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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.
125. Therefore be not led about, and gulled with 2 toys and trifles, as hitherto ye have been, in Babel; where this and that hath been 3 disputed about the soul and its spirit; one this way, and another that way; there is no ground among them, but mere fiction and opinion. 26. Understanding is born in God, not in the schools from art; yet we despise it not; for art, if it be born in God, is a tenfold Mystery, for it always attaineth the 4 tenth number in 5 reason, much better than a 6 plain man; for it can of many numbers make one. 7 1 fountain, property. 2 rattles, fooleries, shells, specious shows, or imitation, or mimic tricks. 3 Or prated. 4 Or perfection. 5 Or wit, and understanding. 6 Or simple layman. 7 sum, or total. 27. But it standeth not in self- ability; no: one must enter in by the cross as well as the other, let him be a doctor, or a l mean man: God's secrets will admit no doctors, but scholars into them; yet a learned 2 scholar may go very far. 28. Had but this hand the high art, and also these high gifts, you would well see it; but God will have it as it is: It is indeed his pleasure, to 3 make the wisdom of this world foolishness, and to give his power to the weak, that 4 all may bow down before him, and acknowledge, that he only is the Lord that doth whatsoever he will. 1 Or layic. 2 discipulus. 3 1 Cor. i. 20. 4 all life, or creatures. THE THIRTY-EIGHTH QUESTION What are the Things that shall come to pass at the end of the World?
21. BELOVED Friend, it is not fit for me to answer this your question, neither is it in my own power; and besides, it is not fit for any to ask it, for it is the secret counsel of God: none should esteem himself to be equal with God, and to foreknow all things. 2. Our knowledge *consisteth in the spirit and will of God; when that moveth, then go on in the heavenly magia, and enter into the wonders of the earthly: Now is the prophet born, for he standeth upon the 1 crown, and speaketh magically of the beginning of the wonders, and their turba; and sheweth how they shall come to an end, and be destroyed, and brought again into the first. 3. For all prophets speak from the turba; f they discover that which is false, and declare what is better, which entereth into the will of God. 1 Or at the end of a time, or age. * "consisteth," lit., "stands." t "they discover" (sie zeigen an), "they shew," or "they point out," "expose." 4. Therefore be pleased not to * urge us with this question, for we should be captivated in the turba by it: you may understand enough in all the questions, what is to be done hereafter; we have hinted it to you clearly enough. 5. We dare not speak any otherwise, than 1 in a magical manner, of things to come; because the wonders to come are all seen in the turba: now when the spirit seeth them, then it declareth clearly and plainly how the turba is loaded with evil or good.
36. But it seeth that all things are mixed; for God is become man, and sets his mercy everywhere in the anger, and hindereth perdition; therefore the prophet must speak magically, and not in express and plain terms: for it often cometh to pass, that, though a thing be evil in its 2 essence, yet there 3 soon groweth a sprout out from the wickedness which 4 destroyeth the turba, and causeth a conversion. 7. Therefore God admonisheth you to subdue the firmamental heaven, and to oppose it; and so the evil which the firmamental heaven poureth forth is many times turned into that which is better. 8. Otherwise, if all should of necessity come to pass which the firmamental heaven hath, then we should need no teaching, for that would be a certain, constant, and perpetual calendar. 9. You know well, what Daniel, Ezekiel, and David say in their prophecies; especially the Revelation of Jesus Christ: In them lieth all that shall hereafter come to pass; and they also spake 5 magically of things to come. 1 Or by way of similitude, or in parables. 2 Or work. 3 As at Nineveh, in Jonah's time. 4 Or keepeth back vengeance. 5 in mystical terms, which outward reason could not comprehend. * "urge" (beschwereri), "burden," or "trouble." 10. But in our writings you have them more clearly, for the time is now * nearer the end; and therefore it appeareth the more plainly what shall be done at the end.
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.
125. Therefore be not led about, and gulled with 2 toys and trifles, as hitherto ye have been, in Babel; where this and that hath been 3 disputed about the soul and its spirit; one this way, and another that way; there is no ground among them, but mere fiction and opinion. 26. Understanding is born in God, not in the schools from art; yet we despise it not; for art, if it be born in God, is a tenfold Mystery, for it always attaineth the 4 tenth number in 5 reason, much better than a 6 plain man; for it can of many numbers make one. 7 1 fountain, property. 2 rattles, fooleries, shells, specious shows, or imitation, or mimic tricks. 3 Or prated. 4 Or perfection. 5 Or wit, and understanding. 6 Or simple layman. 7 sum, or total. 27. But it standeth not in self- ability; no: one must enter in by the cross as well as the other, let him be a doctor, or a l mean man: God's secrets will admit no doctors, but scholars into them; yet a learned 2 scholar may go very far. 28. Had but this hand the high art, and also these high gifts, you would well see it; but God will have it as it is: It is indeed his pleasure, to 3 make the wisdom of this world foolishness, and to give his power to the weak, that 4 all may bow down before him, and acknowledge, that he only is the Lord that doth whatsoever he will. 1 Or layic. 2 discipulus. 3 1 Cor. i. 20. 4 all life, or creatures. THE THIRTY-EIGHTH QUESTION What are the Things that shall come to pass at the end of the World?
21. BELOVED Friend, it is not fit for me to answer this your question, neither is it in my own power; and besides, it is not fit for any to ask it, for it is the secret counsel of God: none should esteem himself to be equal with God, and to foreknow all things. 2. Our knowledge *consisteth in the spirit and will of God; when that moveth, then go on in the heavenly magia, and enter into the wonders of the earthly: Now is the prophet born, for he standeth upon the 1 crown, and speaketh magically of the beginning of the wonders, and their turba; and sheweth how they shall come to an end, and be destroyed, and brought again into the first. 3. For all prophets speak from the turba; f they discover that which is false, and declare what is better, which entereth into the will of God. 1 Or at the end of a time, or age. * "consisteth," lit., "stands." t "they discover" (sie zeigen an), "they shew," or "they point out," "expose." 4. Therefore be pleased not to * urge us with this question, for we should be captivated in the turba by it: you may understand enough in all the questions, what is to be done hereafter; we have hinted it to you clearly enough. 5. We dare not speak any otherwise, than 1 in a magical manner, of things to come; because the wonders to come are all seen in the turba: now when the spirit seeth them, then it declareth clearly and plainly how the turba is loaded with evil or good.
36. But it seeth that all things are mixed; for God is become man, and sets his mercy everywhere in the anger, and hindereth perdition; therefore the prophet must speak magically, and not in express and plain terms: for it often cometh to pass, that, though a thing be evil in its 2 essence, yet there 3 soon groweth a sprout out from the wickedness which 4 destroyeth the turba, and causeth a conversion. 7. Therefore God admonisheth you to subdue the firmamental heaven, and to oppose it; and so the evil which the firmamental heaven poureth forth is many times turned into that which is better. 8. Otherwise, if all should of necessity come to pass which the firmamental heaven hath, then we should need no teaching, for that would be a certain, constant, and perpetual calendar. 9. You know well, what Daniel, Ezekiel, and David say in their prophecies; especially the Revelation of Jesus Christ: In them lieth all that shall hereafter come to pass; and they also spake 5 magically of things to come. 1 Or by way of similitude, or in parables. 2 Or work. 3 As at Nineveh, in Jonah's time. 4 Or keepeth back vengeance. 5 in mystical terms, which outward reason could not comprehend. * "urge" (beschwereri), "burden," or "trouble." 10. But in our writings you have them more clearly, for the time is now * nearer the end; and therefore it appeareth the more plainly what shall be done at the end.
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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