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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.
1162. THOSE circles should be like round globes through which a cross should go, for it is the Eye of eternity, which cannot be portrayed; it representeth the Eye of the essence of all essences; the Eye of God, which is the glass of wisdom, wherein all wonders have been seen from eternity; and hereby is described how it is entered into an essence, for the Reader of this book to consider of 163. Not as if it could be described or portrayed, for the mind only apprehendeth it, and only 3 that which can walk in the divine Mystery; not by art or reason, but by that understanding which the spirit of God openeth to the human spirit of the soul in the great Mystery, otherwise it cannot be apprehended. 1 Or semicircles. 2 third Principle. 3 that mind. 164. The Reader should observe the numbers, and also what standeth within or without a circle, and where every word in a circle beginneth and endeth; all of it hath its peculiar signification and meaning, for every word standeth in its due place. 165. That which is without the circle and wheel, signifieth the liberty of the abyss 1 without the Principle. Number 1. Abyss. 166. The great Mystery of the abyss, wherein the eternal divine essence, in the glass of wisdom, doth bring itself forth in the 2 ground, is marked with the Number 1, and the Number 2 standeth close by it; which is so to be understood round about that whole circle. Of the Three Circles.
2167. The three circles drawn about one another, signify the eternal birth of the divine essence; and all eternal Mysteries, both within nature and without, viz. the original of all essences, as it is here described. Note of the editor: the left dark half circle has the following numbers and text, from top to bottom: 37 Proud Devil 24 Darkness 25 Magic Fire 26 Anguish 23 Will 11 The Soul's Will (horizontal bar) 18 Wrath 20 Devil 22 Art Of that half of the Threefold Circle at the Left Hand, and of Number 2. 168. The threefold circle at the left hand (where also there standeth without the circle, at Number 2, the Mystery 3 without nature) signifieth how the abyss bringeth itself into a ground; that is, how the Eye of eternity, viz. the First will (which is called the Father of eternity and of all beginnings) bringeth itself in the wisdom into Trinity, into an eternal ground, and dwelleth in itself, and possesseth itself; and how it bringeth itself into nature; also how essence ariseth, as also * perceptibility and perception. 1 extra Principium. 2 Or centre. 3 extra naturam.
3* "perceptibility and perception" (Empfindlichkeit und Findlichkeit). The idea is that of sensation, consciousness and experience in both passive and active modes. According to some German commentators, the first word, "Empfindlichkeit," may be rendered "awareness," and the second, "Findlichkeit," which is of Bohme's own coining, denotes a grasping in and holding, a retention of that which is perceived. Of that half of the Threefold Circle at the Right Hand. 169. The other threefold circle at the right hand, signifieth the divine essence of the Holy Trinity, and the angelical world, which ariseth from the great Mystery of eternity, and is manifested by the Principle of fire. What the Cross signifieth. 170. The Cross [whose arms go] through both the threefold Circles, signifieth the Persons of the Deity; and how they part themselves in the eternal unigeniture, as is further mentioned hereafter, according to the numbers. 1 Or semicircles, or half globes. Of the Eye in the Circle. 171. The Eye in the circle through which the Cross goeth with an 1 angle, each [half of the Eye] signifieth a world, both that at the left, and that at the right: That at the left signifieth the great Mystery of the dark world, where the Eye of the wonders bringeth itself into nature; that at the right signifieth the hght world, where the divine Mystery, having brought itself forth through the fire, dwelleth in the majestic hght, with the first Mystery of the wonders.
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.
1162. THOSE circles should be like round globes through which a cross should go, for it is the Eye of eternity, which cannot be portrayed; it representeth the Eye of the essence of all essences; the Eye of God, which is the glass of wisdom, wherein all wonders have been seen from eternity; and hereby is described how it is entered into an essence, for the Reader of this book to consider of 163. Not as if it could be described or portrayed, for the mind only apprehendeth it, and only 3 that which can walk in the divine Mystery; not by art or reason, but by that understanding which the spirit of God openeth to the human spirit of the soul in the great Mystery, otherwise it cannot be apprehended. 1 Or semicircles. 2 third Principle. 3 that mind. 164. The Reader should observe the numbers, and also what standeth within or without a circle, and where every word in a circle beginneth and endeth; all of it hath its peculiar signification and meaning, for every word standeth in its due place. 165. That which is without the circle and wheel, signifieth the liberty of the abyss 1 without the Principle. Number 1. Abyss. 166. The great Mystery of the abyss, wherein the eternal divine essence, in the glass of wisdom, doth bring itself forth in the 2 ground, is marked with the Number 1, and the Number 2 standeth close by it; which is so to be understood round about that whole circle. Of the Three Circles.
2167. The three circles drawn about one another, signify the eternal birth of the divine essence; and all eternal Mysteries, both within nature and without, viz. the original of all essences, as it is here described. Note of the editor: the left dark half circle has the following numbers and text, from top to bottom: 37 Proud Devil 24 Darkness 25 Magic Fire 26 Anguish 23 Will 11 The Soul's Will (horizontal bar) 18 Wrath 20 Devil 22 Art Of that half of the Threefold Circle at the Left Hand, and of Number 2. 168. The threefold circle at the left hand (where also there standeth without the circle, at Number 2, the Mystery 3 without nature) signifieth how the abyss bringeth itself into a ground; that is, how the Eye of eternity, viz. the First will (which is called the Father of eternity and of all beginnings) bringeth itself in the wisdom into Trinity, into an eternal ground, and dwelleth in itself, and possesseth itself; and how it bringeth itself into nature; also how essence ariseth, as also * perceptibility and perception. 1 extra Principium. 2 Or centre. 3 extra naturam.
3* "perceptibility and perception" (Empfindlichkeit und Findlichkeit). The idea is that of sensation, consciousness and experience in both passive and active modes. According to some German commentators, the first word, "Empfindlichkeit," may be rendered "awareness," and the second, "Findlichkeit," which is of Bohme's own coining, denotes a grasping in and holding, a retention of that which is perceived. Of that half of the Threefold Circle at the Right Hand. 169. The other threefold circle at the right hand, signifieth the divine essence of the Holy Trinity, and the angelical world, which ariseth from the great Mystery of eternity, and is manifested by the Principle of fire. What the Cross signifieth. 170. The Cross [whose arms go] through both the threefold Circles, signifieth the Persons of the Deity; and how they part themselves in the eternal unigeniture, as is further mentioned hereafter, according to the numbers. 1 Or semicircles, or half globes. Of the Eye in the Circle. 171. The Eye in the circle through which the Cross goeth with an 1 angle, each [half of the Eye] signifieth a world, both that at the left, and that at the right: That at the left signifieth the great Mystery of the dark world, where the Eye of the wonders bringeth itself into nature; that at the right signifieth the hght world, where the divine Mystery, having brought itself forth through the fire, dwelleth in the majestic hght, with the first Mystery of the wonders.
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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