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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.
17. Also the turba, as the fierce wrath of all creatures, will be sought ; for it has with the loathing of the creatures run to the limit, and now becomes manifest, viz. in the midst, in the number of the crown, in the six thousandth year, a little over, not under. 8. In the day and the hour when the creation was accomplished in mystery, and was set as a mirror of eternity in the wonders [of this time] } 9. That took place on the sixth day, past noon. There [also in the end] the mystery with the wonders is revealed and is known. Where then puinty shall drive out the turba for a time, till the beginning pass into the end. And then is the mystery [of creation but] a wonder in figures. 1 The explanatory additions within brackets [] are from Claassen's book of extracts. THE SEVENTH TEXT 1. Now, seeing in the mystery of the Eternal Nature we have such an arcanum from which all creatures evil and good were generated and created, we recognize it to be a magical essence or substance, where one Magic has by desire awakened another and brought it into being, where everything has elevated itself and carried itself to the highest power. For the Spirit of God is not a maker in Nature, but a revealer and a seeker of the good. 2. Thus hath evil as by magical craving always sought and found itself in the Mystery, and has been revealed apart from the divine purpose. For fierceness is a harsh rigorousness, and rules over the simple.
23. All has, therefore, grown from its own tree without premeditation. For the first revealer, viz. God, ordained not malignity to the government, but reason or wit, which was to reveal the wonders and be a guide of life. And here there meets us the great secret which has from eternity existed in mystery, viz. the Mystery with its colours, which are four. The fifth is not proper to the mysterium of Nature, but is of the Mysterium of God, and shines in the mysterium of Nature as a living light. 4. And these are the colours wherein all things lie: blue, red, gi-een and yellow. The fifth, white, belongs to God; and yet has also its lustre in Na164 THE SEVENTH TEXT 165 ture. It is the fifth essence, a pure unblemished child; as is to be seen in gold and silver, and in a white clear stone that resists fire. 5. For fire is the proof or trial of all the colours, in which none subsists but white, the same being a reflection of God's Majesty. The black colour belongs not to the mystery [of the wonders of creation], but is the veil or the darkness wherein all things lie.
36. Further, we find here the tree of tongues or languages, with four alphabets. One signed with the characters of the JNIystery, in which is fomid the language of Nature, which in all languages is the root. But in the birth of plurality (or of many languages) it is not known save by its own children, to whom the Mystery itself gives understanding; for it is a wonder of God. This alphabet of the language of Nature is hidden among them all in the black colour ; for the black colour belongs not to the number of colours. The same is mystery and not understood, save by him who possesses the language of Nature, to whom it is revealed by God's Spirit. 7. The second alphabet is the Hebrew, which reveals the mystery [of the language of Nature], and names the tree with the branches and twigs. 8. The third is the Greek, which names the tree with the fruit and every ornament, and first correctly expresses knowledge. 9. The fourth is the Latin (to which many nations and tongues have recourse, which expresses the tree with its power and virtue. 166 ON HEAVENLY MYSTERY 10. The fifth is God's Spirit, which is the revealer of all alphabets; and this alphabet can no man learn, unless it reveal itself in man's spirit.
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.
17. Also the turba, as the fierce wrath of all creatures, will be sought ; for it has with the loathing of the creatures run to the limit, and now becomes manifest, viz. in the midst, in the number of the crown, in the six thousandth year, a little over, not under. 8. In the day and the hour when the creation was accomplished in mystery, and was set as a mirror of eternity in the wonders [of this time] } 9. That took place on the sixth day, past noon. There [also in the end] the mystery with the wonders is revealed and is known. Where then puinty shall drive out the turba for a time, till the beginning pass into the end. And then is the mystery [of creation but] a wonder in figures. 1 The explanatory additions within brackets [] are from Claassen's book of extracts. THE SEVENTH TEXT 1. Now, seeing in the mystery of the Eternal Nature we have such an arcanum from which all creatures evil and good were generated and created, we recognize it to be a magical essence or substance, where one Magic has by desire awakened another and brought it into being, where everything has elevated itself and carried itself to the highest power. For the Spirit of God is not a maker in Nature, but a revealer and a seeker of the good. 2. Thus hath evil as by magical craving always sought and found itself in the Mystery, and has been revealed apart from the divine purpose. For fierceness is a harsh rigorousness, and rules over the simple.
23. All has, therefore, grown from its own tree without premeditation. For the first revealer, viz. God, ordained not malignity to the government, but reason or wit, which was to reveal the wonders and be a guide of life. And here there meets us the great secret which has from eternity existed in mystery, viz. the Mystery with its colours, which are four. The fifth is not proper to the mysterium of Nature, but is of the Mysterium of God, and shines in the mysterium of Nature as a living light. 4. And these are the colours wherein all things lie: blue, red, gi-een and yellow. The fifth, white, belongs to God; and yet has also its lustre in Na164 THE SEVENTH TEXT 165 ture. It is the fifth essence, a pure unblemished child; as is to be seen in gold and silver, and in a white clear stone that resists fire. 5. For fire is the proof or trial of all the colours, in which none subsists but white, the same being a reflection of God's Majesty. The black colour belongs not to the mystery [of the wonders of creation], but is the veil or the darkness wherein all things lie.
36. Further, we find here the tree of tongues or languages, with four alphabets. One signed with the characters of the JNIystery, in which is fomid the language of Nature, which in all languages is the root. But in the birth of plurality (or of many languages) it is not known save by its own children, to whom the Mystery itself gives understanding; for it is a wonder of God. This alphabet of the language of Nature is hidden among them all in the black colour ; for the black colour belongs not to the number of colours. The same is mystery and not understood, save by him who possesses the language of Nature, to whom it is revealed by God's Spirit. 7. The second alphabet is the Hebrew, which reveals the mystery [of the language of Nature], and names the tree with the branches and twigs. 8. The third is the Greek, which names the tree with the fruit and every ornament, and first correctly expresses knowledge. 9. The fourth is the Latin (to which many nations and tongues have recourse, which expresses the tree with its power and virtue. 166 ON HEAVENLY MYSTERY 10. The fifth is God's Spirit, which is the revealer of all alphabets; and this alphabet can no man learn, unless it reveal itself in man's spirit.
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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