Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
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.
120. Else, if they should be one, there would necessarily be but one quality; and if there were also only one will, the eternal wonders could not become manifest. But the manifold quality makes the eternal wonders manifest. For eternity could not otherwise become manifest, nor attain to being, save through the enkindling, viz. in the stern harsh attraction in which the dark world stands, and in which the fire-world and also the light-world take their rise. All is only a single essence or substance, but it separates itself into three properties. One property is not separated from the other, but each gives the other; as is to be seen in fire and light, as also in the matter from which the fire burns. 21. And man need not search deeper, for he is himself the essence of all beings. But because he has in his creation turned aside from his original order, and introduced and awakened another quality in himself, it is necessary for him to inquire how he may re-enter into his eternal order and quality, and generate himself anew. And then, how he may extinguish the fierce wrathful quahty which 106 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS is moving in him, for all is active in him and draws him, both evil and good. Therefore he should learn how to resist wrath, and walk in meekness, in the quality of light and love.
222. Man, moreover, has no law except he enkindle himself in the dark world's property, and walk according to this property. Independently of that, all is free to him. Whatsoever he doth in meekness and love is without restriction for him, and is his proper being; it consists not in any one's name or presumption. 23. All that is grown from one root is and belongs to one tree, it is but one manner of fruit; unless it corrupt itself, so that the very essence changes. 24. As long as a thing remains in the essence from which it arose, it has no law; but if it withdraw therefrom into another quality, the first quality hangs unto it, and is in conflict with the other. And then law ensues, that it should return again into that which it originally was, and be one, not two; for one thing should exercise only one dominion, not two. Man was created in the dominion of love and gentleness, as in God's Being, and therein he was to remain. 25. But because he was awakened another dominion, viz. fierce wrath, he is now in combat and strife, and has laws, that he may mortify and abandon the fierceness, and be in one dominion again. Since then both dominions are become powerful in him, and the dominion of wrath has overpowered love, he must wholly break to pieces THE SIXTH POINT 107
3in substance, and be re-born again from the first root. And therefore he has in this twofold being laws, how he should conduct himself and generate a will-spirit unto the eternal dominion. 26. All this hes in his power. He may bring forth the spirit of wrath or the spirit of love, and in accordance with the same he is separated whither and into which world he belongs; for he separates himself. 27. But the law continues over him as long as he is in this hfe (field). Then, when the weed separates from this field of the body, it is in one dominion again, where it shall remain eternally; for after that there is nothing more to give it law, inasmuch as it is wholly one in its will, either to do evil or good. 28. But in this external life man is in combat and strife. Two dominions, qualities and laws repose in him. The divine unto love and righteousness ; and the wrathful in the rising of pride in the power of fire, in the stern, harsh, hellish covetousness, envy, anger and malice. The one to which the spirit unites itself, of that dominion it is. The other hangs unto it, and reproaches it to its face as a perjured wi-etch and an apostate; but nevertheless draws it, and will have it. Thus hfe is in a desperate strait between the two, and is at odds with 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.
120. Else, if they should be one, there would necessarily be but one quality; and if there were also only one will, the eternal wonders could not become manifest. But the manifold quality makes the eternal wonders manifest. For eternity could not otherwise become manifest, nor attain to being, save through the enkindling, viz. in the stern harsh attraction in which the dark world stands, and in which the fire-world and also the light-world take their rise. All is only a single essence or substance, but it separates itself into three properties. One property is not separated from the other, but each gives the other; as is to be seen in fire and light, as also in the matter from which the fire burns. 21. And man need not search deeper, for he is himself the essence of all beings. But because he has in his creation turned aside from his original order, and introduced and awakened another quality in himself, it is necessary for him to inquire how he may re-enter into his eternal order and quality, and generate himself anew. And then, how he may extinguish the fierce wrathful quahty which 106 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS is moving in him, for all is active in him and draws him, both evil and good. Therefore he should learn how to resist wrath, and walk in meekness, in the quality of light and love.
222. Man, moreover, has no law except he enkindle himself in the dark world's property, and walk according to this property. Independently of that, all is free to him. Whatsoever he doth in meekness and love is without restriction for him, and is his proper being; it consists not in any one's name or presumption. 23. All that is grown from one root is and belongs to one tree, it is but one manner of fruit; unless it corrupt itself, so that the very essence changes. 24. As long as a thing remains in the essence from which it arose, it has no law; but if it withdraw therefrom into another quality, the first quality hangs unto it, and is in conflict with the other. And then law ensues, that it should return again into that which it originally was, and be one, not two; for one thing should exercise only one dominion, not two. Man was created in the dominion of love and gentleness, as in God's Being, and therein he was to remain. 25. But because he was awakened another dominion, viz. fierce wrath, he is now in combat and strife, and has laws, that he may mortify and abandon the fierceness, and be in one dominion again. Since then both dominions are become powerful in him, and the dominion of wrath has overpowered love, he must wholly break to pieces THE SIXTH POINT 107
3in substance, and be re-born again from the first root. And therefore he has in this twofold being laws, how he should conduct himself and generate a will-spirit unto the eternal dominion. 26. All this hes in his power. He may bring forth the spirit of wrath or the spirit of love, and in accordance with the same he is separated whither and into which world he belongs; for he separates himself. 27. But the law continues over him as long as he is in this hfe (field). Then, when the weed separates from this field of the body, it is in one dominion again, where it shall remain eternally; for after that there is nothing more to give it law, inasmuch as it is wholly one in its will, either to do evil or good. 28. But in this external life man is in combat and strife. Two dominions, qualities and laws repose in him. The divine unto love and righteousness ; and the wrathful in the rising of pride in the power of fire, in the stern, harsh, hellish covetousness, envy, anger and malice. The one to which the spirit unites itself, of that dominion it is. The other hangs unto it, and reproaches it to its face as a perjured wi-etch and an apostate; but nevertheless draws it, and will have it. Thus hfe is in a desperate strait between the two, and is at odds with 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.
No commentary for this page.