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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.
12. Thus we are to consider of enmity against God. God is one and good, without any pain or hmiting characteristic (Qual) ; and though all source or quality (Qual) be in him, yet it is not manifest. For the good has swallowed up the evil or contrary into itself, and keeps it in restraint in the good, as it were a prisoner; for the evil must be a cause of hfe and of light, but immanifest. But the good dies to the evil, that it may dwell in the evil, without pain or feeling, in itself. 3. Love and enmity are only one thing; but each dwells in itself, and that makes two things. Death is the bound of separation between them; and yet there is no death, save that the good dies to the evil, as the hght is dead to the pain of fire, and no longer feels the fire. 4. Thus then must we explain sin in human life. For life is one and good; but if there be another quality therein, then it (life) is an enmity against 1 i,€. What things are sins, and what makes them sins. 135 136 SIX MYSTICAL POINTS God; for God dwells in the highest life of man. 5. Now, no unfathomable existence can dwell in one that is fathomable. For, as soon as the right life awakens pain in itself, it is not identical with the unground, in which there is no pain; hence immediately one separates from the other.
26. For the good or the light is as nothing; but if something come into it, then this something is another than the nothing. For the something dwells in itself in torment (Qual) ; for where there is something, there must be a quality (Qual) which makes and keeps the something. 7. And thus we are to consider of love and enmity. Love has but one quality and one will, it desires only its like, and not many. For the good is only one, but quality is many; and the human will that desires many, brings into itself, into the One (wherein God dwells) , the torment of plurality. 8. For the something is dark, and darkens the life's light; and the One is Light, for it loves itself and is no desire after several. 9. The life's will must therefore be directed towards the One (as towards the good), and thus it remains in one quahty. But if it imaginate into another quality, it makes itself pregnant with the thing after which it longs. 10. And if this thing be without an eternal foundation, in a frail perishable root, then it seeks a root for its preservation, that it may remain. For every life stands in magical fire ; and every fire must have substance in which it burns. THE THIRD POINT 137 11. This same thing must make for itself substance according to its desire, that its fire may have food to feed upon. Now, no fire-source can subsist in the free fire; for it attains not that, inasmuch as it is only a self -thing.
312. All that is to subsist in God must be freed from its own will. It must have no individual fire burning in it; but God's fire must be its fire. Its will must be united to God, that God and the will and spirit of man may be but one. 13. For that which is one is not at enmity with itself, for it has only one will. Wherever it goes, or whatever it does, that is all one with it. 14. One will has only one imagination; and the imagination makes or desires only that which assimilates with it. And so in like manner we are to understand concerning the contrary will. 15. God dwells in all things; and nothing comprehends him, unless it be one with him. But if it go out from the One, it goes out of God into itself, and is another than God, which separates itself. And here it is that law arises, that it should proceed again out of itself into the One, or else remain separated from the One. 16. And thus it may be known what is sin, or how it is sin. Namely, when the human will separates itself from God into an existence of its own, and awakens its own self, and burns in its own fire, which is not capable of the divine fire. 17. For all into which the will enters, and will have as its own, is something foreign in the one will of God. For all is God's, and to man's own will 138 SIX MYSTICAL POINTS belongs nothing. But if it be in God, then all is its also.
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.
12. Thus we are to consider of enmity against God. God is one and good, without any pain or hmiting characteristic (Qual) ; and though all source or quality (Qual) be in him, yet it is not manifest. For the good has swallowed up the evil or contrary into itself, and keeps it in restraint in the good, as it were a prisoner; for the evil must be a cause of hfe and of light, but immanifest. But the good dies to the evil, that it may dwell in the evil, without pain or feeling, in itself. 3. Love and enmity are only one thing; but each dwells in itself, and that makes two things. Death is the bound of separation between them; and yet there is no death, save that the good dies to the evil, as the hght is dead to the pain of fire, and no longer feels the fire. 4. Thus then must we explain sin in human life. For life is one and good; but if there be another quality therein, then it (life) is an enmity against 1 i,€. What things are sins, and what makes them sins. 135 136 SIX MYSTICAL POINTS God; for God dwells in the highest life of man. 5. Now, no unfathomable existence can dwell in one that is fathomable. For, as soon as the right life awakens pain in itself, it is not identical with the unground, in which there is no pain; hence immediately one separates from the other.
26. For the good or the light is as nothing; but if something come into it, then this something is another than the nothing. For the something dwells in itself in torment (Qual) ; for where there is something, there must be a quality (Qual) which makes and keeps the something. 7. And thus we are to consider of love and enmity. Love has but one quality and one will, it desires only its like, and not many. For the good is only one, but quality is many; and the human will that desires many, brings into itself, into the One (wherein God dwells) , the torment of plurality. 8. For the something is dark, and darkens the life's light; and the One is Light, for it loves itself and is no desire after several. 9. The life's will must therefore be directed towards the One (as towards the good), and thus it remains in one quahty. But if it imaginate into another quality, it makes itself pregnant with the thing after which it longs. 10. And if this thing be without an eternal foundation, in a frail perishable root, then it seeks a root for its preservation, that it may remain. For every life stands in magical fire ; and every fire must have substance in which it burns. THE THIRD POINT 137 11. This same thing must make for itself substance according to its desire, that its fire may have food to feed upon. Now, no fire-source can subsist in the free fire; for it attains not that, inasmuch as it is only a self -thing.
312. All that is to subsist in God must be freed from its own will. It must have no individual fire burning in it; but God's fire must be its fire. Its will must be united to God, that God and the will and spirit of man may be but one. 13. For that which is one is not at enmity with itself, for it has only one will. Wherever it goes, or whatever it does, that is all one with it. 14. One will has only one imagination; and the imagination makes or desires only that which assimilates with it. And so in like manner we are to understand concerning the contrary will. 15. God dwells in all things; and nothing comprehends him, unless it be one with him. But if it go out from the One, it goes out of God into itself, and is another than God, which separates itself. And here it is that law arises, that it should proceed again out of itself into the One, or else remain separated from the One. 16. And thus it may be known what is sin, or how it is sin. Namely, when the human will separates itself from God into an existence of its own, and awakens its own self, and burns in its own fire, which is not capable of the divine fire. 17. For all into which the will enters, and will have as its own, is something foreign in the one will of God. For all is God's, and to man's own will 138 SIX MYSTICAL POINTS belongs nothing. But if it be in God, then all is its also.
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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