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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.
12. For it is more profitable to a man than the whole world; it is more precious than the sun, for the 4 noble stone of the wise men heth therein; it hath the heavenly and earthly 5 Mysterium magnum; and there is nothing in the world to be compared to it, but 6 sincere simplicity, which is quiet, and bringeth forth or stirreth up no turba; and that hath the jewel hidden in it. 3. As gold heth in the stone and is unconsumed, if a 7 robber cometh not with the earthly turba and destroyeth it, and yet attaineth it not; so self-reason is a robber in the 8 Mystery. 4. Therefore we may say upon good ground, that a simple 9 plain man, who in simplicity, without multiplicity of science, dependeth on God, hath the Mysterium magnum better and surer, and less decayed, than a high learned 10 doctor, who soareth aloft in reason, and n spoileth the jewel and setteth it in Babel; this will not be well relished, but that is nothing to us, we must speak the truth without 12 partiality. 1 Or obedient. 2 treasure, gem, or pearl. 3 Matt. xiii. 46. 4 Or the Philosopher's Stone. 5 great Mystery. 6 Or trusting in God, and enduring whatsoever he layeth upon us. 7 Or spoiler. 8 That is, in the cabinet where the Pearl lieth. 9 Layman. 10 Or father. 11 Or disputeth, and wrangleth about it. 12 Or respect of persons.
25. Now when we speak of Christ's spirit, reason thinketh it is the soul, or else the spirit of the outward life, which consisteth in the virtue and operation of the stars and elements; but it is not so, it is another thing wherein the image of God standeth; the outward spirit belongeth not to the Deity, but to the wonders. 6. We have spoken somewhat of it already; but because this question doth put us in mind of it again, mentioning, that when he died he commended it to his Father, therefore we must speak thereof, how it was. 7. You sufficiently perceive in what manner the soul is the * centre of nature, the original of life and mobihty, viz. God's fire, which should be continually converted into the eternal wdl of God, wherein it is originally born from the magical desire, and is a great secret come out of the eternal nothing, wherein all things are contained, even the Deity with all the three Principles, and every 2 being that can be named. 8. And you perceive that the light and spirit of the air proceed from the fire, and also that the fire doth again draw the spirit of the air into itself, and so always bloweth itself up; and so with the light, air, and 3 source of the fire, it is its own life. 1 centrum natures. 2 thing, essence, or substance. 3 Or property.
39. And further, we have spoken before of the noble tincture which ariseth in the light, in which the meekness of the light consisteth, and it cometh forth from the anguish, which is as a mortification, and springeth forth afresh through the mortifying anguish, as a life having another 1 property, where the property of the fire is a kind of tincture, like the driving forth of a spirit; and yet it is desiring, and thereby it attracteth the virtue of the light into itself, and maketh it an essence, viz. water. 10. And therein are two forms: One according to the source of fire, which is red, and therein the virtue, viz. Sulphur, and the other, which is like a thin meekness, yet having essentiality, is water; which the desiring tincture contracteth into one, and changeth it into blood. 11. Now the original in the blood, viz. fire, which is a warmth, that is, a tincture, is a life; and in the virtue of the tincture, the thin water of the life proceedeth, one 2 virtue proceeding forth from 3 another; and the virtue doth always re-assume that which goeth forth: and that which is gone forth is free from the fire, and also from the virtue; for it is gone forth, and yet it arose from the virtue.
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.
12. For it is more profitable to a man than the whole world; it is more precious than the sun, for the 4 noble stone of the wise men heth therein; it hath the heavenly and earthly 5 Mysterium magnum; and there is nothing in the world to be compared to it, but 6 sincere simplicity, which is quiet, and bringeth forth or stirreth up no turba; and that hath the jewel hidden in it. 3. As gold heth in the stone and is unconsumed, if a 7 robber cometh not with the earthly turba and destroyeth it, and yet attaineth it not; so self-reason is a robber in the 8 Mystery. 4. Therefore we may say upon good ground, that a simple 9 plain man, who in simplicity, without multiplicity of science, dependeth on God, hath the Mysterium magnum better and surer, and less decayed, than a high learned 10 doctor, who soareth aloft in reason, and n spoileth the jewel and setteth it in Babel; this will not be well relished, but that is nothing to us, we must speak the truth without 12 partiality. 1 Or obedient. 2 treasure, gem, or pearl. 3 Matt. xiii. 46. 4 Or the Philosopher's Stone. 5 great Mystery. 6 Or trusting in God, and enduring whatsoever he layeth upon us. 7 Or spoiler. 8 That is, in the cabinet where the Pearl lieth. 9 Layman. 10 Or father. 11 Or disputeth, and wrangleth about it. 12 Or respect of persons.
25. Now when we speak of Christ's spirit, reason thinketh it is the soul, or else the spirit of the outward life, which consisteth in the virtue and operation of the stars and elements; but it is not so, it is another thing wherein the image of God standeth; the outward spirit belongeth not to the Deity, but to the wonders. 6. We have spoken somewhat of it already; but because this question doth put us in mind of it again, mentioning, that when he died he commended it to his Father, therefore we must speak thereof, how it was. 7. You sufficiently perceive in what manner the soul is the * centre of nature, the original of life and mobihty, viz. God's fire, which should be continually converted into the eternal wdl of God, wherein it is originally born from the magical desire, and is a great secret come out of the eternal nothing, wherein all things are contained, even the Deity with all the three Principles, and every 2 being that can be named. 8. And you perceive that the light and spirit of the air proceed from the fire, and also that the fire doth again draw the spirit of the air into itself, and so always bloweth itself up; and so with the light, air, and 3 source of the fire, it is its own life. 1 centrum natures. 2 thing, essence, or substance. 3 Or property.
39. And further, we have spoken before of the noble tincture which ariseth in the light, in which the meekness of the light consisteth, and it cometh forth from the anguish, which is as a mortification, and springeth forth afresh through the mortifying anguish, as a life having another 1 property, where the property of the fire is a kind of tincture, like the driving forth of a spirit; and yet it is desiring, and thereby it attracteth the virtue of the light into itself, and maketh it an essence, viz. water. 10. And therein are two forms: One according to the source of fire, which is red, and therein the virtue, viz. Sulphur, and the other, which is like a thin meekness, yet having essentiality, is water; which the desiring tincture contracteth into one, and changeth it into blood. 11. Now the original in the blood, viz. fire, which is a warmth, that is, a tincture, is a life; and in the virtue of the tincture, the thin water of the life proceedeth, one 2 virtue proceeding forth from 3 another; and the virtue doth always re-assume that which goeth forth: and that which is gone forth is free from the fire, and also from the virtue; for it is gone forth, and yet it arose from the virtue.
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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