven forms of the wrathful nature of the Father: and there was none in heaven, in the glassy sea, nor in this world, that was able to break open these seven seals: there was nothing else in the soul, but the eternal death in the horrible anguish, and in the darkness. 57. And there the mercy [or Barmhertzigkeit] brake forth out of the Heart of the Father, and entered into the human soul, and brake the seven seals of the fierce wrath, and kindled the light (which overcometh the death and the anger) in the soul. 58. Not that the soul was rent out from the Father's essences, as if it were no more in the
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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