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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.
150. In the same way the sun, or the light, will also have reason and be lord. It overcomes heat and cold, for it makes in its lucid gentleness water, and introduces in the light's spirit a friendly spirit, viz. the air; although fire gives the force of the wind, and the sun the gentle spirit which is properly THE FIRST POINT 45 called air. It is indeed one, but has two properties, one according to the fire, as a terrible uplifting, and one according to the light, as a gentle life. 51. The external principle is thus a perpetual war and contention, a building and breaking; what the sun or the light builds, that the cold destroys, and the fire consumes it entirely. 52. In this struggle its growth rises in mere combat and disunion ; the one draws out of the earth its f ruitfulness, the other destroys or swallows it up again. 53. In all animals it causes malice and strife ; for all animals and all the life of this world, except man, is only a fruit of the third principle and possesses only the life of the third principle, both its spirit and body are only this. And all that moves in this world, and man by his spirit and visible body in flesh and blood, is also only the fruit of this same essence, and nothing else at all.
254. But seeing he has in himself also the two inward worlds (which give him the right understanding, discernment and disposition; which also during this time of the earthly and elemental body are in conflict with one another), let him therefore take heed; the world that he makes lord in him, the same will eternally be lord in him. During this time he can break, and no farther. When the outward breaks, then all stands in its aether. The soul is free, and is the punctum, and has the understanding; it may incline whither it will and may support which principle it pleases; the aether into which it enters, there it is eternally. 46 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS 55. And thus we understand the foundation of the three principles ( like as the tongue of the beam of a" balance) ; what God and eternity is and is able to do, and what growth each principle gives from itself, from its property, and how we are to investigate the ground of Nature. Thus the first part or point is completed. THE SECOND POINT Of the mixed tree of evil and good^ or the life of the three principles in one another; how they unite and agree. CHAPTER III
31. In God's kingdom, viz. in the light-world, no more than one principle is truly known. For the Light rules, and the other sources and properties all exist hiddenly as a mystery; for they must all serve the Light, and give their will to the Light. And therefore the wrath-essence is transformed in the Light into a desire of Hght and of love, into gentleness. 2. Although the properties, viz. sour, bitter, anguish and the sharp pang in fire remain eternally even in the light-world, yet none of them is manifest in its property; but they are all of them together only causes of life, mobility and joy. 3. That which in the dark world is a pang, is in the light-world a pleasing delight ; and what in the dark is a stinging and enmity, is in the light an uplifting joy. And that which in the dark is a fear, terror and trembling, is in the light a shout of joy, a ringing forth and singing. And that could not be, if originally there were no such fervent, austere source. 47 48 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS 4. The dark world is therefore the ground and origin of the Hght-world; and the terrible evil must be a cause of the good, and all is God's. 5. But the light-world is only called God; and the principle between the light-world and dark world is called God's anger and fierce wrath. If this be awakened, as by the devil and all wicked men, these are then abandoned of the Light and fall into the dark world.
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.
150. In the same way the sun, or the light, will also have reason and be lord. It overcomes heat and cold, for it makes in its lucid gentleness water, and introduces in the light's spirit a friendly spirit, viz. the air; although fire gives the force of the wind, and the sun the gentle spirit which is properly THE FIRST POINT 45 called air. It is indeed one, but has two properties, one according to the fire, as a terrible uplifting, and one according to the light, as a gentle life. 51. The external principle is thus a perpetual war and contention, a building and breaking; what the sun or the light builds, that the cold destroys, and the fire consumes it entirely. 52. In this struggle its growth rises in mere combat and disunion ; the one draws out of the earth its f ruitfulness, the other destroys or swallows it up again. 53. In all animals it causes malice and strife ; for all animals and all the life of this world, except man, is only a fruit of the third principle and possesses only the life of the third principle, both its spirit and body are only this. And all that moves in this world, and man by his spirit and visible body in flesh and blood, is also only the fruit of this same essence, and nothing else at all.
254. But seeing he has in himself also the two inward worlds (which give him the right understanding, discernment and disposition; which also during this time of the earthly and elemental body are in conflict with one another), let him therefore take heed; the world that he makes lord in him, the same will eternally be lord in him. During this time he can break, and no farther. When the outward breaks, then all stands in its aether. The soul is free, and is the punctum, and has the understanding; it may incline whither it will and may support which principle it pleases; the aether into which it enters, there it is eternally. 46 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS 55. And thus we understand the foundation of the three principles ( like as the tongue of the beam of a" balance) ; what God and eternity is and is able to do, and what growth each principle gives from itself, from its property, and how we are to investigate the ground of Nature. Thus the first part or point is completed. THE SECOND POINT Of the mixed tree of evil and good^ or the life of the three principles in one another; how they unite and agree. CHAPTER III
31. In God's kingdom, viz. in the light-world, no more than one principle is truly known. For the Light rules, and the other sources and properties all exist hiddenly as a mystery; for they must all serve the Light, and give their will to the Light. And therefore the wrath-essence is transformed in the Light into a desire of Hght and of love, into gentleness. 2. Although the properties, viz. sour, bitter, anguish and the sharp pang in fire remain eternally even in the light-world, yet none of them is manifest in its property; but they are all of them together only causes of life, mobility and joy. 3. That which in the dark world is a pang, is in the light-world a pleasing delight ; and what in the dark is a stinging and enmity, is in the light an uplifting joy. And that which in the dark is a fear, terror and trembling, is in the light a shout of joy, a ringing forth and singing. And that could not be, if originally there were no such fervent, austere source. 47 48 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS 4. The dark world is therefore the ground and origin of the Hght-world; and the terrible evil must be a cause of the good, and all is God's. 5. But the light-world is only called God; and the principle between the light-world and dark world is called God's anger and fierce wrath. If this be awakened, as by the devil and all wicked men, these are then abandoned of the Light and fall into the dark world.
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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