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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.
1more can be expected, then prophesying shall cease.] 49. Therefore let none blindfold themselves, but consider what such a warning and revelation signifieth, which at present is propounded to the world. This is the time of the overthrow of the dragon, with the whore of Babel, which shall go down into the abyss. Now, he that will not flee, yet let him have warning of it. He that will bring the whore's marks forth into the light, will have great ignominy and reproach by it; we speak what we ought: The day dawneth, the sun will suddenly arise, account it not for a fiction, it is concluded and known in Ternario Sancto: Look into the Scripture in the Revelation, which the sophisters had rather it were cast out of the Bible; but the understanding of it will soon bud forth: and then the pedlars of the beast and of the whore will stand in great shame, and none will buy their wares any more. No sword destroyeth the whore, but her own mouth choketh her, for there are nothing but lies and blasphemies in it; and yet she seemeth as if she were God. Therefore say we, let everyone look to his own doing: Lift up your heads, as Christ saith, for the time of your redemption draweth near, you are baptized with water, but he that will baptize with the Holy Ghost, and with the fire of his wrath, is already on his way; be not wilfully blind.
250. Thus understand us rightly concerning the life of man, as we have now mentioned: This last forementioned life, is singly [solely, or alone] in the beasts, for it hath its original only in the Principle of this world, in the matrix of nature, which is everywhere such a spirit, and such a life, in itself. 51. And in man the life is two-fold: for man hath also the life of this [outward] Principle in him: but he desireth also another life, which is higher and better than this. 52. And now, where there is a desire, there is a mother, which is the desire itself; for no desire can make itself, it must arise out of a will; and the will must come out of the tincture, which is the life of the will. 53. Thus we know, and have searched out, that in the tincture of the Principle of this world, viz. in the life of this world, there is also another tincture, which we have an apprehension of in ourselves. If there were not another tincture, the life would desire nothing more. 54. Yet we cannot say, that the outward life desireth anything more: It desireth nothing else but its own mother, viz. the Principle of this world, for it is only a spirit therein; for no Principle desireth another; a Principle is a peculiar life, and hath its centre to nature;
3and therefore we call it a Principle, because there is a total dominion in it, as there is in the eternity; which dominion desireth nothing more nor higher, but only that which may be generated in its own centre; as you may easily perceive it by the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of hell; for the kingdom of heaven desireth nothing but the divine Being: but hell [desireth] that which is wrathful, murderous, fiery, sour, soaring, astringent; and whatsoever is in the property of anger in the fire. 55. Now, there being in us a desire after the highest good, and after the eternity, that desire must needs proceed out of the eternal and highest will, out of the highest Being; and its life is also out of the highest tincture: for where there is a desire, there is fire; for the fire desireth substantiality, that it may have whereon to feed, and yet itself can make no substantiality, but it maketh the tincture, and the tincture maketh the substantiality, as is above mentioned. 56. Now, the tincture is a creature, for it hath
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.
1more can be expected, then prophesying shall cease.] 49. Therefore let none blindfold themselves, but consider what such a warning and revelation signifieth, which at present is propounded to the world. This is the time of the overthrow of the dragon, with the whore of Babel, which shall go down into the abyss. Now, he that will not flee, yet let him have warning of it. He that will bring the whore's marks forth into the light, will have great ignominy and reproach by it; we speak what we ought: The day dawneth, the sun will suddenly arise, account it not for a fiction, it is concluded and known in Ternario Sancto: Look into the Scripture in the Revelation, which the sophisters had rather it were cast out of the Bible; but the understanding of it will soon bud forth: and then the pedlars of the beast and of the whore will stand in great shame, and none will buy their wares any more. No sword destroyeth the whore, but her own mouth choketh her, for there are nothing but lies and blasphemies in it; and yet she seemeth as if she were God. Therefore say we, let everyone look to his own doing: Lift up your heads, as Christ saith, for the time of your redemption draweth near, you are baptized with water, but he that will baptize with the Holy Ghost, and with the fire of his wrath, is already on his way; be not wilfully blind.
250. Thus understand us rightly concerning the life of man, as we have now mentioned: This last forementioned life, is singly [solely, or alone] in the beasts, for it hath its original only in the Principle of this world, in the matrix of nature, which is everywhere such a spirit, and such a life, in itself. 51. And in man the life is two-fold: for man hath also the life of this [outward] Principle in him: but he desireth also another life, which is higher and better than this. 52. And now, where there is a desire, there is a mother, which is the desire itself; for no desire can make itself, it must arise out of a will; and the will must come out of the tincture, which is the life of the will. 53. Thus we know, and have searched out, that in the tincture of the Principle of this world, viz. in the life of this world, there is also another tincture, which we have an apprehension of in ourselves. If there were not another tincture, the life would desire nothing more. 54. Yet we cannot say, that the outward life desireth anything more: It desireth nothing else but its own mother, viz. the Principle of this world, for it is only a spirit therein; for no Principle desireth another; a Principle is a peculiar life, and hath its centre to nature;
3and therefore we call it a Principle, because there is a total dominion in it, as there is in the eternity; which dominion desireth nothing more nor higher, but only that which may be generated in its own centre; as you may easily perceive it by the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of hell; for the kingdom of heaven desireth nothing but the divine Being: but hell [desireth] that which is wrathful, murderous, fiery, sour, soaring, astringent; and whatsoever is in the property of anger in the fire. 55. Now, there being in us a desire after the highest good, and after the eternity, that desire must needs proceed out of the eternal and highest will, out of the highest Being; and its life is also out of the highest tincture: for where there is a desire, there is fire; for the fire desireth substantiality, that it may have whereon to feed, and yet itself can make no substantiality, but it maketh the tincture, and the tincture maketh the substantiality, as is above mentioned. 56. Now, the tincture is a creature, for it hath
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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