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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.
1in this world we are blind concerning it, neither can we learn it of any body. 80. The writings of the Saints and the children of God tell us, that God created the world by his wisdom, and by the spirit of his mouth; and it is so. Neither have we any other knowledge, than that God hath revealed himself in his wisdom. 81. But this world is not his wisdom: but it is a figure [come] out of his wisdom: it hath not the wisdom of God palpably, but the wonders [works] of the wisdom: and this world is only a similitude of the Deity, according to love and anger, in nature and without nature [extra naturam]. 82. For behold the wheel of the stars [starry sphere], and the « seven planets; and also the four elements: (4) fire, (5) air, (6) water, and (7) earth; and then you shall find the ground, that it is all really an out-birth out of the eternal nature, where the Deity hath revealed itself comprehensibly [or palpably] . T 83. For the spirit of God hath discovered the image of God in the virgin of his wisdom, and the Verbum Fiat hath created it: The form of this world was from eternity in the nature of God, but invisible and immaterial. 84. Then saith reason: What was God's creating? The word Schuff [which signifieth created] hath it in its own meaning, according to the language of nature: and if you would understand that language, observe in your mind, how each
2word from the heart is framed in the mouth, and what the mouth and the tongue do with it, before the spirit sendeth it forth. 85. If you did apprehend this, you should understand everything in its name, why each thing is called as it is: it would be thus understood in the language of every nation, every one in their own mother-tongue. And in this place lieth the heavy fall of Adam, in which we lost what we had in the [state of] innocence; but in the regeneration of Jesus Christ (according to the inward man) we have attained it again. 86. You must have the understanding of the Three Principles, for [the attaining of] the language of nature: for there are Three of them, that form the word [or frame the word, as in an image], viz. soul, spirit, and body. Behold! and observe whether it be so or no, as I tell you, concerning the language of nature; Try and consider of it; not only in the word Schuff, [which signifieth created,] but in all words and names that are in every language of every nation, every one according to its own understanding [and meaning] . 87. (Indeed it is not good that man should have known it, but since he is gone out of the inward into the outward, and standeth now in the seeking, therefore he must enter again into the inward, where, in this hidden Mystery, he beholdeth the mystery of the creation.) 88. When you say Schuff, [which signifieth created], the spirit [or breath] formeth itself in the mouth,
3and shutteth the teeth together, and hisseth through the teeth, as a kindled fire that burneth, but openeth the lips, and keepeth them open, and then goeth the pressure from the heart, and the upper teeth lean upon the under lip, and the tongue draweth back, and leaneth upon the nether gums, and the spirit [or breath] thrusteth the syllable Schuff forth through the teeth, and the word of distinction, which the syllable Schuff thrusteth forth, remaineth in its seat in the heart, and doth not awaken the sour mother in the strong might, so that it kindleth no fire. [The R is the character of the fire- source, for every letter is a spirit, and is a form of the centre, although by the transposing and turning of the word they alter, yet every letter hath a meaning or understanding in the centre, but it is wonderful, and yet is apprehended in the sense when the light is shining in the centre] . 89. Behold! Man is the similitude of God: for his soul is out of [from] the centre upon the cross, where the eternal Word is generated, comprehended by the spirit of God; there the spirit hath comprehended all the Three Principles; and brought them into a body; as we see, that the spirit liveth from the inward and from the outward, viz. from the spirit of the centre, as also from the spirit of this world, viz. from the air.
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.
1in this world we are blind concerning it, neither can we learn it of any body. 80. The writings of the Saints and the children of God tell us, that God created the world by his wisdom, and by the spirit of his mouth; and it is so. Neither have we any other knowledge, than that God hath revealed himself in his wisdom. 81. But this world is not his wisdom: but it is a figure [come] out of his wisdom: it hath not the wisdom of God palpably, but the wonders [works] of the wisdom: and this world is only a similitude of the Deity, according to love and anger, in nature and without nature [extra naturam]. 82. For behold the wheel of the stars [starry sphere], and the « seven planets; and also the four elements: (4) fire, (5) air, (6) water, and (7) earth; and then you shall find the ground, that it is all really an out-birth out of the eternal nature, where the Deity hath revealed itself comprehensibly [or palpably] . T 83. For the spirit of God hath discovered the image of God in the virgin of his wisdom, and the Verbum Fiat hath created it: The form of this world was from eternity in the nature of God, but invisible and immaterial. 84. Then saith reason: What was God's creating? The word Schuff [which signifieth created] hath it in its own meaning, according to the language of nature: and if you would understand that language, observe in your mind, how each
2word from the heart is framed in the mouth, and what the mouth and the tongue do with it, before the spirit sendeth it forth. 85. If you did apprehend this, you should understand everything in its name, why each thing is called as it is: it would be thus understood in the language of every nation, every one in their own mother-tongue. And in this place lieth the heavy fall of Adam, in which we lost what we had in the [state of] innocence; but in the regeneration of Jesus Christ (according to the inward man) we have attained it again. 86. You must have the understanding of the Three Principles, for [the attaining of] the language of nature: for there are Three of them, that form the word [or frame the word, as in an image], viz. soul, spirit, and body. Behold! and observe whether it be so or no, as I tell you, concerning the language of nature; Try and consider of it; not only in the word Schuff, [which signifieth created,] but in all words and names that are in every language of every nation, every one according to its own understanding [and meaning] . 87. (Indeed it is not good that man should have known it, but since he is gone out of the inward into the outward, and standeth now in the seeking, therefore he must enter again into the inward, where, in this hidden Mystery, he beholdeth the mystery of the creation.) 88. When you say Schuff, [which signifieth created], the spirit [or breath] formeth itself in the mouth,
3and shutteth the teeth together, and hisseth through the teeth, as a kindled fire that burneth, but openeth the lips, and keepeth them open, and then goeth the pressure from the heart, and the upper teeth lean upon the under lip, and the tongue draweth back, and leaneth upon the nether gums, and the spirit [or breath] thrusteth the syllable Schuff forth through the teeth, and the word of distinction, which the syllable Schuff thrusteth forth, remaineth in its seat in the heart, and doth not awaken the sour mother in the strong might, so that it kindleth no fire. [The R is the character of the fire- source, for every letter is a spirit, and is a form of the centre, although by the transposing and turning of the word they alter, yet every letter hath a meaning or understanding in the centre, but it is wonderful, and yet is apprehended in the sense when the light is shining in the centre] . 89. Behold! Man is the similitude of God: for his soul is out of [from] the centre upon the cross, where the eternal Word is generated, comprehended by the spirit of God; there the spirit hath comprehended all the Three Principles; and brought them into a body; as we see, that the spirit liveth from the inward and from the outward, viz. from the spirit of the centre, as also from the spirit of this world, viz. from the air.
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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