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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.
124. The poor soul is thus drawn away from God's light, and is sinking always into perdition, viz. into the dark house of misery, into the dark world. That did Adam prepare for us when he introduced his desire into earthliness. And thus the poor soul swims now in earthly flesh and blood, and is always eating of the tree of temptation of evil and good, and is drawn strongly by both; and the serpent's monstrous shape is in the midst, in the source of THE FIFTH POINT 83 wrath, and continually blows up the anger and fierce wrath. 25. Here then can the noble lily-branch nowhere recover itself, often also not recognize itself. It is oftentimes overwhelmed with the fierceness of malignity, so that it is as if it were wholly destroyed ; and it would be destroyed were the mirror of the Deity not turned towards it, in which the spirit of the will of the poor captive soul may recover itself, and regenerate itself therein. 26. For in the mirror of the light-world the incarnation of Christ is presented to the soul's spirit; and the Word that became man stands in sound, and is in action. Therein may the soul's spirit recover itself and generate itself anew; else it were often past help with the poor soul, when it is immersed in wrath and in the poison of the dark world. 27. And thus we understand at bottom what the destruction of the noble tree, or the image of God, is, namely this :
228. The entire man is in his being the three worlds. The soul's centre, viz. the root of the soul's fire, contains the dark world; and the soul's fire contains the first Principle as the true fire-world. And the noble image, or the tree of divine growth, which is generated from the soul's fire and buds forth through fierce wi'athful death in freedom or in the world of light, contains the light -world or the second Principle, And the body, which in the beginning was created out of the mixed substance which at creation arose from the light-world, the 84 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS dark world and the fire-world, contains the outer world or the third mixed Principle. 29. The right soul is the spirit of these three worlds, as God's Spirit is the spirit of all the three worlds. In the dark world it is wrathful, stern and an austere source, and is called God's anger. In the hght-world it is lovely, gentle and joyous, and is the spirit from God's Heart, the Holy Spirit. In the outer world it is the spirit of air, as also of fire and water, and may be used as man pleases, all unto the great wonders.
330. Thus is man according to the particular person the great mystery in the three worlds. The world to which he turns himself, in which he produces fruit, the same is lord in him, and this world becomes manifest in him; the other two remain hidden. As fire is hidden in wood, so light or the light-world remains hidden in the wrathful dark world; as also in malignity, in the distemper of the inner world in the outer world. 31. But if the light- world cannot become manifest in man so as to be lord, then the soul at the breaking of the outer world remains only in the dark world; for there it is no longer possible for the light-world to be kindled. There is for the light no longer any mirror that were turned towards the soul. The heart of God is not manifest therein, nor eternally can be (for the dark world must be, else the Hght would not be manifest) ; but here in this world that may be. 32. And though a soul be plunged in the deepest abyss, and lies in the wrath of God, yet in the THE FIFTH POINT 85 external light of the sun it has before it the lightmirror wherein the divine power reveals itself, as also the mirror of the incarnation of Christ, which in the inner dark world never is known.
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.
124. The poor soul is thus drawn away from God's light, and is sinking always into perdition, viz. into the dark house of misery, into the dark world. That did Adam prepare for us when he introduced his desire into earthliness. And thus the poor soul swims now in earthly flesh and blood, and is always eating of the tree of temptation of evil and good, and is drawn strongly by both; and the serpent's monstrous shape is in the midst, in the source of THE FIFTH POINT 83 wrath, and continually blows up the anger and fierce wrath. 25. Here then can the noble lily-branch nowhere recover itself, often also not recognize itself. It is oftentimes overwhelmed with the fierceness of malignity, so that it is as if it were wholly destroyed ; and it would be destroyed were the mirror of the Deity not turned towards it, in which the spirit of the will of the poor captive soul may recover itself, and regenerate itself therein. 26. For in the mirror of the light-world the incarnation of Christ is presented to the soul's spirit; and the Word that became man stands in sound, and is in action. Therein may the soul's spirit recover itself and generate itself anew; else it were often past help with the poor soul, when it is immersed in wrath and in the poison of the dark world. 27. And thus we understand at bottom what the destruction of the noble tree, or the image of God, is, namely this :
228. The entire man is in his being the three worlds. The soul's centre, viz. the root of the soul's fire, contains the dark world; and the soul's fire contains the first Principle as the true fire-world. And the noble image, or the tree of divine growth, which is generated from the soul's fire and buds forth through fierce wi'athful death in freedom or in the world of light, contains the light -world or the second Principle, And the body, which in the beginning was created out of the mixed substance which at creation arose from the light-world, the 84 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS dark world and the fire-world, contains the outer world or the third mixed Principle. 29. The right soul is the spirit of these three worlds, as God's Spirit is the spirit of all the three worlds. In the dark world it is wrathful, stern and an austere source, and is called God's anger. In the hght-world it is lovely, gentle and joyous, and is the spirit from God's Heart, the Holy Spirit. In the outer world it is the spirit of air, as also of fire and water, and may be used as man pleases, all unto the great wonders.
330. Thus is man according to the particular person the great mystery in the three worlds. The world to which he turns himself, in which he produces fruit, the same is lord in him, and this world becomes manifest in him; the other two remain hidden. As fire is hidden in wood, so light or the light-world remains hidden in the wrathful dark world; as also in malignity, in the distemper of the inner world in the outer world. 31. But if the light- world cannot become manifest in man so as to be lord, then the soul at the breaking of the outer world remains only in the dark world; for there it is no longer possible for the light-world to be kindled. There is for the light no longer any mirror that were turned towards the soul. The heart of God is not manifest therein, nor eternally can be (for the dark world must be, else the Hght would not be manifest) ; but here in this world that may be. 32. And though a soul be plunged in the deepest abyss, and lies in the wrath of God, yet in the THE FIFTH POINT 85 external light of the sun it has before it the lightmirror wherein the divine power reveals itself, as also the mirror of the incarnation of Christ, which in the inner dark world never is known.
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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