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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.
122. Thus the fierceness of the fire is quenched upon the cross; and the blossom of the noble tincture springeth up upon the cross, as is mentioned before; and the blossom of the life in the tincture (as a pleasing fire) springeth up like a sprout; and the crack or shriek sinketh down as a faintness and weakness, though there is no parting asunder, but the forms of the divine nature are in such a manner; and that sinking down, is as a joy, and is not the spirit in the six forms, which are incomprehensible; for the sinking is comprehensible by the spirit: and the joy [or habitation] hath all the forms of the spirit, and is the food and satiating of the spirit; for it hath its original out of the sour matrix, and so every life eateth of its own matrix [or mother] . 23. And although we have no tongue here, that can (according to our [outward] language) bring these hidden Mysteries to the understanding, yet we speak as a child of its mother. For the mother hath taken up our mind, and our sense sinketh down into her bosom; where then we see in the light, and know our mother, and speak thus of our mother's house, and of her food [which we live upon].
224. And though we cannot well speak the language, yet we know it in the sense, very well: and the cause why we have not that language, is because (according to the outward man) we are altogether a stranger in our mother's house, for the outward man doth not belong to that house, and therefore it hath not the mother's tongue [or language], but speaketh with the sense of the inward man, which reacheth to the mother. 25. Therefore here we shall be as it were dumb, to those which are not born of God; for (according to the outward man) we are in this world, and according to the inward man, we are in God: therefore the sense of the mind speaketh of the kingdom of heaven, and the outward spirit, (which is generated from the Principle of this world), speaketh of [or from] this world, and the inward [Spirit] (born of God) speaketh of the inward world. 26. Since then we are generated out of both worlds, therefore we speak in two languages: and so we must be understood also by two languages, one whereof will despise this [work], and the other will highly believe and love it, for every spirit taketh its own, [the spider poison, the bee honey; the corrupt Adam (in Ismael) loveth scorning; the true man (in Christ) with Isaac, loveth obedience].
327. But seeing we are with our soul (in this world) in a strange lodging, and yet we certainly know, that we must travel, either into heaven to God, or into hell to the devil; and since we like not the devil, we should do well to seek after the kingdom of heaven, and to cast our mind and thoughts upon it; for thereby we gain the precious crown of pearls, instead of the crown of this world, which the devil hath set upon us, through sin, wherewith we go about in this world, with brave shows, in hypocrisy, in high-mindedness, and in our own authority and power: and therefore we will let them go, and speak of our mothers crown in our native country. 28. We have sufficient understanding of it, if we know our selves aright: and we find it in our body and soul, as also in the form and shape of the body; but especially in the mind: but the spirit of this world knoweth not itself, except another light shine in it, wherein the mind can see and know itself. 29. For the spirit born of God, (which goeth forth from God in the divine sense [or understanding]) openeth to the mind the understanding and knowledge, so that man seeth himself in the bands of this world; yet he seeth not his glory, but he looketh in Ternarium Sanctum, [into the Holy Ternary], into the angelical world, which he laboureth for, with great longing, and there is a continual restlessness in him.
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.
122. Thus the fierceness of the fire is quenched upon the cross; and the blossom of the noble tincture springeth up upon the cross, as is mentioned before; and the blossom of the life in the tincture (as a pleasing fire) springeth up like a sprout; and the crack or shriek sinketh down as a faintness and weakness, though there is no parting asunder, but the forms of the divine nature are in such a manner; and that sinking down, is as a joy, and is not the spirit in the six forms, which are incomprehensible; for the sinking is comprehensible by the spirit: and the joy [or habitation] hath all the forms of the spirit, and is the food and satiating of the spirit; for it hath its original out of the sour matrix, and so every life eateth of its own matrix [or mother] . 23. And although we have no tongue here, that can (according to our [outward] language) bring these hidden Mysteries to the understanding, yet we speak as a child of its mother. For the mother hath taken up our mind, and our sense sinketh down into her bosom; where then we see in the light, and know our mother, and speak thus of our mother's house, and of her food [which we live upon].
224. And though we cannot well speak the language, yet we know it in the sense, very well: and the cause why we have not that language, is because (according to the outward man) we are altogether a stranger in our mother's house, for the outward man doth not belong to that house, and therefore it hath not the mother's tongue [or language], but speaketh with the sense of the inward man, which reacheth to the mother. 25. Therefore here we shall be as it were dumb, to those which are not born of God; for (according to the outward man) we are in this world, and according to the inward man, we are in God: therefore the sense of the mind speaketh of the kingdom of heaven, and the outward spirit, (which is generated from the Principle of this world), speaketh of [or from] this world, and the inward [Spirit] (born of God) speaketh of the inward world. 26. Since then we are generated out of both worlds, therefore we speak in two languages: and so we must be understood also by two languages, one whereof will despise this [work], and the other will highly believe and love it, for every spirit taketh its own, [the spider poison, the bee honey; the corrupt Adam (in Ismael) loveth scorning; the true man (in Christ) with Isaac, loveth obedience].
327. But seeing we are with our soul (in this world) in a strange lodging, and yet we certainly know, that we must travel, either into heaven to God, or into hell to the devil; and since we like not the devil, we should do well to seek after the kingdom of heaven, and to cast our mind and thoughts upon it; for thereby we gain the precious crown of pearls, instead of the crown of this world, which the devil hath set upon us, through sin, wherewith we go about in this world, with brave shows, in hypocrisy, in high-mindedness, and in our own authority and power: and therefore we will let them go, and speak of our mothers crown in our native country. 28. We have sufficient understanding of it, if we know our selves aright: and we find it in our body and soul, as also in the form and shape of the body; but especially in the mind: but the spirit of this world knoweth not itself, except another light shine in it, wherein the mind can see and know itself. 29. For the spirit born of God, (which goeth forth from God in the divine sense [or understanding]) openeth to the mind the understanding and knowledge, so that man seeth himself in the bands of this world; yet he seeth not his glory, but he looketh in Ternarium Sanctum, [into the Holy Ternary], into the angelical world, which he laboureth for, with great longing, and there is a continual restlessness in him.
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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