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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.
15 artificer; one 6 worketh fire in the centre, and the other maketh tincture and water, and the third maketh the earthly 7 Mysterium magnum. 18. And yet it is not any new thing, but the very seed of man and woman, and is only 8 conceived in the mixture, and so only a twig groweth out of the tree. 1 Or bound, term, goal, or end. 2 masculine. 3 feminine. 4 ab extra, or externally. 5 work-master, workman, or smith. 6 forgeth or striketh fire, schmiedet. 7 great Mystery. 8 Or bred forth. THE NINTH QUESTION Which Way doth the Soul unite itself with the Body? 1. IT is explained before, that all the three Principles are in one another, and they generate a child according to their similitude, and they are all in one another, till the turba destroyeth the body; and then the soul is in the inward body, viz. in the divine body; or if it be false, in the turba, which giveth a body to it, according to the imagination; all according to the abominations it hath committed. 2. The soul standeth in the blood of the heart, there it hath its seat and original; the outward water and blood mingle themselves, but it doth not wholly receive the water of the blood, but it is captivated by the imagination. 3. It receiveth indeed naturally the inward water, but it receiveth not the Majesty with the tincture of the light, but only by the imagination; therefore many times a child is 1 more blessed than one that is old, who 2 hath the devil for his guest.
24. But there are not many born 3 holy, except only from good seed; and yet many times a wrathful turba insinuateth itself, according to some powerful constellation; as it is seen that honest parents many times have 4 wicked children, but God knoweth who are his. 5. You see it in Jacob and Esau, that strove in their mother's 5 womb; also in Cain and Abel; in Isaac and Ishmael; and many others. 1 Or in a better condition. 2 Or harboureth the devil. 3 Or saints. 4 Or evil. 5 Or body. THE TENTH QUESTION Whether is the Soul Ex Traduce, and propagated after a human bodily Manner; or every Time new created, and breathed in from God? 1. 1 VERY much wonder what kind of understanding and philosophy the world now hath, that it cannot * 1 resolve this; yet I do not blame you; for I know such questions are agitated by those that account themselves learned doctors in the schools and universities, who make great disputations about it. I cannot but wonder at the proud blindness, that there is no knowledge at all of God in 2 reason. 2. Now therefore, ye wise men, behold yourselves what you are, and what you understand; you understand even nothing of the Mystery, how will you then be teachers? It were better for you to carry a shepherd's crook in your hand, than to put on the garment of Christ.
33. O! you shall give an account for your seducing of the world; and yet you vaunt yourselves, as if ye were God, and arrogate divine 3 power to yourselves: Take heed what you do; you shall see against whom you have 4 kicked: I fear you are for the most part of you in Babel; awake, it is day. 1 griinden. 2 reason of the outward man. 3 Or might, or authority. Jus Divinum. 4 Or striven. * "resolve" {griinden), "fathom." 4. To you, my beloved Friend, I give this answer: That the soul is not every time new created and breathed in, but is propagated after a human manner, as a 1 branch groweth out of a tree, or, as I may better render it, as a man setteth or soweth corn or seed, and so a spirit and body groweth out of it. 5. And this only is the difference; that the three Principles are always in 2 strife about man, each would fain have him; so that many times a wonderful turba is introduced, while yet he remains in the seed. 6. But if the parents, both father and mother, have their souls clothed with Christ's flesh, the divine essentiality, then it cannot be: For Christ saith, 3 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit; yet the turba in time can enter in, 4 with the reason.
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.
15 artificer; one 6 worketh fire in the centre, and the other maketh tincture and water, and the third maketh the earthly 7 Mysterium magnum. 18. And yet it is not any new thing, but the very seed of man and woman, and is only 8 conceived in the mixture, and so only a twig groweth out of the tree. 1 Or bound, term, goal, or end. 2 masculine. 3 feminine. 4 ab extra, or externally. 5 work-master, workman, or smith. 6 forgeth or striketh fire, schmiedet. 7 great Mystery. 8 Or bred forth. THE NINTH QUESTION Which Way doth the Soul unite itself with the Body? 1. IT is explained before, that all the three Principles are in one another, and they generate a child according to their similitude, and they are all in one another, till the turba destroyeth the body; and then the soul is in the inward body, viz. in the divine body; or if it be false, in the turba, which giveth a body to it, according to the imagination; all according to the abominations it hath committed. 2. The soul standeth in the blood of the heart, there it hath its seat and original; the outward water and blood mingle themselves, but it doth not wholly receive the water of the blood, but it is captivated by the imagination. 3. It receiveth indeed naturally the inward water, but it receiveth not the Majesty with the tincture of the light, but only by the imagination; therefore many times a child is 1 more blessed than one that is old, who 2 hath the devil for his guest.
24. But there are not many born 3 holy, except only from good seed; and yet many times a wrathful turba insinuateth itself, according to some powerful constellation; as it is seen that honest parents many times have 4 wicked children, but God knoweth who are his. 5. You see it in Jacob and Esau, that strove in their mother's 5 womb; also in Cain and Abel; in Isaac and Ishmael; and many others. 1 Or in a better condition. 2 Or harboureth the devil. 3 Or saints. 4 Or evil. 5 Or body. THE TENTH QUESTION Whether is the Soul Ex Traduce, and propagated after a human bodily Manner; or every Time new created, and breathed in from God? 1. 1 VERY much wonder what kind of understanding and philosophy the world now hath, that it cannot * 1 resolve this; yet I do not blame you; for I know such questions are agitated by those that account themselves learned doctors in the schools and universities, who make great disputations about it. I cannot but wonder at the proud blindness, that there is no knowledge at all of God in 2 reason. 2. Now therefore, ye wise men, behold yourselves what you are, and what you understand; you understand even nothing of the Mystery, how will you then be teachers? It were better for you to carry a shepherd's crook in your hand, than to put on the garment of Christ.
33. O! you shall give an account for your seducing of the world; and yet you vaunt yourselves, as if ye were God, and arrogate divine 3 power to yourselves: Take heed what you do; you shall see against whom you have 4 kicked: I fear you are for the most part of you in Babel; awake, it is day. 1 griinden. 2 reason of the outward man. 3 Or might, or authority. Jus Divinum. 4 Or striven. * "resolve" {griinden), "fathom." 4. To you, my beloved Friend, I give this answer: That the soul is not every time new created and breathed in, but is propagated after a human manner, as a 1 branch groweth out of a tree, or, as I may better render it, as a man setteth or soweth corn or seed, and so a spirit and body groweth out of it. 5. And this only is the difference; that the three Principles are always in 2 strife about man, each would fain have him; so that many times a wonderful turba is introduced, while yet he remains in the seed. 6. But if the parents, both father and mother, have their souls clothed with Christ's flesh, the divine essentiality, then it cannot be: For Christ saith, 3 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit; yet the turba in time can enter in, 4 with the reason.
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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