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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.
130. For he is attracted by two, viz. by the spirit of God, and by the devil, in whose bands also he is tied, according to the outward sinful man: and his centre standeth directly upon the cross, and he is in this world like a balance, whereof one part goeth suddenly up, and then suddenly down again: and we are here only in a valley of misery, anguish, and perplexity. 31. Now seeing God is so near us, yea in our selves, therefore let us seek him: and if we would find him, we must turn away from this world, and become like a little infant, that is without understanding, which only hangeth to the breasts of its mother: and we must be new born in God, with our mind and thoughts, or else we cannot see him: and Christ himself teacheth us the same, [saying] that his light shineth in us. 32. We must wholly reject our own reason, and not regard the dissembling flattering art of this world, it is not available to help us to that light; but it is a mere leading astray, and keeping of us back. 33. This we intimate to the Reader, that he may know [what it is which] he readeth: [it is] not the writing of a man of understanding, but of a child; as a child [newly born] from the mother is a stranger to this world, [and hath no understanding of it]. 34. Therefore we speak of our child-like birth in God, for our beginning is upon the cross: we are created upon the cross as to our soul, therefore the body also is a cross: and the centre (viz.
2the heart) is in the midst of the cross: and we are with Adam, gone forth from the image of the cross, into the image of the serpent: But the Son of the virgin hath regenerated us again on the cross to a heavenly image. 35. Therefore we will speak, what we see and know in the ground, and not be silent; for a cross-birth keepeth its centre in Ternario sancto [in the Holy Ternary], understand it rightly, in the holy number Three, but not in the Majesty, which is without essence, but in the distinction of the Trinity, where the Deity is called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, where the two Principles part, the holy and the wrathful; and there it is that the flash maketh a cross, and upon the cross, the Heart of God is generated [from eternity to eternity], and standeth as a heart in the body, or as God the Father's Word in his centre, and so maketh another centre in itself, [as the light maketh another centre than the fire, and yet they are not parted asunder]. For it entereth into itself, into the light of the liberty of the Father. 36. Therefore it is the Heart of God, for it is the power of the Majesty, and affordeth the lustre, power, and glory of the Majesty.
337. Out of this Word the Father speaketh forth his spirit, [as the fire sendeth forth the air through the light], which spirit goeth forth from the Word, into the meekness of the Word, and bringeth with him the glance of the Majesty; for the meekness taketh its beginning with the flash [of lightning] which is the separating mark of the two Principles: where the wrath goeth upwards, and the meekness downwards: and are both the substance of the corporeity. 38. For although the wrath in the flash inclineth upwards, and also side- ways [cross-wise or square], yet the sinking down of death is in it also: for the flash killeth the hard strong might, as is seen how it dissipateth the darkness, and yet the sting of the wrathfulness remaineth in it, where no death is perceived, but substantiality, without understanding: as also in the sinking of the captivated meekness in the light, there is no understanding either, but substantiality, and yet it hath the tincture, which springeth in the substantiality, and is like a growing: and the understanding remaineth merely in the centre on the cross in the Number Three [Trinity]. 39. Thus we say the Holy Ghost goeth forth from the Father and the Son [as the air from the fire and the light]: But whither doth he go? Into the substantiality, with the glance of the Majesty, wherein the Deity standeth revealed. This gate is called by me in all my writings, Ternarius
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.
130. For he is attracted by two, viz. by the spirit of God, and by the devil, in whose bands also he is tied, according to the outward sinful man: and his centre standeth directly upon the cross, and he is in this world like a balance, whereof one part goeth suddenly up, and then suddenly down again: and we are here only in a valley of misery, anguish, and perplexity. 31. Now seeing God is so near us, yea in our selves, therefore let us seek him: and if we would find him, we must turn away from this world, and become like a little infant, that is without understanding, which only hangeth to the breasts of its mother: and we must be new born in God, with our mind and thoughts, or else we cannot see him: and Christ himself teacheth us the same, [saying] that his light shineth in us. 32. We must wholly reject our own reason, and not regard the dissembling flattering art of this world, it is not available to help us to that light; but it is a mere leading astray, and keeping of us back. 33. This we intimate to the Reader, that he may know [what it is which] he readeth: [it is] not the writing of a man of understanding, but of a child; as a child [newly born] from the mother is a stranger to this world, [and hath no understanding of it]. 34. Therefore we speak of our child-like birth in God, for our beginning is upon the cross: we are created upon the cross as to our soul, therefore the body also is a cross: and the centre (viz.
2the heart) is in the midst of the cross: and we are with Adam, gone forth from the image of the cross, into the image of the serpent: But the Son of the virgin hath regenerated us again on the cross to a heavenly image. 35. Therefore we will speak, what we see and know in the ground, and not be silent; for a cross-birth keepeth its centre in Ternario sancto [in the Holy Ternary], understand it rightly, in the holy number Three, but not in the Majesty, which is without essence, but in the distinction of the Trinity, where the Deity is called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, where the two Principles part, the holy and the wrathful; and there it is that the flash maketh a cross, and upon the cross, the Heart of God is generated [from eternity to eternity], and standeth as a heart in the body, or as God the Father's Word in his centre, and so maketh another centre in itself, [as the light maketh another centre than the fire, and yet they are not parted asunder]. For it entereth into itself, into the light of the liberty of the Father. 36. Therefore it is the Heart of God, for it is the power of the Majesty, and affordeth the lustre, power, and glory of the Majesty.
337. Out of this Word the Father speaketh forth his spirit, [as the fire sendeth forth the air through the light], which spirit goeth forth from the Word, into the meekness of the Word, and bringeth with him the glance of the Majesty; for the meekness taketh its beginning with the flash [of lightning] which is the separating mark of the two Principles: where the wrath goeth upwards, and the meekness downwards: and are both the substance of the corporeity. 38. For although the wrath in the flash inclineth upwards, and also side- ways [cross-wise or square], yet the sinking down of death is in it also: for the flash killeth the hard strong might, as is seen how it dissipateth the darkness, and yet the sting of the wrathfulness remaineth in it, where no death is perceived, but substantiality, without understanding: as also in the sinking of the captivated meekness in the light, there is no understanding either, but substantiality, and yet it hath the tincture, which springeth in the substantiality, and is like a growing: and the understanding remaineth merely in the centre on the cross in the Number Three [Trinity]. 39. Thus we say the Holy Ghost goeth forth from the Father and the Son [as the air from the fire and the light]: But whither doth he go? Into the substantiality, with the glance of the Majesty, wherein the Deity standeth revealed. This gate is called by me in all my writings, Ternarius
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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