Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
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.
1great deep above the earth lovely, friendly, pleasant, and delightful; or else there would be no other [rule, influence, or] dominion in the deep, than is in the earth: for if the sun should go out, there would be an eternal darkness, and the fierce sour astringency would make all hard, rough, and harsh, and there would be an eternal coldness. And although every thing did move together like a wheel, yet there would be nothing seen but & flash of fire. 67. Thus we give you to understand concerning the abyss of hell, that it is in this world: and the sun only is the cause of the waters, which are the heaven in the deep. Moreover, by the sun, the Heart of God may be understood, out of which the light of the Majesty shineth: for the whole centre of the eternity would be dark, if the light from the Heart of God did not shine therein. 68. But it is not so with the Heart of God, as with the sun, that it should be a globe, standing in one place only: No, it hath no circumscription, [circumference], or place; also it hath no beginning, and yet is like a round globe, yet not a round circle, but it is as it were parted [divided] or open; for it is as a round cross wheel, like a ^==^whole rainbow, which yet appeareth as it were
269. For the whole cross is its parting, and yet it is whole; but the centre of nature, ( viz. the Word of the Lord, Verbum Domini, the Word of the Father), is there the centre of the cross. The cross every where signifieth the Number Three: where then beneath blue appeareth, which signifieth the substantiality; in the middle appeareth red, which signifieth the Father in the glance of fire; next [under] which appeareth yellow, which signifieth the light and lustre of the Majesty of God the Son; and the dusky brown [or purple], with the mixture of all forms, signifieth the other kingdom of darkness in the fire, in which Lucifer did soar aloft [fly out] above God, and did not lay hold on the Majesty and Heart of God. 70. And upon such a bow will Christ, the Son of Man, appear at the last judgment; for so he sitteth in the Majesty of the Number Three, in Ternario Sancto: understand, the angelical world [in the eternal substantiality] and paradise.
371. Thus know, that all this is not divided, nor is it thus in one place alone; but this form [or manner] appeareth in its Principle everywhere. If thou conceivest a small, minute circle, as small as a grain of mustard-seed, yet the Heart of God is wholly and perfectly therein: and if thou art born in God, then there is, in thyself, (in the circle of thy life), the whole Heart of God undivided: and the Son of Man (Christ) sitteth thus (in the circle of thy life, upon the rainbow, in Ternario Sancto) at the right hand of God: and thus thou art his child, whom he hath regenerated in him [in Christ]; as also Christ's member and body, wherein he dwelleth; his brother, his flesh, and spirit; and a child of God the Father in him, God in thee, and thou in God; power, might, majesty, heaven, paradise, element, stars, and earth, all is thine. Thou art in (Christ) over [or above] hell and devils. 72. But in this world, with thy earthly life, thou art under heaven, stars, and elements, also under hell and devils; all ruleth in thee, and over thee. 73. Therefore consider thyself, and go forth [from thyself] : it is of high concernment; we speak what we know, and what we must speak, for we ought not to speak otherwise of the eternity, unless we should speak as if it had a beginning, whereas there is none in the eternity.
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.
1great deep above the earth lovely, friendly, pleasant, and delightful; or else there would be no other [rule, influence, or] dominion in the deep, than is in the earth: for if the sun should go out, there would be an eternal darkness, and the fierce sour astringency would make all hard, rough, and harsh, and there would be an eternal coldness. And although every thing did move together like a wheel, yet there would be nothing seen but & flash of fire. 67. Thus we give you to understand concerning the abyss of hell, that it is in this world: and the sun only is the cause of the waters, which are the heaven in the deep. Moreover, by the sun, the Heart of God may be understood, out of which the light of the Majesty shineth: for the whole centre of the eternity would be dark, if the light from the Heart of God did not shine therein. 68. But it is not so with the Heart of God, as with the sun, that it should be a globe, standing in one place only: No, it hath no circumscription, [circumference], or place; also it hath no beginning, and yet is like a round globe, yet not a round circle, but it is as it were parted [divided] or open; for it is as a round cross wheel, like a ^==^whole rainbow, which yet appeareth as it were
269. For the whole cross is its parting, and yet it is whole; but the centre of nature, ( viz. the Word of the Lord, Verbum Domini, the Word of the Father), is there the centre of the cross. The cross every where signifieth the Number Three: where then beneath blue appeareth, which signifieth the substantiality; in the middle appeareth red, which signifieth the Father in the glance of fire; next [under] which appeareth yellow, which signifieth the light and lustre of the Majesty of God the Son; and the dusky brown [or purple], with the mixture of all forms, signifieth the other kingdom of darkness in the fire, in which Lucifer did soar aloft [fly out] above God, and did not lay hold on the Majesty and Heart of God. 70. And upon such a bow will Christ, the Son of Man, appear at the last judgment; for so he sitteth in the Majesty of the Number Three, in Ternario Sancto: understand, the angelical world [in the eternal substantiality] and paradise.
371. Thus know, that all this is not divided, nor is it thus in one place alone; but this form [or manner] appeareth in its Principle everywhere. If thou conceivest a small, minute circle, as small as a grain of mustard-seed, yet the Heart of God is wholly and perfectly therein: and if thou art born in God, then there is, in thyself, (in the circle of thy life), the whole Heart of God undivided: and the Son of Man (Christ) sitteth thus (in the circle of thy life, upon the rainbow, in Ternario Sancto) at the right hand of God: and thus thou art his child, whom he hath regenerated in him [in Christ]; as also Christ's member and body, wherein he dwelleth; his brother, his flesh, and spirit; and a child of God the Father in him, God in thee, and thou in God; power, might, majesty, heaven, paradise, element, stars, and earth, all is thine. Thou art in (Christ) over [or above] hell and devils. 72. But in this world, with thy earthly life, thou art under heaven, stars, and elements, also under hell and devils; all ruleth in thee, and over thee. 73. Therefore consider thyself, and go forth [from thyself] : it is of high concernment; we speak what we know, and what we must speak, for we ought not to speak otherwise of the eternity, unless we should speak as if it had a beginning, whereas there is none in the eternity.
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.
No commentary for this page.