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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.
15. We give you therefore to imder stand that when the mind thus enkindles itself in a form, it enkindles the whole spirit and body, and forthwith carries its imagination into the inmost fire of the soul, and awakens the inmost centrurti naturae. 56 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS This, when it is enkindled, be it in wrath or love, apprehends itself in all the seven forms of Nature, which reach after the spirit of the soul's will, wherein is the noble image in which God reveals himself, and introduce their enkindled fire thereunto. As you have a similitude of this in fire: According to the matter in which it burns, such a light does it give; as is to be seen in sulphur compared with wood, and in many things besides. 6. We understand then by this, that whatever nature and property the fire hath, such a property getteth also the light and the power of the light. 7. Seeing then our noble image of God stands in the Light of life, in the soul's fire, it is highly recognizable by us how the spirit of the soul's will or the noble image is corrupted, and becomes enkindled in the source of wrath, often also in the source of love. And we see here our great danger and misery, and do rightly understand why Christ has taught us patience, love and meekness, viz. that the soul's fire kindle not itself in wrath, also that we give not occasion to others to kindle their souls' fire in wrath, in order that God's kingdom be not hindered.
28. Herein we recognize our heavy fall, that Adam has introduced into our souls' fire earthly matter, which burns as often as a source is awakened in the centre of the property of wrath. We see thus how we lie captive in God's wrath between anger and love, in great danger. 9. And we give you this highly to recognize. You know, as we have set forth above and in all THE THIRD POINT 57 our books, how from fire light proceeds as another principle, and yet has the fire's property and power, for the fire's centre gives them to the light's centre. And how the light is also desirous, and has a matrix of longing desire, which makes itself pregnant in desire with the power of the light, viz. with the gentleness of the light; and in this pregnancy lies the substance of the hght, that is in the pure love of the Divine Nature. 10. And then we have informed you how the fire draws this substance into itself, uses it for its light's essence, and swallows it up in itself, but gives from the essence another spirit, which is not fire. As indeed you see that fire gives two spirits: One that is furious and consuming, consisting of fierceness as property of the first matter; and secondly an air-spirit, which is the property of the light's gentleness.
311. We are now to consider in what matter fire burns in the first essence. In whatever it has kindled itself, in love or anger, that is, in earthly or divine desire, such a fire it is, and gives also such a fire of light, and such a spirit from the fire of hght. 12. Now, if the matter of the first fire, wherein the fire burns, be good, then has the other fire of light also a good property, savour and source, and gives also a good, powerful, lovely light, and from the light's centre also a good and powerful spirit; and this spirit is the similitude of God, the noble image. 13. But if the first fire be evil in its essence, and 58 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS has an evil matter in which it burns, then is also the life's light a false source and a dim shining, as is to be seen in a sulphurous light; and the centre of this desiring light brings also out of its property such a matter into its fire, and the fire gives such a spirit from itself.
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.
15. We give you therefore to imder stand that when the mind thus enkindles itself in a form, it enkindles the whole spirit and body, and forthwith carries its imagination into the inmost fire of the soul, and awakens the inmost centrurti naturae. 56 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS This, when it is enkindled, be it in wrath or love, apprehends itself in all the seven forms of Nature, which reach after the spirit of the soul's will, wherein is the noble image in which God reveals himself, and introduce their enkindled fire thereunto. As you have a similitude of this in fire: According to the matter in which it burns, such a light does it give; as is to be seen in sulphur compared with wood, and in many things besides. 6. We understand then by this, that whatever nature and property the fire hath, such a property getteth also the light and the power of the light. 7. Seeing then our noble image of God stands in the Light of life, in the soul's fire, it is highly recognizable by us how the spirit of the soul's will or the noble image is corrupted, and becomes enkindled in the source of wrath, often also in the source of love. And we see here our great danger and misery, and do rightly understand why Christ has taught us patience, love and meekness, viz. that the soul's fire kindle not itself in wrath, also that we give not occasion to others to kindle their souls' fire in wrath, in order that God's kingdom be not hindered.
28. Herein we recognize our heavy fall, that Adam has introduced into our souls' fire earthly matter, which burns as often as a source is awakened in the centre of the property of wrath. We see thus how we lie captive in God's wrath between anger and love, in great danger. 9. And we give you this highly to recognize. You know, as we have set forth above and in all THE THIRD POINT 57 our books, how from fire light proceeds as another principle, and yet has the fire's property and power, for the fire's centre gives them to the light's centre. And how the light is also desirous, and has a matrix of longing desire, which makes itself pregnant in desire with the power of the light, viz. with the gentleness of the light; and in this pregnancy lies the substance of the hght, that is in the pure love of the Divine Nature. 10. And then we have informed you how the fire draws this substance into itself, uses it for its light's essence, and swallows it up in itself, but gives from the essence another spirit, which is not fire. As indeed you see that fire gives two spirits: One that is furious and consuming, consisting of fierceness as property of the first matter; and secondly an air-spirit, which is the property of the light's gentleness.
311. We are now to consider in what matter fire burns in the first essence. In whatever it has kindled itself, in love or anger, that is, in earthly or divine desire, such a fire it is, and gives also such a fire of light, and such a spirit from the fire of hght. 12. Now, if the matter of the first fire, wherein the fire burns, be good, then has the other fire of light also a good property, savour and source, and gives also a good, powerful, lovely light, and from the light's centre also a good and powerful spirit; and this spirit is the similitude of God, the noble image. 13. But if the first fire be evil in its essence, and 58 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS has an evil matter in which it burns, then is also the life's light a false source and a dim shining, as is to be seen in a sulphurous light; and the centre of this desiring light brings also out of its property such a matter into its fire, and the fire gives such a spirit from itself.
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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