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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.
19. And the outward spirit (viz. the air), and the whole outward Principle, with the stars and elements, did cleave to the inward, and the outward spirit breathed its life 5 in the same manner with the soul, through the nostrils into the heart, into the outward heart, into the 6 earthly flesh, which was not then so earthy, for it came from the matrix, from the 7 seeking, from which the earth became corporeal. 10. And thus the Holy Ghost was carried upon the chariot of the soul, upon the inward majestic will, and moved upon the water: for the water comprehended him not, and therefore he moved upon it, and in it, it is all one; and the soul burned out from the blood of the heart, as a light doth from a candle, and went through all the three Principles, as a king through his dominions. 1 Note. — The hour when Christ was hanged on the cross. Matt, xxvii. 45. Mark xv. 33. 2 Or kingly. 3 Trinity, or Number Three. 4 Or of growing essences. 5 at the same time. 6 Adam's first flesh. 7 drawing, or longing. 11. And it could rule powerfully over the outward Principle, if its will were entered again into the Heart of God, into the Word of the Lord. 12. But the l source of the wrath also insinuated itself with the breathing in, viz. with the original of the soul.
213. So that the soul could not remain God's image, unless it remained in humility and obedience, and yielded its will into Gods will (wherein it was an angel, and the child of God), or else it was * very 2 difficult for a creature 3 to rule such two Principles, as the wrathful and the outward are; the outward being also born out of the wrathful. 14. Therefore its temptation was not the mere biting of an apple, nor did it continue only for some few hours, but forty days, just so long as Christ was tempted in the wilderness, and that also by all the three Principles; and so were the children of Israel in the wilderness, while Moses was forty days in the mount, when they stood not, but made a calf. 1 Or property. 2 Or dangerous. 3 to overpower. * "very difficult" (eitel Fdhrlichkeit), "dangerous," or "sheer risk." St Martin translates, un danger eminent. THE FIFTH QUESTION How is the Soul peculiarly fashioned, and what is its Form? 1. WHEN a twig groweth out of a tree, the form of it is like the tree; indeed it is not the stock and the root, but yet the form of it is like the tree: so also when a mother bringeth forth a child, it is an image of her. 2. And this cannot be otherwise; for there is nothing else that can make it otherwise, unless it belongeth to the turba, which many times awakeneth a monster according to the spirit of this world, according to its * inceptive maker, as in the 2 menstrua, the Fiat maketh a 3 menstruous monster in the turba.
33. So we must understand that the soul is in the form of a round globe, according to the eye of God, through which the cross goeth, and which divideth itself into two parts, viz. into two eyes, standing back to back, as we have made the figure before with two 4 rainbows, the cross going through them both, and with one point reaching upwards in the midst between the bows, which 5 resembleth a sprouting through the fire, through the anguish as through death, and yet it is no death, but a 6 going forth out of itself into another source; standing thus in the midst between the two bows, as a sprout springing out of the cross. 2 Mond signifieth the earthly matrix of the elementary macrocosm, in the microcosm, wherein 1 the imagination, or longing, or lusting of a woman with child, 3 maketh a mond monstrum, a moon monster, monstrum lunare, or a lust-monster; such a child, as is deformed by the mother's wanting of her longing. '3E 5 Or signifieth. 6 an exit. 4. And the arm of the cross at the right hand, signifieth the spirit of the soul, which entereth into the Majesty of the light, and clotheth the soul (viz. the centre) with divine essentiality. 5. The arm at the left hand of the cross signifieth its original in the fire, and containeth in it the first Principle, and so belongeth to the Father, and standeth in the original eye, in the strong and eager power, as a lord and ruler over nature.
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.
19. And the outward spirit (viz. the air), and the whole outward Principle, with the stars and elements, did cleave to the inward, and the outward spirit breathed its life 5 in the same manner with the soul, through the nostrils into the heart, into the outward heart, into the 6 earthly flesh, which was not then so earthy, for it came from the matrix, from the 7 seeking, from which the earth became corporeal. 10. And thus the Holy Ghost was carried upon the chariot of the soul, upon the inward majestic will, and moved upon the water: for the water comprehended him not, and therefore he moved upon it, and in it, it is all one; and the soul burned out from the blood of the heart, as a light doth from a candle, and went through all the three Principles, as a king through his dominions. 1 Note. — The hour when Christ was hanged on the cross. Matt, xxvii. 45. Mark xv. 33. 2 Or kingly. 3 Trinity, or Number Three. 4 Or of growing essences. 5 at the same time. 6 Adam's first flesh. 7 drawing, or longing. 11. And it could rule powerfully over the outward Principle, if its will were entered again into the Heart of God, into the Word of the Lord. 12. But the l source of the wrath also insinuated itself with the breathing in, viz. with the original of the soul.
213. So that the soul could not remain God's image, unless it remained in humility and obedience, and yielded its will into Gods will (wherein it was an angel, and the child of God), or else it was * very 2 difficult for a creature 3 to rule such two Principles, as the wrathful and the outward are; the outward being also born out of the wrathful. 14. Therefore its temptation was not the mere biting of an apple, nor did it continue only for some few hours, but forty days, just so long as Christ was tempted in the wilderness, and that also by all the three Principles; and so were the children of Israel in the wilderness, while Moses was forty days in the mount, when they stood not, but made a calf. 1 Or property. 2 Or dangerous. 3 to overpower. * "very difficult" (eitel Fdhrlichkeit), "dangerous," or "sheer risk." St Martin translates, un danger eminent. THE FIFTH QUESTION How is the Soul peculiarly fashioned, and what is its Form? 1. WHEN a twig groweth out of a tree, the form of it is like the tree; indeed it is not the stock and the root, but yet the form of it is like the tree: so also when a mother bringeth forth a child, it is an image of her. 2. And this cannot be otherwise; for there is nothing else that can make it otherwise, unless it belongeth to the turba, which many times awakeneth a monster according to the spirit of this world, according to its * inceptive maker, as in the 2 menstrua, the Fiat maketh a 3 menstruous monster in the turba.
33. So we must understand that the soul is in the form of a round globe, according to the eye of God, through which the cross goeth, and which divideth itself into two parts, viz. into two eyes, standing back to back, as we have made the figure before with two 4 rainbows, the cross going through them both, and with one point reaching upwards in the midst between the bows, which 5 resembleth a sprouting through the fire, through the anguish as through death, and yet it is no death, but a 6 going forth out of itself into another source; standing thus in the midst between the two bows, as a sprout springing out of the cross. 2 Mond signifieth the earthly matrix of the elementary macrocosm, in the microcosm, wherein 1 the imagination, or longing, or lusting of a woman with child, 3 maketh a mond monstrum, a moon monster, monstrum lunare, or a lust-monster; such a child, as is deformed by the mother's wanting of her longing. '3E 5 Or signifieth. 6 an exit. 4. And the arm of the cross at the right hand, signifieth the spirit of the soul, which entereth into the Majesty of the light, and clotheth the soul (viz. the centre) with divine essentiality. 5. The arm at the left hand of the cross signifieth its original in the fire, and containeth in it the first Principle, and so belongeth to the Father, and standeth in the original eye, in the strong and eager power, as a lord and ruler over nature.
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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