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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.
1to itself evil and good promiscuously, and continually fills pride full. And when it has filled it, it takes its son envy and torments pride therewith, so that it has no rest in its splendour. Envy stings incessantly in the desiring covetousness, as if it were mad and frantic; and tortures pride day and night, so that it never rests. Covetousness is the right coarse swinish beast; it desires more than it can eat. Its jaws are wide open day and night. It suffers not man to rest, and torments him continually in its sordid filthiness, so that he has an eager longing earthward, and toward the things the earth yields without any one's covetousness; only labour belongs thereto, and no covetousness.
214. Covetousness plagues itself and is its own enemy; for it fills itself with pain and disquietude, and clouds man's understanding, so that he cannot recognize that all comes from the divine hand. It makes dark for man his life's light, consumes the body, and robs him of the divine senses and glory. It casts him into the pit of death, and brings him temporal and eternal death. It attracts dark matter into man's noble image, and makes of an angel a fierce wrathful devil. It creates the turba in body and soul, and is the homble beast in the abyss of hell, for it is the cause of suffering and pain ; without it no pain could arise. It causes ' war and strife, for it is never satisfied. If it had all the world, it would want to have also the abyss ; for there is no place made for its rest. It builds up countries and kingdoms, and destroys them also 118 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS again. It drives man into mere trouble and turmoil ; it is simply the devil's heart and w^ill.
315. For pride is the brave spirit which grows from covetousness. It is the fair child that was to possess heaven; but covetousness has transformed it into a bastard-child, and has introduced it into Babel, into the mother of the great whoredom on earth. There pride continually prostitutes itself to covetousness, and is but a bastardchild in the sight of God. It cannot possess heaven; it has its kingdom of heaven on earth. It makes court to King Falsehood, who takes all its labour, and gives it to the four elements of the devil in the dark world; and thither must pride follow also with covetousness, when the bag of anxious avarice breaks. The same is indeed so very just, and yet takes its covetousness with it into the abyss, that pride may have its dehght therein. As a fool in his fool's dress, who toils and vexes himself that he may bring forth folly and please his spectators, that he may be an extravagant fool; so in like manner pride and covetousness is God's fool and the devil's juggler, who hath his delight in this, that he can make of God's image a fool's image. 16. The third virtue is envy, in the four elements of the devil, in the kingdom of falsehood. The same is a sting, a rager and raver, like an evil poison. It can abide nowhere, and has no restingplace Its mother covetousness allows it no rest; it must always rage and rave. It must enter into that in which it is not generated. It is the mouth THE SIXTH POINT 119
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.
1to itself evil and good promiscuously, and continually fills pride full. And when it has filled it, it takes its son envy and torments pride therewith, so that it has no rest in its splendour. Envy stings incessantly in the desiring covetousness, as if it were mad and frantic; and tortures pride day and night, so that it never rests. Covetousness is the right coarse swinish beast; it desires more than it can eat. Its jaws are wide open day and night. It suffers not man to rest, and torments him continually in its sordid filthiness, so that he has an eager longing earthward, and toward the things the earth yields without any one's covetousness; only labour belongs thereto, and no covetousness.
214. Covetousness plagues itself and is its own enemy; for it fills itself with pain and disquietude, and clouds man's understanding, so that he cannot recognize that all comes from the divine hand. It makes dark for man his life's light, consumes the body, and robs him of the divine senses and glory. It casts him into the pit of death, and brings him temporal and eternal death. It attracts dark matter into man's noble image, and makes of an angel a fierce wrathful devil. It creates the turba in body and soul, and is the homble beast in the abyss of hell, for it is the cause of suffering and pain ; without it no pain could arise. It causes ' war and strife, for it is never satisfied. If it had all the world, it would want to have also the abyss ; for there is no place made for its rest. It builds up countries and kingdoms, and destroys them also 118 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS again. It drives man into mere trouble and turmoil ; it is simply the devil's heart and w^ill.
315. For pride is the brave spirit which grows from covetousness. It is the fair child that was to possess heaven; but covetousness has transformed it into a bastard-child, and has introduced it into Babel, into the mother of the great whoredom on earth. There pride continually prostitutes itself to covetousness, and is but a bastardchild in the sight of God. It cannot possess heaven; it has its kingdom of heaven on earth. It makes court to King Falsehood, who takes all its labour, and gives it to the four elements of the devil in the dark world; and thither must pride follow also with covetousness, when the bag of anxious avarice breaks. The same is indeed so very just, and yet takes its covetousness with it into the abyss, that pride may have its dehght therein. As a fool in his fool's dress, who toils and vexes himself that he may bring forth folly and please his spectators, that he may be an extravagant fool; so in like manner pride and covetousness is God's fool and the devil's juggler, who hath his delight in this, that he can make of God's image a fool's image. 16. The third virtue is envy, in the four elements of the devil, in the kingdom of falsehood. The same is a sting, a rager and raver, like an evil poison. It can abide nowhere, and has no restingplace Its mother covetousness allows it no rest; it must always rage and rave. It must enter into that in which it is not generated. It is the mouth THE SIXTH POINT 119
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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