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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. At the last day we shall not ascend above the 1 place of this world, but make our abode here in our own native country, and go into our home, in another world, in another Principle, of another 2 property. 3. For there will be no cold, nor heat any more, also no night: we shall be able everywhere to pass quite through the heavenly earth without * interruption, and then it will be paradise, and the tabernacle of God with man; for it is written, 3 Behold I make all things new, a new heaven, and a new earth, and the old shall be no more remembered. 1 locus universi. 2 Or source. 3 Rev. xxi. 1, 3, 5. * "interruption" (Zerreissung), "disruption." 4. This earth will be 1 like a chrystalline sea, and all the wonders of the world will be seen 2 wholly perspicuously; and the 3 brightness of God shall be the light thereof; and the holy Jerusalem, the great city of God, shall be therein, where they shall offer up the calves of their lips; there shall the bright city of God with the wonders and wisdom be established; and the temple of God, the 4 new Jerusalem, shall be prepared upon the new earth, which is adorned from the power and wonders of God. 5. All whatever the prophets have written shall be there fulfilled; for God's word and wonders shall flourish as grass upon the new earth.
26. There is no 5 death any more, also no fear, no sorrow, no sickness; no superior, but only Christ, who will dwell with us: we shall have one communion with the angels, we shall have fruit grow according to our desire and wish. 7. There will be no old age; but one of a hundred years will be as a new-born child, and we shall hve in mere delight of love. 8. All whatever is joyful will be sought after; and there the will of all will be inclined to make one another rejoice. 9. We shall lead a holy priestly life, and we shall all speak of God's wisdom and eternal wonders, for the divine magia hath infinite and innumerable wonders; the more it is sought, the more there is in it; and this is the increasing of the will of God. 1 Rev. iv. 6. 2 Or through and through, transparently. 3 Or glance, or lustre. 4 Rev. xxi. 2. 5 Rev. xxi. 4. 10. To this end God hath made himself manifest in images, viz. in angels and men, that so he might have joy in himself, and eternally rejoice with the essences of his life. Hallelujah. 11. Thus, my beloved Friend, we have set down, according to our gifts, a round answer to your questions; and we exhort you as a brother not to despise us, in respect of our simple speech and * 1 incongruity.
312. For we are not born of art, but of simplicity, and we speak great things in simple words: take this as a singular gift from God, you shall find more in it than in the best 2 eloquence of the highest art, unless they also have their birth from this school; and then we will prescribe nothing to such, but acknowledge them for our loving brethren in Christ, with whom we have assured hope to rejoice eternally in the heavenly school, of which we here have attained a little foretaste. 13. Yet our knowledge here is but in part; when we shall attain 3 perfection, then we will say what God is, and can do. AMEN. 1 Or unlearnedness. 2 artificial, eloquent orators. 3 Or the total. * "incongruity" (Ungeschicktlichkeit), "awkwardness, clumsiness." A SHORT SUMMARY APPENDIX OF THE SOUL, THE IMAGE OF THE SOUL, AND OF THE TURBA, WHICH IS THE DESTROYER OF THE IMAGE Written by the same Author J. B. In a Short Summary Appendix, of which in the other writings of this Author is written fundamentally and at large. 1. THE soul is an eye in the eternal abyss, a similitude of eternity, a perfect figure and image of the first Principle, and resembleth God the Father in his Person, as to the eternal nature. 2. The essence and substance of it, merely and purely as it is in itself, is first the wheel of nature, as to the first four * forms.
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. At the last day we shall not ascend above the 1 place of this world, but make our abode here in our own native country, and go into our home, in another world, in another Principle, of another 2 property. 3. For there will be no cold, nor heat any more, also no night: we shall be able everywhere to pass quite through the heavenly earth without * interruption, and then it will be paradise, and the tabernacle of God with man; for it is written, 3 Behold I make all things new, a new heaven, and a new earth, and the old shall be no more remembered. 1 locus universi. 2 Or source. 3 Rev. xxi. 1, 3, 5. * "interruption" (Zerreissung), "disruption." 4. This earth will be 1 like a chrystalline sea, and all the wonders of the world will be seen 2 wholly perspicuously; and the 3 brightness of God shall be the light thereof; and the holy Jerusalem, the great city of God, shall be therein, where they shall offer up the calves of their lips; there shall the bright city of God with the wonders and wisdom be established; and the temple of God, the 4 new Jerusalem, shall be prepared upon the new earth, which is adorned from the power and wonders of God. 5. All whatever the prophets have written shall be there fulfilled; for God's word and wonders shall flourish as grass upon the new earth.
26. There is no 5 death any more, also no fear, no sorrow, no sickness; no superior, but only Christ, who will dwell with us: we shall have one communion with the angels, we shall have fruit grow according to our desire and wish. 7. There will be no old age; but one of a hundred years will be as a new-born child, and we shall hve in mere delight of love. 8. All whatever is joyful will be sought after; and there the will of all will be inclined to make one another rejoice. 9. We shall lead a holy priestly life, and we shall all speak of God's wisdom and eternal wonders, for the divine magia hath infinite and innumerable wonders; the more it is sought, the more there is in it; and this is the increasing of the will of God. 1 Rev. iv. 6. 2 Or through and through, transparently. 3 Or glance, or lustre. 4 Rev. xxi. 2. 5 Rev. xxi. 4. 10. To this end God hath made himself manifest in images, viz. in angels and men, that so he might have joy in himself, and eternally rejoice with the essences of his life. Hallelujah. 11. Thus, my beloved Friend, we have set down, according to our gifts, a round answer to your questions; and we exhort you as a brother not to despise us, in respect of our simple speech and * 1 incongruity.
312. For we are not born of art, but of simplicity, and we speak great things in simple words: take this as a singular gift from God, you shall find more in it than in the best 2 eloquence of the highest art, unless they also have their birth from this school; and then we will prescribe nothing to such, but acknowledge them for our loving brethren in Christ, with whom we have assured hope to rejoice eternally in the heavenly school, of which we here have attained a little foretaste. 13. Yet our knowledge here is but in part; when we shall attain 3 perfection, then we will say what God is, and can do. AMEN. 1 Or unlearnedness. 2 artificial, eloquent orators. 3 Or the total. * "incongruity" (Ungeschicktlichkeit), "awkwardness, clumsiness." A SHORT SUMMARY APPENDIX OF THE SOUL, THE IMAGE OF THE SOUL, AND OF THE TURBA, WHICH IS THE DESTROYER OF THE IMAGE Written by the same Author J. B. In a Short Summary Appendix, of which in the other writings of this Author is written fundamentally and at large. 1. THE soul is an eye in the eternal abyss, a similitude of eternity, a perfect figure and image of the first Principle, and resembleth God the Father in his Person, as to the eternal nature. 2. The essence and substance of it, merely and purely as it is in itself, is first the wheel of nature, as to the first four * forms.
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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