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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.
128. For he was a virgin, without the feminine form, after the form of the eternal [Sophia ], with a pure modest mind, and chaste, without the least desire of lust: his desire was only to have his like out of himself; he placed his will upon himself, and in him was God: so his will was in God, and God in him, and he in paradise. 29. But he saw in himself two forms [natures, conditions, or qualities] of the divine Being: one without himself belonging to this world, and the other within him belonging to the paradisical world, which he also had with full satisfaction to himself [as his own], and therefore came the commandment and said; Eat not of the mixed fruit, (Good and Evil), else ye shall die. But he imagined so long, till he was captivated: he still thought he would eat of both, [viz. of the paradisical and of the forbidden fruit], and so live for ever, and so he continued forty days, as the second Adam in the wilderness was [so long] tempted: and Moses was [so long] upon the mount, where Israel was tempted, to try if it were possible to live in the obedience and will of the Father: and so long he went on till he sank down into a sleep.
230. For Moses saith, God suffered a deep sleep to fall on him; and then God saw that it was not possible for him [to continue in perfect obedience], (for the lust had captivated him), and so he suffered him to fall into a sleep, (which signifieth death), where the woman was made out of him; and the spirit of this world formed Adam into a man, (such an one as we are at this day), and Eve into a woman: which, when they awoke, they saw not: for they were yet in paradise, till they had eaten the earthly fruit; and then the spirit of this world took the soul captive, and its essences became instantly earthly, and its flesh and blood bestial, at which they were ashamed, and took notice of their bestial form in their masculine and feminine members. 31. And so they were driven out of paradise; and the Word of the Lord, Verbum Domini, (with a promise of a Treader upon the serpent), set itself in the light of their life, (which before dwelt and ruled in him [viz. in Adam]), that remained now in its own principle, and the image remained in the outward Principle, and was captivated by the spirit of the stars and elements: the regimen [or rule and dominion] of this world dwelt now in these persons, and they became earthly. 32. Whereupon God cursed the earth also for man 's sake, so that no paradisical fruit grew any
3more. All was gone, save only the grace and mercy of God, which was still left; for they now stood (as to the ground of the world) in the abyss of hell, with all devils; and they lived in weakness, as we do now at this day. 33. They begat their children in two kingdoms, [viz. in the kingdom of wrath, and in the kingdom of love], for the anger of God had taken hold of them, and desired to shew its wonders in them: so also the Treader upon the serpent had taken hold of them in the light of life, and desired also to shew its wonders in them. 34. So there was strife and disquietness, as may be discerned by their children: the first that was born of woman, became a wicked murderer, and strove to suppress the kingdom of God; and the second, was a holy virtuous man: In brief, you see this throughout the Holy Scripture, especially by Cain and Abel, by Isaac and Ismael, also by Esau and Jacob, who, while they were yet in their mother's womb, strove for [or about] the kingdom of God, and for the kingdom of hell: and therefore said God, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated. 35. And from hence arose the Predestination or Election of the children that cleave to him; the others make but a mockery and scorn of that which is spoken concerning the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven, and they find not the Precious
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.
128. For he was a virgin, without the feminine form, after the form of the eternal [Sophia ], with a pure modest mind, and chaste, without the least desire of lust: his desire was only to have his like out of himself; he placed his will upon himself, and in him was God: so his will was in God, and God in him, and he in paradise. 29. But he saw in himself two forms [natures, conditions, or qualities] of the divine Being: one without himself belonging to this world, and the other within him belonging to the paradisical world, which he also had with full satisfaction to himself [as his own], and therefore came the commandment and said; Eat not of the mixed fruit, (Good and Evil), else ye shall die. But he imagined so long, till he was captivated: he still thought he would eat of both, [viz. of the paradisical and of the forbidden fruit], and so live for ever, and so he continued forty days, as the second Adam in the wilderness was [so long] tempted: and Moses was [so long] upon the mount, where Israel was tempted, to try if it were possible to live in the obedience and will of the Father: and so long he went on till he sank down into a sleep.
230. For Moses saith, God suffered a deep sleep to fall on him; and then God saw that it was not possible for him [to continue in perfect obedience], (for the lust had captivated him), and so he suffered him to fall into a sleep, (which signifieth death), where the woman was made out of him; and the spirit of this world formed Adam into a man, (such an one as we are at this day), and Eve into a woman: which, when they awoke, they saw not: for they were yet in paradise, till they had eaten the earthly fruit; and then the spirit of this world took the soul captive, and its essences became instantly earthly, and its flesh and blood bestial, at which they were ashamed, and took notice of their bestial form in their masculine and feminine members. 31. And so they were driven out of paradise; and the Word of the Lord, Verbum Domini, (with a promise of a Treader upon the serpent), set itself in the light of their life, (which before dwelt and ruled in him [viz. in Adam]), that remained now in its own principle, and the image remained in the outward Principle, and was captivated by the spirit of the stars and elements: the regimen [or rule and dominion] of this world dwelt now in these persons, and they became earthly. 32. Whereupon God cursed the earth also for man 's sake, so that no paradisical fruit grew any
3more. All was gone, save only the grace and mercy of God, which was still left; for they now stood (as to the ground of the world) in the abyss of hell, with all devils; and they lived in weakness, as we do now at this day. 33. They begat their children in two kingdoms, [viz. in the kingdom of wrath, and in the kingdom of love], for the anger of God had taken hold of them, and desired to shew its wonders in them: so also the Treader upon the serpent had taken hold of them in the light of life, and desired also to shew its wonders in them. 34. So there was strife and disquietness, as may be discerned by their children: the first that was born of woman, became a wicked murderer, and strove to suppress the kingdom of God; and the second, was a holy virtuous man: In brief, you see this throughout the Holy Scripture, especially by Cain and Abel, by Isaac and Ismael, also by Esau and Jacob, who, while they were yet in their mother's womb, strove for [or about] the kingdom of God, and for the kingdom of hell: and therefore said God, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated. 35. And from hence arose the Predestination or Election of the children that cleave to him; the others make but a mockery and scorn of that which is spoken concerning the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven, and they find not the Precious
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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