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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.
121. And in the third Principle, it is a glass of the whole world; all whatsoever is contained in heaven and earth, every property of every creature lieth therein; for that glass is like the firmament and stars. 22. *This is such a crown, as in which the 2 number of the end of the life of the outward man is contained, and all whatsoever prosperity and adversity can happen outwardly from the spirit of this world. 1 medicine, or counsel. 2 How long he shall live. * "This is such a crown," etc., lit., "Such a crown it [the soul in the third Principle] is, and therein stands the number of the outward man," etc. THE SIXTH QUESTION What is the Power and Ability of the Soul? 1. WE know, that whatsoever cometh out of the abyss, and is the ground of itself, can in itself do all things, for it l is its own essence, it maketh itself. 2. But though the soul be a twig out of this tree, yet now it is 2 become a creature, and is its 3 own; it is an image of the whole, and a child of the whole; for when a child is born, then the mother and the child are two, they are two persons; but so long as it is in the seed in the mother, so long the seed is the mother's, and the mother governeth it. 3. But when the child is born, then it hath its own life in itself, and hath the 4 centre of nature in its own 5 power: it governeth not only in itself, but also without itself in whatsoever is seed.
24. Understand us aright, thus: God's spirit, and the spirit of the soul, are two persons; each is free from the other, and yet both stand in the first beginning; each hath its own will. 5. Now it is but right, that the child should be obedient to his Father, upon forfeiture of the Father's inheritance: For the Holy Ghost is the 6 maker of the soul, he created it, and therefore the spirit of the soul should be obedient to the Holy Ghost, upon loss of the inheritance of the Holy Ghost, viz. the Deity. 1 Or subsisteth from itself. 2 Or entered into the condition of a creature. 3 Or sui juris, or a thing of itself. 4 centrum naturae. 5 form. 6 workmaster, or builder. 6. And though we have much to say here, yet it is very dangerous to say it, in regard of the false magia; for when the false spirit knoweth it, it practiseth witchcraft with it. 7. Yet we will speak, so that the children may understand us, and reserve the full speaking of it for them; for it is not good to write such things, not knowing who shall be the readers. 8. But to the wicked we say, that they belong to the devil, and shall have no part in our writings; we shut them out with a thick wall and strong enclosure, that they may be blind, and not know our spirit, for we will not set the serpent in 1 it; our will is gone out from them, and therefore they shall not 2 know us, though they should carry us in their hands: there is a fast seal upon it.
39. Christ said, 3 Ifye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, then you might say to the mountain, be removed, and cast into the sea: this is no vain word without truth or effect. The First Power of the Will of the Soul. 10. The Will ( 4 that goeth strongly forward) is faith. It frameth its own form in the spirit; it hath also such 5 power, that it can frame another image in the spirit, out of the centre of nature; it can 6 give another form to the body, according to the outward spirit; for the inward is lord of the outward, the outward must be obedient to it: It can change the outward into another image, but not permanent. 1 Viz. in our spirit. 2 Or understand us. 3 Matt. xvii. 20. 4 If it be strong. Note what faith is. The strong desire is faith. 5 Or might. 6 change the body into another shape. 11. For Adam's soul hath let in the turba of this world, so that if the turba seeth a strange child, it riseth against it instantly, and destroyeth it: It continueth only so long as the inward spirit can subdue and overpower the outward. 12. And this iform is called Necromancy, a transmutation, where the inward overpowereth the outward, for it is natural; and we understand, that when 2 we shall all be changed, that change will be made thus by the same turba, which hath the first Fiat in it.
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.
121. And in the third Principle, it is a glass of the whole world; all whatsoever is contained in heaven and earth, every property of every creature lieth therein; for that glass is like the firmament and stars. 22. *This is such a crown, as in which the 2 number of the end of the life of the outward man is contained, and all whatsoever prosperity and adversity can happen outwardly from the spirit of this world. 1 medicine, or counsel. 2 How long he shall live. * "This is such a crown," etc., lit., "Such a crown it [the soul in the third Principle] is, and therein stands the number of the outward man," etc. THE SIXTH QUESTION What is the Power and Ability of the Soul? 1. WE know, that whatsoever cometh out of the abyss, and is the ground of itself, can in itself do all things, for it l is its own essence, it maketh itself. 2. But though the soul be a twig out of this tree, yet now it is 2 become a creature, and is its 3 own; it is an image of the whole, and a child of the whole; for when a child is born, then the mother and the child are two, they are two persons; but so long as it is in the seed in the mother, so long the seed is the mother's, and the mother governeth it. 3. But when the child is born, then it hath its own life in itself, and hath the 4 centre of nature in its own 5 power: it governeth not only in itself, but also without itself in whatsoever is seed.
24. Understand us aright, thus: God's spirit, and the spirit of the soul, are two persons; each is free from the other, and yet both stand in the first beginning; each hath its own will. 5. Now it is but right, that the child should be obedient to his Father, upon forfeiture of the Father's inheritance: For the Holy Ghost is the 6 maker of the soul, he created it, and therefore the spirit of the soul should be obedient to the Holy Ghost, upon loss of the inheritance of the Holy Ghost, viz. the Deity. 1 Or subsisteth from itself. 2 Or entered into the condition of a creature. 3 Or sui juris, or a thing of itself. 4 centrum naturae. 5 form. 6 workmaster, or builder. 6. And though we have much to say here, yet it is very dangerous to say it, in regard of the false magia; for when the false spirit knoweth it, it practiseth witchcraft with it. 7. Yet we will speak, so that the children may understand us, and reserve the full speaking of it for them; for it is not good to write such things, not knowing who shall be the readers. 8. But to the wicked we say, that they belong to the devil, and shall have no part in our writings; we shut them out with a thick wall and strong enclosure, that they may be blind, and not know our spirit, for we will not set the serpent in 1 it; our will is gone out from them, and therefore they shall not 2 know us, though they should carry us in their hands: there is a fast seal upon it.
39. Christ said, 3 Ifye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, then you might say to the mountain, be removed, and cast into the sea: this is no vain word without truth or effect. The First Power of the Will of the Soul. 10. The Will ( 4 that goeth strongly forward) is faith. It frameth its own form in the spirit; it hath also such 5 power, that it can frame another image in the spirit, out of the centre of nature; it can 6 give another form to the body, according to the outward spirit; for the inward is lord of the outward, the outward must be obedient to it: It can change the outward into another image, but not permanent. 1 Viz. in our spirit. 2 Or understand us. 3 Matt. xvii. 20. 4 If it be strong. Note what faith is. The strong desire is faith. 5 Or might. 6 change the body into another shape. 11. For Adam's soul hath let in the turba of this world, so that if the turba seeth a strange child, it riseth against it instantly, and destroyeth it: It continueth only so long as the inward spirit can subdue and overpower the outward. 12. And this iform is called Necromancy, a transmutation, where the inward overpowereth the outward, for it is natural; and we understand, that when 2 we shall all be changed, that change will be made thus by the same turba, which hath the first Fiat in it.
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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