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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.
1* "for it goeth not a minute further, it hath its limit hidden"; or "for it goeth not a minute further than its limit, which is hidden," etc. 127. And now the end hath found the beginning again, and ye shall see, also feel and find what paradise hath been, even every one of them that shall be born in God. 128. For (to speak after the manner of reason, and not according to God) paradise is born again, but ye shall not escape mortality, nor the wrath in the flesh, but paradise is now already manifest in the mind, in the soul of the children of God, and they have the true taste of the power. 129. And no subtlety nor power can hinder it, no subtlety can suppress it, nor can any devil destroy it; for the end hath found the beginning, there can be no hindrance of it; the power of falsehood breaketh, and there remaineth nothing but a waiting for the bridegroom; for the children of God shall be found in paradise, when the turba in the wrath shall be swallowed up. We speak high things, yet we understand and know them certainly in the wonders.
2130. Thus, as is mentioned above (if you understand us aright) there is born out of the wrathfulness of the anger, out of the eternal centre (out of which this world was produced and created, which is a l seeking of the eternal) in the Spirit of this world (in this Principle wherein we now live) and there will always be born, falsehood, covetousness, subtlety, deceit, enmity in the will; lying, murder, pride, desire of honour, self -power, art, 2 wit, the wisdom of this world proceeding from reason, they all come from this root, and remain in the wonders of God's anger; and though reason and 3 self -prudence be never so fine, yet it is in the anger of God, and springeth from the abyss. 1 Or attraction. 2 cunning, or policy. 3 Or wit. 131. And here behold thy self, thou fair world; it is no fable, as thou holdest it to be, it is known in Temario Sancto, and he that cannot get within the limit of that, he is captivated by Antichrist, and belongeth at last to that lake from whence he sprang; it is no time to linger now, but the doors stand open, and whatsoever hath grown in the turba, shall be swallowed up with it.
3132. So also consider the eternal fire further, and take a similitude from all sorts of fire in this world; for that which is a spirit, in the eternity, is a substance in this world. You see also that fire in itself is an anguishing, wrathful, rising, bitter essence and source; and yet you see nothing else in the proper form of fire, but the flash which shineth; you see not the source, you can only feel that. 133. You see also that the fire when it burneth, sendeth up from itself a smoke, in which there is water, whence soot cometh, which sticketh to the sides, especially where the fire is enclosed and not free, then the soot is seen, as in a furnace; and the soot and water are in one another, and thus the material earth cometh originally from the eternal fire, which Lucifer kindled: Then in the wrathfulness time began, and the creation was after that manner, which is mentioned in the 1 third book. 1 Threefold Life. 134. Understand the l great Mystery further: you see that every fire giveth light, and you see also that air goeth forth from the source of the fire, and you know very well that if the fire had no air to blow it up, it would be smothered, as all fires are smothered when they have no air, and yet they produce air.
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.
1* "for it goeth not a minute further, it hath its limit hidden"; or "for it goeth not a minute further than its limit, which is hidden," etc. 127. And now the end hath found the beginning again, and ye shall see, also feel and find what paradise hath been, even every one of them that shall be born in God. 128. For (to speak after the manner of reason, and not according to God) paradise is born again, but ye shall not escape mortality, nor the wrath in the flesh, but paradise is now already manifest in the mind, in the soul of the children of God, and they have the true taste of the power. 129. And no subtlety nor power can hinder it, no subtlety can suppress it, nor can any devil destroy it; for the end hath found the beginning, there can be no hindrance of it; the power of falsehood breaketh, and there remaineth nothing but a waiting for the bridegroom; for the children of God shall be found in paradise, when the turba in the wrath shall be swallowed up. We speak high things, yet we understand and know them certainly in the wonders.
2130. Thus, as is mentioned above (if you understand us aright) there is born out of the wrathfulness of the anger, out of the eternal centre (out of which this world was produced and created, which is a l seeking of the eternal) in the Spirit of this world (in this Principle wherein we now live) and there will always be born, falsehood, covetousness, subtlety, deceit, enmity in the will; lying, murder, pride, desire of honour, self -power, art, 2 wit, the wisdom of this world proceeding from reason, they all come from this root, and remain in the wonders of God's anger; and though reason and 3 self -prudence be never so fine, yet it is in the anger of God, and springeth from the abyss. 1 Or attraction. 2 cunning, or policy. 3 Or wit. 131. And here behold thy self, thou fair world; it is no fable, as thou holdest it to be, it is known in Temario Sancto, and he that cannot get within the limit of that, he is captivated by Antichrist, and belongeth at last to that lake from whence he sprang; it is no time to linger now, but the doors stand open, and whatsoever hath grown in the turba, shall be swallowed up with it.
3132. So also consider the eternal fire further, and take a similitude from all sorts of fire in this world; for that which is a spirit, in the eternity, is a substance in this world. You see also that fire in itself is an anguishing, wrathful, rising, bitter essence and source; and yet you see nothing else in the proper form of fire, but the flash which shineth; you see not the source, you can only feel that. 133. You see also that the fire when it burneth, sendeth up from itself a smoke, in which there is water, whence soot cometh, which sticketh to the sides, especially where the fire is enclosed and not free, then the soot is seen, as in a furnace; and the soot and water are in one another, and thus the material earth cometh originally from the eternal fire, which Lucifer kindled: Then in the wrathfulness time began, and the creation was after that manner, which is mentioned in the 1 third book. 1 Threefold Life. 134. Understand the l great Mystery further: you see that every fire giveth light, and you see also that air goeth forth from the source of the fire, and you know very well that if the fire had no air to blow it up, it would be smothered, as all fires are smothered when they have no air, and yet they produce air.
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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