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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.
1153. The spirit is not the image, but the seeking and its desiring is the image, for it dwelleth in itself, in its seeking; and in its figure it is another person than the figure of the power, and according to this essence God is said to be threefold in Persons. 154. But that we may open your eyes wide, that you may see the whole ground of the Deity (for now it both shall and must be made manifest), you must look upon the great wonders, which we lost by going forth from Paradise, where now we must labour in the six working days of this world; therefore consider now what and where we are, and you shall here find such a thing as was hidden even to nature. 1 without itself. 2 Viz. the desiring. * "For a desiring is a seeking" (Sucht), or, "For the desiring is an impulse" or "craving." See $ , par. 5. 155. Behold, when you will speak of the Trinity, then look upon the first number, upon the A, upon the eternal beginning, which is the Father; and then look upon the O, in the middle, viz. the Son; and then look upon the V, which is the proceeding of the Holy Ghost, which in himself goeth with the sinking through the sharp wrathfulness into the second Principle, which hath E, and goeth forth through the power, as a light flaming flash which hath I. [In the margin next to the end of par. 155:] A.O.V.E.I. I.E.O.V.A.
2156. Now put thereto the swift going of the flaming flash, that is T, the omnipotence of the eternal 1 God, which consumeth in the wrathfulness as a flash, but in the 2 love in the I, as an exceeding loving God, exalteth, * through pierceth, and powerfully exulteth: Now if you put the L thereinto, then you have the matter of the divine essence; in the power it is an angel, and in the out -birth out of the centre it is 3 gold. 157. The world is covetous and ambitious (especially those that will be counted Masters of Arts), and say they know gold, and are blind people. Why do you not then seek it? Perhaps thou wilt ask, How should we seek it? Go with the outward life into death, there the outward life must die, and in the anguish yield itself up into the number of the crown, viz. into the number 1000, and there the end is, and the death ariseth to a glorious life with a new fair body; you need afford nothing to it but the soul, which will then bring forth much fruit, and then thou hast an angel which is free from the wrathfulness, for it is wholly pure; seek it, and you shall find it. 1 GoTtes. 2 Llebe. 3 GOLT. * "through pierceth" (durchdringet), or "penetrateth through." * 158. But thou supposest, perhaps, to find it thus in thy old garment: no, Friend, we will now teach you another A, B, C; learn that first, then seek, if you will then have a love to it, if not, leave it; for the 1 is much nobler and more precious than theL.
3159. Observe, take the 2 A, viz. the beginning of the AVge, eye, with the V, which is the spirit's mark, and go with it through the O; then you will make a stroke and mark through the O, thus, Q). 1 CD CD DIC 1^" N° w P ar ^ t ne 1 t wo Principles one from another, seeing they part themselves, and set one by another, each with a half like a rainbow, thus, } Q '■> f° r so they stand in the figure. Set the fierce Wrath at the left 0, and the Light at the right C, for otherwise a man cannot describe them so exactly, but they are one globe Q). 1 T\ a £M 161. And 1 take the Spirit, which is generated in the fire, and go with it out from the fierce wrath, into the sinking down, through death, into the other half eye, viz. into the second Principle, then you will see this 3iC 3E Figure, which standeth thus, 9|£ . 1 GOTT, GOD. * Paragraphs 158—161 are reprinted from Sparrow's translation of 1665. GOLT, gold. 2 N AOT © The Exposition of the Philosophic Globe or Eye of both the Threefold l Circles, which signify especially the two Eternal Principles; the 2 Third being also clearly understood therein, and how it must be understood.
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.
1153. The spirit is not the image, but the seeking and its desiring is the image, for it dwelleth in itself, in its seeking; and in its figure it is another person than the figure of the power, and according to this essence God is said to be threefold in Persons. 154. But that we may open your eyes wide, that you may see the whole ground of the Deity (for now it both shall and must be made manifest), you must look upon the great wonders, which we lost by going forth from Paradise, where now we must labour in the six working days of this world; therefore consider now what and where we are, and you shall here find such a thing as was hidden even to nature. 1 without itself. 2 Viz. the desiring. * "For a desiring is a seeking" (Sucht), or, "For the desiring is an impulse" or "craving." See $ , par. 5. 155. Behold, when you will speak of the Trinity, then look upon the first number, upon the A, upon the eternal beginning, which is the Father; and then look upon the O, in the middle, viz. the Son; and then look upon the V, which is the proceeding of the Holy Ghost, which in himself goeth with the sinking through the sharp wrathfulness into the second Principle, which hath E, and goeth forth through the power, as a light flaming flash which hath I. [In the margin next to the end of par. 155:] A.O.V.E.I. I.E.O.V.A.
2156. Now put thereto the swift going of the flaming flash, that is T, the omnipotence of the eternal 1 God, which consumeth in the wrathfulness as a flash, but in the 2 love in the I, as an exceeding loving God, exalteth, * through pierceth, and powerfully exulteth: Now if you put the L thereinto, then you have the matter of the divine essence; in the power it is an angel, and in the out -birth out of the centre it is 3 gold. 157. The world is covetous and ambitious (especially those that will be counted Masters of Arts), and say they know gold, and are blind people. Why do you not then seek it? Perhaps thou wilt ask, How should we seek it? Go with the outward life into death, there the outward life must die, and in the anguish yield itself up into the number of the crown, viz. into the number 1000, and there the end is, and the death ariseth to a glorious life with a new fair body; you need afford nothing to it but the soul, which will then bring forth much fruit, and then thou hast an angel which is free from the wrathfulness, for it is wholly pure; seek it, and you shall find it. 1 GoTtes. 2 Llebe. 3 GOLT. * "through pierceth" (durchdringet), or "penetrateth through." * 158. But thou supposest, perhaps, to find it thus in thy old garment: no, Friend, we will now teach you another A, B, C; learn that first, then seek, if you will then have a love to it, if not, leave it; for the 1 is much nobler and more precious than theL.
3159. Observe, take the 2 A, viz. the beginning of the AVge, eye, with the V, which is the spirit's mark, and go with it through the O; then you will make a stroke and mark through the O, thus, Q). 1 CD CD DIC 1^" N° w P ar ^ t ne 1 t wo Principles one from another, seeing they part themselves, and set one by another, each with a half like a rainbow, thus, } Q '■> f° r so they stand in the figure. Set the fierce Wrath at the left 0, and the Light at the right C, for otherwise a man cannot describe them so exactly, but they are one globe Q). 1 T\ a £M 161. And 1 take the Spirit, which is generated in the fire, and go with it out from the fierce wrath, into the sinking down, through death, into the other half eye, viz. into the second Principle, then you will see this 3iC 3E Figure, which standeth thus, 9|£ . 1 GOTT, GOD. * Paragraphs 158—161 are reprinted from Sparrow's translation of 1665. GOLT, gold. 2 N AOT © The Exposition of the Philosophic Globe or Eye of both the Threefold l Circles, which signify especially the two Eternal Principles; the 2 Third being also clearly understood therein, and how it must be understood.
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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