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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.
114. Now, itEnoch be thus taken up, both body and soul, with both the bodies, then the outward body is in the 2 Mysterium, and the inward body in the 3 Arcanum, a heavenly Mystery; and so he liveth in two Mysteries, being invisible and incomprehensible to the outward world: and thus we give you to understand that paradise is yet present and unperished, though seeming to be, as it were, devoured by the curse of God; and it lieth yet as a Mystery, uncorrupted in the curse. 1 substance, or essence. 2 In the outward secret hiddenness. 3 In the inward secret hiddenness. 15. For we can say with good ground of truth that paradise is still upon the earth; yet we are not in it, but Enoch is in it; but he hath still the body of the turba in the Mystery, and in the heavenly 1 Mystery he hath the divine body; a paradisical body which is capable of paradise: and thus he is as a wonder, and is a prophet in the crown at the 2 limit of the wonders. 16. For you know that the Scripture saith, that after he had begotten Methusalah, viz. the man of the greatest age, he continued afterward in a divine life; and this hath a deep meaning.
217. Methusalah signifieth the end of the wonders of this world; and Enoch, remaining in his divine life three hundred years after the birth of Methusalah, signifieth the manifestation of the wonders, and an open ministry, viz. a preaching of righteousness, whereby the turba of every one shall be shewn him, and the end of the wonders of this world shall be declared, viz. the vengeance of God, and his reward to the good. 18. And the time after Enoch, wherein Methusalah lived to the number of the crown, when Enoch and his preaching was taken up, signifieth that the Enochian light, which shone in his time, will enter again into its Principle, and seek out the earthly body which Enoch had, and will find that the turba is in it still; and then there will be no further seeking, for the turba is found in the limit, and worketh to the fire and judgment. 1 Or Arcanum. 2 Or end. 19. And thus the end of the world is as the dregs, and it worketh in the turba to the blowing up of the fire and the judgment; for the outward world was produced out of the turba, and took its beginning in the turba, and the turba is its propriety: thus the beginning seeketh the end again in the wrath. 20. And as this world is become corporeal in the wrath, so the beginning at the end will have the spirit again in the wrath, for the beginning and the end are one; and you plainly perceive, that in the beginning, the turba devoured Adam, and brought him into the anger, and murdered Abel.
321. Therefore, ye elect, let none of you desire to live to the time of the end, after Enoch's taking up; but behold, when Enoch preacheth, then the sun shineth, and then go out from Babel; it is a golden time: but your turba is the cause that Enoch shall be taken up. 22. Enoch is not gone out of this world, he is entered into the l Mystery in the wonders, for he is God's preacher; and after the turba hath overcome the world he must be silent till the six seals have ended their wonders, and till the angels of the turba have poured out their vials, then the 2 wonders of the anger are finished. 1 repository. 2 Or works. 23. Then Enoch cometh out of the Mystery again, and entereth into the 1 ministry, and relateth what hath been done, and punisheth the world because of the 2 turba, for suffering 3 abominations to enter into them, without resisting. 24. And after the world becometh fat and wanton in the golden years, and 4 seeketh Sodom and Gomorrah again, then also its turba will be fat and wanton, and seek the wrath and the limit; then the golden days are done, and will be devoured by the turba; and then Methusalah, the oldest man, dieth, and suddenly the deluge of fire approacheth: consider it, for it will be in earnest.
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.
114. Now, itEnoch be thus taken up, both body and soul, with both the bodies, then the outward body is in the 2 Mysterium, and the inward body in the 3 Arcanum, a heavenly Mystery; and so he liveth in two Mysteries, being invisible and incomprehensible to the outward world: and thus we give you to understand that paradise is yet present and unperished, though seeming to be, as it were, devoured by the curse of God; and it lieth yet as a Mystery, uncorrupted in the curse. 1 substance, or essence. 2 In the outward secret hiddenness. 3 In the inward secret hiddenness. 15. For we can say with good ground of truth that paradise is still upon the earth; yet we are not in it, but Enoch is in it; but he hath still the body of the turba in the Mystery, and in the heavenly 1 Mystery he hath the divine body; a paradisical body which is capable of paradise: and thus he is as a wonder, and is a prophet in the crown at the 2 limit of the wonders. 16. For you know that the Scripture saith, that after he had begotten Methusalah, viz. the man of the greatest age, he continued afterward in a divine life; and this hath a deep meaning.
217. Methusalah signifieth the end of the wonders of this world; and Enoch, remaining in his divine life three hundred years after the birth of Methusalah, signifieth the manifestation of the wonders, and an open ministry, viz. a preaching of righteousness, whereby the turba of every one shall be shewn him, and the end of the wonders of this world shall be declared, viz. the vengeance of God, and his reward to the good. 18. And the time after Enoch, wherein Methusalah lived to the number of the crown, when Enoch and his preaching was taken up, signifieth that the Enochian light, which shone in his time, will enter again into its Principle, and seek out the earthly body which Enoch had, and will find that the turba is in it still; and then there will be no further seeking, for the turba is found in the limit, and worketh to the fire and judgment. 1 Or Arcanum. 2 Or end. 19. And thus the end of the world is as the dregs, and it worketh in the turba to the blowing up of the fire and the judgment; for the outward world was produced out of the turba, and took its beginning in the turba, and the turba is its propriety: thus the beginning seeketh the end again in the wrath. 20. And as this world is become corporeal in the wrath, so the beginning at the end will have the spirit again in the wrath, for the beginning and the end are one; and you plainly perceive, that in the beginning, the turba devoured Adam, and brought him into the anger, and murdered Abel.
321. Therefore, ye elect, let none of you desire to live to the time of the end, after Enoch's taking up; but behold, when Enoch preacheth, then the sun shineth, and then go out from Babel; it is a golden time: but your turba is the cause that Enoch shall be taken up. 22. Enoch is not gone out of this world, he is entered into the l Mystery in the wonders, for he is God's preacher; and after the turba hath overcome the world he must be silent till the six seals have ended their wonders, and till the angels of the turba have poured out their vials, then the 2 wonders of the anger are finished. 1 repository. 2 Or works. 23. Then Enoch cometh out of the Mystery again, and entereth into the 1 ministry, and relateth what hath been done, and punisheth the world because of the 2 turba, for suffering 3 abominations to enter into them, without resisting. 24. And after the world becometh fat and wanton in the golden years, and 4 seeketh Sodom and Gomorrah again, then also its turba will be fat and wanton, and seek the wrath and the limit; then the golden days are done, and will be devoured by the turba; and then Methusalah, the oldest man, dieth, and suddenly the deluge of fire approacheth: consider it, for it will be in earnest.
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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