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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.
1anger, yet the Deity loseth nothing; for the first breathing in, viz. the spirit of God itself, hath its Principle to itself, and is not touched by the anger; just as the Number Three dwelleth in the midst of the anger, and yet the anger stirreth it not, nor knoweth it, therein is neither feeling nor seeing. 58. For the image stirreth the source of the anger: and the first in-breathed spirit springeth up in the image, in the fierceness of pride; according as it hath built up itself in this [life] time; and yet the first in-breathed form loseth nothing. For that source [or property] is not in the image; but it goeth back again into its Principle, with the beauteous Virgin of wisdom: and the image of man cometh to be the image of the serpent. 59. For as the spirit is, so is the body, and in what will the spirit flieth, in such a form and source [or property] it figureth the body also. 60. So we know now, that all cometh out of one only fountain, and that the palpable substance of this world hath had a beginning, and therefore it is also mortal; for whatsoever is not from eternity is mortal. 61. But that the image of man might subsist, (which also hath a beginning as to the body), therefore God is become man, and dwelleth again in the soul, and the soul attaineth again the first image without this world; yet those only, who with the
2spirit of the soul incline themselves to God: and here it may be said, We must be born anew, or be lost eternally in hell, and [thrust out] from God. 62. Thus we say with [good] ground, that the starry heaven, viz. the Third Principle of this world, was created also as a total body, having a circumscription, and standeth just like the centre of nature; whatsoever thou seest in this great circumference, the same is also in the smallest circle [or point] : and the whole Principle of this world outwardly, is only a manifestation and discovery of the eternity in God. It hath its rising, station [form or subsistence], and generating,like the eternal nature; and as the eternal nature doth always generate itself, and hath its original from eternity to eternity, just so is this visible dominion of this world generated and created. 63. For it hath a high round circumference, like a circle, and there stand the constellations: and after that, the great deep, which resembleth the eternal liberty of God: now the seven planets are in the deep, which resemble the seven spirits of nature, and the stars [resemble the effects or] essences proceeding out of the spirits of nature: and the
3sun is the middlemost of the planets, which maketh the four quarters of the world, and it standeth in the point, as in a cross, +and resembleth the Heart of God: Its lustre in the deep resembleth the Majesty of God, where God dwelleth in himself, and is comprehended by nothing: and there is nothing of him seen but the Majesty, where the centre of nature is known in all heavenly images out of the eternal. 64. The earth resembleth the sinking down of the eternal death in the dark matrix: and yet there is no death therein, but a springing forth of the fierce essences: and thus it resembleth a form in the centre, and a peculiar self-dominion, and is a figure [or type] of hell: as a hidden dominion in the darkness. 65. And as the earth, in comparison of the upper dominion, is counted as a death, so the fierce matrix of the anger, is as a death in comparison of God: and yet there is no death in either, but an eternal life in a twofold source, [or property; viz. the life in eternal joy, and the life in eternal torment]. 66. And now we see that the sun maketh the
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.
1anger, yet the Deity loseth nothing; for the first breathing in, viz. the spirit of God itself, hath its Principle to itself, and is not touched by the anger; just as the Number Three dwelleth in the midst of the anger, and yet the anger stirreth it not, nor knoweth it, therein is neither feeling nor seeing. 58. For the image stirreth the source of the anger: and the first in-breathed spirit springeth up in the image, in the fierceness of pride; according as it hath built up itself in this [life] time; and yet the first in-breathed form loseth nothing. For that source [or property] is not in the image; but it goeth back again into its Principle, with the beauteous Virgin of wisdom: and the image of man cometh to be the image of the serpent. 59. For as the spirit is, so is the body, and in what will the spirit flieth, in such a form and source [or property] it figureth the body also. 60. So we know now, that all cometh out of one only fountain, and that the palpable substance of this world hath had a beginning, and therefore it is also mortal; for whatsoever is not from eternity is mortal. 61. But that the image of man might subsist, (which also hath a beginning as to the body), therefore God is become man, and dwelleth again in the soul, and the soul attaineth again the first image without this world; yet those only, who with the
2spirit of the soul incline themselves to God: and here it may be said, We must be born anew, or be lost eternally in hell, and [thrust out] from God. 62. Thus we say with [good] ground, that the starry heaven, viz. the Third Principle of this world, was created also as a total body, having a circumscription, and standeth just like the centre of nature; whatsoever thou seest in this great circumference, the same is also in the smallest circle [or point] : and the whole Principle of this world outwardly, is only a manifestation and discovery of the eternity in God. It hath its rising, station [form or subsistence], and generating,like the eternal nature; and as the eternal nature doth always generate itself, and hath its original from eternity to eternity, just so is this visible dominion of this world generated and created. 63. For it hath a high round circumference, like a circle, and there stand the constellations: and after that, the great deep, which resembleth the eternal liberty of God: now the seven planets are in the deep, which resemble the seven spirits of nature, and the stars [resemble the effects or] essences proceeding out of the spirits of nature: and the
3sun is the middlemost of the planets, which maketh the four quarters of the world, and it standeth in the point, as in a cross, +and resembleth the Heart of God: Its lustre in the deep resembleth the Majesty of God, where God dwelleth in himself, and is comprehended by nothing: and there is nothing of him seen but the Majesty, where the centre of nature is known in all heavenly images out of the eternal. 64. The earth resembleth the sinking down of the eternal death in the dark matrix: and yet there is no death therein, but a springing forth of the fierce essences: and thus it resembleth a form in the centre, and a peculiar self-dominion, and is a figure [or type] of hell: as a hidden dominion in the darkness. 65. And as the earth, in comparison of the upper dominion, is counted as a death, so the fierce matrix of the anger, is as a death in comparison of God: and yet there is no death in either, but an eternal life in a twofold source, [or property; viz. the life in eternal joy, and the life in eternal torment]. 66. And now we see that the sun maketh the
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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