Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
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.
117. The creation of this world was brought about by an awakening of the Will-spirit. The inner will, which exists within in itself, has stirred up its own nature, as the centre, which, passing out of itself, is desirous of the light which is pressing forth from the centre. Thus the centre has seized out of itself a being in desire; that is, it has seized or made for itself being in its own imagination in desire, and has also laid hold of the light's nature. 18. It has with the beginning laid hold of the Eternal; and therefore the beings of this world must enter by figure again into the Eternal, for they have been apprehended in the Eternal. But whatever was made or seized from the beginning in desire, that returns into its aether as into the nothing, merely into the mirror of imagination again. That is not of the Eternal, but is and belongs to the eternal Magic in desire. Like as a fire swallows up and consumes a substance whereof nothing remains, but becomes again as it was when as yet it was no substance. 19. And thus we give you to understand what this world's existence is. Nothing else than a 36 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
2coagulated smoke from the eternal aether, which thus has a fulfilment like the Eternal. It shuts itself in a centrum of a substance, and finally consumes itself again; and returns again into the eternal Magic, and is but for a while a wonder as a revelation of the Eternal, whereby the Eternal, which is manifest in itself, manifests itself also out of itself, and pours out its imagination; and thus renews that which was seized or made by the motion in desire, that the end may again enter into the beginning. 20. For nothing can enter into the freedom of the Eternal, except it be like the Eternal, subsist in the fire of the will, and be as subtle as the light's substantiality, that is, as a water which can dwell in a being wherein the light can dwell, and convey its lustre through. This is not laid hold of by the centrum naturae, and though it be the property of Nature, yet it is something eternal. 21. Thus we give you to understand that all that is born in this world, which has substance, which proceeds not from the eternal Essence, inherits not the Eternal; but its figure persists magically in the eternal Mystery, for it went originally at creation out of the Eternal. But its body and the entire substance of the source passes away, as a smoke is consumed; for it is from the beginning, and goeth into the end.
322. But whatever arises from the eternal Essence, from the essentiality of the eternal Light, cannot pass away. That only in it perishes, which, proceeding from the temporal, has entered into the THE FIRST POINT 37 Eternal ; as the outer flesh, which through imagination was in man introduced into the Eternal; that must be consumed like smoke. 23. But whatever originating from the eternal Imagination is re-introduced into the Eternal, persists eternally ; and that which is born from the Eternal (understand, from the Eternal Nature), and is in man the soul, remains eternally, for it has arisen from the Eternal. 24. But if something be born from the eternal centre of wrath, that may enter into its renovation, if it will. As the Eternal Nature of the essence of external Nature renews itself, and abandons that which it made in the beginning, and retains only the magical image which it brought out of the eternal will into the outward by the Verhum Fiat at creation; so may man also renew that which he makes. If he abandon the earthly, then he may renew that which he has progenerated from the Eternal ; but if it be not renewed, it remains in the source.
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.
117. The creation of this world was brought about by an awakening of the Will-spirit. The inner will, which exists within in itself, has stirred up its own nature, as the centre, which, passing out of itself, is desirous of the light which is pressing forth from the centre. Thus the centre has seized out of itself a being in desire; that is, it has seized or made for itself being in its own imagination in desire, and has also laid hold of the light's nature. 18. It has with the beginning laid hold of the Eternal; and therefore the beings of this world must enter by figure again into the Eternal, for they have been apprehended in the Eternal. But whatever was made or seized from the beginning in desire, that returns into its aether as into the nothing, merely into the mirror of imagination again. That is not of the Eternal, but is and belongs to the eternal Magic in desire. Like as a fire swallows up and consumes a substance whereof nothing remains, but becomes again as it was when as yet it was no substance. 19. And thus we give you to understand what this world's existence is. Nothing else than a 36 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
2coagulated smoke from the eternal aether, which thus has a fulfilment like the Eternal. It shuts itself in a centrum of a substance, and finally consumes itself again; and returns again into the eternal Magic, and is but for a while a wonder as a revelation of the Eternal, whereby the Eternal, which is manifest in itself, manifests itself also out of itself, and pours out its imagination; and thus renews that which was seized or made by the motion in desire, that the end may again enter into the beginning. 20. For nothing can enter into the freedom of the Eternal, except it be like the Eternal, subsist in the fire of the will, and be as subtle as the light's substantiality, that is, as a water which can dwell in a being wherein the light can dwell, and convey its lustre through. This is not laid hold of by the centrum naturae, and though it be the property of Nature, yet it is something eternal. 21. Thus we give you to understand that all that is born in this world, which has substance, which proceeds not from the eternal Essence, inherits not the Eternal; but its figure persists magically in the eternal Mystery, for it went originally at creation out of the Eternal. But its body and the entire substance of the source passes away, as a smoke is consumed; for it is from the beginning, and goeth into the end.
322. But whatever arises from the eternal Essence, from the essentiality of the eternal Light, cannot pass away. That only in it perishes, which, proceeding from the temporal, has entered into the THE FIRST POINT 37 Eternal ; as the outer flesh, which through imagination was in man introduced into the Eternal; that must be consumed like smoke. 23. But whatever originating from the eternal Imagination is re-introduced into the Eternal, persists eternally ; and that which is born from the Eternal (understand, from the Eternal Nature), and is in man the soul, remains eternally, for it has arisen from the Eternal. 24. But if something be born from the eternal centre of wrath, that may enter into its renovation, if it will. As the Eternal Nature of the essence of external Nature renews itself, and abandons that which it made in the beginning, and retains only the magical image which it brought out of the eternal will into the outward by the Verhum Fiat at creation; so may man also renew that which he makes. If he abandon the earthly, then he may renew that which he has progenerated from the Eternal ; but if it be not renewed, it remains in the source.
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.
No commentary for this page.