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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.
170. For the watery matrix (which is only a spirit of a soft property) holdeth the fire captive, and so the Majesty shineth in the meekness, transparently. 71. And the earthly [bodies] consist in the palpable substance; for the water becometh material in the kindling; which matter is drawn together by the wrath in the Fiat, part to stones, and part to earth, all according as nature is in its seven forms: and the water hath quenched the fire, so that the wrath is in the darkness, like a hidden fire. 72. And where the matrix continued, and was not so quenched by the comprehensible water, there it is created into stars; for a star is only fire and water [concrete together] : but seeing the fire [in them] burneth not, and that the water [in them] doth not quench the fire, thereby we understand that that water is not material, but is as an oil, in which the light burneth, which is not [such] water as putteth out the light, but preserveth a continual burning light without any great source, [or fierce consuming property]. 73. Thus the stars are a Quinta Essentia, a fifth form [distinct] from the elements, as the fat in a creature is a cause that the fountain of life burneth: So the Quinta Essentia is a cause that the stars burn: yet the stars have in them also all the causes of every thing that is in this world; all that live and move, are stirred up from their properties, and brought to life.
274. For they are not only fire and water, (though the fire and the water be the chief in them), but also they have in them hardness, softness, darkness, bitterness, sourness, sweetness, and all the powers [or virtues] of nature; they have whatsoever the earth hath contained in it. For every star hath a several property, all according to the essences [effects, operations] of the eternal centre of nature. 75. All is comprehended in the creation, and come to a being, so far as their properties at the same time stood open in the wheel of nature, when the eternity moved itself to the creation. 76. And the air is the spirit which is mixed with all sorts of forms, and as the heat goeth forth from the fire, so also the air goeth forth with all powers continually from the fire, and therefore it is inconstant; suddenly the air awakeneth one form in the centre of nature, suddenly another; and so there is continually a wrestling and overcoming, suddenly a being above, and then a being under again. 77. The whole deep between the earth and the stars, is like the mind of a man, where the eyes suddenly behold a thing, and conceive or frame a will [or desire] therein, and bring it to substance [to be or to pass]; some things they behold only with cursory thoughts, and some things in a perfectt being [resolution or purpose], so that the mouth and hands go about it [to bring it to pass]: Thus the deep also is like the mind, suddenly it is
3intent upon one star, suddenly upon another, and the sun is the king, and the heart of the deep, which shineth and worketh in the deep; and the other six planets make the senses and understanding in the deep; so that all together is as a living spirit. 78. Which you may understand by a beast, which formeth its spirit herein, also in the fowls, and also in us men, according to the Adamical man: but this government [or dominion] and spirit hath not divine wit and understanding: for it hath beginning and end; and that which hath beginning and end is not spiritual (or divine), but it is natural and transitory; as you may see by the wind, how suddenly it is raised in one place, and suddenly laid again, and then suddenly raised in another place, and so on. 79. So also the constellation is a cause of all sorts [of outward worldly] wisdom [or wit], arts, and policy; also a cause of the ordering of every government [or dominion] of this world amongst men after the Fall; also among the beasts and fowls; also it is the cause and bringer forth of all herbs, plants, and metals, and of trees, that they grow. 80. For that which the constellation containeth in it, lieth all in the earth; and the constellation kindleth the earth: and it is all one spirit and one dominion, which I call the third Principle. For
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.
170. For the watery matrix (which is only a spirit of a soft property) holdeth the fire captive, and so the Majesty shineth in the meekness, transparently. 71. And the earthly [bodies] consist in the palpable substance; for the water becometh material in the kindling; which matter is drawn together by the wrath in the Fiat, part to stones, and part to earth, all according as nature is in its seven forms: and the water hath quenched the fire, so that the wrath is in the darkness, like a hidden fire. 72. And where the matrix continued, and was not so quenched by the comprehensible water, there it is created into stars; for a star is only fire and water [concrete together] : but seeing the fire [in them] burneth not, and that the water [in them] doth not quench the fire, thereby we understand that that water is not material, but is as an oil, in which the light burneth, which is not [such] water as putteth out the light, but preserveth a continual burning light without any great source, [or fierce consuming property]. 73. Thus the stars are a Quinta Essentia, a fifth form [distinct] from the elements, as the fat in a creature is a cause that the fountain of life burneth: So the Quinta Essentia is a cause that the stars burn: yet the stars have in them also all the causes of every thing that is in this world; all that live and move, are stirred up from their properties, and brought to life.
274. For they are not only fire and water, (though the fire and the water be the chief in them), but also they have in them hardness, softness, darkness, bitterness, sourness, sweetness, and all the powers [or virtues] of nature; they have whatsoever the earth hath contained in it. For every star hath a several property, all according to the essences [effects, operations] of the eternal centre of nature. 75. All is comprehended in the creation, and come to a being, so far as their properties at the same time stood open in the wheel of nature, when the eternity moved itself to the creation. 76. And the air is the spirit which is mixed with all sorts of forms, and as the heat goeth forth from the fire, so also the air goeth forth with all powers continually from the fire, and therefore it is inconstant; suddenly the air awakeneth one form in the centre of nature, suddenly another; and so there is continually a wrestling and overcoming, suddenly a being above, and then a being under again. 77. The whole deep between the earth and the stars, is like the mind of a man, where the eyes suddenly behold a thing, and conceive or frame a will [or desire] therein, and bring it to substance [to be or to pass]; some things they behold only with cursory thoughts, and some things in a perfectt being [resolution or purpose], so that the mouth and hands go about it [to bring it to pass]: Thus the deep also is like the mind, suddenly it is
3intent upon one star, suddenly upon another, and the sun is the king, and the heart of the deep, which shineth and worketh in the deep; and the other six planets make the senses and understanding in the deep; so that all together is as a living spirit. 78. Which you may understand by a beast, which formeth its spirit herein, also in the fowls, and also in us men, according to the Adamical man: but this government [or dominion] and spirit hath not divine wit and understanding: for it hath beginning and end; and that which hath beginning and end is not spiritual (or divine), but it is natural and transitory; as you may see by the wind, how suddenly it is raised in one place, and suddenly laid again, and then suddenly raised in another place, and so on. 79. So also the constellation is a cause of all sorts [of outward worldly] wisdom [or wit], arts, and policy; also a cause of the ordering of every government [or dominion] of this world amongst men after the Fall; also among the beasts and fowls; also it is the cause and bringer forth of all herbs, plants, and metals, and of trees, that they grow. 80. For that which the constellation containeth in it, lieth all in the earth; and the constellation kindleth the earth: and it is all one spirit and one dominion, which I call the third Principle. For
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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