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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.
1ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 185 individual mysterium or mind. Out of which springs unlikeness of will, showing how in these two a contrariiim arises, for they are two in one. 27. Namely (1) that which is inward from the origin of the divine power requires only a counterstroke to its similarity, viz. something that is good, wherein the good, divine, emanated will may work and manifest itself. Then (2) the self -generated, individual, natural will in the place of the self-hood of the dark impression of the sharpness also requires a likeness, viz. a counterstroke through its own comprehensibility ; through which comprehension it makes itself material, and requires nothing but its corporality as a natural ground. 28. In these two we are to understand the good and evil will in all things. And it is herein rightly understood how the inward, spiritual ground of all beings arises from the divine power, and how in all things also an individual, natural desire arises ; and how all the bodies of visible, sentient beings have their origin from the desire of Nature.
229. Further, we should clearly observe that just as the individual, natural desire, which has a beginning, makes itself material and makes for itself a counterstroke, viz. a likeness, wherein it works; so also the divine ground and will through the comprehensibility of its love makes for itself a counterstroke and spiritual being, wherein the divine will works, and introduces the divine power into forms and separabihty for the manifestation of the divine power and glory. 30. And in this world always two natures in one 186 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION are to be understood : First, an eternal, divine and spiritual; and secondly, one that has a beginning, and is natural, temporal and perishable in self-will. For two kinds of will are found in one life : First, one that has a beginning and is natural, in which the will is an individual astrum, and inqualifies with all that is external, natural, elemental and sidereal ; and secondly, an eternal spiritual will, or eternal spiritual nature, which is a comprehension or comprehended existence of the divine will, with which the divine will also makes for itself a counterstroke and being, wherein it works. And these two are understood in two principles: the first divine in a heavenly, and the second temporal in an earthly.
331. And as the heavenly hangs on the earthly, so also does the earthly on the heavenly, and yet neither is the other. For the heavenly has a spiritual nature, which is wholly an essential power, and permeates and pervades the earthly, and yet possesses only its principle. And it gives power to the earthly, so that it obtains another new will, and longs after the heavenly. Which longing is a desire to go out from the vanity of Nature, whereof the Scripture says : All creatures do earnestly long with us to be freed from the vanity to which they are subjected against their will (Rom. viii. 19-22). 32. Understand it aright. The egressed Desire of the divine power for Nature, from which Nature and self-will has arisen, longs to be freed from the natural individual will. 33. This Desire is laden with the impression of Nature against its will, for that God has introduced ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 187
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.
1ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 185 individual mysterium or mind. Out of which springs unlikeness of will, showing how in these two a contrariiim arises, for they are two in one. 27. Namely (1) that which is inward from the origin of the divine power requires only a counterstroke to its similarity, viz. something that is good, wherein the good, divine, emanated will may work and manifest itself. Then (2) the self -generated, individual, natural will in the place of the self-hood of the dark impression of the sharpness also requires a likeness, viz. a counterstroke through its own comprehensibility ; through which comprehension it makes itself material, and requires nothing but its corporality as a natural ground. 28. In these two we are to understand the good and evil will in all things. And it is herein rightly understood how the inward, spiritual ground of all beings arises from the divine power, and how in all things also an individual, natural desire arises ; and how all the bodies of visible, sentient beings have their origin from the desire of Nature.
229. Further, we should clearly observe that just as the individual, natural desire, which has a beginning, makes itself material and makes for itself a counterstroke, viz. a likeness, wherein it works; so also the divine ground and will through the comprehensibility of its love makes for itself a counterstroke and spiritual being, wherein the divine will works, and introduces the divine power into forms and separabihty for the manifestation of the divine power and glory. 30. And in this world always two natures in one 186 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION are to be understood : First, an eternal, divine and spiritual; and secondly, one that has a beginning, and is natural, temporal and perishable in self-will. For two kinds of will are found in one life : First, one that has a beginning and is natural, in which the will is an individual astrum, and inqualifies with all that is external, natural, elemental and sidereal ; and secondly, an eternal spiritual will, or eternal spiritual nature, which is a comprehension or comprehended existence of the divine will, with which the divine will also makes for itself a counterstroke and being, wherein it works. And these two are understood in two principles: the first divine in a heavenly, and the second temporal in an earthly.
331. And as the heavenly hangs on the earthly, so also does the earthly on the heavenly, and yet neither is the other. For the heavenly has a spiritual nature, which is wholly an essential power, and permeates and pervades the earthly, and yet possesses only its principle. And it gives power to the earthly, so that it obtains another new will, and longs after the heavenly. Which longing is a desire to go out from the vanity of Nature, whereof the Scripture says : All creatures do earnestly long with us to be freed from the vanity to which they are subjected against their will (Rom. viii. 19-22). 32. Understand it aright. The egressed Desire of the divine power for Nature, from which Nature and self-will has arisen, longs to be freed from the natural individual will. 33. This Desire is laden with the impression of Nature against its will, for that God has introduced ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 187
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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