Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
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.
1118. For all substances go forward in their progress so long till the end findeth the beginning, and then the beginning swalloweth up the end again, and is as it ever was; except that the 4 model remaineth, for the model did proceed from the eternal, from which the creation came forth into a substance; viz. the eye of God's wonders. 119. You must know also, that the spirit of the air proceedeth from the bitter eternal fire-spirit, which also goeth forward after the wonders, in the will of the 5 seeking of the essences, which are the stars: and therefore it maketh 6 whirlings, and cometh from many places; as from above, from beneath, and sideways, and many times round about like a wheel, all according as the fire-seeking is kindled by the essences of the stars. 120. This is wholly like the wheel of the mind, and it hath its own spirit, and a proper life of its own, and a proper will of its own: and therefore it is a Principle, and continueth so long till the end findeth the beginning, then the beginning taketh the end into itself, f and maketh the middle, which manifesteth what is done between both beginning and end therein, which ye will consider further of, unless ye be 7 foolish 8 virgins. 1 Viz. seeking. 2 Verbum Fiat. 3 Or attraction. 4 figure, or idea. 5 Or attraction. 6 Or wheelings, or jarring. 7 Or mad. 8 Matt. xxv. 8.
2* "For this world is a material seeking, comes from the eternal," or "For this world is a material attraction derived from the eternal attraction." f "and maketh the middle . . . both beginning and end," lit., "and maketh manifest the middle and what hath taken place therein, between beginning and end." 121. Also this 1 dominion continueth *no longer than it can remain in the number of the creation: For every day of the creation is a circle of a revolution in the eye, and hath its 2 number, whereof 3 ten is the +, the highest number: and man hath ten times ten, viz. a hundred, for his number; and in the crown of paradise he hath the number thousand; but in the eternal essentiahty, in the divine centre of the Majesty, he hath 4 no number, O. 122. Now look narrowly, with very clear eyes: God created this world, with every substance, in six days, and they were finished about the middle of the sixth day, somewhat after noon towards the evening, and then the rest, and the Sabbath of the seventh day, began on the sixth day: and so the eternal rest found the beginning of the creation on the sixth day afternoon; this was the end, then came the beginning and the end together in one again, and it was manifest what God had made in the days. 1 regimen, viz. turba. 2 1. number, or time. 3 10. X. 100. 1000. 4 0. * "no longer than it can remain," or "no longer than it hath to remain," i.e. no longer than is appointed.
3123. Seeing then man, by his imagination hath destroyed the heavenly angelical body, and hath brought it into a corruptible number, that is, into the outward Principle, therefore he is in it; for he hath lost the paradisical number, and is placed in the hundredth number, wherein he is also now given up to the outward hfe, as to his leader, that is, he hath given himself up to this leader, so that his number, to be fulfilled in the circle of the outward Principle, is clearly known to us. 124. If we knew certainly the hour of the sixth day wherein the creation was finished, we could then set you down the year and day (we mean the 1 last day), *for it goeth not a minute further, it hath its hmit hidden in the inward circle. 125. Therefore know for certain that the time is near; for in the sixth day afternoon the rest of the eternal day began, and therefore God instituted the Sabbath of the seventh day for a rest, and an everlasting remembrance. 126. And as the rest began on the sixth day towards the evening, and the entrance to the manifestation of the 2 works of the creation (the end then taking in the beginning again, and the six days stood thus in the circle as a wonder), so know, that ye were created in paradise, and yet are gone out from it into the spirit of wrathfulness into death; 3 which hath now wrought its wonders in you these 5500 years and upwards. 1 Or Judgment Day. 2 working, viz. the wonders. 3 which spirit.
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.
1118. For all substances go forward in their progress so long till the end findeth the beginning, and then the beginning swalloweth up the end again, and is as it ever was; except that the 4 model remaineth, for the model did proceed from the eternal, from which the creation came forth into a substance; viz. the eye of God's wonders. 119. You must know also, that the spirit of the air proceedeth from the bitter eternal fire-spirit, which also goeth forward after the wonders, in the will of the 5 seeking of the essences, which are the stars: and therefore it maketh 6 whirlings, and cometh from many places; as from above, from beneath, and sideways, and many times round about like a wheel, all according as the fire-seeking is kindled by the essences of the stars. 120. This is wholly like the wheel of the mind, and it hath its own spirit, and a proper life of its own, and a proper will of its own: and therefore it is a Principle, and continueth so long till the end findeth the beginning, then the beginning taketh the end into itself, f and maketh the middle, which manifesteth what is done between both beginning and end therein, which ye will consider further of, unless ye be 7 foolish 8 virgins. 1 Viz. seeking. 2 Verbum Fiat. 3 Or attraction. 4 figure, or idea. 5 Or attraction. 6 Or wheelings, or jarring. 7 Or mad. 8 Matt. xxv. 8.
2* "For this world is a material seeking, comes from the eternal," or "For this world is a material attraction derived from the eternal attraction." f "and maketh the middle . . . both beginning and end," lit., "and maketh manifest the middle and what hath taken place therein, between beginning and end." 121. Also this 1 dominion continueth *no longer than it can remain in the number of the creation: For every day of the creation is a circle of a revolution in the eye, and hath its 2 number, whereof 3 ten is the +, the highest number: and man hath ten times ten, viz. a hundred, for his number; and in the crown of paradise he hath the number thousand; but in the eternal essentiahty, in the divine centre of the Majesty, he hath 4 no number, O. 122. Now look narrowly, with very clear eyes: God created this world, with every substance, in six days, and they were finished about the middle of the sixth day, somewhat after noon towards the evening, and then the rest, and the Sabbath of the seventh day, began on the sixth day: and so the eternal rest found the beginning of the creation on the sixth day afternoon; this was the end, then came the beginning and the end together in one again, and it was manifest what God had made in the days. 1 regimen, viz. turba. 2 1. number, or time. 3 10. X. 100. 1000. 4 0. * "no longer than it can remain," or "no longer than it hath to remain," i.e. no longer than is appointed.
3123. Seeing then man, by his imagination hath destroyed the heavenly angelical body, and hath brought it into a corruptible number, that is, into the outward Principle, therefore he is in it; for he hath lost the paradisical number, and is placed in the hundredth number, wherein he is also now given up to the outward hfe, as to his leader, that is, he hath given himself up to this leader, so that his number, to be fulfilled in the circle of the outward Principle, is clearly known to us. 124. If we knew certainly the hour of the sixth day wherein the creation was finished, we could then set you down the year and day (we mean the 1 last day), *for it goeth not a minute further, it hath its hmit hidden in the inward circle. 125. Therefore know for certain that the time is near; for in the sixth day afternoon the rest of the eternal day began, and therefore God instituted the Sabbath of the seventh day for a rest, and an everlasting remembrance. 126. And as the rest began on the sixth day towards the evening, and the entrance to the manifestation of the 2 works of the creation (the end then taking in the beginning again, and the six days stood thus in the circle as a wonder), so know, that ye were created in paradise, and yet are gone out from it into the spirit of wrathfulness into death; 3 which hath now wrought its wonders in you these 5500 years and upwards. 1 Or Judgment Day. 2 working, viz. the wonders. 3 which spirit.
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.
No commentary for this page.