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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.
1342. For no spirit can sound itself: It seeth well its deep, even into the abyss, but it comprehendeth not its 3 maker; it beholdeth him indeed, and diveth into him, even to the abyss; but it knoweth not its 4 making, this is only hidden to it, and nothing else. 1 Or created, or formed. 2 Or not to be dived into by us. 3 former, or moulder. 4 forming, or fashioning. 343. For a child knoweth its father and mother well, but it knoweth not how its father made it; it is also as 1 highly graduated as its father; but it is hidden to it, how it was in the seed: and though it soundeth that, yet it knoweth not the time and place; for it was in the seed, in the wonders, and in the life a spirit in the wonders: And here we are commanded to leave off diving any further, and to be silent. 344. For we are a creature, and should speak but so far as belongeth to a creature to know, in the inward and outward, in body and soul, in God, angels, men, and devils; also in beasts, fowls, worms, in plants and grass, in heaven and hell; all this we are able to sound, but not our own making. 345. * And yet we know and find the first Fiat in 2 that; though indeed we know not that which first moved God to create: we know well the making of the soul, but how that which 3 was in its essence from eternity is become movable, we know no ground of that, for it hath nothing that could f awaken that; and it hath an eternal will, which is without beginning, and unchangeable.
21 That is, as perfectly a man. Quoad genus humanum. 2 Viz. our own making. 3 Or stood. * "And yet we know and find," etc. Lit., "and though we knew the Fiat and knew how we have been made, yet we should not [or do not] know the first motion of God towards creation." The present tense is used in the original, but a condition is implied by the construction of the sentence, and the conditional mood should be used in English. St Martin's rendering is also in the conditional form. f "awaken" (erregen), "to excite," or "set in motion." 346. But if we should say, The angels and souls have been from eternity in the spirit: the propagation of the soul will not permit that, as we see by experience: Therefore *this is only God's Mystery; and the creature should continue in humility and obedience under God, and not soar higher, f for it is not God. 347. God is a spirit from eternity without ground and beginning; but the spirit of the soul and of angels hath a beginning, and are in God's hand: the Ternary hath the l casting shovel, which will purge the 2 floor. 348. We must only have patience and humility in obedience, here in this life, or else our proceeding from God availeth nothing; the devil was indeed an angel, but his pride threw him into darkness: Let none climb 3 above the cross, or if he do, he will fall into hell to the devil.
3349. God will have children near him, and not 4 lords; he is Lord, and none else: We have received of his fulness, we are born out of his essences, we are his true children, not step-children out of a strange glass; also not a similitude only, but children; the body is a similitude, and the spirit is a similitude of God's spirit, but the 5 true soul is a child born out of God. 1 Or fan. 2 Or threshing floor. 3 We should not go beyond obedience, patience, humility and chastity, and live according to our own self-will, and desire. 4 such as wdl domineer. 5 Or right. * "this is only God's Mystery," lit., "this is the Mystery of God alone." f "for it is not God," lit., "for it is not equal with God" (Gott gleich). 350. God's spirit witnesseth to our spirits, that we are the children of God, 1 not in that manner which Babel * 2 teacheth, who would so willingly be God upon earth; but our souls are children begotten of God's seed; our heavenly body, which the heavenly soul 3 weareth, cometh out of the divine body, and is hidden from the devil, and the old Adam. 351. Therefore, my beloved Brother in the divine body, know this clearly; and it is our Answer to your first Question, Whence the soul proceedeth. It proceedeth from God, out of eternity, without ground and number, and endureth in its own eternity; [352.] but the beginning to the moving of the creature, which is done in God, that should be mentioned no further.
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.
1342. For no spirit can sound itself: It seeth well its deep, even into the abyss, but it comprehendeth not its 3 maker; it beholdeth him indeed, and diveth into him, even to the abyss; but it knoweth not its 4 making, this is only hidden to it, and nothing else. 1 Or created, or formed. 2 Or not to be dived into by us. 3 former, or moulder. 4 forming, or fashioning. 343. For a child knoweth its father and mother well, but it knoweth not how its father made it; it is also as 1 highly graduated as its father; but it is hidden to it, how it was in the seed: and though it soundeth that, yet it knoweth not the time and place; for it was in the seed, in the wonders, and in the life a spirit in the wonders: And here we are commanded to leave off diving any further, and to be silent. 344. For we are a creature, and should speak but so far as belongeth to a creature to know, in the inward and outward, in body and soul, in God, angels, men, and devils; also in beasts, fowls, worms, in plants and grass, in heaven and hell; all this we are able to sound, but not our own making. 345. * And yet we know and find the first Fiat in 2 that; though indeed we know not that which first moved God to create: we know well the making of the soul, but how that which 3 was in its essence from eternity is become movable, we know no ground of that, for it hath nothing that could f awaken that; and it hath an eternal will, which is without beginning, and unchangeable.
21 That is, as perfectly a man. Quoad genus humanum. 2 Viz. our own making. 3 Or stood. * "And yet we know and find," etc. Lit., "and though we knew the Fiat and knew how we have been made, yet we should not [or do not] know the first motion of God towards creation." The present tense is used in the original, but a condition is implied by the construction of the sentence, and the conditional mood should be used in English. St Martin's rendering is also in the conditional form. f "awaken" (erregen), "to excite," or "set in motion." 346. But if we should say, The angels and souls have been from eternity in the spirit: the propagation of the soul will not permit that, as we see by experience: Therefore *this is only God's Mystery; and the creature should continue in humility and obedience under God, and not soar higher, f for it is not God. 347. God is a spirit from eternity without ground and beginning; but the spirit of the soul and of angels hath a beginning, and are in God's hand: the Ternary hath the l casting shovel, which will purge the 2 floor. 348. We must only have patience and humility in obedience, here in this life, or else our proceeding from God availeth nothing; the devil was indeed an angel, but his pride threw him into darkness: Let none climb 3 above the cross, or if he do, he will fall into hell to the devil.
3349. God will have children near him, and not 4 lords; he is Lord, and none else: We have received of his fulness, we are born out of his essences, we are his true children, not step-children out of a strange glass; also not a similitude only, but children; the body is a similitude, and the spirit is a similitude of God's spirit, but the 5 true soul is a child born out of God. 1 Or fan. 2 Or threshing floor. 3 We should not go beyond obedience, patience, humility and chastity, and live according to our own self-will, and desire. 4 such as wdl domineer. 5 Or right. * "this is only God's Mystery," lit., "this is the Mystery of God alone." f "for it is not God," lit., "for it is not equal with God" (Gott gleich). 350. God's spirit witnesseth to our spirits, that we are the children of God, 1 not in that manner which Babel * 2 teacheth, who would so willingly be God upon earth; but our souls are children begotten of God's seed; our heavenly body, which the heavenly soul 3 weareth, cometh out of the divine body, and is hidden from the devil, and the old Adam. 351. Therefore, my beloved Brother in the divine body, know this clearly; and it is our Answer to your first Question, Whence the soul proceedeth. It proceedeth from God, out of eternity, without ground and number, and endureth in its own eternity; [352.] but the beginning to the moving of the creature, which is done in God, that should be mentioned no further.
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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