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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.
170. But as the fire will be free (or else it is smothered) and yet it burnetii out of the dark sappy wood, so is the divine nature also free from the inward wrathful darkness: and though the fire burneth out of diversity of materials, yet it affordeth but one kind of source or property, viz. heat and light. And in the same manner also you must understand us, concerning the Deity. 71. The Son is in the light eternity of the Father, (and in his comprehended will) in his nature, but one only source, which burneth in love and light, and is the glance of the glory of the Father, and cannot be separated or disunited from the Father; for there is but one will in him, which is called the desire of mercy [Barmhertzigkeit], and that is attractive of whatsoever inclineth towards it. 72. And the Holy Ghost is the Third Person, which I formerly called the spirit Mercurius, in the divine nature, in respect of its property: For you see that every will in itself is still, and every light is still, and the noise maketh the will manifest, which then standeth before the will, and maketh another centre. For the noise or sound is comprehended and carried forth, but the will is not so; which you may perceive by a word, how that is comprehended and carried forth which is generated in the noise. And you know also, how the noise hath its beginning in the heart, and goeth forth out of the essences of the will, and is comprised
2in the mouth, and yet presseth forth out of the heart, and soundeth out from the whole person, and declareth what is in the will. 73. And we find also, that the noise is the awakener of the life, also the framer [workmaster] of the senses, reason, and understanding; for it is the hearing, and bringeth one essence into another, from whence the smell and taste arise: also it is the cause of the feeling, by bringing one essence into another, where then they feel one another: also it causeth the senses: for the essences [or the outflowing faculties] comprehend the noise, so that every essence is a will, and again in the will is the introduced centre, to a genetrix of many wills. 74. And secondly, we perceive, that the air which presseth forth from the heart, comprehendeth the noise [sound], and in the mouth maketh a centre, where the will formeth the word; and the will, which thrusteth forth from the heart, bringeth the noise of the will, in the conceived centre, which existeth in the mouth, out from the centre of the mouth: and that noise is sharp, and penetrateth through the heart, mind, and senses: for it is gone forth out of the centre, into another [thing or] essence, as into another mind, and bringeth with its sharpness that [mind or essence] into its will: and if that will [or the other mind] pleaseth it not, it breaketh that will, and destroyeth it, viz. punisheth that mind, which is not one [or agreeable] with its will.
375. Thus, my beloved seeking and desiring mind, consider thyself, search thyself, and find thyself; thou art the similitude, image, essence, and proper portion of God; and as thou art, so is the eternal birth in God; for God is a spirit, and the government in thy body is also a spirit, and that is proceeded and created out of God's government. 76. For God hath manifested himself in the spirit of man, both in love and in anger, both the centres are in it; and the third [centre] with the exit of the spirit is the omnipotence, if the spirit of this world, ( viz. the Third Principle) had not set its bar in Adam, which is broken by the birth of Christ, and is made a wonder; being born as a great wonder, and shewn in the presence of God. 77. Thus in like manner we acknowledge a third Person in the Deity, which proceedeth from the Father and the Son. For he is the spirit of the mouth of God, and hath not his original in nature, but is the spirit of the first will to nature; yet he getteth his sharpness in nature: and therefore he is the former and framer in nature, as most powerful and omnipotent. 78. For he manageth the sword of omnipotence, [as may be seen by the Image in the Revelation ], he is the bringer forth, the conductor, and the director; also the destroyer of malice and wickedness, and the opener of the hidden Mysteries; he
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.
170. But as the fire will be free (or else it is smothered) and yet it burnetii out of the dark sappy wood, so is the divine nature also free from the inward wrathful darkness: and though the fire burneth out of diversity of materials, yet it affordeth but one kind of source or property, viz. heat and light. And in the same manner also you must understand us, concerning the Deity. 71. The Son is in the light eternity of the Father, (and in his comprehended will) in his nature, but one only source, which burneth in love and light, and is the glance of the glory of the Father, and cannot be separated or disunited from the Father; for there is but one will in him, which is called the desire of mercy [Barmhertzigkeit], and that is attractive of whatsoever inclineth towards it. 72. And the Holy Ghost is the Third Person, which I formerly called the spirit Mercurius, in the divine nature, in respect of its property: For you see that every will in itself is still, and every light is still, and the noise maketh the will manifest, which then standeth before the will, and maketh another centre. For the noise or sound is comprehended and carried forth, but the will is not so; which you may perceive by a word, how that is comprehended and carried forth which is generated in the noise. And you know also, how the noise hath its beginning in the heart, and goeth forth out of the essences of the will, and is comprised
2in the mouth, and yet presseth forth out of the heart, and soundeth out from the whole person, and declareth what is in the will. 73. And we find also, that the noise is the awakener of the life, also the framer [workmaster] of the senses, reason, and understanding; for it is the hearing, and bringeth one essence into another, from whence the smell and taste arise: also it is the cause of the feeling, by bringing one essence into another, where then they feel one another: also it causeth the senses: for the essences [or the outflowing faculties] comprehend the noise, so that every essence is a will, and again in the will is the introduced centre, to a genetrix of many wills. 74. And secondly, we perceive, that the air which presseth forth from the heart, comprehendeth the noise [sound], and in the mouth maketh a centre, where the will formeth the word; and the will, which thrusteth forth from the heart, bringeth the noise of the will, in the conceived centre, which existeth in the mouth, out from the centre of the mouth: and that noise is sharp, and penetrateth through the heart, mind, and senses: for it is gone forth out of the centre, into another [thing or] essence, as into another mind, and bringeth with its sharpness that [mind or essence] into its will: and if that will [or the other mind] pleaseth it not, it breaketh that will, and destroyeth it, viz. punisheth that mind, which is not one [or agreeable] with its will.
375. Thus, my beloved seeking and desiring mind, consider thyself, search thyself, and find thyself; thou art the similitude, image, essence, and proper portion of God; and as thou art, so is the eternal birth in God; for God is a spirit, and the government in thy body is also a spirit, and that is proceeded and created out of God's government. 76. For God hath manifested himself in the spirit of man, both in love and in anger, both the centres are in it; and the third [centre] with the exit of the spirit is the omnipotence, if the spirit of this world, ( viz. the Third Principle) had not set its bar in Adam, which is broken by the birth of Christ, and is made a wonder; being born as a great wonder, and shewn in the presence of God. 77. Thus in like manner we acknowledge a third Person in the Deity, which proceedeth from the Father and the Son. For he is the spirit of the mouth of God, and hath not his original in nature, but is the spirit of the first will to nature; yet he getteth his sharpness in nature: and therefore he is the former and framer in nature, as most powerful and omnipotent. 78. For he manageth the sword of omnipotence, [as may be seen by the Image in the Revelation ], he is the bringer forth, the conductor, and the director; also the destroyer of malice and wickedness, and the opener of the hidden Mysteries; he
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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