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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.
1and God's fire from God's light. And thus the light of the sun gives this power to the elements, and they give it to the creatures, also to the plants of the earth; and all that is of a good property receives thus God's power as a lustre through the mirror of wisdom, from whence it has its growth and life. 14. For God is present to every being, but not every being receives him into its essence; but as in the mirror of the aspect in the sun's virtue ; for the sun proceeds from the eighth number. Its root from which it receives its brightness is the eternal fire, but its body is in this world. Its desire is directed wholly into this world, in which it shines; but its first root is in the first world, in the fire of God. This world gives being to its desire, and it gives its power to being, and fills every being in this world, as God's light does the divine lightworld. And if God's fire should burn no more, the sun would be extinguished, and also the divine Hght-world; for God's fire gives essence to both, and is a principle of both. And if the dark world were not, neither would these two be ; for the dark world gives occasion for God's fire.
215. The three worlds must accordingly be in one another, for nothing can subsist without a ground. For the dark world is the ground of Nature; and the eternal unfathomable will, which is called Father, is the ground of the dark world, as above set forth. And the light-world is hidden in the dark world, and also the dark world in the light-world. 16. It is to be understood thus: This world is THE FOURTH POINT 69 shut up in the wrath of God as in death ; for wrath springs up in this world's essence. If that were not so, then might this world's essence seize God's light. 17. Thus this world receives only a reflection of God through the sun's power. The sun is not God's light, for it shines not wholly in divine essence, but shines in elemental essence. It has God's fire as its root, but is filled with this world's essence. For it is desirous as a magical craving, and receives in its imagination and craving the power of the stars and elements; and from this it shines also.
318. Though God's fire is its root, yet it belongs not to God's kingdom. And here we understand how the devil is the poorest creature; for he cannot move a leaf except wrath be therein, and then he moves it according to the property of wrath. For the light and the power of this world is repugnant to him ; he enters not with his will into the property of the hght, neither is he able to do so. He stands backward to the light of the sun in his figure and property, and therefore the sun's light profits him nothing. And all that grows in the sun's power, that unites itself unto the sun, that he is enemy to; his will enters not readily thereinto. 70 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS CHAPTER VI 1. If we consider all this, and pass from the inward world into this outward visible world, we find that the essence of the external world has proceeded from the internal, viz. from the imagination or desire of the internal world. And we shall find in the external world the property of the two inward worlds; also how the wills of both properties are moving and manifest in the external world. And then how the good, or the essence which has proceeded from the light-world, is shut up in wrath and death; and how the divine power activates all, so that all grows through and out of the fierceness of death.
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.
1and God's fire from God's light. And thus the light of the sun gives this power to the elements, and they give it to the creatures, also to the plants of the earth; and all that is of a good property receives thus God's power as a lustre through the mirror of wisdom, from whence it has its growth and life. 14. For God is present to every being, but not every being receives him into its essence; but as in the mirror of the aspect in the sun's virtue ; for the sun proceeds from the eighth number. Its root from which it receives its brightness is the eternal fire, but its body is in this world. Its desire is directed wholly into this world, in which it shines; but its first root is in the first world, in the fire of God. This world gives being to its desire, and it gives its power to being, and fills every being in this world, as God's light does the divine lightworld. And if God's fire should burn no more, the sun would be extinguished, and also the divine Hght-world; for God's fire gives essence to both, and is a principle of both. And if the dark world were not, neither would these two be ; for the dark world gives occasion for God's fire.
215. The three worlds must accordingly be in one another, for nothing can subsist without a ground. For the dark world is the ground of Nature; and the eternal unfathomable will, which is called Father, is the ground of the dark world, as above set forth. And the light-world is hidden in the dark world, and also the dark world in the light-world. 16. It is to be understood thus: This world is THE FOURTH POINT 69 shut up in the wrath of God as in death ; for wrath springs up in this world's essence. If that were not so, then might this world's essence seize God's light. 17. Thus this world receives only a reflection of God through the sun's power. The sun is not God's light, for it shines not wholly in divine essence, but shines in elemental essence. It has God's fire as its root, but is filled with this world's essence. For it is desirous as a magical craving, and receives in its imagination and craving the power of the stars and elements; and from this it shines also.
318. Though God's fire is its root, yet it belongs not to God's kingdom. And here we understand how the devil is the poorest creature; for he cannot move a leaf except wrath be therein, and then he moves it according to the property of wrath. For the light and the power of this world is repugnant to him ; he enters not with his will into the property of the hght, neither is he able to do so. He stands backward to the light of the sun in his figure and property, and therefore the sun's light profits him nothing. And all that grows in the sun's power, that unites itself unto the sun, that he is enemy to; his will enters not readily thereinto. 70 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS CHAPTER VI 1. If we consider all this, and pass from the inward world into this outward visible world, we find that the essence of the external world has proceeded from the internal, viz. from the imagination or desire of the internal world. And we shall find in the external world the property of the two inward worlds; also how the wills of both properties are moving and manifest in the external world. And then how the good, or the essence which has proceeded from the light-world, is shut up in wrath and death; and how the divine power activates all, so that all grows through and out of the fierceness of death.
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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