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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.
161. We speak thus only concerning the distinction of the great wonders in God. The spirits of angels are not generated out of the substantiality which is without understanding; but out of the centre of the seven forms (or spirits) of the eternal nature; out of each form a throne [angel]: and out of the throne [angel] his angels (or ministers): and therefore a whole dominion [hierarchy] is fallen with Lucifer. 62. And the kingly and princely dominions [or governments] of this world have their original here; for seeing it [wordly dominion] hath a principle of its own, therefore it hath all forms of the heavenly [government] : and though the flattering hypocrites, the high spirituality (as they call themselves, who lift up themselves above kings and princes) will not believe it, yet it is true. 63. For the fierce might of the principle [of this world] driveth its order [ordinance of government] according to the heavenly form. And although the fierce spirits (of the hidden seals) do pour forth their vials of anger herein, [in the dominions and governments of the Principle of this world], and that the devil getteth great prey in it, what is that to the [heavenly] ordinance [of government]? Have we not life and death before us, and may choose, and take which we will? Who can blame God then? Every one may go whither he will, To whom he giveth himself a servant in obedience, his servant he is: and in that kingdom he shall ever be,
2whether he be prince or servant. 64. And though one be a superior leader and ruler in this [worldly] Principle, yet he hath not [therefore] divine authority [Jus divinum], but in that condition he is a steward of the Principle, and is under the seals, which under his government bring their wonders to light. 65. A prince is as often a servant in obedience to the devil, as a miserable herdsman is, and there is no difference between them, but in the office they bear, which he beareth for Go d, and not for himself. 66. For in the courts of kings and princes, the vials of wrath, of the hidden seals (or spirits) are poured forth; from whence cometh the thundering, lightning, and wars, contention and strife upon earth: which the flattering hypocrites of the great whore in Babel (which ride, as a god, upon the beast, the might of princes) do continually blow up, by their sounding of their trumpets: which princes should take heed of, if they will prevent their going with the whore into the lake of brimstone, of the wrath of God; as may be seen in the Apocalypse. The Gate of the Distinction between the Substantiality and the [one pure] Element. Also between Paradise and [the eternal] Heaven. Every substance hath its form, which the Eeader should understand to be one of these four, and we will shew him the distinction.
367. The heaven standeth in the matrix of the sourness, which in the meekness is called the water-spirit; and is the outward enclosure [or firmament] which parteth the Principles. 68. The substantiality is in the heaven, and is the virtue or corporeity of the seven spirits of God, and is called the body of God, which our hands are not able to comprehend or feel, and yet it is in substance, and comprehensible by the spirit, for it is the body of the spirit; also the body of our soul if we be new-born in God: for it is Christ's body, which he giveth us in the faith, to eat, as is to be seen in his Testaments: And the [one] element leadeth the Principle therein as a moveable life, which indeed is not the spirit of God itself, but the spirit of God hath this life and substantiality in him, as a body, and he is the first spirit of understanding and of omnipotence. 69. For paradise is the springing up out of the essences in the divine centre: which [paradise] goeth through all forms, it goeth through the [one] element, and through the substantiality, and also through the heaven, as a springing of a pleasant garden; therefore Adam, even in this world, was in paradise. 70. O dear children, if ye understood this, how would you tread under foot the contentions of the sophisters ! Much consisteth herein, which shall hereafter be shewn you, so far as we ought: let none be wilfully blinded, nor be offended with the simplicity of this hand.
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.
161. We speak thus only concerning the distinction of the great wonders in God. The spirits of angels are not generated out of the substantiality which is without understanding; but out of the centre of the seven forms (or spirits) of the eternal nature; out of each form a throne [angel]: and out of the throne [angel] his angels (or ministers): and therefore a whole dominion [hierarchy] is fallen with Lucifer. 62. And the kingly and princely dominions [or governments] of this world have their original here; for seeing it [wordly dominion] hath a principle of its own, therefore it hath all forms of the heavenly [government] : and though the flattering hypocrites, the high spirituality (as they call themselves, who lift up themselves above kings and princes) will not believe it, yet it is true. 63. For the fierce might of the principle [of this world] driveth its order [ordinance of government] according to the heavenly form. And although the fierce spirits (of the hidden seals) do pour forth their vials of anger herein, [in the dominions and governments of the Principle of this world], and that the devil getteth great prey in it, what is that to the [heavenly] ordinance [of government]? Have we not life and death before us, and may choose, and take which we will? Who can blame God then? Every one may go whither he will, To whom he giveth himself a servant in obedience, his servant he is: and in that kingdom he shall ever be,
2whether he be prince or servant. 64. And though one be a superior leader and ruler in this [worldly] Principle, yet he hath not [therefore] divine authority [Jus divinum], but in that condition he is a steward of the Principle, and is under the seals, which under his government bring their wonders to light. 65. A prince is as often a servant in obedience to the devil, as a miserable herdsman is, and there is no difference between them, but in the office they bear, which he beareth for Go d, and not for himself. 66. For in the courts of kings and princes, the vials of wrath, of the hidden seals (or spirits) are poured forth; from whence cometh the thundering, lightning, and wars, contention and strife upon earth: which the flattering hypocrites of the great whore in Babel (which ride, as a god, upon the beast, the might of princes) do continually blow up, by their sounding of their trumpets: which princes should take heed of, if they will prevent their going with the whore into the lake of brimstone, of the wrath of God; as may be seen in the Apocalypse. The Gate of the Distinction between the Substantiality and the [one pure] Element. Also between Paradise and [the eternal] Heaven. Every substance hath its form, which the Eeader should understand to be one of these four, and we will shew him the distinction.
367. The heaven standeth in the matrix of the sourness, which in the meekness is called the water-spirit; and is the outward enclosure [or firmament] which parteth the Principles. 68. The substantiality is in the heaven, and is the virtue or corporeity of the seven spirits of God, and is called the body of God, which our hands are not able to comprehend or feel, and yet it is in substance, and comprehensible by the spirit, for it is the body of the spirit; also the body of our soul if we be new-born in God: for it is Christ's body, which he giveth us in the faith, to eat, as is to be seen in his Testaments: And the [one] element leadeth the Principle therein as a moveable life, which indeed is not the spirit of God itself, but the spirit of God hath this life and substantiality in him, as a body, and he is the first spirit of understanding and of omnipotence. 69. For paradise is the springing up out of the essences in the divine centre: which [paradise] goeth through all forms, it goeth through the [one] element, and through the substantiality, and also through the heaven, as a springing of a pleasant garden; therefore Adam, even in this world, was in paradise. 70. O dear children, if ye understood this, how would you tread under foot the contentions of the sophisters ! Much consisteth herein, which shall hereafter be shewn you, so far as we ought: let none be wilfully blinded, nor be offended with the simplicity of this hand.
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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