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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. For Mysterium magnum is nothing else than the hiddenness of the Deity, together with the Being of all beings, from which one mysterium proceeds after another, and each mysterium is the mirror and model of the other. And it is the great wonder of eternity, wherein all is included, and from eternity has been seen in the mirror of wisdom. And nothing comes to pass that has not from eternity been known in the mirror of wisdom. 3. But you must understand this according to the properties of the mirror, according to all the forms of Nature, viz. according to light and darkness, according to comprehensibility and incomprehensibility, according to love and wrath, or according to fire and light, as has been set forth elsewhere. 4. The Magician has power in tliis Mystery to act according to his will, and can do what he pleases. 5. But he must be armed in that element wherein he would create; else he will be cast out as a stranger, and given into the power of the spirits 148 THE SIXTH POINT 149 thereof, to deal with him according to their desire. Of which in this place no more is to be said, because of the turha. MYSTERIUM PANSOPHICUM OR A FUNDAMENTAL STATEMENT CONCERNING THE EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY MYSTERY HOW THEY ARE IN ONE ANOTHER, AND HOW IN THE EARTHLY THE HEAVENLY IS MANIFESTED DRAWN UP IN NINE TEXTS WHERE BABEL, THE GREAT CITY ON EARTH, IS TO BE SEEN WITH ITS POWER AND MARVELS. WHY BABEL IS BORN, AND FROM WHAT. WHERE ANTICHRIST SHALL STAND NAKED
2A most wonderful revelation, taken out of the highest arcanum. Herein is wholly revealed what the turba of all beings is. Written for the children of God, who by such warning will flee from burning Babel, and shall be born children of God out of the turba. AU very earnestly and faithfully given from knowledge of the great Mystery, the 8th May, 1 6'20 BY JACOB BOHME THE FIRST TEXT The unground is an eternal nothing, but makes an eternal beginning as a craving. For the nothing is a craving after something. But as there is nothing that can give anything, accordingly the craving itself is the giving of it, which j^et also is a nothing, or merely a desirous seeking. And that is the eternal origin of Magic, which makes within itself where there is nothing; which makes something out of nothing, and that in itself only, though this craving is also a nothing, that is, merely a will. It has nothing, and there is nothing that can give it anything ; neither has it any place where it can find or repose itself. 163 THE SECOND TEXT 1. Seeing then there is a craving in the nothing, it makes in itself the will to something. This will is a spirit, as a thought, which goes out of the craving and is the seeker of the craving, for it finds its mother or the craving. Then is this will a Magician in its mother ; for it has found in the nothing something, viz. its mother, and so now it has a place for its dwelling.
32. And herein understand that the will is a spirit, and different from the desirous craving. For the will is an insensitive and incognitive life; but the craving is found by the will, and is in the will a being. Thus the craving is a Magia, and the will a Magus; and the will is greater than its mother which gives it, for it is lord in the mother ; and the mother is dumb, but the will is a life without origin. The craving is certainly a cause of the will, but without knowledge or understanding. The will is the understanding of the craving. 3. Thus we give you in brief to consider of nature and the spirit of nature, what there has been from eternity without origin. And we find thus that the will, viz. the spirit, has no place for its rest ; but the craving is its own place, and the will is a band to it, and vet is not held in check. 154 THE THIRD TEXT 1. Seeing then the eternal will is free from the craving, but the craving is not free from the will for the will rules over the craving), we recognize the will as the eternal Omnipotence. For it has no parallel. The craving is indeed a movement of attraction or desire, but without understanding; it has a hfe, but without knowledge.
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. For Mysterium magnum is nothing else than the hiddenness of the Deity, together with the Being of all beings, from which one mysterium proceeds after another, and each mysterium is the mirror and model of the other. And it is the great wonder of eternity, wherein all is included, and from eternity has been seen in the mirror of wisdom. And nothing comes to pass that has not from eternity been known in the mirror of wisdom. 3. But you must understand this according to the properties of the mirror, according to all the forms of Nature, viz. according to light and darkness, according to comprehensibility and incomprehensibility, according to love and wrath, or according to fire and light, as has been set forth elsewhere. 4. The Magician has power in tliis Mystery to act according to his will, and can do what he pleases. 5. But he must be armed in that element wherein he would create; else he will be cast out as a stranger, and given into the power of the spirits 148 THE SIXTH POINT 149 thereof, to deal with him according to their desire. Of which in this place no more is to be said, because of the turha. MYSTERIUM PANSOPHICUM OR A FUNDAMENTAL STATEMENT CONCERNING THE EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY MYSTERY HOW THEY ARE IN ONE ANOTHER, AND HOW IN THE EARTHLY THE HEAVENLY IS MANIFESTED DRAWN UP IN NINE TEXTS WHERE BABEL, THE GREAT CITY ON EARTH, IS TO BE SEEN WITH ITS POWER AND MARVELS. WHY BABEL IS BORN, AND FROM WHAT. WHERE ANTICHRIST SHALL STAND NAKED
2A most wonderful revelation, taken out of the highest arcanum. Herein is wholly revealed what the turba of all beings is. Written for the children of God, who by such warning will flee from burning Babel, and shall be born children of God out of the turba. AU very earnestly and faithfully given from knowledge of the great Mystery, the 8th May, 1 6'20 BY JACOB BOHME THE FIRST TEXT The unground is an eternal nothing, but makes an eternal beginning as a craving. For the nothing is a craving after something. But as there is nothing that can give anything, accordingly the craving itself is the giving of it, which j^et also is a nothing, or merely a desirous seeking. And that is the eternal origin of Magic, which makes within itself where there is nothing; which makes something out of nothing, and that in itself only, though this craving is also a nothing, that is, merely a will. It has nothing, and there is nothing that can give it anything ; neither has it any place where it can find or repose itself. 163 THE SECOND TEXT 1. Seeing then there is a craving in the nothing, it makes in itself the will to something. This will is a spirit, as a thought, which goes out of the craving and is the seeker of the craving, for it finds its mother or the craving. Then is this will a Magician in its mother ; for it has found in the nothing something, viz. its mother, and so now it has a place for its dwelling.
32. And herein understand that the will is a spirit, and different from the desirous craving. For the will is an insensitive and incognitive life; but the craving is found by the will, and is in the will a being. Thus the craving is a Magia, and the will a Magus; and the will is greater than its mother which gives it, for it is lord in the mother ; and the mother is dumb, but the will is a life without origin. The craving is certainly a cause of the will, but without knowledge or understanding. The will is the understanding of the craving. 3. Thus we give you in brief to consider of nature and the spirit of nature, what there has been from eternity without origin. And we find thus that the will, viz. the spirit, has no place for its rest ; but the craving is its own place, and the will is a band to it, and vet is not held in check. 154 THE THIRD TEXT 1. Seeing then the eternal will is free from the craving, but the craving is not free from the will for the will rules over the craving), we recognize the will as the eternal Omnipotence. For it has no parallel. The craving is indeed a movement of attraction or desire, but without understanding; it has a hfe, but without knowledge.
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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