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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.
13. In a thing which hath its rise from two beginnings, being of equal weight, one part will sink down, if weight be added to it, be it either good or evil that is added. 1 seeking, or longing. 2 Verbum Domini. 4. Sin maketh not itself, but the will maketh it, it cometh from the imagination into the spirit; for the spirit entereth into a thing, and is infected by that thing, and so the turba of that thing cometh into the spirit, and first destroyeth the image of God. 5. And the turba proceedeth further, and searcheth deeper, and so it findeth the abyss, viz. the soul; and seeketh in the soul, and so findeth the wrathful fire, by which it mingleth itself with the thing that is so introduced into the spirit; and thus at length sin is wholly born. Now, therefore, whatsoever desireth to bring that which is outward into the will, that is sin. 6. The will ought to incline to nothing, but to meekness and love, as if it were a nothing, or dead; we should only desire to hve to God, so that God may work in us, and whatsoever we do besides, our will must be directed so, that we do it to God. 7. But if we set our will upon the 1 essence, then we bring the essence into the spirit, and that taketh possession of our heart; and then the turba is born, and the soul is captivated by the thing. 8. And therefore we answer, that no soul cometh pure from the mother's 2 womb, be it begotten by holy or unholy parents.
29. And as the abyss and the anger of God, and also the earthly world, depend wholly on God the Father, and yet cannot comprehend and touch his heart and spirit; so it is also with the child in the mother's womb, if it be begotten by godly parents, then each Principle 3 standeth in its own part. 10. When the turba taketh the earthly body, then the heaven taketh the spirit, and the Majesty filleth the spirit; and then the soul is in God, it is free from pain. 11. But while the soul remain eth in the earthly life, it is not free; because the earthly spirit doth, with its imagination, always bring its abomination into it; and the spirit must continually stand in strife against the earthly life. 1 covetousness, or earthly desire, viz. pride, goods, power, and honour. 2 Or body. 3 Or hath a part, or one part, or share in it. THE SIXTEENTH QUESTION How is the Soul kept in such Union, both in the Adamical and Regenerate Body"? 1. WE have mentioned before, that there are three Principles, which are all three in the soul already, and are in one another, as one thing: and you must understand, that the strife in the soul beginneth before, in the seed, while it lieth hidden in both sexes, in the man and woman; *when also the turba stirreth up itself before, in that it driveth the essence of the seed to a false imagination, to a false desire. 2. Though the spirit tameth the body, yet it imagineth, and this the turba
3causeth in the seed; and no man can well deny, but that many times this imagination is offensive to him, and where there is a right spirit, it wisheth it 1 anathematized: And you must know, that the spirit of the soul sticketh thus in a miserable f strait, and cannot be loosed till the turba taketh the body. 1 banished from him. * "when also the turba stirreth up itself before" (so erreget sich schon die Turba), lit., "when also the turba stirreth up itself already." t "strait" (Quetsch) means a painful squeezing or crushing. 3. Now there is never any union between the outward and the regenerate man; the outward man would always devour the regenerate, for they are in one another, but each hath its own Principle, so that the outward cannot overpower the inward, if the spirit doth but continue Hn strife. 4. They may very well depend on one another; for all three set forth God's works of wonder, if they continue in due order, each keeping its own Principle. 5. For the soul hath the government of the fire, and it is the cause of the life of all 2 three: and the 3 spirit hath the government of the light, in which the noble heavenly image consisteth with the divine body: and the outward spirit hath the government of the earthly life; this should seek and manifest the wonders, and the inward spirit should give it understanding to do that; and the soul should manifest the abyss (viz. the highest secret) to 4 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.
13. In a thing which hath its rise from two beginnings, being of equal weight, one part will sink down, if weight be added to it, be it either good or evil that is added. 1 seeking, or longing. 2 Verbum Domini. 4. Sin maketh not itself, but the will maketh it, it cometh from the imagination into the spirit; for the spirit entereth into a thing, and is infected by that thing, and so the turba of that thing cometh into the spirit, and first destroyeth the image of God. 5. And the turba proceedeth further, and searcheth deeper, and so it findeth the abyss, viz. the soul; and seeketh in the soul, and so findeth the wrathful fire, by which it mingleth itself with the thing that is so introduced into the spirit; and thus at length sin is wholly born. Now, therefore, whatsoever desireth to bring that which is outward into the will, that is sin. 6. The will ought to incline to nothing, but to meekness and love, as if it were a nothing, or dead; we should only desire to hve to God, so that God may work in us, and whatsoever we do besides, our will must be directed so, that we do it to God. 7. But if we set our will upon the 1 essence, then we bring the essence into the spirit, and that taketh possession of our heart; and then the turba is born, and the soul is captivated by the thing. 8. And therefore we answer, that no soul cometh pure from the mother's 2 womb, be it begotten by holy or unholy parents.
29. And as the abyss and the anger of God, and also the earthly world, depend wholly on God the Father, and yet cannot comprehend and touch his heart and spirit; so it is also with the child in the mother's womb, if it be begotten by godly parents, then each Principle 3 standeth in its own part. 10. When the turba taketh the earthly body, then the heaven taketh the spirit, and the Majesty filleth the spirit; and then the soul is in God, it is free from pain. 11. But while the soul remain eth in the earthly life, it is not free; because the earthly spirit doth, with its imagination, always bring its abomination into it; and the spirit must continually stand in strife against the earthly life. 1 covetousness, or earthly desire, viz. pride, goods, power, and honour. 2 Or body. 3 Or hath a part, or one part, or share in it. THE SIXTEENTH QUESTION How is the Soul kept in such Union, both in the Adamical and Regenerate Body"? 1. WE have mentioned before, that there are three Principles, which are all three in the soul already, and are in one another, as one thing: and you must understand, that the strife in the soul beginneth before, in the seed, while it lieth hidden in both sexes, in the man and woman; *when also the turba stirreth up itself before, in that it driveth the essence of the seed to a false imagination, to a false desire. 2. Though the spirit tameth the body, yet it imagineth, and this the turba
3causeth in the seed; and no man can well deny, but that many times this imagination is offensive to him, and where there is a right spirit, it wisheth it 1 anathematized: And you must know, that the spirit of the soul sticketh thus in a miserable f strait, and cannot be loosed till the turba taketh the body. 1 banished from him. * "when also the turba stirreth up itself before" (so erreget sich schon die Turba), lit., "when also the turba stirreth up itself already." t "strait" (Quetsch) means a painful squeezing or crushing. 3. Now there is never any union between the outward and the regenerate man; the outward man would always devour the regenerate, for they are in one another, but each hath its own Principle, so that the outward cannot overpower the inward, if the spirit doth but continue Hn strife. 4. They may very well depend on one another; for all three set forth God's works of wonder, if they continue in due order, each keeping its own Principle. 5. For the soul hath the government of the fire, and it is the cause of the life of all 2 three: and the 3 spirit hath the government of the light, in which the noble heavenly image consisteth with the divine body: and the outward spirit hath the government of the earthly life; this should seek and manifest the wonders, and the inward spirit should give it understanding to do that; and the soul should manifest the abyss (viz. the highest secret) to 4 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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