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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.
18. But if it give itself to a nothing, then it is desireless, and falls unto the fire of light, and then it cannot burn in any pain; for it brings into its fire no substance from which a fire could burn. Seeing then there is no pain in it, neither can the life receive any pain, for there is none in it; it has fallen unto the first Magia, which is God in his triad. 9. When the life is born, it has all the three worlds in it. The world to which it unites itself, by that it is held, and in that fire enkindled. 10. For when the life enkindles itself, it is attracted by all the three worlds; and they are in motion in the essence, as in the first enkindled fire. THE SECOND POINT 133 Whatever essence the life in its desire takes in and receives, its fire burns. 11. -If the first essence in which the life enkindles itself be good, then is also the fire pleasant and good. But if it be evil and dark, consisting of a fierce wrathful property, then is the fire also a wi-ath-fire, and has a coiTcsponding desire conforming to the property of the fire. 12. For every imagination desires only essence like unto itself, wherein it originally arose.
213. The life of man in this time is hke a wheel, where the undermost is soon uppermost. It enkindles itself at every essence, and soils itself with every essence. But its bath is the movement of the heart of God, a water of gentleness ; and therefrom it is able to introduce substantiality into its fire-hf e. The election of God depends not on the first essence. i 14. For the first essence is only the mysterium for a life; and the first life with the enkindling belongs properly to its mysterium out of which it proceeded, be it wholly fierce essence, or a mixed essence, or an essence of light according to the light-world. [ 15. The property from which the life first takes its rise, from that also burns the light of its hfe. This life has no election, and no judgment is passed upon it ; for it stands in its own primitive condition, and carries its judgment in itself. It separates itself from all other som'ce (Qual) ; for it burns only in its own source, in its own magical fire. 16. Election is in respect of that which is intro134 SIX MYSTICAL POINTS
3duced, whether it belong to the hght or to the darkness. For according as it belongs to the one property or to the other, so also is its life's will. And here it becomes known whether it is of the fierce wrathful essence, or of the love-essence. So long as it burns in one fire, it is forsaken of the other ; and the election of that fire wherein it burns passes upon the life; for it would have it, it is of its property. 17. But if that fire's will (as the flying punctum) plunge into another fire and enkindle itself therein, then it may enkindle the whole life with that fire, if it remain in that fire. 18. Then is the life new-born, either unto the dark world or unto the world of light (in whichever the will has enkindled itself), and upon it comes another election. And that is the reason why God suffers people to teach, and so does the devil. Each wishes the life's will to plunge into his fire, and enkindle itself. And then one mysterium seizes the other. THE THIRD POINT On sin. What is sin, and how it is sin.^ 1. A thing that is one has neither commandment nor law. But if it mix with another, then there are two beings in one, and also two wills, one running counter to the other. There is the origin of enmity.
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.
18. But if it give itself to a nothing, then it is desireless, and falls unto the fire of light, and then it cannot burn in any pain; for it brings into its fire no substance from which a fire could burn. Seeing then there is no pain in it, neither can the life receive any pain, for there is none in it; it has fallen unto the first Magia, which is God in his triad. 9. When the life is born, it has all the three worlds in it. The world to which it unites itself, by that it is held, and in that fire enkindled. 10. For when the life enkindles itself, it is attracted by all the three worlds; and they are in motion in the essence, as in the first enkindled fire. THE SECOND POINT 133 Whatever essence the life in its desire takes in and receives, its fire burns. 11. -If the first essence in which the life enkindles itself be good, then is also the fire pleasant and good. But if it be evil and dark, consisting of a fierce wrathful property, then is the fire also a wi-ath-fire, and has a coiTcsponding desire conforming to the property of the fire. 12. For every imagination desires only essence like unto itself, wherein it originally arose.
213. The life of man in this time is hke a wheel, where the undermost is soon uppermost. It enkindles itself at every essence, and soils itself with every essence. But its bath is the movement of the heart of God, a water of gentleness ; and therefrom it is able to introduce substantiality into its fire-hf e. The election of God depends not on the first essence. i 14. For the first essence is only the mysterium for a life; and the first life with the enkindling belongs properly to its mysterium out of which it proceeded, be it wholly fierce essence, or a mixed essence, or an essence of light according to the light-world. [ 15. The property from which the life first takes its rise, from that also burns the light of its hfe. This life has no election, and no judgment is passed upon it ; for it stands in its own primitive condition, and carries its judgment in itself. It separates itself from all other som'ce (Qual) ; for it burns only in its own source, in its own magical fire. 16. Election is in respect of that which is intro134 SIX MYSTICAL POINTS
3duced, whether it belong to the hght or to the darkness. For according as it belongs to the one property or to the other, so also is its life's will. And here it becomes known whether it is of the fierce wrathful essence, or of the love-essence. So long as it burns in one fire, it is forsaken of the other ; and the election of that fire wherein it burns passes upon the life; for it would have it, it is of its property. 17. But if that fire's will (as the flying punctum) plunge into another fire and enkindle itself therein, then it may enkindle the whole life with that fire, if it remain in that fire. 18. Then is the life new-born, either unto the dark world or unto the world of light (in whichever the will has enkindled itself), and upon it comes another election. And that is the reason why God suffers people to teach, and so does the devil. Each wishes the life's will to plunge into his fire, and enkindle itself. And then one mysterium seizes the other. THE THIRD POINT On sin. What is sin, and how it is sin.^ 1. A thing that is one has neither commandment nor law. But if it mix with another, then there are two beings in one, and also two wills, one running counter to the other. There is the origin of enmity.
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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