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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.
1[Next to par. 12:] Note, pride is the fiery life, and the reflection of covetousness as in a glass. 13. Nay, if thou shouldst sit in the cross of the holy 2 Ternary, and wert encompassed with all the holy angels, yet thou wouldst sit but in the darkness, and thy spirit would shine but in the glass of that essence, which thou thyself hast brought into the spirit. 1 Or shut up. 2 Or Trinity. 14. But if now the soul with its spirit, in its image will see God, and behold the eternal light in God's Majesty, then it must go in a twofold way in this world; and then it shall obtain the eternal body, viz. the image of God, and also sustain the outward life with the earthly body, and then it shall bring all the wonders (for which God created it in an outward life, which wonders also it ought to awaken in the outward life) into the inward life, and eternally rejoice itself in them, and have them as a 1 glass; and this is the right way, as followeth. The exceeding Precious 2 Gate of the Aurora. 15. Behold, thou beloved soul, if thou wilt attain the light of God, and see with the eye of God, and wilt also enjoy the light of this world, and sustain thy body, and seek the wonders of God, then do it as God himself doth it.
216. Thou hast in thy soul two eyes, which are set together back to back; the one Hooketh into eternity, the other 4 looketh backward into nature, and proceedeth forth always, and seeketh in the desire, and always maketh one glass after another: let it be so, it should be so, God will have it so. 1 looking-glass, also as a sport. 2 Or Gate of the Day-spring from on high. 3 in resignation. 4 in selfhood. 17. But turn not this * other eye back into the longing, but with the right eye always draw the left backwards to thee; and let not 2 this eye with the will of the wonders go from thee, viz. from that eye which is turned into the liberty, but draw to thee its wonders which it hath manifested and wrought. 18. Let this eye seek food for the earthly body, but let it not enter into the food, that is, into covetousness, but draw it close to the seeing eye, and let it not go. 19. But let the hands labour and get food; and let the eye draw the wonders to it, but not 3 matter; else that which is drawn in will be darkness to thee. 20. Let the devil roar at thee, making a noise before thy left eye: he cannot get in, unless thou sufferest thine eye to receive in 4 matter. 21. Thus, when thy earthly body perisheth, thou shalt see with the right eye all the wonders 5 in the left eye, which thou hast wrought and found out here; and when the earthly hfe is gone, then thy left eye is free from the 6 nature of wrath.
322. And although it hath nature (for it is nature itself which awakeneth and retaineth the wonders), yet then it is with the wonders, in the eternal liberty: seeing it hath taken in nothing of matter, therefore it is free. 23. And nature with its wonders is a fiery sharpness, and taketh hold of the eternal liberty, and so maketh Majesty in the liberty in the wonders; whence the right eye (which is as it were dead here in this life) becometh enlightened, and doth 7 rejoice with the left eye for ever, in the exceeding joyful Majesty, and seeth God with both eyes eternally. 1 Viz. the left eye. 2 the left, or eye of nature. 3 covetousness, envy, pride, or anger. 4 somewhat wherein it trusteth. 5 Or which are in the eye of reason. 6 Ephes. ii. 3. TiKva ipOaei opyrjq. 7 Or solace itself. 24. This is one gate. He that seeth and knoweth this rightly in the spirit, he seeth all that God is, and can do; he seeth also therewith through heaven, hell, and earth, and through the Essence of all essences: also it l is the whole Scripture, whatsoever hath been written from the beginning of the world hitherto; but this is a rare and precious 2 seeing; the old Adam knoweth it not, he seeth it not, only the new man that is born in God. 25. But seeing the weak mind will so hardly understand us, therefore we will set it down more plainly. Behold! if thou wilt see God's light in thy soul, and would be enlightened from God, then do thus.
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.
1[Next to par. 12:] Note, pride is the fiery life, and the reflection of covetousness as in a glass. 13. Nay, if thou shouldst sit in the cross of the holy 2 Ternary, and wert encompassed with all the holy angels, yet thou wouldst sit but in the darkness, and thy spirit would shine but in the glass of that essence, which thou thyself hast brought into the spirit. 1 Or shut up. 2 Or Trinity. 14. But if now the soul with its spirit, in its image will see God, and behold the eternal light in God's Majesty, then it must go in a twofold way in this world; and then it shall obtain the eternal body, viz. the image of God, and also sustain the outward life with the earthly body, and then it shall bring all the wonders (for which God created it in an outward life, which wonders also it ought to awaken in the outward life) into the inward life, and eternally rejoice itself in them, and have them as a 1 glass; and this is the right way, as followeth. The exceeding Precious 2 Gate of the Aurora. 15. Behold, thou beloved soul, if thou wilt attain the light of God, and see with the eye of God, and wilt also enjoy the light of this world, and sustain thy body, and seek the wonders of God, then do it as God himself doth it.
216. Thou hast in thy soul two eyes, which are set together back to back; the one Hooketh into eternity, the other 4 looketh backward into nature, and proceedeth forth always, and seeketh in the desire, and always maketh one glass after another: let it be so, it should be so, God will have it so. 1 looking-glass, also as a sport. 2 Or Gate of the Day-spring from on high. 3 in resignation. 4 in selfhood. 17. But turn not this * other eye back into the longing, but with the right eye always draw the left backwards to thee; and let not 2 this eye with the will of the wonders go from thee, viz. from that eye which is turned into the liberty, but draw to thee its wonders which it hath manifested and wrought. 18. Let this eye seek food for the earthly body, but let it not enter into the food, that is, into covetousness, but draw it close to the seeing eye, and let it not go. 19. But let the hands labour and get food; and let the eye draw the wonders to it, but not 3 matter; else that which is drawn in will be darkness to thee. 20. Let the devil roar at thee, making a noise before thy left eye: he cannot get in, unless thou sufferest thine eye to receive in 4 matter. 21. Thus, when thy earthly body perisheth, thou shalt see with the right eye all the wonders 5 in the left eye, which thou hast wrought and found out here; and when the earthly hfe is gone, then thy left eye is free from the 6 nature of wrath.
322. And although it hath nature (for it is nature itself which awakeneth and retaineth the wonders), yet then it is with the wonders, in the eternal liberty: seeing it hath taken in nothing of matter, therefore it is free. 23. And nature with its wonders is a fiery sharpness, and taketh hold of the eternal liberty, and so maketh Majesty in the liberty in the wonders; whence the right eye (which is as it were dead here in this life) becometh enlightened, and doth 7 rejoice with the left eye for ever, in the exceeding joyful Majesty, and seeth God with both eyes eternally. 1 Viz. the left eye. 2 the left, or eye of nature. 3 covetousness, envy, pride, or anger. 4 somewhat wherein it trusteth. 5 Or which are in the eye of reason. 6 Ephes. ii. 3. TiKva ipOaei opyrjq. 7 Or solace itself. 24. This is one gate. He that seeth and knoweth this rightly in the spirit, he seeth all that God is, and can do; he seeth also therewith through heaven, hell, and earth, and through the Essence of all essences: also it l is the whole Scripture, whatsoever hath been written from the beginning of the world hitherto; but this is a rare and precious 2 seeing; the old Adam knoweth it not, he seeth it not, only the new man that is born in God. 25. But seeing the weak mind will so hardly understand us, therefore we will set it down more plainly. Behold! if thou wilt see God's light in thy soul, and would be enlightened from God, then do thus.
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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