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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.
145. For the Light kindles the essences with the quality of love, so that they give from themselves a growth in the property of the spirit : viz. a friendly will, morality, piety, patience in suffering, hope to be delivered from evil; continually speaking of God's wonderful works in desire and joy, ringing forth, singing and rejoicing in the works and wonders of God ; always desiring to do right, to hinder evil and wickedness; always wishing to di*aw one's neighbour by love into the world of light; fleeing from evil; always subduing the evil affections with patience, in hope of being released therefrom; rejoicing in the hope of that which the eyes see not and external Reason knows not; continually THE FIRST POINT 43 pressing forth out of evil, and introducing the desire into the divine Being; always wishing to eat of God's bread. 46. These properties hath the new man who is born again from the light-world. These are his fruits, which the light-world continually brings forth in him quite hiddenly to the old Adam, and continually mortifies the old Adam of this world, and is always in combat with him. Which old Adam must therefore follow the new man; in sooth like a lazy ass which is obhged to carry the sack, his master continually lashing him on. Thus doth the new man to the old; he compels him, so that he must do what he would fain not do. What pertains to the joy of this world were more acceptable to the old ass; but he must thus be the servant.
247. Secondly, the principle has its growth, and gives its fruit to the third principle generally, viz. to the spirit of the great world, so that the external and internal turba are held in check. It presses through and gives f ruitf ulness ; it stays the fierceness of the stars, and breaks the constellation of the spirits and also of the firmamental heaven. It resists the wrath of the devil and the devices of wicked men, so far however as there are found saints who are worthy of it. 48. The third Principle has also its growth; and therein were generated and created from what is inward the stars and elements, which in this place together with the sun are called the third principle. For the two inward worlds, viz. the fire-world and light -world, have manifested themselves by the third 4)4 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
3principle ; and all is mixed together, good and evil, love and enmity, life and death. In every life there is death and fire; also, contrariwise, a desire of love, all according to the property of the internal world. And two kinds of fruit grow therefrom, evil and good; and each fruit has both properties. They show themselves moreover in every life in this world, so that wi-ath and the evil quality are always fighting against love, each property seeking and bearing fruit. What the good makes, that the evil destroys; and what the evil makes, that the good destroys. It is a perpetual war and contention, for the properties of both the inward principles are active externally; each bears and produces fruit to the internal kingdom, each will be lord. 49. Cold, as the issue from the inward centre, from the fierceness of death, will be lord, and be continually shutting up in death ; it always awakens the sting of death. And heat, as the issue from the right fire, will also be lord; it would subdue and consume all, and will be always crude or unfashioned, without a body. It is a spirit, and desires only a spirit-life. It gives sting to the cold, for oftentimes it kills it, so that it must forego its right and surrender itself to the heat.
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.
145. For the Light kindles the essences with the quality of love, so that they give from themselves a growth in the property of the spirit : viz. a friendly will, morality, piety, patience in suffering, hope to be delivered from evil; continually speaking of God's wonderful works in desire and joy, ringing forth, singing and rejoicing in the works and wonders of God ; always desiring to do right, to hinder evil and wickedness; always wishing to di*aw one's neighbour by love into the world of light; fleeing from evil; always subduing the evil affections with patience, in hope of being released therefrom; rejoicing in the hope of that which the eyes see not and external Reason knows not; continually THE FIRST POINT 43 pressing forth out of evil, and introducing the desire into the divine Being; always wishing to eat of God's bread. 46. These properties hath the new man who is born again from the light-world. These are his fruits, which the light-world continually brings forth in him quite hiddenly to the old Adam, and continually mortifies the old Adam of this world, and is always in combat with him. Which old Adam must therefore follow the new man; in sooth like a lazy ass which is obhged to carry the sack, his master continually lashing him on. Thus doth the new man to the old; he compels him, so that he must do what he would fain not do. What pertains to the joy of this world were more acceptable to the old ass; but he must thus be the servant.
247. Secondly, the principle has its growth, and gives its fruit to the third principle generally, viz. to the spirit of the great world, so that the external and internal turba are held in check. It presses through and gives f ruitf ulness ; it stays the fierceness of the stars, and breaks the constellation of the spirits and also of the firmamental heaven. It resists the wrath of the devil and the devices of wicked men, so far however as there are found saints who are worthy of it. 48. The third Principle has also its growth; and therein were generated and created from what is inward the stars and elements, which in this place together with the sun are called the third principle. For the two inward worlds, viz. the fire-world and light -world, have manifested themselves by the third 4)4 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
3principle ; and all is mixed together, good and evil, love and enmity, life and death. In every life there is death and fire; also, contrariwise, a desire of love, all according to the property of the internal world. And two kinds of fruit grow therefrom, evil and good; and each fruit has both properties. They show themselves moreover in every life in this world, so that wi-ath and the evil quality are always fighting against love, each property seeking and bearing fruit. What the good makes, that the evil destroys; and what the evil makes, that the good destroys. It is a perpetual war and contention, for the properties of both the inward principles are active externally; each bears and produces fruit to the internal kingdom, each will be lord. 49. Cold, as the issue from the inward centre, from the fierceness of death, will be lord, and be continually shutting up in death ; it always awakens the sting of death. And heat, as the issue from the right fire, will also be lord; it would subdue and consume all, and will be always crude or unfashioned, without a body. It is a spirit, and desires only a spirit-life. It gives sting to the cold, for oftentimes it kills it, so that it must forego its right and surrender itself to the heat.
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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