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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.
1Alias 'Teutonicus Pbilofophus, And in his Anfwer to the firft Queftion is the Turned EYE, OR, Thilojopbick GLOBE. (Which in it felfe contain eth alt Myft cries) with an Expofition of it. Written in the Germane Language, Anno. 1620. LONDON, Printed by M. S, for H. Blunden, at the Caftle in Corne-hill. 1647, [77i this Reprint the original Edition has been slightly altered, in places, in accordance with John Sparrow's translation, printed by L. Lloyd, 1665.] A CATALOGUE OF THE FORTY QUESTIONS THE author wrote this answer to these questions, chiefly for his friend's sake that sent them to him, as also for the benefit of all such as love the knowledge of Mysteries: this friend of his was Dr Balthasar Walter, who travelled for learning and hidden wisdom, and in his return home, happened to hear of this author in the city of Gorlitz; and when he had obtained acquaintance with him, he rejoiced, that at last he had found at home, in a poor cottage, that which he had travelled for so far, and not received satisfaction: then he went to the several universities in Germany, and did there collect such questions concerning the soul, as were thought and accounted impossible to be resolved fundamentally and convincingly; which he made this catalogue of, and sent to this author, from whom he received these answers according to his desire, wherein he and many others that saw them, received full satisfaction. QUESTION 1. Whence the soul proceeded at the beginning?
22. What is its essence, substance, nature and property? 3. How is it created in the image of God? 4. *What. and when, was the breathing of it in? 5. How is it peculiarly fashioned, and what is its form? 6. What is its power? 7. Whether is it corporeal, or not corporeal? 8. After what manner cometh it into the body of man? 9. f Which way doth it unite itself with the body? 10. Whether is it ex traduce and propagated after a human bodily manner? or every time new created and breathed in from God? 11. How, and where is it seated in man? 12. How, and what is the illumination of it? 13. How doth it feed upon the word of God? 14. Whether is such new soul without sin? 15. How cometh sin into it: seeing it is the work and creature of God"? 16. How is it kept in such union, both in the Adamical and regenerate Body'? 17. Whence and wherefore is the contrariety between the flesh and the spirit? * "What, and when," etc., lit., "What is the inbreathing and when doth it take place?" f "Which way" (was Massen), 'In what measure," or "How far," "To what degree." 18. How doth it depart from the body at the death of a man? 19. * How is it mortal, and how immortal? 20. How doth it return to God again? 21. Whither goeth it when it departeth from the body, be it saved or not saved? 22. What doth every soul departed? Doth it rejoice till the Last Judgment-day?
323. Whether do the souls of the wicked, without difference (for so long a time before the Day of Judgment), find so much as any mitigation or refreshment? 24. Whether do men's wishes profit them anything, or sensibly do them them anygood? 25. What is the hand of God, and the bosom of Abraham? 26. f Whether doth the soul take care for men, their friends or children, or their goods: and whether doth it know, see, approve or disapprove their undertakings? 27. f Whether doth it know this or that art, or occupation, whereof (while it was in the body) it had sufficient skill? 28. Whether also doth it obtain somewhat more certain knowledge of divine, angelical, earthly and diabolical matters, than it had in the body? * "How is it mortal," etc., lit., "Whether the soul be mortal or immortal." f "Whether doth the soul," etc., lit., "Whether doth the soul of the departed," etc. X "Whether doth it know," etc., lit., "Whether the souls know and understand, after death, those things and arts wherein they were, while in the body, specially well informed." 29. What is its rest, awakening and glorification? 30. What is the difference between the resurrection of the flesh and of the soul, both of the living and of the dead? 31. What kind of new glorified bodies shall they have? 32. What shall their form, condition, ioy, and glory be in the other life? 33. What kind of matter shall our bodies have in the life to come?
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.
1Alias 'Teutonicus Pbilofophus, And in his Anfwer to the firft Queftion is the Turned EYE, OR, Thilojopbick GLOBE. (Which in it felfe contain eth alt Myft cries) with an Expofition of it. Written in the Germane Language, Anno. 1620. LONDON, Printed by M. S, for H. Blunden, at the Caftle in Corne-hill. 1647, [77i this Reprint the original Edition has been slightly altered, in places, in accordance with John Sparrow's translation, printed by L. Lloyd, 1665.] A CATALOGUE OF THE FORTY QUESTIONS THE author wrote this answer to these questions, chiefly for his friend's sake that sent them to him, as also for the benefit of all such as love the knowledge of Mysteries: this friend of his was Dr Balthasar Walter, who travelled for learning and hidden wisdom, and in his return home, happened to hear of this author in the city of Gorlitz; and when he had obtained acquaintance with him, he rejoiced, that at last he had found at home, in a poor cottage, that which he had travelled for so far, and not received satisfaction: then he went to the several universities in Germany, and did there collect such questions concerning the soul, as were thought and accounted impossible to be resolved fundamentally and convincingly; which he made this catalogue of, and sent to this author, from whom he received these answers according to his desire, wherein he and many others that saw them, received full satisfaction. QUESTION 1. Whence the soul proceeded at the beginning?
22. What is its essence, substance, nature and property? 3. How is it created in the image of God? 4. *What. and when, was the breathing of it in? 5. How is it peculiarly fashioned, and what is its form? 6. What is its power? 7. Whether is it corporeal, or not corporeal? 8. After what manner cometh it into the body of man? 9. f Which way doth it unite itself with the body? 10. Whether is it ex traduce and propagated after a human bodily manner? or every time new created and breathed in from God? 11. How, and where is it seated in man? 12. How, and what is the illumination of it? 13. How doth it feed upon the word of God? 14. Whether is such new soul without sin? 15. How cometh sin into it: seeing it is the work and creature of God"? 16. How is it kept in such union, both in the Adamical and regenerate Body'? 17. Whence and wherefore is the contrariety between the flesh and the spirit? * "What, and when," etc., lit., "What is the inbreathing and when doth it take place?" f "Which way" (was Massen), 'In what measure," or "How far," "To what degree." 18. How doth it depart from the body at the death of a man? 19. * How is it mortal, and how immortal? 20. How doth it return to God again? 21. Whither goeth it when it departeth from the body, be it saved or not saved? 22. What doth every soul departed? Doth it rejoice till the Last Judgment-day?
323. Whether do the souls of the wicked, without difference (for so long a time before the Day of Judgment), find so much as any mitigation or refreshment? 24. Whether do men's wishes profit them anything, or sensibly do them them anygood? 25. What is the hand of God, and the bosom of Abraham? 26. f Whether doth the soul take care for men, their friends or children, or their goods: and whether doth it know, see, approve or disapprove their undertakings? 27. f Whether doth it know this or that art, or occupation, whereof (while it was in the body) it had sufficient skill? 28. Whether also doth it obtain somewhat more certain knowledge of divine, angelical, earthly and diabolical matters, than it had in the body? * "How is it mortal," etc., lit., "Whether the soul be mortal or immortal." f "Whether doth the soul," etc., lit., "Whether doth the soul of the departed," etc. X "Whether doth it know," etc., lit., "Whether the souls know and understand, after death, those things and arts wherein they were, while in the body, specially well informed." 29. What is its rest, awakening and glorification? 30. What is the difference between the resurrection of the flesh and of the soul, both of the living and of the dead? 31. What kind of new glorified bodies shall they have? 32. What shall their form, condition, ioy, and glory be in the other life? 33. What kind of matter shall our bodies have in the life to come?
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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