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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.
1not the source thereof, for it is broken off from that in death: and the limit of the separation is a death; so that the sinking hfe pierceth through death, and sprouteth through death forth in another world, and hath another substantiality (viz. another water) wherein the light shineth; and therein is no wrathfulness. 1 Or pain. 2 sky, or receptacle. * "which ariseth," lit., "which originateth." 144. For in the eternity * there is no death to detain anything with, but there is a kind of entering into several conditions: for that which hath no beginning, hath also no end nor * ground: and thus f the light ariseth from the source of the fire. 145. For the light dwelleth in the fire, and yet not in the fire; $it is another world, and it is another fire, called love, power, wonder, sweet, mild, pure; and it is no substance, also it is not nature, but 2 beyond nature, in another Principle. 146. It is nothing but a light-flaming powerful Majesty, and it hath its own spirit, which bringeth the sinking through death, and which sinking out of the anguish through death, maketh the sprouting forth through the death. 147. 3 It is free in itself, both from the fire and from the light; and it is not held or captivated by either of them both (any more than the fire detaineth the air): It proceedeth from the light, from the power of the light; and openeth all whatsoever is either in the source of the fire, or in the source of the hght. 1 foundation, or bottom.
22 extra, without. 3 The spirit. * "there is no death to detain anything with," etc., lit., "there is no death to stop anything, but such an entrance" [as previously described]. t "the light ariseth," lit., "the light originateth." X "it is another world," lit., "it is in another world." 148. Yet it hath no feeling of the fire in it; but it is a blower up of the fire of light, * a producer of the essences of love in the desiring power, and an opener of the essences of love. 149. And that we might be understood (speaking of the essences of love, as of another fire), let it be observed: behold, when the hght is so brought forth through the wrathfulness, that one fire goeth forth through the other, then the fire of hght desireth the wrathfulness no more, for it is dead to the wrathfulness, and it is a peculiar fire in itself, and it sendeth forth its life out of itself, which is a sprouting: for it is both desiring and attracting, whence essences proceed, and it hath all forms in it, as the fire-life hath also such a rising. 150. And yet the essences are born out of the * power of the hght; and when they
3fully taste one another, f there is a mere desire and satiety, and yet there is nothing that the desire of love can draw into itself, but it attracteth itself into itself, and maketh itself pregnant $with the power of the Majesty; so that this will becometh satiate, and yet it is nothing but this power, which is an image of the wonders: It is a similitude of the birth; and it is the power itself: it is the essence of the spirit, from whence the spirit hath its food; it goeth forth from the image, and 2 floateth as the air in this world doth. 1 Or virtue. 2 moveth, waveth. * "a producer of the essences," lit., "a leader," i.e. an introducer (Fuhrer) of the essences. f "there is a mere desire and satiety," i.e. "there is only pure desire and satisfaction." % "with the power of the Majesty," or, "in virtue of (aus Kraft) the Majesty." 151. Now the spirit finding nothing ilike itself, and so not finding itself but in the power, therefore it is desiring; for it dwelleth in the ground of the power, and yet is not the power itself, therefore its desiring maketh a similitude of itself 152. *For a desiring is a seeking, and the figure of the seeking is in the seeking; the figure maketh the seeking manifest: Thus the spirit also dwelleth in its own figure, in the power, and in the light of the Majesty; and 2 it is an image according to the property of the 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.
1not the source thereof, for it is broken off from that in death: and the limit of the separation is a death; so that the sinking hfe pierceth through death, and sprouteth through death forth in another world, and hath another substantiality (viz. another water) wherein the light shineth; and therein is no wrathfulness. 1 Or pain. 2 sky, or receptacle. * "which ariseth," lit., "which originateth." 144. For in the eternity * there is no death to detain anything with, but there is a kind of entering into several conditions: for that which hath no beginning, hath also no end nor * ground: and thus f the light ariseth from the source of the fire. 145. For the light dwelleth in the fire, and yet not in the fire; $it is another world, and it is another fire, called love, power, wonder, sweet, mild, pure; and it is no substance, also it is not nature, but 2 beyond nature, in another Principle. 146. It is nothing but a light-flaming powerful Majesty, and it hath its own spirit, which bringeth the sinking through death, and which sinking out of the anguish through death, maketh the sprouting forth through the death. 147. 3 It is free in itself, both from the fire and from the light; and it is not held or captivated by either of them both (any more than the fire detaineth the air): It proceedeth from the light, from the power of the light; and openeth all whatsoever is either in the source of the fire, or in the source of the hght. 1 foundation, or bottom.
22 extra, without. 3 The spirit. * "there is no death to detain anything with," etc., lit., "there is no death to stop anything, but such an entrance" [as previously described]. t "the light ariseth," lit., "the light originateth." X "it is another world," lit., "it is in another world." 148. Yet it hath no feeling of the fire in it; but it is a blower up of the fire of light, * a producer of the essences of love in the desiring power, and an opener of the essences of love. 149. And that we might be understood (speaking of the essences of love, as of another fire), let it be observed: behold, when the hght is so brought forth through the wrathfulness, that one fire goeth forth through the other, then the fire of hght desireth the wrathfulness no more, for it is dead to the wrathfulness, and it is a peculiar fire in itself, and it sendeth forth its life out of itself, which is a sprouting: for it is both desiring and attracting, whence essences proceed, and it hath all forms in it, as the fire-life hath also such a rising. 150. And yet the essences are born out of the * power of the hght; and when they
3fully taste one another, f there is a mere desire and satiety, and yet there is nothing that the desire of love can draw into itself, but it attracteth itself into itself, and maketh itself pregnant $with the power of the Majesty; so that this will becometh satiate, and yet it is nothing but this power, which is an image of the wonders: It is a similitude of the birth; and it is the power itself: it is the essence of the spirit, from whence the spirit hath its food; it goeth forth from the image, and 2 floateth as the air in this world doth. 1 Or virtue. 2 moveth, waveth. * "a producer of the essences," lit., "a leader," i.e. an introducer (Fuhrer) of the essences. f "there is a mere desire and satiety," i.e. "there is only pure desire and satisfaction." % "with the power of the Majesty," or, "in virtue of (aus Kraft) the Majesty." 151. Now the spirit finding nothing ilike itself, and so not finding itself but in the power, therefore it is desiring; for it dwelleth in the ground of the power, and yet is not the power itself, therefore its desiring maketh a similitude of itself 152. *For a desiring is a seeking, and the figure of the seeking is in the seeking; the figure maketh the seeking manifest: Thus the spirit also dwelleth in its own figure, in the power, and in the light of the Majesty; and 2 it is an image according to the property of the 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.
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